Chapter 14

Meetings with the Dead and with Angels

Reunions on the Other Side

On the evening of January 12, 1924, Sir William Barrett — a knighted physics professor at the Royal College of Science in Dublin — sat across from his wife, Lady Florence Barrett, an obstetrician, who was practically bursting with excitement. She had just come from the bedside of a young woman named Doris, who had given birth that day to a healthy baby. Doris was dying from complications. But before she died, something happened that would change the course of Sir William's career and launch the modern study of deathbed experiences.¹

Doris suddenly looked toward one corner of the room, her face lighting up. "Oh, lovely, lovely," she whispered. When her doctor asked what she saw, Doris answered, "Lovely brightness — wonderful beings." Then she focused her gaze and cried out with joy: "Why, it's Father! Oh, he's so glad I'm coming; he is so glad." Doris's father had died years earlier. Her mother brought the new baby for her to see. Doris looked at her child tenderly, then turned back to the vision. "I can't — I can't stay; if you could see what I do, you would know I can't stay." Then, looking once more, her face shifted with surprise. "He has Vida with him."²

Vida was Doris's sister. Vida had died three weeks earlier. The family had carefully kept the news from Doris because they did not want to upset her in her fragile condition. Doris should not have known. And yet, in her final moments, she calmly told the room that her father had brought Vida with him to welcome her home. Then she died.³

What are we to make of a story like this? If Doris was simply hallucinating, why did she "hallucinate" the very person whose death had been hidden from her? If she was projecting her expectations onto an imagined afterlife, why was she so visibly surprised by Vida's appearance? These are the questions that captured Sir William's imagination — and they are the questions this chapter is about.

The thesis of this chapter is straightforward: the consistent reports of NDErs and dying patients meeting deceased relatives and angelic beings — especially deceased people whose death the experiencer did not know about — provide powerful evidence that the soul really does survive bodily death, that real spiritual beings exist, and that the afterlife is not a sterile, lonely place but a deeply personal, relational reality. We are met at the threshold by people who knew us, loved us, and now wait for us.

What These Encounters Look Like

Reading hundreds of NDE and DBE accounts, the same patterns show up again and again. The deceased almost always appear healthy and whole. A grandfather wasted away by cancer is no longer wasted. A grandmother twisted by arthritis is whole. A child who died of leukemia is rosy-cheeked. Jeffrey Long, founder of the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF), notes the pattern: "The deceased generally appear in picture-perfect health even if they died of a chronic or disfiguring illness."⁴

The deceased also tend to appear young — "prime of life" young, in their thirties or forties — even if they died at ninety. Four-year-old Colton Burpo's now-famous case captures this. After his brush with death, Colton told his father that he had met his great-grandfather "Pop" in heaven. Months later, riding through Nebraska cornfields, Colton told his dad how nice Pop was. Todd Burpo nearly drove off the road. Pop had died a quarter-century before Colton was even born. When Todd later showed Colton a picture of Pop at age sixty-two — gray hair, glasses — Colton scrunched up his face. "Dad, nobody's old in heaven... and nobody wears glasses."⁵ An older photo of Pop as a young man, however, Colton recognized immediately.

Communication in these encounters usually happens without spoken words — a kind of mind-to-mind exchange that NDErs describe as something like telepathy. Recognition is always mutual and immediate, even when the NDEr meets relatives they never knew in life. The relationship is felt before it is named. And deceased loved ones often serve as guides who deliver one consistent message: It's not your time. You have to go back.

The Strongest Single Piece of Evidence

The phenomenology is interesting, but skeptics are quick to wave it away. "Of course people see the loved ones they hope to see — that's just wish fulfillment." This is a fair objection. If the dying always saw exactly the people they expected to see, the skeptic would have a point. But that is not what the evidence shows.

Doris's encounter with her sister Vida is the founding case. But it is not isolated. Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson, in their groundbreaking 1977 cross-cultural study, surveyed thousands of physicians and nurses across two radically different cultures — the United States and India — and gathered over 1,900 reports of dying patients who saw or communicated with people on the other side. Osis began as a skeptic. He ended convinced. One of the strongest patterns he found was the "Peak in Darien" experience — named after the moment when explorers crested a mountain ridge and were astonished to see something they had not expected. The dying patient expects to see life ending. Instead, they crest the peak — and find a relative there to greet them whose death they did not know about.⁶

J. Steve Miller describes the evidential weight with a line from an old poem: "And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven, And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had that flower in your hand? Ah, what then?"⁷ The "flower in the hand" of Doris's vision was Vida. Doris brought back something from the other side that she could not have known by any natural means.

