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Your awareness is still focused somewhere else than your body / physical body ==> OOBE.  

I already said that I use the term OBE also if I would not like to use it. The term has become too generic and it has lost its meaning.

As for the awareness (I think you use the term to mean the consciousness, and not just the external focus of your attention), this is one of the primary changes. In a sleep approach the bulk of the consciousness is still in the physical body. In an OBE (or what I call as such) the bulk of the consciousness is in the "other" body.

What did this have to do with anything I said? O_o

Everything. The problem is that you just consider the "external" part of the experience, while I consider the specific. For this the metaphors on the chessboard and the earth and how they are the same or completely different depending on the approach and the specifics.

I've removed any stupid new age beliefs and here is I ended up. Of course I could create a fancy energy body and other stupid things for "Astral"'s sake. I do not act as I am sure, I am sure.

The fact that you think you are it doesn't mean anything at all for me.

I bet how much you want that you are not able, for example, to do approach three that I explained. So, how can you be sure of something you don't either know?

I can do all three approaches and yet I'm not sure of anything as you are. How strange that people that usually are sure of everything are those that know less of the things they talk about, isn't it?

How come my personal experience led me to the theory Xanth and many others have? We did not talk about this before posting here. On astralviewers I think I am the first one who came up with this idea and people kind of agree. Also, how do you think books were written? They also were based on experiences.

A) It depends on how your personal experience it is structured and how you approach it. Many people in these sort of things do just a part of the whole (usually only what they find "right" on an intellectual basis) and then they pretend (in the same way, intellectually) that all the rest must necessarily follow in the same way. Probably they think that disciplines of the mind are somewhat different than other, more "pragmatic", ones.
B) Xanth it is more open than you are on this thing. He can think something similar to you, but he is not sure one way or another. This is a critical difference.

Don't worry.  That's the last of me posting here.  I really don't see the difference between OOBEs and lucid dreams.  As I said to Ssergiu before, I have experienced the prominence and the absence of vibrations in both (vibrations are irrelevant anyway as I consider them to be a physiological symptom).  All I see is the different ways of entering the Phase (before, during, or after sleep) and the fact that sometimes anomalies are prominent in familiar surroundings (or environments are completely strange altogether) OR the environment appears to be congruent with the waking world (or anomalies have not been spotted).  Other than that, that's it!  The possibility that in one realm anything can manifest from belief and expectation still stands. I call it the Phase.

Also a chessboard is always a chessboard, but you can play chess, fischer's chess or chess960, or either checkers in it, depending on how you place the pieces.

Also the earth is always the earth but depending if you are an ant, an human or a bird your interaction with the same changes dramatically.

You could as well suggest me authors that say you need to work on chakras, pray to weird Gods, make useless rituals, do some energy exercises and then you can OOBE! You do not need to read a lot before experiencing an OOBE. As Bedeekin said, that's like saying "Now I've read all I can read on UFO's, now it's time to see one!"

And this is exactly the problem. You are talking of a thing you know only a part from personal experience yet you think you already know everything.

So, you see, you are doing exactly this. You have a "theory" (like reading a book) but that doesn't mean much.

I listed the different approaches in entering what you call the phase. You, (and the Raduga school, among many others), only use the approach one and are experienced only in it, yet you are sure already of what happens in the others. Don't you think this a bit presumptuous?

WHAT? Then what are those? LOL. What's the difference between REM oobes and "true" OOBEs? What can you do in "true" OOBEs" and not in REM OOBEs?

Many things. The way you "enter" the subconscious (talking in broad terms) change the way you experience the subconsious in the specific.

For example REM obes are not "stable". You look at a watch, there's an hour, you look around then look back, the hour has much probably changed. In "true" OBEs this doesn't happen. But this is only a little "external" difference. The real difference is in what you can do in there.

Indeed, but in essence they're the same one thing. When you are in an LD you just need to break out of the dream reality and you're in an OOBE already. As I've said, it is like a pie, it depends how much sugar you put in it. They'll have different tastes, but it still is just a pie.

Where you "go" it is the same (or it can be, also if there are "places" you cannot go depeding on what you do), how you interact with where you go it is different.

There's no energy body in fact. I've had OOBEs in which I did not have body at all. I was just consciousness! As you do not need a silver cord in an OOBE or dreams or whatever, you do not need a body either. There's no actual separation either.

Can be, or it cannot. Nobody can be sure one way or another, so why act as if you would?

Just like Blackmore, Blanke is mere close-minded pseudo-science. And no, if you look closely, in one experiment (see link where we discussed it) they did NOT even re-create OBEs or APs, rather they created mere optical/tactile illusions, with computers and cyberspace goggles. Brain stimulation can of course bring Altered States of Consciousness, but so can drugs, meditation. The problem is that we have to differentiate between the INDUCTION/TRIGGER of an altered state and the EXPERIENCE itself.

The intention of that study was not to recreate a "full" OBE, but to demonstrate that a vestibular sensation outside the boundaries of the physical can produce a total different "image" of it.

Then the different "induction/trigger" is what differentiate the "experience/result", so there's no difference in there. In fact, the most trouble (and the terms being used interchangeably and in wrong ways, so that now they have no real sense no more) is because people are differentiating the two, when they shouldn't.

Alas, this happens because people (especially of a certain type) always experience only what they care to then they think they necessarily know already the rest. It would be like pretending that since you know how to drive a car in the city with assists you would automatically be a rally driver.

Selea...Susan Blackmore knows jack. Also, it could still be the same thing but just a matter of using the left or the right parts of the brain. By the way, try to tell that to Bedeekin with the sleep method when he clearly induces both Mode 1 and Mode 2 by employing pre-sleep.

I already discussed the approaches before, it seems to me, and their differences, isn't it? What you call pre-sleep it's always a sleep method as in approach one.  

Then I used S. Blackmore quote to evidentiate the differences from a purely ECG patter view. That quote was just coming from evidence from physiological studies as by Tart, Blanke etc.

OOBEs/AP/LD (the Phase - to use the broad term) happen in REM! They do not happen in delta sleep! Dreams that happen outside of the REM stage are vague and thoughts-like.

