Not How You Imagine, You're already there Options

Okay, I have read the work Robert Bruce, and I have tried enough techniques to get me to 'project' that I could write my own book

Enough is enough. I am here to tell you that there is no leaving the body.

Wait! I am not saying that people don't indeed experience OOBEs or anything of the sort. I am saying that you can't leave your body because you were never in it.


You and I exist on all planes. Our being covers all of infinity, and all that is necessary is that we attune and focus our consciousness to one part of this vast terrain. We are already everywhere we could want to go, and our bodies don't keep us here. In fact, we aren't kept here at all.

If you ask any occultist (seasoned, budding, or otherwise) they would tell you the astral is made of thought. All sorts of though in different fields of vibration that change and shift as we change and shift; this is all occult 101. But what all the books and all this thought fails to portray is what this entails.

Where do you think your consciousness is at? Your brain, your spirit, your mind? You can't find an exact location, can you? This is because it is everywhere! The brain are just a radio and the mind is just the station... consciousness is everywhere like the waves that the radio receives.

If you still haven't got my point yet, hang in there. What I am trying to say is that our consciousness is already on the astral. What we assume to be imagination is actually what the astral is! Have you ever imagined yourself moving, dancing, or getting so anxious inside a thought that you began to notice your body was involuntarily moving to react to it? I know I have.

So sure, you can try to project out of your body, and I am sure that (given time) you will succeed. But there is an easier, more gradual (and more mind-bending) way to go about it. Daydreaming. But not just ordinary run-of-the-mill daydreaming, I am talking very intense visualization and the gradual use of other senses here. And when you do hit that moment where more of your consciousness is attuned to the astral than it is to the physical...it is like you fall directly into the astral. This way, you come to understand the astral as *inside* of you....not as some distant realm. It makes the astral feel like home, like someplace you've been a thousand times before but took for granted.

And if you are wondering about whether or not I am just accessing my own consciousness, I can assure you that this method also brings you into the collective. I found this out when I decided to try pathworking my way through the path to Yesod completely by my own knowlege, only to find out it is perfectly in line with how others perceive it to be.

This method also brings your everyday consciousness lucidity directly to your dreams. Not long after I started using this method, I had my first lucid dream in about a year or so (probably more)...and I had one of the most vivid dreams of my life that very same night.

I'm not trying to say that people like Robert Bruce are wrong, but I am saying that there way isn't the only way. I am just suggesting a different road to the same destination....one that I think might save some people some time.

So work with daydreaming...work with imagined things! Work with them until the lines between real and daydreamed are blurred, and until you find yourself falling into the astral instead of trying to climb up into it.
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You can take it or leave it. This is what I have found to be true for myself, and I am in no way trying to invalidate other's methods and beliefs.

Edit: My pathworking was identical to that of the same path in The Shining Paths, as stated by BrotherM.

Thats beautiful, but something seems odd about your concept, and it seems no surprize that intense visualizing can do that. Ask your self why mundane daydreams don't AP, what I mean is your visualizing got the higherself to AP you, co's in your focus was I want to project.

I feel the astral is made of thoughts and the energy.

Great:)

Well, I of course think that mechanical thinking belongs on the ethreal plane, as most other occultists tend to believe.

But yet daydreaming and more location-interaction oriented thought is in fact what most consider 'projection'. The reason we don't experience it as fully is because we spread out our consciousness to both the physical environment and the astral....which diminishes senses and depth.

So basically, falling into a daydream is falling into the astral, but directing the senses to the astral creates the full experience.

It certainly changes the way you think about fantasy!

This is exactly the way I do the majority of my workings. You can slip easily from an "imagined" location to anywhere else you choose... and even interact with others. I believe remote viewing is also similar.

However, I will also say that there are other forms of projection that are so intense that they defy description. It's the point where your own mind and imagination have little to no effect on the environment or imagery. Where there are other being present with completely free wills... and you feel like nothing more that a thought-form existing in Their dreams. It's a very humbling experience.

Well, although we may very well be talking about different methods and experiences, I myself have been in similar circumstances/environments.

I'm not saying this is the perfect method. In fact, it might not work for everyone as well as it does for me...and for some it may not be of any use at all. But, as far as I have seen, it is the most user-friendly. I tried for years to 'get out of my body', and finding what I was looking for inside myself is both a startling thing and one of those things that just makes me feel stupid for not realizing them sooner.

