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The Online Mystical School Presents

Astral Travel

Taught to you by Daven

Lesson one: Introduction..................................................................................6 Definitions .........................................................................................................8 Lesson 2: Basic Meditation and Basics of the Astral Plane ........................12 Lesson 3: Meditation in depth. .......................................................................22 Lesson 4, Dreams and AP................................................................................34 Lucid Dreams ..................................................................................................34 Lesson 5: The structure of the Planes ............................................................46 Lesson 6, questions answered. .......................................................................58 Lesson 7: Visualization ....................................................................................66 Lesson 8: Examination of the Monroe Technique of Astral Projection. ......74 Lesson 9: DeGarcia's DO_OBE .......................................................................95 Lesson 10: Who are the people in your neighborhood? ..........................................................................................................................104 Lesson 11: True Dreams vs. Lucid Dreams..................................................118 Lesson 12: Guided Meditations and their uses............................................124 To walk with the Goddess. ............................................................................131 Lesson 13: Philosophy and OOBE: What Theology says. ..........................136 Lesson 14: Vibrations and Energy Work ......................................................145 Lesson 15: What's REALLY happening? ......................................................158 Lesson 16; Beyond Death ..............................................................................168 Lesson 17: OOBE as a tool for self improvement........................................172 Lesson 18: Channeling and OOBE................................................................182 Lesson 19: Reincarnation and Other things.................................................188 So, Reincarnation and OOBE........................................................................188 Shields and Wards ........................................................................................192 Lesson 20: How and Why...............................................................................199 OOBE Lesson 21: Review Lessons 1-10.......................................................208 Lesson 22: Review Lesson 11 through Lesson 19 ......................................214 Your OOBE Exam............................................................................................221 Lesson 24; A look at "Illusions" by Richard Bach .......................................227 The Original Assignment Boards ..................................................................230 Topic:Introduction and Biography..................................................................230 Topic:Lesson 2 ..............................................................................................245 Topic:Basic Meditation; Basics of the Astral Plane........................................247 Topic:Meditation in Depth..............................................................................257 Topic:Lesson 4 ..............................................................................................262 Topic:Dreams and Astral Projection ..............................................................267 Topic:Lesson 5 OOPS...................................................................................274 Topic:The Structure of the Planes .................................................................276 Topic:Lesson 7 ..............................................................................................282 Topic:Visualization and Forms of Locomotion ...............................................285 Topic:Personal Evaluation.............................................................................289 Topic:Message Board VS Mailing List...........................................................292 Email List Traffic .............................................................................................293

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All information contained in this e-Text is copyright Daven, 2001 and the Online Mystical School. No reproduction of this work on the Internet or in printed matter is allowed without the author’s expressed written consent. Contact the author at [email protected]

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Out of Body Experiences Class Outline

Lesson 1: Introduction to the class, introduction of your teacher, listing of definitions that will be in use in the class. A short general introduction to Out of Body Experiences. Assignment Lesson 2: Beginning Meditation and discussion of meditative techniques (with audio file of guided meditation). Basic theory of the Astral Plane and what is there. Assignment Lesson 3: More theory of the Astral Plane and more advanced meditation techniques. Being able to "throw your mind out of gear and still function". Start of AP and OOBE journal. Assignment. Lesson 4: Dreams and where do the Dreams of your subconscious intersect with OOBE and the Astral Plane? Discussion. Sharing of the OOBE journals. Lesson 5: Structure of the Planes. More in-depth study of the different places one can go to when projecting. Thoughts on traps and denizens of the Astral Plane. Assignment Lesson 6: Discussion. Evaluation of the class and the personal progress so far. Question and answer time. Lesson 7: Theoretical discussion of the Planes and how to interact with them. Looking at visualization and will as a tool for use on the planes. Practice assignment. Lesson 8: Looking at the Monroe technique of Astral Projection. Experimentation with different techniques of AP and meditation. Does time of day matter? Position of body? State of mind? Lesson 9: Looking at the Compuserv class of Astral Projection. Complete text available. Assignment. Lesson 10: Discussion and evaluation of Lesson 8 results. Assignment. Lesson 11: Lucid dreaming and separating it from true dreams. Assignment. Lesson 12: Guided meditations and their use. Audio guided meditation. Assignment. Lesson 13: Philosophy of OOBE and AP. Going back over some points that may have been looked at earlier and discussing them more fully.

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Lesson 14: Discussion of Lesson 11 and results. Lesson 15: Advanced theories of OOBE and Astral Projection. What is actually happening? Lesson 16: Beyond Death. What is there after we die? What happens next? Assignment. Lesson 17: Application of OOBE to our daily lives. How does this matter in a practical world? Assignment. Lesson 18: Channeling and OOBE. Are they related? Assignment. Lesson 19: Reincarnation and OOBE. Psychosis and phobia elimination through OOBE. Assignment. Lesson 20: Going back over everything to this point. Elaboration on anything needed to be covered. Evaluation of personal progress and the class. Lesson 21: Preparation for exam. Review and experience sharing. Lesson 22: Review and experience sharing once again. Any final questions needing answers will be answered. Final elaboration of points and final questions to be answered. Lesson 23: Exam Lesson 24: Discussion of "Illusions" by Richard Bach and results of the exam. Final goodbyes. Preparation for next class.

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Lesson one: Introduction Greetings and welcome to the Online Mystical School's class on Out of Body Experiences! I am your teacher, Daven, and I will be guiding you into a wonderful universe of discovery. OOBE and Astral Projection can be rewarding as well as challenging. It is a voyage of discovery not only for your own mind but also for the world in general. It can be used to discover a more personal relationship with the world around you and your gods. It can show you the areas in yourself that need improvement and which areas are getting out of control. You can learn things that many years of study might not be able to show you. All this and more can be learned through Astral Projection and through OOBE. These techniques and the theory behind OOBE has been around for centuries. It was a requirement for the Shaman of many native cultures, and it was a skill that was actively sought for among the Druids. In order to be able to do well in this class (which will focus on the actual leaving your body and walking around more heavily than anything else) it would help to have a native talent for this kind of thing. If you are a "negative personality" or someone who has a light connection to their body the exercises will be easier. This is not a requirement. You bring the talent, I will show you the skill to go with that talent. Because of all this, OOBE is an advanced skill. You have to have a pretty good knowledge of yourself, with no illusions, in order to be able to do this properly. Once you leave your body, you cannot have any ego trips or other personality quirks that make life interesting. One thing the Astral Plane teachers you is humility. The reason for this stricture is a simple reason. Your environment will be dictated by your mind. If there is something wrong with your outlook on the world, then there will be problems when you project out of your body. Fears and dreams will come to you and try to distract you, things you thought were buried will come back and make you look at them again. Have I scared you yet? Good. This is not something to be undertaken lightly. It is a dangerous skill and one that has resulted in accidents before. I really don't want one to happen here. However, if done properly, with knowledge and control, it can be as safe as breathing. That is what this class will teach you. AP (Astral Projection) is exactly like near death experiences. They are two sides of the same coin, one where you can come back to your body, and the other side where you leave your body and don't come back at all. It has been theorized that

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those who death-willed themselves simply projected out and didn't return to their bodies for one reason or another. In this lesson, I will give you a brief overview of the kinds of things that you will learn in this class, and an introduction to me, as well as common definitions that will be in use in this class. My Biography is next. ;-)

As I said, I am Daven. I am an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, a High Priest in the Seax-Wican tradition (self-dedicated), a Druid and Ollamh Cainte (Professor of Magick and Ritual) in an online Druidic Society that has since closed down, as well as being a Pagan of some years standing. I started this quest when I was 4 years old, back in 1972. My grandmother was a new-age Christian who had a fascination for the metaphysical. She undertook to teach me about some aspects of metaphysics, from auras, to dreams to AP. Mostly through theory and stories, rather than practical applications of the information she was trying to convey. This continued on into my teenage life. At that time, I got started with AD&D and began to wonder about the validity of all that my Grandma told me. I began reading everything on metaphysics and the psychic that I could find. One of those books was "Journey out of the Body" by Robert Monroe. I began to practice meditation and astral projection. For me, at that time, it didn't work. I thought that it was simply a matter of not enough practice, so I practiced and read everything that I could get my hands on about the subject of Astral Projection. Time passed, and I became an adult. I spent some time in the Army, learned that I didn't care for the Army at all, had a crisis of conscience with the Mormon Church, and left them. I began studying about the Pagan religions out there, and discovered Wicca. I had heard about the witches in the woods for some time, but I never had the guts to start reading about them before. Luckily, there was a Wiccan in the gaming group I was a member of. My best friend and another close friend (Native American Shaman-in-training) helped me define what I wanted out of a religion, and when I discovered Buckland's Big Blue Book, I was hooked. This was back in 1991 when I dedicated myself into Seax-Wica. From there, it was only a matter of reading and investigating more in my areas of interest, learning all that I could about Wicca and the Wiccan traditions out there, and starting to participate in the community. About this time I met my wife, who had been on a spiritual quest about 8 years longer than mine (she got a late start and didn't start questioning her Catholic

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upbringing until she was 12 and Vatican II hit). She helped me even more to define my perceptions, helped me to clean out the drek that everyone collects in a lifetime, and to focus myself. She was also a self-dedicated Wiccan, of no tradition. Together we started a voyage of discovery that continues to this day, almost 10 years later. I have a daughter, whom I am teaching the ways of Wicca to with my wife's help. You can tell that we are Wiccan since we named our daughter after a Goddess (even though everyone thinks we named her after the song). My wife and I are both out of the broom closet, and make no bones about it. Recently, I have been teaching the basics of Paganism to that group of Druids who don't have the background to fit some of the more esoteric information on the Druids into a worldview because of a lack of knowledge in paganism and metaphysics as a background. Also as part of that, I have an advanced class in a lot of theory of different metaphysical phenomenon (in which I have given a brief class in meditation and Astral Projection). I was voted by my peers as the administrator of the group (called Iona on Ancient Sites) when internal pressures became too much. I have started a website that has been up for about 8 months now, which has gotten good critical reviews. I do volunteer work with The Witches' Voice, submitting articles for publication and in doing their "Cats of the Craft" pages. Llewellyn books also allow me to do some reviews of their books for them. Other than that, I am a MIS Specialist for an insurance company in my hometown (which means I fix the broken computers), I am continuing to learn, and hope to start taking a course of study with the Henge of Keltria in the near future. I have been participating in debates and discussions for about the past two years online, along with doing my classes, and running around with my normal life. Which brings you all up to date on my current life. Oh, I need to add to this, that I have been projecting for quite some time now. I have had multiple discussions about the nature of reality with Herne and Rhiannon and my spirit guides, I have talked to other spirits in various worlds, and I have a "pen-pal" agreement with some of my alternate me's in other universes where we swap news and keep current on what is happening with each of us (me). I have been on the Astral Plane multiple times, either in my dreams or during remote viewing and a few times without my body during meditation. I know a lot about this, but I will leave you to judge this for yourself. I will share my stories with you all as this class progresses.

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This is the section where I define 16 or so terms that will be in use during this class. Keep them close so you can know exactly what I am talking about. AP or Astral Projection The ability to spiritually leave your body and walk around and interact on what is termed as the Astral Plane. Usually this happens spontaneously, but you can do it with control. I will use this term quite a lot during our class. Alternate World A world that is not this world. There are countless numbers of these worlds out there, which we will explore in depth as we go along in this course. Summerlands The "after life" for many cultures and peoples. It is analogous with the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of Native American culture, Heaven, Nirvana and so on. It is a place of rest and relaxation after a lifetime. OOBE or Out of Body Experiences This is almost the same as Astral Projection, but the difference is that where you leave your body behind with AP, you don't necessarily have to with this method. This term is kind of the metaphysical "catch-all" term for those occurrences that don't fit neatly into any other category. Near death experiences are OOBE, so too is Astral Projection, but both are different. OOBE is the general category, where the specific skills somewhat similar, they are still distinct enough to require their own terms. Like ESP and Telepathy. Both are different, but one is a subset of the other general category. Might-have-been I will be throwing this term about quite a lot in the examples I give you, and in the classes themselves. I will wait until we get to this subject to go into great detail, but in brief I can say that this is all the other choices you could have made. Any choice you make to bring you here is partnered with uncountable Might-have-beens. Each of the MHBs spin off new worlds. And you can get to them through the Astral Plane. Astral Beings Any permanent denizen of the Astral Plane. From Gods, to demons, angels, dragons, unicorns, devils and imps, to discarnate souls to ascended masters. These are the spirits and beings that don't have a body and will probably not get one. Just as this world is your home, the Astral Plane is their home. Astral Plane This is a place that is nowhere and everywhere. Ghosts and Astral Beings live there on a permanent basis. The Astral Plane touches everything and everywhere and acts as a bridge between worlds. There is only one Astral Plane, but it lays on top of multiple worlds and dimensions. Getting to the Astral Plane is a matter of control and practice. Lucid Dreams

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This is a dream that you have that is so real that you swear you could smell the flowers or the cookies baking and so on. It is a dream in which you control the environment. This is one of the beginning steps in Astral Projection. Silver Cord Some of you may have heard this term. Simply put, this is the "cord" of your lifeforce that keeps your body alive while you are not in it. Sever this connection, and your body dies and your soul moves on to another lifetime. There is little out there that can sever this cord and it is also a way back to your body. Remote Viewing Another form of OOBE, this is seeing a distant location while meditating. This is the skill I have after years of practice. You can use this to view into places on Earth, or even different worlds. Because you are conscious of what is going on in a meditative state, you can control what you see and what happens to a larger extent than you can with AP or Lucid Dreams. Dream Projection Another form of OOBE, this is projecting out of your body unconsciously during your sleep cycle. Those dreams about flying or falling you had at one point or another are this skill in action. This is usually the first concrete type of OOBE that you will experience, and the most frustrating. This is an unconscious ability. Akashic Record Some of you may have heard this term before. This is a record, stored on the Astral Plane, of everything that any person has seen, heard, experienced, thought, whatever since the dawn of time. Jung thought this was the "Collective Unconscious" however, that is a different record altogether. Collective Unconscious This is the same as the Akashic record, but this record only goes back to the oldest living person on the planet. It is also the sum total of the human will, not the consciousness, but the will and ego. Some have referred to this as the "human animal" or the "race memory". Hypnosis The alpha brainwave state, entered willingly, sometimes with the help of someone talking to you. In this state of hyper-suggestively, many changes in the subconscious are possible that are impractical during a waking state. It must be stressed that no hypnotist can make you do anything that you do not want to do. You can't be forced to murder anyone, unless you already want to kill people. That is the stuff of bad dramas. You also can't get stuck in this state, since you go into a hypnotic state every night on your own. That gray area between waking and sleeping is this hypnotic state. Pocket Reality Some have become so experienced at AP and OOBE that they are able to take part of the Astral Plane for their own uses. In these places they

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create environments suited to their tastes and wants. This is a pocket reality. You can enter them if someone else made it, but most times it's not advisable to do so. Usually they are protected to keep those outside from coming in without an invitation. Some people call them "Astral Temples". Astral Body This is what you look like while on the Astral Plane. Not only look like, but it is the reflection of how you truly see yourself. The aura is usually stronger and the body becomes idealized to how you see yourself mentally. This body is different for everyone. It is also what a ghost is made up of. The Astral Body can interact on this world to a limited extent, but on other worlds that changes. Assignment time: Using my introduction and biography as a model, write an essay about yourself. I want to see what you have studied, any practical experience you may have, any stories about AP or OOBE that you may have had in the past. Tell me about you. If you have read books that have really affected your thinking on certain topics, list them as well. Introduce yourself. Tell me about your personality, your likes, interests, turn-offs. I want to also see why you wish to take this class, as well as what you hope to gain from this class listed. These assignments will be posted on the message board and we will all be discussing them, so don't write anything you are uncomfortable with sharing. The essay should be 200 to 1000 words in length.

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Lesson 2: Basic Meditation and Basics of the Astral Plane Last lesson we looked at some of the common thoughts about the Astral Plane, we also defined different terms pertaining to Astral Projection. This lesson, we will be looking at some of the basic theories of the Astral Plane and also working with some of the basics of meditation. First and foremost is the fact that getting to the Astral Plane, or projecting, is a mental discipline. There are no shortcuts to be able to force you out of your body (believe me, I've looked). There are some devices techniques and tips that will bring about the proper states of mind, or a trance state. Basic meditation technique is to sit and close your eyes, and think about nothing. Sounds easy? Well, it can be just as it can also be the hardest thing you have done. Relaxation if the key to meditation, just as meditation is the key to Astrally Projecting. So, the more relaxed you are, the easier it will become to fall into the state where you can leave your body to reach other planes. The key to all of this, unfortunately in some ways, is the mind. The mind is like a spoiled child. It resents having to do something that it has not already learned. As such, it will resist when you try to force it to meditate. Your mind wants to do things the same old way it always did, so when you actually start meditating on a regular basis, you will find that your mind has a tendency to drift onto subjects that have nothing to do with the meditation. This can be good and bad. Let's talk about the structure of the mind for a bit, before we go any further. The mind is composed of three parts, the Superconscious, the Conscious, and the Subconscious. For our purposes here, they are the same as the Superego, Ego and the Id. These three parts make up what we term as our thought processes. The Superconscious is the moralizing, logical part of us all, the thinker, the reasoner, and so much more. The Subconscious is the storehouse and also the random thought processes, the artist, the base animalistic side of our nature, the one who remembers everything we do and say as well as being the sex drive, emotions and the urge to reproduce. In between these levels is the Conscious mind. This is the part of you that thinks thoughts, accesses memories and makes up your personality and all the things you think of as going on in the front of your brain.

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It is my personally held belief that once the Superconscious shuts off in sleep, that the Conscious mind disappears. That it is the border area, the overlap between the Super and Subconscious, that allows us to think and behave as we do when we are awake. When the body lays down to sleep, the Superconscious shuts down, like a computer, and that allows the Subconscious to run free. Note that this is only my belief, not one held by the psychological community at large, and I came to this conclusion through conversations with various people's Superconscious during hypnotic sessions. Well, when you meditate, you are doing basically the same thing to your mind that going to sleep does, shutting down the logical and reasoning part of yourself, and allowing the undisciplined animalistic part of yourself to run free without fetters. This being the case your mind will wander into little side-paths of thinking and dreaming, songs will start up for no reason, you will find yourself thinking of things that you haven't thought of in weeks or months, or old memories will surface. This is because the subconscious does not like doing anything new. However, just like a child, once the discipline and rules become consistent, the subconscious usually settles down and follows the rules you just gave it. This will take time and constant effort. That is why it is so important to consistently practice meditation and to do it about the same time everyday. But, once the mind is bowed under the "yoke" of learning a new way of functioning it will stop throwing up distractions to what you are trying to accomplish. Instead, usually it will start throwing up solutions helpful memories and thoughts. The Subconscious is a very intuitive entity. It can use that for you during meditation. But you have to meditate on an ongoing basis at about the same time everyday, with the same environmental conditions. There are other ways of achieving this state, but by far, the easiest is by use of meditation. However, it is germane to the issue to discuss the other means by which this state of awareness/not-awareness can be reached. The first is probably the most expensive in terms of doing it properly. That is the use of equipment for sensory depravation. Most people either remember or have heard of the SenDep tanks that were used in the 70's for experimentation in the human mind. These experiments showed that left to it's own devices, the human mind will invent things just to give itself input. However, not all equipment needs to be this elaborate. The same ends can be achieved with a pair of ear-plugs and a blindfold. The goal here is to cut off the distractions from the outside world, to remove the input of the senses, so that the mind turns inward. The only thing the tanks do that can't be done by other means is to cut off the sense of touch and smell. As a necessity, once the primary senses are frustrated, the remaining senses become heightened. Turn off sight, and the hearing becomes stronger. Turn off sound, and the sense of touch becomes that much more powerful... and so on. Your senses are still there, just denied input. SCUBA diving does something similar to the mind, and SCUBA diving in the pool with a

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blindfold on will do exactly the same thing as all the elaborate equipment. Buckland even recommends a primitive version of this in the Big Blue Book, with his "witches' cradles" and so on. The next means of achieving this trance state is through dreams. Every night you go into a self-induced trance when you are falling asleep. This is a hypnotic state, and it is very easy to fall into, but it is also easy to fall out of into sleep. In my experience, this kind of AP is the most unreliable, although there are some spectacular results that can come from adepts who use this regularly. I will wait until another lesson to go into this in more detail. There is Ecstatic Trance that can free your mind to roam the Astral Plane. An example that I can think of is the Whirling Dervishes of the Sufi Muslims. It was believed that their spinning allowed them to be receptive to God. In this state, the body does not matter. It was also used as a meditation for the Sultan who would watch the dance and open himself to the mind of God as well. Having seen some film of these dancers, and knowing that they go for upwards to 5 or 6 hours of spinning, I can only imagine that they are in a state of trance. But this is not the only kind of ecstatic trance that can be induced. The frothing at the mouth that happens in some primitive Christian groups is exactly the same kind of state. It is a trance that is self-induced by hysteria. So the devotional prayers in some churches, also called "storming heaven", is a from of this. Basically a lot of people get together and start praying for one goal, and they keep these prayers up for as long as possible. Being "ridden by the Loa" in the Vodoun tradition is also a form of this trance state. They consciously enter a state of trance through hysteria and expect spirits (or Loa) to use them as vehicles to communicate with others. The next way to achieve this trance state where AP is possible is through mortification of the flesh. Ever wonder what the heck a scourge is used for in some traditions of Wicca? Here is the answer. According to the Alexandrian tradition, as related by Janet and Stewart Farrar in their book (and shown to us in the Online Alexandrian Book of Shadows under the topics of "To Gain the Sight" and "To Leave the Body"), the scourge is used to whip the person who wishes to have their mind opened and to see into the "realms beyond". However, this takes two people, one who needs to be experienced in doing this kind of work, and one to be the subject. It is not something for the inexperienced to do. Put it this way, I have been traveling out of my body for about 8 years now with confidence, and I have never tried this version. From what I have read, the theory is sound. This is the same thing that the Christian Monks did in the Middle Ages (and still do to a point). Druids also practiced this along with Sensory Depravation by having their adherents lay in a pitch-dark cell beneath the ground with a heavy stone on their belly.

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Another method to the Trance State is to take drugs. Let me state now, that this is the absolute last option that anyone should take. I do not advocate this, nor do I approve. However, I do know of shamans who do use this method to great effect in the Andes Mountains of South America. However, they do this with years of experience and training behind them. Basically the use of drugs is to throw the conscious mind out of gear enough that receiving visions and leaving the body is natural. However, one cannot control any aspect of the trance at this point. By taking the drug to inhibit your thinking processes, you are necessarily also inhibiting the controls that you would have without the drugs. That is the whole point of taking the drug after all. The last method of trance that I can think of is to be hypnotized. This is almost exactly like the Dream method, but instead of self-willing it, you are guided to this state by another. They can give you suggestions and visualizations to use to help you along, and in all cases you have to actively participate in the hypnosis. I will talk more about this later in this lesson. All of the above methods of entering a trance state have been used in the past. Usually they have been used to enter a state in which God (or your deity of choice) can talk directly to you. From this state, it is an easy leapfrog to leaving your body. I'm going to touch on a few basic techniques of meditation so that you can see that it is not the technique of meditation that is important to achieve this state. The first technique, in my experience is the "Void state". This technique sounds simple, and is to a point, but it can be one of the hardest to maintain over time. You simply close your eyes, and think of nothing. Some go rigid, some become flaccid, and others keep a state of tension in their bodies as though they were expecting something. Many close their eyes, some don't. The practice varies, but the technique is simple. Any thought, any sensation, any sensory input is disregarded or stopped. You don't think of anything, or feel anything, etc. If your mind starts supplying things, you cut that off and go back to being nothing. It is theorized that by doing this, you get closer to the Mind of God. By doing this enough, and by coming into contact with the Mind of God enough, that some of His wisdom will leak over to you. Lucid Dreams are another technique. This technique, when applied properly, will allow you to do two things at once... sleep and AP at the same time. There are a few catches though. First is REMEMBERING your dreams. The way to do this is to tell yourself to remember your dreams before going to sleep, and to keep a notepad and pencil by your bed when you do sleep so that you can write down what you remember upon awakening. This does work extremely well. I did this for about a year, and while I got no closer to AP, I did dream very vividly, and can still remember my dreams from that time. When you wake, IMMEDIATELY grab the pad and write everything you remember from your dream. No matter how

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disjointed, you will get something. Enough to jog your memory later in the day when you can sit down and write a five-chapter treatise on what you dreamed. It is interesting that this is one of the techniques for meditation. I say this because you naturally AP every night. All those dreams you have vague memories of where you went somewhere and saw things and then fell so that you were startled awake, are true AP experiences. Most of us have memories like these (I know I do *S*) and forget them after a while. Once you remember your dreams, the next step is to CONTROL those dreams. It is a matter of realizing you are dreaming, while you are dreaming, and changing it to what you want the dream to be. This is not as easy as it sounds. Many people wake up when they realize they are dreaming, and many never realize it in the first place. A factor that complicates things is that dreams are our subconscious mind's attempt to assimilate what has been happening our lives. It is a way to vent, and to remember what has been going on by symbol association. It is also a way to work out problems. By dealing with them in a "safe" environment, we can confront problems that we may feel are insurmountable. Once the control of dreams is accomplished, it is a very easy matter to decide to visit other places. Or times. Or people. It is possible to go anyplace that your imagination can take you, which is why this is an advanced skill and why you must be careful. The third technique that I have used is The Lotus Position. This is what many people think of when we speak of mediation. It is sitting in a somewhat uncomfortable position, chanting, and doing other goofy things. You don't have to do any of that. The only reason that you sit in an uncomfortable position or concentrate on saying "Ohm...." over and over is to focus your mind. This kind of meditation is as easy as daydreaming. Brainstorming, daydreams, "put it in the back of my mind" are all forms of this. You simply let your mind drift among many different paths. You do not try to force any one thought upon it, you simply go where association takes you. You may start with a problem, think about it, but you will find yourself, usually, miles from where you started. An example; I work with computers IRL, which is my day-job, the one that I earn money from. If there is a problem with the software that I don't have a clue about, I will take a break, think about what the problem is, define it, and start on a trail of associations that will lead me to a working plan. Usually this turns out to be the right plan, but the way I go there is through such stuff as MP3s, my cousin, his computer, the modem and cable modem on his computer, to "device driver problem or conflict" which will usually be right. But the problem I started with was "software locks computer". Channeled right, you can break "intuitive

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flashes" and "gut reactions" down into steps that you can follow in your mind to get to the same place. Usually those gut reactions are this process speeded up until you can't see the components. Doing it this way can result in some interesting connections and associations coming to light. Why would thinking of Montana make you think of your mother's dog (as an example)? Usually the train of logic is a good one for you, and the associations there are interesting, but for someone else, they will seem the stupidest way of associating the particular piece of data. Next lesson we will go into more depth on meditation and tools to help you. However, one thing I did want to talk to you all about was "guided meditations". These are interesting as they are neither hypnosis nor a meditation, but have elements of both incorporated into them. I have an example audio file where I am reading a guided meditation, and you can listen to it here. It's a zip file that is about 7.5 Megs, so it may take you a while to download it. Be patient. There are two files in this zip file; both are the exact same thing, just in two different formats. One is a wav file, the type that Windows uses to make all the sounds. Everyone should be able to listen to that. However, if you want to hear the MP3 version, it's in there too. Feel free to use this if you wish to and to keep them. You can find the original text to this meditation on this page. We will discuss this in the next lesson.

In this section I will be talking about some of the theories about the Astral Plane itself. Many people have written about their subjective experiences in the Astral Plane, and many more have tried to define it. The Astral Plane is not something that lends itself easily to definition because it is so subjective. Here I will be talking about some of the more popular beliefs and sharing with you what I have discovered from my experiences. In Past Lives, Future Lives by Bruce Goldberg, Dr. Goldberg presents the most comprehensive theory to the levels of the Astral Planes that I have read. It is concise and to the point and well explained. In brief, he states there is nine levels of the planes. Getting to these higher planes is simply a matter of your vibrational level. Let me explain that last part a bit. Start with the idea that everything is made up of energy (which it is). From science and physics, we know that energy resonates to a specific frequency, like sound waves. If our soul is made up of this same energy, then we must resonate to the universe as well, correct? Okay, given that, let's say that all existence here in this world is vibrating to a frequency of about 5 cycles per minute.

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He goes on to explain that in order to reach any of the other planes, we must consciously increase our vibration to be able to go there in the Astral Body. Upon death, because you don't have a body any longer, you automatically get promoted to a frequency that will allow you to get to the Astral Plane. Your ultimate frequency is determined solely by what you have been learning during your lifetimes (his book is on reincarnation and is a GOOD read. I recommend it highly) and what lessons you have internalized for yourself. It is possible, according to Dr. Goldberg, to regress instead of progress and to slide down on the frequency scale back to a previous state. The goal of this cycle of lifetimes is to reach the "Universal Consciousness" or the Is as I like to call It. Being part of the Is reintegrates one with the entire spectrum of creation, on all planes and levels of being. It is the ultimate goal of all of us here. Having to be sent back to this plane because of not having a sufficiently high frequency is one of the worst punishments that I can think of for a discarnate entity. Dr. Goldberg also presents a theory to time that is completely interesting and rational, but I will wait to present it when we start talking about Time Travel and AP. I will not make reading this book an assignment for you all, but I would highly recommend it as a reference. AP, OOBE, Reincarnation and so on all touch on the same subject. I will probably be mentioning things from his book from time to time and it would help if you know what I am talking about. If you can't afford to purchase it from some store, I bet it is available through inter-library loan. Next comes my theory of the planes, that of the cube. Building on Dr. Goldberg's theory, I take it a step further. He only has levels, but I extend those levels vertically, horizontally, and forward and back. It becomes something similar to an infinite Rubik's Cube. Within each of these "blocks" is an entire universe of people, worlds, stars and so on. Each also has the levels of planes in them from before. They also have their own Akashic record and Collective Unconscious. Some of these planes are developed from our decisions, some from the imaginations of authors and writers and the beliefs of those who read their books. Other blocks are the past and future to our own block. Please note that these blocks go on forever in either direction you choose.

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What this does is take Robert A. Monroe's idea (as expressed in his book, Journeys Out of the Body) of the other Universes and builds on it. I have also proved this idea as far as I can, but I will relate this presently. The next question is "How do I get to these other 'cubes'?" The answer to that question is "Astrally". You see, I believe that when you leave off dealing with individual realities (or cubes) and start dealing on the level of the Gods, that everything is interconnected. In other words, there is only one Astral Plane, and it touches every reality. The Astral Plane can be used to move from one reality to another and back again. Also the Is exists concurrent with the Astral Plane, and touches each of the realities. Is this starting to sound a lot like the SciFi show "Sliders"? It should. The whole concept of that show is not far off the general idea. Everyone still with me? I hope so, because we move on into who lives on the Astral Plane now. In Chrome Circle by Mercedes Lackey the author (Mercedes) gives a good description as of the actual environment that one will experience on the Astral Plane. Briefly, she states that anything is possible, anyplace is possible, any environment is possible. One will encounter all manner of creatures and beings on the Astral Plane, ones that you have only read about in mythology and also beings that you have never heard about before. She goes into some detail about the method of transport in her description, but she is basing it all on the "assumption" that you are there physically. However, when in your Astral Body, considerations like that can be discarded. I have never heard of anyone who went to the Astral Plane physically. A few other notes about the book; first, it is a work of fiction and the environment they are all in is called "Underhill". However, from Mercedes Lackey's descriptions, it sounds like the Astral Plane to me. The important part is that she points out some of the pitfalls to the Astral Plane, in plain language. Such as the necessity of keeping your mind on a tight rein before you start going to other planes. This is important for more than one reason. I will go into these pitfalls and the necessities in another lesson, probably the next one, but I don't have space for that here and now. If you want to get a sense of the reasons behind this absolute requirement (a disciplined mind) then I invite you to read an article I wrote a while back called The Path of the Magician. Please note that this environment is NOT what Advanced Dungeons and Dragons ® says it is. This is not a starry night sky in outer space. I have seen the illustrations of Rakasha and magicians shooting lasers from their fingers at each other while they float in space, and while that can be the environment you are in if you want it that way, it is a much more comforting environment to interact with if you visualize an environment you are at home in around you.

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One thing that I cannot stress enough is that the Astral Plane will conform itself to your desires. If you want to see spaceships floating in deep space, that is the environment you will be in. If you see a beach with a clambake going on in the distance, that is where you will be. It's all the same location, but it is by your will that the environmental conditions are created. Your will and imagination are what create what you see. With this being the case, you can conform a section of the Astral Plane to be what is called an Astral Temple. Basically this is a way station for your psyche to start out at. You can have meetings there, or just relax or what have you. It is a place of safety that you have created and protected. It is where you will start out at when you project to the Astral Plane, and where you will come to if you are threatened. All you have to do is to believe it is there, know it is protected, and sculpt it to your desires. My own Astral Temple is a simple three-sided building that is designed from a shelter on a hiking trail. It has a roof, it is made from wooden timbers, it is in the middle of a forest, and there is a clear place in front of the shelter. There are log seats around a fire pit for those with whom I wish to speak to seat themselves. I have had battles there, spoken to the Gods and Goddesses, trained in martial arts with the best teachers in creation and history; I have worked out problems there, and many other things. I use it as my primary interaction point. Since there is no limitation on transportation or distance on the Astral Plane, it is no problem for those I wish to talk to to come to me and sit down. To get back there, all I have to do is think of that area around me, and I am "home". Others that needed me for one reason or another have also summoned me out of this haven. One time I was called by a "might have been" of myself who was more involved with the magickal aspects of Wicca and Witchcraft than I was at the time. He "summoned" me with a spell, and proceeded to talk to me about him and myself for a while. He needed comfort, as he was depressed about his lack of happiness in his life. I did what I could, and I think I was able to help him. Mostly what he needed to hear was that SOME version of him was happy and content. Which is why he got me. So, we have covered a lot of ground in this lesson, and discussed many different things. You must understand that any information I give you in these lessons will ultimately help you with your primary goal, learning about Astral Projection. All of these aspects of different disciplines are interconnected, and knowing more about one will help you in another area. The theory I give you is also important. I have made the best and fastest progress when I had epiphanies either on my own or in my studies. A blinding flash of light struck me between the eyes, and it was really hard not to squint.

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So, I guess it's Assignment time: Get a notebook. I don't care if it is on the computer or a lined paper book. I want you to write down the answers to a few questions that I will ask (along with the questions, for your own reference). The answers must be at least 50 words long, longer if you choose to make them longer. I will also ask you to transcribe them into the computer so that we can see these answers from everyone. The questions follow: • • •

• • • •

What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed or will exist. What would you talk to them about? What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it.

It may be easier to simply put all your notes on the computer, and print them out later. However, I do want you to have a notebook of some kind near your bed. One thing that you will start doing and that will continue throughout this course is you will be writing down your dreams. Remember the Lucid Dreams that I talked about earlier and in the previous lesson? Start writing them down and trying to remember them. I'll go into more detail with those dreams and various tricks that will help you next lesson. Just start writing them down. Also, I would like you all to begin meditating for 20 minutes a day. These last two parts are on your honor. I won't be looking over your shoulder to see if you have been writing in your dream journal or meditating, but I would like any interesting dreams or meditative experiences to be shared with everyone on the message board.

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Lesson 3: Meditation in depth. Last lesson I pontificated on the various means to getting into a trance state, citing meditation as the easiest to maintain, and the safest. Now we are going to talk about different sections of meditation, examples of what happens as well as using hypnosis and guided meditations as aids to gaining and maintaining a trance state. Let me define what a trance is first. Several different people have put the definition of trance as a hypnotic, cataleptic, or ecstatic state. Now, this can apply to any number of different conditions in the human body, like being under the influence of a drug or alcohol, daydreaming, or sleeping. For the purposes of this class, a trance is defined as the state between waking and sleeping, where the mind is somewhat awake with focused ability to function, while the body is relaxed for sleeping. Herein is the distinction: A trance state is a state in which there is a self-willed "release" from the reality you interact with every day. You don't see anymore, you don't hear anymore, you don't feel anymore, so forth and so on. Does this sound familiar? It should, you do this every night. Yes, you go into a trance every time you go to sleep. You pass through the trance state into the unconscious state, but you come back up into the trance state often during sleep as well. Medical researchers are calling this state of trance the "Alpha brainwave" state. It is the same state that is invoked in hypnosis and guided meditations. Now, since this state is self willed, meaning that you put yourself into this state, how can it be a hypnotic state, which someone else puts you into? Good question. A "hypnotic" state is nothing more than a co-operative effort between the hypnotist and the subject. It puts you into a relaxed state, usually through words and visualizations and allows for a high degree of suggestibility. This involves giving up some control to the person who is usually called the hypnotist, allowing them to lead you to this state, rather than going to this state for yourself. If you ever want to know what it is like to be hypnotized, go to sleep sometime and pay attention. Right in that time when you relax your body, and your mind starts drifting is a hypnotic state. Why do the scientists call it "hypnotic" rather than something like "the pre-sleep state"? Who knows? I don't. It's one of those things that scientists do, naming the same object or state twenty different names. I guess it was to differentiate it from a self-willed sleep.

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But you know what? Self-hypnosis tapes and guided meditations do the exact same thing to you. You may not realize it, and there are not usually any suggestions to quack like a duck, but it's the same process, the same feeling, and the same state. Because of that, hypnosis is a good tool for use in achieving a trance state and staying there for an extended period of time. However, you may not have a hypnotist handy whenever you want to practice, and they cost a lot of money. So, what other alternatives to hypnosis do the Astral-Projector-on-a-budget have available? Guided meditations: These are wonderful things. A whole sequence of sayings, affirmations, feel-good thoughts, and suggestions for yourself. They are designed to be used in a group setting, so there are no specific suggestions of "You must give me all your money and treat your mother Karen with respect and goodwill" (said sotto voce). Instead, the suggestions will be more along the lines of "you feel good about yourself, the world around you, and the people you meet." The suggestions will be general in nature, rather than specific. What's the flaw in these types of tools? Well, you need to listen to them. Both hypnosis and guided meditations need to be listened to, while you cooperate with the person doing the speaking to achieve the trance state you wish to. Obviously, this will not work too well for those who are deaf, or ones who have problems hearing, or speak another language. So, the best option is to construct your own "guided meditation" for use on yourself. Doing it this way will be ultimately more powerful for you. The visualizations, the sights, the feelings, and the attitude of the whole meditation will be custom made for you, and you alone. For that reason, those who use meditations as a daily part of their lives tend to have about 3-10 different sets of meditations that they use over and over to allow them to achieve a trance state. This is important because without achieving this state and staying in it, conscious OOBE will not be possible. Some general themes of the meditations used are listed here: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Suggestions to relax The feeling of a safe environment around you Lack of distractions from the world A sense of comfort and love Pictures and visualizations of a scene that is pleasant for you A descent of some kind.

Each of these parts comes into play, and can be useful in maintaining trance. For some meditations and some schools of thought, sounds can be important in maintaining this state as well as anything you come up with. One group who

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thinks that sound is important to the mind and memory is the Native Americans and the Whale totem. The Whale holds all the knowledge there is to know, and it accesses that knowledge through the songs it sings. (This is taken from the Native American Medicine Cards; I have no idea what NA spiritualism says in this in general.) Given this set of generalities, let me share with you my personal meditation that I use. I will post it here. Take a look at it and read it. Look for those 6 general aspects of all meditations in there. Then go back and look at the Flame and Shadow Guided Meditation I gave you all last lesson and see if you can find those same 6 themes in it. The best part of this is that once you know the general shape of what your meditation will be, you don't have to read it out loud. You can follow it all in your head to it's conclusion, without ever having to disturb your meditation or your environment around you. No tape recorders, no .wav files, no anything except your own imagination and willpower. Now, lets say that you get into the trance state and are completely relaxed. How do you maintain that state over time? There are a few things that will help you but ultimately it's your will that will decide whether or not you maintain that state. Tool number one: Visualizations. Seeing pictures and environments in your head. Imagining it and making it real around you, from the sights, to the smells and the sounds. Feeling the heat from a lazy summer day, hearing the drone of bees and sensing the humidity in the air, just before the thunderstorm. Making that environment real around you in every way imaginable. This takes some doing, and not everyone can achieve this complete mastery of visualization. I have not yet, although I have been practicing for multiple years on being able to achieve this. Sometime soon, perhaps. I have gotten close, however, which is a tremendous step forward. And I have had this fantasy environment "snap" into focus around me at different times, showing me that I was now projecting out of my body. Here are some hints I can give you about this tool to maintain trance: Don't get to detail oriented. If you get caught up in making every snowflake different, and forget to include the cold, then something is wrong. Start from the general and work your way down to the specific when doing this. Make it day, make the sun shining, make the wind blow, make the wind cold, make the trees sigh around you, then make the snowflakes around you different. Going the opposite way, from the specific to the general only frustrates you and makes it seem as though it's too much bother. Next way of maintaining trance: Hypnogogic images. Watch that pretty light show there behind your eyelids. ;-) That is the hypnogogic images. It is

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theorized by some (most notably Dr. Donald DeGracia, who's work we will be studying later), that this hypnogogic light show is a gateway to the Astral Plane. Watching the lights and looking at the patterns can open a window in you to other worlds. Basically what he recommends is that you look at the lights. Those lights will form random patterns in your eyes, and you watch them. Rather than visualizing something in your head, he believes that if you watch the patterns long enough, you will start seeing images form in those patterns and in the darkness behind your eyes. I have experienced this phenomenon myself, and can only say that what he describes in his class on CompuServe is accurate. I have not yet projected from that state of watching the hypnogogic images into a true projection episode, but with practice I hope to be able to do so. The advantage to this kind of maintaining of trance is that you are passive. There is nothing that you have to do or think of in order to remain in this state. At most what you have to do is to keep reminding yourself why you are looking at this light show, and keep mentally jerking your mind back on track until it becomes automatic with no further thought required. The next means of maintaining trance is thinking about one thought to the exclusion of everything else. In this method of maintenance, you pick a thought or problem, and you think it through to its logical conclusion. You acknowledge that there are associations and sidetracks that you could take, but you set aside the digression for later in the meditation. This is how many who meditate and come back with answers to problems go about it. For instance consider this problem of why you feel restless in a relationship (this is only an example). You would start with the problem, define the problem by asking questions of you like "Why do I feel restless" and "who is causing the restlessness in me" and "am I to blame for the restlessness or is it someone else?" From there, taking the answers to the preceding questions, you would narrow the problem down until it is as exact as possible for you to define. Once the problem is defined and the questions asked, you would start thinking about different solutions to that problem. Let's say, for example, that in the above question, it was finally defined, as "I am restless in this relationship I am in now because of what I am perceiving as a threat from my significant other and I am embarrassed at their 'clinging' to me." Once you have reached this level of exactness, you can start finding solutions to this problem by thinking about "ifthen" scenarios. Now, this is not to say that every meditation needs to be this introspective, but it will help if you know yourself as well as you can before you start projecting out of

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your body. There will come a time when your fears, hopes, hates, and all the sludge you pile up in your life will personify on the Astral Plane and challenge you; get past it or stay in your body. This concept is called the Guardian at the Gate. And you MUST defeat it in order to continue to progress. We will talk about this concept more in a later lesson. Okay, having said all of that, let's talk a little about "conscious meditation" or being able to meditate while physically active. "You can't do that" you say? You can't meditate while doing something with your body because you have to be physically relaxed in order to ignore the body? Yes, that is true, but I beg to differ in some of the substance of this statement. You CAN meditate while doing something physical, but it takes some doing. For example, have you ever been walking outside and let your thoughts drift? Suddenly, you are where you wanted to go with no memory of having crossed the intervening space? That's an example of conscious meditation. Martial Artists are a group that uses this technique. Martial Artists have a series of prearranged movements that they do called "katas". This sequence of movements have stances, punches, kicks, blocks, strikes with other body parts, movements from point A to point B, motions and many other elements to them. It is part of the practice that each and every one of the Martial Artists go through to train the body and discipline it. Some of the most well known katas are the motions and "dance" the people who practice Tai Chi do. It is slow and graceful and beautiful. But there is a bigger purpose to these movements than you suspect. I'll give you the simplest example that I know of, from my own days of taking Martial Arts. I'll have to explain some of the terms since the movements and the strikes and blocks are in Japanese and will mean nothing to you unless you know what stance they are talking about. 1. Look West. Step out to West into zenkutsu-dachi (this is a stance. Basically, the stance position is weight forward on the left leg bent at the knee, with the right leg extended behind you. The feet are shoulder width as seen from head on, and about twice shoulder width front to back. Most of your weight is distributed as 60% front leg, 40% rear leg. Feet are at a 45% angle to your hips and your back and spine are straight) and execute a left hand gedan ude-uke. (Here's a block. It's called a "Down block" since you are blocking downward. Ultimately your closed fist winds up over your knee, separated by about 2 inches. It blocks low kicks and sweeps them to the outside. Either hand can execute it.) KIAI (this is a yell.)

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2. Right foot steps forward into zenkutsu-dachi (see above) and execute a right hand chudan zuki. (Reverse punch. Punching hand slams into the solar plexus and the opposite hand counterbalances the power by pulling back to the hip.) 3. Look East (over right shoulder). Right foot steps clockwise 180 degrees (end facing East) into zenkutsu-dachi (see above) and execute a right hand gedan ude-uke. (See above again) There is more to this. The point of my showing you this is to let you know just how complex this process can be. Bear with me a few moments longer. I'm trying to make a point. If you wish to see more of the above example, I got it from http://www.ryu.com/ryu-cgi-bin/search_item/:CD_kata?Taikyoku_1_Shudokan Once these movements are mastered, then the student practices constantly (over a period of months) until they can start seeing the opponent they are supposedly fighting against. At this point they are not thinking about the individual movements any longer, but thinking instead about how they are supposed to be doing the kata. From this, and with a lot more practice, they don't even have to have their mind on the kata anymore, just on whatever problem they are thinking about. It's a very Zen state. Let me elaborate on the stages that are occurring here for a moment: In the beginning, not only is the student learning the above movements, but they are also concentrating on technique, proper stances, balance, memorizing the movements of their body, correct punches, correct blocks, correct transitions from one stance to another, and many more things, like hearing the teacher. So, while they do these katas, they seem jerky, unsure, sporadic, and sometimes they have to do the same movements over and over again. From there, as they learn the kata, they can free up sections of their mind to deal with other things, like the visualizations. Because all their concentration was taken up with just LEARNING the kata, now they free portions of their mind to worry about their imaginary opponent, and perfecting their movements and their strikes and blocks. Seeing how this relates yet? As the body and mind learns something repetitive, the mind is freed to start focusing on other things. After they move through this transition point, to a point where the kata is so firmly locked into their muscles and their brain stem that they don't have to think about the kata at all anymore, they can meditate while doing the movements. And some of the results from meditations like this can be spectacular.

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This holds true for any repetitive action that your body has learned to a point where it is reflexive in nature, from running to breathing. After a while of doing an action over and over again, the body knows what is supposed to happen now, and the mind can wander into other areas of thought and consciousness. I know someone who meditates to dishwashing like this. The movements and actions are no longer the focus of what she is doing, but the rhythm is what is important. A mild example of this can be seen in highway hypnosis. Your body knows how to drive a car and it shuts the mind down so that it can drive. The driver becomes less and less alert and "spaces out" for a while, while the body drives on autopilot. So, knowing that this kind of action is possible now, shows how much practice they have when Native Americans go on a Vision Quest out into the hinterlands and the Native peoples of Australia (g'day) go into the Dreamtime. The dances and the movements are learned by rote, like multiplications tables, and the motion is translated into a meditation. Now, I don't advise this for everyone. It is a hard place to get to and you HAVE to practice the movements to whatever you use as your device for this kind of meditation constantly. I am only informing you that it is possible to do this kind of meditation. Come to think of it, it kind of explains what happened to Dave when he flew out of his body while cooking. I have never had the experience of OOBE while doing any of these exercises, but knowing the state of mind that is invoked during some of them, I can see it happening. That's enough for now. We will pick up from here next lesson and talk about lucid dreams and how to get them. Now, on to another section of the Astral Plane, the Might-have-beens. Okay, first in order to understand Might-have-beens, you have to understand my theory of time and space. So, once again into the realms of the unknown. A might-have-been is a theory I thought of when I read Madeleine L'Engle's work called "A Swiftly Tilting Planet". Basically, a might-have-been is a world where you chose to go right to get to where you are in your life now, and someone else (a version of you, exactly the same as you right up to this "split") chose to go left into an entirely different future. Understand me, I believe that a version of us makes every possible choice there is to be made at any decision nexus. They know our life story, they have the same experiences, but when that decision nexus comes, they make a different choice than we do, and that spawns a new world. Usually, they can't see into our world, and we can't see into theirs. But through Astral Projection, we can look into their life and see what "might-havebeen if only I had chosen __________".

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Each decision that is made spawns many different realities, where those decisions were either not made, or different decisions were reached. For instance, as a mild example, making a decision this morning to tie your shoes resulted in your shoe staying on. However, in the mighthave-been where you decided not to tie your shoe, you fell on your nose. From there, there are many third and fourth order results we could talk about, and even the possibility that it warped back into this reality, because the difference was negligible. The tree in the illustration only shows how complex it may be. For instance, you are on root portion A, and want to get to branch I in a few days. However, you can't see ahead more than just a few inches. How do you know where to turn to get there? What forks do you take to reach your destination? And how do you know you reached it even when you did? Perspective is what shows you how this falls together. Once you get the perspective of the Gods, you can see how the timelines fall together, how to get there from any one decision, and what some of the outcomes are of those decisions. But we can do this as well, here and now. Planning and thinking about the outcomes of our actions can result in us gaining a piece of this perspective. And we can always gain this perspective from OOBE and dream traveling. Some of the experiences you will read about in books on OOBE describe different worlds where things seem to be similar, but are somewhat or somehow different. This is because these authors somehow stumbled into a MHB (mighthave-been). Remember, not only your decisions create different worlds and versions of you, but other people's decisions do so as well. For instance; you are living your quiet life, going along doing your normal routine, and someone shoots you with a gun. That is a different reality than if he had decided to seek professional help rather than pick up that gun, and that one is different than the MHB in which a co-worker spotted this person cracking up and called the cops. It's not just you, it's everyone who make decisions that affect reality. And for every decision reached, every other possible path is chosen and a new world is spawned.

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Scary, huh? This is the power of the Gods, to create and destroy worlds, and we have it here and now, simply by our decisions. However, the worlds where there are minor differences, ones that are spotted after a great deal of looking, are usually the ones where there was a minor decision change, or one where the change was really recent. Like a world where Clinton decided not to run for President might only have a few differences in the lives of the average citizen. Ones that would be hard to see from the perspective of a visitor. This would be a very close MHB and I can give you all kinds of examples from my own life. For instance, I recently met my wife again on the AP, and she told me about her world in which she and I did not move to Texas due to her work forcing us there, but instead stayed in Atlanta where I was comfortable and continued to work for her company there. To make a long story short, in that world, I was not nearly so involved in Wicca and Religion, was not teaching, but was raising my daughter and helping out at her school. I did not have a day-job. My wife there was a manager of a group, and was making about $40,000 per year. As opposed to here where this kind of teaching is what I enjoy doing the most and well as having a day job. Sometimes it is educational and interesting to look at these close MHBs simply to contrast it with where you are now. It is a reality check to make sure that you don't get too far off into despondency or depression or even too egomaniacal. I have used it this way from time to time to make sure that I made the correct decision for me at the time. There are regrets, especially when you see a version of you doing better than you are doing, but then you realize that in other ways, you are so much better off than your counterpart. The next level of MHB is the "Similar world" in which some historic event happened differently or not at all. Take any event of the 20th century. Now change it enough that it would have long-lasting repercussions. Like JFK not getting killed because his assassin was captured before he fired the shots, or WWII occurring but about 100,000 more Jews being saved than were in our reality. These are the kinds of changes that would shape an entire world, and all of history right down to Modern Day. There are examples of this too. I know of a young spirit who decided she liked to live in the Edwardian times in America. She moved into that reality, created herself a body, and began living. Well, things happened and in the course of her lifetime, she managed to keep some of the major financial institutions from financing the Nazis, saved many more Jewish people, mitigated the war for Europe, and replaced the Rockefellers with her family. Now, granted, she was operating from a place of superior knowledge of what lay ahead, and she had help from others who knew what she also knew, but there were some aspects of the situation that she could not affect. Such as killing Hitler before he rose to

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power. That would have changed too much, and there was no basis on which to build some kind of estimate of what might happen given the power vacuum. Is there an entire world-shaping historical event, one that was so massive that it changes all of civilization forever? Yep, those exist too. I have personally been to and met with people who live in a universe where Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than a fisherman and who's cult died very soon after he did. And believe me, the entire world that results from that is an interesting one. There are so many changes that I can't even begin to list them all. The Native Americans mostly have control of the American Continents, there was not the push for expansion because the Roman Empire never fell, there was never a "Burning Times" and the Jewish nation is only one religion among many, mostly contained to keep their genocidal selves isolated from those who only want harmony. Several technological advances we have don't exist there, and several mental sciences that don't exist here are commonplace there. I can give you one final example of a set of MHBs. I know a person named TJ. To date, I have had 5 different encounters with versions of her where most things are similar to one critical nexus, the meeting of her husband, and that's where things start changing. The lives I have seen with her include: 1. Her as a pregnant member of the FBI, working with the Secret Service and keeping President Clinton from being killed in which she is killed instead and her twin children being taken from her prematurely. 2. Her going undercover for a year in South America, returning and retiring from the FBI prior to the assassination attempt, then founding her own security company and eventually selling it for about $40 million dollars. 3. Her meeting her husband and studying to become an accountant and encouraged her husband's interest in programming, as a result of that he invents email, and begins working for Microsoft. From licensing fees, they become very wealthy. The main motivation for this shift is because she had seen some of the other versions' problems and she didn't want to die. 4. She works for the FBI, gets assassinated on an undercover assignment into South America and against the Drug Lords there. Leaving her husband there a widower and alone. 5. They go through the FBI set of circumstances, learn Martial Arts (which at that point was an interest and a hobby, not a lifestyle) and begin teaching and setting up Martial Arts schools. Her husband gets invited to be part of the United States Karate Team and go to the Olympics where he wins a Gold for individual and a Gold in Team competitions against all odds. Most of the rest of my time with TJ tends to be different side paths off these main branches. I call them "versions" like the software companies do. There is a version in TJ version 5 where after the medals are won, they get discovered and

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have to go into the Witness protection program. And there are other spin-offs from each of these. I have known TJ for many years at this point, and I found her while she was about 4 years old. I made a haven for her and protected her, taught her while she lived her life in full in the universes she comes from. But at that one junction of finding her husband, meeting him for the first time, things changed for her. I know about most of the paths in her life, and I am proud to call her a friend. One thing that tends to happen when you investigate MHBs is that you don't have time to look at every MHB there is for any one decision. So, the tendency to find the "good" versions and look at them exclusively is something that is very tempting. I know of many bad versions of me, ones that are suicidal, depressed, divorced and so on, but I try not to look at them too often, because it brings my mental attitude down. I try to focus on the ones that are positive, mainly because it gives me hope in my own life. Knowing that there is a version of me who is teaching Martial Arts, a version of me that is a programmer, a version of me that is on American Gladiators, and so forth, is encouraging and it makes me strive to be a better person. It makes me want to equal their achievements in my own life and to do the best I can here. Might-have-beens can get confusing if you think about it. It's one of those life experiences that you just have to live through to believe it, and in some cases you can be assured that no matter how closely you think the consequences of your actions out, you may be sure that you did not see them all. I read a book that took this idea and ran with it. I read this years after I developed this theory and integrated it into my life, so it was a shock to see some of my theories and beliefs confirmed independently. The book is called "One" by Richard Bach. Get it and read it if you want to explore this concept further in depth.

Assignment: Write your own meditation. Use the 6 themes above and give it in a format that will lend itself to reading aloud to a group of people. Read out loud a few times to make sure it sounds correct. Try to think of times and places when it would be possible for you to meditate while doing some physical action, and no fair using the same example I used, Ann Cheers is the only exception to this. She is already studying Tai Chi and it uses this same vehicle. But, Ann, I still want you to think of another example for me. Write it down in your journal and think about it. What could happen if you decided to meditate while doing this action? Write down any observations and thoughts on this to share with the rest of us.

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Next: Think of a major decision you had in your life (these will be shared so make it non-embarrassing) and try to work out the cause and effect of taking different decision at that point. Where might you be now if you made a different choice? Last, I want you to extend your Dream Journal into a Dream/AP journal. Any incidents that are different enough for you to remember, I want you to write down in this journal. Make note of time, place, how you were laying, moon phase (if you know it), what happened in as much detail as you can. Any other factors that you can think of as contributing to the overall projection, I want to hear about those as well. This will be your journal of Dreams and AP. Keep it up to date. We will be discussing some of the entries in these journals from time to time. The more exact you can get this journal, the more progress you will make.

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Lesson 4, Dreams and AP Here we are, two months into this course of study. I hope some of you are feeling more comfortable with all of this, the class, the lessons and the act of projecting. I want you to start thinking about that, because I will be asking for your feedback soon, and I expect to see it. If you have not noticed by now, the lessons are being written in a particular way, 1/2 how to and 1/2 theory and explanations. Did you all notice that? Hope so, because we will be dealing with Lucid Dreams today, as well as talking about fantasy and fictions as places of travel. Tally HO! Onward.....

Lucid Dreams First I guess we should define a lucid dream. I know I have given this to you many times before, but let's go over it one more time for those who have missed it or forgotten it. A "Lucid Dream" is a dream in which you wake up and can act in the dream as though it was the "real" world. HA! Caught you, didn't I? Gave a different definition to see who was paying attention, but really, this definition is exactly what a lucid dream is. It's one in which you remain in the dreaming state and your mind comes to full consciousness. This is why lucid dreaming is so similar to projecting that many experts don't distinguish between them. This is also why writing down your dreams is important to being able to AP. Remembering a dream, and having a lucid dream will help you to AP with confidence and control. Considering that control is critical to the AP experience in and of itself, this can only help you in the long run. The first thing that will help you remember your dreams and help you begin to have lucid dreams is telling yourself that you will remember them. Just that act, saying "I will remember my Dreams tonight" will start your mind thinking about doing as you are asking it to do. So, telling yourself to remember is the first step, what is the second step? Writing your dreams down is the second step. Putting a notepad near your bed, so that it is the first thing you grab when you wake, reinforces this idea in your mind and subconscious. Since the subconscious mind operates on a symbolic level, the symbol of the notebook hammers home the fact that you want to remember your dream.

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The third step in this process is to wake in the dream. Most people will do the first and second steps with little trouble, but this third step gives most people the problems they have. Waking in a dream is a hard thing to do. Most people, instead of waking in the dream, wake in reality. That's okay, it happens sometimes. This indicates that you realize that you are dreaming and you are taking steps to start to become conscious of the dream and interact with it. Dr. DeGarcia suggests that instead of telling yourself that you should wake, that you should set up a set of triggers that when you see these triggers in your dreams, you will come to consciousness in the dream. A set of circumstances and visuals that you see in your dreams that will tell you that you are no longer awake and with your body. To quote Dr DeGarcia: "YOU WANT TO CONDITION YOURSELF SUCH THAT, WHEN YOU SEE ODD THINGS OCCURRING IN DREAMS, YOU WILL USE THESE ODD CIRCUMSTANCES AS A TRIGGER TO TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE IN THE DREAM WORLD." So, sitting down and coming up with a mental list of things that you know are odd in your dreams, and recurring themes, and using those as a springboard to wake in your dream and become aware of the life you lead when you are awake is necessary. For this, you need to have a journal so that you can look at it and find an object or event that occurs often in your dream is necessary. That's the first thing. The second thing is to "program" yourself to be able to change your dream. This can be done with affirmations or positive reinforcement. Simply stating that you CAN wake in your dream, that you WILL wake in your dream and that you CAN go anyplace and do anything when you wake yourself as you are going into a trance can help this process along immensely. Writing this down 5 times each every day can do wonders on the psyche. Changing the dream is a critical step. Once you see the new environment you wish as having replaced the environment you are in, this is a major step forward. It is not a trivial one, either. Let me digress for a bit so you can see why I am saying that changing your dreams is not a trivial step. Let's talk about the Will. On the Astral Plane, Will is everything. Your sense of worth, your drive to accomplish, your image of yourself is all a reflection of your Willpower. To change anything on the Astral Plane is a hard thing to do. The general rule of thumb you have to obey on the Astral Plane is this: (and I will give very few rules of the Planes, but this is one of them) The stronger of two wills, wins. This means that if someone comes up to you and shoots you with an arrow, sending it hurtling through your body and he sees you hurt and falling, no longer a threat,

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and you see him as having missed with the arrow completely, the one who knows the hardest that what they see is true, will have their 'vision' happen. If that is you, you are fine. If it's him that has the stronger will, then you will be hurt. However, leaving your body and knowing that you are out of your body seem to supercharge the Will. It's not that your will gets any stronger, it's that any little stray thought will manifest quickly and completely on any other plane than ours. Here's an example of this from my own life: Once upon a time there was a stone. It was a fused piece of sand from a desert someplace that had been struck by lightening. Some lapidary someplace had taken it and sliced a "window" on one side of it, so you could see the inside of the stone. It looked really cool. One day, a friend of mine saw it, and looked into it. Three hours later we were getting a little scared about her since she had not come back from the journey that the stone had taken her on. I went after her. Turns out there was another world that could be reached by the doorway of the stone, and that window. She had APed there and was running around having fun. She was invisible and laughing and talking, but none of the inhabitants could do anything to her. One of the denizens of that plane (called the Bird-world) came back through that portal to here. To make a long story short, she saw a lot of sights here, and they did not believe her when she got back home (I say her and she, but they had no sexes, their world was based on sexless creation). She appealed to me to help her prove my world to the rest of the inhabitants. I sent a small wisp of energy into that portal, not directing it in any way, only enough to fuel a "hope" spell, and not very well at that. What came back was an entire world changed. There were now male and female beings on this world, all my doing. I had completely changed their entire civilization in less than an hour their time. Many many things happened there, to me, to them, and to us. I learned from them and they learned from me. Never again would I despise the Christian God, since I was now a God along that level to these people. This is a short example, and I don't expect you to take my word for it. However it has been my experience that willpower is the fuel for everything on the Astral Plane and other planes. "As you believe, so it is."

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But it's not just a question of belief, or faith, or hoping, or anything else that leaves "wiggle room". It's knowing. A complete utter knowledge that what you want to happen is actually happening. There can be no room for doubt. Here's another example: (As an aside, if you see holes in some of my stories, you may safely assume that I left them there on purpose.) Once I had to violently confront another being and fight her to get her to release something that was mine. She had stolen it from me. Her will was trained as she had been a priestess in life. I sent my allies toward her one at a time, hoping that she would be overwhelmed and worn down by all of us. However, this tactic did not work. One by one she blasted my allies into critical injuries. My turn came, and I saw a vision of me hitting her multiple times before she had a chance to react. I can only assume that she was doing the same thing to me. She wound up with multiple fatal injuries to her body in various locations, but I had doubted that this was even happening only for a split second. I wound up with a major injury on my left thigh where some of her magick had gotten through my shields and hit me. To make a long story short, I managed to defeat her, get back what she had taken, heal all of my allies (although one nearly died) and reduce her to unconsciousness (permanently). When I got back here, I was feeling really ragged out. And my left thigh had phantom pain for several days later. (Please forgive me, but I did not keep a journal of any of this. However, most of the occurrences are locked into my brain. However, some of the details may be skewed or otherwise messed up. See the importance of using a journal?) All of this occurred in the Astral Plane. But that split-second of disbelief, of not knowing that what I wanted to happen was actually happening cost me. I was more tired than I should have been, and I was injured. When I knew that I was the one that controlled all of the environment and the battle, I was fine, but when I doubted it, I got hurt. So in a sense you can say that I hurt myself. "If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right." --Mary Kay Ash We will eventually speak on beings on other planes and how to interact with them, but that is not this lesson.

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Where was I? Oh, yes, Lucid Dreams. So, looking at the importance of the Will in AP and Dream Traveling, one can see that it is important to remember your waking life while you are dreaming. Until that time, you are believing and thinking that you do not have any control over your environment at all, which you won't have. Waking in your dream will show you that it is all fantasy and that you can control the shape the dream takes around you. One thing I must stress is that dreams are personal. The symbolism of a dream is made up of the symbols in your own unconscious mind, since the subconscious uses a language of symbols. So, some of the inane things you see in your dream at night may mean something significant to your subconscious that your conscious mind may not be able to grasp. For instance, seeing a fish in an AP or a Lucid Dream situation does not necessarily mean what the "dream books" tell you that it means. Each symbol is personal. The "dog" in many of those interpretation books means a faithful guardian. But if a dog bit you when you were little and it traumatized you to the point where you won't have a dog as a pet, then the interpretation of a faithful guardian will probably not be a dog. It may wind up being your stuffed animals. A dog, for you, would represent a danger of some sort, possibly one that could not be reasoned with. I have seen a lot of those "universal symbol" books that tell you what everything means in the dream world. To date, I have not seen one that is more than 40% accurate on any interpretation of a symbol. This is pretty common across the board for those who use them. However, if you believe that the book is accurate, then it will become so. You will program your subconscious to accept a dog as a guardian rather than as a monster. It's that programming of the subconscious that the Dream and AP journals are for. They get your mind into the state it needs to be in to do what it needs to do. It is bypassing your conscious mind, and all the thoughts of "I can't, I won't, it's too hard" and making the changes where it will matter, in the subconscious which only accepts what is put in. If I were to liken your mind to a computer, I would say that the Superconscious is the processor of the computer, the one that speaks a structured language that it understands, the conscious mind is the interface of the keyboard, the mouse and the desktop and icons on the computer, and the Subconscious is the disk drive. You can put anything on the disk drive, and the drive will accept it and try to execute it when the time comes. The Processor will reject it if the program is not in a language it understands, and you can't always make changes to the program in the desktop environment. You can't always change the Subconscious mind

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consciously, and the Subconscious mind will attempt to run anything that it has, no matter how odd or impractical. The Superconscious makes the decisions on what makes sense and what is nonsensical. So we sometimes have to bypass the conscious mind and make the changes directly to the Subconscious through the medium of dreams and subliminal tapes and such. Now, since we are talking about dreams and dream work, I will discuss why all dreams should NOT be Lucid Dreams. Dreams are the Subconscious mind's way of processing the information that has come in to it during the day. It is a way for the SC to take all the events and store them in a pattern of association that it can recognize and use. This is why some associations make no sense, because the SC related it in such a way that it can understand that our logical portions of our mind may not see the connection. Dreams are also a way for the SC to review important events. Everything you see, hear, smell, think, do and feel are processed and stored in the SC. Some events and information jump up as important and tell you that they are important, while others need to be viewed in context of other events to understand that they have an impact on the situations. The SC does this while you are asleep. It views all those events during the day and begins comparing events to similar events and it looks for patterns that can indicate an event coming up. The SC also works on problems while you sleep. How many of you have held a problem in your head while you were drifting off and when you woke up had the answer to that problem? I know I have had that happen to me on more than one occasion. This is the Subconscious at work, thinking through the problem with all the resources it has and coming up with likely matches to the current problem. When you AP or Lucid Dream, these activities are put off by the SC until you are back in your body, then it works on these activities. So, if every dream is a Lucid Dream and it turns into an AP session, it has no time to do these critical functions. I'm going to offer you another piece of advice here. "If it affects you, it must be true." Lucid Dreams seem like the "poor man's OOBE" but they work and are just as true as separating from your body. These dreams are affecting your psyche and your mind, and as such are just as important to your OOBE activity as projecting. There is no difference. Let us now discuss Fantasy/Fiction realms.

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These are worlds that you can get to with AP that never existed except in someone else's imagination. The books you read, the movies you see, the stories you hear, are all examples of this kind of world. I'll use the Star Wars universe as our example and the "universe" that I'll cite different specific illustrations in. Here is an entire universe that was created in the mind of George Lucas. Others may have contributed to the overall shape, once the bare bones were fleshed out by him, but no one else is responsible for the creation of this universe except George Lucas. Once he dreamed up this world, it existed. Remember how I was saying "be careful what you think" a little earlier? This is that caution manifested. George thought this world up, and for him it existed and others could then interact with that world. But once he made his movies and wrote those stories, that world moved so much closer to ours that we get a sometimes spontaneous crossover between our world and theirs. For example, there is now an entire role playing game designed around the Star Wars universe. As a result of that, we can now interact in those places that before were only in the movies, create entire story lines, and start to develop another universe there. The characters we create in those games become real. Since we are the animating agent, we are the ones who give these people life. This sounds like a power of the Gods, and it is. Here we can make an entire universe from nothing more than a few stray neurons rubbing together. We can trash entire civilizations and races, build some up to the point of almost godhood themselves, teach them what is going on in reality and show these people that we care and are all powerful. It's that Will thing again. As you believe it, so shall it be. If you feel the world around you and know that you are there, then that fiction becomes real. Someone else's fiction becomes real because they believe in it, and it becomes more accessible to us the more people believe in that same fiction. So, how real is the Star Wars Universe? Well, something like 20 million people watched the last movie to come out, and of those who watched it, I would guess something like 3-4 Million truly believe it. Compare that to the current population of the Earth now, all of whom are convinced THIS world is real, and you can see that it's not real enough to worry about the Millennium Falcon coming out of hyper space anytime soon. This separation between fictions and our world is good, because we have enough problems with keeping our mind on what is going on here to worry about

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what is going on in another universe. However, some of us have problems there too. For instance, by creating a persona there in those fictions, or by creating that fiction in the first place with your thoughts, you are now responsible for them, so long as you are associated with that fiction. If you don't allow them to move on and to begin to develop on their own, then you are that world's god and you are directly responsible for everything that happens there. Even a few stray words can have profound impacts on one of these fictions, because of your thoughts. Here's another example. I chanced to find a world that was pretty medieval at one point. I thought it was barbaric and completely unredeemable. I was about to move on when a companion who was traveling with me (people with you happens quite a lot, and I'll talk about that later) mentioned that this world would make a wonderful setting for a set of stories. I decided to stay and look around. Looking around I discovered that it was somewhat more barbaric than I thought it was. There were petty cruelties that were inflicted by the ruling class on those of "lower" social status, and outright torture to get something desired from relatives. In the case I witnessed, the sister to the local prince wished to marry her sweetheart and the prince did not want her to. He had a stone block suspended at the ceiling (about 3000 lbs or so) with restraints hanging from the underside of this stone block. He chained her there, and counterbalanced the stone with another that was almost as heavy, but not quite, about 2 lbs difference or so. So that while she was there, hanging by her wrists and ankles, any movement at all made the stone drop toward the floor. She was naked and the dungeon was cold. To make matters worse, he chained her lover directly below her. The prince left them there all night. HIs goal was to make her choose between killing her lover and herself, or remaining absolutely still while cramps and such set in. He hoped to force her to realize that she did not love her lover, but that she was selfish in nature and wanted to live more than she wanted him. When I found out about this, I froze the stone in place so that it did not move at all, warmed the chamber so that they did not freeze or suffer hypothermia, and gave them blankets so that they were warmish. They were not comfortable, but I saved them both from almost certain death or grave injury. Through the next few weeks, I helped them escape this hideous place and made them vanish to another portion of the world. They were safe.

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A child I know demanded a bedtime story around this time, and since I had been thinking about Caliah and Pon (pronounced Ca leigh ah and P ah n) quite a lot at that time, I made up a story about them raising horses and the fire that occurred at one point where about half their stock was killed. I made it a story about triumph over tragedy and this child was satisfied. Imagine my horror when I went back to visit them and found out they really had a fire that wiped out half their herd. Here I am, wanting to entertain someone I knew, and I was responsible for the deaths of over 30 fine animals who had a long life before them, as well as the financial loss suffered by my friends. And I did it. That I did not intend for it to happen was immaterial, it did and I was responsible for it. This is an example of how a "fiction" can get away from you sometimes. There are multiple examples I can give you on this one from my experiences, but let me take a shot in the dark on this and see if you have similar experiences. Have you ever been reading a book, a really good book, and some plot twist in the book jumped out at you and said "HERE I AM!!!!" completely spoiling the book you were reading? That is an example of what I am talking about. These places have a life to them, the people in there are real, and the more you identify with a character in a book, the more you will start knowing what they do. You will know more about their background, their actions, what they are thinking and so on, whether or not the author tells you what is going on in their head. You now have a connection of the heart, through the Astral Plane. Well, it is possible to go there while you are projecting. You can do this one of three ways. 1) You can go there in spirit form. You will be a dispassionate observer, invisible to everyone, able to interact to a limited extent there. It will be like you were in the best Virtual Reality environment/movie you have ever heard of in your life. 2) You can create a body there, and interact through that. Mind you, when you are not in this body that you create there, it will continue to function on its own. But by doing this kind of action, you will be interfering directly with whatever story there is. 3) You can "possess" a person who is already there. To all intents and purposes, this is like the classic possession of bad SciFi and Horror here. You will take over their body and feel what they feel, hear what they hear, know what they know. This can happen in one of two ways: a) "The Rider within" which put simply, you take no actions and are not the one in primary control of the body. You are a passenger and an observer, nothing more. b) "The Exorcist" is where you completely take control of the body and do everything you wish to do in it. The "owner" of that body has no control over it,

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and in most cases won't even remember the times you are active in their bodies. Be careful. You could wind up making someone that is innocent take the blame for a lot of things you do, so it is usually best if you only observe the environment. So, how does this pertain to AP? Good Question. If your mind is what is controlling all of these environments, then your Subconscious mind is the device you are using as the tool for that control. Your Subconscious has the Will residing in it. The Superconscious usually has to have something proven to it before it can settle down and start believing something, but the Subconscious will accept things on faith, because it has a better connection to the Astral Plane and the IS than we normally do when we are walking around. Your intuition and your inspiration comes from the Subconscious. So learning to meditate and harnessing your Subconscious mind is an important first step in all of this. After all, if a knife is not sharp, it won't cut. Same thing for the Subconscious mind. Stray thoughts, actions put in the back of your mind, a character or a body left on auto pilot can be bad or good, depending on the situation. However, you must do something with those creations in these fictions. You can't just let them go and have nothing more to do with them. If you do, they will get further and further out of control, until they are nothing more than a shell or a vegetable. So use this method responsibly. Having said that, let me talk a bit more on conscious meditation. The meditation I spoke on a while last lesson where you are meditating while doing some other kind of activity. I know that this kind of meditation seems like bootstrap levitation, but it does work. Once again it's not the believing that makes this work, it's the knowing that is important. What I am going to tell you about is a technique that I use. It's where I "throw my mind out of gear" and keep doing whatever I'm doing. It uses a type of remote viewing and a doppelgänger effect. Remember when I was talking about creating a body? That's the doppelgänger effect in action. Basically you believe a body around you in whatever environment you find yourself in, and voila, you have one. Interacting this way can teach you a lot, but at times you want to come home to your body here and continue to live, while visiting this specific world off and on for a while. With a body there, you can snap back there anytime you choose to. However, while your soul is not there, that body is on auto pilot. It will act on it's own, and do things on it's own. How do you solve this? Consciousness in not limited to only one time/place. This is some advanced theory which I will touch briefly on here, and explain in greater detail later. If your

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soul is an infinite being, and you divide an infinite being in half, what do you get? Two infinite beings. You can leave, consciously, a portion of yourself in the other body, to allow you to come back to it and to keep it acting in a moral fashion. There are times when you do this however, that you will feel a tug at the back of your head telling you that something is going on in that other world. This technique not only works for fictions, but also for might-have-beens and also other planes of existence. Anyplace you can AP to, other than this plane, you can do this in. So, the trick is to not think about it too much. Just like if you think about shields too much and keep having to rebuild them, they keep falling, if you create those shields and don't think about them again except to know they are there and keeping you safe, this is the same technique. Knowing is the trick, not thinking. It's the same with this kind of meditation or "sending". You send your will into another place, tell it to do things, and let it do it. If you think about that sending, you dismiss it again. Okay, so what do you do with the body after you are done with it? You de-create it when you are finished. You take the body apart like you made it, and let it's parts go back into the æthers you took it from. Nothing more. However, you can simply morph your appearance on another realm into that of the people you wish to look like. To do this, you simply envision yourself as the form you wish to be. It can be anything from a person, to an animal. Just remember that you will be limited to the new form's mode of transport while you look like it. Who would not question a tree walking if one was seen? Okay, I've given you all a lot to think about, so I will finish up here. There is a WHOLE lot more, and some of it will be covered in later lessons, but if you have questions that just can't wait, please post them.

Assignment: Share one entry from your Dream journal. Tell us what you think/know about it. What does this dream mean to you? What did this dream try to tell you? Is it a true dream, lucid dream or an AP episode? Mention anything else you think pertains to this dream and we will discuss them on the board. Write down the "Rules of Conduct" you will follow when you are in another reality. Think of what you believe is courteous, and write these down as a guideline to how you will act when projecting. They will be posted and after they are up, you can steal from each other to come up with a "General Code of Conduct" for out of body excursions. Basically, how will you act on other worlds? Look over your dream/AP journal and start a log of symbolism for yourself. This is a list of recurring symbols that are in your dreams and what they mean to you.

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You may have to meditate on these symbols to figure out their meaning. You do not have to share this section, but you will need it so that you can interpret your dreams at a later time. Please also make sure that you mail your assignments to [email protected] as that address is the clearinghouse for your assignments. DO NOT post them directly to the message board. I'll get them when you send them to the above address. Make sure to put your User ID in the subject field as well.

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Lesson 5: The structure of the Planes In previous lessons, I gave you all a basic outline of how I view the planes and I have been elaborating on some of the places you can go to. Here is where I take some theory and start making it a practical explanation. Let me digress a bit to explain some of the more common theories about how the planes are structured. There are basically three, mine, DeGarcia's and Monroe's theories. Monroe states in his book, Journeys out of the Body that in his experience there are three places you can go when out of body, Locale 1, Locale 2 and Locale 3. These relate to here, Heaven and other worlds. He does not come out and say this, however, some of the descriptions he gives makes it clear that this is the places he has been. For example, he talks about Locale 2 as though it were up in the sky, and that there are all kinds of fantastic people there, angels, and also dead people. He makes it plain in one entry he makes to illustrate his point. He states that he lays down and exposes his stomach to some being who makes a grand progress through this place and all beings in this place (Locale 2) lay down for this being to walk on, providing a living carpet for this being. Monroe's interpretation is that this being is the Christian God, although Monroe makes repeated statements that he is an atheist. Unfortunately, he lumps all sections of the Astral Plane together into Locale 2, and he talks about them as "rings" or "levels" of Locale 2. It can make for a confusing description at times. Locale 3, by contrast, he describes as a place that is not here, but is almost like here. There are houses, people, technology, but it's all slightly skewed. Some parts of Locale 3 are in the agrarian stage of development that the United States went through during the early 1800's and there are some pieces of technology that are present in this section of reality that are not present in our world. I liken these environments to this world for Locale 1, all of the planes of the Astral Plane for Locale 2, and all the fictions and Might-have-beens as Locale 3. It was Robert Monroe's works, in fact that got me thinking about alternate worlds when I first read it, something like 15 years ago. That made sense to me and I incorporated it into my worldview and expanded upon it. Dr. DeGarcia, however takes Monroe's theories a step further. He stipulates that there are multiple levels to the Astral Plane, and breaks them down into different groupings and distinct planes for us to look at. He further states that the

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boundaries between the planes bleed over into one another due to their similarity. He adds a plane called the "void" to the list of planes that are presented, and he clearly states that he does not know anything about the Void except to say that it is a place that is not. There is nothing there. His description is that the Void is a place between planes. If you have read Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series, the Void would be similar to "between". DeGarcia describes the Void as the sections between radio stations, where all you get is static. He also talks about "lockmolds" as how strongly you are tuned into a particular plane. From his writing, I read that there are about 7 different planes. To quote his list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Physical Plane (which includes the Etheric Plane) Astral Plane Mental Plane Buddhic Plane Atmic Plane Anupadaka Plane Adi Plane

He goes on to give detailed descriptions of all of these planes, but makes it clear that he is only surmising about the plane 5 and up since no one can get to those planes and still return to this reality. He states that the Buddhic Plane is as high as a human can go. This is a useful resource for those interested in some of the more occult aspects of AP. Later in this lesson, I will give you the link to download his work so that you can look at it for yourself. We will be discussing this book during lesson 9 and I want you all to have the time to read it. I tend to agree with some things that are mentioned in this lesson, but there are still some things that I disagree with. He puts the Astral Plane as the closest one to this world, and leaves all the others as adjuncts of this world. He does not discuss either fictions or might-have-beens although he does mention them occasionally as locations he goes to. I would also imagine that when one projects in this place, that one only projects out to the Etheric Plane. Let me explain a bit on what the Etheric Plane is. It has been surmised by some that the Etheric Plane is the plane that we first see when we die. In other words, it what many have called the "Spirit Plane" or the Astral Plane. In this set of classes, the Astral Plane is the plane that is the closest to the God figure that you have. Be it the IS, YHVH, Allah, Diana, Estarte or who you worship. However, the Etheric plane is the FIRST place that you see once your physical body ceases to work and support your soul.

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This plane is unique to each different world, be they a might-have-been, a fiction or here. With this in mind, let me share with you all my vision of the planes.

