Historical examples of near-death experiences

Atwater writes: “Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall Plantation in Virginia freed more slaves than anyone else in American history. He claims to have died, gone to heaven, and talked with God. He set slaves free because of that encounter—what we now call a near-death experience.[1] History is rife with such cases. Don’t think for one moment that the phenomenon is only of modern vintage.

“The oldest recorded English account of a near-death experience was provided by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century. It concerns a Northumbrian by the name of Dythelm who suddenly arose from his deathbed after a light-filled experience, then proceeded to give away all his earthly possessions so he could join a monastery in service to others.[2]

“Thanks to Donald R. Morse, DDS, Ph.D., we also have the story of Dr. A. S. Wiltse, a physician of Skiddy, Kansas, who in 1889, died of typhoid fever. He was without pulse for four hours, in a state of ‘apparent death’ for half an hour. Said the good doctor when he returned to life: ‘With all the interest of a physician, I beheld the wonders of my bodily anatomy, intimately interwoven with which, even tissue for tissue, was I, the living soul of that dead body. I learned that the epidermis was the outside boundary of the ultimate tissues, so to speak, of the soul. I realized my condition and reasoned calmly thus. I have died, as men term death, and yet I am as much a man as ever. I am about to get out of the body. I watched the interesting process of the separation of soul and body. By some power, apparently not my own, the Ego was rocked to and fro, laterally, as a cradle is rocked, by which process its connection with the tissues of the body was broken up. After a little time the lateral motion ceased, and along the soles of the feet beginning at the toes, passing rapidly to the heels, I felt and heard, as it seemed, the snapping of the innumerable small cords. When this was accomplished, I began slowly to retreat from the feet, toward the head, as a rubber cord shortens. I remember reaching the hips and saying to myself, Now, there is no life below the hips.’

Wiltse appeared to himself something like a jellyfish in color and form. As he emerged from his head, he saw two women sitting at the head of his physical shell and wondered if there was room for him to stand. ‘As I emerged from the head, I floated up and down and laterally like a soap bubble attached to a bowl of a pipe until I at last broke loose form the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly arose and expanded into the full stature of a man. I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked. With a painful sense of embarrassment, I fled toward the partially opened door to escape the eyes of the two ladies whom I was facing, as well as others who I knew were about me, but reaching the door I found myself clothed, and satisfied upon that point, I turned and faced the company.’

Wiltse did not recognize the two women as his wife and sister, as he had no concept of individuality while outside his body. He wandered outdoors and was overwhelmed by the distinctness of everything he saw. ‘I took note of the redness of the soil and of the washes the rain had made . . . Then I discovered that I had become larger than I was in earth life and congratulated myself thereupon.’ He looked back through the open door, where he could see his body. ‘I discovered then a small cord, like a spider’s web, running from my shoulders (of the spirit body) back to my body and attaching to it at the base of the neck in front (referred to in the Bible as the silver cord).’

A Presence entered his awareness. ‘Yet, although the language was English, it was so eminently above my power to reproduce that my rendition of it is far short of the original. The following is as near as I can render it: This is the road to the eternal world .Yonder rocks are the boundary between the two worlds and the two lives. Once you pass them, you can no more return into the body. If your work is complete on earth, you may pass beyond the rocks. If, however, upon consideration you conclude that it is not done, you can return into the body.’ Wiltse was sorely tempted to cross the boundary, when a black cloud appeared in front of him and stopped his advance. He found himself back in his physical body, wondering, ‘What in the world has happened to me?’[3]

P. M. H. Atwater, Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story (Hampton Roads, 2011).

[1] Larry Buttram, The Curtain Torn (New Virginia Publications, 2009).

[2] Carol Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experiences in Medieval and Modern Times (Oxford University Press, 1987).

[3] Donald R. Morse, “An Old NDE,” Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, vol. 31, no. 3, July 2008.