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Could i conjure a Fortress of Iron Will? Well, i suppose if i could imagine such a thing, in practice it would occur. But then it would mean that I NEEDED it to occur, because something happened OBE that required my mental/psychic protection. Which leads back to the fact that Demogorgon, or Orcus, or other real or imagined demons or Negs are really figments of a grand a glorious design by God, for God (and us, although i don't think most people realize it). This is so cool.

The more i learn and plug the pieces together, i realize there really is nothing to truly fear. Now, things can scare us, which is normal, but the fear is surrmountable. Here and in the non-physical.

Wow, this is great connecting with someone else on a gamer level! I can really see now why my mom and dad were always so scared by it. It revealed to my little mind darker and more esoteric aspects of our reality that were outside organized religion.  The occult is not casting lightning bolts and fireballs, it is connecting with the Divine through an alternate sort of prayer. Not that there is anything wrong with regular prayer, it works quite well. OF course the occult can get you into more trouble than going to Sunday School, so i see why people are afraid of it.

The more i think about it, the more i realize that probably EVERY Old World Religion, sect, cult had its basis in some sort of spirit worship, and i have a much better idea as to what those beings were. Elemental Beings for the most part could have HUNDREDS of names, Greek or Roman or Summerian and early man gave them such credibility because Nature is what they had. Here comes Science and debunks the old ways with new logic, and the practice of magic slips away and is supplanted by shallow thinking. Well, not always shallow, but our society in general prefers not to think of the supernatural.

I've never fought any of those major demons or princes like you have thelou, except Pazuzu once. I think when i was younger i was scared to look at them, or even read about them, but they were always favorite enemies for gamers, and still are! What else is the epitome of good? Enemies that inflict suffering just for the suffering, that oppose all that is just and lawful?

I could discuss this further thelou, if you don't mind, or anyone else that wants to take a crack at theology/metaphysics/D&D.

Good thread. Just to throw this out, for interested writers there are TONS of free online workshops. Critters is the one i write and it has fantastically helped craft my skills. You can never learn too much about writing, believe me.

YEah, i'm a gamer. But not like i was when i was a kid. At 31, i own an Xbox and i've been playing Halo for what, almost 3 YEARS now! The best game ever ever ever made. Halo 2 looks like it will blow away the original, especially from the E3 previews. Doom3...well, it looks good, i'll give it that, but i don't think it will be the best. Half Life 2...oh baby...talk about virtual reality. These games are sucking you into their world more and more.

Hey, how about this idea? Projecting into the world of Halo or Half Life or Doom?  A lot of serious imagination went into those games, i bet they make a helluva astral story...

What is sad is that all of this humanity killing humanity is so pointless. It really is a clear sign of how little our society in general has advanced. Most people believe that what they need must be taken by force. It's even funnier how most countries do what they do in the name of God, and ask God to defeat their "evil" enemies. We've advanced technologically, and continue to do so, but most people believe the world they are in is the only one that exists. And therefore believe it must be dreadfully important.

Well, i've owned so many books over the years they all kind of jumble up now. The monster books were always my favorites; i must own ten of them for 3rd edition now. The latest is called The Book of Fiends. Hey, a book of Negs! Some are actually drawn from A. Crowleys research. The way D&D approaches the spirit world is a pseduo-Judea Christian outlook. Demons and Devils are there to tempt mankind, and those that succumb to sin live out their afterlife tortured by demons that specialize in lust, or greed, or skimping out on your child support. Now, this has LOTS of overlap with what i've been learning. Basically, everything that ever was and ever will be imagined was created in Heaven first. I believe that higher lifeforms (angels if you will) are us in another role. We decide a lot of WHY we come to earth, what we want to learn and what we want to take with us there and how we want to die. Isn't that trippy? We decide how we want to die, and not only are we not scared but we look forward to it! The physical life, this illusion, is a drop in the bucket for our spiritual counterpart, that part that rules the mind and body. I don't think most people understand this, although i'd better posters on this board do. What great people you all are.

Anyway, back to D&D, my point is that using our considerable powers of imagination, which is the greatest gift God has given us, for He in fact Imagined us himself (and we are God, remembering what We are) game designers have plumbed the length and breadth of mythology and created a game out of it. Now, let's take for example a classic D&D villian, Demogorgon, he of the 2 babboon heads. This was an old-world diety, not necessarily evil like in the gamebooks. I've tried to research online to find out where it came from, and it has skirted through the eons in a variety of roles. Now, if Mankind knows and has recorded this demon/spirit/projection, then it exists on the Astral. It has a thought-counterpart. Is it a violent, cunning Neg, or a projection of people's fears? I've come across so many many pieces to the cosmic puzzle of life from many different authors, religions, teachings and plain old prayer, and it is wonderful to see the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

So, i suppose Demogorgon is as real as one wishes it to be, and as fearful as others assume it to be.