Keeping this image in mind, you can see the structure of Monroe's theory, DeGarcia's theory and my theory. I gave you the basics of this theory in lesson 2 when I showed you the "Astral Cube" but it breaks down even smaller. Each reality has it's own versions of "levels". Each has it's own Etheric Plane, it's own Mental Plane, and it's own World Mind. Each of these is unique to the reality in question. The Akashic record, which stores all the history and knowledge since the beginning of time if you recall, is different from our reality from all others. The "Bird World's" (mentioned in an earlier lesson) Akashic record will be different from ours. So too is the physical territory different from ours. The "Mind Plane" is what I have been calling the collective unconscious of the world in questions, and the "mind plane" is a level that contains all the collective mentalities of all the creatures on a particular reality. It is the residence of the Guardian Angels, the Place Identities, the Spirits and Elements, in short the Soul of the World resides in this place. The Astral Plane, once again exists only once and touches all the other realities and levels in those realities. Thus, it is possible to move from the Physical plane here, to the World Plane of a MHB of a reality where Clinton was impeached and then go to the Mind Plane of Lilliput (from Gulliver's Travels). It can get confusing if you don't know exactly where you are going sometimes. Especially if you just decide to go, and don't specify a "target" of some kind. This is why you should always have some kind of idea where you want to go when you start traveling. It can be a specific target (I want to see what would have happened had I chosen to finish college) or something kind of vague (I want to see a world where Wicca is the world-dominating religion) to the completely silly (Where do Unicorns live?) and so on. This gets your mind looking intuitively for the locations where these realities exist. If you don't have some kind of target in mind, then you run a risk of winding up no place. There are planes between realities. If here is 1, and the plane you are going to is 2, then you could wind up

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at 1.4533 or something. DeGarcia calls this the "Void" and he goes on about it in great length as explained earlier. I personally have never seen the Void as he describes it, but I have once wound up in a place that is not a world. I believe it was the Etheric Plane for this world, but I don't know. All I do know is that while I was there, the entire place looked to be nothing more than a large hallway, about 3000 feet high by 3000 feet wide that stretched to infinity. In this hallway were "icons" of everyone and everything that was alive and had a consciousness. They were self-created representations of the people, animals and plants that had a consciousness, and if I followed any of them, I would be able to see them, and know that "person" as though I was their closest relative. I knew all of this instantly, simply by asking because information is like that on the Etheric Plane, easy to get at. If you need to know something, hold the question in your head and you know the answer, instantly. I knew exactly what those icons were, why they were there, and what would happen if I touched any of them. I knew that this was the medium through which things like telepathy operated, how twins communicated, and how a disembodied spirit could keep track of anyone they need to. I also knew that the icons did not represent where the people were physically in the real world, but how far advanced mentally and emotionally they were. The further back into the far distance one went, the more "primitive" in mentality they were, and the further forward one went, the more advanced. Unfortunately, I did not stay very long in this place because I was called to another reality, to the Mind plane of one reality where I was tested. Don't ask me what for, to this day I have no idea. But that is a tale for another time. You can look at those three theories of the planes like this: Monroe has the theory and it is the simplest of them all, DeGarcia's theory is the intermediate stage, and mine is the advanced theory. It certainly is more confusing than any of the other theories presented. So, what is the Etheric Plane? Like I said it is the place where Ghosts live, it is also the "starting point" for us when we project. In many ways, if you have an "Astral Temple" it will probably be here, rather in the Astral Plane itself. This is simply because it is easier to make something here in the Etheric Plane than it is to make the same thing in the Astral Plane. It is also Monroe's Locale 1. It is also the "Ghost" image of this plane, from the movie with Patrick Swayze. The Etheric Plane lays on top of and intersects with the physical world constantly. It is always there, sitting just outside of our perception. Some, with a sensitive "feel" for the Otherworld, can see or sense things in this plane, and we all can interact with the Etheric plane on an ongoing basis subconsciously, but it's not something that we all can do in a conscious waking state. The Third eye can

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see into the Etheric Plane, and some people who can "feel" things from places and so forth will get information from this plane all the time. However, it is still subjective. Your view of the Etheric will be in symbols that are comforting to you since you are the one interacting with it. While in the Etheric Plane, you will be able to see the landscape of this reality, the people in it, and the "landmarks" that you will use to go someplace. Traveling to visit relatives in distant parts of the world will be through the medium of the Etheric Plane. You will still be able to see and, to a limited extent, interact with this reality while on the Etheric Plane. This is why many occultists and Astral Projectors lump the Etheric Plane in with this physical plane. I'll go over the "levels" of the realities in more detail in later lessons, as adjuncts to what I am teaching. Just like I did with Might Have Beens and Fictions. Suffice to say that the Etheric Plane is the first one we will interact with and the easiest to get to since we go there when we sleep anyhow. That's right. The Etheric plane is where we go when we project while sleeping, most times. You will meet many people there, from angels to sleepers to the newly dead on this level. You will meet these same people at times in other realities too, but it is most common to meet them in the Etheric. When I had the "Icon vision" as I call it, I met several angels and power animals who were around other Icons and people and they acknowledged my presence but did not do anything. This is kind of standard for the Etheric Plane and even the Astral Plane, unless you are looking for trouble, normally you won't be bothered. Even if you are being a nuisance to others, most times, they won't retaliate. It seems that almost everyone matures when on the AP or EP. I think this has something to do with a "forgetting" we do while we are in our body. Let me explain this theory so that you aren't too lost. I believe that before we are born, we know everything. It would only stand to reason that we do know everything since we are ONE with the Is. So, we come here, embody, and then we spend the rest of our lives looking for knowledge. This is because we forgot our prior existence with the Is. It's almost as though there is some kind of barrier that we go through that wipes out all our memories of that time. When we go OOB or we die, that forgetting gets less immediate. We can start to remember some things we knew from before, from past lives to universal knowledge. We can remember with perfect clarity every other time we have been out of body and we can start analyzing it and looking at those other times. However, when we go back into our bodies again, we forget everything again,

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unless you have trained your mind to "lock on" to some parts which can trigger memories and a chain of associations to help you recall all of your experience. Since we are knowing more than we started out with, those on the Astral Plane tend to be wiser than we are in our bodies. However, once we get to the Astral Plane, once again, we remember other times, and we become wise as well. Some would argue that wisdom does not equal knowledge. That you have to have experience to be wise, but let me ask you, if you had lived thousands of other lives, and had the memory of all of those existences, the mistakes made, and so forth, don't you think that would qualify as wisdom? It almost seems as though this barrier of forgetfulness is there to force us to learn without the crutches from other lives. This makes sense if you think about it, because the purpose of being here is to learn from THIS life, and to internalize that lesson so well that it is retained by the soul, rather than the spirit. Let me digress a bit more on this topic. I will come back to this forgetfulness in a moment, but the divisions of our body are germane to this issue, and will be needed in later lessons. It is my belief that we have three bodies. There is the physical body, which houses our soul and spirit, which needs oxygen to breathe, food to fuel it, warmth to keep it functioning. It is the physical body, made out of atoms and carbon and many other chemicals, worth about $20 American if it were rendered down for it's chemical components. However, we have two other bodies, our Spirit and our Soul. The spirit is the body that is our mind, the thinking part of ourselves, the identity we have, the mind and the emotions. It is all of that and more. The Spirit is us in a way that nothing else can be. It takes in input and remembers this life. That last statement is an important one since the Soul remembers every life we have had. In my beliefs (and you must decide for yourself if this is right for you or not) the Soul is what is immortal, complete, continuous, and what is the splinter of the Is. The Spirit and Soul are integrated as one while our Physical bodies are alive, and when we project, we leave the Physical body behind, but our Spirit and Soul are still one. It is only upon the death of the physical body that our Spirit dies too. However, it is not lost. Since the Soul is forever and infinite, it houses all the knowledge of all our former existences. An analogy of this is the Soul is the hard drive to the computer of our existence, housing records of every former existence we have ever led. It remembers them, and it lets some of the lessons affect us, but in reality, it is the

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culmination of all the experience written on that hard drive, remembered and accessed by the soul that determines what we need to work on in this lifetime. Upon death, the Spirit will still be around for a while, until it decides that it is time to be "remembered" only. Then the soul sits down and looks at the lifetime just past, decides where it did good, and where it needed improvement, then determines the general "shape" of the next lifetime. It is this record of memories that are accessed during past life regressions, which is one reason that OOBE and Past Life Regressions are so similar, just as OOBE and Near Death Experiences are so similar. That time of "my life flashing before my eyes" that is so common to those stories of near death, is the Soul calling up the data stored in the memories of THIS life, and starting to integrate it into the record that the Soul has been keeping. Because the Soul wants to live a lifetime uncontaminated by the clutter of a previous lifetime, it developed this "veil of forgetfulness" to protect all that data. This does lead to some really repetitive things, like walking and potty training, but all in all it is good that this barrier is there. It allows us to learn the foibles and customs common to the culture, society and time we are living in. Imagine how confusing it would be if those from 300 CE remembered their previous existence and skipped the learning process for a lifetime here in this Century. The baths alone would almost make them go mad. Unfortunately, when embodying, and coming back from an OOBE, this veil falls over our minds, and we forget what we experienced. It's the same defense mechanism, one to keep us from learning with the cheat sheet in front of us, but we also forget that we wanted to remember these excursions in the first place. Also, this veil works both ways. Dr. DeGarcia tells of "waking up" in his travels on other realities, by remembering that he had a physical body and his existence here. So that implies that this veil also works to prevent us from remembering when we do go OOB that we live here in this world. That's one of the reasons that I harp on memory and your journals so much. They become critical in setting up your mind and your subconscious to remember these events. And I know it's hard to do the exercises and write in your journals daily, but I am doing this as well as you. Even though I am teaching the class, I am taking my own advice and working with it here for me too. So, no matter how hard it is, take a few moments in the morning to write your dreams and projections experiences down. I had a POWERFUL experience the morning that I write this on, and for the life of me, I can't remember any of it a little less than 10 hours later. However, I had the opportunity to write down my

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dream before I fully woke up, and didn't because those three minutes of sleep were more important to me. See what can happen? One other point I want to make at this time is this: The terms are not important. Everyone calls the different places and levels something different. Call it what you will, as long as you have the same mental picture as the person you are talking to, the name matters not. Now, why does everyone have a different mental picture of the planes? I can only speculate, but some things spring to mind: 1. It's what they interact with 2. They are simply different terms for the same things 3. They are on different levels of achievement, IE more advanced spiritually = more of the structure they see 4. It's different for everyone 5. It doesn't matter 6. They are trying to put into words something that can't be explained. It's this last theory that I personally believe is what is correct in this case. Each author (including me) are trying to take something that is completely personal, from the symbols to the environment and put it into words that will explain it to someone else that has not been there. It's like trying to explain the English term "Love" to someone who has spoken Urdu from birth, and who has just started speaking English. It can be done, but it takes a lot of time and patience on everyone's part. However, trying to describe the differing environments is about 10000 times harder. Try as I might, I can only tell you what I have gone through, and hope that your experiences will be the same. It does not necessarily mean that they will be, but I can pray that they are. However, I think a look at the other explanations would do us good. It's what they interact with: Remember how I told you all that you will decide what kind of environment you would interact with on the Astral Plane? Here's that lesson come home to roost. If the environments are different for each of us, how can what I tell you be true for you? If you believe that I am correct, then I will be, however, if you are more comfortable with the model that Monroe presents, that will be what you see and how the planes construct themselves for you. They are simply different terms for the same things: What Monroe describes and calls Locale 1 is what I and Dr. DeGarcia have presented as the Etheric Plane. What DeGarcia describes as the Atmic plane, I call the Astral, and Monroe calls Locale 2 and so on. The terminology is not important in this matter, not like we were making a chemical composition. Use the terms you are familiar with, and

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make sure that you explain those terms completely to anyone that does not use the same terms as you, and you should be okay. They are on different levels of achievement: Everyone is familiar with the terms "old souls" and "new souls" but have you ever wondered just what that means? In our cycle of rebirth and death, the different people on the planet have different experiences and lessons they have learned. This gives everyone a different level of achievement. If we relate this cycle to being in school, then we could say that about some percentage of people are in the final year of a Doctorate degree, while others are in second grade, while still others are in daycare and preschool. In each case, there is a different level of knowledge that each grade has, and inside those grades, there are different things that are known. Were I to relate this analogy to this theory, I would say that it is possible that Monroe is in about 5th grade, DeGarcia is in 12th grade, and my ideas about the structure of the planes is about Freshman in College. I would think that only the Is knows everything about how the Planes are structured, as well as us when we are contemplating our next lifetime. It's different for everyone: It is possible that the structure of the Planes is completely different for each adept. This would probably be due to different symbols being used for each person, depending entirely upon what they knew, and what they were comfortable with. In this theory, one can't have some kind of concrete structure of what the planes are like, because they will change from person to person. If I am comfortable with seeing an architecture represented by a Rubik's Cube, someone else might be comfortable with a camera lens analogy, where the focus is what is important. It doesn't matter: If we can't put limits on the Is, then we must not try to define the structure of something that is the Is. The planes, existence, reality, all of it is completely and inseparably part of the Is. Therefore, trying to put a name to something that is completely indefinable is ridiculous in the extreme. Your subconscious knows what is going on, and if you simply trust and have faith in yourself, then you will see and know what you need to know and see for your growth. Who cares how the blessed world is put together at that point? Having covered just about all I can cover about the actual structure of the Planes, let me digress onto a question that usually gets raised at this point. Is it possible to get stuck on the Astral Plane? Yes and no. I know that this answer doesn't cover it, so let me explain. Let me redefine the question a bit and see if it will answer itself. Is it possible to die while projecting? Yes it is. Is it possible to make yourself die while projecting? Yes it is. Is it possible for someone on the Astral Plane to kill you? No it is not. Is it possible for someone on the physical plane to kill you? Yes it is. Can you get lost on the Astral Plane? No you can't. Can you get trapped on the Astral Plane?

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Yes, you can, but it's REALLY hard to do. Can you loose your body? No you can't. Can your body die from neglect? Certainly, but it would take days. While most other creatures that you will meet on the Astral Plane are not out to get you, there are a few that do hunt souls and people who are projecting. It's not normal, by any stretch, but it is possible. There are diabolical creatures that live on the Astral Plane, and who enjoy causing harm. Fact of life. There are some precautions to take, like shielding yourself, which will be gone over in a later lesson, or by avoiding situations in which you may confront them. A few common sense precautions will go a long way to helping you out which we will cover later. You can't loose your body. Get that firmly planted into your mind. If your body is moved, hurt, hidden or whatever, you still can't loose it. All you have to do is move your body and you are "home". I know this sounds silly, but it really works. This is the one commonality between Monroe, myself and DeGarcia. Each of us, in separate ways, all found that simply by thinking of the body, and attempting to move it "catapulted" us back into our physical form. It is almost like a spring or rubber band snapping us back into our physical form. Thinking of your feet, and twitching a toe is as violent a way to return as someone shooting a cannon right over your head to wake you up in the morning. But this technique works, every time. As with everything, however, there is a trick. You have to *know* that you can move your body. The cases where someone was stuck was because they did not know that they could get back into their body. So, once again, it comes down to the will again. Willing yourself back to your body works, and it will work for you, but you can't trust, you can't believe, you can't have faith, you have to know, to the bottom of your being that you will get home by thinking of your hand and moving a finger. The times that I have done this, I usually sat bolt upright, as though I just had a horrid nightmare, with the shakes and a cold sweat. There is a tremendous amount of energy running around your system, so it may take some time to neutralize it so that you can go back to sleep. Most times, you come back gently simply by desiring to be home. Your "silver cord" that some talk about will pull you back to your body and allow you to wake. While we are talking about the Silver Cord let me tell you what it is and is not. It is not a cord in the sense of a rope, it is more like a flexible cable. It is a tether to your body, because part of you needs to stay with the body to keep it functioning and to tell you when your body has to go to the bathroom and so on. It runs all those parts of your body that the doctors call the autonomic system, from digestion, to breathing and heartbeat. Since that is part of your soul, it stays attached to your body and to your soul, so you always have a guide back.

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After 10 feet (about 3.2 meters) from your astral body, this cord becomes invisible. No one can sense it, follow it, damage it or anything else. It does have a metaphysical presence, just as a ghost does, so if someone knows it's there, they can damage it, and you. But you will have plenty of time before irreparable harm is done to get back to your body. Like I said, it is a cable, multiple strands woven together with the same fiber structure as a muscle has. It can stretch forever, getting thinner, but never loosing it's connection to you. It will not snap from stretching. However, if you choose to, you can break it. In that case, your body dies, and your soul goes on to other places. This is a deliberate act of will, once again. I saw this once in a person who was tired of life. They decided to project out, and snap that cord. Almost instantly, their body ceased functioning and they drifted off to other realms. While I was sad, I did not stop them since I knew some of what they were going through and I didn't blame them. If your body is killed while you are projecting, you die or go into a coma, depending on how severe the damage is. However, unless you are projecting from back alleys, usually this is not that severe a problem. Even if your body is taken to the hospital, you can get back to it, so that worry is gone. A sufficiently powerful magician on this plane *might* be able to sever the Silver Cord, but it would take a weapon of incredible strength (like a Coven Sword) to do so. You would feel it when it went, and if you could get back to your body fast enough, you could still get back in before your body died. But once again, this is a situation that most of us won't be in anytime soon. Aside from that, there are some things to look out for and avoid if you can, and some precautions to take. I simply wanted to point all this out now to get you thinking about this. We will go more in depth with this later.

Assignment: Tell me: Which theory of the structure of the planes do you feel most comfortable with? Why? If your personal theory is different from those listed, describe it in as much detail as necessary to make us understand it. If you can, cite examples and reasons. Download this file: http://www.geocities.com/ddegraci/index.html It is a file called "DO_OBE" and it is one document that I am taking a great deal of material from in this course. In some cases he describes precisely what I am trying to explain, and better than I could. Read this document. It is the Online CompuServe class

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that Dr. DeGarcia gave several years ago. We will be going over this in detail in lesson 9, so please start reading it. It's 177 pages long, so it may be worth your while to read it on the computer rather than printing it out. You will also need Adobe Acrobat to read it in the form is is written in. He has it as a PDF file. Any questions you have to this point, or things you wish me to go over in more detail should be emailed to me ASAP. I will be basing my next lesson on these questions, so make them good. My email address is [email protected]. Your assignments should still be emailed to the above address; only the questions and requests should come to me. Also, I want you to write an evaluation. As though you were auditing a class in college for a friend. Tell me where you think I'm doing a good job and where you think I'm full of manure. Critique me, please. I can't be a good teacher if I don't have your feedback on my teaching style, and I will do my best to correct it if I know it's wrong. Also, do an evaluation on yourself. Tell us how you believe you are progressing from this material, what you wish to accomplish, and how you think you are doing so far. These will all be posted, but despite this, please be honest.

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Lesson 6, questions answered. In this lesson, we will be looking at your topics, and reviewing some of what we learned in previous lessons. This will accomplish two things. First, it will make the lessons and what I have been telling you more immediate, and second, it will "lock" these into your head. That's important because when the exam comes around, you will have to rely on your memories and your notes to pass and also because when Out of body, your mind will fix upon what you have locked into it as what actually happens. Remember, this is a compilation of my experiences, some of them objective and some subjective. You will ultimately determine what you see and participate in for yourself. On to the questions. iliketothink submitted this statement/question: You mentioned that you hope we're feeling more comfortable with AP. On some levels I am, but I find that whenever I feel like I'm starting to leave my body, I get "stuck." Specifically, when I'm meditating or relaxing at the end of doing yoga, and I feel like I'm starting to float out of my body, I can only go partway, or at the very most, float directly above my body. Then I'm "stuck" and I can't go further. I think part of me is worried that if I do go further, I'll leave my body completely and die, or that I won't want to come back. It's almost like some part of me is choosing to stay because "I'm needed" by the physical part of me. Could it be that I'm attempting to move too much of my awareness/self/soul/whatever out of my body so that I would, in fact, do some type of ddamage? Or do I just need to find a way to reassure myself that it's OK to leave for a while, since my body will be OK and I'll be able to come back? If the latter is the case, are there things that could be helpful? e.g. mantras to chant or protection rituals or something along those lines that could help me feel reassured? Well, this is pretty common. Most people don't AP for just this reason, fear of dying. It's a normal state that you need to get through to progress. Keep these thoughts in your mind: 1) Unless you want to, you can't die. Part of that "stuck" feeling is the "silver cord" that attaches yourself to your body keeping you nearby. 2) You are astrally projecting with that "floating" sensation, because you are floating above your body. You may be attached to it, but you are still out of body. Nothing has happened to you, and thus, nothing will.

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The entire reason for that "stuck" feeling is to keep you oriented during the first few moments of shifting out of your body. It keeps you grounded to this reality for a little, to help you get your "feet" under you so to speak. By this I mean that it allows you to become adjusted to the new environment and to come to some kind of equilibrium with being without a body. The trick for overcoming this stuck feeling is to acknowledge that you are somewhat stuck, and to slide or move someway that will move you away from your body. Usually, just sliding to the left or right a few feet will allow you to get past this, and to go on your journey. If it were me going through that, I would say to myself when I felt that stuck section, "Okay, I'm out of body. I understand that now. I will float to the left (or right) and put my feet on the ground." Then I would feel myself moving like I had just said and feel my foot on the ground. About 90% of the time, this will work. If it doesn't, then don't fret. Something is going on, and you need to figure out what it is, and correct it. From there, you can just stay near your body, and absorb sensations and feelings from the environment around you. A few other things that may help you in this; If you believe that you are trying to move too much of yourself out of your body, then you will be doing so. Feel yourself detaching a portion of your psyche and leaving it in the body. Will part of your being to stay behind, as a caretaker of your body, and move out of the body. A shield may not be a bad idea to put up around your body either. It would give you the sense of protection that will enable your subconscious to free itself from the body. Another thing is chanting to yourself as you start to AP. In this, you would tell yourself over and over that you are protected and safe and that you won't die or get lost. Saying that over and over will allow you to achieve something. I had to do this for a while, and it did work. The main thing to remember is that there is no shame or disgrace in not being able to achieve a complete separation from yourself. Some can achieve complete separation from the body with a moment's thought, and others, like me, can't achieve that separation at all, and have to resort to other means to explore the Planes. blackdove01 asked: ok. here's my question, sort of along the same lines as some previous questions, but i read a really old crappy book when i was like ten and in the book a girl was astrally projecting and someone else who was projecting also entered her body while she was away. is there any chance of anything (someone else projecting, some astral being, etc...) entering your body while you'r (astrally projecting?)

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Well, this is a tough one. For many years, I believed this as well. Here's my take on it: What do you believe? I think I read that same crappy book, and I was scared and concerned as well. So I started doing things like shielding myself before I tried to leave my body, my mother would pray over me whenever I went in for surgery or general anesthetic, and a whole slew of other tricks to keep my body safe while I was either out of it, or in a state where I didn't have the will to fight back. As a result of this, now I can't be hypnotized, and I believe I blocked my gift for AP. Once I got into the NeoPagan community, however, and beginning studying about AP and metaphysics, I had some revelations. First among those was this statement "In Magick, you make your own rules." I have never found anything to counter this statement. Now, I know we are not talking about Magick here in this class, however, the same principal holds true. You will determine what you get by what you believe. If you worry and think about beings/entities that will steal your body, you will find yourself beset by them all the time. The crux is this: Your thoughts and attitudes resonate on the Astral Plane. They can act as a lure for those beings and entities, drawing them to you as a moth is drawn to a lamp, and as a fish is drawn to something bright and shiny. The more you worry and think about something, the more powerful the attraction. Since all realities are linked through the Astral Plane, you may even find fictional creatures coming to those thoughts. Everything that can exist and can be thought of does because someone someplace believes in them. Given that, your thoughts and what you dwell on will be attracted to you, in exponential proportion to how much you dwell on it. An example from my life: My mother is a worry-wart. She constantly thinks and dwells on all that is bad that could happen to her at any one time. As a result of this, she has wrecked three cars, lost multiple jobs, had one marriage fall through, and lost her son (me). She won't learn that by thinking about the bad and worrying about it that she is setting up circumstances that will make the Universe give her what she is dwelling upon.

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In opposition to that, my wife and I obsess on things like a good job, getting out of debt, finding a place to live, teaching our daughter right, helping others, joy and beauty. The result: My wife just recently got a good job, doing exactly what she wants to do for the money she wanted. Our daughter is constantly on the AB honor roll, and we are getting out of debt. So whatever you believe and think about will be created for you. From spirits to take over your body while you are OOB, to a burglar to break in and rob you blind while you are away on vacation. Wondering if creatures like that (who will take your body away from you) exist is one thing, fearing them and hoping they will not notice you is another. One questions their existence, and can decide if they exist for you or not. The other actively draws them to you. My advice is to not think about it. Take some simple precautions, like shields around you, but don't worry that they will break through them and "get you". blackdove1 also stated: the few times that i've actually started to leave my body have been while i was asleep and couldn't control it, but now that i'm actually consciously trying to do it, this seems to be getting harder and harder to do, and i seem to be losing the ability i had to do it unconsciously. am i trying to hard or This one I understand. I do it too. The primary thing that you HAVE to keep in mind when this occurs is that you must relax. This is a natural state you fall into, projecting and sleep. There is nothing unnatural about it, or scary or terrifying. It is as natural as coming home after a long day at school. All you have to do is to relax. As Ben Kenobi says "Let go your conscious self, and act on instinct." Since your soul remembers this time, the feelings and what it is like to be projecting and how to be on the Astral Plane, all you have to do is to relax into that state. Let me use an analogy. The energy on the Astral Plane is like water here. It is always present, obeys certain laws and can be moved from one place to another through various means. If you put water into a hose, you can direct it to another place, in some cases to use to put out fires. However, if you are too nervous, you can restrict that flow of water through the hose by tensing up and choking off the water by pinching the hose in half.

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However, when you trust the hose to contain the water, and relax so that you are only guiding the water in the hose, the output of the hose is increased because you are not keeping the water from flowing through the hose any longer. It's the same in this case. The more you tense up, the less of that energy from the Astral Plane you can receive. It's only in relaxation that your soul opens itself fully to the energies of the Astral Plane, and thus starts resonating to the Astral Plane. How do you relax? By not thinking about it, worrying about it, or dwelling on it. When you think about projecting, do so and think about what you want to do, but when it's time to actually do what you have been planning, relax and let your soul and mind take over. The more tense you are, the harder you are locked into your body. Tension creates a physical reaction, from an increase in your blood pressure to more rapid breathing to a slight tensing of the muscles. Each of these factors contribute to the body not being forgotten about by the soul and spirit. Because the body is still very much in the awareness of the soul and spirit, they can't forget about the body long enough to leave it behind. So you start a vicious cycle. The body tenses, the spirit and soul are more aware of the body, the projection attempt fails, which means that your mind, spirit and soul begin disbelieving that AP is even possible for you, which makes the next attempt harder, and harder and harder.... The solution to this is relaxation. You know how to relax yourself, and the tools that work best for you. But aromatic baths, hot baths, meditation, counting backwards from 100, positive reinforcement, and many other techniques have been developed to make you relax, as long as you co-operate with them. Don't anticipate the AP state, as this increases tension in your body again, and you are trying to relax it. Don't worry about it, this is a transitory phase. You will get the hang of relaxing/being aware very quickly. It's not as hard as I am making it out to be, but it does take a certain kind of mindset. You are prepared for what you hope will happen (the AP state) but you don't think about it or anticipate it happening. It's kind of like knowing someone is going to surprise you, but not knowing when. You are prepared for the surprise, and prepared not to jump, but you still go on with what you are doing until it happens. Same here. You allow the AP state to occur, and are ready to act on it, but not to the point where you are preventing that same state by anticipating it. Hope this makes sense to you. Tamia posted:

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Ok, here are a few problems that I often hear about in astral chat groups. Not being able to control where the astral body goes. Not being able to get through walls or ceilings. Fear is another factor!! Fear of death, or dark beings. Perhaps a few suggestions along those lines would help. Not being able to control where the Astral Body goes is an easy one. It's your belief controlling that. If you set up some destinations you want to go to before you go into an Astral State, where you go is much easier to accomplish. Even if you can't go where you want, there may be a reason you are "stuck" where you are. Perhaps there is some lesson you are supposed to learn, or some event you are supposed to watch that your soul is keeping you where you are at for. In that case, identify why you are stuck. Then you can decide whether or not you wish to go someplace else. This is the same for getting through ceilings and floors or walls. There must either be something there that you need to see or learn, or you are holding yourself there. Once again, you have to identify what is holding you there, and change it or learn it. As to fear, well, there we enter into another whole section of the psyche. Fear is natural, it is what keeps headstrong and stubborn people whole and healthy. Without fear, there would be a whole lot more people dead or hurt in real life. It's a tool and a warning nothing more. However in this case, fear can be paralytic. Fear can prevent you from reaching your goals and ultimately keep you trapped in your own body. The secret to overcoming this fear is to convince yourself that you KNOW what you are doing, that you understand the dangers involved, and that there is nothing for you to fear. By this time, if you read like I do, you have probably finished that download I asked you all to get and read, and you hear Dr. DeGarcia talking about this fear, in the "Watcher at the door" or the "Guardian at the Gate". Your mind will produce these apparitions to keep you in your body, because your soul knows it is not time for you to die and that it is not time for you to be on the Astral Plane. So, it will make these entities to scare you back into your body. Understand that these fears, while important, are not necessary or desirable. They are inhibiting you, and as such either need to be faced or allowed to keep you in your body. It's ultimately up to you to decide just what you wish to do, but NOTHING on the Astral Plane can permanently hurt you.

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Which also leads us to blackdove's last question of: in the lecture you mentioned one battle that you had and rendered the other person unconscious. if you are on the losing end of the battle and have fatal injuries, can you actually die or will you just return to your b It is possible to be hurt, even to perceive yourself as injured, but ultimately nothing has happened to you. Let me explain a bit. In the movie, "The Matrix", the main character gets told that the entire world around him is nothing but an illusion built by computers. There were rules and many other things that were "programmed" into the environment to fool him into thinking that it was real, but that ultimately, it was his belief in the reality that made it real. The second character, played by Samuel Jackson helped Neo discover these facts and open his mind to what really was. That understanding of the unreality of the Matrix allowed Neo and Samuel Jackson to do multiple inhuman things in several fight sequences. In this case when dealing with the Astral Plane, the same rules apply. Everything around you, from what you see to what the "opponents" look like to any injuries sustained by you are projections of your mind. Your mind creates them, and your mind can dismiss them just as quickly. Understand this and your trip will be much easier. When you get hit on the Astral Plane, or even any of the other planes, your mind expects certain things to happen based on THIS world's rules. You get hit, there is an impact, some damage, pain, and a loss of function. However, since everything is a projection of your mind, then you can dismiss every aspect of the hit if you choose to. I didn't understand this when I had that adventure, I was operating as though the Astral Plane was the same as this world, with the same rules. So when I got hit, I perceived myself as hurt. I didn't have to. Think about how many times you hear about a sports superstar who ignores the pain of an injury, even up to a broken limb, to continue doing what they enjoy and wish to keep doing. The mind can override anything it chooses to and on the Astral Plane it is even easier. Had I known these rules, I would have felt the impact, but dismissed the damage, the pain, and the loss of dexterity in the leg, as well as the soreness later. Since learning these rules, I have done this multiple times. It's interesting to watch your limbs flying from you, have it not hurt, and to regrow them instantly from yourself.

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So, the answer to blackdove1's question is that yes, it is possible to get injured on the Astral Plane, but only if you want to get hurt. These rules are the basis of everything on the Astral Plane: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Your mind controls all Your mind tries to protect you any way it can Your mind will attempt to keep your in your body Your mind will perceive itself hurt if you want it to Your mind chooses where to go and not to go Your mind can override any other part of itself if you want it to.

Do you see the pattern here? It's the mind that is controlling everything, and thus if you truly want to project, anyplace you choose to, you must learn your mind and train your mind to do what you want it to. Meditation and self-hypnosis is the key to this. With these twin tools, you can reprogram your mind to do and to be what you want it to be and do. And then everything is possible.

Assignment: I want you to review and write an evaluation of your own performance. Tell us what you feel you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, where you need help and what you can help others in. Write all this down in your AP books, and copy it here to post. All of these things are important to your continued progress. Be brutally honest with yourself. I want you to get into the habit of self-evaluation. In future lectures and lessons, there will be times when you will NEED to know why you are doing what you are doing, because knowing is the only way, usually, to fix it. To keep: I want you to make a checklist based on the above evaluation, of goals and things to work on. Make it as long as you like. There should be things like, "Work on my mental discipline" and "I need to overcome my fear of small places" and so on. Every lecture, from here to the end of the class, I want you to choose one of these items to work on in the coming weeks. Then I want you to work on them, everyday, until either they are better or the next lecture comes around. If you have not fixed it or gotten better, keep working on it during the coming times, until it is fixed or eliminated. Then I want you to check that item off. To read: If you have access to a copy of "Journeys out of Body" by Douglas Monroe, read it. In Lecture 8, we will be discussing his technique of Astral Projection, but I DO have a document that I will take the material from and comment on. If you can read it, good. If you can't read it, no big deal. It would help, but it's not necessary.

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Lesson 7: Visualization This lesson will focus on another aspect of meditation, visualization. The ability to visualize something is a critical one for those who would meditate and travel in otherworlds. Since so much of the content of these otherworlds (whether you call them planes, levels, worlds or what have you) is subjective, it would behoove us to be able to tell the difference between a random symbol, and something that actually means something. Since you can also manipulate the environment around you, visualization becomes something that is important. We will get into manipulation of the environment later in this lesson. I have found only one way to improve your visualization; practice. Now, some methods of practice seem to work better than others, and I will relate them here. The first tool for practicing visualization that I have found, probably because it's the one that I used myself, is Role Playing Games. Games like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (C) and GURPS (C) are wonderful tools for this. In these, the GM or Game Master describes a scene to the players who must visualize the scene their characters are in well enough to interact with that scene. If the player is good enough, some of the details will be somewhat fuzzy, but overall the entire scene will be clear to the player. Eventually the player may advance to being the GM themselves, in which case, not only do they have to be able to describe the scenes to the players themselves, but they also have to keep track of all the other scenes in the adventure they have been going through. The complexity of this skill is such that even with only 4 hours of practice every week, in about a year and a half I was able to completely visualize any scene described to me. Indoors, outdoors, underground, in the middle of a war, whatever. It also happened without my being aware of it happening. I have long been shocked by the numbers of people who are psychic who are drawn to groups that play Fantasy Role Playing Games, and I believe there are two reasons. The first is that "birds of a feather flock together" meaning that with the more psychically aware people there are in RPGs, the more their ability will call to others with an awakening ability, and bring them together. The other reason is that this environment seems to be the best honing ground for the visualization circuts in the brain. Without the ability to see something in your head, most psychic and magickal skills remain out of reach. As a corollary to the paper games, there are groups like the Society for Creative Anachorisms, and NERO (North East Role-playing Organization) who do "live role play". It's kind of like acting without the props, but with the costumes and

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sets that are designed by the Hand of the Goddess. I find that both of these groups, the paper-gamers and the live-gamers have the same skills in visualization, for all of the same reasons. One would also assume that the stage actors would have the same skills, along with those who write books and tell stories, but I can't say for certain about that since I don't do either of those. Now, what do you do when you don't want to go out and spend thousands of dollars on the equipment that is needed for these kinds of activities? You cheat. It is possible to increase the visualization skills through your own self-discipline and your own meditations, but once again, it has to be practiced consistently. A while back, I found a document that lays out exercises for visualization, and I will share them here with you.

VISUALIZATION EXERCISES The key to all magickal operations is a strong ability to visualize. Everyone can visualize, but some need to strengthen their visualization abilities in order to gain the effects they are working for. The following technique has proved highly effective in intensifying one's visualizations. Exercising Your Inner Eye (Taken from Experiences in Visual Thinking by Robert McKim) Taking your time, translate each of the following descriptions into a mental image. Go back and do it again in a few weeks and then a few weeks later, and notice the difference. Notice the difference, also in the way you see things--inner as well as outer-- after you've done these exercises. Now sense (see, touch, hear, taste, smell) with your mind's eye: a familiar face a galloping horse a rosebud your bedroom a changing stoplight a newspaper headline the sound of rain on the roof the voice of a friend children laughing at play

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the feel of soft fur an itch a gentle breeze on your face the muscular feeling of running of kicking a can of drawing a circle on paper the taste of a lemon of toothpaste of a potato chip the smell of bacon frying of a gardenia of perspiration the feeling of hunger of a cough of coming awake A stone dropped into a quiet pond with concentric ripples forming and expanding outward These words flying away, high into the blue sky, finally disappearing. Your shoe coming apart in slow motion and each piece drifting away into space An orange being cut into five equal pieces and the pieces being arranged into equal patterns

Using these exercises consistently can catapult your consciousness into the Astral Plane. DeGarcia has stated in his book that it is possible to start visualizing a scene around you, and have it "snap" into focus, in complete detail around you. I have had this happen to me a few times, and it was always a signal that I had achieved OOBE or a Lucid Dream. If you can build up the detail of a scene around you, exactly the way it is, it can set up a resonance that will pull your spirit to that real place. I don't know if I can explain this in greater detail, but let me try. Everyplace in the multiverse, the Astral Plane, all the other planes and levels of those planes, exists in one place, we just can't physically get there. That is why Astral Travel is possible. My office is there, with the computer monitors sitting around me on various tables and benches, along with all the parts of different

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computers that I work on. My desk is there, and the printers I use are around me. To me, this place, my office, has a certain spiritual "feel" to it. I know what this environment feels like to me, and I know what it looks like to my eyes, and I know how it should be. Tonight, when meditating, I decide that I want to project to my office. I start building the image in my mind of how my office looks, in as much detail as possible. The more detail I get there, the more real the scene around me becomes. I start getting the spiritual feel of my office in my head. At this point, a curious thing happens. Because I have the feel of my office in my head, and the office itself has that feel in the spiritual world, the two start acting as magnets and iron filings. I become drawn out of my body, to where that spiritual feel is the strongest, i.e.. my office. Suddenly, all the details that I have been skipping in my visualization, like what a document hanging on the wall says, become crystal clear, and I am there. But without the level of visualization to be able to build up the environment around me in my head, and to start getting a feel for the office itself, this will never happen. I can build it completely accurately, but I won't be able to get there OOB. Or, I may be able to get there, but I won't be drawn there. As I have said before, going to a place is easy (relatively speaking) but the symbols that you will see OOB can be really confusing. You must be able to separate what is an important symbol from all the red herrings that you will see. Visualization can help you do this. Remember how I was talking about the "feel" of my office? Well, that same feel exists for those symbols that are important for you to pay attention to while on the Astral Plane. From my experiences, those symbols that will be important to you will have a definite feel or some other means of standing out to your attention. This is one of the reasons that I asked you all to start keeping a symbol journal for yourself. Now, while we are on the topic of some symbols, let me give you a symbol that many people have told me about; book dreams. In these types of dreams, you see a book at close range, almost an inch or so before your nose. It will either be very hard to read, or it will be written in a language that makes no sense to you, like cuneiform script. However, as you read the book, you will know what it is saying, be able to repeat it in your dream word for word, and understand all the nuances of the passage you just read. It's these kinds of dreams that I speak on.

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If you have had these kinds of dreams, you know exactly what I am talking about, and if you have not had this kind of dream, no amount of explanation will make the sense of knowledge and honor that comes with this kind of dream clear. Just take my word for it. In these dreams, I theorize, one is actually reading the Akashic Record in a form we can understand. While it may be in an ancient and dead language, we can still understand it because the emotions are what are conveyed in these kinds of books. When one writes something on the Astral Plane, the words go onto the paper, but it is the emotions that are the true transfer of knowledge. Thus, reading a technical manual will give the reader no sense of the contents, however, reading a book of poetry will have one in tears. However with this specific type of book dream, the emotions are not all that is conveyed. It is almost as though the knowledge of what is contained in the book springs full into the mind, as though you always knew it. I think that this is in part due to the fact that you are ON the Astral Plane, even if it is on the level of the Akashic Plane. All knowledge is contained on this level, and thus, reading the book will give you the feeling of the contents and the knowledge of what it says will follow, just like the feel of the office attracts a projector who has a sense of that office. Now, at this point, some of you may be tempted to think that what I am describing is nothing but hallucinations or myths of your own mind. That's okay to think that, but don't believe it. All a hallucination is is an uncontrolled glimpse into the Astral Plane or another level of our reality. It is imperative that you learn to separate out what is a product of your mind, your conscious envisioning of something, and what is not. From that, you can determine what is "real" and what is "false". I fell prey to this for a long time. Having a very active imagination, being able to visualize anything I wanted, in as much detail as I wanted, left me in doubt of what I saw around me on my excursions out of my body. I didn't know what was a product of my mind, and what was not. Then I came to a realization. Did it matter what was me and what was real? In some cases, yes it did, but in most, no it didn't matter at all. I would experience something, and even if it was created by my mind, it did not matter if that experience affected me and changed me. At that point I was able to accept many things that I had been in doubt of for a long time (and still fall prey to when I get into my monthly depressions). The few times it does matter, it is easy to figure out what is your own desires speaking to you, and what is coming from outside of you. All you have to do is to know yourself. Asking your gut, or your interior sense of right and wrong will tell you what is you and what is others.

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This is because the Subconscious is directly wired into the IS. The problem with that is that we can't always hear that voice, or conscience unless we listen to it. Since this is the case, and since the Subconscious is much stronger on the Astral Plane, one of the benefits is that any question that is asked, either mentally or vocally, is answered. The trick is remembering those answers when we wake, and some of the answers are disguised as visions, the language of the subconscious. That's the end of this part. Now we will look at interacting with the environment of the Astral Plane. All interaction on the Astral Plane is an act of the Will. You decide to move in this direction, and you do so. You decide to launch off the ground, and you do. In every case, it's a decision you make to move in a specific fashion, and you do so. It is easier to walk someplace because it's a decision that we do every day without thinking about it. When you walk on the physical plane, you make a decision to move from point A to point B by scissoring your legs together in a familiar pattern. The process, however, is so ingrained into your mind and subconscious that you don't see it any longer. However, it is the same for all forms of locomotion. • • • • • • • • • • • •

Flying Running Crawling Riding (a horse or another creature) Walking Swimming Burrowing Driving Phasing (walking through barriers as though they aren't there) Teleporting Bilocating (being in two places at one time) Translocation (starting in one place, going to another on the way to a third)

First there is the decision to go to another place, then there is the act of Will to move there. It's different for other forms of transport in that you have to make a conscious decision to move in X manner and then a decision to be there. Most of these forms of transportation are familiar to us, simply because we do them here on this plane. However, the last four means of transport need some explanation. Phasing: There are times on the Astral Plane that you will be confronted by a barrier of some kind, like a wall, or a floor or something similar. In phasing, one passes through that barrier as if there was nothing there. Ghosts do this all the

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time, and so did Kitty Pride (Shadowcat) of the X-Men. It is simply a state of mind where your "body" is slightly out of phase or vibrational frequency with the enitre world around you. Teleporting: This is when you move from one location to another without crossing the intervening space. Usually it is on the same plane of existence, and the mechanism is usually your visualization skill. You envision the environment that you want to go to, and Will yourself there. It's usually the fastest way to get around. Bilocation: This is the skill most commonly used when one does remote viewing. My consciousness is in one location, and my "doppelgänger" is in another. I can see it, move it, make it do things, but I am viewing it from the perspective of the third person. It's like I'm watching an interactive movie. Translocation: This is, simply put, teleportation between planes or levels of the planes. I am on this physical plane, and I want to go to a might-have-been I know of. Translocation is when I teleport there, and pass thought the Astral Plane to get there. Like I said, all movement is by Will, but the means of you seeing the travel is what varies. Next lesson we will go over "The Monroe Technique of Astral Projection" out of the book "Journeys out of the Body" by Douglas Monroe. We won't be reading the entire book (although it is a good idea) but will only be examining the techniques he describes to get out of the body. These documents will be posted here for you to look at before the next lesson is posted.

Assignment: Read that document and practice the techniques that are in there. See if they work better for you than what you have been using up to this point. Write down your reactions and your thoughts in using this technique. There will be practice exercises in there as well. Write your thoughts on when it would be better to use more conventional means of transport on the Astral Plane. Think about this and come up with examples. Practice the visualization exercises that are listed here. In your journals write anything you feel is relevant to these exercises, or a specific visual that you use to help or one that helps you the most. See these visualizations in as great a detail as you can. If you feel that these exercises won't help you, explain why to me and describe what would help you.

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When you send in your assignments, please include written authorization for me to use your assignments and questions in a book I am going to be compiling off this class. Copies will be available to you all upon completion. I need this for the legal aspects. ;-)

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Lesson 8: Examination of the Monroe Technique of Astral Projection. Included are Monroe's Suggested exercises for Astral Projection Before we get too deep into the entire lesson, I want you to read this document, taken from another source who quoted the "lessoning" portion of "Journeys out of the Body" by Douglas Monroe. The numbers in parentheses refer to my notes at the bottom. These numbers are at the end of the paragraph that it relates to. ---------------------------------------------------------MONROE TECHNIQUES FOR ASTRAL PROJECTION Note: After having studied many methods of Astral Projection, I have found that this is the easiest to do. Monroe teaches these techniques in a week, but they can be easily done in a day, with proper devotion. I feel that this technique is superior to others because it does not require intense visualization, which many people cannot do. Enjoy! (Taken from Leaving The Body: A Complete Guide to Astral Projection, D. Scott Rogo, prentice Hall Press) One of the chief barriers people learning to project face is fear. Many are afraid that they may die, or be harmed in some way as a result of their projection. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Canterbury Institute, renowned for its occult studies, executed an experiment in projection involving over 2,000 people. None of them were hurt in any way by this, and now, three years later, none have complained of any newly arising problems.(1) Once you are aware that you cannot be harmed by projecting, you should begin Monroe's techniques, step by step. Step one: Relax the body. According to Monroe, "the ability to relax is the first prerequisite, perhaps even the first step itself" to having an OBE. (out of body experience) This includes both physical and mental relaxation. Monroe does not suggest a method of attaining this relaxation, although Progressive Muscle relaxation, coupled with deep breathing exercises (inhale 1, exhale 2, inhale 3.... until 50 or 100) are known to work well. (2)

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Step two: Enter the state bordering sleep. This is known as the hypnagogic state. Once again, Monroe doesn't recommend any method of doing this. One way is to hold your forearm up, while keeping your upper arm on the bed, or ground. As you start to fall asleep, your arm will fall, and you will awaken again. With practice, you can learn to control the Hypnagogic state without using your arm. Another method is to concentrate on an object. When other images start to enter your thoughts, you have entered the Hypnagogic state. Passively watch these images. This will also help you maintain this state of near-sleep. Monroe calls this Condition A. (3) Step three: Deepen this state. Begin to clear your mind. observe your field of vision through your closed eyes. Do nothing more for a while. Simply look through your closed eyelids at the blackness in front of you. After a while, you may notice light patterns. These are simply neural discharges. They have no specific effect. Ignore them. When they cease, one has entered what Monroe calls Condition B. From here, one must enter an even deeper state of relaxation which Monroe calls Condition C-- a state of such relaxation that you lose all awareness of the body and sensory stimulation. You are almost in a void in which your only source of stimulation will be your own thoughts. (4) The ideal state for leaving your body is Condition D. This is Condition C when it is voluntarily induced from a rested and refreshed condition and is not the effect of normal fatigue. To achieve Condition D, Monroe suggests that you practice entering it in the morning or after a short nap. Step Four: Enter a state of Vibration. This is the most important part of the technique, and also the most vague. Many projectors have noted these vibrations at the onset of projection. They can be experienced as a mild tingling, or as is electricity is being shot through the body. Their cause is a mystery. It may actually be the astral body trying to leave the physical one. For entering into the vibrational state, he offers the following directions: (5) 1. Remove all jewelry or other items that might be touching your skin. 2. Darken the room so that no light can be seen through your eyelids, but do not shut out all light. 3. Lie down with your body along a north-south axis, with your head pointed toward magnetic north. 4. Loosen all clothing, but keep covered so that you are slightly warmer than might normally be comfortable. 5. Be sure you are in a location where, and at a time when, there will be absolutely no noise to disturb you. 6. Enter a state of relaxation 7. Give yourself the mental suggestion that you will remember all that occurs during the upcoming session that will be beneficial to your well-being. Repeat this five times. 8. Proceed to breath through your helf-open mouth.

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9. As you breath, concentrate on the void in front of you. 10. Select a point a foot away from your forehead, then change your point of mental reference to six feet. 11. Turn the point 90 degrees upward by drawing an imaginary line parallel to your body axis up and above your head. Focus there and reach out for the vibrations at that point and bring them back into your body. (6) Even if you don't know what these vibrations are, you will know when you have achieved contact with them. Step five: Learn to control the vibrational state. Practice controlling them by mentally pushing them into your head, down to your toes, making them surge throughout your entire body, and producing vibrational waves from head to foot. To produce this wave effect, concentrate of the vibrations and mentally push a wave out of your head and guide it down your body. Practice this until you can induce these waves on command. Once you have control of the vibrational state, you are ready to leave the body. (7) Step six: Begin with a partial separation. The key here is thought control. Keep your mind firmly focused on the idea of leaving the body. Do not let it wander. Stray thought might cause you to lose control of the state. Now, having entered the vibrational state, begin exploring the OBE by releasing a hand or a foot of the "second body". Monroe suggests that you extend a limb until it comes in contact with a familiar object, such as a wall near your bed. Then push it through the object. Return the limb by placing it back into coincidence with the physical one, decrease the vibrational rate, and then terminate the experiment. Lie quietly until you have fully returned to normal. This exercise will prepare you for full separation. (8) Step seven: Dissociate yourself from the body. Monroe suggests two methods for this. One method is to lift out of the body. To do this, think about getting lighter and lighter after entering this vibrational state. Think about how nice it would be to float upward. Keep this thought in mind at all costs and let no extraneous thoughts interrupt it. An OBE will occur naturally at this point. Another method is the "Rotation method" or "roll-out" technique. When you have achieved the vibrational state, try to roll over as if you were turning over in bed. Do not attempt to roll over physically. Try to twist your body from the top and virtually roll over into your second body right out of your physical self. At this point, you will be out of the body but next to it. Think of floating upward, and you should find yourself floating above the body. Monroe suggests you begin with the lift-out method, but argues that both are equally efficacious. (9)

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If, after all this, you still can't project, I recommend purchasing Leaving The Body, by R. Scott Rogo. It only costs $7.95 and contains another eight or so techniques. Not all techniques work for everyone, but chances are you'll find one that works for you in this book. Good luck! Thich Van. ------------------------------------------------------------Daven's Notes: (1) This paragraph is true. The single most common problem with Astral Projection is fear. The paragraph does give you some good statistics to alleviate this fear, but what is said does not go far enough. So, here, I will try my best to disarm the "fear factor". As stated, noting could be further from the truth. However, knowing this in your head, in the conscious mind, is VERY different from KNOWING that you won't be harmed, as your subconscious thinks. So the first thing you MUST do is to start reprogramming your subconscious to believe that it will not be harmed. Understand something, this state of Astral Projection is the SAME STATE that you are in before you are born, after you die, and every night as you dream. It is a state where the body becomes unimportant, and all that exists is the mind and the subconscious. So, this is the first step. Believing this and knowing this is the beginning to disarming this fear. You must tell yourself this everyday. You can do this through various means, from a mantra, to writing it down 10 times a day for a month. Eventually this will reprogram your subconscious to know this. This single tool is the most valuable, writing and drawing will tell your subconscious what YOU want it to know. The second step is to do something like the "Litany against Fear" from Dune. Being a big fan of Herbert, I read this passage and it was as though a lightning bolt went through me. The Litany itself says "I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass around me and through me. And when Fear is gone, I will turn and look at the path Fear has taken. Only I will remain." This Litany is repeated every time that someone of the Bene Geserit (a monastatic order of women) in the book "Dune" is scared. They repeat it out loud, and it makes their head cease to fear. Granted, it is temporary, but once that kind of fear is faced down, there is an epiphany that results from it.

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I was able to face down my terror of bees this way. The litany I repeated whenever a bee came around me, allowed me to stand fast in the face of having bees land on me. Once they left, it felt as though I had been reborn. So, facing this fear is the second part. Is there a third part? Kind of. The last part of overcoming this fear of something happening is to actually do it. Just like I did, once it is completed, your fear successfully faced, you will feel as though you are in a new life. Once you have identified why you are scared of AP, started reprogramming your subconscious to do it and not to fear, this last step will make all those changes take effect. Until that part happens, everything was theoretical. This moves it into the realm of the practical. After that, it's all a matter of becoming comfortable with AP. back (2) Use the meditational method that you are comfortable with. Counting backwards is good, so is any of the meditations that I gave you in earlier lessons. The only one that may not be appropriate is the meditation while exercising or doing something active. The means you use are completely up to your discretion. So long as it will get you into a deep meditational state. back (3) Dr. DeGarcia mentions this state in his work, which will be covered next lesson. It is characterized by a complete relaxation, a slight "disassociation" with the body (meaning that you cease to feel your body), random neural flashes behind your closed eyelids, possibly with images of either things you did for the majority of the day, or places you have been and so on, and possibly "seeing" through your eyelids into space or other worlds. This is when your "thrid eye" or your "brow chakra" has opened, allowing you to have "spirit sight". back (4) You will probably be saying "huh" at this point. The states and what happens differ from person to person. Condition A, B and C all occur to me almost at once. I have that "floating" sensation that is spoken of first, then I get into the hypnogogic state, then (usually) I slide into sleep. However, there are a multitude of things that can happen to you, and in many different orders. Once again, it's a matter of whatever works for you. back (5) I experience these vibrations in different ways, but the most common for me is the sensation that someone is stroking their finger back and forth across my forehead. I have also felt them as though I was spinning like a lathe or flipflopping front to back, spinning around an axis that went through my hipbones. You can also feel this state when you have a high fever, as sickness tends to break down the bonds the body has on the soul. My daughter suggests that goose bumps contribute to this state, and she should know since she has been projecting since she was born. back (6) This sounds more complex than it is. A few things I have discovered, however. When I first started practicing AP, I took these "rules" to heart and failed miserably. The statements that you should not have anything constricting

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you or any jewelry on is there, I have found, to prevent you from becoming distracted in your meditation by the sensations of your body. Even though you are in a meditative state, your body is still aware of the things you feel, and if some of that clothing is constricting or cutting into your flesh, your body will not allow you to fall into a deep enough trance. The Jewelry prohibition is basically the same thing, but habitually worn jewelry starts absorbing some of your energy, and could be considered part of you. But it could also become a "tether" to keep you in your body. Experiment with this and discover if you are being held by your jewelry or distracted by it, or if it is such a part of you that you don't even notice when it is on. As for the rest, distractions are fatal to projection. The more you are distracted by the environment and other things, the harder it will be to successfully project. back (7) If you think of these vibrations as being physical things, and you use a mental "hand" to push them around, you will be doing the correct thing as stated in this text. Also you can will them around by simply wanting them in a different place. back (8) It has been suggested that this feeling of separation and reintegration feels like you have taken off and put on an opera glove. I tried on some opera gloves just to see what the feeling was like, and it is accurate as far as the description goes. It's more like an incredible sense of freedom, and coming back into your body is like putting on a unitard of spandex. It is an enfolding and a bit like suddenly you are too big for your body. If you have ever had the sensation of being too large for your body, or felt like you were sticking out 1/4 inch everywhere, you know what I am talking about. If you have not felt this, no amount of explanation will get you to understand. back (9) These two techniques are the most common for leaving your body consciously. There are many times when you spontaneously separate, and none of these techniques are used. The "Roll out" technique is to feel, with your mind, like you just rolled over in the bed. Don't try to turn your body, and keep in mind that if you move your body, you will NOT get out of your body. You will catapult yourself back into consciousness. However, if you do this correctly, you will find yourself floating on the air, next to your body. You may feel, at this point, like someone is clinging to you, but they are not. It is only whatever part of you is still in your body sending signals out that something has a hold of you. And it does, your body is still clinging to your spirit, trying to prevent you from going farther. The "lift out" method is simply floating or sinking away from your body. You can float yourself up, parallel to your body, up while turning perpendicular to your

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body like in some vampire movies, you can float on the horizontal plane so that you are in the same position next to your body, and many other ways. Please note, that these techniques are only applicable to gaining the Ethereal Plane, or staying here. Going to Might have Beens and Fictions you do not have to do these. However, you can get to those alternate destinations after you have separated from your body. back *** That is all for this lesson. I will leave you with this document, also relating to OOBE from Monroe, but without all the footnotes. Just about everything I could say about this text I have already said above. Just keep these in mind. ***

< Brought to you by:_________________>



This information is taken directly from the book Journeys Out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe. Throughout this writing, I have made many references to one evident fact: the only possible way for an individual to appreciate the reality of this Second Body and existence within it is to experience it himself. Obviously, if this were an easy task, it would now be commonplace. I suspect that only an innate curiosity will enable people to overcome the obstacles in the path of this achievement. Although there are many cases of existence experienced apart from the physical body, they have for the most part - at least in the Western world - been of a spontaneous, one time nature, occurring during moments of stress or physical disability. We are speaking of something entirely different, which can be objectively investigated. The experimenter will want to proceed in a manner that will produce consistent results, perhaps not every time, but often enough to validate the evidence to his own satisfaction. I believe that anyone can experience existence

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in a Second Body if the desire is great enough. Whether or not anyone should is beyond the scope of my judgment. Evidence has led me to believe that most, if not all, human beings leave their physical bodies in varying degrees during sleep. Subsequent reading has proved that this idea is thousands of years old in man's history. If it is a valid premise, then the condition itself is not unnatural. On the other hand, conscious, willful practice of separation from the physical is contrary to the pattern, it would seem, in view of the limited data available. Harmful physical effects from such activity are undetermined. I have not detected (nor have any physicians) any physiological changes, good or bad, that can be attributed directly to the out-of-the-body experience. There have been many psychological changes that I recognize, and probably many more that I have not been aware of. However, even my friends in the psychiatric profession have not claimed that these have been detrimental. My gradual revision of basic concepts and believes is apparent in a number of ways throughout this writing. If these psychological and personality changes are truly harmful, there is not much that can be done about it now. A note of caution is in order here for those who are interested in experimenting, for once opened, the doorway to this experience cannot be closed. More exactly, it is a copy of "you can't live with it and you can't live without it." The activity and resultant awareness are quite incompatible with the science, religion, and mores of the society in which we live. History is strewn with martyrs whose only crime was non-conformity. If your interest and research become commonly known, you run the risk of being labeled a freak, phony, or worse, and of being ostracized. In spite of this, something extremely vital would be missing if you did not continue to explore and investigate. In the unaccountable "low" periods when you cannot produce this activity and resultant awareness are quite incompatible with the science, religion, and mores of the society in which we live. History is strewn with martyrs whose only crime was non-conformity. If your interest and research become commonly known, you run the risk of being labeled a freak, phony, or worse, and of being ostracized. In spite of this, something extremely vital would be missing if you did not continue to explore and investigate. In the unaccountable "low" periods when you cannot produce this activity no matter how carefully you try, you realize this deeply. You have a strong sense of being left out of things, of the shutting out of a source of great meaning to living. Here, then, is the best written description I can give of the technique of developing the non-physical experience. THE FEAR BARRIER

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There is one great obstacle to the investigation of the Second Body and the environment in which it operates. Perhaps it is the only major barrier. It seems to be present in all people, without exception. It may be hidden by layers of inhibition and conditioning, but when these are stripped away, the obstacle remains. This is the barrier of blind, unreasoning fear. Given only small impetus, it turns to panic, and then to terror. If you consciously pass the fear barrier, you will have passed a milestone in your investigation. I am reasonably sure that this barrier is passed unconsciously by many of us each night. When that part of us beyond our consciousness takes over, it is not inhibited by fear, although it seems to be influenced by the thought and action of the conscious mind. It seems to be accustomed to operating beyond the fear barrier, and understands better the rules of existence in this other world. When the conscious mind shuts down for the night, this Super Mind (soul?) takes over. The investigative process relative to the Second Body and its environment appears to be a melding or blending of the conscious with this Super Mind. If this is accomplished, the fear barrier is overcome. The fear barrier is many-faceted. The most fearless of us think it does not exist, until, much to our own surprise, we encounter it within ourselves. First and foremost, there is the death fear. Because separation from the physical body is much like what is expected at death, early reactions to the experience are automatic. You think, "Get back in the physical, quickly! You are dying! Life is there, in the physical; get back in!" These reactions appear in spite of any intellectual or emotional training. Only after repeating the process eighteen to twenty times did I finally gather enough courage (and curiosity) to stay out more than a few seconds and observe objectively. The death fear was either sublimated or assuaged by familiarity. Others who have tried the technique have stopped after the first or second experience, unable to suppress this first aspect of the barrier. The second aspect of the fear barrier is also linked with the death fear: will I be able to return to the physical or to get back "in." With no guidelines or specific instructions, this remained a prime fear of mine for several years, until I found a simple answer that made it work every time. Mine was a matter of rationalization. I had been "out" several hundred times, and the evidence showed that I was able to return safely one way or another. Therefore, the probability was that I would return safely the next time also. The third basic fear was fear of the unknown. The rules and dangers of our physical environment can be determined to a reasonable degree. We have spent our lifetime building up reflexes to cope with them. Now, suddenly, here is another, completely different set of rules, another world of entirely different possibilities, populated by beings who seem to know all of them. You have no

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rule book, no road map, no book of etiquette, no applicable courses in physics and chemistry, no incontrovertible authority you can turn to for advice and answers. Many a missionary has been killed in a remote land under just such conditions! I must confess that this third fear still crops up, and with justification. The unknown is still to a great degree unknown. Such penetration as I have made has brought forth pitifully few unalterable and consistent rules. I can say only that, to date, I have survived these expeditions. There is so much that I do not comprehend or understand, and more that is beyond my ability to do so. Another fear is the consequent effects on the physical body as well as on the conscious mind of participation and experimentation in this form of activity. This too is very real, as our history, at least to my knowledge, does not seem to contain accurate reporting of this area. We have studies on paranoia, schizophrenia, phobias, epilepsy, alcoholism, sleeping sickness, acne, virus diseases, etc., but no assembled body of objective data on the pathology of the Second Body. I do not know how to circumvent the fear barrier, except by cautious initial steps that create familiarity bit by bit as you proceed. I hope this writing in its entirety will provide the psychological "step" over the barrier. It may help to recognize conditions and patterns that are familiar in that at least one person has had similar experiences and survived. The following are the necessary procedural developments. 1. RELAXATION The ability to relax is the first prerequisite, perhaps even the first step itself. It is deliberately generated, and is both physical and metal. Included with the condition of relaxation must be the relief from any sense of time urgency. You cannot be in a hurry. No pending appointments or anticipated calls for your services or attention must clutter up your thoughts. Impatience of any sort can effectively stifle your prospects for success. There are many techniques available for obtaining this kind of relaxation, and a number of good books cover the subject. Simply select the method that works best for you. There are three general methods that seem to work, two of which are applicable in these exercises. Auto- or self-hypnosis. Most self-study books offer this method in different versions. Again, it is a matter of which is most effective for you individually. The most efficient and speediest way is to learn self-hypnosis through the training of an experienced hypnotist. He can set up posthypnotic suggestion that will bring immediate results. However, select a tutor with care. Responsible practitioners

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are rare, and neophytes numerous. Forms of meditation can be converted to effective relaxation. Borderland sleep state. This is perhaps the easiest and most natural method and usually ensures relaxation of both body and mind simultaneously. The difficulty here lies in the maintenance of that delicate "edge" between sleep and complete wakefulness. All too often, you simply fall asleep and that ends the experiment for the moment. By practice, conscious awareness can be taken up to this borderland state, into it, and through it, to your destination. There is no way to achieve it that I know of that than practice. The technique is as follows: lie down, preferably when you are tired and sleepy. As you become relaxed and start to drift off to sleep, hold your mental attention on something, anything, with your eyes closed. Once you can hold the borderland state indefinitely without falling asleep, you have passed the first stage. It is, however, a normal pattern to fall asleep many times in the process of this consciousness deepening. You will not be able to help yourself, but do not let this discourage you. It is not an overnight process. You will know you are successful when you become bored and expect something more to happen! If attempts to remain at the borderland state make you nervous, this too is a normal reaction. The conscious mind seems to resent sharing the authority it has during wakefulness. If this occurs, break the relaxation, get up and walk around, exercise, and lie down again. If this does not relieve the nervousness, go to sleep and try another time. You are just not in the mood. When your "fixative," the picture thought you have been holding, slips away and you find yourself thinking of something else, you are close to completion of condition A. When your "fixative," the picture thought you have been holding, slips away and you find yourself thinking of something else, you are close to completion of condition A. Once you have achieved Condition A - the ability to hold calmly in the borderland state indefinitely with your mind on an exclusive thought - you are ready for the next step. Condition B is similar, but with the concentration eliminated. Do not think of anything, but remain poised between wakefulness and sleep. Simply look through your closed eyes at the blackness ahead of you. Do nothing more. After a number of these exercises, you may hallucinate "mind pictures," or light patterns. These seem to have no great significance, and may merely be forms of neural discharge. I can remember, for example, attempting to achieve this state after watching a football game on TV for several hours. All I saw were mind pictures of football players tackling, running, passing, etc. It took at least a half hour for the pattern to fade away. These mind pictures are apparently related to your visual concentration in the preceding eight or ten hours. The more intense the concentration, the longer it seems to take to eliminate the impressions.

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You have accomplished Condition B when you are able to lie indefinitely after the impressions have faded away, with no nervousness, and seeing nothing but blackness. Condition C is a systematic deepening of consciousness while in the B state. This is approached by carefully letting go of your ridged hold on the borderland sleep edge and drifting deeper little by little during each exercise. You will learn to establish degrees of this deepening of consciousness by "going down" to a given level and returning at will. You will recognize these degrees by the shutting down of various sensory mechanism inputs. the sense of touch apparently goes first. You seem to have no feeling in any part of your body. Smell and taste soon follow. The auditory signals are next, and the last to fade out is vision. (sometimes the last two are reversed; I suspect that the reason for vision being last is that the exercise calls for the use of the visual network, even in blackness.) Condition D is the achievement of C when one is fully rested and refreshed, rather than tired and sleepy, at the beginning of this exercise. This is quite important, and not nearly as easy to achieve as it is to write about. To enter the relaxation state full of energy and wakefulness is great insurance for maintaining conscious control. The best approach to take in the early attempts at the condition D exercise is to start it immediately after you wake up from a nap or a night's sleep. Start the exercise before you move around in the bed physically, while your body is still relaxed from sleep and your mind is fully alert. Don't take too many liquids before sleeping, and you won't have the immediate need to empty your bladder upon awakening. Induction by drugs. None of the relaxation-producing drugs that are readily available seem to help. Barbiturates force a loss of conscious control and only bring a confused state in deeper consciousness. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of tranquilizers. Relaxation is obtained, but at the cost of perception. Alcohol in any form brings similar effects. More exotic compounds such as the alkaloids and hallucinogens may be more productive. I have not had enough experience or contact with these to offer an opinion or even an educated guess. It would seem that far-reaching research is indicated for these. I have utilized all three methods, and rejected drug relaxation quite early as it resulted in both too much loss of conscious control and distorted perception. In the first technique, hypnotic induction tapes were specially prepared for the experiments. They were quite useful and effective. The borderland sleep state techniques have been employed most often. In spite of the complicatedsounding procedure, it is the most natural method for me. 2. The State of Vibration The generation of this effect is the most critical of all. The subjective sensory impression it creates is described elsewhere. Once it is achieved, you will

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certainly not have to be told you've been successful, and you will have passed another major hurdle. All that can be given are clues. At the present level of knowledge, it is not known why these things work. It is much like turning a switch to obtain light without having any idea of what the switch does, where the electricity comes from, or why and how it acts upon a bulb enclosing tungsten filaments. At the least, all of the material contained herein has been established as empirically as possible. Aside from the principal human laboratory - this writer several other individuals have tried the pattern. Suffice it to say that they have obtained positive results. Aids to the vibrational state. Lie down, in whatever position is most conductive to your state of relaxation, but with your body along a north-south axis, with your head to magnetic north. Loosen any clothes you may be wearing. Keep covered so that you feel just slightly warmer than is generally comfortable for you. Remove any jewelry or metal objects close to or touching your skin. Be sure that your arms, legs and neck will relax in a position that will not impede circulation. Darken the room enough to ensure that no light can be seen through your eyelids. Do not use a completely blacked-out room, as you will then have no visual point of reference. Absolute requisites. Ensure without question that you will not be disturbed in any way, either by direct physical intervention, a phone ringing, or other interrupting noises. Do not set a time limit or a deadline. The time you spend in the experiment is not more valuably spent elsewhere and you should have nothing impending that might cut short this activity. Achieve the state of relaxation. Do this by whatever method you have found workable in your own individual case. Work to Condition D or its equivalent, and hold at the deepest level of relaxation possible without weakening your consciousness. When you have taken as much time as you need to be sure you have obtained this, mentally repeat, "I will consciously perceive and remember all that I encounter during this relaxation period. I will recall in detail when I am completely awake only those matter that will be beneficial to my physical and metal being." Say this mentally five times. Then begin breathing through your half-opened mouth. establish the vibration waves. As your continue breathing through your halfopened mouth, concentrate on the blackness in front of your closed eyes. Look first into the blackness at a spot a foot away from your forehead. Now move your point of concentration to three feet away, and then six feet. Hold for a while until the point is firmly established. From there, turn the point 90° upward, on a line parallel to the body axis and reaching out above the head. Reach for the

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vibrations at that spot. When you find them, mentally pull them back into your head. This simple description must pose many questions. Reach out with what? Pull what back into your head? Le us try another method of explanation. Begin a mental concentration, as if two lines were extending from the outer sides of your closed eyes. Think of them as converging at a point a foot away from your forehead. Visualize a resistance or pressure when these two lines meet, as if two charged electric wires were joined, or poles of a magnet forced together. Now extend this juncture outward to about three feet, or the length of your arm outstretched. Due to the angular difference, the pressure pattern is altered. A compression of the space (forces?) between the converging lines must result, and the pressure must therefore increase to maintain the convergence. After the three-foot length has been established and held, extend the intersection point out to six feet away from your head, or 30°. (So that you can properly visualize the exact angle that represents 30° it may help to mark off a 30° angle by protractor on paper and memorize how it looks.) Once you have learned to establish and maintain the 30° angle outward (or roughly six feet away), bend the point of intersection 90° (or in an "L") upward in the direction of your head but parallel to the axis of your body. You "reach" with this point of intersection. Stretch or reach with this point more and more, until you obtain a reaction. Again, you will know when you obtain it. It is as if a surging, hissing, rhythmically pulsating wave of fiery sparks comes roaring into your head. From there it seems to sweep throughout your body, making it rigid and immobile. Once you have learned the process, or the concept, it will not be necessary to go through the entire routine. You need only to think of the vibrations while in a relaxed state, and they come into being. A conditioned reflex has been established, or a neuron path that can be followed again and again. Again, it is not a technique that can be achieved the first time it is tried. The probability of success increases with each successive effort. The more often you attempt it, the more likely you are to have positive results. However, once you have succeeded, it is not always repeatable at will. There are still many variables that interfere which have yet to be isolated and identified. But it does "work" often enough to be subject to continued study. 3. Control of Vibrations When you have obtained the vibrational state, there are definite guidelines to follow. The utilization of this condition under conscious control is the goal you are seeking. To accomplish this, there are careful procedures to observe. They should, of course, be followed in sequence, in the order presented.

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There is no evidence to indicate that this vibrational state has a deleterious effect on either the mind or the physical body. Here, then, are some procedures that can be applied systematically. They are a distillate of literally hundreds of trialand-error experiments. Acclimatization and accommodation. This is a way of saying that you should let yourself get accustomed to the feel of this unusual condition. All fear and panic must be eliminated when you feel waves like an electric shock without pain permeating your body. The best method seems to be to do nothing when they occur. Lie quietly and objectively analyze them until they fade away of their won accord. This usually takes place in about five minutes. After several such experiences, you will realize you are not being electrocuted. Try to avoid panicky struggling to break the paralytic condition. You can break it by sitting up with great force of will, but you will be disappointed with yourself for doing so. After all, this was what you were trying to achieve. Manipulation and modulation. Once you have eliminated the fear reactions, you are ready for control steps. First, mentally "direct" the vibrations into a ring, or force them all into your head. Then mentally push them down along your body in a wave over your body rhythmically, from head to toes and then back again. After you have given the wave momentum, let it proceed of its own accord until it fades away. It should take about ten seconds - five down, five back - for the wave to make the complete circuit, from head to toes and back. Practice this until the vibration wave begins instantly upon mental command, and moves steadily until fade-out. By this time, you will have noticed the "roughness" of the vibrations at times, as if your body is being severely shaken right down to the molecular or atomic level. This may be somewhat uncomfortable, and you will feel a desire to "smooth" them out. This is accomplished by "pulsing" them mentally to increase their frequency. Their original vibratory rate seems to be on the order of some twentyseven cycles per second (this is the rate of the vibration itself, not the head-to-toe frequency). The pattern responds to this pulsing command very subtly and slowly at first. Your first indication of success is when the vibrations no longer seem rough and shaking. You are well on your way to control when they produce a steady, solid effect. It is essential that you learn and apply this speed-up process. The faster vibration effect is the form that permits disassociation from the physical. Once you have set the momentum of the speed-up, the acceleration seems to take place automatically. Eventually, you may sense the vibrations only as the begin. They will increase their frequency - like a motor starting up - until the frequency is so high that you are unable to perceive it. At this phase, the sensory effect is one of body warmth, slightly tingling, but not excessively so.

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Consistent achievement of this stage is the sign that you are ready for the first physical disassociation experiments. Another word of warning is in order here. Beyond this point, I believe you cannot turn back. Ultimately, you will be committed to the reality of this other existence. How this will affect your personality, your daily life, your future, and your philosophies rests entirely with you as an individual. For once you have been "opened" to this other reality, you cannot completely shut it out again, try as you might. The pressure of material affairs may sublimate it for a time, but it will return. You cannot always stay on guard against its reopening. As you start to sleep or awaken, when you merely relax, the vibrational surge may come without call. you can shut it off, of course, but eventually you become too tired to bother - and you are off on another excursion. You sense that you are fighting against yourself. And who wants to fight one's self - at the price of a good night's sleep! THE SEPARATION PROCESS After you have achieved the state of vibration and some control of your stage of relaxation, one additional factor must be considered. It is probable that you have already obtained it, since it is ordinarily a product of the previous exercises. However, it should be emphasized. This factor is thought control. In the state of vibration, you are apparently subject to every thought, both willful and involuntary, that crosses your mind. Thus you must be as close to "no thought" or "single thought" (concentration) as possible. If one stray idea passes through your mind, you respond instantly, and sometimes in an undesirable manner. I suspect that one is never completely free of such misdirection. At least I have not been, which may account for the many inexplicable trips to places and people I do not know. They seem to be triggered by thoughts or ideas I didn't realize I had, below the conscious level. The only approach is to do the best you can. With this in mind, the first practices of disassociating the Second from the physical body should be limited in time and action. What follows is designed basically as a familiarization and orientation technique which should permit an approach to disassociation without fear or concern. Release of extremities. This serves to acquaint you with the sensation of the Second Body without full commitment. After relaxation and creation of the vibration state, work with either your right or left hand and arm, one at a time. This is important, as it will be your first affirmation of the reality of the Second. With one hand, reach for any object - floor, wall, door, or whatever - that you remember as being beyond the reach of your physical arm. Reach for that object. Make the reaching process neither upward nor downward, but out in the direction your arm is pointing. Reach as if you were stretching your arm, not raising or lowering it. A variation is simply to reach out with the hand and arm in the same

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manner with no special object in mind. Often this method is better, as you then have no preconceived idea of what you will "feel." When you reach out in this fashion and feel nothing, push your hand a little farther. Keep pushing gently, as if stretching you arm, until your hand encounters some material object. If the vibration pattern is in effect, it will work, and your hand will eventually feel or touch something. When it does, examine with your sense of touch the physical details of the object. Feel for any cracks, grooves, or unusual details which you will later be able to identify. At this point, nothing will seem unusual. Your sensory mechanisms will tell you that you are touching the object with your physical hand. Here, then, is your first test. After acquainting yourself with the object with your outstretched hand, straighten out your hand and push against the object with your fingertips. You will encounter resistance at first. Push a little harder, and gently overcome the resistance you feel. At this point, your hand will seem to go right through the object. Keep pushing until your hand is completely through the object and meets some other physical object. Identify the second object by touch. Then carefully withdraw your hand, back through the first object, and slowly back to normal, so that it feels as if it is where it "belongs." With this, decrease the vibrations. The best way to do this is slowly to attempt to move the physical body. Think of the physical body, and open your physical eyes. Bring back your physical senses, deliberately. Once the vibrations have faded away completely, lie still for a few minutes for full and complete return. Then get up and make a notation of the object which you "felt," locating it relative to the position of your hand and arm when you were lying down. Note the details of both the first and second objects which you felt. Having done this, compare your description with the actual first object. Make special note of small details which you could not have seen from a distance. Physically feel the object to compare it with what you felt under the vibrations. Examine the second object in the same manner. You may not have been consciously aware of its presence or position prior to the experiment. This too is important. Test the line of direction from the place where your physical hand lay, through the first object and up to the second. Is it a straight line? Check your results. Was the first object you touched physically located at a distance it would have been absolutely impossible to reach without physical movement? Did the details of the object - especially the minute details - coincide with the notes you have made? Make the same comparison for the second object.

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If your answers are affirmative, you have had your first success. If the facts do not check out, try again another day. Almost without qualification, if you have produced the vibrational state, you can perform this exercise. You can also practice the following quite easily. After producing the vibrational state, lying on your back, arms either at your sides or on your chest, gently lift your arms without looking at them and touch your fingers together. Do this quite casually, abstractly, and remember the sensory results. Once you have clasped your hands above your chest, look at them first with your closed eyes. If you have moved easily enough, you will see both physical and non-physical arms. Your physical arms will be at rest at your side or upon your chest. The sensory impressions will be with the non-physical arms and hands above your physical body. You should test this phenomenon as many times as you wish, however you desire. Prove to yourself that you are moving not your physical arms, but something else. Do it by whatever means are necessary to give you full assurance of this reality. It is important always to return your non-physical arms to full conjunction with their physical counterparts before "shutting off" the vibration state. Although there may be no It is important always to return your non-physical arms to full conjunction with their physical counterparts before "shutting off" the vibration state. Although there may be no severe aftereffect if this is not done, I think it best not to find out in the early stages. Disassociation technique. The simplest method to use in separating from the physical is the "lift-out" procedure. The intent here it not to travel to far-off places, but to get acquainted with the sensation in your own room, with familiar surroundings. The reason for this is that the first true experience will then be examined and explored with identifiable points of reference. In order to assist in this orientation, it is better that these first complete disassociation exercises be conducted during daylight. Test for yourself your needs in regard to the amount of light in the room. Avoid using an electric light if possible. To establish the condition, achieve the vibrational state, and maintain complete control of your thought processes. You are going to stay only in the confines of your familiar room. Think of getting lighter, of floating upward, of how nice it would be to float upward. Be sure to think how nice it would be, as the subjective associated thought is most important. You want to do this because it is something you will respond to emotionally; you react even before the act, in anticipation. If you continue to hold only these thoughts, you will disassociate and float gently upward from your physical. You may not achieve it the first time, or the second. But quite surely, if you have achieved the preceding exercises, you will achieve it.

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A second method is the "rotation" technique, which has been mentioned elsewhere. Under the same prescribed conditions, slowly try to turn over, just as if you were turning over in bed to be more comfortable. Make no attempt to help yourself rotate with either arms or legs. Start turning by twisting the top of your body, your head and shoulders, first. By all means move slowly, exerting gently but firm pressure. If you do not, you may become loose and actually spin like a log rolling in water before you can alter the pressure. Such action is disconcerting only because you may lose all orientation and be forced to find your way back carefully in rotation juncture. The ease with which you begin to turn, with no friction or sense of weight, will inform you that you have begun to succeed in disassociating. As this happens, turn slowly until you feel that you have moved 180 degrees (i.e., face to face with your physical body). It is uncanny how you will recognize this position. this 180 degrees about face is merely two 90 degree turns, and without orientation, it is easy to sense. Once you are in the 180 degree position, stop the rotation by merely thinking of doing so. Without hesitation, think of floating upward, backing up away from the physical body. Again, if you have reached the vibrational state successfully, this method will surely bring results. Of the two separation techniques, the first should be tried before the second. Then, after both have been examined and tested, the one that seems easiest to you should be utilized. Local experiments and familiarization. Once you have succeeded in the separation process, it is most important for your own objective continuity that you remain in complete control. The only possible way to do this seems to be by staying close to the physical in the early stages. Whatever you may feel emotionally, keep in close proximity to the physical. This admonition is made not because of any known danger, but so that you will maintain a step-by-step familiarity and thus perceive for yourself exactly what is taking place. Wild, uncontrolled trips at this stage may well produce uncomfortable situations and conditions that will force you to relearn much of what you have already achieved. The process of mental acclamation will be different from any you have ever consciously experienced. The gradual adaptation will greatly enhance your peace of mind and confidence. At this point, the principal exercise is to return. Keep your separation distance no more than three feet away, hovering over the physical. Do not make any attempt at this time to move laterally or farther "up." How do you know how far aware you are? Again, this is something you sense. Your vision now is zero. You have conditioned yourself not to open your eyes, and let them remain closed for the moment. Stay close to the physical. The mental concept of this will keep you in proper range.

