home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- AP_07.TXT
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- FILE 7 of 15 - CompuServe Astral Projection Class by Don DeGracia, 1994
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Astral Projection Class on CompuServe
-
- by Don DeGracia: 72662,1335
-
- Copyright 1994
- None of this material
- may be reproduced without
- explicit permission from
- the author.
-
-
-
- 1. IN THE OOBE REALM - PART 1
-
- We have discussed the theory of astral projection. We have
- discussed methods and techniques for achieving this altered state
- of consciousness. Now we are going to discuss what it is like in the
- realm where the OOBE occurs. To some extent we have touched on
- the nature of the OOBE realm throughout these notes. We have, for
- example discussed the occult notions of the planes and the subplanes.
- I have also presented some of my astral projection journal entries
- and these give an idea of what it is actually like in the OOBE realm.
-
- What we will do in this section is go into much more depth
- about the various aspects of actually being in the OOBE state.
- My description of this state will encompass two broad angles.
- On one hand I will take a kind of "travel brochure" approach to
- describing the places and inhabitants one encounters during an
- OOBE. This is the approach one will find in many books about the
- astral plane (for example, see Leadbeater's "The Astral Plane"
- listed in the bibliography). Such a "travel brochure" approach
- describes the astral plane much as if it's a foreign land filled
- with exotic sights, scenes and inhabitants. On the other hand, I
- also want to try to convey some sense of what it is *really* like
- when you are out of your body. One of the problems with the "travel
- brochure" approach to describing the OOBE realm is that it
- creates the misleading impression that you have simply just
- "gone somewhere". That is, "travel brochure" type descriptions
- of the astral plane make it sound like you just get in your car and
- drive there and see the sights, as if it's Disneyland or something.
- However, when you are out of body, it is NOT like getting in your
- car and driving somewhere new and seeing the sights. You are
- in a completely different state of consciousness - you are
- no longer in the physical world - and this creates a million
- subtle nuances in your awareness that make it much, much different
- than how your awareness operates while you are here in the
- physical plane. What I would like to do then is try to convey
- some of these differences in how your consciousness works when
- you are in the OOBE realm. So, overall, I will describe the OOBE
- realm BOTH as a place you go to AND as a state of consciousness very
- different than (but related to) your normal consciousness.
-
-
- 1. Describing OOBEs with words
-
- Before I get too deep in describing the OOBE realm, something
- has to be said about the limitations of using words to describe
- experiences in the OOBE realm. In general, our language is very
- poor at describing astral plane experiences. This is no surprise
- given that we use language overwhelmingly to describe life here in
- the physical plane. However, experience is much different in the
- OOBE state. There are many things that can occur in the OOBE state
- that our language has no words to describe. Obviously then, this
- creates quite a problem when we want to write about or speak
- about our astral projection experiences! So what are we to do?
-
- First thing to do is realize that the problems with trying
- to describe OOBEs in words is very similar to the problems we have
- describing our dreams in words. Very often strange things happen
- to us in our dreams and we have a very hard time describing them.
- For example, we have all had the experience in a dream of being, say,
- in a house and walking from one part of the house to another but
- all of a sudden finding ourself in the supermarket or some such thing!
- We went to walk into the kitchen, but we find ourselves somewhere
- completely different and no longer in the house! This has happened to
- me a lot in my dreams and all of you can probably recall such
- things happening in your own dreams. The thing is, what do you
- call it when this happens? It's happened to all of us in a dream,
- but we have no word for it! Shall we say, "I *blipped* from the
- house to the supermarket"? Or, "I disappeared from the house but
- suddenly appeared in the supermarket"? Robert Monroe would say
- he "skipped" from the house to the supermarket.
-
- Now, the point is, this is something that has happened to all of
- us, yet we have no word to describe it. And I picked this particular
- example of "blipping" because you will find yourself "blipping"
- quite a bit when you are in the OOBE realm. But, what do we call
- this? How do we describe it?
-
- Basically, we are left with a real problem. Our language has
- no *consensus* terms to describe such experiences. Thus, our
- only solution is to make up a word to describe the experience.
- This is why I use terms like "lockmold", "void" or "blinking
- on and off" in my journal, because I am making up words to
- describe experiences for which our language has no word, and
- even more importantly, for which there is no counterpart
- in our physical experience.
