book reviews

The Reluctant Messenger Second Edition  -  Order Now
The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm  -  Order Now
From the Reluctant Messenger: In the Beginning -  Order Now
From the Reluctant Messenger: Stampede -  Order Now
From the Reluctant Messenger: The Crystalline Grid -  Order Now
From the Reluctant Messenger: I Dreamed A Dream -  Order Now
From the Reluctant Messenger: Close Encounters -  Order Now

“A must-read book that highlights the author’s spiritual journey into the unknown. It is uplifting, inspiring, and transformative.” ~ Rajiv Parti, M.D., author of Dying to Wake Up, NDE expert, consultant in Consciousness Based Healing


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Endorsements & Reviews


Kirkus Reviews
In this debut memoir, a psychologist shares the wisdom she received by opening her mind.

Sanderson is no stranger to the concepts of self-awareness and spirituality. As a psychologist who helps others cope during crisis situations and discover meaning in the most intense human experiences, she deftly writes about the mind’s often complex routes to finding inner fulfillment, peace, and enlightenment. This work is unusual in the way that it honestly shares a woman’s path to becoming a “medium” of sorts, tapping into the messages being distributed by energy sources around her. The author is open from the beginning about the shocking and uncomfortable nature of this transition, and invites readers to travel from the practical and research-based realm to the nonmaterial world of energy exchange. Sanderson repeatedly refers to “PoE,” which means “point of existence.” This idea involves using the heart to perceive events rather than simply employing the senses. For example, in a discussion of music, the author writes: “If humans would allow the music to flow through the heart centers, there would be a shift to a state of expanded awareness, which would allow for a fuller, richer experience than what the sense of hearing allows. The music carries the listener to a realm of expanded awareness where the energy of love allows emotional reactions to certain pieces of music.” This notion appears throughout the book, encouraging readers to draw on the heart to clear the mind’s “chatter” and embrace the world rather than simply relying on hearing, seeing, tasting, etc. Perhaps Sanderson’s greatest strength here is taking topics that might feel difficult for some readers to grasp—such as expanded awareness—and making them feel comfortable, accessible, intriguing, and engaging. The book will likely speak to those ready to take leaps of faith in their own odysseys to the unknown, tapping into new senses and experiences that question their past perceptions and limitations. If nothing else, readers should be inspired by the author’s bravery and candor in revealing the riveting details of her journey.

A strong autobiography recounts one woman’s road to spiritual enlightenment.

URL : https://goo.gl/8vgbkb


Readers' Favorite Silver Medal Award
Readers' Favorite is proud to announce that "The Reluctant Messenger~Tales from Beyond Belief" by Candice M. Sanderson won the 2019 Silver Medal in the Non-Fiction - New Age category. Readers' Favorite recognizes "The Reluctant Messenger~Tales from Beyond Belief" by Candice M. Sanderson in its annual international book award contest.

Readers' Favorite is one of the largest book review and award contest sites on the Internet. They have earned the respect of renowned publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins, and have received the "Best Websites for Authors" and "Honoring Excellence" awards from the Association of Independent Authors. They are also fully accredited by the BBB (A+ rating), which is a rarity among Book Review and Book Award Contest companies.

We receive thousands of entries from all over the world. Because of these large submission numbers, we are able to break down our contest into 140+ genres, and each genre is judged separately, ensuring that books only compete against books of their same genre for a fairer and more accurate competition. We receive submissions from independent authors, small publishers, and publishing giants such as Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, with contestants that range from the first-time, self-published author to New York Times bestsellers like J.A. Jance, James Rollins, and #1 best-selling author Daniel Silva, as well as celebrity authors like Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty), Henry Winkler (Happy Days), and Eriq La Salle (E.R., Coming to America).


