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Pauli2
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« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2011, 23:03:08 » |
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I use a grade from 0 - 10 (10 being the best/highest)
The Projection of The Astral Body, 1929, Sylvan J Muldoon & Hereward Carrington
Grade: 9.5
Sylvan Muldoon wrote this book in his twenties. At that time he was often sick, exactly by what illness is unknown to me, but he often had stomach pains and had to stay in bed over many years. From his time in bed he started doing OBEs, which he called Astral Projections.
The initial part of the book is written by H Carrington as he probably was one of the persons at the time who knew most of the OBE litterateur.
Most of the well-known OBEers, like Monroe, R Bruce and Buhlman have their own methods to go OBE and their own unique experiences of how an OBE commences.
Sylvan Muldoon is no exception. His OBEs often started with his astral body lifting from his bed in horizontal position at no control of his own. At this time he could do nothing and had to wait until his astral body had moved to an upright position at the foot-end of his bed.
Muldoon also noticed that there was some kind of cord connected between his physical body and his astral body. The thickness of the cord did become reduced from 2 inches (when both bodies were close to each other) to the thickness of a sewing thread/string (somewhere at 5 meters distance from his physical body).
The range where the the cord gradually became thinner as Sylvan moved away from his physical body, until the cord was as its minimum string diameter, Muldoon called the "cord activity range".
The cord never became thinner than a string when he move further away, outside cord range activity. Within cord range activity, Muldoon noticed that his astral body was pulled towards his physical body and he had to use some force to move away until he was outside cord range activity with his astral body.
Muldoon had observed how the astral body separated from both himself and others at sleep. Often the astral body stayed within a few feet or a few inches (partly within the physical body) from the physical body.
Most of Muldoon's OBEs were spontaneous, but at some times he managed to induce OBEs directly. But most often he managed to go OBE from an LD.
Muldoon claimed that there was a difference between the dream body, which one has in a dream, possible in an LD, compared to the astral body which he could move around with in the RTZ. (Muldoon didn't have a RTZ concept, so I'm just using it as a convenience, thanks to R Bruce.)
So while Muldoon was dreaming in an LD and being in his dream body, he figured out that his astral body was somewhere else, possible moving around with a mind of its own.
And thus Muldoon figured out different ways to move his astral body out of the "cord activity range", by methods which are described in his book. Once Muldoon had used one of his methods to encourage his astral body to move away from his physical body, Muldoon tried to move out of his LD, leaving his dream body.
Muldoon never knew if his astral body really moved, but by inducing certain needs, he hoped that his astral body would move some distance from his physical body. The reason for Muldoon not knowing if his astral body really had moved away, was that Muldoon awareness for some time was stuck in his dream body in an LD.
If Muldoon's astral body had moved out of cord activity range, for example left his bedroom and gone to a lake, Muldoon could phase from his dream body directly into his astral body at the RTZ. What happened to his dream body, he never seemed to know. Perhaps it stayed in dream land?
So in a way Muldoon transferred his awareness from his dream body to his astral body.
On the other hand, if Muldoon had failed to move his astral body far enough away from his physical body (out of cord activity range), he would enter his astral body from his dream body and he would then slam into his physical body by the pull of the cord inside the cord activity range and Muldoon would walk up in his physical body. Muldoon experienced a lot of body jolts.
It seems to me that almost all OBE experience of Muldoon are done in the RTZ, but he seemed to know that some people visited other places.
Muldoon also quotes other skilled persons of his time, who manage to make Moen-style retrievals, but it didn't seem to me that Muldoon ever made a retrieval of his own.
Interesting to note is that Muldoon did experience the mind-split effect, but couldn't seem to repeat the experience in any extent, but he quotes a few other OBEers of the time who repeatedly did experience mind-split, among others Dr Frederik van Eeden.
Muldoon makes a distinction between "dream consciousness" which he has in an LD, and "real consciousness" which he achieves when he enters his astral body.
Muldoon experienced some astral noise and some vibrational state.
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The book holds a slower tempo compared to books of today.
The book contains lots of observations and methods to induce OBE, with several other persons experiences quoted, partly thanks to H Carrington, one of the authority at the time on OBE matters.
What lowers the grade is that references are lacking, names of people are given, but the context from where the source exists are lacking. Persons mentioned may have been as well known as Monroe or RB in our days, but time has passed and a clear reference appendix is needed today.
Also, some scientific statements are outdated, for example Muldoon had no knowledge of biological or medical findings like the existence of DNA.
Further, some of Muldoon descriptions and methods could be a little more detailed as I had to do some re-reading of text that was a little spares at places.
The book seems incomplete to me as Muldoon meets too little "dead" people while projected.
Also, Muldoon could have used some concepts more consistently, instead of switching between names of the same concept like "phantom" and "astral body" to describe the same object.
LD of the time had various names, most often Muldoon uses the term "dream true".
For such a young writer so far back in time, Muldoon's work is still excellent.
I'm impressed how Muldoon's book hold a high quality all way through and even improves at the second half of the book when the content becomes more specific in details.
The Case for Astral Projection, 1936, Sylvan J Muldoon
Grade: 7.0
This book is not as impressive as Muldoon's first book, neither is it a very thick book of about 180 pages.
The purpose of the book is to provide the reader with as many cases, real occurrencies of astral projections as possible. At all times Muldoon keeps his quotes short, sometimes less than a page and almost no case descriptions longer than 5 pages.
Muldoon only provide one case of his own in this book.
The AP cases are from the time period starting with the second half of the 1800ies until the mid 1930ies. Many stories are from persons, who want to be anonymous.
The book starts slow, but gains in the long run. The cases become more interesting and remarkable.
I think the book holds a good collection of experiences related to AP, and recommend it for anyone interested in case studies from various people.
Among the weak points of the book is the old language, things have change since 1936 and I would also have wanted more specifics on actual experiments or some kind of deeper theory about the astral, as some people has entered worlds resembling Monroes higher Focus Levels.
Perhaps I would have wanted more specific references to the original texts, where such references were possible.
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