Lou, do you think my preconceived notions woudl be a help or a hindrance in the astral? I really wouldn't want to meet such a thing unless i had a Fortress of Iron Will against its lies. Heh, i love gamer-talk.

thelou, so you were a gamer too back in the day!  That's great. It's really just a wonderful story-telling medium, but damn, over the years D&D has opened my mind to just about every single esoteric concept known to man, wrapped up in the package of fantasy and dice. I have to admit, i'm intrigued by your story you haven't told yet. Between you and me, even if in a private post, i would like to hear your story. I think i understand enough of this to realize that anything and everything mankind has every thought or imagined resides in the astral, so the only thing to fear is really projections of our own subconscious. If you don't understand that you can take a lot of negativity with you.

So, what i am gathering is that these Negative Beings are there all the time, but they're SUPPOSED to be there. In our physical life we deal with them all the time, we just might not know it. By drawing on psychic powers and opening oneself up to those possibilities, we catch a glimpse of the plan God has for us, and the environment in which he wants it to happen. When projecting, one places him or herself into a state where you can interact with these beings. Many want to cause fear, but resisting fear is one method of soul-strengthening. God allows these beings to exist for a purpose, and such a divine purpose it is.

I can see how telling scary stories would be detrimental to the purpose of most travelers. When you are venturing in a continuum constructed mostly by your mind, negative thoughts/fear/violence will do the same thing to you as in the physical. Whereas Love, positive feelings, compassion and Bravery will aid you tremendously, just as they do in the physical.

Of course, this all comes from a guy who hasn't tried OBE yet! I just want to know the rules before i do anything rash. And like i said, as an old time Dungeon Master and Call of Cthulhu Keeper, i've always enjoyed monsters, the Dark, and things that go bump in the night. My imagination roils with them, although i don't wallow in it.

Good Lord, hannah! The more posts i read it seems like travelers are regularly attacked by psychic leeches. None seem especially dangerous, more just annoying, time-consuming and sometimes terrifying. I wonder what there objectives are? Maybe they ARE mindless like leeches, and just want to siphon off your psychic aura, whatever that might be. But others seem more persistent, either lost intelligences trying to reach a higher state of consciousness by tagging along, or actual alien intelligences with agendas we don't understand. This is all very enlightening conversation. Thanks everyone for posting your experiences...

Oh, it sounds like fun, i admit it. Flying, thought forms, akashic pulses; see, this is the stuff of D&D from the early 80's, and Lo and Behold, those geeky game designers weren't making it all up! And neither were the gurus and Tibetan monks and other Grand Masters. It's nice to know that magic is real...makes life that much more interesting:)

I agree that if you're going to project, do so with as much knowledge as possible. Now, for me, well...i'm a horror movie fan. I'm a long time d&d gamer. I would enter the astral EXPECTING a fight, and my very thinking it would probably initiate it. My imagination is so chock full of gooey monsters that part of me would enjoy seeing them, and then i'm sure i would promptly regret it. So, as curious as i am, i like my scares on the big screen, not the the screen in my head.

But i think the basic issue is that people don't astrally project to scare themselves, although from what i've read it's bound to happen eventually. Spiritual progress is the goal, and it will happen naturally enough for everyone. How much knowledge ahead of time is too much? I wonder how many people over the course of humankind have lost their minds permanently with energies they could not control/understand.

I'm surprised that anyone posting to this site wouldn't believe in a divine being, but i suppose this happens all the time.

So yes, despite scant evidence, there is a God. A line of reasoning that always rang true for me is this:

Consider you are God. You Know All. You See All. You ARE All. There is nothing in all of Creation that is not of, by and for God. Sound fun? Not really, and God didn't think so either. So God exercises the greatest abililty he has (or she, it's just a pronoun)= IMAGINATION. Coincidentally, Mankind was created in God's image, and imagination is our greatest ability too. Even when astrally projecting you are using your Imagination to move, to create reality, to create visions of what could be.

Back on track, God, using his extraordinary powers of imagination, creates a complex multiverse with various life forms and agendas. ALL of these creatures forget Who and What and Where they came from. In other words, God deliberately lets uncountable pieces of Himself forget who He is, so he can experience the Joy of finding out again for the first time. That is what mankind is here for. To learn and Grow and be safe and content.  Fear is really the only thing to fear, and there are beings out there that sow fear, because for there to be utter love and compassion in the universe, there must be something that is NOT love and compassion.

So, that's one of my takes on it. There are other interpretations, but my line of thought lets me sleep easy at night. I worry a little about the people who astrally project when they don't even know who they are spiritually. They are opening themselves up to hellacious attack from beings that want to cause you misery and confusion, just because you're there.