Messages

Meg..sorry..but i get the feeling you are taking the proverbial tinkle with this....

you obviously know him..thinkof him as hewas..the way he spoke..walked..talked..vividly as you can..send love to him..all you can do meantime..regularly as you can..can you do this??/

Donna and Jeff..if I was able to guarantee an OBE at will i would be willing to undergo randi's chalenge...I am only being curious..why( and i konw this topic is done to death already)..but why don't you prove this wonderful thing( which I can only expereince spontaneously..after sleep..)

i am never sure about how involved Guides and so on get involved..not very often at all..I agree with Robert on this....but Steiner has a good notion re asking questions of the dead..but as usual it takes a lot of ffort..you see this in many of his books..eg the Dead ar With us....

well I attended the gateway  a few years ago..it didnt work for me ( and i usually project once a month or so)...asi feel i did not achieve the body asleep mind awake state..out of the 22 folk there I was the only one apprently not to..but hey!that is only me..i have a lot of respect for the late Robert monroe but i feel it has gone far too new Agey and is a corporation now...all sorts of courses which are devoid of obe content and allied to the "feel good about yourself and the universe" type thing which is not for me but again thats only me...

Meg..when i was 17 i read Muldoon's classic "the projection of teh Astral Body"..picked it up by accident at a library in aberdeen..( if there ARE such things as accidents..) read it..was open minded..then foundmyself one morning out of body..purely spontaneous..or maybe after trying some of themetods outlined...

I totally disagree with the last post..I am totally against Guruism and have attended many courses at the IIPC..they most certainly do NOT worship at the feet of Vieira..I wouldnt endorse any sort of cultic thing like that....perhaps the last poster can indicate how many courses attended??

excellent last post..yep..read Noam Chomsky..USA freignpolicy has been a disgrace...more folks killed in Afghanistan than in twin towers..but that is apparently ok....I deplore what happend in USA but i deploreed gulf war in 1991(for oil..damn all to do with the crooked Kuwait regime)..vietnam cambodia etc etc....cheney?avoided fighting in Vietnam as did Dubya..his pop got him to jump a list of 100 000 to get into the national Guard.......

sorry on rereading my last post it is not very clear....but nothing in this ever is..until you are 100% conscious in an OBE..best thing as usual is to try to expereince the three different things..youll soon "know" the difference..words fail sometimes...

Lucid dream..you are aware you are dreaming while dreaming.....and can do stuff..
OBE - totally conscious in the "real world" ie you can see your physical body sometimes lying on the bed etc...usually means you are working in the real world or a copy of same and cannot usually manipulate the 2astral" environment like in a Lucid dream which is still of the nature of a "dream" environment...

Dunno why there is a call to shift the post elswhere..surely folk can "cope" with the points being made???we are all alive..havent been terorised in newYork,janin etc etc...so we can surely talk here and answer points without going all "delicate"..life is hard..sure enough

those who have had to face the death of loved ones under any tragic circumstances.will always question why?Fundamentalists in all religions have a lot to answer for with their skewed interpretations...how anyoine would think that killing innocent folks (regardless of karma) is a good thing and earns you heaven is beyond me..but what about the two million or so civilians killed in Vietnam?(Killing Commies for Christ) et c etc etc terrorism is not one sided ie all Moslem..there were a thousand twin towers in Vietnam Cambodia etc..more poeple (innocent) lost in Afghanistan due to UK and USA bombing..blood revenge which again will be paid for....I am AMAZED at those american famileis who lost loved ones in twin towers who said against Bush and blair they did not want Afghanistan bombed..true christians moslems atehists etc..God bless them and their love....

