Today, the two odd effects are linked by a study that backs the idea that the near-death experience is a biological experience, rather than anything to do with a spiritual dimension, a glimpse of heaven or the existence of the soul.

er.. excuse me?

How did you work this one out exactly?

I have found that the receiver components in my tv set are responsible for screwing up my tv picture. That must mean that there is no such thing as an external signal.

Well, as research on Castenada's work shows, he has gathered a wealth of spiritual and occult lore from many different traditions and re-packaged them in a 'shamanic style', so if people ask me 'do his books have any value?'

I would say yes. Many of these ideas are valid ideas and he communicates them so well as he is such a good writer; so yes, Castenada is well recomended and his books are of great value. Those who dismiss him 'because he is a fraud' are kind of missing the point.

As an earlier poster said, its the message that's important, not the messenger.

Not that I agree with all the concepts in Castenada's books of course. His idea of transforming into pure energy is nothing short of total science fiction! But his books do contain a wealth of valuable info and great insights nontheless.

Doug

I've seen the doc.

I didnt like what I saw.

No matter how much you like his books, the evidence is too hard to ignore that he was a fraud in the sense that his books were not revelations from 'Don Juan' or genuine Yaqui mystical knowlege.

What is true was that he was a fantastic writer. Added to that he had a genuine knowlege of *real* shamanic practice and Yaqui tradition thanks to his research as a trainee anthropologist. Unfortunately the real Yaqui shamanic system is nothing like what is presented in the books. The real shamans are actually more concerned with practical matters like getting good harvests and ensuring fertility of the tribe etc.

What appears to have happened is that Castenada saw a gap in the market for a new approach to new age teachings (it was the 1960s after all). What he did was start to read mystical/occult literatutre from lots and lots of different sources, from all traditions.

He then 'repackaged' them but reinterpreted them in a 'shamanic style', using shamanic terminology and themes to give it all a fresh approach. As Castenada was such a great writer, this approach works very well.

Many people have found that his books do have very real spiritual value. This is actually not suprising, as Castenada researched and read a wide variety of occult/mystical literature and incorporated it into his shamanic system, so its no wonder that many of the ideas hit home to people.

However, he is a fraud in that he definately tried to suggest that this material was all genuine mystical knowlege handed down to him from Yaqui shamans and the character 'Don Juan'. This is untrue.

In the end he completely misrepresented Yaqui culture and actually had a huge negative impact on the tribe as they have since been continually accosted by bus-loads of hippies looking for 'don juan', who it appears, never really existed.

In the last years of his life, Castenada decended into the usual depressing stereotype cult leader, complete with sex slaves etc.

After his death, his three closest diciples/sex slaves comitted suicide, and one of them drove out into the desert and seemingly took a final walk into the baking heat.

It was a sorry end.

Having said all this, there is no doubt however that his books are a great read and do contain genuine spiritual knowlege and given a nice shamanic theme thanks to his great writing style. Just be on your guard and remember to take some of it with suitable pinches of salt.

I have never used brow chakra activity intentially for phasing, but as you say, sometimes it comes on at random (like when I'm walking along the street!), and this time it was while in bed doing a phasing exercise.

This is the first time that brow chakra activity has ever resulted in a phasing experience so I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe there is a connection, but energy movements and chakra activity are not needed for phasing work and indeed are usually regarded as a distraction.

I will try this again and see if I can get this result again.  Others may want to have a go and see as well.

In the past, I have found that increased brow activity has resulted in conventional OBE experiences (ie real time zone) but never to anything beyond that.

This morning I was lying in bed and started noticing a pressure building behind my forehead which I tend to associate with my brow chakra or energy center opening up. The pressure tends to build up further and further until it feels like something in my head is going to snap.

Usually it fades before anything happens but this time I tried pushing it to see what would happen. The pressure built up and up and next thing I knew there was a moment of disorientation and then I was feeling a sense of myself moving backwards into the 3d blackness. This was quite interesting as I have noticed in the past that I seem to find it easier to enter the 3d blackness state by moving into it backwards. I felt myself rushing backwards into the blackness with increasing momentum and over time I started to get impressions of some kind of tunnel that I was travelling through.

At this point I decided to see if I could find a way to emerge in the astral somewhere and no sooner had I thought this than a astral window seemed to open up in front of me and i emerged into a wooded environment very much like the area around my old school.

I started walking around and checking things out. Everything seemed very real. It was actually raining slightly and i was able to feel the drizzle on my face and see the droplets of rain falling off tree branches.

The weird thing was the people. I did come across a few people walking around and some of them said hello as I walked past, the problem was that the people were cartoon-like! The environment was real enough but the people were cartoon images of people.. very weird.

I know it was some kind of overlay experience that was causing me to see people in this way and I tried my best to mentally correct the image and over time the people I came across began looking more lifelike.

I passed a woman on a nearby street and asked her what year it was, as everything seemed so normal that I thought i might even be in the real time physical zone somewhere.

The woman seemed a bit confused by my question (no wonder!) but replied and said that it was 2014!

That's about it really, I spent a few minutes walking around some street areas and the nearby park area that I had originally 'landed' in, before I began to feel things wobbling and becoming indistinct, when the quality of the experience declines and I tend to return to normal waking consciousness.

