He DIED as a Child, Met His ANGELS & Was SHOWN Humanity’s DIVINE PURPOSE with Jacob Cooper

He DIED as a Child, Met His ANGELS & Was SHOWN Humanity’s DIVINE PURPOSE with Jacob Cooper

There’s a moment in life—sometimes so small, so brief—that shatters the boundary between what is known and what has always been forgotten. On today’s episode, we welcome Jacob Cooper, a man whose childhood dance with death opened the doors to a world most spend lifetimes chasing.

Jacob Cooper is a psychotherapist and near-death experiencer whose encounter with death at the age of three gave him profound insight into eternity, spiritual purpose, and the luminous reality that lies just beyond the veil.

It began not in a temple or a sacred cave, but at the top of a playground slide. A simple climb turned cosmic when young Jacob suffocated due to whooping cough, lost consciousness, and was catapulted into realms that shimmer with infinity. He speaks of the moment his brain “snapped in half,” not as trauma, but as initiation—a yank from the wall socket of flesh into the breath of eternity. And from there, the theater of the other side revealed itself. Spirit guides, radiant angels, golden palaces—visions that sing like octaves from the soul’s deepest chambers.

In this profound conversation, Jacob shares how the suffocating grip of death became the breath of his life. He encountered a truth that no creed could capture: “Death is a fiction.” And not in some poetic metaphor, but as a lived, vivid, sensory truth. What opened before him wasn’t an end—it was a return. The colors were more than visible; they were sentient. The beings were more than beings; they were familial echoes, soul family waiting at the shoreline of consciousness. It wasn’t so much a departure from life, but an arrival into Life—with a capital L.

With luminous clarity, Jacob describes the ethereal layers of spirit guides—contracted companions who walk beside us invisibly—as well as the angelic beings, radiant and formless, pouring love into the atmosphere like sunlight filtered through stained glass. He recalls the embarrassment he felt realizing they had always been with him, hidden in the folds of forgetfulness. But what’s more, he was offered a choice: stay in the infinite or return to the finite and deliver its message. He chose life, and in doing so, he chose service.

What separates Jacob’s experience is not just the beauty of what he saw, but the intimacy of what he felt. He describes the afterlife as both “millions of miles away” and “right here,” just a breath beyond the visible. It’s not a realm to be chased after death, but a frequency that hums softly beneath this one, waiting to be tuned into. Like a radio dial, just one subtle turn, and the choir of angels is there—always there.

Then comes the life review, not a judgment, but an unveiling. At three years old, Jacob saw his impact through the eyes of others. He saw not just what he had done, but what it meant. He also witnessed past lives, not as a museum of memory, but as threads in the great tapestry of purpose. And from that tapestry came clarity—a soul mission not yet complete. He glimpsed his future life’s teachings, the faces he would help, and the sacred echo of his own voice speaking before crowds, reminding others of what they’ve forgotten.

Jacob left us with this crystalline wisdom: “Sometimes we wait to find joy at the end of the road, only to find the road has no end.” That is perhaps the truest teaching of all. The sacred isn’t some distant heaven. It’s this life. This breath. This choice. And that, he tells us, is what he returned to share.

SPIRITUAL TAKEAWAYS

  1. The Afterlife is Not After – What we call “the other side” isn’t a destination we reach, but a presence that breathes alongside us, accessible through deep awareness and surrender.

  2. You Have Always Been Guided – Spirit guides are not fantasy but contracted companions. They’ve walked with you long before birth, and remain, waiting only for recognition.

  3. Joy is the Road, Not the Reward – The purpose is not to arrive but to awaken within the journey. The sacred isn’t after this life—it’s alive in every step, every soul, every silent moment of trust.

So, if you’ve ever asked yourself what lies beyond the veil—or within it—this conversation is a map back to your center. Back to your soul’s truest compass. And maybe, just maybe, a reminder that you’ve never truly been lost.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jacob Cooper.

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Follow Along with the Transcript – Episode DE073

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.