RECOMMENDED by the US Review of Books
"
Sanderson’s memoir is engaging and accessible. Her gradual opening to a wide range of emotive themes is touching and credible." – US Review of Books

"The message captivated me; the authors of my first message about a flower had revealed themselves through this familiar lyrical language."  – US Review of Books

In this mystical memoir, a psychologist turns psychic and shares the results of that experience. In 2013, Sanderson, a widow who had raised two children to successful adulthood, had a demanding but rewarding position as a school psychologist. Things seemed organized and predictable. But then, Sanderson says, “In ten minutes, my life changed forever.” In the midst of her daily commute, powerful words came into her mind, bidding and forcing her to listen and later record a message which spoke of a flower as a “flow-er of energy” and urging her to be such a “flow-er,” to grow and flourish. Though the experience caused her heart to pound, it was positive. Soon afterward she saw a flowering tree and began to see herself as one of its unopened buds. From that day onward, she had a flood of messages of a similar sort, sometimes in the form of dreams, and including words from people who had passed away. Each time, she would do her best to record the communications in a journal and share them on an online site. Nearly two years after the first incident, her message bearers, who called themselves The Muses Within, began encouraging her to write a book. Though she was not sure she was capable of such an undertaking, the idea gradually bore fruit. 

Sanderson’s book, like her consciousness, gradually expanded in scope to take in these new concepts, which include fascinating bits of practical, sometimes scientific, information. She cogently describes the linkages she was receiving between mythological concepts and factual reality, such as the science surrounding higher forms of energy. Some of the wisdom shared with her from her muses touches on psychological constructs that appealed to her professional training. For example, instead of worrying that we have “too much on our plates,” we should instead rejoice that we have a large range of options. Meeting with Native American mystics introduced Sanderson to the concept of the White Buffalo, a symbol of pure earthly energy. 

Sanderson’s memoir is engaging and accessible. Given that her career in psychology often required suppression of personal feelings and a rational approach to the problems of others, her gradual opening to a wide range of emotive themes is touching and credible. The central perception drawing together all of her extraordinary experiences is her own personal wonderment and, at times, puzzlement. Why was she chosen to convey these deeply meaningful communications, as she was merely a “common, everyday person who had stepped onto a path into the unknown”? She frankly reveals her myriad feelings and invites the reader to walk along that path with her. She recounts her steps to acceptance of the truths that are being given to her. She consults with like-minded persons and groups that might give further enlightenment, exploring meditation and other energy-generating practices that she can recommend to her readers. Her exploration into the revelations that have been fed to her from mystical sources forms a guidebook for anyone who may have found or is seeking an internal door opening to etheric realms. 

Book review by Barbara Bamberger Scott, US Review of Books
URL: http://bit.ly/TheUSReviewofBooks


An Interview with Candice Sanderson by Allyn Evans, Monroe Institute
Like many who attend programs at The Monroe Institute (TMI), Candice “Candie” Sanderson, author of The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief, discovered it is personal experience that transforms us. After that, we are no longer defined by other people’s stories. Click here to read the entire interview.


"The Reluctant Messenger by Psychologist Candice M. Sanderson is a Marvelous Example of Channeled, Transcendent Literature at its Best."
Review by: KEN KORCZAK


"The Zen tradition has a saying that goes something like this: “You cannot go to enlightenment; enlightenment must come to you.”

That might be a good adage to describe the experience of CANDICE M. SANDERSON, a pragmatic, hard-working, by-the-book psychologist who was minding her own business one day when transcendence suddenly came knocking, unbidden and out of the blue. No one could have been more shocked than her.

After all, a psychologist might tell you that hearing voices is an indication of mental illness. So here we have a psychologist who found herself questioning her own sanity … and yet, the communications she was receiving from “Out There” didn’t have the characteristics of delusion or perhaps some sort of cognitive deterioration of a woman now edging into her sixties. Just the opposite. The messages she was getting were soft, coherent and elegant, almost lyrical. The information was exotic, but certainly not “crazy.”

Despite agonizing self doubt and an understandable bout of denial, Sanderson relented and decided to let the voices in — and all of us are far better off because she did.

Readers of THE RELUCTANT MESSENGER will travel along with Sanderson on a remarkable journey that unfolds like the proverbial lotus flower. These first downloads of information are interesting enough, but perhaps not so unlike much of New Age pronouncements already out there. (There’s no shortage of books today based on channeled information, not to mention perhaps thousands of YouTube videos. In fact, this is a phenomenon literally centuries old).