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For the next three or four exercises, do nothing but practice getting "out" and returning to the physical. To return under these conditions, merely "think" yourself back into the physical, and you will return. If you have used the first method of separation, the reintegration is relatively simple. When you are back in exact alignment, you will be able to move any portion of the physical body and reactivate any or all of your physical senses. Each time you return, open your physical eyes and physically sit up so that you know you are completely "back together." This is to ensure orientation, to instill confidence that you can return at will, and most important, to assure yourself of continued contact with the material world in which you now belong. Whatever you believe, this reassurance is most necessary. If you have applied the rotation method, move slowly back toward the physical, again by thinking of it, and when you feel you have made complete contact, start your rotation back 180 degrees to conjunction with the physical. It seems to make no difference whether you continue the circle of rotation or reverse and turn back in a motion opposite to that which helped you release. In both techniques, there seems to be a slight, click-like jerk when you are again in conjunction with the physical. An exact description of this sensation is quite difficult, but you will recognize it. Always wait a few moments before sitting up after you have returned, primarily to avoid any possible uneasiness. Give yourself some time to readjust to the physical environment. The physical act of sitting up provides evidence of continuity in a demonstrable form; you will know that you can consciously, willfully act in a physical movement interspersed with experiments in the non-physical environment and retain conscious awareness throughout the process. You will have completed the cycle when you are able to separate, return to the physical, sit up and note the time, go back to the separation process, and return to the the physical a second time, all without loss of conscious continuity. Note from Daven: There is more, but the document that this is taken from is incomplete. However, in hopes that this is of interest to you, this is the complete text of chapters 16 and part of 17 from "Journeys Out of the Body" by Douglas Monroe. I hope that you are able to read this work at some point in your investigations. That's all for now. See you here in two weeks.

Assignment: Back in Lesson 3, we started an AP Journal. I want you to correlate that data now. Take the things that I had you write down, such as time of day, moon

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phase, your position and so on, and compile it into a table of correspondences. Begin looking for patterns. Post this table with your assignment and answer these questions: Does time of day matter? Does place, position, mental attitude or other factors affect your ability to project or get into trance? Can you think of anything else that MAY affect your ability to project (like Monroe's prohibition against jewelry or tight clothing)? Can you think of anything else that might HELP you project? Do any of these factors matter at all? Send this into the usual place, and we will look at it a bit more when we start Lesson 10 along with some other topics. Note; this assignment is an absolute requirement. If you do not turn this assignment is, you will not pass this course. If you need special considerations or if you have not been keeping this list of factors that may be affecting AP, please contact me at the same address you turn your assignment into. To keep: In your journals, write your impressions of this section. What I want you to figure out is if you think these techniques and suggestions will help you in your quest. You do not need to turn this in, this is for your own information only. Write why you think that these will or will not help you, and decide what WILL help you in projecting. This list of "rules" will be your guideline for projecting, and they will be the rules that affect you from now on, so consider them carefully before you decide to include them or not. To study: If you have not already done so, download the document DO_OBE by Donald DeGarcia and read it. This text will be the subject of our next lesson. If you need a copy of this, I have it and can email it to you if you can't go online to download it.

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Lesson 9: DeGarcia's DO_OBE Okay, we looked at some of the techniques of AP from Monroe last lesson, this time we will look at the lessons presented by Donald DeGarcia in his work. This will not be a phrase by phrase examination, nor will I refute anything he states. What will be happening in this lesson is that I will be adding my commentaries to the text that I asked you to download a while back. If you have not already done so, please download this work now. It's here for the PDF file. You will need to get out those documents and look at it at the same time you are reading this lesson. I suggest that once you see a page number, paragraph number and the starting phrase of the paragraph, that you read the entire paragraph before you start reading my comments. That way, you will know what I am talking about. In fact, I printed this entire document out so that I could look at it and reference it offline, for my own use. So, let's get to it. First notation is on Page 12, second paragraph, beginning "When you initially begin to project," The way DeGarcia describes these apparitions it sounds like they are nothing more than the shadows on the wall that frightened you when you were a child. Let me tell you from experience this is not the case. These apparitions can be completely terrifying and menacing. You will believe that they are fully capable of killing you and causing great harm to you. Once again, nothing is further from the truth. These apparitions are creations of you, but you don't control them. The part of you that is projecting, the "spirit" is aware that they are creations of you, but your subconscious mind is what has created and controls these apparitions. It's up to you to understand this, and to do something about it. My theory on this matter is that the spirit and the conscious mind act as a "governor" on the Subconscious. While the conscious mind is in the body, it keeps all that is in the subconscious under control and in place, not allowing it to run free or do damage. Remove that, and the subconscious is now free to "run amok" with your brain, not your body. Because it needs that controlling factor, the

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conscious, it will try to frighten your conscious back into the body with these apparitions. Like DeGarcia says, understanding what these parts are is the key to controlling them and overcoming them. Page 13, paragraph 1 starting "So, that's it for an..." This paragraph is important because he is absolutely correct. You cannot be immoral and project. Because if you are immoral and try to project, those apparitions that he was talking about will totally prevent the projection. If you are a coward, you will be scared back into your body, and so on. Those apparitions are the dark and negative parts of each of us, given body. In immoral people, they are consumately stronger than in moral people. Usually moral people have realized that they have this dark side, and while they will use that side of them when necessary, they choose to live by a higher set of ethics. It's that dark side that the Subconscious rules. That dark side is what it is made of, along with the emotions and memory. Without coming to some kind of balance with that side, not by pushing it into a box and ignoring it, you will not be able to project. His following paragraph is completely and totally right on target as well. Pay special attention to his words here. Page 14, paragraph 4, starting "Also, it's important to say..." This section, all of it describing the bodies we possess is a more detailed breakdown than I give or use. But he is also correct in these statements. Occultists have thought about it for centuries, worked with these bodies, done empirical experiments, and so on. So, if you wish a detailed explanation of the bodies and their functions, pay attention. This is the best explanation of these bodies I have ever read, heard, or known. It explained a lot to me. Page 19, paragraph 1-3, starting "And what's even worse,..." and going to "...into the locked room!" While DeGarcia raves against the Parapsychologists, we need to remember that without their work, we may still be describing OOBE as "Dreaming" or something similar. They did a LOT of work, coined a lot of words, and discovered some people had an ability. Looking at some of the information available, there is one fundamental problem with their experimentation. How do you separate one ability from another? As he states in the document, they would put a phrase in another room, and expect the Projector to go look at it. However, if they got the right answer, how could they differentiate it from telepathy where the subject read the researcher's mind as to

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the contents of the document, or intuition where the subject pulled the information on what was in the paper from the collective unconscious, or from scrying where they "saw" the paper in their mind's eye.... To say that these experiments were useless is to dismiss what they DID do, namely they came close to proving that these abilities exist (the Great Randi notwithstanding). One of the major problems is that the parapsychologists gave up before they started getting TRUE results. I believe that if they did their experiments now, that they would discover that MORE people had these abilities, and that more and more people were discovering and developing these talents. However, he does have a point that a topic like this should be approached as an occultist, rather than a parapsychologist. To the occultist, it does not matter which skill you use to read the paper, all that matters is that the paper was read. Page 22, paragraph 2, starting "Perhaps the most important..." and the next three paragraphs. Here we have a good definition of how different people view our existence here. ALL religions, regardless of their origin, use the Occult View. To all of us, we KNOW that there is an existence outside of our bodies, and this can be illustrated by the simple fact that if someone believes in Life After Death, they are ascribing to the Occult View. I have known some agnostics and atheists who passionately believe in the "materialistic view" and they are incapable of projecting. They don't even recognize that such an ability can exist, much less that it can work, and that there is a part of them that exists independent of the body. If, somehow, they do manage to project, they tend to get an Occult view pretty quickly. Page 24, first paragraph, starting "Well," and going to the end of the next paragraph. Here he presents his theory of how he projects. It's pretty good, and it tallies with some descriptions I have heard. I have a few specific problems with his description and explanation, but I have been pointing out to you all just what I DO have a problem with as we come to it. He does a good job in that he presents something close to the "frequency" theory I have, but it's not the same thing. But this is a good thumbnail to start with. However, I will present my theory in another lesson. The second paragraph in this section only illustrates my point of the Structure of the planes. For instance, he says that he DOES go someplace that looks similar

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to his room, but it is not his room. Sounds kind of like a MHB or a fiction to me. So, here we have independent evidence. Page 29, paragraph 4, starting "There is another member..." Wurf.... This is a heavy paragraph in itself, but it is even more powerful when you realize just how RIGHT he is in these statements. For me, this basically means that "It does not matter how I express my consciousness, 'I think, therefore I am.'" I know for a fact that he is correct, and you will discover this too. Keep this in mind for when you start encountering other beings, you will have to realize that they think too, and as such are worthy of your respect. Page 30, Paragraph 2, starting "This is VERY important." In this and the following paragraph he is absolutely correct. The reasons he lists I wanted you to be familiar with so that I could cite them to you and have you understand what I was talking about. So pay attention to this paragraph and the following one. Page 31, paragraph 4 starting "Another thing I want to say..." In this paragraph, he is absolutely correct. AP IS a skill, one that does take quite a bit of practice, patience and dedication, but it's one that can be learned by anyone. As such, it can be done by anyone who decides to do so, all it takes is time and heart. Keep this in mind. Page 33, paragraph 2 starting "Consider this:" and the next two paragraphs. This section, as much as I hesitate to admit this, is something I never considered. Until I read this document in preparation for this class, I had not thought of AP in this light. When I did read it, it spoke powerfully to me, so much so that I got chills. That usually means that something I have read or done has quite a powerful meaning to me. As such, think this over and decide if you want this reasoning as part of your "view" of the planes. For me, these three paragraphs are correct and accurate. Page 34, paragraph 5, starting "First Fact" Pay attention to the next two pages. This is further elaboration on the above and as such, it needs to be looked at.

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In this section, he gives a VERY good description of the waking state and the dream state. Honestly, this is the absolute best description that I have seen, which only makes sense since he does that for a living. So, his comments in this section on dreams and Lucid Dreams are about as accurate as it is possible to be. I don't have a lock on this knowledge, and DeGarcia just proved that to me and everyone. LOL Read until you come to the paragraph starting "If you do these exercises..." on page 41 Page 44, paragraph 14 (section A) starting "Hypnogogic Imagery" to page 47, last paragraph. Here's where he describes the hypnogogic imagery that I told you we would be looking at. So, look already. LOL Now, when I read this section, I saw many things that happen to me all the time in his descriptions. I don't know how many of you out there have this happen to you, but I know I have it happen to me all the time. As such, he is also just as accurate in this section as he is with the dreams. Mostly, from my experiences, he is accurate as it is possible to be in this document. But he does miss some things, which I have gone over, and he also breezes past the Wiccan/Pagan mindset on all of this. Understandable, but this class we are trying to focus on these associations. For a long time, I had a problem with differentiating between what I imagined and what really was. I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter, but in the process I DID learn to tell when something was from me and from outside of me. The way I found out which was me is the "pre echo" of thoughts. From my experience, whenever you think something, there is a "sense" of the thought forming in the back of my head. I feel that and I know that whatever pops into my head is from me. If I don't get that feeling, or if there is a feeling of a "sense" of what I am imagining coming from someplace other than me, then I know it's a true vision. What does this have to do with hypnogogic images? It's very easy to trick yourself into believing that you "see" something in those images when it is nothing more than your own desires made manifest. You HAVE to be able to tell the difference between these images to make progress. Also, I have found that the images "flow" better and easier if I don't try to control them. I know that that sounds really "DUH", but it needs to be stated. You will

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have the opportunity to control those images, but if you don't they will come faster and with more detail than if you try to "sculpt" something. Blackdove, this may be part of your problems with meditation and visualization. It's a Zen state of letting the image be, rather than making it be. Don't fight to create the image, it already exists. You have to learn the trick of getting your mind out of the way of what you are trying to do. Page 62, paragraph 4 starting "I suspect"..." I don't know about CompuServe, but I do know about several other places to look for more information. I'll list them. http://www.spiritonline.com/files/messages/15/15.html Spirit Online http://www.boudicca.de/files/91/files.htmOOBE File areas http://www.tanega.com/astral/astral.html Astral Projection Home Page http://www.greatdreams.com/drmrdr.htm DREAM READER'S ULTIMATE PAGE And there are a lot more. Do a websearch for "OOBE, Lucid Dreams, Astral Projection, Out of Body" or anything else you can think of. I bet you get about 2000 hits or so. Let's take a break for a while. Get up, walk around before your eyes turn into squares and come back when you are ready to continue. Okay, onward and upward... Page 81, paragraph 4, starting "Exercising Psychic Powers" to page 82 paragraph 0, ending "...illustrate doing this." In this section that he talks on, I have found him to be somewhat correct. It is infinitely easier to use your psychic powers on the Astral Plane. Why? Several reasons, and they are uniformly MY theories, with little concrete evidence to back them up. First, there is no sun. If you have ever been outside when the sun is going as much as it can, with no cloud cover and meditated, you hear this "hiss" in the back of your head that is distracting and painful after a while. (At least, I do.) However, doing the same thing at night, with or without the moon, there is not only no hiss, but you can hear the stars talking to each other. What I think is that the electromagnetic radiation from the Sun interferes with the psychic powers to a point where only those who are tremendously gifted can actually use them during the day. It's harder to hear with your ears during the day than it is at night and so on. I think all of this is interrelated.

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Without the sun being on the Astral plane, you don't have that limitation. It is easier to use your natural gifts since there is no hiss. The next reason is that I believe that while we are in a body, simply monitoring and collecting data from that body and our surroundings takes up so much of our attention and concentration that you don't have time left to listen for other minds. No matter how deep the trance, there is still part of you that is busy monitoring your body for information. In AP, that part of you is divorced from the mind. It is left behind in the body, and any alerts it sends out will come down the Silver Cord to you, wherever you are. Thus, it's easier to ignore that little part that is going "Heart beat 97, respiration 30 (Need to quit smoking), blood pressure 120/90 (starting to get a headache) pain in toe from ingrown toenail (get it cut out) pressure from the bed...." and so on. The last theory I have on this is that for here and now, the use of psychic powers is something of an unnatural thing. Not that it is, but the way we are designed genetically and physically has started out with psychic powers that are not that common, and slowly they are becoming more common, but they are still new tools that we need time to get used to. Kind of like growing a third arm in the middle of your back. On the Astral Plane, they are not only Natural to use, but the only thing to use. Do you think that this bird is talking to you in English with their beaks? No. The words and vocal cords cannot wrap themselves around the human words, so they make sounds with their mouths and bodies that they would normally make, and project to your mind what they are saying. Thus, you hear them talk. And the same process is reversed when you speak back to them. The bird "hears" in his head what you say in the sounds he is familiar with. Do this enough, and you get LOTS of practice to do the same thing on this plane with your own body. Page 84, paragraph 5, starting "Here is an example of me using clairvoyance...." to the end of that section. I know of one practitioner who projected three levels down. He projected out of his body here, then tried projecting while on the AP, then did it again and one more time. He told me that the worlds got more and more surreal as he projected out. He was also smart about it in that he stayed right in his room and DID NOT attempt to go anyplace. But it makes for an interesting thought. Page 94, 5th paragraph, starting "[Right now I'm awake..."

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Sounds like he projected into a Might-have-been to me. But that's just a guess. Page 105 first paragraph starting "So, there you have it." Read this carefully. This is why I had you download this file and read it. You can't have enough knowledge about the Astral Plane. Someplace in the middle of his interpretation and mine and Monroe's and many other's experiences, you may find what you are in and seeing. It would be like Lewis and Clark, me and James Audubon all going on a trip to the same locations in the US (say, Montana). Lewis may focus on the geography, Clark on the watercourses and floodplains, I may focus on the feel of the earth and what the sky looks like, and Audubon will focus on the animals and fauna of the environment. All of us may mention in passing the plants, but until you get to Montana and look for yourself, you won't know what some of those plants look like, or what is safe to eat. But you will have picked up a bit here, there, everywhere in our different manuscripts of the area we passed through. Enough to get you by until you develop your own perceptions of the place. This is how I started out, this is how DeGarcia started out, and it's how many different APer's started out. Monroe was the first, the first man in "space" as it were, and he came back with incredible descriptions of the areas that made others start looking for a way out of their bodies. So don't stop studying. Believe me, it helps. You all know how much experience I have with this, but this is the first time I sat down and read DeGarcia's work front to back, and I found TONS of validation for my ideas. I re-read Monroe, and damned if I didn't find the same thing in there. So don't stop. (not that you will have any choice in MY class. LOL) Page 106, entry #1 I find that this particular entry in DeGarcia's journal is an excellent example of perceiving harm come to him. Despite the fact that he KNEW that he was in the AP, and that he would not be harmed, his visceral part of himself was probably screaming "RUN YOU IDIOT!!!! IT'S GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!" This gets easier to overcome with practice. But it's the same skill you may already have. It's controlling your emotions and not letting them control you. The visceral, animal part of you will be screaming for you to survive and save yourself, but you can overcome that, but if you perceive yourself harmed, then all that portion's fears will come true, and you may become injured again. Page 113, paragraph 2, starting "Meeting people:"

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This section of the denizens of the Astral Plane we will go over more fully in another lesson, I just want to say that the most common people that you will meet, in my experience, will be sleepers. People who are having Lucid Dreams, but won't remember them when they awake. Also, I have never been to this realm of the dead that he describes where there are nurses and so on to take care of the newly deceased. It, to me, sounds like the Nursing Home of the Damned. Not a place that I would like to spend any amount of time. Okay, we are done with my commentaries. If I left something out, it was not intentional, but really it was because I was a little too busy at my day job to completely absorb everything. Note, you do NOT have to read the 4 papers at the end. Do that if you wish to. Also, he gives you a lot of good references. Some of them I have herd of, and others I have read, but all in all, this is a fairly complete list of the cream of the OOBE crop to read. So take a look if you can.

ASSIGNMENT: To turn in: A list of questions on this document and lesson from DeGarcia. Anything that you find that you need further elaboration on, please list them here again. To study: This document again. Read it from the perspective of someone who is experienced at AP and see if you can find areas that are true to you and false to you. Read it critically. To keep: Pick a book from the references he lists. Write a short (one page) review of that book and put it in your journal. Cite passages and think of things that the author either was correct in or completely mistaken in. Cite examples and keep this for future reference.

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Lesson 10: Who are the people in your neighborhood? First off, I want to say, good going to everyone. I have been reading your assignments and I am beginning to see some patterns. Good job, all of you. Tamia, I understand about how difficult it is to note everything down when you wake up. Might I suggest a few things? 1) Note down the highlights. Just something like "Walking in park. Wrong turn. Met old boyfriend. Spoke about him and me together again. Slapped his face. He turned into demon and attacked. Shocked awake." Then go back later in the day and note down more detail. Such as: "Approximately 2:30 AM. Having a dream of walking in the park near my house. Went to the tree I always see and decided to sit under it for a while. I was looking at the ants (they were really fascinating creatures) and noticed someone nearby, standing over me so his shadow was obscuring my vision. Looked up and I saw Bob, my boyfriend from High School. He asked to sit down next to me, and I scooched aside so that he could. He sat where I had been sitting for a while..." and so on until the entire dream is recorded. It's not critical to get every detail immediately (probably impossible as well) so get enough of the dream down in notes so that the impact is still there when you go back to look at it later, so that you remember the details as you write. Make a little ritual of it. Note down the highlights, then later, probably before bed or some other time when you have the inclination (probably about the same time each day), go back and re-read the notes and flesh out the details. But keep the notes with the filled-in entry. That way, something that you didn't remember when you were fleshing it out later may stick out as a sore thumb later. 2) Get a miniature cassette recorder. Grab it the first thing when you wake and start talking into it, that should take about 10-15 minutes to get the entire dream into it's electronic memory, and you can transcribe it at your leisure later. You don't even have to get an expensive one, or you can use a normal cassette recorder that your grandparents probably have. Either of those will allow you to get all the details into it while they are still fresh on your mind, even when doing something else like bathing or fixing breakfast or whatever you do to get ready for the day. As to your preparation concerns: Yes, getting the source material is difficult sometimes, that is why if I assign a particular text, I will give you all plenty of notice that it is coming up. That way you aren't pressured to read 250 pages in one week and write a coherent assignment on what you read. Mostly I want you

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to understand that there are multiple ways of AP, and mine is not gospel, nor even particularly right. ;-) Being long winded is not a problem here. Look at these lessons. LOL 10-20 printed pages for ONE lesson? That's my way of teaching. As much detail as I can get as long as we are on the subject, so I don't forget anything. ;-) I'll agree that the feedback portion of this class has been falling down. Now that we are on this mailing list, however, perhaps that will change. Sorry about that. That's my fault and it's my time constraints that prevent me from giving more feedback to you guys. As to the last assignment, the correspondences, you did a good job. Your comments reminded me that I need to go over the Chakras and their uses because they could become somewhat important in some cases. I'll have to leave that for later, however when we discuss energy and OOBE. If I don't have a lesson planned for that, then I will wedge it in someplace. Looks like it will be Lesson 14. Blackdove: Well, long windedness is not one of your failings, that's for sure. :-P However, I am seeing some things that somewhat concern me. In your last assignment, the correspondences, I noticed you setting up negative patterns that you need to break. The "I can't project unless these conditions are met, ________________." Some of them are unavoidable, and I understand that, but some of what you wrote could become a major hindrance to you, such as your boyfriend being present. What happens if you two break up? Remember, in this realm of study, the rules are yours to choose. If you start with the attitude of "I can't" then you won't be able to. Start with "I can" and work from there. It takes some effort to think positively all the time, but it can be done. Trust in yourself. You already AP, it's now just a matter of remembering them and controlling them. I'm glad that you see the pattern of waking up and going back to sleep as being an asset. I was wondering if anyone would see that. Congratulations. Yes, waking and going back to sleep DO seem to have an effect on AP and OOBEs. The reason is simple. If you know you will be getting up soon anyhow, the sleep cycle seems to be lighter in nature, so it's easier to remember the dreams and the trances. From what I have read about sleep study, sleeping at night sends you from the Alpha state, through the 4 stages of sleep into Delta sleep (the deepest) and then back to Alpha where you dream and AP. Since the Alpha state is important to dreaming, and you have multiple Alpha sleep stages at night, avoiding going back into Delta sleep where you forget those dreams is important to remembering them upon awakening. Since Alpha

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state sleep is the first state you fall into when you go to sleep, it's the first state you are in when you go back to sleep from being awake. If your subconscious knows it will be expected to wake shortly, it prevents you from falling into a deep Delta sleep. Thus, you remember your dreams and near-OOB experiences better. However, you need the Delta state, since that is where your body and mind get rest for the next day. From your previous lesson's assignment, you stated that you need to read more AP material rather than Witchcraft in general and the Harry Potter books. I would disagree on this one. Reading those kinds of things could set up more patterns in your head to actually allow more of a chance of you projecting rather than read some of the monstrosities that I have had to endure in my quest for OOBE. Some of them are dryer than dirt. We seem to have more a breakthrough when we concentrate on things that mean something to us, rather than when we are focusing on something that means little. I can think of one good thing that could come out of reading the Witchcraft texts rather than the OOBE books out there, and that is associations. Each of us makes mental associations with other information that we pick up. If you think about it, and try to remember a piece of information you read, you will usually find that there are a plethora of other associations that have been made to that particular piece of info, usually when we first learned that new fact, or what was going on in our life at the time. If you were reading a book on Witchcraft and then you learned something new from me, well, now every time you read that book of Witchcraft or some fact related to that book, you will also remember the facts you learned from these lessons. As to the Harry Potter, I loved them. All 4 books, and I can't wait for the fifth to come out sometime soon. But also, if you like it and want to see that world, it becomes likely that you will start dreaming about that place, and then that's a small step to getting to that fiction in an OOBE experience. So, read away, you never know when a fact learned from an engineering text will suddenly create an epiphany in your mind in relation to OOBE. But, do study other OOBE works, they can do as much if not more also. However, remember that all of this information in Witchcraft, religion, philosophy, OOBE, dreams, and many other areas are all interconnected in ways I can't even begin to explain. As for the one time you were able to project: Congratulations! Well done. Better than me by a long shot. However, one skill that you MUST master is the art of relaxing without loosing your focus.

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Trying too hard is like turning on a hose of water and then intentionally kinking the hose. The more relaxed you are, the more likely an OOBE will happen. The more you are trying for it, the more kinks in your line. It's easy to say, but really hard to do. However, it's more a state of mind where you are aware of something is going to happen, and waiting patiently for it to happen, then when it does, jumping ruthlessly on that event and not letting go. There was a line in "First Knight", the movie about 4 years ago with Sean Connery and Richard Geer in which Lancelot says "...waiting patiently for that one moment in which a fight is won or lost, and seizing it and not letting go." It's kind of the same mind-set. You have to wait for that time when you CAN project, and then when that time comes, projecting as fast and as completely as possible, without hesitation or "but can I?" thoughts to distract you. I think that Valentine Michael Smith (from Stranger in a Strange Land) called it "Waiting for fullness." Did I just confuse the living daylights out of you, or did you understand that ramble? LOL For both of you, start trying to schedule your projections for times that your charts showed you that they are more likely. Try to do everything in your power to cooperate with the rhythms of the universe that are affecting you in these projections. Tamia, this would mean that you get up a little early, meditate without the phone, sometime in the two weeks before and after the Full Moon with your head pointed south. Don't reinforce this as absolutely necessary to a successful projection, simply see it as a "cheat sheet" that will make an OOBE MORE LIKELY.

Okay, this lesson we will discuss some of the things you will meet while out of body and on the Astral Plane. There's a long list, so be ready to suspend disbelief. The very first and most basic rule to keep in mind when you start interacting with others is that if it has a mind, if it communicates, if it thinks, treat it with respect and courtesy. Some of the most powerful beings I have encountered decided to take the forms of something innocuous and harmless. Everyone you will meet on the Astral Plane has a soul. They would not be there if they did not. So, as such, you can safely assume that they are thinking beings who are worthy of respect and courtesy. Okay, disclaimer time: I will be using the word "people" throughout the rest of this document, but actual human beings will probably be a minority. When I say people, I mean anything that thinks and communicates with you on the Astral Plane. Keep this in mind.

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Group 1: Projectors Guess which class you will fall in.... That's right. This one. You will be a projector and so will some of the others you run into. However, many of them will not be "awake" meaning that they do not remember their waking life in this place. They, for all intents and purposes will be asleep. DeGarcia went into some detail on this group, and I will refer you to his document on this matter to save my fingers typing. His experiences closely mirror my own, so I won't repeat it for you. Group 2: Pieces of you Suspend disbelief, what I am going to tell you is completely real and factual. It will sound like something out of an insane asylum, but I promise you that this has happened to me multiple times. I know a very nice lady. She has many parts of her running around inside her head, existing on the Astral Plane, who are independent of her control. They have developed a will of their own, a personality, a destiny and a karma of their own. The only difference between them and you is that you have a physical body. These pieces run around on the Astral Plane too. Usually they are mindless automatons, and usually they will only be near your sanctuary or your physical body, but at times they can "wake up" and develop into their own people. Let me give you an example: This lady that I know has had some trauma in her life. I worked with her for many months to help her with that trauma, and in the process met these pieces of her. I thought, at first, that she was an MPD (multiple personality disorder) but it turned out that while that was technically correct, they had little to no interest in the body and the world here. They were not dangerous in any way shape or form, and they only, for the most part, wanted to be left alone. A good example of this is the "inner child". That's what these pieces were. Literally. Mostly they were young, prepubescent, and they had their own memories and thoughts that didn't intrude on their hosts thoughts or actions. She knew they were there, she could hear them, but mostly she ignored them. Working with these pieces over the months, I came to understand something. We all have these pieces. It's a situation of an "almost Might Have Been" where these souls didn't get all the way out of the personality in question. Generally they were asleep or in suspension (meaning animation) until circumstances were correct to create these souls out of the parent person. In this lady's case, it was Role-Playing Games that provided the correct circumstances for their "birth".

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Now, when these pieces woke up, they either became resigned to their fate, explored the Astral Plane, or they left to have their own lives. Yes, that is a possibility too. They have the option of leaving the parent body and having their own lifetimes and cycle of reincarnation and rebirth. Remember when I was talking about TJ a long time ago? Well, this is one example of this piece in action. Is there a loss when these pieces go? Sometimes, depending on how aware the person who "birthed" them is of them. Do they take something irrevocable? Only if you want them to. Typically they take the part that is them, but since they are made up of your experiences and thoughts, they only "copy" that information to them, and then they leave. They can take the irreplaceable parts, but that is only rarely, and usually with the full cooperation of the "birthing" person. Can they harm you? No. They are benign. They are on the AP already, just connected to you by another Silver Cord, and they tend to only stay in the landscape of your mind and imagination. All those environments where you go to look at the clouds, the sky the stars, the daydreams you have. That's where they can be. Do you have these pieces? Yes. Are they awake? Not necessarily. Usually something has to "trigger" their awakening, usually something traumatic or earth shaking for the person in question. RPGs are a good example, but so too is molestation, abuse, marriage, betrayal, birth of a child, and so on. Both good and bad events can cause one of these pieces to become active. In some cases, this is even where new children get their soul from. Will too many of these "births" take too much of your soul? No. Remember, infinity divided a thousand times makes a thousand infinities. They can't ever diminish YOU. Keep that in mind. Can they take your body? Yes, but only if you let them do so. Mostly, they don't want a body until it's their time to have one, usually after you are dead and they get to start on the cycle of life we are on. If they are benign, why even mention them? Because it's possible that you will wind up meeting them. Remember, going in search of your Inner Child is a good thing, but it can wake that child so they begin demanding things and actions from you. It may not be something you want to do. It's best that I tell you what those nebulous things are, as well as those people that seem to know all about you and who you are. So they don't frighten you. They tend to have the predominating personality of you. Your morals, your beliefs, your thoughts, your foibles and so on. They should, they copied all of it from you. So don't be afraid of them. Group 3: Fantasy Creatures These are loosely considered to be any creature or person that does not exist in our waking reality here, but that are read about in fantasy literature or mythology. Examples of these are Dragons, Unicorns, Centaurs, Elves, the Sidhe, Fairies, Gnomes, Naga, Mermaids (and Mermen), Pegasai, Sphinxes, and many more. Think of the Monster Manual from D&D and you are probably close.

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What the heck do these creatures have to do with OOBE? They are the things you will meet while on the AP. All of these exist there. Most of them have existed in our world at one point, and voluntarily withdrawn due to the arrogance of Mankind, or they only existed in the Astral Plane. Some never existed at all, and when Mankind decided to start dreaming, they were created. Let me tell you about Dragons and Unicorns. Dragons started in this world. Some references I have found, as well as my own explorations have pointed to the Dragons being the FIRST beings on this planet, before Dinosaurs, people, anything. It is theorized that there is a Universal Dragon who flies the skies of creation, chasing only they know what. For that reason, anytime a planet forms, Dragons are created at the same time who are inexorably connected to that planet. The Dragons of Earth, being the oldest things existing, see everything else as interlopers. It doesn't matter what Mankind has made, what triumphs we have accomplished, or what we know because Dragons are the superior species. Humans are lice. Humans are, in fact, very interesting to watch, in an ant colony sort of way. Looked at from the perspective of how Humans view ants, we can see just what may be going on in the mind of a Dragon. Humans are ants. They move around very quickly, build things, center their existence around one or two things, and die much too quickly to form any kind of emotional attachment to them. The ants own nothing since I am powerful enough to take it from them, usually for my own amusement. I can destroy everything they have worked for and built, simply by raising my foot and bringing it crashing down on them. It doesn't matter if I slaughter them by the thousands since they have no meaning or existence. There are always millions more. They are not Dragons. Looked at from that perspective, what the Dragons have been reputed to do to us innocent Humans is nothing more than what a child will do to an ant hill. Scientists can admire the leaf-cutter ant and what it has built with it's work, but the scientist can't become emotionally attached to one particular ant. They may feel for the colony, but not for the individual. This is the Draconic attitude toward us. The only thing that the Dragons have done is leave this plane and move permanently to another reality (no, I don't know which one. It could be a might-have-been, a created universe or even a pocket of the Astral Plane). I am under the impression that they did this because we became too much of a nuisance to them, and there were too few of the Dragons to make the fight against the Humans seem exciting. Like what we would do if an ant colony decided to invade our homes. We would move to

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another home. They figure we will die out in a few dozen generations, a blink of an eye in Draconic life span, and be gone without much left behind. Now, Dragons can and do form emotional attachments to some humans, but it is always the attitude of owner/pet. The human is the pet. This dubious honor is kind of like being one of YHVH's chosen one, it may be a great honor, but they will screw with you just as much as they protect you from. There is one thing that is unique to the Dragon, and that is that they always strive to increase their knowledge. With a life span measured in millennia, you have nothing to do but to learn and practice. One thing they also do is to learn about magick and Human magick. Draconic magick is centered around the four elements, and for a Water Dragon to learn Fire Magick is almost impossible. But they can learn Human Magick, and sometimes the choose a human who is gifted enough in this skill to train their young or them. I know of one pair of Dragons who decided to learn Human Magick from Elphias Levi. Along with the Dragons, are the Unicorns. Don't mistake the Unicorn for the Alicorn, the brain damaged insane brother of the Unicorns. The Unicorns can be very kind, and they are much longer seeing than the Dragons. Rather than being tied to the Earth, they are Celestial Creations. Once the Earth was formed, the Unicorns populated it, and met the Dragons. Their magicks are of the Heavens and the stars, where the Dragon's magick is of the Earth and Sky. Unicorns and Dragons get along well, neither being superior to another, and have a kind of trade agreement. The Unicorns are also great knowers of things, and they tolerate Humans mostly, as one tolerates a vegetative cousin. We are crippled to the Unicorns, and we can't help it, so we should be pitied instead of disdained. Unicorns also voluntarily left this world, sooner than the Dragons did, and when we have grown enough as a race of creatures, then the Unicorns will come back to us and interact with us. Until then, they will stay in isolation in their own universe. However, the rare human who can get to where the Unicorns live are welcomed and made to feel comfortable. They are obviously superior to most of their species, and should therefore be encouraged to spread their knowledge among the rest of their crippled race. Group 4: Gods Ever wonder where the Gods live, it's on the Astral Plane. Mostly it's in areas that we can't access because of a lack of spiritual development, but on the Astral Plane, They can come to us. I have had multiple discussions with Herne, Rhiannon, Hecate, Mars, Thor, Odin, and many other "named" gods and goddesses, including YHVH and the Christian

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God as well as Jesus. They are, one in all, people. The only difference between Them and us is that They aren't afraid of Themselves, and They have seen it all before and lived through most of it. They can be hell on wheels if They choose to be, but most times They are kind and helpful. Your parents are a good example of how the Gods act. No matter how much you don't listen to Them, however, They will never write you out of the will. They know what it is to be lost and lonely and know what you are going through. After all, They have several hundred lifetimes to remember, with all those experiences, as well as having seen the life cycles of literally millions of us. So They do know, and you cannot bring anything to Them that They have not already seen and done before, in one way or another. Talking to the Gods is like talking to anyone else. What may tip you off that you are seeing a God is that They are usually so "in their skin" that it makes any advancement you have done seem puny by comparison. They will not deliberately try to overawe you, but They will make no bones about the fact that They know exactly what you are going through. They will also be sympathetic and try to help you, so long as you are trying to improve yourself. Ultimately, this is the level of existence that we all strive for. It has been said that "as we are now, They once were. As They are now, we may become." Group 5: Constructs and Thought-Forms How can I describe these to you? A Construct is something that someone has created and abandoned. It is animate, and has an intelligence, but no will of it's own. It is a golem in many senses of the word, and an automaton in many other senses. A thought-form is like a construct, although it usually has an intelligence and a will, it has no soul. It goes about it's business, doing what it wants to, and if something happens to it, it is no big deal to the thought-form itself. Both of these will be intelligent, coherent and will look like many other denizens of the Astral Plane, but they will have no soul. You will find that you can tell the difference between these and other inhabiters of the Astral Plane by this lack. If you have not already discovered it, you will be able to sense when something you meet has a soul and when it does not. Call it feeling, seeing, knowing, ESP or what have you, but you will know. The good news is that usually these creatures are ineffective in harming anything. They are like a computer program. Take the power away that is keeping them functioning, and they cease to exist. Don't be scared and don't be distracted by them either. Group 6: Personas that are symbols of things you need to overcome

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A good example of this group is the Watcher at the Door you will meet when you first start projecting. That Watcher is a symbol of your fear and your anxiety and only you can get past it by defeating it. These symbols abound at times. Being on the Astral Plane gives them impetus and gives them life. So things that you see around you will start taking on a different dimension when some of what you are seeing is made of parts of your personality and problems. The key to this creature on the Astral Plane is knowing that it came from you, and that you can get rid of it at any time by taking back the power you have put into it by your hang-ups. For those of you who watched the first Nightmare on Elm Street, the end of the movie is a good example of what you have to do to overcome these manifestations. That doesn't mean, however, that they won't be frightening when you first meet them. They can be. They can also be subtle in nature, like DeGarcia's branches in some of his projections. The key to overcoming these challenges is to understand that they come from you, and to take care of the problem in yourself. The rest follows. Group 7: Residents of the plane you are on This is usually only operable when you are on another plane, rather than the Astral Plane. These are the creatures and people that naturally live on that plane, like intelligent birds, nixies and so forth. Remember, if it thinks, it needs to be treated with respect. Some of these beings will be able to see you, so if they can, don't try to run or hide. Treat them the way you would wish to be treated if the positions were reversed and remember that you are a guest in their world. Things that seem abominable to you, may not be that bad to them. You don't have to participate in whatever makes you uncomfortable, however, but you at least need to respect their culture enough to not impose your values on their society. Group 8: Guides/Teachers/Guardians/Angels/Spirit (Totem) Animals/Elementals This is the catch-all category for those beings that are the helpers/messengers/servants of the Gods. They are the Staff of Heaven, if you will. Most times, they will treat you like the Gods do, and they expect the same courtesies in return, but unless they have business with you, normally they leave you alone. In Monroe's book, he mentions a couple times meeting a Guide of his. The Guides are there to assist you in learning and thinking, and to protect you to a

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point. If you insist on screwing up, they will let you suffer the consequences, but if you are truly out of your depth, they will help you out. Remember that this plane, the Astral Plane, is their realm. They live here and they have much more experience in working with the environment than you do. If they say something, believe it. But they also sometimes test you to see what is going on in your mind. If they do, accept it and go on. If you meet one, treat it like you would a friend or brother. You don't have to worship it, but kindness and respect is always nice. Group 9: Discarnate souls This is the group of people who just died, and probably don't know it yet. The point is that they were living beings, but now they are not and they are waiting for something. Usually this class is made up of those who JUST died, and ghosts. Most times, they will find their way out of the holding pattern they are in, and move on to where they are supposed to be. You can usually tell them by their looks. Do they have gaping holes, massive injuries or are they old? They are probably the newly dead. Sometimes you will meet a person who was living, but who is considering their lifetimes before deciding to move on, or go back. In this case, just leave them alone. If they won't talk to you, go on with your business and leave them to theirs. Group 10: Splinters Okay, suspend your disbelief again. Remember when I was talking about the Pieces of You category above? These are incomplete portions of you, similar to those pieces. For example: The lady I was telling you about above, who had the parts of her who were complete and whole beings in and of themselves also had a number of these splinters in her. The are defined (by me) as personalities who are parts of a whole, but not complete in and of themselves. Three that I got to know very well are Peeper, Scardy Cat and Sucker. Each of these parts were part of one being, when combined, but incomplete in themselves. Peeper was the looker. She watched everything for danger, and viewed the world through the mind set of everything can hurt us, so I must be constantly on the watch for something that will hurt us. Scardy Cat was just that, scared of everything. She took it upon herself to be afraid of everything so that Peeper and Sucker would not be burdened with that distracting emotion. Sucker

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was the baby of the group. She, literally, put everything in her mouth to explore it, just as a small baby does. Sucker had the capacity to laugh, enjoy, play and encourage play, explore and discover. Scardy Cat was frightened of everything, because everything can hurt (even stuffed animals with thread mouths [they can bite, it's only a trick, they are dangerous]). Peeper saw everything and tried to protect her sisters. Approximate ages were Peeper was about 3, Scardy Cat about 2 1/2 and Sucker about 6 months. I was able to win their trust, but don't ask me how. I was simply myself and I treated them with respect and kindness. Eventually, somehow, they adopted me as their Da (Daddy). When I became their Father, I was subjected to the same protection that Peeper showered on her sisters, and they felt compelled to take care of me then (since grown-ups aren't capable of taking care of themselves). Their capacity to Love is incredible, and their nurturing instinct is almost as high, but I would never have known this if I did not treat them with that respect. Having found them, I went looking for more splinters. I found many inside my own head, and inside the head of other people. I remember one lady, Sister Mary, who's job it was to be the religious fanatic, ready to be martyred for her faith, and extremist and completely judgmental person. What makes these splinters interesting is that they serve a purpose. Each of these splinters are a quality that everyone has within themselves, good and bad. There is the Glutton, the Destroyer, the Anarchist, the Looker, the Tramp and so on. These splinters may call themselves different names, but their function is the same across the board. I mention these splinters because the Realm of the Mind is REALLY close to the Astral Plane, and if you didn't know that it was the Mind's realm, you could be fooled into thinking that this was the Astral Plane. So you need to know that this place exists. Don't worry, no one else can get into your mind, and you can't get into anyone else's mind either. But you may wind up meeting these splinters and pieces of you. Group 11: Astral Entities This is the last category. This is all the other creatures that don't fit into one of the above groups. These creatures can live entirely on the Astral Plane, or they can be from another level of reality. Some of them can be friendly, like talking rhino's or they can be malevolent, like thought-eaters. Usually they have one function, to live off the life energy of others. What do I mean when I mention Thought-Eaters? These are the beings with a lower vibrational level who wait for a person to be injured or killed on the physical

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plane, then they pounce to devour the spirit or the negative energies they have been giving off their whole life. Usually they are only attracted to those who have been evil or negative or dwelling on everything that is bad and negative in life. This is one reason why it is important to control your thoughts and not to bring these creatures to you by thinking things like "I can't" or "I want to kill a fly today". They have been called demons, devils, fallen angels, imps, monkeys on the back, and many other names. They exist on the dark side of life. If you meet them, avoid them. Usually unless you are going out of your way to mess with these creatures, they will ignore you. They are too busy scanning the æthers for those people who are doing mean things, or those who are getting their comeuppance. Think of these creatures as Karma's Stick. It's the club that hits you over the head and gives you what you have coming. Other creatures that fall into this category are ones that generated spontaneously due to something happening (don't ask me what, I have never gotten a straight answer from one of these). For them, the Astral plane is their home, and they have no desire to leave it or to be bothered by someone locked into a cycle of reincarnation and karma. Usually they will leave you alone. ***** So, that's the creatures and entities that you are likely to meet while you are projecting. Most times, courtesy will keep you out of trouble with these creatures. And if being nice isn't enough, you can always wake up. There are some books and people out there who say that a certain class of creatures are dangerous to you, and that you must attack and kill them before you get taken. There are also fears that some of the realities in the Astral Plane are traps set for the unwary, and that it will trap your soul and your body will become a vegetable. To these fears, I say hogwash. Unless you allow it, there is nothing on the Astral Plane that can harm you. You are a piece of the IS, and by that inheritance, you can overcome any obstacle in your path. You can disbelieve anything you need to, and there is ALWAYS an escape for you. You can recreate anything you need to, you can out-reason, out think, out believe anything on this plane because you are a divine creature. But it's up to you to decide what you believe as real and what you believe as false.

Assignment: To turn in: Pick a creature from myth or story. Write about it as I have done with the Dragons and Unicorns. Write it from the perspective of them, and their

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attitudes and reactions to Humans. Don't hold back. This is to get you thinking as another creature would be thinking when confronted by us. You can't use the Dragons or Unicorns as your topic, but anything else goes. Also: If you could meet anything or anyone who has ever existed or could exist, who would it be, and what top 5 questions would you ask? To keep: Make a list to yourself of those creatures that you would like to meet and talk to. This is so once you become accustomed to AP, you can set a goal of seeing something or someone you would like to. This list can extend to any of the above groups of creatures. To read: (by no means a requirement) Some general mythologies on different creatures that could be encountered on the Astral Plane. Just to get you familiar with things you could encounter.

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Lesson 11: True Dreams vs. Lucid Dreams Okay, having gone over the difference multiple times, now comes the time when we separate them out and give you the tools to help you determine what is what. As stated in former lessons, a true dream is one that comes from your own little subconscious, and a lucid dream is one that is an AP episode. This is not, by the way, the definitions that you will find in a dictionary, but it is the set of definitions that I am using for this class. Since the environment of these are essentially the same, how can you tell? The best rule of thumb is "What color is it in?" By this I mean that a "true" dream will usually be in black and white, while a lucid dream will be in color. Why the difference? I don't really know, but I have an idea and I will share it with you. In a true dream, the reason it is in black and white is because the subconscious mind is busy trying to integrate the information it has accumulated into some kind of order, and it simply doesn't have the time to put color all over the scene. Generally that is to the good, since having color in a dream would serve to distract you from what you are looking at. I mean, think about what the subconscious is doing while it is trying to assimilate that data. It is not only taking the actual events that happened during the day and storing them, but it is also cross-indexing them to the memories that are already there, plus throwing up an environment for you to look at that represents what it is doing. Add to that the normal function of running background "programs" that you have asked it to, like answers to questions, finding an idea that you had, developing an idea out of the cumulated data, looking for correspondences to other days (in relation to what happened today) along with generating things like songs to distract you and other nuisance activities. Small wonder that in that environment it doesn't have time to put color all over something, just so you can look at it and forget about it in the morning. I believe that this is why most people forget their dreams in the morning. The Subconscious has no orders to remember them for later, and so it discards all that activity upon waking so that it can start fresh.

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So why are Lucid Dreams in color? Most things are in color, and an environment is in color more often than not. I have yet to see a world where everything is shades of grey. That being said, how do you know when you have a color dream or a B&W dream? Well, you have to remember them. That's where the dream journals come in handy. Telling everything to it's electronic memory, in the case of microcasette recorders, or scribbling till your hand is tired and an hour and a half has passed comes in handy once in a while. If you note down the fact that you had a dream and that it was in color, you may start seeing patterns in your Lucid Dreams, just as you see patterns in your true dreams. So, what do you use if you can't remember if your dream was in color or B&W? Well, that's when your judgment comes in. Understand something, it is possible to wake in a true dream just as easily as it is to do so in a lucid dream. The only difference is what you make of it. You can turn a true dream into a lucid dream, simply by willing yourself to another place. It's like when teleporting in a Lucid Dream or an OOB. You just think yourself there. I have found, in my experiences, that in true dreams, there is a "pre-echo" of what will be happening. Meaning that you KNOW, a split second before something occurs what will happen. This makes sense since your own mind is supplying the images and environment for you. You are yourself, and your subconscious is everyone else. Given that, knowing that this person you are talking to is going to raise his hand and sweep his hair back out of his eyes before he does it can be an indication of a true dream, rather than a lucid dream. When talking about dreams, it gets confusing. You have the Lucid Dreams, True Dreams, Presentient Dreams, Fantasy Dreams, the nothing Dreams, Nightmares and so on. How can you tell the difference between a scary Lucid Dream and a Nightmare? To put it simply, you can't. You can't tell the difference with 100% accuracy between any of those dreams. There are some indications that make things easier to identify them as one or the other, but ultimately you won't be able to tell the difference between them until you have a LOT of experience with OOBE to give you a "feel" for what a Lucid Dream is. That's the long and the short of it. I know it's not much comfort, but that is all that I have to give you. One other thing is "how long does the feelings in the dream stay with you?" When you go back and re-read the entry in your journal, do you remember the

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smells and the terror or hope or fear you felt? Does it come back to you or is there noting? If the answer is yes, then chances are that you had a lucid dream. True dreams tend to NOT have an emotional content, and if they do, it's transient and fades with time. I'm going to share with you a dream I had last month. There were feelings noted, but for the life of me I can't remember any of the emotional content now, only 28 days later. At the time I say that it is a lucid dream, but I don't know about that now. As I wrote it out, I started getting those same feelings, and even now I can feel an injury I took while in that state, which confirms my supposition that it was a Lucid dream. Keep in mind that as you project more often, you will get a feel for what is a Lucid and a true dream simply from experience. That instinct is buried inside you and you will know when you are out of your body, rather than just think you might be having a true dream. My advice: Go with the flow. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, chances are that it is a duck rather than a Canadian Goose. No matter what is going on, act in a way that you have decided to act, and you won't go much wrong in this area. If you want more on the science of dreams and dreaming, I can give you some resources, but as I'm not a researcher in that area, that's about it. Here's those resources: http://www.greatdreams.com/drmrdr.htm Dream Reader's Ultimate Page, and it really is too. http://www.spiritonline.com/files/messages/15/15.html Spirits online section on OOBE, but they have some good info on Dreams there too. http://www.boudicca.de/files/91/files.htm Boudicca's Bard file area. Mostly dealing with OOBE, but some dream info there too. Unfortunately, I know only too well how little I know in this area, so this is it. That's all for this lesson. Sorry about that. I'll answer your questions in the email list, but not until Monday when I get back from out of town. So, let me share a Lucid Dream with you all that I recently had. "Approximately at 5:30 in the morning, the moon was full, or close to being full. Mostly it consisted of me in a building that I can only assume was some kind of housing. It felt like an apartment... no, it felt like a school of some sort.

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What happened was I started out on the ground floor with my orange backpack on and I began walking through as though I was supposed to be there, which apparently I was. It was an interesting place because it was completely grassed in and it was like an indoor park. Now the building itself went up something like 10 stories above me, and I was walking one of the miniature paths that went through this. As I'm walking along the path, a guy who was 20-21 or something like that comes along and starts talking to me except I ignore him and I continue along my way. Then a girl comes up, grabs my pack and pulls it together and makes it narrower because it's supposed to be narrower. That's the current fashion. The pockets on my pack were unzipped and there were two additional pockets besides the main compartment and there were things in there, but I'm not sure what. (let me digress here for a bit. The Orange backpack I have is a remnant of my school days. It has one huge main compartment for books and such, while on the outside there is a smaller pocket sewn on the front of the pack for storage of smaller items. There is a snap pocket on the left side, and a pencil/pen holder on the right. All of it is nylon and I still have it. It's a strong pack.) There was a secondary pocket on the front, and there was also a document pocket on the from of that which doesn't exist on the real pack. It was just a piece of material that was sewn down that had a zipper on it. Anyway, she starts talking about how she can make it narrower since that is the fashion now and I got this strong impression of her making my backpack look like my daughter's backpack (same general shape as mine, but with no outside pockets at all, and a bungee cord that goes in a shoestring pattern up the outside of her pack to cinch it smaller.) I didn't want that and I told her politely to go away or I would do something that she didn't want me to and that she would regret. She took this to heart and went away and then placed herself directly in my path as I am waking this path to get to the other side. I got the impression that she was of the opinion of 'Oh, YOU'LL do something I'LL regret? We'll just see about THAT.... Fine, I'll just irritate the shit out of you since you don't like being touched. I walked around her twice trying to avoid a confrontation, and she kept placing herself back in my path. The second time I said, 'You do that again, I'm calling the police.' getting really irritated with her. Her friend was standing off to my left, the guy from earlier, She was standing on my right almost on the path and she kept creeping in, and trying to crowd me off the path, where he waited or where I would have no choice to run into her. I wasn't too thrilled about walking in the grass for some reason.

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She then asked me 'How would you like it if I called the police?' and I told her to go ahead, I hadn't done anything. Next thing I know, I'm up on the 10th floor landing. Now these are metal floors, like ornamental ironwork used in chair seats. The landings only exist around the corners of the building, on the 10th floor. There were two doors, one on each wall of the corner and they connected the doors to each other. I don't know what else was down there, but you could see all the way down to the floor. These platforms were not connected to each other, they were just a square corner piece. They were away from the walls by about a foot or foot and a half (1/3 to 1/2 meter for those metric friends). There was a narrow bridge connecting the platform to the doors. The outside had a walkway that went all the way around the building, 10 stories up, and you could walk from one door to another. Somehow I had gotten up on these platforms and was in the process of taking off my shoes because I didn't want to make any noise. I walked over to one of the doors to get outside. I realized that I would need my shoes outside and I tried to get back inside to get them, and found out the door was locked from the outside. About this time, another girl who was apparently with this first girl, came outside and picked up a very small stone, about 1/2 inch across (2 cm) and threw it straight at me, hitting me in the cheek, just below my right eye. It hurt like crud, so I try to get back inside and find that the door is locked, try the companion door to get back on the same platform, and it's locked too. I go down a ways to get inside from one of the other doors. The first door is locked, but the second door to get on that same platform is unlocked. Open it up and find out that the bridge to the platform is rusty and rotting away and really unsafe to walk on. There are two police officers on the first platform, looking like Georgia State Patrol officers, just without the "Smokey" hats and now I'm feeling very persecuted so I'm really grateful to see them. I tell them "I'm so glad you are here, you won't believe what I'm going through." Then I woke up. I got the distinct impression as I woke up that the officers were there to arrest me for harassing that first girl and her friend, even though I wasn't doing anything. My wife says that this was a very lucid dream, and I tend to agree. I was getting feelings emotions colors and many other things like touching, smelling and hearing which normally don't happen in regular dreams."

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Now, since I am in no means an expert in dreams, other than where it touches on OOBE, I'll end this part of the lesson before I get you really messed up. I'll give you your assignment in another email.

Assignment: To turn in: Using your journals, I want you to find an example of a Lucid Dream and tell me what may be different if it was a true dream instead. What might your subconscious be trying to work out in this case if it was a true dream instead of a lucid one? To do: Keep up the journals as best as you can. In every part of the literature that I have ever seen on this subject, every single one of them stress how important it is to remember the dreams in order to be able to control them, and the best way to remember them is to write them down. I'm doing this too, and I know how hard it is. To read: Pick some pages and articles from the above resources and take a look at them. Read over those and decide which are worthwhile and which are trash. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THEM ALL, but get a good sampling of the material. This is for your information. I would say that 3-5 different articles, about the size of my standard lessons would be good, or 8-10 smaller ones.

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Lesson 12: Guided Meditations and their uses I know that in previous lessons we went over some points of the Guided Meditation, and that you all got the voice copy of the guided meditation that I made, but in this lesson we will discuss some more on Guided Meditations. What makes a Guided Meditation so strong on the psyche? What benefits can a Guided Meditation have? What is the use of a Guided Meditation? We will deal with the questions in reverse order, so the first one up is; What is the use of a Guided Meditation? A Guided Meditation (GM hereafter) can be a tool for massive changes in your life. Most often it is used as a self-improvement tool, in place, sometimes, of classical psychological and psychiatric counseling. It has been used with great success in many different areas, including medically. To quote Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia (1995): Guided imagery, alternative therapy that encourages patients through neartrance states to envision themselves doing something or their bodies battling disease; patient guided by therapist or tape recording; believed to reduce chronic pain, shrink tumors, cure chronic infections; may also help patients recover faster and with less pain after surgery by reducing stress; introduced in 1970s to help athletes and musicians perform better. This kind of treatment is almost exactly the same as a GM. That is why I am listing it here. To be good, a GM needs to have elements that are almost exactly simmilar to the elements of a meditation. Only instead of self-willing yourself though the environment, someone else takes you through it. A GM can be seen as hypnosis as well. In that, a hypnotist takes you through a set of steps that induce relaxation and a trance state. This is the same thing that happens in a GM. Only, instead of giving your suggestions to do specific things, you take those actions on yourself. Such as a "break" in the meditation that prompts you to take care of something that is currently wrong in your life, or one that suggests you listen to the Gods for a while and see if they have any messages for you.

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Normally, GMs are used in either a group situation, as in a ritual, or in a self-help situation, like happened to me once. I know I went over this once here, but I will go over it again in greater detail. There was a time when I was really self-conscious and timid. I believed that everything I did was doomed to failure, and ridicule. This stemmed from many years of emotional abuse by my father, who liked to belittle all of us (myself and mother and my three sisters) all in the name of "kidding" or "making us stronger". To be fair, he grew up in the same environment when he was little and also in a Southern home. Once I decided to go to a metaphysical shop near to our home and there I found that a lady had a guided meditation machine. Basically it consisted of a tape player and a pair of goggles to cut off vision. The goggles had lights in them that would flash to stimulate the creative processes in the brain. I asked to see what it was, and the lady kindly consented to allow me to go through a session. In this session, the meditation consisted of a walk through the woods, in which each area of my body was encased and protected by the light of the sun, and finally a stepping into a clearing. In that clearing (the GM said) I was to see myself, as I was when I was only about 5 or so years old. I saw me, buck teeth and all, coming through this clearing toward me. Prompted by the GM, I picked the little boy who was me up, hugged him, held him, made him safe from everything. I sheltered him, and he cried on my shoulder. He cried out all the heartache and pain, all the destructive parts of me, he cried for all the anger and hatred we had toward everyone. (As I write this, I'm starting to cry again. Just remembering this is doing that. Just proves that a GM does not have to be elaborate to be effective.) Once he was done purging all that, I looked around (prompted by the GM) and saw my family. At that time it consisted of my wife and our child-to-be, as well as my siblings and my mother. My father was there as well, and I spent some time introducing my daughter to everyone. The GM went on saying that everyone who loved me was present in this clearing and that they were there. It further went on to say that everyone who had ever met me was there, also to share in this experience. All through this I was seeing the entire environment around me, suddenly the clearing was filled with people. They all knew who I was and why they were here. I wanted to love them, but I didn't quite know how since I had a LOT of unresolved issues to deal with.

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Prompted by the GM, I felt their love for me pour over me and I truly FELT something inside me start healing. It was like bringing a light into a pitch-dark room and illuminating it. It burned away many years of hate and anger (mainly toward myself). I felt the little boy that is me start perking up, getting more whole, becoming more "normal" for a child. He was healing too. It burned out a lot of problems. At least I knew the problems existed now, and I could start taking steps to fix them. That is, after all, half the battle of fixing something. Knowing what is broken. Why do I tell you all this? Because it illustrates the power of a guided meditation. All of the proceeding can be done in a hypnotic session, it can be done through therapy, it can be done in any number of other means, but the REASON that a GM is so powerful is because it works in a means that makes sense to your conscious mind, as well as your subconscious. I can illustrate this point by saying that I could reprogram your machine in binary, which is the language the computer operates on, or I could also do it in a Windows environment. But, where the binary may be the language that should be used, it does not make sense to my conscious mind, and so I may make a mistake or just get bored with strings of numbers saying "1001010111010100101010010100101010010110010100101001010001000100 100100101010010110101001011100" and on and on. It makes no rational sense to me, so I could easily transpose a number or two and get the whole thing wrong. However, working in a Windows-like environment, I can do all the same thing, but it makes rational sense to me, because while I AM still working with imagery that the Subconscious understands, the same imagery makes sense to my conscious mind as well. That is what GMs do. It is a therapy tool that allows you to work in an environment where the symbolism is correct and useful for the Subconscious mind as well as the Conscious mind. Opposed to hypnosis in which the same therapy is done in the symbolism of the Subconscious mind only, or self help books or therapy sessions in which the Conscious mind's symbolism is used only. So, by entering into an in-between world where the symbolism is good for BOTH, greater results are achieved. This can be related to OOBE in this manner: It's the same state that an AP experience is based on. In an AP episode, you are creating the environment you interact in. In a Guided Meditation, you are also creating the environment you interact in. The fact that you are given suggestions on the environment to create is immaterial. However,

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in a hypnosis episode, the hypnotist gives you specific suggestions as to where you find yourself, which may or may not be an environment you feel comfortable in. So, can GM be used to augment the AP experience? Yes, it can. Through starting out with a GM, one can step into a state where AP is easier. From there, there have been spontaneous projections in the past. Here's another example. At that same metaphysical store, there was a class on Runes that I took. In the class I went to, we had a GM dealing with the Runes and the Gods those runes related to. Throughout the GM, we were told that we were in a forest and there was a tree there. In that tree (can you say Yggdrasil) it had runes on individual stones tied in the branches. You were supposed to look at the various runes, and reach up and grab the rune that spoke to you. What is interesting is that having not seen the runes that this group used (they were from Finland) I saw a rune that we were not working with that night, and it called very strongly to me. Upon taking it and talking about the experience later in a discussion, I found out that that particular rune dealt with multiple things that I was dealing with at the time. I was able to go from a GM situation to a situation in which I was partially projecting from a conscious state. I came to later call this type of projection "remote viewing" in which there are some environment variables that can be changed by the practitioner and scenes see and people interacted with are constant between others who are also projecting at the same time. I have found that in some cases, a person who is in a GM situation will sculpt general characteristics for the environment they are in, but the actual place they are projecting to (normally their mind) will flesh out the details. I'm going to harp on one aspect of a GM and that is the fact that this bypasses the conscious mind while still retaining a symbolism that is significant to it. As we have discovered in some of our exercises and some of our researches, the subconscious mind is the one in control during an AP or OOBE situation. The symbols seen, the environment acted in and the situations presented are all laid out in the subconscious mind. So, then it is necessary to bypass the conscious mind and interact directly with the subconscious mind in order to affect the subconscious in any way that will hold for a long period of time. In order to do this, we are advised to do things like meditate and to program our dreams, or through such tools as hypnosis.

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I like GMs since they use the best of both worlds. They allow changes to the Subconscious mind to occur while still using a group of symbols that have meaning to the conscious. I harp on this because this is one aspect of GMs that is really useful. The ability to "cure" old hurts and injuries to your psyche. All of us know that physical abuse and sexual abuse leave scars on the body. Well, emotional and spiritual abuse do as well, but you just don't see those scars on the body. Every time a parent tells their child that they are stupid, worthless, useless, a burden or what have you, another cut to the emotions happens. Done long enough this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The child actually starts believing that they are useless and stupid. Since they now believe it, they start acting that way and make that belief a reality. Studies have been done with children where they are told something over and over, like rabbits are bad. After a while, the child starts believing this, and when presented with a rabbit, the child starts crying hysterically, or they react with fear. This is the same kind of emotional abuse that happens daily all over the world. GMs give the opportunity to strike to the heart of problems like this while allowing conscious control of the events and the reactions of the psyche. An example of this is here: Pretend for a moment that you have been told that you are stupid by your parents for your entire life. After a few years, you begin to believe this and actively act stupid to make their prediction a practical reality. An example of a guided meditation that may help in this situation is this: You find yourself in a place that you know. One that you go to all the time to retreat from life. It is your secret place, your haven, your sanctum sanctorum. It is the one place you feel the most safe and loved. In this place you see multiple files, either in books, CDs, filing cabinets or whatever. It is a written record of your entire life, and it spills over onto the floor from the drawers it is supposed to be filed in. It is knowledge you have gathered on the different subjects you are interested in. You see all this paper laying all over and are appalled. Since you like seeing a clean home, and this is the home of your mind, you decide to start organizing and filing these records where they are supposed to be. You spend time in there, getting to know what is in there.

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While you are there, your parents come in and start belittling you about how this is not going to matter. You will still be as stupid as you were, whether or not you put things away neatly. You look at them, and tell them that from the sheer volume of paper in here, you can't be stupid, since you know all that which is around you. You tell them that they don't matter to you any longer and that their opinions and thoughts don't matter. Finally, they leave you alone. You spend more time going over everything so that you know it intimately, and you find many files about different aspects of you life, job, home, trivia, and other topics. You discover that you don't have enough filing cabinets to contain all these records you are putting up, since you didn't think that you would need them. As you put the records away, you start discovering that it cross-references itself for ease of use. You find that all this information is available to you, and has been since you learned it. You also discover a pattern. All the information you learned from your childhood is tinged black, as if the paper itself was held in a fire for a few seconds. You also notice that there is a lot of negative information in there. Much more than you thought there could be. Once you are done picking everything up and putting it all away, you find that you feel better. The negative information from your childhood is there, and you can get rid of it at any time, but it also encompasses three whole cabinets now. But since that was the only part that was where it was supposed to be, you thought that the negative information was the only one available. Now, with the crossreferencing, you realize that 90% of that information is nothing more than your parent's fears and insecurities being projected on you. You see now that in multiple other places, you learned that you are not at fault in having these feelings, and that you are not alone in those feelings. Others have had the same feelings of insecurity and stupidity that you have had, and they over came them. You can too. You open the cabinets that contain the insecurities that your parents projected on you, and still do to a point. You read each paper and then you put it into a fire you kindled. As you rediscover these so-called "fact" that your parents gave you, you feel the hurt again as you read it. However, as you burn that page containing that fact, you feel better again. That fact no longer exists for you, and you can operate without it affecting you any longer. (pause for a long time) As the last page enters the flames, you notice that some of the pages you burned still exist, littering your floor. But with your new organization of knowledge, you

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know that they will not affect you much longer. Many of the minor "facts" that your parents told you that have proven to be untrue, are now nothing but ash at your feet. You grab a broom and start cleaning up the ash. As you sweep it away, there is an incredible lightness of your spirit that you take as a good sign. If you had to guess, you would think that by getting rid of and purging these negative facts from your life that you are now more fully yourself than you have been for a long time. You collect those papers that are undestroyed and put them into a new file, one marked "To destroy" and you resolve to work on those parts of your personality until they are resolved to your satisfaction. As you lock the file with those undestroyed papers, you see over your shoulder some of the scars that are on your psyche that have finally healed over and are not so sore any longer. As you leave the room, you discover that you can find any piece of information that you desire out of that room of information. Thus, proving to yourself and your parents that you are not stupid. And behind you, in the room, in the locked file, another paper ignites and crisps to ashes. This is one of the most powerful aspects of not only GM, but also of AP. Once you get the trick of GMs down, and learn the symbolism of your own mind sufficiently, you will be able to go astral and work on these same problems on your own without anyone else guiding you or telling you what you see or what is going on. In my time, I have not only taken care of a problem that I had with loving myself, but also overcome some inhibitions that my Superconscious put on my subconscious mind that were inhibiting my psychic abilities, beaten up a section of my subconscious who was responsible for destroying everything that I achieved (the self-destructive impulse), found parts of me that thought they were so ugly that no one could stand to be near them, let alone love them, and I helped them and myself. I overcame some phobias and some minor psychosis dealing with my sexuality and other areas relating to my masculinity. It is good to be able to do something like this to yourself. I say this because you will be able to cure yourself better than someone outside of you will be able to simply because you know yourself better than they could. You know that THIS thought relates to THAT thought and feeling, and there are THESE consequences of those two relating. You can go in and fix yourself without setting up negative behavior patterns and without permanent damage, because you will know EXACTLY where the problem is.

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That is the use of Guided Meditations and ultimately Astral Projection. Yes, it is interesting to visit other places, see other versions of us, see what could have been, meet people that don't exist here, but ultimately, AP is about changing yourself. You will notice as you go along, that your connection to the IS increases and that you start having more and more inspirational flashes. Just, out of the blue flashes of insight. This is directly attributable to APing. Because you learn that the universe is NOT what most people think, and that it is entirely composed of what you think it is, you will note that it is more probable that you can control your environment by controlling yourself. That's one of the main benefits of AP. I have already told you about the Guardian at the Gate. Overcoming this entity is only the first part. You will probably face just about every fear you have, and probably many you don't. Death will become something that is transient. You will loose that fear of death since you know, at this point, that your soul is eternal. So, I think that answers the question of "what use is AP." Guided Meditation is a means to an end. It is something that will allow practice in controlling and envisioning your environment. It will allow you to overcome many things that you know about, and many things you didn't know about too. Okay, this is the end of what I wanted to tell you about today. I will leave you with another Guided Meditation now. This is one to have a conversation with the Goddess.

To walk with the Goddess. By Taarna of the Unicorn Glade We sit or lay upon the ground and close our mortal eyes, and gaze out upon the mythic realm of our spiritual eye, seeing only darkness. We float freely and gently without care. As we gaze about the darkness, we feel no fear, for we are protected by our Lady the Goddess. It gives us comfort to know this, and we can relax. We are at peace with ourselves, in our own hearts and in our own minds. Our mundane worries and concerns placed into the suitcases of our meditation and placed away from us for the time being. There is no need to carry the mundane with us.

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As we float, here in the darkness, we see in the distance a bright light. It is a curious light. It is a warm light. It is a pleasant light. It is a light that beckons us closer. There is something unknown, and yet familiar about this light. Something that makes us want to go there. It draws our spirit with goodness and happiness. We will ourselves closer to this light, and as we do, we feel the sensation of motion. It is not as if there were wind rushing at us, nor the feeling of falling, merely the feeling of moving from place to place. We realize that it is through our own will that we travel towards that light. That oh so wonderful light. Like the rhythm of the tides, we move closer. We are closer to the light. It is so warm and happy a light. It makes us feel vibrant and youthful. We can only wonder at the source of such a light. Our curiosity drives our will even stronger. We must see where this light comes from. We as Icarus flying high to the sun out of wonder. It drives us onward with its goodness and its ever-growing promise of discovery. As we approach the light, we start to smell the scents of spring and new born growth. Flowers just budding. Trees' gaining their first leaves. And we realize that the bright light that has driven us so far, is the light of the morning sun. The Lord, the God burning brightly in the sky. Giving life to all He sees. As dawn's light approaches us, we see that we are at a clearing, a glade of wondrous beauty. Here we can smell the scents of life. We see grand, old trees all around with the sunlight, bright and warm shining on the grassy center. We sit upon the ground and lay back. The sky is of the purest azure blue, interrupted only by the occasional cottony white cloud passing by, and the glowing orb that warms us. On the far side of the glade, we see a small child. A young girl, singing , laughing, and playing those games that children play. Our curiosity again draws us near. We watch the young girl go from flower to flower, singing and the birds and the animals of the glade. Wildlife abounds. Peace is everywhere. The young girl wears a flowing gown of cloud-like material, loose and wispy, with a gossamer texture, free and airy. The young girl doesn't show any sign of seeing us as she plays. And yet, we feel that she is aware of us and all we do. We feel innocence from her, the innocence of youth. And yet we also feel tremendous power from her. She radiates power rivaling the God in the sky. The young girl starts a dancing skip down a path amongst the old trees. We follow behind her, watching her frolic amongst the trees. As we follow her, we notice that the sun, the fiery God, is rising higher in the sky. The scents of spring that we had smelled are slowly fading.

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The air grows warmer. Hotter still. Heated by the power of the God, rising in the sky. And we notice, as we follow this playful young girl, that her step grow more solid, her playfulness lessens, her demeanor more serious. She grows taller, older. She is blossoming into a young woman, strong and full of fighting spirit. Her gossamer thin clothing changes with her to become armour, her bouquet of flowers, a sword. She is no longer the little girl of the glade, frolicking carefree. She is a protector and a defender. We notice that the forest gives way to the open desert. The young woman, grown, yet not quite mature, walks firmly and with purpose, as if on a mission. The God has risen to his highest in the sky. He burns down relentlessly. Lending his fire to all he touches. We feel the fires of the high noontime sun. It is hot, it is summer. We bath in the heat. But we do not burn. For we know the protectress is ahead of us, and she will not allow us to be harmed. Within the desolation of the desert we do see the beauty that is there, the life that resides within these wastelands. This we see in the light of the young woman we follow. As our journey continues, the desert gives way to open fields. Grain is ready for harvesting. The once fiery God grows lower, older, and colder in the western sky. The God travels towards the evening of his life. The scents of autumn are in the air. The fields abound with golden grain, ripe and ready. The occasional tree we pass has a rainbow of colours painted by its leaves. We see that the young woman seems to have grown older, more mature. And like children we follow her. Her armour has changed. Slowly before our eyes, as we follow her, what was once leather and steel become linen and bone. Her clothing is practical. She is now the Mother. We see she is now holding a baby. Nurturing and caring for this child. Loving and protecting this infant in a way only a Mother can. We see the signs of aging on her face. But still we are filled with her strength and kindness as we follow behind her. Though she is no longer the Warrior, we feel protected, and comfortable. The sun descends beneath the horizon, and the God in a final blaze of glory paints the dusk sky with his remaining fire of oranges and red. The air grows chilled and crisp. We begin to see our breath in the cold air. We notice traces of snow around us. That which once was the autumnal beauty of color seems to be blending into a scenery of white. The trees and flowers all lie dormant, and fruitless, dead to the eye. The God's fire and warmth has passed on. All is cold. The motherly woman, now seems to be bending under the weight of her years. She is old and her children grown. Her once practical dresses of linen give way to tattered and worn robes of wool. She carries a staff to aid her. Her strength is no longer of body, rather it is of mind. Wisdom radiates from her. She has the wisdom of the ages. Her presence warms us from the crisp winter's air. The

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scene is all white, glistening by the light of the Lady, the Moon. As the old Crone trudges onward, we see her aging, more and more, but growing wiser with each and every step. Now we see clouds starting to cover the Lady, our Goddess, the Moon. There feels to be a storm in the air. The wind rises, and the air chills. We feel the storm approach. The snow is whipped about, obscuring our vision of the old woman. We long to keep our eyes upon her. The storm is upon us. The Lady, the moon is obscured by the clouds. There is Wind, and Rain, it melts the snow. There is Lightning and Thunder flashing all about. The noise is very nearly deafening. We can no longer see the Old Crone. Winter's snow has been stripped from the landscape and all has become colorless. The tempest has the winds blowing from the East, the South, the West, and the North. The very earth beneath is blown up into the winds to be mixed with the rain and the lightning. The downpour washes everything away. All that once was has perished. We have watched it pass away. The storm has silenced. All is still. All is quiet. It is very eerie. We feel we are on the verge of a great and wondrous happening. The clouds recede, and we see the night sky, with the Goddess still shining upon us. The path is still there, and beckons us onward. Though, the Old Crone is nowhere to be seen. The landscape is barren, devoid of life. The air is still and without the sounds or the smells of life. The path is narrow and straight. In the silence and the stillness of the night air we look up at our Lady, and we notice the night sky brightening to the east. Lo and behold, it is the God! In a fanfare of red Fire, he climbs above the horizon to give forth his warmth to the barren lands. And under his light of dawn, we see seedlings breaking up from the earth. New life, fresh and alive, reborn from the death of winter's cold clutches. The barren landscape slowly gives way to the new growth. As we follow the path around a hill we are startled to see that we have arrived at the place where we started. Here at the glade. The spring warmth, once again, fills our senses with the new life. And, here, playing in the field, is a young girl. The same young girl we saw when we started this journey. We realize that the Goddess has led us on a journey, full circle, from youth, through maturity to old age, to death, and then to rebirth. But now it is time to return to our mortal lives, to those who love us, so that we may continue on our own paths of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Air, fire, water, and earth. Maiden, Mother, Warrior, Crone.

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Let us will ourselves back. Leave this place of light, refreshed to have seen such wondrous sights. We float freely away on the tides of life. The glade shrinking away in the distance. Becoming only a single point of light. We feel ourselves returning, returning. And though we have returned to our mundane baggage of our toils, we still carry an inner peace from what we have seen. Let us open our mortal eyes, now. Awake, awake, awake.

And on that note, I will end this lesson. Stars light your path.

Assignment: To turn in: I want you to do a review of one of DeGarcia's books in his bibliography. Post to the list which book you will review AS SOON AS YOU READ THIS AND DECIDE so that no one else decides to review the same book. The reason for this exercise is for you to learn from another source, and to tell us all (including me) what you think of that particular book. The things I'm looking for are; Did it make sense? Did you enjoy it? Did you find something of value from it? Did you think it was worth the money, or was it simply a waste of paper? And other such things. 1-2 pages will be sufficient. Grade it on a 5-star scale (with half stars allowed) and once I have it, I shall repost them (with full credit) on my site. To read: I think the reading of another book will be sufficient this time. ;-) To keep: Write a guided meditation for yourself. Make sure that it speaks to the emotional side of yourself, and then record it and play it back to yourself and see how good it is. You may publish this if you wish to and I would like to see it. However if you don't want to share it, then don't. Sharing this is not a requirement.

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Lesson 13: Philosophy and OOBE: What Theology says. I'd like to open this lesson with this disclaimer: I know of the basic philosophy of Christian sects, the in-depth philosophy of the Mormons, and some of the philosophy of Paganism in general. I AM NOT AN EXPERT. I cannot stress this enough. If there is something in this that strikes you as being wrong or false, look it up and see if I'm full of it, or if I'm correct in my thoughts. Some of this is not published anyplace, other than in my head. I leave it up to you to discover the truth of this matter. Caveat Emptor. With that being said, let's get into the lesson. As you go through the exercises and gain an understanding and skill in OOBE, you will discover something that is faith-shaking. That you are in no way special. This is a skill and an ability that is possessed by everyone, whether or not they understand it or acknowledge it. It is also one of the skills that make the Gods as "powerful" as they are. Let me explain that last clause before I get slaughtered for heresy. It is often taught in many religions that God (however you choose to name him/her) has the ability to be anyplace instantly. That they can see into wo/men's souls and know what they are thinking. With AP, you can do the same. Being anyplace is exactly like being able to project in the Etheric Plane (locale 1 to those of Monroe's mindset). You can go anyplace and see anything, you can feel and be and experience what many may think is impossible. You can "become" (astrally) an ameba, a plant, a deva, a spirit, a ghost, another person, a dog or whatever you decide to be. It has been said that "God notes the fall of every sparrow". To which I say that God cannot help but note the fall of the sparrow simply because if you are there and experiencing their existence at the time, you will be experiencing the sparrow's fall first hand. Basically, with this skill, fully honed and with an understanding of the universe and how it is REALLY put together, you will become God, or something similar. You will have the ability to directly manipulate the universe, travel from one universe to another, know what people are thinking, be everywhere at one time, and be anyplace you choose instantly.

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Sounds like a God/dess to me. So what happens to those beings that we think of as Gods now? What happens to God when you are a God? They become partners and teachers, as they should be now. In basic Pagan philosophy, the Gods have good moods, and bad moods, they are angry, they hate, they love, they chastise, they have sex, they have children, they raise those children, they love and care for us. When we mature to their level, we no longer need a being to worship as greater than us, because we are just as great as them. They truly become partners and friends. Many people talk about having a "Personal relationship with God" without knowing what that entails. I can tell you from personal experience that it means you will be drawn into feuds and arguments, you will be asked to act as the (sexual) partner for whomever you choose, you will have to defend them before other Gods, you will talk to them and teach them, and you will learn from them as well. The Gods, as we understand them, from YHVH to Joshua (Jesus) to Zeus to Apollo will become people, rather than faceless entities that have no relation to the real world. I will tell you a couple of stories to illustrate my point to you. The first is the story of how my wife escaped a concussion that would have put her in the hospital at a period in our life when we had no insurance, no money and were desperately trying to move someplace else. All of our possessions had to be put into storage. Among those possessions was a wooden lazy susan that my father had made for me as a present one year. It was made out of oak or hickory or one of those other incredibly hard woods. It also weighed about 8 lbs or so. I had placed it on a top shelf, on it's edge because that is where it would fit. In due course, it rolled (round) and fell, right onto my wife's head. It landed flat, on top of her skull and there was a resounding "smack" as it landed. It had fallen from the height of about 15 feet or so. My wife is 5' 4" so it had almost 10 feet in which to gather kinetic energy. She came damned close to passing out, but there was no fracture of her skull, not even a goosegg. By all accounts that I knew, and have read since, she should have had a break in her skull, a fracture, possibly a subdural hematoma (bleeding in the skull) or possibly (and I was chilled when I read this) a depressed skull fracture. But about 3 hours later she was fine, a little sore, but fine.

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That night, I started talking to some of the splinters of her about what happened. Come to find out that the damage was severe inside her head. One person suicided to save the existences of several other "children" splinters, and three were fatally injured. Out of about 20 people I had grown to care for, three died outright, and one was thrown back to the point of her genesis (meaning all the work I had done previously with her over a period of 3 years was erased). I decided to explore a might-have-been and found out that my wife would have been in the hospital for upwards to three weeks and everyone inside would have died had not one thing happened. The Lady Rhiannon stepped in and Intervened. She saw what was coming, so in the 1/2 second She had to act in before the lazy susan hit my wife, she mobilized certain splinters to save the others. They shielded the rest and took all the damage themselves. Rhiannon then mitigated the physical damage to Mary so that it was only sore. The reason she did this? Because Rhiannon knew that we had no funds, time, energy or ability to deal with a life-threatening injury for as long as we would have had to, and it would have ruined us emotionally and financially. Many would call that a miracle. I call it the act of a friend. That's not the whole story. About 5 months passed, and Rhiannon was called upon to attend a Counsel of Gods to punish her for intervening like that. Apparently, at some time in the past, many of the Gods and Goddesses took an oath to not interfere in the affairs of Mankind any longer. So, Rhiannon was being called upon to face charges of Oathbreaking. She tapped me to defend her, since I was the direct benefitter of that incident. I argued and acted as her lawyer. The charge was obvious and she was guilty. I managed to get her out of trouble because I pointed out that all the Gods who were sitting in judgment over her had violated that same oath multiple times (the judges were Odin, Thor, the Morrigon, and three others I can't remember) and no one had called them up on charges. Her penalty was to be banished from this reality forever. I didn't want that. So, this is an example of something that may happen. It's on that night that I realized that I was on the level with the Gods, with the same abilities, rights, knowledge and powers. The trick was that I just didn't have the experience that they have. The other story is one my wife told me. It is our belief that on the Spring Equinox, or Goddess, Rhiannon, wakes from a winter's sleep getting ready to go to work on Beltane. My wife was depressed and restless and upset about something small, and she was out of sorts.

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I discussed it with Herne, the God, and he suggested that my wife stand in for Rhiannon on this night. I watched it all. My wife was lying in the glade where I had last seen Rhiannon. Herne approached her, sunlight shining on him, and gently started awakening her. My wife woke, and was groggy, and like a little boy just discovering the world, started showing his Goddess (my wife) all the new life in the world. They traveled all over, and I saw things that were so special to me that I still can't describe them. Newly hatched chicks, new plants pushing out of the ground, the snow and ice making new rivers, the pulse of the Earth as it awoke from it's slumber. Through it all, my darling was still restless and groggy, out of sorts. Then Herne approached her, and said some things to her (basically along the lines of "Look at this new life, let us renew their energies with our own") and then he made love to her. I can't describe it to this day. Take my work for it, it was transcendingly the single most beautiful experience I ever witnessed. And the Earth was renewed. I SAW the energies from their love making flowing into the Earth, renewing the fertility, making the broken land whole, I felt the unhatched chicks break out of the shell, I felt the snow slide off the peaks, I was part of all of it. I came back to myself, and I noticed that my wife was weeping in her trance, and I felt so much joy I can't describe it. She woke later and the first thing she did was hug me and hold me, and she was happy and content for a long time, without the worries that she had before this. These are just two of the many different things that can happen when you become a God/dess. All of these are true experiences (some slight details like names and personages were changed) and I swear this upon all the Gods, living and dead. I share these with you so you can see some of what it means to be a God. You can't run at that point and you can't hide. Knowing what I'm teaching you will result in a fundamental change in yourself. And it's not one that I think you will give up readily. It is incredibly peace-making and wonderful, but when you mix your affairs with the Gods, on an equal level, you will be expected to help Them too, if necessary. Please understand, I'm not trying to put myself up, or bring anyone else down. I'm not forcing anything on anyone. These are just some end states that will come from this.

