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Comments from two near-death experiencers

Comments from two near-death experiencers

Last updated on: September 20, 2026 at 11:47 pm by Dan Peterson

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Comments from two near-death experiencers 2026-09-20T23:47:09-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Two sister missionaries talking with a man in Georgia. (LDS Media Library)

I was able to do a teaching visit with the local full-time missionaries today, which was fun. I haven’t done it in quite a while. And I spoke via Zoom with two third-generation units, which was also fun, albeit of a significantly different kind.

I was out with the elders. Here, though, is an article reporting on a landmark in the history of Latter-day Saint missionary efforts. And it happens to be fueled, to a significant degree, by sister missionaries, which pleases me considerably: “Women fuel new record as Church of Jesus Christ reaches 90,000 missionaries: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints smashed its own previous record set in July” Here’s another article from the official Church newsroom: “More Than 90,000 Missionaries Now Serving Worldwide: Record number reflects historic level of 30,000 women serving as missionaries; levels of youth participation continue to grow”

Our ward welcomed a sister missionary home today who had, if I heard correctly, served in the Pachuca Mexico Mission and then in the newly-organized Tula Mexico Mission. She gave a very good talk, and she obviously loved her mission and the people that she served.

But here’s yet another piece that, while it isn’t about Latter-day Saints in any direct way, might also be of interest to some readers. It’s from the Washington Post: “Are Americans abandoning churches to be ‘nones’? This is the reality. Believe it or not, religion isn’t declining.”

And, as we approach October’s semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you might enjoy this. I certainly did: “New Behind the Scenes of General Conference Video Features Audio and Light Teams: Technicians and engineers inspect each light fixture, microphone and audio speaker to ensure inspired messages reach millions”

I vaguely remember this large religious building from my youth in Southern California. I believe that it’s connected in some way or another with the religious denomination to which I think I belong.

It has recently been suggested by at least two Latter-day Saints who have been vocal Facebook critics of my expressed opinions about Islam, Muslims, and the Islamic world that I should consider devoting my time and energy to writing about and defending the Restored Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instead of Islam.

Given their kindly advice, I’ve decided just this past week to test the waters and to try, tentatively at least, to do what they’ve counseled me to do. I don’t think that I’ll forego writing and speaking and posting about Islamic topics entirely — for example, I’m currently mapping out a proposal to do a series of lectures on Islam for next year’s BYU Education Week (the proposal deadline comes amazingly early!) — but I think that I’ll begin, from now on, to dedicate at least a small portion of my attention to Latter-day Saint topics. So I’ve recently started a little organization called The Interpreter Foundation, produced some movies (see here and here), launched an ongoing series of short video documentaries under the rubric of Becoming Brigham, and begun to write a column for Meridian Magazine that’s oriented toward Restoration issues, and I think that I’ll probably also (at least partially, every once in a while) dedicate some entries here on this blog to “Mormon” or “Mormon”-adjacent subjects I just want to alert you to the rather dramatic change that’s coming.

“Scuttle,” a local Salish Sea humpback whale, as seen from our boat when we were most recently up in the Pacific Northwest.

I found this article extraordinarily interesting: “If a Lion Could Speak: Wittgenstein believed that if a lion could speak, we could not understand him. The sperm whale may be teaching us to revisit that doubt.”

The T. A. Moulton barn, on Mormon Row at the base of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, not terribly far Jackson Hole.. (Image by Jon Sullivan, of PD Photo; Wikimedia CC)

I spent a little time this evening browsing the internet for something else (that I didn’t actually find). But I came across these two quotations about near-death experiences that I think worth sharing.

The first comes from Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, an evidently somewhat controversial American writer and retired pediatric surgeon who earned his M.D. with honors from Cornell University Medical College, and who trained in surgery at Yale–New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran’s Hospital, and the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He left the practice of medicine as an Assistant Clinical Professor of General and Pediatric Surgery at the medical school of Yale University.

At the age of four, he reports, he underwent a near-death experience as the result of choking and aspirating on toy parts while sitting on his bed during an ear infection. He says that he wanted to stay dead rather than to return, and that the experience both left him with no fear of death and with the life-long conviction that consciousness is “non-local” (which surely means, among other things, that its isn’t identical with the physical brain). In any case, here is the quotation from him that caught my noticc (and for which I don’t have the original source):

“When I experience something, I believe it. I almost choked to death when I was a four year old and had a near death experience. I was very upset that I didn’t die because it was a lot more interesting out of your body than in it.”

The second passage (for which, likewise, I don’t yet have the original source, although I’ve read two of her books and heard her speak) comes from Dr. Mary C. Neal, a board-certified orthopaedic spine surgeon (M.D., UCLA, with subsequent training at the University of Southern California, in Sweden, and in Switzerland). She drowned while kayaking on a South American river. Currently, she lives and works in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

What I find more remarkable, however, is how readily many people in our society believe outlandish and unsubstantiated urban myths and conspiracies (Pop Rocks and Coke, JFK assassination, AIDS is man-made, etc.), yet disregard thousands of personal and consistent testimonies of miracles and near-death experiences from people throughout all cultures and religions.

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