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Colin Wilson - Mysteries

[the following is] an experience that happened to my mother. In 1955, our family doctor failed to diagnose a stomach pain as appendicitis; the appendix ruptured and she was rushed into hospital with peritonitis. For the rest of that year, she was in and out of hospital, having operation after operation. During this time I was writing my first book in London; on visits to the hospital in Leicester I saw her becoming steadily weaker.

She says that she finally became convinced she was dying and felt quite resigned to it-even happy.

Nothing else mattered. And suddenly I looked at the side of the bed, and there was this old fellow with a white beard, and he looked like a biblical character. I remember glancing down and noticing that he had sandals on. He'd got a kind of scroll in his hands, like those you see on a gravestone, and he unwound it, and started to talk to me. The words were most beautiful-l just wish I could remember the words, but I can't. He looked as though he was reading the words to me. Then he Iooked at me and said: 'Now look, you can't go yet, there 's too much for you to do. You're needed here.' l felt ever so happy. I wish I could remember what he said. But he promised me something-he said I'd got to stay here for some reason. After he'd gone, I felt much better. And I knew I didn't have to die, if what he said was true. I knew it was true because his voice was so gentle.

It is almost impossible to evaluate an experience like this. She is emphatic that it was not a dream.

'l was wide awake and I saw him. I thought it might have been your great grandad, but Aunt Con says he didn't have a little white goatee beard like this fellow.'