玛丽安娜·威廉森

玛丽安娜·威廉姆森（英语：Marianne Williamson，1952年7月8日—），美国女作家、精神领袖和政治活动家，《发现真爱》（A Return to Love）一书的作者。她目前参加2024年美国总统选举的民主党党内初选。威廉姆森被描述为进步派民主党人，具有与伯尼·桑德斯类似的政治立场。

威廉姆森是奥普拉·温弗里秀的常客，她共撰写14本书，其中有四本于《纽约时报》"Advice, How To, and Miscellaneous" 类别中排名第一的畅销书。此外，她为提供志愿送餐计划的组织Project Angel Food之创始人，为患有HIV/AIDS和危及生命的疾病之居家人员提供服务，她还是非营利性教育和宣传组织Peace Alliance的联合创始人。

2014年，威廉姆森以独立身份竞逐美国众议院加州第33选区，但竞逐失败。

2019年1月9日，她宣布竞选2020年美国总统选举的民主党提名，并于2020年1月10日暂停竞选。她后来于2020年2月23日在得克萨斯州奥斯汀举行的集会上支持伯尼·桑德斯。2023年2月23日，她表示计划在2024年民主党总统初选中再次竞选总统，挑战现任总统乔·拜登。她于2023年3月4日发起竞选活动。2024年2月7日她宣布退出党内总统初选。

Marianne Deborah Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is an American self-help author, speaker, and political activist. She began her professional career as a spiritual leader of the Church of Today, a Unity Church in Warren, Michigan. Williamson has written several self-help books, including A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles in 1992, which became a New York Times Best Seller. She rose to prominence through frequent appearances on Oprah Winfrey's show, and becoming known as her "spiritual advisor".

Williamson ran unsuccessfully as an independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives in 2014, finishing fourth with 13.2% of the vote. She ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, eventually dropping out and endorsing Bernie Sanders. She ran for president again in 2024, challenging incumbent President Joe Biden. After having suspended and restarted her campaign, Williamson ended her longshot White House bid in July 2024. She unsuccessfully campaigned for the position of DNC chair in 2025.

Williamson has been actively involved with charity work, founding such organizations as Center for Living in 1987, Project Angel Food in 1989, and the Peace Alliance in 1998. Allegations of abusive and bullying behavior toward both colleagues and staff have followed her throughout her career.

Early life and education

Marianne Deborah Williamson was born in Houston, Texas, on July 8, 1952. She is the youngest of three children of Samuel "Sam" Williamson, a World War II veteran and immigration lawyer, and Sophie Ann Kaplan, a homemaker and community volunteer.

Williamson was raised in an upper-middle-class family that practiced Conservative Judaism. Her family attended Congregation Beth Yeshurun. She learned about world religions and social justice at home and became interested in public advocacy when she saw her rabbi speak against the Vietnam War.

In 1965, after Williamson came home from school in the seventh grade, she recounted to her parents that her teacher supported the Vietnam War. Her father reacted by taking the family to Vietnam to help explain to Marianne why he thought that the war was wrong. She has said that through travel she "had an experience, at a young age, that people are the same everywhere."

Williamson attended Houston ISD's Bellaire High School. After graduating, she spent two years studying theater and philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a roommate of future film producer Lynda Obst.

In 1973, Williamson dropped out of college and lived "a nomadic existence" during what she calls "her wasted decade".

Williamson moved to New Mexico, where she took classes at the University of New Mexico. The couple broke up a year later. Marianne then moved to Austin, Texas, where she took classes at the University of Texas. After leaving Texas, she went to New York City, intending to pursue a career as a cabaret singer; however, she has stated that she was distracted by "bad boys and good dope". Vanity Fair wrote that Williamson "spent her twenties in a growing state of existential despair." In New York, Williamson suffered from deep depression following the end of a relationship. She has said that this experience gave rise to a desire to spend the rest of her life helping people. Allegations of abusive behavior toward colleagues and staff have followed her throughout her career.

A Course in Miracles

Although initially uninterested due to her Jewish faith, Williamson developed an interest in Helen Schucman's book A Course in Miracles in 1976. She explored spirituality, metaphysics, and meditation as she began reading the Course "passionately". She also reconciled the Course with her Jewishness; in her view, "A conversion to Christ is not a conversion to Christianity. It is a conversion to a conviction of the heart".