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I have mentioned in the past something about "Spirit Sight". Here is where I go more in depth with that. Spirit Sight is a psychic ability in which you OOBE without leaving your body. Some have called it clairvoyance, astral sight, "the Sight", "Second Sight", aura reading and many other things, but the point is that you will be able to see, with mental eyes, things that don't exist physically around you. This is another thing that happens to you as you grow in ability. Spirit sight and OOBE are two sides of the same coin. The soul can see and you can interact with others and other places. Seeing is nothing big, you do it all the time. Using your soul to see as opposed to using your physical eyes is a little difficult. Some can do it without thinking twice, but most times it requires that someone be in the trance state that will allow an AP experience without leaving the body, to remain in their body despite the impulse to leave. Some can carry it over to the point where they do not require a trance at all, and it is something that I cannot do yet. Most, however, sense the otherworlds with things like "feelings" and other descriptions, but the point is that they know what is not visible. While this is not something you will be working on with these lessons and with these exercises, it is something that will develop from the use of OOBE and from the exercises themselves. It's like going to karate and learning Martial Arts, and the discipline and self confidence gained from the Martial Arts allow better grades in the schoolroom. Another side benefit of OOBE practice and exercise is this; Magickal skill = OOBE = Magickal skill. Increase one, and you increase the other. This is due to the discipline needed being absolutely the same. You need control of your thoughts while on the Astral Plane to enable you to see the differences between what is there and what you think is there, just as you need control of your mind to be able to keep focused on the spell when other distractions are occurring. I want to show you an illustration that I came up with that I think shows how the Gods generated. This is relevant, I promise you.

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With this graphic, I hope you can see how I have come to the conclusion that All gods are one god. However, since the IS portion of this pyramid is inhuman enough that we don't truly understand it, and can't relate to it, it is more comforting to us to relate to deities that we can understand. I mention this because there are times when you will meet one or more of these gods on the Astral Plane. By practicing and understanding the overlying structure of the realities, you will come into partnership with these gods, and you should understand where they "rate" in the scheme of things. Let me state that this is a personal theory, proven in discussions with Herne and Rhiannon, my patrons, but this is not saying that all Pagans or even all Wiccans feel this way. It is my belief that through our training here, our knowledge and our skill, that we can ascend to the level of the "name" deities. That we can become equal to them and be able to do everything they do once we leave this realm of Earth for good. Now, if we understand that, can we be Gods incarnate? Yes, it is possible, but relatively hard. When we were born, we accepted certain "rules" to our existence here to keep ourselves from contaminating our experience here too much. Like, we accepted that we would have limited bodies to teach us that effort put out brings reward. We accepted that we could not remember our past incarnations so that we could learn things fresh, with the advances that have occurred. We accepted that time was an obstacle to be overcome, not a wall that is impassible, so that we could understand that the simplest mode of planning is sometimes the best. We also accepted the "rule" of the majority.

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I have spoken about the collective unconscious before, and I will elaborate a bit on it here. Part of the collective unconscious is the beliefs that we hold in common with most of the peoples that are alive here. I may believe thing X, but most Americans don't believe it, however people in other nations believe the same thing. If a majority of the people alive here believe this, it is a common belief held by the planet. Irregardless of the region that it is being believed in. This common held belief is what is being overcome every time you cast magick or use your abilities to change your world. It is a safeguard to ensure that those of us who know what exists beyond the veil of death don't become all-powerful and take over by virtue of being able to believe something out of existence. Do you all understand that, or did I just confuse you all too much? ;-) If I know by my will, I can make whatever I want appear before me on the Astral Plane, and it is done, that's good. However, the Astral Plane also touches this plane, and the Earth is part of the Astral Plane, right? So, logically, I should be able to make whatever I want appear in front of me. Without this safeguard of the collective unconscious, you would be able to do just that. However, because the CU is there, and the majority of the people on this plane believe that you can't do that, I will not be able to. So, anything I do that uses my will to make a change to this reality will be harder, unless my will is stronger than the collected wills of 5 billion other people, or unless I can convince 2.5 billion people that I can. Did you ever wonder how many of the legendary actions of the Bible and mythology were able to happen then and they can't now? Here's why. Somewhere along the way, a few people convinced themselves that magick didn't exist. That OOBE was a myth, that the Shilde were fantasies and that only God had power to change things here. Slowly over time, they managed to convince more and more people that they were right, until they had a majority of the CU convinced that magick didn't exist. At which point, it stopped existing. So why have I just told you that you are a God, with the abilities of a God if you can't do anything about it here? Because you can. By understanding this, you can make your life easier in the long run. Death becomes something to be laughed at, your magickal workings become more powerful, and you can bring more and more into your life simply by wishing it there. The more people it affects, the more you will have to fight their collective unbelief to make something come into your life. Telling your co-workers that you are casting a spell to get a better job, may result in their belief making it so that you won't get it, no matter how much work you do. However, believing that you are getting a new job, one that exactly meets your

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requirements, and simply refusing to be deterred when it doesn't immediately manifest will usually result in you getting that job you wanted. This is the source of one of the Wiccan rules about magick, "To keep silent". Are all these abilities and powers that I am talking about evil? No they are not. There are many churches that will tell you that they are the powers of Satan, sent to lure you away from God and that you are in danger of your soul, but you can dismiss this. This power is coming from inside you, it is through your will and your desire that you get what you want, and can do what you want. All it takes is some belief. It is an ability inherent in ALL of us, from a newborn baby on up to the oldest elder on the planet. This is no different from being able to paint well, or sing beautifully, or being able to walk a tight-rope. There is a natural ability, or knack, and then there is a skill. The worst painter in the world can still paint. The most hopeless person when it comes to singing still has the ability to sing. They may not have learned the skill to singing, but if they do, they will still be able to sing, perhaps not as well as a professional musician, but they will be able to sing. The knack is not all there is to AP, nor is the skill all there is. You can project with only the skill, and it may take longer, and you may not do it with as much finesse as one who has the knack and no skill. You may be able to project, but have no learning in how to do it, no theory or understanding. Both the knack and skill helps, but you can have one without the other. Whether or not this ability is evil or not depends entirely upon the person using it, and who it's used against. A healer can kill, but they can also save lives. A gun can maim, but it also protects the innocent. AP is no different from either of these. Are there classical references to AP? Yes, they abound. A few off the top of my head: Jacob's ladder, Ezekiel, the Armageddon vision, Pwyll's descent into Anwyn, Freya's trip to Hades and many others could all be seen as AP in action. In each case, there is a change in status, either through a dream (lucid dreaming) or traveling someplace (projection). In many cases where the classics refer to a person going to another world I think could be seen as an AP experience completely. In several cases, but not all, the person goes to sleep or passes out in one place, wakes in another, and then returns to the original place they started from. Makes me think that the Wizard of Oz is a textbook for AP. But we all know that is fiction. (Wait, can't we get to a fiction with AP? Maybe it was a true experience after all....)

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Some of the examples I stated were for visions. Well, there is one more reference that I can think of for AP in a classical source: Cassandra. Here was a prophet who was granted true visions of what would happen, but whom was never believed when she told of them. If you look at it as though she were projecting until she could see the time stream itself, the branches of the tree I showed you at one point, and knowing what she had to do to get to the branch she wanted to get to, you can see how her visions would be true. If she was looking at what was most likely to happen in the same context, this is one explanation of her ability. Okay, I have given you a lot to think about, and a lot to consider. I'll leave you alone for now. If you have questions or comments, post them as always.

Assignment: To post: Tell me YOUR theories based on your experiences to date. First you are going to have to define them, and I want you to write them in your AP journal. Do you think anything I am saying is correct or of use to you? Things like this are what I am looking for. Also, if you disagree substantially with what I am saying, tell me what you think is correct. To read: Your AP journal. I want you to go back through the entries and start looking for patterns. Think about what some of these patterns are trying to tell you and act on some of the things that you are being prompted to do. To keep: Keep this philosophy of AP and the Astral Plane. Look at it occasionally and make corrections and addenda to it. See how your theories change as you get more practiced.

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Lesson 14: Vibrations and Energy Work I know that according to the syllabus that I published at the start of this class, this lesson was supposed to be another evaluation and commentary on those evaluations that you turned in, but I decided to change this up a little bit. So, as I promised, we will be talking about the Vibrational theory of the planes, energy work and the Chakras. Before I start in on the discussion of the vibrational theory that I have, let me get you to look at this graphic first:

Now, some explanation of this graphic. The green line is an arbitrary one that I think is the "threshold" for attaining the Astral Plane, either in OOBE or in death. The blue lines are the times from death to birth. The red line are the personal vibration that everyone's soul has as they go through life. The horizontal line is the subjective time passed, you can probably think of it in terms of years. The vertical line is the line that equates to an arbitrary vibrational level in cycles per minute. First, you have to start with the supposition that reincarnation is a fact. We will only deal with a human incarnation only for these purposes. Okay, at the beginning of the incarnation cycle, the person in question has a vibrational level of 0. We will assume this since we don't have information on what happens before life begins. So, our person begins with 0 and through their life increases up to about vibrational level 10. That is way under our Astral threshold, so they go through their life without ever achieving AP. They then die and spend some time on the AP evaluating their life. They try their life again, at the same level of 10 that they had when they died from their last life.

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This cycle goes on and on, each life increasing their vibrational level by some until they can achieve AP spontaneously without training at the end of their cycle of incarnation. Of special note, the time between their third and fourth life is relatively short, due to having to come back immediately because of a "family" crisis. You will also note that in the 4th life, they don't increase very much. Also in the last lifetime, there is a jump in this soul's vibrational level. This could be due to any number of things. Mostly what I associate this with, however, is either all the lessons from all the previous lifetimes coming to fruition, or some other event, like selfactualization occurring. Now, do you have to come back to this plane once this vibrational level hits? You can. You may still have lessons to learn, and the best place to learn them is here. Sometimes, those who have attained a high level of existence, or those who have learned all the lessons necessary to not have to come back, choose to return here for one reason or another. People like Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, the Dahlia Lama and others could have voluntarily come here to teach, and there are many others who come back simply to be with those they love. This chart, however, is misleading somewhat. It shows a constant, gradual progression over time. This is not always the case. You can go in fits and starts, so we will look at one life isolated from this chart.

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As you can see, this graph jumps all over the place. However, the overall progress is upward. Our fictional person has some pretty interesting things happening in his lifetime. When the chart is going up, that is progress and wisdom being gained, through a variety of manners. It could be school, it could be work, hardship or anything else. However, as you see, in late middle-age, the graph goes down. This could be due to plans he made to get revenge came to fruition, it could be because he became petty in his older life, it could be that a relative messed him over and now he's an embittered old man. But the upswing at the end could state that he is coming closer to the deity of his choice and becoming kinder, especially to his grandchildren, and so on. These vibrations are not carved in stone. Just as your choices make more worlds with the Might-Have-Beens, so too your choices mandate what "rate" your vibrational level is at. Most times, however, these vibrational changes don't take effect until the body dies. It is a special person who can consciously change vibrational rates while still alive. You can sense the approximate vibrational rate someone is at by things like aura reading and so on. You will definitely be able to see it on the Astral plane. These

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will give you a clue to how "old" the soul is and how far along in their progress they are. All this vibrational rate does, ultimately, is give the person a starting point for the next lifetime. If their rate is low, and it can go lower than 0, they will have a lot to overcome when they start their life. And just because you have a high vibrational rate does not mean that you will have a lifetime of luxury and idleness. Part of being alive is learning by experiencing. So, of necessity, you would have to experience things from other perspectives. Like living a lifetime in a body that is not the sex you think of as yours when you see yourself on the Astral Plane. (As an aside, what I mean from that last statement is this. Souls have general sexual characteristics. It is not that they actually have a sex, but a feel to them that tells you that this androgynous ball of light is "female" and that one is "male" and so on. In order to experience life fully, a "male" soul may have to spend a lifetime or two as a female.) You may have to start out in the ghetto or the slums of a bad part of town, and part of your learning process may be how you pull yourself out of it. It may even be that you must stay at that level of society to learn the lesson that "drugs do not equal happiness" or that "contentment with life comes from within". And so on. There are many lessons to be learned, and just because an "old" soul is in a bad situation does not mean that there are not good reasons for them being there. Want an example? Okay. We will take the example of our fictitious man, and we will give you his story, and see if you can spot the life lessons in it. I will write this from the first person perspective.

I was born in Evanston Illinois in 1968. Born male to my mother and father, I lived a typical life with my parents for a long time. I grew and when I was two, we moved to Memphis. At one point during that time, my mother had an appendix attack, and my grandfather and grandmother came and got me to take me back to Nashville TN while my mother recovered. In Memphis, I learned a lot. How to eat on the stairs, backwards, how to be a friend, how to ride a bike, that pools REALLY don't go all the way through the Earth, typical stuff. And my grandparents would come down quite often to see us. Time passed and my father got a better job in Nashville. So we moved to where his work was, and I was raised by my grandmother since my mother worked. I learned from her a lot of things, that sometimes people have colors around them, not to eat a pencil, how to sew and so on. I also found that I liked the feel of

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certain fabrics against my skin. More than that, I liked to "dress up" and pretend for a while. My mother especially liked for me to do that since she wanted a daughter. We used to laugh and laugh. Well, about age 7, my sister was born. A more whiney and bratty child you never wanted to see. Man, she got on my nerves all the time. Mom now had no time to play with me, and I couldn't "dress up" anymore, since Mom now had a girl she could do the "dolly" thing with. I missed that. However, my grandmother kept keeping me. I used to go over to her house after school (on the bus) and she and I would spend a lot of time together. We would talk, and she would tell stories, and I would visit her older friends in the area, since their own grandchildren weren't home. Grandma had a lot of books on religion, Edgar Casey, New Age material, magick, and many other subjects like that. We would talk about life and death, angels, telepathy, unicorns, dragons and many other fantastic things. Sometimes my sister was there, and boy was that a pain. I only ever dressed up once. My grandma was having a garage sale, and I asked her to get my aunt's majorette uniform off the rack for me. I took it back to her room and put it on. Well, it didn't fit. My grandmother saw me and she was enchanted. She called my mother and my mom made such a fuss over how "cute" I looked that I was embarrassed to pieces. I literally tried to hide in my grandma's closet. Time passed and my mother had two more children. All girls. So now I had three sisters, all two years apart, and they were all pains, well, one was. The second and third sisters were kind of cute, and my mother had the last when I was away at scout camp. I never talked to anyone about the "dress up" although I would sometimes steel clothing from my mother, sisters, aunt, grandmother or whomever, and wear it for a while. I had always wanted to be tied up as well, but that wasn't something you spoke about at all. My mother raised me Christian, and we joined a fundamental sect of Christianity when I was 11 (although most of the Christian population thinks we are actually a cult). Church became my life, and I did everything with the Church. Being young, I didn't have that many duties, but those I did get I took seriously. Like passing out the Sacrament, and setting it up for later, and finally blessing it so that it became the body and blood of Christ. If you had asked me at that point, I would have told you that this was going to be my life forever. Because the Church had acknowledged psychic powers in it's ranks, I continued my studies of them. I read everything I could get to see what I was doing and how it operated. Many times I would discuss this with the church leaders, and I would get gently rebuffed as this stuff was from Satan, not God. So I became confused. Add to that the crucible of Puberty, the need for autoeroticism (which is THE worst sin I could have possibly committed), the cross-dressing impulses I STILL felt and needed, school, my parent's divorce, my sisters being sisters, me

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suddenly being the "man" of the family (at 15), karate lessons, and the death of my dog, I was really getting lost. I went to a psychologist for a while, and he did help me some. I told him everything except the cross-dressing and the tying up. He helped me immensely, except where my first sister was concerned. She and I continued to go at it hammer and tongs. It was almost like she was perfectly designed to punch my piss-off buttons every time I met her. I would try to talk to her, and within moments, she and I would be arguing. Unlike my other two sisters and I, whom I loved and got along with perfectly. Mom was still raising me to be a good boy, but she didn't have all the skills needed. She has a lot to work out too, mentally that is. She hated my dad with everything she had, and never passed up an opportunity to put him down and belittle him to us. She would interrogate us when we would come home from visiting him as to what was said, who said it, how it was said, the exact text of the conversation, what we were doing while we were talking, and so on. I'm sure you know what I mean. So, I'm 18, getting ready to go out and administer to the sick and needy and save their souls on my churches orders (although I have to pay for this privilege), and I instead decide to join the Military. In many ways, this was the turning point of my life. I cut off contact with my family (I have always been a person who preferred solitude to company) due to the demands of the Military, my friends became the other people in my unit, and I lived the Military life. It was during this time that I had many things happen to me, all within two months. I found that the psychological games that the military played were not nearly as bad as I had been fearing. It was the physical demands that killed me. I discovered that I had quite a number of physical problems that I did not previously know about, even though I still didn't "officially" know about them, I only inferred them from problems I was having in Basic Training. I also had the major crisis of conscience that led to me leaving the church I had been raised in. Which was, truthfully, a relief. I no longer had to perform in certain ways just because it was decreed by someone else. Although, truthfully, the Military was almost as bad. I practiced many of the things that I had learned on my own, things my grandma taught me, and I did my job. But one of the physical problems I had was my weight. I couldn't loose it, and I eventually got thrown out. Well, time went along and I had a lot of problems. I had (kind of) offended my friends by not staying in contact with them, but I have never been a letter-writer. My mother and my sisters were upset because I was no longer the "man" of the family any longer (meaning I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing by

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the tenets of the cult they were part of). My father was continuing to be an asshole to me and my sisters, so I had little contact with him by choice. I kept looking for someone permanent to be with, looking all over the place. I slowly built a picture of who I wanted, intelligent, good sense of humor, age didn't matter, appearance didn't matter, kind, into metaphysics and interested in learning, strong sense of spirituality, but not a fanatic. Eventually I found her, and, wonder of wonders, she was also into B&D as well as encouraging me in the Cross-dressing. I was shocked, floored, thrilled, apprehensive, scared, joyous. and so many other things I can't begin to describe it. Her patience was amazing. Several of the personality problems that I had been suffering from for quite some time (like depression and feelings of being a failure) started getting worked out. Now, my life is really on track. I still have some problems that I have to work on, but things are going much better, and I'm grateful.

So, given the above story, can you spot the life-lessons that he has to learn? And before anyone thinks that this is MY story, it is not. It is the story of a really close friend, and I have his permission to put this here. I have been working with him in many aspects of the Craft and metaphysics for a long time now. Part of his therapy is telling this story and not getting the standard reactions of "EW!!!! Get away from me!!!" from others. He wrote every word of this himself and I simply put it in here. Yes, this is a true story. There is also an example of this kind of vibrational "grading" in Past Lives, Future Lives by Dr. Bruce Goldberg, there is an example of a man who had some compulsive disorders that he needed worked out, and through hypnosis it was discovered that he would be responsible for the death of a city due to his incompetence. Dr. Goldberg uses a few tools he has to bring this gentleman to a hypnotic state and explore some MHBs with him and figure out how to get him to a higher vibrational level and prevent the crisis. In brief, the key to this theory is study and learning. Not just book-knowledge but wisdom. Improving the self through continually striving to be in a better position in your life. That is what will bring your spiritual level up. Now, if we have these vibrational states, and they are at 0 to start, are there negative vibrational states? I think there are. I can only assume that they are along the lines of plants or animals, or at the extreme, mineral states of life. Scientists know that every piece of matter has some kind of vibration to it, and

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has something of a "life" through this vibration. We don't understand their experiences, and we automatically assume that they are non-aware of us and the world around them, but without being them, we will never know, right? So, my thought is that we advance from mineral, to plant, to animal, to mammal to human, and possibly on up to dragon to unicorn and on. Although this scale is only a supposition. It is a tool to get us to understand the concepts discussed herein. My wife pointed out that trying to force nature to conform to this scale, or any tool like it, is ultimately putting a limit on the IS. It could be that we have to advance far enough in THIS life so that next life we have the honor of being allowed to become a tree for a while. So it could go any way. This is nothing more than a way to grade yourself, like the A B C D F grading system in school. Now, while we are on the topic of energy and vibrations, we need to go over a few points with energy work and the Astral Plane. From my experience, the Astral Plane is composed of energy. It's the same substance that the scientists of the turn of the 20th century called the "ether". Basically, from what I understand, it is energy that has NO form. See, in most states of matter, there is form and energy. You have a child, she has energy in her, and she has substance. The sun is made up of nothing but energy that has a substance and so on. However, in electricity, x-rays, psychic energy, while the energy has a definite effect, there seems no way to contain that energy, bottle it, save it, shape it, look at it and so on. So this is substance-less energy. This is the same energy that your soul is made up of, this substanceless energy. That energy has a definite effect, and most people who think about these things will readily admit that this energy exists. However, there is no way to measure the vibrational level of a soul because no instruments have yet been made that will allow you to do this. This is the energy of all life, from a plant, to a rock, to a lake, to the Earth, to you and me, to a Dragon. In Star Wars, they called this energy the Force. Well, on the Astral Plane, you can not only see this energy, you can measure it, play with it, and do everything to this energy that you can to a stone. When the rules change and you are made up of this same energy, and you are existing on the same plane as this energy, manipulating it becomes easier. Note, I said easier, not easy. There will still be some work to do if you want to make use of this energy. When doing meditations, drawing energy from the elements, casting a Circle, chanting to cast a spell, you are drawing on this energy from the Astral Plane, or from something else, like from the elements themselves.

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I'm going to assume that since you are here, that all of you know about the elements and what they feel like and also how to do a basic ritual and cast a spell. I will assume that you know this because to explain it for those who don't know would take too long. So, let's look at Energy work and the Astral Plane. As you know, there are several sources of energy to pull from, but the most consistent source of energy of this type is from the elements themselves. Pull from the Earth, and you feel calm and collected and centered, pull from Fire, and you feel hot and supercharged. But you also know that in certain cases, pulling energy from some sources is very hard. Like pulling energy from the Earth in the middle of Winter. However, you can pull Earth energy in winter on the Astral Plane. Here's how this works. The Astral Plane is all times and all places combined. There is no distance because distance and time became immaterial once you went to the Astral Plane, right? Well, if that's true, you can pull Earth energy from the Southern Hemisphere even though you are in the dead of Winter in your home. You can pull the energy of the wild and untamed Ocean even though you live near Death Valley. You can pull the Fire essence even though you are in a tropical rainforest and so on. Because every living thing, and I'm counting minerals as living, gives off this energy just by it being alive. Life creates this energy. If this energy did not drain off naturally, this universe we know would be chaotic. So where does this energy go? The Astral plane is your answer. It drains naturally back to the Astral Plane, where it is used for a variety of reasons, channeled back here to us to be used in the elements and other means, and then it drains back into the Astral Plane. The theory that says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed holds true here too. It's like the rain cycle of our planet. And you can see and manipulate this energy here, but it is far easier to do when on the Astral Plane. You don't even have to go to the otherworlds to do it. All you have to do is project our of your body and stay in this reality to be able to see and do all of this. Why am I telling you this? Several reasons. First, you will feel tired and drained when you project often at night. You can recharge yourself from the Astral Plane if you know how to do it. Second, you will probably be leaving part of your energy behind when you project. Third, you can do spells on the Astral Plane so much easier than here and now and last, because this is the theoretical section of the class. I have given you most of the basics and intermediate work, now it's time for the purely theoretical and mystical "advanced" sections. Congratulations on making it this far. From here on out you will have to do a couple of things. First take my words with a grain of salt and make your own determinations as to whether or not I am telling the truth, and second believe that

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I have experienced or talked to those who have done this for themselves. I have no way to prove any of this, so most of this will seem like I need an "I-love-me" coat and a room with verrrrry soft walls. You have to trust me. Okay, casting spells can have a HUGE effect on the Astral Plane. The rules are such that your Will determines all, and the energy to cast the spell with is laying around (almost literally) on the Astral Plane. This is how I do ALL of my big spellwork. I travel Astrally to my Astral Temple, and start envisioning what I want to happen to me in the real world as working. The energy flows into me easily from the environment around me, and when I have enough and my intent is very clear in my head, I let the spell go to start doing what a spell does when one sends it off. Ever wonder what agency makes a spell work? Well, here it is. It's the will of the practitioner that is overcoming the resistance of others on the Astral Plane. Everything has a presence on the Astral Plane, if only by virtue that the energy needed to make the Astral Plane is coming from those same things. As such, there is some residual will from them on the Astral Plane. Part disbelief and part Idon'twanttosee-ishness. Overcoming that is fairly easy, and you should have practice with it by now. So, setting up a spell on the Astral Plane to do what you want here is easy as well. Go through all the steps you would normally go through to cast a Circle, and start the spell, but instead of doing it in a physical reality, do it in your Astral Temple. You will be shocked at how much easier it is, and how much more consistent your results are. The only drawback to this is you can't do an accurate divination right after it's cast to see if the spell will work, because the Astral Plane will give you any kind of omen or answer you want to see. Okay, that us from here affecting the Astral Plane, but is the reverse true? Can we pull from the Astral Plane to effect things here? Well, it seems like you already answered that question, but I'll take a shot at it. I don't know much about this system that I'm going to talk to you about that 20 minutes of research couldn't teach you as well, however, I am going to share what I DO know, and you will have to do the more in-depth research on the subject of Chakras. According to the sources I used, a document that was available on AOL and the Magician's Manual lesson 5, we have 7 chakras in our body. I have counted more than that, and I arrange them differently, but hey, this is someone else's op pinion here. Those 7 are, in ascending order, the Muladhara, the scadhisthara, the manipura, the anahata, the vishuddha, the ajna and the sahassara. They relate to the gonads, the navel, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, the third eye and the top of your head. It is through these centers that all energy is channeled because these are the wells that connect directly to the Astral Plane.

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There are different uses for these centers. According to those references I used, the root chakra, or the muladhara, is the center for psychic smell. It is when this center is open that you gain the ability to smell things that only exist on the Astral Plane, or that exist in another part of the plane you are on. Each of these centers has a specific set of effects on the Astral Plane. In order they are; Psychic smell/sex, psychic taste, psychic sight, psychic touch/emotions, psychic hearing/communication, other psychic abilities like telepathy/thought, and finally Astral Projection and enlightenment. Each of these centers also relates to a gland in your body. So if you are feeling drained or run down, or if you have some kind of physical problem, you only have to envision a tornado of energy that extends from these chakras, each glowing a different color (and I don't know what they are) and spin them faster, or make those tornados bigger. These energy points should be about 4-8 inches tall, and should be about 3 inches across at the biggest point. It should narrow from the widest area down to a point approx 1/2 inch across against your body, and you should have another one open in the opposite side of your body. The vortex on the front side of the body takes energy in, and the one on the back side of your body expels negative, or used, energy from you. You can use these chakras to energize yourself and to gather more energy into you in case you need it for one reason or another. To energize yourself, imagine a conduit of some sort leading from the Astral Plane, or the element of your choice and see it flowing into your heart chakra. Draw as much as you wish to pull, and then sever that tie to it. You can convert this metaphysical energy from what it is to physical energy, just like what you would get from eating a meal. I have done this in the past. All you have to do is in your body, see that metaphysical energy filling the batteries of your metaphysical energies, cut off the flow, force the energy from those metaphysical batteries into the physical batteries (since the energy for either of these comes from food, the reverse is also true) and then refill the metaphysical batteries from the Astral Plane again. I am telling you this because you will need this energy from time to time. Either you were too busy traipsing around the Astral Plane to get much rest the night before, or you drained yourself too much doing something and you need to write an IOU to your body, or what have you. There are other energy points on your body that you can project or receive energy through. There is a set on your elbows, in the palms of your hands, at your knees, and on the soles of your feet. Which explains why walking barefoot outside has such therapeutic properties.

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All this is interrelated to a degree that many don't think of simply because of the nature of everything. THIS BODY IS NOT OUR TRUE BODY. It is a suit of clothes and it is only a covering for our soul, which *is* us. Understand that basic principal, and you will find that Astral Projection is as easy as breathing. Okay, let's move on to one last technique of Astral Projection that I have mentioned several times, but not elaborated on yet. This one I think everyone will have a good time doing and using. The technique that I speak of is remote viewing. It's not what it is actually called, but this is what I call this technique. It is the ability to project your thoughts to other places, rather than your entire soul. It's as though you were watching a movie of a foreign land, rather than going there yourself. When I use this technique, for me, it's like daydreaming. I see the environment that I want to be in around me, I think of what may be there, I visualize the people and the surroundings. For me, and this may be unique to myself, I also see my body there. From a starting point, I start moving to another location, usually by walking or flying. I cover the distance I want to go in any other manner that I choose, and when I get to my destination, I let the pictures I am seeing provide the information on what is there. For example: I want to go to the Gateway to the Midwest in St. Louis. I have seen the outside of the Arch many times, so I start by meditating on that arch, and building an image of it in my mind. I look at the area around me as though I was seeing everything from the third person, and I was looking over my own shoulder. I see the steps going up to the arch, I see the entrance to the arch, I see the waterfront near the arch, and I turn my body and move off to the Arch itself. Here, I stop controlling this vision that I have created. I know I am at the Arch, and that I will see what is actually there, and I start seeing things I would not have thought to create, like the flag at half-staff because someone in the Missouri government died, the guard being an Asian-American, the "wet paint" signs in the atrium and so on. I trust that what I am seeing is correct and accurate. I do what I wanted to do and I get out. With this technique, I am conscious all the time. I can hear the TV and the Phone, but I ignore them. I can still feel my feet and my legs, but I am also ignoring them. I know that I am there, and while I see the environment around me, usually I don't feel the pavement beneath my feet, or feel the sun beating down on my head. The advantage to this is that others don't see me or react to me unless they themselves are only on the Astral Plane.

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Coming back to my body is simply a matter of opening my eyes and standing up. This technique is the simplest for me to do, because I have a problem falling into a trance deep enough to allow complete projection out of my body. I see and interact with the Astral Plane as much as anyone else does, but I never go unconscious to do it, so there is no need to force myself to be awake on the Astral plane. This is what I have been calling "remote viewing" all this time. This technique is one of the easiest to master, and one of the most deceptive out there. You can see anything on the Astral plane because it reflects your thoughts to you, so you have to consciously NOT think of anything and allow whatever is going to happen, actually happen. You can't think of a pink bunny rabbit because you will create it in your mind and see it, so it becomes a trick of *knowing* that you can't think of the pink bunny rabbit without actually *thinking* about the pink bunny rabbit. It's a delicate skill to master. Remember when I was speaking about the "pre-echo" of your thoughts, where you have a split second of knowing that a thought will come welling out of your subconscious before it does? That was in preparation for using it here. It's the same skill. So, that's it. I have taught you all the techniques and all the truths I know about the Astral Plane. But this class is not done. There is much theoretical exploration to do, and many things I want to share with you on these subjects. I have some more theories, some of them half-baked, and others based on solid happenings and so on. All this will be shared with you in the next 5 lessons. In lessons 21 and 22, we will review everything we have gone over in these lessons, and I will elaborate as necessary. Lesson 23 is the exam, and lesson 24 relates to all of this, as it is an in-depth examination of the book "Illusions" by Richard Bach. He wrote it to be fiction, but in many regards, I think he was more accurate than he knew. There is no assignment this time. This is because there is not really anything to assign you to. So, continue to practice your meditations, think of questions, work at this and experiment on the Astral plane. Send in reports as though you were a reporter assigned to explore the wilds of a new land and post them to the e-mail list. This is not the end of these lessons, only a beginning. If you want to, and only if you want to, as you read the story of the gentleman I cite above, see if you can find the life lessons and the areas he needs to work on during this lifetime and e-mail them to me or the list if you feel so inclined.

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Lesson 15: What's REALLY happening? This is the first in the series of purely theoretical lessons. In this set, I will give you MY theories on the topics that will be raised, and my answers. However, I am not the last authority on this subject. You see, the problem is a complex one. The terrain of the Astral Plane differs for each traveler. Some of that is due to their own desires being reflected in the Astral Plane, and another problem is that there are different sections of the Astral Plane. One of the biggest objections to the Astral Plane and AP being real is that the accounts of the visitors differ so much. I read in one place that it's like getting a random 50 people off the street, sending them out to a distant city, and asking each to write a comprehensive article on that city once they get back. They are allowed to make no notes, no pictures, and so on and they are expected to write these from memory. Each account will differ, if only in that each person is putting their own experiences into the article, seeing what they want to see (one seeing the children, one the architecture, one the artistic expression and so on) and that they are in different places in that far city, looking at different scenes. So, we can't take any one account as being the "authoritative" one. It's only in taking all the accounts together and striking an average that we may get closer to what is actually on the Astral Plane. Throughout this series, I have been suggesting other people's works as reference, mainly to give you a wider view of the Astral Plane. Plus, why should I write about a technique that someone else has already covered adequately? It wastes my time and your bandwidth. ;-) I have talked somewhat about the theory of three bodies, and DeGarcia also spoke to that particular subject, let me now expand some of my thoughts on that topic for you. When you are dealing with a mind, you have to realize that you are not dealing with just one personality, but a myriad of personalities that, when combined and operating in concert, make up the person you are speaking to. It is these myriad personalities that splinters come from, and also where MPD comes from. Sometimes, in extreme cases, a splinter will start developing their own will, volition, ego and thoughts and while they will still be based on the primary persona, that splinter will become, in effect, their own person. In some cases, that new person can take over the body that belongs to the old persona.

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It is also true in the reverse, that sometimes all the splinters through a catalyst (and it differs from person to person) can coalesce into one person again, absorbing everyone and everything in the mind. Are these splinters dangerous on their own? They can be, but normally not. Usually they embody one trait of the personality. There will be the Glutton, the Murderer, the Nurturer, the Animal, the Sex-Drive, the Obsessive, the DataStorage, the Superconscious, the Lover, the Child, the Miser and so many more I can't begin telling you all of them. Each holds within it one trait or quirk of the person in question, and they have their own agenda. The Glutton will eat and eat and eat and eat, even when not hungry simply because that is what they do. The Lover will attach to someone outside of them self and basically become a slave to that person, doing whatever their Love demands to make them happy. And so on. Normally this is not a problem, since they only exist on the Astral Plane. However, this is a special section of the Astral Plane that I call the "Head". It is like the Astral Temple in that it is unique to each person, but in terms of the actual Astral Plane, it is a small sub section of the whole. If you remember, back several lessons ago, I mentioned that I saw a tunnel and icons of everyone in that tunnel, and through that medium I could communicate with anyone. Well, I have come to the conclusion that the Head exists inside those icons. Each is uniquely individual and personal, but it is an environment that each person is comfortable with. You may have even interacted with the Head at one point or another, in your meditations. The environment you see and interact with when doing a purely internal quest for information, something that you KNOW you know, and searching your memories will be carried out in the Head. It can be woodlands, a castle, a high-rise office building, a library and so on. The setting does not matter, but anyone in there that you interact with is a part of you. Sometimes these splinters decide to keep certain information from you for your own good, such as a case I had where I had to fight my own Superconscious to get access to some memories from my childhood. He had decided that they were too traumatic for me to see, and had hidden them from me. I wanted those memories to be able to move on with my life, and he refused to allow me to get them. So I had to defeat him and get the memories myself. The point is that these splinters have more control than you may imagine, but normally it is all in the background. You won't ever see the Child unless you go looking for them, and usually you still won't be able to find them for one reason or another.

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Now, these splinters can be dangerous at times, especially when you are stressed and wanting to run away. That kind of chink in your armor of control can allow a splinter to take over for a while. Hopefully it will be one that is scrupulous, but sometimes it's not, like a case I had where the Animal came out in me during sex one night. It came very close to clawing my wife to shreds, and all that saved her was that she was pregnant. Can these splinters inside you be dangerous to you? Kind of. I have cited one instance where it was a danger to me, by keeping knowledge that I needed to itself, but what about some other way? It is possible for a splinter to take your body while you are not in it. However, there are some practical problems with that which makes that highly unlikely. Imagine if you will that you are a sea creature, with legs and arms. All your life you have floated on the sea, seeing the clouds, the sun, the rain, the various predictors and other life in the sea. Suddenly, you see a creature like yourself on the land, walking around. You decide to try to do that. You fall down multiple times and hurt yourself. Eventually, one of two things are going to happen, either you will give it up as a lost cause or you will learn the trick of balancing, and walking will repeat the process all over again. It's the same for the splinters. They have no body inside your Head, and they need time to get used to your body. They may be able to move it, but mostly it will lay around in one place. Plus, because you are the "owner" of that body, you can override them at any time and take possession of your body back from them. With enough time, could the splinters become a danger? Yes, but with a caveat. If you can come to a working partnership with the splinters, they will usually cooperate with you instead of against you. Normally this takes the form of providing you with additional information you may not be aware of, or keeping the really negative splinters off your back. Personally, I have a wall in my Head. Behind that wall, is all the splinters and the environment of my Head, and in front of the wall is me. I let a little bit of anyone who wants to borrow my body through that wall, and they can control my body, but I can override them at any time. Generally, I only let 10% of them through that wall, while I "squish over" to make enough room for them to use my body. That's the best I can describe the feeling. It tends to upset some people when I don't let them completely out, but I have not had my body taken against my will. As to suggestions I can offer to keep something similar from happening... the best I can do is to give you some pointers. Protecting yourself

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Shields are always good for starters. Shielding is one of those basic skills that many think they know all about, but few do in reality. First and foremost, a Shield is a tangible thing on the Astral Plane. It is a barrier to keep unwanted thoughts, emotions, people, karma, spells away from you. The best shield I have seen is one that looks like a geodesic dome, completely encircling the person in question from all sides. A lot of people think that just because a Shield goes to the ground that nothing can come up through the ground to "get you". Nothing could be further from the truth. So keep the shields through the ground as well as all around you. The next thing to keep in mind, is that even though you can't see them, the shield is still there. Most new shielders build up a shield, long and laboriously, then they don't think about it for a while, and when they do, they realize it's gone. So they go through the entire process again until someone tells them that whenever they think about it, it's still there. That's the trick, to know something you can't see or feel is still there keeping you safe. After that, dismissing it from your mind, and whenever you DO think about it, knowing it is still there keeping you safe. After a while, this becomes automatic and you don't have to think about it any more. Well, on the Astral Plane, you can actually see and feel those shields around you, and they may be tuned so high that they prevent you from projecting in the first place. Which may be the problem with some projectors (including myself). Another method of protecting yourself is a shield on an area, rather than on just yourself. These are called Wards, and they are what you put up every time you cast a Circle (for the Wiccans out there). It's simply a shield on an area rather than on a specific person. Usually you have to cast them and tie them into an external power source, such as the Earth or the Elements. I like to use the electrical wires myself. The energy in them is identical in many ways to magickal energy. The last means of protecting yourself is in Astral Combat. I know it sounds like something out of a horror or Sci-Fi movie, but trust me, there are times when you need these skills. Luckily, most of them come when you go onto the Astral Plane, rather than something you have to learn here first. Basically you can create any weapon you desire there, with full effects, so long as your will is stronger. Remember that injury I told you about back in lesson 2 or 3 where I was speaking about getting hit in the thigh and hurting for a while afterwards? Here's the actual blow by blow. The Aztec Priestess that had stolen my wife's Sword (an astral artifact she had for multiple lifetimes since she was responsible for creating it) and was looking to permanently take over my wife's body. I had the body restrained and I went astral to meet her. I had already called upon those splinters and former lifetimes that I

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and she both had that I thought were capable of helping in this situation, but as it turns out all they were was cannon fodder. She injured all of them, some critically and I thought I would loose one aspect of my wife's personality completely. Finally it was her and I, and a couple of non-combatants that couldn't do anything except get injured. For some reason, Lady Rhiannon gave me a shield. A regular round buckler style shield that she said would protect me. It turns out that this was special crafted to repel magick. I drew my Sword and waded into battle with the Priestess. First she shot levinbolts at me (think as arrows or torpedos of magick. Not set to do anything, just blast part of you away.) I managed to deflect them from me with the Shield, and I shot some at her. I watched as they impacted on her torso, right hip, and right hand (knocking the Sword she had away). I heard a shriek and she went down. I thought that was it. She got back up, thought the Sword back in her hand and came at me with it. I blocked with the Shield, and shoved my Sword into her abdomen to the hilt. I then picked her up, making sure her full weight was on the edge of the blade, and shook her like a rag. She died there, and I recovered the Sword. When I came back to myself, one of the splinters was looking out of my wife's eyes and begged me to help them. I went astral again and healed each of those injured. Good thing too because I was close to loosing the memory and personality of my wife's first lifetime, the one responsible for creating the stolen sword in the first place. I don't know what would have happened had he died, and I didn't want to find out. Turns out the Aztec priestess is still there, but all I did was kill the personality that had grown using that lifetime as a template. The memories are all still there, and can be accessed, but the personality is dead. Hopefully I won't have to go through that again. But this can be representative of something you may need to know. That battle was my first astral combat, and it was interesting on several levels. On a visceral level, there is nothing like testing yourself against some other human being, where your life is as much at risk as theirs is. On an intellectual level, I realized that the information I needed was there, simply for the taking, because I needed it. I had never swung a sword in my life, had taken only one year of Martial Arts, and was woefully out of practice, but at that time, I was a master swordsman, simply because I wanted to be. I also wondered what the shield was that I had been given, and I *knew* what it was and what it could do, without being told. I was frantic over worry for those that had been hurt so the healer level was awakened in me, as well as the parent/protector since some of the injured were children. I also learned that it does not matter if it really happened or not, whether or not I imagined it or if I actually went there. If it didn't happen, and I dreamed it all, it still

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changed a level of me that can't go back to sleep now. I learned things from that encounter that I won't forget. If I stayed in my body and remotely viewed the entire sequence, then I still did everything that happened, the goals were still accomplished, and I was still the victor. The tool used didn't matter. Like using the edge of a quarter to screw in a screw as opposed to a screwdriver. The screw still goes in, it just takes longer. Now, having touched upon it, lets discuss remote viewing a bit more. Is it a hallucination? No it is not. A hallucination is an uncontrolled vision of other places, possibly the Astral Plane, sometimes your Head. But since it is uncalled for, unlooked for, uncontrolled, it can be negative to the person experiencing them. However, you call these same experiences to you in meditation, sweat lodges, and many other kinds of altered states of consciousness. The only thing that should concern you when you have a hallucination is that something is wrong. It can be a high fever, it can be an illness in your head, it can be induced by drugs and so on, but if you have a hallucination, it is usually because something is wrong physically. There is nothing wrong with your mind or soul. Now, I mentioned being able to use magick while on the Astral Plane, but can you use other mental abilities while projecting? In my experience, yes you can. I have a friend who can project out of his body, and then project again out of *that* body. What he is projecting out of, I have no idea, but I have a theory. As I have stated before, we go through cycles of purification and learning. These cycles create some refined parts of us, ones that are closer to the IS or whatever you want to call it. The Celts thought this moved you to more and more "pure" worlds where you lived and had a life, then you died in that world and progressed upward to the next purer world. I can't say that they are incorrect, and I can't say that I don't believe them, because this has some merit. However, I think that more pure part of us is enclosed in a shell of impure material and vibrations, and these successive lifetimes burn those outer shells away like peeling an onion. I think that is what projects out of the Astral Body, that more pure core. I don't know how far this can be taken, or even if there is an end to those successive layers, but I would assume that there is. And I also know that this is not an isolated incident because one of the splinters that I have spoken about before has the ability to "lean back" in her words and gather information from the Universe simply because she wants it. She usually uses this ability to learn about medical problems and their treatment so that she can take care of me, but I would imagine that she could learn anything she desired to. It is possible to use telepathy in this state also, and I would imagine that it would be possible to use psychokinesis as well. I personally have no idea how you would go about it, but the principals are the same.

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Okay, having dealt with those topics, let me talk a little more about something I have mentioned in passing, but not elaborated on yet, avatars and doppelgänger in other worlds. As I have stated before, on might-have-beens we have a version of ourselves there already. It is possible to do this same thing on fantasy realities and fictions. The particulars are somewhat different and I'll tell you how to do this here. Pretty much when projecting you know that you have a body on those other realities. To the inhabitants of that plane, however, it is usually invisible, and you are a ghost there. However, because you are not in YOUR reality, desiring something or willpower is much more effective there. So the trick is to "create" a body there. You will be using native elements to do this, and you don't have to know anatomy to do this. The body will break up and back into the elements you created it from with no trace of it's existence once you leave it anyhow. So finesse is not that important for this. Basically all you are doing is creating a shell that looks like you so that you can interact on that plane with the inhabitants. So, see your body, or the one you want to look like. Imagine it around you and make that body be. Take breaths and feel that heart beat. Have clothes on, that's usually important. Sculpt it and create it. That is all there is to that. Walk around and see what is going on, talk with the people there, have fun. Remember, that when you are in spirit form on another plane, you are not talking to other people that you meet, you are talking to their portion of the soul that is on the astral plane too. So they may not know you once you embody there. DeGarcia and Monroe both talk about this happening to them, not in so many words, but in hints and clues. Being able to pick up things and move things around sounds like they created a body to me. Monroe also talks about taking over a person who was already there and doing things as him. This is possible, and you will be "possessing" someone. A few thoughts on this are in order. First, you are the visitor. You can mess up their life and get them a reputation for being weird or strange if you are not very careful. Much better to let them remain in control of the body, and go along for the ride rather than take over completely. Second, it will be easier on you and them if you find your counterpart on that world. From my travels and in my experiences, we all have a spiritual counterpart on other worlds, even fictions and fantasy realms. So, finding this version of you is probably going to be one of your first things you want to do. You will know them because their soul and sprit resonate to something inside yourself. It's

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theorized by Richard Bach that this is because we are all one soul that has been fragmented over time, either through splinters who have grown their own intelligence or through deliberate fractioning. I can see how this would be, but it is something you have to take on faith. The only evidences that I have that this is a fact is that I have managed to find about 10-15 people whom I would call myself on each world I have been to. That seems like a low number, but when you consider the sheer *difference* between our society and theirs, it becomes amazing. Third thing to keep in mind is that at some point you will have to make this up to them. You are, in effect, stealing their body for your own uses and to keep things fair, you will have to make it up. Possibly not to them, but others that need YOUR body at one point or another. I'll get to that in a bit. The last thing to keep in mind when you try to borrow someone else's body is that you will NOT have access to the memories and information you need to be able to exist in that world correctly. In one point, Robert Heinlein says in his book "Stranger in a Strange Land" that you must know when to rub blue mud into your navel. He continues to say that a society will usually forgive most gaffes, but that to break society's rules of behavior is to court death. I have yet to find anything that overrules this piece of advice. So unless you know that foreign societies quirks and behaviors well enough to pass for a native, try just to be a passenger in the mind of someone there. Okay, so you now know that you can borrow someone else's body, and how to make your own, but what if you want to do something on that other realm that will take a long time to accomplish, longer than you will be projecting for, or you want to keep tabs on the other you who is there. Is this a practical idea, or is it out of the realm of possibility? Actually, you can keep tabs on another you, just as you can have a body run on auto pilot for a while. It's hard, and the primary requisite is being able to multitask. Basically in keeping tabs, you keep a small portion of your awareness wherever it is you want to watch, or with whomever. It's splitting your consciousness for a while, but you can keep an eye on them for an extended period of time this way. You simply continue to watch, look in on them consciously from time to time and get a download of what has been happening, and go back to what you were doing. All this assumes that you have mastered Remote Viewing, because this is the medium through which you will be projecting in states like this. As to having a body run on auto pilot, before you leave it to come back to yourself, you simply "program" it to continue doing what you need it to do. You will have to leave part of yourself there to make that body function, but the

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advantage here is that you can interact and observe without doing too much. Before you leave, you dump a set of instructions to that portion you are leaving, telling it what you want to accomplish and how to go about it. That body will then start doing whatever it needs to to bring about the goal you programmed it for. Note, please, that these techniques are VERY advanced. It took me 10 years of practice before I discovered them and stared using them. I would suggest waiting that long before trying these techniques. Now, I have spoken about Remote Viewing as being a time when you project without going into a full trance, but can you project without going into a trance at all? Yes, but once again, it is a VERY advanced skill. Basically, you split your consciousness, one part to stay here and go through your life as normal, the other to go and do and see what you want. It's another of those "back of the mind" type of projections where you shove your consciousness into another place, but it works. Now, this is all dealing with you projecting out of your body, but what about when someone else wants to project here? Those are where some of the classical versions of possession comes in. They are borrowing your body here, and your consciousness is being pushed aside. Channels are people who do this all the time, so people like Edgar Casey and the lady that channels Seth are examples of this. However, this is another type of this that not many seem to talk about, but that you can learn about if you look enough. I'm talking about a "walk in" as I have heard it called. Basically what happens is that the person in question has finished what they decided to learn, but their body is perfectly healthy and fully functional. Normally what would happen is that they would die through various means, like suicide, but a disembodied spirit decides to make a deal. That person will be allowed to go on to wherever they need to go next, but the spirit who wants it is allowed to take the body that is left behind permanently, with memories of their former existence and the memories of the body intact. It's kind of a permanent possession, just without the other soul trying to get the body back. The Walk In can do what they need to do, teach or learn or complete their life, then the body dies. I have known people on both sides of this transferal, the possessor and the possessee. Usually it is non-traumatic for the person who is dying simply because they get what they want, and that is to go on to what happens next, and they are not shackled to a body they no longer want. I don't advise this for everyone, but it is an option that you may think about at one point or another. I think there is some kind of testing or council that the

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disembodied spirit goes to and gets permission from in order to do this, and there are other requirements, but on that I am not sure, it's just a feeling I have. So that wraps up this lesson.

Assignment: Continue to practice the OOBE techniques I have shown you, and start working on Remote Viewing. Keep up your notebooks and send your questions in. If you want to, read "One" by Richard Bach and "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlein. They are both good books, and even though they are fictional, there is good information in both of them for you.

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Lesson 16; Beyond Death As I originally asserted in this series, OOBE is exactly like the death state, the only difference being that we don't come back from death the same way we do from an OOBE. This concept has been known for centuries, among many different peoples, most notably the shamans of different tribes. It was a requirement for the shaman to be able to project out, battle death itself on it's own plane for the life of someone they were working on, and to come back. Speaking to any shaman these days, and you will find a recurring role in their duties, a near death experience which opened up the "otherworlds" to them. From speaking to those who have studied the path of the shaman for a while, I find that the near-death experiences that are spoken about can be induced. It's better by far to have a person who was critically ill for a time, in which the shaman in question was called upon to fight for their life, and take that person and try to share the path of the shaman with them, but just about any person who has had a near-death experience is capable of learning the way of the shaman. In this way, a shaman could be seen as being an Astral Warrior, one who goes and confronts the gods on their own plane to acquire things and blessings for his people. They do this through trance, through mortification of the flesh (as in a sweat lodge), through dance (like the Sufi Muslims), through meditation. What is key about all this is that there is a lighter connection to the body by virtue of the bond with the body being severed and reconnected. Yes, in near-death experiences, you do die. The Silver cord is cut or severed, but it takes time for the soul to move on to the next level. Usually this time is used in visiting the families of those you leave behind and comforting them, but sometimes the cord becomes severed by accident. During this critical time, the cord can be reattached by simply re-housing the body that was left. At times, the body is no longer usable, and the reattachment is disallowed (by who? No one knows) or sometimes, the jobs are complete that the person who is having this experience came to do, and they choose to say "dead". Sometimes, in VERY extreme cases, damage to the body is healed if it is critical that the person in question be alive because of a job they left unfinished. Miracles like that we have heard about from time to time, but in most cases, the condition of the body left is the condition of the body being reinhabitted. So, in those who have had near death experiences, thinking of the feet doesn't work. They have to fight to get back in the body, because that safety (the silver cord) is already severed. This is where a lot of the stories about possession come from as well. I have had personal experience with something like this.

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If the cord is severed in death, but it takes time for the soul to move on, and the person in question tries to come back, it can be argued that another spirit beat them to the punch as it were. They could be prevented from returning to their own body by another spirit having already taken it from them, in fact, stealing it. My great grandmother was a kind and gentle lady, who died on the operating table at one point, and turned into an embittered, mean old biddy afterward. My grandmother said that she thought that her mother had been taken over by another spirit, and that her soul had gone on. I can't say as I blame her for this set of feelings. It IS possible for this to happen. It's not common, nor is it good, but it can and does happen. There was a book I had a copy of a while ago, and I can't remember the name of it right now. However, the premise of the book is getting rid of spirits that "attach" themselves to a person in a hospital. His ascertation is that when you are in a hospital, that the dead souls there can attach themselves to your spirit and cause all kinds of problems in your life, because it's their wants, needs, desires and drives that are motivating an action, not yours. He went on to give tools for cleansing these clingers from the soul, by talking directly to them, and asking them to leave. If that's true, can a soul who died in another room take a body that is dead, but which has been resuscitated? I would think so. So, that deals with some of what happens upon death, but what about after? The short answer is that no one knows. No one has died completely and come back to tell us about it yet. However, there are some theories that I have, and that I have been able to verify in conversations with Herne and Rhiannon at different times. My personal belief is that once you leave the body forever, never to come back to that particular body, you progress to a slightly higher level of the Astral Plane. It's not the same plane that you find when projecting, but it's a bit more refined than that portion of the plane. You can still see the physical realm, you can see the Astral Plane with all those who visit and work and live there, but they may not necessarily be able to see and interact with you. However, this is a temporary stop over. It's kind of "Heaven's Waiting room". Here is where you will be visited by those greater powers that you honor, be they Gods, angels, avatars, Valkyrie or whatever. You will get to talk to them for a while, find out that, yes, you are really dead and you can't go back. Then you will be taken to your version of Heaven. Let me explain that for a bit. In the Wiccan Tradition, there is an afterlife called the Summerlands. I get the impression that it is a realm of trees, grasses,

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streams, and a natural untouched wilderness setting. In Christian theology, there are the Pearly Gates, the wall of Heaven, the City itself, the Tree of Life and the Foot of the Throne, with God in his glory sitting on the Throne. In Asatru, there is the Rainbow Bridge going from Midgard to Asgard, there are the halls in Valhalla where the valorous are taken, and other areas of Asgard to live in for different people. In other theologies there are different places and sights to see and know. All these are NOT the same place. A Christian practitioner will probably not meet a Wiccan on the streets of Heaven, just as a Wiccan will probably not meet a Mormon in the fields of the Summerlands. That is because each "heaven" is unique to the individual. Upon death, the practitioner will see exactly what their beliefs tell them they will see, and they will interact with exactly the environment they expect to interact with. There will be the places and the sights and personnel that they believe in their deepest levels of faith will be there. This will stay as long as the person in question still truly believes that this is the afterlife. However, there will come a time when that façade is stripped away. Once that happens, others have described what will be seen. I the book, "Seth Speaks" there is a discussion about what happens next, which I won't relate here (mainly because I have not finished the book). I encourage you all to pick it up and read it for yourself. However, the point here is that there is a "personal heaven" for each of us, made up of our beliefs and feelings on what happens after we die. At least for a little while. I would make a few surmises at this point. 1) You can skip that "personal heaven" phase if you are sufficiently advanced to understand the reality of death, and the new environment around you. 2) There is a time of healing, when the heartaches and traumas of this lifetime are cleansed from your soul. I would further surmise that during this time, there are people there to help you cope with some of the more traumatic aspects, and I would bet they are your guides from this lifetime. 3) You DO still come back from this state. I know and have spoken to one or two dead souls who have moved past the personal heaven state and they have been almost nothing like what I knew them as when they were newly dead. There was a "disconnectedness" to them in which they seemed to have most of their attention on something else. One of these same people, I was later warned away from speaking with since it would "mess up" his progression. I can only assume that means that they had managed to shed all of this lifetime from them, and were considering other embodiments or lifetimes and they should not be distracted and reminded of here. 4) Eventually you will break out of this cycle, but what happens then is anyone's guess. I would assume that you become "one" with the IS, and dwell in bliss with it for ever. But I also know that you can choose to become Gods and Goddesses

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for other people. Rhiannon as much told me so once. That I could take over for her or Herne if I chose to. I still have yet to make up my mind. It seems, no matter how much you know, there is a finite limit of what we can understand and expect. I would further assume that this is because while we can imagine what happens next, the complexities are so great that we would not be able to understand them even if it were explained to us without becoming something other than human. It would be like explaining quantum physics to a fish. IF they could understand it, they would no longer be "just" a fish anymore. This is a relatively short post since I really don't know much about this particular topic, obviously since I'm still alive. So I will end it here and leave you with a few thoughts. From Pippin: The Lead Player to Pippin just before the Finale: "The FINAL affirmation of life, death" From Shakespeare: Hamlet: How long hast thou been a grave-maker? Clown. Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long is that since? Clown. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born Which both illustrate the point, "No one gets out of life alive."

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Lesson 17: OOBE as a tool for self improvement Way back when, in another lesson, I stated that it was possible to correct personality problems using OOBE. I came to these conclusions when I had several things happen to me. 1) I was faced with several memories that had been locked up that needed to be faced. 2) I had a few problems of my own that I needed to correct to save my marriage. and 3) I accidentally stumbled on some of these principals during OOBE. Now, I understand that just about any good meditational course can do the same things that I am about to share with you, and if that vehicle makes you more comfortable, then by all means, use meditation to do this. However, I think that OOBE when combined with some meditational techniques can bring results far and away better than what is capable of being achieved with meditation alone. I would like to make one disclaimer here. There are some problems that are physical and chemical rather than purely emotional. When in doubt, see a competent mental care professional to see if this is something that needs other techniques to treat. Do not rely solely on meditation or OOBE to cure you of your mental problems. A "shotgun approach" is usually best. That said, let me tell you why I think that OOBE can help with some kinds of problems. 1. The personality problems that you may be looking at can be seen as being outside of you. They can be an entity that exists only on the Astral Plane, and as such can be looked at objectively and countered. When a problem manifests, rather than staying nebulous, it's easier to see what brought that problem to be, it's easier to see the stages in it's development and thus, it's easier to correct some of those factors so this does not happen again. An example: You have a problem with money. When you have it, you spend it like water, without regard for bills you have to pay, or anything other than your instant gratification. When you don't have it, all you can do and think of is how to get more money so that you have more and more. You CAN budget, but sticking to a budget is so hard that most times you don't even try. The causes for this kind of behavior could be many. However, while APing, you meet a person that calls itself "The Greedy Boy". You realize that this boy is the

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person in your psyche that deals with some of the problems you have with money. In talking to and examining him, you discover that he is made up of parts of you who feel unloved, who find self worth through possessions, who was told by your parents that only rich people are happy. He was taught, in effect, that the person who has the most toys will be happy. Now, on a conscious level, we all know that is complete and utter bullhockey. However, this person is made up entirely of these parts of you who learned this. With this knowledge, you can formulate a plan. First, you can start by loving yourself. You would be amazed at the number of people who don't love themselves and who, in fact, feel that they deserve all the bad in their lives because of being bad people. You can also take inventory of your life and understand that you have a lot of possessions, ones that you treasure, so you don't need to get that other possession over there because you already have four of them that do the same thing. You can start a program of self programming that sets up patterns in your subconscious that state that while having nice things is important, buying things simply for the sake of having them only clutters up your house. It is so much nicer to have a house to put all your possessions in, rather than buying another possession simply to put it into storage. And so on. Slowly, (and it will be slowly) the impetuous that keeps that boy alive in the subconscious will start loosing it's hold, and that boy, the greedy one, will have the "life" taken away because those sections of your personality that deal with it will no longer be operating. It may take years, but it will happen. I went through this myself once upon a time. Remember, the Subconscious works with you. It creates manifestations of itself and aspects so that you can see problems and deal with them. They are all there in the back of your head, waiting for you to look at them and start correcting them. However, not all of the negative aspects can be "cured" or even should be. That greedy boy may also control your ambition, your drive to get more money so that you can purchase more things. It may control a part of you that is also miserly, which relates to the savings you have in your sugar jar. So, how do you correct the negative parts without damaging those parts that are necessary? Answer: You don't. Unfortunately, whenever you make a change in one area of your psyche, no matter how minor, the results of that change will reverberate for a while. Many different areas will be affected and you can't help that. The best thing you can do is to do as little damage as possible. You must acquire a skill in firefighting (as I call it) in which you wait for consequences of your actions to manifest, and deal with the resulting mess then. There are some things that you can do to head off

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problems before they occur, but that is mostly a matter of thinking through the consequences before they become problems. In dealing with your own psyche, you have a little more leeway to make mistakes and corrections than you would if you were dealing with someone else's mind. So, learn yourself first, then start correcting things in your own head. Another thing that can help you is that you will be able to detach purely learned responses from yourself and analyze them better. For instance, you will be able to take the fear of small places that you learned from being locked in a closet for two hours when you were 4 and look at it with the eyes of your perfect self. In other words, the phobias and problems you picked up directly as a result of living this lifetime will be looked at with the eyes of your soul, the one that you take with you when your body finally ceases to function. 2. Instead of trying to take on too many problems at one time, like most of us do in our daily life, by manifesting a personality problem on the Astral Plane, and dealing with it there, you can work on THAT problem to the exclusion of all the others. I point this out because it's hard to work on giving up smoking while trying to loose weight, while trying to do a good job at work, while taking care of your children, while fixing the house and etc ad neausium. So, working on it in a way that all your attention is directed to one goal is much more efficient than trying to do fifty things at once, and you get better results. There is also this; You all know about computer modeling, in which a program is built that models the actions of a situation so long as all the factors are there to allow the computer to calculate what may be going on. Well, on the Astral Plane, you can refine this to just about any extreme. Note, I have never tried this, but I do know about it. Basically, if you had a problem that had manifested on the Astral Plane as an entity, you could "build" a copy of yourself there, complete with the problem that you wanted to get rid of. From there, you try different options and techniques until you get the results you want. Then you go on to put that solution into practice on yourself. The reason I have been hesitant about trying this myself is because the AP is a wish fulfillment environment. You have to be REALLY careful to NOT want the problem gone with no other repercussions because that is what you would wind up getting, and you wouldn't know what process brought you to the finished product of "no problem".

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3. When a problem manifests as a splinter personality, you can spend more time with that "person" to correct the problem rather than using a quick patch for now, and working on it more later. That's one of the major problems here; that lack of time for doing what MUST be done. Everyone else has expectations of us, and we have responsibilities and commitments that we have to fulfill. Taking two weeks off work and going out into the woods to contemplate your navel is usually seen as being selfish by others, irregardless that it is needed for your mental sanity. 4. Since you are working in an environment that the subconscious is pretty much in charge of, you can speak to it in the language it understands and bypass the couscous filters that may skew the fixes you are trying to get it to take. What I mean by that is from a self-empowerment seminar I saw as part of an infomercial once, but it rang true and I use it. If you drew out your mind, you would have the Conscious mind in the front of the room, and the subconscious mind in the back. This is the visual to use for this example, not the one that I use all the time. In the Conscious mind, there is a guard that is you. He stands there, getting all the information coming in, and takes it into the back room and files that information into the correct place so you can remember it.

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He does not do anything to that information other than file it, and sometimes add on bits of what he thinks of that info, kind of like notations. So, as you are "programmed" while you are younger with "you are stupid" he files it, and files it and files it. Pretty soon, he starts getting affected by what is in that subconscious room. All the stink from that "you are stupid" comments comes wafting out all the time and he starts believing it. So, thirty years down the road, when you realize that you are NOT stupid, and start taking in positive reinforcement to counteract that first programming, he takes that positive reinforcement that says "I am a smart and capable person", takes it into the back room, and notes something like "This is nice, but not true" and undoes all the work that that positive reinforcement tried to put in place. This is why it usually takes 10 times as many compliments to counteract one negative statement from another person. Simply chanting things over and over won't do, so we have to get tricky.

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Using AP as a tool for improving yourself bypasses the guard at the door, and puts the information DIRECTLY into the filing cabinets, to be stored. It would be nice if we could edit and delete that information in there, but unfortunately or fortunately, our minds don't work that way. So, we put the information that WE want in there, in the proper cabinets, right up front, or stapled to other documents to correct bad habits. Now when we think "that was stupid of me" we also get "so I'll think next time and it won't be so bad" or "Gods, I really NEED that cigarette" we get "but I made a promise to myself to quit, and I won't let a stick of weed control me." It can be really effective when it's done properly.

Okay, having shared my wisdom on this subject with you all, I'll swap to another topic for a while. Here I'm going to talk to you about Astral Combat. This is probably a topic that you will never need, but you should be aware about it anyway since it is a possibility. First, you need to know a few ground rules. 1) Your body cannot be harmed from this, and you cannot die unless you want to. 2) The person with the strongest Will, wins. 3) If you encounter a wall you can't get through, stop trying. There is probably something on the other side you don't want to know about. 4) If something hurts you on purpose, hurt it back. 5) If you can see it, you can hurt it. 6) Keep it simple stupid. Each of the above rules of thumb are necessary to keep things in perspective. Rule #1 is one of the prime rules that I have been telling you about for a long time now. This cannot hurt your body or kill you, unless you want it to hurt your body or kill you. Belief is everything on the Astral Plane, and if you believe yourself injured, you will be. Since this IS on the AP, your body is safe and cannot be harmed by any force on the Astral Plane. Rule #2 is also one of the basic rules. So long as you KNOW, to the bottom of your soul, that what you are seeing is real or true, or that THIS effect WILL take place, you are okay. It's when you are doubting that you get hurt, as several people can tell you.

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Rule #3 is one of those "duh" rules. It should be obvious, but you would be amazed at how many people out there completely ignore it. These walls are called Shields or Wards. There are two purposes to these; one is to keep things out, another is to keep things in. Either can be used for either purpose, but Wards are usually on a place, while a shield is on a thing. If the shield is keeping something contained, do you REALLY want to let it out? You need to think about it a while. If it is something or someone you care about, then by all means do so, but if you have no clue what is behind that shiny wall you can't walk through, then leave it alone. There is a reason it's there in first place. Make no mistake about it, most shields and wards are made to be impenetrable from one side, and permeable (to a point) from the other. If it is a containment shield, then there will be weak places and vulnerabilities on the side you are on. So, you could break it open if you wanted to. But you need to think first. There is usually a reason that it is there. If it is to keep things out, then do you REALLY want to meet the person that constructed it in the first place and have them fighting you? Or possibly set off his traps and get hurt from them? Or get stuck for a while by something else? Generally, it's best to leave that kind of thing alone. Rule #4 is something that I debated a long time about, and most Wiccans can't get through their head. Most things on the Astral Plane will not bother you unless you are looking for trouble. Most times, in fact, they will be of the opinion of "live and let live". However, if you are doing nothing to provoke an attack, and something jumps up and hurts you, hit it with everything you have. You can envision lightning bolts from your fingertips blasting it, you can see it simply being grabbed by an invisible force and pulped, and so on. Think of Hollywood special effects to get some ideas. Most things that hurt you intentionally on the Astral Plane are not your friends, and they are not going to be reasoned with. Like I said, live and let live is the general rule for most beings on the Astral Plane. Rule #5 is a corollary to the previous one. No matter how far away in the Astral Plane a creature or entity goes, if you can see it in your mind's eye, you can hurt it, and in the cases of purely astral beings, possibly kill it. If a boggle jumps up and savages your leg before you have a chance to react, and then runs away, follow it with your mind's eye, see where it goes, the environment around it, and hit it with everything you have. Distance does not matter on the Astral Plane, nor on any physical plane so long as you are traveling astrally. Follow it and give it what it deserves. You may have to watch out for traps or possibly a creator of whatever it was that hit you, so keep that in mind. Rule #6 should be obvious. When you have the choice between doing a ritual at your astral temple to cause harm to another being on the Astral Plane, one that will involve several hours in trance here to do, or to just send fire from your eye sockets to fry the little bastard, need I tell you which to choose? There is less that

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can go wrong with frying them than there is with a huge ritual. Plus, reaction time, while it is speeded up, is still critical. There are techniques that a skilled magician could use to wipe out the "back trail" connection between the act and the person attacked, so usually if you don't hit it within the first few moments, you may not get another shot. Now, please understand that I am not telling you this to scare you. 99.998% of the things on the Astral Plane will never bother you or cause you a moment's distress, but it's that other .002% that can hurt you unless you know about it and take some kind of precaution. It's like locking your doors at night, it may not stop a robber or rapist, but it will slow them down long enough to call the police. With that end in mind, let me tell you about a few basic precautions you can take. Shields and Wards: Like I said above, generally a Ward is on a place, a Shield is on an item or person. All it is is a force-field like from Star Trek, Star Wars, or just about any other Sci-Fi show out there. It is generated out of your own bioenergy, and usually appears like a solid egg of light around you. The more you believe that nothing can get at you, the more that will be kept out. You can control them, make them thicker or thinner as you wish to, and it's always responsive to your will. A ward is usually designed to protect a place, like a house or sacred ground. Some people like to put traps on those wards so that if they are violated, the trap (spell) goes off and hurts the person who breeched the wards. Normally, once constructed a ward is not tied to anyone, unlike a Shield, which is tied into the person who cast the shield. Wards are designed for long term protection, and are tied into the elements or into intangibles like electrical fields. All you have to do to create these is have a good imagination. Imagine and envision and will a sphere of light around the area to be protected, see it building thicker and thicker, then attach it to the power source that will fuel it. The ward or shield will alert the caster when someone is trying to breach them, and the caster can take action at that point. That's what you need to know about them, but if you want to know more or want to get more elaborate, talk to someone who is really into ritual magick and I bet they will be able to give you all kinds of rituals and spells to help you along. A Levinbolt is the basic weapon of the Astral Plane. The best description that I ever read is that a levinbolt is a torpedo of pure magickal energy. A beam of light, lightning from your fingers, flames shooting out of your mouth are all versions of this. The visual does not matter, just the effect. Some people on the Astral plane use weapons, and the most common one in my experience is a Sword or something similar. Usually it will be glowing, and it only exists on the Astral plane. But because it's a Sword and sword shaped does not

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mean that it can't reach out from multiple dimensions away and hit you. It can and I have done it multiple times to others. As a last resort, you can always wake up. Remember that, run. There is no cowardice, no shame. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. These creatures are most times nuisances, but there is the one time when it's something more than a pest. If you run, you are safe, if you stay, you may be in a coma. Your choice. As to the Police; there is a group that call themselves "Guardians" who do various things. Some of them guard specific weak spots in the boundaries between planes, so all the monsters from another world don't pour over into our world and cause havoc, some seek out and destroy those entities that have already crossed over to our world, some do so only on the Astral Plane, others do various jobs that I don't know about. Think of the Police, Firemen, Special Forces, FBI, and any agency or group who protects the general citizen, usually by putting their life on the line, and you have a handle on this group. The only thing that they do that the police agencies don't is that they use magick and astral Projection as one of their tools in their job. Yes, I am a Guardian and the reason I'm so practiced is that I go out and hunt down those entities on the Astral Plane that like to hurt others. That's one reason that I warned you all off the Sept 11 problems because I knew that with all the dead, there would be a LOT of those creatures hanging around waiting for a tyro of a projector to come and try to help, and they would wind up munched for their trouble. Just a few things to keep in mind. End of this lesson, and I would like to thank Kelly Stimac, my co-worker who created the picture above for all of you. He did that in about an hour and he does this professionally as well. You can find his homepage at http://dreamscapeproductionstudios.3dup.net and I advise everyone to take a look. His pictures and animations are beautiful.

Okay, assignment time. To keep: I want you to think of a list of personality problems that you want to get fixed. Try to creatively solve some of them in the Astral Plane. To turn in: Your results from the above assignment. List the problem, your idea, steps you took, and outcome (even if it is "outcome pending") To read: At least one complete document on The Fivetrees Website (and by this I mean one of the Grimoires, completely through.) Their address is http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3567/ and there is a wealth of 180

information on there. This is a site that exists for support of Guardians, suggestions and advice can be shared, as well as being able to ask for information on some problems that are occurring that the guardian in question may not be able to get around.

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Lesson 18: Channeling and OOBE Okay, I have touched on this before, and I will probably do so again, but Channeling and OOBE is two sides of the same coin. First, let's define what Channeling is. chan·nel·ing noun Purported communication by a disembodied entity through a living person, as by voice during a trance. (Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.)

Okay, so using this definition, who is a Channel (the one who speaks the words that the disembodied spirit speaks)? Well, I can think of several examples, the Oracle of Delphi, some prophets (or profits) like Joseph Smith (although this can't be proved) and Jane Roberts (the channel of Seth), your priestess in ritual circumstances, and any other person who goes into some kind of trance to tell you the words of God. So many of the prophets of the Bible could be seen as channels. Now, where do these souls come from? Most times, they are Teachers, Guides, Ascended Masters and others from the Astral Plane. However, in some cases, they are you. You see, while I am here in this reality, and a spirit comes here, and I move aside for it to speak, I am the channel for that spirit. However, if I go to another reality, and speak to others there, then he is the channel for me. Keeping this in mind, and remembering when I talked about going to a mighthave-been and taking over the body of you there, this is what I mean when I speak about the channel being you. See, the same thing can happen in reverse, in other words, you-there can come to here and borrow your body. Is this good or bad? It depends entirely upon what you are doing and what you want to do. Normally a version of you who comes here knows more about their reality and can answer questions about where they live in great detail, but I have also seen those same people become completely bollixed and flummoxed by something simple like a light switch. So if the information you are after is about what is going to happen here, there are better ways of getting this information.

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If, on the other hand, you are looking for information on how your life would have been different "if only" then you have the correct means of getting that information. What do you need to channel effectively? First and foremost, you need to be practiced in AP and meditation and possibly hypnotic trance. Of a good help would be another person you trust to guide your trance state and ask questions of the person who comes here, and a tape recorder would always be helpful. You can sit down and come up with a list of questions first, and then ask those questions to whomever shows up. However, there may be a few more things to consider. First, what is the purpose of the session and what information are you looking for? Could this information come from other sources easier and more freely? Remember, just because the soul is you, does not mean that this entity who shows up will have any reason to give you the help you need or are asking for. Second, just because this person is a version of you, does not mean that it will be inclined to help. I have met some versions of myself that were stone sons of bitches, and rude to boot. They not only told me to take a hike, but tried to enforce it with any means at their disposal. Now, granted, there is not a lot that you can do to a "ghost", but they tried. Imagine the havoc that can be caused by calling someone here who was not inclined to help, who decided to take it out on this plane. So, be careful. The next thing is, who are you going to call? You may want to talk to a version of you named "George" on a might-have-been where Christianity died out, but unless you know exactly who you want, and you just say "George" you could get a version of you who is named George on a plane where nearly everyone is dead from a plague that swept the land. So you have to be specific, either in your mind and your idea of who you are trying to talk to, or in stating who you want. Once all these conditions are met, it's fairly easy to get them here. But, if you are by yourself, it would be easier to just meet them on the AP, rather than allow them to take control of your body. Now, if they can come here, how about you going there? Well, as already stated, you can. It's like projecting anyplace else, you simply do it, and settle into their body. However, you won't have to trance out to leave that body. All you have to do is to will yourself back "home". Can you channel other beings like guides and so on? Yep. They tend to be a bit better about behaving themselves. You may want to pick up the books by Jane Roberts (one of which is called "Seth Speaks") to find out more about channeling.

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Are there other things you can channel? Yep. Whenever you act as a conduit for energy, you are channeling. That energy flows into you and out of you again. You send it to where it should be, and you are channeling it. However, Edgar Cayce had a book on Channeling that I got once upon a time. I was interested in the "possession" type of channeling, but this book dealt with pulling information from the Akashic Record, the Mental Plane, and the Collective Unconscious, as well as from the IS. His ascertation was that the information is out there, all you have to do is to look for it. When you get that information from another place, any of the above mentioned places, you are channeling that information. This is the source of such things as "flashes of intuition" and "feelings" that you get that turn out correct upon examination. His book was supposed to help you to be able to channel this information easier. The title of it is "Edgar Cayce on Channeling" and if you are interested in this manifestation of AP, I advise you to read it. Just remember that Cayce was probably one of the best channels in the 20th century. Just keep in mind that channeling and possession are the same thing, just happening on different realities.

Okay, on to another part that I have touched on multiple times and not elaborate on too much. In a word, Magick. I know I said that the practice you get in AP will increase your skill in magick, and vice versa, it's time for me to tell you why this happens. First and foremost, you are dealing with realities that you can only see in your head. The AP is only accessible by either leaving your body, or by using your visualization to see the place you want to go. Few magicians are able to see the energy they summon and manipulate, so the same set of skills are being used. That is one reason I was so big on you practicing your visualization skills back in lesson 6. It's one of those critical skills that you will need all the time, not only on the Astral Plane, but in so many more areas of your life. I'm going to make a pronouncement here, and some of you may not believe me, but trust me, it's true. You can force things to happen on THIS plane using the same set of skills.

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If you can see it, you can have it. It's an axiom that I just coined and I want you to remember it. As long as you can see it in your head, either you having it, or the final outcome of a spell or action, you can have that happen to you, even to the point of extreme effects. Here's an example: A while ago my wife lost her job at Sprint. She decided at that point she would find a job making $30,000 per year, doing exactly what she wanted to do, with a kind boss who would take care of her and appreciate her and all those requirements that one has for a perfect job. She sent this thought out into the universe. However, nothing happened. She sent out resume's, she went on temp assignments and so on, we moved, moved again and again and took care of my grandfather and so on. She raised my daughter for that time, and I worked. Well, grandpa died, and I got to see he and my grandmother reunited on the Astral Plane, and Mary came to a decision. See, before she had done nothing to follow through with her desire, no follow-up rituals, no continuing to pump that desire into the universe and 4 years passed without anything happening. However, now she had motivation. She decided that she wanted that job, she could see herself working in that job, the cubicle around her and everything. She kept visualizing it every night, although she didn't do too much more mundanely than she had done before. And within 4 months, she had that perfect job, boss and all. She's now one of the highest ranked people in that company for an Administrative Assistant. Her boss is directly under the CEO. No one else in between her and the owner. Now, this can't be taken as conclusive proof of anything other than her boss knowing a good find when he saw one, but I see it as proof of Magick in action. Consider: She had done the same mundane actions as she had the first time, resumes and temp jobs and so on, with vastly different effects. What changed? From the first time to the second, the only thing that did change was that she believed with all her heart and soul that she would get this job, and worked on it every day. There was no doubt in her mind that she would get it, but she was also patient. That is the telling difference. Her belief. Some nay-sayers would rationalize that there were other factors in play, better job market, better family condition, not as many pressures on her and I, and many other things. The faithful would say that it was not time for her to have that job yet, and that God would bless us when it was time.

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To both of them, I say "bull". It's not God's decision when my wife gets a job, it's hers. It's easy to rationalize anything away to trivialities, and to dismiss any result you care to simply because it does not fit the parameters of the test. She used the same skill set, visualization, knowing instead of believing, and patience to bring to her what she wanted. This is the same skill set that you have been developing since day one. Did she do a lot of mumbo-jumbo rituals? That I know of, she meditated once, and that's all. No rites, no rituals, no props, the only thing she had was her will and desire. What I theorize happened was that she set up resonances in her soul and spirit that said, in effect, "I will have this job. I will not be denied this job. I have earned this job." Since all life touches the Astral Plane, and all souls are part of the Astral Plane, when the BS of day to day is burned away, those resonances set up similar resonances on the Astral Plane. Those resonances on the AP, pulled situations and people into her life that had similar resonances in them, and brought her and the job together in the end. A vibration in her, broadcast into the Astral, set up those same vibrations, and drew similar vibrations to it and her. Which had the real-world effect of bringing her and the job she wanted together. As I have said, this is multiplied on the AP itself. When you are there, and set up the same set of vibrations, the vibrations are more powerful. Consider: Which sets up more waves in a pool of water? Holding a tuning fork over the water or plunging it into the water? So, setting up these vibrations becomes somewhat easier to manipulate since on the Astral Plane you can see what you are doing, and know how to fine tune the desire or wish to bring it to you. You will know if you need to add more of *this* desire, and take away more of *that* wish, and so on. You can actually SEE these spells as they will work, and "purify" them to a certain extent. Related to that, you can also do divination on the Astral Plane. Remember back several thousand lessons ago I gave you the graphic for the "tree theory of time" when we were discussing might-have-beens? I made a cryptic statement about how it's perspective that will allow us to know what will be coming? Here's where I talk about that some more. On the Astral Plane, you are equal to the Gods. You have all the powers and abilities of a God, as well as having the perspective of the Gods. If you call up a representation of time in your Astral Temple, you will be able to see more of the pattern than just the few seconds that you know about.

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You will see potentialities branching off what you are living now, see the steps that will lead you to those possibilities, and know the pitfalls along the way. You will start understanding that time and space don't exist because you can see what will be coming. Now, this, like everything, is a double edged sword. Knowing what is coming up takes the fun out of life. Granted, it also diffuses the fear of living, but some people enjoy getting surprised by life. It also takes the hope out of life as well. Think about this. You are in a bad situation, and through divination you KNOW that there will be no relief for a long time, as you also know there will be no resolution to any of the courses of action you take to solve this. You will stay in this state for quite some time, and you will not be able to get out of it. Kind of takes the "it'll be better tomorrow" out of life, doesn't it? So, that's one pitfall that you can avoid. Looking too much will change even what you are seeing, and you will have problems with your life if you spend all your time in the future. One problem I ran into was the "their life is more interesting than mine, so I will watch them all the time" trap. Yes, other's lives are probably more interesting, but remember that it's relative. You are only seeing the "high points" in their lives, not the day to day drek that everyone goes through, and very few of the problems. In the final analysis, I bet your life is just as interesting as theirs is. Okay, no assignment this time, but I would like to hear thoughts, or requests for more elaboration. There is lesson 19 and 20 to go before we start on the review, and I would like to get all the questions or points that are still unclear disposed of before we go over all the material again. Any comments made that I promised to elaborate on later and have not gotten to, any unclear explanations, anything that you would like reviewed again, please let me know. I'll collect them and include them in lessons 19, 20 or the reviews.

