I’m Over All That

by Shirley Maclaine

  I have developed an understanding that I am part of the web of God and light, and if I just let go and let God, I will tread the path of my own designated destiny. I am responsible for my life and destiny because I signed up for it before I came in. I chose my parents and all my relatives in order to learn some cosmic and spiritual life lessons this time around. With this understanding, I don’t blame any of them for what happened in my childhood or what happens to me as an adult. I find myself always aided by a synchronicity of events and people. If I need to know something and don’t know where to go, I find someone popping up in my life who informs me of that very thing. If I want to find someone but don’t know how to reach them, they often call me out of the blue. If I feel physically sick, I ask my higher self what caused it. And I always get some kind of answer. I’ll take that over a fear-based religion any day.

  I’m Over People Who Repeat Themselves (When I Didn’t Want to Hear What They Said in the First Place)

  This repeating what you just said business is developing into a national sickness. I guess people feel they are not being heard. Or maybe they repeat what they say in order to decide whether they really mean it.

  Just as I am ready to respond to what someone has said, he or she repeats it. And whenever I ask a question, for example: “Can you tell me where I can get a good meal that is organic?” they say, “You want a good meal that is organic?” . . . beat, beat . . . “You want to know a place where you can get a good meal that is organic?”

  I usually answer with something like, “Where did you hear that?”

  I go berserk and I can’t help myself. Is this what they call echolalia? People only seem to want to hear the echo of what they think and say.

  I’ll Never Get Over Trying to Understand the Russian Soul

  The Soviet Union in 1962 was an example of extreme imbalance, which was necessary to get over as soon as possible. The imbalance in Russia was so extreme it could actually seem comic. I was in Romania for the premiere of The Apartment, and on a whim I decided to go, via Intourist, to the Soviet Union. Intourist, the official state travel agency of the USSR, was a joke. It was entirely staffed by the KGB. The people who were assigned to “manage” me and my girlfriend Lori’s trip spied on us, tried to blackmail us, and finally, because we missed a train from Leningrad to Moscow, stole my luggage, leaving me without a passport, clothes, or any travel papers.

  Lori and I got ourselves smuggled into Leningrad University, where the students were having anti-Catholic week. What was funny was they mixed up Catholic values with Nazi German values. I laughed out loud even though I never have been a fan of the Pope and what he stands for. There were posters throughout the university equating Hitler with the Pope. There were official discussions and seminars on said subject, and while I was there, there were also two days and nights of off-the-record conversation in the barracks with black bread and a few bottles of scotch someone else had smuggled in to sustain us.

  The students weren’t really all that curious about Nazi religious propaganda, or about the outside world in general. That’s what surprised me more than anything. Where was their curiosity? Had it been squelched along with their individual freedoms? They were interested in what I could tell them about the latest rock-and-roll music, which at least said something about their preferred art form.

  The stifling suffocation of curiosity and inquiry overwhelmed me after a while. It produced an even more profound urge toward rebellion in me, and when we finally snuck out of the university to return to our hotel, I was told we no longer had a room and that my luggage had been removed by the authorities. Rather than sleep on a threadbare sofa in the freezing cold lobby of the rundown hotel, I made myself purposely uncomfortable on the icy floor. Benny Goodman and his orchestra were in town, so of course he was being followed by a Western reporter. The two of them entered the lobby, recognized me attempting to sleep on the floor, and wanted to know what was going on. I told them the entire story, including a coda which made headlines in the Russian papers later: “I want to come back to the Soviet Union in the winter and dance the can-can nude in Red Square.”

  Two years before, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, had visited the set of Can-Can on a tour of the Fox lot. He watched us dance it and then quipped to the U.S. papers, “The face of humanity is prettier than its backside.” I countered by saying, “He was upset because we wore panties.” (The can-can was performed in France without underwear; that was why it was considered risqué.) Later on, after seeing The Apartment, Khrushchev sent me a note. It simply said, “You’ve improved.”

  As you might imagine, my Soviet adventure was one I longed to get over, but I found I couldn’t. It felt as though so much of Russia itself was buried inside a deeper memory somewhere inside me.

  Years later, I had a complicated, loving relationship with a Soviet director I will call Vassy. He was from an elite Russian family and longed to come to the West to work. I was his unofficial sponsor and found him to be exhilarating, adorable, impossibly difficult, deeply religious, unbelievably chauvinistic, and a profound believer in evil. We fought and argued about everything (I believe now just for the sake of the challenge). We hiked, laughed, and saw movies, and I learned to cook Russian food—kasha, beets, garlic, cabbage—and of course, to drink vodka. Vassy was a very well-educated artist who managed to get hold of caviar and God knows what else, and yet he dried his socks on a teakettle.

