Fb2 Dancing in the Light ePub

Famed actress Shirley MacLaine surprised many people with her 1983 book Out on a Limb, followed by a TV miniseries ], in which Ms. MacLaine played herself. She wrote other books about spirituality, such as Going Within, as well as more conventional Hollywood star "tell-it-all" books. Despite long years of being criticized for expressing her spiritual beliefs, she (to her credit) stands firm in them, and has more recently written books such as Sage-ing While Age-ing and What If . . .: A Lifetime of Questions, Speculations, Reasonable Guesses, and a Few Things I Know for Sure, that update her beliefs. [NOTE: page numbers refer to the 421-page Bantam hardcover edition.] This 1985 book was published in 1985, after she won an Oscar for Terms of Endearment, had a hit one-woman show on Broadway, and "Out On a Limb" was a bestseller; oh, and she turned 50, and the book begins with her birthday party.

She says about director-choreographer Alan Johnson, "He was also into higher consciousness... Alan had gotten in touch with some of his past-life incarnations and many of our rehearsal hours were wasted... in discussing our spiritual conjectures. We exchanged metaphysical books and talked about whether it would ever be possible to dramatize a film about reincarnation without its looking tacky, or B-movieish. Alan understood as well as I did that we both allowed INTELLIGENCE to block our free-flowing creativity... Alan was basically an intellectual and we both knew what that meant to creativity. It meant BLOCKAGE." (Pg. 112-113)

She recalls a conversation with a Russian Christian named Vassy and channel Kevin Ryerson, where Vassy asked, "Kevin, do you get ridiculed for this trance channeling you do?" and was told, "Oh, sometimes... but usually the people who come to me are interested in higher spiritual knowledge or they wouldn't be with me in the first place." Ms. MacLaine says, "I have been reading lots of literature on the subject and perhaps the channeler is picking up what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. Maybe it isn't really spiritual entities you are channeling, but more what your subconscious perceives." Vassy replies, "Perhaps, but the information is usually the same wherever the channeling occurs." She notes that "[Ryerson] didn't feel called upon to defend himself but he was interested in how each of us related to the phenomenon." (Pg. 262-263)

After working with a "very experienced acupuncturist" named Chris Griscom, who "was experienced in past-life regression." MacLaine observes, "I knew I had had many incarnations, which I had been told about by McPherson, Ramtha, and others of the channeled guides, but until I worked with Chris, I hadn't gotten in touch with anything I could say I have experienced myself. I had tried meditation, transcendental and otherwise, but nothing happened that I could be `sure' of... The acupuncture pressure points opened up the paths of the intuitive right-brain area (yin). The left brain (yang) must not be permitted to close those paths... The purpose of getting in touch with past-life experience, then, is to isolate the areas of emotional discord so that the conflict in relation to today's incarnation can be understood... What we might feel as `evil' behavior only enables us, the `victim,' to realize ourselves more fully." (Pg. 312-313)

After reflecting on science, she suggests, "The new physics says that electrical charges of light are what cause thought pictures. Could it be that what I was seeing under the needles were remnants of electrical charges left over from ages long ago? ... I knew I was probably being simplistic in my assumptions, particularly where physics was concerned. But I hadn't been the only one `feeling' the connection of physics and mysticism. Of one thing I was certain, both mentally and intuitively. The path to understanding the reality of the world without was to understand the `reality' of the world within." (Pg. 343)

She wrote, "I experimented with connecting to my higher self without the use of Chris's needles. It was there every time. If I had misplaced something, I asked H.S. [Higher Self] where it was. I was always guided in the right direction. It was never wrong. I asked H.S. what to eat, who was on the other end of a ringing telephone, what direction an address might be. It was astonishing how correct the answers were. I wondered how long it would last. The answer came, `As long as you can find me, you can find anything.'" (Pg. 365-366) She concludes, "So whenever I felt skepticism about my search, I learned to let it go. The truth I was seeking was more important to me, regardless of where it took me. I decided to trust what I felt was my higher self. As I learned what that meant I found myself reflecting on how I had been living my life in THIS incarnation prior to my spiritual understanding." (Pg. 382)

For those who loved Ms. MacLaine's earlier book, this will be a worthy sequel.

