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.
