An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Black Elk Speaks
, perhaps because both men had had 
NDEs. Black Elk had gained healing powers and foresight through an 
extremely complex NDE at the age of nine, when he was unconscious for 
12 days. It was eight years before he was able to come to terms with the 
experience, and then only with the help of a medicine man. In his NDE 
Black Elk was taken to six grandfathers, each of whom gave him particu-
lar powers.
I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for 
I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the 
spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one 
being. 
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Aged 26, Black Elk had another NDE, while in Europe with Buffalo 
Bill’s travelling show. He fell ill and was presumed dead. In fact he felt 
that he was travelling on a cloud to his family back in South Dakota. He 
subsequently went back and saw everything exactly as in the vision and 
learned that his mother had dreamed of him visiting on a cloud at exactly 
that time.
This experience is that of a doctor, tempted to attribute it to the 
after-effects of anaesthesia. However, subsequent events made this an 
inadequate interpretation of the messages given during the NDE.
In 1979 I was a part time GP, mother of two toddlers, and married 
to a solicitor in full time legal practice who was also an NSM (non-
stipendiary minister) in the Anglican Church. An NSM has received 
part-time training, is an ordained priest and has a role in local ministry, 
but at that time there was no question of the priest taking on a full time 
job in the Church of England.
Whilst in hospital, following the birth of my third child, and some 
hours after anaesthesia for a minor procedure, I had a strange but vivid 
experience.
I felt myself floating in outer space, in deep black ‘nothing’ but with 
occasional stars. I became aware that someone, or something was com-
municating with me, but saw no face or source of this communication, 
it felt like it was God, or a being.

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
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The message was clear and was in two parts:
1. That we (my husband and I) were to take on total care of 
souls
2. That I was to do something about the dignity of dying
It was a pleasant, comforting experience. As a doctor, I cast it aside 
considering that it was simply the result of anaesthesia, and it made no 
sense to me with the limitations of my husband’s role as NSM, and my 
very part-time job in General Practice, with now three young and 
demanding children to care for. At the time there was political discus-
sion about resuscitation in hospitals and the lack of dignity involved. 
How could I influence that?
I was embarrassed by the experience and did not tell my husband, 
but mentioned it laughingly on two occasions to trusted female friends 
when they came to visit.
The experience did not influence any decisions, nor did it change the 
way I lived my life, but my life changed. 
Without any knowledge of my experience, some four months later, 
my husband told me that he wanted to cease his work as a solicitor, 
that he had discussed with the Bishop of Worcester the possibility of 
becoming a full-time priest. 
Within a year, . . . we had sold our house and changed our lives as 
he became Priest-in-Charge of four country parishes. I continued with