-
- What all this means is that you really have to be careful when
- reading about people's experiences in the OOBE realm. If you
- try to interpret these experiences in terms of physical experience
- or in terms of our normal everyday language, you will get a very
- INACCURATE picture of what is going on. You also have to be a
- careful reader when reading of the OOBE realm. You have to
- really use your imagination and attempt to understand what
- stange words like "ring" or "lockmold" could mean, and why the
- author is describing his/her experience in that fashion. Finally,
- you have to be open to the fact that anything is possible in the OOBE
- realm. So many strage things can occur there that are completly
- different than what we know here in physical life, that you just
- have to keep a very open mind.
-
-
-
- 2. The State Of Your Mind In The OOBE State
-
- So, not only does our language create a barrier to under-
- standing the nature of the OOBE realm, but we are faced with a second
- major obstacle in understanding the OOBE state. As I said above,
- during an OOBE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT IT IS
- IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD. Remember, I have defined OOBEs/astral
- projections/lucid dreams as a state in which you take your waking
- personality into the dream world. However, in actual fact, during
- any OOBE you never take your waking self 100% into the dream world.
- Instead you take some PORTION of it into the dream world. In effect,
- when you project you are MIXING YOUR WAKING PERSONALITY WITH YOUR DREAM
- PERSONALITY. And this is why your consciousness is not exactly the same
- as it is when you are awake here in this world. Not only are you
- in a realm that is completely foreign to you, but you are never
- wholly you over there. Believe me, this is very true, and it creates
- very subtle changes in your reactions, thoughts and emotional responses
- to what you experience in the OOBE realm and how you behave there.
- This is all I'm going to say about your state of mind during
- an OOBE for now. As I go more into specific things below, we
- will have occasion to see the subtle differences in awareness
- that occur during an OOBE. Right now I am only drawing your
- attention to this fact. After I go into more detail about
- other aspects of the OOBE realm, we will at the very end of these
- notes come back to this topic. For after all, aside from actually
- learning how to get there, the actual state of your consciousness
- during an OOBE is the most important thing there is - for this is
- the meat and potatoes of it all: you are experiencing a completely
- different state of consciousness! Think about it.
-
-
-
- 3. The OOBE World: Objective or Subjective?
-
- Now, we have one last consideration before I start describing
- what happens during an OOBE. I've already stated that during an
- OOBE your personality is "outside" of you and that subjective
- things can be completely real and objective in the OOBE realm.
- What this means is we are left with a weird problem when trying
- to understand experiences in the OOBE realm. Basically, is it real
- or is it merely subjective fantasy? Well, we could debate whether
- OOBEs are objective or subjective experiences till we are blue
- in the face. It doesn't matter if, in some abstract sense, the
- OOBE realm is objective or subjective. What matters is that when
- you astral project, it WILL BE COMPLETELY REAL TO YOU. Like I said,
- it will be YOU, and you will be SOMEWHERE, doing SOMETHING. Whether
- it's all occurring in your imagination or not is beside the point.
-
- However, what is critically important for you to keep in mind
- when you astral project is that YOU CANNOT ASSUME THAT WHAT YOU
- EXPERIENCE IS OBJECTIVE AND NEITHER CAN YOU ASSUME IT IS PURELY
- SUBJECTIVE. Whatever the nature of the OOBE experience, you
- will be somewhere where the subjective can become objective and the
- objective can become subjective.
-
-
-
- 4. The Dweller At The Threshold
-
- The above discussion leads me now to share with you information
- that was very important to me when I first started projecting. I
- had a book by an author whose name I think was Sepherial. I can't
- even remember anymore, it's been so long since I've seen this book,
- which I gave to a friend years ago. At any rate, this book was about
- how to become an occultist. The first important thing Sepherial said
- you have to do to become a worthwhile occultist is to overcome fear.
- He said that you overcome fear by studying it. As you learn what
- causes you to fear things, you can overcome these fears. He even
- pointed out that if you carefully observe yourself when you get
- afraid, you will notice that fear begins as a kind of tighening in
- your chest by your heart. The tightening begins at your heart
- and then spreads from there down to your gut and into your arms and
- legs. Frankly, once I started watching myself get afraid, I was
- really surprised to see that he was correct.
- Sepherial went on to explain how it's really important to realize
- that fear is something we create in our own minds and that if we are
- to get involved in occult things, we must learn NOT to fear things
- anymore. You can replace fear with understanding. When you under-
- stand something, you no longer need to fear it. If it is truly a
- dangerous thing, but you understand it, you will not fear it, you
- will avoid and respect it. And there are other things we fear that,
- in reality, are not dangerous things. These are the worst kinds
- of fear for an occultist to have. These are fears you have created
- in your own mind, for whatever reasons. These fears are like weeds
- that grow in the garden of your mind, and you should eliminate these.
