Divine Encounters Episode 016 | Near-Death Experience Story
Margot McKinnon heard a deep, steady voice as a child, saw spirits, and later earned a PhD from Oxford on bringing spirituality into public education. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari about two near-death experiences, one at 18 and one at about 37 or 38, and what she says they taught her about staying, belonging and unconditional love.
Key Takeaways
- Margot says a deep voice guided her from early childhood, including once when she was about three or four and drowning in the surf at Cocoa Beach, Florida.
- At 18, sick with a high fever in a university infirmary, she says she rose out of her body and floated through the residence, even greeting her roommates from the ceiling.
- At about 37 or 38, during the third day of a fasting ceremony, she says her spirit rose into a pure white light and her late mother told her she could not come any farther.
- She says a friend called her name to bring her spirit back, and she had to settle back into being a person again.
- She describes the voice telling her she was a teacher, and says that purpose became her anchor to keep her here.
- After the second experience she built her classroom around unconditional love, and asked students what they had learned, not what they had done.
- Her message: “you are connected to something bigger,” so “don’t check out early.”
| Guest | Margot McKinnon |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 016 |
| Age at the time | 18, and again at about 37 or 38 |
| What Margot says happened | A high fever at university, then a fasting ceremony, each time her spirit left her body |
| Where she says she went | Through her residence on the ceiling, then up into a pure white light |
| Who she met | Her mother, who had died of breast cancer about two years earlier |
| The message | You are connected to something bigger; stay and find meaning here |
| Background | High school English teacher with a PhD from Oxford |
Who Is Margot McKinnon?
Margot says her near-death experiences happened when she was 18 and again at about 37 or 38. But to understand them, she goes back to childhood. She always had a deep voice that spoke to her. She saw spirits and could hear voices. As she got older she realized the voices were telling her what was going to happen. They gave her premonitions, and sometimes a vision moving forward.
Her home was an open one. Her mother, she says, saw her own mother, Margot’s grandmother, and her father was an engineer who was nonetheless open and, in her words, an incredible father. Her mother was so supportive that she helped Margot through all of it.
Margot is Canadian, and she holds a PhD from Oxford. Her research asked a simple question: if we brought spirituality into public education, what would a model look like? In her review of the research on children, she says, one point kept coming up. Do not dismiss a child’s experiences. To the child, the experience is more real than anything physical or tangible, so children who are dismissed grow up not knowing what is real. Her advice to parents is not to explain it away, but to ask a lot of questions.
The Voice in the Surf
The first time she remembers the voice, she was about three or four. The family had a house on the beach in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and she was out surfing. She fell off the board. Because she was so small, the waves came over her head and she did not have the strength to fight them. The tide was taking her back out, and she was drowning. Her parents were standing there with the water only up to their knees, but for her it was over her head.
Then she heard the deep voice. It told her, with the next wave that comes over, let it push you down, then “dig your toes into the sand and push yourself back onto the shore.” She did, and it worked. She got to the shore and gave her parents a little scrunched-up look, as if to say, did you see that? I was drowning over there.
She says that taught her the voice had always been there protecting her. Even now, when she feels like she is drowning, metaphorically, she remembers it: “just stick your toes in and let it bring you on to the shore.” Do not fight it, she says. Let it guide you.
The Voice at Four and the Road to Teaching
Around age four, the family had moved to Quebec City. Margot was putting her little doll Michael to bed in a crib in the living room, tucking in his blanket. Out of nowhere in the dark she heard the voice tell her she would be a teacher. Her little-kid self said okay, I will. She became a high school teacher.
In class she could see students struggling with their own spiritual experiences. There was no place in the school system for them to understand what was happening. As a high school English teacher she found a way in. They talked about Macbeth and Hamlet, and Hamlet sees the ghost of his father. In those conversations students would ask whether they were allowed to have them there. They wonder about these things, she says. They just have nowhere to explore them.
She sees Alex’s show as doing something similar for adults: giving people tools to navigate their own spiritual experience of life.
The First Experience, at 18
At 18, Margot was at university and very sick. She says she had strep throat and apparently mono too, and such a high fever that she was put down in the infirmary at the bottom of her residence. A student nurse was meant to look after her.