But as Sanderson grows into her practice and becomes ever more accepting of the remarkable experiences, she learns to tune in her “frequency” with greater skill. What she brings out thereafter just gets more amazing page after page.

I’ve read dozens if not hundreds of books written by channelers. For me, what makes Candice Sanderson’s book different is twofold. 

First, she’s simply an excellent writer. Her prose flows effortlessly. She crafts easy sentences that are lean, concise, punchy and on target.  Words stream into sentences, sentences meld into paragraphs making for pages that glide down a path of least resistance. Better yet, despite the lofty nature of her subject matter, Sanderson never comes off as pretentious nor devolves into smarmy sentimentality. The result imparts a grounded sense of authenticity despite the mind-blowing information offered.

In fact, I found a certain ironic humor in how so many of the major revelations coming at Sanderson are triggered by the act of getting into her car, snapping on her seatbelt and getting ready for her commute to work! Driving to work is usually a grim routine of low-grade stress for most people, but for this author, it sets the stage for visionary inspiration!

The other aspect that separates THE RELUCTANT MESSENGER from other channeled works is the array of sources and kinds of entities Sanderson communicates taps into. Readers will be regaled with wisdom from:

• Disincarnate entities
• Angelic beings
• Extraterrestrials
• Deceased people
• Native American demiurges
• Ascended Masters
• Christian divinities
• Buddhist mystical figures
• Cosmological physics perspectives

… and more. Don’t worry, I’m not giving too much away because, believe me, you’re going to want to hear what all of the above have to say. All of these powerful sources aren’t trotting across the stage of Sanderson’s mind merely to spew vague philosophies — they’re throwing down some real cosmogonic red meat you’ll all be chewing on for a long time to come.

At the risk of overstating things, I have to confess that a certain name kept pinging through my mind as I was reading through this document (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Ávila)— that of Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), the visionary 14th Century Spanish saint, not so much to make a one-to-one comparison with Ms. Sanderson, but because so many of the themes of both are similar. Saint Teresa said: “It is love alone that gives worth to all things.” She also said that everything we experience in this physical world is “vanity” and but a shadow of the greater reality of “the divine.”

But — whether a legendary saint or any of today’s popular working channelers — I’m betting Candice Sanderson would say that every one of us has the same potential to open to our own latent inner numinous because, after all, as her sources reminded her many times: “We’re all One.”

Ken Korczak is a top reviewer for Amazon. He is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of Bird Brain Genius.


“I am fascinated with the detailed messages that you have received from your celestial team of advisors. This is a captivating account of expanding awareness including gems of spiritual wisdom, messages from her celestial mentors and in her words…'uncanny shards of knowledge’.” ~ William Buhlman, author of Adventures Beyond the Body,  Amazon #1 Best Seller


“This extraordinary book, filled with wisdom, is the result of a revolution that took place in author Candice Sanderson’s life. She was an ordinary person who, by being open and accepting, allowed messages from another realm to come through to her. She courageously faced her own doubt, fear, and judgment as she was shown truths about creation, time, and other profound topics. This is a book for people who seek answers to the nature of our existence. This is a book that needs to be savored, not just read.” ~ Roberta Moore, Producer of Spiritual Films, Past President of International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS)


"Candice Sanderson takes us on a journey that in times past was reserved only for initiates laboring in the secret confines of mystery schools. But this book demonstrates that what was once available only to a select few, is now happening spontaneously to ordinary (and sometimes reluctant) people. It is a harbinger of things to come. If you want an advance glimpse into the next stage of human evolution, read this book!" ~ Paul Rademacher, former President/Executive Director of Monroe Institute and author of A Spiritual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe


“Candice Sanderson opens a doorway for us all to a profound spiritual dimension where verifiable information and answers abound. Follow Candice’s steps beyond the threshold of the rational mind to receive powerful messages that eagerly await you!” ~ Medical Intuitive John Kortum, author of The Kortum Technique


