Abstract
After collecting personal accounts of near-death experiences from persons with large burn injuries, it was discovered that several of the participants described seeing, talking with (and even hugging and praying with) a person or spirit they identified as an angel. Although the number of individuals in this qualitative study is small (n = 6), verification of some key details in these interesting accounts may have been possible if one had the inclination and resources to investigate at the time. The author suggests helping professionals may want to consider that some patients may be able to relate other anecdotal accounts and a collection of these could assist with understanding their prevalence and could be a source of comfort to those experiencing great pain, loss, or crisis in their lives.
Angels are frequently mentioned in a number of religions. In the Old Testament, the term “angel” appears approximately 100 times and the plural “angels” occurs 12 more times (Strong, 1980). Similarly, angels are mentioned in the Torah and indeed, angels are recognized in each of the three great Abrahamic religions; acceptance of angels is one of Islam’s “six articles of belief” (Jones, 2010, p. 11). Angels also are mentioned numerous times in the New Testament and Jesus even states that children have personal angels (Matthew 18:10).
In reviewing historical accounts of angel sightings and stories about their intervention in postreformation England, Walsham (2010) concluded her examination by coining the apt phrase, “fundamental ambivalence,” to describe thinking about angels in early modern England (p. 129). Indeed, contemporary American thinking may not be all that different. While we can acknowledge angels’ “impeccable scriptural credentials” (Walsham, 2010, p. 129), our skepticism may make it difficult to believe a personal narrative of someone encountering an angel or becoming the recipient of angelic intervention.
Survey data, however, suggest that the majority of Americans believe in angels. In Stark’s (2008) survey of American beliefs, 61% of respondents expressed an absolute belief that angels exist, 55% believed they had been protected from harm by a guardian angel, and even 50% of those with no religion indicated a belief in angels. A poll of over 35,000 respondents found that 68% of Americans believe that angels and demons are active in the world (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008). Not long ago, the Gallup organization’s random survey of over 1,000 adults found 72% of Americans believe in angels (Newport, 2016).
Belief in angels is not limited to Americans. A German study of 564 patients of an outpatient pain clinic found that 56% of all participants and 75% of those with chronic pain conditions expressed belief in a guardian angel (Büssing, Reiser, Michalsen, Zahn, Baumann, 2015).
All of this expressed belief exists despite the fact that few of us have actually talked with anyone who claimed to have experienced an angel or conversed with one ourselves. Nonetheless, stories about angels and their interventions in human lives can be easily located on the Internet. One can find, for example, sites proclaiming “Five True Stories of Heavenly Visitors: Real Angel Stories,” and “Ten True Stories of Angel Encounters,” as well as postings hosted by various denominations and organizations (e.g., www.catholic.org/saints/angelstories, www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/angels-gods-messengers-and-spirit-army/personal-stories-of-angelic-encounters and www.opusangelorum.org/angel_stories/angel_stories_front.htm). These stories often relay accounts where individuals feel that they were rescued or protected from harm by a guardian angel or angels.
In the popular media, we as a society have been entertained and perhaps inspired by such books as Dickens’ 1843 classic, A Christmas Carol (and its movie adaptations) with visits by three spirits or ghosts. However, it could be argued that the goal of saving Scrooge from his miserliness reflects an angelic intent and intervention. And again along this line, an angel saves the life of George Bailey in the 1946 American movie classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Valery Rees (2013) in her cultural history of angels has noted, “I have been amazed at how rich and expansive the literature is on all things angelic” (p. 214).
More recently, there have been books and movies based on miraculous healing of children such as Christy Beam’s (2015) description of her daughter Annabel’s life-threatening digestive disorders and a fall of 30 feet inside the hollow of a tree (movie and book title, Miracles from Heaven) and Todd Burpo’s description of his young son, Colton’s, survival of a ruptured appendix (movie and book title, Heaven is for Real; see Burpo & Vincent, 2010). Although in these works, angels’ roles are not as primary as that of the fictional Clarence Odbody in Wonderful Life. This also is true in the popular books reporting near-death experiences (NDEs) by physicians Mary Neal (2012) who drowned and Eben Alexander (2012). Nonetheless, there appears to be a wealth of Internet postings, books, movies, and television programming (e.g., Highway to Heaven, Touched by an Angel) where angels (whether fictitious or purported to be real) have been reported or portrayed as active agents intervening in the lives of humans.
