I said in one of the last posts that I should talk a little on astral projection, or AP as I like to call it (mostly because I am too lazy to keep typing the whole thing). I guess that this is as good a time as any.
AP can be described as the classic out-of-body experience (OBE). It is where the consciousness leaves the body and goes out and plays for a while. Believe it or not, this happens when we sleep, our consciousness goes out and plays. By the time we wake up, we are back in our bodies, and ready to face the day.
Did you ever have one of those mornings when you felt that you weren’t all there? This occurs when all of you didn’t get back in your body by the time you woke up. Usually, when we wake up the next morning, the problem corrects itself. Now, this might frighten some folk, but it is a normal occurrence, and is not dangerous. If you focus on bringing in all your energy through your third eye, and then grounding, you can pull the energy back in, and feel ‘normal’.
When we project, our astral form is connected to our physical body by a thin silver cord. If the cord breaks, we die. This is not likely to happen, but it is what happens during actual death. I have always been cautioned not to suddenly disturb anyone doing AP so this would not occur. Personally, I don’t know how sensitive it is, but I am not tempting fate. I was also told that when starting, until one gets used to the energies and navigation, to only do it during waxing or full moon. I am not sure what this is about, but I pass on the same warning.
I had a friend (whom I have lost contact with) that was (and I’m sure still is) very in-tune with the universe psychically. She lent me a book… Astral Projection by Philip and Denning. I read this book from cover to cover, and then started ‘playing’.
The book ran through several basics that it felt should be done when learning and doing AP. The first was (although they didn’t describe it as such) to shield the room. (I’ll have to put in an easy exercise for this on some future post.) The next things dealt with getting rid of all distractions. They wanted one to make sure the environment was as comfortable as possible with no physical or audible distractions occurring.
The authors were very clear about a couple of other things that they considered distractions too. They said to remove all metals (rings, watches, jewelry of all sorts, belts with metal buckles, etc.). The reason for this is that metals affect the energies that we create when we AP. At the same time, if anyone has ever had a filling from the dentist, they have metal in their mouths. I have to believe that those fillings, being a part of us 24 hours a day, have to take on our energies to really become part of us, and therefore cause no interference.
The other distraction they mentioned was clothing. Obviously when we do meditation, we want to be wearing loose, comfortable clothing, but the authors felt that any clothing was a distraction and flat out said that the absolute best circumstance when doing this was to be completely undressed. If that was totally out of the question, they at least insisted on a loose, one-piece garment. They felt that at a beginner level, not only was clothing a distraction, but that it could disrupt the energies.
In the long run, once someone has become somewhat accomplished at AP, they can effectively do it dressed in a suit of armor. I actually find it funny that the person that lent me the book, and kept making suggestions until I was on the right path, also follows these suggestions. She is so good that she could be projecting to four places at once, have a good idea what is going on in each, while driving down the road. Yet, when she wants to do a very good, solid projection, she gets undressed.
As I took the information from the book, and developed what works for me, I came up with the following method. I start energy in my center. The visualization is the key to everything. It has to be something that creates and expands something, like a furnace creating heat, or a popcorn popper (where you see popcorn keep pushing out and expanding). Some people like to visualize it as fog rolling in. When I need to get out and go, I see a jet engine going into full turbo mode.
Once you start creating energy, let it expand up from your center. The book actually had the student letting the energy out from their center, but I was told to bring it up and out my third eye (in the center of my forehead). I then (as instructed by the book) created a form of myself with astral energy, directly above myself. Then I moved it to where I wanted to go. (Currently, I still do this for demonstrations, but not otherwise.)
What my friend had me doing, was projecting out to my car. She figured that I should be familiar with what my car looks like. So, I would go through the steps, and then be at the front of my car. (The car was used simply as a focal point, somewhere to go.) It took quite a while to do much more than that, or to be even sure that what I was ‘seeing’ was anywhere near correct. You have to understand that deep AP (which is what I was doing) allows one to see things clearly, yet one has to be sure if what they are seeing is true, or just in their mind. I remember one time doing this during a thunderstorm. I had gone through all the steps, and had gone out to look at my car. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the back yard, in the rain, not getting wet, looking at the dog’s water bowl fill with water. What I was seeing was extremely crisp and clear. I was there maybe 30 seconds, then I was back in the house coming out of the ‘meditation’. I looked at the clock and noticed that 45 minutes had passed. Time dilation is a real possibility with AP. That is one way I could tell it was a true projection. That is not to say that this happens every time, but sometimes it does, and when it does, it is stunning.
There are two ways to get into AP (actually three, but the last one is through sleep). One method is through meditation (deep meditation), and the other is through very light trance (or meditative state).
Going through meditation, one reaches a deep meditative state, then visualizes a faucet coming out of their third eye. By opening this faucet, one lets their astral energy out through there. Through this method, one can create only one projection, but can see everything very clearly. Once out, one can go anywhere they want.
Many times, one will travel to someone they know, and do healing. Healing through AP is more interesting than sending distant Reiki. When sending distant Reiki, all you can do is send energy. When you can be there with someone (even astrally), you can do all the things you can do as if you were there in person. You can clean and align the chakras, compact the aura, use the hand positions, go inside and do psychic surgery, etc.
When people start doing AP, they go to help someone, and it is usually someone that they know, and that they know how to get to their house. Many will simply project out, then follow the road as if they were driving there (only at a much faster level). I did this on one of m y first attempts to project. I really wanted to go see someone, so I saw myself flying over the road to their house. I actually did see them, and later was able to tell them what they were doing.
