Divine Encounters Episode 109 | Near-Death Experience Story
Virginia Drake says she was a 46-year-old teacher with a big house, a pool and horses when a stranger on her television warned her not to get a heart transplant, and a week or so later a heart attack began the experience she describes in this Divine Encounters episode. She tells Alex Ferrari about a gentle inner voice, leaving her body in the ER and the ambulance, a council of twelve in white robes, and the message she brought back.
Key Takeaways
- Virginia says she was living the American dream of success when her first heart attack in 1998 made her realize she was living a lie.
- She says an elderly man on her TV told her not to get a heart transplant, about a week before the attack.
- She describes a gentle inner voice telling her to look in the mirror and then to go to the emergency room, with her cats appearing to sense something was wrong.
- She says she drifted in and out of her body in the ER and could see herself sitting in the corner.
- She describes leaving the ambulance, being pulled upward, and sitting in a room with a council of twelve in white robes with golden belts.
- She says she was never afraid out of her body, only in it, and that her body is not who she is.
- Her message: everyone has a spark of God, and we can be honest and true to ourselves.
| Guest | Virginia Drake |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 109 |
| Age at the time | 46 |
| What Virginia says happened | A heart attack on June 2, 1998, the first day of summer break |
| Where she says she went | Out of her body in the ER and ambulance, then into a circular room with windows onto planets |
| Who she met | A council of twelve in white robes with golden tassels and belts |
| What she felt | Never afraid out of her body, only in it |
| The message | Everyone has a spark of God; be honest and true to yourself |
Living the American Dream, and a Lie
Alex opens with his usual question. Virginia says she was a teacher who really thought she was living the life. She had a big house, a pool in the backyard and horses, what she calls the American dream of success. She taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade, nine subjects a day, so she was very tired, and she says everyone at her school was tired that year.
Then, she says, her first heart attack in 1998 hit her so hard that she realized she had been living a dream. “I was living a lie.” She was 46 years old.
A Man on the Television
About a week and a half before summer break, Virginia was in her den, alone, watching television and thinking about nothing in particular. A man came on who looked about 90, with oxygen in his nose, leaning into the screen. He said, “Don’t get a heart transplant.” He explained that he had had one, and it was awful; he was taking 90 pills a day.
He kept repeating it. Virginia looked around, wondering whether he was talking to her. She finally raised her hand and said, “I’m not going to get a heart transplant.” She told the television she was 46, walked four miles a day and was very healthy. Then, she says, the next week she had a massive heart attack on June 2, 1998, the first day of summer break. She finds it quaint, she says, for a teacher to pick that day.
Pains That Did Not Feel Right
She was closing her classroom, with her youngest son in the room, when she kept getting hard pains. Three weeks earlier she had had acid reflux, and a trip to the emergency room where a medicine had cooled everything, so she did not think it felt like a heart attack. It just did not feel right. She went down to the school secretary, and being something of a jokester, she said she thought something was going on. The secretary did not look up at first. When she did, she said they needed to call an ambulance.
Virginia says she was told that she might feel as if she were having a heart attack over and over and want to come back often, and she had resolved not to do that. This time the pain was different. It came through her chest and shoulder. At 46, she says, it was not even in her mind, except that she had been told the week before not to get a heart transplant. We share this as Virginia’s account, not as medical information.
The Cats, the Mirror and a Sweet Voice
Virginia says she lay down at home, and her cats were the ones who made her look. They kept looking at her. She is an animal communicator, she says, and has been all her life, since she is an only child, so she thought: what are they trying to tell me?
Then she heard a very sweet, very gentle voice inside her. “Go into the bathroom and look in the mirror.” When she walked in, her face was ashen. A voice told her she needed to go to the emergency room now. She went downstairs and told her husband at the time what was going on. They were about 20 minutes out on the farm, and by the time they arrived he was already parking the car.
For a short definition of that quiet inner knowing, see our glossary entry on intuition.
In and Out of the Body in the ER
At the small community ER, she told the woman at the desk she was hurting a little, maybe acid reflux. She was told to go right back. A nurse there, Janet, whom she had gone to high school with, took one look at her and said, “What’s wrong with you?” Virginia remembers thinking, why would she say that? As she lay down, the nurse kept telling her to stay still.