Despite their tradition in religious faith and presence in popular media, “people are uneasy about taking them seriously” (Jones, 2010, p. 68). Even the scholar Valery Rees (2013), after detailing three episodes of her own personal encounters with angels concludes somewhat obliquely, “I subscribe to the view that our individuality is not entirely bound by bodily form, and that many influences are at work in the world, in forms unseen” (p. 218). Her uneasiness is especially confirmed when it comes to academic literature where there is a real impoverishment of information about human interactions with angels.
A literature search of “angel” (title) and “religion” (subject) in the computer search engine, PsycInfo, (April 2019) produced only 15 English language “hits” between the years 2018 and 1969. None of these shed any light on the possible involvement of angels in contemporary human life but largely employed the term “angel” in the sense of a very kind or unselfish individual.
Although the topic of angels is a difficult one to investigate and certainly cannot be done in a scientific, empirical sense, helping professionals may have opportunities to collect anecdotal accounts that come from their work with the dying and the bereaved. While this author was collecting qualitative data on burn survivors’ NDEs (Royse & Badger, 2018), several participants related stories that directly mentioned angels or inferred their involvement. These accounts are described in this article.
It is appropriate to ask why the topic is worthy of investigation. As M. Scott Peck (1985) has noted, the first of the “Four Noble Truths” that Buddha taught was that “life is suffering.” Psychiatrist Peck phrased it this way, “Life is difficult” (p. 15). For those approaching the end of their lives and those in tough situations or with severe physical or emotional pain, belief in angels may bring comfort or hope. It could possibly reduce death anxiety in advanced care planning, provide some suggestion of transcendence, and link persons with their religion.
Method
Participants
Each year the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors hosts a conference, the World Burn Congress, for burn survivors, their families, and professionals who work in the field. The conference gives the burn injured an opportunity to meet other survivors and receive peer support and knowledge about recovery from their severe trauma. Burn survivors have often experienced induced medical comas, multiple surgeries, disfiguring scars, and even loss of limbs, jobs, homes, and family members or friends.
Data for this study were collected at the World Burn Congresses held in Anaheim, California in October, 2014 and in Indianapolis, Indiana in October of 2015. Both years, a brief description was placed in the conference program schedule (“Special Session: Recovery from a Burn Injury: Life Satisfaction, Posttraumatic Growth, Near-Death Experiences”) and two separate days and times were scheduled each year. The 75-minute sessions involved both quantifiable and qualitative data collection. In the qualitative portion of the study, participants were invited to describe any NDEs. Similar to a focus group, respondents freely volunteered their accounts and the moderator probed for clarification. All sessions were digitally recorded. It is estimated that approximately 200 individuals attended the four sessions and these were a mixture of burn survivors, family members, and professionals.
Findings
From the qualitative accounts gathered in a previous study, six burn survivors directly described the involvement of an angel in their survival or recovery in the aftermath of the burn injury. Names that appear below are not the actual names of the parties involved.
