MacLaine - OUT ON a LIMB

OUT ON A LIMB

This book is about the experience of getting in touch with myself when I was in my early forties. Its about the connection between mind, body, and spirit. And what I learned as a result has enabled me to get on with the rest of my life as an almost transformed human being. So this book is about a quest for myselfa quest which took me on a long journey that was gradually revealing and at all times amazing. I tried to keep an open mind as I went because I found myself gently but firmly exposed to dimensions of time and space that heretofore, for me, belonged to science fiction or what I would describe as the occult. But it happened to me. It happened slowly. It happened at a pace that apparently was peculiarly my own, as I believe all people experience such events. People progress according to what theyre ready for. I must have been ready for what I learned because it was the right time.

Shirley MacLaine

A woman of considerable intelligence and charm.

The Washington Post

More startling than any of her celebrated films Out on a Limb is out of this world.

The Toronto Sun

Bantam Books by Shirley MacLaine
Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed

DANCING IN THE LIGHT
DONT FALL OFF THE MOUNTAIN
GOING WITHIN
ITS ALL IN THE PLAYING
OUT ON A LIMB
YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE
DANCE WHILE YOU CAN
MY LUCKY STARS

OUT ON A LIMB
A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition / July 1983
Bantam rack edition / April 1984

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the publishers named below for permission to reprint the following material:
Excerpt from The Forgotten Language by Erich Fromm. Copyright 1951, 1979 by Erich Fromm. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers.
Excerpt from Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Copyright1959 by the Library of Living Philosophers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from C. G. Jung, Letters, ed. Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XCV, Vol. I : 19061950. Copyright1971, 1973 by Princeton University Press. Excerpt, page 343, reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
Excerpt from A. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World. Reprinted with the kind permission of Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Albert Einstein, The World As I See It. Reprinted with the kind permission of the Philosophical Library, Inc. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Joseph Wood Krutch, More Lives Than One. Copyright1962 by Joseph Wood Krutch. By permission of William Morrow & Company.
Note: Every effort has been made to locate the copyright owner of material reproduced in this book. Omissions brought to our attention will be corrected in subsequent editions.

All rights reserved.
Copyright1983 by Shirley MacLaine.
Photographs copyright1983 by Roger Ressmeyer/Starlight.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-45955
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-76504-8

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

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Dear Reader,

From the time I was very small, I remember having the impulse to express myself. At the age of three I attended dance classes because I wanted to express myself physically. As a teenager, I went from dancing to singing, which seemed a natural and logical extension of that self-expression. Later, as an adult, I carried that impulse for expression even further, into acting, and experienced a greater form of expression. I loved the intricate mystery of being another character, sorting out background and motivation and meaning, exploring my own feelings and thoughts in relation to another person.

Then I found writingan outlet that enabled me to express more intricately and specifically my experiences. I wrote to know what I was thinking. I wrote to understand my profession, my travels, my relationships, and, in fact, my life. Writing helped to whet an already insatiable appetite to understand the why and how of everything.

I like to think of each of my books as a kind of map depicting where Ive been and where Im going. Dont Fall off the Mountain described how I learned to spread my wings as a young artist and began to take charge of my personal destiny. In a series of expeditions to Africa, India, the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, and to the land of my daughter Sachis namesake, Japan, I first reached out to touch the unknownand was changed by it. The personal period profiled in You Can Get There From Here was one of great internal, intellectual, and political growth for me. The star system had come to an end in Hollywood, so I ventured into the quicksands of television. The result was disastrous and the impact on me profound. It drove me to test myself in the political arena during the presidential election of 1972, when I campaigned for George McGovern against Richard Nixon. That experience motivated me to pursue a desire few Westerners had been allowed to fulfill in the early 1970s. I led the first womens delegation to China to study the remarkable evolution of a brand-new culture from the ashes of an ancient and little-known land. The experience of adjusting to an alien culture brought us smack-up against ourselves. We learned about our own evolution as well, and even more about what the human will, properly directed, can accomplish even against great odds. All of this prepared me to return to my performing career with a greater enthusiasm and appreciation for the craft by which I earned my living, and to explore what new levels of creativity I could bring to it. I believe this experience also helped to drive home another lesson: Anything is possible if you believe you deserve it.

I thought for a long time before I published Out on a Limb because it is the written expression of a spiritual odyssey that took me further than I ever expected to go, into an astonishing and moving world of psychic phenomena where past lives, the existence of spirit guides, and the genuine immortality of the soul became more than concepts to methey became real, true parts of my life. I think of this book as my spiritual diary opened to the eyes of those who also seek an inner understanding, and as my statement to those who taught me and opened my eyes that I accept their gifts with gratitude and humility.

I like to think of