Historical Near-Death Experiences
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The Sunday School Teacher
Date: Prior to March, 1907. Location: Greeley, Colorado. The following case is a very important one, because the percipient did not know his teacher was dead. Unfortunately the mother took an unreasonable position in regard to narrating the facts. The state of mind of religious people on such a matter is incomprehensible, except on the…
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Mrs. S. B. L.
Date: January 19, 1909Location: New Smyrna, Florida Prof. James, Dear Sir:— Seven years ago in the Castle grounds at Marburg an old student of yours, during conversation, remarked, “I don’t want to die, I want to be alive.” I looked at him in amazement (he was studying theology) and replied: “Why, don’t you know that…
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W. Martin
Date: Circa, 1911. Location: Liverpool, UK. Graphic and unusual details of an out-of-body experience are given by W. Martin of 107 Grove Street, Liverpool, in a letter published in the Sunday Express of May 26th, as one of an interesting series dealing with Reincarnation. “In 1911 at the age of sixteen,” Mr. Martin writes, “I…
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Ms. A.B.C.’s Experience
Being(s) of Light, Bliss, Expanded Perception (Field of View), Near Death Experience, OBE (Out-of-Body Experience)Date: Undetermined (Prior to 1914) Location: Undetermined (Probably England) One morning, about 11 a.m., after seeing my child off for a walk with its nurse, I lay on the sofa resting and reading, when suddenly, without any warning, a heart attack came on. As on many previous occasions, the pain, which was negligible, gave way…
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Captain Gilbert Nobbs – Left on the Battlefield
Bliss, Ineffability, Mental Communication, Near Death Experience, OBE (Out-of-Body Experience), Paradoxical Lucidity, Silence, Transformative ExperienceDate: July, 1916 (Battle of the Somme) Location: Trônes Wood, Somme, France I was wounded! I was blind! But the moments that followed are clear in my memory. The brain shocked by a blow works quickly and actively in its excited effort to hold its own. I was quite conscious and thinking clearly: I knew…
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Mrs. Brown & Mr. Auchterlonie
Date: Circa. 1918Location: Undetermined, UK. “Some interesting cases of visions seen by dying persons are given in a little book by Mrs. Joy Snell, who was a nurse in a large hospital, and the cases she narrates are her own personal experiences, and not narratives related at second-hand. Mrs. Snell seems to be a careful…
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The “Material Envelope”
Being(s) of Light, Contradictory Experience, Impossible Knowledge, Irrelevance of Time, Near Death Experience, OBE (Out-of-Body Experience), Paradoxical LucidityDate: January 31, 1920 Location: St. Martin, Guernsey (Channel Islands, U.K.) 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…
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Jean Vitalis
Date: Undetermined (Pub. 1921)Location: Undetermined (France?) [Translated from French] Dr. W.C., of Seranyn, in his work: Contribution to the Study of certain unacknowledged cerebral faculties, reports the following fact, which he personally observed during his long medical career: Jean Vitalis was a robust, stout, sanguine man, married, childless, enjoying perfect health. He must have been…
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Mr. William Crowell Edgar
Bliss, Contradictory Experience, Near Death Experience, Paradoxical Lucidity, Transformative ExperienceDate: Circa 1923. Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA. This is the true story of an operation for cancer. The writer, Mr. W. C. Edgar, of 1208 Second Avenue South, Minneapolis, is a well-known journalist. The incident described took place five years ago: since then he has had no return of the symptoms, and may be considered…
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Ms. K. E. Dodd’s Sister
Being(s) of Light, Bliss, Following Path, Home, Ineffability, Near Death Experience, OBE (Out-of-Body Experience), Paradoxical LucidityDate: Undetermined, (Prior to 1928.) Location: King’s Heath, Birmingham. The following is a record of a vision experienced by a lady a few hours before her death. It is sent us by Miss K. E. Dodd of King’s Heath, Birmingham, who says that her sister, the lady in question, was so impressed with her experience…
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Mrs. F. Shepherd
Date: Undetermined. (Prior to 1934). Location: Undetermined. A correspondent, Mrs. F. Shepherd, sends un an account of the following out-of-the-body experience. “I had had a severe shock,” she writes, “when I suddenly noticed that I was breathing in a strange way, and with the last conscious breath I found myself slipping out of the top…
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Tales of Mrs. L. Hemingway
Date: Undetermined, (Prior to 1935) Location: India. Your recent article in Light regarding Mr. Puckering, who “died” and recovered, and who, during that period, visited, he thought, the spirit-world, recalls a similar experience of mine. I was not “dead,” but all hope of life had gone, and during unconscious state I visited what I thought…
The Katabasis Project 