The speaker in the first story was a young mother. Her voice was a little raspy which is common when the individual has experienced smoke inhalation. Her house was a total loss, but she was able to escape with her young infant. As the moderator of these sessions, the author was expecting the speaker to describe her own close call with death and what she experienced during that time. This is a portion of the account she related:
Account 1 I was in a house fire. The house burned to the ground with me and my two kids trapped inside. My daughter was seven months old and my son was four. I say four, but my son also had some special needs so he had about the mentality of a 12-month old. During the whole fire I wound up falling and getting trapped and he ran off and turned on the bath water and filled the bathtub and laid in it so he wouldn’t get burned. I asked him after, “How in the world did you think to do that?” He told me that an angel told him how to turn on the bathtub. I mean, this is a kid who can’t put a sock on his own foot, so filling the bathtub was kinda a little like, “Huh?” Moderator: He’d never done that before? Mother: Oh no. He can’t do that now. (No. 25, 2015)
Account 2 Hi, my name is Jim. I was in an explosion. I’m a power plant operating engineer and one of the boilers exploded on me. I could only assume I was in a coma at the time that I ran into … this elder Black woman. But it was weird that she’s almost dressed like the old slave, with the hat and it was just really strange and she came up to me and said, uh, thanked me. “You saved me. Thank you.” And I said, “No, you saved me, Ma’m. You saved me. You know you’re always taught that,” I told her, “you’re always taught that when you’re in the presence of angels, you have a sweet smell and this one was one of the most beautiful smells I’ve ever had in my life. And you saved me.” And she just kind of giggled and called me silly and walked on into a bright hallway. That was all that I could say of that but now my wife has— Moderator: And at what point did you have that vision or whatever? Do you know when that happened? Jim: I had to be in a coma. Jim’s wife: When he came to, he just kept talking about her. About this woman, —when he had, you know, and they were bringing him in and out of the coma, you know, and it was at that point, you know, it was minute to minute whether he’d survive or not. But what had happened to me and my daughter and we had our whole family down there at that burn center. So there was like 12 people, okay? But my daughter and I ran into this wonderful woman and her name was Irene and she was always there. Whenever they’d tell me, “Jim’s blood pressure is dropping, you know, and they were working on bringing him back, just things would happen and Irene would always be there. I’d walk around the corner and there would be Irene and she’d hug me and she smelled like my mother and my mother had passed away 20 years ago. But she hugged me and I felt safe and she’d hugged my daughter and she would laugh with us and she’d pray with us and she was just, just you know, how you just feel with, I don’t know. … she would tell me stories and our daughter stories about how she had a son-in-law that got burnt in the same type of explosion that my husband was in and he had survived and she was just so supportive. She said she was at the burn center because her brother was in intensive care. It didn’t make sense why she was in the burn center but she was always—every day we’d run into her. When Jim comes to, and he starts, and she told my daughter and I that she had to leave but she would be back in two weeks and it would be a Tuesday when she would be back and she’d find us. So we gave her hugs and kisses good-bye you know … and anyway, two weeks to the date he comes out of his coma. Irene never came back. The only ones that saw Irene, with all our family members there, are my daughter and myself. She was real. I mean, we had conversations, hugs. My daughter saw her too but . . . Moderator: The hospital staff? Jim’s Wife: The hospital staff didn’t see her. How could you not? She was right here. We were talking to her and when he [husband] started talking about how they met where the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers run together, one of the nurses was so excited about the whole thing because she had heard our story, she went online and looked online and where it connects, that’s also where the underground railroad was at and how he described the woman, that was exactly how Irene looked exactly. Moderator: But wearing contemporary clothes? Jim’s wife: No (she laughs). No. She had the older clothes on and her hair was up and she was just a grammy you wanted to hug . . . Moderator: Was she African American? Jim’s wife: Yes Moderator: And nobody knew anything about her except your family members? Jim’s Wife: No, just me and my daughter. The rest of the family, my sons, my sisters, my brothers-in law, no one saw her … We couldn’t wait for Irene to get back, me and Alice, because we just, I don’t know. Alice and I would just—I’m very close to my young—she’s my youngest child, but we would talk about Irene but everybody else kind of just like they’d hear us talking but not really ‘Who’s that?’ type of thing, not really. There’s so much happening [at that time in the Burn Center]. But yes, to the day she was supposed to come back from Mississippi, because that’s where she was going back to was Mississippi … I hugged this woman. I sat and cried on her shoulder. And then for her to smell like my mother. Because my Mom always wore this perfume called Blue Waltz. (No. 31, 2015)
