K. Uexkul, who told about his experience, soon after the incident went to a monastery.

Archbishop Nikon's report is given in an abridged form.

He writes that before K. Uexkul did not think, read the holy books, admitted that everything written in them was true, but he did not have a sense of faith, and death remained for him the end of human existence. He was a formal Christian for many years. He went to church, was baptized, but in essence he did not believe, he did not take everything seriously.

After many years of a quiet life, he fell ill with pneumonia. He was ill for a long time and seriously, but one morning he suddenly felt quite well. The cough disappeared, the temperature dropped to normal. To his surprise, the doctors became worried... Oxygen was brought. And then - chills and complete indifference to the environment. He says:

"All my attention was focused on myself... and a kind of bifurcation... there is an inner man – the main one, who has complete indifference to the external (to the body) and to what happens to it."

He continues: "It was amazing to live, to see and not understand anything, to feel such alienation from everything. For example, the doctor asks a question, and I hear, understand, but do not answer - I do not need to talk to him. And suddenly I was pulled down into the ground with terrible force... I rushed about. "Agony," the doctor said. I understood everything. He was not afraid. I remembered that I had read that death was painful, but there was no pain. But it was hard and languid for me. I was pulled down... I felt that something had to separate... I made an effort to free myself, and suddenly I felt light, I felt peace.

I remember the rest clearly. I'm standing in the room, in the middle of it. To my right, doctors and nurses are standing in a semicircle, around the bed. I wondered what they were doing there, because I was not there, I was here. I came closer and looked. When I saw his double, I was not frightened, but only surprised – how is this possible? I wanted to touch myself – my hand went through as if through emptiness.

I also saw myself standing, but I could not feel it, my hand went through my body. And I didn't feel the floor... I couldn't reach the others either.

I called the doctor, but he did not respond. I realized that I was completely alone, and panic seized me."

Looking at his dead body, he wondered if he had died. "But it was hard to imagine, I was more alive than before, I felt and was aware of everything. In addition, I did not believe in the life of the soul, and this thought did not come to me."

Later, recalling his experience, Uexkul says: "The assumption that, having thrown off the body, the soul immediately knows and understands everything is wrong. I came into this new world as I left the old one. The body is not the prison of the soul, but its rightful home, and therefore the soul appears in the new world in the degree of its development and maturity that it has reached in common life with the body."

He saw how the old nurse crossed herself: "Well, the Kingdom of Heaven be to him," and suddenly he saw two angels. For some reason, he recognized one as a guardian angel, and he did not know the other. The angels took him by the hands and carried him through the walls of the ward into the street.

He then describes the ascent, the vision of "ugly creatures" ("I knew at once that this view was taken over by demons") and the appearance of light... brighter than the sun. "There is light everywhere and there are no shadows." The light was so bright that he could not see anything. "Like in the dark. And suddenly, from above, imperiously, but without anger, the words were heard: "Not ready," and a rapid downward movement began. He returned to his body. The guardian angel said: "You have heard God's decree. Come in and get ready."

Both angels became invisible. There was a feeling of embarrassment and coldness and deep sadness for what was lost. "She's always with me." He lost consciousness and woke up in the ward on a bed.