18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Out On A Limb, March 24, 2000
By A Customer
I saw this on TV years ago, and it really inspired me. Just the possibility opens your soul to all the trials and tribulations and gives you a positve outlook. I've been trying to purchase this movie since the beginning of VHS. BRING IT BACK!
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72 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tremendous courage to show this on US TV!, September 18, 2004
This review is from: Out on a Limb Miniseries [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I've had OUT ON A LIMB on video tape since the original showing in 1987. Tonight for some reason I pulled it out to watch after an absence of at least 10 years (I have hundreds of video tapes so it was easy for this to recede into the darker corner of the closet).
I am most amazed at Shirley's incredible courage (others might call it arrogance or gall) to present material that is so antagonistic to the mainstream middle American mind set. After watching this excellent time capsule of New Age Thought from the mid 1980's, I felt a wee bit sad, since I realize this mini-series could never be shown on network TV today! After decades of Republican rule and the subtle but merciless pressure of right wing Christian religion in the US, the beliefs that Shirley presented in this film are much MORE controversial today than they were back in the benignn 1980's. How dare she have an affair with a married man? How dare she claim to be God? How dare she hobnob with channelers who are in the hands of Satan? I can hear all the babble on TV and right wing talk radio if that poor woman were to try this today!
Even if every concept presented in this film is false, it is a tremendously rewarding adventure.
However, I do have to state that after this film was made, Shirley admitted on a talk show that the book/film are NOT literally true! She created composite characters like David to represent her spiritual research. So it might come down to her NOT having any personal metaphysical adventures at all outside the confines of her book reading, but she created such adventures, e.g., having an invisible alien drive a truck in Peru that she and the make-believe David were in, to jazz up the topic a bit. I think a lot of people lost faith in Shirley when she made the confession that her books are NOT literally true!
Nonetheless, Kevin Ryerson is a trance channeler and is still out there charging $275 for a 90 minute consultation. Why go to law school when you can charge prices like that for your services?
I may seem like a skeptic. Well, I am skeptical of some of the more cartoonish aspects of the so-called New Age. We have grown more jaded since 1987. However, there are underlying spiritual truths within the film/book that make it worthwhile, although this film/book certainly contains no revelations that cannot also be found in a bounty of spiritual oriented books on the market today.
So in one sense, you may enjoy this film/book as a nostalgic throwback to a time when the New Age was "new", not the butt of comedians and the horror of fundamentalists. To call someone "new age" now is considered practically an insult, like calling someone a "liberal". That shows how reactionary and scared our culture has become since those heady times.
Take time from worrying about terrorism and the fact that George Bush believes that his fundamentalist Old Testament God is telling the US to invade other countries. Pop OUT ON A LIMB into your VCR or read a copy of the book. It may make you wish you could time travel back to those exuberant times!
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