Jacob Cooper 0:08
I went to a playground. I was just climbing up the ladder on slide, and at the last rung of the ladder. No pun intended, I climbed up the last ladder on this slide and I suffocated nothing. I was not able to hold on to anything, you know, if you could imagine, if you're drowning and trying to just grab onto a log or something and but there was nothing to grab onto, and I lost every bit of my own human breath. And that from losing my own human breath, I was really forced to surrender to something else that, you know. I refer to in my book as the breath of eternity. There was nothing going on in my brain and my body, and once I surrendered to my breath of eternity, I felt my brain literally snap in half, and as if you're plugged into a wall, and that plug is just yanked from that wall, and I felt this large crack in my brain. That's when everything on the other side opened up, seeing my own spirit guides, you know, being able to see infinite array of angels that were floating right in front of me. I was rushed to a hospital. I was responsive, you know, in the ambulance, and I had to stay in a hospital for a couple of days, and thankfully, I recovered. But it was really what saved me, was choosing to say yes to life. I know a lot of near death experiencers. They're told, hey, it's not your time go back. And for me, I was given an option as to staying or going, and once I chose to continue living my life as that three year old kid, that's when everything just kind of left. When I was awakened to a hospital bed before I went to the hospital, I crossed over. I was on the other side. This is in the playground, and it was really due to suffocation as a result of whooping. You know, like I said before, I believe trauma could be a great gift, certainly. As a psychotherapist, I see that every day in my practice, you know, that there some people could really push away their trauma, or could be so heavily imprinted that it's there with you for the rest of your life. When I crossed over, I experienced a beautiful and I know my colleague, Dr Raymond Moody, life after life highlights a lot of this, and I do give him credit, but I experienced myself ascending at an infinite rate, going higher and higher, you know, into a familiar tunnel. The way that I could describe this is, when we're in our bodies, we're used to almost like a limitation with how high we can go and how good we can feel. And when you're on the other side there, they talk about infinity. You know, infinite isn't just limited to time. It's, it's it's unlimited, and it's versatility. You know, it's also infinite love and infinite euphoria. So for me, what I most remember is that there was no limitations with how high I was going and how good I was feeling, and the energy that I was connected to on a deeper level, and that was what was happening to myself. And then it kind of full unfolded, you know, with the Series events after that. But what I most remember first happening was just myself ascending past this incredible just diametric opposition of intense suffering to incredible euphoria. It's kind of like the Billy Joel song about bipolar disorder. It's just kind of like this intense depth of despair to this contrasting degree of euphoria that I felt I fully crossed over. I remember into the back of the right side of my head seeing this beautiful Golden Palace, which God represents itself in different ways. But this golden palace. When I looked at it, it was so bright and so beautiful that I just almost couldn't look at it. And I was hearing beautiful octaves coming out of this and sounds and frequencies, and I knew that this was a depiction, at least for myself, to understand, of where of all of life itself flows from. And the way that I could describe this in our vernacular has a religious connotation, but that would be the term God, but to me, it's the center point of where all of life stems from in its pure and truest form, which, you know, many viewers could be called the center the universe, or God, whatever your vernacular is. And I was connected to that particular point, and I just felt at home. I felt at peace, you know, there wasn't any concern to have at that point, you know, I felt in oneness with the endless pinnacle of life itself. You know, there was no sometimes in life we feel there's just a cap to how good we could feel, or the cap of reality. This was a euphoric, endless energy that had no cap to it. There was no limit with how beautiful, how euphoric, and how high it was. And so when you think of energy, we think of vibration, and on the other side, that's exactly what I felt, just vibration ascension. And the vibration didn't have an end to it, didn't have a cap to it, didn't have a limitation to it. Couple steps later, I was able to see in front of me, you know, this started off like panoramic to the sides, and then eventually is able to see, you know, in front of me, but to the sides of me, you know, couple steps later, I was able to see my own spirit guides, which was the right and left side of me. Now, there's different terms for spirit guides. I've heard some people, like in UK, call them the guardian angels, you know, here in the US, we call them spirit guides, but spirit guides are angelic beings that we are assigned to before. Before we get to this body, they're contracted to us. We're both called to each other, and they're here with us contractually before we get here to really kind of guide us in this life. And so when I saw them, there was a male and female guide, and it's the one element about my nd to be transparent that I don't know exactly, because in the moment, I knew