  He was certain he had lived many times before (with me, actually). Most of his leading actresses and one of his wives looked like me. He attended many channeling sessions with me. It was through Vassy that I came to know of the Soviet government’s acceptance of the presence of UFOs and of extraterrestrial life visiting Earth, and he was instrumental in my visiting Billy Meier in Switzerland, whose abduction story is the most provable UFO case on record. Through Vassy, I met Roald Sagdaev, the head of the Soviet Space Agency at the time, and was told that UFOs were documented fact, alien spacecraft had visited earth, and that a cover-up was in place so as not to alarm the human race.

  Vassy and I were compatible in so many ways, with the exception of the obsessive belief he had in the existence of evil. He could not wrap his mind around the possibility that humans determined their own negative reality all on their own. He called it “evil interference.” When we argued vociferously, he would often take my shoulders, shake me, and say “Shirlitchka, you are being possessed by the Devil.” He couldn’t accept that the “Devil” was my own negative thinking running amok in my own mind.

  He believed we humans were put on Earth to fight and win the battle against EVIL (when he said it, it always sounded like all capital letters to me), the Devil, Satan, call it what you will. When I tried to reason with him by explaining that the Aramaic translation of the words Satan and Evil was simply “that which is not well for you,” it made no impact. The etymology of words is important, but he was unshakably convinced (through his religion) that the Devil existed as an outside force. For a sophisticated man from such an intellectual, worldly family, I felt he should have gotten over a belief in the Devil a long time ago. He couldn’t do it. When we parted ways, he gave me his family Bible and said it should remain with me. It has, and it always will.

  When considering our American relationship with Russia today, I find my experience of having lived with a Soviet invaluable. Vassy considered himself part Muslim. His first wife was Muslim and he was extremely drawn to Islamic history and considered part of the Russian soul to be Islamic. I understood what he meant because so much of the Soviet Union was Muslim. He talked of how his country was an amalgamation of two religious cultures.

  Since the Berlin Wall came down, I’m not sure much has really changed on the inside of the Russian people, in their soul. Despite the decades of living under the Soviet regime, many Russians remain as much in thrall to religious orthodoxy as their ancestors. I feel that any deep belief in orthodox religion can be a bridge to understanding each other, but it is also very likely a
bridge down a path of destruction. Vassy’s core belief that Evil and the Devil exist as literal entities that can be fought and defeated was impossible for me to countenance. He knew most of the Soviet leaders and said they all secretly wore crosses around their necks, even though they claimed that religion was the opiate of the people. That told me that they, like Vassy, also believed deeply in the Devil. Violent, hateful acts could always be excused as the work of the Devil. It was as if taking responsibility for our own behavior was not an option since that could all be left up to God. For me, the most troubling aspect of Vassy’s belief system was that he felt we humans should devote our lives to protecting God (Allah) from this so-called Devil. Only destruction and violence can follow such a belief, I believe.

  The Soviet Union may be no more, but Russia is eternal. Without understanding as best we can how the deep roots of two ancient religions inform many Russians’ thoughts and actions, as well as their art and culture, we are only witnessing a shadow play while the real actors and their underlying motivations remain undiscovered.

  I Am (Almost) Over Watching the News

  As I watch the news each night, I try to gain a greater understanding of what’s happening to us humans on our beloved planet. But more and more these days the news is mostly homogenized and without any objectivity or perspective. If we’ve seen one news program, we’ve seen them all . . . even Fox News. It’s the same news stories, just told in another (and often more colorful and entertaining) way. That’s why they have high ratings. But Bill O’Reilly is a bully for profit. He’s ridiculous. I’ve done his show because I asked to be on it. I remember a dinner I had with him and some other power brokers in New York. At one point he turned to me and said, “My God, you are actually a nice person. You aren’t stuck-up and acting like a celebrity.” I wish I had a snapshot of my face at that moment. Was he kidding or what? He was so small-town prejudiced.

  When I went on his show he walked into the greenroom, imposing his significant height over my face, and said he was surprised I showed up. I said, “Bill, I asked to be on your show to promote my book, Sage-ing While Age-ing, because I know you are interested in UFOs and what the real story might be.”

  He puffed himself up even further and without missing a beat he said, “We are going to talk about the war in Iraq and how you Hollywood people think you know it all.”

  I was fascinated to see how he steeled himself to get ready to go into attack mode. I protested that I didn’t want to talk about Iraq and he knew that from the preshow interview. He ordered me to sit down (his chair was a foot higher than mine) at his table and proceeded to berate me because I was from Hollywood. I told him I was from Virginia and could meet his patriotism any day. I said it wasn’t patriotic of us Americans to invade a country just because we didn’t like their despotic, cruel dictator. He went on to defend the war and to attack some of my friends in Hollywood on their antiwar stance, saying that they didn’t know enough about it to have an opinion—“and you don’t either,” he finally finished.

  “No shit, Bill,” I said. “I’m not a military commander. So I’m not going to talk about it. I want to talk about UFOs and some of your opinions on such things.” He said, “You admit you don’t know about how to conduct a war in Iraq?”

  “Yes, Bill. No shit. I already told you that.”

  When I said “shit” he didn’t know how to react. I think he was worried that his show would be bleeped. Later, I told him that the most disgusting aspect of his TV interviews was how most of his guests sucked up to him in return for his having them appear on his show. They would laugh nervously and never get mad or upset with him—another example of how dumbed-down and intimidated we’ve become in the face of right-wing power.

  I’ve often thought about how he prepared himself for verbal battle like an actor who prepares for a scene. I remembered the bullying side he showed the world when his sex scandal and all that soaping up in the shower were made public. It made me suspect he is a more complicated and interesting man than his abusive, bullying politics would suggest. He’d be good for a reality porno show.

  I like to get my news by holding a newspaper, but lately I’ve become reluctant to contribute to the cutting down of more trees so I subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, Time, and Newsweek on the web. On television I watch CNN, BBC, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC for news. I don’t like the clubby, bubbly, locker room atmosphere that the morning news shows have gotten into just to make us feel better and to suggest they are hosted by friendly, cheerful, real people. All it makes me think is: these news sets are where they actually live; these are the only people they know . . . day after day, hour after hour. I think of them going into makeup and hair and deciding if it would be counterproductive to change their image. Do they have stylists and press agents to orchestrate how they are perceived when they feed us “real” news?

  The whole world is show business now, and Obama is the prime example. What a family man, what a nice guy, what a patient intellect he has while his advisors do the necessary dirty work. His speeches are magnificently acted, but what would he be without a teleprompter? He has good writers, good comedy punchers, and an extraordinary capacity to maintain quiet dignity while he must be scared to death over what is happening in the world. Who is he really? Does he want to be president of the planet as some say his speeches in the Mideast, Germany, France, and England seem to indicate? Was he “chosen” by the global banking elite in the world because he can be made to see so many differing points of view? Is it beneficial that his family background is partly Muslim, which could be good for fostering world peace? Why is that such a scary idea to some people? Would he, in the last analysis, be in favor of a one-world currency and a one-world government? Does he have the tools to be a great unifier, or is he fated only to divide the country further? More to the point, is one-world government a good idea?

  These are all questions that will never be answered—or even considered—by our current mainstream news organizations, but they deserve to be.

  I Am Over Politics. It’s Jazz. And I’m Over All That Jazz.

  The George McGovern experience with Watergate, the break-in itself, the abuses of power by our FBI and CIA—that was enough for me. I spent a year and a half campaigning for George. The Nixon people made it clear to me that I was an enemy; my apartment in New York was ransacked beyond recognition, and the telephone lines cut to ensure that I got the message. I wasn’t on the “show business enemies” list; I was on the “political enemies” list. My phones were bugged by the Americans, the Swedes (I was having a relationship with their prime minister), the Russians (having a relationship with a Russian director), and the Aussies (having a relationship with the Australian foreign minister). My phone lines were not private and under constant surveillance until I became very serious (and chatty) about my metaphysics, the science of the soul, and the potential reality of our being visited by a more advanced interplanetary intelligence. That’s when everybody left me alone and decided I was wacky. Except, I think, for military intelligence. I believe I am still being surveyed in every way by military intelligence, just in case one of those ships from a far-off planet picks me up one day.

  Anyway, I am over everything that involves politics. What happens to me spiritually is far more important to me now.

  When I watch the show business–like broadcasts of the news, I’m aware of a deliberate manipulation of the stories in service to higher ratings. At least Rupert Murdoch admits it. But the difference between any foreign news programs and ours is striking. We are not global thinkers. We are globally oriented only in the sense of caring about an international event in light of how it relates to us.

  When I hear the controversy about sending more troops to Afghanistan, nobody but Christiane Amanpour mentions the value and power of the poppy fields and the opium trade. Who wouldn’t want to control the country where as much as 90 percent of the world’s heroin prod
uction is located? Why don’t our newscasters get past the point of imposing democracy on another tribal culture and get to the real point of why we’re there? Follow the money, as the old saying goes.

  Let’s have some deep and probing investigative reporting on why so many people are addicted to drugs. If we did that I think we’d be into an investigation of the contemporary human spirit, of depression, of pointlessness, of spiritual poverty, and finally the addiction to serving whatever God we’ve been taught to believe in, whether it’s the Christian one, the Islamic one, or any other. We know that more killing has occurred in the name of “God” than anything else. Did the Devil make us do it? Let’s investigate who we really are in relation to our beliefs, because if we don’t we are going to be forever manipulated by the real ruling elite in this world—the international banking community. In effect, “they” understand the real polarities governing our lives are not Good versus Evil, but rather Materialism versus Spirit.

  I Am Over Young People Who Are Rude

  In recent years, we’ve become so technology-obsessed that good manners probably belong in antiquity. When we leave a message for someone, we tell ourselves that we don’t need to be nice because we’re only talking to a machine anyway. But almost everyone I see out in the world today appears mad, put out, and in general they regard you as a pain in the butt if you’re over 50. It’s as though everyone comes from New York City.