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62 Ellen G. White -- Messenger or Medium?

"Out of Body" Experiences

On a wintry day in December, 1844, seventeen-year old Ellen Harmon [White] met with
four friends in the Portland, Maine home of a Mrs. Haines to pray for divine guidance.

Let Ronald L. Numbers pick up the story:

As the women knelt in a circle, the "Holy Spirit" rested upon Ellen in a new and dramatic
way. BATHED IN LIGHT, SHE SEEMED TO BE "RISING HIGHER AND HIGHER,
FAR ABOVE THE DARK WORLD." From her vantage point she saw the Advent people
traveling a straight and narrow path toward the New Jerusalem, their way lighted by the
October 22 message [vision of Hiram Edson].

A SPECIAL ANGEL always guided Ellen on her heavenly tours, directing her attention
to events past and future, celestial and terrestrial...

Let Dorothy Eady relate similar experiences she had:

One night His Majesty [Sety I] sent this YOUNG PRIEST named Ptahmes to fetch me --
that is to fetch my ASTRAL BODY. I was asleep and awoke suddenly and saw this priest
standing in my room. He beckoned to me. I sat up, and he said something in ancient Egyp-
tian that I didn't quite follow, except for the words "Our Lord wants you." I had three cats
then, and the moment this fellow appeared, all of them put up their backs and spat and ran
out of the room. I felt a queer kind of sensation, as if I were sort of expanding. I got up and
felt most beautifully light. I LOOKED DOWN ON THE BED, AND THERE WAS MY
BODY, lying there with my flannel night gown on, and appearing most unwholesome and
unappetizing! And here was I, stark naked, but feeling gloriously light; and this chap said to
me, "Come!" and we walked out, as if on air, and I looked down to see the pyramids far be-
low us. We passed through a patch of blackness, like thick fog.

Dorothy Eady continues:

On coming out of this fog, we found ourselves in front of a palace door, and the guards
challenged us. We went in, and Ptahmes the YOUNG PRIEST led me through a passage
into a big L-shaped room...And then, after a while, before dawn, Ptahmes came back into
the room to take me home. Every time that Ptahmes appeared again to take me to Amenti,
the cats always spat and fled. But I can't describe to you the marvelous feeling of freedom
and lightness when one's rid of one's body! The SPIRITUALISTS say that when people go
out in their astral bodies there's a silver cord joining them to their earthly bodies. In my case
there was no silver cord.

These experiences of Ellen G. White and Dorothy Eady were not uncommon in the early
part of the nineteenth century. At that time America abounded with "prophets" of every description,
from little-known frontier seers in Ellen Harmon's own Methodist church, to prominent sectarian
leaders.

The Berean Voice November-December 2002