their exact names, and that came to me. And at times I feel like I know it, but that's the one thing I might do for whatever reason. I just kind of like Paul sell, like I just call them the guides at this point, but it was I knew it was a male and female guide, and when I saw them, it was the most immaculate beings that could ever imagine. They were just beautiful, and their radiance was shimmering. And then imagine they have that same degree of admiration feeling that you have towards them now multiply that by like a million, and that's what I felt like with my spirit guides when I did see them again, but also a feeling of just embarrassment that I forgot that they were with me this whole time. And I know guys are more prone to this, but I just blocked, you know, I had my blinders on. I kind of felt them at times, but I just, you know, wasn't connected to them as fully as I was in this moment. You know, they were right with me. Next beings that I had. Well, I felt myself just really pushed down the slide with my angels as my spirit guides, as crazy as that sounds, you know, energies that could manipulate physical stuff. You'd look at lights and, you know, they have the power. And I just felt myself pushed down the slide, and I was on the floor. I was irresponsive to all the people that were calling me. I saw my body, but my form was to the side of my body, so I wasn't in my body, but I still felt I had a form. And I saw everyone was people were shaking my body. They were like, are you okay? Are you alright? And I wanted to shake them back to say, I am better than ever. You know I am, you know, death is a fiction, and I could really empathize with how probably those who cross over feel on the other side, although they don't like have any bad feelings about this, but they're constantly communicating with us, and they're seeing us, but not always do we hear and see them. And so that's kind of how I felt. But I was able to look at all the people that I went to at the at the playground at that day, and I was able to really have transparency with who they are. You know, you see, in our culture, sometimes we in our world, rather, we reserve spiritual titers titles for, you know, select few. We'll say, if someone you know is ascended, they're all of a sudden spiritual. But I love what Wayne Dyer would say, where he would say, you take an orange, you squeeze an orange out, you get orange juice, and you take each one of us, you squeeze each one of us out. There's pure, Infinite Spirit. And that's what I saw from each individual that I saw, that they were so much more than the human emotional side represented, or what I thought of them. And I think that goes that holds true with all of us. We are so much more than what we think and how we perceive our fellow brethren. But I was able to really see their auric fields and their spirit guides, and I just had a lot of information that wouldn't be privy to some of the best, top mediums on the world, but really, a lot of those barriers to clear sight and clear vision were gone, and I was just a pure soul that was seeing these things with no possible filters. But in that moment, I just saw an infinite array of angels that were floating right in front of me. Now, contrary to the spirit guides, the angels really had no distinct characteristics that I saw. And these were very child and youthful angels that I saw, or you could call referred to as a cheer up, but they all looked pretty uniformal in their presentation. They had a lot less human characteristics, if you will. They were just there, sending energy, sending love. And I could hear their beautiful sound emanating from them. And I was just trying to look at them, but I saw they weren't really looking at me. They were just looking straight ahead and just sending love and not needing or wanting anything back in return, which is so far. And they were just kind of like minions of God, if you will just sending energy. And I really just had to pinch myself, because it's just like, Jesus is like, literally, like, looking at you right now, this is right in front of me, happening right in front of my eyes. The angels that I saw are just a thin layer separating this reality and the other side. They are right here around us. And it's just like you take a radio dial, and I'm sure you hear this at every interview, but true rings true. You take that radio dial, you just turn it just a slight fraction higher than this reality. All of these things are around us, even at this, you know, surrounding this Earth reality, they're here. So the other side, in some ways, felt like millions of miles away when I ascended this infinite vibration. But it also the other side is right here too. It's really, you know, right here on earth too. Just a thin veil separates the, what we call the other side and this side. What happened next was common to a lot of near death experiencers, and this happened to myself. I, you know, kid, imagine yourself being at like the shore of a beach, and I use the shore as like in a lot of my talks, because it describes the cycle of life and death and eternity, where we come from this infinite ocean, and we go on the shoreline, we come back to the ocean, and it's a continual cycle, inhale and exhalation. But imagine viewers, imagine yourselves just being at that shoreline and just seeing your loved ones, just slowly coming from that shoreline, from this infinite. Energy of this ocean of love that we come from, that we're connected to, just coming to you. And I was able to really see all these beings that come that were coming to me, and the best way I could describe it as these beings were what