The good news is that you only really need Gateway Wave 1.

Buy that and then refer to the all-time classic 'Gateway wave1 pointers' thread by Frank and you won't go far wrong.

Doug

Bang on target.

Its all about where you are focusing your attention... the physical or the non physical spectrum of consciousness.

Hi Andrew,

You never know, perhaps these beings/people are inhabitants of another physical world system, such as what Frank has mentioned in the past. He discovered that there are many, many alternate physical worlds, and people can travel between them, either physically or non-physically. What is more, he discovered that there are some of these inhabitants who are quite aware of us here in this world, and they may be interacting in some way.

As for their appearance, I'm not sure if this is some kind of overlay, ie your own perception distorting things or whether they actually do look like that! Maybe they do!

Doug

Shining one,

These kinds of fear reactions are very common, especially for first timers. Part of this is due to the fact that part of your mind is still shocked that all this is real after all! You have to realise that there is nothing to fear and no harm can come to you. However, you should also be aware that 'thought = action' in the astral world so if you have an attitude of fear then this will fuel fear genereated scenarios, which then generate more fear and so on.


You have to nail the fear from the start and not allow it to get on top of you.

For a start you should know that the old fears of 'not being able to get back in' are rubbish.

The fact is, it is the opposite you should be concerned about: the hard part is trying to keep out!

Also there are no demons or devils waiting to possess you or eat you etc. There are only fear projections, generated by your own internal fear which will sometimes manifest as demons, devils and anything else your mind can dream up to perpetuate the fear generatred scenarios. In such situations end the experience right away. Then try again, but try to keep your fear under control and over time you will be able to project without any of these fearful situations occuring, or feelings of foreboding etc
These sensations are all manifistations of personal fear and are quite understandable, but you will have to conquer them if you want to make any progress. Keep trying!

easier to dissolve our identity and perceive in energy/wave terms.


When engaging with F4 you are not really 'dissolving your identity' though. This is more an eastern buddhist idea which you are using to interprete the F4 experience.

With F4, you are still 'you' and your 'identity', its just that 'you' and your 'identity' have just become WAY bigger, so much so that your current 'identity' in your here-and-now life forms just one tiny stroke in a much larger canvas, but that stroke is still a real one.

Frank hasnt given any direct instructions for that as yet, as he was only just getting his head around the issue himself.

Certainly it will involve you widening your awareness yet further until some kind of switch will take place, and your narrow F1 perspective will widen to the much wider F4 perspective. The clues will be in his posts, but as far as I am aware, I havent yet come across anyone who has got as far as Frank in his explorations. If anyone has or you know anyone who has, then do let us know!

I think it may be case that there are probably quite a few of us who may have had some kind of F4 experience without realising what was going on. I believe I may have been somewhere close to it at one point, completely by accident, but I haven't been able to replicate it since.
Doug

For those of you that want to access some of Frank's excellent practical phasing advice, I can do no better than guide you towards his classic 'Gateway Wave1 Pointers' thread.

It doesnt matter if you have never used The Monroe Institute's Gateway Series CDs, because the practical phasing advice that Frank provides here is really useful whether or not you use the CDs.
Here is the link(s) to the thread:

This is the original starter post by Frank:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave_1_pointers_original_post_by_frank-t25243.0.html

And here is the continuing thread with all the responses to this post, along with Frank's on-going advice and answers to questions:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave1_pointers-t1832.0.html


Enjoy!

Doug

For those of you that want to access some of Frank's excellent practical phasing advice, I can do no better than guide you towards his classic 'Gateway Wave1 Pointers' thread.

It doesnt matter if you have never used The Monroe Institute's Gateway Series CDs, because the practical phasing advice that Frank provides here is really useful whether or not you use the CDs.
Here is the link(s) to the thread:

This is the original starter post by Frank:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave_1_pointers_original_post_by_frank-t25243.0.html

And here is the continuing thread with all the responses to this post, along with Frank's on-going advice and answers to questions:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave1_pointers-t1832.0.html


Enjoy!

Doug

For those of you that want to access some of Frank's excellent practical phasing advice, I can do no better than guide you towards his classic 'Gateway Wave1 Pointers' thread.

It doesnt matter if you have never used The Monroe Institute's Gateway Series CDs, because the practical phasing advice that Frank provides here is really useful whether or not you use the CDs.
Here is the link(s) to the thread:

This is the original starter post by Frank:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave_1_pointers_original_post_by_frank-t25243.0.html

And here is the continuing thread with all the responses to this post, along with Frank's on-going advice and answers to questions:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave1_pointers-t1832.0.html


Enjoy!

Doug

For those of you that want to access some of Frank's excellent practical phasing advice, I can do no better than guide you towards his classic 'Gateway Wave1 Pointers' thread.

It doesnt matter if you have never used The Monroe Institute's Gateway Series CDs, because the practical phasing advice that Frank provides here is really useful whether or not you use the CDs.
Here is the link(s) to the thread:

This is the original starter post by Frank:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave_1_pointers_original_post_by_frank-t25243.0.html

And here is the continuing thread with all the responses to this post, along with Frank's on-going advice and answers to questions:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/gateway_wave1_pointers-t1832.0.html


Enjoy!

Doug