TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume I - v1.1 Part 1 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 19 April 1994. All rights reserved. This is part one of a series of articles that will endeavor to define the astral world and the projection process. Please keep in mind, while reading v1.x of this Treatise, that it was my first attempt at serious writing. That is, I was learning to write while writing them. I have been studying the astral plane, in my astral form, for most of my life. I have attempted, by careful observation and critical thinking, to understand it, and hopefully, to shed a little light on it. Everybody, without exception, leaves their body in a low powered projection, when they go to sleep. I call this sleep projection. The astral body hovers a few inches above the physical like a balloon on a string, mimicking the sleeping position and going no further. Once the astral body has separated, it is free to create dreams. This is the natural (sleep, dream) process we are all familiar with. During this, you sink into the collective dream consciousness of the world. This `dream pool' settles into layers. According to what type of person you are, spiritual, moral advancement etc, you will tune in to a level you have affinity with. These levels are commonly called the `Planes' or sub Planes. There is nothing wrong with this analogy except that it can confuse things when you try to grasp the whole concept. If you become aware during sleep projection you can take some control over it as in a lucid dream, and move amongst the levels. If you do take control though, you cannot return to the real world and function as an astral form in it. You are in the topsy-turvy world of the dream pool or astral planes, where everything is possible, but not very plausible. When you do a `fully conscious' projection of the astral form you project into the physical world, not any astral world. This has long been misunderstood. What is usually thought of as astral projection today is better called `Lucid Dreaming' which is completely different. Many authors suggest we all race about the universe in AP every night. This is simply not true. You will find the world a lonely place in your astral form and will rarely see anyone else projecting there. If you do see someone, often they are just standing, confused and befuddled, caught in a `between' state of projecting and creating. This is what happens when you lose control during a conscious OBE. I call it `The Alice and Wonderland Effect' It is an effective barrier to the untrained mind. In the astral form you have an incredibly strong creative ability, normally used to create dreams. Once free of the fetters of the physical world, you can create an entire world, and often do. This creative ability is the problem, and the cause, of all the misunderstandings about AP. There is a natural barrier in AP just as there is with any other form of psychic ability. The `Alice' effect, limits projection time in the real world to a few minutes, in most cases, unless you can control your mind and energy level well. If there was not a barrier - think about it - millions of people flitting around the world every day and night, no privacy, no secrets. This would be a very unhappy world to live in. What happens during a fully conscious AP if you can't control your mind and energy? Well, at some point during the AP you will start to lose control over the experience and well known things will be found in wrong places. Doors, windows, furniture; extra rooms will appear etc. Your subconscious mind has started creating or you are tuning into a dream plane. Once this happens it is impossible to know what is real any more. Some of the dream pool levels, or planes, are a carbon copy of the real world. You may tune into one of them and think you are projecting in the real world - until you meet a Cheshire cat. One final thing, the Eastern concept of the levels; physical, astral, mental, Buddhic, Atmic etc is very real. They have been confused though and mixed in with the Western concept of astral projection. They are different levels of consciousness, not planes as such. When you AP you don't raise your consciousness, it is the same as when you are awake. These `higher' levels can only be reached by raising your consciousness; you can't just project into them. It is a different kind of `projection'. I have been in these higher levels but it is difficult to explain them, they really have to be experienced. They are normally reached during deep meditation. In order to reach these higher levels, some clairvoyant ability is required. This can be developed, or natural ability. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume I - v1.1 Part 2 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 19 April 1994. All rights reserved. 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. 1. The ability to relax your body 100% and stay awake. 2. You have to be able to shift your consciousness point outside of your body. 3. 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 hands 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: 1. The base of the spine (between the anus and the genitals) 2. The spleen (slightly below the belly button) 3. The solar plexus (1 hand-span above the belly button) 4. The heart (center of the chest) 5. The throat. 6. Forehead. 7. 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-relax as needed. A common problem is the automatic tensing of muscles as you pull energy up through you. Remember, 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 you 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 Breath 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. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume I - v1.1 Part 3 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 19 April 1994. All rights reserved. This article will deal with actually leaving the body (AP'). If you have read the previous two parts - and I strongly recommend you do - you will have some understanding of the AP' process. I will go into more detail on related subjects, i.e.: duality, multiple bodies, paralysis, the psychic wind, long distance AP', fear, astral sex, ethics, entering other bodies, astral entities, limitations to AP', thought forms, healing, problems, and other topics in subsequent articles. Note: The projection method I use and describe here is slightly different to what is called AP' today. It is how to do a `fully conscious' projection of the astral body into the real world - not the astral world. This is equivalent to a safe (near death experience). Conditions: Stated here are the IDEAL conditions for AP'. Some of them can be varied according to your circumstances and needs. You need a quiet room where you will be undisturbed. If background noise is a problem, tune a TV or radio - off station - to provide white noise, which will blanket it. I advise against music. Make sure the temperature is comfortable as you will tend to lose body heat during AP'. The light must be soft and fairly dim, not dark. The burning of incense, while not necessary, helps condition your body to relax. If you use incense, use one type exclusively for AP', and use that type for no other purpose. You need a comfortable chair with arm and neck support. This can be a lounge chair or of the recliner type. AP is much more successful when done from a SITTING position. The chair must be slightly reclined to stop the head rocking forward. A phone book under the front of it will do. A pillow is needed for the feet, and sometimes a small pillow or towel behind the neck. The type of neck pillow used on aircraft are good. Play around with this until you are 100% comfortable. Note: wear loose clothing. If you must use a bed, say you are unable to sit due to illness, injury or circumstance, prop yourself up in bed with pillows, as you would when you eat. As I have said, any of this can be dispensed with according to your needs and circumstances. I am giving you here the optimum conditions for AP'. Tiredness: To AP' you don't want to be too tired. The state needed is that found after you have exercised, showered, had your evening meal and relaxed for an hour or so. A feeling of well being and freshness, not exhaustion or over tiredness, is best. If you are projecting in the daytime, I recommend some form of vigorous exercise, a hot shower and some relaxation first. The body will be physically tired - thus easier to relax - but the mind will be awake and alert. If light is a problem, use blackout goggles like the ones they give you on air raft. They are comfortable and will not interfere. Note: If saliva builds up in your mouth at any time, before, during or while you are AP' you can swallow, move your tongue etc ˇ It won't affect it at all. If you have to move your body slightly, to ease it, do it in a sleepy, stretchy way, without breaking relaxation. If you have to cough, cough gently. If you are coughing and sneezing, as with a cold - forget it - and get some sleep. One other sensation you may feel is the (cobwebs) a tickling sensation on the face, this is normal. In the early stage you may scratch them if you wish. In the latter stage, after the heaviness starts, ignore them, they will soon stop. It is caused by chakra energy and the subtle bodies loosening. THE EXIT When your chosen time comes, form a STRONG intention to AP', sit in your chair, stretch and get comfortable. Do the relaxation exercises and energy raising until you feel the heavy condition as you enter a light trance. Switch to breath awareness and keep your consciousness shifted out in front. Stay aware of your physical body being behind you and keep checking for tension. A humming will start inside and around you. It will increase to a much deeper vibration, depending on the chakra activity. With heavy chakra involvement this can be a truly awesome feeling and is very frightening - if you don't know what is happening. Your heart will FEEL like it is speeding up to an impossible rate. This is NOT your heart but the heart chakra! Ignore it. This feels like: Place your hand on your chest, with your fingertips resting in the center of it over your heart. Tap your fingers on your chest, in time with your heart. Increase this rate slowly, until you are tapping as fast as your fingers can. This is how a chakra feels when it is fully activated; it varies from a gentle pulsing, like a muscular twitch under the skin, to a deep robust thrumming, like a muscle gone mad. Ignore the thrumming and vibrations and stay frosty. Adopt a ho-hum attitude to all of this and you will be out in a jiffy. The vibes and thrumming may feel as though they are increasing to an unbearable pitch - but you must ignore them. With subsequent projections, it will be less noticeable, as the dormant chakras stabilize. The thrumming and vibes reach a crescendo as the AP' reflex cuts in. You buzzzz forward out of your body, feeling a slight falling sensation in the pit of your stomach. The deep vibes are replaced by a quiet purring inside your chest. You are now floating, or hovering, a few feet in front of, or above, your physical body. Stop all exercises - concentrate - and stay frosty. This is great! You'll think, YES.... I did it! You are now consciously projecting your astral body, and hey, it DOES feel great! The first time out, limit it to a few minutes - please trust me on this - it is important. Move around the room - slowly. You haven't really got legs, and DON'T look for them. The law of gravity doesn't apply any more, so be careful. Just move around the room a bit, don't think about how - just do it! You may feel a purring deep in your chest as you move, from your heart chakra. This is like a little motor, it speeds up as you move and slows to a gentle (putt putting) when you stop. This is your power pack, your energy; the strength of it will depend on the amount of chakra involvement and how close you are to your body. Keep control of your mind - stay frosty - and don't get over excited during the AP'. Don't imagine at all, or expect anything that was not there when you left your body. This is essential to keep from falling into the ALICE effect. Now move back to your body with the intention of re-entering. You are new to the astral form and if you go charging off there is a 99% chance you will lose control, fall into the `Alice' effect, and remember nothing. Learn to crawl before you fly? You can go further a field in later AP's but it is important you limit the first one to this. Re-entry is simple. Move