OBEs (or what I call so), again, don't happen in REM. You are not asleep when you have a real OBE (or anyway what I call an OBE myself). You (or your physical body) are not asleep at all, differently from LDs.

This is the difference you don't get.

"The vivid body and world of the OBE is made possible by our brain's marvellous ability to create fully convincing images of the world, even in the absence of sensory information. This process is witnessed by each of us every night in our dreams. Indeed, all dreams could be called OBEs in that in them we experience events and places quite apart from the real location and activity of our bodies."

I don't argue that. It can be that the "dream body" is just a subconscious image of ourself, naturally.

However there are three different ways to approach this experience, and two of them (the most powerful) don't require sleep at all and, especially in approach three, the "body" is not existent before but created by you.

Also, OOBEs can be triggered from SP, which indicates the transition into REM sleep, and hence muscle atonia is activated to prevents us from acting out our...DREAMS!

I don't consider them OBEs, they are still LDs for me. Your consciousness and the way you can use the same is different in them.

I don't either like to use the term OBE in reality because it usually denotes an experience that has already some wrong boundaries setted (for how I see it), or that sometimes denotes a thing completely different of what I'm speaking about now, but in this case I have to.

I think you also need to revise my posts in the other LD versus OBE thread that Pauli2 opened. Sheesh...

I've read them. Still, what you say is all coming from people that just experienced approach one, usually.

Some people have been tooting that... but in MY experience, the experience produced is only different due to the type of mind you have active (conscious or subconscious, or some combination of the two) and what you can do in the experience is identical to both.

If the "type of mind" is different the experience cannot be identical. Naturally to notice this difference you have to do something specific when you are "out" and not having a sort of passive approach on the experience, or you will probably not notice it, not "utilizing" it.

For example the demarcation of the "planes" is much more evident in OBEs, as it is the ability to be in control of what it happens.

It is difficult for me to relate the differences to you because I dont' know specifically what you do and don't do when you are "out", so we can have a completely different terminology. Depending on what you "do" the the differences can be, indeed, none (or almost none), or a lot.

Or did he? You can have OOBEs from REM too, from SP.

Those are not what I consider true OBEs.

Of course an LD will never feel like an OOBE. OOBEs feel real, 3D and so on. But if they are total different phenomena, what's the big difference? 

The difference is what you can do in them.

Anyway, maybe Pauli will like this, since math is amazing, LD's = OOBEs. 

Well, according to my experience, they seems to be not. So called LDs require REM (or either nREM), so called OBEs not.

There are also studies that share this point of view:

"Many OBEs take place when the person is wide awake, and physiological studies show that experimental OBEs are associated with a relaxed waking state similar to drownsiness, but not deep sleep and certainly not REM sleep". (S. Blackmore)

The main difference seems to be on the way the experience is produced. Blanke has made some studies within, where OBEs can be produced from a full awake state if a vestibular sensation is stimulated outside the boundaries of the body.

But apart theorizations, the differences, apart technical, are in the experience produced and what you can do in there.

Following Raduga methods you can reach the experience only with sleep, so you have no other references to compare the experience to. Then the experiences can either be the same (also if they look different in practice in many points, but they can be so only in appearance) but Pauli is right on the fact that Raduga has not enough parameters to declare the thing one way or the other, since he uses only a way to approach the experience, and that way is not what the term "OBE" really encompass.

So him saying "I've *proven* they are all the same" it's a litte presumptuos at best, since he experienced only a part of the question.

This is the current postulation I have in mind which I more readily accept than the theory that we leave our bodies and travel to lower and higher realms of existence. You need to understand, Selea, that what Bruce and Campbell preach, the latter which Bedeekin swallowed because it sounded good to him, isn't something whose existence has been established.

Never said they are, in fact. I said it *seems* (or it gives the illusion) to work in that way, in practice, nothing more. How it *really* works, nobody knows.

In fact, I don't even like to theorize on it, just for this. I use some terms instead of others because I prefer them on the fact that they are more exhaustive in explaining what it seems to happen, and also because, in words, you have to use a terminology so that others can understand what you are saying, but not because I believe in them or think them true in the literal sense.

[is not exactly how it works]

Oh yes I have, my friend. I have experienced it during the day and wasn't even primed on a few occasions. The result: it took ages for me to get into the state and the result, once I entered the Phase, was the metaphysical environment or that which appears to be the physical realm (see my Mode 1 and Mode 2 terms in my sticky).

No, it's not the same thing.

Let me see if I can explain the differences in the approaches better.

Approach one: you use REM sleep to enter the subconscious and produce Sleep Paralysys (or the contrary). SP is needed (and done automatically) because the bulk of your consciousness is still in the physical body, only a seed of it it's in the "astral" body; so, without SP you will act in both "bodies" at once, moving also the physical. This is why sleep methods can cause indirect mind-split effects and such, because you are always in both "bodies" at once (also if you can think the contrary, depending where your attention is), with the bulk of your consciousness remaining in the physical (and this cause also "automatism" while in the "other" body).

Approach two: you use a self-hypnosis method (of whatever nature) to enter the subconscious then, if you keep with concentration your consciousness outside your body for long enough this last will take whatever form previously built, both directly or indirectly. The physical body will go in "automatic", i.e. it will be controlled by your subconscious, but, with a bit of effort, you can switch back and forth from it and the "other" body and act in one or the "other". In this case the consciousness is fully in one body or the other.

Approach three: you use full concentration to create an "imaginary" body by and by till it is as "real" as the physical body and then you use various practices to give this "body" all the senses. When you have done it using the same full concentration you can "switch" to it and use it as the physical body. In this approach you can be in "both" bodies at once (but differentiating the movements of the two, differently from approach one) or in one or the other. When fully mastered you can "switch" everytime you want, and from a full awake state of the physical body. The end to be sought is to be able to slip in and out of  that "body" as easily as you slip in and out of a dressing-gown.

