Preface: At 29, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After surgery at NYU Hospital, I felt unbearable pain and floated above my body. A Christ-like figure said, “Go back, Gail, it’s not your time.” After ten days in a coma, I woke up—unaware this was the start of a profound journey.
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In 1972, at the age of 29, I was a single mother to my 9-year-old son when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Shortly after the operation at New York University Hospital, I began to experience tremendous abdominal pain. I was dying. Strangely, I was not afraid. In fact, I felt peaceful and anticipated entering a better place. However, I could hear the doctor’s voice, feel electric shocks on my chest, and the breathing tube inside my throat.
I was floating in the air and saw my body in the bed. I saw my deceased father and uncle, and my childhood friend Cindy, who died during high school. A Christ-like figure told me, “Go back, Gail, it’s not your time.”
Over the next few hours, as my spirit traveled between life and death, my sisters and a cousin came. They watched my lifeless body and began to prepare for my passing. A rabbi was invited to pray for me.
I woke up after ten days in a coma. Little did I know, this experience marked the beginning of a long and transformative journey.
My name is Gail Rachlin. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family. Right after the Bolshevik Revolution, my father escaped the Soviet Union with his seven sisters on a boat. He met my mother in New York. My two sisters and I were raised religiously, but I always had a deeper belief in spirituality.
In high school, my favorite subjects included history, literature, and fine arts. I loved to help others. I organized students to assist disabled children at an orphanage and volunteered as a nurse’s assistant in a hospital.
When I was 15, I was 5’8″ with poor posture, so my dad sent me to a modeling school to improve my confidence. I started working as a model part time. At 18, while attending Russell Sage College, I competed in the Miss America Pageant and was a runner-up for Miss New York State. Ford Modeling Agency offered me a contract, but I declined. I fell in love and got married. Soon we had a son. However, my marriage did not last long.
After college, I worked for several major corporations, climbing the career ladder at American Airlines, American Express, Avis Car Rental, and Hilton. I specialized in sales and marketing, public affairs, and human resources. By society’s standards, I had a successful career at a young age, with a decent income and a good reputation.
While working at American Airlines at Kennedy Airport, I developed a close, platonic friendship with Preston Robert Tisch, CEO and Owner of Loew Corporation. After my near-death experience, he cared for me like family, even arranging for my son to attend a Jewish boarding school.
My brush with death left me grappling with profound questions and a deep drive to seek answers. My desire for truth motivated me to learn and explore.
I have studied over 80 disciplines for professional and personal growth. I traveled extensively and met many fascinating people. These include participating in Erhard Seminar Trainings and seminars by Shirley MacLaine, Deepak Chopra, Stan Grof, Jack Canfield, Bob Fritz, Tony Robbins, Ken Blanchard, and others. I went to India six times to meet a spiritual master, Guruji, and became his disciple.
In 1993, I joined the legendary New York Guardian Angels. The year before, its founder, Curtis Sliwa, had narrowly escaped a Mafia hit orchestrated by the notorious Gotti family. He was shot several times in the abdomen. As a survivor myself, I deeply sympathized with Curtis and admired his courage. I felt compelled to help him recover and continue his important work. As a director, I worked closely with him to expand the Guardian Angels into several countries. We even had the opportunity to meet with Mayor Rudy Giuliani to thank him for his support. In 1997, I left the Guardian Angels to start my own public relations business.
One day in the fall of 1997, I was at a health expo at the Javits Center. On my way to lunch, I saw a young Chinese man standing next to a table, passing out flyers.
“What do you sell?” I asked.
“Nothing. This is free,” the young man replied, handing me a flyer.
“Nothing here is free,” I quipped.
He was a graduate student in physics and was there to tell people about Falun Gong. He taught me some simple exercises and told me to buy a book called Zhuan Falun.
I felt a surge of energy through my body. An inner voice told me, “This is your path.” I soon connected with several practitioners and began to read the book and do the exercises regularly.
At the advice of a fellow practitioner, I read Zhuan Falun from cover to cover in two weeks. The book didn’t feel very religious, but some concepts were new to me, and I developed new questions as I read. I decided to read the book a second time. As I read more and more, many of my early questions were answered. All the disciplines I had learned in the past began to come together. Things began to make sense. This felt like the ultimate spiritual awakening.
Around the same time, I found a lump the size of a ping pong ball in my left breast. At Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, my doctor learned about my brush with death 25 years ago and became very concerned that this could be cancer. She made a list of tests and several treatment options. I was concerned but was not in a panic. After all, I had survived cancer before. While following the doctor’s advice for diagnosis, I doubled down on my effort in Falun Gong exercises and reading, spending several hours a day on the new discipline. Soon, I could feel the lump shrinking. Three months later, before even finishing all my tests, the tumor was gone. My doctor was very surprised and called it a miracle.
I started going to Riverside Park at 105th Street to do the Falun Gong exercises with seven other women. I also traveled to China in 1998 to meet with practitioners in Changchun, Master Li’s hometown. The practitioners there convinced me to pay special attention to reading Master’s books regularly. I developed the habit of reading Zhuan Falun daily.
In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched a brutal persecution of Falun Gong. I decided to tell people the facts about the persecution. As a spokesperson for Falun Gong, I met with politicians in Washington, business leaders in New York, and many others who cared about the issue.
At 81, I’m in better shape than in my youth, with enough savings to retire comfortably—but no desire to slow down. I stay active in real estate, ranking among Keller Williams’ top five agents for five years and completing 78 transactions in one year. I also serve on the boards of a religious elementary school and a private college.
My daily routine includes waking at 6 a.m., practicing Falun Gong for two hours, working from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and reading Falun Gong books before bed at 10 p.m. The practice gives me the strength and clarity to manage a demanding schedule, and I’m deeply grateful for it.
I often hear this expression: “People don’t change,” but I believe most want to—they just don’t know how. Through my journey, I’ve learned about life, others, and, most importantly, myself. I’ve learned to truly live in the moment. I hope my journey with Falun Gong can offer people some insight into finding a path toward personal growth and transformation.
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