Excellent post Greytraveller

Many of the people on this board are unfamiliar with the origins of OBE research and with its early pioneers.  These include Oliver Fox, Sylvan Muldoon, "Yram", Vincent Turvey etc etc.  I used to read a lot of theosophical literature because at the time it was the only readily available knowledge from an Eastern perspective.

The accounts in particular of Sylvan Muldoon differ from the accounts of modern projectors, in that he was exclsuively what we would today call an RTZ projector.  In fact if you believe in Theosphical theories, he was an "etheric  projector" rather than an astral projector.

I mentioned Dr Robert Crookall.  Like Myers he collected many many hundreds of cases of OBE experiences and published them in numerous books.  He was prolific in advertising the subject.  Today we hear of the life histories of a small number of astral travellers, Monroe, Bruce, Buhlman, Peterson, Moen etc.  But there is in fact a treasure trove of probably thousands of accounts from ordinary individuals, whose experiences are fascinating to read.  This treasure trove probably adds more weight to the argument  that these experiences are "real" than any single book by Monroe or whoever:

http://www.amazon.com/Study-Practice-Astral-Projection/dp/0806505478

I have never read the volume you refered to but I think I'll get hold of a copy now.  I've always known about it.

Is it going to be the fault of the prevailing spiritual/philosophical/religious theories or movements, or is it going to be the fault of the people that will weave them into a personal and political philosophy

Yes that makes sense to me too.  Taking a philosophy and twisting it doesn't discredit the original philosophy.

Awww this is the Bible Code all over again... please give me a break!

Just a minute "Bible Code" contains 9 letters and my last sentance contained 56 characters... 5+6 = 11

Wow!

Still - it was a good email - I think I'll send it on, with the tag line "Send this onto 11 friends and you will receive good fortune within 11 days"  !!!

(sorry paint1...  no offense.... what Kazbadan said... )

Theosophy as CFTraveler mentions is really Eastern Mysticism rebranded for a western audience.  I was always suspicious about it, because it seemed that the main proponents, Helena Balavatsky, Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant, seemed to be far too accurate and identical in their clairvoyant observations.

It seemed rather contrived to me.  Also Leadbeater's reputation was tarnished by accusations of an unhealthy interest in young boys.  I think the general principles are of interest though, and there is some overlap in Theosophical teachings and more contemporary ideas.  What we might describe as focus levels, they call "planes".  We have four focus levels, compared to their seven or so "planes" (physical, etheric, astral, mental, causal, devachanic... ?).  They also made a lot of observations about the human aura which are still of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Webster_Leadbeater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_plane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_body

In addition to suggestion he also reads his subjects by obtaining information from small "tells" and visual cues.  Some feats of mentalism also involve reading tiny muscle movements.  A common feat is to simply hold the subject's wrist and use tiny cues in muscle tone to get the subject to lead the "reader" to a hidden object.  One famous mentalist actually used this wrist holding technique to drive a car blidfolded, using only the tiny muscle ques from his passenger who obviously responded with horror when a bend or other obstale appeared. It wasn't a trick, the blindfold was real.  The technique is described in this book, the classic gold standard introduction to this topic:

http://www.wizmomagic.co.uk/steps-mentalism-corinda-hardback-p-85.html
http://www.magicbox.uk.com/shop.php/shop/books-and-dvds/magic-books/13-steps-to-mentalism/p_23.html

So where do muscle reading and face reading stop being "intuition" and start to become "ESP".  I don't know, but Derren Brown is adamant that he's no psychic.

Derren is great.  Sometimes I can figure out how he does his stuff and I can see that it's pure trickery.  Other times I'm mystified, so I reckon he's using some intuitive "reading" tecnique.  The line between intuition and ESP is fine.  I do wonder therefore, whether he is actually a psychic in denial.

I've been missing his recent series, but I just set it to series link on my Sky+ box.

He's very impressive, but remember that most of his effects are tricks.  They are not what they seem!  In other words he pre-implants suggestions into people's minds, via extraordinarily elaborate techniques.  Then when they "perform" they are simply recollecting the pre-implanted suggestions.  I didn't see the show, but any act of remote viewing would have been David Tenant recounting suggestions which had been implanted subliminally, via extremely elaborate set-ups, running for weeks before hand.  The "target" location would have been known obviously to Derren and suggestions about this location implanted in advance.

Don't get me wrong, Derren is superb, but it's a trick...!

Dr Michio Kaku narrates his ideas. This excellent series about the applications of modern science, in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotech and quantum physics etc is being repeated.  I think it's being shown on BBC2 every wednesday at 11:20pm.  I think he's rather over-optimistic but it's definitely worth a look.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/visions-future.shtml

These ideas sounds very much influenced by Theosophy to me.  F W Myers was a scientist and member of the Society for Psychical research around about 1900 I think.  Theosophy was all the rage at the time and I think he drew his ideas from the movement.