Phasing can be both approach one or approach two. Usually it depends on how you approach the method when you use it. Since you said it took you a "lot of time" it means that it was probably a "masked" approach one, starting from an awake status (as in Buhlman, for example, or usually WILDs). Then, if in approach two you use a "scenery" to keep your consciousness outside the physical the "separation" is in the background, your attention is not focused on it, so you can either not notice it (also if sometimes you feel literally "sucked" in, as in a vacuum). If instead you use a "point shift" (as Robert Bruce calls it, and I use this term because you probably have a theoric background on it so you can know what it means) then the "separation" is felt strong and objective.

Now, the different approaches also changes, apart the "feeling" of separation, both the results and type of experiences you can have, especially using a point shift for approach two or using approach three.

You have just done me a favour and proved my point as to why Bedeekin didn't do what he said he did!
Bedeekin does not approve of this model of looking at things where you have ethereal, astral, mental etc. - he despises it. The way he described how he "succeeded" in his experiment is contradictory to what you are saying there...

What he approves and not approves has nothing to do with this. People are capable of doing things that they don't either consciously know they exists, especially when using the subconscious. You can enter the experience called "etheric body" also if you don't believe or not care about it, if some circumstances (lucky, for the most part, if you don't know what you are doing) are right.

Then how did he described what he did? It can be just that you are reading it in a literary way or that maybe he didn't explain correctly what happened because he probably neither acknowledged it fully because he probably didn't either know what to look for. For example he could have changed something in the "astral" only to find it changed in the physical later, and in the meantime an indirect effect caused the result, without him knowing it and not looking for it.

Also, when you say "the way you put it is not exactly how it works" doesn't say much to me because you yourself admit that you don't know exactly how it works.

No, I said that I don't know personally what are the full parameters for always making the experiment succeed (or if it is even possible to have a 100% success there), but this is a separate issue from knowing the structure of the result and what it happens when you succeed in there

I don't think anyone does really. All I see is models of chakras, energies, higher planes, lower planes and other narrow-minded anthopological views and theories that do nothing but amuse me...

It doesn't matter what these things are, but how they seems to work. The "astral" seems to work in "planes" and the body seems to have different "levels" on where to work upon. If those are really planes and levels in the objective sense who knows and, at last for me, who cares.

Selea... I understand! if i am the MASTER of my life... I can be who I want to be the the Natural or Physical... Same applies to the Astral! what I create there (as long as I am the Controller) its just a reflection of me and my belief system... its a tricky realm i see! I wanted to see it in its natural form... but basically... its not really possible! Because its always shifting... not just from my faith... but other also that are connected to me! Am i understanding this right?

Yes.

There are ways to trascend this "internal creation", but only in part, because if there's an image there's always interpretation behind. Pure freedom from interpretation cannot generate an "image" as in Samadhi.

Not in all cases though ^^...and not throughout your stay in this world. I say this because my parents are divorced and most of what I know wasn't shown to me by them...it comes from having observed the world on my own and having encountered the characters that I did. This is from my perspective, anyway. But I do see where you are coming from.

I was talking when you where a little child. You think you learned the "vision" of the world by yourself when you were 1/2/3/4 year's old? Your parents (and not only yours) gave you coherency on the chaos, by giving it an "image" on where you could work upon.

As I said when you are past 4/5 that "image" is already created.

Naturally you can refine this "image" by yourself and your experiences, but the real bulk of it, the foundation it's already setted. Many people think they are changing themselves by and by, but they change only details. The core has already being setted and it's invaried.

The only way to change that core is to annhiliate the fundation altogheter so that the "nothingness" is all that remains, and you can start building up again, they way you want to. Only that this time the fundations will be only imaginary (because you know that they only serve a function), and you can replace them whenever you want.

The paths to come to this annihilation are represented in the paths of Yoga.

The results are the same, Pauli. You either prime yourself with some sort of sleep and then induce later from a hypnagogic state that comes to you quicker than usual...OR...you wake up in the morning after a night's sleep, recognise that you have woken up, and remain still in order to enter the Phase from the hypnopompic state.

The result is the same thing to me. I see no difference and I have experimented with both several times. Once again, the term "OOBE", which was popularised by authors such as Monroe as an alternative to the belief-centric "Astral Projection", is only a term that describes what the experience feels like - it doesn't affirm in any way that we truly leave our bodies.

You didn't experience, however, what it happens with full concentration using a *direct* consciousness transfer method, directly from an awake state.

While the "truth" if the experience is anyway in your head (i.e. there's no "separation" at all) or not it's impossible to have (and neither personally I care) the result seems to be (either completely) different. Some of the diffferences I already described to you. Another difference is that the "separation" seems objective. If it is, really, it doesn't matter. What matters is that what you can do and the things you can experience are different in this case.

Also in the case of using hypnotic methods the experience seems to have some differences. Raduga didn't experiment in those two things. If you will do, you will discover that there are changes, both in the simil "objectivity" of the separation, and on the results you can have in there, both from an external (meaning the "planes" you enter and the way you can interact in them) and both in the "bodies" you can use.

If these differences are objectively real or not, if you really leave your body or not it's not important, at last for me, above all because nobody will probably ever know for sure, no matter what, so all in all I think that trying to intellectualy appurate if one of the two hypothesis is more "real" that the other it is just a waste of time better spent on working with what you experience.

Now...recently I heard that Bedeekin has had some sort of breakthrough with the Phase state. To cut a long story short, remember my PowerPoint analogy as to how reality could be structured (inspired by Campbell's TOE)? Well, it turns out that he's been reading the TOE too and now he claims that in Slide Master, he had the "apply to all" option that allowed him to make changes to Normal View...in plain English...he reckons the nonphysical template allowed him to make direct changes to physical matter reality.

The way you put it is not exactly how it works.

Firstly to change something in a "plane" you have to change them in the "plane" and using the "body" just above the ones you want to change. So, in the case of the physical plane, you must change them in the "etheric" plane using the "etheric" body. The more "far" the "plane" and the "body" used is from the plane you want to affect the more the change is dilated in time and the more indirect the effect it is.

