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She couldn’t have done it. Impossible. But she did it.

She couldn’t have done it. Impossible. But she did it.

Last updated on: September 13, 2025 at 6:57 pm by Dan Peterson

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She couldn’t have done it. Impossible. But she did it. 2025-09-13T18:57:43-06:00 Dan Peterson

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مشهد لغروب الشمس في بغداد على ضفاف نهر دجلة (“A sunset view in Baghdad, on the banks of the Tigris River”) Wikimedia Commons public domain image

Having been on the road much of the day and having spoken at a fireside this evening, I’m a bit late with this notification. However, today being Friday, a new article went up this afternoon in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Possible Remembrance and Re-enactment of Old World’s Hieros Gamos in the Book of Ether,” written by Michaël Ulrich:

Abstract: This paper explores the conclusions that can be drawn from a Mesopotamian origin theory for the Jaredites. The goal is to show that the story of Jared’s daughter in Ether 8 could be a ritual similar to hieros gamos*, or sacred marriage, from Mesopotamia. To achieve this, etymologies are given for three names (Jared, Ether, and Akish). These interesting etymologies help substantiate the sacred marriage theory for Ether 8. Finally, a comparison between Ether 3 and Ether 8 shows that both illustrate an initiation into the divine. In the former case, it is a righteous initiation into the divine; in the latter, it is an initiation into an idolatrous imitation of the divine.*

And, based upon it, “Interpreting Interpreter: Ether’s Mesopotamian Marriage,” written by Kyler Rasmussen, went up on the Interpreter Foundation’s website:

This post is a summary of the article “Possible Remembrance and Re-enactment of Old World’s Hieros Gamos in the Book of Ether” by Michaël Ulrich in Volume 66 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreterseries is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/BD1AxeyFeTE.

The Takeaway: Ulrich explores possible connections between the Book of Ether and ancient Mesopotamian culture, focusing on Sumerian/Akkadian etymologies for the names Jared, Ether, and Akish, as well as parallels between Ether 8 and the literary motif of the “sacred marriage”.

An artist’s rendering of the Vancouver Washington Temple, for which ground was broken a few weeks ago. It will stand just across the Columbia River from Portland. (Fair use)

I’ve recently been reading Titus Rivas, Anny Dirven, and Rudolf H. Smith, The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences, translated by Wanda J. Boeke (Durham NC: International Association for Near-Death Studies, 2016). It’s an expanded English translation of a Dutch original.

Today, I share with you Case 2.18 (“Helen”), which is recounted on pages 49-51 of The Self Does Not Die. It is taken from Near Death in the ICU (Appleton, Wisconsin: Sloan Press, 2015), which was written by a critical-care physician named Laurin Bellg.

“Helen” – the name is a pseudonym, adopted to protect the experiencer’s anonymity – was involved in a very serious multi-vehicle accident. However, she immediately got out of her car in something of a panic in order to assess the damage and to determine whether anybody else needed help.

Afterwards, she was able to report how many vehicles had been involved—there were four—and to describe a gray floral-delivery van that was ornamented with company decals on its side. They consisted of blue writing superimposed on a spray of red roses.

She walked over to a dark green four-door sedan that was smashed against the hood of her own car at a very sharp angle, where it had hit her from the side after running a stop sign. A bearded, dark-haired man was slumped over the steering wheel, moaning. She saw how the bearded man’s car had impacted hers and, thus, had led to a pile-up because the floral-delivery van behind her and a white suburban behind it had been unable to stop in time. Her car was wedged in between the van and the green car, smashed, accordion-like, between them.

The door of the van was too damaged to open, so that, although the driver seemed to be essentially unhurt, he couldn’t get out of his vehicle.

The driver of the white suburban was also in good shape. Helen very clearly heard her calling emergency services for help anthen, having finished her call, Helen saw her rushing rather frantically around, checking on people. Helen saw her reach into the green car, weaving her arm under its injured driver to turn off its engine, which was beginning to billow smoke. Then she leaned in to try to soothe and comfort him, rubbing his back and assuring him that help was on its way.

Helen saw that the passenger in the green car was crying, obviously upset. So, while the driver of the white suburban focused on the green car’s driver, Helen went around to the passenger side of the vehicle. She tried to offer comfort and support to the crying woman through the shattered window, but the woman didn’t answer or respond. In fact, the woman didn’t even appear to notice her presence, which, Helen thought, was probably understandable because of how very upset she was.

It was then that [Helen] heard the wailing sirens of approaching police cars and ambulances. She took that as a cue to get back to her own vehicle so that they could all be properly cared for. Walking back to her own car, a sudden realization stopped her in her tracks—she was looking at a woman, apparently unresponsive, in the driver’s seat of her car and realized that she was that woman.

She was simultaneously standing outside of her own car, looking at what appeared to be her body trapped in the driver’s seat of a very damaged vehicle. It took her a while to orient to the fact that she was looking at her own body while somehow being separate from it. In doing so, she eventually came to the sobering reality that if she was outside of her body, looking at herself trapped in the heap of mangled metal, then she must be dead. Nothing else made sense.

The official police report indicated Helen was quite entangled in the debris of her car and it took nearly thirty minutes to extricate her. It was unclear, at the time, exactly what was injured or broken, but, soon enough, the odd angles of her ankles revealed the truth of her injuries and that was what was called into the hospital ahead of her arrival. Not only was she trapped in the rubble of her car, both of her ankles were clearly broken, and she was observed, by experienced rescue workers, to be unconscious at the scene. There is no physical way that she would have been able to get out of her vehicle, let alone walk around and report with such great accuracy what she later described. . . .

She told us details she couldn’t possibly have been aware of unless she was awake and walking around, observing from the specific angles she described – especially when she saw her own body in the driver’s seat of her car.

Posted from Portland, Oregon

Travel and Religion

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near-death experience

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