Light (A)

From one of my manuscripts:

Another famous element on Moody’s list is his eighth, the “being of light.”[1]  This, says Moody, “is certainly the element which has the most profound effect upon the individual.”[2]  Similar apparitions seem to have a similar effect in deathbed visions, too.  Osis and Haraldsson pass on a nurse’s report of the experience of a “simple miner.”  “I see God,” he suddenly said to her.

He started to cry and moan that he was going to die.  He just stared out into space as if he were really seeing God.  When I returned half an hour later, he was a changed man—radiant, a very happy countenance.  He said that God told him it was not yet time for him to go.[3]

Experiencers tell of a light that, when they first notice it, is relatively dim, but which rapidly grows to an indescribable, and unearthly, brilliance.  It is, says one woman, “ten thousand times brighter than the sun.”[4]  “It was,” commences the account of another woman, “as if a bright light descended from above and entered my being.  It became brighter and brighter until it seemed like it might consume me.  I heard a voice.”[5]  Yet another woman told simply of being “completely immersed in a flood of heavenly light.”[6]  Seventeen of those who participated in the Atlanta study “described a brilliant source of light which signaled the end of the dark region or void and the beginning of a transcendental environment of great beauty.”[7]  (Those who have seen this often note with surprise, however, that the light does not hurt or dazzle their eyes.)  There is “a beautiful and intense luminescence that seems to permeate everything and fill the person with love. . . .  Some say it’s almost like being drenched by a rainstorm of light . . . warm, vibrant, and alive.”[8]  An Indian man reported a “very bright light, super white with glow” above him.  “I traveled to a space of brilliant light where I was being loved, the love I had never experienced before . . . nor am experiencing after that event.” “For hours together I was away from this world enjoying being with the light.”[9]

[1]  $Moody, Life after Life, 58-64.

[2]  $Moody, Life after Life, 58.

[3] Cited at $Osis and Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death, 150.

[4] $Sharp, After the Light, 128.

[5] $Nelson, Beyond the Veil, 3:109.

[6] $Nelson, Beyond the Veil, 3:131.

[7] Sabom, Recollections of Death, 43.

[8] Moody, The Light Beyond, 12; compare $Ring, Life at Death, 48, 56, 60; $Sharp, After the Light, 70; Kübler-Ross, On Life after Death, 16.  I suspect that this very light is not infrequently observed in other contexts, as well.  For example, Edward Hunter, having asked for guidance on a vital religious matter in 1839 or 1840 (and, thus, long before electricity or similar methods of illumination), reported that, “Instantly, a light came in the room at the top of the door, so great that I could not endure it.”  (See Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:228 [see original].)  Lindley Baldwin, Samuel Morris (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1942), tells the story of a nineteenth century African chieftain’s son (later given the name Samuel Morris at his Christian baptism) who was saved from execution by torture at the hands of another tribe by a brilliant light that blinded all around him, and by an audible voice that directed him to flee, while he was simultaneously cured of his serious injuries.  This same light guided him intermittently for several weeks in the jungle.  Upon his subsequent conversion, he connected his experience with that of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus (see pages 11-16).  Apparently others also saw the light and heard the voice (see pages 12, 22).  An exactly parallel case is mentioned in the same source, concerning a Chinese hostage being held for ransom:  “Ging-Hua was lying bound with ropes and surrounded by his captors when, suddenly, a golden light shone around him, and he recognized that it was of heavenly origin.  By its illumination he was enable to untie his ropes and to escape from the camp.”  As in the case of the young African man, the light then guided his return to safety.  (See pages 90-91).  In a very high proportion of NDE accounts, the light is described as “golden.”  I have little doubt that a systematic search for this phenomenon would reveal many more such instances.  Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking, 210) reports an account from a missionary among South Pacific cannibals.  When the cannibal chief converted to Christianity, he told the missionary of a time when the natives had planned to attack and kill him, but were afraid to do so because of the “two shining ones walking on either side of you.”  Such stories, too, could be multiplied indefinitely.  A five-year-old boy drowning in murky water saw a shaft of light coming down toward him just prior to his near-death experience.  See William J. Serdahely, “Loving Help from the Other Side: A Mosaic of Some Near-Death, and Near-Death-Like, Experiences,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 10/3 (Spring 1992): 175.

[9] Susan J. Blackmore, “Near-Death Experiences in India: They Have Tunnels Too,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 11/4 (Summer 1993): 213.