Divine Encounters Episode 139 | Near-Death Experience Story
Susie Pearl, an author and former celebrity publicist, says doctors told her a brain tumor left her about three weeks to live. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari about the meditation she says carried her out of her body, the golden presence she understood to be angels, her choice to return for her young son, and the recovery she describes afterward.
Key Takeaways
- Susie says she was told a tumor deep in her brain left her about three weeks to live and was advised to gather her family.
- She describes feeling an unexpected calm, returning to the meditation she had practiced for years, and receiving an impression that she would die that day.
- She says a golden presence surrounded her, which she understood to be a gathering of angels, and told her she had a mission to share her experience.
- She describes her soul spiraling up and out of the top of her head, looking down at her body, then expanding into a vast landscape of stars and light.
- She says she was given a tour of heaven, defined above all by unconditional love, bliss and complete acceptance.
- She says she could stay or return, and chose to return for her young son and her mission.
- She reports that a later scan no longer showed the tumor. The conversation does not include medical records to verify the diagnosis or the cause of the change.
| Guest | Susie Pearl |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 139 |
| Her background | Author and former celebrity publicist |
| What Susie says happened | Told a brain tumor left about three weeks to live, then a near-death experience during meditation |
| Where she says she went | A vast landscape of stars and light, then a heaven filled with unconditional love |
| Who she met | A golden presence she understood to be angels |
| Her choice | To return to her young son and her mission |
| The message | Meet uncertainty with courage, hope and an open heart |
Facing the Edge of Everything
What happens when life suddenly brings us to the edge of everything we thought we understood? We spend our days making plans, imagining tomorrow, and believing that the future will unfold according to some familiar rhythm. Yet sometimes a single conversation can dissolve that certainty. A diagnosis, a moment of crisis, or an unexpected encounter with mortality can change the entire landscape of our existence. On today’s episode, we welcome Susie Pearl, an author and former celebrity publicist whose account of a life-threatening brain tumor, an extraordinary near-death experience, and an unexpected recovery invites us to explore the mysteries of consciousness, healing, and the human spirit. Her story begins in a hospital room, where doctors had delivered devastating news. But what unfolded next, according to Susie, was not simply an encounter with death. It was an experience that transformed her understanding of what it means to be alive.
Three Weeks to Live and an Unexpected Calm
Susie recalls being told that a tumor located deep within her brain had left her with approximately three weeks to live. The news was serious enough that she was advised to gather her family and prepare her affairs. Yet something about her response surprised even her. Rather than becoming overwhelmed by fear, she felt an unexpected calm. Having practiced meditation regularly for many years, she returned to the familiar rhythm of her breath and mantra while sitting on her hospital bed. During this meditation, she says she received a gentle but unmistakable impression that she was going to die that day. Then something extraordinary occurred. She describes a golden presence surrounding her, which she came to understand as a gathering of angels. They seemed to offer reassurance and communicate that she would undergo a series of medical scans, each revealing a different stage in her journey. Most remarkably, she recalls being told that she had a mission to share her experience with others. The idea gave her a sense of purpose in a moment when the future seemed uncertain. She could not know what would happen next, but she felt that her story was somehow connected to a larger responsibility.
Leaving the Body
As Susie continued meditating, she describes experiencing a sensation unlike anything she had known before. It felt as though her soul were spiraling upward through her body before emerging from the top of her head. Suddenly, she perceived herself looking down at her physical form. The familiar boundaries of her identity seemed to dissolve, and her awareness expanded into what she describes as a vast cosmic landscape filled with stars and light. She compares the experience to floating through space, with her consciousness no longer confined to the body she had always considered herself to be. It is a remarkable description, not because it establishes what happens after death for everyone, but because it reveals how profoundly different consciousness can feel during an extraordinary personal experience. Most of us move through life assuming that awareness belongs entirely to the physical world we can touch and measure. Susie’s account raises a deeper question: how much do we truly understand about the relationship between our sense of self and the body through which we experience life?
