Divine Encounters Episode 004 | Near-Death Experience Story
Ken Leth was an eight-year-old boy in 1963, sick for days with what everyone thought was the flu, when he says he left his body on an operating table and found himself in a frightening dark place. In this Divine Encounters episode he tells Alex Ferrari how he says he called out for help, who answered, and what he understood about love and worth.
Key Takeaways
- Ken says he was eight years old in 1963 and very sick for days before he was taken to the hospital, where he says he was found to have appendicitis.
- He describes losing consciousness on an operating table, then finding himself still thinking, still himself, and outside his body in the dark.
- He says he watched elderly-looking spirits rise past him, smiling and happy, while he stayed held in place by a cord from his spiritual belly to his body.
- He describes angry beings that he says attacked him in the dark, and says they only stopped after he cried out to God for help.
- He says an angel that glowed with light answered his call, and that the beings who attacked him could not stand that light.
- He says he was shown that we are all equal in the eyes of God, whatever our religion, nationality or appearance.
- He describes the light of Jesus as food for the soul: not a need for oxygen or meals, but a need for love.
| Guest | Ken Leth |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 004 |
| Age at the time | 8, in 1963 |
| What Ken says happened | He left his body on an operating table while being put under for surgery |
| Where he says he went | A dark, quiet place, then a space where frightening beings could reach him |
| Who he met | Angry beings in the dark, an angel with a sword and a horn, and Jesus |
| The message | “We’re all equal in the eyes of God” |
| Note | This account includes frightening images, told from a child’s point of view |
A Boy Who Could Not Keep Anything Down
Alex starts with his usual question about life before the experience. Ken answers with a memory of being sick. He stayed home from school one day, did not know he was hungry, and sat down to dinner without being able to eat. What looked like the flu, he says, became several days of violent vomiting. He could not hold down water. At one point his stomach was empty and he was bringing up bile, which burned, and he could not drink water to ease the burning because it just made him vomit more.
His parents called a local doctor. His mother always blamed him a little afterward, Ken says, for his getting sick. She had a habit of making problems sound smaller than they were when she called a doctor or a priest, because she did not want to bother people. So the message was that their son was sick, probably the flu, and the doctor went with it. Ken says he was home for at least a week, maybe longer. He was so sick he has no good gauge of time. Looking back, he says, he had appendicitis.
The Kitchen Floor and a Strange Moment of Relief
One Thursday, he says, dehydration hit him. He somehow got to the kitchen sink, took a drink of water, and did not manage to finish it before he passed out and fell. The whole room went white. He remembers lying on the floor looking up as the color in his vision faded slowly to white, then a hazy feeling, though he was conscious. Eventually the color came back. He had to crawl on his hands and knees to the couch where he had been sleeping.
When he reached the couch, he says, something in his gut seemed to go blank. In that instant he felt better. He felt so good, he says, that he was ready to get up and play. When his mother came home, he told her about passing out, and she became more worried than ever. She kept him home one more night. The next morning she took one look at him and decided that was it. He says she told him later that he was so pale he looked like white paper, almost clear enough to see through.
Waiting for Dad and the Operating Table
At the doctor’s office, Ken says, the doctor knew right away something serious was happening. He insisted that Ken go to the hospital immediately. His mother wanted to wait for his father, because she relied on him for big decisions, and an operation was one. But his father was out of town. This was 1963, Ken points out, and there were no cell phones.
At the hospital, he says, the nurses were kind. They began to shave his belly with shaving cream and a man’s razor, which seemed strange to an eight-year-old with no chest hair. They explained that there is fuzz on your skin and it has to go. When someone mentioned that this was how they get you ready for an operation, he understood that something real was about to happen, and he got scared.
His mother kept going back and forth between his room and the front office, trying to reach his father. He was on the road with his boss. With the help of a telephone operator, she left a message at a cafe where they might stop for coffee, and his father came home as quickly as he could.