into your body, any old how, and it will straighten itself out. The re-entry reflex will take over - and snap - you're back. GET UP straight away, keeping in mind what you have done and WRITE IT DOWN. The astral mind is like the RAM in a computer, the physical mind is like a hard disk and the paper is like a floppy. Switch off the power in a computer without saving to hard disk and all data in high mem is gone - poof - just like that! When you write it down it makes a wrinkle in your hard disk mind. You just need a few key words - not a full essay - you can fill in the details later. Start a journal of your AP'S. A typical Projection I sit in my chair, comfortable and warm. I am going to AP, come hell or high water. I WILL do it! I do the relaxation thoroughly, as I know it is the REAL secret to AP'. I raise energy with my mental hands to activate my chakras. They start to thrum nicely. I concentrate more on my heart chakra, pulling more and more power to it through the others, until it throbs with a deep primal rhythm. The heavy feeling comes over me as I enter trance. I feel like a corpse, a dead weight. My face tickles all over with cobweb sensation, but I ignore it. I shift my point of focus to the ME in front. I AM in front, but I am also aware of my body behind me. The vibes start from deep within my body, I concentrate on breathing but keep my focus out in front. The vibes increase to a huge droning, powerhouse generator intensity, but I ignore it. My spine thrills as adrenalin courses through me, but I ignore it. I focus on breathing and where I am going. My heart chakra feels like it's going to blow a gasket, but ha, I know it's not my heart, so I ignore it. The droning changes into a deep buzzing and I am suddenly lifting free, I feel a slight falling, buzzing sensation. I buzz out and am standing before myself in a couple of seconds. Damn but this feels good! I move around the room, searching - hunting. The little motor in my heart purrs louder as I move, keeping pace with my movement. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume I - v1.1 Part 4 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 12 May 1994. All rights reserved. SPLITTING The splitting of your consciousness, into two separate, but identical minds, happens every time you go to sleep or have any kind of out of body projection. This splitting happens for a very good reason: If you read the case histories in books on astral projection, lucid dreaming, OOBE's and near death experience; you will find many accounts illustrating the splitting effect. It is common, during an out of body experience, to be aware of your physical body while also being aware you are existing in a separate, finer body. This is due to a telepathic link between your two bodies. In the case of astral projection this link serves the purpose of monitoring the physical body, so no harm comes to it. When you project, your astral double leaves the physical body and the mind splits. One part is centered in the astral body and the other in the etheric body, which must stay with the physical. When the astral form is generated, it has a mirror image of your mind. It is YOU, in every respect, like a tape recording of a tape recording; both identical, both YOU! Often, during sleep, the mirrored minds mix in a kind of telepathic dream sharing. The physical, etheric minds are also capable of having dreams. This dream mixing results in a kind of dream memory schizophrenia, caused by having more than one point of consciousness. For those of you unfamiliar with schizophrenia, sufferers of it can have more than one set of thoughts in their mind at the same time. DUALITY If the astral and the etheric bodies, when they are both fully aware, concentrate on each other at close range during a projection; a two-way telepathic link is formed. This is very disturbing and I don't recommend you try it too often. The physical/etheric YOU and the astral YOU will see each other clearly, and at the same time. You will be looking out of each other's eyes at the same time, aware of both sets of vision simultaneously. On top of this, making it even more confusing, you are also aware of each others thoughts, as well as your own, simultaneously. This is telepathic feed back, like holding two mirrors facing each other to give you a glimpse of infinity, a reflection of a reflection of a reflection etc. This uncomfortable and confusing state can be avoided by not looking too closely at each other and not thinking of each other when you are projecting. This, in a way, goes a long way to explaining why dreams are sometimes so confused and chaotic. The mind splits for a VERY good reason and the two parts are meant to function separately. I have experienced this phenomena many times during projection. I studied it because I was curious of the way I could feel my physical body when in close proximity to it. I also kept getting confusing memories of doing two things at once while projecting. i.e. Being aware of events and noises, in the house and in the street, as well as remembering the projection. This duality has been reported by other projectors, but never properly explained or understood. Here is an account of the first time I experienced duality and telepathic feedback: I had been meditating in my chair by the fire and returned to normal awareness as the rain started drumming on the roof. The wind was getting up and it was shaking the windows. I looked at the clock; it was three in the morning. This was not unusual, sometimes I meditate all night. I felt well rested and full of energy. I thought to myself, `I've never projected in the rain before, I wonder what its like?' Closing my eyes once again, I soon projected out of my body. Moving through the wall, I went out into the rain. What a gloriously wet feeling it was. I could feel the rain passing through me. The smell of rain and wetness was everywhere; it seemed to fill me with energy. I floated up to the roof, sat on the chimney and looked out over the town. I watched the rain dancing on the roofs and streets, swirling down gutters and gurgling into drains. It seemed to have a friendly voice and rhythm all its own, it said, "drink me, splash me, gurgle me, slosh me." It was funny at the time. Sitting on the roof, I noticed I could feel my body below me in the chair. This had often intrigued me, how I could feel my physical body when I was near it but not when I was further away. Sliding back through the roof, I decided to study my it more closely. Suddenly, I could see myself floating through the wall as well as seeing myself sitting in the chair. It was ME, sitting in the chair looking at myself floating through the wall, but also ME floating in front of the chair ten feet away watching myself sitting in the chair. This was not only confusing; it made me feel quite ill. I had two sets of vision, two sets of thoughts, all the same and all joined together, it was fascinating. It also made sense. Just because my astral was separated from my physical, why should the physical have to stop thinking? The astral ME moved around the room, observing my body in the chair while it was watching me. I could still see the astral ME, even when I was behind the physical me. I could feel myself in the chair, trying to follow my astral body around the room. It took a real effort, as if I had no energy to move. I felt as if I were huge and was moving against enormous pressure. I was moving my viewpoint but I wasn't physically moving at all. My awareness was existing in both my etheric and astral bodies at the same time. This was how my physical ME was able to see the astral ME so easily, and from any angle. My etheric was, literally, turning around in my skin. This ability to see through closed eyelids and from different perspectives is often described by projectors and meditators. This duality seems remarkably similar to how schizophrenics describe what they feel during an attack: The nausea, lack of energy, multiple sets of thoughts and feelings of disorientation. This terrible disorder may be caused by a dislocation of the astral body? The only way to find out if this is the case would be to study a schizophrenic during an attack, from the astral viewpoint. After studying the etheric/physical bodies from my astral form I have come to the following conclusions: During normal sleep, the etheric, better described as the energy body or vitality sheath, expands and acts like an energy sponge or solar accumulator. It swells and opens; allowing the astral body to float free, while it absorbs some kind of energy (cosmic energy?) from the universe. When it expands, all the chakras, major and minor, slowly open up like the flowers in a garden, catching and absorbing energy. When we awake, the etheric body contracts and re-absorbs the astral body; forming a dense etheric sheath, or skin, which holds within it our stored energy and subtle bodies. According to some sources we have 300 chakras, if you count all the minor ones. The swelling of the etheric body, while awareness is centered in it, also appears to be responsible for the sensation of swollen hugeness in the body coupled with a feeling of smallness in self. This strange mix of sensations is often reported by people during astral projection or meditation. It appears to be caused by the etheric body swelling and interacting with the universe. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are Most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and *please* don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ----------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume I - v1.1 Part 5 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 14 May 1994. All rights reserved. Projection Problems Here are some answers to the most common problems people are having with projection. Thank you all for the hundreds of email letters you have sent me. Your feedback is helping me to improve this treatise, which ultimately helps everybody. If you write to me and don't get a reply within a week, write again, I sometimes, inadvertently, loose a few letters. I have done away with the original technique of shifting the consciousness out of the body. Most people find this kind of visualization far too difficult, and waste precious energy trying to do it. Visualization is the biggest problem with all projection techniques. To overcome this, I have developed a simpler method that is much more efficient. The most common problems are: 1. Visualization, out in front of yourself. 2. Paralysis, after an apparently successful projection. 3. Fear. 4. Remembering the projection. 1. The visualization problem: Shifting your point of consciousness away from your body, by visualizing, is simply a way of exerting pressure on the astral body. There are many ways to do this other than the method I gave earlier in this series. The biggest difficulty with this is it requires you to imagine yourself in a different position from the one you are in. For example, if you are lying down, you are (horizontal) and you will be trying to imagine you are standing at the foot of the bed, which is (vertical). This is one reason projection is easier to do from a chair. In a chair you are (vertical) and are visualizing yourself standing in front (vertical). Sitting and standing are both (vertical) Positions. Close your eyes now, and try to imagine yourself lying on the floor, and you will see what I mean. This is not the only difficulty. Any visualization that requires you to imagine yourself at a different place from where you actually are is unnatural and hence extremely difficult. This, I believe, is the cause of most failures. A great deal of energy is wasted on this, energy, which can be better used on the projection itself. Visualization is a big hurdle for people when they are learning to project. Many have trouble with it because they think they have to actually SEE what they are visualizing, you DON'T. People who can visualize things clearly DON'T actually see anything. If they do, it is no longer a visualization but a clairvoyant vision. Visualization is simply the ability to construct a representation of what something would look, or feel like, in your minds eye. It is better termed fantasizing, an imaginary perception of reality. Many people who say they can't visualize at all, are still able to create elaborate fantasies. To overcome this problem I have developed a simple extension of the mental hands technique that will do the same thing. If you managed the mental hands in the relaxation exercise