I am still open to suggestions as far as actual OOBE techniques are concerned, but I am an extreme skeptic concerning the idea of the projection of the astral body. First of all, this assumes that it is in some way 'stuck' to the physical body....which seems very centered around physicality. It also assumes that the astral body needs to go somewhere to be in the astral (this raises the question of "If the astral body isn't in the astral, then how it is the astral body"). Even more, it assumes that the consciousness needs housing. Then there is the idea of 'production' of the astral body, which I can hardly even see as making sense. Granted, I am not the all knowing source of wisdom, so I hardly qualify as someone in the position to determine what is real and what is fake....

It feels as if people are trying to find the spiritual outside of themselves; that in the search for the spiritual one has to 'escape' the spiritual body, that they are not good enough in the body they are in. Many perspectives could easily lean towards the idea of running from oneself instead of trying discover oneself.

What is really funny is that, in respect to my method, projectors (when using tactile/deep visualization to trigger projection) are actually projecting in trying to project....and then thinking they are having no success! If the astral is the plane of thought, then where else do they think the visualization is located lol?

I'm curious as to your method of gaining such deep experiences, Serpenti. Are you able to share it/them, or perhaps give some insight into other methods (I always love to try new things...it would give me something to play with? Any information is very gratefully received.

I have been thinking more, and remote viewing is a subtle form of AP. To remotely view initially you have to build some energy up in you, sort of like centering, then sort of projecting or use that energy, think of anywhere and your be there and sense there, so if you think of the twin towers then your psy mind goes there, and you literally sense it, this helps you build a visual picture, also a key to visualizing in general.

I was practising AP last night, and I decided to visualize my energy body floating out I got to the Ceilin, and then bang, the ceilin cracked just as I touched it, I also found it easier to see the ceiling this maybe because I sensed it with lots of energy.

So ultimately we all project, some fully project all the body, some just a thought form, Drop, build up loads of energy, maybe you can enhance your AP style.

The only experience I have with energy build-up relative to Astral Projection is what can be had from performing the LBRP, so I think it is a wonderful suggestion babyalien!

Generally, I tend to have a problem with projection: it makes you think in all senses. Most of the time, at least from my observation (the only observation really possible) I don't see or feel my thoughts... I hear them. This relates deeply to my clairaudience and my natural communication with that 'being' I've always been in contact with. So this really requires some mind-bending to get all the senses in.

I'm curious as to your method of gaining such deep experiences, Serpenti. Are you able to share it/them, or perhaps give some insight into other methods (I always love to try new things...it would give me something to play with? Any information is very gratefully received.

First, what I have are experiences and opinions on them. I know what it feels like to wake up and walk around the house without a body, be ripped from the body (or so it seems) and have fully waking conscousness while interacting with others, or to simply drift into a dream that becomes lucid and progresses into an encounter with information on what's taking place in some other spot on the globe. What I don't know is how to classify them, or describe how they come about. For the most part, the first two have happened without my expecting them to.

The method of using visualization skills to slip comfortibly into an astral experience is one that is also taught in several Orders. It does work, and is certainly my prefered method. It also has the beniefit of translating into the ability to effect the natural world... as above, so below.

I believe, as you've said, that we already inhabit the astral as well as the other realms (etheric, mental...). The big jump comes when we can be fully present in those realms with lucidity and full sensory perception. As for encountering things that might contradict the idea that all that exists can be found within, I've had a couple run-ins with things that certainly SEEM to be external. Visible OOBE's, where another can see a person walk out of their body, is one that at least hints at this idea. When a person is so fully present in the etheric that they can, like a ghost, manipulate the physical world, it's hard to say that OOBE's are taking place only on an internal level. I've had one experience of being the one who is seen as a ghostly form, and I've talked to others who have witnessed this type of thing. You believe, while in this form, that you really are physical -other than a feeling similar to being slightly drunk.

Other things that make me doubt OOBEs are strictly an internal journey to explore the inner or outer worlds are more difficult to describe. Again, it's the point where you no longer have any say in what form the visual terrain takes, and the beings you are interacting with seem to have control in both the physical plane and imaginary planes simultaniously. While I could post journal entries about them, but don't want to, I still don't think they would be able to convey the actual feelings and senses that are percieved during the encounters. They haven't been things that I have planned out or tried to experience. Some things just defy explanation... and I'm not very good at explaining things to begin with. In the end, it's my opinion that for the most part OOBEs are an interal way to access the internal and exernal world... but exceptions do exist.

This post has been edited by Serpenti: Jun 12 2005, 12:10 PM

When I say internal, I am speaking of how WE as a being cover all of reality. There is nothing outside of ourselves. Therefore, the only journey to be had (even physical) cannot take us OUT of ourselves. There is no OUT of ourselves, as we all overlap. The collective is just as within as the subjective.

