Marianne Williamson’s Politics of Love: The Rich Roll Interview

As I rest and recover from my recent surgery, I’ve been watching various YouTube videos. In particular, I've been seeking out videos that motivate and inspire. For instance, I recently viewed a fascinating and insightful hour-long interview from 2020 with Olivia Newton-John and her spouse John Easterling. In this interview they are talking about the healing properties of plants, something that was very beneficial for Olivia throughout her own 30-year cancer journey, one which ended recently with her August 8 passing.

I’ve also been watching some great interviews (see here and here) with singer Kiki Dee, who with her long-time music collaboator Carmello Luggeri, has recently released a new album, The Long Ride Home.

I also recently watched Rich Roll’s very insightful and inspiring interview with author, activist, and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.

I’ve long respected and supported Marianne, and agree with philosopher and social critic Cornel West when he says that Marianne is “one of the few in the higher echelons of public life and public conversation who understand the intimate relation between the spiritual and the social, the personal and the political, and the existential and the economic.” Continues West: “It’s very rare that people have this synoptic vision, [one that ensures that] spirituality, morality, and integrity sit at the center and at the beginning of any serious discussion about the relation of a self and a society.”

This “synoptic vision” of Marianne’s, greatly needed in our fractured world today, is on full display throughout Rich Roll’s conversation with her. As Roll notes, it’s a conversation that’s “about what’s required to solve our most urgent problems – from the perils of our entrenched government-media-industrial complex and the ills of corporate stranglehold on governance, to the legacy of ’60s activism, the role of spirituality in politics, and the complex relationship between personal evolution and global change.”

Indeed, I was so impressed by this particular interview/conversation (one that took place in December 2021) that I’m sharing it today at The Wild Reed. It was first posted on YouTube earlier this year, and even though it’s an hour-and-forty-minutes in duration, trust me when I say that tuning into it will definitely be worth your time.





NOTE: Rich Roll’s interview with Marianne is filmed and edited by Blake Curtis. The following is a helpful guide to its content.

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:59 – Marianne’s Perspective on Our Current Time in History
00:04:16 – Are We on a Ticking Time Clock Towards Doom?
00:09:45 – Identifying the Anti-Democratic Forces Working Against the American People
00:13:22 – Defining the Crisis of Consciousness We Face Today
00:20:50 – The Peril of Having Large Groups of Desperate People
00:25:34 – Getting Mischaracterized by the Media During the 2020 Presidential Primary
00:39:08 – The Legacy of Activism and the Peril Facing Today’s Youth
00:46:33 – The Need to Stand Up Our Conviction for Love
00:52:05 – Is the Political Left Too Secular?
00:57:00 – Problem Solving Through the Lens of a 12-Step Program
00:59:39 – The Need for Reparations to Black Americans
01:07:50 – What Would a U.S. Department of Peace Look Like?
01:13:59 – The Power and Influence Big Corporations
01:20:38 – The Steven Donziger Story
01:27:32 – Forgiveness and Developing a Facility to Forgive
01:36:16 – Marianne’s Conviction That Love Always Prevails
01:40:52 – Closing Remarks


For more of Marianne Williamson at The Wild Reed, see:
• “Two of the Most Dedicated and Enlightened Heroes of Present Day America”
• Now Here’s a Voice I’d Like to Hear Regularly on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “For the Love of Our Children, Let’s Not Shut Up”
• Marianne Williamson on the Tenth Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street
• Cultivating Stillness
• Cultivating Peace
• Pollyanna, “Miracle Worker”
• Inauguration Eve Musings
• We Cannot Allow a Biden Win to Mean a Return to “Brunch Liberalism”
• “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• Marianne Williamson on the Movement for a People’s Party
• Eight Leading Progressive Voices on Why They’re Voting for Biden
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – November 11, 2021
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020
• Deep Gratitude
• “A Beautiful Message, So Full of Greatness”
• Marianne Williamson: “Anything That Will Help People Thrive, I’m Interested In”
• Caitlin Johnstone: “Status Quo Politicians Are Infinitely ‘Weirder’ Than Marianne Williamson”
• Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson: “We’re Living at a Critical Moment in Our Democracy”
• Why Marianne Williamson Is a Serious and Credible Presidential Candidate
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Marianne Williamson
• Easter for Mystics
• Christmas for Mystics