- Well, this was my first lesson in occultism. I read Sepherial's
- book at about the same time I started astral projecting. I took
- Sepherial's advice to heart, and it was a good thing too because my
- first few times astral projecting were lessons in overcoming
- fear.
-
- There are two types of fear I have experienced astral projecting.
- It is possible that you may experience these types of fear too, so I
- will explain them for you.
- The first type of fear is completely harmless. My very first
- astral projections occurred spontaneously about 5 years before I
- even realized they were astral projections. At the time, I thought
- they were merely strange dreams. In retrospect, they were
- definitely astral projections. What had happened is that I had
- laid down to nap. Next thing I knew I was spinning around the
- ceiling of my bedroom! I was amazed. I didn't have the slightest
- idea what was happening to me, and what was even weirder was that
- I was completely terrified. I was scared to death. But it was a
- very strange sensation; I was afraid, but I had no reason to be afraid,
- in spite of the fact that I was mysteriously spinning around on
- my ceiling! Mostly I was extremly curious as to what was happening
- to me and my experience turned into a contest between my fear
- and my curiosity. Finally, after about 30 seconds of this, my fear
- won, and the next thing I knew I was sitting awake in bed. I was
- not afraid at all when I woke but I was just very curious. My second
- projection was identical to this and happened around the same
- time the first one did (I was about 15 years old when this occurred).
- I promptly forgot these experiences till many years later.
- I was 22 years old when I learned about astral projecting.
- Eventually it occurred to me that maybe those experiences I had years
- before were astral projections. If this was the case, that I had
- actually astral projected before, then this meant I could probably do it
- again. And it was then that I consciously started to astral project.
- When I first started projecting, I used the trance method I described
- above. Actually, I made up this method as I went along. Originally,
- I would lay in bed and simply tell myself I was going to astral
- project as I drifted off to sleep at night. After a number of
- attempts at this, it worked! I became conscious of myself AFTER
- I had fallen asleep! And, just like years before, I felt that same
- feeling of terror, and, as before, there was absolutely no reason
- for this feeling. I got this same feeling of fear on my next two
- attempts as well, but on my third attempt, it was gone, and it has
- never returned.
- I don't know what this feeling of fear was. As I said,
- it was just there on my first few attempts, then it went away. I
- have a friend who is also a competent astral projector and he said a
- similar thing happened to him. I have always suspected that this
- feeling of fear had something to do with separating my consciousness
- from my body, as if it was a purely instinctive response of my awareness
- to operating without using my physical body. But once I got used
- to the sensation of being out-of-body, the fear response just went away.
- Again, I think this may be some type of PURELY HARMLESS instinct
- that occurs soley because of dissociating your awareness from its
- body.
- It's important to point out that you may never experience this
- type of a fear response. In the time I have been on CompuServe, I have
- spoken with a number of very good astral projectors and they have never
- reported this response. Still, I have had it and so has my friend,
- so I am describing it here so that if it happens to you, you will
- know what is going on. If, the first time you leave your body,
- you feel complete terror for no reason at all, then you are having
- this reaction. Don't let it bother you because it will go away
- after your first few times out-of-body.
-
- Ok, now for the second type of fear that I have had to deal
- with in my astral projections. Very early in my projection experiences
- I went through something I call my "Darkside Episodes". These were
- absolutely terrifying experiences for me too, but unlike those
- described above, there WAS a reason for my fear and terror.
- Here are excerpts from my DarkSide experiences:
-
- 1>
-
- "All I can remember now is that somehow I left my body, or
- became lucid in the dream state, whichever you prefer...
- (I went though a number of experiences, then...)
- ...Somehow that I can't now recall, I was outside my body again.
- This time I was standing in my bedroom. I was surprised because
- it seemed to be daytime outside, but I knew it was nighttime and
- that I was actually sleeping on my bed. I noticed that where my
- west wall normally was that there was another room beyond it,
- like the wall had disappeared and there was this room there
- instead. I floated into the room and could look into my bedroom.
- I noticed that I had hands and arms and legs and that I was
- floating a foot or so off the ground. I was moving my body around
- just marvelling in the sensation of my lucidity. I began to feel
- elated. I started to call out and experienced the same thing that
- happened the other night. I could hear my voice in my mind and it
- sounded perfectly normal, but when I actually tried to talk, it
- came out in slow motion.
- I was really feeling great and had been playing with these things
- for a few moments when all of a sudden I began to feel trepid and
- a little paranoid. It felt like I was being watched. I looked up
- into my room and saw a tall dark figure standing in my window. My
- windows were open as if they were doors and this figure was standing
- there on the windowsill looking at me. I didn't know what to think
- at first. The figure was of a male, tall and skinny, and pitch black,
- more like a silhouette than anything else. I'd have thought it was a
- shadow except it had these vivid evil looking completely red eyes.