Account 3 Female Speaker: My burn was a frostbite. Does that still count because I didn’t want to— Moderator: Tell me the specifics of that. Speaker: Well, I’m from Canada and it was Super Bowl weekend. It was a Saturday night and I was coming home with friends, walking with friends. There were these big packages and I climbed up to cut across the ice. Moderator: A what package? Speaker: It was this packaging placed in the middle of town. They were almost like big hay bales. Moderator: What did they use them for? Speaker: They just package the salt and that’s how they store it before they ship it out. I was there for 11 hours. Moderator: Your friends left you? Speaker: Yes, they couldn’t find me apparently. Moderator: You fell behind something? Speaker: Yes, I slipped in-between four of them [salt containers] where they meet. I was stuck like this with my feet in the air, yes. I got really lucky because when the paramedics got there they wouldn’t touch [me]. They were like, “She must have broken her back so we can’t touch her.” There’s been a lot of like spiritual talk around it. Speaker: My last vivid memory of being stuck was seeing darkness. It was just all dark and I could hear my friend’s mom who had found me saying my name, but she was far away. I had a close friend pass away the September before that. When I was in the hospital, the only time I dreamed, I was looking over and he was there. He was covering my hand with his. The weird thing about that is this hand was bare. When I got to the hospital it was frozen shut, but it was fine. It had a layer of frostbite, but that just peeled away like a scab. Moderator: Did you hit your head when you fell? Speaker: Well there were so many things going wrong with me because I was so cold. My body temperature, my core temperature was 27 degrees [Celsius or 80.6 Fahrenheit]. It is supposed to be 37, so I was in the one percent of people who come back. I don’t know if my head got miffed because I did have marks on my head. Moderator: You fell? Speaker: Yes, but I fell into—I think I remember them saying I didn’t have a concussion, but— Moderator: Why wouldn’t you have gotten up then? Speaker: Oh, because I did try, but I was trapped. I was pinned. I remember pushing and something was against my back. What happened was I kicked off my shoes from trying to get out because my feet kept trying to touch, but I couldn’t. Like I said, I got lucky. I went to see a medium who let us talk to our friend John who had passed away. She said that he was there and he caught me when I fell. Him and my guardian angel were wrapped around me. … I don’t know if I believe it or not. (No. 34, 2015)
Account 4 Bill: The next thing I remember, and again, I have no idea where I’m at in the cabin, is running through a front door and it was in the middle of winter. And as I was running through the front door, I thought I felt a hand on my shoulder. It felt exactly like a hand and, and pushed me through the front door … And we, there were four other gentlemen involved in uh the explosion and we all went different ways but we could not pinpoint anybody that could have pushed me through that door without getting burned. And the only one we thought it was, passed away two weeks after that. Moderator: Was the door shut or what? Bill: Pardon Moderator: Was the door shut or? Bill: Completely open Moderator: It’s open but you were having trouble getting there to the door? Bill: I don’t remember that Moderator: Ok [note: Bill seemed not to hear the question as he had previously stated that he had tried to get up off the floor three times and fell down each time] Bill: But uhm it is a total blank from—I remember that I nearly got off the floor, but I never felt myself running but I was already in the doorway … I rolled around in the snow, I turned around to look and there was already 100 foot of flames … And then but what I thought went through my mind: is not remembering that instance of getting off the floor and going through the door. And I can remember everything else as vivid as possible. So my thought … either angels picked me up or some other being gave me the strength to get up and that’s all I remember. (No. 12, 2014)
Account 5 Speaker: After five months of being in the coma, I used to tease my nurses because, and I swear to this day, there’s two people in my room, ghostly figures. One was a tall skinny lady and she just would stay there all day long looking at me. And then there was like a little child with like a, I don’t know, puffy little dress. And they were there for a long time … one of my friends would come to see me and I said, “Say hello to my two angels that are watching over me.” And I could picture them right now. If I had to draw them I could draw them for you. (No. 23, 2015)
Account 6 Marsha: I’m in the room, in my hospital room … talking to a nurse in the chair … and telling her all of our beliefs and didn’t know why I was still here but I knew there was a reason … I was telling her that [and] the story of Job in the Bible and one of the things that she said to me while we were conversing was, “Instead of wondering while you’re still here, wonder what example you’re setting by being here.” And at that time a nurse came in and asked me who I was talking to and I said, “the lady sitting here in the chair,” and she said, “Marsha, there’s nobody in your room.” I said, “Yes, there is” and I turned around and she was gone. And I, I can remember her voice. I can remember it was a black lady I was talking to because I grew up in the South and I knew how African American women sound. I distinctly remember her talking to me. (No. 17, 2015) Marsha: I went back and got to see them … I thanked them. And then one guy came out and he goes, “I have one question for you,” he goes, “how did you guys get out?” And I said, “Well, we walked out of the house?” He’s like, “No, you guys did not.” I said, “Yeah we did, I remember us clearly walking out.” He goes, “it’s impossible, there was no floor in that house for you guys to walk out on.” (No. 13, 2014)
Discussion
There is no claim that this small collection of stories constitutes proof that angels exist. Most persons of faith might find that notion even a little ridiculous. After all, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). Hearing such accounts as those excerpted above from sincere speakers may add to their credibility—but would not be satisfying to social scientists.
