J. B. Phillips Experiences the Materialization of C. S. Lewis

J. B. Phillips was an English Bible translator, author, and ordained Anglican priest responsible for the Phillips Translation of the New Testament. Phillips was an esteemed scholar with no history of hallucinations or mental illness. In these two incidents, the renowned author C. S. Lewis appeared to him before Phillips was aware Lewis had transitioned.

J. B. Phillips was suffering from a life-threatening depression. He refused to leave his room, would not eat, and would not exercise. He had begun to doubt God’s love for him.

Another source explains Phillips’s reference to the “few words which were particularly relevant to the difficult circumstances through which I was passing.”

In this vision, Lewis spoke only one sentence to Phillips: “J. B., it’s not as hard as you think.” One solitary sentence, the meaning of which is debated! But what is not debated is the effect of that sentence. It snapped Phillips out of his depression, and set him again following God. After Lewis spoke that cryptic sentence, he disappeared.

Phillips came out of his chambers only to find that Lewis had died moments before the appearance, miles away. He pondered this in his heart, with wonder, and never returned to his depression.[i]

Philips attested to the materialization of C. S. Lewis, but the most convincing evidence of its occurrence was the fact that it “snapped Phillips out of his depression and set him again following God.” C. S. Lewis demonstrated that he was alive even though his body was dead.

[i] “A Theology of Ghosts,” Thoughts of Loy, Loy Mershimer blogspot, September 19, 2005, http://loymershimer.blogspot.com/2005/09/theology-of-ghosts.html.

Phillips’ account of what happened from his book, Ring of Truth, follows. You can listen to a narration of the text by clicking on the sound bar.

J. B. Phillips’ Account of the Materialization of C. S. Lewis

Many of us who believe in what is technically known as the Communion of Saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, for a fairly short time, of those whom we love soon after they have died. This has certainly happened to me several times. But the late C. S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well, and had only seen in the flesh once, but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was watching television, he “appeared” sitting in a chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to the difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and, as the old fashioned saying has it, positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. I was neither alarmed nor surprised nor, to satisfy the Bishop of Woolwich, did I look up to see the hole in the ceiling that he might have made on arrival! He was just there —“large as life and twice as natural”! A week later, this time when I was in bed reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated to me the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and I mentioned it to a certain saintly Bishop who was then living in retirement here in Dorset. His reply was, “My dear J…., this sort of thing is happening all the time.”[i]

[i] J. B. Phillips, Ring of Truth (London: H. Shaw, 1977), 117.