- It didn't have pupils or anything, just these evil looking eye slits
- that were totally red. At first I thought it couldn't see me, but as
- if in response to my thought, it turned and stared directly at me.
- Then I became afraid. I didn't know what I should do. It slowly
- seemed to move towards me, and I made my way back to my bed,
- thinking that I should jump back into my body and wake up. I
- hovered over to my bed and this thing was slowly coming at me.
- Then I remembered something from one of the first occult books that
- I had ever read [This is the Sepherial book I'm referring to here].
- In this book the author gave a magic phrase for the student to say
- to protect himself from evil forces. The author claimed that it
- was a very potent spell from the times of ancient Atlantis. The
- spell was in some unknown language and I didn't know what it meant,
- but at the time I had memorized it [though I no longer remember
- it], and it seemed like now was as good a time as any to use it!
- So I repeated the spell in my mind and the wildest things happened.
- I was surprised as **** that it worked! At least it did something,
- for now I was laying half way out of my body, the dark figure had
- disappeared, and now there was this, what seemed to me to be like
- a very fake looking mannequin up over me. It had the face of a
- cartoon alligator and I was biting its arm, but it looked just like
- a mannequin and wasn't doing anything. It had a stupid, goofy look
- on its face.
- But I was panicking, attacking its arm and trying like hell to
- wake myself up. I kept trying to shake myself, thinking that if
- I could move my body then I'd wake up. The strangest thing happened.
- As I shook myself, I could feel myself "sink" into my physical body,
- and weird as this sounds I could see two distinct visual fields at
- once. They didn't overlap though, one was on top of the other, as
- if my visual field were cut in two. The top one was my visual field
- in my projection of my day lit bedroom, and the bottom field was my
- dark bedroom at night. There was even a definite line of demarcation
- between the two view fields. My vision was literally split in
- half! It was the absolutely strangest sensation! And as I struggled
- to shake myself, I could feel myself pull down to the lower view of
- my bedroom, and the top view seemed to go up and out of my visual
- field. But then I would relax momentarily and I would start to rise
- up, just like when one is under water and starts to float toward the
- surface, and I was being pulled back up into the top scene. Then
- I would begin to struggle and shake myself again, and pull back down.
- This happened about four times; I would think that I was out of the
- top view and begin to relax and quit shaking and rocking myself, and
- the moment I would stop, I would feel myself being pulled back into
- the top visual field. I was scared as hell and thought I was
- trapped. Finally though, I shook and shook and shook myself and
- I actually woke up.
- I was laying still on my bed. For all the shaking and moving I was
- doing, I thought when I awoke that my body would be moving around as
- much. But it wasn't; it was very still. I laid there scared as hell.
- I had the strangest paranoia that at any moment something evil was
- going to jump out of my walls and stab me to death, the same feeling
- I felt before. I didn't know what had just happened to me. Who the
- hell was that dark figure? For some reason it really spooked me bad."
- (END OF ENTRY)
-
- Well, that was my Darkside experience. I was very scared after
- that. I was afraid to project even. Was that thing going to always
- come and haunt me in my projections? What was it?
- Again, I turned to my friend who could also astral project.
- We discussed my experience. After thinking about it for a week
- or so, I came to the conclusion that the Darkside was me! I
- figured that maybe what was happening is that somehow, everything
- that was bad about me appeared OUTSIDE OF ME in my projections.
- Maybe this thing was just all my own badness embodied as a being
- coming to haunt me in the astral projection state. Whether this
- is true or not, this is what I decided to believe. And since it
- was me, then I really didn't have to fear it, because that would
- mean I was afraid of myself! So I decided that what I should do
- is become more aware of all my badness and quit being that way,
- then, maybe this thing would go away. And I figured that if I
- met this Darkside in my projections again, then I would confront
- it instead of being afraid of it. I would stand up to it, and
- battle it if I had to.
- So, that's what I decided. Here's what happened the next time
- I projected:
-
- 2>
-
- "I know I went to sleep with the intent to project. Since
- my "darkside" episode, I was leary to project again, but now I
- felt that I understood what this being was and I felt confident
- to face it if I needed to.
- (I went though some other adventures, then...)
- I was back in my bedroom again, still lucid in the projection
- state. I noticed that it was daytime outside, though I also knew I
- was sleeping in my bed and it was really night on the physical plane.
- But then I noticed that there was a doorway in my bedroom wall, one
- that was not there physically. So I went through the door and
- began to explore.