It is interesting to consider the possibility that if one had sufficient time and resources, perhaps some portion or whole parts of these accounts could be authenticated. In the first account, it might be possible that firefighters who put out the house fire could be located and perhaps one or more might remember the remarkable occurrence of a small boy surviving by filling a tub full of water. One could also probably find records indicating that the boy had an intellectual disability. Could the mother have filled the tub with water and placed her son in it? While possible, it doesn’t seem likely that a loving mother would have done this only so that she could claim that an angel did it at a conference.
For the second account to be false, mother, father, and teenage daughter had to be lying about encountering a woman that the mother and daughter developed a close friendship with and one the father conversed with while in a coma. Could they have made up the story? Of course, but for what reason? What would have been gained by telling such a story—particularly since the audience was in attendance to hear or discuss NDEs.
For the third account to be false, a medical professional would need to explain how a bare hand did not sustain serious frostbite (as well as feet without shoes) although the individual was hospitalized with a core body temperature of 27°C. Medical records, if searched, would have recorded the young woman’s temperature upon arrival at the hospital. But the hospital records may not explain how this young woman managed to avoid losing her fingers and toes, indeed, how she did not freeze to death in the bitter cold.
Bill in Account 4 is well-known with the Phoenix Society. He was burned over 95% of his body and attended his first World Burn Congress in 1999 and many times since. He has been very active as a peer supporter of burn survivors over the years. His integrity has never been in doubt. While it is possible that in his haste to get out of the burning cabin that he fell or tripped and confused that with a hand that pushed him, there is no reason to believe that he had anything to gain by making up his story of being pushed out the door and attributing it to an angel.
The two angels mentioned in the fifth account were portrayed as passive, watchful—not necessarily as amiable or approachable. Nothing is known about their role. Since these two angels seem to be different from those in the other stories, we might wonder if the angels were characters in a dream. What argues against that is that dreams fade extremely fast and are rapidly forgotten; however, the respondent indicated that she could still sketch the figures.
In the last account, the burn survivor seemed to suggest two angel encounters: First, there was the African American nurse who challenged her to reflect about the possible meaning of her injury. Her story was so important to her that she voluntarily related it in 2014 and 2015—possibly seeking affirmation from other burn survivors. The portion of story about getting out of the burning house with no floor she told in 2014 but not 2015. It cannot be confirmed how much of house’s flooring was destroyed by the initial explosion. Perhaps immediately after the fire, a portion of her story could have been confirmed by interviewing several of the firefighters who fought the fire at Marsha’s house.
What are we to make of these stories? Are they any different than if a stranger told you he had seen a flying saucer last night? They are qualitatively different on at least one level—They seem to have been involved in preserving life, protectively watching over it, and comforting. Flying saucers are not usually described as having such roles.The question of whether humans need to believe that angels exist is also an interesting question—but one that cannot be answered by this small qualitative study.
Ultimately, we must resolve for ourselves what to make of the angel accounts that we see or hear. Carl Jung (1963) has noted he/we live in a world “which in some respects is mysterious; things happen and can be experienced which remain inexplicable; that not everything which happens can be anticipated … For me the world has been infinite and ungraspable” (p. 356). Certainly, there is much about our world that we don’t understand.
It is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to authenticate anecdotal accounts about angels, and that is okay. However, helping professionals could make greater effort to collect and document patient accounts of presumed angel encounters. Collection and investigation of these accounts could help us to understand their prevalence and the meaning patients attribute to them.
A larger body of data available for analysis and examination and greater openness and willingness to hear and discuss such accounts could possibly benefit and comfort hospice and other patients who are experiencing great pain, loss, or crisis in their lives. Brown et al. (2014) suggest that death anxiety may act as a barrier to end-of-life planning discussions. It might even be possible to objectively document that death anxiety associated with advanced care planning is reduced in some of these situations. But regardless of the lack of information on this topic, it is important that we not merely dismiss accounts or experiences that are important to patients.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.