"Out-of-Body Travel and Astral Projection"

After moving to New York City as a young man, my intuition and curiosity led me to THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH where (as a result of what I was told was a significant test score) I was invited to become a subject in their study of OBE or OUT-of-BODY EXPERIENCE. They were interested in finding out if OBEs could demonstrate sufficiently that consciousness has a separate existence from the physical body to evidence the survivability of consciousness after death. In other words, Death is the ultimate OBE!

Of course, this would also imply the existence of consciousness before birth. But where consciousness goes and where consciousness comes from are not questions parapsychologists want to pursue since they do not recognize the existence of meta-physical realities and must therefore limit themselves and their studies to experiments that can provide clinical results.

Though I was able to repeatedly demonstrate the ability to leave my body, even effecting psychokinesis during some of these experiments, I found myself getting bored since I was really more interested in exploring the metaphysical dimensions that are beyond the scope of scientific discovery.

From the time I was a small child, I can remember leaving my body. Sometimes, floating upward off the bed, I could feel myself bump against the ceiling. Rolling over, I could see my body asleep below. Slowly I would begin moving about the room, bouncing off the floor, and then flying out the doorway and through the house. Soon I would go exploring further from home. On a number of occasions, I found myself naked in the street without realizing that I was invisible to others.

As a teenager, I sometimes had a hard time staying in my body or in the classroom during certain boring subjects in school. I found that it was easy for me to 'visit' people or places just by focusing my mind on them. I also began to have journeys into 'other' time zones past and future, even re-experiencing past lives.

During a number of my experiences I was filled with a profound sense of being connected to a benign Force within the cosmos. While 'traveling,' I met and formed relationships with Light Beings who have remained my spiritual guides ever since.

Most of the books I read were in disagreement on how to achieve OBE or even what to call it. Some used the term Mind Projection and others Soul Travel or Astral Projection. The word 'astral' (emanating from and pertaining to the stars) has very specific meaning for Theosophists and other esoteric groups who adhere to their own strict interpretations of the word.

However, through more common usage, 'astral' has come to generically mean, "Any dimension of space, time or reality differing from the physical world." Clearly, while every Astral Projection is an OBE, not every OBE involves an astral experience. OBE refers to what is happening and Astral Projection refers to where it may have taken place.

Astral Projection takes us to plains and perspectives beyond the three dimensions of the physical world. Certain parallels can be observed between these astral dimensions and those depicted by surrealist, abstract, and impressionist painters. There may be additional comparisons to the ambience of musical vibrations, tonalities and harmonies.

Certainly many creative and visionary people derive a good amount of inspiration from these plains and dimensions. However, it becomes a real challenge to express or translate multi-dimensional experience in the mundane world. Dante, Swedenborg, Blake, Wordsworth, Dali, Bruegel, and Bosch, to name a few, all refer to their astral experiences in their work.

After a number of years studying everyone else's method of Out-of-Body Travel, I decided to concentrate on developing and perfecting my own technique so that I could start teaching other people how to do it safely and effectively. I found that I was able to reduce much of what I had learned into safe and simple procedures that proved effective in getting my students to achieve consistent results.

During my workshops I have found that, in addressing people's fears and misconceptions, it is possible to get them past these obstacles and barriers to success. So often, there is a belief that something 'magical,' rather than natural, is taking place.

Animals go out of their bodies all of the time, this ability is not unique to humans. In fact, it is the natural way in which the body unwinds its tensions while the mind is elsewhere, usually during sleep. The sensation of drifting off to sleep is actually an awareness of leaving the body. Dreaming is a type of OBE, I like to call it 'Astral Ejection.'

Many people go out of body during boring or repetitive tasks. They let their minds wander and very soon they are gone. We call this daydreaming, but this too is and OBE. Sometimes the mind is only gone for a moment or two. At other times, people have been known to drive their cars or perform another familiar task without having remembered that they did it. Indeed, it is possible for the body to go into a sort of 'automatic pilot' mode of operation at such times.

Drugs and alcohol can cause a person to have an OBE but, more often than not, it won't be a pleasant one. It is best if you know what you are doing and that you are sober and clear-headed in your approach. Otherwise there can be problems of confusion and disorientation. Safety comes through proper preparation and practice.

One of the reasons why many people have difficulty remembering their OBEs is that they do not keep their attention focused during them. If a person is mentally tired, too relaxed or chemically impaired, lack of focus will cause loss of consciousness and memory. In order to have a conscious OBE, it is necessary to achieve physical relaxation while maintaining mental alertness.

Developing good memory skills is an essential part of Astral Projection and Out-of-Body Travel. I teach my students a number of memory techniques to use on their journeys that will aid them in focusing their minds on what is happening and to later recall their experiences.

When the mind becomes focused on the image of a person, place or thing, referred to as a 'target,' mental energy begins flowing in that direction. As energy continues to flow toward the target, there is a shift in the balance of energy away from the body as it builds up in the 'target zone' until eventually the consciousness has completely relocated itself, resulting in an OBE.

There remains a filament of energy, sometimes referred to as a 'silver cord,' that continues to connect the consciousness to the physical body, like an anchor chain. This cord (which can sometimes be seen clairvoyantly) cannot be broken or severed until death dissolves its connection to the physical body naturally. It is this connection that keeps us from losing track of our bodies and which pulls us back when it is time for us to return to our bodies and awaken.

Consciousness can travel at the 'speed of thought.' How fast is that? No one has measured it but it is certainly infinitely faster than the speed of light. It may be possible to cross the entire universe as consciousness traveling at the 'speed of thought.'

Once the mind has been able to transcend the limitations of the physical world, it faces the limitations of its own thinking as certain barriers. Anything we perceive as a barrier becomes one until we see through and beyond it. Outside of time, as measured in the physical world, Past and Future can be experienced as the Present. We may find ourselves easily moving in and out of other time zones, re-experiencing past lives or even future possibilities, which are the basis of 'deja vu' when re-experienced as the Present

Astral Travel can be either a great adventure or a colossal waste of time, depending on the level of awareness and understanding a person brings to it. Remember, that as an Astral Traveler, you can either be an explorer or merely a tourist. For this reason it is important to give some thought to the purpose of the journey before embarking on it to achieve success.

I encourage assuming the attitude of an explorer. Don't forget to keep a record of your journeys and your discoveries; you never know if you might benefit from them sometime in the future. Often, events in the future have been experienced out of the body by someone before the events actually came to pass on the physical plane. The future is already happening somewhere else before we option it, so it's not a bad idea to have a look at it before we decide to manifest any part of it as our reality.

Sometimes, while aiming for one goal or target, we may discover that we have attained another unexpectedly. The reason being that we never really know what we will find until we get 'there.' Some of our most significant discoveries occur in the pursuit of entirely different goals. It is a good idea to always be open to the possibility that we may have a success of another kind when it appears that we have failed to attain the goals we originally set for ourselves. Remember, Columbus didn't find India, the place he targeted as his destination, he found the New World.