Dancing in the Light by Shirley Maclaine Page A

they leave the body.”
    “Oh, yes,” said Mother, “I see.” She thought a moment and said, “Well, tell me how this Tom McPherson helped you.”
    I quickly scanned my memory, looked at my watch, and said, “I’ll tell you a story that is really incredible. It actually happened exactly as I’ll tell you.”
    Mother folded her arms across her lap and her eyes lit up.
    “First,” I said, “let me remind you that Tom McPherson speaks from the sensibility of his favorite incarnation.”
    “Oh?” said Mother, “and what was that?”
    “Well, he was a Scotch-Irish pickpocket who lived about three hundred years ago. I was around at that time, too, and we knew each other.”
    “Oh, goodness,” said Mother. “A pickpocket? And you knew him? Don’t get too complicated. Just tell me the story.”
    I chuckled, remembering how difficult it had been for me to absorb some of the finer points of reincarnation.
    “Well, it happened during the Thanksgiving holiday a few years ago. I had been working hard on Out on a Limb to meet my deadline.
    “The evening before Thanksgiving, I was shopping in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive. I was carryinga large purse. Inside, I carried not only my money, credit cards, passport, and tape recorder but also tapes that I had recorded during my sessions with Tom McPherson and some other spiritual guides and teachers. I loved those tapes. In fact, I had become dependent on them because I felt that the language of the spiritual guides was more eloquent than my own. McPherson had warned me about my dependence, claiming that I should learn to trust myself more, but I didn’t listen.
    “I walked into a shop to try on a suit on sale that I had spotted in the window.
    “I put my purse on the floor, took off my jacket, and covered my purse (shopping in Beverly Hills teaches you to conceal your purse). I turned around to the rack and took down a suit jacket. I hadn’t turned for longer than five seconds, and there was no other customer there.”
    Mother leaned forward, her eyes wide as saucers, anticipating something dramatic.
    “The salesgirl was busy on the telephone behind the counter. As I turned back to my purse, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my jacket gently collapse to the floor as though there was no purse under it! I picked up my jacket. The purse was gone! I freaked out. It was more than my sense of reality could comprehend. I looked up at the salesgirl and said, ‘Who took my purse? My purse is gone. I was only turned around for five seconds and somebody stole my purse!’ ”
    “Oh, my,” said Mother, “Shirl, what happened?”
    “The salesgirl said no one had come in, she’d seen me cover my purse with my jacket, so it must still be under there. Like a crazy woman, I flapped my jacket up and down as though I was beating dust out of a rug. ‘My purse is not here,’ I said ‘Can’t you see that?’
    “I ran out of the store. There was hardly anyone on the street. I went back into the store, expecting that the salesgirl had somehow found it. Instead,she was on the phone to the Beverly Hills police, begging them to come over and deal with this crazy movie star.
    “ ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t care about the money or the credit cards or my passport or anything like that. I care about my spiritual tapes that were in there.’
    “She looked at me. ‘Your spiritual tapes?’ she asked more politely than was necessary.
    “ ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘My tapes from my guides and teachers on the spiritual plane. They are so important to me.’
    “I could feel her thinking that she should have called the boobyhatch instead of the police.
    “ ‘Well,’ she said carefully, ‘maybe you could consult your spiritual guides to find out what happened to your purse?’ ”
    Mother laughed. “She made me laugh, too,” I said, “but she had a point. Well, I met with the police and filled out the reports and all that. But I had this eerie feeling that it really