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There are certain aspects of the astral dimension and the
projection process that are very complicated. Much of it is
misunderstood and it can all be very confusing at times. This
series of articles attempts to shed a little light on the subject,
and hopefully, explain what it's all about. The theories and
conclusions in this Treatise are largely drawn from my own
projection experience. It is the goal of this Treatise to develop
greater understanding and new, simpler and more effective
techniques for projection. The ideas, theories and techniques
discussed here are constantly under development and are subject to
modification and change as new discoveries and insights come to
light.
What is the Astral Dimension?
The astral is the closest dimension to the physical. It overlays
and permeates the world like a huge mind net, catching and holding
all thought. Its contents are created by the collective
consciousness of the world mind. It contains all the thoughts,
memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the
world. In it, the laws of sympathetic attraction, or like attracts
like, causes this ocean of mind stuff to strata and settle into
layers or pools. These pools of thought are more commonly called
astral planes, astral worlds, astral sub planes or astral realms.
The astral dimension is composed of astral matter and is aptly
described as mind stuff. It is extremely sensitive to thought and
can be molded into any shape or form. These creations can be so
perfect as to be indistinguishable from reality.
The best way to explain this, mind stuff is to draw a comparison
between astral matter and unexposed, high-speed photographic film.
When this film is exposed to light, focused by the camera lens, a
perfect image of reality is instantly burnt into the film by the
chemical reaction of the film to light. When astral matter is
exposed to thought, focused by the lens of the mind, a perfect
image of reality is instantly formed out of astral mind stuff by
the reaction of astral matter to thought. The complexity and
durability of any creation in the astral dimension depends largely
on the strength of the mind doing the creating.
Dreams
This is how the subconscious mind creates dreams: By tuning into
the astral dimension during sleep, it can create any scenario it
wishes. This is the subconscious mind's way of solving problems
and of communicating with the conscious mind. It creates a series
of complex thought form scenarios and projects them into the mind
stuff of the astral dimension, where they become solid. The
conscious mind then lives through and experiences these created
scenarios in the Dream State. In a way it's like a movie projector
(subconscious mind) projecting onto a movie screen (astral
dimension).
Thought Forms
Any new object in the real world is assimilated into the astral
dimension over a period of time. A thought form representation of
it first grows in the lowest part of the astral, close to the
physical dimension, becoming more and more permanent as time goes
on. As with all thought forms, the more attention paid to it the
quicker it grows.
The higher up in the astral dimension, or the further away from
the physical, the less thought forms, of the physical world, as we
know it, are found. Physical things have to soak in to it for a
very long time before they take shape, and are found, in the
higher astral.
Have you ever tried to move around a strange house in the dark?
You bump into everything, right. But as you become familiar with
it though, a mental picture of your surroundings forms in your
mind, and you can find your way around it better. The longer you
spend in this house the stronger this mental picture becomes. This
is similar to how things are assimilated and grown, as thought
forms, in other dimensions.
The generation of thought forms in the astral also works in the
reverse. If a physical object has been around for a very long
time, it will have grown a lasting thought form impression in the
astral. After the object is destroyed or removed, its thought form
still endures. You may, for example, in the astral, find furniture
in your house you don't have, jumbled up with your own. This is
caused by the decaying thought forms of old stuff, belonging to
previous tenant's etc, still being there, years after the
originals have gone.
Old thought forms do not follow their physical counterpart around
when they are moved. New ones begin to grow in the astral wherever
it is while the old ones slowly decay. The longer a thing is in
one place, the stronger the thought form will become in that
place. This also applies to buildings, structures and geological
features. You may project into a park and find a house, bridge,
stream; hill etc that you know is definitely not there. These may
have existed in times past. The higher up in the astral you go,
the older the thought forms are or the further back in geological
time you appear to be.