The nurse told her she had a date that night with a boy she had wanted to go out with forever. Margot, who could not even get out of bed, told her to go. The nurse said she would phone at nine o’clock.
What happened next, Margot says, is that she left her body. She was heading out, and then thought she should say goodbye to her roommate. Because she was in the basement, she came up through the staircase, up on the ceiling. She saw all the girls lined up in ballgowns, waiting for a taxi. From the ceiling she called out how beautiful they all looked. One girl looked at her. Margot did a little somersault in the air and said, “you’ve seen your first ghost.” Then she went through the door. Her roommate was not there, so she said sorry, got to go, and woke up.
Soon her nurse came back from her date. She said she had called over and over, and Margot had not picked up. She had thought Margot was dead. Margot asked whether the girls were going somewhere. They were, the nurse said, to a ball at the military college. Margot told her she had seen them. The nurse said she could not have, because she could not even get out of bed.
For Margot this was one of many. She says it became her big opening, but not a single dramatic event. Her dreams work the same way. She says she does not remember many, maybe three a year. When she hears other people describe their near-death experiences she thinks, that is my dream. She had a recurring dream as a child in Cocoa Beach in which she was a fish who could breathe underwater, and when a guest describes being in water and breathing, she recognizes it. She now thinks she goes over to another dimension in her dreams.
If this sounds familiar, our glossary entry on astral projection explores how people describe leaving the body.
The Second Experience: A Fast, a Light and Her Mother
Margot’s second experience came when she was in an indigenous ceremony. She does not want to describe the ceremony, because she says we are not supposed to talk about them. What she can share is that it was a fast, and she was on day three with no food or water.
Suddenly, she says, her spirit rose. She went up and saw a pure white light. Then her mother came down. Her mother had died of breast cancer about two years earlier, and Margot remembers her smile. There were other spirits too, who looked great to her, on their way up. Margot was on her way up with them.
She met her mother. Her mother told her she loved seeing her, but “you can’t come any farther than this.” Margot had little kids and knew she had to come back down. Even so, she says, she felt the experience of “absolute unconditional love and joy and freedom.”
Then her friend called her name. Margot explains that this is how you call a spirit back if it goes that way: you call its name real hard, and chances are the spirit will come back in. She had to look around and settle her spirit back in. Who am I? I’m a person. What’s mine?
As she settled, she heard the voice again. Margot, you’re the teacher. She says her purpose in life “has always like been my anchor to keep me here.”
Building a Classroom Around Unconditional Love
Margot says people often take what they learned in a near-death experience as their mission. What she took from hers was the unconditional love and peacefulness. So she decided to construct her entire life around those two things, starting with her classroom. She wanted a space where young adolescents could learn in absolute unconditional love and peacefulness.
She often got hardcore behavioral kids from really tough circumstances, because even her school knew about her experiences. They did not necessarily know how to behave, but they were dropped into her class.
She told them she did not care what they had done. In her words, what I want to know, is what you learned. Looking back, she realizes this was a kind of life review: it does not matter whether it was good or bad, only what you learned. You can read more about this idea in the glossary entry on life review.
She watched their marks skyrocket and the light come into their eyes.
A Message to Stay
Margot says she is not out here to convince anybody. As she puts it, “I’m not out here to convince anybody of anything.” What she says she is here for is this: “I’m here to support people who are having spiritual experience.” She wants them to want to stay, because she has worked with too many people who want to go home now.
Her model, she says, helps unlock a sense of oneness, connection and belonging. You are connected to something bigger, she tells them. Do not check out early. Stay with us. The glossary entry on oneness offers a short introduction.
If you are struggling, you are not alone. In the US you can call or text 988 any time.
She also says we are eternal beings. If your life here is about enjoying the physical, tangible part, she says, go for it. Her father once warned her that telling people about her experiences would be academic or career suicide. She wrote the book anyway. Everyone at her school already knew, she says, and she wanted to speak to doctors and psychiatrists as Dr. Margot McKinnon.
If you know someone who is struggling with being human, she says, hold their hand. Life gets better when we understand how exquisite it is to stay. In her words, “this is a wonderful place to live.”
