Warning: This post discusses death and descriptions of the moments afterward, as told through past-life regression, mediumship transcriptions and other sources.  If you feel this post will bring up painful memories or fears, please consider carefully before clicking through.

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PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V | PART VI | PART VII | PART VIII

“Here I was able to move effortlessly into the spirit realm and these other fellows were screaming from the depths of their souls in fear.  I’d already left my body, so I went to this fellow, wrapped my arms around him, comforted him and helped him up and into the light and helped him connect again with his spiritual guide.”

-Chuck Frank, via Richard Martini, Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide to Navigating the Afterlife, 2011

This is Part IV of a series of posts exploring death experiences and transition stories. Accounts are selected from over a century of mediumship transcriptions, channeling and life-between-life regression experiences. Selected excerpts focus on the moments leading up to physical death, transition and entry into the spirit world.  To read the introduction to this series of posts, please use the link above to open Part I.

In places where you see this symbol, […], I have skipped sentences and/or paragraphs from the original text for the sake of brevity.

Note: While I have found no indication that any of these original sources are fraudulent, I would always encourage the reader to determine the legitimacy of each of these sources for themselves.

Transition Experiences, Part IV

Parts I, II and III focused on singular transition experiences.  In Part IV, I present three individual experiences, each with two things in common: these are the experiences of people who perished with many others in a larger tragedy – the first as a soldier in war, the second in the Holocaust, and the third in the sinking of the Titanic.  The second similarity in each of these accounts, is the desire for the departing soul to aid others, or be aided by others in spirit.  None dwell on the pain or trauma prior to passing; rather any description of their actual death is absent – almost an afterthought.  Yet, in these horrific large-scale tragedies, it is reassuring to know that souls assist each other just as the survivors are inclined to do.  The calm aid the terrified, the strong assist the weak, and guides help them all to find home and rest.

Chuck Frank’s Past Life Regression: “D-Day in World War II”

Excerpt from Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide on how to Navigate the Afterlife, Martini, Richard (pp. 140-141). Copyright 2011 by Homina Publishing

Note: The following passage represents a portion of the author Richard Martini’s interview with Chuck Frank, a hypnotherapist from Hollywood, California. Here, Richard asks Chuck to describe his own past life regression experience which he records in Flipside.  Take notice of the word choice that Chuck uses when describing the reaction of some soldiers who have just died. He uses ‘agony’; but he does not mean agony of the body, but fear and confusion of the soul. Here he describes his calling to assist these souls in their transition.

I found myself in World War II landing on one of the beaches during the invasion of France where I got shot in the chest and was dying on the beach. There were the most intense scenes, with planes and bombs and thousands of people shooting and bleeding and dying and crying and screaming. And there were people coming to help me and I was telling them it was OK, and not to worry about me.  I enjoyed watching all the action, which was amazing. 

I was able to leave and come back to my body at will and I was accompanied by this beautiful light being.  There were all these souls around me dying, and were having the hardest time transitioning from the body into the spirit realm; they were in total agony. Here I was able to move effortlessly into the spirit realm and these other fellows were screaming from the depths of their souls in fear.  

I’d already left my body, so I went to this fellow wrapped my arms around him, comforted him and helped him up and into the light and helped him connect again with his spiritual guide.  I kept doing this again and again.  It dawned on me this was the reason for my existence on Earth; when all hell had broken loose, I was needed to help souls transition.  It was a profound and amazing realization.

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Debbie Haynie’s Past Life Regression: “Memories of the Holocaust”

Excerpt from Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide on how to Navigate the Afterlife, Martini, Richard (pp. 112-113). Copyright 2011 by Homina Publishing

Debbie Haynie, a therepist from Denvers remembers the life of five-year old “Hannah”, as she spends her last days in Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany during World War II. Hannah remembers hearing the reassuring voices of the spirits of women who have died before her own transition.  The spirits of these women have remained to help guide Hannah, and likely others, to the light after their terrible ordeal.

..I remembered being in the Holocaust and the details came pretty significantly. I remembered my entire family, my mother and my father, my grandfather whom I called ‘Papa’ – they were all taken from me. And prior to being taken away, we were living in a small apartment, and my Papa was very close to me. And the SS came to take us away and I remember being taken into the camps and watched Papa being taken to another place and my father taken away from me.  I can still feel that intense chill from being in the camp, the simple bunks and finding the place extremely cold (and in this lifetime, I continue to hate to be cold!) 

I was about the age of five in the camp and I remember thinking that if I could find a way to get into the heart of this woman guard, touch her heart in some way, you know, break her ice, perhaps she would change.  And so I went on a little expedition, took and picked some tiny white flowers and gave them to her; smiled at her, hoping she would take the flowers and it would open her heart. And she promptly threw the flowers down and stomped them into the ground, harshly.

And when it was time for me, I remember going into the showers and hearing spirits of other women speaking to me. I knew we were going to die, and I remember hearing the spirits saying to “Remember,” and to just “Look into the light.” And so some of my last emotions, my last thoughts were “Just do this.” I put my hand over my mouth so I would take in as little gas as possible. I guess I wanted to be the last one to go, so then I could live a little longer and help save other lives. That was one of my last memories in that particular life, then going forward to floating above the scene and seeing souls flying past me and souls leaving; going on their way to their next journey.

During the interview, Richard Martini asks Debbie if she can remember details about where ‘Hannah’ had been.  She firmly recalled the camp as Bergen-Belsen.  Students of history may balk at her memory of dying in a gas chamber.  Officially, it is reported that there were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, but eye-witness reports and other documents hint at the possibility that a singular gas chamber was in use.  Survivors specifically describe these as ‘showers, where gas came out instead of water’.  According to one witness, there was one gas chamber disguised as a shower facility in a wooden building with a ‘water tank’ on top. It was later bulldozed to create a mass grave. Moreover, many prisoners, including women and children, were shipped from Bergen-Belsen to the gas chambers at Auschwitz when they were no longer ‘useful’ for hard labor.