The rate of growth of a thought form depends largely on the amount
of attention paid to it. For example, a famous painting; loved,
viewed and highly thought of by millions, will have a much
stronger thought form than that of a common painting that hangs in
someone's bedroom and is only viewed by a few. The number of
thought forms you find in the astral also depends on how close you
are to the physical dimension. If you are very close, as in a real
time projection or OOBE, very few thought forms, if any, will be
found. In a real time OOBE you are not quite in the astral
dimension but are existing as an astral form in the buffer zone
between the astral and the physical dimensions.
Astral Vision
In the physical body we have 220 degrees of vision, i.e. we can
only see in front of us, but not behind, above and below at the
same time. In the Astral body we have MORE than 360 degrees of
vision and can see on all sides at once. This is Spherical vision.
During projection, habit forces us to focus our attention in one
direction only, where we feel the forward part of our vision is.
The view behind, above, below, left and right is still there and
seen all at once, but the brain can not assimilate it, all at
once. This goes against the brains lifelong habit of frontal
vision. Spherical vision is like being one huge multi-faceted eye
that can see in all directions, up, down, left, right, front,
back, but all at once! In the astral body you do not have any
physical organs, i.e., eyes. You are a non-physical point of
consciousness floating in space. You are also unaffected by
gravity and other laws of physics. In this state there are no ups
or downs, backs or fronts, left or rights. It is only lifelong
habit that tries to force this perspective on you during
projection.
It is important to understand spherical vision, if you are to
operate competently in the astral. This is especially so when you
project, in real time, close to the physical dimension. Spherical
vision will often cause you to think you are in a mirror image
dimension, or a reversed copy of reality. This means your house,
for example, will appear to be reversed, back to front. This is
caused by you losing your original natural viewpoint during
projection.
At some point during the projection you have become disoriented
and taken a different viewpoint from normal, i.e., you have
rotated or turned upside down or inside without thinking. This
reverses your natural left right, up down viewpoint. This tricks
the subconscious mind into reversing the place you are in so your
conscious mind can function properly.
As you don't have a physical body in the astral, if you want to
look behind yourself you don't have to turn around, or move at
all. You just change your viewpoint to the rear. This, when done
without moving, causes the mirror image effect, in a way its like
looking in a mirror to see behind. The diagram below illustrates
this reversal of viewpoint without turning, note left and right do
not change:
|
Right | Right |
|
(A) <<<<<<< ---------|---------->>>>>>>> (B) |
|
Left | Left |
That is, if viewpoint (A) becomes viewpoint (B) without turning,
then Left and Right are not reversed. This causes the subconscious
mind to use its creative power to correct the view by reversing
it, or parts of it. This is easier and causes fewer problems for
the conscious mind than if it had to try and accept a reversal of
left and right.
A similar effect can be had by lying down and looking above your
head, or standing on your head and trying to pick the left and
right sides of things. This causes a slight confusion in your
sense of left and right, i.e.; you have to consciously calculate
which are left and right from your reversed position. This slight
confusion is all that is needed to trick the subconscious mind
into creating something easier to accept.
Your brain is unable to assimilate this reversal and thus gives
you a new perspective according to what it feels is left and right
at the time. Once you consciously notice this anomaly it is too
late to reverse it. The brain cannot accept a conscious change of
left and right. If you understand spherical vision though, and
happen to get reversed sometime during a projection, it than
thinking you are wasting your time in some strange mirror
dimension, i.e., if you had plans to do something in the astral
you still can. All you have to do is, take your left right
coordinates from the building or structure around you, and ignore
your own sense of left and right completely.
Everything you see while you are in the astral dimension is
directly perceived by the mind. It is a simple matter for the
subconscious mind to twist or reverse, all, or even parts of, your
conscious perception of reality during a projection. Note: This
reversal of viewpoint can happen many times during any one real
time projection.
