According to the spiritual system that I am studying under now, the human being can be divided into a number of different bodies;
1. Physical body. Everything mineral , that is subject to decay. Shared with mineral kingdom i.e. rocks.
2.Etheric Body. The animating principle, life body, without it, the physical body would die. Plants have a Mineral body and an etheric body.
3. Astral body. The bearer or sentience, we wouldnt be aware without it. Animals have a physical, etheric and astral body.
4. I. the individual person, what makes us different from every other human being. We as humans are all seperate spiritual genus'
There are further more spiritual aspects that are really seen as potentials for future incarnartions of the Earth.
This is like a basic outline of the human being in the view of anthroposophy. With this in mind, it is necesary to mention that under this belief system, during sleep, the astral body and the ego, separate entirely from the other two bodies. The remaining two bodies stay together, obviously, as if the etheric body would leave, you would be dead already!
With this in mind, we can now speculate that astral projection occurs in the higher members. In a normal nights dreaming, there is only a dim awareness, much like the awareness that those in the animal kingdom have in waking life. To have a concious projection, the projector needs to have waking conciousness in the astral realm. Their I needs to fully take hold during sleep, Then we have what is seen as an astral projection.
How to achieve this?
The separation between ether-physical and Astral-ego needs to occur. So, we must be able to bring our physical body down to the level of activity that is required for the astra/ego to leave. So we relax, and control our breathing (safely!) and slip hopefully into hypnogogic trance. This is the state the body is in during normal sleep, except our conciousness is still permeating the etheric-physical state. This feels at first frightening, but after a few attempts, it can be overcome by the projectors I, with strength of will and bravery.
Next, with our focus away from the physical, we have the etheric to deal with. the only necesary thing here (he says like its the simplist thing in the world!) is now to bring your sentience (astral body) out of the etheric. I have found that by focusing on a point in my room, outside of my physical, and hanging on there for dear life, is the best way to do this. Imagine you are hanging on to your smoke detector, or your window sill. Dont let go, dont go back into your body. This, I guess, causes some kind of confusion (sorry not so scientific.) and your conciousness leaves the etheric-physical set-up and hey presto.
To be able to remove your conciousness out to the periphery for long enough (i speculate at about 20-30 seconds) is really the key that unlocks projection for me. This is evident in most techniques I have ever read, Mr. Bruces most excellent rope technique being one, as it requires constant conciousness on the task at hand. But, entering a painting on your wall, or walking through the house would serve just as well. I like hanging onto the fire alarm personally, but, whatever floats your boat.
I really feel that this explanation sheds a lot of light onto the phenomenon of projection for me, and i urge you to at least consider it. But please, if it ends up helping you achieve a projection, be careful, make sure you have protected yourself, ask for Archangel Michael in particular, as he is the main man right now. Even a banishing ritual or whatever would help you out.
Lysear.
I found that an interesting read Lysear. Cheers.
On repsonse to the different bodies. Do you think that a higher 'body' combines us all as one?
-AM
"On repsonse to the different bodies. Do you think that a higher 'body' combines us all as one?"
Wee, if you follow the idea which states that "as above so below" which I Believe is one of the most profound sentences ever uttered, then yes. We as human beings are just a microcosm of an even bigger part. We are a manifestation of a higher spiritual truth.
The planet earth as a being has already been through three previous incarnations. With each one incorperating a further level to our existence. Begining with just a "physical body", then comes the second existence of earth with the incorperation of the etheric body, so we gain a plant life sleep conciousness, thirdly comes the third manifestation where we attain the astral body, and a dream like animal conciousness. Next comes our existence, with the addition of the ego and a waking conciousness bathed in clarity.
Yes, This planet is a higher body in that respect, but not the only way in which this is apparent. We also have higher bodies on a lower level, such as humanity in general, even cultural group souls nationaly, and also by town or village.
There is no end to the way in which we see that we are a part of a very special whole.
Hope this is helpful to you.
Infact, if you keep running with this,
Every National group, organized system etc goes through periods of development that reflect this higher spiritual truth. Business go through similar phases as do support groups etc.
