Peter Marshall

Peter Marshall appears in Raymond Moody’s discussion of reported supernatural rescues as a real-life example of a person saved from an apparently fatal danger by an intervention beyond his own power. The account gives only a brief glimpse of his life, but its defining reversal is clear: in the fog, a voice from behind interrupts a boyhood fall toward death, and the experience remains consequential long after the immediate danger has passed.

Identity and Source

Moody identifies Peter Marshall through Catherine Marshall’s book A Man Called Peter, which made the episode well known. The account places the rescue during Peter’s boyhood in Scotland. It does not provide further biographical details about his childhood or describe the later course of his life beyond his becoming a minister.

The Cliff Rescue

Peter was in danger of falling to his death from a cliff in fog. As Moody recounts it, a voice called to him from behind, and that call saved him from the fall. The account offers no further description of the voice or of the precise mechanics of the rescue; its emphasis is on the abrupt intervention at the edge of mortal danger.

Consequences and Significance

The experience affected Peter greatly, and he went on to become a minister. Moody places the story among several reports in which people said a spiritual agent or being had rescued them from circumstances they could not escape unaided. In his presentation, Peter’s case gives that broader category a concrete setting—a boy, a cliff, fog, and a voice—and illustrates how a near-fatal episode could remain a defining influence beyond the moment of rescue.