The “Material Envelope”

H.I.M., who (with the concurrence of Miss Dallas) sends us the following striking narrative of the experience of a dying person, has furnished us with her name and address, but does not wish them published:—

My sister, who was all her life a seeker after truth, has just passed away, and her experience of death was so wonderful that I am writing to tell you about it.

During her lifetime she had studied Free Thought, Spiritualism and Theosophy, but for more than ten years before her death she had been a Roman Catholic, and firmly believed all the dogmas of the faith.

When her end was near, and the doctor thought she had barely a few more hours to live, the priest was sent for, and he administered the last rites. Before he had finished my sister seemed to have passed into complete unconsciousness, and he thought she was rapidly sinking when he left. Her daughter and I watched beside her, her feet and hands were like ice, and for some time it seemed as if every feeble breath must be the last. However, almost imperceptibly the condition changed, the breathing became deeper and better, and when the doctor returned the last thing at night he pronounced that her pulse and respiration were considerably improved.

After a night’s rest, she awoke quite refreshed, and during the day she was able to tell us her wonderful experience.

She said she had found herself slipping out of her material body through the feet, and she stood at the foot of the bed looking back upon her body which she saw lying there, with the heart beating very feebly, like a little flame about to flicker out.

She realised [sp.] herself as being in the spirit and very luminous, like an electric light, and she told us that things are measured there by light and not by time. But most of all she was rejoiced to find herself in full possession of all her mental and spiritual faculties and identity. “It was just me,” she said, “exactly as I am, not any different, only my brain was as keen and vigorous as it used to be when I was young, or even more so.” She was specially elated at feeling her spiritual brain so full of power because in the old days articles in some papers denying the survival of the brain after death had greatly disturbed her, and the remembrance of this made her long to give her testimony on finding for herself that her entire personality had passed out of the material envelope. She longed to make known this experience to all who might have doubts on the subject. “Then,” she said, “I got the chance of returning to my body to tell you, and I took it.”

She was with us for about twenty-four hours after this wonderful experience, and it was her special wish that an account of it should be published. During this time she was able to talk about everything, and to make many arrangements for the comfort of others. She then passed quite peacefully away into that higher life beyond, to which she was so happy to go.”

Light, (June 5, 1920), p. 184.
Light, (July 16, 1921), p. 468.