On the operating table, Ken says, being strapped down so tight scared him. He says the small hospital in 1963 did not have injections to knock people out. What they used was an unpleasant way to go under, and it made him dizzy. His body felt stationary while his head seemed to detach and orbit his body like a planet. Then he remembers the spinning, and then nothing but black.
Still Me, Still Thinking, in the Dark
In that blackness, Ken says, he suddenly realized he could still think, and that he was still himself. He was no longer in his body. He did not know where it was. It felt, he says, like “somebody locked me in a dark closet.” It was quiet and comfortable and he felt no pain. But he was curious. He kept looking around, wondering what the place was and why he could not hear or see anything.
The more he struggled with those questions, the more it came back to him. Eventually he began to hear things, and then to see. One of the first things he saw was spirits rising up off the earth. He understood that these were people who were passing away. He saw four or five of them at different times go up and past him. They looked old, like grandparents with gray hair. They were smiling and happy to be out of their bodies, he says, and then they kept going up. He remembers wondering where they went.
If you are new to this kind of story, our complete guide to near-death experiences explains the common patterns, and the glossary entry on the spirit world shares how people describe where these journeys lead.
Eyes in the Distance
Then Ken noticed he was not alone. He began to see sets of eyes far off, behind a barrier, in a place blacker than where he was. He realized they could understand his thoughts. In his words, “your thoughts are not private” when you are in spirit form; you can sense what others think, and they can sense you. Being a little boy, he says, and already scared from before he went under, he entertained fear. To him the eyes looked like animals hiding in a deep forest. They began to come closer.
Why couldn’t he fly away? He says it was because of a cord coming out of his spiritual belly, a cord that ran down to his body on the operating table. He followed it with his eyes, looked down and saw his body there. That cord, he says, is the reason he did not rise like the spirits who were dying on earth. It held him in the dark.
When the Beings Came for Him
The beings that approached, Ken says, were “angry, mean, bitter, hateful.” They hated him, he says, and wanted to kill him. They knew he was trapped, and they loved it. The more scared he got, the happier they got. He says they laughed and hit him like a body slam, and he hung suspended on the cord, spinning in circles.
Eventually he grew tired and began asking them to leave him alone. That made it worse. The attacks got harder. And then, from somewhere deep down inside, he says he cried out, “Please, God, make them stop.” The beings were furious. They told him to shut up. He would not. He kept calling for help.
We share this part with care. It is a child’s frightening account of a distressing experience, and Ken tells it plainly, without relish. What he says he learned from it is in the sections below.
A Voice Comes Closer
Then he heard another voice. At first it was far away, and it kept coming closer. It was calling to him, and somehow he just knew he could trust it. It sounded concerned. It sounded as if it cared. He remembers it saying that it heard him calling, and that it would find him if he would call out again. “I’ll find you but call out again,” the voice said, and Ken kept calling. I’m down here, he says he answered. Can you hear me? Can you see me?
When the voice finally reached him, the beings that had been attacking him took off. They were scared. Everything changed. Later in life, when he had time to think it over, he came to believe that what came to him was an angel. It glowed with light, so he could see again, and the beings could not tolerate that light. It was like it burned them. They had to hide back in the depths.
Ken is gentle about how angels get pictured. He says that when he sees paintings with wings, he thinks the artist is just trying to show that angels can fly and hover. A halo, he says, is not exactly a halo. You see people glow with light. For him, the angel was a very pleasant-looking man in a long flowing white robe cinched at the waist with a belt. He carried a sword, and a long horn hung from a strap over his shoulder. You can read more about how people describe these beings in the glossary entry on angels.
Jesus Loves Me, Sung Wrong
The angel asked whether Ken was the one who had called out to God, and asked if he understood who God was. Ken, at eight, says his idea of God was not very developed. He told the angel that he had been going to church and Sunday school with his family. Ken says the angel then looked into his life and pulled up his history, searching for a sign that he had gone to church, and found it.
The memory he found was of Ken as a very little boy, singing with other children in the front of the church. They were singing Jesus Loves Me, and Ken was singing it wrong. A boy from his grade school stood next to him, and could not stand it. He stopped Ken in front of the whole congregation and told him the right words. The old people laughed. The angel, Ken says, liked it too. He thought it was pretty good. Eventually they got serious again.