How Margot’s Story Sits Beside Other Near-Death Experiences
Reports of leaving the body, a white light and a deceased relative who says it is not yet time are among the most commonly told near-death themes. Margot’s second experience has all three. Her first is more unusual: a quiet, playful journey through a building, observed afterward by a nurse who noted the timing. Her story also stands out because her experiences began in early childhood and continued across her life. For the wider picture, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
As always, we share these as personal accounts, in the guest’s own words, with no medical claims.
Questions to Sit With
- Margot says the deep voice taught her to stop fighting the wave. Where in your life could you dig your toes in and let the wave carry you?
- What would you say to a young person who tells you about an experience they cannot explain?
- Margot asks not what you did, but what you learned. What have you learned from something you once judged as a failure?
Write down one thing you learned this month, good or bad, and tell someone you trust. Keep it simple and kind.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Margot says a guiding voice was present from early childhood and protected her.
- She describes unconditional love and peacefulness as what she took from her second experience.
- She says to ask a child questions rather than dismiss or explain away their experiences.
- She says to focus on what you learned, not what you did.
- She says we are connected to something bigger, and that staying has meaning.
Please enjoy my conversation with Margot McKinnon.
Guest Links: Connect With Dr. Margot McKinnon
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Margot McKinnon?
Margot McKinnon is a Canadian high school English teacher with a PhD from Oxford on bringing spirituality into public education. She says she has had spiritual experiences since early childhood and two near-death experiences.
How old was Margot when she had her near-death experiences?
Margot says she was 18 for the first and about 37 or 38 for the second.
What happened in Margot’s first experience?
She says that while she was in a university infirmary with a high fever, she left her body, floated up through the residence and saw her roommates in ballgowns. Her nurse later confirmed they had been going to a ball at the military college.
What happened in the second experience?
Margot says that on day three of a fasting ceremony her spirit rose into a pure white light and she met her mother, who had died of breast cancer about two years earlier. Her mother told her she could not come any farther.
How did Margot’s spirit come back?
She says a friend called her name, and explains that calling a spirit’s name is how you call it back in. She then had to settle back into her body and remember she was a person.
What was the voice Margot heard?
Margot describes a deep voice that spoke to her from childhood, gave her premonitions and guided her, including when she was drowning at about three or four. She does not name its source.
How did the experience change her teaching?
She decided to build her classroom around unconditional love and peacefulness. She asked students what they had learned, not what they had done, and says their grades and their spirits lifted.
What does Margot say to people who want to leave this life?
She says she supports them so that they want to stay, and that they are connected to something bigger. If you are struggling, you are not alone. In the US you can call or text 988 any time.
What does Margot suggest for parents?
She says not to dismiss children’s spiritual experiences and not to explain them away, but to ask a lot of questions.
Is this a medical claim?
No. Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as personal accounts in the person’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate what they mean.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What astral projection means in spiritual teaching
- What oneness means, in plain language
- Donna Rebadow, a teacher who drowns and speaks with God
- Ingrid Honkala on drowning at age two and what she saw
- Susan Dyer on meeting her spirit guides
- Lei Mohr on leaving her body and hearing a voice
- Jan Christenson, a nurse who sees the truth of this realm
- 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.