Secondly changes are never immediate to the point of being coincidental and then they don't work *directly*. For example: you break a bottle in the "etheric" plane using the "etheric" body. What it can happens (and not always, there are various factors, most of them I don't personally know yet) is that later (variable, let's say a day after in this case) in the physical plane something happens (as your child hurting the table where the bottle is in) that will cause the bottle to break. You don't affect "matter" directly, but indirectly. In short words, it happens working and looking as a "coincidence".

So, you see, if you mix the two things up you can understand that in a "common" experience (as the one you can have normally, using for example a sleep method without nothing else) the dilatation in time and the indirectness of the events will be so large that you could never discern real coincidence from supposed not so. For example, in the case of the bottle, it will happen (as it happens anyway, however) that the content of the bottle will be drunk, the bottle put in the recycle bin and then broken later, along the other trash when compacted.

[subconscious]

Your own subconscious, believe it or not, has the power to concoct a convincing reality for you based on expectation, and, the more you accept it as the truth, the further you may wrap yourself in it.

True.

However since the subconscious has also the power to *create* (in all "planes"), if you get practical results from that creation and you act as a master therein instead of a puppet, there's nothing wrong with it.

Because, you know, this is exactly what happens also in "physical reality". You learn an image of yourself when you are a child (usually it happens very early, before the age of 4/5) and you literally "plasmate" all you do and experience around it. All your experience, what you see, what you feel, what you are, are built around that image. Also what you call "reality" is, in truth, a "delusional" world. And, as you say, the more you are wrapped around it, the more it becomes true. This "delusion" is the only thing that most people have and for them both their self-created image and the world created around it, are the only absolute truth.

Getting to the core, freeing yourself from this "delusion" (as it is the goal of mysticism) let you see this, that ALL is illusion, but, while a good achievement for itself, its practical result is not the experience of this freedom, but the ability to change that "delusion" to what you want, depending on what you want to do. Instead of being a slave of the "delusions", you are a master, creating the ones you want depending on what you want to do.

In fact, you cannot literally exist in and experience *any* reality ("imaginary" or not, using your own terms, also if there's no distinction) without this "delusion" happening. This is why, in mysticism, it is said that after "crossing the abyss" you must "return to the world".

You don't have to be dictated upon by your own subconscious or hypothetically by a more "experienced traveller". Once you enter the Phase, do what you want and explore whatever environments you may encounter. My best advice for you is to have NO expectation. I have no friends in the Phase whatsoever (apart from my deceased 'is it really him' stepfather whom I see when I want if you catch my drift).

You always have "expectations". You always set an "intent" and create a "world" from it before you enter what you call the phase. Always, same as you always create an "intent" when you enter in "physical reality" as a child.

Just like in the physical world - where you don't need to have someone showing you around/telling you what you could/should do all the time - so be it the Phase state.

Actually in the physical world your parents do this for you. They teach you a certain "image" of the world and teach you how to have practical results from that "image".  

You never know who you can trust to show you around anywhere you go anyway. If you encounter people in our world who seem to be knowledgeable and the information they provide resonates with you...then take heed of it. Likewise, if an apparently sentient being is encountered in the Phase realms and offers you some advice - and intuition persuades you to go with it - then take it on board...but don't look for it as there is no need and NEVER EVER lose sight of other possible venues, angles and perspectives. Mistakes may be made but trial and error will only make you wiser.

That's good advice.

Selea, relax why dontcha....

We were not discussing you or even the merits of your claim but rather if the statement itself constituted an objective claim whose veracity could be challenged or if it were just a subjective opinion meant to be taken with a grain of salt. It morphed from part of an earlier discussion between me and PR that started on a comment he made earlier about OBE in the realm of magic practice and our ongoing disagreement about what constitutes opinion status in forum discussions and it merged with your claim as an example or case in point sorta thing.
It happens.

You were not treated in rude fashion in any manner whatsoever.

Whatever.

You used one of my statements to discuss a thing that was completely different and in a completely different context without neither having the courtesy of telling me first.

If you think this polite then more good to you.

No you didn't. Unless I missed it in there somewhere -- perhaps you could paste in a couple of these "specifics and practical things"...? I am pretty sure that they aren't there. In fact, in the case of your hand waving at the Middle Pillar, I was the one who posted the link with any sort of practical info.

You asked how to exit voluntarily, I told you from where to start.

You didn't ask about how the BoL method works. So don't say you have asked something. I explained why it is better, because it enables you do have a control that you cannot have with sleep methods (that you use). This I explained fully, rearead that thread, so, yes, you missed it.

In this matter, I am the one challenging YOUR claim. I am not the one that needs to be concrete here on this topic, you are. On another thread I made a claim about the historicity of Jesus and I was challenged. I replied with direct quotes from near-contemporary historians to back up my claim. I can and will be concrete when that ball is in my court.

And in what matter I can do it? The only way I could show you directly would be that you would learn how to do it to see the difference in *practice* for yourself.

All I can do here is explaining you the differences, as I've already done, nothing more, but they are words, and you can always not believe in them.

Backing up a claim on some philosophical or historical thing it's another matter because you can back-up your statements with quotes, as you have done. When you go into practical things if you don't have that experience yourself I can only tell you what it happens but you can always confute it, saying that what I say it's not true, no matter how many "quotes" I provide, isn't it?

Or do you expect me to magically appear in your home and be your Don Juan?

Totally irrelevant observation. I have not rquested that anyone 'teach' anything... only that you back up your claim with something that supports it. I am getting the distinct impression that you do not know how this works.

On the contrary, I know exactly how it works. You ask a thing, I reply to that thing, but then you don't like it so you continuosly try to find ways to put it down. This is what always happens.

"they think "it is all idiocy then""   Selea, I do not recall where anyone has said anything like this. What are you talking about? I never said anything close to that. You on the other hand keep using the 'idiot' word on a regular basis.

You insisted that all "magicians" knows nothing about OBEs and whatnot. I just told you that what you "discovered" is just idiocy.

And yes, I use the word "idiot" when it's due. I don't use it when someone is really an idiot, I use it when someone it's not but s/he wants to play that card for convenience, as you are doing.

!! wow! yet another patently false claim....
The O.T.O.'s specific purpose is to secure the Liberty of the Individual and his or her advancement in the Light, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, and Power through Beauty, Courage, and Will.