Creative Visualization Power
The subconscious mind has VASTLY greater powers of visualization
than the conscious mind. It is like comparing a super computer to
a child's calculator. In the astral dimension, during any
conscious projection or lucid dream, where the conscious mind is
aware, this difference can cause great confusion. The subconscious
mind simmers beneath the surface during any projection. All that
creative power is just bursting to get out, to create, and it will
do just that any chance it gets. This difference in creative
power, combined with the lifelong habit of normal frontal vision,
is the cause of the "Alice In Wonderland Effect." Let me
explain....
Take these together:
The incredible creative power of the subconscious mind.
The weak creative powers of the conscious mind.
The sensitivity of astral matters to thought.
Spherical vision.
Left, right sense reversals.
And you have a recipe for total confusion.
The Alice In Wonderland Effect
You project your astral body and look around your room. Everything
appears normal, but suddenly, you notice the door is on the wrong
wall? While looking around, you have seen this door with your rear
vision, confusing your natural left, right, brain perspective. The
brain can't assimilate this because your frontal perspective, and
the position of the furniture, pictures, windows etc, are normal;
but the view behind you is reversed. This tricks the subconscious
mind into creating a door where it thinks it should be. When you
look at this door, it appears real, even though you know it is in
the wrong place. Once it has been created, it will not be
un-created, as that would be unacceptable to your conscious mind.
i.e. solid doors don't normally have a habit of vanishing before
your eyes.
When you turn to where the door really should be, you will,
usually, find the door there as normal. Now you may have two, or
more, doors where there should only be one. If you go through the
real door, you will find the rest of the house, as it should be,
hopefully. But, if you go through a false door, the mind knows
it's false and won't accept it opening to a normal part of your
house that it knows can't possibly be there. So, if you open this
door you will find something else. It is usually a corridor or
passage, you don't have, and leading off into other parts of the
house you don't have either.
From then on, if you go through this door, you are in Wonderland,
where everything is possible, just not very plausible. What you
are doing, in effect, is entering the astral dimension via
uncontrolled creation, through this door you don't have, but now
do. Once the subconscious mind starts creating like this it
continues to do so at a geometric rate. It has to, for the
conscious mind to assimilate the abnormal situation it is in. At
some stage, in this creative maelstrom, the subconscious mind
loses it completely and starts tuning in to other parts of the
astral. At this point of the projection, all semblance of reality
is lost and you fade into the astral dimension proper.
There are many ways this "Alice" effect can happen during a
projection; the above example is just one variation. It has been
noted by many projectors that at sometime during a projection they
seem to lose control of it. Objects appear, disappear, and
generally everything gets a little strange. This is caused,
basically, by the subconscious mind's vast creative ability being
triggered. It starts making and unmaking things, and tuning into
other areas of the astral and generally making everything
difficult for the poor projector.
To avoid the above problem: Concentrate on what you are doing
while you are projecting and don't let your mind wander. The
vision reversal problem can be minimized if you concentrate on
your forward vision during projection, i.e your vision and don't
allow it to flit from one view to another. The astral is not a
good place to relax if you have serious plans.
The vast creative power of the subconscious can, however, be
utilized. It is an extremely valuable tool if you know how to use
it. I will outline ways to do this, in the third part of this
series, under the heading: "Virtual Reality Projection" where I
will outline how to custom creates your own personal astral realm.
Melting Hands
When you project the astral body close to the physical world you
do not have a body as such. But, the mind cannot accept this and
so provides a thought form one made out of etheric matter. If you
try and look at your body, say your hands, you will find they
start to melt very quickly. They look pale and odd, and in a
couple of seconds your fingers start to melt away like ice under a
blowtorch. They shorten into pale stumps, then the rest of your
hand and arm starts to melt away too.
This melting effect only seems to happen when you deliberately try
and observe a body part or consciously create something.
Deliberately observing an astral body part like this, uses the
conscious mind, which, having poor creative powers, can't hold
complex shapes together for very long and it is this that causes
the melting effect. If you happen to notice parts of your body, in
passing, during projection this melting effect will not be seen.