A Tour of Heaven
Within this expansive realm, Susie says she was given what she understood to be a tour of heaven. Yet the most important feature of this experience was not a particular landscape, structure, or familiar religious image. It was the feeling. She describes an overwhelming atmosphere of unconditional love, bliss, and complete acceptance. There was no anxiety about the future, no pressure to become someone different, and no sense that she had to earn the love surrounding her. She remembers perceiving people she believed she knew, although their forms appeared fluid and difficult to describe. Her golden angel companions also seemed to remain nearby, offering a sense of protection and familiarity. When she attempts to explain the experience, ordinary language becomes inadequate. She describes a kind of knowing in which the senses appeared to merge, so that information was not simply seen or heard but understood through a more unified awareness. Perhaps this is one reason extraordinary spiritual experiences are so difficult to communicate. Language divides the world into separate categories, while some experiences seem to arrive as a single, indivisible whole.
The Choice to Return
Then came the moment that would define Susie’s decision. She recalls receiving the impression that she could remain in this beautiful realm or return to her earthly life. The choice felt final. Although the love and peace she experienced were beyond anything she could adequately describe, she thought of her young son and the responsibilities she still wanted to fulfill. She also remembered the mission she believed had been entrusted to her. In that moment, she chose to return. She explains that the decision was followed by an immediate flash of white light, and suddenly she was back in her hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment and activity. The transition was abrupt, but her emotional state had changed. She felt a profound absence of fear. This part of her story reminds us of something deeply human: even when confronted with the possibility of extraordinary peace elsewhere, our relationships can give us a powerful reason to remain engaged with life. Love does not always announce itself through grand declarations. Sometimes it appears as the simple desire to be present for someone who needs us.
Recovery and the Question of Proof
What followed was another unexpected chapter. Susie says she was reluctant to tell her medical team about her experience because she feared that they would misunderstand her. Having worked in public relations, she understood how unusual stories could be received and how quickly others might question her judgment. She kept much of the experience private while waiting for further medical results. According to her account, a later scan revealed that the tumor was no longer visible, and her doctor expressed astonishment at the result. Susie interpreted this development in the context of what she believed the golden angels had told her. Her reported recovery is extraordinary, although the conversation does not include medical records that would allow us to independently verify the diagnosis, scan findings, or cause of the change. It is important to distinguish a person’s experience of healing from proof of a particular medical mechanism. At the same time, we can appreciate the profound emotional impact of receiving unexpectedly hopeful news after preparing for death. For Susie, the experience became a turning point in her understanding of possibility and purpose.
A New Relationship With Fear
One of the most fascinating aspects of Susie’s journey is the way she describes returning to ordinary life with an entirely different relationship to fear. She had spent years working in a world of public image, reputation, and carefully managed stories. Now she found herself carrying an experience that challenged the boundaries of what she had previously considered possible. She wanted to speak about the power of thought, feeling, and intention, and about the importance of approaching life with greater awareness. These ideas are meaningful as spiritual reflections, even though they should not be mistaken for evidence that positive thinking alone can cure serious illness. Our thoughts cannot guarantee medical outcomes, and people facing disease deserve compassionate care rather than pressure to believe that their mindset determines their recovery. But the way we relate to uncertainty can still matter profoundly. We can cultivate courage without denying fear, hope without demanding certainty, and gratitude without pretending that suffering is simple. Perhaps this is where the most useful lesson of Susie’s story resides: not in a promise that life will always unfold as we wish, but in the possibility of meeting even its most difficult moments with a more open heart.
If this story speaks to you, our complete guide to near-death experiences is a good place to keep exploring. At Next Level Soul we share these accounts as experiences in the guest’s own words.