Crowley never estabilished a formal teaching curriculum for the OTO (and he did so purposedly, because the A.'.A.'. is for real teaching, the OTO is just the repository of a certain "secret" and sharing of a certain phylosphy of life - if you care about it). There is no TEACHING in it, at all. Nobody teaches you anything in the OTO, you only "learn" what other members share to you (so very little, because they know little to begin with) or you do for yourself.

The phrase it is to be read in regard to the free mason "secrets" that are held in its late degrees and especially on sharing the so called "law of thelema" and the precepts of the Book of Law, but it is NOT (again) a teaching order, at all.

You either insist than I'm giving false informations when you don't either know of what you are talking about to begin with. Why instead of always pretending you know better sometimes you don't consider the fact that maybe you can be wrong, and that, in fact, you can also not know nothing "better" at all?

Either more here, because I don't think you pretend to be an expert in the OTO and Crowley, isn't it?

What do you think it is that I am talking about? I keep repeating for you... you said the body of light method is a thousand times better and I keep asking you to back that up but you keep replying with irrelevant OTO and A.'.A.'. smokescreens.

A) We never talked about the BoL method directly to begin with. You did never asked NOTHING about it, you just asked me a way to "exit" voluntarily. They are two separate things, don't you know? They can be tied in the fact that learning one of the two ways to do the BoL technique enables you to exit voluntarily, but they are not both the same thing. The BoL it is just a technique, "exit voluntarily" it is a method that's based on a certain knowledge. You can either not use the BoL method at all when you know how to do somet things, for example.
B) It is you that insisted that the orders you have met had people that didn't knew neither how to do an OBE, not me. You brought upon the OTO as an example and I replied to you that the OTO it is not meant for that. I'm just replying to what you said.

This has nothing to do with my 'search'. I have said that I asked a simple question about OBE and was told that essentially all initiates learn to go OBE at will. Based on what I've seen, I believe that claim is a gross exaggeration.

And I repeat, what you have "seen" it's nothing at all. And I repeat (since you discarded it altogheter): OBES ARE LEARNT IN THE 1ST DEGREE OF THE A.'.A.'., IMMEDIATELY AND YOU ARE TESTED IN IT BEFORE PASSING ON. So, it's clear that the "experienced" Thelemic magicians you have met don't mean nothing at all because they obviously didn't either partecipate in that "magical" teaching, isn't it?

The thelemic order that teaches magic and mysticism in a structured manner as devised by Crowley it is the A.'.A.'. and only that. The OTO it's not a teaching order and especially NOT a magical order. A magical order is an order structured primarily on the working of the astral plane and its practical applications. The OTO it is not meant for that, the function of the OTO is only to held a special "secret". and to share the "law of thelema", ONLY that.

The A.'.A.'. neither share at all the "law of Thelema" as the OTO does, for example, the Book of Law is neither mentioned there if not for some practical application in some passages, or for a philosophical study (among many other different point of views).

As for others "magicians" it depends who they are and especially where they are. In general terms, if it is an order that's open to the public (as the ones you have partecipated in) then what you "discovered" was already obvious if instead of making assumptions and pretending you know better you would have researched a little more about how these things really works. So, or you really do a real research or just avoid posting false things that are born only from superficial assumptions.

Selea, please try to reply to what I am actually saying and simply asking and stop replying to your arrogant, presumptuous and condescending opinions on what you fear I am saying.

OMG. Now you play the innocent.

You began saying that all the "orders" you have frequented had people with fables and nothing of concrete. I replied to you that the "orders" you have frequented means nothing at all and that you don't either know where to search (as in the OTO). I'm just replying to what YOU are saying. Now it either comes out that your "evidence" is from "casual talk". Oh my....

Again, this is completely irrelevant... unless you can be more specific and provide detail about this *real* order...?....

It's not irrelevant at all. The old GD was structured so that the internal order was in the degrees from adeptus minor onward. Members changed that and it now has two orders, one external and one internal. And no, I cannot tell you the name of the internal order, I'm sorry.

Really! And please tell me how it is that you came to be privy to so much personal and intimate detail of my life? (this oughta be good...)  

How is it that you know, "It is obvious that these people are not good"?

"A teacher has at most 3 students to care of at once" -- Have you ever been a student of these unseen teachers in unknown orders?

A) I reply to what you write. It's as simple as that. You make assumptions I reply to assumptions.
B) Because they are there for a motive, as I already explained. As for the OTO, people in it I know much too well personally and, apart higher degrees, there's nothing "good" in there (apart seldom cases that however, usually, don't frequent the groups), but this is how it must work.
C) I have.

[If you spend enough time among them]

Well, of course it is people that I have met. How else would I know? Note that I am not just talking about the value of "having the experience" but I am replying to the claim "essentially all Initiates gain the ability to go OBE at will".

Where I claimed that? You are now fabricating things. I said that it is possible, not that all "initiaties" (what the word it means, then?) can do it. In fact there are a lot of people that think they are "initiated" that cannot do it.

I pointed out that not only is that not true but it is a gross exaggeration, at best. I observed that not only do most initiates not gain the ability but even some in high office and advanced initiation status will privately admit they have not ever gotten a conscious OBE. (Their ritual test success stemmed more from a "remote viewing" type effort).

And I repeat that those "initiates" you have met they mean nothing at all.

Then "remote viewing" is a part of exploring the astral planes. There are some orders (as the SOL now, after the death of Butler) who prefers to don't use a full conscious transfer of consciousness to do what they have to do, and the "teachings" on that are only later and only if the students want. Sometimes people neither try because for what they want to do it is not either needed.

For other orders it is different because they use the "planes" in a different manner, so full conscious transfer is needed. The A.'.A.'. is one of them. It also depends on what a magical order wants to accomplish.

But a thing it is sure: a magical order primary function is to learn the control of the astral plane. So if the "orders" you have been and people you have met cannot do it it means that they have learned nothing. It would be like trying to learn boxing without ever trying to spar. Personally I don't either like the new SOL method because full consciousnes it is needed to do certain things, but to anyone his/her own, I guess.