Created Thought Form Objects
You can use your conscious mind to create objects while
projecting. The duration of these, thought form, created objects
depends on the strength of your creative visualization ability. It
also depends on how much time and effort you put in to a creation.
This same melting phenomena happens with any conscious creation
done in the astral dimension. If you create for example, a sword,
it will appear in your hand just as you imagine it, briefly, and
then melt away just like the hand did. If you concentrate on it
you can hold it in shape, but as soon as your concentration wavers
so does the creation. This is similar to any other visualization
you do in the real world. It is difficult, and you have to
concentrate to hold the visualization in your minds eye. Once your
concentration wavers, so does the visualized image. This
illustrates the vast difference between the creative powers of the
conscious and the subconscious mind.
To make a lasting thought form object you have to trick the
subconscious mind into creating it for you. I will deal with this
subject, in greater depth, later in the series.
How does Projection Happen?
During sleep, the energy body, also known as the etheric body or
vitality sheath is put on charge. It expands and opens in order to
accumulate and store energy. The energy body can, normally, only
do this in its expanded state during sleep. Once expanded, the
chakras trickle power, in the form of etheric matter, into the
energy body. During this recharging process the astral body
separates and tunes into the astral dimension where it can create
and experience dreams. If this separation is done consciously, or
if you become aware after it, you can take some control over it.
It then becomes an OOBE, astral projection or lucid dream.
The main differences between an OOBE, astral projection and a
lucid dream are:
The OOBE
The OOBE (out of body experience) is a real time projection close
to the physical world. This often occurs as part of a near death
experience. This is where a person is knocked out of their body as
a result of some kind of severe trauma, i.e. car accident,
surgery, heart attack, child birth etc. OOBE'ers are aware of
things happening in the real world, in real time; such as
conversations and events centered around, or near to, their
physical body. In many cases, these events and conversations are
accurately reported by the person after they have returned to
their body.
Note: The OOBE is slightly different from astral projection or
lucid dreaming because of its real time, objective aspect. This is
caused by the astral body containing a large amount of etheric
matter, which holds it close to the physical world.
There are two main causes of real time OOBE: A person's body is
near death, or thinks it is, which causes a large amount of
etheric matter to be channeled into the astral body in preparation
for the death process.
The person has active chakras, which are doing a similar thing,
i.e. channeling etheric matter into the astral body. Having active
chakras can be a natural ability, or it can be developed by
training. Note: You can project consciously, and have a real time
OOBE if enough etheric matter is generated by the chakras. In an
OOBE, reality is perceived as objective (real) and time is normal
(real time).
Technically, when you project into the physical world in real time
as in an OOBE, it is really into the boundary area of the buffer
zone, between the physical and astral dimensions. If the astral
body contains enough etheric matter it can exist only slightly out
of phase from reality. This means the projection is in real time
and so close to the physical dimension as to be indistinguishable
from it.
Note: I have checked this many times, by projecting, in real time,
during the day and scouting my local area for road works,
accidents, incidents etc, then verifying the accuracy of my
findings afterwards. There are strong natural barriers to
conscious, real time projection, the OOBE, in the physical world.
The amount of etheric matter generated and channeled to the astral
body, is one of them. It limits the duration of any real time
projection to the degree of chakra development and control.
The Astral Projection
This is where the astral body is projected into the astral
dimension, where things are quite different from the real world.
Time is distorted and extended, i.e., an hour in the astral can be
like a few minutes in the physical dimension, depending on what
part of the astral you are in. Reality is fluid and changeable.
The Lucid Dream
This is where a person becomes fully aware that they are dreaming
during a dream. They either take some kind of conscious control
over the course of events, or they convert the experience into an
astral projection.
Astral Projection or Lucid Dream?
Many astral projectors black out before making a conscious exit
from their body and return to awareness in the astral dimension.
You become aware after the actual separation from the physical
body and are usually already in the astral dimension. If you miss
the conscious exit from your body you are technically having a
lucid dream, not an astral projection, as you have become aware
after separation. All three types of projection are closely
related, i.e., they all involve the astral body separating from
the physical and experiencing a reality separate from the physical
body.