Famed actress Shirley MacLaine surprised many people with her 1983 book Out on a Limb, followed by a TV miniseries ], in which Ms. MacLaine played herself. She wrote other books about spirituality, such as Going Within, as well as more conventional Hollywood star "tell-it-all" books. Despite long years of being criticized for expressing her spiritual beliefs, she (to her credit) stands firm in them, and has more recently written books such as Sage-ing While Age-ing and What If . . .: A Lifetime of Questions, Speculations, Reasonable Guesses, and a Few Things I Know for Sure, that update her beliefs. [NOTE: page numbers refer to the 421-page Bantam hardcover edition.] This 1985 book was published in 1985, after she won an Oscar for Terms of Endearment, had a hit one-woman show on Broadway, and "Out On a Limb" was a bestseller; oh, and she turned 50, and the book begins with her birthday party.

She says about director-choreographer Alan Johnson, "He was also into higher consciousness... Alan had gotten in touch with some of his past-life incarnations and many of our rehearsal hours were wasted... in discussing our spiritual conjectures. We exchanged metaphysical books and talked about whether it would ever be possible to dramatize a film about reincarnation without its looking tacky, or B-movieish. Alan understood as well as I did that we both allowed INTELLIGENCE to block our free-flowing creativity... Alan was basically an intellectual and we both knew what that meant to creativity. It meant BLOCKAGE." (Pg. 112-113)

She recalls a conversation with a Russian Christian named Vassy and channel Kevin Ryerson, where Vassy asked, "Kevin, do you get ridiculed for this trance channeling you do?" and was told, "Oh, sometimes... but usually the people who come to me are interested in higher spiritual knowledge or they wouldn't be with me in the first place." Ms. MacLaine says, "I have been reading lots of literature on the subject and perhaps the channeler is picking up what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. Maybe it isn't really spiritual entities you are channeling, but more what your subconscious perceives." Vassy replies, "Perhaps, but the information is usually the same wherever the channeling occurs." She notes that "[Ryerson] didn't feel called upon to defend himself but he was interested in how each of us related to the phenomenon." (Pg. 262-263)

After working with a "very experienced acupuncturist" named Chris Griscom, who "was experienced in past-life regression." MacLaine observes, "I knew I had had many incarnations, which I had been told about by McPherson, Ramtha, and others of the channeled guides, but until I worked with Chris, I hadn't gotten in touch with anything I could say I have experienced myself. I had tried meditation, transcendental and otherwise, but nothing happened that I could be `sure' of... The acupuncture pressure points opened up the paths of the intuitive right-brain area (yin). The left brain (yang) must not be permitted to close those paths... The purpose of getting in touch with past-life experience, then, is to isolate the areas of emotional discord so that the conflict in relation to today's incarnation can be understood... What we might feel as `evil' behavior only enables us, the `victim,' to realize ourselves more fully." (Pg. 312-313)

After reflecting on science, she suggests, "The new physics says that electrical charges of light are what cause thought pictures. Could it be that what I was seeing under the needles were remnants of electrical charges left over from ages long ago? ... I knew I was probably being simplistic in my assumptions, particularly where physics was concerned. But I hadn't been the only one `feeling' the connection of physics and mysticism. Of one thing I was certain, both mentally and intuitively. The path to understanding the reality of the world without was to understand the `reality' of the world within." (Pg. 343)

She wrote, "I experimented with connecting to my higher self without the use of Chris's needles. It was there every time. If I had misplaced something, I asked H.S. [Higher Self] where it was. I was always guided in the right direction. It was never wrong. I asked H.S. what to eat, who was on the other end of a ringing telephone, what direction an address might be. It was astonishing how correct the answers were. I wondered how long it would last. The answer came, `As long as you can find me, you can find anything.'" (Pg. 365-366) She concludes, "So whenever I felt skepticism about my search, I learned to let it go. The truth I was seeking was more important to me, regardless of where it took me. I decided to trust what I felt was my higher self. As I learned what that meant I found myself reflecting on how I had been living my life in THIS incarnation prior to my spiritual understanding." (Pg. 382)

For those who loved Ms. MacLaine's earlier book, this will be a worthy sequel.