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Lesson 19: Reincarnation and Other things Okay, in this lesson I will be covering three topics. The first is going to be Reincarnation and how it interacts with OOBE, the second will deal with "shared projections" and the last will be a short essay on Shields and Wards (to go with last lesson's topic of Astral Combat.)

So, Reincarnation and OOBE. Here we go off into subjective areas again. Bear with me. Remember back several lessons ago when I was talking about how with the perspective of the Gods, we can see more of the future and the past than we have experienced? Well, that perspective is on the Astral Plane. Many occultists and projectors have theorized that there is no time or space, that those concepts are only projections of our mind to allow us to function in this world. Quantum physics (from my understanding) has proven basically the same thing to a point. However, on the Astral Plane you already know that time/space does not exist. With that, it becomes really easy to discover that there is more to time that one thought. Here's another analogy I use all the time to explain how time does not exist. If one thinks of all time as being recorded on a tapestry, with the far upper left hand of it representing the "Big bang" when time started, and the bottom right hand corner being the point where time ceases, then you have the perspective to see how things interact with each other. Now, granted, we are but a small dot on that tapestry, but assume that it is capable of infinite resolution until you are alive and interacting in a time/space continuum. Standing back from the tapestry, you can see the entire saga of time as it is recorded in the tapestry. You can see the patterns the threads make, you can see the images contained in that tapestry, and you can see how THIS section of the tapestry relates, compliments and supports THAT section of the tapestry, even if they are removed from each other by several feet. Upon approaching closer, and looking at an Eon rather than the entire picture, you start seeing details. The Rise of man, the subtle colors and weave patterns that were not apparent when you were back a way from the tapestry. Coming 188

closer still, you start seeing small patches and threads of the tapestry, and eventually you see only one thread, with all the fibers sticking up, the small discolored stain on the thread, the place where it is worn away, but you don't see the overall pattern any longer. You can no longer see how this thread is important in the overall picture, nor how it affects the tapestry as a whole. Coming to life here is like moving in and seeing only one thread. You have a very narrow perspective of the overall work, and you become concerned only with that small section of the tapestry. In fact, it is entirely possible that you loose the sense of being in a tapestry at all, since all that you see and perceive is other threads, weaving in and out of each other, with no sense of order or pattern. If you are very lucky, you can see some general patterns that are repeated (this thread goes up and over this one, then dives beneath that one, then over the other thread and under the next thread and so on) but that's about it. When you are on the Astral Plane, you gain the perspective to see much more of the tapestry. You may not be able to see ALL of it, but you can definitely see more than just the little corner that you are on. How does this relate? Well, you can start by seeing that if time/space is just a function of our mind, then there is no past or future, all times are now. There are no past lives, no future lives, only lives you are living now. And since space is contingent on time, all places are HERE. So by just being able to see into the Astral Plane, you can meet and talk to yourself from any incarnation you choose to. You can be in any location and any time you wish, to interact or to just observe. Really advanced shit, huh? Now, one of the things that was discussed in past is death and what happens next. I gave some of my theories and I will go over them again here, for the benefit of those who didn't have a mailing list to send questions in on. LOL The original question was "what is the 'real outcome in the end" once we die. My answer: I believe (and have checked this through those who have died and I spoke to after ALL their incarnations died as well) that once we are dead that all the lives recombine into one. As you know, the spirit and soul is what leaves the physical body upon death. The soul recombines into one soul, rather than staying in 100,000,000,000,000,000 pieces. But the Spirit does stay in as many pieces as were left when all the bodies died.

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Here's what I think happens next. All those spirits are put into a "data bank" that the soul can access at any point, with each spirit being separate and unique. I liken it to having a hard drive and putting 100,000,000,000,000,000 one kilobyte files on that drive. Pretty quickly it fills up and you keep putting more files in to that drive. Each file is unique, even though they may look the same. However, I can access those files at any time I need to. It's just a matter of finding the right file. After a while, I decide to index those files. In that indexing, I find that 44% of those files have the line "Was born in California". 22% of those files have "was male" 77% of those files say "married with one child" and so on. The point here is that the majority of the "lifetimes" led by those versions of me have a child, a majority of them are female and a majority of those lifetimes were started in someplace other than California. It's that average which determines which lifetime "wins" as the predominant lifetime. When accessing past lives, you get the lifetime that has ALL those majority components and that is what is examined. It is possible to examine some of the unlikely lifetimes, where something really odd happened, but the majority lifetime (henceforth called the default) is what is normally looked at. That default life is also the one that determines if you learned the necessary lessons that you chose for yourself. Think about it, if you have 50.1% of the lifetimes that you led learning to be patient, that is a majority of sorts. You can choose to learn that lesson again if you want until that percentage is somewhere around 75 or so, but that's enough. That lesson has affected the soul to the degree that it does not need to learn that lesson again, because in those 100,000,000,000,000,000 lifetimes, 50.1% of the soul you now have from all of them rejoining know how to be patient. Understand? Which brought up the question of how those lifetimes are rejoined once they are dead. Whether or not it's all at once, or one at a time as bodies die from mighthave-beens. To which I say, pick one. If there is no time, then the rejoining of those souls and spirits into one again happens instantaneously upon death. In fact, looked at that way, our lifetimes here are nothing more than the blinking of our eye. We could, even be going through this lifetime chronologically, in which a certain nexus is reached in one lifetime, and a choice is made, and upon death we decide to "rewind" this life till we get to that nexus and we decide to explore a different path. And THAT is what creates the might-have-beens. Or so one could surmise. If, however, they are joined together upon death (and assuming that each lifetime ends at a separate time) then I would assume that they collectively wait until they

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are ALL dead before contemplating what they did and didn't learn. At which point they can go back to any point on the tapestry and enter a new life, perhaps even one close to this lifetime (one or two threads to the right...) So, no matter how you look at it, they DO rejoin, there IS a period of contemplation, and there is a decision to come back to a physical plane to life another life or to stay on the Astral plane and guide others. Which, naturally begs the question, does the lifetime in question have to be here on THIS planet? No it does not. We humans assume that since we are the only intelligent species that we know of, that we are the only one. However, I think that there are multiple planets out there with intelligent life and at least vegetable and animal life on them. We could conceivably learn just as much about being a piece of seaweed on Alpha Centauri as we could from being a piece of seaweed here on Earth. And that's not all. Each might have been also has a history and a tapestry, along with it's own inhabitants. Upon death, I could decide to live a lifetime as a female dominatrix in a world where that behavior is normal and my services are highly sought after, while taking care of the president of the American Republic (encompassing the North and South American continents) and so on. But that is a world that could be a might have been, or completely created by me to teach me the lessons I need to learn. And, ultimately, does it matter? I get the lifetime I need to learn what I need to learn, no one is harmed or killed in the making of this "movie" and there is no foul. But, this is also my own belief. Your mileage may vary. One of the things that needs to be thrown out rather quickly, is the belief in a time/space. Once you die, there is no more time nor is there space. So, you can literally go to any time you choose and any place you decide. You can live there and interact with the people, or you can choose to be aware of only that existence. Some choose to move through the worlds and retain knowledge of their previous existence and retain knowledge of the overall tapestry. Some choose to only know the little thread they are on and forget everything else. Here, on this planet in this physical form, we have forgotten that tapestry and know only this existence. However, with AP and all that I have been showing you all, it is possible to get a wider perspective of the tapestry than just our little section. Okay, having blown you all away with this, I'm going to talk a bit about shared projections.

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Is it possible for two people to share one projection? Is it possible for two people to be witness to the same accident? Yes, it is possible, but once again your own perceptions will come into play and change it somewhat. I know of some people who are supposed to be able to awaken AP abilities in others by pulling them out of their body while they themselves are in an astral state. They lift the soul of the person up to their level, and start showing them the wonders of the Astral Plane. It can be done, and I have done it once with another. However, while many things for both will be similar, this is only effective for those who are doing a full body projection rather than a remote viewing. I don't know much about it, but since both people are in a state that is exactly the same, their perceptions will be similar. In my experience, it is possible for this to be done, but while I have done it on one occasion, I don't know enough about this subject to be able to do more than point out a few things. First is the problem of remembering the projection. It does no good to wake someone on the Astral Plane and have an entire adventure with them if they can't remember it once they awake in their bed. DeGarcia had several instances of this, if you recall his work. Second is the problem of physical location. If you know where this person is in this reality, you have a better chance of being able to pull them out of their body. However, there is the problem of "setting up" a time and place to meet, and in my experience that just doesn't work too often. And that is my collective wisdom on this subject. ;-)

Shields and Wards (Previously published on an email group called Astral and Beyond) One of the first things that needs to be assumed when dealing with these protections is that they are real. If you assume that they are simply a projection of your imagination, you may as well stop now. No matter the tradition you are trained in, ALL of them have some variant of protection as part of it's structure. Some examples of this are: Wiccans "Casting a Circle" Christians "Dedication and Sanctification" Native ceremonies of blessing and consecration of the Drum Circle Prayers for protection and so on. Most of these seem to be prayers, very few traditions and religions go so far as to make this a magickal rite in and of itself.

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However, when dealing with the Astral World, one must assume that because you are able to interact with that world, that there are things that need to be protected against. Some of them are nuisances, some are curious, and some are truly dangerous. Also you must keep in mind that just as you can protect an area for yourself, so can others. So, if you encounter a wall on the Astral Plane that you cannot get past, leave it alone. Regardless of the type of protection that is needed, there are a few steps that are similar. First is the preparation; getting yourself into a meditative or ecstatic mindset in which your consciousness is altered enough to allow you to see on the Astral Plane without leaving your body. Second is the visualization of what you want to do. Third is usually the actual construction of the protections (generally with the medium of a god-like being helping or doing it themselves). Last is the assumption that the protections are working and forgetting about them. The preparation phase is probably the easiest to actually do, since it's the same state that you go into each night before you fall into true sleep. It's a self-hypnotic state in which you can see into the Astral Plane, see the things that you wish to protect against, sense them or what have you. It's a lowering of the mental barriers the most of us have in place on a day to day basis that allow us to function in only THIS plane. Once they are lowered and you are calm and centered, step two can be started. This is where you decide just what you need. Do you shield yourself or Ward the House you are in? A shield is mobile and will travel with you, and consequently is easier to construct, but a Ward will protect anyone in the home with you. However, to counteract that advantage, anyone on the inside of the wards will be able to invite other beings across. Understand, a Shield or Ward acts exactly like a force field on the Astral Plane. It will repel and prevent things on the Astral Plane from crossing it's boundaries so long as it is in existence. In addition, anything that exists on the Astral plane inside those protections will be unable to cross those protections to get out, so it could be effective in trapping a spirit that you wish to be contained. Generally, the mental visualization that many use is a sphere or egg of light, surrounding and encasing whatever it is they want to protect. That sphere is sometimes shrunk down to the surface of whatever is being protected, but not always. In this case, your aura is almost exactly like a shield, the only difference being that the aura itself is completely unconscious protection, and a shield is under conscious control. A shield or ward can also protect from things like magick and psychic abilities as well. If, for example, you are one of those who feel other people's emotions all

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the time (also referred to as an Empathy), a shield can keep those emotions out of your perception and allow you to regain a good deal of mental stability. Many meditations, self-hypnotic tapes and guided meditations take you through this step without you being aware of it. If you have ever listened to any of these, do you remember the part where the person speaking was talking about how your body was relaxed and the light was all around you? That is the set of suggestions that enable you to construct a simple shield around yourself. It usually doesn't last beyond the end of that session, but it still protects you to an extent while you are in this trance. Now, having determined the type of protection you need, how do you go about creating it? Most shields and Wards are created entirely with the visualization of the mind. Most times, the caster creates the structure of the protection in his imagination, feeds energy into it from themselves, and releases it to settle around whatever is to be protected. It can be as simple as feeling as though you are wrapping yourself into a thicker and thicker blanket, to standing under a waterfall, to building a brick wall around you, to seeing a crystalline faceted geodesic sphere around your house. It all depends upon your skill in visualizing what you want it to look like. Normally many people have a good idea what they want to keep out with this kind of ritual, be it intangibles such as thought and emotion, to magickal energies that could be directed at them, to astral beings that are not specifically invited into the wards, to everything. You need to keep this in mind as you construct these wards and shields. I'll share with you MY shielding/warding spell and tell you about my permanent wards on my house, just to give you an idea. However, this is not all inclusive and there will be links to other articles dealing with this same subject at the end of this essay. Daven's Wards and Shields I have two different kinds of shields, really. I have the wards on my home, which I take a part of when I leave it, and then there is the shields that I put up in case I need to do something psychic away from home. I'll tell you about the second kind first. When I start (we will assume this is a magickal rite, or a spell that I'm casting), the first thing I do is define the area I wish to protect. If it is only myself, as opposed to a Circle in which I invoke the Gods and so on, then all I do is simply see a ball of light deep inside my chest, inside my heart. I see that ball as being perfectly solid, bright and full of energy. I grow that ball larger and larger, until it is

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solid and filling my chest area. Now, this does take energy. I then tell that ball of light that it will be come a shield around me to keep out ____________________. Because I'm the one creating this, I make sure that the energy understands me and that I have convinced it that it will become a shield. Then I continue to expand that ball, while a hollow place in the center of that ball forms. As the sphere continues to expand, the walls get thinner and everything that is negative in my is driven out in front of those expanding walls of light. Eventually, I finish expanding it around me. Now I'm in the center of that sphere of light, with it surrounding me and taking it's energy directly from me and my lifeforce. Usually at this point, I shrink the sphere down so that it is right next to my skin, once again surrounding me and continuing to glow brightly. I dim the intensity of the glow down so that it is not so bright, and thin the walls of that shield until I can sense the things I need to outside of the shield. That's it. End of the fireworks. The process is similar for a Ward, and my first ones were exactly the same, save that I kept expanding the shield until it surrounded my house, then shrunk it down to the walls of the house I was in, and then I hooked the electrical power in the walls into the shields so that the ward would be powered by the electricity itself, rather than from me. Here are links to some other wards and shields I know of: http://davensjournal.com/TTRoW.htm Wards and Guards Questions and answers about shielding Protecting Yourself A Simple Warding Two Protective Rituals http://pagan-home.com/bos/shield.htm http://www.tryskelion.com/banishing.htm http://www.tryskelion.com/cast_circle.htm http://www.tryskelion.com/mirror_shield.htm http://www.tryskelion.com/protcone.htm http://www.tryskelion.com/spell18.htm just to name a few. ;-) Most often, wards and shields are nothing more than creative visualization, although there are enough times that someone takes it to an extreme and makes a whole rite out of it. Please note a few things:

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1. These do not necessarily get rid of something that is already there, it will only protect from new outside influences 2. This does not sanctify an area, that is a whole 'nother rite. 3. People inside the wards (as opposed to the shields) will be able to invite other beings inside, without your consent, unless you take steps to make sure that you are the only one with the authority to invite them in (adding a structure to the ward). 4. These need power continuously. Most commonly a shield is directly linked into the spine and powered from your energies. A ward is usually powered by an outside source, such as the elements or electricity. 5. As the creator of them, YOU will know if someone breaches them without consent, but you will have to figure out what that "feels" like. And finally, a caution. Once cast, you can get rid of the wards or shields by simply believing them not there. So, if you have the occasion to remember your shield or ward, know that they are still there, still protecting you, or you will have to go through the entire rigmarole again. I'm adding the text of an email I got a while back from a mother who was being haunted by an astral entity, and had written me for help. She consequently wrote back and told me that it worked perfectly and she had no further problems.

Greetings! Well, this is an interesting problem you have. I can only offer some suggestions, not a solution. First off, you must understand that a shield like what you tried to erect around your house only keeps out new influences, it does not prevent those that are already there from continuing to occur. Think of this like you would a building. The Shield or Ward is like the physical walls of this building, and locking the doors will keep out others, but not prevent everything from being stolen by those who are already inside. You are going to have to cleanse your house. By that I mean you will need to vacuum the entire house, bottom to top, dust and clean everything in your house, including anyone who is living inside. If it helps, use an herbal bath designed for cleansing like you will find in some books or on the Internet under "aromatherapy". Next, you will have to bless your house. First, raise a "temporary" shield around the house. Think of a force-field like from Star Trek completely enclosing your house, even through the ground. Next you will use that smudge you had to drive

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out the things in the house. "See" them, in your mind, being driven out of your house by the smoke of the smudge and through the force-field you put up. Go through every part of the house with this smudge, fanning the smoke into the corners and against the walls as well. Start from the center of the room and work your way outward. Once that is done, turn the shield you have around your house into a permanent barrier. Simply "see" it shrinking down to the walls and roof and foundation of the house and settling there. See the electrical system feeding the energy to the shield to keep it erect and present. That's all you need to do. This should keep out everything that you do not specifically invite into your home. Your Angels, Guardians, Guides, Teachers, what-have-you will not cross this barrier unless you tell them it's okay for them to be present. Everything else it will keep out. If none of this works, find a metaphysical shop in the area and talk to them. They may be able to help you more than my email will be able to. It also sounds like your salt melted. It can do that you know. It usually only happens to rock salt, but I have heard of it happening to table salt in high temperature. But doing this ritual the way I have written should make sure you are never bothered by whatever this is again. Let me know how this comes out.

And that's all for now. Take care everyone!

Assignment Okay, It's time to get serious. Just about everything that I could cover in this class has been. SO, I need you all to turn in : 1. Any questions or points of clarification you may need. I'll compile them into one document for lessons 21 and 22. 2. An evaluation of this class. I will be sharing this on lesson 20 along with reasons for the exercises I had you do. Include in there an evaluation of me as an instructor 3. Anything else that I have not covered in previous lessons that you thinks needs to be covered in this class that you may have heard about from 197

other sources. I have a mind like a steel trap when it comes to metaphysics, and I may be able to come up with answers to the questions you have, but I need to know what those are. As far as I know, I have exhausted every topic that I can think of that is part of AP and so on. To Read: Go back and re-read the lessons starting from lesson 1. If you need to see the anwers that you or your fellows put up for one reason or another, I can supply them too. Only read to lesson 10 because that is what Lesson 21 is going to be about. To think about: Tell me what kind of exam you want: Multiple choice/True-False answers or essay questions. The Exam will be open notes, although I will be bringing down the lesson site when we actually have it. If Multiple choice and True False, there will be about 100 to 200 questions on the test, and if an essay, there will be about 20 questions to answer (with a minimum word requirement of 50 words each). I can write either.

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Lesson 20: How and Why In this lesson, I will be doing several things: In this first section, I will be telling you all the hows and whys of each exercise that I had you do. I'm hoping that with this information, you can find the general pattern of what I was trying to teach. And I'm under no illusions that you have already figured out that pattern even before I do this. In the next section I will be answering some of the concerns/points raised in the class evaluations and explaining them. Hopefully you will be able to see some of the problems I had to face this class, and perhaps together we can figure out how to improve this for the next set of students (because I'm giving this again next March.) So, on to the reasons: Lesson 1: An Essay about yourself. I assigned this to you because of several reasons. First was so that I knew who I was dealing with, and to give me some handle on the personalities of the students. I was able to spot several people who I thought would be problems and have problems with this class, and sure enough they all dropped out. It also showed me who did not want to do the work, and that work was critical to this class (as I think you all have learned). I also wanted you to start evaluating yourself. Normally, in the course of a class of this nature given in the real world, I would be observing you and evaluating you based on my perceptions. Now, even though the cyberworld is a lot more powerful in some cases, it doesn't really lend itself to evaluation of that nature, so I needed to get you thinking about yourself. It's amazing just how many of us don't ever think about ourselves because we have been trained out of it. So this was necessary. Lesson 2: Starting Meditation and new notebook In lesson 2, I asked you to get a notebook and start writing in it. I asked you to answer some specific questions, and I also asked you to start meditating. I hope the reason I had you meditating is obvious at this point. As to the questions, there we have multiple reasons again. I wanted you to start understanding that the Astral Plane is plastic and subject to your whims, and in that come up with a "safe" environment to start from. Having that beginning point before you start exploring is a very necessary step. The rest of the questions are simple definitions of that safe spot. It was a way for me to

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trick your mind into defining specific parameters without you knowing what I was doing. This was not to confuse or betray, but because we had not covered the concepts involved yet, and to do so would have taken up too much time. Plus it would have eliminated the need for later lessons. I really try not to "core dump" on my students. If you have a clearly defined starting point, one that you are safe in, and I start telling you that you will start there and that you will come back to it anytime you need to, you have a real anchor point in Astral Space for when you get scared or attacked. That was another reason. Plus it makes it easier to explore if you know that your "home base" is always there. It gives you a reference point. Lesson 3: Your own meditation and might have beens Okay, in this lesson I was trying to customize it somewhat to your needs. I am not so arrogant to think that my meditations are going to work for everyone. I understand that they will only TRULY work for me, so I wanted to give you the tools necessary to make your own pattern of thought that would get you to the Astral Plane. You do that through meditation. As to the thinking about outcomes that may have happened, well there we have another situation where we needed to get you thinking about you again. It's an interesting phenomenon; someone makes a Plan, and they don't think it through. Here's an example: I used to play Role Playing games, one of which was Star Wars. At one point we found an alien race that could hide themselves and other matter from detection using the Force if there were enough of them together. To make a long story short, we decided to hide a planet from detection near the Empire's main ruling planet, so we could monitor their activities. We planned every stage of everything. We found an appropriate planet, started teaching fighter jocks how to be farmers, began terraforming the planet, even came up with a plausible story about the planet vaporizing and had debris to scatter around the planet to give it credibility. Every stage we could do we did and went on multiple adventures to do all this. We got our asses handed to us by the Empire before we could ever get the plan finished because we didn't think it through. These aliens used the Force to do their "hide-me" trick. What does the Emperor and Vader use all the time? The Force. Could they detect us by the disturbance in the Force around them? Easily. And quite a number of our primary characters didn't live because the players didn't fully think this through. The point of this story? I wanted to start you in the habit of thinking things through. Hopefully it would stick once you realized that there are a lot of second,

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third and fourth order consequences from your actions, and that you can't predict everything that is going to happen. And this was setting the stage for a further exploration of Might-Have-Beens at a later time. The journal I encouraged you to start so that you had a baseline record for comparison and something that you could look at and see your progress in. Something so that you can see qualities and attitudes that have changed in the time you have been in this class. That was one reason, but the primary reason is the stated one, that of having a record of symbols and dreams so on to start building your own English--->Subconscious translation dictionary. Lesson 4: Dream Log, Rules of conduct I would hope the reason for this is obvious. Having rules that you obey in dealing with other creatures only makes it fair. You have etiquette here on the physical plane, why not on their realms? It makes no sense to operate as though everyone on this plane could be a potential ally, while going around and through apathy making hundreds of enemies on the Astral Plane. Since potentially you would be spending a LOT of time on those other realms, the potential for injury to you is enormous. As to the Dream log; most of it was my curiosity and more getting a handle on each of you and what you need. More of the evaluation process and finding out how much detail you were putting down. Lesson 5: Structure of the Planes Okay, the reason for this exercise was so that you started defining the Astral Plane for yourself. I didn't want you to get into a real confusion as to where you were at or going to, so you needed to define some of the general aspects for yourself. I had given three theories of the structure, and I wanted you to decide for yourself which you were comfortable working within and come up with reasons why, so I had a better handle on how to describe some of the things I would be describing to you. Plus, it's important for you to decide which makes more sense to you so that your explorations are a bit more logical. And this is a place that may be created by imagination and tweaked by creativity, but it is subject to some logical laws and structure. It's one of those "art and science" things again. As to the rest of it, I wanted you to give me feedback again. I know that I ask for it a lot, but this is my first really big teaching course. The others I bragged about so much were pretty simple compared to the scope of this class. This was the first time that I would be sharing everything I know on a subject, so I wanted to make sure that 1) I was not going too fast 2) that everything I was saying was

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understood 3) I could sculpt what I was teaching for you and that I knew what I needed to make this a good class. Lesson 6: Personal evaluation and Checklist More on the "why do you tick the way you tick?" Again I wanted you to look at yourself and decide where you wanted to work on things and have another benchmark of progress. It's interesting to go back and look at yourself in later times and go "wow, I have really done some growing in this last _________." I know I do it on a regular basis, and it's good to have some kind of yardstick to measure your progress against. This goes double for a checklist of problems or goals. Lesson 7: Visualization and subsequent exercises Okay, this should be obvious as well now. Visualization is everything on the Astral Plane, and it is also important for the meditations. This was simple "sculpting" for your personal preferences and practice. I know what I use will not work for everyone, so I was hoping to see some "markers" of progress (i.e. strong reactions to one or more of these visuals) and help you find what works for you. The Gods know I don't have a lock on TRUTH. Lesson 8: Correlation of data Well, this exercise was so that you would have another baseline in finding what works for you. This data would have been important had you discovered that one or more factors affected you in some way. It would have told you several things, like if the moon phase helped/hindered or if your wedding ring prevented you from projecting. I know many Pagans aren't into scientific data or method, but there are times when doing something esoteric that scientific process needs to be applied to find out what factors DO affect you, so they can either be encouraged or avoided. I'll tell you now, I have never had any other factors other than my will affect whether or not I could project. Granted at times when I'm tired I'm likely to fall asleep, but I also have Sleep Apnea and have a problem breathing at night, so during meditations the tenancy is to go on over to sleep because of how tired my body is. Lesson 9: DeGarcia and reviews Okay, this should be self explanatory. The reason I had you write the reviews of the books in his bibliography is due to several things; 1 I don't have the lock on truth, 2 I don't have time to read everything he references, and I have not read most of them, 3 I wanted to see what some of those other books were about and

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if they were good, 4 You need to understand that there are other ways of doing things than I tell you about. Lesson 10: Other creatures and their stories Some of this was selfishness, I wanted a story about a group of entities that I didn't have to write. But that's the minor reason. More to the point, I wanted to shake out the "Great White Christian Father" mindset that many of us grow up with, and also the mindset of "I'm better because I'm human" set of thoughts that are just as bad. Make no mistake, on the AP just about everything is intelligent. If we went to that plane and treated a spider there the way we treat most spiders here, we would probably be really hurt. Who's to say that this spider on the AP is not the Spider Totem and fully capable of giving you a lesson that you won't soon forget? The questions to ask them were simply so that you could think of something to ask them when you finally met them. It's pretty embarrassing to finally meet a Leprechaun and when he asks if you have any questions, you can't think of anything. They laugh too long when that happens. Lesson 11: Other Resources and Dreams Once again, giving you an idea of the wealth of information out there and available to you on the subjects I was teaching. I WANT you to use other references to add to your knowledge simply because I can be wrong. Look at the results of that lesson where I state that Dreams are B&W and Lucid Dreams are Color. It turns out that all of you told me that your dreams were ALL color and almost never B&W. So I turned out to be wrong in that. So, I must now revise my thinking on this subject and work on a different division of those types of dreams. But that's what this class has been all about. Lesson 12: Review of DeGarcia's Bibliography I think I explained this one in the actual text of the assignment. Lesson 13: Defining spirituality Okay, in many ways this is where I start screwing up. The Lessons were late and last minute and so on. In many cases they were scattered as well. I cry "RL problems" and ask you to forgive me on that. When Projecting for any length of time, most of the classic definitions of religion and "how the universe works" start really getting shaken up. Meeting Gods and finding out that they are just like us is a blow to most people. It can be a time

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when your religion and spirituality is strengthened, but more often it leaves people going "what the heck do I believe now?" This was my subtle suggestion to find out for yourself what you believe. Many people believe what others tell them to believe, and that's a shame because my associations and feelings won't be the same as yours and never will be. So you will have to define things for yourself. Lesson 15: Reading One and Stranger in a Strange Land The reason I mentioned these books is because both of them were seminal in changing my perspectives on the Universe and my spirituality. I was hoping to give you something good to start your own definition on. Also I hoped that you could better understand the material I was giving you if you could understand the sources I was drawing upon. Lesson 17: Fixing problems and Fivetrees Well, the problem fixing is so that you have some goals to work toward and now have a practical application of OOBE in your life. As to the Fivetrees site, I had hoped to give some more variety of material. Most of the Guardians that I know work on the Astral Plane all the time and we know what to look for and how to do things. So, it was an attempt to let you know that we are out there, show you that my experiences are NOT isolated to me, and to allow those who feel they have a calling to this to continue on in this vein and have some good reference works. Lesson 19: Turn in material for Lesson 20 Well, since this lesson is the compilation of this assignment, I would hope that it's obvious. This is also another method of me seeing how good a teacher I am and where I need to work with you all before the exam.

Okay, part 2 of this lesson, the feedback and evaluations. Most of you expressed a concern about the length of the class and/or a concern about the time between the lessons themselves. Too long between them, you say, allows you to forget the questions you wanted to ask when you first read the lesson. I can get behind and understand this criticism. However, in my own defense, let me explain how this job came about for me.

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I was minding my own business last year, when an e-mail hits my Inbox. It had an announcement about how the Online Mystical School was now taking applications for students in some of the courses they offered. So I went to their site and signed up for two courses. As a student and offered my services if necessary as an instructor in High Magick. Not in OOBE. I didn't think I was qualified. A lot of email traffic between Umbria and myself ensued at that point. I thought I had signed up to teach the OOBE and High Magick Courses offered, Umbria thought I had signed up for the OBOD High Magick course only. See where some of the confusion came in? Well, it was the last week of February, and I asked Umbria where the applications of the students were and when I had to have the first OOBE lesson in. At which point, I get a letter back going "YOU signed up to teach that class??? Oh my goodness, you gotta get on the stick. I IMMEDIATELY need a course outline, syllabus and any lessons you already have!" or something like that. I have the actual emails around here someplace. See, they were just going to take it in shifts as to who was teaching it, whomever is free giving advice and posting a few lines on "read this book" and so on. Then it got dumped in my lap (willingly I admit). So, here I am, and I have to come up with an entire class outline, course schedule (which was already set as one year, two weeks between classes) and start writing as fast as I could. So, perhaps you can see how it got a lot away from me? The first post is pretty scattered in the panic that I was in to get SOMETHING out, and I didn't have time to logically lay out the lessons as to A, then B then C. I basically wrote down everything I could think of relating to OOBE and sent that in, at which point I was committed (and probably should have been). The first two months were a study of me reading like a fiend, getting books out of the library, so I could talk intelligently about them, frantically posting lessons, coming up with assignments, trying to organize my thoughts, have a real life too, deal with moving and only having computer access at work and so on. Sorry about that. The course schedule was already locked in and that's the framework I had to work in. In some ways it was good that I didn't have to decide that or it would have been worse. So, a lot of the "it didn't have teeth" and "no reward earlier on" statements are directly attributable to this crush I was under. I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to undermine your confidence in me. I actually (to my great surprise) managed to handle it all, and get a little ahead of the game.

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Then the message board died and we switched to an email format. I prefer doing it in an email personally, but that's me. The checking in was because we had 11 students drop out of the class within the first two months, probably due to this lack of organization on my part, and the fact that I actually wanted people to work, rather than spoon-feed them the answers. The message board actually detracted from the sense of Classroom that could have been built in an email format in my opinion. But, I was taking over for someone else (at least at first) and I had their preferences to work within. There would have been no way to work a chat night into my schedule and I told Umbria that directly when we talked about it. At that time I ONLY had Internet access from work, which was only about 1/3 of my time. None at all on the Weekends. The library computers are packed on Saturdays and Sundays and the only way I could have gotten a computer there would have been to physically punch them off it. So, we could have had the chats during the weekdays, and while that might have worked for me, I doubt you all would have been able to do that. I always tried to respond individually to the questions/points raised, either in the lesson or in the responses. However, with the Message Board it made it more complex than necessary, and I got the strong impression that no one was looking at those boards, only me. However, that's neither here nor there. One thing that Umbria DID want to do, that I supported was the Secrecy of assignments. This was why she had you emailing your assignments to her and then she posted them, and I responded to them, so you couldn't pull answers/ideas from each other. I have that capability and I think I will exploit it to the max in the next round of classes. Yes, you were Guinea pigs in many regards. Congratulations for surviving a LOT of mess ups and fumbling teachers. LOL I appreciate that you all think I'm a really good teacher (and my underdeveloped ego thanks you) but I know that I messed up in MANY places. Hopefully I can do better next time. To respond directly to ILikeToThink now, I would LOVE it if the other students would also join in and share their experiences as well. I had asked for that several times (I thought) in some of the assignments, but apparently I was misunderstood. I also think an Email list for the Graduates is a REALLY good idea, but right now there are 4 of you. I know that any count will only show three, but I have one other student who came in really late (like two months ago) and caught up with all of you. I have all her assignments, but she's not on the email list. I'll be speaking to someone about getting her on this list and credit for passing the course.

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I would also like to suggest that instead of making another list, why don't we all get on one list together? Like the list that Tamia is part of (and me too now). That way we could share our experiences with others. Now, I'm also in a quandary. ILikeToThink, you are right, there is absolutely no reason to have an exam, except that I said back in the beginning that I would. So, I guess that I need to ask if you all want a test? I'm somewhat satisfied with what I have been reading out of you all recently and I have only a few qualms about passing all of you. The qualms I do have are more centered on the practice rather than the theory, which is what I would be asking you all about anyhow. So, if you want an exam, tell me and I'll make them, but effectively this course is over and I can give out the certificates now. To go with that, the reviews, do you want to have them? I put them in there because I couldn't think of anything to do for the last three lessons except a review and test, so if you don't want to have them, let me know. I will still be doing the look inside Illusions by Richard Bach. Most of my theory came from this book, and a lot of the way I look at the world now, so I think it's important. However, if you want to skip the next two lessons (the reviews) I will gladly skip them. I am leaning toward having an exam. About 5 essay questions on the theory, allowing you all to explain what you feel is applicable to the Astral Plane and how you are seeing/interacting with it, and how deep your understanding is at this point. You may never understand all that I have made available and what is in books, I know that there are segments that I still don't get, but I'm working on it. So at this point, it's "Go out, have fun, get dirty and create...."

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OOBE Lesson 21: Review Lessons 1-10 From lesson 1: "These techniques and the theory behind OOBE has been around for centuries. It was a requirement for the Shaman of many native cultures, and it was a skill that was actively sought for among the Druids." Let me give you some background here, this is a pretty sensational statement. Shamanism is all about healing on the Otherworlds. Different cultures call those otherworlds different things, like a shaman of the North may call the realms of the Gods Asgard or something similar, but the point is that this is not a new set of skills. Not only have shamans been using this for centuries, but people like the Medicine Men of the Native Americans, the holy men of the Aborigines in Australia, the Priests of African religions, and the Mambo and hogun of Voodoo have used these as well. So this skill is not a new one, it's the fact that we now know more about it and the discussion of these techniques are more open that is new. "If you are a "negative personality" or someone who has a light connection to their body the exercises will be easier." There is nothing wrong with being this kind of person, it only means that your connection to your body is a light one. These are the kinds of people who spontaneously project and who are natural channels of other beings. They move in and out of their own body easily and completely. If you are not this kind of person, no big deal, it just means that it will take longer and more skill to project. "The reason for this stricture is a simple reason. Your environment will be dictated by your mind. If there is something wrong with your outlook on the world, then there will be problems when you project out of your body." I trust that time has proven this to be correct? If you have not faced a "watcher at the door" yet, don't worry about it, you have simply chosen to manifest your fears in some other way. The "watcher" is only the most COMMON manifestation of these fears, not the only one. "AP (Astral Projection) is exactly like near death experiences. They are two sides of the same coin, one where you can come back to your body, and the other side where you leave your body and don't come back at all. It has been theorized that 208

those who death-willed themselves simply projected out and didn't return to their bodies for one reason or another." Remember this. You also need to go back to Lesson 1 and re-read the definitions again, just to refamiliarize yourself with them. Repetition will implant this information more surely than most anything else I know. If you don't have a copy of them, go to http://davensjournal.com/OOBEL1.htm and they are there.

Lesson 2 "Relaxation if the key to meditation, just as meditation is the key to Astrally Projecting." Once again, we are dealing with the mind. I mention this passage specifically since it is an important mnemonic for you, and it brings up the rest of the discussion. Remember this is not a discipline that can be mastered in a few weeks nor one that can be left for years and picked up right where one left off. Personally I have abandoned my meditation multiple times, and each time I had to effectively start again. Granted it was easier to get back to the "final" point since my subconscious was used to acting in certain ways, but it was necessary that I start over each time. There is a big discussion at this point about how to achieve a state of focused consciousness through a variety of techniques. Lucid Dreams, Mortification of the flesh, Trance work and ecstatic trance, Sensory depravation, drugs and three different "schools" of meditation technique are discussed. If you want to, look over the pertinent passages again, but only if you feel that you need a refresher in this section. Later in this lesson I discuss the vibrational level of projection in brief and later we look at that same thing in depth. It's important since these theories are what gives a structure to our projection and in many cases may explain why certain skills are beyond us. In other words, you have to have a model of how the program is SUPPOSED to react before you can decide if the program is good or not, and if it is not good, you can abandon it for a better model. It's the difference between linear logic and fuzzy logic. I give you a couple of other theories of Astral Projection and the Astral Plane at this point, my own with the Cube, and the model of the Astral Plane from D&D. I

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speak quite long on my own theory and look at other theories, so I won't go into that again. Most of the discussion is in later classes however. Finally I talk about my astral temple. As you can see, I tell you that this place will be pretty important to you later, and sure enough, I think I was right. I would like you to honestly evaluate how much importance you have placed on your Temple and decide if this is a device you need.

Lesson 3 In lesson 3 we discussed meditation and hypnosis. Since I state that meditation is the key to AP then this becomes an important skill to have. The reason for doing this should be self-evident. I give you a list of types of meditation, from active meditations like ecstatic trances in Katas to guided meditations, to visualizations and so on. I also give you a set of elements that good meditations have in them, and share with you my meditation. I'm wondering if anyone else found a meditation that helped them that had these or different elements in them. If you did, please let me know, but it's not critical. From there in lesson 3, we go into a long discussion of Might have Beens. I know that this is a recurring theme in my lessons, but this is another one that is important. Might-have-beens are probably one of the most common manifestations of AP there are. Many can keep in this world, some can stay on the Astral Plane, but if there is any talent there at all, going to a might have been is pretty easy. As an experiment, go to an email list for Astral Projection, and start reading their archives. Mentally tally up the number of times that someone posts about their projections and see how many times that projection can be a might-have-been rather than some other manifestation of projection. I bet you get a surprise. And this is a project for after this class as you continue your studies, not for now.

Lesson 4 Lucid dreams was the topic for the practical applications in this lesson. First and foremost was the statement; "A "Lucid Dream" is a dream in which you wake up and can act in the dream as though it was the "real" world." Think back for a bit about how many of your dreams turned out to be lucid. Bet it's a decent percentage, right?

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I go from there into a long digression on to the Will, but I think that subsequent events and discoveries have pointed out to you that I was right on this point as well. The Will is everything when you leave your body. I give you two examples from my life to illustrate that Will is critical, and in the second one, I follow up on later. The second story is continued when I speak on the Aztec Priestess later in the series of lessons. That is the incident I was talking about in this lesson. The continuation of her story is in Lesson 15. Then I hit you with a quote: "If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right." --Mary Kay Ash" I hope you all can see the relevance of this. I try to get some of the more esoteric concepts down to "sound bites" to allow you to grasp the concept without going into 50 pages of explanation. Oh, all right, I do the explanation anyhow, but the sound bites are so you can pull that information back up easily. I touched on several topics that would be spoken on later, just as a way of introducing you to them before we got there. I told you that I don't trust the "universal symbol" books and dream interpretation books out on the market, and I told you why. Also in this lesson I started speaking on Fantasy/Fiction realms and how they are similar to Might have beens and also our own realms. I told you how they generate and come into existence, how they go on from where the original author/creator had them and start developing their own might have beens.

Lesson 5 This is where I started talking about the actual breakdown of the different planes and the different models of their structure. I gave you Monroe's theory, DeGarcia's theories, my theories and how each interrelated to each other. I told you which, in my op pinion, was the "easy" model and which was the "complex" model and why. Also in this lesson I went over many of the different layers to the Otherworlds, and told you what many think they are and what is there. I gave you links to DeGarcia's work explaining all the different levels of the planes as he saw them, and asked you to download his work and to start reading it. One of the things that was also explored for a bit was the "veil of forgetfulness" and I have seen this theory independently verified, I'm pleased to say. In the book "Simple Kaballah" that I'm studying, one of the stories told about is that before we are born, the baby's soul goes before God (YHVH) and learns the answers to everything. When they are born, an angel accompanies them and takes that knowledge from them just before birth, which is why a baby crys upon 211

being born. It's calling out God's name and crying for that lost knowledge. At least, according to Jewish belief. I digressed a bit to give you a basic explanation of the three bodies theory I have, and I think I did a good job explaining it. Briefly I stated that there are three bodies, the Physical body which dies upon death, the Spirit which goes into a database upon death and is dependant on input to learn and grow, and our soul which is affected by the Spirit and which is eternal and immortal. I don't think I confused anyone with those explanations. We also explored some thoughts on why everyone has different experiences on the Astral Plane. Most often, I claim, is that we are individuals and our experiences will be based on what we already know and what we are expecting and looking for. This is also the first time I mention the Silver Cord and what it is and does.

Lesson 6 This was a lesson that answered some of your questions directly and expanded on these topics that you were interested in.

Lesson 7 This lesson discussed the importance of visualization and gave you some tools to be able to increase your visualization skills with consistent practice. I also started with describing Remote viewing to you in this lesson, mainly because this is how I project, using the visualization and these exercises to hone my skill. I also talk about subjective experiences and if they matter or not. I told you my conclusion that they didn't matter whether or not they were all in your imagination or not since they still affected your thinking and your psyche on a subconscious level. It's nice to have a definitive happening in which you can state "YES, that is definitely an Astral Projection episode, and THAT one is simply an overactive imagination" but unfortunately, you probably won't ever be able to do that. But if you can, good for you. I also talked about means of transportation on the Astral Plane. I explained Bilocation (in two places at once), Teleportation (from A to B without crossing space between), Translocation (A to B while going through another plane) and Phasing (moving though solid objects). I talked about several others, but these four needed additional explanations to make them clear.

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Lesson 8 In this lesson we talked about the Monroe Techniques for Astral Projection, at least the "how to" portion of his book, Journeys out of the Body. I advise you all to read this book sometime in the future. I won't go over the post again, but just keep in mind that he goes into great detail in how to project. It is one of the most consistently successful techniques and methods that have been used. Just keep this in mind.

Lesson 9 In this lesson, I went over different sections of DeGarcia's book DO_OBE and discussed them or gave you my "take" on those same passages. Among what I talked about were where his views dovetailed with mine and where I differed in opinion with his thoughts. Re read this lesson and the book if you have a mind to, but I will only be pulling the most general information from his book on the Exam.

Lesson 10 The first portion was some statements to the class and acknowledgement of specific problems and their resolutions. The next big section was a discussion on who you would be meeting in your projections. The list is long and distinguished and I went into some detail with each group. To sum up: Projectors Pieces of you (the Inner Child) Fantasy/Mythological creatures Gods Constructs and thought forms Symbols of things you need to overcome Residents of the Astral Plane Angels/Guides and so on (Helpers to the Gods) Discarnate souls (the dead) Splinters of your personality (or other people's) Astral entities (all other beings that don't fit the above) I also restated the fact that you can't be harmed during projection. You can only be harmed if you think you can be.

Okay, this lesson is over with, the next lesson will cover 11-19 so be ready for that one. Hard on the heels of that review will come the exam.

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Lesson 22: Review Lesson 11 through Lesson 19 Lesson 11: Lucid Dreams Okay, in this lesson, I make the declaration that True Dreams are in Black and White, while Lucid Dreams are in Color, a declaration which was gently refuted by you guys. Meaning that I was mistaken in this declaration. According to your guys, all dreams are in Color, and you only have your intuition to go on to determine which is which. However, I do go on to speak about what is happening when you are asleep and the data you are assimilating while being asleep, and why I think that there is not enough time or energy to put more detail in True Dreams. This is also the first time I mention a "pre echo" of thought, where you know what is going to happen before it happens. Normally in Real Life and in Lucid dreams, you don't have that advantage, but in a True Dream you may know what will be happening a split second before it happens. I went on to share with you one of my lucid dreams that I recorded on a micro cassette recorder that I have, showing how much detail you can get when you record it immediately.

Lesson 12: Guided Meditations In this lesson, I went on for some time on Guided Meditations and what kind of use it could be to you. In essence, it boils down to GMs are a cross between a hypnotic session and a meditation. It has elements of all of these and the same therapeutic uses are there from each, but most times it is not a full hypnotic trance. In other words, from the perspective of the person going through the session, there is no associated loss of consciousness. Generally the person undergoing this technique will remember the entire meditation, rather than forgetting it upon waking. I point out the power that a GM has is due entirely to the fact that you are working in a set of languages that make sense to both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind at the same time. It makes for a powerful therapeutic tool because you can work with the imagery you are comfortable with, and that also makes sense to your subconscious mind. In other words, instead of having to say that you see a fish to represent birth (because a fish lives in water and water represents the amniotic fluid, hey, I've

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seen weirder) you can say that you see a medical table with the stirrups for the mother's legs or the maternity ward where the babies reside after birth. Both of those are powerful images that the Subconscious will understand without further interpretation. At one point, I give you a guided meditation in there, one about recognizing your life and ignoring the belittling your parents did to you. I would like to hear if this helped anyone.

Lesson 13: Theology and OOBE Okay, in a lot of ways, this lesson was one of the more subjective lessons you had to take. In this lesson, we dealt with several subjects that have inhibited many thorough the ages. I fear that in many ways, I was off topic and on a tangent when I wrote this lesson, as I digressed for quite a long time on some personal theories and teachings that truly had nothing to do with AP. However, the theories are solid and in further meditations I got approval from The Powers That Be on this. It is possible for us to learn enough to become the Gods later, and to act like Gods now and here. Later in the lesson I pointed out that the Gods become partners and teachers, companions rather than objects of veneration. Personally, I think that is exactly how we should be acting and treating the Gods. I shared two stories that I felt illustrated my point, one where divine intervention occurred, one where my wife was the Goddess for a rite. I feel these strengthen my position, but there are others who feel this is not the case. Many I have since shared this lesson with feels that treating a God or Gods so casually shows that I'm immature and not ready to be the "beloved of God" or whatever. From there, I touched on "Spirit Sight" as being a skill complementary to OOBE, one that will probably develop as the OOBE skill gets more practice and control. It's kind of like having a sense of smell because you can breathe. It's something that is complementary to the primary ability, a sense that gives more depth and meaning to the primary ability. I also point out that on the Astral Plane one will be coming into contact with the Gods, and that one should understand a few thing about them and determine how one is going to act around them. My point is that most Gods don't demand worship, but they appreciate courtesy.

Lesson 14: Vibrational theory of the Planes 215

Well, in this lesson, I talked about our soul's energy and how this relates to OOBE. With that energy, you can feel a vibration going through your body during meditation, and in some cases temporarily increase that vibration in order to achieve AP. In this lesson, I talk about how our soul's vibrational rate affects not only our ability to AP, but also our upward progression during our lifetime's progress. I point out that just because the overall progress is upward, that the specific changes within that lifetime are not necessarily all positive, that it is possible for one to backslide. One thing that I did NOT talk about in this lesson is the question "Is it possible for the overall progress to backslide and go down" to which the answer is "Yes". Being consistently petty and cruel will have a general downward progress for any one lifetime, and if that happens it is possible for the overall progress to go downward, for this soul to become less enlightened as it were. What affect will this have? It will mean that the soul who is living this lifetime will have to have more lifetimes overall to learn what they need to learn and are failing to learn. But, once again, one needs to realize that this is an order being imposed on observable (and felt) phenomenon. It is entirely possible that none of this actually applies, that the only order or scale being used is one that we have no way of measuring. The last part of this lesson is going over the energy of the Astral Plane and how it can be used as magickal energy and to fuel the psychic and magickal abilities, along with actual physical energies. The theory of physical energy is this: metaphysical and physical energies are the same, just acquired in different manners. There are many times when one uses physical energies to fuel metaphysical ends, so being able to reverse the process is a logical conclusion, correct? And you can do it. Try it sometime.

Lesson 15; What's really happening? This was the first of the purely theoretical lessons, an attempt to explain what is actually going on. I discussed in depth why the Astral Plane differs for each traveler. It's not only the fact that the reality there IS plastic, but that each traveler is trying to find and see different aspects of the plane, based entirely upon their expectations. From the lesson: "One of the biggest objections to the Astral Plane and AP being real is that the accounts of the visitors differ so much. I read in one place that it's like getting a 216

random 50 people off the street, sending them out to a distant city, and asking each to write a comprehensive article on that city once they get back. They are allowed to make no notes, no pictures, and so on and they are expected to write these from memory. Each account will differ, if only in that each person is putting their own experiences into the article, seeing what they want to see (one seeing the children, one the architecture, one the artistic expression and so on) and that they are in different places in that far city, looking at different scenes." I also expanded on splinters and the three bodies and just what they are. I also talk about the environment inside your own mind, and denoted that the "Head" and said that splinters will tend to stay there, but that since the AP touches that region they could get out on to the Astral Plane and other things could get in. I talked about (briefly) how to protect yourself and gave you some thoughts on Shields and Wards. I gave you an experience out of my own life and showed you that this kind of astral combat actually does occur all the time. I talked about using mental psionic abilities while projecting and using magick while on the Astral Plane. How it is easier and more devastating to use these abilities because of the nature of this plane, i.e. having to desire something to make it real. I also discussed in more depth avatars and doppelgänger on other realities. How to create them, what to do with them, who they are, who you are and so on. I highlighted some of the dangers and pitfalls of them, and I also told you there could be some good uses for them as well, especially when you have to do something for quite some time that is repetitive in nature and you are too busy to do it all while you are there. Finally after a long time of talking on this subject, I mention "Walk Ins" and tell you about them. It's one of those things that I have encountered directly on more than one occasion and others have verified which you have to take on faith since you either beleive it is possible or not.

Lesson 16 This lesson we talked about what happens after you die. It is full of a lot of subjective material, but material that has been verified from other sources and people, not just my thoughts. I talk about what a Shaman used to do and why one of the necessities of being a shaman was an ability to project out and return and see and confront the Gods on their own terms and in their own habitat.

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I talk about near death experiences and tell you that in all documented cases of NDE's that they are remarkably similar to OBEs. So it is possible to learn to die on cue and come back. I give a lot of theories about the Astral Plane upon death, and what happens next, but until we die, there is no way to prove any of it. I am glad that it helped some of you in your struggles to deal with the death of a loved one.

Lesson 17 Here in this lesson is where I pontificate for a while on how OOBE can be used to improve yourself and your position in life, mainly by eliminating personality problems that are holding you back. I point out some likely scenarios in which a personality problem may manifest as a person for your to interact with. I also point out that it is unlikely that you will be able to make changes without affecting something else. Since your personality is interconnected and dependant on other portions of you, you cannot make a change to one aspect without affecting another aspect. There are things you can do to minimize the "damage" but you can't eliminate it. I point out that when you are dealing with problems on the Astral, you have more leeway to make mistakes and you can see the effects of your actions in a much quicker way. I give some advantages to dealing with problems on the Astral plane and why you may want to deal with them on the Astral almost exclusively. After dealing with personality problems and AP, I switch to Astral Combat. It's stated that you can engage in combat like this, but that it would probably be better if you didn't. I teach you how to ward and Shield, what a Guardian is and what we do. I also give you some rules on how to act on the Astral Plane to avoid conflicts.

Lesson 18 In this lesson we spoke of Channels and what they do and don't do. Primarily, they don't give us all the answers. The channel is the person sitting in the trance, and the spirit is being channeled is the person we are talking to. What this means is that the channel's soul goes someplace while this is going on.

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I talk about some references that I had found at one time or another dealing with channeling and a suggestion that you read further. Hope you all did. I then talked to you about magick and the Astral Plane, and pointed out that since all the energy to perform magick on THIS plane comes from the Astral Plane anyhow, that casting spells there is sooooo much easier in some ways, but a couple orders of magnitude harder in other ways. Like visualization. Keeping your mind on what you want and not letting it wander at all is a really delicate skill and one that is critical to being able to do this effectively. Pulling energy is easy since all the "places" to pull energy from is already here, and recharging yourself is easy as well. However, it takes some skill to be able to turn that energy into physical energy for use here. I also talked somewhat freely about the pitfalls to living for the Astral too much, such as wanting to see all the other MHBs that you could have taken and being more interested in them than in yourself.

Lesson 19 In this last lesson, I talked about some theories of Reincarnation and what it means to us who can project. Here is the first lesson in which I detail the database as I see it that the Soul goes into. It is like a hard drive on a computer which can hold all this information without loss, and it's the average of those combined lives that determine ultimately what we have to learn the next lifetime. I also state my "tapestry theory of time" and it apparently got good reviews. ;-) I explain that Time and Space are functions of perception and if you can overcome that perception, neither states exist and it is then possible to go anyplace at any time in the blink of an eye. The question was also raised, but never addressed "is it possible to live simultaneous lifetimes on THIS plane?" and I answer that it's possible, but unlikely. Why would one want to live a lifetime here and now, and have another in the here and now when there is an entire multiverse to choose from? But there may be cases where it's necessary so I won't say that it can't ever happen. Then I went more into depth with wards and shields and posted a lot of information on it. Some of it needs to be repeated. A ward being cast, as well as a shield does not get rid of what is there, it only keeps other things from coming in. So the cure for getting rid of something is to 219

make sure you get rid of it the first time, THEN cast the protection, and then invite in only that which you want there.

And that, children, is the end of the review. I am writing the exam as I write this, so it will be ready really soon, possibly in the next few days. So, get on this review and re-read the lessons you don't remember too well. For reference, I'll be posting these reviews to my site, and you can find any of the old lessons there at http://davensjournal.com and you need to click on the button on the left that says "OOBE Class". Or you can just go to http://davensjournal.com/OOBEIndex.htm , which has a listing of all the files relating to this there. There is also the graphics you may need and links to the materials you may or may not have. Hope this has been as challenging for you as it has for me.

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Your OOBE Exam This is how this exam will be taken. You have one chance to take this. If I get multiple submissions from one person, I will discount all others besides the first one. Pick the answer that most closely expresses the correct answer. There are trick questions. You MAY NOT use any notes, lessons, forms or anything else. But, I won't know if you do, so this is on your honor. Click on the button below to submit this once you are done.

The identity I know you as:

Your Email Address

THE TEST You must answer all questions for it to be counted. Any blank answers will be counted wrong. 70% correct is a passing grade. Good luck. 1. Monroe's theory of the Astral Plane is the only one that has the here plane (locale 1) in it's model. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

2. Which visual would accurately reflect the structure of Might have beens? j k l m n

A tree

j k l m n

A highway

j k l m n

A watercourse

j k l m n

All of them

j k l m n

None of them

3. According to DeGarcia, the Void is a valid plane of existence. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

4. Which planes do the Astral Plane touch? j k l m n

The Mind plane

j k l m n

The Physical Plane

j k l m n

The Akashic Record plane 221

j k l m n

Locale 1

j k l m n

All planes

5. Ghosts can exist on any plane, including the Astral, not just the Etheric. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

6. How important is visualization on the Astral Plane? j k l m n

It's the most important skill.

j k l m n

It's pretty important.

j k l m n

It's important, but not as important as other skills like technique.

j k l m n

It's not that important.

j k l m n

It's not important at all.

7. Guardians are there to bail me out when I get in trouble. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

8. A ward is: j k l m n

An egg of light to keep my soul safe while I travel around

j k l m n

An astral construct that I should not mess with.

j k l m n

Something too powerful for me

j k l m n

The prerogative of Guardians only.

j k l m n

A permanent type of Circle for my house.

9. Edgar Cayce was a channel. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

10. Which is a valid form of gaining a trance state? j k l m n

Hypnosis

j k l m n

Going to sleep

j k l m n

Contemplating your navel

j k l m n

Repetitive dance

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j k l m n

All of the above

j k l m n

None of the above

11. You can project while sleeping. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

12. Changing your dreams is important because: j k l m n

It's not important.

j k l m n

Being able to control your dream will allow you to control your projection.

j k l m n

It will allow you to control the creatures in your dreams.

j k l m n

A dream is of no consequence.

j k l m n

If you dream, you can't project.

13. Locale 3 in Monroe's theory is the Astral Plane in Daven's structure. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

14. Which statement is true? j k l m n

The Etheric Plane is not one that you can reasonably reach.

j k l m n

All planes are connected to the Mental Plane.

j k l m n

Each Might Have Been creates another Astral Plane.

j k l m n

To reach other worlds, you travel through the Astral Plane.

j k l m n

All splinters of your personality exist outside yourself.

15. One MUST face the Guardian at the Gate (Watcher at the Door) in order to project. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

16. Which is the most common type of projection? j k l m n

Staying inside your "head"

j k l m n

Into a Might-Have-Been

j k l m n

Going to the Astral Plane and meeting God

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j k l m n

Showing up at a friend's house

j k l m n

Visiting the Astral Garden where you see your intended love

17. Deep hypnosis is the only way to safely project. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

18. Who is correct in their theories of the Astral Plane? j k l m n

Monroe

j k l m n

DeGarcia

j k l m n

Daven

j k l m n

I am

j k l m n

No one listed

19. If you get hurt on the Astral Plane, you are hurt here on the physical plane, so you could die. j k l m n

True

j k l m n

False

20. Which statement is false? j k l m n

Guided meditations can help you get over mental problems.

j k l m n

The Astral Plane is exactly the same for everyone.

j k l m n

If you encounter a wall you can't cross, you should leave it alone.

j k l m n

A ton of abilities will start developing with consistent AP.

i j k l m n

A walk in is a permanent possession.

Short Essay Questions What is the Tapestry Theory of Time?

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What is the Etheric Plane?

Explain the importance of meditation.

What are Might-Have-Beens?

List the people you may encounter on the Astral Plane.

Pick one topic: j k l m n

Explain what you are likely to encounter on the Astral Plane.

j k l m n

What are some likely hazards of projecting on a regular basis?

j k l m n

If you have already projected, describe what you saw and experienced.

j k l m n

If you had to boil down the entire class to a few paragraphs and a few hundred words, what would you say? j k l m n

Write a meditation to help a high-strung child with ADD to calm down and concentrate on their work. j k l m n

Detail and describe in what ways AP could be used to help physical skills and/or goals in the physical world.

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Write an essay on the above topic (minimum 300 w ords) Go into as much detail as you need to. This is 1/4 of the overall grade on this exam Delete this passage it w ill be discounted from your answ er.

This is your one chance to explain/justify some question above that you don't agree with. Please list number and reason/justification for your answer in the box below. This box will not be counted for or against your final score.

I'm done, turn it in.

Clear Form

Click this button once to submit.

Click this button only if you want to start over.

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Lesson 24; A look at "Illusions" by Richard Bach Okay, having finished the hard work mandated by the class, time for some mental floss and fluff. So, grab your copies of Illusions, follow along if you will and we will take a quick look at this book and how it relates to AP. A quick viewing of this book should show you that it's easy. I mean, if you can wade through my email missives, you should reasonably be able to read a 181page book that has massive type in one sitting, right? I know the first time I was introduced to this book that is exactly what happened to me. My wife was sneaky; she read the first chapter to me, out loud, and then quit reading. Said that if I wanted to learn more, I would have to read it myself. And from that first reading, I was hooked. I mean, it's such a beautiful sentiment, "I command you to be happy" and so on. It was an incredibly freeing experience when I understood what that passage was saying, and how it related to me. The way I interpreted that particular section is that we are put on this Earth to learn, and in the process of learning, we are supposed to be happy. Truly happy in the depths of our soul, not the surface happiness of Valium. So, if that's the case, the lessons we are supposed to learn are going to be in the flow of what will make us happiest. But we also know ourselves, we know that there are times when we will be stubborn, so we salt that path with clues to remind ourselves that we should be happy. The scene where Donald confronts the mob was one of those clues to me. In many ways I learned that I didn't have to please everyone, that I didn't have to live my father's dreams for me, nor my mother's expectations. All I had to do was what truly pleased myself, and from that all else would flow. Now, it becomes really hard when your true happiness comes from making others happy, and sacrificing for their needs. Often you can't figure out what is you and what is them. Thus, you wind up loosing yourself in the needs of others. That's why a LOT of people who work in industries that take care of other's pain and needs (doctors, nurses, police, social workers, adoption agencies, foster care workers, and so on) really need someone around who can give them reality checks and keep them balanced. Because they get so caught up in the needs of others, they fail to see their needs, and even if they do they usually sacrifice

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those needs to the people they are helping. Taking a step back and going "is this what I REALLY want to be doing" is a critical step for these people. See, I know this because I suffer from this myself, except my martyrdom comes from being a priest and preacher. My family's needs and my needs get sublimated in counseling and helping and preaching. I realized that even though I don't have a pulpit to preach from, my ministry is online through classes like this, through my website, through the email lists I'm a member of, and through the newsgroups. Each of them allow me a chance to share my experiences and feelings and thoughts on what I know is true, and if it helps someone else, well and good. But I finally stopped begging for feedback because I realized, just putting the information out there is enough for my "need" to help, and if people read it and get something from it, good. If they don't like it, that's their opinion. I think that they would be happier if they listened to me, but I realize that they won't always, and that's okay too. Yes, it is still good to hear that I did a good job, that people got meaning out of my words, but I no longer base all my satisfaction and self-worth on that feedback, which was something I did for quite some time and it was killing me when I didn't get it. Anyhow, back to our Reluctant Messiah. Each of us can see ourselves as the Richard character, and many can see themselves as the Donald character. We each have bursts of clarity in which we know a little more than we did before, and we each have our days of headblindness. I know I do. The point of the book is an obvious one, but it's one that not a whole hell of a lot of people get. This world is not all there is. Everything in this book points to that fact, but it still slips away. We can't imagine a world without rules, without guidelines, where we are cosmic otters who play and have fun with no one getting hurt. We can't conceive of a universe where death is not something to fear, and where our gods are just as we want them to be, as forgiving as we wish, and as kind as we hope they are. The people who have a vested interest in keeping our minds and souls swaddled in fear and hate would loose too much power. I mean, when death becomes something to look forward to, is there any point to war? When other nations become something to love, filled with people that are just like us, is there any point for a military? When the Government tells us that "So and so person is a bad person and we must kill him, in our own self interest", who would believe him? Who would elect a government that would make blanket

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statements like that, then stand aside and watch as millions are killed in a border skirmish we started to keep oil rights flowing? Once that fear of a God is lost, once the fear of death is conquered, the entire universe opens up and it's secrets are revealed. We become free to do and be and have without guilt. Then the true renaissance of the mind will occur, the one in which we can swim in the dirt and walk on water. We will understand the rules of the game and we will realize that the movie continues to play, but we will also be aware of the theater around us, instead of being so caught up in the film that we miss the true reality. It's incredible when one's mind is opened. And I'm seeing this theme more and more lately, in which the world you THINK you are living in is not the world that really is. Illusions is only the tip of the iceberg, the movie "The Matrix" is also REALLY powerful in getting this message across. All "reality" is only the sum of your perception, once you know that, the universe opens up. The aphorisms in the book, the sound bites, are good for you. I have several of them on my website, I have used them as screen savers, and I have read them over and over. They succinctly say what there is to say, and do so in a way that you can actually remember them. "Here is a test to find whether or not your mission on Earth is finished; if you're alive, it isn't." "You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it however." "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift in it's hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." And on and on and on and on.... I read this particular book about once a year, just to remind myself about what is contained in the pages. It's a good feeling to remind myself about all this, since it is what is really going on. End of lesson, end of class.

WtäxÇ

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The Original Assignment Boards Topic:Introduction and Biography Admin from The Web Witches Network AradiaRajaniKavi Posted 4-1-2001 05:35 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------I am Aradia Rajani Kavi I am a dedicate to" Coven Blossom" of the" Coven of The Goddess." I will be initiated in June as first degree Priestess. I still have much to learn and or want to learn such as AP so that is why I am here. I am a Gemini so you find me to have two very different personalities one darker and one lighter. I am fascinated with the mysteries of death and after life and I want to find what is out there in other worlds waiting for us and to be able to communicate with these beings. I also started at a very young age. My grandmothers were witches so I was brought up around the mysteries of witchcraft until they passed away. My parents are not witches they are both baptist so I was with out guidence as I was growing up and left a little in the out feild, basically not fitting in to any religion. I did however practice witchcraft in my teenage years and as an adult but did not find the guidence I needed until recently. Which brings us to date as of now. At the age of 35 married with a daughter, I reached a time in my life when I felt that I missing something. You could call it a mid-life crisis but I would discribe it more of a seeking of who I am and what I believe in and where do I fit in. I started at the age of 33 really reading everything I could and getting invovled with the pagan communities. I never knew that there were so many out there and in public because my grandmothers were very secretive about their practices and so was I. I am out of the closet and now and as I have stated before involved and learning. I would say I am a human sponge at this stage in my life just sucking up any and all information that I can. My husband is a very strict Catholic so we have very different veiws about everything. We do however talk and I feel that he is becoming a better christian because I have given him ways of seeing things differently. I am now teaching my daughter the ways of wicca she is 10 and I felt that it is important for her to have the best of both worlds. I can already tell that she loves Wicca and is a very 230

opened minded person and still thoughtful to others religious beliefs even though hers are very different. Recently I have been doing alot of work with the dark and light sides of wicca I find myself drawn to the darker side of things, I think the reason for this is I will be soon taking my rites of passage and have been meditating alot with the rebirth of myself which I am sure you know that death has to come first. During one of my most recent meditations I became the crone and experienced death and rebirth. I have now taken the name "She who is Searching" because now that I have been rebirthed I am in search for a name and where this path will lead me next. I kept the name Aradia for this class because that is the one I enrolled with and did not want to confuse anyone. The reason I was so attracted to this class is because my practices include alot of hinduism combined with wicca. I do alot of vedic chanting and meditations along with yoga and during these times of relaxation I have experienced alot of "I am not sure what you would call it yet" different feelings of leaving myself. An example of this is a few times as I was laying down I would feel my body becoming lighter and feel myself floating above and I could see myself laying there. Another time this happened I let myself go and I am not sure to where I went after reading you explanations of things and that is the reason I am here, to find out and how to experience. I really like the feeling that I felt and I want to experience it again the proper way. I also hope to one day teach and educated others and think this class would be a wonderful experience for me but also give me knowledge to share with others. I am sorry this is so long I did not realize I was going on and on. I am normally not this windy HA!!!Anyway It was nice to meet you and to read about who you are. Aradia Rajani Kavi

Admin from The Web Witches Network Taima2 Posted 4-1-2001 05:42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Greetings Daven, Thanks for the first lesson along with your wonderful biograhy and the definitions. They are deeply appreciated. My Biography is next. ;-)

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I am Taima. For me the quest started long ago! As a young adult in the 1960's several things caught my attention simply because I could not rationalize them. It was heartbreaking to clearly see visions about death that spontaneously appeared in my waking life. Then I asked whatever source that was bringing about the visions to stop. So the psychic visions did stop. In the course of the following years my life was normal again. However this started my interest in reading about mysteries, and psychic perception. After my dad passed away in the 1970's things happened that were difficult to explain. There were a few times when some objects around my parents home were moved without anyone being present. These events were curious. I married and moved away from home. My husband and I built a house. A few strange things happened there. Before long my husband was telling everyone that our house was haunted. He saw a face in the kitchen window, and thought it was me. Yet I was in the back bedroom at the time. One morning as I was combing my hair, and talking to my son who was at the doorway. The water in the tub came on. My son and I looked at each other, as if to think, "Did you see that?" Then I walked over to turn the water off. I said, "Whoever is doing this please stop." So it appeared that spirit was trying to get my attention back then! One night in the mid 1980's I was working over time. It was tormentingly hot in the building. There was such a great desire to be out side in the cool breeze, that I longed for mercy. In a moment something strange happened for I could feel the cool breeze, hear the rush of air, feel the wind surrounding me, yet I was still in the building. How grateful I was for the short moment of relief that I thanked the higher powers! Years later there was a vivid dream about the Scarab who appeared at dawn, and took me on a journey to the pyramids. We returned at twilight, and as he turned to leave he said "The opening of the third eye." That phrase eluded me although I was excited to hear it, and hit the books again!! Then one day I suffered a migraine headache. The type of headache that made me want to lay down in a dark room, away from everything and everyone. This time I decided to just try to relax each muscle from the toes to my face. Soon I felt as if I were sinking into a vast darkness. It was there that I met Grandfather who earged me to the void. Yet I was afraid that I was going to die. However there was something about the void that was a comfort. Communicating in thoughts I said that I would follow him only if I could ask for assistance from someone. He said it would be all right to ask. The angel Michael was asked to lead the way. It was like returning home when you have been gone for a very long time. As if you are going back to the very beginning of time before anything was created. Within the void is Nothing except darkness. When I was there I sensed that it was like a feminine being, by reason of it's nature as a source of which other things came into being. And my own infant like nature there. Therefore it felt that I had touched the feminine aspects of creation that were beyond time, and very ancient. It is a place of great darkness that allows you to explore your very

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essence. After this Michael guided us to the place of the ancestors. They were glad to see me and said, "We have been waiting for you, we will help you." I only felt ashamed that it had taken me so long to find them. The place I went to with my teacher was The Looks Within Place. It seems I had a great amount of work to do!! Later I found that many spirit teachers work with angels! So what started out as great pain, ended up being a wonderful learning experience. Subsequently I explored the teachings of my ancestors the Cherokee, and Celtic. There were some things that the clans had in common. The spirituality of the Cherokee resonated deeply, and filled a dark void within my heart. Soon after meeting my spirit teacher I liked to pray and meditate twice a day. Often I was able to journey with my teacher, or a guide. With Grandfather's assistance I reviewed certain events. Some of the them were heartbreaking, and others were exhilarating. Several years ago I started to study shamanism by joining various forums. One at the Foundation For Shamanic Studies. Later I read a few books on Shamanism, astral travel, and Native American spirituality. A few years ago I joined various Onelist groups, and made some friends there. At one Yahoo group, Astral and Beyond, I was made a moderator. Here we enjoy reading about lucid dreams, meditation, and shamanic journeys. Currently my hope is to continue to study, so that I might assist others in their spiritual quest. At least two young members of our family study Wicca. I am one of the few people they feel free to talk with. There was certainly some ground to cover in this biography. Still I do not know if I willl be able to keep up with this class. The only program Not working on my computer is Java!! Wouldn't ya know it!! I hoped the lessons might be posted at our OOBE Yahoo group. Thus far countless hours have gone into Trying to fix the Java glitch. Thank goodness for being able to use someone else's computer, or I would have been lost already!! It would be a blessing to read everyone's stories! -- Taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 4-1-2001 05:43 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recently I've been having this feeling that sooner or later I will leave my body. That it's nevitable,almost as if there's something that's calling me out, something that's waiting for me. The only problem is that I don't know how to get to wherever I'm supposed to be. The first time I left my body I was asleep, and I've never been able to do it again. I remember floating and telling my boyfriends sleeping beside me "I'm alive" over

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and over again because I was afraid that if he woke up and my spirit was gone that he'd think I was dead. And then I woke up. I've tried twice since then through meditating to do it again and I've felt like I've gotten very close, but I just can't break through. I haven't really read much about Astral Projection, I've focused more on witchcraft and ritual. After my first experience I was scared to death and wanted to know more about what happened. That's the main reason that I'm taking this course. I've been pagan for almost 3 years, but have only recently taken the step from reading about it to actually practicing it. I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, but started reading about numerology and astrology and the paranormal in the junior high library where my parents wouldn't find out. About me personally, I have a Tori Amos obsession. She seems to colour my entire life--my poetry, my thoughts, my hair colour, just about everything. I love to write poetry and I read everything I can get my hands on except for westerns and romance novels. I love anything written by Neil Gaiman (which goes hand in hand with my Tori obsession). I also enjoy photography, but I can never get the photos to look the same as the ones in my head, so I tend to paint with words instead. There's not much that I don't like, except for 80's rock and roll like Van Halen and Stratavarius. Their music causes me actual physical pain to listen to it. I do love Godsmack also, but my Sully obsession is nowhere near the size of my Tori obsession. In the end, I hope for this class to be just a few more steps on the path to finding out who and what I truly am. -- blackdove01

Admin from The Web Witches Network iliketothink Posted 4-1-2001 05:45 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi! This is iliketothink. Odd name, I know, but the closer you look, the more it fits, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It does explain why I'm still trying to figure out a belief system for myself after more than 5 years of looking--I believe there's something out there, but I'm too skeptical to accept anything completely.

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So far druidism seems closest to my semi-defined personal beliefs, but I have to do more homework and more exploration of the world in general before I decide for sure. Taking this class is part of my attempts to do that. I've always had an interest in the mystical, and for the most part it fit within the framework of my belief system when I was growing up. The types of things I did were as second-nature to me as breathing, but through other people's reactions, I learned to think about them differently. Then I had an interesting experience in college. I had a roommate who was also in touch with "the other" and we'd do things like play with energy or pick up on people's emotions, and it was nice to be able to compare my perceptions to someone else's. Very validating. And sometimes she and I would sense the same things, and other times she'd notice things that I couldn't sense at all. And about a year later, it turned out she was schizophrenic (typical onset for schizophrenia is late teens or early twenties, and she was 19). Which instantly made me wonder if I was schizophrenic too, or at least had "Shared Delusional Disorder" (yes, it's a real psychological disorder). So I instantly started blocking out EVERYthing I sensed that most people couldn't. And kept doing that for about 7 years, although I must say actively ignoring so much of my world took a lot of energy. But, as it happens, I'm not schizophrenic. Or even close. And incidentally, no one but me has ever questioned that. And Shared Delusional Disorder lasts only for a month or two after breaking contact with the person you're "sharing" delusions with--not 7 years. So I decided that I'm really not crazy. I just notice things in the world that other people don't. And that it's not at all uncommon for some people to have a knack for noticing things other people don't, just as some people have perfect pitch, others have naturally good eyesight, and some criminals have a knack for finding good victims. So it's not inherently good or bad--it's just what a given person happens to pick up on in their world around them, and how they use it that can be good or bad. So my personal theory is that there really is no difference between the physical and the mystical. Or to be more specific, I believe that science, the paranormal and magic can be broken down into "things we understand," "things we don't understand," and "things we don't understand but can get to work anyway," respectively. But they're all part of the same universe. And all very real. And I love that quantum theory and super-string theory are starting to provide scientific frameworks within which this kind of thing makes sense. So I look forward to learning to do AP and seeing what additional insights I can gain about the world around me. I guess that's enough about me. I type fast, so I don't have to edit as much and can get long-winded easily. I look forward to working with all of you!

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-- iliketothink

Admin from The Web Witches Network GuardianOfWithin Posted 4-1-2001 05:47 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Essay about me: First, I am a pretty shy person and find it difficult to know where to start and what to write. I am 42 years of age and have been fascinated by the posiblility of Astral Travel and O.B.E's since around 1981 so i guess that is 20 years. My one and only lucid recolection of an O.B.E is when i was catering for an out door Pop Concert at StoneHenge, I had a chip Van and basicaly was there to sustain life rofl, and of course make some money too. One day i was cooking the normal, Fish and Chips, when a gentleman, i would say he was in his late 40's came over to the van. He had what i can only describe as a white toga type outfit on. He had a beard and a very pleasant face. He ordered fish and chips and as i turned to the Fryer to do as asked, i felt like i was hit on the back of the head with a heavy hammer. Next thing i knew i was sat on top of the fish and chip van looking through the roof, at the 'other me' cooking the fish and chips. I discovered that i could rewind/fast forward/ stop/ pause my movements just as though i was watching a video on the television at home, after a little while. The Astral me got bored and decided to have a look around the site. I got off the top of the roof just by thought alone, there was no concious muscular movement on my part, i just thought, and i was, so to speak. I drifted around the site and looked at each of the stages that were erected, there was all kinds of entertainment going on, from singing, chanting, guitar playing, Joke telling, even a couple of Big pop groups, Well i am sure you could set the scene in your own mind. Anyway i made a mental note of all these things that i saw before me, even remembering the songs or the jokes that were being told. Eventualy i got round to the other side of the site and found another chip van similar to mine working to keep the populace fed. I moved up to the counter, the guy couldnt see me, it was as if he could see right thru me, this gave me a jolt, for until this time i felt i was still very much a solid entity, this panic attack if you like triggered me back to my own body, with another whack on the back of the head. The real me was just finishing the folding of the package of fish and chips at this time and the chap in the white Toga was looking at me in a very strange way. I

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felt he knew what was happening, maybe he was the trigger. He offered to pay me with a necklace of beads, I refused because i wanted hard cash, you know something to go and buy more potatoes and fish with to carry on with my fuction. Anyway there was a look of disapointment in this mans eyes as he handed over the money. I switched everything off in the chip van and then wandered round the site just as i had in the astral form, as i went to each stage i heard the same songs, the same jokes, the same everything it was as if i was reliving something from the past, but in actuality i now know i had a number of very special things happen to me that day, astral was one, precognition was another. To cut a long story short, the next day my chip van was lost due to fire of unknown origin the insurance company felt that the gas was left on so it caught fire, but till this day i am sure i turned it all off. I now know that i had a valuable lesson that day. I should have taken the beads as offered, and not insisted on the paymenht of money. All further attempts at astral in daylight have failed, for what reason i dont know, mybe someone out there in internet land can make sense of this story because to this day i feel that i should have spent more emphasis on the spiritual me and not the material me. I lost to the flames the very thing i rejected the beads for, the money went up in flames with the van. As for general stuff, I am a Male Eclectic Ceremonial solitary Witch. I live in England near the City of Bristol. I write poetry, Read the Tarot Cards, and I have empathic Abilities. I work very long hours,. and i have no social life to speak of. Maybe i need to learn that there are more things in life than going to work just to pay the bills. With love light and respect from... Dave (GuardianOfWithin)

Admin from The Web Witches Network DragonflyWitch Posted 4-1-2001 05:49 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Daven and fellow Classmates :-) Glad to meet you all! My real name is Sandra, Dragonfly is both my online and my witches name. I'm a heritage, solitairy eclectic witch from Belgium, Europe (now ain't that a mouthful?! lol) and I'm out of the broomcloset. Heritage because of my natural witchy gifts which I can trace back through my mother and grandfather (although they both

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follow/ed the catholic path). I'll go more into depth on that a bit further on. Solitairy for I work alone, although the past months I seem to get more and more mails of people who want info or knowledge on witchcraft in Belgium so I guess I'm turning into a bit of a teacher myself too lol Eclectic because I do not follow a specific tradition, I follow my senses on what feels good. My way of working includes working with energy, tarot, has both celtic as wiccan influences, as well as some feary tradition and dragon magick. And witch, not wiccan, because for me personally witchcraft is my way of life, not my religion. During my rituals I work with elements and energy instead of deities. As long as I can remember I've been able to sense energy from both the living as well as from entities (those on the astral plane), I've had periods of forseeing and a slight case of empathy. Luckely I only seem to have that last one with people I'm really close with. I never had any problems with it during my childhood even though I knew nothing about witchcraft at the time or that there were other people like me... it just felt natural. At the age of 12 I bought my first tarot deck and it's been one of my favorite tools ever since :-) During my years as a teen, I started struggling with these gifts.. I guess everyone at that age just wants to be "normal" ;-) It came to what I call a turningpoint in my magickal guest at the age of 16, that year I forsaw my grandfather's dead which really freaked me out! I decided I didn't want to "feel" anything like that anymore and managed to block out everything for almost 5 years. But I guess you can't keep a good witch down lol cause I started missing that part of me... without it I felt incomplete. That was about 5 or 6 years ago. Since then I have been letting it back in (which in itself was a process that lasted a few years) and started working actively with witchcraft again. Thanks to the internet which brought me in contact with some lovely witches all over the world who have become dear friends I discovered I was not alone. Here in Belgium I came into contact with Jan de Zutter, a newspaper journalist who has written two books on wicca ("De Shaduw van de maan" losely translated as "The shadow of the moon" & "Abracadabra") and who's a wiccan himself. Through him I discovered the Pagan Federation and the wiccan community GreenCraft who both operate in Belgium and the Netherlands. Thanks to GreenCraft I got the oppertunity to share a beautiful and inspiring Ostara Celebration within one of their covens :-) They all helped me on my way to becoming who I am now. I can now say that I feel comfortable with my gifts again :-) although there is still a tiny part that wants to keep control and I'm working on that. Doing this course felt as the most natural next step in my growth :-) and as many things in life this course just turned up when I was starting to wonder where I needed to go next... call it energy, call it nature, call it the godess... it gave me a sign I was ready for it. My experiences with the astral plane are still limited I guess, I know how to work with spirits and help them to move on. House Cleansing has become on of my specialties. I also have two spiritual guides on my quest... my grandfather and as I only recently found out my cat Phoenix.