OK, you will have no problems with this. MENTAL HANDS PROJECTION Use a thumbtack to attach a length of ribbon to the ceiling over your bed or chair. Have it hanging over your chest, with the end within arms reach. IF you are using a chair, have it a foot or so in front of you and within arms reach. NOTE: This is a visual aide only. Before you attempt your next projection, get used to reaching out and holding the ribbon. Remember where it is and what it feels like. You are going to use this ribbon to pull yourself out of your body. Start your projection the same as outlined in Part 3. When you enter the trance state, instead of imagining you are out in front of yourself, use your mental hands to pull yourself hand over hand out of your body. Reach up with your mental hands and imagine you are climbing the cord. Feel yourself coming loose from your physical body every time you hand over hand up the cord. Make sure you don't tense any muscles while you are doing this. Put everything you have in the way of will power into doing this. While you are using the mental hands to pull yourself out you can also dispense with the breath awareness. Climbing the ribbon with your mental hands will fully occupy your mind, making any other mental exercise redundant. This will let you put every ounce of mental energy you have into the one activity, projection, instead of wasting it on a complicated visualization exercise. While you are climbing the ribbon imagine you are coming loose from the physical body. Imagine you can feel yourself rising a little with each new handhold. Feel yourself floating free. You will feel a slight giddy feeling in the pit of your stomach, or solar plexus, as pressure is put on the astral body. 2. Paralysis after an apparently successful projection: This happens when, after everything appears to goes well, you feel all the sensations, heaviness, heart chakra thrumming, vibrations etc, but nothing seems to happen. You lie there, unable to move, feeling very light, and with a floating sensation. This is a form of waking paralysis. What has happened is, you have activated the projection reflex, and the etheric body has expanded but only partially freed the astral body. This is like waking sleep projection. To overcome this when it happens, increase the effort in climbing the ribbon with your mental hands, apply all the will power you have to this. This should put enough pressure on the astral body to complete the projection. If this fails, there is a strong possibility you have already projected and are centered in your physical or etheric body. If you think this is the case, and you can't break out of it, use it. Observe all you can, experiment, feel, see what you can see through your eyelids, and try looking behind yourself. Another thing you can try is to convert it into a lucid dream. Try focusing on a fantasy, or a place you would like to go. Build it in your mind so you can tune into it. Not enough is known about the above condition of waking paralysis. If you discover a way to do something about it, or with it, please email me. I will include these findings in a future rewrite to help others with it. 3. Fear: Many people have written to me describing their feelings of fear during projection. This is a kind of natural barrier to some people that must be overcome. Some call it "The Dweller on the Threshold." It is a manifestation of your own inner fears, very much like a child's unreasoned fear of the dark; a fear of the unknown. Many people feel there is something evil waiting for them, or a nasty spirit trying to stop them projecting. This must be faced with courage! Look upon it as a test, an exam that must be passed before you can project freely. Once you do project, and face it, you will find it is only a hollow threat that will crumple into nothing. I have projected hundreds of times in my life, and in my astral form, have never been attacked. I did, however, have strong feelings of fear to conquer when I first taught myself to project consciously. There is also this to consider: You are invulnerable in your astral form and your body has excellent defenses to protect you during a projection. Your expanded etheric will react instantly at the slightest intrusion or unfriendly touch. It can pull you back in a second, no matter how far away you are. Ways to help overcome fear are: ˇ Project during the day. ˇ Leave plenty of lights on in the house. ˇ Project with a friend. (joint projection) ˇ Pray to whatever deity you believe in for protection. 4. Remembering it all: If your projection seems to happen OK but you only remember laying on the bed and falling asleep after it. The problem could be in remembering the astral experience. Here's what you can do about not remembering. As soon as you awake, sit up and pull those memories back. Sit up and think hard. Put aside a few minutes quiet time each morning and do this. It will train you to remember your projections and dreams. During this quiet time, run key phrases through your mind until you hit on something. Say things like: I was walking... I was talking to... I was just going to... I was over at... I was flying over... I was having a... I was inside a... These are examples of phrases that can lead to a fragment of memory you can lock on to. Make up some more phrases for yourself. It may not feel like there is anything in your mind to remember, but try hard and put some real effort into it. They are there, you just have to reach in and locate them. Once you lock onto a fragment of memory, more can be located and more still. You will be surprised how much you can remember this way. It is important to write these down as you remember them. They may seem vivid and unforgettable but they will vanish in a few minutes if you don't record them. Just a few key words will do. One other aid to remembering is to give you post-hypnotic suggestions before you project, or go to bed. This can take the form of an affirmation. Say something like "I will remember everything I do tonight." Say it over and over until you get sick of saying it. Lastly, it helps if you have a mission goal for each projection, something you especially want to do. Combine this with the affirmation and program yourself to do it. For example, say: I will go to the beach and remember... I will go to the beach and remember... Lastly, remember to keep the first few projections ultra short. This is an absolute must! It is more important to have a 30 Sec projection you can remember that an all nighter you forget. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and *please* don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ----------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume II - v1.1 Part 1 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 2 July 1994 This version has been completely rewritten and updated, with thought to all the questions and comments received since it's first posting. I have tried, by applying my experience as a projector and mystic; to solve some of the basic problems people are having with projection. This has become an interactive work thanks to all the constructive feedback and experimentation it has inspired on the Internet. 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 its 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 cameras 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 tenants 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 it cannot be assimilated by the brain, 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 functionproperly. 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 byreversing 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 is 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 is no longer a problem. You can take it into account and function normally, rather 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 part 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: 1. The incredible creative power of the subconscious mind. 2. The weak creative powers of the conscious mind. 3. The sensitivity of astral matter to thought. 4. Spherical vision. 5. 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 uncreated, 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, 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 nowdo. 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., focus in one direction at a time. When you turn, follow the room around with 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 create your own personal astral realm. Melting Hands When you project the astral bodyclose 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, and 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: 1. 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. 2. 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 anOOBE, 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 realtime 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. Lucid dreaming is more similar to an astral projection than to an OOBE, as time and reality are distorted. 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 astraldimension. 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. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume II - v1.1 Part 2 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 2 July 1994 Starting Out After the physical body has fallen asleep, the astral body always projects into the physical world. Once the energy body has expanded, the astral body floats free and hovers just above the physical body, but within the expanded energy body's field of influence. Within this field, known as cord activity range, the astral body is held close to the physical world as it is within a field of etheric matter. During a conscious astral projection it may appear as if you are projecting straight into an astral plane. But there is always an intermediary phase at the beginning, when you are existing as an astral form close to the physical dimension. This, real time part of any projection, may be missed if you black out at the moment of projection. The area around the body, within cord activity range, is flooded with etheric matter and within this field the astral body is held in real time close to the physical dimension. Etheric Matter Etheric matter is the actual life force substance generated by all living things by simply being alive. It is a substance in-between physical matter and astral matter, part physical and part astral. This etheric matter has actual weight. It is a very refined substance in between matter and energy and is similar to its coarser cousin, ectoplasm. There have been scientific studies done on this phenomenon. Dying people in hospitals have had their beds placed on delicate scales shortly before death and hooked up to EEG and ECG monitors. In all cases, at the exact moment of death, a sudden weight loss of approximately one quarter of an ounce is observed. This is caused by a large amount of etheric matter being transferred into the astral body at the moment of physical death. This is similar to the sudden transfer of etheric matter into the astral body during a near death experience where the body believes it is dying. This sudden, massive transfer of etheric matter is the start of the death process. Ectoplasm Ectoplasm has been studied in a similar fashion. Materialization mediums have been placed on delicate scales and then asked to produce ectoplasm onto another set offine scales. These mediums were observed to lose weight at exactly the same rate as the weighed ectoplasm gained weight. When the medium reabsorbed the ectoplasm this weight transfer was reversed. Ectoplasm is produced by the chakras. It converts part of the physical mass of the mediums body into another substance, ectoplasm. Interdimensional Manifestation Any non-physical or disincarnate entity, including the astral body, in order to function, in real time, close to the physical dimension; must contain etheric matter. Without etheric matter, nonphysical entities fade back into their dimension of origin. Etheric matter can only be obtained from living inhabitants of the physical world. Energy Flow The famed "Silver Cord" does more than just tie the two bodies together. It is a true umbilical cord, transmitting information and energy between the physical and subtle bodies. It is seen by some projectors and not seen by others. Sometimes it is seen emanating from the navel, sometimes from the forehead. The area the cord is seen emanating from may depend on chakra activity. Whichever chakra is the strongest, most active, could have control of energy flow to