Marianne Williamson decries 'overly secularized' Left, mockery of prayers against Hurricanes Dorian
Democratic presidential candidate and New Age author Marianne Williamson is pushing back against the "overly secularized Left" for mocking those praying against hurricane Dorian after having suggested the "power of the mind" can deter the storm.
"The Bahamas, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas...may all be in our prayers now. Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind. Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm," Williamson said in an tweet Wednesday, which she subsequently deleted.
"May the peace of God be upon them and their hearts be comforted as they endure the storm," she wrote in another tweet, replacing the previous one.
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After being mocked for her remarks on social media, Williamson took to Twitter again Wednesday afternoon to stress that "[p]rayer is a power of the mind, and it is neither bizarre nor unintelligent."
"People of faith belong in the Democratic Party, and will be necessary to the effort if we're to win in 2020," she said.
The mockery of faith and prayer, she added, is harming Democrats as a party.
"I was born and raised in Texas so I've seen it. Millions of people today are praying that Dorian turn away from land, and treating those people with mockery or condescension because they believe it could help is part of how the overly secularized Left has lost lots of voters," she continued.
Her words come on the heels of a resolution that the Democratic Party passed in San Francisco in late August lauding religiously unaffiliated Americans, and criticizing those who claim morals but use "misplaced claims of 'religious liberty'" in support of policies that threaten other groups.
Williamson, a spiritual guru and author of several books, has previously called for a "moral and spiritual awakening" for America and has vowed to "harness love for political purposes" to defeat Trump. Her 2020 campaign tag line is "turning love into a political force."
For some, the mockery of prayer is borne out of frustration following mass shootings where politicians speak of "thoughts and prayers" for the victims while doing little or nothing substantive in terms of policy.
Although she met the fundraising threshold set by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for the September debate in Houston, she did not meet the polling minimum and will thus not be a part of it.
In Williamson's book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the principles of A Course in Miracles, she writes: "'Accepting the Christ' is merely a shift in self-perception. ... Even if He takes another name, even if He takes another face, He is, in essence, the truth of who we are."
"To say there is 'only one begotten son' doesn't mean that someone else was it, and we're not. It means we're all it," she said in a 2016 interview with BeliefNet.
"Jesus actualized the Christ mind, and was then given the power to help the rest of us reach that place within ourselves. He was sent down by God — as we all are."