Closing Reflection
As our conversation draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on how easily we postpone the experience of truly living. We wait until our circumstances improve, until our fears disappear, until our responsibilities become lighter, or until some imagined future finally gives us permission to feel at peace. Yet life has never promised us certainty. It offers us something both more fragile and more precious: this moment, this breath, this opportunity to love and to participate in the world before us. Susie’s journey invites us to contemplate the mystery of consciousness and the possibility that our understanding of existence remains incomplete. But it also brings us back to something beautifully simple. We do not need to stand at the threshold of death to recognize the value of being alive. We can begin today by paying attention to those we love, by treating ourselves and others with kindness, and by remembering that even the most ordinary moment contains the possibility of wonder. Perhaps the greatest gift of contemplating death is that it can awaken us to life.
Questions to Sit With
- Susie says she met a frightening diagnosis with calm after years of meditation. What practice helps you return to steadiness?
- She says love for her young son shaped her choice to return. Who or what anchors you to life?
- Susie separates a personal experience of healing from proof of a medical mechanism. How do you hold hope and discernment together?
This week, sit for five quiet minutes with your breath. Notice what fear feels like in your body without trying to fix it.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Love can become a powerful source of purpose. Susie’s decision to return was deeply connected to her son and the life she still wanted to share with him.
- Our relationship with fear can change. Meditation, reflection and meaningful experiences may help us approach uncertainty with greater presence and compassion.
- An extraordinary experience can transform an ordinary life. Whether we interpret such events spiritually, psychologically or through another lens, the meaning we make of them can influence how we live.
Please enjoy my conversation with Susie Pearl.
Guest Links: Connect With Susie Pearl
- Susie Pearl’s official site
- Books by Susie Pearl
- Susie Pearl on YouTube
- Susie Pearl on Instagram
- Susie Pearl on Facebook
- Susie Pearl on X
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Susie Pearl?
Susie Pearl is the guest on this Divine Encounters episode. She is an author and former celebrity publicist who describes a near-death experience during a life-threatening brain tumor diagnosis.
What happened to Susie Pearl?
Susie says doctors told her a tumor deep in her brain left her about three weeks to live. She says that while meditating in her hospital bed she had a near-death experience.
What did Susie see when she left her body?
Susie says her soul rose out of the top of her head and she looked down at her body. She describes a vast cosmic landscape of stars and light, then a tour of heaven filled with unconditional love.
Who did Susie meet?
Susie says a golden presence surrounded her that she understood to be a gathering of angels. She says they told her she had a mission to share her experience.
Did Susie choose to return?
Susie says she was given the choice to stay or return. She says she chose to return because of her young son and the mission she believed she was given.
What does Susie say happened to the tumor?
Susie says a later scan showed the tumor was no longer visible and that her doctor was astonished. The conversation does not include medical records, so the diagnosis and the cause of the change cannot be independently verified.
How did the experience change Susie’s relationship with fear?
Susie says she returned with a profound absence of fear and a different relationship with uncertainty, and wanted to speak about thought, feeling and intention.
Does Susie say positive thinking cures illness?
No. The episode notes that thoughts cannot guarantee medical outcomes, and that people facing illness deserve compassionate care rather than pressure to believe their mindset determines recovery.
Is this a medical claim?
No. Next Level Soul shares these stories as lived experiences in the guest’s own words. Nothing here is medical advice, and researchers continue to debate what such experiences mean.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- What a near-death experience is
- Efrat Shokef on a car crash and a view of Earth
- Ellyn Dye on a collision and a father she never knew
- Sharon Kumara on a bus crash and being shown many worlds
- Lee Papa on a choice between leaving her son and returning
- Julie Papievis on meeting God after a crash
- Jennifer Farmer on seeing God and not wanting to return
- 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.
