Marianne Williamson Vs. Nelson Mandela: Fact-Checking the 'Our Deepest Fear' Legend
Marianne Williamson did not design the text as a standalone poem. In the early 1990s, Williamson was lecturing extensively in Los Angeles on A Course in Miracles, a curriculum centered on relinquishing fear in favor of love. Chapter 7 of A Return to Love focuses on personal power and the psychological guilt individuals feel when stepping into their potential. Within that context, Williamson composed a short, meditative paragraph addressing how people shrink back to avoid threatening those around them.
The prose struck a raw chord. Readers began excerpting the paragraph, breaking Williamson's sentences into rhythmic stanzas, and circulating it on photocopied handouts and early internet mailing lists. The lines took on the cadence of self-actualization poetry:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us