"In the spirit of Carl Jung's Red Book and Philip K. Dick's Exegesis, Candice Sanderson recounts her inner experiences and thoughts in an easy-going narrative that gradually moves readers beyond physical reality. The Reluctant Messenger outlines the progression of her spiritual development, from an initial apprehension of the unknown to the cultivation of an openness that leads her to becoming a "messenger" heralding the raising of human consciousness. Her book also introduces and explains concepts such as the nature of vibration and energy and how time is perceived. Her most touching description though is being shown how to acknowledge the spiritual life within a plant before cutting one of its flowers. The Reluctant Messenger is an interesting read and one with the ability to teach its readers new things about the world in which we live." ~ Mark Hunter Brooks, author of Christianity from a Different Perspective


"An unlikely messenger stumbles across a vast expanse of enlightenment when a singular message of insight and intrigue drops into her mind, literally out of the blue, on the way to her day job as a psychologist. Her traditional training in conventional psycho-analytics did not prepare her for the turn of events that would suddenly alter her life and understanding of all-that-is, forever. She hadn’t asked for it, didn’t seek it and certainly wasn’t expecting it, but she was compelled to explore the ever-stranger turn of psychic events that were happening to her seemingly of their own volition. Intrigued by a voice she knew was not hers, delivering a message of wisdom she knew she could not have made up, Candice Sanderson made a decision to pick up the thread and follow it. Little did she know that following that thread would lead her into immense regions of universal consciousness imparting wisdom – wisdom that would not only impact her but also transform those around her – and reveal astounding knowledge. With an easy narrative that is right away invitational and informative, Sanderson, with the help of her Guides, parts the veil of existential mysteries and reveals them as practical, down-to-earth truths. Reading The Reluctant Messenger sheds light on the mystery and weirdness of why we exist in the first place. This book is instantly approachable and ultimately satisfying as an exposé of what it means to be human on this planet at this time, in this age." ~ Laurin Bellg, M.D., author of Near Death in the ICU, Amazon #1 Best Seller


"The Reluctant Messenger is a gift from a spiritual dimension. You will not find this unique perspective elsewhere. As I process passages from each chapter, I notice that references are beginning to weave into my life, and I can really feel my creativity igniting, visually like a quiet steady sparkler from July 4th. Reading this book could be the bridge to your expanded consciousness!” ~ Gayle Santone, Tampa, FL


“Incredible! Candie Sanderson's book, The Reluctant Messenger, is a fascinating exploration into spiritual realms.” ~ Maria Ashmore, Psychologist


“Be prepared for a complete and radical change in the way you view reality.” ~ Allyn Evans, President/Executive Director of Monroe Institute  Monroe Institute, Founder of Energy Medicine Squared


5 Star Review by Deborah Lloyd for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger: Tales From Beyond Belief


"Understanding human consciousness more deeply is a common quest, yet it is not uncommon for books to present the topic in terms too complex for readers to grasp. This book is different as the topic is explained in clear and comprehensible terms. Author Candice M. Sanderson shares her spiritual awakening journey in the uplifting book, The Reluctant Messenger - Tales from Beyond Belief: An ordinary person’s extraordinary journey into the unknown. Working as a school psychologist, the author shares how her seemingly ordinary life transforms into one of amazing synchronicities and life lessons. 

The messages that she receives from The Muses Within are both universal and personal; she learns to see the significance of many events within her own life. A thorough explanation of energy and vibration, as well as messages pertaining to Candice’s family, are shared. From interacting with angels at her husband’s death to information about her little granddaughters, these personal experiences add to the genuineness of her story.

The authentic voice within this book is its greatest quality. Candice writes in an easy to read flowing style, often starting her writing with a cup of coffee in hand or pulling out her cellphone to record a new message from The Muses. Although the imparted information is vitally important, the reader learns it is also accessible to all people. And, it may be imparted in unexpected ways. The Reluctant Messenger by Candice M. Sanderson provides exceptional insights into the oneness of all. It truly is a gem and will benefit all spiritual seekers."