Margot McKinnon 0:08
My near death experiences happened when I was 18 and about 37-38. So I had to and if we go back in my life, I always had this deep voice that would speak to me as a child, I saw spirits I could hear voices. And it wasn't till I got older, I realized these voices were telling me what was going to happen giving me premonitions and and showing me like a vision moving forward. You know, I always say the very first time I remember that voice coming in, I was about four years old. And we used to have this house on the beach in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and we were little kids, I was surfing. Okay, so I was about three or four. And I was surfing, and I fell off my surfboard. And because of my height, I kind of fell off, but the waves were coming over my head, and I didn't have the strength. In the end, the tide was taking me back out or whatever, you know, and I was going this way, and I was drowning. And I could see my parents, like the water was just up to their knees. But for me, it was like up here, and I was drowning. And then suddenly, I heard this voice that said, with the neck, it was always this deep voice with the next wave that comes over, let it push you down, then dig your toes into the sand and push yourself back onto the shore and let the wave carry you back onto the shore. And I got onto the shore, it really did work. I sort of looked with my little scrunched up face to my parenting. You see, I was drowning over there. But I realized that this voice has always been there protecting me in my life. And now even when I feel like I'm drowning, like Metaphorically speaking, I say no, just stick your toes in and let it bring you on to the shore. Don't fight it, just let it guide you onto the shore. So my parents were very good. My mom saw my grandmother on my mom's side. And my dad is an engineer. So we always took a little more like but he was always really open to my dad was an incredible father. And my mom was so supportive. So she really helped me and you know, I have my PhD in from Oxford on the idea of we brought spirituality into public education, what would a model look like? And in my research, my lit review when they talk about children, how important it is not to dismiss their experiences, because then the child because that experience is more real to them than anything physical and tangible. So they children grow up not knowing what is real and not real. So it's important not to necessarily explain it to your child, but just to ask a lot of questions. And as we move along, I'd like to introduce some of the stories from my knee raising my own kids, because my kids, you know, it's showing up in them as well. Now they're adults now, but it showed up in them as well. Now I'm four, I've moved to Quebec City. I'm Canadian, I moved to Quebec City, I'm putting my little doll Michael to bed, I have his crib in the living room. I'm about four, I'm tucking his little blanket up. And I hear just out of nowhere in the dark. I hear you all to beauty teacher. And I my little kid self said, Okay, I will. And I became a high school teacher. And I could see some of the high school kids really struggling with they were having spiritual experiences. But there wasn't a place in our school system for them to understand their experiences. I did it because I was a high school English teacher. And because we talked about Macbeth Hamlet, you know, Hamlet sees a ghost on the his father's spirit on the top, we would have conversations about that in the classroom. But invariably, they would say, Are we allowed to have these conversations here? But because they think about these things, they wonder about them, but where do they have a chance to explore them? How do they get the tools and it shows like yours now that's giving people tools to navigate their own spiritual experience of life by 18. I'm at university I have my first near death experience, which to me, I think it because I didn't have a near death and it became my big opening into the it was just another one of many of my life. So I was very sick. I had strep throat and apparently I'd had mono from kissing too many people but anyway, when I went off to university, so anyway, I ended up with this strip, and I had such a high fever and they put me down in this dorm. It was called an infirmary at the bottom of my residence and the student nurse was supposed to be looking after me. Well, anyway, she said to me, hey Margo, listen, I was I had this date tonight with his thigh. I just wanted to go out with him forever. And he asked me out for tonight and you Here I am having to look after you. Well, sorry about that. Well, just go out on your date. Don't worry about me. I'm just here. I can't even get out of bed. I'm that sick. And she said, Well, you have a phone here. I'm going to call you at like nine o'clock. Okay, so way she goes, I have a green. So I'm going out. And I'm heading to this beautiful orange tree. Wha Yeah, freedom, loving it. You know, your typical. And then I thought, oh, I need to say goodbye to my roommate. So I thought I better so I'm in the basement. So I'm coming up. I'm on the ceiling. I'm coming up through the staircase. And I see all the girls lined up and they're in ballgowns, and they're waiting for taxi. So I'm on the ceiling, and I'm looking down. I said, Oh, girls, all beautiful. You're heading out somewhere. And then this one girl looked at me. And I did a little somersault in the air. And I said, you've seen your first ghost. And then I came went up, and I went through the door and my roommate wasn't there. And so I said, Sorry, gotta go. And then I woke up. And then soon after my nurse arrived on the scene from her date, and she said, I called you over and over and you didn't pick up I thought you were dead. And I said, I think I was like, were the girls going somewhere? Yeah, they were going over to the military college for a ball tonight. And I said, I saw them. And she said, You couldn't have seen them because you're you can't even get out of bed. So anyway, that was my