It makes me feel good to know that Orders teach this technique (although I am just as wary of O.T.O. and its members as I AM was, and the same goes for the Thelema it is intertwined with...as well as its form of modern Gnosticism).

My feeling is that we are just one collective unconscious, and there are others higher up the tree and just beyond reach. It's just something you'd have to run into.

I'm not familiar with anything Thelemic, but since it's a technique that works I imagine they must make use of it too. GD, AMORC, and Bardon, are the ones I was thinking of. Though Bardon isn't exactly an order.

More thoughts and experiments...

Everything should be done one step at a time, as we are in the physical plane, then start off using this weaknesses as a gain, for the initial step.

Put your hand on your third eye, then move your hand out, try to sense and visualize/sense the hand, close your eye's and try to sense the location of you hand, you don't have to be conscious of the panning, just focus on hand near third eye, then hand 3 foot away.

Then stop the silly hand movement, and now invert your eye's to the third eye so to create that pressure on the forehead, intensify that first, then center in your head, sucking all the energy from your body not a external source. By now you should have a pressure on the third eye a cold head or the sensation of energy around your head, at your will try to make this energy cold and fuzz, as this is the key to actually feeling energy. Now slowly move the energy ball out just like the hand movements, do that 10 times, by now you should notice when you move the energy back to your head each time, that you hear and feel the energy + your third eye pressure (hits you head) if you can get a pressure all over your head. Now when you have got this working well, speed it up, you can skip the moving back and forth alittle and this helps speed and power and saves time, This is basically projecting your mind like remote viewing, go to the ceiling and sense your walls etc, hopefully your be focused on location, as if your there!

I read a tutorial about something similar for AP, all you do is speed it up as fast as you can, but when you touch the ceiling you don't walk back, you jump your focus back to your head/third eye, and as you move back to the ceiling walking every bite, try to feel a g-force/one way current, don't let this path weaken, hoping you suck/create a vortex pulling your astral body.

This is nothing but my inferior experiences so far, I think it qualifies as logic, and welcome criticism.

This post has been edited by babyalien: Jun 12 2005, 06:01 PM

More thoughts and experiements...

When you climb out your body, don't be in third person vision, to project a body you must sense all your ethical body, imagine it as bright white fuzzy, noisy energy.

Assuming you can project energy, project your astral arm, using visualizing, then switch your physical conscious body off, and intensify your consciousness of your ethical body, move out taking notice of the experience, thinking about you limbs to hold as much enegry as possible

First trick, turn your self upright, if it feels real then your there I guess, float to the door, knock on it, sense it in every way. then go through and keep on sensing things, you should just see things all there as there where.

I believe when people project with alot of energy, they find them self more there, and visualing comes naturally.

This post has been edited by babyalien: Jun 13 2005, 09:51 AM

1.This is one of the reasons sliencing the body is so important because even if we exist mentally everywhere we exist only one place carnally.Some people project only because they were doing hatha yoga.
2.Going in a hypo trance can help as it makes your mind more susceptable to the farfetched idea we are everywhere.

Where is the proof that the idea that we are everywhere is indeed far-fetched? Likewise, with that logic, full astral projection makes us vulnerable to the idea that we are in one place at a time... it is a matter of perspective.

Ok, I'm resurrecting this, because I have bloody no idea how to do the technique. Do you just try to daydream as much as you can? Doesn't this lead to loss of concentration?

Have a look at Saltcube and the other links pinned at the top of this forum.

This link is a good starter: http://www.saltcube.com/obe-guide/

I astral project almost every morning, but the experience is usually too short for me to do anything worthwhile. This technique looked pretty good...you know, you keep your dream consciousness just at the back of the head, so you can just "slip" into the astral anytime you want...at least that's my interpretation (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

hello everyone, interesting discussion here..
I fell upon this site searching for forums to better learn about witchcraft, very nice forum and site by the way..
form my personal experiences I would say that we actually are traveling outside the body, that in reality there are inner layers and outer layers of consciousness..for me and most people they travel within(dreams/ap's)where full blown obe's take shape when we fully detach from the body and take complete control over the subconscious ..I see it as a huge circle,where this reality lay on just outside on the edge of the circle, however there is more to this reality than meets the eye.as we move in through the layers we get closer to where time and space does not exist where all consciousness emerges..
does this make any sense?lol
well I just thought I would throw my philosophy in here!!