When you don’t know the person that you are going to see (as in a healing request from a friend), you may not know what they look like much less how to get to their place. That is where vibrations come in. Everyone has their own vibration. This is something that identifies them. Once you start thinking about this person, you start to pick up their vibrations. The next thing is to go to those vibrations, and you will be there.
Picking up vibrations is frighteningly easy. Once you think of this person, you get a ‘feel’ for them. Once you have that, you can go to them. This works when talking with someone over the phone, or even typing with them over the internet, or just reading about them in e-mail. We do this all the time. We may not be conscious of it, but we do. Next time you are talking to someone, step back and see what feelings you are getting.
Now that I have gone off on a long tangent, I will get back to the ‘other’ method of AP, the one that I use the most. Many times, I will have to go do a healing on a second’s notice. When my friend in South Carolina was talking to me on the computer and told me that her husband had just started having an epileptic seizure, I didn’t have time to go into a deep meditation before going visiting.
When this happens, I calm, let my mind float a moment. Next, I bring in extra energy from the universe. When I have gotten that energy under control, I start the energy building within me, and push it out my third eye. Then I just go to where I need to be. I see myself pushing the distance to where I need to be like blasting, or jumping through hyperspace (and it “ain’t like dusting crops, kid”). So I look at this method as calm, energize, and jump.
The problem with this is that I do not see things clearly, especially live items. Truthfully, I have gone to people to demonstrate AP and told them what colors they were wearing, or how many fingers they were holding up. I have done healing, and gone inside (like to my friend in SC), and I have done psychic surgery. Yet, sometimes, I can’t see clearly enough to really tell you what someone looked like.
My friend Carolyn and I tried learning AP together. Actually, as I was learning it, I would pass on everything to her, and we would try things to practice. (Carolyn is the person that taught me massage in exchange for my teaching her energy.) We would set up the massage table in one part of the basement. Then maybe 10 to 15 feet away, we put a stool. One of us would go and stand by the stool to get a feel for it. Then we would lay on the table, create the necessary energy, and project over to the stool. While we were going through the steps of creating the energies, the other person could feel the energies with their hand. The purpose of the stool was to have a familiar focal point.
Once we had a projection there, the person not projecting would stand on the other side of the stool between the projection and the physical body on the table, with their back to the physical body. They would then hold up a hand with some fingers raised and say “how many?” Sometimes we could go 10 for 10, other times we couldn’t see squat. (As the song used to go… “When you’re hot your hot, and when you’re not, you can’t give it away”.)
Generally, it is this method I use for 99% of my AP travel. When I had to ‘jump’ to SC, I had little time. I went up and could see the energies that were moving inside the person’s head. I could see them expanding. What I did, was siphon them off, drain them out. Then I tried to patch the place they were coming from, and then sealed it with Reiki. When he came out of it, he didn’t have the blinding headache he normally has. So, all in all, it did something.
It seems that when I need to AP, I generally can, whether it is to heal someone, or to give them a hug. As long as that need is there, I don’t usually have problems doing what is needed. However, when I attempt to demonstrate it, that is where I run into problems (as I mentioned in a post a week or so ago).
As part of Reiki 2, I demonstrate AP. I don’t teach it, I just show it. I want my students to have an appreciation that this is possible, and some day, they may look into it for themselves. Or, they can come to me and I will teach it to them.
When we learn any energy modality, we learn basic concepts (just as we first learn to ride tricycles, then bikes with training wheels, before going with two wheels only). As we advance, we leave behind the basic concepts and rely strictly on the advanced techniques. When we run into problems, we go back to the very basics, use those techniques, and then start advancing again, but at a quicker pace. So it is true for me doing AP. When there is need, I can go in a second. But when the only ‘need’ is demonstration, I tend to need to go back to basics, and follow the beginning concepts that the book taught me. This is something I still need to work on. I guess the key is to start slow.
While in astral form, it is possible to do physical things. If one manifests a solid enough projection, it can be seen by others. I’ve never done this, but I know it can be done. I can feel other’s presence when they project into a room I’m in. If I close my eyes, and ‘look’, I can see where they are. If someone is strong enough, they could appear as a ghost, or if very strong (and I can only imagine one person who could have ever been strong enough to do this), one could create physical form.
One other thing that can be done if the projection is strong enough, is to move physical objects. I actually tried this once, wasn’t very good at it though. Carolyn and I were practicing AP with a friend. I was able to create three projections at the time, and move my conscious between them at will. My friends could feel the energy still existing in each place that I had a projection. Since
I felt I was doing really well, I decided to try something else. I set a box of tissues on the stool we were using as a focal point. I pulled one out so it stuck up real far. I then laid back on the massage table and projected over to the stool. I was pouring energy into the projection to give it strength. I reached out my astral hand and tried to pull the tissue from the box. I kept trying this, and couldn’t. I then started swatting at it to make it move at all. (I kept remembering the scene from the movie ‘Ghost’ where Patrick Swayze was told that to move physical objects he had to make his whole being that one desire.) I could clearly see the tissue and the box. I could feel the tissue, but I couldn’t move the bloody thing.
Through AP, one can do a lot of things in the current physical, and energy world. But you can do other things as well. It is possible to project into someone else’s dream, or meditation. I have done both of these. When we do a meditation and go into past lives (past life regression), we are actually astral projecting into the past. I was told by my teacher that when we go into future lives (forward life regression), we are actually reverse astral projecting to go into the future. Hmmm, so I guess that is sort of back-asstral projection.
Well, I think I have said all I can at this point (and probably some I shouldn’t have). I hope some of the people that read this find it helpful. Love and light to you.