Chapter 2—Predictions Relating to Activities in the Non-Adventist World

Appearance of Departed Friends

“It is not difficult for the evil angels to represent both saints and sinners who have died, and make these representations visible to human eyes. These manifestations will be more frequent, and developments of a more startling character will appear as we near the close of time.”—RH 4-1-97; Evangelism, 604.EWP 9.3

a) J. B. Phillips says that C. S. Lewis appeared to him:EWP 10.1

“Many of us who believe in what is technically known as the Communion of Saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, for a fairly short time, of those whom we love soon after they have died. This has certainly happened to me several times. But the late C. S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well and had only seen in the flesh once, but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was watching television, he ‘appeared’ sitting in a chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to the difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and, as the old-fashioned saying has it, positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all.EWP 10.2

“I was neither alarmed nor surprised nor ... did I look up to see the hole in the ceiling that he might have made on arrival! He was just there— ‘ large as life and twice as natural.’ A week later, this time when I was in bed, reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated to me the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and I mentioned it to a certain saintly bishop who was then living in retirement here in Dorset. His reply was ‘My dear J, this sort of thing is happening all the time. ’”—The Ring of Truth, pp. 118, 119.EWP 10.3