the subtle bodies. There is also the belief system of the projector to consider and the creative power of the subconscious mind. The cord will usually appear to be wherever you believe it will be, courtesy of the subconscious. Once the astral body enters the astral dimension it must have a good supply of astral energy from the chakras in order to interact strongly with that dimension. Clear astral memory depends greatly on the amount of energy available. As the astral dimension is the natural domain of the astral body, it will not fade out of it due to a lack of energy. As in the real world, if a person hasn't eaten or slept for a few days they don't dissolve into another dimension. They just get weak and listless and don't interact strongly with the physical world. What it boils down to is this: The astral mind must have enough energy to give it strong, vivid memories. These astral memories must be strong enough to make a good-sized wrinkle in the physical brain, so the physical mind can recall them when it wakes up. For example, if you haven't slept for a few days you will be tired, listless and your interaction with reality will be weak and vague. If you see a movie in this tired state you will retain little memory of it. Afterwards, you may only remember fragments of it and your memory of it will be a vague blur. If, however, yousee a movie when you are well rested, fresh and full of energy, it is different. You take in everything about the movie and enjoy it. Your memory of it will be crystal clear. This is similar to what happens after a low powered astral journey. The astral body lacks energy and so does not have clear enough impressions of its journey. This causes it to fail making its memories the dominant ones when it returns return to the physical body. As I stated earlier, there must be strong, vivid memories if a wrinkle is to be made in the physical brain and the experience remembered. Chakras Use Fully developing the chakras and learning how to control them can take many years, depending on natural ability. This will not, however, stop you using them in a very basic way; to enhance your OOBE's and lucid dreams, at a very early stage in your development. Raising energy and stimulating the chakras is extremely simple to do. This raised energy will automatically flow into your astral body, prior to and during projection. By learning to raise energy and control the flow of power through the chakras, the nature of your dreams, lucid dreams and OOBE's will change. They will become vivid and unforgettable experiences. This, in a way, gives you a second life; full of rich experiences you can enjoy, learn and grow from. Higher Levels And Their Buffer Zones The commonly accepted names for the seven known levels of existence, from lowest to highest, are: Physical, Astral, Mental, Buddhic, Atmic, Anupadaka and Adi. These higher planes are similar in structure to the astral dimension but at a much higher level of consciousness and are completely separate from it. In between the different levels are intermediary areas or buffer zones, sometimes called lower sub planes. A good analogy for the different dimensions and their buffer zones is the Earth's atmosphere: If the air in the Earth's atmosphere was the astral dimension, the stratosphere would be the buffer zone and the vacuum of space would be the mental dimension. You can fly in the Earth's atmosphere in a normal air plane/astral body. A very powerful jet plane is needed to take you into the stratosphere, but you need a space ship/mental body, to travel through space. This explains why a different subtle body is needed to travel into these different levels of existence. The astral body can enter the buffer zones, or sub planes, of the dimensions above and below the astral dimension, if it contains the correct type of energy. i.e. To exist in the buffer zone between the physical/astral levels (in real time) the astral body must contain etheric energy. To exist in the buffer zone between the astral/mental levels it must contain mental energy. Higher Level Projection With enough control over the chakras, the energy for these higher levels can be produced. The production of one particular type of energy will raise the consciousness to that level and energize the corresponding subtle body. This is usually done by consciousness raising meditation and advanced energy work on the chakras. The consciousness can then experience that level of existence. If enough energy is available, and conditions are right, the meditator can project that particular subtle body directly into its natural dimension. Depending on the skill and natural ability of the operator, if a higher body is energized and projected so, usually, are the lower ones. The astral body contains within it all the other subtle bodies and can, during a projection, project the mental body into the mental dimension and so on. This will sometimes give multiple sets of memories from the one projection. The general rule is, whichever subtle body contains the greatest amount of energy, will have the strongest memories. These dominant memories will be the ones retained by the physical mind upon its return to the waking state. Projecting consciously into levels higher than the astral dimension takes a high level of skill. You need to be proficient in both consciousness raising and chakra control, but it is achievable. I have, so far, projected into the Astral, Mental, Buddhic and Atmic levels of existence. It is commonly believed that it is only possible for a human to project into the Astral, Mental and Buddhic levels and not possible to project into the higher Adi and Anupadaka. These dimensions have been named, and are described, so someone must have been there or they would be unknown. If you realize the true nature of the mind you will understand there are no limits. It was also once said that the sound barrier would never be broken. BTW: These dimensions don't have signposts on them saying "Welcome to the Astral dimension, ta...daa!" or "Mental dimension, watch your mind!". So I will describe the higher levels I have been to using these accepted names. The Astral Dimension This is a topsy-turvy world like Alice found in Wonderland. Everything seems objective (real) but is changeable and fluid. Anything and everything can be found there, from base, coarse levels full of sexual energy; to beautiful, serene places full of spiritual harmony. Time is distorted and extended there. An hour in the Astral can seem like only a few minutes here in the physical. Compared to the physical world it is at a much higher vibration. It's like playing videotape at twenty times normal speed, although this is not apparent when you are there. Moving amongst the astral dream pools is usually a hit or miss affair for most projectors. It takes a lot of experience to make planned astral journeys to specific realities. There are an infinite number of realities, planes, realms and dream pools in this dimension. As I stated before, they naturally strata and settle into pools of related thought. During sleep, or in a lucid dream, the subconscious mind usually creates one especially for you, your own personal dream theatre. When you become aware during a dream, you take control over it. This control is taken over from the powerful subconscious mind. Without its powerful controlling influence, your personal custom created realm will change. You will begin tuning into other sympathetic parts of the astral, and the reality you are in will mix with other realities and take on different aspects. In a conscious projection into the astral dimension, you can tune into any part of it and travel into different realities, other dream pools, or a mix of many. There are various techniques for this but they all involve some way to disorient the subconscious mind, tricking it into moving you into a different Astral reality. Some projectors look at their hands and watch them melt. Others spin around, causing left right reversals. These methods all disorient the mind and trick the subconscious into tuning into another part of the astral. It's very difficult to describe how to move amongst the levels, you really have to learn by doing it, by trial and error. You have to learn how to use and control the subconscious mind, how to trick it for a specific result. Virtual Reality Projection Here is a simple, reliable method, I have developed, to create your own personal realm: Get a poster of a pleasant scene, something bright and sunny. The bigger the better, but standard poster size will do. Hang it on the wall of the room you are going to project in, or another room close by. Get a small spotlight and set it so the poster is highlighted when the main light is turned off, a normal directional bedside lamp will do. Place the light under, or above, so the light spreads out over it giving a diffused effect illuminating it, a bit like a movie screen. Entering your custom realm: When you project, go towards the poster, keeping your mind blank. Don't think about what you are doing, just gaze at it and move towards it. As you approach it in this way, your subconscious mind will be tricked into creating an astral realm exactly like the poster. Just move up to and into the poster. It is like stepping into another world. Everything in this world will be exactly like in the poster. It will appear to be a normal three-dimensional world, an exact copy, indistinguishable from reality. To customize this world: Cut and paste small pictures of things, or people, you want to find in this world with you when you enter it. Don't just stick a whole picture on the poster. Get scissors and cut around the object, or person. Try and find pictures that are approximately the same scale as the poster. If you cut out a small picture of someone, living or dead, your subconscious will create a thought form shell of them and theywill be there waiting for you. This may be an excellent way of communicating with those that have died. Spirit Communication: (I have a theory) The subconscious creates this thought form shell of a person. This shell can be animated by the perfect, detailed memory of your subconscious. But, if there is love there, between the projector and this created person, the spirit of this, diseased person, will be drawn to this scenario and will use this opportunity to communicate with the projector, by animating the created image of their body. The Akashic Records These are found in the buffer zone between the astral and mental worlds, part astral part mental and, in a way, extending into all levels. They are a record of every thought and event that has ever occurred, like a huge, infinite, mental history, picture book. The Akashic records also contain probabilities stemming from, and created by, past events, actions and thoughts. This is like looking into the future. To make any kind of sense of the Akashic records yourself, some skill in clairvoyance is a definite help. If you tune into the Akashic records yourself you will normally see those events with the greatest amount energy around them. Wars and disasters are the easiest to see because of this. The energy surrounding these events make them stand out above all the rest, making them easier to see. If you look into the future, the area of probabilities, you enter into a confusing maelstrom of symbolism mixed with actual events. This future symbolism is caused by the belief systems of the major religions. Millions of people in the world have believed in some form of prophecy for thousands of years. Whether it is the Bible's "Book of Revelations" or the prophecies of Nostradamus. These ancient prophecies are all richly steeped in symbolism. This symbolism affects the way people think and dream about the future. This symbolism, in turn, manifests in the Akashic records as symbolic representations of future events. The symbolism is a big help; it makes consulting the Akashic records easier. You can use the Akashic symbolism as an index. For example, the reference below to "The Dogs of War" is easily understandable as representing war. The "Grim Reaper" is a universal symbol of death and destruction. So, if you are interested in this kind of future event you tune into this symbolic index for WAR, then browse through the category of past and future wars. Apart from some clairvoyant ability, knowledge of history, geography, religious symbolism, current affairs world leaders and heads of state is a big help; when indexing past and future events. For example, in the future vision I give below: If I had