The Cord, the Bubble and What He Was Taught
The angel told Ken he was going to have to leave, and Ken got scared again. “I can’t leave you like this,” the angel said. “I’ll have to protect you.” He took out his sword and cut the cord. Then Ken was placed inside what felt like a big plastic bubble. It even squeaked, he says, and he could roll around in it. It was very comfortable. The angel told him it would take him up to where all the others had gone.
Before he was sent, Ken says, the angel looked up and spoke to others above him, where there was a yellow glow. He used a language Ken had never heard. When Ken asked what they were saying, the angel told him they were looking for his family in heaven, trying to work out who he was and where he should go.
Here Ken says something about what he had been taught. He had understood Jesus as the ultimate powerful God, and that if you ever met him you should throw yourself on the ground and beg for mercy, because you were nothing but a worthless sinner. It was not like that at all, he says. If he had done that, Jesus would have laughed and told him to get up, because he loved him. He says he was treated like a member of the family, which every single one of us is. “We’re all equal in the eyes of God,” he says, and he does not care what religion you are or what nationality, whether you are born with all kinds of defects or are the most beautiful person on the planet.
Playing in the Light, and a Different Kind of Food
Ken says he was then told that Jesus needed to spend some time alone with him. So Jesus took him aside, and it was like playing. Jesus said he had something to show him and made it sound like a game. Watch this, he said, and he turned into a brilliant light again. Ken just stood there thinking how cool it was. What was so cool, he says, was the love, and the way the light radiated through him.
In heaven, Ken says, you have no need for food or oxygen. “You have a need for love,” he says, “because it feeds your soul.” He says the light that Jesus gives off goes through you, purifies you, feeds you and builds you up. That is the food in heaven, he says, and it is wonderful. The conversation ends there, at the table of that light, with nothing yet said about how he came back.
Holding a Frightening Story Gently
This is a story with two halves, and both matter. The first half is about fear: a sick child, a cold room, and beings who delight in his terror. The second is about what he says happened once he asked for help. He says the help came. If there is one idea to carry from his account, it is that calling out, even when you are small and scared and not sure who you are calling, is a real thing to do.
Next Level Soul shares these accounts as experiences, in the person’s own words. Ken is clear that he understood some things only years later, after time to think about them. We invite you to listen the same way, with your own discernment and a kind heart for the little boy who went through it.
Questions to Sit With
- Ken says he called for help even though the beings made it worse. When have you kept asking for help when it felt like it was not working?
- He was taught to fear God and beg for mercy, and says the reality felt like belonging. What were you taught that you would like to feel differently about?
- Ken says we are all equal in the eyes of God. Is there someone you have placed above or below you that you could see differently today?
This week, when fear shows up, say out loud one sentence of asking for help. It can be to God, a friend or yourself. Then wait a moment and notice what answers.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Ken says that in spirit form your thoughts are not private, so what you think can draw things closer.
- He says calling out for help was heard, and that light is something dark things cannot tolerate.
- He says we are all equal in the eyes of God, whatever our religion, nationality or appearance.
- He says he was shown that he was treated as a member of the family, not as a worthless sinner.
- He says love is what feeds the soul in heaven, and that the light of Jesus purifies and builds you up.
Please enjoy my conversation with Ken Leth.
Guest Links: Connect With Ken Leth
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Ken Leth?
Ken Leth is a near-death experiencer who shares his childhood story in this Divine Encounters episode with host Alex Ferrari. He says he was eight years old in 1963 when he left his body on an operating table.
What was happening to Ken before his near-death experience?
Ken says he was sick for days with what the family thought was the flu, with violent vomiting, and later realized it was appendicitis. He says he passed out in the kitchen, felt a moment of relief, and was then taken to the hospital when his mother saw how pale he was.
What does Ken say happened on the operating table?
Ken says he was strapped down tight, put under in a way that made him dizzy, and then found himself in a black space, still thinking and still himself, but no longer in his body.