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Which brings me to my little family. I've been with my partner for almost 10 years now and we've been living together for the past 7 years. He's an atheist himself but with an open mind for my witchy nature. There has to been many times when I answered his questions before he asked them, forsaw events, read his cards or when he sensed the presence of entities through me... for him to ignore the fact that there is more than that what we can see with our eyes. He gives me great respect for it and accepts me for whom I am as do I accept him for his believes in return. :-) Than there are my two furry fourlegged little ones... my dog Kyara and my cat Phoenix with whom I have a very strong connection. What else is there to tell about me? (for those who are interested in astrology) I have sun in capricorn, moon in aries with capricorn as ascendant and was born under the chinese sign of the Tiger. I studied modern languages and graphical arts (although you might have to bare with my spelling which is louzy in any language! lol) and in my daily life I work as a webdesigner/developer. I'm also a host on msn and co-manager of the witches web community but regret to say that due to my daily job I can't nearly spend enough time there as I want to. And yes I do have a website who's in the middle of being re-designed so I will glady share the addy with those who want to take a peek once it's back in order. That's it for now I guess... if anyone has questions please do ask I will be glad to share :-) Greetings, Dragonfly

Admin from The Web Witches Network starrlytess Posted 4-1-2001 05:50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------An introduction about myself. This was really difficult for me to do because I don't like to talk much. Although I'm sure friends would have a different opinion then that, lol. To start my names Star, I'm 23 years old and I took this class to learn how to have OOBE's and AP's. It's something I've always wanted to try. Meditating and concentrating is something I have the most difficulty with. Sitting still just to relax is something I've never done. I've tried, I've even read a few books, but I couldn't grasp the relaxing idea. I also think that another reason it's not that easy for me to have an OOBE other then not being able to meditate is because I'm afraid. I've read a lot of stories

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about the whole, "silver cord" and I don't really know what to believe. Some say you can die if the cord is broke, and some say that's just a theory. No one can prove either side of their story and I think that's what keeps me from being able to do this well. However, in the last few months or so I did have a few out of the ordinary things happen to me that I've been told was an OBE. The first time I can remember being in a strange house where all the lights were off. The one thing that made it feel different then a regular dream was that I was walking around and I knew what I was doing. For the first time I controlled everything I did. The general feeling I got was very different. But I can remember the furniture, the way it was situated, the curtains and everything. It wasn't any place I've seen before, and I considered it to be just a dream up until recently. I went to visit some relatives that I haven't seen in a long time, and when I entered their house, that was the house I was in when I had the dream. I remembered everything so clearly. I don't know how I got there or if that was just a hint to be given to me, but I was really shocked. Although I do like to read a lot of books, there wasn't any particular book that made me want to learn more. There is a site however that I found to be an excellent source of information and it made me really want to try this. The link is: http://www.crystalinks.com. Reading about all the personal experiences and all the information on various topics made me realize this was something I really wanted to learn. Outside of learning about OOBE's and AP's, I'm a full time Mom. So by the time I can relax, I'm usually asleep before I can even get a thought into my head, lol. I do hope to be able to learn more about these experiences and what it's like on the, "other side" of the physical life. -- starrlytess

Admin from The Web Witches Network Mudcats4 Posted 4-1-2001 05:50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Greetings! I do not follow any one particular religion or practice, although I am open to all. I have studied and taken workshops in yoga, meditation, dream work, tarot, Native American shamanic journeying, and more. I have read countless books on natural healing, herbs, Zen, astrology, Wicca, runes, lucid dreams, OBE's. In my dream class, I was taught to record my dreams every morning. By doing this, I found I could remember more and that they were very symbolic of

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things going on in my life. I have had a few lucid dreams, (Some involving family members that have passed, and one almost near-death experience while suffering from a disease brought on by a mosquito while living in the Caribbean!), and one OBE experience that I am sure of. I am a self employed potter. I have been running my own business for almost 7 years here in Maryland. Prior to this, I went sailing for 4 years in the Caribbean. We did a lot of long offshore passages and I somehow projected myself out of my body during rough seas to endure the misery I was feeling. Later, I wound up spending a lot of time on a French Island, where I was one of few that spoke little French. (although in my dreams prior, I was speaking fluently!). I was so focused on trying to understand what they were saying that I had to rely on other things than speech; that's when I started to see auras. As far as personality, I am a Gemini, and a lot of the characteristics fit. I am vegetarian and live with 4 cats....my apartment is over top of my studio, and they have full run! I try to lead a stress-free, balanced holistic lifestyle where I am learning to trust my instincts to lead me down the proper paths. I believe we have the power to find our own answers within, and I want to be able to tap into that resource the best I can. One way of accessing answers and information may be through our subconscious mind. I hope to gain more insight and spiritual growth by taking this class, and hope to further develop whatever 'talents' I may or may not have. -- Mudcats4

Admin from The Web Witches Network Daven Posted 4-1-2001 05:51 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Daven's Profile: As stated, I started at an early age in my investigations of metaphysics. I continued to learn as I got older, reading and studying from a variety of sources, mainly from the experiences of othes who had been there and done that before me. One of the first OOBE experiences that I can remember is this one; I was young, and sick with a high fever. During this time, I became aware I was dreaming, but it was a strange dream. In this dream, I saw the world, the houses and people as composed of dots. The dots were small (and I knew they were in reality even smaller than I percieved them as) but I was seeing them as huge. Think of a TV

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screen, where you can see all the dots that make up the image and you are close to what I was seeing. However, at the same time I was able to percieve them as a whole, to have perspective in the greater reality. It was like I was looking through a window of one dot, and seeing the world as it is, made up of dots. It was a really interesting experience, one that I sometimes continue to have to this day. About that time, I also started having episodes of deja vu' during the times I was awake. I would know what was happening and know what would occur later. Scary. Add to that the feeling (at times so intense that I couldn't differenciate between now and then) where I was convinced that I and everything around me was someone's dream, that none of it was real. I think that was the beginning of my OOBE experiences. I didn't know what to call it at the time, so I read to find terms, and metaphysics seemed to give me those answers. Two of the more powerful visions that I had in recent years were these: I was asleep in my room one night, after just having finished meditating. Earlier that day I had been talking to my mentor (The Native American shaman-intraining, Frank Jones) who had been telling me about Astral Projection. That night, I was awakened by something, I opened my eyes and saw Frank standing at the foot of my bed, at which point he knelt and bowed his head to me. When I realized that this apparition was him, I was shocked, so shocked that I woke up. You see, I had been asleep the entire time. My body was resting and in the state of sleep between waking and sleeping (most times refered to as the Alpha Brain state, or REM sleep). The eyes I had opened were my "Third eyes" or the eyes of my Astral Body. The other vision I had was of, once again, being asleep and pulled from my body to undergo an examination by someone. I found myself in a room, seated in a chair and watching as 10-20 people, dressed in long red or white robes with hoods up and covering their faces, did something to me. I have no idea what they were testing or what results they desired, but at the end of this, they decided that I was not "ready" (for what, I don't know) and sent me back. What made this even more interesting is that I was watching this from a third person perspective. I was sitting in the chair, but even then, I was watching all of the "action" from another body hovering about 15 feet off the floor to the immediate left of the body in the chair. I could see what was happening, but not from the perspective of the body in the chair. Add to that the normal dreams of jumping out of a swing, soaring high and landing hard that shocked me awake, and that's about it until recently.

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What do I want from this class? Well, I want to be able to completely Astrally Project out of my body and to be able to go to other places and do things while my body sleeps. To date, my only experiences with AP other than those listed above is by remote viewing. What do I hope to take from this class? Learnings from my students and information, possibly on things that I have not thought of. I don't pretend to have all the answers, not even most of them, but I have a lot of objective experience that I can share. My personality? I like to think I'm a good person, one who gets along with everyone they meet, although while I can get along on the short term, if there is some problems, I will tend to avoid the person in question. I am always polite to others, I keep my temper under control, but if I do get mad, look out. I tend to be associated with the Earth, grounded and focussed. Don't break my concentration when I am doing something, because I won't be able to get that focus back and I will forget what I was doing. Likes, interests, turn-offs? Likes: Computers and writing. Teaching, raising my daughter, making love to my wife, talking about high-minded concepts. Interests: Bedroom games, women, reading, fantasy books and research texts, finding out "why". Solving puzzles. Turn-offs: People who don't learn from their mistakes. People who don't listen or try. Phobia of bees (although I make beeswax candles). Pain from my tooth (Chronic problems with my teeth). Smoking (although I am a smoker, I am also trying to cut back and quit, but it's hard). Drugs of any kind (I was adicted to hydrocodone for a while. NOT something I want to go through again). Mainly what I feel I can bring to this class is the raw data I know from multitudes of sources, screened so that the average person can understand it. I'm very good at knowing how to explain something so that everyone can understand it. I even taught my 4 year old daughter how to AP, and she's now a natural. The best teaching is one in which the teacher takes away as much new information from the student as the student takes away from the teacher. After that, it should be a working partnership on all levels. That's me. I am doing this so you all can see that I will be taking this course along with you. Even now I am re-reading some of the information that I plan on using in this class. It never hurts to review, and I need to know it as well as all of you will. -- Daven

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Admin from The Web Witches Network fgaacucc Posted 4-5-2001 01:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello, I don't think I'd like to share that much information about myself. There happened things in the last year I really don't want to share. You want to know what my personality is like, but this last year I am changed very much and those things that happened can't be discussed in open. So I'm sorry I can't do this assignment. Greetings, Francesco

Daven from The Web Witches Network Assignments and requirements for this course Posted 4-7-2001 18:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, Francesco, I can certainly understand your position. There are a lot of personal events that are involved in this kind of school. Some of these experiences are of a necessity very personal. However, that is what makes it necessary that I look at them. How can I judge the personality behind the name and writings without seeing such personal information? Just about everyone else here shared this info with us all, and I don't think they had any problem with it, I have even shared myself multiple times with all of you. Make no mistake, these kinds of assignements are a requirement of this course. Not only to satisfy my curiosity, but to make you all evaluate yourselves. This is critical, and without this, there will be no OOBE or passing this course. So, Francesco, if you feel that you cannot do this assignment or any assignment (because all of the assignments will be like this one), please feel free to resign from this course. However, this is not what I want you to do. I would like to see you evaluate yourself and think about who you are and so on. Note, if there is a problem with a specific assignment being posted in public, then put a notice on the subject line, right next to your student ID, that you wish to have this assignment emailed to me, rather than posted. You will get credit for this either way.

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I would like to see this forum utilized more though. Discussions and thoughts and revelations are what needs to go in this discussion. That is what I want to see here. So, Francesco, what is it going to be? Daven

Topic:Lesson 2

Daven from The Web Witches Network Assignment responses Posted 4-23-2001 18:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Okay! Here we go.... DragonflyWitch wrote: >> I find it interesting Tess that you stated this. Please explain the statement more for us. At first I felt as you do, but some events happened to make me change my mind, and I'll relate them after I see what you think. Other than that, good job everyone. Just because I didn't pick out all your thoughts, don't think that I didn't care about them. It's interesting to see the diversity among you all. It makes me rethink some of the things I have been taking for granted. Those of you who have not turned in your lessons yet, please get going. You can only miss 4 assignments to pass this course. However, if there is a need, I will be reasonable in delays and late assignments. Stars light everyone's paths. Daven

Topic:Basic Meditation; Basics of the Astral Plane Admin from The Web Witches Network 247

DragonflyWitch Posted 4-21-2001 07:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail. I've been thinking about this one... not an easy question... this might sound funny but I always have had this "Poltergheist" image of the Astral Plane (still feel uncomfortable watching those movies.. especially the one with all the mirrors!). So I always pictured it as a misty void in which people/spirits float.. white, blueish light, lots of mist, rather chilly. If, like you said, you can choose how it looks like I think I would like a more natural setting. Since I am a city-witch who is always enclosed between these brick buildings, most of her time glued to the computerscreen and who knows she needs her periodically escapes to the forest or seashore.. I think I would like to find a balance there. I think my astral environment would be green, natural,... dark forests, green meadows filled with wild flowers, a deep blue lake,... lots of living creatures both natural and mythological... although I must confess I would rather have a Harley as ways of travel than a unicorn ;-) even on the astral plane lol guess you can never really escape your real-life nature ;-) Is it possible that the environment would change depending on who or what you meet on the Astral Plane? It feels like possitive experiences would be in the nature setting, more negative experiences in the "poltergheist" setting. Is that possible? 2. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? Another one I've never thought about before! Where would I go? Hmmm I have always wanted to see myself in a past life, that part is still a big questionmark to me so I would definitly try to go there, although I have no clue "where" that actually is. The only pointers I got on past lifes, is the fact that a friend of mine who does have past-life-flashbacks says he just knows I have always just "been there" with him, and the fact that a channeler once told me my higher self looked tribal with gold which could point toward a native/indian/inca nature. So maybe Peru? I would also like to visite friends who are too far to visite in real life at the moment, check on them if they're ok... so I guess that adds Australia and America to the list.

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3. Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed, or will exist. What would you talk to them about? I would like to talk to my guides, my grandfather and as weird as it may sound my cat if that's possible. As I mentioned before to myself in past lifes... maybe try to talk to the dragon spirit I feel that is with me. For the rest I think I would just go with the flow and see who meets me on my path... hopefully people who can help me in my search of both knowledge and self-knowledge. 4. What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it. A cozy little cottage in that forest and near that lake I mentioned in my environment, warm wooden floors, an inviting fireplace, with lots of books, a huge couch filled with fluffy pillows... a safe and warm nest where there is always a hot pot of tea and some snacks waiting for visitors ;-) 5. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? Anyone who comes with an open heart and good intentions but I guess like in real life you don't always get to chose who you meet. 6. What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? I'm still a newbie at meditation, I always get to the point of letting go and then I pull back so for starters I think the guided meditation will be good for me; kinda like someone taking your hand and guiding you through the rough parts. But I do see the "void state" meditation as a goal to reach eventually, so I'm going to try to work my way towards that one. It feels most appealing to me because unlike the guided meditation you can go on as long as needed without the tape suddenly ending. Lucid dreaming also sounds very interesting but I think I will need even more practise on that one! I'll have to try writting my dreams down and most of all remembering them before I can say if it will work for me or not.

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7. Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it. I was thinking about a sweatlodge although that would be hard to actually find in the neighbourhood. It consist of a small tent in which you sit naked with a number of people while you are exposed to high temperature, I have heard such experiences can also bring you in a trance and a state of meditation. -- DragonflyWitch

Admin from The Web Witches Network iliketothink Posted 4-21-2001 07:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail. This sounds silly, but I mostly want to explore it. It sounds like that may well be impossible, since it will conform itself to whatever I want it to be. That said, I'd like to be able to access and tap into the other states that are out there. And I'd like to let my mind be as open as possible to letting those worlds shape themselves around me. Or maybe let my unconscious dictate its form, rather than my conscious mind. Usually when I picture the astral plane, I see it as a vast gray environment edged in clouds... sometimes it's misty and other times it's not. And with energy forms moving in and out. But the assignment raises an interesting question... will I get further if I aim for something specific? 2. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? Once again, I wonder if my responses are silly. But honestly, I'd just love to see up-close some of the wonders that the universe has created. Walking along the bottom of the ocean (and somehow still being able to see) has always fascinated me. Or experiencing a super-nova from a closer point of view. 3. Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed, or will exist. What would you talk to them about?

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I'm very curious to see simply what types of beings are on the plane, and interact with the pleasant/benevolent/good-hearted ones. I would hope for some type of a teacher or a guide, and someone who can help me in my never-ending quests for deeper understanding and knowledge. Someone who can show me how to understand both myself and the nature of the universe better. Tall request? ;) 4. What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it. A small grove. There's a place I sit on the ground that's next to a running stream. There are trees overhead, and birds chirping. There's an occasional wildflower or butterfly that adds color to the scene, but mostly it's just many shades of green, the tones of the earth, and the sound of the water. If I turn, there is an old gnarled tree with welcoming branches. Most are low to the ground, and visitors can join me there, joining the tree in friendliness, and using its branches as a support. 5. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? Positive energies are welcome. Curious beings are welcome. Negative, illspirited, or ill-intentioned beings might attempt to enter, or think they can enter, but they will do so only to find that my grove has somehow slipped into another dimension elsewhere. 6. What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? Relaxation, but not standard meditation--my head has a hard time calming down, and when the "other" experiences start happening, I make too big a deal out of it mentally, and distract myself, feeling excited rather than continuing to focus on nothing. The hypnotization thing should work well for me--I've been hypnotized many times and enjoy it. And the fact that it's happened many times makes it easier to do again. 7. Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it. Word from college--umphaloskepsis, or staring at your navel. j/k. Seems like staring at a candle flame or fireplace is a type of meditation, but that might be covered under "normal meditation plus something to focus on." -- iliketothink

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Admin from The Web Witches Network taima2 Posted 4-21-2001 07:18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail. One place that I would like to go to is much like a nearby park. There are many reasons why I like to go to that park. Here you are able to see the beauty of nature. A beautiful lake often glimmers in the sunlight. While standing in one location the lake appears to drift along into the horizon like a silver cloak. In the reeds the Otters often play and swim. Their whiskers, and soft brown fur gleams in the sunlight. The sight of White Egrets, and Blue Herons are very majestic. Water lilies cover some parts of the lake surface with bright yellow blooms. At twilight the lake becomes like a multidimensional universe, as the exquisite colors of the reddish orange sky is reflected upon the lake. 2. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? Another place I would like to visit in the Astral Plane is a place that I call the City of Lights. It is a place far off above the clouds. This place has attractive gardens, and the sky glows with a golden hue. You might have seen something similar to this place in the movie What Dreams Will Come. Still the place I know of has crystal buildings that glisten, and a bright colored rainbow bridge. There is near the gardens a fountain of healing light, you can send this light to anyone. Occasionally there is the sound of rumbling, and the clouds become alive with light as the Thunderbeings dance across the sky. 3. Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed, or will exist. What would you talk to them about? There are different people I would like to talk to in the City of Lights. I might talk with the Beings of Light. They usually like to talk about love. It would be good to talk with the ancestors who have promised to help. I could call upon them for counsel. Most of the time I would spend on a cliff overlooking a valley where I can often talk to Grandfather. He likes to look at the village in the valley near a long winding river. Here he likes to talk about community, and how to best serve those around me. Mostly he is wise in dealing with emotions. 4. What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it.

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The Astral Temple I would visit is in a very graceful building. It looks something like an ancient building from Egypt. The walls and columns are made of marble. The floor is a wondrous reflective stone much like hematite. The rooms are large and stately. What I like best are the floors, because you can see your reflection in them as you dance or walk around. This makes it easier to astral travel. 5. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? My guides and teacher could come to the Astral Temple, so that we could talk. Anyone who has positive energy surrounding them would be welcomed to stop by and visit. Mostly my son could visit me there when we are feeling lonely and would like to visit with each other. 6. What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? The technique that I like to use is one of progressive relaxation. Here you can sit or lay down. Start by thinking of the feet to relax them. Then go to the ankles, and legs to relax them. Just slowly work along each group of muscles up to the neck and face. Then after getting in a state of total relaxation visualize a place like the lake, or the astral temple in as much detail as possible. It worked like a charm once, allowing me to meet my spirit teacher whom I call Grandfather! 7. Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it. Can not think of any off hand. -- taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network starrlytess Posted 4-21-2001 07:18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail.

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I would like to interact with a place that is surrounded by water and pyramids. It reminds me of the Bermuda Triangle but it was once Atlantis. It stands tall above the world and its golden colors are brighter then the sun. The water all around it is crystal clear with beautiful white rocks at the bottom of the ocean. 2. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? I would go wherever my imagination took me. To space, to Atlantis, to the past, to the future. To say an exact place isn't really possible for me. Its wherever my imagination takes me. Maybe it will some place beautiful with big bright stars. Maybe it will be the bottom of an ocean to see all the treasures. I'd like to be anywhere that I could go. 3. Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed, or will exist. What would you talk to them about? I would talk too friends and ancestors. I would meet animals, and people, and anything that was out there. If I could speak with anyone at all, I don't know who it would be. No one comes to mind. It's more like any group of people that were at the place I was taken too. There is no set person that I'd be looking for or that strikes an interest to me. 4. What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it. It would be a golden pyramid with crystals at the top. Surrounded by white stones and gems. Inside would have sides of water as if it were streams. The center would have an altar and all the tools that were laid out upon it. Looking up there would be a dark sky as if it was midnight all the time. 5. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? I would welcome anyone to come inside. It's not like the physical form where you have to be careful of letting people in your home. This is the astral world. People can come and go as they please. I would like to have anyone who felt they wanted to be there, stay there. 6. What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? I think the technique of Lucid dreaming would work best for me. While I do have a hard time controlling my dreams, I have had experiences where I was aware

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that I was dreaming. I didn't wake up at the exact moment that I wanted too, but I did wake up eventually. 7. Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it. No, I cannot think of another technique of mediation. -- starrlytess

Admin from The Web Witches Network Daven Posted 4-21-2001 07:22 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the Astral Plane? Describe it in detail. I prefer to interact with a wooded environment. I have always had an attraction to the woods and to those places where hikers and campers would go to. Not a field or a mountainous range, but the "woods". I find the strength of the trees to be very calming and enfolding. I like hardwoods and decidious trees more than I like Pine trees and evergreens, since there seems to be more character to the hardwoods. If you can imagine interacting in an area like the great Pacific NorthWest or a rainforrest, that would be it. 2. Where would you go on the Astral Plane? Having already done this, it would be an easy matter for me to step into areas that I enjoy. I would go and see if Star Wars was real. I would pal around on the Dune planet with some of the people from there and try to remember it this time. I would stay in my temple and talk to the Gods on things I wished to know about. 3. Whom would you talk to on the Astral Plane? Assume that you can speak to anyone that exists, has existed or will exist. What would you talk to them about? The Gods primarily. I find them facinating beyond belief and I would want to know more about their jobs, what they do, what it's like, and how to go about their jobs. I would learn magick from Hecate, Fighting from Mars and Athena, learn about

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the Natural world from Rhiannon and Estore, look at volcanos with Vulcan and learn metal forging and try to heal Promethius. 4. What would your Astral Temple look like? Describe it. My own Astral Temple is a simple three-sided building that is designed from a shelter on a hiking trail.  It has a roof, it is made from wooden timbers, it is in the middle of a forest, and there is a clear place in front of the shelter.  There are log seats around a fire pit for those with whom I wish to speak to seat themselves. 5. Who would you allow to come to your Astral Temple? Why or why not? I would allow the Gods, all of them and Dragons and Unicorns access to my Temple. The Gods because I wish to learn from them, and it only makes sense to do so in an environment that I am comfortable in. Dragons because I have a draconic ally that is still a child in their terms (he's only 100) and I need to consult with his parents a lot. The Unicorns because they are the essence of purity in my oppinion. I could use all the purity I can get. I would make room for several other of my allies if they chose to show up and once they had decided to come there, I would allow them access. 6. What technique of meditation do you think will work best for you? Why? The Lotus Position works best for me from years of experimentation. I have tried all manner of other means of meditating, and a structured train of thought works the best, because I am a logical thinker. I do like persuing a thought until it runs out, and going back over options in my head. I am also a natural daydreamer and this technique lends itself to this type of meditation. 7. Can you think of any technique of meditation that I missed? Describe it. Nope, I can't think of any other, but we will see what the others come up with. -- Daven

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iliketothink from The Web Witches Network omphaloskepsis Posted 4-30-2001 20:52 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sorry to disappoint, but I haven't actually done this myself. I heard about it when I had a college roommate who was always expanding her vocabulary, and we thought it was great that there was a word for this. I just did a search on the web, but didn't turn up anything useful, except for the correct spelling, which is omphaloskepsis, at www.m-w.com, and a note that people who practiced this adopted the curve as their symbol. There's also a publisher called Omphaloskepsis with some interesting Indian novels, but no insights into the technique. If anyone else is familiar with them, please feel free to chime in.

Topic:Meditation in Depth Admin from The Web Witches Network Taima2 Posted 5-12-2001 09:13 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Write your own meditation. Find a place where you feel safe, comfortable, and know that you will not be disturbed. You can select a peaceful time of the day, like early in the morning or late at night. When the best time of day is selected there will be few distractions like phone calls, or people stopping by to talk to you. 2) Try to think of times and places when it would be possible for you to meditate while doing some physical action. What could happen if you decided to meditate while doing this action? Often I like to start the attempt to travel OBB with a small ceremony, and listening to the sounds of music softly playing. In a ceremony one can talk to their helping guides. I often begin by calling for assistance from the seven directions, by call a certain guide for each direction, and visualizations of each guide. Then I speak to each guide for awhile, until I feel a connection. Most often the music will play throughout the whole astral journey. For the suggestions to relax progressive relaxation works well. Some may do this a bit different than I do. However this is the method I like to use. Find a comfortable place to sit or lay down. Start at the 257

feet and think three times toes relax, think three times ankles relax. Slowly work up to the muscles in the legs, and all other muscle groups. Pay attention to relaxing the back, neck, and muscles in the face. When I am tense the muscles around the mouth will be tight! I will continue to think to each muscle group to relax, until the body starts to feel limp, and at ease. White light can be send around your being if it helps you to feel safe. Some people like to envision themself surrounded by a bubble of light, surrounded by guides, or angels. Then you can envision a safe place where you might like to astral travel to. There are several places in the astral that I like to travel to, and it might help to look at a real picture for a few moments. When you start to travel the astral you might like to envision places in deep space, like the Eagle Nebula and visualize the colors of the stars around it. You can think about floating through the clouds, and how misty soft they might feel to your touch. One can also think of a place closer to home where they spend some time enjoying nature. There could be a favorite garden, or lake that a person likes to visit. Sometimes I like to travel to a garden. In your astral garden you can enjoy the beauty of flowers, the shade of trees, the songs of birds, you can walk through the grass, smell the scent of the flowers, and the cool wind gently blowing in your hair! I sorta feel like I am doing all that while writing about it!! LOL Good visualization is a key point, as is interacting with your astral environment. You can also ask for certain guides to meet you in your astral environment. This might allow you to connect with your guides at the astral level. It is usually possible for me to meditate while sending reiki to myself, or others. I think meditation is a key element of sending reiki. Often I would use many of the same methods for this as for astral travel. Another great way to meditate is while dancing to soft music, or dancing with an animal guide. This is also a good way to start your astral journey, or to thank your guides. 3) Think of a major decision you had in your life and try to work out the cause and effect of taking different decision at that point. Where might you be now if you made a different choice? One major decision I made was shortly after my son was born. He was about six months old when I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for my Dream Job!! It was very Exciting to picture myself working for a Large world renowned corporation! After I got the application filled out, I read the fine print stating that the job training would be in New York City for six months. For some reason I slipped the paper under the cushion of a chair, so I could decide if I wanted to leave my child for that length of time. It was the last time I saw that job application!! We could have been financially better off had I taken the position of being an account consultant in some big brokerage house, in the 1970's. That was before the stock market took off, and before those individual retirement accounts that many have since acquired. Yet I have treasured the time spend with my son. Still there are times I wonder what it would have been like to have lived in New York City. How different my son's life would have been if he had grown up in a large city. Instead he was raised on a small farm, where we had

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many loving relatives nearby. He could spend the night with his grandparents, they could take him swimming, and fishing. Occasionally I wonder if it was the right decision. However, my heart always tells me that it was. -- Taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network Iliketothink Posted 5-12-2001 09:14 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Write your own meditation. Close your eyes. You are standing on a mountain top. You look around and notice the relative sparsity of vegetation here. Normal things cannot grow at this altitude, and you feel your own lungs straining slightly with the lack of oxygen. But as you do so, you notice something else. There is another substance in the air coming into your lungs, and replacing your need for oxygen. Somehow you know that whereever you go, and whatever you do, this element will keep your body functioning normally. As you stand on the mountain top, you look up at the sky and are entranced by the white, fluffy clouds. As you watch, they tumble around, moving in their slow, ever-evolving patterns. And as you watch, you notice they are slowly moving closer to you. You stand and watch, enjoying their energy and the movement. And just relaxing, feeling the air and ground and elements around you, and enjoying their presence. You know the clouds will reach you eventually, and you stand, observing, feeling neither patient nor impatient, but simply enjoying the sensation of the world around you. As the clouds slowly decend, you notice there are shapes in the mist. You walk towards them, realizing you are crossing in to another plane. The ground beneath you is no longer important, as the clouds themselves support you in this new realm. As you walk, you notice a small stream running along side you, and you decide to follow it. You enjoy its soft tinkling sound, but also feel that it is here for a reason, to guide you to a new location. So you continue walking downstream along the stream, noticing that the shapes in the mist are becoming more solid, and those nearest you are starting to take on form and color. You keep walking, and the stream cascades as a waterfall into a large, round pool below. As you look down into it, you realize you can see what you have been looking for. And as you gaze, events and images unfold before your eyes, showing you answers and outcomes, giving you pictures so realistic you feel that you are there. You absorb insights and images you have been searching for... gradually, you feel sated, and know it is time to return. Slowly, slowly, you lift your gaze up from the pond, considering what you have seen, and knowing that you will remember the insights you have received. Then you slowly rise and begin your return trip,

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walking alongside the stream until the imagery around you fades, and the clouds around you slowly dissapate, until you find yourself again on the mountain, walking down from the peak and towards home. 2) Try to think of times and places when it would be possible for you to meditate while doing some physical action. What could happen if you decided to meditate while doing this action? Exercising and driving are two places where I have found myself doing this. For example, I once "came to" on an exercise bike, having completely zoned out, only to notice that I was still keeping my rate up at the pre-zoning level. Very, very relaxing. I also find myself meditating regularly while doing yoga. Somehow, the exercise is both still enough (e.g. holding poses) that I can let my mind wander, but it's also involving enough (some of those poses are tough) that I don't get bored and have my mind bounce all over the place. Driving is another place (unless traffic is bad) where I can put my body on auto-pilot, driving safely and defensively, but without requiring 100% of my brain power. I don't recommend that beginners try this because it could be very dangerous, but I find that I can allocate my altertness to driving, and the rest of my brain to other things. I tend to find one of three things happening when I do this. 1) I get very relaxed and calm, and feel refreshed when I emerge from the state, 2) I'm able to think through situations and figure out answers that had eluded me previously, or 3) I have interesting mind-wandering experinces (don't think I'm at AP yet), but I picture things or sense things or mentally interact with things on an imaginitive level--although I'm much better when I just let it happen, rather than trying to guide it. I find that whenever I try to guide these things, my cortex/conscious mind comes into play, and I start thinking "is that realistic?" and "if I've defined A and B as having occurred, is C a logical outcome?" and "what _should_ I be thinking about / what would I like to be imagining" and that destroys the whole effect. 3) Think of a major decision you had in your life and try to work out the cause and effect of taking different decision at that point. Where might you be now if you made a different choice? Hmmm. Let's take an interesting one. Say I hadn't married my husband (I've been married for eight years now). I wouldn't have learned to be as comfortable being myself as I am now. In fact, I would probably still be rigidly trying to conform to whatever expectations my significant others had of me. Given the environment I grew up in, I would probably be hyper-religious, hoping that the more tightly I clung to religion the more whole I would feel. I'd probably have my third or fourth child by now (no kids in real life), and be convincing myself that I enjoyed them when I really would be wishing I had more time for myself. And married to a conservative man who would take his responsibilities seriously and

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mine, but might or might not be capable enough to really go anywhere in life. And I'd be locked into supporting the family from a primary-caretaker role, rather than exerting my own skills in the workplace. And I'd probably snap at some point. In one form or another--whether getting depressed or more rigid in my thinking, or taking things out on the kids or people around me without realizing it. Ugh. Depressing. I like my current life much better :) -- Iliketothink

Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 5-12-2001 09:15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Write your own meditation. I basically took a self-made meditation that I do and adapted it a bit to fit the 6 themes. First, take a few deep breaths and close your eyes. Take a moment to center and ground yourself. Phase out any noises or distractions, focus on your breathing. Once you are relaxed, imagine yourself sitting in a library inside your head. The books contain all of your memories. Everything you ever saw, heard, and did. Run your hands along their spines, open up one or two, but know that these can wait, for you feel your heart is calling you. You open the door to the library and see an ivory spiral staircase. As you walk down the stairs towards your heart, you keep both hands on the walls and you can feel all the warmth and the energy inside your body. Soon you reach a door. Open the door to your heart. Peek inside. All along the walls are shelves filled with bottles of every size, shape, and colour. Inside all of the bottles are all of your hopes, fears, and dreams. Some are labled, some are not. Open a bottle. What do you feel? Open another. Take time to wander through the shelves and look around. Is there a hope you thought you'd lost long ago? A childhood dream? Take it with you. Put the bottle in your pocket. After you've collected everything that you want to take with you into the world outside, talke a few deep breaths, open the door to your heart again and open your eyes, knowing that you can return any time you wish. 2) Try to think of times and places when it would be possible for you to meditate while doing some physical action. What could happen if you decided to meditate while doing this action?

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I like to meditate while i cross-stitch. The rhythmic and repetetive movements help a lot. My mind goes quiet and I lose track of time a lot because I'm just stuck in the "being" and not the "doing" mode. Some times you prick your fingers and every once in a while you have to break your meditation to find out the next area or colour to stitch, but nothing too disasterous. 3) Think of a major decision you had in your life and try to work out the cause and effect of taking different decision at that point. Where might you be now if you made a different choice? If I would have stayed engaged to my ex-fiancee I would now be living in either Kansas City Missouri or Rolla Missouri instead of Houston Texas. I would probably have more money and we would have our own home or apartment instead of living with my current boyfriend's family. I would also be a lot more stressed and frustrated with my life than I am right now. We would be fighting all the time and we both would be very unhappy. I would always be wondering what it would have been like if I had left him. I would have a lot more freedom, but it's not worth the price of being miserable. I would probably be a lot farther along in my magical studies if I had stayed, because he also had been my teacher, but I would have had all the information just handed over to me on a platter instead of having to search things out for myself and work for it like I am right now in this class. -- blackdove01

Topic:Lesson 4 Taima Daven from The Web Witches Network Today and posts Posted 5-7-2001 14:30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------No, not today at a certain time, just a post or two to let me know you are all still here and alive. I do want a couple of things from you all.

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1) Your assignments. So far, off lesson 3, there have only been two people to turn it in. You can pass if you miss some assignements, and we do tend to be understanding about problems that come up in mundane life, but a repeat pattern of no assignment will not allow you to pass. If you only want to absorb the information, and the pass/fail is not important to you, then so be it. 2) I am in the process of writing Lesson 6 to go up next time, but I have a quandry. Most of it will be elaboration on what we have already covered and explanation of thoughts and questions you have had from the previous lessons. To that end, I wanted you all to send me your sets of questions. Instead I think I will ask you all to post the questions you have, or points you want elaborated upon here, for all of us, and I will assemble them into a lesson which will be a review. Other than that, I'm available to do whatever, although after 4:30 (-6 GMT), I will be at home and can't respond until tomorrow. Daven

Taima from The Web Witches Network A Question Posted 5-7-2001 15:22 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Let me see if I understand this correctly, ok? When you ask for points to elaborate upon, to be assembled into a lesson. Are you just asking for suggestions on astral topics that we might be interested in? Like methods to achieve an OBE. If so, this is the main point I would like to learn more about. Blessings, Taima

iliketothink from The Web Witches Network feeling stuck/too attached Posted 5-7-2001 15:41 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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You mentioned that you hope we're feeling more comfortable with AP. On some levels I am, but I find that whenever I feel like I'm starting to leave my body, I get "stuck." Specifically, when I'm meditating or relaxing at the end of doing yoga, and I feel like I'm starting to float out of my body, I can only go partway, or at the very most, float directly above my body. Then I'm "stuck" and I can't go further. I think part of me is worried that if I do go further, I'll leave my body completely and die, or that I won't want to come back. It's almost like some part of me is choosing to stay because "I'm needed" by the physical part of me. Could it be that I'm attempting to move too much of my awareness/self/soul/whatever out of my body so that I would, in fact, do some type of ddamage? Or do I just need to find a way to reassure myself that it's OK to leave for a while, since my body will be OK and I'll be able to come back? If the latter is the case, are there things that could be helpful? e.g. mantras to chant or protection rituals or something along those lines that could help me feel reassured?

Daven from The Web Witches Network Question Posted 5-7-2001 16:32 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, hopefully, that is what this class in toto will give you, multiple techniques to achieve AP. ;-) What I am speaking on is more like "Could you elaborare more upon ________________" or like iliketothink asked, a specific problem that I can answer directly, but not here since it would require a LOT of elaborations. Understand better? Daven

Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: feeling stuck/too attached Posted 5-7-2001 16:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Good one.... This will require a LOT of explanation and I can't do it all here, so I will be including it in the Lessons. Thank you. Daven

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blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network just a thought Posted 5-7-2001 18:13 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------ok. here's my question, sort of along the same lines as some previous questions, but i read a really old crappy book when i was like ten and in the book a girl was astrally projecting and someone else who was projecting also entered her body while she was away. is there any chance of anything (someone else projecting, some astral being, etc...) entering your body while you'r blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network next question... Posted 5-7-2001 18:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------the few times that i've actually started to leave my body have been while i was asleep and couldn't control it, but now that i'm actually consciously trying to do it, this seems to be getting harder and harder to do, and i seem to be losing the ability i had to do it unconsciously. am i trying to hard or

Daven from The Web Witches Network Crappy Books Posted 5-7-2001 21:09 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------I think I read the same book, and that is a topic that will be covered later in the class. However, I will do my best to give you some of the basics to answer your question in Lesson 6.

Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: next question... Posted 5-7-2001 21:11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hmmmm, good question blackdove. I will try to relate some of my experiences with this problem in Leson 6 to help you out.

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Oh, and only part of your posts are coming through. You may want to go back and edit the posts to reflect the entire contents of your original question.

Taima from The Web Witches Network A Few Suggestions Posted 5-7-2001 21:23 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ok, here are a few problems that I often hear about in astral chat groups. Not being able to control where the astral body goes. Not being able to get through walls or ceilings. Fear is another factor!! Fear of death, or dark beings. Perhaps a few suggestions along those lines would help. Thanks, Taima

Daven from The Web Witches Network Classroom Posted 5-10-2001 21:24 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Is this all that are going to be posting? I must let you know, that Umbria and I will both consider you dropped if you don't post at least one thing here. The three who have posted are still officially in the class, but all the others are in danger of being offically dropped. Please post if you desire to continue in this class. Daven

blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network can you die? Posted 5-11-2001 15:33 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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in the lecture you mentioned one battle that you had and rendered the other person unconscious. if you are on the losing end of the battle and have fatal injuries, can you actually die or will you just return to your b

blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network can you die? Posted 5-11-2001 15:34 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------in the lecture you mentioned one battle that you had and rendered the other person unconscious. if you are on the losing end of the battle and have fatal injuries, can you actually die or will you just return to your b

Taima from The Web Witches Network Problems Getting Here!! Posted 5-14-2001 22:28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello all I was looking for the posts for today. For the last three hours I have had problems getting to this page. Has anyone else had a hard time getting here, or might it be just my computer? Anyway I am excited to be having more lucid dreams, since starting this class!! :) OBEing from a lucid dream is fun, and is sharing features of your dreams with others. Blessings, Taima

Topic:Dreams and Astral Projection Admin from The Web Witches Network iliketothink Posted 5-14-2001 22:30 267

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Share one entry from your Dream journal. I had a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream again. Haven't really had one of those since first grade or so. But in my dream I got laid off at work. Then I "woke up" (or so I thought) and went to work. And while I was there I got a call from a headhunter, and I said I would take it because I had just gotten laid off. Then everyone around me freaked out because it had just been a dream, and I had gotten confused. Then 10 minutes later, everyone did get laid off. Then I "woke up" from that, went to work in a slightly different situation, and everyone got laid off again. It happened about six times before I finally woke up for real. I do internet consulting, and there have been tons of layoffs recently. I'm still employed, but have about 20 friends who have been laid off in the last week or two. I'm sure that was on my mind. That I need to be careful. And that my unconscious realizes that even if I leave my current job and find somewhere else, the risks of layoffs at a new employer might not be less. On its own, not much other than the fact that I'm worried about layoffs, and jobhopping isn't necessarily the answer. But I've talked to tonnnnns of people who have had weird dreams in the last month or so. And there have been two pervasive themes: knives, and preparing for an impending disaster. Very odd. All I can assume is that lots of people are noticing what's happening in the economy and getting concerned about it, subconsiously if not consciously. Or maybe I'm unintentionally projecting my fears into the heads of people around me. Unfortunately, just a dream. I used to do lucid dreaming all the time in 5th grade, but have only done it on rare occasions since then. I guess when I used to have lucid dreams, I really, really wanted to have them. For example, I had a dream about flying that was incredible, so I was always desperate to have another dream about flying, and was able to twist my dreams that way on numerous occasions. I guess in the last 5 years or so I've had a few lucid dreams, but usually I end up thinking "OK. I'm dreaming. That means I can do anything I want in this world... so what do I want to do? I don't know. Maybe fly? OK, sure" so I don't really take advantage of the state. You know, now I'm wondering about something. For a long time, I was good, probably too good, at picking up on people's emotions, and intuiting events before they happened. And the truth is a lot of times I wished I hadn't. So even now when I think it could be interesting, there's a big part of me that thinks "just relax, and let things happen as they will." Good from a Buddhist or Zen perspective, but it does somewhat interfere in my ability to tap into what I can do, since I'm disagreeing with myself over whether I want to. On a purely intellectual

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level, I've decided that it's probably like relationships in that they're a ton of work, but also worth it. I'd love it if anyone could chime in on the "it's worth it" note to help me convince myself of that fact. I no longer find the "it feels cool" or "I'm special" elements are compelling for me. But I'd like to believe that even though there might be no inherent value, there's a compelling benefit or something positive that could come out of ehancing these relatively-uncommon skills. And no, I don't want benefits like winning the lottery or gambling (I'm already creepily good with dice). I don't think that's what life is about. If we use the perfect pitch analogy, maybe there really isn't a true benefit--it's something that just is, but value can be obtained in defining it and developing it... the question is "what?" 2) Write down the "Rules of Conduct" you will follow when you are in another reality. Think of what you believe is courteous, and write these down as a guideline to how you will act when projecting. Oh dear. I don't want to quote Star Trek, but the thought that initially comes to mind is like the Prime Directive--don't interfere with anything until they've reached a level where they're capable of interacting with you. I really don't have the inclination to go in and play god for a culture. Or try to help certain people out and reorder things to go my way. That sounds like too much work, none of my business, somewhat pointless if all possibilities exist anyway, not to mention absolutely exhausting. But if anyone out there wants to chat with me, or is aware of me and doesn't mind answering a few questions, great. I guess if I'm making up guidelines to follow, I should also have one that says "I'll go where the need is greatest." That way since I don't have any particular quests or objectives in mind, I can go to the place most appropriate for me--whether it's a place where a particular individual needs my particular help, or a place where I'm likely to have my personal needs met, or at least have myself pointed in the right direction. 3) Look over your dream/AP journal and start a log of symbolism for yourself. I have a loooong list I've collected over the past 3 years or so. Some symbols I've figured out (water anywhere--in oceans/swimming pools/streams/snow/waterparks/etc always means family issues in my particular case because of my particular experiences with water and with my family), and others I'm perplexed by (anyone know what it means when your teeth keep falling out in dream after dream and you still have some left in your mouth?). But I'll wait :) -- iliketothink

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Admin from The Web Witches Network taima2 Posted 5-14-2001 22:31 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Share one entry from your Dream journal. Tell us what you think/know about it. Often I have a hard time remembering anything about dreams. It has been a bit embarrassing to help moderate a group where we talk about astral travel, and dreams while only to recall a few dreams. I can go for months without knowing about any dream!! I had awoke early in the morning after about four hours sleep. Spent about one hour on the internet, found a web page describing a place that sounded similar to the void. All the reading with little sleep was causing me to become drowsy. The web page was saved on the computer task bar. I went back to bed. THE DREAM Suddenly I heard the sound of voices. Looked up to see someone dressed in red, and realized that it was my grandson. We were happy to see each other, and hugged. Then I told him to lay down beside me. Next there were some more voices! My husband was talking to my son. I was puzzled about my son visiting, since he lives hundreds of miles away, and is in the service. My grandson was encouraged to get up, so we could see who was visiting. I got up walked in the living room, and sure enough it was my son!! After asking about his visit he showed me some Paperwork, explaining his hours at work. Then he walked into my room, and started using the computer. I remembered the web page that had been saved, and was about to tell him not to lose that page. It was too late the page disappeared. Next we were suddenly standing outside a cafe, and gas station business. There were some machines that I wanted to put money into. After walking up to a newspaper machine I noticed some coins in a compartment. The coins were placed in my pocket, since I felt like they were Found. Then a few coins were placed in another machine which made a noise. The machine seemed like a Waste of money, and I was disappointed. Now there was some guilt about taking the coins, so I decided to return them to the newspaper machine. Upon reaching into my pocket I noticed that some of the coins were round, while others were triangular. While looking at the Triangular shaped coins, I thought to myself these are the New coins. Then I walked over to a counter that had not been there before. The elderly man behind the counter looked a lot like my spirit teacher, except for the modern style of clothing he was wearing, also the brown and orange cap. The elderly man said

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that I could keep Twenty cents. The dream seemed so real. It was achieved by awaking early in the morning, staying awake for awhile, and going back to bed. This is a method for lucid dreaming. FOLLOWING DAYS The next day my husband went, and paid for the tags on my car which as Twenty dollars. He later received a call saying that he did not owe some money on a large hospital bill. Then I remembered the letter that had told me about money in an account, which I thought had been closed. The letter had been forgotten soon after my husband returned from the hospital. I wondered if this was the Found money. After chatting on-line with my son it was discovered that he had been doing Paperwork for a job transfer. Was that the Paperwork he had shown me in the dream? A friend came to visit, and we went to a restaurant, and shopping. I told her about the parts of the dream that had seemed to be happening, and wondered how the Triangles fit in. She joked that I should dream about her finding some money! She suggested that I look at the shape of the slices of pie we had received for dessert. Yes right there on the table those slices of pie made the perfect Triangles. How could I have missed it? However what happened after our leaving one store, was something that did get my attention. This was my friend´s remark about looking for the New coins for her quarter collection, and showing me the New coins!! By this time I could see that the dream seemed interwoven with reality. In the last store that we visited my friend asked how I liked a picture. Which picture I asked. She showed me a picture that left me astonished. For it was a picture of an Elder Indian like my spirit teacher. Above the Elder was one of my guides the Eagle. My friend knew nothing about this connection to that dream, and was offering to buy me a gift. She also did not know about my spirit teacher, and guides. Which to me, made it all the more remarkable!! Soon thereafter, I did buy a camera that took such bad pictures that it seemed a Waste of money, I was disappointed in it. 2. Write down the "Rules of Conduct" you will follow when you are in another reality. In other worlds you can show respect, and regard for another like you would in this world. It is appalling to hear about astral travelers hitting and fighting an astral being only because they are afraid of the being. Please do not hit, bite, or kick others because they look different than humans. One should expect some astral beings to look different than humans. Conquer your fear. First use a ceremony, ask the Higher Powers for protection, or surround yourself with light should you fear others.

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If someone at a distant location asks for healing light I would pray, and journey with my guides. Also I would be careful about approaching the person even while in the astral. Therefore you should not travel as an astral Dragon to a person that you are sending healing to, for they could see you, and become frightened. Always respect another´s space. You should always listen to your guides, since there might be places in the astral were you do not need to explore. 3. Look over your dream/AP journal and start a log of symbolism for yourself. Yes, triangles have shown up in some of my dreams, and OBEs!! However this post is long enough!! :) -- taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 5-14-2001 22:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. I was at the hospital and I was having a baby. My boyfriend and my Best Friend were there with me in the delivery room and it was a baby girl. I was sitting in one of the nurses' break rooms, but there was no handle on the door so I couldn't figure out how to leave the room. Then one of the nurses brought my baby to me. She was still naked, but she was all nice and cleaned up and she was so beautiful with short reddish blonde hair. I held her and started talking to her and I realized how feline she seemed and then I felt her start to go to the bathroom. so I quickly sort of tossed her onto the tile floor so it wouldn'[t get onto the carpet and it would be easier to clean up. She didn't get hurt when I tossed her because she turned into a cat and landed on her feet.I went to go brab a rag to clean it up and I was trying to fine one that was already dirty to use instead of one of the nice clean ones, but all of them were already wet, so I just grabbed one and cleaned up the mess, and picked my baby back up (she was a baby again, not a cat). So now I had to wait for a nurse to come in and then leave so I could follow her out since the door didn't have a handle. When I got out, I went into the waiting room where all my family was. I tried to get my daddy to hold her, but he just tried to pet her on the head, but he missed and hit her in the face. My "mother" was there and she gave her a kiss on the forehead, but only because I couldn't get away from her fast enough to protect my baby from her. My grandparents were there also, but they never said a word to me. My Boyfriend was there also, but he wasn't paying attention, as usual, and I had to call his name three or four times before he even realized that i was there, and he didn't

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want to hold his baby either. It seemed that no one loved my baby but me, and I loved her with all my heart and being, but I still hadn't given her a name yet. a) This dream meant a lot to me, because I feel that I'm at a point now where I'm actually starting to want to have a baby. At least once every week or two, I would dream that I was pregnant, in labor, or that I'd already had the baby. b) I think the dream is telling me that I may be ready for me to have a baby, but no one else is. Not my family, or even my Boyfriend. I'd be better off just having pets for now, which is I think why my baby turned into a cat. c) I know this wasn't a Lucid Dream, or an AP Episode. I don't think it was a True Dream either, it hasn't come true, but it did give me some good information. d) I think that there's something inside me that wants to be borne, not a physical baby, but something else that wants to come to life. The only problem is that right now, I have no idea what it is. 2) Rule #1- Observe before you act. You don't really know what kind of rules, or culture or morals the people would have. Watch them first and see how they act and treat each other, so you don't rush in, do something stupid that would get you severely punished in their world. Rule #2- Don't try to force any new ideas or practices on the people you come in contact with. What is right for you, may not be right for them. Rule #3- For the most part, don't interfere, but if you see or know of some gross wrong, speak up or do something about it.

blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network mondays Posted 5-15-2001 00:40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------is every monday going to be an interaction day? i thought it was just last week. Daven from The Web Witches Network Gathering Day? Posted 5-18-2001 18:27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sorry, all, but RL has been hectic for me lately. No, Mondays are not general gathering times, but they can become so if you want them to.

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I would not mind having some kind of interaction between me and you, and if that is what you all want, then we can do it. It's not a requirement at this point. Last week's posting requirement was to see who was still in this class, and who was blowing it all off in the name of not wanting to do any work. I think we have had our attrition and that you three are all that are left of the class. It's good, in that I will have more time to spend on all of you individually, if you need it. I would like to see us all use this forum to post thoughts, experiences, feelings, events and to socialize here. I'm not demanding it, but it would be a good thing. So, post away if you feel like it, I will be checking this forum everyday when I get into work, and multiple times during the day. It's just this last week that prevented me from doing so. Too many things going on. Anyhow, I'll let you all talk now. LOL Daven

Topic:Lesson 5 OOPS.... Daven from The Web Witches Network Lesson 5 OOPS.... Posted 5-18-2001 18:41 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was just looking at the lesson on the board, and I discovered that the picture didn't come through. So I will post the picture here, and hope that it does come out this time. LOL

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It seems that my webserver won't let other web sites call upon the pictures or files loaded to it. I guess that's fair, but now what do I do? LOL I'll use another hoster for my pictures that I use in the classes. But this is the picture that should be where the "Crosswinds" logo is now. Sorry about that everyone. Daven blackdove01 from The Web Witches Network problems Posted 5-19-2001 16:14 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------is anybody else having problems logging in or is it just me? i can log in on the message board but the little window doesn't pop up to let me log in for the lectures and excercises so i can't get to them. Help!

Taima from The Web Witches Network A Few Questions Posted 5-29-2001 02:59 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Are we going to cover anything on energy work? Some people find themself getting stuck at a certain part of their physical body, and unable to OBE. Have you any info. on the IBE where a person finds themself falling down through their body? One lady is a bit troubled about doing this in lucid dreams. Thanks for any suggestions. Blessings, Taima

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Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: A Few Questions Posted 5-29-2001 14:46 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------We can cover some energy work, Tamia, although that is not necessarily a fucntion of OOBE. However, since Energy and OBE and Magick are all interchangable (in that skill in one gives you skill in another) we can discuss it a bit. Blackdove, I wouldn't forget you, so you are safe here. LOL And I will try to find a "place" to shoehorn the "getting stuck" suggestions I have. Daven

Topic:The Structure of the Planes Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 5-31-2001 02:59 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. I don't feel very comfortable with Monroe's theory because I know there are more than just 3 places that one can go. I also don't like the idea of there being planes that aren't accessible like in DeGracia's theory, even though I'm pretty sure there are some like that. I guess I find Daven's theory the most fitting and comfortable for me to visualize, although for some reason I have a feeling that there are more than the 5 planes listed in Daven's theory-- but it may be that my mind thinks of each separate world or dimension as its own plane, so there would be a pretty much infinite number of them instead of just 5. 2. I think Daven is doing a wonderful job. My problems seem to be more with the way the course is set up. I would personally like to have a shorter interval between class periods. Two weeks is long enough for me to start forgetting details, and have to go look up previous lessons,which I guess is partly a good thing and will help me remember more in the end, but it's still annoying.

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I personally feel like I could be doing more in the class, more out of class work and supplemental reading, instead of just reading the lectures and doing the writing assignments. I'm gaining more focus and mental control from meditating and my dreams are getting much easier to remember, but I don't have much of a record of symbols because most of my dreams are just variations on scenes from what I watched on television or read in books that day, or the day before. It's mostly just my brain sorting out details. No lucid dreams, true dreams, or AP episodes yet, just lots of meditating. -- blackdove01

Admin from The Web Witches Network Taima Posted 5-31-2001 03:32 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well it looks like this will be one of the hardest lessons for me, because there are so many different ways that one can view the astral planes. Often it could depend on a person´s perception as to how they might view the astral planes. For example if one where to study shamanism they could think of the planes as being the Upper, Middle, and Lower planes. If one where to study the medicine wheel they might think of the planes as being like the East, West, North, and South of the medicine wheel. Some medicine wheels, such as the Cherokee, also incorporate these directions together giving seven directions. This is the structure theory that I have used for some time. However as I started to study the chakra system more I wondered if one might travel certain planes in relation to each of the main chakras. The word chakra is a Sanskrit word meaning wheel. It is a wheel-like spinning vortex that interpenetrates the physical body, with the outer ends of each vortex forming a specific layer of the auric field. The general reason behind this theory is because many who travel to different planes via astral travel, NDEs, and shamanic journeys often tell about going through a tunnel, or a colorful vortex. Therefore this tunnel or vortex experience could be seen as one of many signposts to entering different planes. For the sake of being brief the other signposts will not be presented here. Yet my entire theory is still a work in progress! So please keep this in mind. We can however focus on the seven directions (described briefly above), the seven main chakras, and also the seven bodies. The first chakra is often called the root, base, muladhara, kundalini Here the area of consciousness is the physical body. Second chakra is the sacral, or, svadhisthana by which we can move beyond our understanding of ourselves and realize the awareness of others. The third chakra is the solar plexus, or manipura

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that area of consciousness is linked to the mental or intellectual body. The fourth is near the heart, or called the anahata. Here we are connected to the astral body. The fifth chakra is located at the throat, or called the visuddha. This is our link to the etheric body. The sixth chakra is locate at the brow, it is called the third eye, or, ajna. Here we are one with the celestial body and we can have "sixth sight", or the ability to "see" by way of clairvoyance. The seventh is the crown or the sahasrara through which we can merge with all that is. Now we shall move on to the seven bodies. Through research I found that we have seven bodies: the physical, the etheric, the astral, the mental, the spiritual, the cosmic, and the nirvanic. The articles I read explains how these bodies are like layers on an onion, and that some of their abilities might over lap. Through the physical body one will experience the earthly plane, and dreams that are from that realm. With the etheric body one will travel in dreams, and overcome space. Meditation visions, and waking visions are of the etheric body. Etheric projections generally travel at or very near the physical world. The astral body allows us to travel both in space and time. Through the astral dream we can learn about past lives, and gain insight on our soul group. From the astral body, one knows one´s immortality. Through the mental body we can gain intuition, and mentally travel in time while feeling very much in the physical body. With the mental body we can gain insight into the future. The mental body can have dreams that are as realistic as the real. By these types of dreams one can become a great artist. One can be aware that any type of mental creation can manifest their dreams. In the mental body, there is both the awareness and the witnessing mind. With the spirit body we go beyond the physical and time into the consciousness of the whole. Every type of duality is cast off. There are infinite souls and each soul has its own individuality. While in this body we might share experiences of dreams or astral travel with others, and compare notes. Here is where we learn about working together with others. We can view our being as that of an eternity. Through the cosmic body a person can transcend their individuality, the conscious, time and space. There can be dreams, and travels of oneness, of the infinite, and all consciousness has been realized with the universe. Matter and mind has become one, everything is alive and conscious. With the nirvanic there are dreams and travels to the void, and while the void may appear as dark it becomes the nothing from which all things come into being. Therefore it is all things, and infinite in time and space. So the seventh is the center. Now the dream, the astral travel, and reality have become one. There is no difference, there is only a totality with all. Thus the result one gets from this type of research is: 1. Physical Plane 2. Etheric Plane 3. Astral Plane 4. Mental Plane 5. Spiritual Plane

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6. Cosmic Plane 7. Nirvanic Plane Evaluations: The information presented in this astral course have been easy enough to understand. The lessons are also complex enough where the student can learn, and can reflect upon their experiences regarding astral travel. The material is sent in a timely manner. Perhaps the only problem I have seen that makes this course too complex is the use of too many web sites, and programs such as Yahoo, The Mystical School Site. The need for passwords, java, and a another chat system. Yahoo has a message board, a chat room and you can restrict the group to members only. When I signed up for the lessons I thought that we would be using only Yahoo as the main base. Why make this class more difficult, computer wise, than it has to be? Daven has done a great job at answering the students questions. I appreciate his time, and effort at presenting the material. I appreciate the kindness of others who are a part of the Mystical School who have helped me while there were java problems. Thanks everyone for your time, effort, and foresight in adding to other peoples mystical knowledge!! These lessons a the true blessing for those who have no access to workshops!! As for myself, perhaps I have been caught up in too many other projects to devote the amount of time that I should to these lessons. I have just discovered the wonderful voice chat psychic groups at Paltalk, and the 30 other groups I am on keep me hopping. It has been a real challenge at times. -- Taima ADMIN's NOTE: The students use password protected pages (which is only appropriate for this structure) and a message board. BOTH of which may be accessed from ONE site: http://oms.webwitch.cjb.net NO chat. Yahoo is being used (by the ADMIN ONLY) as a mailing service.

Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: The Structure of the Planes Posted 6-4-2001 20:40 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Okay, sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but I had some things going on IRL that kept me busy. Lets start out with the assignments: Blackdove01 wrote: > In this, I am talking about the specific visualizations that are given, like the drop of water and so on.

Should be self explanatory. LOL Daven

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Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: too much information Posted 6-19-2001 16:02 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------You were supposed to read the document called "DO-OBE" since that is what we will be looking at in lesson 9. The others you downloaded for your own pleasure, and I think that's wonderful, but please wait to read them till AFTER this current unit. Daven

Daven from The Web Witches Network Re: monday-checking in Posted 6-26-2001 13:11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------By my count, there is currently myself (who HAS to stay here LOL), Blackdove, Tamia and iliketothink. So, 4 people in the class out of 14. The best I can say about this drastic drop in numbers is that I guess they didn't want to do the work. I'm not an easy teacher, but I try to be a fair one. One girl, just before she quit (in the second week) said that the assignments were too hard. I can only assume that those who dropped out thought this would be a formality. Being told that they actually had to DO something seems to have disenchanted many. I guess this would be worse for me if this was the first time I had faced this. But out of five other classes I have taught online, this has happened numerous times. So..... More power to them. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) I don't plan on changing my teaching style anytime soon. I will go over some point until you understand it, but I refuse to hand-hold and teach to the "lowest common denominator". I expect my students to apply themselves and to try. If it is still too hard, then we will figure something out from there. So. The four of us are all that is left. Well, let's go on.... Daven

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(PS, sorry about this, but I'm a bit depressed. A good friend, brother and student/mentor died of liver failure recently and I'm still depressed about it)

Topic:Visualization and Forms of Locomotion Admin from The Web Witches Network Taima2 Posted 6-30-2001 09:50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Time to discuss the assignment! Remember, you are still going to submit the assignments to [email protected]. We will post the answers here to let you share and learn from each other. This will be done ONLY AFTER the due date to avoid picking upon each other's thoughts and intuitions. ;o) -- OMS Admin Part 1 Visualization When I visualize: 1. A face, the sight that comes to me is my grandmother´s face. She is smiling, and she appears to have blond hair. 2. The galloping horse is a large black horse that is running, it´s mane is blowing in the breeze. 3. The rosebud is a red rose with dew upon the petals of the flower. 4. My bedroom is where I am sitting a the computer typing this post. There is a chair to the right, and a dresser beyond the chair. A picture of a eagle dancer hangs on the wall next to a poster of a county map. Behind me to the right is a bookcase with a white vase that has butterflies on it. Directly behind me is the doorway leading into the bedroom. Along the wall behind me is another dresser with a mirror. On the wall above that dresser are several awards and diplomas which are in brown, and black frames. There is a gray filing cabinet near the bedroom closet. One table with a lamp that has a purple lamp shade. To the right is another chair, and beyond that is a king size water bed with a purple pillow, and a blue white quilted bedspread. On the other side of the bed is another table 285

with a clock, and an antique lamp. On the wall near the lamp is a small wooden shadow box containing crystals, then a large picture of an eagle. Near the picture is a window. The window is next to the computer desk. 5. If one is stopped near a stop light the light would be red, next you would see a flash of green light. Most stop lights that I notice are yellow rectangular metal looking boxes, however the lights are round, and are situated in a vertical roll of three. 6. The newspaper headline would be the name of the newspaper that I read the most. It would say Texarkana Gazette in bold black letters, on a white background. 7. The sound of rain would be heard as a gentle evening rain where one could hear the drops of water hitting the roof above. 8. The voice would be my son talking on the telephone saying to me, "Hi mom. How are you doing?" He doesn´t have a very deep, or high voice. He has a soft sounding voice. 9. For children laughing at play I would hear a lot of giggling, the sounds of little girls, and little boys laughter. Perhaps they would be at some play ground. 10. For the feel of soft fur I could imagine touching the soft gray fur of my little kitten. She has rather short fur that feels like touching a cotton ball. 11. An itch --that is not a feeling I like, cause thinking about it makes my forehead itch, the back of my left lower leg, and the top of my right foot!! 12. I would imagine standing outside in the wind, and feeling a cold breeze blowing from the south to touch the right side of my face. 13. I would run down the driveway, and feel the tension in the back of the calves of my legs. As I moved each leg forward to take a step the tension would ease. 14. To kick the can I would run a few steps, and bring the toes of my right foot in alignment with the side of the can. Then I would lift my right foot in an upward movement to send the can flying through the air. 15. To draw a circle I might select a large white sheet of paper. Place the paper on a flat surface such as my dining room table. Then I would find a small white plate in my china cabinet. Select a pencil, most likely a yellow number two pencil. Then after laying the plate on the top of the paper I would trace around the edge of the plate toward the right, and around the plate. 16. The taste of a lemon is fairly tart, and sour.

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17. The taste of toothpaste is sorta sweet, and minty. 18. A potato chip is salty and it tastes like a thinly fried potato. 19. The aroma of bacon always makes me hungry. It has a salty pork like smell. 20. I am not really sure what a gardenia smells like. 21. The smell of perspiration can vary from that of smelling like soap, to dirty gym socks. 22. Hunger feels like tremors, and tension coming and going in waves along the inner walls of the stomach. 23. A cough usually starts with a tickle down in the throat, and this is followed by a constriction of the muscles along the neck, followed by a gasping of air from the nostrils, and opening the mouth. 24. As one awakes the breathing becomes deeper, you look from the darkness of closed eyes into the world around you. Then you may yawn to get more oxygen to the brain, and to stimulate your thinking. 25. As a stone is dropped into a pond the ripples extend out over the surface of the water growing larger, and larger. 26. Each of the words would lift off the page, and fly off into the sky in different directions, until they became smaller and smaller against the blue background of the sky, and disappeared from view. 27. The sides of my shoe with come apart at the seams, as would the back and top parts. Until each part was loose. Then one by one each section of the shoe would glide away, and drift off into space. 28. A sharp metal knife would come down to cut the orange into five equal pieces. The knife would slice into the skin of the orange sending juice flying into the air. The slices could than be arranged into equal patterns like that of a flower blossom. Part 2 Forms of Locomotion Here are some forms of locomotion that I have used gliding about from room to room, traveling about in a floating sphere, flying along roadways, swimming,

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skating. Shapeshifting into an animal and diving as a turtle, running as a panther, flying as an eagle. Also riding an animal, bilocation, teleporting, and translocation. Most often I will use visualization to get a sense of the location that I would like to journey to. Then I will use one of the methods of travel for getting there. Even in our ordinary lives we have goals to where we want to go. For example if one were going to the store they might picture it in their thoughts, so they could get from their current location to the store. If one wanted bread, milk, and coffee from the store they might visualize the aisles where those products would be found. It is really not that different as compared to traveling while OOB. Some forms of travel are more suitable to the beginner phase such as gliding about from room to room, traveling about in a floating sphere, flying along roadways, swimming, or skating. If one is just starting out it will be easier to explore this plane while OOB, such as gliding from room to room of their house. While flying along roadways is slow it is easier to relate to driving a car. I also like to suggest traveling in a protective sphere for those who feel some fear of astral travel. Then as one gains more experience and confidence they can use other faster techniques for traveling the astral such as teleportation, and translocation. Permission is given to Daven to use the assignments that I have written about for his book concerning this class. -- Taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 6-30-2001 09:55 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some of the pictures that we were supposed to visualize were much easier than others. i had problems with the galloping horse because i couldn't get the legs right and they kept getting into a big knot. i also had some problems with visualizing the rooms that i was in because there were some things that i couldn't remember and my mind focused on getting everything right instead of just trying to picture everything. i'm also much better at seeing things than i was with feeling or smelling them. I also have had the book dream before, except i never got to open it because i was too busy trying to figure out why it was chained to my wrist. Whenever i'm in my little inner world i created i walk. i have a large walking stick that goes with me everywhere. i feel more comfortable doing what i know, instead of trying to fly or walk through things. the only time i fly is in my dreams,

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and that's only rarely. i can't drive in my world because it's a more medieval setting and that would just be out of place and i won't bilocate or teleport because i love to walk through the woods and actually see and enjoy my surroundings instead of just passing through them to get to somewhere else or just skip them all together and appear where i'm going all of a sudden. i'm sure that i could do them if i wanted too, but i just feel more comfortable with walking, and it also fits in with my setting better. if i was in a more futuristic setting, i probably would teleport of bilocate, but it's also easier for my mind to grasp things i already know how to do, like walk, swim, or drive. my mind would have more trouble trying to visualize teleporting or phasing because it's not sure how it would look or what it would feel like, but to each his own. I don't know if any of these visualizing exercises will help me because the only time that i've ever been able to start to leave my body is when i'm asleep. i can't do it consciously. it seems that there has to be a certain set of circumstances in order for me to be able to do it. i have to be laying next to my boyfriend, asleep, in a certain bed. i have had no success so far trying other things like meditation or visualizing. i think a deep piece of my mind won't let me because it's too scared of something. even if i'm totally relaxed, i can't do it. i hit barrier, or i can't get high enough to break free. the only time i can do it is when i'm asleep and my conscious mind doesn't have control over me anymore. I'm going to keep doing the excercises though. they're wonderful training, and after awhile, they may actually start to help, i don't know. the only thing that would help me is something that i could do while i was asleep, but i have no idea what that is right now. Yes, you have my permission to use my assignments and questions in your book. -- blackdove01

Topic:Personal Evaluation Admin from The Web Witches Network Taima2 Posted 6-30-2001 09:04 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------289

Personal Evaluation: First of all I have really enjoyed the lessons in this class, and I wish to thank everyone who has made them possible. It takes time and effort to put these classes together, and to keep everything running smoothly. Things I Am Doing Right: The lessons are reviewed before I start to work on them so that I might better understand what their goal is for the student. I strive to be truthful in my answers to the best of my knowledge, and share my personal views. At the same time it helps to realize that there are several ways, and several theories in which one can perceive astral travel. The lessons are read through at least twice, so that nothing is left out. If there is a question concerning a lesson I will check to see if it was covered in the lecture. Before turning in my work it is checked for errors in spelling. Thus far all of the lessons have been sent in before the due date. Things I Am Doing Wrong: More time could be spent reading the required material for the class. More time could be devoted to each lesson. Also more time could be spent on writing in my AP journal. Perhaps I need to schedule my time better. I should try to write in my journal soon after I have a lucid dream or a OBE so that details are not forgotten. However it is hard to describe all of the details within a lucid dream, or OBE because many of them happen so fast. The lucid dream or OBE might appear very other worldly or surreal. Thus they are somewhat complex to write about should one strive for an accurate accounting of them. Therefore I often wish that I had the talent of an artist. Where I Need Help: It would be good to get some feedback from others on the lessons that I have turned in, so that I can see where they need to improve. At times I might overlook something, or tend to be too long winded with details that are not very relevant. Perhaps that is my chief down fall being too long winded at times!! LOL :) Where I Might Help Others: If others are having a problem with astral travel I might be able to give some suggestions along the lines of using progressive relaxation, energy work, lucid dreams, meditation, and the like. There are many methods for astral travel, and it could be finding what works for each person. Although our guides might play a

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part in where we go, and what we might see while in the astral once we are OOB. Areas That Need Improving: Schedule time for working on lessons Schedule time for working on AP journal Set aside more time for working on lessons Set aside more time for working on AP journal Start on lessons sooner Start on AP journal sooner -- Taima2

Admin from The Web Witches Network blackdove01 Posted 6-30-2001 09:07 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------I feel that I'm doing well reading the lectures and keeping up with the writing assignments, but I need to stop doing them the night before, or the day that they are due. I need to meditate more, preferably every day, but in a noisy household with four other people every day may be too much to hope for. I need to do more outside reading on astral projection, instead of witchcraft in general and all the Harry Potter books. I need more help learning to focus when I meditate, I need to learn how to shut out all the other noises and thoughts that swirl around in my head. I need to stop trying so hard, and just relax more. My dreams are becoming more realistic and less like movies, which hopefully is a step toward lucid dreaming, which I still haven't been able to do yet. I need to work more on my dream symbols and what they mean to me personally. I'm not sure what I can help others in, because I don't know what the other students' needs are right now and where they need help. -- blackdove01

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Topic:Message Board VS Mailing List Admin from The Web Witches Network Message Board VS Mailing List Posted 7-16-2001 10:07 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello everyone, We are probably getting rid of this message board. Everyone.net has always been down lately. So we decided to just open the mailing list for class discussion. And to directly mail you the materials. Yes, no more login problems! :-) More info has already been emailed to you.

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Email List Traffic Well, it looks as though this will be the forum we use. I must say that I prefer this to the message board. Getting the files configured so they look like I want them to..... Well. From what I understand, we will still have the lesson and assignments posted to the lesson directory on the OMS School, we just won't be using that message board that is available. The lessons should be remailed here after they are posted, along with the assignments, and your turned in assignments will also be posted here. At least, I THINK that is what is supposed to happen. So, if you have questions or comments, don't be afraid to ask away. I'll be looking in on this list quite a lot, since the email address I get this at is my primary personal email address. I'm currently writing Lesson 10, and I think you all will like it. It addresses many things that need to be looked at, and it gives you both some feedback. Stars light your path, Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 10 Date: Thursday, August 02, 2001 9:52 AM actually, i didn't think that i was setting down any rigid conditions for me to astrally project, just relating what had happened so far, and my boyfriend had either been next to me or a few feet away every time until about a week ago. i went back to missouri and decided to sleep out on the porch and almost projected until all the mosquitos decided to attack my face at once since that was the only bit of me left uncovered. that brought be back pretty quick. and i decided to go sleep inside, but i live in the basement, but i couldn't project from there after being outside for so long because i felt so locked in by the walls and being underground. so until that point, i had projected every time from the same room in the same bed, but i can actually do it from other places also.

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blackdove01 From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 10 Date: Thursday, August 02, 2001 1:00 PM From: "bella donna" > actually, i didn't think that i was setting down any rigid conditions for > me to astrally project, just relating what had happened so far, and my > boyfriend had either been next to me or a few feet away every time until > about a week ago. It's also a matter of what I was percieving when I read your lesson at 4 AM. Sorry if I misunderstood. i went back to missouri and decided to sleep out on the > porch and almost projected until all the mosquitos decided to attack my face > at once since that was the only bit of me left uncovered. that brought be > back pretty quick. and i decided to go sleep inside, but i live in the > basement, but i couldn't project from there after being outside for so long > because i felt so locked in by the walls and being underground. so until > that point, i had projected every time from the same room in the same bed, > but i can actually do it from other places also. That's wonderful! Good work. Daven From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] (unknown) Date: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 9:06 PM new question. when you dream you are on the astral plane. are the people you are interacting with in your dreams the astral bodies of the real people or are they just astral entities that only resemble the real people you are dreaming about? blackdove01 From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class"

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Subject: Fw: [OMS-OOBE] (unknown) Date: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 7:23 AM > new question. when you dream you are on the astral plane. are the people you > are interacting with in your dreams the astral bodies of the real people or > are they just astral entities that only resemble the real people you are > dreaming about? > Hmmm, good question. Most times, the people on the Astral Plane won't look like anyone you know. In many cases, the creatures that live on the Astral Plane won't look like anything anyone knows, or they will shape "bodies" to suit themselves. How do you tell the difference? You can't really. Just use your best judgment and play it by ear. Check the circumstances and environment around them. Sometimes that gives you clues. If you see a Roman Centurion (Sergeant) in the middle of a concrete jungle, chances are, it's someone who lives on the Astral Plane. However, the same person in the middle of a Germanic Battlefield is probably some deceased soul reliving the circumstances of his death and so on. Sometimes you can guess by the "feel" of the person you are talking to, but that's not too accurate until you get more experience. But if an Astral Entity really wanted to look or behave like anything else that I talked about in the previous lesson, there would be no way for us to know what they truly are. Just go with the flow and treat everyone with kindness and respect and you should be fine. Daven From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: Fw: [OMS-OOBE] (unknown) Date: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 10:45 AM I noticed that Degracia mentioned one case where he thought he was talking to his roommate in his bedroom, only to come out of trance and realize his roommate was playing guitar downstairs. So it's probably safest to assume that you're just seeing a reflection of the person, and not go up to someone and say "hey, I saw you the other day in the astral plane" until you know the person better. At least, that's what I was wondering when I saw your

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question and thought "I meant to ask that!" And not to judge any particular individual by their actions in the Astral Plane, since it might be them but might not (per Daven's point). Daven, if you see a person you know in the Astral Plane, do you think it's safest to assume that "it could be them, but it probably isn't"? From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: Fw: [OMS-OOBE] (unknown) Date: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 10:57 AM > Daven, if you see a person you know in the Astral Plane, do you think it's > safest to assume that "it could be them, but it probably isn't"? Either that or approach it as though it could be them, but it could be them from a Might-Have-Been. I think I mentioned in one of the examples I cited that at one point I was APing and I had my wife with me, only to come to find out that she was not even asleep. That's when I first realized that just because you see someone with you who has all the characteristics of a friend or loved one, including the astral "feel" of them, it may not be the same person you exist on THIS plane with. Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] blackdove01 Date: Thursday, August 09, 2001 11:38 PM Lesson 10 Assignment 1. Right now, I would want to meet my grandfather who just recently past and ask him all sorts of questions. What is it like on the other side? Does what you believe during your life time have any affect on where you go or what you do in the afterlife? (because pagans and Jehovah's Witnesses have completely different views on that) What have you learned since you crossed over? Do you now expect to be reborn again despite your previous views in life? Is there any way to ensure that we can be together again in our next lives?

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2. Mermaids started out on this world, but I don't know if they are still here or not, the only reports I remember were about sailors seeing them a century or more ago, but they may have just gone into hiding. I don't believe they ever really had much contact with humans, just occasional glimpses, unless you believe disney. I don't know if their sparse contact would be aloofness on their part, thinking they were above us, or just language barrier, or because we just live in two different worlds with little cause for contact. They may just ignore humans completely, but with more and more pollution in the oceans they may declare war some time soon to save their species, if they haven't left already like the dolphins in So Long And Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams. As a Pisces I've always loved water and I used to play at being a mermaid whenever I'd go swimming, still do sometimes. For me they always were the spirit of the water much more than the undines or water babies (the usual water elementals) were, but I also had no idea what they were at the time either. From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink assignment #10 Date: Sunday, August 12, 2001 5:27 PM >Pick a creature from myth or story. Write about it as I have >done with the Dragons and Unicorns. Write it from the perspective >of them, and their attitudes and reactions to Humans. Fascinating what a mental block I've had trying to do this assignment. So it's good that I have to do it anyway--it's probably related to whatever is causing my mental block re. astral projecting, so facing it as a homework assignment probably gives me a head start by making me begin overcoming the block using my conscious mind. The really old trees from The Lord of the Rings. Ancient and powerful, they see humans as vaguely entertaining, but impatient and jumpy. They are curious about how we manage to pack so much meaning into our short trivial lives, how we feel so intensely about the random events that happen to us. They find it curious and interesting, and actually on some level wonder what it would feel like to be like us. It is possible to appeal to them through a desire for knowledge, respect for what they do and what they are, and an appeal to the deeper patterns for goodness in the universe. But other times they will dismiss our pleas as irrelevant. They might feel entertained by our passion, but disinclined to help, the same way adults smile at a teenager who *has* to purchase a certain brand of jeans. It is difficult to predict when they will feel sympathy for our cause and when they will simply feel humored by our passions, but for the most part we can assume they will respond when important, although perhaps not as quickly as we might like.

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>If you could meet anything or anyone who has ever existed or could >exist, who would it be, and what top 5 questions would you ask? One of the relatively more intelligent species of dinosuar: * Where did you go? * What circumstances brought about your downfall? * Do you still live or exist elsewhere in the universe? * What would you have done differently if you could? * Were you the original inhabitants of this planet, or were there other species who lived and then died out as you did? From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] questions on lesson 11 Date: Sunday, August 12, 2001 5:48 PM >By this I mean that a "true" dream will usually be in black and >white, while a lucid dream will be in color. Ummm, this may be silly, but I don't think I've *ever* had a dream in black and white. I suppose it could mean that all of my dreams are APs, but that seems somewhat unlikely, no? >I believe that this is why most people forget their dreams in the >morning. The Subconscious has no orders to remember them for later, >and so it discards all that activity upon waking so that it can start >fresh. Random thought that you might find interesting and might not: I'm actually good at remembering my dreams and tend to remember one to five per night. Once I decided I wanted to remember all of my dreams, and I suddenly started remembering 20 per night. I promptly decided that was waaay too much for me to digest, so I told my subconscious to go back to filtering and only having me remember the most important ones. >You can turn a true dream into a lucid dream, >simply by willing yourself to another place. It's like when >teleporting in a Lucid Dream or an OOB. Now that I think about it, I started controlling my dreams in second or third grade (for reference, I'm much older now--finished my master's degree several years ago). Actually, it happened because I had a dream that I LOVED and I kept trying to repeat it. So I was able to control about 3 or 4 dreams

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after that, getting a close (but not identical) sensation. Then in 5th grade, I got really good at having lucid dreams on demand and doing whatever I wanted to in them. But I finally decided "what good is it? there's nothing in particular I want to do, except for flying, which is fun" and stopped trying to control my dreams. I think that's part of the reason I'm having trouble getting into this again. Other than the "wow, cool" factor, can you think of any benefit it provides? Any deep benefits? (anyone else, feel free to chime in on this one) >If the answer is yes, then chances are that you had a lucid dream. >True dreams tend to NOT have an emotional content, and if they do, >it's transient and fades with time. Somehow this criteria doesn't seem quite right either, since at least 80% of my dreams have emotional content, and it re-surfaces when I think about the dreams again. I think I might use the criteria "did it seem more vivid than usual?" unless you see a problem with that. Is that OK? >I was getting feelings emotions colors and many other things like >touching, smelling and hearing which normally don't happen in regular >dreams." Hmmm. Feelings, emotions, colors and feelings all happen in 99-100% of my dreams. Touching happens in about 75% of them and smelling not very often at all. Any idea if this means anything in particular? Or just that I can't use the normal criteria for distinguishing lucid dreams from normal dreams? Thanks! From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] questions on lesson 11 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:29 AM > Ummm, this may be silly, but I don't think I've *ever* had a dream in black > and white. I suppose it could mean that all of my dreams are APs, but that > seems somewhat unlikely, no? No, I think I said this, but it bears repeating, in my experience ***I*** don't have color dreams except in OOBE. I have heard of a few people who dream in color all the time, but the majority of those who don't project have dreams in B&W. I think it has something to do with the creativity side of the brain. If the creative aspects of the person are being used to their fullest extent, then it is possible that all dreams are in color, rather

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than B&W. But once again, I am no expert on dreams. > > Random thought that you might find interesting and might not: I'm actually > good at remembering my dreams and tend to remember one to five per night. > Once I decided I wanted to remember all of my dreams, and I suddenly started > remembering 20 per night. I promptly decided that was waaay too much for me > to digest, so I told my subconscious to go back to filtering and only having > me remember the most important ones. Be handy if you could turn that back on again, wouldn't it? Here's one of the things I warn most of my Magick and Wicca students about: Don't wish for what you don't want. A "brake" on an ability like that is good, as well as training in using it, but have the subconscious filter out the dreams so that only the important ones get through will result in maybe one dream a week being remembered, and even then you would forget it pretty quickly. > Now that I think about it, I started controlling my dreams in second or > third grade That's wonderful. Beleive it or not, this is the primary goal of most of the dream research out there. Other than the "wow, cool" factor, can you > think of any benefit it provides? Any deep benefits? (anyone else, feel free > to chime in on this one) Actually, I can think about quite a number of bennefits, but I will be covering those in later lessons. > Somehow this criteria doesn't seem quite right either, since at least 80% of > my dreams have emotional content, Relates to the Color vs. B&W again. The Creative processes in the brain will generate emotional content as well as color. Good for you. and it re-surfaces when I think about the

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> dreams again. I think I might use the criteria "did it seem more vivid than > usual?" unless you see a problem with that. Is that OK? Sounds fine to me. That's one too, as well as "Is the dream more real than others" but that starts with the premise that you remember almost all of your dreams, unlike 90% of the population who forget them in the morning. > Hmmm. Feelings, emotions, colors and feelings all happen in 99-100% of my > dreams. Touching happens in about 75% of them and smelling not very often at > all. Any idea if this means anything in particular? Or just that I can't use > the normal criteria for distinguishing lucid dreams from normal dreams? No, this is my criteria and what is common for most people. You seem to be odd in your dreamscape, so you will have to come up with your own criteria. However, from what you have told us, you are already 80% there. I'm surprised you are not spontaniously APing every day. Stars light your path, Daven "Never attribute to Devil-worshiping conspiracies what opportunism, emotional instability, and religious bigotry are sufficient to explain." Shawn Carlson, Ph. D. From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:32 AM Good job everyone! I have been reading your assignments with interest, and there are some good thoughts in there. I'll share with you my answers to the same questions: (Daven is skipping the mythology part since he already did two of them....) I think I would talk to YHVH and get some information from him: 1) 2) 3) 4)

What the heck happened? What were you thinking when you re-created the human race? What in your opinion did you screw up the most on? What is your greatest disappointment?

