Very many people are familiar with the typical account of a near-death experience. A person may have some close brush with death. The person may report that he floated out of his body, or passed through some mysterious tunnel, or encountered a Being of Light. The person may report visiting some mystical or transcendent realm in which he saw a deceased relative or some religious figure.
There are some old newspaper accounts suggesting that something similar may happen not during a close brush with death, but in a trance. For example, there is the account below from 1897:
The account is from the old newspaper page below:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086632/1897-06-05/ed-1/seq-3/
You can read the account on the newspaper page here:
You can read the full newspaper account below:
The link below shows the original page on which this account was published:
You can read the full story using the link below:
There is also the account below from 1903 (click on the image to read it more clearly):
You can read the account on the newspaper page here:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042224/1903-11-27/ed-1/seq-9/
An account of the same person is told below. We get more details about how she reported learning things on her trance trips that she had not previously learned while awake, details that were later confirmed:
You can read the full newspaper account below:
Below is another newspaper account of someone claiming to have visited heaven while in a trance:
The link below shows the original page on which this account was published:
The image below gives part of a 1907 news story describing a teenager's accounts of visiting heaven during trances:
An 1868 newspaper account of a trip to heaven in a trance is below. We should keep in mind that we have no direct quotes from the young teenager, so when the author uses phrases such as "heaven," "hell" and "the Savior" we don't know whether such phrases were used by the woman herself.
"The people living in the vicinity of Whiteland, Johnson county, have recently been very much excited over a matter which, to say the
least, is very strange. Several weeks since, Miss Van Arsdale, a young woman about seventeen years old, living at the house of a family near Whiteland, in the capacity of servant, was taken sick with something like hysterics. She had been confined to her bed a little over a week, when, to all appearances, she died. The body, however, did not entirely lose its warmth, and a very slight pulse remained. The people with whom she was living supposed that she was dead, and were making preparations to bury her, when the physician interfered, forbidding any such step. After remaining in this state twelve hours, consciousness returned, and the girl pronounced herself much better.She then went on to describe her sensations and experiences during the trance, averring that she had visited heaven and hell, and had
conversed with the Savior, and many persons whom she had known on earth. She spoke of seeing persons in both places who had recently died; in heaven a young man named Quinn, who, although at one time a professor of religion, had, in the last year or two of his his, led a bad life; in hell the two men, Hatchell and Patterson, who were lynched at Franklin on the night of Oct. 31st, for the murder of
Lyons at Greenwood. Miss Van Arsdale sent for a number of persons in the neighborhood, and not only imparted to them news of lost
friends, but told of sins committed by them, supposed to be unknown by any one.
Among others, was a man who had participated in the execution of the men named above. She told him that he had been there that night (which he acknowledged), and had in the sight of God committed murder. Previous to this, the names of the band had been kept a profound secret, and this man had not even been suspected. She narrated a good many tragic things, relating mainly to individuals both in this world and the other, many of which would have been almost impossible for her to have invented.
But the strangest part of the story is yet to come. A few hours after the expiration of the first trance, she predicted that she would have
another, and told to a minute the time at which it would commence and at which it would end. Everything turned out as she had
said; at the exact time she fell into the same state. In an ordinary trance, or cataleptic state, respiration is not suspended, but in this
case breathing could not be observed. She was, to all appearances, dead; but the pulse beat faintly, and the body was not cold. All
sensation was gone. The physician made numerous experiments, pricking the body, opening veins, and so forth, to discover if there
could be any deception. In the end he was perfectly convinced that there was none. At the expiration of the time set by herself, she
came to, and in a few hours was well enough to leave her bed and go about the house. The story of her experience, in the second trance,
was similar to the first one, and was confined almost wholly to individuals. She seemed unable to describe the places she had been in, but gave histories of events and persons with remarkable minuteness. She also said that she would never have a recurrence of the trance unless she should commit some flagrant sin;
her authority for this prediction was that the Lord himself had told her so.
This is certainly a strange thing. The girl is uneducated, and has lived about as a servant ever since she was able to work. She has always borne a good character for truthfulness, and is a member of a church. She is almost the last person in the world to have manufactured such stories, and one thing especially noticeable is the fact of her sending for persons to whom, before her illness, she would have been afraid to have spoken, and conversing with them without the least restraint, and telling them stories and facts not the most palatable to worldly people. She was visited by a great many people, some of them eminently respectable, who vouch for many of the statements of her illness. The physician in attendance is positive as to her condition during the whole time ; and had it not been for him, she would have been buried alive."
The full account can be read using the link below:
The report below is from 1906:
The account can be read on the newspaper page below:
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