Marianne Deborah Williamson born July 8, is an American author, speaker, and political activist. She was launched into prominence by Oprah Winfrey , being a frequent guest on her daytime talk show and becoming known as her "spiritual advisor". Williamson ran unsuccessfully as an independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives in , finishing fourth with Department of Peace.
On February 7, , she announced she had suspended her campaign after receiving 2. Williamson has been actively involved with charity work, founding such organizations as Center for Living in , Project Angel Food in , and the Peace Alliance in Williamson was born in Houston , Texas , in Williamson was raised in an upper-middle-class family that practiced Conservative Judaism. In , after Williamson came home from school in the seventh grade, she recounted to her parents that her teacher supported the Vietnam War.
Her father reacted by taking the family to Vietnam to help explain to Marianne why he thought that the war was wrong. Williamson moved to New Mexico , where she took classes at the University of New Mexico and lived in a geodesic dome with her boyfriend.
Marianne then moved to Austin, Texas , where she took classes at the University of Texas. Although initially uninterested due to her Jewish faith, Williamson developed an interest in Helen Schucman 's book A Course in Miracles in It is a conversion to a conviction of the heart".
Williamson said the book was her "path out of hell", as she had been "mired in a series of unhappy love affairs, alcohol and drug abuse , a nervous breakdown , and endless sessions with therapists. In , Williamson returned to Houston, where she ran a metaphysical bookstore coffee shop, sang Gershwin standards in a nightclub , got married and divorced "almost immediately", and underwent a "spiritual surrender".
