Most of us are familiar with contemporary descriptions of the near-death experience: the bright light, the tunnel, and the feeling of being "out of the body." Those who have had the near death experience also describe being taken to the other side, only to be told that they had died before their time and that they must go back. Because the phenomenon has always interested me I was stunned when I found a 250-year old description of a near death experience; it sounded eerily familiar.
In the fall of 1994 I went to Pittsburgh to do research on John Wilkins. I sat at a library table in the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania reading John Wilkins' handwritten account of his life, and as I turned the neatly written pages I realized that what I was reading was not in the published version of Wilkins' autobiography1 that I had seen many years before. I discovered that Wilkins had had a near-death experience almost 250 years ago. Not only did he describe this experience in detail but also the many other amazing dreams and visitations that occurred to him throughout his life.
John Wilkins had a fascinating life. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1733. He was a tavern keeper and merchant in Carlisle, an ardent Presbyterian and a captain in the Revolutionary War. He had two wives and 22 children, who intermarried with the Stevenson, Denny, Boyd, Murray, and O'Hara families of Carlisle and Pittsburgh. Wilkins left Carlisle in 1783 and became a leading figure in the development of Pittsburgh.2
Two years before his death (and being in full possession of his all his mental capacities according to his obituary) Wilkins wrote an account of his life. It began, ''A short history of my life and the first arrival of my parents in America, wrote in the month of March 1807. I am, by the best information, seventy four years of age the first day of June next." After writing several pages about his forefathers and his early life in Lancaster County, he wrote the following description of his near-death experience.
"In my young days, and before my marriage, then living on the farm in Donegal Township, Lancaster County, I went to bed as usual with farmers, and soon fell asleep. I then dreamed that I was struck dead in my bed by a loud clap a thunder. I knew I was dead, and believing in the existence of the soul after death, I lay waiting the event. A total darkness surrounded me for some time. At length, a ray of light appeared which increased to an uncommon brightness. I then saw four persons covered with white robes standing by my bed. They stood some time there, then said, "he is punished enough." They then took me up and carried me with great swiftness. I knew not how or where until they set me on my feet. I discovered that I was standing before a beautiful man sitting on a throne, the brightness is past description, surrounded by thousands like those who took me there.
"I cannot remember by what means, but I understood I was then standing before the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he looked on me with pleasant countenance, yet I stood in great terror awaiting my sentence. A total silence took place for some time. The person on the throne said that he had sent for me to explain to me the sins of the earth-that by guarding against them I might walk uprightly in the sight of God. Then in a long discourse delivered much in the language of the Proverbs he mentioned every sin-and in particular charged me to avoid the sin of whoredom or unlawful connections with women, as this was the principle [sic] promoter of all other sins. Then he told me I must go back, as I had much to do on earth; that after many years I would be called on or brought here again. Then, pointing to the four* who had all the time stood by me; they took me up and with the same swiftness, laid me in my bed-from the time I was thunder struck until I was laid back in my bed I had no power to move or speak but could hear and see everything except when they were carrying me. The swiftness appeared to be too rapped [rapid] for me to see anything, neither did those who carried me (which I took to be angels) speak one word, but what they said before they first took me away.
*This same four appeared afterwards in all my remarkable dreams or visions of the night appeared to me; I knew them to be the same, as also, that they were angels or spirits of the other world; yet I met them as if old acquaintance, without any fear or surprise, and put full confidence and belief in all they told me. "
Alexandria, [District of Columbia], 25 February 1810. Thomas Cruse sat down, opened his desk, took out a clean sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the bottle of ink and wrote “Dear Sir.” He was writing to his brother-in-law, Judge James Hamilton of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Two very heavy falls of snow within the last week have made glorious sleighing and found everybody in the humor to enjoy it. Everything in the shape of a sleigh has been put in requisition, and the jingle of the merry bells is an unceasing sound from ‘tosy morn to dewey eve,’ and then as the evenings are splendidly moonlit, the merriment only fairly commences.