101-year-old South African spiritualist describes heaven after "dying" and coming back

A South African spiritualist has been blessed with a long life but that is exactly why she is so unhappy. For the last 13 years she has wanted her life to end . . . and there’s a reason why.


I HAVE SEEN HEAVEN AND I WANT TO GO BACK THERE, SHE SAID. “I saw three angels at the gate and I knew that is where I wanted to stay. “It was a place beautiful beyond my imaging. I was sad when the Lord sent me back to earth. In heaven I was healthy,” said Anna Mtshwaeni (101), of Atteridgeville, Tshwane.

This happened in 2003, when her family thought she was dead. While gogo Anna believed she was in heaven, her son, Jonas Mahlangu (55) was on earth mourning for his mother. He said he won’t ever forget the awful morning of 7 August 2003 when he went to wake Anna up and she didn’t respond.

“She was cold. She wasn’t breathing,” he said. He called his relatives and when the elders came they told him to make sure she was really dead before calling a mortuary van.

“I sat at my mother’s side for the whole day and night,” he said. “I held her in my arms and I finally realised she was really gone.” But when the mortuary van arrived the next morning, the driver shouted at him to come and see. “He told me that my mother was breathing.”