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5) Are you really as much of a bigoted jerk as the Bible makes you out? There is more, but in the interest of brevity, I'll leave it there. Tamia, I'm still waiting. iliketothink, I thought you were gone. LOL Get your back assignments to me as soon as you can. Stars light your path, Daven From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] questions on lesson 11 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 1:03 PM Thanks for your answers. I appreciate them. >I'm surprised you are not spontaniously APing every day. lol Nope. I do seem to have some sort of a block--and I think it's mostly that I'm having trouble getting myself to *really want* to AP, which could be related to a lack of perceived benefits. I'm getting closer--I can see hypnogogic images and feel the "falling" sensation. Now I just have to start noticing the vibrations. BTW, here's a quote that yours reminded me of. Thought you might find it interesting. Seems to have a certain degree of pull even among those who do believe in God. "From Jung's perspective, that we can go to war with one another and threaten the world with annihilation in the name of God illustrates the degree to which we confuse God with our own unconscious." Van Eenwyk, John R. (1997). Archetypes and Strange Attractors: The Chaotic World of Symbols. Inner City Books, University of Toronto Incorporated. p. 72 From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 1:35 PM > Tamia, I'm still waiting. Sorry I sent this to the (old) address several days ago!

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Fire Birds: The Phoenix and The Thunderbird Since ancient days the bird has been associated with the soul. In cultures around the world the bird is seen as a messenger to the gods, a carrier of souls, an oracle, or is seen to possess the spirit of loved ones. In both Greece and Egypt, the Phoenix represents the sun, who dies in flames each evening and emerges anew each morning. It is described as being larger than an eagle, having brilliant scarlet, gold, and purple plumage and a melodious cry. In Greek mythology the Phoenix lives near a cool well of water. Every morning at dawn it bathes in the water while singing a beautiful song. The song is so beautiful that the sun god stops to listen. There is only one Phoenix in existence at a time. As the Phoenix feels its death approaching every 500 years it builds a nest, sets it on fire, and is consumed by the flames. A new Phoenix springs forth from the pyre. It then embalms the ashes of it´s predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flies with it to the City of the Sun. There the egg is deposited on the altar of the sun god. In Egypt the hieroglyph, for sun is the Phoenix. The Phoenix is usually depicted as a heron. This is the sacred bird of Heliopolis. As a heron it is shown with a long straight back and the head is adorned at the back with two erect feathers. It lives within the sanctuary of Heliopolis. It is said to create itself from the fire that burnes on the top of the sacred Persea tree in Heliopolis. Thus the Phoenix symbolizes rebirth as it rises from the ashes, just as the new sun rises from the old. In China, the Phoenix is a symbol of grace and high virtue. The Phoenix, represents power and prosperity, reflects the empress, and only she is allowed to wear its symbol. According to tradition, the Phoenix´s song includes all the five notes of the traditional musical scale; its feathers include the five fundamental colors and its body is a composite of the six celestial bodies: the head symbolizes the sky; the eyes, the sun; back, the moon; the wings, the wind; feet, the earth; and the tail, the planets. The phoenix represents the union of yin and yang. In the legends of native North Americans, the Thunderbird is a great and powerful bird. Through its work, the earth is watered and vegetation grows, for lightning is believed to flash from its beak

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or eyes , and the beating of its wings is thought to result in the rolling of thunder. The majestic Thunderbird is often seen as one who will carry messages to the Creator, and as a protecting spirit. The Thunderbird petroglyph symbol has been found across Canada and the United States. Evidence of similar figures has been found throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. Regardless of which myth one follows there are things that such great and nobel winged-ones might teach us. For they were here when the world began and are still living today, in hidden faraway places. If we were to hear their voices what might they tell us? I will show the people how to see the larger view, and how to glide upon wings of freedom. The flight of the Phoenix, and the Thunderbird represents the capacity to leave the world and its problems behind, flying toward the sun in clear skies. I will teach them about the rising and setting of the sun, as well as immortality, resurrection, and life after death. As birds that never die, they fly far and high, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environment and the events unfolding within it. Since ancient times, humankind has regarded fire as sacred, because it is essential to our welfare in keeping warm, and cooking food. While some people may see fire as a danger these birds show how fire also cleanses and purifies. The Thunderbird shows us that occasional forest fires are necessary for the well-being of the environment, because they burn off old, dead material and stimulate new growth. Without the renewing fire, the forest stagnates and dies. There are times when a great storm might blow and rage all around us. Thus the Thunderbird teaches us about fear. The Thunderbird may ask us why we would fear the same storm that brings life giving rain. The Thunderbird might say, "When I hurl my lightning bolts down all I see is the fear it causes the people who seek shelter. Where are the words of welcome for keeping the meadows green, for bringing life giving rain to Mother Earth?" The myths surrounds these great birds are very ancient, and have been passed down by storytellers for many generations. Such beings are spoken of with the highest respect, since they have long lives, and can have teach great wisdom. Therefore they are often looked upon as Grandfathers, and treated as such. At times the Thunderbird is also seen as a trickster who teaches with opposites. If the

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people become too content, thankless, and are having things so easy as to become lazy it is time for Grandfather´s lessons! The Thunderbird could say, "I will send a storm to this place to teach these people more respect, and joy for the things they have." The Phoenix appears only in peaceful and prosperous times, hiding when there is trouble. It is therefore a sign of peace by its presence and at the same time a symbol of disharmony by its absence. At the end of its long life, it deliberately perishes in the sacred flames, in order that it might be born anew. The lesson here is that even in the midst of prosperity, we need a renewal stage, a recycling, an interruption of the status quo. The Phoenix speaks to us about letting go, and excepting change. When things are less than harmonious we need the renewing process. Our personal fires may be caused by illness, financial difficulty, or troubled relationships. Through the changing of circumstances we learn to grow stronger. We rise wiser, better, more focused on our life´s mission. So we have a wonderful balance of old and new energy, to be better used than either one could be alone. Here the Fire Bird´s message is that we must wisely retain the parts of the past that continue to serve us well. Through change we develop our talents for use to assist others, to do our life work, and fulfill our mission. Our passion is renewed, its own flames fanned by the beating of the Thunderbird´s wings. And so, as myths blend into one another, our past blends into a bright new future. Also: If you could meet anything or anyone who has ever existed or could exist, who would it be, and what top 5 questions would you ask? I would like to meet my higher-self in order to know the reasons behind my life's lessons. Other questions to be asked would be what is the best way to control kundalini, and to find balance in life? I would ask what the future might be like. What is the best way to help others to overcome their fears of, or skepticism of astral travel? Taima From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 1:51 PM

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>Tamia, I'm still waiting. iliketothink, I thought you were gone. LOL Get >your back assignments to me as soon as you can. Yup, but I changed my mind when something from this class helped me out in a lucid dream :) Decided I'm getting more out of it than I realized. Which ones am I missing? I think I sent #s 7, 8, 9 to Umbria but I'm not sure. Want me to check and resend? Any I missed before that I might need to ask you for the assignment again. From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:08 PM >I would like to meet my higher-self Do you know of anywhere I can do more research on higher selves? I'm not familiar with the concept, but it sounds fascinating. >Other questions to be asked would be what >is the best way to control kundalini, and to find balance in life? I gotta ask. Is this related to kundalini yoga? I have a kundalini DVD that I've been doing, and I absolutely love what it does for my energy. But I have no background on kundalini in general. I just like their exercises :) Any source you've found to be helpful in learning about kundalini? >I would ask what the future might be like. What is the best way to >help others to overcome their fears of, lol. If you find out, send the answer my way. I still need to overcome my fears. >or skepticism of astral travel? Here's my take, which might be helpful or not, but at least it's one point of view. Instead of treating it as an absolute doctrine with all the answers, treat it as an experience that seems to be common to all humans who follow certain procedures. It's unclear whether it's an actual physical plane / geography or whether it's simply constructs of the human brain based on the way brains are constructed. (Like the "light at the end of the tunnel" in near-death experiences could be because there really is a tunnel and a light, or because that's what happens when you stimulate certain parts of the brain and not others.) So at most it's a movement into another dimension, and at the very least it's an active exploration of one's own unconscious, which is still a worthwhile effort. So that's one way to present the idea in a framework that even skeptical people can accept to a

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certain degree, and if they experience it and decide for themselves that there's actually more to it than that, then good for them. But it's a way to get your foot in the door, as it were. And who knows. Maybe it is just an exploration of one's own unconscious and rich dream imagery. But damn what an amazing way to be creative and experience creativity. At least that's what I'm telling myself for now, so I don't skeptic-ize away my chances of ever successfully projecting :) From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] blackdove01 Lesson 10 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:11 PM > > 2. Mermaids started out on this world, but I don't know if they are still > > here or not, the only reports I remember were about sailors seeing them a > > century or more ago, but they may have just gone into hiding. I don't > > believe they ever really had much contact with humans, just occasional > > glimpses, unless you believe disney. I don't know if their sparse contact > > would be aloofness on their part, thinking they were above us, or just > > language barrier, or because we just live in two different worlds with > > little cause for contact. They may just ignore humans completely, but with > > more and more pollution in the oceans they may declare war some time soon > to > > save their species, if they haven't left already like the dolphins in So > > Long And Thanks For All The Fish by Douglas Adams. As a Pisces I've always > > loved water and I used to play at being a mermaid whenever I'd go > swimming, > > still do sometimes. For me they always were the spirit of the water much > > more than the undines or water babies (the usual water elementals) were, > but > > I also had no idea what they were at the time either. > > Okay, so meditate and tell us. See the merfolk in front of you, talk to > them, take on their shape, and tell us what the answers to these questions > are. Look at our world from their perspective, and then look at Humans from > their perspective and see what comes up. > > Interesting thoughts other than that. I hadn't really considered the

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> Merfolk in my "taxonomy" until now. I like the reference to the dolphins > BTW, and yes, I read that book too. LOL > > Daven > From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink assignment #10 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:11 PM > > The really old trees from The Lord of the Rings. > > The Ents, as in "treents". But I know who you are talking about. LOL > > Ancient and powerful, they > > see humans as vaguely entertaining, but impatient and jumpy. They are > > curious about how we manage to pack so much meaning into our short trivial > > lives, how we feel so intensely about the random events that happen to us. > > They find it curious and interesting, and actually on some level wonder > what > > it would feel like to be like us. > > Really? Why would they be curious about that? > > It is possible to appeal to them through a > > desire for knowledge, respect for what they do and what they are, and an > > appeal to the deeper patterns for goodness in the universe. But other > times > > they will dismiss our pleas as irrelevant. They might feel entertained by > > our passion, but disinclined to help, the same way adults smile at a > > teenager who *has* to purchase a certain brand of jeans. It is difficult > to > > predict when they will feel sympathy for our cause and when they will > simply > > feel humored by our passions, but for the most part we can assume they > will > > respond when important, although perhaps not as quickly as we might like. > > What causes this apathy do you think? > > > > One of the relatively more intelligent species of dinosuar:

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> > Hmmmm, hadn't considered talking to a dinosaur, but I did say anything, > didn't I? LOL Hoist by my own petard.... > > Daven > From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:13 PM > > > Tamia, I'm still waiting. >> > > Sorry I sent this to the (old) address several days ago! >> >> >> Fire Birds: The Phoenix and The Thunderbird > > > WOW! That's great. You really went all out for this one. So, ultimately > you see the Thunderbird and the Phoenix as being a physical representation > of the "tempering" process that we all go through to make us stronger? > That's interesting. > > Now, I hate to disparage all that lovely wonderful work, but could you put > in there what they think of us, if they think of us at all. Have a bird of > this type describe us as if they were teaching their young about humans. > That was what I wanted in this section of this assignment. > > But other than that, really good job on this. May I keep it and put it up > on my website? > > > I would like to meet my higher-self in order to know the reasons > > behind my life's lessons. Other questions to be asked would be what > > is the best way to control kundalini, and to find balance in life? > > I would ask what the future might be like. What is the best way to > > help others to overcome their fears of, or skepticism of astral > > travel? > > Okay, this we will be going over in later lessons. Don't worry, you will > get this chance. > > Daven > >

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From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:21 PM > Yup, but I changed my mind when something from this class helped me out in a > lucid dream :) Decided I'm getting more out of it than I realized. Excellent! It's always heartening to find out that I'm actually doing some good with this class. LOL > Which ones am I missing? I think I sent #s 7, 8, 9 to Umbria but I'm not > sure. Want me to check and resend? Any I missed before that I might need to > ask you for the assignment again. Yes, please resend them to this address. Last one I remember getting was Lesson 5. Just send them to [email protected] and I'll take it from there. If you need the lessons and assignments again, or if anyone wants the specific assignments sent out again, let me know and I will send them to this list so that we all have them and are looking at the same "page" again. Daven From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink: assignment #8 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 5:44 PM Not sure if this came through last time, so I'm resending. Catching up on assignments... here's #8. I'm not sure if the table will work--I wasn't sure how to send it via email, so I did it using a Courier font, and used .s to indicate the beginning of each line. .TIME OF DAY POSITION THOUGHTS/COMMENTS .Afternoon Lying on my back Very comfortable, relaxing . after yoga Seem to float, but get stuck in my body . .Morning Lying on my back, Slip into trance, hold it for a

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while, . facing up then fall back asleep . .Morning Lying on my back, Slip into trance, hold it for a while, . facing up then fall back asleep. . .Morning Lying on my back, Slip into trance, hold it for a long while, . facing up find it's been 45 minutes and I have to go to . work . .Afternoon Sitting up for 10 After a tough workout, my body seems more . minutes, then lying "vibrational"--maybe because I've pushed . on my back (per yoga) myself further? Yoga always seems to get me . more in sync with "the other," whether that's . another plane or another state of being is hard . to say . .Morning Sitting on the subway Incredibly relaxing, soothing. If I can get to . on my way to work what feels like a "gray state" with nothing but . gray clouds all around me, I find the commute . much less stressful than normal. Most people that . I can see visually don't have any imprint on the . gray place at all, although children usually do . and some adults do, which tends to catch me off, guard. I'm not sure how to handle that. Still feel . unsafe/unsure in this area. . .Evening Sitting on subway Very relaxing and soothing again. . .Morning Subway on way to work Somewhat relaxing, although if I

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can't rest my . have to move a lot .

head against something, or if I it's hard to stay focused

Patterns: * Easier to stay focused when I'm comfortable and relaxed * Meditating after a workout is good for me--my mind is alert but relaxed, and my body is tired so I don't have nervous energy, and just lying still seems very nice :) * I really need to figure out which direction is north (our street is at about a 25 degree angle, so I'm always getting the directions confused), and try lying with my head pointing that direction. BTW, any idea why that matters? * Jewelry/watches don't seem to be much of an inhibition per se, but I usually only have them on when I'm on the subway, during which times there are much bigger distractions * I can get a sort-of AP thing going on the subway, but not a complete one (and don't think I'd want to) since my attention is partially divided. This is much easier when I have a seat where people won't bump me and not too many distractions. * Mental attitude--much, much easier to do when I'm not preocuppied. And it helps if I've just worked out, since then I tend to be a little more tired and not likely to panic to the same degree as when I have excess energy (still working on that fear thing) * Tight clothing is distracting From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink makeup homework: evaluation Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 5:45 PM Personal Evaluation: Ummm, well, why don't I start by being honest :-/ I had pretty much decided to write off the OOBE class because I didn't feel like I was getting much out of it and things at work were getting busy. And then in a lucid dream about three weeks ago, I used a technique we had talked about in class and the results were surprisingly positive. So I decided I am getting something out of this class after all, and that it is worth it to stay up-to-date with the lectures (hence all my catch-up assignments now). And since I've picked back up with lesson 8 (I printed lessons 6 or 7 on the off-chance I might want to come back to this), I've found the practical advice to be what I

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thought I would be getting when I first joined the class. I think maybe I got a little disillusioned with the background, and wasn't sure how/when it would turn into something more. I guess at lesson 6 we were 3 months into this class (almost a full semester of time at school, if I remember correctly), and started to wonder whether the class really would end up doing what I had hoped. But yes, it has. And as I just mentioned, even some of the background information has had a useful benefit, even though I didn't realize it would at the time. Things I Am Doing Right: Now that I've seen the benefits first-hand, my commitment to the class has been renewed, which I know will make a huge difference. I'm still addressing the fear issue, but I also feel like I'm starting to trust Daven's advice more (sorry D, it usually takes me a while to get a feel for people and decide whether they're trust-worthy for the most part), so that will be useful when I decide "I will be safe because D says so, and I trust that he really has found those third-party sources he mentions, and didn't just make them up." So the renewed commitment and the trust will make a big, positive difference in my learning. Things I Am Doing Wrong: Record more details in my AP journal. Make a point of practicing more often. Write down some of the mantras and guidelines I want to remind myself of, so I have them handy and don't have to look them up (until they become second nature). Where I Need Help: Overcoming the fear thing, although I'm not sure how much more can be done externally. I don't know--at this point I feel like I've been under-contributing and I ought to step up my own efforts before I'll realize where those are falling short, since outside help won't do anything until I'm fully mobilized myself. Where I Might Help Others: I like to listen and I'm totally open to discussing people's experiences if they think it might be helpful. I'm also really good at listening to people and hearing what they're trying to say, or pointing out things they're doing that they might not be aware of. For example, my friends are always telling

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me about their dreams, and I give them ideas such as "it could mean A or B or C" and they figure out the meaning on their own. But apparently this is helpful, since it at least gives them more ways to think about something. So I'm willing and happy to do that for anyone--discussing whatever is on your mind or what you've experienced and ways to look at it. Granted, Daven's probably much better at that than I am, but I can't really think of other ways I could help, so figured I'd list this anyway. Areas That Need Improving: (essentially the same as "Things I Am Doing Wrong") Record more details in my AP journal Make a point of practicing more often Write down some of the mantras and guidelines I want to remind myself of, so I have them handy and don't have to look them up Start submitting all my assignments on time!!!

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink: assignment #9 Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 5:52 PM >A list of questions on this document and lesson from DeGarcia. OK, this isn't specifically about this document, but I can't get the question out of my head, since I think it's contribuing to my overall feelings about OOBEs. It starts by sounding a little odd (or possibly rude), but bear with me for a moment. What good is it? Or what good can come from it? See, the Mormon tradition (which I grew up with) teaches that unless a "gift" has usable value, it's of the devil rather than God, so I spent a number of my high-school/college years trying to figure out the benefit of the less-common things that people do (of which OOBEs are a part). Then I finally decided it almost doesn't matter (with my religious crisis and all), but then decided "so why bother doing it?" And I really haven't done much with it at all for a long, long time. I guess there's always the "experience my life fully" angle, but I'm not sure if that's why you-all enjoy OOBEs (doesn't strike me as the primary reason Daven & the others in this class are interested in APs, although I'm not sure). But the main reason I had before my religious crisis in high school was, to be completely honest, a feeling of "I can do stuff that other people can't, so that means I'm cool." And now I'm looking for something deeper than that. Granted, I'm putting

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effort into this class and trying to learn how to project successfully, but once I've obtained it, I have the big "so what" question in the back of my head. Is there some type of value you can find from doing this type of thing? Or some way you can make your own world or other worlds a better place (without disrupting the balance that seems to be an important part of the universe)? Or is it simply true that people who do this kind of thing are needed to keep the positive/life-forming side of the universe happening, since entropy does a good job of taking care of the rest? So that's the primary issue that's on my head right now. Any thoughts? Also, do you really believe that anyone at all can learn to AP? What factors (besides willingness) make this easier or harder for some people than others? And do you think it's a skill like, oh, let's say basketball, where everyone can learn to do it, but some have much more innate potential than others, and can take it much, much further through practice than others? You mentioned your daughter has been APing since she was born. Can I ask how you know this? And how old she is now? And how you've taught her both to be comfortable discussing it with you but also to be circumspect in how/when she brings it up outside of the family (e.g. with school). Given that when you AP or are in the "other" world, your mind has vasts amounts of control over things, how can you know when you're actually meeting someone, or just another version of them? This might sound silly, but I could picture it being very awkward if you met someone during an OOBE, and then spoke to them about it in real life. Besides seeming "not kosher," I worry that the other person might not remember it or think I'm a fruitcake ;) I think you mentioned once that you had met a RL instructor in an OOBE (sitting at the foot of your bed, if I remember correctly), and that you smiled at each other or something. Did you talk about it afterwards? What are the dynamics of bringing up something like that? Seems like it could be awkward. I'm sure I'll continue to have more questions as I practice and get more first-hand experience doing OOBEs. But as a novice, and anticipating what some of the experiences will be like, and after reading some of the materials, these are the ones that are top-of-mind. Thanks!

From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments

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Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 3:42 AM > Do you know of anywhere I can do more research on higher selves? > I'm not familiar with the concept, but it sounds fascinating. Sure you can do a search on the Internet. Yet I think that most people tend to define the higher self as the most enlightened aspect of self. To me the study of meditation, and astral travel is all about working toward the state of the higher self. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5484/5-susan.htm > I gotta ask. Is this related to kundalini yoga? I have a kundalini > DVD that I've been doing, and I absolutely love what it does for > my energy. But I have no background on kundalini in general. I just > like their exercises :) > Any source you've found to be helpful in learning about kundalini? Kundalini can be related to yoga, as it can be awakened by yoga. It can also be awakened by several other ways such as prayer, meditation, astral travel, and of it´s own accord. I am a member of a few kundalini groups. Since you are interested in yoga one group that you might like is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kundaliniyoga > Here's my take, which might be helpful or not, but at least it's > one point of view. Instead of treating it as an absolute doctrine > with all the answers, treat it as an experience that seems to be > common to all humans who follow certain procedures. It's unclear > whether it's an actual physical plane / geography or whether it's > simply constructs of the human brain based on the way brains are > constructed. Maybe it is just an exploration of one's own > unconscious and rich dream imagery. But damn what an amazing way to > be creative and experience creativity. At least that's what I'm > telling myself for now, so I don't skeptic-ize away my chances of > ever successfully projecting :) > > Well even if this "is exploration of one´s own unconscious, and rich dream imagery" as you wrote, one can realize that we have few things created by people which has not in some way derived from such a place. There is nothing wrong with exploring either the unconscious, or other states of consciousness. For this is the

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foundation of our creativity through the arts, science, music, math, and so on. Thus I whole heartedly agree that it is an excellent way to explore, and experience creativity. Taima

From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 4:01 AM > > Now, I hate to disparage all that lovely wonderful work, but > could you put in there what they think of us, if they think of > us at all. Have a bird of his type describe us as if they were > teaching their young about humans. More on the Fire Birds To me the Fire Birds repersent part of a group of legendary astral beings that are often associated with the fire element. Yet all of these ancient beings can be found within the history records of various cultures throughout the world. The beauty of these teachings is that they run parallel to arrive in the same place. Do these beings think of people? Yes I am sure that they do think about us. For in many cases when one has shown the true strength of their own spirit by passing through the personal fires of transformation it is these beings who can bring healing energy. For the most part the Elder Fire Bird would tell it´s little one to show a empathy for people, and yet this empathy should also be tempered by their spirit wisdom to allow people the flexibility to learn, and grow through trial and error. There are times in all people´s lives when change is needed, yet it can be extremely challenging. However you Little Fire Bird can assist people in tapping into this raw energy of transformation, and teach them to use it creatively. Thus people will learn how to reshape and renew, to creatively grow and to change. An Elder Fire Bird would teach their young that people are often short sighted. That they often fail to see the total

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consequences of their actions on others. This is the result of often not seeing how those actions will influence friends, family, or community. People do not always have the vision to see the vastness to which their consciousness can reach. Thus the Fire Birds would seek to show people the higher view of being responsible for actions, even to the generations that follow. I have personally heard direct accounts of the Thunderbeings who have swooped down and, rescued the spirit of those who was in immediate peril. Perhaps in many ways it is like an NDE, yet the spirit was rescued and accompanied to higher planes by a great bird. The person´s spirit is taken to a vast city among the clouds. Here the spirit was healed, and renewed then it was returned back to the physical body. When one is assisted by the Fire Birds it is with only great humbleness of spirit that a person can become a channel through which the energy can flow. As a person receives, they gain the responsibility of giving. Thus we learn by the transformation of past lessons into new insight, so that we become stronger, wiser with greater caring and compassion for others. Taima

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 4:42 PM when YHVH re-created the world were you referring to the flood of Noah or an actual wipe every single thing out and start completely over? blackdove01

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 9:01 AM >

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> when YHVH re-created the world were you referring to the flood of Noah or an > actual wipe every single thing out and start completely over? > No, what I mean is that in the Bible, right there in Genesis, God makes Man and Woman in their image and the world and the oceans and everything else. To quote Genesis 1:27. "And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them." Then, in the very next Chapter, YHVH creates everything again.... Huh? Here's the reference: 2:5. And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth. 2:6. But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth. 2:7. And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

2:18. And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself. 2:19. And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. 2:20. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. 2:21. Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. 2:22. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. 2:23. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

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2:24. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. So this is what I would ask YHVH about. There are even translations that in the first Chapter of Genesis that say GODS made everything, and the Hebrew translates over to gods, implying that there were more than one, and somehow the Bible is only focusing on YHVH as the God. So it is implied that there is an entire pantheon of deities, of which YHVH is only one. A minor one at that, since he could not create the world by himself, but only man out of materials that already existed. Personally I think that YHVH made man to be his toy and plaything. So I would want to know. Daven

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignments Date: Thursday, August 16, 2001 1:47 PM So I've done #1-5 and #8-10. Can you send me assignments #6 and 7 (unless the evaluation was one of those two assignments, in which case I've done it). I have all the lectures, fortunately. BTW, I downloaded the "Beyond the Physical" .pdf file by DeGracia, but every page but the first was blank. Do you have another copy you could email to me? Or post somewhere that I could download or FTP? From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink assignment #10 Date: Thursday, August 16, 2001 2:05 PM > > Really? Why would they be curious about that? Sort of like when you see a little kid with tons and tons and tons of energy and you think "wow. how do they do that?" So curious because it's foreign and intriguing to them. Like they would love to try it for a day (one of our days, perhaps one of their hours?) just for the experience, but then would

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be happy to let it go and return to their normal pace. Ever older and ever wiser. > > It is difficult to predict when they will feel sympathy for our > cause >and when they will simply feel humored by our passions, but > for the most >part we can assume they will respond when important, > although perhaps not >as quickly as we might like. > >What causes this apathy do you think? I wouldn't describe it so much as apathy as a longer-term perspective and the less-sense-of-urgency that comes about as a result. For humans, a year can be a very, very long time, and it can be difficult for us to tolerate something for that long. But for an Ent, a human year is like a day or an afternoon. And if something is uncomfortable for an extra year, so what? It's like a sore thumb or a bruise--hurts a little, but you'll get over it. Nothing to get too worked up about. So they'll respond to things that are truly important, but won't match our passion or speed for shorter-term things. >Hmmmm, hadn't considered talking to a dinosaur, but I did say anything, >didn't I? LOL Hoist by my own petard.... lol

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink makeup homework: evaluation Date: Friday, August 17, 2001 12:26 PM

> > Personal Evaluation: > > Ummm, well, why don't I start by being honest :-/ I had pretty much decided > to write off the OOBE class because I didn't feel like I was getting much > out of it and things at work were getting busy. And then in a lucid dream > about three weeks ago, I used a technique we had talked about in class and > the results were surprisingly positive. So I decided I am getting something > out of this class after all, and that it is worth it to stay up-to-date

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with > the lectures (hence all my catch-up assignments now). And since I've picked > back up with lesson 8 (I printed lessons 6 or 7 on the off-chance I might > want to come back to this), I've found the practical advice to be what I > thought I would be getting when I first joined the class. I think maybe I > got a little disillusioned with the background, and wasn't sure how/when it > would turn into something more. I guess at lesson 6 we were 3 months into > this class (almost a full semester of time at school, if I remember > correctly), and started to wonder whether the class really would end up > doing what I had hoped. But yes, it has. And as I just mentioned, even some > of the background information has had a useful benefit, even though I didn't > realize it would at the time. > Well, I think I'm doing something correctly. The background information is there so that a) you will know yourself and b) I can make sure the advice portions and theoretical portions have a proper foundation to stand upon. Now we will be getting into the meat of the class. > > Things I Am Doing Right: > > Now that I've seen the benefits first-hand, my commitment to the class has > been renewed, which I know will make a huge difference. I'm still addressing > the fear issue, but I also feel like I'm starting to trust Daven's advice > more (sorry D, it usually takes me a while to get a feel for people and > decide whether they're trust-worthy for the most part), No problem, I know a lot of people like this. I planned on this from the start. I assumed it would be about 6-8 months before all this started to click in everyone's head and you were able to leave your bodies. Don't worry about it. so that will be > useful when I decide "I will be safe because D says so, and I trust that he > really has found those third-party sources he mentions, and didn't just make > them up." So the renewed commitment and the trust will make a big, positive > difference in my learning.

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> > > Things I Am Doing Wrong: > > Record more details in my AP journal. Make a point of practicing more often. > Write down some of the mantras and guidelines I want to remind myself of, so > I have them handy and don't have to look them up (until they become second > nature). > > > Where I Need Help: > > Overcoming the fear thing, although I'm not sure how much more can be done > externally. I don't know--at this point I feel like I've been > under-contributing and I ought to step up my own efforts before I'll realize > where those are falling short, since outside help won't do anything until > I'm fully mobilized myself. > > > Where I Might Help Others: > > I like to listen and I'm totally open to discussing people's experiences if > they think it might be helpful. I'm also really good at listening to people > and hearing what they're trying to say, or pointing out things they're doing > that they might not be aware of. For example, my friends are always telling > me about their dreams, and I give them ideas such as "it could mean A or B > or C" and they figure out the meaning on their own. But apparently this is > helpful, since it at least gives them more ways to think about something. So > I'm willing and happy to do that for anyone--discussing whatever is on your > mind or what you've experienced and ways to look at it. Granted, Daven's > probably much better at that than I am, but I can't really think of other > ways I could help, so figured I'd list this anyway. Ah, but Daven's also busy, so fire away on this. If you can show others something they may not have thought of, and especially if you can show me things I may not have thought of, it will be rewarding to all of you. Never think that just because I have read more books on this subject than you may

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have that I will be better at this than you are. > > > Areas That Need Improving: > > (essentially the same as "Things I Am Doing Wrong") > > Record more details in my AP journal > Make a point of practicing more often > Write down some of the mantras and guidelines I want to remind myself of, so > I have them handy and don't have to look them up > Start submitting all my assignments on time!!! Good list. Start working on them. Daven

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink: assignment #9 Date: Friday, August 17, 2001 12:26 PM

> >A list of questions on this document and lesson from DeGarcia. > > OK, this isn't specifically about this document, but I can't get the > question out of my head, since I think it's contribuing to my overall > feelings about OOBEs. It starts by sounding a little odd (or possibly rude), > but bear with me for a moment. What good is it? Or what good can come from > it? Okay, here is something I had to wrestle with myself also as an ex-Mormon. The good of it is this: If you don't know how to use it, you may wind up being used by it. I have had a LOT of positive experiences OOB and I know that it has changed me. I get information fed directly into my brain now, flashes of intuition that more often than not are correct, my magickal skills have increased, and I was able to overcome MANY personality problems that I had been dragging

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around like an albatros for a long time. The only way I can describe this sensation to you is like this; Think of the largest, strongest epithany you have ever had in your life. Got it? Now, multiply that by a hundred-fold so that you KNOW without a doubt for just a few seconds how the entire universe and multiverse is put together, all in a flash. At that point, the fear of death goes out the window, you know how to affect your reality around you on a somewhat limited scale, you now know that this place time and universe are nothing and that all the successes and triumphs you have HERE mean less than nothing to you because the triumphs and successes that will matter don't even exist here anylonger. I'm babbling, but that's how it is. I'm trying to teach you all that. Sooner or later, you will know what I mean by this and we can commiserate together on this. LOL > > Also, do you really believe that anyone at all can learn to AP? What factors > (besides willingness) make this easier or harder for some people than > others? And do you think it's a skill like, oh, let's say basketball, where > everyone can learn to do it, but some have much more innate potential than > others, and can take it much, much further through practice than others? Yes, I do. There are more than enough verifiable cases that someone has learned this skill to prove that anyone can learn it. Cases like the institute that Robert Monroe set up to teach this to people, Richard Back, DeGarcia and those he taught, the progress you all are making, and myself. Factors that influence? Willpower is one, psychic ability, negative personality (meaning a light connection to your body), and study and practice. With Basketball, there are some that are gifted in the coordination needed and they learn the skill, and anyone who can learn the skill can play, but some people will be better players than others. Same for AP. Anyone can learn the skill, but there will be some out there who are just naturally better at it than others are. Like my wife. I get so jealous of her sometimes. But I know that I can do it too, and it doesn't happen all that often anylonger. > > You mentioned your daughter has been APing since she was born. Can I ask how > you know this? And how old she is now? And how you've taught her both to be

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> comfortable discussing it with you but also to be circumspect in how/when > she brings it up outside of the family (e.g. with school). She would tell us about friends she visted when she was sleeping, draw pictures of them, relate discussions and places she visited while she slept. She talked about her dreams when she was able to talk. Plus, I saw here on the Etheral part of the Astral Plane all the time. She would coo and gurgle at things that didn't exist on the physical plane, but that were there to the spiritual eye. I saw them, like her dog that protected her. It didn't exist anyplace except on the Astral Plane, but my daughter would play with it, and it looked really wierd to those who didn't know about her puppy. As to how not to get her to talk about it, it has come up sometimes, but not often. Most often, when she talks about this to someone else, they think she's pretending and blow it off. Other chilren play along, so that doesn't matter. I DID warn her to not talk about it a lot to others, but I really don't mention it often to her and it's not an issue. > > Given that when you AP or are in the "other" world, your mind has vasts > amounts of control over things, how can you know when you're actually > meeting someone, or just another version of them? This might sound silly, > but I could picture it being very awkward if you met someone during an OOBE, > and then spoke to them about it in real life. See lesson 10 on this topic.

Daven

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink: assignment #8 Date: Friday, August 17, 2001 12:27 PM >>Incredibly relaxing, soothing. If I can get to what feels like a "gray state" with nothing but gray clouds all around me, I find the commute much less stressful than normal. Most people that I can see visually don't have any imprint on the gray place at all, although children usually do and some adults do, which tends to catch me off- guard. I'm not sure how to handle that. Still feel unsafe/unsure in this area. * Meditating after a workout is good for me--my mind is alert but relaxed, > and my body is tired so I don't have nervous energy, and just lying still > seems very nice :) That's because your body is tired and you are ready to ignore the body. Bet

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if you did this after a workout in which you got hurt, it wouldn't work. > * I really need to figure out which direction is north (our street is at > about a 25 degree angle, so I'm always getting the directions confused), and > try lying with my head pointing that direction. BTW, any idea why that > matters? This is only supposition, but I think it has something to do with the Earth's Magnetic Field. That field relates to the Ley lines that many say exist though which Magick flows, but since the strongest pull is to the North, some have found it easier to orient their head (the top of their being) with the North (the top of the world). Personally, I have found that this does nothing for me. But, to each their own. > * Jewelry/watches don't seem to be much of an inhibition per se, but I > usually only have them on when I'm on the subway, during which times there > are much bigger distractions > * I can get a sort-of AP thing going on the subway, but not a complete one > (and don't think I'd want to) No, you don't. since my attention is partially divided. This > is much easier when I have a seat where people won't bump me and not too > many distractions. > * Mental attitude--much, much easier to do when I'm not preocuppied. And it > helps if I've just worked out, since then I tend to be a little more tired > and not likely to panic to the same degree as when I have excess energy > (still working on that fear thing) > * Tight clothing is distracting Have you noticed? Distractions, distractions, distractions are what you keep repeating. You take steps to minimize them, and that's good. It helps you. Good job with this assignment. Daven

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignments

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Date: Friday, August 17, 2001 12:27 PM > More on the Fire Birds Good job Tamia! Just what I wanted. Thank you. Daven

From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignment # 11 Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 9:51 PM

To be submitted on or before 25 August 2001 NOTE: These assignments will be discussed, so don´t write anything you are uncomfortable with sharing. To turn in: Using your journals, I want you to find an example of a Lucid Dream and tell me what may be different if it was a true dream instead. What might your subconscious be trying to work out in this case if it was a true dream instead of a lucid one? Lesson 11 - Taima Introduction For me there are several differences between a normal dream and a lucid dream. Within a normal dream I am never aware that I am dreaming, until after the dream is over. In a normal dream I am swept along by the dream, and can only react to the situations that might arise. Sort of like a leaf being swept along by the currents of a brook. Yet within the frame work of a lucid dream my consciousness tells me, "This Is A Dream." In knowing it is a dream I know that I could try to astral travel, or I can act to change the dream. All of my dreams have been in color except for one. In the B&W dream I traveled back in time, as if through an old photograph. It was a picture that I had not seen in many years. However that took me back to my childhood when I was around four years old.

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Here is a rather interesting lucid dream. May 10, 2001 around 5 to 7 pm - Near Waning Moon One afternoon our lights when out, so it was fairly dark in the house. Then I decided that it would be a good time for a nap, and leaned back in my recliner. Before long I was dreaming about going to visit a family with my husband. It almost seemed as if we were looking at houses. This one house was different in that it had a slanted walkway, like those for wheelchairs. I noticed that it was a large framed house with hard wood floors. I´ve always admired the beauty of hard wood floors. There was a young boy in the dining room. He and I talked for awhile, and I had a nice feeling of friendship towards him. We shared a few hotdogs. Then his mother appeared in the doorway leading from a rear bedroom. She was a nice looking rather thin and tall woman who was wearing a flowing black dress. It seemed to add an air of mystery to her appearance. I felt a sudden fondness towards her. Then I realized that this was a lucid dream, and I could change it. However I decided to just go along with the dream to see what would happen. After meeting the lady in black we talked about the house, and she was showing me different things about it. Suddenly I heard the sound of a hoot owl outside. Upon hearing that sound I told everyone that I was going outside to take some pictures. Then I walked into one bedroom where my husband had taken our things, and placed them on top of a dresser. I was a bit upset to see his radio equipment there, since I was looking for my camera. It took awhile to look through all the items there. Then I found the camera, started outside only now I was concerned that others would follow me outside, and frighten the owl away. The lady was the only one to follow me out into the yard. The owl hooted again, and I was happy to see that he was still there perched in a tree near the house. Then I was thinking about should the flash be used since it might frighten the owl away, but if it wasn´t the picture may not turn out good. So I decided to use the flash and hope for at least one good picture. Then the owl turned his head to look right at me, and I took his picture. His eyes were bright yellow. He wiggled his ears up and down, as if to wave at me. Next a glowing yellow light shown from his eyes. Then I woke up, and at that moment the lights in the

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house came on again!! Wow!! Analysis of the Dream In this dream it appeared that my husband and I were thinking of buying the house. This was rather strange, as we have lived in the same house together for over twenty years. Here I met a woman dressed in black. That is something of a mysterious color, and I wear a lot of dark colors myself. In my astral/dream group many of the members have often told about a mysterious woman in black! However there were some strange things about this dream that had to do with lighting. The lighting in our house had gone out. I was thinking about lighting in the dream when I wondered about using a flash or not using a flash. The owl looked straight at me when it´s eyes flashed, then I soon awoke to find the lights coming back on! It could be that owl appeared as a guide due to all the action that was exhibited. Over the years I have considered that owl could be my mother´s guide. As she has always admired pictures of owls. I had given her two pictures of mine that she had long admired. However a small crystal owl which was a gift from a friend sits near my computer. When the light shines through this crystal owl it can turn many colors of the rainbow!! Might the dream also had something to do with picture taking? Strangely enough I was also bidding on a camera around that time. I must have bid on over 50 cameras only to always get over bid. Yet I was determined, since it would be a good way to share photos with my son who is out of state. Could he had been represented by the boy at the dining room table who I communicated with? For we were sharing a meal together. I walked into the bedroom, and was looking for my camera! Less an six weeks after this dream I received a new camera for my birthday. It was much better than the ones I had been bidding on!! Perhaps the owl was telling me to have fun with the new camera. Yet since this was a lucid dream I was aware that the dream could be changed by my actions, and aware that I could astral travel. Nevertheless the decision was to just allow this dream to continue along a natural course, so it did. Taima

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From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] blackdove01 Date: Saturday, August 25, 2001 4:06 PM To turn in: Using your journals, I want you to find an example of a Lucid Dream and tell me what may be different if it was a true dream instead. What might your subconscious be trying to work out in this case if it was a true dream instead of a lucid one? I don't have the notebook with me and am not at home at the moment so I don't have date, time moon phase, etc. at the moment, but it do remember the dream clearly, bear with me. It was in colour, but all my dreams are, I have no recollection of ever having a black and white dream. I stepped out from the front door of my old house with my boyfriend Andrew. I remember feeling a tingling sensation, especially in my upper arms, the same sort of feeling that I get when I know I'm ready to leave my body, and it was harder to move, like I was moving through water, or some other fluid instead of just air. We went out in to the front yard and I told Andrew that I could fly and I went to go show him. I started running up and down the yard, because in my dreams the only way I can fly is by running as fast and as hard as I can until I finally start to lift off the ground, but it wasn't working and I was looking like a complete fool running around the yard. The next thing I remember, I saw Andrew sitting up in the branches of the tree in the front yard. I finally ended up half jumping/flying/flapping my arms and made it up into the tree. I looked over and there were two snipers sitting up in the bush across from me. They were all playing real-life Counter Strike on my front lawn instead of the computer. I jumped down because I didn't want to get shot and went and hid in another bush and hoped no one would find me. From the bush I could see the front side of the house where my dad's old bedroom window was, but instead was a wall that had a tv screen projecting on it so you could watch tv on the side of the house. I found the remote in the bush, but I didn't want to change the channel (I think Seinfeld was on) because I was afraid that they'd find me and shoot me if I called attention to my position. One guy came up really close to the bush to grab a gun laying on the ground and almost grabbed my feet instead, but I don't think he saw me. If it was a true dream, I don't think I would have had the tingling sensation in my body and I would have been able to fly.

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If it was a true dream I think my subconscious was probably dealing with the fact that my boyfriend plays computer games all day long, way too much, and I'm probably feeling that Counter Strike is his life instead of me. He's too busy playing the games to realize that I'm hiding in a corner reading or watching tv, or that I'm even in the room sometimes. He's made the computer his real life, and not just a normal game. And he probably needs to stop playing the games while I'm trying to sleep, because it works its way into my dreams, the constant shooting and grenade noises and such.

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignment # 11 Date: Monday, August 27, 2001 9:23 PM >To turn in: Using your journals, I want you to find an example of a >Lucid Dream and tell me what may be different if it was a true dream >instead. What might your subconscious be trying to work out in this >case if it was a true dream instead of a lucid one? I'm still having my block regarding all this stuff, but I was reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead (no real reason--just that other things I was reading kept referring to it, so I decided to go to the source). And it had a really interesting point, which was that learning how to lucid dream can be valuable because when the time comes for us to die, we'll also be able to do "lucid dying," meaning know what's going on and steering events consciously rather than letting them happen at random. So I decided that there is some value in lucid dreaming. And that night, I actually had my first lucid dream in a while. I was in an elevator, but I can't remember if I was going up or down, and then I suddenly realized I was dreaming and thought "oh yes! lucid dream. this is a good thing--I want to learn how to lucid dream so I can be lucid when I die. Ummmmmm..... OK. Well, what next? Anything in particular I want to see/do/experience? Nope. Not really." And then I went back into normal dreaming. Sort of like I had lucidity, held it for a while, and then decided to let it go since I didn't have anything in particular to do. Hard to imagine what it would have meant if it had been a normal/"true" dream instead, since it wasn't, but I suppose I can just look at the context in which I became lucid, and that was in an elevator. And that means ascension/descension, which could relate to the "falling" feeling you get sometimes when starting an OOBE, or could be related to improving/dis-improving life in general in some way. Or just the potential for movement. And my head noticed it, flagged it as 'significant' and voila! turned it into a lucid dream. So I suppose there's some relation in my head

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between lucid dreaming and the ability to do things (or being on the cusp of doing things) that could be either positive or negative. My own assignment after finishing this one? Decide that I REALLY want to see Ents so that next time I have a lucid dream I have an idea of what to *do* with it. Flying is fun, but I started doing that in 5th grade... 1983, I guess. And it's long since lost its novelty.

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Assignment # 11 Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 8:46 AM Thanks for sharing this. Guess I'll add this to my list of things to try--staying lucid but letting the dream continue. In other words, not making the assumption that lucidity is only good if I'm wanting to change things, and pointless if I plan to just "watch" the dream. >Yet since this was a lucid dream I was aware that the dream could >be changed by my actions, and aware that I could astral travel. >Nevertheless the decision was to just allow this dream to continue >along a natural course, so it did. > >Taima > >

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] blackdove01 Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 9:55 AM >I remember feeling a tingling sensation, >especially in my upper arms, the same sort of feeling that I get when I >know I'm ready to leave my body, and it was harder to move, like I was >moving through water, or some other fluid instead of just air.

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This happens to me sometimes when I'm awake. Although the fluid-water thing is more common for me than the tingling. I wonder if my experiences with this type of stuff when I'm awake change how I experience things when I sleep or try to project. Meaning that I'm starting from a different base than people usually do, so the techniques and visualization other people use might or might not work for me because I've already assigned a different meaning to them? Like the 'hypnogogic images' DeGracia talks about--when I was in 2nd grade and couldn't sleep, I used to watch those images and pretend it was TV. And if there was "nothing good on," then I'd "change the channel" and watch a different set of images. Although I was relieved that both Taima and BlackDove also always dream in color, so maybe I'm not as odd as I assumed. And just still have my block to work though.

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Assignment 11 Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 10:10 AM Well, it's entirely possible that *I* am wrong on the color/B&W issue. It's been my experience that dreams are B&W, lucid dreams in color. But like you Iliketothink, it could be that I assigned different perceptions to my dreams before I learned differently. I do like the "change the channel" analogy. Good thinking. Stars light your path, Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] book review Date: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 1:43 PM has anybody else said which book they're doing for the review? mine will be

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late, i'm leaving for missouri again and will have no access to computer. i'm planning on reading the book on the way up, but no body else has said which book they're doing, so i can't be sure i'm not going to be doing the same one as someone else. blackdove01

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] book review Date: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 2:13 PM Nope, no one has said one way or the other. I have a feeling that everyone is leaving the assignment for the 9th hour. Which can't be done. LOL Stars light your path, Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] book review Date: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 10:18 AM now i'm having trouble even finding a book i went to barnes and noble and they had very few books on ap. they had journeys out of the body by monroe and a few others from llewellyn but none from de garcia. am i going to have to go to a new age shop to find them or what? blackdove01

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] book review Date: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 12:10 PM

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no, sorry. DeGarcia has a huge recommended reading list in the back of the "DO_OBE" file that I had asked you all to download earlier. Those are the books I'm asking for a review from. I'll attach a copy of it here. 144 Besant, A. A Study In Consciousness, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 8th edition, 1980. This book is not about astral projection. This book is an excellent and profound introduction to theosophical occultism. Besant, A., and Leadbeater, C.W. Occult Chemistry. London: Theosophical Publishing House, 2nd edition, 1919. 145 This book is not about astral projection. This book describes Besant and Leadbeater's clairvoyant investigations into the structure of the atom. The reason this book is relevant is because Besant and Leadbeater use the little known psychic ability anima (called also "magnifying clairvoyance" or "micro-psi) which I discussed under the section of the notes titled "Surreal Spaces". As you can exercise the ability of anima during your projections, this book gives you some idea of what is possible to see using this psychic ability. Besant, A. and Leadbeater, C.W. Thought-Forms. Wheaton, IL: Quest, 5th edition, 1986. (Originally published in 1901). This book is not about astral projection. Again, this book provides important background information relevant to the OOBE. This is a classic book, the first ever to describe thought-forms. You will encounter thought-forms when out-of-body and this book will give you a good understanding of the nature of thought-forms, what they are and how they behave. Fox, Oliver. Astral Projection A Record of Out-of-the Body Experiences. Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1975. This is one of the classic first person accounts of the OOBE. Oliver Fox was highly influenced by theosophical ideas, so his accounts generally fall under the occult world-view. There are many useful tips in this book as well. For example, this is the book that first described "False Awakenings". Hall, Manly P. Unseen Forces. Los Angeles, CA. Philosophical Research Society, Inc. 1978. This book is not about astral projection. Again, this book provides excellent background material about the forces and inhabitants of the inner planes. It is written from the occult perspective. Most important this book discusses the "Dweller on the Threshold". I highly recommend any of the books by Manly Hall. He is a highly informative and intelligent speaker. His material contains a vast wealth of useful information. Leadbeater, C.W. Man Visible And Invisible. Wheaton, IL: Quest, 3rd Quest printing, abridged, 1980.

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This book is not about astral projection. This book is about occult anatomy. Here, the various bodies (astral, mental and buddhic) are described in detail. Leadbeater claimed to be able to perceive these bodies 146 using clairvoyance. Again, this is important background information. I also strongly recommend reading any and all Leadbeater books you can get your hands on. Of all the authors I have read, Leadbeater has been by far the most useful for understanding the nature of the OOBE. Many things I have directly experienced during my OOBEs are described in Leadbeater's books and Leadbeater present many useful ideas I never seen published anywhere else. Leadbeater, C.W. The Astral Plane. Madras: Vasanta Press, twelfth reprint, 1984. This is the classic book on the astral plane. Written in 1895, it is still relevant in many respects today. Of course, just as the physical world and society changes, so too do the astral realms transform. Nonetheless, this book will introduce you to many of the important principles operating on the astral plane. Leadbeater, C.W. Dreams. Adyar, Madras India: Theosophical Publishing House, 12th reprint, 1984. Here we have the theosophical conception of dreams. This is a very PRACTICAL book for the astral projector. This book will help you understand the nature of your projections and how they relate to your dreams better than any other book available. This is a MUST read for anybody learning astral projection/OOBEs/lucid dreaming. Leadbeater, C.W. The Chakras. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 4th Quest edition, 1985. This book is not about astral projection. Again, this is another classic book in the field of occultism, and explains the chakras; how they function and what they do. Again, this is important background information and will help you better understand the nature of things you perceive while in the out-of-body state. Leadbeater, C.W. Clairvoyance. Wheaton: TPH, 1986, 15th reprint. This book is not about astral projection. This book is another important source of background information. Here Leadbeater defines the various types of clairvoyance. This book is also a MUST read because you will find yourself using the different types of clairvoyance Leadbeater defines while you are out-of-body. Again, this book will help you make sense of perceptions you will have while out-of-body that you could not understand otherwise. 147 Mavromatis, A. Hypnogogia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. This book is about hypnogogic imagery. This book presents numerous reports of hypnogogic imagery and also presents a number of theories to explain hypnogogia. It is an academic book, but it is highly informative. My favorite aspect of this book is that it is the only academic

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type book about altered states of consciousness I have ever read that suggests that the theories of Besant and Leadbeater may be the most suitable theories for explaining altered states of consciousness. Monroe, R. Journeys Out Of The Body. New York: Doubleday, 1971. This book too is a classic in the astral projection literature. Here, Robert Monroe presents his personal experiences out-of-body. This is a first person, autobiographical book, but it also has some technique described in it. The important thing about Monroe's books are that they are NOT based on occult ideas, nor strictly on parapsychological ideas, nor on psychology ideas. Monroe has his own personal style of understanding his OOBEs. Nonetheless, Monroe clearly describes and supports many of the claims of occultists. Monroe, R. Far Journeys. New York: Doubleday, 1985. This is Robert Monroe's second book. In my opinion, this book is perhaps the most "modern" of any book about OOBEs. In Far Journeys, Monroe paints a picture of the OOBE realms that is absolutely stunning. This book is a MUST read book. Again, what is very clear is that Monroe is describing the planes that occultists have described. However, Monroe's approach is different in that, unlike occult ideas, Monroe's attitude is that the reality of the planes is open to everybody. Traditional occultism tends to reserve traveling in the planes for special initiates, Masters and other supposedly "advanced" humans. Monroe severely challenges this view by showing that anybody can travel in the planes (or "rings" as Monroe calls them). This change in attitude is very important, and it is an attitude that I share with Monroe. Also in this book, Monroe describes the activity and researches of the Monroe Institute in Faber Virginia, a research organization established by Monroe for studying the OOBE. As I said in the notes, the Monroe institute furnishes tapes and programs for learning how to have OOBEs. Monroe, R. Ultimate Journey. New York, Doubleday, 1994. 148 This is Robert Monroe's third book about OOBEs and is hot off the press as I sit here and write these words. In this third book, Monroe describes how he has discovered his past lives, and also gets a faint glimmer of something mystics have described for centuries, which is the fact that our psyches touch God. Actually, I am disappointed with this book. It is not as useful a book as is Far Journeys. You would think that, after 30 years of having OOBEs, Monroe would have somewhere come across the fact that what he has experienced in the out-of-body state is very similar to what others have described. However, he comes across in this book as if he is the only one in humanity that has ever experienced the realities he describes. This is just not a good attitude to have in the OOBE business. Also disappointing in this book is that Monroe gets kind of "preachy" (as one New Age forum member put it), as if his particular viewpoint on the universe is the ONLY viewpoint. Again, this kind of

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closed minded approach is not good in the OOBE business. OOBEFAQ.ZIP - OOBE FAQ file by Jouni Smed, 1994. This is NOT a book! OOBEFAQ.ZIP is a compressed file which contains the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file for the Internet newsgroup alt.out-of-body. This file is available in the Compuserve New Age forum Library. If you are not on Compuserve, you can send e-mail to the Internet address [email protected] and request information for obtaining this file. This FAQ file is an excellent source of information on the OOBE. It includes techniques for inducing OOBEs, information about numerous surveys and studies of the OOBE and much other useful information. It also has a large reference section which can lead you to many other sources of information about OOBEs. This FAQ file is written mainly from a parapsychology perspective and quite obviously attempts to discredit occult views of the OOBE. Nonetheless, the author at least presents occult views side by side with non occult views, which is much more than most parapsychology presentations do. I highly recommend this file for reading. Though it is slanted with a bias I do not share, it is a veritable storehouse of information. Reading this file will expose you to the variety of ideas that exist regarding the nature of the OOBE. In effect, this file is a more advanced approach to the theory behind OOBEs than I have attempted to present in these notes. Ophiel. The Art And Practice Of Astral Projection. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Wiser, Inc., 1982. 149 This is a HOW TO astral projection book and is another classic in the field. Ophiel outlines specific methods for achieving OOBEs and also describes many helpful hints. This is one in a series of "The Art and Practice of..." books by Ophiel. Generally, all of Ophiel's books are practical introductions to traditional occultism, and are fun reading too. Unlike most occultists, Ophiel does not have a "holier than thou" attitude and he also presents the view that OOBEs and other occult gifts are meant for everyone, not just Masters. This book is highly recommended. Powel, A.E. The Etheric Double. Wheaton IL. Quest Books (TPH), 1969. Powel, A.E. The Astral Body. Wheaton IL. Quest Books (TPH), 1972. Powel, A.E. The Mental Body. Wheaton IL. Quest Books (TPH), 1972. Powel, A.E. The Buddhic Body. Wheaton IL. Quest Books (TPH), 1972. A.E. Powel undertook the extraordinary task of compiling the writings of Annie Besant, C.W. Leadbeater and H.P. Blavatsky on the topics of the Etheric, astral mental and buddhic bodies. Each of the four books listed above is a complete compilation of these three authors thoughts on each of the bodies. These four volumes compiled by Powel provide a very compact and convenient source of information about occult anatomy as defined by Besant, Leadbeater and Blavatsky.

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These volumes make a nice addition to any occult library. Rogo, D.S. Leaving The Body. New York: Prentice Hall, 1986. This is a HOW TO book on astral projection and is a MUST read book. If there is one book in this list that you should read, it is this one. Rogo has done us all an incredible service in this book by collecting all of the known methods of achieving OOBEs in one book. He covers Monroe's methods, Ophiel's methods, Fox's methods, the methods of Yram, and others as well. For the beginner in astral projection/OOBEs/Lucid dreaming, this is the book you want. My only reservation about this book is that Rogo's ideas about the nature of the OOBE are not very sophisticated. Rogo was a parapsychologist who came eventually to realize that occult ideas are more useful than not. But he was not informed enough about occult theory to really give a coherent picture of the OOBE. Nonetheless, this is the most useful HOW TO book on astral projection available today. Roberts, Jane. The Nature Of The Psyche. New York: Prentice Hall, 1979. This is not a book about astral projection. However, the Seth books are MUST READ books. The ideas that Seth presents go one step 150 beyond traditional occultism to what we can call "modern occultism". In this book, Seth discusses the nature of human psychology. The ideas he presents in this book are highly relevant to the idea that what we perceive in dreams and OOBEs are, in some sense, symbolic expressions of our "higher self" (or whatever term you prefer here). Seth helps us realize the greater contexts in which our physical, dream and OOBE experience fit. This book is especially useful for understanding the differences and the overlap between waking and dreaming. Roberts, Jane. Dreams, "Evolution", And Value Fulfillment, A Seth Book. New York: Prentice Hall, 1986. Another Seth book. Actually, this is two books: volumes I and II. Here, Seth presents a concept of what dreams are that is completely unique. Nowhere else can you find concepts of the nature of dreams that are described in this book. I will not even pretend here to capture Seth's ideas. All I can say is I highly recommend this book. Roberts, Jane. Seth - Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness. New York: Bantam, 1989. This Seth book goes into the nature of OOBEs and their relationship to dreams and our waking experience. Again, this Seth book helps us understand the personal symbolism that is always present in our life, whether waking, dreaming or out-of-body. This is a very good book. Rudhyar, D. Culture, Crisis and Creativity. Wheaton: Quest, 1977. This book is not about astral projection. I list this book here in the bibliography because it is an excellent example of how sublime occult thought can be. For secular intellectuals and academic types who think occultism is for raving loonies by raving loonies, I strongly suggest they

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check out this book. Rudyar presents a view of human history, evolution and spirtuality that dwarfs any of the feeble minded misconceptions that proliferate in secular academic circles today. Sparrow, G. Scott. Lucid Dreaming, Dawning Of The Clear Lights. Virginia Beach, VA. A.R.E. Press (The Edgar Casey Foundation), 1987. This book is about lucid dreams. It is written primarily from a psychology perspective. For those of you interested in this perspective, here's a book. There is not much practical material in this book. It is mostly case studies and a lot of speculation about the nature and meaning of lucid dreams and how lucid dreams are different from OOBEs. van der Leeuw, J.J. In Conquest Of Illusion. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2nd paperback edition, 1968. Original edition 1928. This book is not about astral projection. This book is about enlightenment, it is about mysticism. I have advocated in these notes that enlightenment (or buddhi) is the perspective and state of consciousness you should seek. This book is one man's experience of achieving this state. van der Leeuw does an elegant job of displaying how becoming enlightened alters forever ones view of oneself and the world. He also does a great job of showing how the intellect is *inferior* when not illuminated by the light of buddhi. For those of you who seek the ultimate, and desire to overcome the limitations of the mind, this book is a MUST READ. Zimmer, Heinrich. Philosophies Of India. New York, Meridian Books, 1956. This book is not about astral projection. For those interested, this book is an extensive survey of the ideas of Indian civilization, including Hinduism, Yoga, Jainism, Buddhism, Tantra and Brahmanism. It is a beautifully written book by one of the foremost modern scholars on Indian thought. Any of Zimmer's works are highly recommended; he is a brilliant, articulate and sensitive writer. One might even suspect Zimmer was a reincarnated Hindu! Stars light your path, Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] book review Date: Thursday, September 06, 2001 6:53 PM i ended up with leaving the body by d. scott rogo.

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blackdove01

From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Lesson 12 Assignment Date: Saturday, September 08, 2001 3:47 PM Lucid Dreaming This is a summary on the book Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen LaBerge. The main reason why I wanted to do a synopsis on this book is because once a person can become lucid they can often achieve an OBE, if they so desire. Through better comprehension of our lucid dreams we might better understand the OBE. In this book LeBerge writes about three different perspectives on dreams. Some think that we dream for physiological reasons alone, that our dreams lack any psychological meaning. Others hold the view that we dream for psychological reasons and that dreams always contain significant information about various aspects of one´s life. Then there is the middle ground that dreams have physiological and psychological factors, and therefore can be either meaningful or meaningless, and varying in terms of psychological significance. I tend to take the middle ground view on dreams. On a physical level the brain contains two types of nerve cells excitatory and inhibitory. Both types discharge and transmit electrochemical impulses to other neurons. The human brain is a complex network containing billions of intricate interconnected neurons of each type. Generally, the inhibitory neurons play a more important role in the higher functions of the brain. In Dr. Freud´s time only the process of excitation had been discovered; while the process of inhibition was not yet known. Freud reasoned that psychic energy could therefore only be discharged by means of motor action. Once you got a notion in your mind, it was to wonder around in there until you finally could do something about it. Or until it found a way to trick you into unconsciously expressing it. This is a view where the persistent internal drives generate energy that keep the ego and

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conscious system in movement. Since the dream disguised the latent content with images closely associated with the original wish, the hidden meaning of the message was found by reasoning backward from the image through a process known as free association. To Freud the main function of dreaming was to allow the discharge of repressed instinctual impulses, and thereby to preserve sleep. Thanks to the last 30 years of dream research, we now know that dreams are not originated from desires or other psychological forces, but by a periodic or automatic biological process known as REM sleep. Drs. Hobson and McCarley, Harvard neurophysiologists, suggest that the occurrence of dreaming sleep is physiologically, and that the forebrain may be making the best of a bad job producing even partially coherent dream imagery from the noisy signals sent up to it from the brain stem. The dream process is thus seen as having its origin in sensorimotor systems, with little or no primary, or emotional content. The brain in the dreaming sleep state, is thus likened to a computer searching for key information. This concept is very different from that of the dream thoughts, or wishes seen by Freud as the primary stimulus for the dream. In the case of a lucid dream LeBerge questions that theory, if your dreams were nothing more than the results of your forebrain making the best of a bad job in producing even partially coherent dream imagery from the relatively noisy signals sent up to it from your brain stem, how would you be able to exercise choice in a lucid dream, or carry out planned dream action? Reports show that lucid dreamers can have their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. When dreamers attain lucidity, they typically remember intentions about what they wanted to do in their lucid dream. LeBerge states that the brain would allow forebrain control of brain stem activation, and higher cortical functions such as thinking and deliberate action to influence the dream. Active Sleep has been found to be intimately involved with learning and memory. Greenberg and Pearlman conclude that the evolutionary development of the dream state "has made possible the increasingly flexible use of information...". I agree with Dr. Evans who likens the dreaming brain to "off-line computer" time where the mind is assimilating the experiences and updating its programs. Contemporary theories also tend to focus on the function of environmental mastery. I very much liked the analogy that an uninterpreted dream is

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like an uninterpreted poem, not so much a communication as a creation. There is no need to expect that every one of our dreams is worth taking the time to interpret. The poet does not need the poem interpreted to find it deeply inspiring, moving, and enlightening. Nor do we always need the dream interpreted to find it´s meaning, or gain insight from it. However if a poem or a dream stands out interpretation can at times greatly increase the depth of our understanding, and in the best of situations of ourselves. The book also deals with the dreamers possibility to "perceive" events that are happening at a distance, or even those that have not yet happened. This could give credibility to the theory of space and time as being other than what they seem, and the same thing goes for subjective and objective! Accounts of "mutual dreaming," lead to the possibility that the dream world may be in some cases just as objectively real as the physical world. A question for future research is whether lucid dreamers and OBErs are more conducive to telepathy than ordinary dreamers. Therefore we could see that in certain circumstances at least, dreams could be viewed as objective. Surprisingly one story included in this book is how the 16th century dream master of Rhodes helped Suleiman the Magnificent, the Sultan of Turkey to win a war. Having read some remarkable accounts of the Sufi dervishes who explore the world of dreams, and trance states I was glad it was included. This book gives us plenty to ponder in regard to the scientific how and why of dreams, and lucid dreams! It also gives examples of all of the above by offering different peoples accounts, and scientific theories. It presents studies on dreams, lucid dreams, and the results of the studies. Some of the theories offered here will certainly have you examining your own perspectives much closer, which could indeed be a good thing! Therefore I would recommend this reading to someone interested in OBEs, if they tended to have a scientific interest into such studies on dreaming. The reports and comparisons on these scientific studies, as well as the theories could be a bit dry, or boring to some people. However there are many personal accounts that make this book more interesting. Perhaps it was the authors way of finding some balance within the book. I might have enjoyed the information found there more had I not felt pressed for time due to a busy schedule. Also Freudian

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concepts are not my cup of tea, due to some of the reasoning that LaBerge pointed out in Lucid Dreaming. Generally I find the personal accounts are more interesting than theories, and studies. You can gain some insight by reading of other people´s personal accounts on dreams, lucid dreams, OBEs, and astral travels. As was previously stated the theories and studies can be very thought provoking. This book goes beyond many of the books on lucid dreaming, as Dr. Stephen LaBerge is a well known researcher in the field of lucid dreaming, and has written extensively on the subject. He has also done extensive laboratory work into conscious awareness during the dream state at Stanford University. I would give Lucid Dreaming four, and a half stars. Taima

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Lesson 12 Assignment Date: Monday, September 10, 2001 8:58 AM ----- Original Message ----From: To: Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2001 4:46 PM Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Lesson 12 Assignment > Lucid Dreaming > > This is a summary on the book Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen LaBerge. > The main reason why I wanted to do a synopsis on this book is > because once a person can become lucid they can often achieve an > OBE, if they so desire. Through better comprehension of our lucid > dreams we might better understand the OBE.

Excellent job Tamia. Makes me want to go out and look for this book and read it. Sorry you didn't have enough time to enjoy it completely, but that's life.

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One reason I wanted to stress the theory behind this is because having an understanding of the theory will help ultimately in the long run. Like knowing how electricity works will allow you to use it a little more responsibly (like insulating yourself from the ground to repair a live wire) and it will allow you to fix things that have gone wrong. So I'm glad you got this theoretical book to review. Keep up the good work. As a note to everyone: I messed up. I thought I had some time to get the next lesson together, and I realized this weekend that I didn't. So, I will be writing Lesson 13 ASAP and submitting it to you all. We will push back the schedule as necessary to allow all of us to keep on the two week track. Daven

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 12 Assignment - iliketothink Date: Monday, September 10, 2001 3:47 PM I reviewed the "OOBE_FAQ" document referenced in DeGracia's bibliography. Overall I would say it's decent as an FAQ and good for a broad overview of OOBEs, as long as no detail is taken too seriously. It seems to be largely a collection of "common knowledge" that has the mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy you would expect when using a chat room. It also includes a number of references (although it leaves several strong claims remarkably un-referenced), including some for studies that have been done--although fewer of such studies than one would hope for, and most lacking in rigor. (Sorry! I hang out with a statistician frequently, and it changes my criteria for things.) If you're wanting to do serious, detailed research, I would recommend reading something else that takes a smaller portion of the subject and explores it in more depth. But the FAQ is fine for a "get some thinking started" document. Just for the fun of it, I've tried to glean some of the most interesting things I found in the article, to spare you the effort of reading it yourself until you feel so inclined.

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FLAWED LOGIC EXAMPLE * First, since the OBE is an experience, then if someone says he has had an OBE we have to believe him [While there are currently no external criteria for confirming whether someone else has had an OBE, I would posit that believing everyone who claims to have had one is simply naive.]

EXAMPLE WHERE A SOURCE IS NEEDED * Dionysus' early followers in Thrace reenacted his death and resurrection in a gruesome ceremony, where they tore a live bull to pieces with their teeth, and then roamed about the woods shouting frantically. Later rituals were hardly less barbaric and frenzied [in my opinion, this is a rather strong claim which could possibly considered libelous and as such, absolutely should have *some* type of reference to back it up] * The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Bardo Thodol (meaning Liberation by Hearing on the After-Death Plane) [My translation says it means "Liberation through understanding in the Between," so this could be a result of experts disagreeing or a non-expert submitting a translation that's not quite right. Again, we are left wondering about the degree of rigor and therefore credibility of the FAQ document]

INTERESTING CLIPS * OBEs are surprisingly common; different surveys have yielded somewhat different results, but some estimates indicate that somewhere between one person in ten and one person in twenty is likely to have had such an experience at least once * Palmer also, like Green, found that many simple variables were irrelevant. Sex, age, race, birth order, political views, religion, religiosity, education, occupation and income were all unrelated to OBEs. * Dean Sheils [She78] compared the beliefs of over 60 different cultures by referring to special files kept for anthropological research. Of 54 cultures for which some information was reported, 25 (or 46%) claimed that most or all people could travel outside the physical body under certain conditions. A further 23 (or 43%) claimed that a few of their number were

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able to do so, and only three cultures expressed no belief in anything of this nature. In a further three cultures the possibility of OBEs was admitted but the proportion of people who could experience it was not given. From this evidence, we can conclude that some form of a belief in out-of-body experiences is very common in various cultures. * Astral body is thought to be 'a replica of the physical body (the gross body), but of a more subtle and tenous substance, penetrating every nerve, fibre and cell of the physical organism, and constantly in a supersensitive state of vibration and pulsation' [Gay74]. The astral world consists of astral matter, and all physical objects have a replica in the astral. There is therefore a complete physical copy of everything in the astral world, but in addition there are things in the astral which have no counterpart in the physical. There are thought forms created by human thought, elementals and the lowest of the dead, who have gone no further since they left the physical world. All these entities and many others are used in ritual magic, and thought forms can be specially created to carry out tasks such as healing, carrying messages, or gaining information. * Accounts of OBEs have been collected since the beginning of psychical research. The first collection of cases of spontaneous apparitions, telepathy, and clairvoyance published in 1886 as 'Phantasms of the Living' [GMF86]. Frederic Myers also collected similar cases for his 'Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death' [Mye03]. The first major collection was made by Muldoon and Carrington and published in 1951 [MC51]. Nearly a hundred accounts were categorized according to whether they were produced by drugs or anaesthetics, occurred at the time of accident, death or illness, or were set off by suppressed desire. Finally they gave cases in which spirits seemed to be involved. By categorizing the cases in this way, Muldoon and Carrington were able to compare and interpret them in the light of their theories of astral projection, but they did not go beyond this rather simple analysis. These researchers implied that we do have a double, and that it is capable of perceiving at a distance and even of surviving without the physical body. The largest collections of accounts of astral projection have been amassed by Robert Crookall. In his many books [Cro61, 64a] he has presented hundreds of cases which show the kinds of consistencies as Muldoon and Carrington found. He also divided the cases according to how they were brought about. First there were the 'natural' ones which included those people who nearly died or were very ill or exhausted, as well as those who were quite well. Contrasted with these were the 'enforced' cases, being induced by anaesthetics, suffocation and falling, or deliberately by hypnosis. FOR MORE INFORMATION If you think this sounds interesting, you can download the FAQ via the URL Daven gave us. Or to subscribe to the list this FAQ was taken from (I assume

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it's still operational, although I have not tried subscribing myself), send a message containing the text: subscribe alt.out-of-body Your Name to the address "[email protected]."

From: "Daven" To: "OMS Class" Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Caution Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 11:34 AM While writing your next assignment, I suddenly thought of something. Remember when I was talking about the people you will meet on the AP? Well, with this tragedy, you will be meeting more and more of the newly dead, probably a LOT of them not understanding that they ARE dead. They will be disoriented, lost, confused and probably suffering from everything from phantom pain to massive psychosis of some sort. They will, in all probability, acting as though they are still alive. Since all of you are new to traveling in the Astral Plane, I would advise you all to either refrain from projecting for the next few weeks, or to curtail your activities to might-have-beens or your immediate local area. The reasons for this caution are many. 1) The newly dead can tend to get violent if something shoves the fact they are dead in their face. 2) If they decide to get violent, they can really hurt you. They don't have the restrictions of the flesh any longer. 3) This is the ONLY reality of all the MHBs that has had this happen to it. I don't know of spin-offs of this reality since this act, only that the spin-offs up to about 6AM yesterday, which most didn't have this tragedy happen to them. I have checked. 4) There are many groups and people who are working on the AP to release these confused souls, and many of them know what they are doing to make them better. Spells, calling on the Gods, calling angels and guides, and so on, which I have not even talked to you about yet. 5) I really do not want any of you to get injured in your explorations. This is a critical time in your training. It is like a new martial artist who has just earned his first belt, and now thinks he is the greatest out

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there. He's not, and you are not. Not yet. So, use some common sense and avoid these areas where there are newly dead until those of us who are trying to make them understand get the majority of those newly dead safely off to the Summerlands. I know you want to help. Right now, you can do more harm to yourself than you may realize. If you wish to help, there are groups who are working on the AP to build a shieldwall around the US, and you all can help with that. If you meet those who are working on this, you can contribute your energy to this endeavor. This is a cautionary note. Feel free to ignore this, and on your own head be it. If you lost someone, I am truly sorry. If you still don't know, yes, you may check up on them using the AP. Please do so to make your mind better and more calm. Save your energies for that which is in your power. I hope you all are safe and well. Stars light your path, Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 12 Assignment (finally) Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 4:55 PM Leaving the Body by D. Scott Rogo is one of the best books on the practice, theory and background of astral projedtion that I have read. Not only does it give excercises and meditations to pratice but also personal accounts from the author himself and others,and documented experiments starting from the late 1800's. The author also gives his own comments on the excersices: what has or has not personally worked for him and the benefits and dangers of each technique listed in the book. The practices given are not only from the East, such as yoga, but also from the Kaballah, Buddhism, the Monroe techniques, and some even channeled from ancient masters through mediums. Each chapter is dedicated to one technique used to induce astral projection.

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It gives first the theory on why it works, then the excercise itself, and then the authors comments on the practice at the end. This book includes most of the usual relaxation routines and breathing excersices, but it also lists some dietary controls like fastin and vegetarianism. I found this especially interesting because I was a vegetarian for several years but recently tried eating meat again. I had forgotten how heavy it was, my entire body felt very grounded and very earthy which is a definite problem if one is trying to project with one's body feeling very earth-bound. One odd thing about this book is that the author never uses the words "astral plane" to describe where one goes when one projects. From all the accounts given, the author makes it seem that the astral body only travels in the physical world. It is only in the last few chapters that he even mentions some of the projectors travelling to "parallel worlds and spiritual dimensions." I don't know if this is due to the book being published in 1983 and the popular view at the time was that one could only travel on the physical plane, or if in the following years, more research and experiments were done with the astral plane and new views took hold of the popular culture. I give this book four stars, but since it doesn't really describe where you go or what you can do once you leave the body, it doesn't receive the fifth star. I greatly recommend it to anyone just starting out and studying projection since it gives so many different techiniques and theories, but a few additional books would also be needed to help add what this book lacks. blackdove01

From: To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Lesson 13 Assignment Date: Saturday, September 29, 2001 1:40 AM Lesson 13: Philosophy and OOBE What is the philosophy of OOBE? To me the OOBE is something that everyone can experience. At times an OBE will result from a trance. I feel that the OBE is a natural state that we can achieve during our dreamtime while another state of awareness takes over. It is possible that we are both physical and spirit beings at the same time. That life is infinite.

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The thought of being more than our physical body is nothing new. This is an ancient concept taught for thousands of years in Egypt, and in many of the lands throughout the world. In Egypt Osiris who ruled over the dead was identified as the old scarab, who sinks into the ground. His son Horus, depicted as the falcon, was identified primarily with the midday sun. Khepri remained associated with the morning sun and the young scarab who arose into the sky. According to a Pyramid Text inscribed on the inside walls of the royal pyramids dating from the 5th and 6th dynasties the two animals were sometimes combined: I fly up as a bird and alight as a beetle; I fly up as a bird and alight as a beetle on the empty throne which is on your bark, O Re! Thus the scarab became a powerful symbol of victory over death. It can often be seen engraved in the walls of tombs throughout the land of Egypt. The ability to walk between the worlds was often seen as a shamanic calling long before the time of Egypt. Pendants in the shape of beetles date back to the Paleolithic epoch some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The use attributed to beetle body ornaments might be seen in the beetle´s ability to fly into the sky, and dive into the ground. Thus allowing the shaman to share the same talents in dreams or trances for the purpose of healing, finding game, and insuring a good crop. It was also found that the scarab is a symbol of immortality, dawn, new creation, transformation, metamorphoses, and holds the golden thread that connects us to the Universe. Then again you desire some references as to how all this relates to my personal experiences. Well we are getting there! Provided I can find that page in my journal. This all has to do with the first dream OBE that I was aware of. From my journal: "Knowledge comes with deep meditation or immersion into the sacred chambers of zero magnetism such as in the Great Pyramid and other ancient temples." Well I just read this on the Internet and it caused me to think back on the very first spirit journey I had. It is true that there was always a deep feeling in my heart for the ancient land of Egypt, but to be visited by a scarab beetle seemed a remarkable thing. In Egypt the scarab beetle is a symbol of rebirth, and thought to bear the morning sun which gives life. So as I had prepared to sleep the scarab appeared to me. I rode on his back. It seemed that all I could recall was going into a pyramid, and the return at dawn. As the scarab turned from me to fly away a voice spoke and said, "The opening of the third eye." It had little meaning for me then, but

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now I can see that it helped to spark an interest in so many things which I had hardly even considered before. Perhaps the experience of out of body travel isn´t so much faithshaking, rather it can enhance the scope of ones faith to becoming greater, and more encompassing. Often you will find that the ability to travel out of body will cause you to become more aware of how one uses their own energy. To me the out of body experience is a beautiful expression of our oneness with our divine source. That someone´s astral or OOB experiences might in some ways be a bit different from another´s should not really be surprising. Those things that we learn from in everyday life can also differ. "I walk in and out of many worlds." --Joy Harjo, Creek/Cherokee Where Daven wrote of astrally becoming whatever you decide to be, to some people this is known as shapeshifting. It is sometimes said that you can merge your spirit with that of another, or shapeshift. As the spirit is not a solid physical form. Yes I agree with his thoughts on this, and very much like his analogy on God and every sparrow that falls. God cannot help but note the sparrow fall simply because they could be experiencing the same thing at the same time, thus, as he suggested, the knowing of it would be first hand. Yet beyond that example you can read the accounts of many like those of Rumi, 13th century Sufi Mystic, who writes about experiencing Spirit first hand. This Eternal Play At dawn the Moon appeared in the sky. It floated down and looked at me. Then, like a hawk snatching its prey, it grabbed hold of me and dragged me across the sky. When I looked I could not see myself. By the magic of the Moon´s light my body dissolved into pure spirit. In this form I journeyed on Merging with a boundless light. Then the secret of this eternal play opened up before me. The nine spheres of heaven were enveloped in light. The ship of my soul was lost in a shoreless Sea . . . .

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Suddenly the Sea of Being formed into waves. Thoughts rose up, images and forms broke on the shore. Then everything returned to the way it was before, merging into that vast Spirit. -- Rumi To experience something similar to what Rumi wrote about would certainly make taking the time to learn about OBEs worthwhile, in my humble opinion. With astral travel you might travel into the future, the past, or to possible dimensions. It has also been written that to journey in the astral can open one´s psychic centers. Astral sight is often referred to as second sight as it can give one the ability to see beyond the veil of the physical world, and time or space. One might be able to see the human aura, to read the aura around any living being, or see the energy around all things. As you work with the vibes of your own energy to achieve an OBE, it will become easier to sense the energy around other people, and things. It is not unusual to see a tunnel, different colors, a bright light, or other beings as you start to travel OOB. Everyone has some degree of clairvoyants. Many of the worlds mystics, and astral travelers also tell of accounts of clairaudience. It is not unusual to hear things which are not from your physical surroundings. There are many types of sounds that are fairly common for the astral traveler to hear once their psychic centers, or chakras start to open. It is always good to know that these things are a normal part of the OBE so one doesn´t become fearful, and block the experience. One might hear the roar of an ocean, the clash of thunder, the buzzing of bees, the chirp of crickets, the sound of bells, the sound of a stringed instrument like the harp, the sound of the flute, the sound of the drum, an angelic choir. Often such sounds can even aid one in achieving an OBE. Most people can well relate to things that are classified as clairsentience. You might feel a rush of wind, or that your subtle body is a million tiny cells. There can be feelings of floating, gliding, soaring, flying, or moving through walls and ceilings. You might feel a tingling sensation surround your physical body, or around the chakra areas. There might be a slight pressure, or warmth around the chakra points. You could smell a floral fragrance in the air. These psychic senses can often leave us with a feeling of deja vu,

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or having experienced something before. Now I will go back to my journal and show some examples of things related to some of these senses. Here I will leave out personal experiences associated with other people for the sake of ethics. Yet over time your OBEs, and psychic senses can be confirmed by other people. Here is a entry about a guide who is shapeshifting and the heat from his energy: In the years of working with the Eagle who in the higher astral planes began to shapeshift into a Thunderbird the flow of this energy became very strong. Perhaps you have heard the saying: "as above, so below". The need for grounding the energy from above became very apparent, especially when working on healing. At times the heat from this energy could become almost unbearable. Also there is: Then Spider showed me the wheel of life. As we traveled back from the upper world, I felt a cold rush of wind stir within my soul, and my energy returning. On astral hearing: After awakening one morning the sounds of music were so clear that it could be heard layer upon layer. The notes seemed to weave themselves upon different layers until they reminded me of the serpent. And it was such a wonderful remarkable sound of the drum entwined together with the flute that I wanted it to linger with me, lest it be forgotten. The sound of the drum was like the rhythm of the heartbeat that expanded out to the earth, and beyond. I thought, what is this strange music unlike any I have heard before. Days later in another group there was a link to songs for meditation, and they were all from India. They sounded amazingly similar to the music which I had heard on this previous morning!! Later I was told that this music is called the sound current, or music of the spheres. Music has been heard before, and it was always associated with astral travel. This was the first time that I have heard it without being in the astral. It is possible that I returned from the astral before waking up, and was so enchanted by hearing the music that the astral travel was forgotten. So generally I tend to agree with most of what Daven wrote. :) Taima PS- Is the book "Illusions" by Richard Bach one that we need to think about buying?