5 Star Review by Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger: Tales From Beyond Belief

"The Reluctant Messenger by Candice M. Sanderson, treated as a trustworthy contributor to the massive influx of spiritual guidance offered by transcendent sources, is most noteworthy for both its precision and its incisiveness, as well as its inclusiveness. Most seasoned spiritual seekers in this time of rapid “download” and energetic transformation are at least tangentially familiar with the basic topics Ms. Sanderson addresses. That this author is the active recipient of much non-verbal knowledge and somewhat esoteric information (at first, a rather unwilling participant, to say the least,) speaks to the extremely difficult task she then assumes of presenting a great deal of complex information clearly to the public while also making it highly accessible to the lay reader. She fulfills her task perfectly.

Reminiscent of the massive coverage given to these subjects by Dolores Cannon, The Reluctant Messenger mirrors some of the same information whereby Candice M. Sanderson derives and lends further credibility, such as: the effect of energy frequency and vibration on personal transformation, the nature of consciousness in all living and material forms, the relevance of angels and other higher beings in a perceptible global transformation, the prophetic qualities of ancestral wisdom traditions and teachings, not to mention the purely personal transformative guidance consequent to ego-surrender, compassion, and sincere prayer. Told with down-to-earth clarity and candid revelation, even when Ms. Sanderson expects a reception of ridicule (e.g. for those fairies and elementals referenced by her transcendent tutors,) her book makes a great primer for anyone wanting to explore deeper issues of spiritual guidance and transformation."


5 Star Review by Mamta Madhavan for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger: Tales From Beyond Belief


"The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Journey Into The Unknown by Candice M. Sanderson is a fascinating book about the epic, life-changing journey of the author while being a conduit for spiritual messages. This book reveals the story of incredible tales from beyond belief that invite us to consider that we are actually more spiritual than physical. Apart from unfolding her own personal journey, the book shares the messages received by Candice, copied straight from her journals and transcribed from her recordings. The cosmic patterns, communicating with spirits, and the awareness that true life is timeless and formless will make you wonder about what exists beyond this universe.

The book is a must-read for readers who are curious to learn more about spirituality, awakening, and enlightenment. The author’s perception about human consciousness and spiritual understanding are both profound and insightful and will give readers a different spiritual journey. The author’s experiences are proof of the indelible link that exists between the two worlds. The book gives hope to readers about how dreams can open doors to these magical realms filled with boundless ideas which will help to bring positive change for all humanity, and sometimes the valuable lessons that can be learned through these dreams can be enriching.

I found the book enlightening and I thought it makes a good read for all those who are planning to embark on a spiritual journey. The author’s words and experiences will make readers reflect, contemplate, and introspect as they seek for answers to their questions and ponder about the spiritual dimensions that exist."


5 Star Review by Tommy Wong for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm


The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm by Candice M. Sanderson is an unexpected spiritual book from a trained psychologist. Candice Sanderson was taught to only trust her physical senses. Yet in 2013, her life changed as she started to receive messages from spirits. Candice Sanderson published the messages in her first book The Reluctant Messenger - Tales from Beyond Belief in 2018. The Reluctant Messenger Returns is the second book in which Candice Sanderson chronicles the messages. Candice Sanderson wrote, “Many messages from both this and my first book become more relevant and significant when viewed through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In The Reluctant Messenger Returns, there are many messages from the angels, which are presented in italics and sometimes with a date on top of a message. Candice Sanderson narrates the physical circumstances in which these messages are related. I like this presentation style as it is easy to link the angels’ messages with the physical circumstances. The messages are deep and profound and many are related to death, afterlife, and life review. There are 11 chapters and one bonus chapter at the end of The Reluctant Messenger Returns. The book is well organized and well written. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, The Reluctant Messenger Returns is uplifting and a good book to read. Candice Sanderson wrote, “COVID-19 is a wake-up call for humanity; it offers us a reset, a do-over. As our planet creeps toward a spiritual tipping point, opportunities arise for us to reinvent ourselves.” The Reluctant Messenger Returns is definitely recommended to those who are interested in discovering spiritual messages from the spirit world.


