Although I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not sure about the paranormal, I definitely do believe that a spiritual world exists, peopled by … people! And sometimes, the natural world and the spiritual one seem exceptionally close.
(The rather lengthy book extract that inspired this article is at the end. It’s from Vera Brittain’s autobiographical Testament of Youth, first published in 1933 – a conversation between soldier patients she overheard while working at a French hospital not far from the front line during WW1.)
Two personal experiences: When I visited my husband’s elderly aunt shortly before she died, she mentioned recognising some of the people she saw walking around (although they had died years previously). She was on her own in a small room at a nursing home at the time.
My father-in-law was in hospital, for about the third time in short succession. In fact, he was nearing death though we weren’t sure of that. When he stopped breathing, my husband replaced the small ventilator tubes into his nose, and he did come round, but he said, ‘What? Why am I still here??’
Lori Odhner said, in one of her Marriage Moats, ‘When I was sixteen I heard a voice behind me whisper “You will marry John Odhner.” I turned to see who would dare to say such a thing… and saw no one. I filed the memory in the manilla folder marked ‘Forget it’ and went on about my high school-centric business. Yet five years later, when the same young man started to lasso my attention, I remembered, just barely, and wondered….’
I’ve read many stories of people seeming to be conscious in both worlds at the same time (and of course Swedenborg regularly was) – e.g. in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s On Death and Dying; in Final Gifts written by two hospice nurses. Other people, though not conscious in both worlds at once, report having been to ‘somewhere else’ while to all appearances they had died but were later revived, as in Raymond Moody’s Life After Life and many books written by those who have had near-death experiences.
In the Old and New Testaments, there are many instances of angels appearing to people in this world: to prophets, Moses, Abraham, etc; to many in the Christmas story; and the Lord himself appearing to people after his resurrection.
“Angels, when seen by people…appeared in their own form, which is the human form, not before the sight of men’s bodily eyes, but before the sight of their spirit, which sight was then opened.” Apocalypse Explained 53:2
Does this still happen in our modern age? I think that occasionally it does. In the above instances, and in the quote from Testament of Youth, it seems to occur when people are in dire need of hope, or guidance, or help; or when they are nearing the other world; or perhaps just when they’re thinking deeply. The veil between the two worlds can be very thin. And somehow that gives me hope.
“Perception is nothing else than the speech or thought of the angels who are with a person.” Secrets of Heaven 5228
“And when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’ ” Isaiah 30:21
“Humankind and the heaven of angels make up a single whole and depend on each other mutually and reciprocally for their existence, which means that neither can be parted from the other.” Last Judgement 9
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From Testament of Youth:
‘There’s some mighty queer things happening on the Somme just now, ain’t there, mate?’
‘That there be,’ said the sergeant. ‘I can tell you of one rum thing that happened to me, myself. …
When the old regiment first came out in ’16, we had a Captain with us… a mighty fine chap. One day at the beginning of the Somme battle some of the boys got into a tight place…and he comes along and pulls them out of it. One or two of them had got the wind up a bit, and he tells them then not to lose heart if they gets into difficulties, for he sorta knows, he says, when the boys have need of him, and wherever he is, he says, he’ll do his best to be there. Well, he was killed, helping the boys as usual, at the end of the fighting on the Somme, and we mourned for him like a brother, as you might say. He was a tall fine chap, no mistaking him. Well, just before the Boches got into Albert, we was in a bit of a fix, and I was doing all I knew to get us out. Suddenly I turned round, and there I saw him with his bright eyes and his old smile, bringing up the rear. “Well, Willis, it’s been a narrow shave this time. But I think we’ve pulled it off.”
And forgetting how it was, I makes as if to answer him and all of a sudden he wasn’t there at all. Struck me all of a heap for a bit. What do you make of it, mate?’
‘It’s more than I can tell,’ answered the corporal. ‘Because another very queer thing happened to some chaps in our company. In the old days on the Somme we had a tophole party of stretcher-bearers, and one day a coal-box comes and wipes out the lot. But last week some of our chaps saw them again, carrying the wounded down the communication trench. And I met a chum in the train who swears he was carried out by two of them.’
A Lancashire boy from an opposite bed learned forward eagerly. ‘I can tell you something that’ll beat that. The other day when we were getting clear of Peronne, I found a chap beside me looking very white and cone-up, as if he could scarcely walk; fair clemmed [suffering from hunger, thirst or cold], he seemed to me. I found I’d got one or two of those hard biscuits in my pocket, and I pulls one out and hands it to him. “Have a biscuit, mate,” says I. “Thank you chum,” he says, “I don’t mind if I do.” And he takes the biscuit and gives it a bite. As he puts out his hand for it I see he’s got one of those swanky identity-disks on his wrist, and I read his number as plain as anything. Then he gets mixed up with the others, and I don’t see him no more. And it’s not till I get back to billets that I remember. “Lawks, if that ain’t the chap I helped to bury more than a week gone, my name ain’t Bill Bennett.” And sure enough, I remember taking the silver identity-disk off his wrist and reading the number on it as plain as plain. And it was the number of the man I gave the biscuit to.’
There was an awed silence in the ward, and I turned to ask rather breathlessly: ‘Do you really mean that in the middle of the battle you met those men again whom you’d thought were dead?’
The sergeant’s reply was insistent. ‘Aye, Sister, they’re dead right enough. They’re our mates as was knocked out on the Somme in ’16. And it’s our belief they’re fighting with us still.’
This was such an interesting article, Dale! These kinds of experiences do give us hope, as you say. Obviously, it’s important that we don’t seek such experiences, as the Writings teach us the dangers of trying to communicate from our side, but sometimes I think the Lord permits glimpses from the other side to help us. You might enjoy Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s understudy David Kessler. He talks about how professionals such as doctors, hospice nurses, etc. would go to professional conferences and make their presentations, and then in the evenings when it was unofficial and they got together for dinner and such, the stories would come out. There were lots of experiences where they had seen similar things to what you are talking about – and finally he decided to write the book to talk officially about what had not been addressed officially. He said that no one dies alone, even if nobody is with them in this physical world – and he had many stories to back it up. A very hopeful book, and as you say, lines up well with what we already know about the spiritual world being right here all around us.
Hi Dale, thanks for bringing this up! I love hearing stories about this and have heard many others. My own stories are often a little toned down from “supernatural” but are still clearly voices speaking to me from the other world, with as specific comments as “Turn up the heat!” I too refer to the “veil between the worlds” and when things happen, my explanation is just that it “thinned a bit” for that moment in time.