I think you make a really good point when you say you should try to hold on to a point of focus outside your body (like your smoke alarm) and keep it there for so long to create a separation needed to go OBE.. I've noticed this works fairly well if done at just the right time or really you can start doing this as soon as you lay your head down to practice or sleep to have an OBE.. but for me I like to reach the hypnagogic imagery state by doing some deep relaxation and rythmatic breathing before I start to visualize myself in first person somewhere else in my room.. I sometimes feel like I'm being pulled back to my body as well even before I know I've made a real exit.. its like I have trouble visualizing holding on to the doorknob across the room because it feels like an intense wind is tugging me back into my body.. I'll be adding this as a technique to my website.. thanks for the idea.
For me the most difficult part of projecting is reaching the hypnogogic state. I cannot do it conciously, only once have i managed, on my first attempt about three years ago! Once I am in the trance I can exit pretty well. This is evident by the fact that I can wake up in trance and then immediately exit. The smoke alarm thing is much easier said than done though, it is very difficult to project your conciousness out of your body for much longer than a split second at a time. So one way to do it is to constantly be at the alarm and then back in your body in a rythmic successsion,is thsi similar to the qabbalistic concept of "running and returning," ? I wonder.
Lysear, it was not that I don't have my own theory on the way it all works. I was just wondering why you stopped at 4?
-AM
Quote from: Awakened_Mind on December 04, 2006, 07:44:22
Lysear, it was not that I don't have my own theory on the way it all works. I was just wondering why you stopped at 4?
-AM
I agree with this question- it seems to me that we can contine to divide oneness in infinite ways, if existence is indeed infinite...if not, who knows?
I didnt read all the posts, just want to add some interesting info: i read maybe once or twice, somewhere, that you can have an astral projection, and then, you can get out of your astral (or it was etheric??) body like a second projection inside of a projection. Maybe there can exist more than 1 or 2 projections. Thats an interesting concept.
Body->Normal Projection-> Second (3rd, and so on) projection.
btw, if such sayings are real, what kind of places/things/planes/ situations (whatever) you can achieve with those multiple projections?
another question, if you project multiple times on this way, when you get back to your body, to you rturn 1st to your physical body? or to the body you came out from? See the diagram to understand
1st case: second astral(or 3rd, and so on) body-> physical body directly
2nd case: second astral(or 3rd, etc) body-> 1st astral body (or maybe 2nd if you had more than 2 projections) -> physical body
which is the case?
maybe i should post these questions on a seperate thread...
lol, sorry if its to way offtopic
Steiner does suggest further ways that the human can be divided, it can be as followed;
1. Physical/mineral
2. Etheric/Life
3. Soul body
4. Setient soul
5. Mind soul
6. Conciousness soul
7. Spirit self
8. Life spirit
9. Spirit man
3 and 4 are grouped together and collectively termed as the astral body. 6 and 7 are together. This makes a seven fold person. The faculties of spirit self, life spirit and spirit man do not yet exist in the human being, but are potentials that will hopefully be attained in future incarnations of the earth. the Spirit man can be speculated as a spiritualized aspect of the physical/mineral body. The Life spirit can be seen as a spiritualized Life/ether body, and the Spirit self can be seen as a spiritualized Astral body. When I say spiritualized this doesnt mean the entire physical body spiritualizes and ascends to the spiritual, but a part of that body will spiritualize.
Steiner does not speculate upon previous incarnations of the earth previous to the warmth planet (saturn) but says that there is really only so far back you can go before it is no longer available to clairvoyance. Same goes for bodily members above the potential spirit man. They most likely exist if you follow steiners system logically, but to keep going and going would get outside of the subject.
Hope this is helpful.
I've posted this site in another thread, but it is in relation to 12 dimensions.
http://www.geocities.com/aloha3003/Mediation12Dimension.html
I thought it should have been written from the bottom up. Perhpas start down at the 1st dimension and then move your way up to the 12th instead of the other way around.
-AM
That is an interesting site. although it differs greatly from the approach I was talking about before. I wouldnt place the animals and plants together for example.
It's in need of refinement that's for sure. If you search '12 dimensions' on google you might find something that's better. There's more than one variation.
-AM