known WHO the well known person I saw addressing a crowd below WAS, and recognized the country; I could have made an accurate prediction of future events instead of being wise, AFTER the event. I entered the state of consciousness called the Akashic records. There I was inundated with a mass of symbolism. I was seeing in four dimensions at once. My conscious mind did not assimilate this very well. I saw wars, famines, plagues, disasters, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, plane crashes, murders, etc, it was terribly confusing and depressing. I saw one piece of symbolism I recognized though and tuned into it, indexed it. The Grim Reaper holding The Dogs of War (as described by various prophets) these dogs were fearsome beasts with Red eyes and slavering jaws. They were held in check by this hooded figure, with an evil skull for a face, carrying a sickle. He released these dogs as I watched, symbolizing a coming war. Tuning into this scene, I was there floating above it all, I could feel the sunshine and smell the city below me. I saw a man standing on a raised dais, under two giant scimitar swords. He was giving a charismatic speech to many thousands of people. One of the swords turned into a Christian Crusader's broadsword. The man was Saddam Hussein; the scene was in Baghdad, at the monument to the Unknown Soldier. I saw this six months before the Gulf war started. I did not learn WHO Saddam Hussein WAS, or WHERE this scene took place though, until it was televised during the gulf war. Looking through the Akashic records is like leafing through an infinite mental photo album. You are bombarded with an awesome array of the sights and sounds of past, present and probable futures. You have to select one of these thought records, tune into it and enter it. You will then live through the record as if you were really there, watching it as it happens. Consulting with the Akashic records can be done alone if you have the skill, but is normally done with the assistance of an advanced being from a higher level of existence. This is done as a sort of telepathic guided tour. The enormous amount of information and chaff is filtered out for you and the selected record, of past events or future probability, is presented to you clairvoyantly, via a telepathic link with the... librarian. Some people claim to have entered the Akashic Records and found something like a library there, with real books. The past, present and future was recorded as text in these books. Some people even say they have read a record, then entered into it, and experience the record first hand. All these claims are consistent with the Akashic Records. These are librarian assisted guided tours, where the Akashic Records have been presented as something familiar, easy to use and easy to accept. The Mental Dimension This is a spectacular dimension! Iridescent rivers of sound bounded by rainbow shores of pulsating light. Thoughts appear as kaleidoscopic patterns of light and sound. You walk across fields of ideas under a sparkling crystal sky of inspiration. If you enter this world don't try to rationalize or understand it, or you may go mad, for it is beyond human understanding. Just accept it all, go with the flow and enjoy it! This dimension is what, I believe, the ancient Vikings called the famed "Rainbow Bridge" into Asgard. It truly looks and feels as if you are walking up a rainbow into some wonderful world where the Gods must surely dwell. Exist here in wondrous amazement. Let loose the child within you to play in this fairy wonderland. Everything feels real and solid. Time is even further distorted here thanin the Astral and reality is kaleidoscopic. Buddhic Dimension This is a warm, abstract world filled with utter peace and infinite love. It is a dimension of pure White. There is no sight or sound perception here other than the all pervading, brilliant White. In this dimension you very quickly relinquish conscious thought and individuality. You cannot think for long once you enter ere and there is no need or desire to do so. There is an irresistible urge drawing you into a quiet stillness. It is like being immersed in warm, pure White cotton wool. In this world you cease to be an individual and you become, PART OF THE ONE. You also cease to be male or female. In a way this is like returning to the Mother's womb. You are surrounded, absorbed and assimilated by infinite loving warmth, understanding, forgiveness and atonement. AT-ONE-MENT. Time here ceases to have any meaning. If you enter this world you will never, ever want to leave it, you cannot leave it, until your physical body calls and drags you back. This is the healing, resting place of the soul. Atmic Dimension This dimension appears be the spirit world. Here, spirits wait for those they loved during their time on earth. This is the happy place of the gathering. It is the place where the reunion of souls takes place. The light in this world is purest, brightest silver, brighter than the flash of an arc welder. It is so bright it seems impossible to look at, but it is, for all that, a supremely gentle light, soft and soothing. It is the light of divine love. The people here appear as they did in the physical world, but at their most magnificent. They glow ecstatically, ablaze with the brightest love, happiness and joy imaginable. The atmosphere is electric and vital, but at the same time deeply spiritual. In this world you can FEEL the presence of God as a tangible all-pervading force. Communication here, is done by high-level telepathic imaging, similar to one-on-one clairvoyance only much more vivid and real. It leaves speech and thought for dead. Time stands utterly still here. Reality is more real and solid than normal reality. Compared to this, the physical world is a vague, tired dream full of half dead people. I have entered this dimension only four times in my life. Each time from the very deepest consciousness raising meditation, with all my chakras wide open and fully functioning. There was also extreme crown chakra activity. The feeling of this was like a thousand fingers vibrating, and deeply massaging, the whole top of my head above the hairline. On these four occasions my energy has soared to seemingly impossible heights within me, carrying my spirit and consciousness with it. At the climax of this deeply mystical experience I have heard the sound of one long, pure musical note slowly rising in pitch. I have felt this note in the core of my being, in my heart, calling me, drawing me to it. I have focused on this note and attuned to it. With every ounce of strength and energy I possessed I have focused my consciousness on it and projected to it. Stripping away my physical body, I have projected straight into this dimension. It was just like stepping, slipping, through a heavy curtain into another place and another world. I am still aware of my physical body, duality, during this whole experience. I look about me with wonder; the light is so silver and bright it burns deeply into my soul and I can feel its healing touch within me. There in front of me is my long dead son. He was eight years old whenhe left me, and he looked just as he did when I last saw him. He was beaming with happiness, his eyes bright and shining. I cuddled him up to me and wept with the joy of seeing him. I looked beyond him and there was a large crowd of people waiting for me. These were all the friends and family I had known and loved and lost during my life. There were also many people I did not know. They all seemed very familiar though and I felt I loved them all. They were clapping and jumping up and down, cheering me in greeting. There were many tears of joy and lots of hugging and kissing. Looking beyond them, I see we are in a natural stone amphitheatre. The ground is smooth rock and it rises to a ridge a couple of hundred meters away that curves towards us. On the top of this ridge are Angels. They looked just like Michelangelo painted them. They were incredibly beautiful, with large White feathered wings, curly Golden hair and Alabaster skin. They were blowing long sparkling golden horns, and the pure high note came from them. Stepping from the crowd I walked into the open. I look in awe at these angels and waved at them. The note started to die away as I did this and the Angels began lowering their horns. I stand for a timeless moment in silence, looking all around me. Then everything began to shimmer and I slipped; fell back into my physical body. I wept. I have never wanted to come back. Death When you leave your body for the final time, at death, this is what I believe will happen: You will be projecting, in real time, for the first few days, close to the physical world, until your supply of etheric matter runs out. Then you will go through the second death and enter the Astral dimension. There, you will purge yourself of all desire, by being able to have anything you have ever wanted, in abundance. This is done through having the full use of your subconscious mind's powerful creative ability. Here you can saturate your every need and desire, until you see these desires for the illusions they really are. You will then shed your Astral (desire body) and enter the Mental dimension. There you will see your past life, examine and express every thought you have ever had and every action you have ever done. There, your thoughts, memories and experiences will be added to the Akashic Record. Which is the recorded experience of the entire human existence in the physical dimension. Shedding your mental body you will then enter the Buddhic dimension. There you will stay for timeless healing, for rest, atonement, forgiveness and understanding of self. In this world your inner wounds will heal and your soul will be nurtured by divine love. Your spirit will become whole and perfect once more. Then you will shed your Buddhic body and enter the Atmic dimension. There you will wait in the divine presence for those you love. Then, one day, you will go on to the next level of existence; where the last great mystery of life will be revealed to you.... ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume II - v1.1 Part 3 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 2 July 1994 PROJECTION TRAINING To trigger the projection of the Astral body, while fully conscious, there are four major requirements: 1. Relaxing your body 100% while staying awake. 2. Concentrating 100% on what you are doing. 3. Having enough energy available. 4. Pressuring the astral body to separate. Together, these four things will trigger an OOBE. Below are exercises that will teach how to relax the body, concentrate, clear the mind, raise energy, stimulate the chakras and enter the trance state. CALMING THE MIND Relaxation You must learn and master, a full body relaxation exercise. If you know one already it can be adapted to suit. Here is a very simple one: Sit, or lie down, and relax. Starting with the feet, tense and relax them. Continue this with calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck and face until your whole body is deeply relaxed. Go over this a few times, making sure your muscles stay relaxed. Note: Deep physical relaxation is the key to bringing on the trance state, i.e., deep relaxation CAUSES the trance state. Once you are in the trance state, projection on the astral body is relatively easy. Contemplation When you begin meditation, you will be plagued with thoughts from your surface mind, which acts like a huge Memo pad. It carries messages, reminders, pressing thoughts, problems to solve, unresolved issues etc. It is constantly busy, it NEVER rests, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, one after the other, all clamoring for attention. Before you attempt to clear your mind, with the breath awareness exercise below, it is wise to deal with these surface thoughts by the act of contemplating them. Sit comfortably, do the relaxation exercise and think, nothing more, just think. Search out the strongest thoughts in your mind and examine them, try to resolve and understand them. Note the word: THINKING. Contemplation does not involve clearing the mind, or visualization. It requires you to THINK, deeply and thoroughly, about something, to gain a deeper understanding of its nature and how it relates to you, an insight. Breath Awareness Meditation This is a simple form of meditation. It will clear your mind and focus your awareness. Sit or lie down, close your eyes, do the relaxation exercise and clear your mind. Breathe deeply and slowly and