The Great Secret
Jun 26th, 2007 by Stephen Erastus Knudsen III
I want to let you in on a little secret. When I was 16 years old, I was in a plane crash and had a near death experience. It is one of the reasons I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the church is True. Let me tell you about it.
It was mutual night, and I had been invited – along with the rest of the young men and young women in my ward – to a Hawaiian luau at the Stake Center. When we arrived at the building, we were handed airline tickets and placed on an airplane on the stage in the cultural hall. I will admit that at the time I was a little confused, because I did not know that the stage in the stake center really had the power to transport us from one place to another, although it makes sense that there is more to the church building than meets the eye.
Midway during our flight, the stewardess (yes, I know that they prefer to be called “flight attendants” but to me that is just a gross distortion of the divine gender roles defined in the proclamation on the family) told us that our air plane had caught fire (I don’t think she was a real stewardess who had gone through real stewardess training because she didn’t look as sleep-deprived and beat-up as she should have). Needless to say, our plane crashed, and it was terrible – we didn’t even get to slide down those fun air slides.
But the amazing part was that just after the crash, Brother and Sister Knight came in, all dressed in white, and took us all for a tour of the afterlife.
First they showed us paradise (a lot of happy people there singing hymns).
Then they showed us spirit prison (it was very dark and miserable – one man even had an electric guitar!)
They showed us the telestial kingdom (some people were wearing tie-die shirts and long-haired wigs), the terrestrial kingdom (men in business suites who were only interested in money) and finally the celestial kingdom (everyone was in white and was very very happy – they even had refreshments).
Then they let us in on the big secret – we had not really died – they had only given us this near-death experience to reveal the Truth of the afterlife to us. They then let us come back to mortality – although we never did make it to the luau – and they encouraged us to always remember what we had seen. And I always have.
And in case you are wondering, yes, this really happened. It’s not just folklore.
How interesting. I had the same kind of object lesson happen to me — imagine that! (it’s all staged, by the way — it wasn’t real). I wonder if anyone else out there had an activity like this. It’s my understanding that they are not uncommon. I also find it interesting the choices that are made to represent the different kingdoms. Tie-die shirts indeed.
So wait . . . tie-die shirts are a symbol of the telestial kingdom? And here I thought they were a rockin’ fashion statement for me to make while I was giving a sacrament meeting talk.
Glenn, I got to say, I’m a little disappointed that it was only a spiritual plane crash for Stevie-boy. Surviving a real one would have made for a much more interesting story.
The only youth activities I can remember were winter camp outs for boy scouts. Snowball fights. scout made igloos. Does feeling like I would get frostbite count as a near-death experience?
The only one I remember that was like that was on our Pioneer Trek, we were in families, and that included little children, ages 2-5 probably. (they were children of our “mas and pas”) Anyway, near the end, the kids were gone one morning when we woke up and they lead us to a open field with a bunch of dirt mounds. Apparently the children had died during the night and we had to roll our handcarts over them on our way to Zion. Yeah, it was total emotional manipulation. Horrifying to a 17 year old. But, they wanted us to experience what the pioneers went through. After the trek was over we got to see the kids again, I can’t remember if they were dressed in white or not, but it was definitely quite a production.
Plane crash activity - yes I remember seeing that one done. Clever idea. I think the more we can involve the youth in activities where they are given the opportunity to think about the choices they make, the better.
We had a carnival at the church. Some were told what was going on and to not spend all the tickets they were given, and to not have to much fun at the carnival.
About 45 mins into all the fun the Bishop or somebody came to the stage and said the Second Coming has arived you have all died and are now going to be judged.
They took each of us into a room where men from the ward/bishopbrick were all dressed in white. They counted our tickets and put us into each kingdom. Those with the most tickets went to the celestial kingdom and so on down to outer darkness I think. They took us into the chapel and divided us into the kingdoms, and then the Bishop gave some inspiring talk. And explained the object lesson.
The problem now is everytime I take my kids to a real fair or carnival, I feel really guilty using up all the tickets or even being at the carnival with all that fun.
I hate how the elictric guitar is used as a example of evil in the church. There has been a lot of good music composed on the elictric guitar.
this is very stupid and unreal story and i think you know that. that never happend, and there is no such things like god, paradise kingdoms and etc… the church is just a way of manipulation, someone should told you this. you stupid mormons. and i think even you dont beleave yourself , telling us this story