Passing Through Stars Near Death

^{Photo by PIRO}

The following post is from Sandy Coghlan’s website “Heaven Knows…” and is reposted with permission. The original can be viewed HERE on Sandy's wonderful blog.

In 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was celebrated as the first human to break free of earth’s gravitational pull and view our precious planet from space.

But was he really the first?

During my research for ‘Heaven Knows‘, I found a number of near-death experiencers who beat him to it.

Burris Jenkins was one. He died as a result of an explosion on his cruiser in 1957. Initially he simply floated through the fourth floor window and into the hospital courtyard … a common occurrence for NDE’ers.

Once there, however, he suddenly felt a “great sense of acceleration through intergalactic space, the curvature of the earth, the clouds.”

Jenkins reported to Reverend Archie Matson, author of ‘The Waiting World’ …

“As I passed the orbit of the moon, suddenly I realized I had passed through the Solar System itself. My passing view was the earth, several planets, the sun, the Milky Way, and the edge of the galaxy.” 
Jenkins continues:

“As the acceleration increased, the density of the stars began to become less and less. Even the galaxy appeared as a star itself. It was at this point that I first became concerned.”

Well yes, I suspect I’d be concerned, too! I’m not even comfortable being up in an aeroplane!

Surely this was a ‘one-off’ account? Not so.

Even earlier than Burris Jenkins, Earl Stowell “went out into the sky” when he died.

In 1893 he wrote in his biography …

“The speed of travel increased. It seemed we caught up with rays or beams of light and passed them as if they were standing still.”

And still I found more …

Mary Grohe “died” of a heart attack two days after an operation, and reported that she had “seemed to be hurtling like a projectile through space.” [The Waiting World, Reverend Archie Matson]

^{Photo by Arek Socha}

Two accounts in Dr. Moody’s ‘The Light Beyond’ also supported these intriguing claims.

One child stated that during his dying experience he …“felt himself rise above the earth, passing through the stars and finding himself up with the angels.”

Another NDEer who took part in Dr. Moody’s research described himself as … “zooming up and seeing the planets all around him and the earth below like a blue marble.”

How can we be certain these were not merely dreams or fantasies? Today we are so familiar with photographs from space that we might be inclined to forget how recently it has been that we had any idea how our planet appeared from a distance. Not only was Gagarin the first human to see it in 1961, the first photo of Earth, taken in 1946, was merely a grainy black and white photo showing a vague grey outline of earth, barely visible against the blackness of space.

With that in mind, the near death experience by renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung lends considerable credence to these accounts. In his autobiography, ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’, Jung described his experience following a heart attack in 1944.

“It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. I saw the deep blue sea and the continents… its global shape was plainly distinguishable and its outlines shone with a silvery gleam through that wonderful blue light. Later, I discovered how high in space one would have to be to have so extensive a view — approximately a thousand miles! The sight of the earth from this height was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.”

Remember, in 1944 there was no other possibility of viewing our planet from such a distance. We HAD no idea what earth looked like from space, or even what color it was! Yet 17 years after Jung’s NDE, Yuri Gagarin described earth as being “surrounded by a light blue aureole”.

A decade after Gagarin’s flight, Edgar Mitchell – the sixth man to walk on the moon – confirmed this. He wrote about looking upon “a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere… like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery.”

How uncannily similar were these descriptions to Jung’s 1944 observation …

“I saw the globe of the earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light.”

SANDY COGHLAN

Sandy Coghlan worked in advertising and television in Australia and London prior to becoming an on-air director at a Melbourne TV station in 1979. Her first book, Travel Guide to Tasmania (Penguin) was commissioned by ‘Life. Be In It’ in 1984, while her articles on health and metaphysical subjects have been published nationally. From 1990 until retirement, Sandy qualified in a variety of alternative therapies, and in 1991, wrote and conducted a nutrition correspondence course for pharmacy assistants around Australia. She also taught creative writing and healing techniques at adult education centers. Sandy now lives with her partner Barry and their 2 cats in a bayside area of Victoria, Australia and is working on the second book in the Heaven Knows series.