Triggering Astral Projection
Astral Projection (AP') is an automatic reflex, built in to your
body and mind. To trigger it, while fully conscious, there are
three major requirements.
-
The ability to relax
your body 100% and stay awake.
-
You have to be able to
shift your consciousness point outside of your body.
-
You need enough mental
and psychic energy to maintain control over the projection and not
slip into the Dream State. Together, these will trigger the
automatic projection reflex for a full powered AP'. There are a
few minor conditions but these can be varied to suit your
experience and surroundings.
Relaxation: You must
`master' a full body relaxation exercise. If you know one already
it can be adapted to suit. Sit in a `chair' and relax. Starting
with the feet, tense them and relax them. Continue this with
calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck and face. Go over
this a few times until you feel completely relaxed. Breathe deeply
and slowly throughout this and try to become `aware' of the breath
entering and leaving your body. Mental hands: Imagine you have a pair of `mental hands'. Stroke
yourself with these `hands' in an upward motion from your feet and
up your legs, over and over again. Try and `feel' them relaxing
and soothing you. Continue this up through the center of your
torso, paying particular attention to the chakras. The mental hand
technique will also get you used to shifting your point of
consciousness to different parts of your body. Try and put as much
of yourself as you can into these mental hands.
Energy raising: As you pull upwards through your legs with your
mental hands, imagine you are gripping the energy that flows there
and pull it up through you. This is the natural path of the
psychic/life energy that flows through you. With practice you will
actually `feel' this energy tingling and surging through you. It
will literally `charge' you up like a battery.
Chakras: These are situated at:
-
the base of the spine
(between the anus and the genitals)
-
The spleen (slightly
below the belly button)
-
The solar plexus (1
hand-span above the belly button)
-
The heart (center of
the chest)
-
The throat
-
Forehead
-
Crown (full top of your
head).
They are best imagined
as roughly the size of your hand.
Chakra stimulation: Chakras are centers for the transformation of
energy. Each chakra transforms the raw life energy of the planet
into a different type. As you pull this energy up through you with
your mental hands, stop at each chakra and imagine your mental
hands opening it. Pull the energy up through it to the next one
and so on. Repeat this a few times, you may not feel anything at
first but with practice you will feel a fluttering or pulsing
under your skin.
Stop Check: Keep checking your muscles for any tensioning
throughout these exercises and re-relaxes as needed. A common
problem is the automatic tensing of muscles as you pull energy up
through you. Remember that this is all mental, the body must stay
dormant and relaxed throughout this.
Point shift: To shift your point of consciousness, imagine you are
a foot or two out in front of yourself. NOT a figure in front of
you but YOU are in front of your physical body. Keep in mind your
physical body being behind you. This is tricky but you will get
used to it quickly. Don't tense or strain any muscles during this,
your body will try to obey you `physically', don't let it.
Mental state: Your surface mind will be fully occupied by these
exercises so no mental exercise is needed up to this point. When
you feel so relaxed your body begins to feel `heavy' you are
entering a light trance. Cease the other exercises and use breath
awareness to stop your mind wandering.
Breathe awareness: `Feel' your breath coming in and `feel' it
going out. With the inhale, `pull' energy up from the base chakra
to your heart chakra with your mental hands.
Note: If you feel any vibration start in your body at this point,
and don't want to project yet, move your head slightly, and gently
sway your body into normal alertness.
These exercises should be carried out daily. Some of them can be
done anywhere and anytime you have a few minutes to spare. You
will, in time, condition your body to respond quickly and easily.
With practice you will be able to attain a state of `total
relaxation' in just a few minutes. This training will reduce the
amount of effort needed, and the fatigue produced, when you
attempt a fully conscious AP.
Proceed to Part II
Astral Dynamics: A New Approach to Out-of-Body Experiences |
