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By Jonathan Petre Electronic Telegraph
MOST
people regard them as little more than Christmas card adornments,
but at least 800 Britons claim to have had encounters with
angels, the first academic research into the subject has
found.
Not
only Christians have had these experiences; atheists, agnostics,
Muslims and Jews have also claimed similar visitations,
according to Emma Heathcote, a Birmingham University researcher
who has studied the phenomenon for two years. Miss Heathcote,
whose findings are the subject of the Everyman programme
on BBC 1 on December 12, said she appealed for reports of
experiences from Britons to include in a doctorate on the
subject and was astonished by the level of interest.
According
to her findings, angels tend to "appear" either
to impart a message or to provide comfort or reassurance.
They have also "intervened" to save people from
fatal accidents. Almost a third of those who contacted Miss
Heathcote reported seeing a traditional angel with a white
gown and wings. Another 21 per cent saw angels in human
form. Others felt a force or presence and some detected
a distinctive scent or were engulfed in light.
One
of the most striking reports came from a woman doctor who
was doing her training at Guy's Hospital, London, when a
three-year-old girl was brought in after falling under the
wheels of a juggernaut. She wrote: "When they whipped
her clothes off, there wasn't a mark on her. The girl came
round and immediately asked, 'Where is the man in white?'
A male doctor stepped forward and said, 'I'm here', but
the girl said, 'No, the man in the shiny white suit who
picked me up when the lorry went over me'."
Dena
Bryant from Gloucestershire, described how she was frozen
to the spot when two cars collided and one was hurtling
towards her. She claimed to have felt feathers behind her
legs and a force lift her out of danger. David Barber from
Worcestershire almost drowned at his local swimming pool
before his late grandmother appeared in angelic form and
carried him to the surface.
More
than half a church congregation said it saw an angel during
a baptism. Miss Heathcote said: "I interviewed the
vicar, the curate, the organist and a large number of the
congregation and they all came up with the same story. They
were embarrassed and asked me not to disclose their names."
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