Hi Spastral..I am sorry to read of your loss..your loved one will be trying to get in touch with folks here for a few weeks after death..no doubt about it...i can only sympathise with the difficulty someotimes..I wrote a piece on robert's site "Suicide and OBE" which describes how I met my son ..but it was alas..so so momentary due to my emotional lack of control....and i suspect thisfragmentary nature of contact is the usual thing..for al sorts of reasons..but try..it is worth it...Robert has writtne about his contact with his son in AD...alos..rudolf steiner has a few good books on life after death and how to approach oru dead..especially "The dead are With us"..good luck

yep..sounds a great experience..i have been fortunate to meet with my son in the astral..but it was alas..too momentary..my emotions got the better of me and i shotmback into my body...but tremendous..nevertheless....

it is all subjective..I have over 200 books on astral projection and Imvery grateful for your post...i cannot remember if i have it or not......but apart from Astral Dynamics..my personal "best reads" are thatclasic "The projection of the Astral Body" by muldoon...( i have a couple of treasured signed copies by the man whose writings started me projecting...) ..and William Bulhmans adventures out of the body..(I think thats the wrong title..;_0 but his first book...

Stephen laberge is an excellent writer and researcher and I value his work but having experienced an awful lot of lucid dreasm, false awakwnings and out of body projections I do not agree with him at allthat lucid dreams are OBE's..totally differnt ultimately altough similar in many respects....I find I usually have a lucid dream prior to or subsequent to an out of body 100% conscious projection..I do not think La berge has ever had a fully cosncious "etheric plane" type projection..if he had he would acknowledge the difference i am sure...

You make good points Mark..( i apologise for the rushed post.toomany typos..no patience!!)....it is just that I have had this sort of expereince with a lot of people....they speak about their "astral travels"...etc..and in my view they are mostly..vivid imaginations..vivid dreams...not even lucid in many cases.......this leads sceptics ( I know i should care less what they think..but sadly I do)...to dismiss all our accounts....

I attended thew gateway experience lasst year...very enjoyable meeting like mided folks..well organised etc...when i got the Going Home tapes prior to the visit(ordered separately) I had a very short OBE while using them..nothing spectacular...when i went on the course there were approx. 20 people..two of  whom had experienced what i would term "clasical" OBE's..ie like sylvan muldoon, robert etc..one girl in aprticular said she was  wanting to STOP Obeing since it freaked her out..she said ..when we were lying in the cubicles listening to the tapes that she was going round us all trying to pull us out of our bodies..i was the only one who did not sense her doing this..she was quite an aggressive person..but i eventually asked her to describe exactly what she was doing/had experienced..in my opinion I told her that at best she was experiencing a "mental" projection..ie not an astral projection where you are actually aware of leaving your physical body etc..she eventually admitted this..so..there is the capacity to get into all these levels..they say..I was the Only onethere who did NOT get past focus 10..body asleep/mind awake....if i had I would have OBE's...I did not..and by the end of the week i got really fed up listening to the tapes...but that was my experience..i would encourage folks who are rely keen and have money to spare to go..sicne i greatly admire Robert Monroe..but i feel that the whole system now is to new Agey..and real OBE's are not really soughtafter..more the loving etc attitudes etc etc..nothingwrong with this but not for me..

Hi patty..that was a particularly fascinating account..like yourself I have had a good number of projections and have been fascinated and of course very puzzled by the fluctuations in perception.....that coke tag and can thing is very thought provoking...Ive written a few articles on robert's articles page which deal a little with the strange aspects of perceptions that occur..but Im nowhere near understanding why the symbolic merges with the "real" etc etc..fascinating stuff!please keep trying and comntributing to this aspect of projection..
michael

Donni....at a certain level you are quite correct that OBE doesnt prove life after death..those of us whohave OBe'd can only say that our consciousness has projected out of the pysical body....this might cease at death..but this would be at the same epistomological level as me saying that i cannot prove that this computer really exists or in fact that anything exists..ie.this computer..my house..the world and its auntie could merely be projections of "me"..this is the solipistic argument..ie the universe is "only me"..clearly absurd....but anyone is entitled to hold that belief....