5 Star Review by Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm


The rewarding consequence of having read Candice M. Sanderson’s first installment of spiritual messages, The Reluctant Messenger, is the ability to appreciate the evolution of her (and the reader’s) understanding of the higher dimensional messages in her timely sequel, The Reluctant Messenger Returns. As if the revelations in the first volume had time to pervade and settle, thus allowing an expanded capacity for knowledge and guidance as more cogent information appeared. In a satisfying manner, Ms. Sanderson presents the material in a non-sequential but perfectly organized construct designed to mimic or reflect the actual manner in which Earth lessons are applied to spiritual growth. In so doing, she is not embarrassed to co-habit her explanations with both classically potent images (angels, religious figures, mythical entities) and modern scientific models (energetics, medical and psychological rationales.) This adds relevancy for the contemporary reader/student.

Perhaps the best example of Candice M. Sanderson’s escalating spiritual revelations in The Reluctant Messenger Returns, as if one is progressing from high school into college, is her deeper understanding of “The Life Review”, a process described in many books about the transition into death. While most have accepted the reality of this experience, Ms. Sanderson offers a more potent, cogent, and ultimately acceptable spiritual rationale for why it is necessary. It is not a judgment. It performs a vital, tangible operation required for further advancement on the non-physical plane. In the end, with the intelligence and diligence Ms. Sanderson brings to inviting, accepting, and sharing the messages she receives, her books are elevated to mandatory reading for spiritual matriculation.


5 Star Review by Deborah Lloyd for Readers’ Favorite
The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm


Candice M. Sanderson has written her second book detailing her spiritual journey. She is a recently retired school psychologist from Florida who shares her amazing story in the nonfictional work, The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm. She started to receive messages and visions from the angels after a miraculous physical healing. Being a person who liked to journal, she was able to connect these new messages with writings she had done years earlier. One example of this was an unforgettable encounter she had with two men in the hospital while her husband was in the ICU. Her curious nature led her to do research on the messages and visions, confirming their meanings. Some topics in this book include the spiritual transition team that meets the dying, earth fairies, the Seraphim angels, and sacred geometry.

While this book details one woman’s journey, there are many lessons for all people who seek spiritual growth and healing. Her openness and her quest to understand the beings, images, and symbols she experienced guided her into unforeseen growth. The organized way she presents the information develops an easy-to-read flow as she connects past writings with recent experiences. Additionally, she writes in an understandable, down-to-earth manner, engaging the reader from the first page to the last. Also included are messages of hope during these challenging times. The personal chronicle, The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm, penned by Candice M. Sanderson, is a fascinating, insightful read. It is a book to be read several times to capture all the knowledge within it!


5 Star Review  by James V. Jordan for Turning Leaf Books
The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure into the Angelic Realm


Paul Gauguin famously wrote these words in paint on his painting of the same title: D’où Venons Nous/ Que Sommes Nous/ Où Allons Nous— Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? These ontological questions have been asked since before the beginning of recorded history and there have been many attempts to answer them spirituality (including religiously) and empirically (scientifically), or both. The first category requires faith: an emotional experience buttressed by strong beliefs. The second requires perception by one or more of our physical senses: which may be intellectually rewarding but emotionally satisfying? perhaps not so much.

No one, other than Moses himself, for example, saw G-D speaking to him in the form of a burning bush that didn’t burn—a supernatural phenomenon. But Moses’ account has been accepted literally, rejecting disbelief, or metaphorically (the fire representing G-D’s anger). And so it is with the wonderfully written second memoir of psychologist Candice M. Sanderson, The Reluctant Messenger Returns. She writes of supernatural experiences. There is much to be gained whether the reader chooses to accept them literally or as metaphor.

This book and its prequel, The Reluctant Messenger, chronicle the spiritual journey first taken by Ms. Sanderson many years ago, perhaps beginning when she met two angels (though she didn’t recognize them as such at the time) on the day of and shortly before the death of her beloved husband Daryl in 1987. After Daryl’s death Ms. Sanderson moved to the city of Naples in southwest Florida where she worked as a school psychologist until her retirement June 2018. In retirement she’s divided her time between the study of various forms of meditation and spirituality, caring part time for her granddaughters, and writing her memoirs in astonishing short periods of time, inspired by nonphysical muses who brought and to this day bring her spiritually uplifting messages and information about people transitioning from their former physical life on earth to the nonphysical life that is beyond this one.

