I’M THE GYPSY, THE ACID QUEEN, PAY ME BEFORE I START. I’M THE GYPSY, I’M GUARANTEED TO TEAR YOUR SOUL APART: Politico: Marianne Williamson ‘abusive’ toward campaign staff.

Finally, Politico looked up some old stories from the time when Williamson was first gaining traction for her work as a Hollywood guru of sorts. Here’s a bit of a story from the LA Times in 1992:

Williamson is also the latest mystical sensation in Hollywood, where many work assiduously to cultivate their souls, often with the same devotion they apply to their physiques. Anthony Perkins, Lesley Ann Warren, Tommy Tune, Cher and Roy Scheider go to her lectures. David Geffen and Sandy Gallin listen to her on tape and have sought her private counsel; she lunches with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Dawn Steel, and last summer she officiated at the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky. “Her sense of spirituality triggered off my own,” the bride said recently through a spokeswoman…

Feared in some quarters for her explosive temper, Williamson acknowledges that she often comes across as “the bitch for God.”…

Many people who have worked with her say she has an explosive temper that erupts indiscriminately even in front of sick clients. They contend she is a “control freak” who insists on becoming involved in every detail and cannot bear to be upstaged or challenged. “If you don’t agree with Marianne you’re not going to be around very long,” said Dick DeVogeleare, a dismissed executive director who sued the center for breach of contract and later settled.

“Marianne is someone who likes to control everyone around her,” said journalist Jean Halberstam, formerly on the Manhattan center’s board.

Flashback: The late Cathy Seipp on California Screaming.