Other True Believers

WALLY (FAMOUS) AMOS: “I don’t know that Shirley’s made it easier for me to speak out. For me, it was something I decided long ago. Once I decided that those (New Age) principles and concepts made sense in my life, I started using them. And once I got the results, it was so obvious I was supposed to share those beliefs with other people. Since Shirley MacLaine has written her books and done her TV movie, she’s given these ideas more credibility. When someone who’s famous takes a stand on something, it opens it up, and other people begin to follow suit. What she did, in my estimation, was create a tremendous awareness, a tremendous expansion of consciousness. People are constantly searching for ways to make their lives work. I think she’s given a great service to all of us.” Amos is in the midst of preparing a pilot: “The Wally Amos Happiness Show.” He says “the theme of the show is the positiveness of life and choosing to be happy. We’re not victims, we’re powerful human beings.”

PAUL HORN, one of the founding fathers of what is now termed New Age music (he has recorded albums inside the Great Pyramid and the Taj Mahal): “I admire what she (Shirley MacLaine) is doing, and I think for many people she’s made it easier to speak out, but I’ve been doing this for the last 20 years. In 1967, I went to India to be with the Maharishi (Mahesh Yogi). She was over there in 1968. Over the years, through the efforts of many people, including Shirley MacLaine, it’s become less difficult to talk about these things to a Western public, whether it’s meditation or extraterrestrial phenomena or entities such as Ramtha. You’re not putting your head on a block now to talk about these things in public.”

MARSHA MASON, who for years has practiced meditation and once studied with the late Swami Muktananda: “Shirley MacLaine has made it much easier for other people to speak out about New Age topics. Her books and miniseries really helped to popularize the subject.”

HELEN REDDY: The 45-year-old entertainer says she has lived many lives. In an interview with The Times in July, she said that she had known her husband, Milton Ruth, in two previous lives. Ruth is a drummer in Reddy’s band, but according to Reddy, “in a previous life, I was working for him.” She said that he had been jouster in England during the 12th or 13th Century and that she was his servant. “I used to go with him to look out for his horse. I was very devoted. He was my master. He was wounded in competition; I ran out on the field and he died in my arms.” In another life, “somewhere around the 17th Century,” she said that he was an aristocrat and that it was her job to protect him.

LISABONET: A believer in the power of crystals, she also wears an amulet around her neck. The leather pouch holds objects of particular significance to her life.

TINA TURNER: The beginning of the singer’s belief in reincarnation was chronicled in her 1986 autobiography, “I, Tina.” Turner talks about a “soul reader” she met in 1977 who, she said, “changed her life.” Carol Dryer told Turner the story of Queen Hatshepsut, a daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh born 1,500 years before Christ. Turner was told that the tale paralleled what had gone wrong for her in this life.