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Marianne Williamson escapes the paw-like grip of Bill Maher.



You can see that he wanted to nail her on religion (his longtime bugaboo). "You were Oprah's spiritual leader," Maher says, and when she murmurs modestly — "Oprah was very generous to me" — he gives an "mmm-hmmm" in a tone that gets a laugh out of the audience. (Exactly why? I hear insinuation that the relationship was sexual, and that feels like retrograde homophobia. My Googling about Williamson's sexuality diverted me to "Marianne Williamson Implies Mike Pence Is Gay/'Well, there are all kinds of theories about that, aren’t there?'")

Maher presses her on the book — "A Course in Miracles" — that is the basis of her teachings. It sounds like Scientology, he says, and she enacts mild, lighthearted offense. He's concerned about anything based on one book, and she says the book collects spiritual wisdom from "all religions and no religions — like you." The audience slowly absorbs the "like you" and builds into a laugh. That breaks Maher's pace. He giggles and places his big hand on her shinily padded shoulder.

His next move is to confront her with the fact that the author of "A Course in Miracles" said she "took dictation from Jesus." This is just about the first thing you learn about the book if you read Wikipedia or the "Course in Miracles" website:
A Course in Miracles was “scribed” by Dr. Schucman between 1965 and 1972 through a process of inner dictation. She experienced the process as one of a distinct and clear dictation from an inner voice, which earlier had identified itself to her as Jesus.
Williamson says, dismissively: "Well, there's nothing in the book" — she blows a puff of air — "Maybe she felt that." Maher pushes, she deflects. The book doesn't even try to get us to believe in God or Jesus: "The book tries to get us to believe in each other." Maher hits the table lightly with his fist, says, "We can't argue with that," and moves on.

He compliments her. In the debates, unlike everybody else, she "goes to the root of things." He mostly wants to talk about how people don't eat right and pharmaceutical companies are greedy and "all the toxicity and the chemicals," but she wants to talk about the need for love and spiritual wholeness. They chatter at cross purposes. Then she comes around to talking about "the corporations" and he cuts her off: "Don't become a politician now!"

ADDED: Let me front page something I just wrote in the comments:
By the way, the show continued with MW participating along with the panel of 3 other guests. During this part of the show, which I didn't find on video, but watched on TV last night, Maher showed his dislike for MW in ways [that] felt sexist to me....

He intended to make her look bad and his plan failed and he was irritated about that. MW is good at receiving and redirecting negative energy, and BM is under pressure to keep his show moving and interesting and funny and he couldn't make her happen the way he wanted.
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