Susie Pearl 0:08
I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Ended up in hospital, and the doctor said this isn't good. It's right in the middle of your brain. Three weeks to live. Get your family here. Get a lawyer. Drop a will. So I was like, okay, and I wasn't scared, Alex. It was weird. I sat on my bed and started to meditate. I've been a meditator since my meltdown happened, so it was sort of 20 years on. I've been doing it twice a day regularly, so I'm very committed and familiar. Sat on my bed, closed my eyes to connect with my breath and do my meditation. I'm a TM meditator, so I have got a mantra. Started with my mantra, and then had this intuition flash. Had this kind of information came straight into me, saying, "You're going to die today." It was very gentle. And then this golden orb came in and around me, and I reference it and call it and code it like golden angels arrived, and they were all around me, and I was communing with them. I wasn't scared. It felt good, actually. Someone on my side, you know, looking out for me. And so they said, "You're going to have three scams. One's really bad. You've had that one. The second one improved. Third one, you're out of here." And I prayed, and I said, "Why am I going through this? You know, I'm a good, really good person." And they said, "Because you're a writer, and you've got a platform, and you can write the story, and you can inspire millions of people around the world about living and dying." So I got it. I'm on a mission. That's cool. Okay, I'm on a mission. That makes it all okay. I'm dying, perhaps, but I'm going to come back and I'm going to write a book. And they also said, "Oh, there's going to be a movie," which is on the cards as well. So I I popped out and had it and saw the nurse that I really liked, and I said, "Hey," and she was in the middle of a meeting. She said, "What is it?" And I said, "I need to speak to you urgently. Okay, I'll be over in a minute." I said, "No, no, it's really urgent." So she came over and she pops up, and I said, "I'm going to die." So this is in a cancer ward of people dying all over the place. You know, every evening someone was being wheeled out. It's sad. So she said, "We'll keep an eye on you. With don't worry." So I went back, sat on my bed, and it was then that it started. It started like this. I was in meditation, so my eyes were shut, and I was really in my body, and I felt my soul in a spiral. I'm doing a spiral here, go through my body, and then I felt like I had a hoover here, sucking up my soul out the top of my head, the crown of my head, and then I was looking down on my body, and I I knew I wasn't in my body, and that was a weird feeling. Separate somehow, and then I noticed that I was expanding into this cosmic. It was like a Hollywood movie, cosmic stars everywhere, and I can relate this now because since my NDE, I've now started working with some astronauts, and they've been telling me about the overview effect of when you go out from orbit from the planet and you look back, you see life and the planet and Earth in a different perspective. My experience parallels that. I could describe it in the same way as they describe the overview experience. So there I was, kind of floating around in sparkly space, but with my consciousness still linked to my to me somehow, and I that's another conversation of what happens with your consciousness when this near death happens. So I was expanded, and I then got the information that I'm going to be shown a tour of heaven. The mood was unconditional love and bliss. It's the most beautiful space. It's beyond words. I can't even describe it, Alex, other than saying it's beyond descriptor words. It was a feeling I had never had, and it it felt like heaven. Like I had co as I would imagine heaven to be. No problems. Joy.
Susie Pearl 4:01
Feeling fully loved unconditionally. It was incredible. I saw the macro of my life, and I saw what I believe was people I knew, but it was all a bit shapeshifty and swirly, and I can't really remember too many details about it, other than it was like a sci-fi movie, and I don't really remember. I kind of there was a bit of a flicker book style thing of stuff from my from my life, but I wasn't in a position to sew it together or join the dots at that point. So really, it was more like floating in the universe outside of a spaceship. Well, the deities, I my golden angel crew were there and kept coming back, and I knew they were my trustees. You know, they were my guard dogs, if you like. I loved them. I saw them. I knew they were there. It was an. I say C. When we're talking at this level, it's very high level. It's actually a kind of subluxation. It's the senses all merged together, so it's not seeing with my eyes or feeling or tasting. It's a kind of more of a knowingness using all the senses as a whole. It feels like the senses go into a unified field of senses. So I can't say to you, I saw this or I heard this, but I was getting information, and I also knew because of the golden angel story that this trip was part of a recovery and a healing, a massive healing for me. I knew that that was going to be my outcome. So, even at that point, I had no