There’s something about Marianne Williamson

Andrew Naughtie wonders if elements of the ‘Williamsonism’ political philosophy are worth exploring, despite the author and activist often being ridiculed for her ideas and the way she expresses them

Marianne Williamson is increasingly convinced that the old order is failing (Getty)

I am shivering slightly in an over-air-conditioned cafe in London, dreading the hottest day on record, and Marianne Williamson is telling me I have no choice but to be a doula.

“People get it,” she insists, identifying both the calamity and the possibility of the current social moment with total certitude. “One world is crumbling. You can’t deny it, you have to be in such denial or so foolish not to recognise that one world is dying, but at the same time, another is struggling to be born.

“And we’re called on to be death doulas to what’s dying and birth doulas to what’s struggling to be born. That is a serious responsibility.”