focus on the breath entering and leaving your body. Feel it coming in and feel it going out. Focus your whole attention on your lungs and the breathing process. This simple action is enough to occupy your surface mind. Firmly push intruding thoughts away, as they begin, before they can gather strength and distract you. Breath awareness occupies the surface mind and allows you to think on a much deeper level. Surface Thoughts Sounds are very distracting, they generate surface thoughts. A car horn will generate: "Who's that, what's happening?" A door opening will generate: "Who's coming in or going out?" The surface mind is always very curious about what is happening around you. It wants to know all, and it wants to inform you of every little thing going on around you. It will pressure you to open your eyes, get up and go find out what's happening. Don't allow this to happen. USE these annoying, attention getting thoughts as a training aide. By learning to quash and ignore them, your powers of concentration will grow. Stop these annoying little thoughts as they begin, before they can take root and grow into something stronger. For example: "Who's that, what's happening?" Becomes: "Who's th............" "Who's coming in, or going out?" Becomes: "Who's co............" With practice the start of these distracting thoughts will get shorter and shorter until you get: " Wh....?........?.........." And " W...?................... " And finally: ".......?........?...........................?..................." Many people say they can't clear their mind as they are too easily distracted by all the small noises that surround them, in normal day-to-day activity. DON'T use music or other sounds to blanket these out, USE them for training. It's like weight lifting, if you train with feather dusters your strength will not increase. You need to master this, the hard way, if you want to give your mind real muscle. Slowly but surely you will master the ability to clear your mind. Once accomplished, you will have gained a valuable mental tool. You will be able to concentrate 100% of your attention, on one task, to the TOTAL exclusion of everything else. I sometimes meditate, in the trance state, successfully, in a noisy, crowded room with little children crawling all over me. NOTHING breaks my concentration. CONCENTRATION You must be able to concentrate and focus completely on what you are doing. Lack of concentration is the single, biggest cause of projection failure. It affects every aspect of projection, from the relaxation exercise, to the trance state and actual projection. To test your ability to concentrate: Sit and relax. Close your eyes and clear your mind of ALL thought. Breathe slowly and deeply and count each breath, at the end of each exhale. Hold it totally BLANK, apart from the counting, for as long as you can. See how long you can hold it like this. Be honest with yourself, every time a thought intrudes start counting from the beginning again. You are doing well if can do this for longer than ten breaths. Ten breaths is, however, not long enough. Don't worry though; this can be improved on with the exercises below. Concentration Exercise (1) After image retention: Relax, calm your mind, and look at a candle or a light bulb. Place this light in front of you, a couple of feet away, and stare fixedly at it for a minute or two. Close your eyes and concentrate on the after image this will generate behind your closed eyelids. Try and keep sight of it for as long as possible. Use breath awareness to keep the mind clear, while you are doing this. Try and make the after image grow, instead of fading away. Concentration Exercise (2) One point stare: Pick a spot on a wall and gaze at it. Don't focus on it, just gaze at it gently. Clear your mind of ALL thoughts and forcibly hold it blank. Concentrate HARD, on breath awareness while you are doing this. When you feel a thought beginning, push it away, don't let it finish! Hold this for as long as you can. Do this several times a day, or more if you can. Concentration Exercise (3) Energy breathing: Sit and relax. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Do the breath awareness exercise and imagine the air you are breathing IN is brightly colored energy of your favorite color. Imagine the air you are breathing OUT is a murky Grey, full of toxic waste. This is a purification exercise. It stimulates your chakras into absorbing energy on the inhale and getting rid of negative energy on the exhale. Note: Try your best not to tense up while you are doing these concentration exercises, it is ALL mental. In the beginning, it may feel as if you have to tense your mind into a tight ball to stop it thinking, but in time you will find the opposite to be true. When you get used to it, clearing the mind is VERY relaxing. The Trance State When you have attained a deep level of relaxation and mental calmness, you will feel your body begin to get very, very heavy. This heaviness is the main symptomof your brain waves changing from the Beta to the Alpha level as you enter a trance. The trance state is caused by deep physical and mental relaxation. There is nothing weird or supernatural about it. It simply means your body has entered the sleep state while your conscious mind is fully awake. How To Enter A Trance Do the relaxation exercise and calm your mind through breath awareness. Imagine you are climbing down a ladder in the dark. Don't visualize a ladder; just imagine you can feel yourself doing it. On the exhale, feel yourself climbing a step or two down the ladder with your imaginary Hands (outlined below). On the inhale, feel yourself holding still on the ladder. What is needed is a mental falling effect inside your mind. This changes the level of brain wave activity from the awake level (Beta) to the asleep level (Alpha) or the deep sleep level (Theta). Once your level of brain wave activity reaches Alpha you will enter a trance. Keep doing this for as long as it takes. The time it takes to enter trance will vary, depending on your experience with deep relaxation and mental calmness. Note: Once you get the heavy feeling, stop the mental falling exercise. If you don't like the ladder, imagine you are in a lift, feel yourself falling on the exhale and holding on the inhale. Or, Imagine you are a feather, feel yourself floating down on the exhale and holding still on the inhale. As I stated above, you need a mental falling effect to lower your level of brain wave activity. This mental falling effect, when combined with deep relaxation and mental calmness, will cause you to enter the trance state. Feel free to use any scenario you are familiar with to bring about this going deeper feeling. A trance feels like: Everything gets quieter and you feel like you are in a much bigger place. There is a very slight humming feeling in your body. Everything feels different. It feels a bit like putting a cardboard box over your head in the dark, you can feel the atmosphere change. It's like everything goes fuzzy or slightly blurred. Any sharp noises, while in trance, feel like a physical blow to the Solar Plexus. Deep Trance The level of trance you achieve depends greatly on your relaxation, concentration skills and will power. To enter a deeper trance, i.e., Theta level and beyond, you have to concentrate much more and for much longer, on the mental falling sensation aided by breath awareness. The first level of trance, i.e., when you get very heavy, is quite deep enough for projection. I strongly advise against forcing yourself deeper than a light trance, until you have plenty of experience with the trance state. How can you tell if you are entering a deep trance? There are four very noticeable symptoms: 1. An uncomfortable feeling of cold that doesn't make you shiver, coupled with a steady loss of body heat. 2. Mentally, you will feel very odd and everything will feel extremely slooooow. Your thought processes will slow down as if you had been given a strong pain killing injection. 3. You will feel disassociated from your body, i.e., a strong floating sensation and everything will seem far away. 4. Total physical Paralysis. Note: These four things, ALL TOGETHER, signify you are entering a deep trance. Do not mistake the mild floating sensation you sometimes get with light trance, i.e., as you astral body comes loose. Or the slight loss of body heat from sitting still for a long time and the mild paralysis, i.e., the heaviness, for a deep trance. The sensation of deep trance is quite uncomfortable and unmistakable for what it is. It is very difficult to get into the deep trance state, as you need highly developed relaxation, concentration and trance state skills plus lots and lots of will power and mental energy. You will not accidentally fall into it. If you are worried you are going too deep, remember this: You CAN pull yourself out of it at any time. Concentrate ALL your will on moving your fingers or toes. Once you can move a finger or toe, flex your hands, move your arms, shake your head, i.e., reanimate your body; and get up and walk around for a few minutes. Falling into a deep trance should not be a problem with these exercises. I have seen many people in meditation groups etc, enter a light trance and not be able to pull themselves out of it, i.e., they float away with the faeries. Usually some kind person will talk them out of it or massage their wrists etc to get them to come back to reality. This is unnecessary and is the result of lop-sided training, i.e., no concentration or will power training. The person only THINKS they cannot come back and therefore does not try very hard. It is also a good way of getting attention from the group. Note: Your mind is extremely powerful and has vast untapped resources. It can do ANYTHING, no limits, if it is trained, conditioned and properly motivated. Energy Body Expansion At some point after entering the trance state, you will feel a mild paralysis come over you. This will soon be accompanied by a deepening vibration and a buzzing feeling all over. You may also feel like you are huge and swollen. The paralysis, vibrations and the huge feeling are symptoms of the energy body expanding and the astral body loosening. This is part of the normal sleep process. The energy body expands and opens in order to accumulate and store energy. During this, the astral body drifts free, slightly out phase with the physical body. Trance Familiarity Many people blow their projection simply because they are not used to the trance state. They think it is a briefly opened window into the Astral dimension. This is simply NOT true. If you stay mentally and physically calm when you enter the trance state, you can maintain it for hours. I regularly spend several hours at a time in the trance state, during meditation. If, when you enter trance, you think: "Yes! I've done it!...I'm in a trance! Gotta hurry and get out quick...before it stops!" You'll blow it for sure! The trance will be ended by the simple act of getting over excited, i.e., breaking relaxation and mental calmness. It's a good idea to spend time in the trance state, just getting used to it, before you try and project. Just relax, stay calm, focus on breath awareness, and hold the trance. It won't end until youwant it to. Get used to how it feels. When you are comfortable doing this, do the energy raising and chakra stimulation exercises, below, in trance. Note: 1. You do not HAVE to be in a trance to learn energy and chakra work, it just works better in trance. 