Part 2 of Personal Experiences
Those who had survived scarlet fever were kept in the isolation hospital for over three months until, presumably, we were no longer infectious. We had no visitors during this time. There was no provision for our education or entertainment. Therefore, it could have been a deeply scarring experience. However, I found a Bible (King James Version) in the locker by my bed and, starting at the beginning, I began to read and make sense of it even though I am not sure how far my reading had progressed before my illness. I also found that I could close my eyes and, it seemed, float out of my body and explore my surroundings. I would do this after the lights were turned off to encourage us to sleep.
When I finally got home, I carried on practicing this behaviour. My brother, with whom I then shared a room, is five years older than me. He went on to study physics at University, gained a PhD and became an academic. I talked to him about what I saw when exploring the world in this way and he set various tests to check whether what I claimed was just childish fancy, as it must have seemed. He remembers that I could describe places that I had not visited but he had. I stopped what is sometimes called astral travel or projection early during my secondary education. It was replaced by asking questions of the loving presence I had come to know during my near-death experience and finding that answers came directly into my mind. Alternatively, I would come across relevant information in something that I read or heard. Over the years, I have encountered descriptions of and explanations for astral travel, often suggesting that we all possess an astral body attached to the physical one by a ‘silver chord’. My personal explanation is that, as a child who did not realise that this was an unusual idea, because my experience when I was close to death was that I was greater than my body, I did not feel restricted by it.
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