If readers accept on faith the telling by Ms. Sanderson of her supernatural spiritual experiences or if they are willing to suspend their disbelief until the end of The Return, they will be rewarded with beautiful portrayals of and fascinating insights into being and consciousness.

Ms. Sanderson recognizes her muses as messengers in The Reluctant Messenger but comes to understand and describe many of them as angels in the sequel, the subject of this review: The Reluctant Messenger Returns. The messengers (angels) had been speaking to Ms. Sanderson since 2013, and she recorded what they said. When she retired from her school psychologist career, Ms. Sanderson began organizing the messages into a flowing (flowering Ms. Sanderson might say) coherence, culminating, as I’ve said, with her personal understandings of being and consciousness that the angels revealed to her.

The nexus of the origins of modern psychology in America and spiritualism has a remarkable pedigree. William James and his student at Harvard, G. Stanley Hall, are referred to interchangeably as the fathers of American psychology. Hall considered Mrs. Leona Piper, well known at that time in Boston, to be “without question the most eminent American medium.” This was not meant as a compliment, he said, yet he often patronized Mrs. Piper who in séances related to him the welfare of his deceased wife and daughter.

In 1885, shortly after the deaths of his infant son and his famous father, James first visited Piper. In a trance, Piper related to James the wellbeing of his son and gratitude from his father for publishing his papers. In her March 27, 2011 article in The New Yorker titled “Twilight,” Harvard professor of history, Jill Lapore, wrote of Hall and James’s visits to Piper “In grief, solace, in death, life.” In this article, Professor Lepore quotes Hall writing of Piper’s hold on James: “For years she has been the more or less private oracle of one of our leading and very influential psychologists . . .”

In his volume of lectures titled The Varieties of Religious Experience James writes that “the ordinary religious believer” of mainstream modern religions—and he mentions Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism—that “His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit.” Whereas the founders of these and most other religions had unique supernatural spiritual experiences from raising the dead, as Jesus did, to listening to angels if not directly to God. Today when people relate supernatural experiences, even if they are spiritual, all too often they are denounced as deluded, as Hall said of Piper despite his repeated visits to her, or even pathological, as James said of the founder of the Quaker religion, George Fox, even though Moses spoke directly to God.

The foregoing is to say that Ms. Sanderson’s experiences with the supernatural can be or become foundational ontological inquiry for those who choose to stand upon it.

I have purchased and read a print version, and purchased and listened to the audio version of The Reluctant Messenger Returns. The audio narration is excellent: pitch perfect, just the right tonality in a vibrant and clear performance that is bound to draw the listener into this book and reward him or her as it builds to its astonishing ending of experiences and insights of consciousness and being.

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The Reluctant Messenger Second Edition is available on Amazon. Click here to PURCHASE NOW.
Click here for Book Notes and Free Excerpt.


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“This extraordinary book begins with a medical miracle that transformed the author from skeptic to believer. It highlights the author’s profound journey into the angelic realm and is rich with loving messages of encouragement and healing for humanity. An uplifting book, perfect for uncertain times like now with the Coronavirus pandemic.” — Rajiv Parti, M.D., Near-Death Experience expert and author of Dying to Wake Up,


"In this inspiring book, Candice Sanderson receives visions and guidance from non-physical beings and shares their communications of hope and healing that have contributed to her awakening." — William Buhlman, leading authority on out-of-body experiences, author of international Best Seller Adventures Beyond the Body


“A poignant book for these quickly changing times, filled with meaningful and uplifting messages.” — Scott M. Taylor, Ed.D., former President/Executive Director of Monroe Institute


 

The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm is available on Amazon. Click here to PURCHASE NOW.
Click here for Book Notes and Free Excerpt.


"The Reluctant Messenger is a poignant and brave recounting of Candice Sanderson's unexpected intuitive awakening. As these extraordinary senses begin to emerge in ordinary people, a book like this becomes an invaluable guide and source of confirmation to everyday people.” 

Rev. Renee Bledsoe, Founder/Minister Church of Spiritual Light