Angel band

The recent publication of Glimpses of Eternity by Raymond Moody and Paul Perry has raised awareness of what the authors call "shared death experiences." These are cases in which the visions of the dying person are shared by someone close by. As the authors point out, stories of this type have circulated for many years. Several of them are found in the 1918 book The Ministry of Angels: Here and Beyond, by Joy Snell. (Amazon sells a new edition.) 

Snell, who apparently manifested psychic powers from an early age, worked for a while at a hospital, where she was frequently in attendance on the dying. She records various instances of what we might now call SDEs. 

Here are some examples from the book. Though written in the florid style that was conventional at the time, they match up pretty well with the more modern accounts collected by Moody:

But whether the deaths I witnessed were peaceful or painful, preceded or not preceded by the recognition of some one from the other world, always, immediately after the physical life had ceased, I saw the spirit form take shape above the dead body, in appearance a glorified replica of it. However painful might have been the last hours, however protracted and wasting the illness, no trace of suffering or disease appeared upon the radiant spirit face. Striking, at times, was the contrast which it presented to the human features, pain-distorted and deep-furrowed by suffering.... [p. 40]

It was about six months after I began to work at a hospital that it was revealed to me that the dying often really do see those who have come from the realms of spirit life to welcome them on their entrance into another state of existence.

The first time that I received this ocular proof was at the death of L------, a sweet girl of seventeen, who was a personal friend of mine. She was a victim of consumption [tuberculosis]. She suffered no pain, but the weariness that comes from extreme weakness and debility was heavy upon her and she yearned for rest.

A short time before she expired I became aware that two spirit forms were standing by the bedside, one on either side of it. I did not see them enter the room; they were standing by the bedside when they first became visible to me, but I could see them as distinctly as I could any of the human occupants of the room. In my own thoughts I have always called these bright beings from another world, angels, and as such I shall hereafter speak of them. I recognized their faces as those of two girls who had been the closest friends of the girl who was dying. They had passed away a year before and were then about her own age.

Just before they appeared the dying girl exclaimed: "It has grown suddenly dark; I cannot see anything!" But she recognized them immediately. A smile, beautiful to see, lit up her face. She stretched forth her hands and in joyous tones exclaimed: "Oh, you have come to take me away! I am glad, for I am very tired."...

[The girl expired very shortly afterward, still smiling at the "angels."]

The two angels remained by the bedside during the brief space that elapsed before the spirit form took shape above the body in which the physical life had ceased. Then they rose and stood for a few moments one on each side of her, who was now like unto themselves. And three angels went from the room where, a short time before, there had been only two. [pp. 41-43]

[Later, Snell recounts the case of a dying father reunited with his previously deceased son.]

Then again I witnessed what had now become a familiar spectacle to me -- the formation of the spirit body above the discarded earthly body. When it was complete the angel child clasped the hand of the now angel father, each gazed into the eyes of the other with an expression of the tenderest affection, and with faces aglow with joy and happiness they vanished. [pp. 46-47]

For similar accounts from a little earlier in history, see my posts on Andrew Jackson Davis here and here.

Such narratives, in themselves, may not prove anything, but the fact that people have been reporting these phenomena pretty consistently for a hundred years or more ought to suggest that something is going on. After all, it's unlikely that most of Moody's informants had ever heard of Joy Snell or other early Spiritualist writers.

It might be argued that the imagery of a spirit form taking shape above a dying person while attended by angels is simply part of the Western mythos, and as such it finds expression in hallucinations. There are at least two responses to this argument: First, one would expect much greater variation in the reports than there seems to be (e.g., appearances by Jesus or the Virgin Mary, etc.); and second, how did this mythos develop in the first place, if not through SDEs, NDEs, and similar events? 

Comments

[Kris]

They are really really difficult to shove into the dying brain explanation for obvious reasons.

[Art]

Thanks Michael, I LOVE stories like these. Very comforting. I loved Glimpses of Eternity by the way. I first read about it on your blog. I also just finished reading Chris Carter's new book. It was a bit more work to wade through and not as uplifting as Glimpses of Eternity.

Being honest I like "story books" about life after death more than books written trying to defend it. I'm long past the need to be convinced anymore. I figure that anyone is free to read what is out there and make up their own minds. What keeps coming to my mind is the William James quote about one white crow.

[Matt Rouge]

Very interesting, thanks!

[Hjortron]

Yes, Art, I'm completely with you that I'm also waaaay past wondering whether the afterlife exists, as I've even had a actual SDE myself last November (although mine was in the middle of the night the night my grandfather on my mother's side passed away). It was like being awoken into a presence for 10 seconds, and it was very evidential in that he died in a hospital 450 km away, and no one knew he had even died when he came to visit me :'D

I'm looking forward to reading this book as well :)

[Art]

It just seems so pointless to keep arguing about it. Skeptics stay skeptical and believers keep believing. If someone wants to examine all the evidence it's out there. I didn't really develop an interest in it till around the year 2000 when I was all ready 47 years old. I had developed pretty painful arthritis and my back hurt me and I think that awakened my sense of mortality. I had also started watching John Edward's Crossing Over on TV and he said some things that really blew me away. Some of his "readings" were amazing. For instance he told two girls he was reading that he was talking to their grandmother and he was seeing an old Victrola and the girls told him that it was one of her most prized possessions. Another time he was talking to some guy and he was hearing Portuguese and hearing the name Fernando and come to find out his father, whom he didn't know, had moved to Brazil and learned Portuguese and lived on an island named Fernando. It was through that reading with John Edward that he learned he had two half sisters living Germany and the story about his father. It really was neat. I also saw George Anderson give some readings on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries and he was absolutey awesome. George Anderson is the real deal. I think he is even better than John Edward. So I started reading about NDEs on the internet and that led me to Michael Talbot's book about The Holographic Universe and I learned about the connection between NDEs and the holographic universe and quantum physics and I read a bunch of popular physics books like Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos and Dr. Fred Alan Wolf's book The Spiritual Universe and it was like pieces of a giant puzzle falling into place. Then I read Sir William Barrett's book Death Bed Visions and I fell in love with Death Bed Visions because they are so heart warming. And by the way if you want to read a really good uplifting and comforting book read Peter Fenwick's book The Art of Dying. It's great.