The pattern repeats throughout the modern NDE literature. NDErs meet great-aunts, grandfathers, second cousins — relatives who died before the NDEr was born — and only later, sometimes years later, do they identify the person from a family photo album. A four-year-old like Colton Burpo cannot wish-fulfill a relationship with someone he never knew existed. Children's NDEs (which we examine in detail in Chapter 9) are especially powerful here, because young children consistently report meeting deceased relatives they had never been told about, describe them accurately, and even correct adults whose picture of heaven differs from what they saw.

The Striking Negative

If these experiences were really hallucinations, we would expect the dying to see whomever they wanted to see — living spouses, living children, living best friends. The hallucination hypothesis predicts no preference between living and dead. But the data does not show this at all.

The 2001 Kelly Study at the University of Virginia found that 95 percent of the persons NDErs encountered on the other side were deceased relatives. Only 5 percent were friends. And only 4 percent of NDErs claimed to see anyone who was alive at the time of the experience.⁸ Long, in his commentary on these findings, makes a critical point: ordinary dreams and hallucinations typically feature recently encountered living people. NDEs flip this pattern entirely. The cross-cultural Osis-Haraldsson study found exactly the same thing — across the U.S. and India alike, the human figures encountered by the dying were overwhelmingly deceased close relatives.⁹

This is precisely what we would expect if the experience is real. Only the dead are on the other side. The living are not. The data fits reality, not fantasy.

Encountering Angels

Alongside encounters with the deceased, NDErs and dying patients also frequently report encounters with angelic beings. The descriptions vary. Sometimes the angels appear as humanlike beings of light. Sometimes they have wings. Often — surprisingly often — they do not. Marv Besteman, a former bank president who recorded his NDE in detail, described his angelic escorts as looking like "regular guys, except regular guys usually don't wear white robes. Both looked in their mid-forties... neither one of them had wings."¹⁰ Many NDErs, like Dale Black, report angels coming in pairs as guides or escorts.¹¹

Here is something fascinating. Sir William Barrett, the same physicist we met at the start of this chapter, noticed in his early DBE research that dying children frequently described angels — but with a strange detail. The angels did not have wings. Barrett reasoned that if these experiences were merely products of children's imagination, the children would have given the angels wings, because that is what every storybook and Christmas card had taught them. Yet the children consistently saw angels without wings.¹² One mother, recorded in pediatric oncology research, played along when her dying preschooler asked if she could see the angels in the room. The mother described the angels with "big wings." Her daughter — quite seriously — said, "Mama, you don't have to lie. They don't have wings."¹³

This is not what we would expect from cultural conditioning. It is what we would expect if the children were actually seeing something.

What does the Bible say about angels? The Greek word translated "angel" is angelos (ἄγγελος), which simply means "messenger." Angels are God's spirit-creatures, His messengers and servants. The book of Hebrews puts it plainly:

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14, ESV)

That word "ministering" translates the Greek leitourgika — relating to public service or sacred service. Angels serve. Angels carry messages. Angels protect. Their biblical job description fits perfectly with what NDErs report. The dying do not encounter angels who are vague philosophical forces. They encounter beings who are obviously personal, obviously purposeful, and clearly working on their behalf. Mary Neal, a spinal surgeon whose own NDE became a bestselling book, described her angelic escorts as both guides and protectors: "I knew they were sent to guide me across the divide... they were sent not only to greet me and guide me, but also to protect me during my journey."¹⁴

One important caution: not every spiritual being encountered in an NDE is necessarily a holy angel. Scripture warns that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and Sabom rightly observed in his Atlanta Study that a small minority of patients in otherwise pleasant NDEs sensed an evil presence.¹⁵ We will return to this issue of discernment in Chapter 25. For now, the simple point is this: the existence of personal spiritual beings — exactly the kind of beings the Bible describes — is built into the data of NDE research.

The Welcoming Committee

One of the most striking features of NDE reports is what researchers call the "welcoming committee." The NDEr arrives on the other side and is greeted not by one person but by a group. Don Piper, a Baptist pastor whose NDE following a devastating car accident has become widely known, describes his welcoming committee in vivid detail. The first to greet him was his grandfather, Joe Kulbeth, who held out his arms and embraced him. Then came Mike Wood, the high school friend who had invited Don to Sunday school. Then teachers, classmates, and others — including Barry Wilson, a high school classmate who had drowned years earlier. As Piper writes, "Many of them hadn't known each other on earth, but each had influenced my life in some way. Even though they hadn't met on earth, they seemed to know each other now."¹⁶

Shaun Tabatt opens The NDE Conspiracy with the account of his late wife Lynette, who described being greeted at heaven's gates by her grandparents, her father, and her brother Seth — all four of whom had died years before, the longest being Seth, who was killed by a drunk driver when she was just eighteen months old. Despite the long span of time, "she knew that these gates were the entrance to Heaven and her loved ones were there to welcome her."¹⁷

This is one of the most pastorally beautiful features of NDE research. Christians often picture the moment of death as a solitary crossing. But the consistent testimony of those who have crossed and returned is that they were not alone. They were greeted. They were embraced. They were welcomed home.