And apart this, don't you think if those people you talk about really wanted to learn to do these things couldn't find a way to do them? Also if they are really teached nothing of the sort, or nothing that works, they could just look around and try the many other methods you find in the net, included the very easy to adopt sleep ones. Do you think they cannot read?

The problem is much more simple. Many people in open "magical" orders (that aren't orders at all) just like to babble around about what they don't know as if they are experts and yet when there's really to do work, they never do it. But this can be said on a general note and not only for what it concerns OBE and not only on open, "magical" orders (you find evidence also here, in fact). It is just that in these open to the public orders this sort of ego show happens a lot because people just meet to talk and talk. They share this and share that, they talk of this and talk of that, but they do nothing in the end. And we return to why some people understood that this method of working it doesn't bring anything good and they devised other ways and just did give a "bait" for those people to simply continue what they like to do.

Many people in the OTO, for example, have had either the possibility of entering the A.'.A.'. and start learning seriously, but they *voluntarily* didn't do it because they knew they had to do real work instead of talking and talking (and they either sometimes admit it). Some people just want to be "armchair magicians" and that's all. Still, just because they do nothing, they learn nothing and they little they do it serves nothing in the end the same because it has no structure. So, judging "magical" orders on these people it is nonsense, and you either think you are looking good doing it.

You know the motto: "be careful for what you ask for, you can obtain it". This is exactly what happens, and, I repeat, not only in some "magical" orders, but in every field.

If possible I would like to stick to the actual challenges and claims that have been made. For example the claim that the Body of Light method is "1000 times better"; Given that most initiates fail in this method while other methods succeed at a much higher rate, I do not know how you can such a statement. I mean... it is so obviously False!... what gives?

It's not false. It is just that they haven't been shown how it works.

The "method" has two ways of working. The first is literally (and practically) a trick, the second it requires basis on many practices and especially full concentration, a thing that all "initiates" you have met don't either know where to begin from to have.

So, or those people have met someone that did show that method in practice, meeting in person, or they have nothing to say about it apart intellectual debate.

And then you still insist on bringing up these "initiates" as proof of something. First who are these "initiates" and on what "order" they are? There's in that "order" someone that teaches that technique directly, in person? How they do it?

If you ask someone that pretends to be a master of chess yet in practice s/he has 1200 ECO to tell how how a certain positional strategy works therein, would you then pretend that what s/he tolds you it is how it must be?

First you insist that those "initiates" know nothing but then you insist that what they told you it's how things must be because it is how you want them to be. You should make-up your mind a little. The fact that they even tried the method (and I would like to see it) it doesn't mean that they know how to do it.

If somebody would come here telling you that the sleep methods don't work because he clearly mistakes something in the process would you believe him/her the same? The people you speak upon have never received a formal training in that technique, nor they know how it works. General people that tries do it without knowing how it works do it as a phasing method, but that's NOT how it works. If you do it that way you just lose time. It can work the same after a while, but there are many better alternatives.

Naturally you can either believe that what I'm telling you it is not true. It's perfectly fine, but don't pretend that what those people told you must be the truth instead, just because you want it to be. Or you go in one direction (i.e. believing only what you can experience) or you go in the opposite. Middle grounds for convenience are never an intelligent behaviour.

If it didn't really work how do you pretend that neophytes of an order are teached it usually in just the first personal section and use it everyday to do their work?

Either Crowley said this (if you want to have a "quote" as if that would mean anything):
"The experiment is an easy one; with two pupils only (of some dozens) I have failed, and that completely; with the others only a first experiment is needed." This is how the method works and how it must be teached and the way it must be adopted. It is a trick. At the time of Crowley with some people it could fail for the way the trick works and the knowledge of the times in those matters this could happen (Bennet, the deviser of that trick, was a genius and a precursor, but still some things were impossible to know at at time). Now there are alternatives to always make it work.

But I suppose either Crowley did made it up and those "initiates" know better, isn't it? Belive what you want, I don't care. I would only like you to be fair therein.

Then what does have "success" rate or either practicality for beginners who knows nothing about it to do with this it is beyond me. Have I ever only once said that the BoL is "superior" on these points? It doesn't seem to me, and in fact I NEVER said it (I said the contrary, in fact). Why you continuosly fabricate things I never said just to try to have a point on something? And then you either try to contradict it as if I was the one saying it. Is this a common behaviour you and others like you have?

I explained on what things the technique is superior and the "1000 times better" is not on a whole. A Ferrari is 1000 time superior than a Fiat in every possible point technically speaking but an user can find better the latter for price/costs, for the way he uses the car and what he wants to do with it and either because it's much easier to drive. My "superior" claim was on this aspect as I thought it was obvious (given the context, that I either explained fullly later), but naturally people have always to turn aside things just to look smart and have a point either if they know little of the things they speak about.

I said nothing about a 'debate' with these would be Magicians. I spoke of casual conversation. And it was not necessarily on an open forum.
(my bold)

It was a simple deduction by how you talked about these things, and it seems, in fact, I was not wrong.

And so now they were "casual conversations"? It seemed to me all another thing, in fact:

"If you spend enough time among them and just get to where you can comfortably chat about this and that, occasional comments will drop that reveal just how little progress most of these serious, hardcore would be Magicians are truly making."

"But I spent some time among them and after much circumlocution..."

There's nothing about "casual conversations" in there, it implied all the contrary, in fact.

So, do you know really all of this personally, are they assumptions derived from random talks or you just are relying on hearsay? Not that what you said it's not true, because it is, but still, there's a difference.

This is simply not true. Some forums are better than others. And some are not just frequented by serious, capable Magicians but are created and moderated by and maintained by world renowned leaders in the field.
(particularly the Thelemic Orders).

It depends on what you mean by the term "capable". If you mean by it genuine magicians that do personal work and share their experiences, yes, there are (also if they are not so common), if you mean by it people that have received a structured teaching, no, there aren't and if there are they don't speak about them. Thelemic forums are only frequented (in the sense that they "share" what they know or talk about it) by OTO people or people that are interested in thelemic matters (and also magic in general), and I already told you what's the difference. Students of the A.'.A.'. for example are advised against going on those forums and if you are found there passing a lot of time you can either be removed without possibility of entering again. This is done for various motives. So, you see, "thelemic" people (I use the term "thelemic" here for a motive, to evidentiate the type of training) that have received real structured instructions are seldomly found in those forums and if they are they never speak about what they do or debate on it.