[No One]

"....I fell in love with Death Bed Visions because they are so heart warming."

Not always heart warming. Sometimes they are terrifying and leave the impression that the poor soul experiencing them is fighting to avoid being dragged off into hell.

[J9]

I wish this sort of thing happenned to everyone. When my 40 year old former college roommate died last January, I grilled her poor husband who had sat vigil at her deathbed in the hospital about whether she saw anything or said anything at the end that would have lead him to believe she was seeing something from beyond. But all she said all day were things like "I'm going to walk with the Lord tonight". I did see a fox in my front yard around the time she died. I had never seen a fox before, and I haven't seen it since.

[W Vogt]

My wife died at 3:05 in the morning. Precisely when she died a very large, bushy fox appeared in our front yard, stared at the front door for a few moments and then moved on off into the night. To our knowledge this had never happened before and has not happened since. Foxes are not often seen in our neighborhood.

[Wendy Cousins]

Screen goddess Ingrid Bergman apparently saw her mother (who died when she was 3) shortly before she died, according to a striking story told by her daughter Isabella Rossellini reported in the Times newspaper (March 18 2007)and quoted below:

***************************************
(On the last day of her life, the morning of her 67th birthday, Ingrid saw her mother again. Her daughter Isabella recounted: “Even before she opened her eyes, she felt this awesome presence in the room, and she knew immediately who it was. She knew she was dying, because she saw her own mother sitting at the make-up table. Her mother was facing the mirror, and she didn’t turn. She was young and lovely, in her early thirties. The mother Mama never really knew was there, and Mama understood why. Her mother had been a joyful young woman there to rejoice at Mama’s first birthday, and she was there to be at Mama’s last birthday, to make it easier for her. Mama said, ‘My mother has come for me, to take me with her.’ That night, Mama died.”)
*****************************************

[Kathleen]

I've never seen a wild fox (unfortunately), but shortly after my mother's passing, I was driving late one night, and saw, in suburbia, a small herd of deer on someone's front lawn. They weren't just grazing, but kind of romping around. It was a very unusual sight for this area, to say the least. My mother loved deer, they were her "special animal."

[Art]

There is a red fox that lives underneath the old storage house across the street from us. It comes in our back yard and eats leftover catfood off a big flat rock.

My wife has two old geriatric cats that leave a lot of food and I scrape it off the cat bowls and dump it on a rock out back. We live in the woods in the county and are surrounded by hardwood trees. There are also quite a few raccoons in the woods surrounding us and we see them every once in a while. I've also got some pictures that I took of a red fox and her fox puppies up near Lake Hartwell in Georgia. They were living under a pile of large boulders up near the dam.

I'm not a big city person at all and much prefer rural areas with lots of trees and creeks and lakes and streams and ponds and stuff like that. If I see lots of wild animals and birds it looks healthy to me and makes me feel good. I really don't like big cities at all.

[Michael Tymn]

Another old book with some interesting shared death experiences is the 1863 publication, "From Matter to Spirit" by Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan. She was the wife of the famous British mathematician Augustus De Morgan, who wrote the Preface to the book.Reproductions of the book are available at bookfinder.com

Just watched the first "I survived -- Beyond and Back" on the BIO channel. It had some first-hand accounts of some very intriguing NDEs, including one in which a woman in a car accident with her friend said she saw her friend's spirit leave her body and then joined her in the tunnel and accompanied her into the light, at which point she was told she had to return while the friend had to stay.

The program was very well done.
The series continues next Sunday night. Some are just titled "I survived" and are not necessarily NDEs. I believe the "Beyond and Back" is attached to the NDE stories.

[Forrest]

An online paper by Peter Fenwick on "dying as a spiritual process" is available as a PDF download here:

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/PDF/PFenwickNearDeath.pdf

[Art]

I also watched Beyond and Back on Bio last night. Too many commercials and they kept repeating the story - like I hadn't been there to see the first part of it? The woman from New York was very expressive and animated and captured some of the essence of the experience in her description. I actually liked her.

So after the program was over the Bio channel immediately started into reruns from similar programs last year that I hadn't seen so I started watching that and then realized that I could stay up till 3:00 am in the morning watching life after death stuff so I just turned on record on our DVD recorder and went to sleep! I'll watch some more today - and also the season finale of Boardwalk Empire with Steve Buscemi On Demand. Boardwalk Empire comes on at the same time as Dexter so we watch Dexter in real time and I watch Boardwalk Empire On Demand. I know you wanted to know that! {grin!} and now I don't have a job or have to go to work! I'm an old geezer and I'm retired.....

[Ginny]

I recommend the Biography Channel for psi programming generally.

[Ronnie Lee]

Today Skeptiko has released a new interview featuring Chris Carter.

[Ronnie Lee]

Woops, forgot to post the link: http://www.skeptiko.com/chris-carter-tackles-near-death-experience-science/

[l-arginine]

Thanks a lot for sharing. You have done a brilliant job. Your article is truly relevant to my study at this moment, and I am really happy I discovered your website. However, I would like to see more details about this topic.

[john]

I think the fact that a nurse or someone unrelated to the person in transition is sharing these visions precludes the possibility of "hallucinations", since they could not possibly have the same subjective emotional feelings of monumental loss family members, lovers or dear friends would.