What About the Necromancy Objection?

At this point, careful Christian readers will want to raise a serious concern. Doesn't the Bible explicitly forbid contact with the dead? Don't passages like Deuteronomy 18:10–12 condemn necromancy in the strongest possible terms?

The text reads:

There shall not be found among you... anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. (Deuteronomy 18:10–12, ESV)

Leviticus 19:31 reinforces this: "Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out." Isaiah 8:19 mocks the practice: "Should not a people inquire of their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?" These passages are not minor. So how do we reconcile them with the encounters described in this chapter? Four considerations.

First, the prohibition is against active human technique, not passive experience. The Hebrew word translated "medium" is 'ob (אוֹב), referring to a person who claims to summon the dead through ritual means. The verbs throughout these passages are active — they describe a human doing something: performing rituals, going to séances, casting spells, calling up the dead. The biblical prohibition targets these specific practices.

Second, NDE and DBE encounters are passive, not sought. The NDEr is not performing a ritual or consulting a medium. They are dying. Their heart has stopped. Their car has crashed. The encounter comes to them — unexpectedly, unbidden, often surprising the experiencer themselves.¹⁸ They did not go looking. They were found.

Third, the Bible itself contains examples of legitimate encounters with the dead. Moses and Elijah — both long dead — appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–8), conversing with Him in full view of the disciples. Samuel rose and spoke with Saul at Endor (1 Samuel 28); Cooper carefully observes that the text presents this not as illusion but as the prophet's actual conscious appearance.¹⁹ The rich man in Hades carried on a conversation with Abraham (Luke 16:19–31). None of these accounts are condemned as necromancy. Scripture itself shows that God can — and does — bring about encounters between the living and the dead. He simply forbids us to seek them on our own initiative through forbidden practice.

Fourth, the direction of communication matters. Necromancy is humans reaching out to grasp the dead. NDEs and DBEs involve God or the spiritual realm reaching out to the living. The flow of initiative is reversed. There is a world of difference between hiring a medium to summon Grandma's ghost and having Grandma appear to greet you when your heart stops on the operating table.²⁰ The first is forbidden. The second is grace.

We should be cautious about psychics, mediums, and séances — Chapter 28 explores these dangers in detail. But we do not need to be afraid of the dying grandmother who suddenly sits up in bed and says, "I see Mama. She's come for me." That is not necromancy. That is heaven leaning in.

What This All Means

What does this body of evidence point toward? Let me close by drawing three threads together.

First, these encounters provide powerful support for the conscious survival of the soul after death. We treat the full case for substance dualism in Chapters 5 and 35, but the testimony of meetings with the dead converges with that case from a different direction. If death is annihilation — as some Christian physicalists and stronger forms of conditional immortality argue — then the deceased should be unconscious, non-existent, or "asleep" until the resurrection, and there should be nobody on the other side to meet anyone. But the evidence does not show empty rooms. It shows full ones. The dead, it turns out, are very much alive.

Second, these encounters provide evidence for the existence of real personal spiritual beings — including the angelic beings described throughout Scripture. The reductive materialist worldview cannot make sense of consistent, cross-cultural reports of communicating with persons who have no physical bodies. The biblical worldview, by contrast, has always taught that the universe is populated with spiritual creatures. The NDE data fits the biblical universe, not the materialist one.

Third, these encounters reveal the deeply personal and relational character of the afterlife. Heaven is not a sterile waiting room or an impersonal absorption into universal mind. The afterlife revealed in these accounts is full of real people, real love, real recognition, and real joy. The Old Testament phrase "gathered to his people" turns out to be more concrete than we might have suspected. Family is not destroyed at death. It is gloriously continued.

For Christians who have lost loved ones in the Lord, the gospel has always promised reunion. The evidence in this chapter does not add to the gospel's promise; the gospel has always been enough. But it does, I think, confirm what the gospel says. And in moments of grief, when faith is hard, that confirmation can be a real comfort.

The dying woman Doris saw her father — and saw, to her astonishment, her sister Vida. They had come to walk her home. That is not necromancy. That is not hallucination. That is, I would humbly suggest, exactly what the Bible promises will happen to all of us who die in Christ. We will not be abandoned at the threshold. We will be gathered to our people. And among them, we will find at last the One who gathers everyone to Himself.