There are only two people I know of that have this structured teaching and are there often: Bill Heidrick and DuQuette, but the first usually speaks only on things pertaining closely to OTO "affairs" and Lon he goes there for fun, mostly, and only with hidden handles, so you can neither understand when it's him, and surely both never speaks about serious things pertaining teachings and such, if not in a joking way and if not privately and when it's due.

The funny thing is how folks on these AP forums speak so casually about their OBE experience, even those who only get a good solid OBE once a month or so would be the envy of most of those Kabalists.

People you have met, sure.

People as me are more interested in practical applications, not just having the experience, that, for me (and others like me), it means very little by itself.

As for the non-debating about these things openly in these sort of forums by experienced "magicians": would you debate about how to move chess pieces in the chessboard when you're studying positional plans? It's not a thing of grandeur, it is only that they are not interested in these things anymore now.

Magic forums, then, are just a conglomerate of a lot of the most various and generic arguments, with little of concrete, you will not find anybody "good" in there, if not only for a casuality. They are much less practical and specific of simple AP forums since at last here people talk only about a thing, also if only from a point of view. Magic has little of talking (if not on practical parameters and only on specific occasions), especially at beginning, so all people you find in those forums are usually of the type I mentioned in the post above.

Personally I'm here to give people a different view on the thing, so that they can maybe understand that there's something more than just "exiting the body" and that's all, that there are practical applications to be had in there, so that, if they want, they can be interested and research on how to do it by themselves. Having an another option is never a bad thing, don't you think? Naturally it's not easy because it's human nature to have a point of view and try to always "defend" it, no matter if it is really yours or not and no matter if you are sure about it or not. But that's fine for me; if I didn't took this for granted I would neither be here to begin with.

Not only is the body of light method not nearly as good as described by Selea but for the vast majority of folks that I have known in magickal circles... it does not work at all. I suppose the rare few Crowley, Regardie, L. M. Duquette types it may work well, but for most people, not so much.

A) The "people" you have met in those "magickal" circles knows even less than you on how it works, and that says it all.
B) The method is to be teached in person and showed how it works in person. Crowley, Regardie etc. even said this expressedly, in fact. You can either learn to do it by yourself, but it's much easier to have someone experienced in it already showing you because it has a "trick" that it's difficult to get by yourself.
C) Stop talking of things you don't understand, putting them down and such just because you think you know everything about them. You don't either understand that the "magic" orders you have frequented means anything at all and are just for people to met and grow up their egos. Real magical orders are by ADMITTANCE ONLY and are only internal affairs, not external and open to the public. For the OTO it is the A.'.A.'. for the GD it is a name I cannot tell you. This is done *purposedly*.

DuQuette for example is a 9th degree OTO but he is also, and *primarily* (also if nobody knows) an Adeptus Major in the A.'.A.'. For this, differently from others, he knows how the method really works and why it works for him. People you have talked about have learned anything, probably they have relly done nothing of importance (because they like to talk only, usually) and they just want to show their egos with fables about what they know and are so sure about, as you do. For this they join those orders, and for this those orders are done, to divide the unimportant from the important, i.e. to filter the *serious* seeker from those that are there for show and that will do nothing anyway.

This you naturally didn't get, also if a little of logic would have tell you the same. Would you admit anybody in your house without knowing them personally and why they want to enter?

Then can you people do me a favor:

IF YOU WANT TO TALK WITH ME ABOUT THINGS THEN WRITE TO ME.

This nonsense of debating about things I've said with others just to try to discredit what I say it's getting tiresome. I didn't either noticed this till now.

Apart that's unpolite, I'm neither one that it is here all day and check everything to see if what I've said has being used to say things completely different.

I was being fair. The claim was made in the context of putting down a method developed by someone identified by name.

A) Raduga didn't develop anything. Do you get it? Wake up.
B) I already explained everything about it, I either told you the differences and such.

This claim was made with respect to the Raduga/SOBT method. Despite the obfuscatory semantic tricks of the claimant, it really does constitute a claim to a 'superior' method.

I already explained why that's so and what I meant by it, isn't it? I did go into specifics and practical things, I explained the differences and all.

You don't believe in this or don't want to believe this? Fine, but please avoid posting your nonsense that I just made a statement backed up with nothing. In fact, it seems the contrary to me because apart ample arguments on ample terms nothing of what you say is concrete.

I spent some time among the Thelema/Crowley folks trying to get enough info to decide whether to seek initiation with them or not. I also spent a period months as a probationer in what I found to be an excessively secretive Rosicrucian GD type school. This involved full on daily practice, keeping a magickal journal and submitting the journal for monthly review by the powers that be.

In the beginning I found that during instruction and discussion there are many claims made about tremendous abilities and great wisdom, etc. to be had for those who persevere in the Path. The neophytes are regaled and wowed with incredible stories and anecdotes.

If you spend enough time among them and just get to where you can comfortably chat about this and that, occasional comments will drop that reveal just how little progress most of these serious, hardcore would be Magicians are truly making. The effort required of these aspirants is immense. They must memorize huge tables of obtuse and arcane information. They must perform daily rituals and essentially immerse themselves into that lifestyle. But in the end there is often very little to show for it.

A) Nobody can "teach" you anything. A master can focus you on a path but learning is only done by yourself. If you do nothing, you will learn nothing. Put others aside and focus on you. Instead of going here and there to test the knowledge of others care about YOUR personal knowledge. Btw this is why people as you usually cannot either enter in real orders, and naturally instead of thinking "maybe I've done something wrong" they think "it is all idiocy then"; then they become 80 years old putting down everything they didn't either get and thinking it's everybody elses fault. It's another form of personal commiseration, nothing more.

