ParaviewTV.com Web Site

Sandra Martin

Sandra Martin

My life has been an all encompassing passion for understanding who I am, why I’m here, (and how did I happen to be born on a farm when God obviously knew that wasn’t working for me), and a formidable interest in the unknown. My Mom gave me a book about Edgar Cayce when I was 18 and I’ve not looked back since. And I always liked to integrate what I’d been reading by writing about it in my journals. Then there were those extraordinary people who changed my life, like Dr. George Ritchie — he got a lot of pages. Mostly I journaled my own inner hopes and dreams.

My life as a literary agent catered to the deeply spiritual, the world of the unknown and the proudly weird; Jesus and Mary, Angels and Archangels, Wicca, Metaphysicians, Ghosts, Psychic Healers, Mediums, Remote Viewers, your mainstream Psychics (by the dozens), Astrologers (by the dozens) and every Self-Help maven known to man/woman (by the thousands). They all walked through the door of my office at 52nd and Broadway in New York City.

Editors and publishers are the smartest people I’ve ever met. They change jobs often to move up the publishing ladder, which means they could be buying romance books one day and book proposals on ancient history the next. Because they read many varied manuscripts and proposals they are a wealth of
knowledge. They were my teachers in the literary business. Some of them gave me great insights and a few were generous with their knowledge of how the business worked and who did what and who was interested in what subjects.  I couldn’t have made it without them.

The heart and soul of me is my never ending curiosity; my willingness to listen to experiences very different from my own, as well as my deep and abiding love of extraordinary people and their stories. With my feet planted firmly on terra firma, I am unafraid to walk to the edge of the cliff, but I refuse to step over into thin air waiting for the magic to happen. I know that life is about the journey, the hard work, the sacrifice and if all goes well the rewards. I am fascinated by the sidebars of life, the “creating your own universe” belief system. I’ve seen that work so many times. And then again, for some people nothing worked; affirmations, charms and potions, magic incantations-nothing.

Initially I was more interested in selling books about the science of the paranormal. I think I was trying to figure out for myself what makes us tick. I visited parapsychologists at Princeton University, The Rhine in Durham, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences in San Francisco. These were dedicated scientists-men and women-who’d chosen the hard road of science. One of the books I agented and valued most was The Conscious Universe; The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena by Dean Radin, Ph.D.

As a literary agent my job was to discern whether what authors were saying was valid and real, and whether they deserved an agent and book deal. It helped to learn the back-story of these writer’s lives, how they came to their particular book subject, why they choose to go out on a limb and write. I saw its effect on their lives and more importantly, the effect on the lives of the people who read their books, listened to their lectures and watched them on television.

My office was in mid-town Manhattan. It was a busy, professional typical office suite but with a twist; I had posters of the Moon and Stonehenge, crystals, and strange little pyramids that you’d wear on your head to energize you when you got tired. The walls were lined with the framed covers of the books I’d sold; Your Nostradamus Factor, Healing from Within, Chasing Down the Dawn, Rule by Secrecy, The Supermarket Sorceress, Cosmic Voyage, Psychic Warrior, The Coming Global Superstorm, and they changed each month.

Authors would often come to my office and pitch their book idea or to demonstrate their ability. I’d ask lots of hard questions. Finally they’d say, “I thought you were on our side, a believer?” “I am,” I’d say.

I’d go to a publishing house to pitch a book to an editor and they’d say, “Oh, Sandra, you just believe all these weird things.”

“No, I don’t.” I’d reply thinking, sometimes you just can’t win. I tried to be realistic, practical, and understanding but not gullible or stupid. Often I was misunderstood by both sides. After a while though, editors would call me, with questions: have you ever heard of this psychic or researcher; are they the real thing? What do you think? Should I buy this book? So many books were published because an editor, who knew nothing about the field, except it was a growing wildfire, bought a book because I’d had lunch with the author, or listened to a lecture. We needed all the encouragement we could generate-and I was more than willing to help.

I felt (and still feel) strongly that mainstream Americans were searching for an expanded understanding of who they were in a universal sense, what it means to be human, how they connect to each other; they were looking to expand their boundaries, and were searching for deeper spirituality. They wanted to explore the unknown; to go where their parents never ventured.

Every mother and all lovers know that we are psychic to some degree, that we are all entangled.  Science is just now catching up to explaining it. I sold books that proclaimed our connection to a greater reality.

Posted by Admin on 12/11/09 in the Who We Are category