Description
“This book is about the experience of getting in touch with myself when I was in my early forties. It’s 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 myself-a 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 they’re ready for. I must have been ready for what I learned because it was the right time…” -Shirley MacLaine
The brilliant star of stage, screen, television, and nightclubs, the author of two previous bestsellers, “DON’T FALL OFF THE MOUTAIN” and YOU CAN GET THERE FROM HERE, Shirley MacLaine now invites us to accompany her on a unique journey.
Her earlier books describe her travels around the world, her unusual marriage, and the growth of her career. Now, in her mid-forties and at the pinnacle of professional success, this gifted actress and writer turns inward for the most extraordinary experience of her life, a voyage into the realm of the mind and spirit.
An intense, clandestine love affair with a prominent politician becomes the catalyst for Shirley MacLaine’s daring quest to find her true self, to reach for the roots of her very existence A skeptic with an open mind when her journey begins, she shares her evolution from doubt and disbelief to a new knowledge of herself and the infinite possibilities of our lives.
Her friends guide her in her search: the late actor Peter Sellers tells her of his belief that he has lived other lives; her closest friend David gives her books to read, opens his heart to her about his own explorations, and introduces her to the concept of soulmates – kindred spirits who are joined for all eternity. Her lover Gerry refuses to contemplate the idea of their shared past, but their rare intimacy convinces Shirley that they have known one another before.
In this remarkable and moving story we are invited to travel with Shirley MacLaine to Stockholm, where she meets a trance channeler whose unusual gift opens the door to her past; to Europe and Hawaii, where a secret (and perhaps fated) affair of the heart unfolds; and finally to Peru, where high in the mountains she has a startling out-of-body experience that clarifies for her the extent of human potential and the understanding that the soul lives forever.
OUT ON A LIMB is more than a typical celebrity memoir. It is the deeply personal story of a woman determined to know herself and to become all she is capable of being. Her independence of spirit, her courage and honesty combine to create a diary of discovery which any one of us may be moved to follow Shirley MacLaine has opened her heart more than ever before, and her story is unforgettable.
Hardcover, 372 pages. In very good condition with the exception of two bookseller’s stamps and some fading to the dustcover.