- The doorway lead into a castle and I was very surprised by this.
- I remember thinking to myself that rooms have all these hidden
- directions in them in the astral plane. It was a huge and elegantly
- decorated place and the decor looked fairly modern. I wandered
- about and eventually came to a room that had a window that was
- overlooking a long shingled roof. I climbed through the window
- and there was a girl outside on the roof. It was sunny outside
- and I felt very good. Me and the girl talked, but I do not remember
- what we talked about. I could see around me outside, what
- looked like a fairly typical, though completely unfamiliar,
- neighborhood and I was curious to explore it. I went to fly off
- the roof but my lockmold began to weaken and I blacked out.
- I was back in my bedroom again, still lucid in the dream state.
- The doorway to the castle was still there, but this time there
- was a pitch black figure sitting crumpled on the floor at the
- end of my bed. It was the darkside! I became leary and slightly
- scared, but I remembered my resolve to confront it. Also, this
- time it looked feeble, sitting in a heap at the foot of my bed,
- almost like a mannequin. I approached it slowly saying, "What do you
- want from me? Who are you? Are you me? I love you." My fear was
- quickly diminishing as I approached it, but it did not move. It
- seemed dead. I grabbed it by the head and looked directly into
- its face, all the while telling it "I love you." Its face was
- utterly lifeless, its eyes dried out gaping holes. I clenched
- its head and crushed it like a dried out husk, all the while
- yelling at it, telling it I loved it. I crushed its head
- completely to dust, knowing that this was only the embodiment
- of my inability to look squarely at myself. This was all my
- fear, all my hatred, all my self-hate and I was crushing it to
- dust and a great joy filled me. I kicked the lifeless heap and
- felt a triumphant sense run through me. My darkside was dead!
- I became like a little child and ran through the door into the
- castle, running about hooting and hollering, excited with the
- thrill of my victory.
- I ran back into my bedroom still elated and making much noise.
- The crumbled figure was still there and I looked at it with utter
- disregard. "You're dead," I was yelling at it, and I was jumping
- up and down yahooing...."
-
- (END OF ENTRY)
-
-
- So, that's how that situation worked itself out! Reading this
- now, I almost seem neurotic in this projection. But think of it:
- how would you feel? You learn to project only to have your new found
- ability foiled by some pitch black terror? No way!
- Given the fact that I have never since encountered this
- Darkside during a projection, or anything like it, I take it to
- mean that I was correct. This Darkside I encountered in my earliest
- projections was all the bad in me coming to haunt me while I was
- out-of-body. THIS is one among a few experiences I have had
- that makes me warn you that when you project, things that are
- inside you on the physical plane (i.e. subjective things) appear
- to be outside of you on the astral plane (i.e. objective things).
- A year after my darkside experience, I was surprised to
- read in a Manly Hall book about a thing called "The Dweller
- on the Threshold". Manly Hall described this "Dweller" as the
- very first thing waiting on the path to greet the aspiring
- occultist. He essentially described this Dweller to be exactly
- what I realized my Darkside to be: all of the badness in ones
- personality manifested as a being. So, basically, I quite
- literally met the Dweller on my threshold very shortly after
- I learned how to leave my body. Manly Hall's book was also
- a warning to the aspiring occultist that you must overcome fear
- and ignorance, and seek self-insight and seek the good inside your
- self and weed out the bad.
- Now, the important question of course is: will this happen to
- you? Will you learn to enter the OOBE state only to meet your
- "Dweller on the Threshold"? Well, again, I have spoken with a
- number of projectors here on CompuServe who have never had this
- experience. I do not know if you will encounter such an
- embodiment of the bad in your personality when you learn to
- leave your body. We all grow and mature in different ways.
- It is very easy to realize that not everybody needs to go through
- such an experience in the OOBE state. But will you? I don't know.
- You won't know either until you are out there. I share this
- experience with you just in case it does happen to you. I share
- this so that you will know what that figure is and how to get rid
- of it. It is you, and by opening up to what that figure stands
- for you will get rid of it. Any "Dweller on the Threshold"
- is that kind of fear I mentioned above, the kind that is not
- caused by real danger but is created in your imagination, for
- whatever reason. Look at that fear, try to understand it, and
- you will have conquered your Dweller on the Threshold.
- Again, to drive the point home, there is a very strong
- element of self-therapy to the OOBE state, and the above is
- a very definite example of this. Like I said, you must appreciate
- that subjective and objective things turn into each other
- in the OOBE realm.
-
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- END OF FILE 7
- -------------------------------------------------------------------