Background

Prior to her near-death and spiritual experiences, Sandy had been heavily involved with church and children’s activities. She was a Sunday School teacher, Youth Leader and director of Christmas and Easter Pageants. She worked for the school system as a payroll clerk, SIMS operator and substitute teacher. She is married with two grown children.

SANDY’s STEs

Sandy has had several spiritually transformative experiences, the first of which was a near-death or near-death-like experience following a fervent prayer asking God to please take her home.

“I was taken out of my physical body and taken to the Light in the presence of God. There are no words to convey how intense that experience was. I didn’t realize that I was out of my physical body until I returned to my body. It was then that I understood that we have a spiritual body which lives on without the physical body.”

Fifteen years later, while she was reading Plato:The Last Days of Socrates, Sandy suddenly received a spiritual awakening.

“As I read near the end of the book, my mind suddenly opened up into a vision/memory of a heightened consciousness into a new dimension. I received revelation of Socrates’ continued concept which wasn’t completed in the book. I knew that if people understood this missing information, they could rise above the human barriers which confine spiritual growth and they could understand why people exist on Earth. This was also the first time that I had an awakening and restored some pre-life memories. I felt as someone recovering from amnesia! I remembered that I lived in that dimension prior to my Earth life and that I volunteered to come to Earth with a mission.”

Integration Issues:

“This [experience] was quite shocking for me and it took me several years to embrace it. Even though I knew in my heart that the revelation was true, my human mind repelled it. It took several STE incidents before my mind was assured that I had lived in a spiritual home before my Earth life.

As I learned to embrace each experience, I began to receive spiritual enlightenment about God, Creation and religion. I felt strongly motivated to share this information because I could see that this Divine gift could help our world to live more peacefully. If people are willing to expand their thinking, our world could be transformed with a heightened understanding about our life purpose and ultimately put an end to war. Surely there will be people who will embrace this message of unity and peace which is given for the greater good of all people.”

Transformative Beliefs:**

“I believe that God certainly is not forcing people to believe anything, otherwise we would all see and hear Him dictating His absolute authority each moment of our life. There can be no absolute control over people if we were given free will and as was revealed to me, God did not want to take away our free will and freedom of choice. And so, to see religions going to war and trying to coerce people to follow their particular brand of religion goes against the will of God. God only intervened to give us guidance through inspiration because He foresaw people making bad choices with their freedom and where it would take them into destructive actions. He only intervenes enough to get us back on track and then lets us live our lives as we choose, and yet He hopes that we make good choices – for the good of all people.

Each person is responsible to learn the delicate balance to use our own free will without crossing over the line to infringe on the rights of others or to intentionally bring them harm. Each person has the freedom to choose the way which guides their life. As more and more men were inclined towards corruption, there evolved the need to give guidance to mankind to try to guide us back to the path of goodness. This is why so many people received divine inspiration which formed different religions throughout the world. The intent of God’s guidance was to raise the conscious level of mankind. It was not about igniting wars for a particular prophet to be the head of all religions. Only God is the Source of all. The dilemma is that the Divine guidance is difficult for people to comprehend because we are not perfect beings. Therefore our interpretations are not perfect and we struggle to understand the ineffable.”

After my [experiences], I am still of the same religious practice, but open to multi-faiths. I now have a universal view of all religions and I see the oneness of all creation that I didn’t see before.”

Click here to read more of Sandy’s awakening and transformative beliefs.

Current STE related activities:

Sandy is an author of two published books about her NDE and other STEs and continues to write.  She is currently on the ACISTE Board of Directors (2016) and forum administrator for ACISTE Experiencer Forum (since 2011) and NDE-Space (since 2012). She is a co-leader of the TRIAD IANDS Support Group of Winston-Salem (since May 2011), as well as a member of IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc.), IANDS of Raleigh, and the Research Triangle IANDS Groups. She is also a member and volunteer on NHNE (NewHeavenNewEarth).