Virginia was going down into her body and back out again. She says she did not even realize how often she was out of her body, because they had scared her enough. Her principal, a nun, was standing there. Her husband had been told his wife was having a heart attack and should go get the children. She heard someone say it was a major heart attack, and everything slowed down.
Then she looked over and saw herself sitting in the corner of the ER. That’s not possible, she thought. I can’t be in here and over there at the same time. She could fall down into her solar plexus and see inside it, watching everyone move in slow motion. Even in a spiritual experience, she says, you try to put it together logically. She calls it two different worlds: the supernatural world, and the logic world where, when you come back into your body, you feel solidified and confused. She did not realize she had been there three or four hours.
Leaving the Ambulance
When the ambulance came, she says, she heard the driver say, “She’s not going to make it.” That made her mad. She thought she was going to come out of this. She knew exactly the road they were on, toward Lexington. Then the ambulance lost its light, she says, and she had left it. She was riding next to it, looking through it, and could see her body inside.
It felt, she says, as if a ponytail had been grabbed and she was jerked really high. She ended up sitting in a room with a council, which she was told was the council of 12. For a plain-language overview of what people commonly describe in moments like this, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
The Council of Twelve
Virginia says she knew nothing about a council of twelve. She calls herself a teacher in the logic world of science. The people in the room wore white robes with golden tassels and a golden rope belt. She felt she knew everything in the room. It looked like a circle, and through the windows she could see all the planets, or wherever she thought she was.
She never heard them speak aloud, she says, but they communicated telepathically. She was sitting in a chair, and she looked down and saw she had no hands and no body, yet she could feel the chair. She thought they were laughing at her. This, she says, is where the ego and the soul are trying to gel and figure it all out. For a short definition of what she describes, see our glossary entry on telepathy.
Then she found that all she had to do was close what she thought were her eyes and think of something, and she was somewhere else. She thought this was the coolest thing, because it was so fast. She began asking questions.
Who She Really Is
When she finally went over, she says, she had to turn around and look at herself again and release that part. “It’s not real.” It was something she had participated in, but this was who she really was, and she did not have a body. She has gotten emails saying you cannot cremate your body. Her answer: “your body doesn’t exist.” Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
She says she learned about the Bible from that time. She was with Jesus and saw the Bible as it really is, and it made sense. And she was not afraid. “I was only afraid when I was in my body.” She says you do not have the same understanding in those two states of mind.
Back in the Body, and a Sad Goodbye
When she came back into her body, she says, it was when they pulled her out of the ambulance. She felt the pain again. How could she be here and over there? Lying down, she looked at the ceiling and thought it looked just like a TV hospital drama. She says that is the programming bringing you back in, while your soul is also doing its own thing: two total energy fields at once.
She was wheeled to meet her cardiologist, where friends from school were waiting on the first day of summer break. She could not talk. The pain was excruciating. They asked her to blink once for no and twice for yes, and asked if she was okay. She said no. Her husband had picked up the children and they were on their way, and Virginia realized she was not going to make it. She was only going to see the faces of these three people.
It gave her such sadness that she would not get to say goodbye to her children or husband. It was not like being outside, she says. It was a depth of knowing deeper than she had experienced before. Afterward she spent 16, 17, 18 hours in meditation, going down deep to understand what had happened.
A Spark of God
Virginia says you can take God in with the breath you take. Be yourself, be proud of what you are, and know that “I have a spark of God, as everyone else does.” Everyone gets an opportunity to change the world. Her tone will be different from yours and mine will be different, she says, and the frequencies together raise consciousness enough that we can see the real truth.
Her closing advice is simple: “Be honest with self. Be true to the self.” As always, we share this as Virginia’s experience, in her own words. We do not make medical claims, and what these accounts mean is still debated.
Questions to Sit With
- Virginia says her heart attack showed her she was living a dream, even a lie. Where might you be living a version of life that is not yours?
- She heard a gentle inner voice and listened. When have you heard one, and what happened when you followed it?
