From humble beginnings, Oprah Winfrey has risen to a position of unrivaled media influence.
In attempting to transform the lives of her 22-million member audience, Winfrey has become the leading moral and spiritual voice in popular culture.
While much of what she promotes through her various media venues is laudable, a streak of occultism runs deep in many of her programs.
Oprah Winfrey at the premiere of "Selma" in 2014. (Photo by David Shankbone)
The Rise of Oprah and Her Empire
Born in the midst of the civil rights struggle in 1954 to unmarried parents in Koscuisko, Mississippi, Winfrey spent her preschool years in her grandmother’s care.
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Eventually, she moved to Tennessee, where she entered the teenage beauty pageant circuit.
She was only 19 when she became news anchor at WTVF-TV in Nashville - the youngest person and the first African-American to hold that position.
The net worth of Winfrey’s business empire is now approaching the $1 billion mark.
She owns the Harpo Entertainment Group, which consists of Harpo Productions, Harpo Films, Oprah Winfrey Presents, Harpo Studios, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah’s Book Club, and Oprah’s Angel Network.
Her Web site receives 1.3 million visits per day, and her television show is seen by 22 million Americans and countless others in 160 foreign countries.
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Clearly, Winfrey has an audience.
Women all over the world want to know how to live better lives.
They watch Winfrey because she promises she will strive to show them how.
Every aspect of Winfrey’s empire has the noble aim of helping women become inspired and improve themselves.
Unfortunately, this mission has taken her - and by default, the nation - on a spiritual trek through the questionable theology of the New Age.
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THE IMPACT OF HINDUISM ON AMERICAN CULTURE | BY Oprah Winfrey
The New Age Gurus on Oprah's Stage
The people Winfrey choose to speak for her include many of the most influential voices in the New Age movement, such as Marianne Williamson, Iyanla Vanzant, Gary Zukav, and Carolyn Myss.
In giving these people a national platform, Winfrey has become the biggest contemporary disseminator of New Age belief systems.
An appearance on the Winfrey show turns self-help writers into familiar gods in the pantheon of self-improvement.
Some are decidedly more committed to New Age concepts than others.
Marianne Williamson, for instance, has devoted herself to disseminating the message of the New Age holy writ, A Course in Miracles.
On the other hand, Phil McGraw, a Ph.D. psychologist, found himself dispensing eminently practical relationship advice on Winfrey’s show, after he advised her on how to present herself during her infamous beef industry lawsuit several years ago.
Suze Orman, the show’s financial advisor, has frequent frenzied outbursts of New Age thought, tempered by the fact that she has actual practical information to share.
Regardless of their methods or message, Winfrey’s stable of spiritual and self-help advisors all become overnight sensations.
Key Figures and Their Beliefs
Marianne Williamson, a prominent New Age figure.
Marianne Williamson
Born in 1952, Marianne Williamson grew up in the Baby Boom Generation.
In 1977, she stumbled upon the New Age epic, A Course in Miracles.
In the preface to her book A Return to Love, she describes the effect those volumes had on her: “This was…my path out of hell…I could feel almost immediately that the changes it produced inside of me were positive…I began to understand myself, to get some hook on why my relationships had been so painful, why I could never stay with anything.
A Course in Miracles was allegedly “channeled” by a psychology professor named Helen Schucman.
It is also the unofficial holy writ of many New Age adherents.
Williamson currently writes a monthly “think piece” for Winfrey’s magazine, where she dispenses such purely New Age pearls as, “Quantum physics and other cutting-edge theories show consciousness to be more than a mere witness to external events: It is now recognized for its role in causing and transforming events.
Williamson is the pastor of Church of Today, Unity, in Warren, Michigan - one of the largest Unity School of Christianity churches in the United States.
The Unity School is a pseudo-Christian sect founded by Myrtle and Charles Fillmore in 1889.
It is based on a mixture of Christian terminology and pantheistic philosophies, particularly the late 1800s “metaphysical” movement known as New Thought.
Updated to reflect current New Age philosophies, the usual New Age menu of beliefs are included in Unity ideas - reincarnation, the divinity of self a.k.a. Christ Consciousness, evil as illusory, love as all that is real, and so on.
Spiritual practices from other religions, particularly Eastern religions, are affirmed, supported, and taught in Unity.
Williamson’s goal is to engage the New Age community in the political and social arenas.
To that end, she and fellow New Age guru Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God) have founded the Global Renaissance Alliance.
The Global Renaissance Alliance is a citizen-based, international network of spiritual activists.
Williamson recently edited Imagine, a collection of essays, written by people like cardiac doctor Dean Ornish and relationship pro John Gray.
Iyanla Vanzant, another influential figure on Oprah's show.
Iyanla Vanzant
Like Winfrey, Iyanla Vanzant is a survivor.
Having battled her way through horrible abusive relationships and poverty, Vanzant has reached the pinnacle of success with a host of self-help titles, her own institute, and a line of Hallmark cards.
Her book jackets tell us she is an ordained minister.
In the same breath, Vanzant thanks another New Age icon, Joel Goldsmith, calling his work “a blessing in my life.”
Goldsmith, who died in 1964, was a practitioner of Christian Science until he had a falling out with the Mother Church in Boston.
He developed his own branch of mind-over-matter spirituality, called The Infinite Way, which survives through his books and audiotapes.
Vanzant claims Goldsmith as her spiritual mentor.
In addition to her interests in Yoruba and Infinite Way beliefs, Vanzant is also a convert to A Course in Miracles.
Gary Zukav
Despite his popularity among Winfrey’s fans, Gary Zukav is among the least clear thinkers of our time.
In 1989, he wrote a rambling quasireligious book, based loosely on a combination of Hinduism and Western values, called The Seat of the Soul.
Zukav’s main message is that we’re here on this earth to learn lessons, and we’ll be back again and again until we get it right.