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William Thomas Stead, 1849-1912

As received by medium Pardoe Woodman, transcribed by Estelle W. Stead

Excerpt from The Blue Island: Experiences of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil, Stead, Estelle Wilson, and Woodman, Pardoe. Published 1922 by London : Hutchinson & Co

The following excerpt tells of the death experience of William T. Stead, who perished on the Titanic in 1912. In life, Stead was an investigative journalist and controversial figure in Victorian England, strongly advocating for political and social change.  Additionally, Stead was a spiritualist.  His daughter, Estelle, recorded the words of her father through medium Pardoe Woodman after satisfactorily verifying his identity through several mediums.  Estelle recorded her father’s words in The Blue Island in 1922 with an introduction contributed by Arthur Conan Doyle.

William Thomas Stead:

Of my actual passing from earth to spirit life, I do not wish to write more than a few lines. I have already spoken of it several times and in several places. The first part of it was naturally an extremely discordant one, but from the time my physical life was ended there was no longer that sense of struggling with overwhelming odds; but I do not wish to speak of that.

My first surprise came when—I now understand that to your way of thinking I was dead—I found I was in a position to help people. From being in dire straights myself, to being able to lend a hand to others, was such a sudden transition that I was frankly and blankly surprised. I was so taken aback that I did not consider the why and the wherefore at all. I was suddenly able to help. I knew not how or why and did not attempt to inquire. There was no analysis then; that came a little later. I was also surprised to find a number of friends with me, people I knew had passed over years before. That was the first cause of my realizing the change [death] had taken place. I knew it suddenly and was a trifle alarmed. Practically instantaneously I found myself looking for myself.  Just a moment of agitation, momentary only, and then the full and glorious realization that all I had learned was true. Oh, how badly I needed a telephone at that moment! I felt I could give the papers some headlines for the evening.

That was my first realization; then came a helplessness—a reaction—a thought of all my own at home—they didn’t know yet. What would they think of me? Here was I, with my telephone out of working order for the present. I was still so near to the earth that I could see everything going on there. Where I was I could see the wrecked ship, the people, the whole scene; and that seemed to pull me into action—I could help….And so in a few seconds—though I am now taking a long time to tell you, it was only a few seconds really—I found myself changed from the helpless state to one of action; helpful not helpless— I was helpful, too, I think.

I pass a little now. The end came and it was all finished with. It was like waiting for a liner to sail; we waited until all were aboard. I mean we waited until the disaster was complete. The saved—saved; the dead—alive. Then in one whole we moved our scene. It was a strange method of travelling for us all, and we were a strange crew, bound for we knew not where. The whole scene was indescribably pathetic. Many, knowing what had occurred, were in agony of doubt as to their people left behind and as to their own future state. What would it hold for them? Would they be taken to see Him [Jesus]? What would their sentence be? Others were almost mental wrecks. They knew nothing, they seemed to be uninterested in everything, their minds were paralyzed. A strange crew indeed, of human souls waiting their ratings in the new land. [note: in Victorian England at the turn of the century, most were Christian, and feared the judgement of their deeds as described in the Bible].
A matter of a few minutes in time only, and here were hundreds of bodies floating in the water—dead—hundreds of souls carried through the air, alive; very much alive, some were. Many, realizing their death had come, were enraged at their own powerlessness to save their valuables. They fought to save what they had on earth prized so much.  The scene on the boat at the time of the sinking was not so pleasant, but it was as nothing to the scene among the poor souls newly thrust out of their bodies, all unwillingly. It was both heartbreaking and repellent. And thus we waited—waited until all were collected, until all were ready, and then we moved our scene to a different land.

It was a curious journey that. Far more strange than anything I had anticipated. We seemed to rise vertically into the air at terrific speed. As a whole we moved, as if we were on a very large platform, and this was hurled into the air with gigantic strength and speed, yet there was no feeling of insecurity…. We were quite steady. I cannot tell how long our journey lasted, nor how far from the earth we were when we arrived, but it was a gloriously beautiful arrival.

It was like walking from your own English winter gloom into the radiance of an Indian Sky. There, all was brightness and beauty. We saw this land far off when we were approaching, and those of us who could understand realized that we were being taken to the place destined for all those people who pass over suddenly—on account of its general appeal. It helps the nerve-racked newcomer to fall into line and regain mental balance very quickly. We arrived feeling, in a sense, proud of ourselves. It was all lightness, brightness. Everything as physical and quite as material in every way as the world we had just finished with.

Our arrival was greeted with welcomes from many old friends and relations who had been dear to each one of us in our earth life. And having arrived, we people who had come over from that ill-fated ship parted company. We were free agents again, though each one of us was in the company of some personal friends who had been over here a long while.

Following this description in Blue Island, Stead describes how the pain and terror of the Titanic sinking vanished almost immediately after their arrival in the spirit world.  As he says, “Having accepted the change of death, all the horror of our late experience had gone. It might have been fifty years ago, instead of, perhaps, last night.”

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Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide to Navigating the Afterlife
By Richard Martini

Available on Amazon – Click Here to View

The Blue Island: Experiences of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil
by W. T. Stead

Available on Amazon – Click Here to View

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Next: Part V >>

In Parts V and VI, We will experience the process of passing over from two sides of the story: Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson describes his own transition to the spirit world, then later his remarkable experience assisting as a guide during the transition of a young man passing of an illness.