I would refer to, what is referred to as soul family, or spiritual family. Now I think that is an unfortunate term, because sometimes people take that like, we're not a part of a soul family. We all are, but there's a nuclear component to it, where Shakespeare describes, you know, we're just on this theater of life, and we take on different roles and different acts, but we're a part of many ways of a similar nuclear crew and cast. But we're all interconnected and our own roles in this life. But I was able to see my own, you know, soul family, and I became, again, embarrassed when I saw them. It wasn't their judgment of me. Again, I want to be clear that there's no judgment from loved ones on the other side. There's just awareness, there's love. But my judgment was, would be like, imagine you're going to the military, and then you have this tremendous party, you're making all these promises, and everyone's getting all hyped, and then two weeks later, like, I'm not feeling this, and then you go home, it's like you felt like, you know, a lot of people were let down. You had a lot of excitement that you generated, and that's how I felt. But then that thought was taken from me, was just love, embrace, acceptance, you know, from my soul family. And then, you know, that's when everyone kind of came together. And I was posed this question between my guides, you know, the angels around me, my soul family, which was what I would do? You know, what I continue? You know, life continues here or there, what I continue my life on the other side? Or what I continue my life? You know, as three year old Jacob. And I guess I was faced with the most difficult question of my life. So I posed a question back, and I just asked, you know, what if I were to stay, what would my life look like? Why am I here? Which is the most common question that I'm asked in all of my seminars. And it's a very pivotal question that we have our Whys are very important. And then I was given what's referred to as a life review, which, for those viewers who haven't heard of it, a life review is really a panoramic understanding of your life, not only from what you see, but also through the lens of others and the impact that you have. And you could say, well, that must have been like a two second video that you saw, you know, just three years old. And what I would say is, it's not a matter of the years, the years of your life, but rather the life within those years. And so chronologically, we could be here a very short time, but that could feel like an eternity, in many ways, for the for the greater good. But I was also able to really see, you know, a couple different past lives that I saw. You know, I saw myself to spanning the globe, having a lot of different past lives and seeing myself in different, you know, forms of the plan and different civilizations and cultures, but the most life that I really has drawn a lot of parallels with and why I had stuck most closely to me. And I don't know if your viewers would be interested in that, if I would bore them by sharing that, you know, but that, but my what my last lifetime is, the lifetime that I feel is most closely related to why I believe I had a near death experience in my life right now, I was just one with people, one with the message, and I saw the eyes of people that I was speaking in front of in the lectures and workshops that I would be doing in this life. And I just thought like as beautiful as the other side is this window to bring forward this information to others is something that I can't turn down. And then with that thought, you know, I just decided to say, Yes, I understood the other side. It'll always be there. But this window may not. You know, this is a beautiful window that I wanted to venture down in this life. And then I just had doubt, where I just said, How do I know I will be able to attain all this? How will I How will I know this will all work out? I was just began to doubt myself, turning down heaven, and that spirit and my guide just left me with a with a last thought, which was the power of trusting the path, the power of trusting your blueprint and your thoughts. So it's really to put a lot more trust in this infinite intelligence, more than our fears and our limited understanding. But really it's sometimes, you know, we're waiting to find joy at the end of the road, and we understand the road has no end. And so I think it's really finding joy within this moment to recognizing that the biggest spirituality that we could have is from the depth and the vast and the rich experience that we have in this life. You know, people like talk about ascension and doing all these things, and sometimes they bypass the actual life that's in front of them. And so the world's a beautiful place. Travel it, experience it. You know, you know. Hold nothing. Hold nothing back. Because what we experience here, we carry over, over there, and and our life is our afterlife in a degree. And the lives that we live are the loved ones afterlife, because they're connected to what we do. So the afterlife is not after. It's here in this life too, but it's really about trusting and reframing the small sense of self to really connecting to how incredibly expansive we all are on a deeper esoteric level.

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Next Level Soul Podcast

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Weekly interviews that will expand your consciousness and awaken your soul.

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Next Level Soul Podcast

with Alex Ferrari

Weekly interviews that will expand your consciousness and awaken your soul.