What did Ken see in the dark?
He says he saw spirits rising up off the earth, elderly-looking and smiling, as people passed away. He also saw sets of eyes in the distance that he says belonged to angry beings who then came after him.
Why could Ken not rise like the others?
Ken says it was because of a cord coming out of his spiritual belly that ran down to his body on the operating table. He says that cord held him in place.
How did Ken say the attack ended?
He says he cried out to God to make the beings stop, and kept calling when they told him to be quiet. Then he heard a voice that came closer, and when it reached him, the beings fled.
Who does Ken say rescued him?
He believes it was an angel. He describes a pleasant-looking man who glowed with light, wearing a long white robe cinched with a belt, with a sword and a long horn on a strap.
What does the Jesus Loves Me memory mean?
Ken says the angel looked into his life for a sign that he had gone to church and found a memory of him singing the song wrong in front of the congregation and being corrected by another boy. He says the angel liked the memory.
What did Ken say about Jesus and worth?
He says he had been taught to beg for mercy as a worthless sinner, but that it was not like that at all. He says Jesus loved him, treated him like family, and that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
Is a near-death experience proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as lived experiences told in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean. Nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What angels are
- What a near-death experience is
- Terry Yoder on leaving his body at 14 and being threatened
- Jacob Cooper on dying as a child and meeting his angels
- Susan Grau on what Jesus showed her after a childhood freezer accident
- Ingrid Honkala on drowning at age two and what she saw
- MK McDaniel on seeing hell, heaven and the illusion of Earth
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Ken Leth 0:08
Okay, well off from school really sick one day. And I didn't know I was hungry though, we sat down to the dinner table, but I couldn't eat my stomach to wear so it resembled the flu. And I remember a lot of vomiting, a lot of vomiting. I couldn't hold down water, choose nothing. For several days. I remember the vomiting at one point guts so violent that I was my stomach was empty, and I was vomiting bile. There's nothing else there and bile burns, so terrible, and then I couldn't drink water to get rid of it the burning because if I did, it just made me vomit more. So it was it was awful. So my parents, they call a local doctor, mom always did kind of blame him for my getting sick. Not realizing that I had an appendicitis. But I also know my mother, she had this thing about when she called somebody like a doctor or a priest or somebody, she might have a problem. But she would make it sound like oh, it's not so bad. You know, she didn't want to bother people. So my son is sick. But we think it's the flu and the doctor went with it. So that kept me at home. I know that was home for at least a week if not longer. I'm so sick though I'm not really sure I have a good gauge of time I woke up so Thursday, I couldn't stand it. It was like dehydration kicked in what once she was gone. So I somehow got to the kitchen sink, it was too far away. And I took a drink of water. And I didn't get the whole thing down and I passed out and fell down on the floor and the whole room just went white. I remember laying there on the floor looking straight up and all the color and my vision just faded to white but it faded real slow. And then I felt this fuzzy, hazy feeling come over me but I was conscious. And I just lay there and just you know, watched it happen. And then eventually the color came back and I was like well, can't stay on this floor. I better get up but I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the couch where I had been sleeping. And when I got to the couch, there's something in my gut kind of went blank. And I felt it but you know that instant that help happened. I felt better because I was ready to get up and play. I felt so good. Mom came home and I told her about the whole incident, you know, passing out and everything she got more worried than ever. I guess I didn't look very good look really, really wait. I don't know why. But she kind of hesitated. She kept me home. And I slept one more night in the house. And then the next morning, she took one look at me. And she's like, that's it. We're taking you to the doctor. You know, I don't even think she had an appointment. She just put me in the car and took me I guess she told me that I was so pale that I looked like like white paper or like almost clear she could see through me it was that bad to me up to the doctor. He immediately knew that something serious was going on. And I remember a lot of fast talking going back and forth between my mother and the doctor. The doctor kept insisting I go immediately to the hospital. And mom wanted to wait until my Dad She kind of really relied on him for decisions, you