fear. I wasn't thinking, "Oh my God!" And I'm a mum. You know, I had a young son. So then the next question, the next information came in. Do you want to stay here? You have. I knew it was a one-time passcode about coming back. I could come back now, or I would stay there. That was it. And I knew when I came back that I would be healed. I just knew that. So I said in my head, I want to come back. I've got a son. I've got more to do. I've got things I've got to do. I've got a mission to complete. And as soon as I set the intention, white flash back in my body. And I'm in my hospital room, my hospital bed, all these bleepy monitors going on, and nurses running around. And I knew I couldn't tell the doctors really at that point. I felt very different, and I came back with zero fear about anything, but I'd still have my smart head on. I'd spent years as a celebrity publicist keeping quiet about stories I knew about, keeping them out of the papers, and I knew with my publicist heart that I could not really. This wasn't the time to start talking about I've been to heaven and back. I just knew that. I tell you what, I was worried about Alex. I thought if I start talking about the fact I've just been to heaven, I've just come back and I'm fully healed. They're going to think, okay, well, because when I started describing stories to my family and friends and stuff, and eyes would roll. I remember saying before this, oh, I'm going to get out of this. I know I'm going to get through it. And they would kind of smile sweetly, and eyes would roll up, and they were thinking, "God, she's gone. She's mental. She's actually lost it." And I didn't want to be medicated and locked up in a psychiatric unit because I'd gone crazy. Because I was acting crazy. I haven't told you the bit about while I was ill and before all of this was sort of identified. I cashed in all my savings, my pensions. Even though I was identifying as 35, I knew I didn't need the money. I was all right. I didn't need the money. I went on a spending spree and I bought all the things I was going to wear when I got out of this mess. I was buying gorgeous beach wraps and low. I was one day. I ordered like 25 pairs of trainers, which turned up at my brother's house, and he came in and said, "We need to talk.
Susie Pearl 7:47
I know you're ill and everything, but you need to stop ordering all this on the internet." Well, no one else knew. It looked like crazy behavior, and I was talking very fast. I was very excitable about everything, and I thought everything was possible. I'd written movie scripts and put them up on my hospital wall, and I was acting like a mad person. But to me, it all made sense. And yeah, I was talking very fast, and I was hyper. But I knew that I knew that my story would end well. But then I also realized if I gave other people a sense that's what I'm saying, they thought I was really, really crazy. So I had to kind of pretend that I was normal and not tell this story. I didn't tell it for a long time. And also, when I had the next scan, the doctor came into the room, very neutral face, and I was trying to read him. And you'd come in to give me the results. I was like, really, because I'd become an expert looking at even little slight facial things from all the work I'd done with Paul McKenna and Bandler and stuff, so I'd become a ninja at being able to read people. And he came in the door, and I couldn't read him. Oh my! Oh my God! I don't know, but I did know and did believe what the Golden Angels had already told me was that I was going to get a better, much better scan, and this would be the the precursor to the all clear scan. So the doctor came in and he said, "Susie, I've got your results." I went, "Yeah." He said, "Very puzzling, very surprising. I don't really understand it. I've been in this business 45 years in oncology. I've never seen this before. It looks like a miracle to me, but we do not work in miracles." And I, he said, "That's not my business. My business is not miracles, and I laughed at his face and said, "Mine is." And so he kind of like he said, "Well," and this is before I even knew what the answer was. And he said, "The tumor has gone, and there's no scar tissue, which we would have expected to see." So he said, "I just don't. I've never seen anything like this. It looks like a miracle." But those aren't my words, sort of thing, and I've never told him this about this story. I'm actually going to send him the book. He's still working in Cambridge University Hospital, so I will send it to him. But he knows nothing. I haven't didn't have a kind of bridge to be able to bring this to them. I think I reached out for to the doctor one day to see if I could kind of share the story, but. I was closed down by the lots of gateways to get to. I want my legacy to be that I've talked a lot about the power of this thinking, feeling, talking, and it's like a magic symbiotic chemistry that we can create to create our realities. Let's do better. We know that's true. Let's do it, but lots of people don't believe it or know it or are told about it. Kids certainly aren't. So I would advocate to get that message out.
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