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Saint Anskar - Visions of Dying in the Ninth and Nineteenth Centuries - His NDE
Identifier
023594
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections
Case No. 232 – Anskar Light, vol. XLIII, 1923, p. 309, contained an article by Miss H. A. Dallas, entitled "Visions of Dying in the Ninth and Nineteenth Centuries". It includes the following.
In the 'Life of Anskar', the great 'Apostle of the North', who faced hard-ships and perils in the fulfilment of his mission to Denmark and Sweden in the ninth century, we may read the account of a vision granted to him at the season of Pentecost. In this vision he seemed to be about to encounter sudden death, and, as his soul was in the act of leaving his body, it was
"taking to itself another, and very beautiful, kind of body which was no longer subject to death and from which all disquiet was absent". (Anskar, translated by Charles H. Robinson, D.D., P. 3O).
The vision continues,
“As his soul left his body, he seemed to be surrounded by an unending light which filled the whole world.”
He was then led into purgatorial darkness, and after brief suffering-although it seemed to him long at the time-he was again led
'through ineffable brightness, progressing without motion and by no material path'
Further we are told:
"In the East, where the light rises, was a marvellous brightness, an unapproachable light of unlimited and excessive brilliance, in which was included every splendid colour and everything delightful to the eye. All the ranks of the saints stood round rejoicing. ... I could not see what was within, but saw only the outer edge; nevertheless I believed that He was there concerning whom St Peter said, 'on whom the angels desire to look' ... There was nothing material there .. . although there was an appearance as of a body which I cannot describe. . . . The pen can in no way express all of which the mind is conscious. Nor is the mind conscious of what actually existed, for that was revealed to me which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man...
Anskar says at the close of his vision that a voice bade him:
“Go, and return to Me crowned with martyrdom !”
After hearing the voice, he 'became sad' because he was 'compelled to return to earth'.