- She says she was never afraid outside the body, only in it. What would you do differently if you were less afraid?
This week, find five quiet minutes and ask, what is true for me today? Write one honest sentence, and let it guide a small choice.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Virginia says a gentle inner voice can guide us if we listen.
- She says we are not our body, and that the body is not who we really are.
- She describes a council of twelve and communication without spoken words.
- She says she was never afraid out of her body, only in it.
- She says everyone has a spark of God and an opportunity to change the world.
Please enjoy my conversation with Virginia Drake.
Guest Links: Connect With Virginia Drake
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Virginia Drake?
Virginia Drake is a former teacher and animal communicator who says she left her body during a heart attack in 1998, at age 46. She tells her story to Alex Ferrari in this Divine Encounters episode.
What was the warning on the television?
Virginia says a man who looked about 90, with oxygen in his nose, told her not to get a heart transplant. She told the TV she was healthy, and about a week later she had a heart attack.
What did the inner voice tell Virginia?
She says a sweet, gentle voice told her to go into the bathroom and look in the mirror, where she saw she was ashen, and then told her to go to the emergency room.
How did her cats figure in?
She says her cats kept looking at her, as if telling her something was wrong. She says she is an animal communicator and has been all her life.
What did Virginia see in the ER?
She says she went in and out of her body and saw herself sitting in the corner of the ER, and even looked inside her own solar plexus as everything moved in slow motion.
What happened in the ambulance?
She says she heard the driver say she was not going to make it, then found herself riding alongside the ambulance and being pulled upward.
Who was the council of 12?
Virginia says they were figures in white robes with golden tassels and rope belts, sitting in a circle with windows onto the planets. She says they communicated telepathically.
Was Virginia afraid?
She says she was never afraid out of her body, only in it.
How did she return?
She says she came back into her body as she was taken out of the ambulance, and felt the pain again.
What is Virginia’s message?
She says everyone has a spark of God, we have an opportunity to change the world, and we should be honest and true to ourselves.
Does Next Level Soul say a near-death experience is real?
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.
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Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:46
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Virginia Drake 0:09
I was a teacher. I really thought I was living the life. I mean, I had a big house, I had the pool in the backyard, I had horses, I had what we would call the American dream of success. And when I had my first heart attack in 1998 it hit me so hard that I realized that I was really living a dream. I was living a lie. I was 46 years old. I was at the farm, and this was about two weeks, about a week and a half before summer break, and I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade, and I taught nine subjects a day, so I was really tired. And I was tired because our nuns, everybody was tired during that year. So I was just setting in the week before the school, you know, was going to end in June. The second, I was watching something on TV, and I was in my den by myself. I wasn't thinking about anything. And this man comes out, and he looks like he's about 90 years old, and he's got oxygen in his nose, and he's leaning into that TV, and he said, Don't get a heart transplant. You know? I thought, wow. And he was explaining that he had a Tran a heart transplant, and it was awful. He was taking 90 pills a day, and I remember him thinking that. I thought 90 pills a day. Oh, my God. I just almost wanted to choke right then, but he kept coming into the screen saying, don't get a heart transplant. And I thought, Is he talking to me? I mean, I looked around. I thought, Okay, now that doesn't work. Then he said it again, and then I just finally said, I raised my hand and said, I'm not going to get a heart transplant. I'm 46 years old. I walk four miles a day. I am very healthy, you know, and I'm really declaring myself, however, the next week, I'm looking at that and had had a massive heart attack in June 2, 1998 it was the first day of summer break. How quaint for a teacher to be good. It was amazing, but it was scary, and I was very scared. What was going on is my son was in that classroom. I was closing down my classroom on June the second, and I kept getting these really hard pains, you know, and I just had three weeks prior to that, I'd had acid reflux, and I was in the classroom, and my son, what my youngest son, was in that and I didn't feel like a heart attack at that time. I just felt, it just didn't feel right. So I went down to the secretary, which I'm kind of a jokester, you know. And I'll say, you know, Mary, I'm really, I think I'm having something going on. And she wouldn't look down, you know? She was just and I said, No, here, I think there's something wrong. And when she looked up, she saw