Have you read any of the books by Dr Robert Crookall?  He was one of the most prolific OBE researchers of the last century and proposed similar ideas such as an interim "hades" like zone (what we would call the RTZ) between the physical and astral.  After death people experience a life review of the type you mentioned and spend a short time in this "hades" zone before passing onto the astral.  The time spent was usually about 3 days as this was the length of time needed to shed the "etheric" matter clinging to the double before it passed on.  Some souls become "stuck" in hades and become "ghosts".  Just wondered if you read any of Crookall's books?

I got a few of Dr Crookall's books kindly sent over to me for FREE from India, after an innocent inquiry for research materials for a thesis I was writing on OBEs some years ago.

Interesting Clarky... The cord is described differently by different people.  Sometimes it's described as a cord, other times as a tape, sometimes attached to the solar plexus, other times to the head, sometimes it's straight other times wafty.

Sylvan muldoon gives a very precise dsecription in "The Projection of the Astral Body".  All of his experiences were in the RTZ.  Perhaps it's an RTZ thing.  Perhaps we have different "doubles" one for the RTZ, one for the astral etc. The RTZ double might be the only one which is attached by a cord.  This is the old way of thinking.  These days people talk more about phasing and focus levels rather than etheric and astral bodies.

I have no idea what the truth is....  the only time I saw the cord was when I was close to my physical body in my bedroom.  Have never seen it in the astral.

Hi Tayesin

Thanks for the feedback.  It's interesting that you say people tend to disconnect from their physical bodies as they go deeper or longer into the experience.  As you say, this makes it sound more like an AP experience than what I called a "waking dream".

I started this thread just to publicise GM Glaskell's book, as this little heard of method seems to be a succesful way for people to experience AP, without all the normal practice and preliminary work.  Maybe some people might be interested enough to get hold of old copies of the book from somewhere.

Thanks for the compliment about the avatar.  yes I like it too... 

In my experience, the astral cord is very rarely visible.  I have only seen it once and then it was more like a tape wafting around my bedroom.  It wasn't cord like at all.

Regarding distinguishing the deceased from other projectors, on those occasions when I've mixed with people who I assumed to be "deceased" going about their business, there was no way to distinguish them from people who were "projecting" (people who still have a physical body - like me).  Similarly, they did not seem to really be aware that I was "projecting" until I told them, and then the reaction was one of surprise "oh so your one of those".

I don't think you can easily tell.

1. I once projected to what appeared to be a parallel existence.  It was a life which I could have taken if I had followed a different path.  In this other life I was a lawyer and had a wife, young kids, big house etc.  It felt like a good life.  My impression at the time was that this was a parallel existence, or a potential alternate existence which was being shown to me.

2. I have looked through my house.  But it was weird.  I was floating by the eves in the back garden and tried to look through into the house.  What actually happened was a hole opened up in the brickwork and i saw through to the first room. Then the whole opened up again and I saw through to the next room.  And so on until i was looking at the front garden.  It wasn't what i expected, at all...

I don't know about everyone else but i still personally think that the permanent death of your body is the only real way to know for a 100% fact if there is an afterlife or not

After you then!    You're correct of course, but the NDE evidence is strong.

Actually when you say the weren't "really" dead... zero EEG and zero blood supply is the best definition of clinical death we have today.  It's the best.  But i know what you mean.

OBE does NOT prove that we continue to exist after the physical body dies.  That's because the physical body is alive and (usually) healthy at the time, and we can not discount the possibility that it's all happening courtesy of a physical brain.  It DOES (in my experience) prove that ESP is real, courtesy of information obtained whilst OBE which we could not know, by use of the physical senses.

On the other hand numerous NDE studies DO in fact prove that we can survive without a physical body.  As I have said on other threads there are numerous examples of people experiencing consciousness and awareness of their surroundings whilst flatlined in the operating theatre.  This is a matter of fact.

It is a routine medical practice in some forms of brain surgery to reduce the EEG and blood supply to zero for several minutes whilst performing brain surgery.  The brain can survive without damage in this condition for a few minutes, before cell necrosys begins.  People who have undergone this procedure have reported that they were conscious, floating in the operating theatre, and were able to report details of conversations, tools used etc whilst they were flatlined.

In a nutshell, they were clinically dead, as measured by EEG and blood flow, and yet they exhibited perfect consciousness and perfect awarenness whilst clinically dead.

Hard to explain...

Hi Tayesin, that's most interesting. 

In his book GM Glaskin also reports a high success rate, so it's interesting to get independent confirmation of this.  A very interesting experience, but it requires a small group of like-minded people to actually practice it, it's not something we can do alone.  It's always fascinated me, though I've never tried it.

You do say that once a person has the past life experience they can easily reconnect with it.  By this do you mean that a subject can re-enter the "waking dream" state again by himself, simply by relaxing and "remembering the feeling" or is the reconnection less vivid than the original experience?

btw, you mention that you have clients, what exactly is it that you practise/teach, if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks!