Shirley MacLaine’s Shocking Views on Reincarnation & Life's Meaning | Super Soul Sparks

0:00Hi, it's Ashley from OWN. I used to think great work was about being in the right headspace. Then I found a TikTok video that made me think about my physical space. An interior designer explored how things like ceiling height and room size might influence how we think. Now I wonder how much of our environment shapes our work without us noticing. Now I'm looking at my workspace asking what kind of thinking I'm making room for. On TikTok, one idea can change how you see something you thought you knew. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. I really do find it hard to believe that just three months after launching my talk show in 1986, here I was talking to Shirley MacLaine on national daytime television about spirituality.

0:44I invited her to the show because I had read and loved her memoir out on a limb while filming The Color Purple. The international bestseller detailed Shirley's lifelong spiritual quest and reading her story was life-changing for me. In fact, her writings helped inspire my own spiritual awakening. Shirley has always felt a keen connection to the world beyond.

1:15A bohemian at heart, Shirley MacLaine has always identified herself first and foremost as a dancer. She believes dance imprints on the soul. It's the life force that aligns her mind, her body, and spirit, and informs her entire being. It's also the very reason she's so disciplined, so hardworking, and in her words, somewhat accustomed to pain and criticism.

1:42You've written, I'm a dancer who loves to think. What do you most love thinking about?

1:52Who we are, where we came from, where we're going. How did it all happen? Yeah, that's my fun. I Consider it really fun. Yeah And whenever I'm with a scientist or a very kind of so-called left-brained intellectual person, that's what I love being with at dinner and then I Of course I have to be fairly well read in like Genesis and the Bible the Bible is the book. It's right there It's written all about the otherness of otherworldly truth. I mean, that's the truth as I see it. What is our purpose? Why are we here? What...so religion is called into question now, and a lot of people say, but then what is the purpose?

2:44What is the purpose of human experience? I think curiosity. That's what saved me. Shirley's spiritual path has always been driven by her curiosity, which she's never been afraid to express. This is from our conversation in 1989. I think you are really, really misunderstood. When I was telling various people, even friends of mine who are supposed to have some sense, that you were going to be on the show, their interpretation of who you are and what you represent is really off base. I think a lot of people think you are literally out on a limb someplace. And don't you think that's misunderstood?

3:23Well, I think, not I don't think everybody does. But, and I think it's coming around now to where that's not, that's getting to be old fashioned, that concept. This is from 1986 when we talked about reincarnation for the first time. When someone dies, respect their need to do it. Because the death is only an expansion into a much higher consciousness. It is a rebirth. The death is only a transition to a much grander life. We like to think this is all there is. That's the beauty in this philosophy and in what I think is the giant truth. Nothing ever dies. She certainly has always been candid and consistent.

4:05This is from nearly 25 years later. You are the result of everything your soul has learned from lifetime to lifetime to lifetime. Listen, two-thirds of the world believes this, so when are we going to wake up? But we're such a mechanistic, technological, left-brain society, frankly, that unless you can prove something, you know, bump on it, it is not real. So we need to open up in a serious way to the recognition of other realities that are not just materialistic. What do you now know for sure about our humans, our place in the universe? I am sure we're not alone. But you've been sure of that for a pretty long time.

5:00Yeah. So you've spoken publicly about reincarnation and past lives forever, and your belief that no one ever— Literally forever. Forever, really, probably many lifetimes. No one ever really dies. When did you start to know that? I think when I first started having past life recall.

5:25and then of course I got into the scientific study of it and did many regressions and what was so fascinating was in the regressions of the past lives that I have experienced I realized the people who showed up in those experiences were also in my life today really yeah and that became very educational oh that's why they're acting like that look what I did to them then. That's when I understood the laws of karma. It's an inspiration to try to figure out what's going on here. I look at it as an adventure in understanding the science of the spirit. That's what I'm interested in now, in every way.

6:09How do you feel about where we are now? I think we're in big trouble. How so? Tell me. I think we don't know or have any comprehension of what we're doing to nature. Now those who are scientists and the Al Gore's of the world and stuff, yes, of course. But what's happened to the rest of us? We're so materialistic. Our values, that's our religion, is materialism. So we've become addicted to the materialism and have no sensibility of what is that doing to the very sustenance of our lives. lives, which is nature. And everybody knows we've got to fix it. And yet we're all leaving it up to somebody else to fix.

6:53Who have been your greatest spiritual teachers? The ones who have hurt me the most. The ones who I've had the biggest difficulties with. I can't say that I've had a great spiritual teacher like Eckhart or I love Gary. I have you. Yeah, but what I do for you is what you want to do anyway, which is to really get into it and you want to really understand. Yes. So what has taken you the longest to learn here? Oh, patience. It's patience. I have, I don't think, learned one iota of patience, but I am learning to look at it. I am learning to be cognizant of the fact. Are you happy? Is there a level of contentment, a sense of peace with you?

7:55Oh, yeah. Yeah. In that Derek Walcott poem where he talks about sit and feasting on your life, Were you able to do that? Not so much my life. I sit and feast on the now. Oh, good. I really do that. I really do that. And so that's why I'm so intertwined with nature and, you know, my animals and the thoughts of other people. When I'm with them, I'm really feasting on the now of who they're trying to be. What an entertainment. them. One of the things that you say in What If is you question whether the human race may have simply gone too far to clean up. Are you optimistic about the future for your grandchildren?

8:48Depends on them. Okay. I would say if they would take responsibility for, honestly, the investigation of who they are, yes. The people who don't are in for the, I think, inevitable. If you don't take responsibility for what you're doing, somebody else will. Is that the first step in learning to step into a well-lived life, taking responsibility? Probably, yeah. Yeah. That's how you have the adventure. What if you could live to 150? You said you have a good 15 left. What if you could live to be 150? You mean would I choose to? Would you want to? That's a good question. It depends on what the human race collectively decides to do, and I think we're in that process.

9:43The adventure of it all to me, and I have to answer it that way, is that that is a real unknown, And you have to be happy, you have to be willing to be compliant with not knowing. Do you consider yourself a spiritual trailblazer? Do you think we would be here, seriously, where we are as a culture, with so many books written about the soul, the proliferation of people talking about spirituality, about, you know, all the things, yoga, meditation. Do you think we would be here without you? Oh, Oprah. Okay, that begs a huge question, which I have been thinking about rather seriously and intimately.

10:37We are all one. I am everybody who's seeking. Mm-hmm. And everybody who's seeking is me. So I make no differentiation. Imagine that. I mean, that means... But do you consider yourself a trailblazer? And are you proud of that role that you've played? Are you proud of... That's a better question, as I'm thinking on the fly here. Are you pleased with the role that you've played as a spiritual trailblazer for our culture? Okay. I'm pleased with the fact that I saw a trail and I walked down it and didn't know what I was gonna find. I accept that. Thank you. Okay, I'll take that. Take it. I'll take that.

11:31Well, take it. I'll take that. That's great.

11:49It's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed, or does he just own a ladder? Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today.