know, something like an operation. She wanted him involved. But he was out of town and there was no cell phones. This happened in 1963. So they get me into the hospital nurses really nice nurses put me in a room. And I remember they started shaving my my belly was shaving cream and man's razor, which I thought was really weird because at eight years old, I didn't have any hair on my chest. But they explained to me that there's a little bit of fuzz on your skin. So that has to go. And that's when I realized somebody then said something about, well, this is how we get ready for an operation. They're gonna cut you up and then it hit something real serious is going to happen here. And I started to get scared. My mother was going back and forth in the hospital to the front office and back to the room to check on me back to the front office trying to get on the phone and call my dad somehow what it came down to was they were on there. My dad was on the road with his boss. She knew what town they're expected to go to. And she I think she knew what motel they were going to check into the she wanted to get a hold of him sooner. So she was working with a telephone operator and the operator said you know, do you know where they might stop for a cup of coffee, you could leave a message there and that's what she wound up doing. And so she finally reached my dad. So there was a message left with a at a cafe for me so dad came home as quick as he could. Well the first thing is when they strapped me down to the operating table it scared me because I was so strapped down so tight and that little hospital in 63 they didn't have injections, you know, knock people out. So they use dethrone me either is a nasty way to have to go under so it made me really dizzy. I felt like my body was stationary and my head detached started orbiting my body like a planet. I remember the spinning and just you know and then it was out I was in black Notice and I don't know how long I was in that blackness, but I suddenly realized that I could still think and then I was still me. I was no longer in my body. I didn't know where it was, it was like somebody locked me in a dark closet. It was quiet, it's comfortable. I felt no pain. But I got curious. And I kept looking around, like, What is this place? Why can't I hear anything? Why can't I see anything. And the more I struggled with all that, the more it all came back. And then eventually I did started hearing things. And then I did start seeing things. And one of the first things I saw was spirits rising up, somehow I understood it was rising up off the earth, and it was people that were passing away on Earth, and I saw like four or five different people at different times go up, and then passed me. They left their bodies, they looked like they were grandparents, to me with gray hair, you know, they looked old, they were very happy. They were smiling because they left their bodies, they probably weren't feeling very good when they died. And then they just kept going up. And they were smiling, and they're happy and zoom. And then off they went. And as I remember wondering where they went. So my eyes worked well enough to see that. But then eventually, I started noticing that I wasn't alone. And I started seeing like sets of eyes way off in the distance. And it was like they were behind a barrier and it was blacker than black blacker than where I was, I took it like they were deeper into the darkness than I was a suddenly realized they could understand my thoughts. While you're in the spirit form, your thoughts are not private, you can sense what they're thinking. And they in return consensus here as well, being a little kid and being scared anyway, before I went under, I didn't know where it was I entertained to fear. And to me, those sets of eyes look like eyes hiding in a deep forest, you know, like animals, and they started coming closer and closer. And then they get really scared. When they realize they're scared, they attacked, and they could fly. And I couldn't. The reason I could not fly is because I had a cord coming out of my belly, my spiritual belly, a cord that went down to my body on the operating table. I followed it traced it, I looked down, I can see my body on the operating table. And I had the soul record holding me there. And that's the reason why I didn't go up. Like those spirits that were dying on the planet. On the earth. It helped me there in this darkness. So these spirits that came after me, they were angry, mean, bitter, hateful, they just they hated me. And they wanted to kill me. So they came after me, they attacked, they knew I was trapped. And I couldn't leave and they loved it. And the more scared I got, the more happy they got, because they kept laughing and they would like hit me like in a body slam. And I'd be suspended by the court and just spin in circles, which didn't help. They were beating me down pretty good. And I finally got to the point, I guess the tired of it, I started asking them to leave me alone. And that made it worse. They attack me harder. And then finally somewhere from deep down inside me.