that, oh. She said, We need to call the ambulance. Well, they called the ambulance. They ended up taking me to the emergency room, and I had acid reflux, and I remember they took this, this medication down, and it was like, Oh, my God, it relieved everything. It just cooled. And I thought, oh, it's done. Three weeks later, I'm looking at I'm having a heart attack. And I thought, now it's acid reflux, because before that nurse told me, said you're going to feel like you're going to have a heart attack over and over, and you want to come in here a lot. And I thought, I will not do that. Well, it was hurting this time different. You know, you think for a woman, it came through this part of my chest, but it went through my shoulder, and women tend to have that kind of heart attack. It's in their shoulder. So I wasn't recognizing it also, because I was 46 years old, and that was not even in my mind, except knowing that I was told the week before, don't get a heart transplant. So I'm sitting there, and I remember came home, and I said, I'm gonna lay down for a little while. And I laid down, and my cats were the ones that made me look down, and they kept looking at me, and I thought, there's something wrong. Now I'm an animal communicator. I've been an animal communicator because I'm an only child, so I've been doing this all my life. So my cats were trying to tell me something. I thought, what's wrong? But I heard this voice inside, a very sweet, very gentle voice. It said, go into the bathroom and look in the mirror. Well, when I walked in, my eyes were already shooting back, and I was already ash ashen hell. And I heard a voice said, You need to go the emergency room now. And so I went down to the steps, down to my husband at the time, and I told him what was going on, and he's well, I've got the doctor. I said, I need to go to the emergency room now. Now we were in the farm, so we're about 20 minutes out, so when I get in there, he's already parking the car. And I remember, this is how you think. So I walked in and the girl that was waiting at the ER, I said, I'm having really, I'm kind of hurting a little bit. And I said, oh, it just, I better think it's acid reflux. And she goes, go right back. Well, in our, er, it's a very small little community. You sit out there until you're next. And then I thought, well, I've done a lot of community things. I'm a teacher. It recognized me, because when I came in, there was a nurse in there that I went to high school with, and her name was. Punky branding bird. But we called her, you know, punky, but she was Janet. She's no longer with us, but she looked at me and she said, What's wrong with you? I remember thinking, why would she say that to me? I mean, I knew it personally. So I laid down, and she kept saying to me, stay still. Now I'm always a sudden going down into my body going what she mean by staying still? I don't think I'm doing anything out here. What's going on in here. So I'm coming in and I'm going back out. So I don't even realize that I'm out of my body half the time I'm coming back in because they scared me enough, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't, you know, doesn't match. So then the next thing I look up, my nun, who is my principal. She's standing there, not my husband, because they'd already told him, your wife is having a heart attack. You better go get the children. And this is massive. I mean, I you know, I didn't know that until she came in, and then I heard him say, she's having a major heart attack. And everything slowed down, and the next thing I knew, I looked over it, through my body, and I saw myself sitting in the corner of the ER, going, that's not possible. That can't be. I can't be in here and over there at the same time. And then it would be I could fall down from here and go down into my solar plexus. And I could see inside of my solar plexus, watching them do everything real slow, nothing that doesn't make sense. Even though you're having a spiritual experience, you're still trying to logically put it together. And you these are two different worlds that you're dealing with. You're dealing in a supernatural world that really that can happen, and then this logic world where they're telling you, when you come in your body, you feel like solidified so you really are confused. I remember I didn't realize I'd been there for three or four hours either. I mean, I've been in and out so many times. And finally the ambulance came because they had to get me settled down just to be able to go in. Now, I didn't know anybody going in there, but when they put me in the ambulance, I remember they kind of juggled me in. Now this is when you also and I had to do a lot of this work, because I had to go down deep enough to figure out what had happened to me. And I spent 1617, 18 hours in meditation, just in my body, trying to figure out, why did that work that way? Because I remember the ambulance driver as he was shoving me, and I heard him say, as plain as day, she's not going to make it. And it made me mad. I thought, I'm going to come out of this, out of this table. But also, I remember I was in the ambulance we're going down to I knew exactly where we're going, Lexington. You know, Versailles, Lexington road. I've been there. You drive it 100 times. You already know where it is, but the next thing I do, everything in