first one. I don't remember my dreams, maybe three a year. But I'm listening to people's near death experiences. And I'm going by had, that's my dream. That was my dream. And you know what you're supposed to come in, and you're supposed to have forgotten your blueprint. But now I realize those are my dreams. I'm going over there. I'm going over to the other dimension. In my dreams. I used to have a recurring dream when I lived in Cocoa Beach, Florida, that I was like, in the water. And I was like a fish and I could breathe the water. And if somebody was talking about their near death, but they were in water, and they were breathe, and I thought I was my recurring dream exactly that I think I'm having these I'm going over to the other dimension. In my dreams. I was doing an indigenous ceremony. I don't want to go into the ceremony because we're not supposed to talk about these ceremonies. But I had one in here. So anyway, I'm in there. It's like a fasting one. I'm on my third day, no food or water. So I'm there. And then suddenly, I just draw, and it was like this. I can't, my spirit came right up. And I could feel I went up and I saw the pure white light. And then my mum came down. And my mum had this smile, because you know, she passed breast cancer like two years prior to that she had this smile that went like this. And her smile was like this. And she was there. And I could see these other spirits. They look great to me. But they were on their way up. And I was on my way up like this. And I met my mom. She said, I love to see you. But you can't come any farther than this. And so I was like, I need to know, typical, but I had kids, little kids, I had to come back down, but the experience of that absolute unconditional love and joy and freedom. And then my friend said Margo, which is how you call a spirit back in by the way, if they go that way, you just call their name real hard like that. And chances are their spirit will come back in. And then I kind of looked around I had to Oh yeah, who am I? I'm a person. Like I had to settle my spirit back in I'm a person, what's mine, mine. And then I hear that voice kind of your Margo, you're the teacher. So my purpose in life has always like been my anchor to keep me here. So I had that one. So then I decided after that one, okay, because you see, or you hear people with their near death experience. And they take on whatever they learned as their kind of mission moving forward. And I learned it really showed me about this unconditional love and peacefulness. And I thought I am going to construct my entire life around unconditional love and peacefulness. So I'm going to go back into my classroom. And this is going to be a space where young adolescents can learn in absolute unconditional love and peacefulness. And I used to get some real hardcore behavioral kids into my class because I was good working with them. Like they came from really, really tough circumstances, right? So they didn't really know how to behave, but they'd be dropped into my class because even my school knew about all my experiences. And you know, being an educator and I speak to teachers across the country, like a PhD is a valued thing. And my my soul feels right to be able, like when I when I came up with this book, I was speaking at like to medical doctors and psychiatrists, I didn't want to get up there and say, Hi, I'm Margot McKinnon, high school English teacher. as proud as I was of that, I wanted to say I'm Dr. Margo McKinnon. And I really do look at the whole scientific part of this. I mean, there's so many brains, you had a neurologist on like 18 scans, genetic studies, you know, like all of that. out. It's it's sitting right there. And some people say to me,
Well, have you proven scientifically your theory Margo?Can you be out there? So I and I said, You know what, here's the thing. I'm not out here to convince anybody of anything. I'm here to support people who are having spiritual experience, I'm here to support them, so that they want to stay here, because I've worked with too many people who want to go home now. And this model really helps unlock, I'll say, You know what, let's work on your oneness, your sense of connection and belonging, and you are connected to something bigger, don't check out early. Stay, stay, stay with us. And my job as your high school English teacher, is I'm going to help you explore all of this so that you find a real meaning. And once we did that, it's about getting their voice and where they are in their life, oh, their marks just went skyrocketed, and the light was in their eyes. So you know, and we are eternal beings, if your life here is, is about enjoying the whole physical, tangible part, go for it. When I wrote my first book, which was this one, my dad said, You better not tell you about your experiences, because you will commit academic or career suicide, but you can't know me for five minutes that you know, notice about me. So everybody at school knew this. And you know, and they knew, like, because I could help kids in the classroom. So I'd get these kids and it was almost for them. Like, I love them so much. And I said, I don't care what you did. What I want to know, is what you learned. Tell me what you learned. So it was like for them. Now I realize is kind of like a really nice life review. What have you learned doesn't matter good or bad? Right? It's what you learned, and wouldn't and you talked about high school being a hard place for adolescents. And I wanted because of my near death experience. I wanted it a space where they could grow into the people they want to be no matter where they came from. If you know of anyone who's struggling, being human, if you can just hold their hand and if you can get them a copy of this and just say, I just hold their hand and life will get better if they just understand that there's such an exquisite pneus about staying here because I think that's really why I'm down here is to help people understand this is a wonderful place to live.
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