I said Please, God, make them stop. Then they were furious. They told me to shut up. I wouldn't. I just kept calling out for help. And then I heard another voice. At first it was way off in the distance. And it kept coming closer. And it was calling out to me. And somehow I just knew I could trust this other voice. It sounded like it was concerned and I cared. I heard you calling. Where are you? I'll find you but call out again. You know, that kind of stuff. And I kept calling on him. I'm down here. I'm down here. Can you hear me? Can you see me? Well, when it finally got up to me, those bad children, those bad spirits that were attacking me, they took off. They were scared now it changed everything. And what I realized later in life, when I had some time to analyze all of that, what came to me was an angel. And that angel glowed with light so I could see again. And those things that attacked me could not tolerate that light. It was like it burned them. So when that Angel got close, those spirits took off, they had to hide back in the depths. So this angel he understood, I was very frightened. He came to save me. So I think in churches and stuff. When I see pictures of angels with wings, I get the feeling that whoever whoever is drawing is just trying to depict that they have heard but of course in the early days, no human could fly. They can't hover. So they had to have wings. So there they are. There they are. And this halo business now you know, you don't actually see a halo but you can see people glowing light. So yeah, he just glowed very nice man. Very pleasant looking, said a long flowing white robe, but it was cinched around the waist with a belt and he had a sword attached to the one sword and he also had a strap over his shoulder and it was worn a long horn. We talked and he asked me You call that forgotten us. I think I asked him Where are you here? This is what you call that forgot. Didn't you go? Well, yeah. But see my concept at eight years old wasn't very good. I didn't understand. So I'm talking to the St. George, he mentioned God. And I said, Yes, I did call out to God. And he asked me if I understood who God was somewhere in that conversation. I mentioned that I had been going to church with my family in Sunday school. And then he had the ability to look into my life and pull out my history, my all my past experiences. And so he pulled that out. He was looking for proof that I had gone to church, and he found it. And he found an incident where I was singing with a bunch of other kids in the front of the church was really little. And we were singing Jesus loves me. And it was a fun moment because I was screwing up and wasn't singing it right. And I was next to a little kid that I went to grade school with. He just couldn't stand it that I wasn't singing it right. And he stopped me in front of the whole congregation and told me the right words. Now, this is what you're saying. He was correcting me and the congregation was laughing. Oh, the old people, they got a big kick out of that. But the angel he kind of liked it, too. He was like, he liked it. He thought it was pretty good. But eventually, we got serious again. And he told me that he was going to have to leave me and then I got scared again. And he said, Well, I can't leave you like this. I'll have to protect you. So he took out his sword. And he cut my cord. And they put me in a plastic bubble like it almost felt like plastic. It even kind of squeaked. But it was big. I could roll around in it. It's very comfortable. And he told me this will take you up to where all the others went. But before he sent me up, he was talking up to others above me, he would look up and there'd be like a yellow glow light up there. And he would talk up there and he was using the language I didn't understand. I'd never heard before and then given an answer, then he talked to me a little bit. And I asked him, What are they saying? Or what are you doing? And he told me that they up there, wherever they is, they're looking for your family up in heaven. They're trying to figure out who you are and where you should go. Jesus is this ultimate powerful God. And if you ever meet issues, just throw yourself on the ground and beg for mercy because we're nothing but worthless centers. Now, it's not the way it was at all. I think if I'd done that he would have laughed, he would have said get up because he loved me. And he was giving me love. And it was because I was treated like a member of the family, which we are all of us are every single one of us. I don't care what religion you are, what nationality you are, you can be born with all kinds of defects, it doesn't matter. You can be the most beautiful person on the planet doesn't matter. We're all equal in the eyes of God. Mother told me that Jesus needed to spend some time alone with me. So he did. He took me away from her for a little bit, but he was like, he was playing with me. He's gone. Like he said, I have to show you something. And he made it sound like a game and he goes, watch this, you know, and he just whoom he turns to a brilliant light again, and I'm just standing there. Oh, wow, this is so cool. But what's so cool about it was his love and his the light radiated through me. So when you're in the spirit form and you're in heaven, you have no need for food, you have no need for oxygen. You have a need for love because it feeds your soul and the light that God Jesus radiates is like food and it goes through you. It purifies you it feeds you and it builds you up. That's your food in heaven and it is wonderful.
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