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AMAZING STORY

Sandra Clifton: From New Age to New Life

By Cynthia Savage
The 700 Club

CBN.com In the late 70s, Sandra Clifton was the in-demand psychic in Los Angeles. Her radio show covered southwest markets. She was a top-rated guest on a.m. Los Angeles,  and her books attracted a faithful following.

“I started searching for power and for something that could make me feel worthwhile and worthy,” says Sandra. “They say, ‘It doesn’t matter what you think. Let in anything you want.  Be present in the moment and let the presence come in.' But, they don’t say whose presence.” 

Sandra was an unlikely recruit to new age philosophy. She was raised in a strong Christian home but later, she became trapped in an abusive marriage. She began looking for an emotional escape. She found it by watching horror movies and browsing through occult books.

“During that time in that marriage, I totally lost contact with the Lord. We dropped out of church. I did not pray. He was not even on my radar screen. I started to replace the Lord with horror movies,” she says.  

After five years, Sandra’s marriage ended in divorce. Suddenly, Sandra went from being an abused housewife to a single woman searching for identity. She met with a psychologist in hopes of finding direction.

“I’m sensitive. I was hurting from a divorce. Not only that, but I sensed what people were thinking. I just needed some help. And I looked over at him [counselor], and he did not give two cents about what I was giving him. Instead, his mind seemed to be on... and the word came to my mind, ‘Virginia.’ And I thought, 'Listen! Virginia! Well, that was his mistress.’ It’s just something I knew. And I said to him, interrupting him, ‘You’re thinking about Virginia, and I’m paying you 50 bucks, and I’m not getting any help. What’s going on here?’"

Sandra says this is the first time she was able to read someone’s mind. The psychologist immediately ended the session. He referred Sandra to a local university conducting research on paranormal phenomenon.  

“The head of the program handed me a letter and she said, 'Read this.' Well, she didn’t mean open this and just read the words. She meant that was the term they used for 'psychic.' She said, 'Tell me what’s in that letter. Who wrote it? What were they about?'  And I took it, and I instantly knew. It was very addictive because not only was I stamped and approved, but I was needed. They put me to work on some police cases to see if I could find missing persons."

Sandra became more in tune with her psychic abilities. Yet one night, Sandra had an eerie feeling as she looked over the faces of a serial killer’s victims. 

“I knew somehow deep within me, that something was wrong here. During that time, I kept searching and wondering, 'Who am I? What’s going on? Why am I on this earth? Is it just to find dead bodies? Is it just to be tested in a lab like a rat?'”

Sandra thought that delving deeper into occult research would provide the answers. In this process, her psychic abilities went from a hobby to a career. She made regular television appearances and held conferences on the power of the mind. That’s where she met her husband Terry.

“We thought we were doing well at the time. We thought. I love my wife. She’s the only beautiful woman in the whole world, and I thought she was just doing wonderful things for people,” says Terry.

“The more TV shows I did though, the more I thought I had a mission. I thought, 'Oh, this is great. There is a great audience out there that I can reach.' And one of my messages was that you can be your own boss,” says Sandra.

She looked commanding on the outside just like the message she conveyed, but on the inside there was still something missing.

“As a speaker, when you’re doing your circuits, you get your speal going. So, I said, ‘Hey, do you know how powerful you are?’ And all of a sudden as I was to launch into my speech teaching them mind power, I saw all around me a cone of light. It was so much light it blinded me. I couldn’t see the people out there. And I heard a voice, audibly, not just in my head, audibly... and it was like I was in an echo chamber. And I recognized the voice. It was Jesus from my childhood. And He said, ‘Sandra, do you know how powerful I am?’"

Sandra regained her composure and finished her speech. Terry was in the audience and could tell that something had happened. For the first time, Terry and Sandra decided to pray to God together.

“We were just reaching out saying, ‘God what is going on?’ remembers Terry.

“And in that moment, we heard that still, small voice of Jesus that said, ‘Jesus.’  And it was as if a wind just rushed through our apartment. We were both knocked to the floor,” says Sandra.

“It really came and literally knocked us off our couch. And for me, that was really a new experience,” adds Terry.

“We felt this incredible joy. It defied all explanation because here we were flat broke. We had hardly anything in the cupboard because I was deciding to walk away from the major source of income,” says Sandra.

“We knew it was God. We knew it was the Lord,” says Terry.

“And I tell you, it was like a three day and night honeymoon with Jesus. We didn’t sleep. I don’t even think we ate. That took care of that, but we were so happy,” says Sandra.

They packed up and moved to Boston in search of a new way of life.

“There was a sign up that said, ‘Help wanted. Baker and counter worker,’ and we said, ‘Well this is for us!’ There was no where else to go,” says Sandra.

“When we came to Christ, there was a truth source. There was the Bible. It gave us direction and a comfort to know that there was somebody greater than us,” says Terry.

“There’s all the difference in the world between searching when you are in the new age. Your search in that context is inward. Who am I? What is my role in the universe? And when you come to Christ suddenly it becomes important for you to find out who He is and from it then you find out who you are," says Sandra.

She continues, “It’s no longer a dog and pony show where you have to prove you’re the greatest thing with a bag of chips in your hand. When you come to Christ there’s that peace He offers you." 

Sandra recently finished her book, From New Age to New Life. In it, she shares her journey of finding truth in Jesus Christ.  

“We were going through some pictures from way back when and I thought, ‘Oh, if I were God, I would have just gone, Get rid of those two. But He didn’t.' Even though at the time we were so self-involved, He worked with us and I’m convinced, nobody is impossibly lost. My favorite Bible verse is, ‘You are complete in Him who’s the head of all principalities.’"



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