B) The OTO has NEVER been a learning order in magical practices. Its function is just to show some specific sexual magick practices, that have little to do with what you are talking about. If you are serious about learning that path then the only way is to go for the A.'.A.'. (supposing you can find it and you are admitted), where you only meet a "master" that talks to you directly and you know ANYBODY else. The OTO is just a club where to share experiences (usually of little value), nothing more, until the 7th, 8th and 9th degrees, that are the only one that matters (and that you need to be admitted to partecipate; I know people that are in the OTO from more than 30 years and never gone there - one example is Jimmy Page - and there's a motive). The degrees below are only meant to give you some understanding of what's to come and for other things (along removing or stopping idiots), but not surely to "teach" you OBEs. As always, you don't either know what you search and then blame external causes.

C) The GD is long lost nowadays, and also in the times of its "glory" it always had members that were interested manly in popularity. This is the reason why all the very good practnioners (and there were a lot, especially Bennet) did quit and learned that the way the GD was structured it didn't work and started working on serious, admittance only, internal orders by themselves where students could only enter having tested themselves and where teaching was structured on a personal basis with little "talk" outside of it (so no groups of people sharing their "experiences", especially at beginning, it just ends in a circle where people just talk and talk, debating intellectually and growing up their egos more and more on it). There is an "internal", *real* order of the GD, a lieneage started by Regardie, Bennet and Butler, but it has not ties at all with the external and "fake" one, so you can get there only by "luck" (if you want to call that so).

I got to know initiates that had been practicing these methods for many, many years and they admitted that they could not even get OBE at all much less at will.

You learn OBEs in the A.'.A.'. in the neophyte grade, the 1st, so *immediately* and you are tested therein for your understanding and ability in them and you must pass the test before being admitted on the 2nd grade. This knowledge is then expanded in the philosophus degree, when you learn to control the experience fully and you are tested also there in the same way.

So, you see, all these "magicians" you have met are simply idiots and they don't mean anything at all. You find these people everywhere in every field, but in things of this nature fanatics, wannabe gods etc. are either more common, so there's nothing strange in it and nothing that it's not already obvious. People you have met haven't practiced nothing, especially nothing in a structured and concrete matter and primarily because they don't really care and that's why they are where they are.

So, no, I'm sorry for you and for your "research", but what you "discovered" is all wrong because it is like you searched for pearls in the mud and then became angry because you did find any.

This was not so much the exception but more often the common reality. A couple teachers that I spoke with held high office and initiation status that implied wayyy more than the ability to just get OBE now and then. The leadership and senior members will make big claims about fantastic abilities and such but when you get into a position to get to really know them a little better it is found that they 'exaggerate', to put it nicely.

The "teachers" you are spoking about are in "open" orders. It is obvious that these people are not good; they are there only for the passing of the time, nothing more, and surely not for their "experience".

The only system that works in magic is a system when a teaching is done in a personal matter, with testings in the proceedings along the way, and where the "masters" are those that passed those tests before. A teacher has at most 3 students to care of at once and the pupil knows only of that teacher and s/he is instructed by him/her, in a personal, specific way, depending on the way s/he reacts and his/her personal nature.

So, no, you never met anybody that meant something so don't pretend you know the "truth" of the matter.

[active]

I
Why I have been trying to focus on is a ball of light about 3 inches in front of my 3rd eye, once I feel like I am in sleep paralysis, then I instead see a rope and try to grab it.  This is as far as I have made it.  I wonder what is holding me back, what can I do better?  I wonder if I'm trying to hard?  Must you try to leave you body?  Or does it happen naturally?  Once your body is in a relaxed sleep paralysis state, what state does your mind need to be in?  I assume in order for this to work you mind must be focused on one thing for a period of time.  So each time a thought comes into my mind, I get annoyed and think "Oh got start all over".  I think either I'm right and my inability to focus is screwing me up or the stress I cause myself when I lose my concentration might be screwing me up.

First of all stop trying "exiting your body". Don't focus on it. Learn how to enter a so-called "trance" and only that.  Also don't have expectations. They bring with them doubts and impatience.

Secondly, don't mix things up, as you are doing. There are three main methods to enter the trance state:

1. Using sleep and specifically the Hypnagogic or Hypnopompic state (this is the easiest method, especially using Hypnopompic state, doable either if you have no experience in anything else, its drawback is that the results are usually sporadic at beginning and you have less conscious control of the process and you can do it only using sleep, but it has the great positive of being very easy to adopt, for everyone, and it is also the method that has the most "instructions" to find out more).
2. Using self-hypnosis methods (they requires a bit more work than using sleep methods but they are much more "stable"). Progressive relaxation/breath awareness, inductions, passive visualization, active visualization etc. are all examples of self-hypnosis methods. An alternative is having an experienced hypnoterapist setting-up a post-hypnotic induction to bring you to trance immediately with a command (usually a word mixed with some simple action), but you must find someone that knows what he is doing and sometimes this is more difficult than simply learning doing it yourself.
3. Using full, undivided attention, 100% active concentration on something related to what you want to do (this is the most difficult method and it requires basis on many things to be effective, but it is the "faster" and more reliable of all the others. Still it requires a lot of training, so it's better to do other methods if you just want to have the experience).

Metdho 3 can and is sometimes used along the other two, but ONLY on the exit attempt to set the intent, and only briefly (or you are doing something wrong), and anyway it's stilll different there (and much easier, given the trance state), especially with 1, when it can just be an action, and nothing more.

So focus on one of those three and don't mix and match (I suggest to begin with 1 to try it out, then go to learning 2; or you can start directly from 2 if you have a little of patience and don't care necessarily to have a result of some sort as fast as you can).

You should focus on reaching that particular state that Xanth explained. When you have reached it, "exiting the body" it is just a matter of setting your intent on it. So don't focus on how to "exit", focus on how to reach that state using one of those methods, at first, or you do a lot of confusion and you just go nowhere (for example if you try to have full concentration on something as you do in method 3 and mix it with method 1 or method 2 before the trance state. as you are doing, it will bring you nowhere, only to a lot of frustration).

Another thing: let go of lust of result. You have to learn how to do things just for the sake of doing them, without expecting results. You have not to "try", trying holds you back, do it.