A Return to Love

A Return to Love

Paperback 1993
Author Marianne Williamson
Language English
Genre Self-help
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication date
 1992
Pages 336
ISBN ISBN 0-06-092748-8
OCLC 317503896
299/.93 20
LC Class BP605.C68 W56 1996

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (1992) is the first book by author Marianne Williamson and is to date the biggest selling book of interpretation of the spiritual thought system found in the book A Course In Miracles. A New York Times Best seller, most estimates claim that A Return to Love has sold in excess of three million copies.

Exposure

A Return to Love was one of the first books to be endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, though it was never selected for Oprah's Book Club because it was published several years before the club's founding.

Williamson might be called Oprah's patron saint. She's all about love and healing, yin and yang, being wounded, and using love and prayer to heal all wounds. A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course In Miracles (1992) was number one on the Publishers Weekly non-fiction best-sellers list for 11 weeks. Williamson promoted her book and ACIM when she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode that received more pro viewer mail than any other show for 1992. She also plugged the book and the course when she was interviewed by Barbara Walters on the ABC television news show 20/20.[1]|||The Skeptic's Dictionary.

A Return to Love spent 39 weeks on the New York Times best sellers list in 1992.[2] A decade later, A Return to Love was credited as being one of the two books that helped bring New Age perspectives to the American mainstream.[3] Twenty years after her first appearance with the book, Williamson was interviewed again by Oprah Winfrey in July 2012, this time in an Super Soul Sunday (OWN TV) episode titled, "20 Years After A Return to Love".[4]

"Our deepest fear"

A passage from the book has become popular as an inspirational quote:

“ Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ”

The passage was paraphrased in Coach Carter and Akeelah and the Bee, and a portion of it has been used in the 2001 and 2011 revival of the musical Godspell immediately following the opening of Act One.[5]

It is often said of Nelson Mandela that he incorporated these words in one of his inaugural speeches, or even that he was the author of the passage, but AETW[6] and a NY Times op-ed contributor[7] say neither is true. Williamson herself is quoted as saying,

As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Skeptics Dictionary ACIM listing Retrieved June 30, 2006
  2. ↑ "BEST SELLERS: November 29, 1992". New York Times. November 29, 1992. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  3. ↑ Publisher's Weekly September 1, 2003
  4. ↑ "Oprah and Marianne Williamson: 20 Years After A Return to Love". OWN TV, Super Soul Sunday. July 29, 2012. Retrieved 2013-12-30.
  5. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godspell#Act_One
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "That famous speech that Nelson Mandela never gave". Archived from the original on 3 August 2009. Retrieved 29 July 2009.
  7. ↑ Morton, Brian (August 29, 2011). "Falser Words Were Never Spoken". NY Times.