2. Trance practice can be done lying down, but is best done in a comfortable armchair. Your astral body will be loose in the trance state, so try lifting your astral arms and legs out, one at a time. Use your HANDS to do this, as shown in the next section. Focus and FEEL your awareness in an arm and slowly lift it free of your body. You may feel a slight tickling or localized dizziness inside your arm or leg, as you do this. Lift your astral arm up and look at it, with your eyes closed, but DON'T move a muscle. In this state you should be able to see it through your closed eyelids, but don't worry if you can't, this will come later. Lifting your astral arms free is good practice for projection. Later, you will use these astral arms to pull your astral body free of the physical. Tactile Imaging Tactile imaging is a perception or FEELING of localized bodily awareness. Your hands are very closely linked to your bodily awareness. They are intimately aware of every part of your body. Imaginary HANDS, outlined below, is only an extension of this (hand to body) awareness. When you are asked to feel your awareness, in any part of your body, PRETEND your hands, your real hands, are going to touch that area of your body. Then use the awareness this generates in that area to imagine your imaginary HANDS are there. Keep your eyes closed and hold your hands out a foot or so in front of your face. Concentrate, FEEL where they are and try and SEE them through the blackness behind your closed eyes. Cross your wrists, slowly move them about, turn your hands over, open and close your fingers. Look hard, concentrate, as if you were trying to see in the dark, and you will see a faint moving shadow in your minds eye, where your hands and arms are. Close your eyes and touch the tip of your nose with the index finger of your right hand. You'll find you can accurately put that finger on any part of your body with your eyes closed. Try it, put your hand, your real hand, on different parts of your body like this. You know exactly where your hands are at all times; you can sense and feel where they are. If you observe what is happening in your mind, while you are doing this, you will notice you become aware of the part of your body you are going to touch, the instant you make the decision to touch it. Go over your whole body like this, getting used to the sensation of awareness it generates in different areas of your body. What is happening is this: Part of your mind is shifting into, and HIGHLIGHTING, the area you are going to touch, in order to guide your hand to the exact spot. Your mind shifts part of its awareness to this spot and acts like a homing beacon for your hand. The ability to shift your awareness into different parts of your body like this is VITAL to energy work and this projection method. Note: You do not have to actually visualize these HANDS, i.e., see or imagine you can see them. It is ALL tactile, NOT visual. You just have to be able to pretend to FEEL them doing something, like you are rehearsing some simple action in your mind. I originally developed this technique for blind people. Blind people cannot visualize AT ALL, if they have been blind since birth, but they do have a very keen sense of bodily awareness. The majority of sighted people also have great trouble with visualization of any kind, and all projection techniques depend heavily on visualization. This being the case, I developed a projection technique that does NOT depend on visualization to exert pressure on the astral body to separate. It turned out to be so much easier, and more successful, than the other visualization based techniques, that I discarded them in favor of this simple tactile method. Note: Blind people are not blind in astral form. The astral body does not have any organs as such; it is a point of consciousness only. The astral body you are aware of while projecting is provided courtesy of the subconscious minds creative ability. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume II - v1.1 Part 4 By Robert Bruce CopyrightŠ 2 July 1994 BASIC ENERGY WORK The Major Chakras The major chakras are situated at: 1. Base chakra (base of spine, between anus and genitals) 2. Spleen chakra (slightly below the belly button) 3. Solar Plexus chakra (1 hand-span above the belly button) 4. Heart chakra (center of the chest) 5. Throat chakra (base of throat, above where it joins the chest) 6. Brow chakra (exact center of forehead) 7. Crown chakra (whole top of head above the hairline) They are best imagined as roughly the size of the palm of your hand, except for the crown chakra, which is much larger. What Are Chakras? Chakras are non-physical organs that transform raw subtle energy into more subtle, and useable, forms of energy, of a different type. The chakras do not, themselves, contain energy. Raw energy is drawn up from the planet, by the minor chakras in the legs and feet, and fed into the main chakra system. Subtle energy is, in essence, pure thought energy that permeates and binds the universe together. This living energy field can be tapped, more deeply, by the application of focused, creative will. It can be drawn into the human body and transformed, by the chakra system, into a more subtle and useable form of energy. The chakras are attached to the spinal cord and nervous system via certain glands and nerve ganglia. The full chakra system is extremely complex. There are 7 major and over 300 minor chakras in the human body. There are also several non-physical chakras situated outside of the body. Detailed maps of the chakra system and their connecting meridians and pathways, have been used for thousands of years in Eastern mysticism and medicine, i.e., acupuncture. The chakra system is used with every psychic ability, no exceptions. Whatever the psychic ability, the method of development or the terminology used to describe it; it is all done the same way, through chakra stimulation. It is impossible to manifest any psychic ability without first stimulating the chakras. Many people will deny this, above, and claim they have never done any chakra, energy work, but still have psychic abilities. There are many ways to develop yourself, agreed, but they all, directly or indirectly, stimulate the chakra system. And let's not forget natural ability. Many people are born with naturally active chakras and hence, natural psychic ability. Mediums are people who exhibit psychic abilities when aided by a nonphysical spirit entity. This entity stimulates the chakras of the medium directly, by melding with the medium and causing psychic abilities, clairvoyance, channeling, healing, production of ectoplasm etc to manifest through the medium. This is why they are called Mediums or channels, i.e., they have the ability to become a passive vehicle for a spirit entity to affect, or communicate with, the physical world. You do not need a spirit entity to develop and use, a psychic ability. If you learn to control your own chakras and energy, you can do these things on your own, with no spirit entity involved, and without the inherent risk involved with that method. Energy Raising Sit, or lie down, do the relaxation exercise and clear you mind with breath awareness. Focus your awareness in your feet. Use your HANDS to pull energy up from your feet, through your legs, to the base chakra. Imagine you are gripping energy and pulling it up through you. Just like you did when you used these HANDS with breath awareness and color breathing, pulling air and energy into your lungs. Note: Try and imagine your HANDS are inside your legs and just inside the front of your torso as you do this. Use breath awareness as an aide to energy rising. Draw energy up through you, with the inhale, and hold it in place on the exhale. Do this over and over again, pulling energy to the Base chakra, for at least a few minutes. You may or may not feel anything while you do this. Even if you don't, you are still drawing some energy with this exercise. The amount of energy drawn up through you will increase as the chakras develop with time and use. From the feet, up the legs to the base center, is a natural path for the energy that flows through you. This energy will stimulate your chakras and they will transform this, basic energy, into energy of a different type. This transformed energy will then flow into your subtle bodies, energizing them. With practice, you will actually FEEL this energy tingling and surging through you. Chakra Stimulation Opening a chakra: Your imaginary HANDS are used for this. Imagine you are tearing open a bread roll at the site of a chakra when you are asked to do this. You don't have to visualise anything, just FEEL like you are doing this, as if you were doing it in real life without looking at what you are doing. Chakras are non-physical centers, so you need a non-physical method to stimulate them. This is achieved by focusing your awareness in the area of a chakra and using your mind to manipulate it. You need a localized, mental opening effect in a chakra to stimulate it; this tearing open action, with your imaginary HANDS, provides it. By moving your point of awareness to the site of a chakra and causing a mental opening effect with your HANDS, you are directly stimulating the chakra. Note: Do the energy raising exercise, as above, before stimulating the chakras. Use breath awareness to aide your HANDS in pulling energy into each chakra, i.e., draw energy UP on the inhale and HOLD it on the exhale, with all the chakra stimulation exercises below. 1. Base chakra: Raise energy up to your Base chakra. Use your HANDS to open it. Pull energy INTO the Base chakra. Repeat this first step, thoroughly, seven times. 2. Spleen chakra: Draw energy from the feet, through the Base chakra and on up to the Spleen chakra. Open the Spleen chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet. 3. Solar Plexus chakra: Draw energy from the feet, through the Base and Spleen chakras and on up to the Solar Plexus chakra. Open the Solar Plexus chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet. 4. Heart chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen and Solar Plexus chakras and on up to the Heart chakra. Open the Heart chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet. 5. Throat chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen, Solar Plexus and heart chakras to the Throat chakra. Open the Throat chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet. 6. Brow chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen, Solar Plexus, Heart and Throat chakras to the Brow chakra. Open the Brow chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet. 7. Crown chakra: Draw energy up to the Crown chakra as in the previous step. Open the Crown chakra. This chakra is much larger than the others (whole top of head, above hairline). Imagine you have a much larger, flatter bread roll inside the top of your head and are tearing it open with your HANDS, or like you are tearing your scalp open. Repeat this entire process twice, starting with the feet. Note: Try your best not to tense any muscles during these exercises. You may, however, feel a slight internal contracting, a feeling that is NOT muscular while you are stimulating your chakras. These are the glands and nerve ganglia, linked to the chakras, contracting in response to the stimulation. This internal contracting is normal. The Base, or Root chakra, is THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE TO ACTIVATE. This chakra is the doorway for the Kundalini energy. Unless this is opened sufficiently, the energy cannot flow into the other chakras. I suggest you concentrate most of your time and energy into stimulating your Base chakra, at least in the early stages of chakra development. Note: When I first started raising energy and developing my chakras, many years ago, I didn't feel ANY sensation for several months. Many people, though, have reported to me strong energy and chakra sensation the first time they used them. Some people have more natural chakra activity than others. Lack of any sensation, though, will not stop you from stimulating and developing them, evenif, as was my case, you feel nothing at first. I did not have ANY natural chakra activity or ANY natural psychic ability when I first started energy work. Stop And Check Check your muscles for any tensing during the energy raising and chakra stimulation exercises, and re-relax as needed. Your muscles will automatically try and respond to the mental action of pulling energy up through you. Remember, this is ALL mental; your body must stay calm and relaxed throughout. Chakra Sensations The sensations you will feel in your chakras can vary, according to the degree of activity occurring in them, i.e., your physical make up, natural ability, concentration and relaxation skills affect this. It can vary from a gentle warmth, a localized pressure, or bubbling (like stomach wind), a localized dizziness, a tingling, a gentle pulsing, to a heavier throbbing, or a combination of some or all of the above. The heavier the thrumming, the more active the chakra. If you place your hand on a chakra, when it is active, you will actually feel the flesh pulsing. Some of the chakras, when active, can cause other odd, localized sensations: Base chakra: You may feel a very slight burning or tingling, or a cramping, like you have been riding a bicycle for too long, to begin with. Once it is working properly, you will feel a gentle pulsing or throbbing between your legs, at the site of the chakra. Solar Plexus Chakra: This can sometimes