Hi Atlas..just in passing i would note that the fact that I am an admirer of ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro , Che Guevera and think Joe SDtalin had a lot of good points doesnt make me a communist or materialist nor necessarily and admirer of the UK and USA foreign policies in the middle east etc...the main point in which i totally agree with you is that my political predilictions have no bearing on my ability to OBE....and I totally  respect and indeed admire your empirical attitude..ie you havent experienced the OBE but are ttoally open minded as to its factual possibility..in my case if i hadnt expereinced it i would tend to accept the susan blackmore/sceptical point of view more readily.But having had my own empirical proof I am only keen now as indicated earlier to develop my skills in order to attempt..again,..to achieve public proof...please keep attempting it..itmay very well happen..can I point you to an excellent site IIPC ..if you dont already know it.....great courses etc in obe training...

in actual fact as you are aware one can be of any religion and none to experience OBE..the buddhists who are atheist do so..and as you are also i am sure familiar with christian fundamentalists who belive astral projection is the devils work..read an intersting although laughable book the other week going on at considerable length re this very point....apprently we have to bleive in faith..not signs..well thanks but no thanks....I like my own empirical attempts to prove psychic events.....i have a lot of respect for most faiths and none and my abiolities to obe are not necessarily reliant on one or more particluar dogma..at least in my experience...

Atlas..I agree with your points as well..especiallythe bit where you state that there could be another explanation for lucid dreams and OBE's...I mentioned susan blackmore..as you know she started off the complete believer after smoking hash and having a stunning obe...the only one shes had...but she grew to reject it as "really" being out of the body since she saw roof tuiles which were differnet coloured than they really were...fair enough..Ive had a few real time projections where i saw absolutely no distortion in perception of the material world...only differnece i noted was a slight hazy outline....I konw for sure i really was out of my physical body which i saw...on the other hand ive projected many times into the "astral world"..where there were all sorts of amazing perceptions..totally conscious in myself...andparadoxically the reason i can convince myself if nobody else..is that..like sylvan muldoon I have no particular desire for "eternal life"..as he says "life is a curse"..he wished death was eternal oblivion...thing is I know there are spiritual beings..Ive seen them under obe and other clairvoyant situations..amazing stuff....and as the saying goes the universe and the world and its auntie can tell me or try to convince me that I was hallucinating and i could not in all sincerity accept that point of view..ultimately the astral body or whatver one likes to call it is "unreal" but at my stage of development the experience was totally real and fully conscious....i hate to accept the fact but it is possible that OBE's are somehow monitored by the "spiritual world" etc..I do not like to think that my excursions when they happen on average once every 5 weeks or so are somehow done under the auspicies of the spiritual world or guides but on my reading ( eg Steiner in his "Theosophy") I think that is a possible scnario and also why for its own reason the spiritual world may not want this to be proven..I hate to acknowledge that pissibility since it sounds so pat..convenient and a cop out..but it might just be a possible reason neverthless..but this does not stop me trying to develop my obe abilitiies..sheer laziness is the only reason i can offer as to why in two years attempts with the Institute of Psycophysical research in oxford in the 1960's is why it didnt happen....develping the chakras and raising consciousness is my personal imperative which i have not succeeded with very much at all...but i do belive that in some sort of evolutionary sense maybe in the next 100 yeasr more folk may indeed be able to prove it using a simple random target system...

those of us who have been out of the physical body know for certain that we exist as beings which can consciously function outwith the physical frame....but we have to be scrupulously honest and state that we cannot doit at will..in the real time zone...there are billions of folks in this world who might just appreciate having scientific proof that we are "spiritual" beings and can reject the materialistic paradigm....thats as good a reason as any for those of us who OBE to prove it...and the experiment is easy enough to set up..Ive tried it for two years in the past and failed...but Im not going to do the "susan blackmore" thing and reject it cause it cant be proved right now..she for example has a sense of "releif" that the materilaitic paradigm is correct..ie its all the physical brains doing and is basically a very "real" hallucination..she is definitly wrong in this but she is not wrong in claiming the burden of proof is on us who say we have experienced OBE's to prove it or at least be prepared to attempt to prove it..the objections to doing this or at least be prepared to do this are increasingly hollow sounding and dreserve to be treated with "philosophical contempt"..in my view..
michaela

Hi Ashfo..hate to quibble but the experiment you mention was conducted in the late 60's by Dr Charles tart( who also tested robert monroe)..and although tart is extremely sympatheitc and basically a beleiver in psychic powers etc...discounted the experiment where the woman read the 5 digit number since it turned out that she could have read the number due to it reflecting from something or the other..so it invalidated the experiment..in saying that the article by the guy answering sceptics is really excellent....
michael