A series of revival meetings conducted in Afton, Iowa, by Rev. A. A. Athington, a California evangelist, have had a strange effect upon Miss Mae Mutchlar, a pretty 18-year-old high school girl of that town and daughter of Town Marshal Mutchlar, says the Chicago Chronicle.
    Miss Mutchlar up to the present time has always seemed a healthy and well-balanced girl, except that she was of a rather high-strung nature, and has always been a good student and a general social favorite.
    Rev. Mr. Athington is said to be a man of commanding and imposing appearance, with much personal magnetism. His voice is strong and musical and he thrills his listeners with his impressive sermons.
    One of the most faithful attendants at these meetings was Miss Mutchlar. Her lessons, social pleasures and all other interests were forgotten, and her whole mind seemed concentrated upon the discourses.
    At the close of one of the regular meetings Miss Mutchlar suddenly went into a strange sort of a trance which lasted three days. Upon awakening from this sleep it was found that she had lost her power of speech. The minister attributed this to a direct manifestation of the divine power, and prophesied that when her power of speech would return it would be in a strange tongue. True to this prediction she began to talk in a peculiar and hardly intelligible manner one day. Rev. Mr. Athington was immediately sent for and took her remarkable story in writing. Since this time she has gone into a trance daily, and upon awakening has a story to tell of new experiences.
    A Chicago psychologist who has studied the case thinks that the girl was hypnotized by the minister and while in this hypnotic state sees these strange visions. However, no matter what the solution of the mystery may be, Miss Mutchlar’s story is an interesting one.
    Upon losing consciousness the girl claims she had a feeling of being carried upward by unseen hands. When she reached the portals of heaven she was surprised to see not a “golden city,” as has always been taught, but a place that looked like a beautiful spot on this earth. Mountains and lakes dotted the landscape, while beautiful, villas were built in the semblance of earthly architecture. The atmosphere) was warm and balmy, very much like I a summer day on earth.
    A very dear girl friend who had died some years ago met her with these words:
    “Dear Mae, I have been waiting for you so long. Now you must come and live with me always.”
    The queer part of it was that the, people in heaven lived in families just the same as on earth and dwelt together in modern-looking homes. The people were all gowned in silken robes made very much like the dress of the Japanese women and seemed water-proof.
    The lakes were deep and clear and used by the people to bathe in, and great was her surprise when she found herself walking under water without the slightest sensation of choking. Exquisite submarine flowers and plants grew on the bottom of these lakes.
    Vegetation was much the same as upon the earth according to her story, only with a greater tropical luxuriance, and the only difference she found in the people was that no one showed extreme old age. The different stages from childhood to the adult age were all portrayed, but old age was nowhere to be seen. The ability to soar through the air like the birds was one of the peculiar characteristics of this strange people and to wish for a thing meant to realize it.
    The air seemed to vibrate with the sweetest strains of music imaginable and no night ever came; instead a soft glow as of twilight spread over the place.
    When the wonderful story told by Miss Mutchlar was made known to the residents of Afton many flocked to her bedside begging for messages from departed loved ones or requesting her to take some message to them during her next flight into the hidden world.
    Weird as it sounds, this is the power claimed by the young woman. When in a trance she can find anyone in the spirit world and exchange messages with the spirit, transmitting those she received in heaven to the friends upon earth when she awakens from insensibility.
    During one of her visits to heaven she claims to have questioned one of the apostles regarding the strange phenomena that allowed her to vibrate as it were twixt heaven and earth. The following is her own version of his answer:
    “‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘the two worlds are not so far apart as people in the earth life think. Their souls really do not leave the earth at all, but only seek more favored regions.
    “‘Heaven is all about them if they only knew it, in the ethereal blue above the clouds, in the rosy glow of sunrise and sunset, in the cool quiet depths of the sea, in the luxuriant shades of the tropics, on mountain tops and amid silent woods.
    “‘The disembodied soul has to obey no material laws, so it flies at will from mountain peak to ocean depth like the spark of thought of the mortal mind or like the message flashed by wireless telegraphy across seas or by the cable under seas.
    “‘You see more beauty in heaven because you have finer senses to perceive it.
    “‘In the earthly life you are made up of many personalities. There is the childself that you first grow into, then youth and maturity, all more or less an animal life. The soul life slumbers and awakens and grows slowly, but this survives when the other life withers and dies like the butterfly emerging from the worm.
    “‘To a few like you is given the privilege of hearing messages between the two worlds—because your soul life is more fully developed.’
    “I do not pretend to understand all this, for I am only a schoolgirl. But from what I have read in psychology I suppose it is my second self that leaves my body at times and strays off into a distant or different existence.
    “It is my secondary or subconscious self that relates these experiences while I am going through them. Otherwise, on regaining consciousness I should have only a dim, uncertain recollection of them, as one does after awakening from a dream.
    “The vision life, or heaven, whichever you may call it, is very different from any dream. It is quite as real while it lasts as our everyday life, but far more beautiful and uplifting.”
   

From—The Topeka State Journal. (Topeka, Kan.), 28 March 1907 Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.