cause a shortness of breath feeling, which can cause you to hyperventilate. This will pass, with time and use, as the chakra stabilizes. Heart Chakra: The heart chakra merits special mention due to the strong, and sometimes frightening, sensation it can cause. When strongly activated it can feel like your heart is racing at an impossible rate. It is a powerful sensation. Try and ignore this when it happens, it won't hurt you. It is not your heart racing but the chakra working. I know this is easier said than done, ignoring it, but with practice and familiarity you can. This racing is more apparent in the early stages of development. I think this is caused by a lack of energy flowing from the lower centers. In a way it is like a pump racing, when it does not have enough fluid to pump. The heart chakra, when fully operational, feels like: Place one hand on your chest, with your fingertips resting in the middle of it over your heart. Tap your fingers on your chest, in time with your heart. Increase this rate until you are tapping as fast and hard as your fingers can move. Note: Your actual heart rate does NOT speed up with this racing sensation. If you hook yourself up to a heart monitor, you will see that your heat beat hardly changes at all. Throat Chakra: The throbbing in it can cause a very mild choking feeling, because of the sensitive area it is in. This feels something like having an emotional lump in the base of your throat. Crown Chakra: When fully active it feels like a thousand soft, warm fingers gently massaging the inside of the top of your head, above the hairline, and extending down in the center of the forehead, to include the brow chakra, which is part of it. This sensation is the reason the Buddhists call it "The Thousand Petalled Lotus". Note: You may feel a stronger sensation in some chakras and little or none in others. Concentrate on the lowest ones with the least sensation. This will help balance the energy flow in the chakra system. If you are unbalanced, during projection the inactive chakras can cause failure, i.e., you may get your body partly loose but find you are stuck to your body at the site of the inactive chakra. If this happens, concentrate on stimulating the inactive chakra prior to projection. Psychic Abilities After beginning chakra work, you may find psychic abilities start to grow in you. This is a natural offshoot of stimulating the chakras. In my next series, on more advanced energy work, I will show how to develop and use some of these abilities and how to raise the Kundalini. Practice Some relaxation, breath awareness, concentration and mental hands exercises should, ideally, be carried out daily. They can be done anywhere and anytime you have a few minutes to spare. HOW LONG DOES IT ALL TAKE? Many people have asked me "How long does it take to learn projection?" Myanswer is: Because everybody has different levels of natural ability and skill, it will take as long as it takes. I have had letters from people, who have been trying various other methods for several years, but with no results; get out the very first time they tried this technique. Other people, with NO relaxation or concentration skills at all, are looking at several months training before they will get out. ---------- Robert Bruce ------------- rsb@tower.com.au ---------- Your comments, experiences and requests for help and advice are most welcome. If corresponding via email, however, please keep your text to a minimum and please don't send great chunks of my work back to me. Thanks in advance for your consideration. ---- ------------- http://www.tower.com.au/~rsb/ ----------------- TREATISE ON ASTRAL PROJECTION Volume II - v1.1 Part 5 by Robert Bruce Copyright(C) 2 July 1994 ASTRAL ROPE A key ingredient to the new projection techniques is an invisible, imaginary ROPE hanging from your ceiling. This ROPE will be used to exert dynamic pressure at a single point on your astral body to force its separation from the physical. The ROPE technique is similar, but more direct and hence more effective than other more passive and indirect methods, such as reaching out and pulling vibrations into you, or visualizing yourself in front of yourself. The idea of pulling vibrations into you is vaguely illogical, if you understand the mechanics of projection. The vibrations are an effect and NOT a cause of projection. When enough pressure is exerted on the astral body to loosen it sufficiently, the energy body expands and energy flows through the chakra system to be stored in the energy body. This flow of energy through the hundreds of chakras and their connecting web, or meridians, CAUSES these vibrations. This normally happens, unnoticed, during sleep. PUTTING THE PRESSURE ON The more passive, indirect methods of projection do exert some pressure on the astral body to separate, but over a wide area. They still shift the point of consciousness out of the body, albeit obtusely. Any mental action that exteriorizes the point of consciousness will exert some pressure on the astral body. The action of pulling yourself hand over hand up a rope is a strong, one pointed, natural action that is easy to imagine yourself doing. The ROPE technique concentrates ALL your mental resources into one strong, DYNAMIC action, which exerts a high level of pressure directly on a single point of the astral body. There are many other, more subtle, ways that exert pressure on the astral body as well. Many of these are unsuspected for what they are. Most meditation exercises, for example, exert PASSIVE pressure on the astral body. You may imagine you are going down in a lift, falling, climbing down a ladder, or just floating downwards. Whatever the technique, it is designed to reduce brain activity. Any self induced, inward falling sensation places passive pressure on the astral body, which will cause brain activity to lower and bring on the trance state where a deeper level of the mind is revealed. The action of inward falling obtusely shifts the consciousness out of the body, exerting passive pressure on the astral body over a wide area, but in the reverse to that needed for projection, i.e., general downwards pressure. This, in a way, is like trying to get your astral body to FALL out of your physical body on its own, i.e., your point of consciousness tries to FALL, downwards, out of the physical body. What most people do to project is to either exert forward, passive pressure on the astral body, by visualizing themselves floating out of themselves, and HOPE, they can make it happen, i.e., trigger the projection reflex. Or, they try a more direct method, such as visualizing themselves out of their body, which is very, very, difficult. Lets face it, 99% of people can't visualize for peanuts and the act of mentally visualizing yourself OUT of your body, AND shifting your consciousness INTO this visualization is almost impossible for most people. The other popular method is to try to pull vibrations into you. This method is slightly more effective than most as it exerts some pressure at a single point, but it is still an indirect mental action and, therefore, obtuse. All the above, and the general lack of information about the mechanics of projection, i.e., HOW it happens, accounts for the extremely high failure rate amongst people learning to project. Holding passive pressure, over a wide area, on the astral body, for long enough, WILL activate the projection reflex, eventually. But this can take a long time and can be mentally exhausting. I have developed, through recent research, a better, faster and more dynamic method of projection that is very effective. I call this technique simply ROPE. It is not that using an imaginary rope for projection is such a new idea, it's not, but the understanding of the mechanics of it and the application of this knowledge to ROPE is. If you fully understand how a thing works, you can use that thing more efficiently and, therefore, get better results. The new ROPE method overcomes the general misdirection of mental resources and the chronic waste of mental energy caused by the usual lengthy procedures needed for projection. ROPE shortens the time needed to cause a projection and optimizes the use of available energy. One of the most important ingredients for a successful projection is to be properly motivated. Without this motivation you will not have enough mental energy to succeed and will either fall asleep or forget the projection afterwards. It is, therefore, important to keep preparation time as short as possible so it is not such a daunting and mentally exhausting task. One thing a new projector has in abundance is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is pure mental energy. ROPE, plus the understanding of HOW it works, harnesses and makes better use of this energy resource and vastly improves the success rate. Getting The Feel Of Rope Pin a length of ribbon, string or rope to the ceiling above you. Have it hanging within arms reach so you can easily reach up and touch it. Reach out and touch it frequently, until you are used to where it is in your mind. This ribbon is only a tactile aide. By being able to reach out and touch the ribbon, you used to the spatial coordinates of where the invisible, imaginary ROPE is. This grows both in your mind and hence as a thought form, making it easier to imagine yourself reaching out and climbing the ROPE with your imaginary HANDS. Note: You do NOT have to actually visualize, or see, the ROPE at any time, just know where it is supposed to be. This method uses NO visualization at all. Reaching out and pulling on this invisible, imaginary ROPE with your imaginary HANDS shifts the bodily awareness induced point of consciousness, out of the body, with a strong natural action that puts direct pressure on one point of the astralbody. Active Chakra One important point, if you happen to have more activity in your Brow Chakra, rather than in your Heart Chakra, which is sometimes the case. Move the position of your imaginary ROPE so your arms would be at a 45-degree angle above your head. If you use the visual aide, ribbon, move this so it is hanging down over your head, rather than over your chest. Changing the angle of the ROPE shifts the point of pressure you are exerting on your astral body to the most active chakra area and gives better results. In any case, position the angle of the ROPE at the most natural, and easy to imagine attitude for you. It is important that the angle and position of the imaginary ROPE feels natural. Experiment with this angle until it feels right for you. ARE YOU READY TO PROJECT? All the exercises in the previous parts of this series ARE necessary training for projection. They are, however, not all needed, in themselves, for the projection process. If you do all the relaxation, mental calming, mental falling, chakra opening and energy raising exercises during the actual projection, you can use up your supply of mental energy. This can cause mental exhaustion and you may find yourself short of energy and willpower for the all-important exit. All the exercises should be done separately from the projection itself. They are training and development exercises, designed to improve control over body and mind and to increase the flow of energy through the chakras. This is like working out in a gym as a part of football training. You don't actually use these exercises to play football; they just improve your fitness and strength so you are able to play football effectively. Do the training exercises separately UNLESS you are trying for an advanced, real time projection. It is, then, still necessary to go through the full procedure, and activate all the chakras, prior to the actual projection. The whole point of learning to project is to get your astral body to separate from the physical while fully conscious. The earlier you get a fully conscious projection the better. Otherwise, you may eventually give it all up as just too difficult. Therefore, I strongly suggest all beginners' concentrate on the simplest, most effective way of getting a conscious projection. Once you have some projection experiences under your belt you can try for some of the more advanced, and hence, more difficult, types of projection. By doing the training exercises you have learned to relax your body, to clear your mind and to concentrate. You have begun to develop (MBA) (mobile bodily awareness) and how to use MBA, i.e., using your imaginary HANDS to perform certain tasks both inside and outside of your body. You have also begun to awak