the ambulance just doesn't have any light anymore. I have left the ambulance and I'm riding next to it. I could look through while we're driving right next now, I could see my body sitting in that ambulance, but I also knew I was over here, and I'm thinking, this is not working for I mean, it was really it takes you to a different state of mind. But then it felt like I had a ponytail up here, and I got jerked and I got jerked really high, and I ended up sitting in a room with a council, and they called it the council of 12. Now I do know nothing about the council of 12. I am still a teacher in the logic world of science and this work, and I'm sitting there, and these people are in white robes, but they had golden tassels and a golden belt, you know, like rope. And I knew it was go. I knew everything in this room, but it looked like I was in a circle, but I could see through the windows, and I could see all the planets, or wherever I thought I was. Because I think a lot of this is programmed, because you don't realize you're just in, like you're in a station or a channel area waiting to go into another level, you know. But this is why I got to meet these now, I never heard them speak, but through telepathic ways, I remember sitting in a chair. I was sitting in my chair, but I couldn't I looked down, and I had no hands and I had no body, and I kept thinking, but how come I have a body and I can, I can feel the chair, and these people are talking about me, and they laughing at me, and they would, I would say, what is going on? And they go, and I thought they're laughing at me. Now they're laughing at me. And see this is where your ego, your soul and everybody is really gelling in here trying to figure it all out. And then then next thing I know, I'm gone from that altogether. And all I had to do was just close my eyes that I thought they were eyes, and just think something. And I was up somewhere else, and I thought this is the coolest thing, because it's fast zone, I mean. And then I just started asking questions. When we finally go over, I had to literally turn around and look at myself again and release that part of myself. It's not real. I had participated in but this is who I really am, and I did not have a body. I remember, I've gotten several emails. They said, You can't, you know, cremate your body. I said, your body doesn't exist. It's Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That's how I learned about the Bible, from that time I've been with Jesus in the time I saw the Bible, how it really is. It made sense what this was going on out here, and I was never afraid, though. I was never afraid. I was only afraid when I was in my body. I was never afraid out here, because you don't have the same kind of understandings in those two states of mind. I remember when I came back in, I'd gone through, the ambulance came back into my body. And I remember when they pulled me out to, you know, put the stretcher down, it brought me back into my body. And I remember thinking, oh, and I could feel, then the pain again. It was all there. It thought, wow. How can that? You know, you're still trying to grasp what, what happened to me. How can I be here? Be over here? So when I'm laying down, though, I remember drain and there was, I was looking up in the ceiling. I thought, This looks just like er on those, you know, the series. I thought that's exactly what they were talking about. So this is kind of things you'll come in and out, because that's your programming that's bringing you back in. But you're also not aware that this is also going on with your soul. So you're having two total energy fields going on at the same time, and you're really thinking, how does this work? So I remember, then they wheeled me into the not the ER, but where I was going to meet my cardiologist. But my friends were there. They we were like I said, the first day of summer break at school, they all met me up there. That's when I first realized that I was going to go. I remember they were looking down. I was laying down, and I couldn't talk. It was very painful to talk. It was the pain was excruciating. And I remember they said, well, let's just close our eyes for two will be yes, and one will be young. No. You know, we did a little, and they said, are you okay? And I went, No, no, no. But I remember thinking they were trying to tell me that Ron, well, my husband, at the time, had picked up the kids and they they were coming, and I realized, no, I'm not going to make it. I'm only going to see these three people's faces. And it just gave me such a sadness that I wasn't going to get to say goodbye to my children or say goodbye to my husband. It was really a whole different it wasn't like outside. It was a depth of knowing that was deeper than I even experienced that before you can take God in from the breath that you take, that's what God is to do, what I'm doing right now, be me. Be proud of what I am, and know that I have a spark of God, as everyone else does, and we get an opportunity to change the world. And you don't think I'm not going to that's what I'm here to do. Your tone will be different. Mine's going to be different. And the frequencies will family ring that consciousness enough to where we can see the real truth here. Be honest with self. Be true to the self.
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