Category: Transformative Experience
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Mr. William Crowell Edgar
Date: 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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Captain Gilbert Nobbs – Left on the Battlefield
Date: 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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John Huntley
Date: Circa, 1906. Location: Undetermined. About five years ago I woke from sleep to find “myself” clean out of the body, as the kernel of a nut comes out of its shell. I was conscious in two places—in a feeble degree, in the body which was lying in bed on its left side; and to…
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A “Life Experience”
Date: Undetermined,(Prior to April, 1906) Location: Undetermined The “Progressive Thinker” lately reproduced from the “Sunday School Times” a “life experience” written by a valued contributor who, in a letter to the Editor of that journal, said:— “I am dubious about offering this, even as my own enlightening and comforting experience, and yet, because we know…
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Valley of the Shadow of Death
Date: Prior to 1896. Location: Massachusetts, USA [Likely] A man, a clergyman, occupying his pulpit with great acceptance, fell severly ill. Tho’ a clergyman, he had been a man of the world also, strong, alert, fond of mountain and stream, loving the interests, the activities, even the bustle and hustle, the fun and frolic of…
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Infinite
Date: Undetermined, Prior to 1896. Location: Undetermined, Probably East Coast USA. When I read the words of that minister [Gail Hamilton] and others, I recalled my strange journeyings into infinite space, with the vividness of yesterday, though it is now twenty-three years since. I was well, I was in the world and in the body,—suddenly…
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Did You See?
Date: Prior to 1896. Location: Iowa, USA. Several years ago I too had a similar experience and have long wanted some one of sense to see the same things I did that we might compare notes. I am not timid, yet I had not the strength to go over and over the story as I…
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Mr. James J. Kane of the U.S. Navy
Date: Most Likely Summer of 1864Location: Gulf of Mexico The “Daily Mail,” for October 1st, published a remarkable narrative of an experience of passing out of, and return to, the physical body. Mr. James J. Kane, for thirty years chaplain in the United States Navy, says that he had been eight times at the point…
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Mr. F. W. Thurstan: An Anglo-Indian’s Experience
Date: Circa. Early 1860s.Location: Near Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka It was, perhaps, only a dream, but [I] felt it was more than that, and while all other dreams of [my] childhood have vanished, this one forever remained as a real vision of another world to influence [my] career in this one. It came about in…
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Mrs. Watress’s Rose
Date: Prior to October 25, 1852. Location: Worchester, NY?, USA?. Mr. Editor:— While visiting at Mrs. Bassett’s, in Worchester, a married sister of hers, Mrs. Watress, related to me a succinct account of a wonderful and remarkable vision, which she was favored with a few months previous to my visit. One Sunday afternoon, feeling an…
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Dr. Passavant’s Account of a Peasant Boy
Date: Undetermined (Probably mid-19th Century [~1850])Location: Undetermined (Probably in Pennsylvania, US) Dr. Passavant relates the case of a peasant boy, who after a short but painful illness, apparently died, his body being perfectly stiff. He, however, revived, complaining bitterly of being called back to life. He said he had been in a delightful place, and…
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Admiral Francis Beaufort
Date: Circa. 1825Location: Portsmouth Harbour, England The following letter, addressed by Admiral Beaufort to Dr. W. H. Wollaston, giving an account of the feelings of the former when apparently on the very point of death from drowning, was originally published in the Life of the late Sir John Barrow. It will well repay perusal: The…
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Christiane
Date: Circa, 1816. Location: Weinsberg, Germany In September 1820, my daughter Christiane, who was still overwhelmed by an unrelenting longing for her deceased brother, experienced a sudden episode while sitting quietly in the living room. She fell into a deep sleep. During this state, she later described the following vision: ‘I found myself walking along…
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Mrs. Birbeck of Cockermouth
Date: 1739 Location: Cockermouth, UK. In 1739 Mrs. Birbeck, the wife of William Birbeck, banker, of Settle, and a member of the Society of Friends, was taken ill and died at Cockermouth, while returning from a journey to Scotland, which she had undertaken alone—her husband and three children, aged seven, five, and four years respectively,…
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Johann Schwerzeger
Date: 1733Location: Undetermined. UK? In the year 1733 Johann Schwerzeger fell into a state of trance, after an illness, but revived. He said he had seen his whole life, and every sin he had committed, even those he had quite forgotten—everything had been as present to him as when it had happened. He also lamented…
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Thomas Say
Date: Circa, 1725. Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Vision During A State of Coma This case has a resemblance to this vision of Dr. Wiltse, in Proceedings, Vol. VIII. p. 180 (quoted in Human Personality, Vol. II. p. 315), and is still more interesting in that, if the statements given are to be implicitly trusted, the patient…
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Monk of Evesham’s Vision
Date: Circa, 1196. Location: Evesham Abbey, Worcestershire England In those days a monk belonging to the convent of Evesham fell ill, and for fifteen months he was terribly afflicted with bodily pain. Food and drink made him so nauseous that sometimes he would take nothing but the smallest drop of cold water for nine days…
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Vision of Tundale
Date: Circa, 1149. Location: Cork, Ireland. As many inhabitants of the city of Cork, who were present then, may testify, he lay dead for three days and three nights; and later he spoke bitterly of all that he suffered during this period because of his previous easy carelessness, as his present life bore witness. For…
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The Vision of Drythelm
Date: Circa 696 – 699 A.D. Location: Cunningham, Northumbria (Modern day Northern England and Sourthern Scotland) About this time, a noteworthy miracle, like those of olden days, occurred in Britian. For, in order to arouse the living from spiritual death, a man already dead returned to bodily life and related many noteable things that he…
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Peter the Monk (via Gregory the Great)
Date: Prior to 590 A.D. Location: Perhaps Spain? A certain Slav was a monk and lived with me here in this city in my monastery. He used to tell me that when he lived in the wilderness he knew a monk named Peter, who was born in Spain. He lived with him in the vast…
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Vision of Salvius (6th Century Monk)
Date: September 10th, 584 A.D. Location: Modern-day France. Although I am fain to continue this History from the point reached in the foregoing books, a feeling of veneration bids me first say somewhat on the death of the holy Salvius, who died, as is well known, in this year. As he himself used to relate,…
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Thespesius of Soli
Date: During or before 1st century A.D. Location: Soli—Modern day Mezitli, Turkey. Then I spoke as follows:—The Solian, Thespesius, an associate and friend of that Protogenes who was here with us, having led a very dissipated life in his youth, and in a short time squandering his property, for a while on account of his impoverished condition…
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