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From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Re: Lesson 13 Assignment Date: Saturday, September 29, 2001 10:38 AM Right now, I seem to be testing the waters with my toes, but haven't jumped in all the way yet. Now I'm just going on my experience so far and what I KNOW to be true, not what all the books say. I'm not sure yet whether I am actually on the astral plane or whether I am still just running around inside my own head. I have never been able to consciously induce an OBE yet, the only way one has happened so far is if I wake up in the morning while still sleepy, passingly wonder if I could project now, and then go back to sleep ( the time when I usually have my strangest dreams anyway) and end up in a lucid dream. Because I've only been able to do it with dreams so far, I'm not sure whether I'm just dreaming it all sometimes. And so far only once have I been to a place that I do not know. Granted that the places that I have been have been some very twisted variations on the physical place, but I still felt at home there somehow, it was still familiar. I don't know if right now I am just sorting through my own head and later on I will get to the astral plane once I'm done, or if I'll just be stuck in my head. I'm also not sure about some things like "the watcher at the gate". I've never met mine, if I have one. From the way all the books and other people had said it, it seemed like every one has one and it is the first thing you will ever do when you project. So far I have also not found any of the lower levels with the zombies and the ghouls and lesser beings. I don't know if it's because I'm still in my head, or if I'm just a generally upbeat person who's mostly perky all the time and since I create the world around me, they just don't exist. I don't think that I have any sort of a set theory right now about OBEs, because I'm still learning and finding things out as I go and if something changes, then one bit of theory might be out the window. I read a lot of books, use them as guides of a sort and then sift through the information later when I can compare it to my actual experience because what is true for them may not be true for me. Daven I think you're a wonderful teacher and I get lots of ideas to think about and sift through and see how other's experiences compare with mine and a little about what to expect. Some things like meeting the dead, I haven't done yet, despite all my attempts to reach my grandfather, but that doesn't mean I won't at some point in time. Right now, in order to any sort of a theory at all, I think I just need a lot more experience at OBEs. blackdove01

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From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 13 Date: Saturday, September 29, 2001 6:25 PM Sheesh. I typed a reply to this the day you sent it out, then lost the whole thing. So I'm finally getting around to starting over. Sorry. But I'll bet you're not surprised to hear that I have a whole bunch of questions. >As you go through the exercises and gain an understanding and skill in >OOBE, you will discover something that is faith-shaking. >That you are in no way special. This is a skill and an ability >that is possessed by everyone, whether or not they understand it or >acknowledge it. Actually, I find that relieving :) I'm special regardless of my unusual abilities. HAH. Would make a second-grade teacher proud ;) >It is also one of the skills that make the Gods as "powerful" >as they are. Fair enough since you say "one of" the skills. >It is often taught in many religions that God (however you choose to name >him/her) has the ability to be anyplace >instantly. That they can see into wo/men's souls and know >what they are thinking. With AP, you can do the same. This relates to a question that was asked earlier. In AP you can seem to go anywhere or do anything, but how much validity does what you do in that plane have in this plane? For example, if you see person XYZ and figure out their motivations for doing something, can you assume that you were actually seeing that person as they exist on this plane? And if not, to what degree will their motivations in another plane be motivations in this plane as well? (I'm thinking of DeGracia talking about floating up through the ceiling of his room, being in his bedroom again, and continuing the process as he progressed to higher planes. It seems like something that might be true in one plane might not apply in the next.) >Being anyplace is exactly like being able to project in the Etheric Plane >(locale 1 to those of Monroe's mindset). Ahhh. So are you saying that APing is not *exactly* like what the gods can do, but similar to what they can do albeit in a different realm? If not, can

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you clarify the connection for me? >Basically, with this skill, fully honed and with an understanding >of the universe and how it is REALLY put together, you will become God, or >something similar. Hmmm. I wonder if this is what you were referring to when you said that later on you'd talk about motivations for learning to AP. I still have my block (although have been doing some other funky stuff--more on that later), but don't think this would qualify as a motivation for me. While I'm open to new experiences and enjoy exploring new territories and especially like helping people, I feel like I'm already doing a lot along those lines. So while "eventually becoming a god" sounds nice enough, it's not something I crave and at this point is not particularly motivating to me. I figure I might get there eventually and might not. But the potential for great power is not enough in itself to motivate me. Almost like "I've been there / done that (or at least had a taste for it) and it's nice, but is not what makes life worth living. At least not for me." Hmmm. So I suppose I'll keep working on my block. Actually, lately I worry that maybe there's a reason I'm not letting myself leave my body. I'm essentially convinced that it is possible and that I can do it, but I've found that in life whenever I push through blocks I encounter on the etheric plane (yeah, I guess I'm one of those people who can notice it and interact with it somewhat regularly in normal, conscious life), I'm very liable to screw things up. If I know how to do things instinctively, I frequently amaze myself. But when I try to blunder or push where I don't know what I'm doing, it has bad consequences--people get dizzy or sick or I get a shock (yeah, I've done that to myself before. oops) or seemingly-random things happen like a phone number I've written down is suddenly someone's fax number instead. So rather than pushing through things, I try to learn about them first. Although I've now been doing that for a while with APing, and still haven't had much luck. So I'm still puzzling over whether it's a lack of motivation or a lack of knowledge, but assuming it's the former since I've now done a tonn of reading on it. I feel like I need to somehow 'unlock' the knowledge that's already in me. A motivation would help. And perhaps something else instead, although I also want to be careful not to go where I shouldn't (for whatever that reason might be). >So what happens to those beings that we think of as Gods now? What happens >to God when you are a God? >When we mature to their level, we no longer need a being to worship as >greater than us, because we are just as great as them. Interesting that you say "we no longer need a being to worship," since many people I've known assume that it's the gods who demand/require our worship, almost like they need us. I like your perspective better, though. Uhhhh. Although maybe it's self-serving because I haven't worshipped anything for a

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long time and saying "I don't need one" is better for my ego than saying "I'm supposed to worship anyway, and am going to hell for not doing so." ;) >Many people talk about having a "Personal relationship with God" >without knowing what that entails. I can tell you from personal >experience that it means you will be drawn into feuds and arguments, you >will be asked to act as the (sexual) partner for whomever you >choose, If it's a relationship of equals, wouldn't it be more like a mutual choosing? Sort of like choosing a boyfriend or girlfriend now--both parties have to be interested, otherwise it counts as something drastically different. >That night, I started talking to some of the splinters of her about what >happened. Come to find out that the damage was severe inside her head. >One person suicided to save the existences of several other "children" >splinters, and three were fatally injured. Out of about 20 people I had >grown to >care for, three died outright, and one was thrown back to >the point of her genesis (meaning all the work I had done >previously with her over a period of 3 years was erased). I'm really perplexed on this one. What makes the 'reality' as you and I now experience it any more real or valid than the other splinters? For example, why didn't your wife on this plane die for the benefit of herself on other planes? Or why did the Lady Rhiannon interfere on this plane instead of another one? >These are just two of the many different things that can happen when you >become a God/dess. Again, I'm asking because of the motivation angle. I already get a 'high' out of watching ocean waves or watching a sunset or feeling rain on my skin. It's absolutely, indescribably beautiful. And I already have times when I stand as a witness and defend others and help others and modify things. Are you saying that being a god is similar but stronger/deeper? >It is incredibly peace-making and wonderful, but when you mix your affairs >with the Gods, on an equal level, you will be expected to help Them too, if >necessary. (I think this is the line that made me wonder how (or whether) god-hood would be qualitatively different than where we are now, even though the quantity/degree/scale would be different). >Spirit Sight is a psychic ability in which you OOBE without leaving your >body. Some have called it clairvoyance, astral >sight, "the Sight", "Second Sight", aura reading and many >other things, but the point is that you will be able to see,

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>with mental eyes, things that don't exist physically around >you. This is another thing that happens to you as you grow >in ability. This is another thing that makes me feel like I'm approaching OOBEs backwards, or at least like I have a block instead of an inherent inability to do them--the type of stuff you list here is things I do already and have for most of my life--in 4th grade I once greatly embarrased my parents by asking (loudly) why the woman behind us in church had a green face--was she sick or was she a witch? Hee. >Another side benefit of OOBE practice and exercise is this; Magickal skill >= OOBE = Magickal skill. Increase one, and you >increase the other. This is due to the discipline needed being absolutely >the same. So perhaps part of the problem is I have ability but lack precision? >When we were born, we accepted certain "rules" to our existence here to >keep ourselves from contaminating our experience here >too much. How are these rules structured? Are they set up by a governing body? Or are they things that happen automatically based on the process of coming into a mortal body? Things that are not necessarily proscribed by anyone, but simply "are." >I have spoken about the collective unconscious before, and I will elaborate >a bit on it here. Part of the collective unconscious is the beliefs that >we hold in common with most >of the peoples that are alive here. You're using the term collective unconscious in a way that differs from normal usage. I'm assuming that you're neither disregarding nor unaware of the more typical usage, but simply not focusing on it because that's not your point here. (e.g. elements/memories/schemas/symbols that have been programmed into people by evolution rather than personal experience) >So why have I just told you that you are a God, with the abilities of a God >if you can't do anything about it here? Because you can. By understanding >this, you can make your >life easier in the long run. Death becomes something to be >laughed at, Hmmm. I might not find death overpowering, but I would still find it a sacred life experience (along the lines of birth). Still amazing and profound, even though it might lose some of its former terror. So maybe "death becomes something appreciated but no longer feared"? Or maybe that's just me. Not that I'm *quite* to the point of not fearing death, though. >Are all these abilities and powers that I am talking about

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>evil? No they are not. There are many churches that will >tell you that they are the powers of Satan, sent to lure >you away from God and that you are in danger of your soul, >but you can dismiss this. This power is coming from inside >you, Thanks for this clarification. I spent many years trying to figure out the mechanics and meaning behind what I do, to keep it from being attributed to the devil. I finally decided that it's simply something that "is." Like some people have much better physical eyesight than others. And some are color blind and some are tetrochromats (see more colors than normal people). And people can be classified into non-tasters, normal-tasters and super-tasters. And some people have no sense of smell while others (like a cousin of mine) are teased about having "the nose of a bloodhound." So it's only logical that people would be more and less developed in their other 'senses' as well. It's nothing big, it's nothing scary, it's nothing mysterious. Just one of those many things life provides us with in varying measures. >Whether or not this ability is evil or not depends entirely >upon the person using it, and who it's used against. Totally agree. >A healer can kill, but they can also save lives. A gun can maim, but it >also protects the innocent. AP is no different from either of these. Which again raises the question of the impact of AP on the world we currently live in. And if it impacts primarily other worlds, then we've gotta' ask the question above (re. Rhiannon's intervention) about why/whether/how this world is any different in either style or importance than the others. >Okay, I have given you a lot to think about, and a lot to consider. >I'll leave you alone for now. Another weird one for you. Still haven't AP'd, but I've been doing something else that's really really odd. And it's not lucid dreaming since I'm not conscious/aware in the normal sense, but it's the... opposite? I'm aware of the dream and I'm aware of the room I'm sleeping in at the same time. And I seem to be 'sensing' etheric things in both places. Although the other morning I was just doing whatever and saw a homeless/schizophrenic guy, and he saw me and Noticed me back. I was so startled it woke me up. Heh. And I probably made a schizophrenic guy somewhere once again act totally disconnected with normal reality. Ah well. But more recently, every time I'd dream of a grocery store (guess I can think about what those mean, since 'visitng the grocery store' is when I'd feel like I was Doing stuff), my hsuband would suddenly get really restless in bed next to me. So I'm not sure if I made him restless, if his very-early-stages-of-restless triggered grocery store imagery in me, or if we were both responding to something totally

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unrelated in the environment. My world is rather freaky lately, I guess. Oh yes, and I live in the NYC metro, so I haven't ruled out the oddness of my life lately being connected to the World Trade Center happenings. But if you have any ideas or insights on this. Or other places you've heard of it where I could do research, that would be appreciated. Thanks!

From: "Daven" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] Answers and explanations and elaborations. Date: Monday, October 01, 2001 2:11 PM Okay, let's take this point by point, so I can explain this as necessary. (It's one of my flaws that I intuit some answers, and assume that everyone else can too. I start at point A, explain B, and logically intuit ending Y, and assume that everyone else can too. LOL Sorry about that.) > >It is often taught in many religions that God (however you choose to name > >him/her) has the ability to be anyplace > >instantly. That they can see into wo/men's souls and know > >what they are thinking. With AP, you can do the same. > This relates to a question that was asked earlier. In AP you can seem to go > anywhere or do anything, but how much validity does what you do in that > plane have in this plane? For example, if you see person XYZ and figure out > their motivations for doing something, can you assume that you were actually > seeing that person as they exist on this plane? And if not, to what degree > will their motivations in another plane be motivations in this plane as > well? (I'm thinking of DeGracia talking about floating up through the > ceiling of his room, being in his bedroom again, and continuing the process > as he progressed to higher planes. It seems like something that might be > true in one plane might not apply in the next.) The answer to this is "who knows". However, I use a rule of thumb that goes like "It may not matter in 1000 years, but if it affects you, it's important". When dealing with Astral Selves of others, you can't always assume that what you are seeing is what really is. It may be a thoughtform

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of them, it may be a Might Have Been of them projecting, it may be what you want to see. I can't really come up with a difinitive answer to this question because it's too subjective. You will have to decide for yourself how much you are going to allow what you see while on the AP to affect your life here. I may make love to my mother on the Astral Plane, but that does not mean that either my mother or I wish to do so here. Basically, this is one of those places where I say, "that's up to you to decide." Wish I could help more. > > >Being anyplace is exactly like being able to project in the Etheric Plane > >(locale 1 to those of Monroe's mindset). > Ahhh. So are you saying that APing is not *exactly* like what the gods can > do, but similar to what they can do albeit in a different realm? If not, can > you clarify the connection for me? That is what I am saying. It is analogous to us swimming and being a fish. In one (the fish) being in the water is their natural state, and in the other, it is something that can be learnt, and can be done well, but it will never approch being a fish. The Gods live on the Astral Plane. We, currently, visit there. There are assumptions that the Gods make that don't apply to us, and vice versa. The Astral Plane is THEIR environment, their natural state. As long as we are alive, there will be some, not problems exactly, but some inefficiencies with our being on the Astral Plane. > >Basically, with this skill, fully honed and with an understanding > >of the universe and how it is REALLY put together, you will become God, or > >something similar. > Hmmm. I wonder if this is what you were referring to when you said that > later on you'd talk about motivations for learning to AP. Actually, no it's not. I still have my > block (although have been doing some other funky stuff--more on that later), > but don't think this would qualify as a motivation for me. While I'm open to > new experiences and enjoy exploring new territories and especially like > helping people, I feel like I'm already doing a lot along those lines. So

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> while "eventually becoming a god" sounds nice enough, it's not something I > crave and at this point is not particularly motivating to me. Fair enough. Just letting you know whay *may* happen eventually. I figure I > might get there eventually and might not. But the potential for great power > is not enough in itself to motivate me. Almost like "I've been there / done > that (or at least had a taste for it) and it's nice, but is not what makes > life worth living. At least not for me." Hmmm. So I suppose I'll keep > working on my block. Go for it. One word of advice: Sometimes a persistant *inability* to do something actually masks a very powerful *ability* in something else. Your lessons may not lie in the AP this time, but it may be that something simmilar should be what you are supposed to do. Actually, lately I worry that maybe there's a reason > I'm not letting myself leave my body. I'm essentially convinced that it is > possible and that I can do it, but I've found that in life whenever I push > through blocks I encounter on the etheric plane (yeah, I guess I'm one of > those people who can notice it and interact with it somewhat regularly in > normal, conscious life), I'm very liable to screw things up. If I know how > to do things instinctively, I frequently amaze myself. But when I try to > blunder or push where I don't know what I'm doing, it has bad > consequences--people get dizzy or sick or I get a shock (yeah, I've done > that to myself before. oops) or seemingly-random things happen like a phone > number I've written down is suddenly someone's fax number instead. So rather > than pushing through things, I try to learn about them first. Although I've > now been doing that for a while with APing, and still haven't had much luck. > So I'm still puzzling over whether it's a lack of motivation or a lack of > knowledge, but assuming it's the former since I've now done a tonn of > reading on it. I feel like I need to somehow 'unlock' the knowledge that's > already in me. A motivation would help. And perhaps something else instead, > although I also want to be careful not to go where I shouldn't (for whatever > that reason might be). Okay, so back down a bit, don't try to project so hard, and use the remote

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viewing information I gave you in Lesson 14. Try that instead and see if that gets you further, or if you should actually be doing something else altogether. > > >So what happens to those beings that we think of as Gods now? What happens > >to God when you are a God? > >When we mature to their level, we no longer need a being to worship as > >greater than us, because we are just as great as them. > Interesting that you say "we no longer need a being to worship," since many > people I've known assume that it's the gods who demand/require our worship, > almost like they need us. That's not entirely false. Without being remembered, stories being told, myths created, and being loved, just like everything else, Gods die. So, in one sense they DO need our honor and love and worship, but I don't think they ever DEMANDED it, other than YHVH, that is. > >Many people talk about having a "Personal relationship with God" > >without knowing what that entails. I can tell you from personal > >experience that it means you will be drawn into feuds and arguments, you > >will be asked to act as the (sexual) partner for whomever you > >choose, > If it's a relationship of equals, wouldn't it be more like a mutual > choosing? Sort of like choosing a boyfriend or girlfriend now--both parties > have to be interested, otherwise it counts as something drastically > different. GOOD!!!!! That's exactly what it is like. More closer to choosing a life partner, lover or a spouse, but it is a mutual choosing, usually based on resonances and likes/dislikes and so on. > I'm really perplexed on this one. What makes the 'reality' as you and I now > experience it any more real or valid than the other splinters? For example, > why didn't your wife on this plane die for the benefit of herself on other > planes? Or why did the Lady Rhiannon interfere on this plane instead of > another one? NOthing but our perceptions. The Lady Rhiannon decided to intervein here

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because she knew that my wife and I could not spare the time or expense of her being in the hospital for a couple days. (We were, at the time, living in our car and had only about $5 a day for food for myself, my wife and our daughter.) So, she altered things for this physical reality to spare us this. As to the splinters "inside", in the split-second that the lazy susan took to fall, she *did* check with all those who were alive to see who was in danger. Turns out most of them were in danger. She then went to those who she thought had a chance to save the rest and asked them if they would be willing to do anything about it. Those that died *did* decide to do something about it. I know this because I asked. >From what I intuit, there are times that to tip the balance of the scales, a life is required. My wife was one candidate for that life, but the others were more willing to sacrafice themselves. I can't explain it clearly, but from what I understand, someone was either being really badly hurt (here) or dying (inside). Rhiannon mitigated the damage here because there were those willing to die inside to save my wife and others. These particular splinters either knew all about what they were, and what my wife is and was, or they had a massive afinity for children. The Mistress (as I called her) knew about her living only on the Etheric Plane in the pocket I created there, Animal had a huge afinity for children and would do anything to protect those who could not do anything for themselves. From exploration of MHB's I did, I found out that had they not decided to do what they did (all of them, Rhiannon and the others) there was a good probablity that my wife would have been in the hospital for a few days, and they ALL would have died. There is nothing that makes the physical reality here more important than the reality there (a fact I keep *firmly* in mind), but it is easier in many cases to recover on the Etheric Plane than it is in a physical one. And there are also times that it is easier to recover on a physical plane than it is an Etheric one. What damage that DID happen on the Etheric plane to those splinters, I have mended as best as I can. The splinters that "died" really only shattered into much smaller pieces, to the point where they cannot be reassembled into what they were, but they can be reassembled into another personality, which is what I did. I can only assume that Lady Rhiannon decided to interfere here because She saw more harm to our life and others if she did not. From talks with her afterward, it was a real catch 22 for her. Someone was going to wind up messed up. I think she left it up to those involved who it would be. And since time could be as much or as little as she decided, there was enough time to make the decision.

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Clear now? > > >These are just two of the many different things that can happen when you > >become a God/dess. > Again, I'm asking because of the motivation angle. I already get a 'high' > out of watching ocean waves or watching a sunset or feeling rain on my skin. > It's absolutely, indescribably beautiful. And I already have times when I > stand as a witness and defend others and help others and modify things. Are > you saying that being a god is similar but stronger/deeper? Yep. I don't know if I can describe it correctly. And for now, forget about being a god. Immagine that one day you wake up with the ability to feel/taste/see/hear things you never were able to before. Suddenly your entire world has changed, and it is filled with all these things you never knew existed. You know on an intellectual level that they were always there, but now you can actually sense them somehow. It's that and also a commitment that you make to yourself. Here you are and you have these abilities that others don't have, how much duty do you have to others to use those abilities for the betterment of all those people out there that don't have those abilities? It is very much like the existance here, but it is stronger/deeper/more intense but it is also more long term. > This is another thing that makes me feel like I'm approaching OOBEs > backwards, or at least like I have a block instead of an inherent inability > to do them--the type of stuff you list here is things I do already and have > for most of my life--in 4th grade I once greatly embarrased my parents by > asking (loudly) why the woman behind us in church had a green face--was she > sick or was she a witch? Hee. Then try this: the skills you are learning here can be applied to those abilities too. Perhaps bettering one will make the AP easier? The only reason I have not suggested this before now is because this *is* a class on AP, rather than seeing what is not there. ;-) >

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> >Another side benefit of OOBE practice and exercise is this; Magickal skill > >= OOBE = Magickal skill. Increase one, and you > >increase the other. This is due to the discipline needed being absolutely > >the same. > So perhaps part of the problem is I have ability but lack precision? It could be seen like that, but it could also be seen in the light of your personal desires and you inherant natural afinity. A supprano can learn to sing in the baratone register, but they will have a LOT of trouble doing so, and they won't like it. So, play to your strengths rather than trying to force yourself to be a baratone when you are a supprano. (Understand?) > > >When we were born, we accepted certain "rules" to our existence here to > >keep ourselves from contaminating our experience here > >too much. > How are these rules structured? Are they set up by a governing body? Or are > they things that happen automatically based on the process of coming into a > mortal body? Things that are not necessarily proscribed by anyone, but > simply "are." Gee, you don't ask the easy questions, do you? Here's an analogy that is used once or twice that I find appropriate: the movies. You go into the movie with certain things known: there will be people there there will be places depicted certain things will happen to them you will get a vicarious experience watching them for the length of the movie, you are suspending your disbelief you are agreeing to believe in the fantasy that the movie shows This life here can be seen in the same light. You have agreed to believe that this reality is the only one that exists for the length that the movie runs (your life). No one told you the rules, no one decided them for you, or without your input. By purchasing a ticket (deciding to be born) you agreed to the "rules" that were part of this movie. You knew beforehand the general outline of the movie that would be playing, perhaps you heard a review and that interested you, and so on. Most of these "rules" simply *are* because you decided to be born here

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rather than in another reality. > > >I have spoken about the collective unconscious before, and I will elaborate > >a bit on it here. Part of the collective unconscious is the beliefs that > >we hold in common with most > >of the peoples that are alive here. > You're using the term collective unconscious in a way that differs from > normal usage. I'm assuming that you're neither disregarding nor unaware of > the more typical usage, but simply not focusing on it because that's not > your point here. (e.g. elements/memories/schemas/symbols that have been > programmed into people by evolution rather than personal experience) When I use the terms "collective unconsious" I am both including the "normal" term Collective Unconsious that Jung talked about, and talking about the collective unconsious of THIS plane. Remember my graphic of the planes? This is part of that. It is not only the collective belief of everyone currently in this plane (meaning the aliens, plants, rocks, animals and so on) but it is also the "rules" that we decided to accept before we got here. An example I use of this is the belief in magick. Centuries ago, believing in magick was common. People believed that if you yawned that your soul could escape and that other souls could get in. The Shide were at every crossroads waiting for those brave souls to challenge them in combat, magickal spells worked all the time. Time passed and we started learning about Science and Reason, and slowly the magick started leaving our life. Because we understood things better, and lightening was no longer thrown by Thor's hammer, but we could run computers and lights with that same force, we lost something. Over time, that belief in no magick in our lives entered into the collective unconsious (all of them) and it became one of the "rules" that we agreed to believe in when we were born. So, there are no more elven knights at the crossroads, no more unicorns to be drawn, few unlooked for miracles, and we have lost something. That is because as the populace became educated in science and reason, more and more people believed that there was no magick, and thus, when a majority was reached, there was no more. However, the belief in magick is coming back because more and more people (mostly pagans) are starting to believe in magick again, and other powers, like AP. So slowly, it is reentering the collective unconsious.

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> > >So why have I just told you that you are a God, with the abilities of a God > >if you can't do anything about it here? Because you can. By understanding > >this, you can make your > >life easier in the long run. Death becomes something to be > >laughed at, > Hmmm. I might not find death overpowering, but I would still find it a > sacred life experience (along the lines of birth). Still amazing and > profound, even though it might lose some of its former terror. So maybe > "death becomes something appreciated but no longer feared"? Or maybe that's > just me. Not that I'm *quite* to the point of not fearing death, though. Still, it's a step in the right direction > Another weird one for you. Still haven't AP'd, but I've been doing something > else that's really really odd. And it's not lucid dreaming since I'm not > conscious/aware in the normal sense, but it's the... opposite? I'm aware of > the dream and I'm aware of the room I'm sleeping in at the same time. And I > seem to be 'sensing' etheric things in both places. Although the other > morning I was just doing whatever and saw a homeless/schizophrenic guy, and > he saw me and Noticed me back. I was so startled it woke me up. Heh. And I > probably made a schizophrenic guy somewhere once again act totally > disconnected with normal reality. Ah well. But more recently, every time I'd > dream of a grocery store (guess I can think about what those mean, since > 'visitng the grocery store' is when I'd feel like I was Doing stuff), my > hsuband would suddenly get really restless in bed next to me. So I'm not > sure if I made him restless, if his very-early-stages-of-restless triggered > grocery > store imagery in me, or if we were both responding to something totally > unrelated in the environment. My world is rather freaky lately, I guess. Oh > yes, and I live in the NYC metro, so I haven't ruled out the oddness of my > life lately being connected to the World Trade Center happenings. But if you > have any ideas or insights on this. Or other places you've heard of it where

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> I could do research, that would be appreciated. Well, it sounds like you are inclining yourself toward your own strengths to me. For many years, I could only see myself on other planes, with remote viewing, and I thought that was not AP. You sound like you are doing the same thing, and that's good. Go with it. Perhaps you can find some application that will help someone in the Etheric plane, or you can help those who are deceased go on, or possibly fix a problem with the mind or soul on the Etheric and help someone here on the physical get out of an insane asylum. Personally, I simply concentrate on keeping the nasties on other planes from spiritually hurting those people who don't know about them here on this plane. As to the grocery store imagery, I have no idea. I 'll be honest in that. I won't be any help there.

That's it for this email. Yes, you may want to think about either buying a copy of Illusions, or getting one out of a library. Good thing is that many used bookstores have copies on their shelf and they will be cheep. The original book, in paperback was only about $2.00 when it was new. At a used bookstore, it should be $.50 or $1.00 or so. Daven

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: [OMS-OOBE] iliketothink: Lesson 13 assignment Date: Thursday, October 04, 2001 4:37 PM >To post: Tell me YOUR theories based on your experiences to date. Or lack of experiences to date, as the case may be ;) My operating theory is that APs are real and that anyone can do them

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with training. I have not yet decided whether it's a case of people accessing some type of plane or world on another dimension (multiple dimensions are predicted by Einstein's equations, quantum theory and superstring theory, so I'm not ruling that out), or whether it's a way of people getting more deeply in touch with their own minds. Dreams are a very real part of human existance, and APing seems to be essentially the same thing as lucid dreaming, but on demand. Of course, this doesn't really get into the nature of dreams themselves but that's OK since the nature of dreams is something that's been hotly contested by psychologists, psychiatrists and others for years--some say it's simply random neuron discharging, others say it's absorbing, interpreting and storing recent events, and others say it's the back-brain playing with symbols (since those are a much, more familiar language to the ancient brain than logic, which most parts of the brain can't use). So my personal theories are flexible. APs are a real experience that anyone can have, but precisely what that means and what the implications are I don't yet have answers for. Within the AP, since we are lucid we have control over things, but I would posit that it's *only* to the extent that we have control over our own minds. We can go amazing places, see amazing things, and have amazing experiences, but the depth and breadth of "amazing" is limited by our mental development. Those with better imaginations I presume will have a richer breadth of interactions. Those with better focus will be better able to hold and 'lock onto' images. Those with better mental discipline will be better able to acheive what they want to do within the AP (e.g. flying is sometimes easier to do than others). And those who are more in touch with different aspects of their own personalities, such as unconditional love, with have experiences referred to as experiences in "higher [or perhaps simply different] planes." So people who have learned to experience, appreciate and hold onto more subtle emotions will have APs that reflect an appreciation of different things, whereas others might stumble onto the same experiences, not recognize what they're seeing/feeling, and move on. Or simply not generate the imagery in the first place. But perhaps if/when I actually have one, I'll change my opinions completely :-P >Do you think anything I am saying is correct or of use to you? Correct? Hard to say. Worth considering? Sure. Actually, having us read DeGracia's stuff and things by other authors was useful because it gave us a broader base of information. Just being pointed in direction of good sources is valuable. >Also, if you disagree substantially with what I am saying, tell me what you >think is correct. I think it might be helpful in some cases to point out which elements are your perspective and which are more mainstream (at least for those who believe this type of thing). I get the impression that most people who do

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this type of thing end up with rather strong opinions which can vary drastically from one person to another. Presenting the mainstream gives people a solid base from which to start, keeps them from 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' if they don't agree with some of your speculations, but also gives the more liberal-minded students room to dream and/or fun things to speculate on. You definitely did this in your last few lessons, so I guess I'm thinking more of early on in the course when you mentioned visiting Star Wars and stuff, and said maybe it's all real. Perhaps that's true within a certain context, but it can take a lot of work for a student to suspend disbelief to try to absorb your point, especially when starting from a relatively skeptical position. And it's such an attention-grabbing idea that it can distract hugely from your point. But overall I don't think I "disagree substantially" with anything you've said.

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 14 Date: Thursday, October 04, 2001 7:01 PM >The vertical line is the line that >equates to an arbitrary vibrational level in cycles per minute. How certain are we that other states are a *higher* vibration rate rather than simply a different one (e.g. higher, lower, or a particular pattern of vibration)? >First, you have to start with the supposition that reincarnation is a fact. Fair enough, although if you're wanting to be more flexible, one could argue that you're talking about before-life and after-life experiences that might or might not involve a physical body per se. (Not nec. my point of view, but thought I'd point it out.) >We will only deal with a human incarnation only for these purposes. I think rocks and plants could also be considered, but human-only is good for simplification. >This cycle goes on and on, each life increasing their vibrational level by >some until they can achieve AP spontaneously without training at the end of >their cycle of incarnation. Is AP inherently the pinnacle of this process? Or do you mean simply 'connection with the etheral plane'? And if that's the case, I assume the

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mental and causal planes are eventually reached as well, though a similar procedure? >Now, do you have to come back to this plane once this vibrational level >hits? You can. You may still have lessons to learn, and the best place to >learn them is here. Hmmm. I really liked your idea from before (about healing) where you said sometimes it's easiest on this plane and sometimes easiest on the etheric plane. Seems like the same could apply here, don't you think? Depending on what lesson(s) need(s) to be learned? >Sometimes, those who have attained a high level of >existence, or those who have learned all the lessons necessary to not have >to come back, choose to return here for one reason or another. People like >Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, the Dahlia Lama and others could have >voluntarily >come here to teach, and there are many others who come back simply to be >with those they love. Ahh. Tibetan Book of the Dead gave me some interesting insights on this one. Actually, I read the version translated by Robert Thurman, which starts with about an 80-page summary of Tibetan beliefs where I got most of my information (FWIW, the preface includes a letter from the Dalai Lama, in which he refers to Bob Thurman as his friend, so I figure the author has a good enough grasp of Tibetan beliefs for my purposes). It said that some enlightened individuals who choose to return can and have retained their memories in some cases, tracked down their previous followers, and demonstrated through information/recollections/knowledge they otherwise wouldn't have that they are, in fact, XYZ person who lived before. Heh. It also said that this became so common in Tibet after a while (guess many people chose to be reincarnated into Tibet to simplify the logistics of returning to their preferred locale) that people weren't impressed with a reincarnated being, unless it was at least their 3rd conscious reincarnation. Ah well. I don't think anyone in this particular class falls into that category, though. But I could be wrong ;) >You can sense the approximate vibrational rate someone is at by things like >aura reading and so on. You will definitely be able to see it on the >Astral plane. These will give you a clue to how "old" the soul is and how >far along in their progress they are. Is that what it means when people say someone has an 'old' soul? What if some people are old, but have never, despite many many reincarnations, acheived much enlightenment (for lack of a better word)? Or perhaps we're using 'old' as shorthand for 'wise,' which isn't always the same thing. >We will take the example of our fictitious man, and we will give you his >story, and see if you can spot the life lessons in it. I will write this

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>from the first person perspective. [snip] >So, given the above story, can you spot the life-lessons that he has to >learn? And before anyone thinks that this is MY story, it is not. Ah. I was going to email you off-list and ask. Glad you put that caveat in there--if I had decided to not ask, I think I would have just assumed it was your story. >Part of his therapy is telling this story >and not getting the standard reactions of "EW!!!! Get away from me!!!" from >others. That's actually very helpful. Granted, most people will still have the "Eww! Get away from me!" reaction, but once you've been exposed to a few people who don't, you learn to see acceptance of it as a viable option, and it becomes easier to accept it yourself. >In brief, the key to this theory is study and learning. Not just >book-knowledge but wisdom. Working on that one :) >Now, if we have these vibrational states, and they are at 0 to start, are >there negative vibrational states? I think there are. I can only assume >that they are along the lines of plants or animals, or at the extreme, >mineral states of life. Hey now! I happen to think more highly of plants and animals than that. Granted, they probably rank between 0 and 1, but I wouldn't place them on the negative scale. Seems like you have to put more effort into being evil to go negative, and some plants/animals aren't capable of that. But the Tibetan Book of the Dead would disagree with me on this one (and you are of course welcome to as well). Well, at least it says that animal and vegetable states of being are lower than humans. But it also says there are also monster/monstrous states on the etheric plane that people can get stuck in between reincarnations, if they're bad enough. And that sort of seems to fit. >Scientists know that every piece of matter has some >kind of vibration to it, and has something of a "life" through this >vibration. We don't understand their experiences, and we automatically >assume that they are non-aware of us and the world around them, but without >being them, we will never know, right? >So, my thought is that we advance from mineral, to plant, to animal, to >mammal to human, and possibly on up to dragon to unicorn and on. Although >this scale is only a supposition. It is a tool to get us to understand the >concepts discussed herein. Nice caveat--and it works. There are also the other theories that say we

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progress up from entities 'at home' on the Etheric plane to the mental and then to the causal, and then to 3 higher planes where we lose individual identity and become part of a big amorphous *something*. Although most things don't talk about those three higher levels because a) they're beyond our comprehension, and b) they're probably threatening rather than pleasant-sounding to most people. Hmmm. But, granted, I have no idea what entities would be at home on the higher planes, so perhaps unicorns and dragons do fit in after all. >My wife pointed out that trying to force nature to conform to this scale, >orany tool like it, is ultimately putting a limit on the IS. :) good point >From my experience, the Astral Plane is composed of energy. It's the same >substance that the scientists of the turn of the 20th century called the >"ether". Basically, from what I understand, it is energy that has NO form. That was the original idea, but they've since shifted away from that as we've developed sensors capable of detecting more and more subtle forms. This is where quantum theory (which is very, very funky) and superstring theory come in. >See, in most states of matter, there is form and energy. You have a child, >she has energy in her, and she has substance. The sun is made up of >nothing >but energy that has a substance and so on. Not sure if this is what you're saying, but you can also take the perspective (made possible through Einstein's famous e=mc^2 equation) that light and matter are the same thing--matter is simply "frozen light" or "extremely slowed down light." Here is an exerpt from Vibrational Healing: the Handbook..." by Richard Gerber: "Consider the example of the high-energy photon becoming two particles. At the point of conversion from energy to matter, the photon (a quantum of electromagnetic energy or light) slows down to become a particle. In doing so it attains some of the properties attributable to solids (i.e. mass) and yet still retains some of its wave-like properties are hidden except in certain experiments where beams of electrons are treated like beams of photons, as in an electron microscope. In a simplistic sense, a packet of light has been slowed down and frozen. This particle of frozen light might be viwed as a miniature energy interference pattern or a microcosmic energy filed occupying an infinitissimal space. And so we see how the macroscopic illusion of solidity melts away when one delves into the subatomic world of particle physics" >However, in electricity, x-rays, >psychic energy, while the energy has a definite effect, there seems no way >to contain that energy, bottle it, save it, shape it, look at it and so on. >So this is substance-less energy.

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As long as you don't look at it on a quantum level ;) Which most of us would never in a million years think of doing. lol >This is the same energy that your soul is made up of, this substanceless >energy. That energy has a definite effect, and most people who think about >these things will readily admit that this energy exists. However, there is >no way to measure the vibrational level of a soul because no instruments >have yet been made that will allow you to do this. Ahhh, but they're getting closer. The aforementioned "Vibrational Medicine" by Gerber and "Energy Medicine" by James Oschman both talk about ways/where science is getting closer. (Can you tell I've been doing a lot of reading lately?) >This is the energy of all life, from a plant, to a rock, to a lake, to the >Earth, to you and me, to a Dragon. In Star Wars, they called this energy >the Force. Well, on the Astral Plane, you can not only see this energy, >you >can measure it, play with it, and do everything to this energy that you can >to a stone. > >When the rules change and you are made up of this same energy, and you are >existing on the same plane as this energy, manipulating it becomes easier. Hmmm. So if you are already composed of the same energy/matter, then perhaps it's more accurate to say "as you learn to exist with it on the same plane" or "as you tune into the same bandwidth" it becomes easier--I'm thinking of another example in the Vibrational Medicine book--many levels of matter exist in any given spot, e.g. we have radio waves and TV waves and electromagnetic waves--not to mention the heat we produce and the matter of our own bodies--all moving through/existing in the same space at the same time. But you'd never be aware of them, e.g. TV waves, unless you have some kind of a decoder (e.g. TV set) to pick them up and translate them into your genre. Or something like that. So maybe it's more a matter of 'tuning into' something that's actually already part of us? I dunno. I'm starting to confuse myself, but there was an idea there somewhere. >I'm going to assume that since you are here, that all of you know about the >elements and what they feel like and also how to do a basic ritual and cast >a spell. barely, barely >I will assume that you know this because to explain it for those >who don't know would take too long. fair enough :)

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>Why am I telling you this? Several reasons. First, you will feel tired >and >drained when you project often at night. You can recharge yourself from >the >Astral Plane if you know how to do it. Nice. Very good idea. >Second, you will probably be leaving >part of your energy behind when you project. Third, you can do spells on >the Astral Plane so much easier than here and now and last, because this is >the theoretical section of the class. I have given you most of the basics >and intermediate work, now it's time for the purely theoretical and >mystical >"advanced" sections. Fun :) >Congratulations on making it this far. From here on out you will have to >do >a couple of things. First take my words with a grain of salt and make your >own determinations as to whether or not I am telling the truth, and second >believe that I have experienced or talked to those who have done this for >themselves. fair enough >This is how I >do ALL of my big spell-work. I travel Astrally to my Astral Temple, and >start envisioning what I want to happen to me in the real world as working. Guess I'll think about how this translates into the non-AP stuff I do >The energy flows into me easily from the environment around me, and when I >have enough and my intent is very clear in my head, I let the spell go to >start doing what a spell does when one sends it off. Now this, I'm very familiar with. Actually when I do things that I guess most people call spells (I call it 'requesting favors or asking for information from the universe'), I tend to not use any ritual at all--I just align (whatever that means) and then focus on what I want. I recognize the value of ritual, but have a hard time with it--usually there are a couple of things that don't jive for me, although I have found myself doing things that 'felt right' that in retrospect could be called ritual. Not that I really need to expand on my personal experiences/theory in this particular forum, but I have a lot of data in my head that I'm trying to sort out. So it's out here and if anyone has insights, feel free to share. Or tell me to be quiet and I will :) >Okay, that us from here affecting the Astral Plane, but is the reverse >true?

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>Can we pull from the Astral Plane to effect things here? Well, it seems >like you already answered that question, but I'll take a shot at it. > >I don't know much about this system that I'm going to talk to you about >that >20 minutes of research couldn't teach you as well, however, I am going to >share what I DO know, and you will have to do the more in-depth research on >the subject of Chakras. I think you might really like the Vibrational Medicine book. It talks about (well, it talks about pretty much every type of homeopathic medicine you could think of and the theories behind them, but it also talks about) how the chakras are elements that connect us to higher levels of matter, actually pulling the energy from higher planes into our bodies, to keep us functioning. Sort of like our mouth/stomach take food in and convert it to usable energy for the body, the chakras take in chi or whatever form of energy from higher planes and distribute it through the body for energy and health. (Sorry. You say that later. I'm getting ahead of myself.) >According to the sources I used, a document that was available on AOL and >the Magician's Manual lesson 5, we have 7 chakras in our body. I have >counted more than that, and I arrange them differently, but hey, this is >someone else's op pinion here. FYI, most things say there are 7 major chakras plus lotsandlots of minor ones, plus an intricate network (as intricate/comprehensive/far-reaching as the nerves in the body) connecting them. Apparently, a few esoteric sources say there are 12 major ones (with the extra 5 being one in each hand, each foot, and another one in the head somewhere--I forget where). So if you've sensed more, that makes sense--there are lots. And the arrangement, BTW, supposedly corresponds to the path the "kundalini energy" takes as it travels from its resting spot at the base of your spine to the top of your head. So they're in geographical order :) >Each of these centers also relates to a gland in your body. > So if you are >feeling drained or run down, or if you have some kind of physical problem, >you only have to envision a tornado of energy that extends from these >chakras, each glowing a different color (and I don't know what they are) FYI, then: CHAKRA - COLOR - PHYSIOLOGICAL SYSTEM - ENDOCRINE SYSTEM root chakra - red - reproductive - gonads spleen chakra - orange - genitourinary - leydig solar plexus chakra - yellow - digestive - adrenals heart chakra - green - circulatory - thymus throat chakra - blue - respiratory - thyroid third-eye chakra - indigo - autonomic nevous system - pituitary crown chakra - violet - CNS central control - pineal

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>There are other energy points on your body that you can project or receive >energy through. There is a set on your elbows, in the palms of your hands, >at your knees, and on the soles of your feet. Haven't done much reading on this one myself, but these points are also sometimes called 'acupressure points,' and apparently you get a similar, albeit lesser effect like acupuncture by putting pressure on the same points. My friend likes The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies and I also have Energy Tapping by Fred P. Gallo, Harry Vincenzi on my Amazon wishlist, but haven't read them yet. >Which explains why walking >barefoot outside has such therapeutic properties. Ahhhh. Now I have a good excuse :) >With this technique, I am conscious all the time. I can hear the TV and >the >Phone, but I ignore them. That's as far as I've gotten in attempts to do traditional AP, so I assume I'm not there yet. But I'm learning a lot, so this is still all worthwhile.

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 14 -- Answers Date: Friday, October 05, 2001 2:41 PM > >The vertical line is the line that > >equates to an arbitrary vibrational level in cycles per minute. > How certain are we that other states are a *higher* vibration rate rather > than simply a different one (e.g. higher, lower, or a particular pattern of > vibration)? Work with me on this one.... this is for purposes of Illustration.... LOL It could be that the vibrations are actually flavors of chocolate for all I know. ;-) > >This cycle goes on and on, each life increasing their vibrational level by > >some until they can achieve AP spontaneously without training at the end

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of > >their cycle of incarnation. > Is AP inherently the pinnacle of this process? Or do you mean simply > 'connection with the etheral plane'? And if that's the case, I assume the > mental and causal planes are eventually reached as well, though a similar > procedure? Hmmm, a permanent attachment to the Astral Plane, one that is strong and full, in which the practitioner can affect both worlds simultaniously and be fully aware of both. Such as those who can work in the Physical and Astral planes whenever they want to. It's not a goal per se, but a step along the line and one of the major milestones in the soul's development. The chart could more accurately reflect a continuing upward progress of learning to interact on a spiritual level, rather than JUST a physical one. > > >Now, do you have to come back to this plane once this vibrational level > >hits? You can. You may still have lessons to learn, and the best place to > >learn them is here. > Hmmm. I really liked your idea from before (about healing) where you said > sometimes it's easiest on this plane and sometimes easiest on the etheric > plane. Seems like the same could apply here, don't you think? Depending on > what lesson(s) need(s) to be learned? Absolutely. There are lessons that can only be learned in a physical school like this one, and there are some lessons that can be learned only astrally. Same with healing wounds to souls and personalities or splinters, bodies and so on. It all depends upon the "flavor" of the knowledge that the practitioner wants. Because I still see all of existance as being a classroom, with all the variations on that theme you can possibly immagine. However, that's digressing a lot. > I don't think anyone in this particular class falls > into that category, though. But I could be wrong ;) Speak for yourself, personally I have only about 3 incarnations to go through before I don't have to come back anylonger, and I have been here *at least* 50 times. I can start listing them for you if you really want.... LOL > Is that what it means when people say someone has an 'old' soul? What if > some people are old, but have never, despite many many reincarnations, > acheived much enlightenment (for lack of a better word)? Or perhaps we're

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> using 'old' as shorthand for 'wise,' which isn't always the same thing. In this class, I use the term "old soul" for "more evolved and further along in their progress soul". It's easier to type "old" than all the rest of it. But yes, essencially this is where that term developed from. Souls who have lived longer tend to be older, but we are talking about a place that has no need of having time-space and describing the advancement of souls that exist there in our terms. It's like a baby who is in the first stages of mamaing and dadaing to compently explain quantum mechanics to us in it's language. > >From my experience, the Astral Plane is composed of energy. It's the same > >substance that the scientists of the turn of the 20th century called the > >"ether". Basically, from what I understand, it is energy that has NO form. > That was the original idea, but they've since shifted away from that as > we've developed sensors capable of detecting more and more subtle forms. > This is where quantum theory (which is very, very funky) and superstring > theory come in. Okay, I am not a physicist, nor do I read a lot of texts on quantum physics and superstring theory, so I will take your word for it in the following passages. Perhaps you could review that book or at least give us the publication information on it. > >When the rules change and you are made up of this same energy, and you are > >existing on the same plane as this energy, manipulating it becomes easier. > Hmmm. So if you are already composed of the same energy/matter, then perhaps > it's more accurate to say "as you learn to exist with it on the same plane" > or "as you tune into the same bandwidth" it becomes easier-Good thought. When you can percieve it, through being on the same "level" with that energy, then manipulation of it becomes vastly easier. > Now this, I'm very familiar with. Actually when I do things that I guess > most people call spells (I call it 'requesting favors or asking for > information from the universe'), I tend to not use any ritual at all--I just > align (whatever that means) and then focus on what I want. I recognize the > value of ritual, but have a hard time with it--usually there are a couple of > things that don't jive for me, although I have found myself doing things

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> that 'felt right' that in retrospect could be called ritual. Not that I > really need to expand on my personal experiences/theory in this particular > forum, but I have a lot of data in my head that I'm trying to sort out. So > it's out here and if anyone has insights, feel free to share. Or tell me to > be quiet and I will :) No, as I will be explaining in my next class (I'm reprising this one next year, as well as teaching a new one on magick), it's all about speaking a language of symbols that have meaning to you to create the effects you want. So do it how you will, with whatever agencies, and you should be okay. > >According to the sources I used, a document that was available on AOL and > >the Magician's Manual lesson 5, we have 7 chakras in our body. I have > >counted more than that, and I arrange them differently, but hey, this is > >someone else's op pinion here. > FYI, most things say there are 7 major chakras plus lotsandlots of minor > ones, plus an intricate network (as intricate/comprehensive/far-reaching as > the nerves in the body) connecting them. Apparently, a few esoteric sources > say there are 12 major ones (with the extra 5 being one in each hand, each > foot, and another one in the head somewhere--I forget where). So if you've > sensed more, that makes sense--there are lots. And the arrangement, BTW, > supposedly corresponds to the path the "kundalini energy" takes as it > travels from its resting spot at the base of your spine to the top of your > head. So they're in geographical order :) It's probably the network of acupuncture points that Eastern Medicine depends upon. I just didn't ever realize that the network was THAT comprehensive. I thought the kundalini energy and the acupuncture network were two different things. Nieve of me in retrospect, but you see how sometimes thinking you know the answer can blind you to what really is. LOL > FYI, then: > CHAKRA - COLOR - PHYSIOLOGICAL SYSTEM - ENDOCRINE SYSTEM > root chakra - red - reproductive - gonads > spleen chakra - orange - genitourinary - leydig > solar plexus chakra - yellow - digestive - adrenals > heart chakra - green - circulatory - thymus > throat chakra - blue - respiratory - thyroid > third-eye chakra - indigo - autonomic nevous system - pituitary > crown chakra - violet - CNS central control - pineal Thank you.

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> > >Which explains why walking > >barefoot outside has such therapeutic properties. > Ahhhh. Now I have a good excuse :) As if we ever needed one. ;-) > > >With this technique, I am conscious all the time. I can hear the TV and > >the > >Phone, but I ignore them. > That's as far as I've gotten in attempts to do traditional AP, so I assume > I'm not there yet. But I'm learning a lot, so this is still all worthwhile. Ultimately, I think this is probably the techinque that will work best for you. YOu seem to have the same problems I do in this area, some kind of REALLY strong attachment to the body that you can't seem to overcome. Trust me, patience on this. Keep going and practicing these techniques, and develop your own. It will start happening, and in ways that you may not think are "classical" OOBE, but which are just as valid. One of the things the will be talked about later is the "two places at once" projection. Being awake and conscious here, interacting with this reality, while at the same time, having a projection of you on another plane interacting there, and getting feedback from both. For a long time I was doing this without knowing what I was doing, and I didn't think this was valid as an OOBE experience. Then I started doing the research for this set of classes and found out that 90% of what I didn't think was significant as an OOBE (because it wasn't the classical float out of your body projection) actually was a OOBE experience, just really advanced ones. Seems I started learing and doing from the top end and am slowly working my way down. Just like me. LOL Daven

From: "peter" To: Subject: Journal Feedback Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 9:38 AM Dearest Daven,

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Is it too late to join the OOBE class? And may I ask you another question? Is an OOBE the same as a Near death experience? To briefly explain, I had an experience when I was 9yrs old and posted a question on Lady of the Earth's web site about one week ago. By the way, I am now 35 and am finally getting past my fears and waking up, if you will so I am very much a novice. I had many questions and the response I got was interesting and helped me to better understand, but with new understanding comes more questions... Is it the same? Here is the text, I decided to copy it perhaps it will help give some insight into my question. "Greetings all, As aforementioned, there has been a great deal of activity with "spirits" in my life. My biggest question has always been disciphering the good and the evil. Due most probably to my catholic upbringing. For instance: When I was young, probably age 9, my family and I were sitting at the diner table eating supper. As a very creative child the thought of sitting on the light above the table watching everyone, including myself was intriguing. When I accomplished this (it only took a couple of minutes) I thought were can I go from here? So I went toward a brighter light. Once there I found an incredible peace, almost indescribable. A voice told me that it was not yet my time and that I should go back. I argued with it, if you will call it argue, and it told me to go back before it was too late and that the others were coming. I questioned no further and tried to go back down. Here's where I got scared: Going back was like trying to swim to the bottom of a pool. The closer I got to the bottom, the higher the pressure taking me back up. It was an exhausting fight to get back down again and only after 3 or 4 tries did I actually make it. After that fright, I never really tried it again except when I was ill and plain wanted to die... but that attempt made me well again... go figure! And I can hardly begin to describe the peace and calm I felt after the experience. Question: Was this an out of body experience? Question: Why did I have to leave before it was too late? Question: Why did I have so much trouble coming back? Question: Who met me there and who are these "others" the voice told me about? Question: Why would the others make a difference whether I stayed or went? Thank you and blessings, M"

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If it isn't too much trouble, I am also looking for information on "spirits" and deciphering what is good and what is evil... if there is such a thing, but my feeling is there is and I should be cautious. Therefore I will not allow myself to try out spells until I fully understand all the ramifications. My quest so far has been rewarding in that it has brought me peace of mind. Things that I knew, things that I'd been told would be forgotten and were when I came into this life, things that I'd been told I would eventually remember are being re-affirmed. This is only a beginning. And perhaps I should pace myself, but I feel I must learn quickly, the time has come. There is a reason for us all no matter the level to gain greater enlightenment at this time. There is a reason, there is a rhyme. It is in the air and I must follow the current. Like a leaf on a breeze. It is in the trees as they whisper, it is in the water I drink, it shines upon me from the warmth of the sun. There is a season, there is a time. Oups! off on a tangent again... Please, do write me back, (regardless of how nutty I must sound!) With love, Michelle Anne Davy

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assignment 1 Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 10:11 AM Dear Daven, A few days ago I wrote the following email to a contact I was given in my region and have had no reply. They are either very busy or just don't know what to do with me. Anyway, it's probably a little lengthy for a first assignment, but at least I don't have to re-write it. And, No, I am not ashamed of anything I have said. So here it is: I am looking for someone who can teach me. Let me tell you a little (lot) about myself and perhaps you can decide if you or someone you know is able to help me. My name is Michelle. I was born in Toronto in the mid 1960's. Some of the memories prior to my birth, during and after remain with me. Although I was told I would not remember prior to coming into this lifetime, but willful I am. I was

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adopted at 5 months of age, there are many things I don't know such as time of birth and my actual last name. But one thing I do remember is my mother insisting that I be called Michelle before she tearfully handed me over to the Nurse. From day one I was aware of my Angel who was there to protect me. And although I've had no formal training there are many things I know. Things that normal people either call heresy or just make them think I am a nut. So I've learned over time that I should take it in stride and keep quiet at appropriate moments. I wont bore you with All the details but here is a long winded summary; Age 4: Grand-mother thought it best that I be taken to church to learn about Catholicism. I knew at that age that this would do for the time being, but... Age 7: After swimming at an overly chlorinated in-door pool (Pointe-Claire), I went blind crossing St-John's boulevard on my bike. My Angel quickly came to my rescue as the light was changing and told me to look through my other eye. Which I did after he explained where it was. He told me not to panic and that my sight would return shortly. My Friend and sister were frantic as I put my bike down on the curb and told them. My friend went racing ahead to get my parents as I sat on the grass waiting, but my sight did return and all was fine. Age 9: While sitting at the diner table one night I thought; "wouldn't it be fun to watch everyone eating diner from the lampshade above the table". So I tried and succeeded, but the "fun" was short-lived and I thought why not go into that brilliant light above? So I went. Once there Someone greeted me and told me: It is not your time, please go before the others come, before it is too late. The feeling of complete peace is indescribable, I must tell you. And I didn't want to leave. But eventually "he" convinced me and I tried. It was like trying to swim to the bottom of a pool. The further "down" I went, the higher the pressure bringing me "up". It took several attempts and by the last one I was exhausted and scared that I wouldn't be able to come back. Fear is a great motivator and the last attempt worked. Age 13: By now I was in a private school being educated by Nuns. Any thought of "powers" or the like were regarded by them as the work of the devil. The ordinary person might be angry at them for stunting my spiritual growth, however they don't know any better. I had a select group of friends that I told my happenings to, whom I scared the living pants off of. Deja vus, visions, weather conditions etc. Much happened this year. But there are 2 important things: The first one being ; one night after watching some sitcoms I happily left the family room to go to bed. It was my bedtime and my parents were out. As I stepped on the first step to go upstairs I looked up and saw... how do I describe this?... a white mist that had no particular form other than being oblong. It called to me to come to it. My Angel intervened and told me not to listen that it was evil. They eventually argued with me that each other was evil (probably because the

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thought of dealing with evil spirits scared me). Finally I got really confused and scared and ran into the livingroom and hid behind a big chair... like that was going to do anything. A few minutes later I got up the courage to come out of hiding and they were gone. The second one: A few months later, I came home from school, went to my room and plopped my school bag next to my bed, then sat on my bed. While looking at the patterns of the green carpet beneath my feet, my Angel told me: Do not question just do as I say... Say in a loud mental voice as loud as you can "I am stronger than you". I did exactly what I was told and looked up to see a hard plastic lampshade within inches of my face fall to the floor and it hit my shoes... ouch! Thankfully I was calm through all this. So when mother yelled up "what on earth are you doing?" I was able to tell her that I'd accidentally dropped my school bag. If I haven't explained that Mom & Dad think, and have always thought, that I live in a fantasy dream world, perhaps knowing it now will help explain why I don't try to convert them. It would be and is pointless. The third thing of importance; On my 14th birthday I'd invited some girlfriends to sleep over for my Birthday... March 5th. This is where I scared the pants off them. Wanting to prove myself to them, I told them that a basement window would be open when we got home from school. The length of the trip home from Lachine I wished and wanted that window open. Sure enough when we got home it was. In front of my friends I asked Mom if she had noticed anything when she tied the dog to her chain in the basement before she left to come get us. Her answer was no. The consequence to this was that none of my friends wanted to stay that night and only my best friend did, and only upon my insistence. There have been several other incidences since. But the above gives you a pretty good idea of where things were progressing. In 1985 I had my first daughter. In May 1986 after my "Ex" cheated on me repeatedly, I kicked him out. That summer while still very hurt by this, I found out he was saying things about me which were hurtful. He also tried to sabotage a job I had. There was so much hurt and anger within me that I wished he were dead, as much as I'd wished that window open way back when. Within a day or two I heard through the grapevine that he'd been in a hit and run accident and was in hospital. I swore never to do this again. I prayed that he get better and he survived. In 1990 I met my husband. Oddly enough his presence seemed to "block out" the energies that surrounded me. It was never a complete block, but the benefit was that at least my mind was free of the noisy chatter that usually occupied it. And most importantly he blocked out a figure I'd come to affectionately call my grim reaper. A dark cloaked figure holding a staff that stood in a shaded corner of my livingroom for about four years and it didn't matter that I moved twice after

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it's appearance. Anytime I spoke of it, the hair on my arms would raise, my vision would go dark and peoples faces would change. It was not my Angel, and it scared me. Like I said, no formal training and, no one to guide me. The blocking was fine by me, time to live and be accepted by normal people. Fine, right up until about 5 years ago when I became suddenly ill. The doctors thought I was struck by MS. I underwent several tests and couldn't get past the overwhelming fatigue. After about one year of no answers, Mom took me to Quebec City to seek out a Vietnamese homeopath that my Aunt recommended. He described my affliction as a loss of Chi. But also thought it sounded like MS. He prescribed various herbal remedies that, unfortunately, did little to help. It seemed I'd exhausted (quite literally) my options, and with all the frustration this was causing in my marriage I just wanted to die. So one night I lay on my bed thinking of that wonderful place I'd been to at age 9 and started the process. I made it to the lampshade when my husband came barging through the door, mad that I had gone to bed at the early hour of 9 o'clock yet again. (after all who wouldn't be tired with 2 kids, one of which hadn't slept for a 6 hour period straight since birth and was now 3yrs, a full time job and a husband who liked to stay up til 1 am every night) Reality came surging back, but, somehow I'd gotten better. I felt invigorated, energetic... a far cry from waking up paralyzed! From Blurred or double vision, from the dizziness, from an exhaustion that was so intense that I couldn't move to even go to the washroom despite the fact I had to go Really Badly, etc. It was however a temporary gain at that time, but I no longer wished to die. Just over one year ago, I started writing poetry again. The first poem I wrote was to a dear friend. The friend was leaving the company for another job. I was saddened by this thinking it would be the loss of a friend for good. But I did want to warn him that he should be careful so as not to lose his job. I wrote another poem called the tail of twin cities, and another called silence. This January I emailed myself these poems as I quit my job in February. I thought the strain on my marriage was caused by my job, and, it didn't help that it was a tough job. In July 2001 my friend lost his new Job. About 2 weeks ago I looked at my poems for inspiration and was absolutely shocked that tail of twin cities was so close to the events surrounding the Sept 11th Twin towers, which is the title I originally chose, but because it was a powerful message I changed it to Cities instead of Towers. This upset me quite a bit. I worried that given my past, perhaps I had willed this to happen. Those fears have since been laid to rest as I know it was "just" a vision. It helped that I have since red several articles on the Internet and picked up "Way of Wicca" and have red this as well. Throughout my life I have known that many different cultures and religions have their merit. When I heard about Chi, I ventured down the path to Buddhism, I married an Anglican rather than a Catholic, A very gentle and loving couple tried to convert me to Jehovah, I've worked with Jews and embraced the differences and served a Passover meal one year. The friends I invited to diner thought I

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was nuts. None of these religions called to me in the sense that I wanted to convert. I did want to know more about them and I attached a certain validity to them. Finally, I came to the conclusion that NO religion including my own had every piece to the puzzle. Besides, by age 20, I didn't regard myself as a Catholic any longer per se. I felt I was destined to be without a group of accepted practices and beliefs, since mine were so different in some cases than those practiced by these religions. I felt that I sat on a fence between two worlds at that age, and couldn't explain the how or why. Catholicism outright tells you that you are going to hell via the express lane if you practice witchcraft or deal with spirits. Thank you ever so much, I can't help matters! It just IS. So, in a manner of speaking this is a very exciting moment in my life. All these years I steered away from Wicca, having known it existed, with the fear that my name would be stricken from the book of life referenced in the Bible. That practicing Wicca or any element of it would make me an "evil" person whether I knew I was doing it or not. My fears have been laid to rest. And for the first time in my life I can honestly say this is a religion that I want and am proud to be part of. Oddly enough I don't feel I need to join anything, it's just there...Does that make sense? What I need more than anything else however, is someone who is able to guide me despite the leaps and bounds I've made in only 7 days. It's been 7 days since I looked up Wicca on the Yahoo search engine and 3 days since visiting Le Mélange Magique for reference material. Thank you for your patience in reading a very long-winded and personal letter. Probably TOO much information. haha! And this probably has the makings of bed time literature. But I felt it best to be forthcoming from the onset. Best wishes and blessings,

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assignment 2 Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 2:04 PM Dear Daven, Here is assignment 2, I know I'm going through this rather quickly for your liking. Do bare with me. a) What kind of environment would you like to interact with on the astral plane? b) and c)

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I would like to start off going back to the place where I was introduced into this life. Oddly enough, I remember it. It was a place that had no greenery it was a vast space that is best described as a vast space of light without boundaries. Anyway, as you indicated in the literature I could not go beyond certain areas no matter how curious I was about them. And I knew of them because I spoke to others who would come and go and tell me about them. Occasionally I would meet someone from a prior life. When I did and we would talk the scenery became that of what it did when we were on the earth together. We would be wearing earthly clothes and in a particular case when discord arose between us, all went back to the light and my friend was escorted away to her new life. In order for me to come into this life I had to be guided by 2 spirits. One that was familiar to me and I had spoken to before to take me beyond a threshold. The threshold consisted mainly of a wall that if you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't think it was and you could in fact walk on forever without going through the threshold. The other spirit was on the other side of this threshold waiting for both of us. Crossing the threshold was an assent in status. That I had been there long enough and had given proper thought and consideration to my past life. It meant I was ready for the next step. Although it was a little premature. When my friend left I asked, begged, pleaded to be sent again. Along our path to the door into my life I was told many things. And I was able to ask many questions and was given opportunities to chose this life. There was no sense of time here, although the second spirit was in charge of the timing of things. He gave me the rules that I had to live by. The second spirit seemed to out rank the familiar spirit. I was told to care for my body that it was the only one I have and better to have a healthy body for the duration of my stay. Should I be maimed the limb would not grow back and that I could not just wish it to do so. So I had to get used to this idea that I was no longer in a plane where all was possible. I was told I would forget all or almost all that I had learned here, but eventually I would remember. There were severe consequences to revealing certain secrets, but those I do not remember. Possibly by choice. The one person I would like to contact was a woman who was burned at the stake with me and a few others in a past lifetime. We both swore we would remember the traitor and although I have forgiven him she has not and that was the cause for our discord on the plane. However since she began her lifetime before I did, I believe she is alive. And because I've experienced first hand people calling upon me while I have been alive to recount the events of a past life, I know that trapping a spirit is a painful event for that spirit. They didn't realize I had moved on into a new life, despite the fact that I told them, and wanted my imput for their play. Believe me, some of that score is very insulting to say the least, but there are moments that make up for the insolence. Besides, had I not helped, the author was on the verge of a breakdown and financial ruin. It meant a lot to him and that was worth more than a few months of restless sleep. It was a strange occurrence when I saw the play for the very first time and could sing along all the songs. I left the theater that night wondering what on earth was wrong with me and only remembered later. But I couldn't figure out why I cried through the whole thing. Anyway, I would like to resolve that conflict with my friend, no, I would like her to accept and move on

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and not let the past stunt her growth. I would like to know if she has achieved this. I want to know that she is fine. I haven't met her in this lifetime, because I would have known her. We parted in the worst of ways, I just want her to know that I love her. Ok, dry the tears and move on... d) what my astral temple would look like. A white stone building with a triangular pointed roof. Holding up the roof are six white pillars of stone three on each side equally spaced. Beneath the stone lies one single slate of marble. Within the temple there are a few marble benches, carved each in one piece. In the center of the temple is a fountain where the weary can drink the water of life and ease their pain, quench their thirst. all must enter at the front of the temple where there are 3 steps of stone, and all must ask permission before entering and state their purpose. If they do not, I may chose to greet them outside the temple. The temple is surrounded by flowers and greenery. There is a path of pebbles leading to the temple. On the columns grow vines with pretty pink flowers in bloom. There are birds and small animals that are fearless and always happy to greet me on the lawn. The sun always shines on my temple. e) All are welcome to my temple unless their intent is evil. The good may stay and be healed by the fountain inside. They may come to talk and tell me their troubles. Let my temple be a refuge for those in search of life, a stopover for the weary. Let them heal their wounds and leave when ready. Let not darkness enter the temple, for darkness wants me for its evil gain. Darkness is coy and deceptive and learns quickly to try to gain my faith. Let there be a mirror in front of the temple that reflects the true nature to all who ask, so that deceit cannot overtake the form of a friendly face. f) Reality check... thanks for stirring me awake. I can easily meditate day or night right before sleep and have done for years. One thing I have experienced and have never been quite sure if it is in fact a form of meditating, but it is easily achievable and rather quickly at that. Focus with your eyes on one object without blinking. I did this when I was a kid. After a while the vision darkens from the sides of your peripheral vision and as it closes in the center you see things in negative form. It takes concentration to maintain this vision and look about the room, but once there it's fairly easy to slip right back into it. Also, I find when I start painting or writing I go off in the never, never and when I'm finished I look at my work and am usually astounded by it. It is such a heightened state of concentration (I guess) that I've often joked that if someone were to break into the house I'd never hear them. But really it's not funny. I could get myself into serious trouble if someone did. oups, I kinda skipped f) and blended it with g). Is this a problem? Thanks Daven,

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Michelle

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Assignment 2 Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 4:54 PM Hi Daven, Sorry! I'll stop right there and wont go any further. March however is a little far away, in the sense that for the moment I am not working and at home full time without distraction. I fully expect to be working again in March. So for the past week, my full concentration has gone into researching and studying wicca. 10 hours a day may seem like a lot to some people, but I'm the kind of person that gets passionate about something, there's no stopping me... that alone makes me a dangerous person. LOL On the other hand, it was also a great benefit to me in corporate life. And also how I managed sit for 36 hours painting a portrait of my daughter about 15 years ago. wow, I still don't see how I could have done that. Anyway, thanks for the warning. Once again sorry to bombard you with those lengthy letters. Until March it is. ;) Love Michelle ----- Original Message ----From: Daven To: peter Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 4:44 PM Subject: Re: Assignment 2 Michelle, Hang on a moment. I just now got your letters and I was writing to tell you that right now, we are a little too far along for you to catch up comfortably. However, I will be giving this SAME course online starting March 2002. It will be all the same materials, with the same references and so on. Don't get too far ahead, or the plan that is mapped out will be flushed. I invite you to join me in the new class. To sign up go to http://go.to/omschool and find the sign up section. There will be one and you can join us there. I WILL

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teach you, but I would like it if everyone will be at the same level in this new class. Daven

From: "peter" To: Subject: Question. Date: Friday, October 26, 2001 10:02 AM Dear Daven, I really don't mean to be a pest, so please forgive me if I come across as one. Before you told me to stop working on the AP class because I was too far behind to catch up. I had given a detailed account as to what my temple would look like. It was only later that I realized it wasn't a new creation. I've actually been there before a few years back. And probably in a dream. Now, I remember it vividly. And because of the circumstances surrounding that dream I need to ask for guidance and need a deeper understanding. I've put off asking this question because I really don't want to pester anyone. There are a lot of doors I must open on my own. In this dream I was somewhere other than my temple but something scared me. Something dark and evil. I can't describe it. But I was told to create a temple and go there for I would be safe. The "evil" chased me to the temple and crushed it after a lot of effort on its part and a momentary loss of faith on my part. Then I woke up, heart racing, in a sweat and bewildered that I was having such a nightmare. Recreating a temple in this simple exercise brought back the memory of this dream. So here is my question: Why is it, that so many circumstances in my spiritual life I am escaping and/or running away from a dark force or evil? It isn't just this one dream, there are many other circumstances in dream form or on the earthly plane...and I'm not talking evil people, I mean, in sincere earnest; Spirits. Why are they attracted to me, and why am I so important to them? Example: when I was a teenager my angel said to me one evening after school, when you look up, say with a loud mental voice [(it was very important that I make an impression to the spirit for I was not ready to deal with it) The spirit/angel also told me to let the spirit know who I am. (I haven't the foggiest

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notion what that is supposed to mean)] "I am stronger than you", I said and looked up to see my hard plastic lamp shade at eye level a few inches from my nose. It fell to the floor. The darned thing traveled from my desk which was more than 4 feet away. It was a very heavy lamp shade at that. Anyone telling me that this defies logic and I will agree wholeheartedly. If anything, I am a logical person and end up arguing with my angel over what it tells me and that it makes no sense whatsoever. To the point it actually yelled at me one time to stop arguing and just do what I was told. Thank God I did or I wouldn't be alive today to talk about it. (forgive the Christian upbringing). As much as I have learned recently that Wiccans do not believe in the Devil or Satan or that any one spirit is pure evil, there sure is something out there. And I know I have to be watchful, but I don't yet know why or how to protect myself. Perhaps that explains why my angel is still with me in times of danger. Anyway, the bottom line here is that I must understand this phenomena, I must understand my relationship to the darkness and why it is attracted to me, and I must learn to stand up and combat it head on and without fear. That indeed I am stronger and am growing stronger, but to what end? For what purpose? What battle or struggle am I a party to? Why, for the love of God, Me? Please comment, I do believe this is outside the general context of the AP course, which I have registered for in March by the way. If it wasn't of great importance, I would not waste your time by asking. And this I have given a great deal of thought to and waited a very long time to ask the right person and the right set of questions. Please do me one courtesy and keep this subject matter relatively quiet. I need to be properly prepared, the last thing I need is a bombardment from several of these spirits on many fronts because my message ended up in the wrong hands. So in you I confide a very important piece of the puzzle. By the way, I'm not crazy although sometimes I'd like it if it were that simple in a neat and tidy package. If by chance you think this message is silly, just delete it and we will never speak of it again, I promise. Of what is and what is meant to be, so it be done. Merry part. Blessed be, Michelle.

From: "peter" To: "Daven"

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Subject: Re: Question. Date: Friday, October 26, 2001 3:41 PM Hi Daven, I know it isn't an easy question and fully expect it will take some consideration. Remember, I've been grappling with this for a long time without figuring it out. Take care of that bronchitis. Don't let it turn into pneumonia. Thank you for helping me. Sincerely, Michelle ----- Original Message ----From: Daven To: peter Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 4:41 PM Subject: Re: Question. Michelle, I'm going to have to take this one home and look it over. I'm in the middle of recovering from bronchitis. So, forgive me, but my answer will be a little delayed. Daven ----- Original Message ----From: peter To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 11:01 AM Subject: Question. Dear Daven, I really don't mean to be a pest, so please forgive me if I come across as one. Before you told me to stop working on the AP class because I was too far behind to catch up. I had given a detailed account as to what my temple would look like. It was only later that I realized it wasn't a new creation. I've actually been there before a few years back. And probably in a dream. Now, I remember it vividly. And because of the circumstances surrounding that dream I need to ask for guidance and need a deeper understanding. I've put off asking this

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question because I really don't want to pester anyone. There are a lot of doors I must open on my own. In this dream I was somewhere other than my temple but something scared me. Something dark and evil. I can't describe it. But I was told to create a temple and go there for I would be safe. The "evil" chased me to the temple and crushed it after a lot of effort on its part and a momentary loss of faith on my part. Then I woke up, heart racing, in a sweat and bewildered that I was having such a nightmare. Recreating a temple in this simple exercise brought back the memory of this dream. So here is my question: Why is it, that so many circumstances in my spiritual life I am escaping and/or running away from a dark force or evil? It isn't just this one dream, there are many other circumstances in dream form or on the earthly plane...and I'm not talking evil people, I mean, in sincere earnest; Spirits. Why are they attracted to me, and why am I so important to them? Example: when I was a teenager my angel said to me one evening after school, when you look up, say with a loud mental voice [(it was very important that I make an impression to the spirit for I was not ready to deal with it) The spirit/angel also told me to let the spirit know who I am. (I haven't the foggiest notion what that is supposed to mean)] "I am stronger than you", I said and looked up to see my hard plastic lamp shade at eye level a few inches from my nose. It fell to the floor. The darned thing traveled from my desk which was more than 4 feet away. It was a very heavy lamp shade at that. Anyone telling me that this defies logic and I will agree wholeheartedly. If anything, I am a logical person and end up arguing with my angel over what it tells me and that it makes no sense whatsoever. To the point it actually yelled at me one time to stop arguing and just do what I was told. Thank God I did or I wouldn't be alive today to talk about it. (forgive the Christian upbringing). As much as I have learned recently that Wiccans do not believe in the Devil or Satan or that any one spirit is pure evil, there sure is something out there. And I know I have to be watchful, but I don't yet know why or how to protect myself. Perhaps that explains why my angel is still with me in times of danger. Anyway, the bottom line here is that I must understand this phenomena, I must understand my relationship to the darkness and why it is attracted to me, and I must learn to stand up and combat it head on and without fear. That indeed I am stronger and am growing stronger, but to what end? For what purpose? What battle or struggle am I a party to? Why, for the love of God, Me? Please comment, I do believe this is outside the general context of the AP course, which I have registered for in March by the way. If it wasn't of great importance, I would not waste your time by asking. And this I have given a great deal of thought to and waited a very long time to ask the right person and the

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right set of questions. Please do me one courtesy and keep this subject matter relatively quiet. I need to be properly prepared, the last thing I need is a bombardment from several of these spirits on many fronts because my message ended up in the wrong hands. So in you I confide a very important piece of the puzzle. By the way, I'm not crazy although sometimes I'd like it if it were that simple in a neat and tidy package. If by chance you think this message is silly, just delete it and we will never speak of it again, I promise. Of what is and what is meant to be, so it be done. Merry part. Blessed be, Michelle.

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Question. Date: Saturday, October 27, 2001 9:56 AM Dear Daven, Thank you so much. 20 something? Goodness I love you for that. No, actually I'm 35, not that I feel I have an age or that the number of years is of any consequence. Unlike my adoptive mother who refused for years to say her age was anything more than 29.LOL But it is funny that you mention 20, because that was when I was at the height of learning. It wasn't until a well meaning friend handed me a bible and told me all this was the work of the devil that I got scared off and I threw out my tarot cards. Yes at age 22. Too bad, because I'd gotten so good at it I started converting those that didn't believe anyone could see things. Anyway, is it too late to learn? I don't think so. > > Well, I didn't want you to completely create the temple now, just describe how it would > look to you. > Actually, I didn't create it now. That was a dream from about 2 years ago. I recreated it, I guess subconciously and remembered the dream after doing

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the exercise. which is what brought me to question it yesterday. > Have you tried meditating and asking it what it is? Or why this is happening > to you? Or any tests for it? If this angel is as important to you as you say, have you > tried testing it or asking it any questions at all? If not, why are you trusting it so > blindly? If it is something that is there to help you, it won't be offended by a few > dozen questions, and if it is offended, it may be best that it left after all. No, I haven't. This Angel has been with me since birth. I talk to it almost non-stop. If you were in my head you'd almost feel sorry for it. There are several examples as to how it saved my life in different ways. Sometimes I listen to it, sometimes I ignore it. But, when there is clear and present danger it makes itself known to me and I can't ignore what it is saying. Although I do argue with it a lot. Do let me know how I could go about testing it, that is interesting. I was going to list a bunch of examples, for the most part they are in assignment 1 that I emailed you. And it is a very long list so I'll only add to it here. "In Decmber 1985 I had my first daughter, I was 19. In May 1986 after my "Ex" cheated on me repeatedly, and he'd started to get violent I kicked him out. That summer while still very hurt by this, I found out he was saying things about me which were hurtful. He also tried to sabotage a job I had." To elaborate: I was on welfare to the great embarasment of my family and had a job as a waitress in a bar under the table. he, my Ex, reported me to authorities that came in to the bar to check the payroll. These were very shady characters (mob, I suspected). However knowing that he would do this, I heeded the warning and told my employers. They decided I was a liability and organised a hit. This is what happened: I was walking to the bus stop to get to work. I had to cross a set of lights at the cross of the main road and parking lot. There was a black car with tinted windows (not uncommon in the mid 80's) at about 20 feet from the entrance to the parking lot waiting for the light to change. My angel told me that as my foot came down off the sidewalk I had to run. Do not question, just do it. I argued with it, it made no sense to the logical side of my brain. It told me that the car would hit me, that they wanted me dead or badly injured and to run. And it repeated RUN when my foot hit the road. My light was green, his light was red, like I said it

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didn't make sense. So I ran, and the car peeled out. I made it to the other side as the car hit my purse on the way there. I was increadibly shaken by this and got to work in the usual time of 45 minutes where the owners were surprised to see me. There was so much hurt and anger within me that I wished my Ex were dead, as much as I'd wished that window open way back when. Within a day or two I heard through the grapevine that he'd been in a hit and run accident and was in hospital. I swore never to do this again. I prayed that he get better and he survived. How's that for what comes around goes around and by the same methods? Which contrary to my Catholic upbringing is something I've always believed in. Conclusion: After that I stayed out of the way of shady characters. I met my husband Peter in 1990 (now that's a cute story but I wont go there) And he blocked much of this. Last year I went to a psychic who told me that I was a very positive person and that he was very negative and that was why he was blocking. For years, since I've been with him, I felt more and more disjointed or disconnected over time. However safe I was, I was not. I got sick about 5 years ago. The doctors suspected MS and I went for a batery of tests, scans, you name it I went through it because I wanted to live again. I was exhausted to the point of I couldn't move at times. I woke up paralized one night. I had little control over body movements or just a lack of coordination other times. I was dizzy, like being drunk on a boat. Mind you, I worked at my job through all this. Anyway, I've gotten better over the last year and a half. My angel has been helpful to me in corporate life as well. I was a credit manager for 10 years. I quit my job this February to start my own business. The business idea didn't work out, but that's a story for another day. In 1999 the company's sales were 50 milion, my bad debts were: $307.00. This is unheard of in credit, in accounting we usually make provisions in the range of 2% of sales. All other years were comperable in the sense that my bad debts never exceeded $2,500.00. Intuition? Most defenately, see, I KNOW what people are thinking when I speak to them on the phone. I know when I'm being jerked around or if the person is sincere. I just know things. I also knew when my boss was about to ask me for stuff I hadn't done, so I'd do it right away and within a few minutes, lo and behold he was calling me and I was able to say "done". It didn't matter that it was left field or not. For this I was rewarded with a statement that makes me cringe to this day. "Michelle doesn't make mistakes" >As to "why you?" I would ask, why not? You are obviously gifted > with abilites that most are not. Thank you. The nuns taught humility and I often feel guilt over "me". That

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I'm not important in the greater scheme of things. Deep down I know this isn't true, but it is difficult to get past a question I always ask myself; Did I do this, or was it a greater power? > You trust me? Good. I'm honestly not getting indications of any imminent danger here, > just some problems with the manifestation of your abilities. And some really unresolved > problems from your past that need to be delt with before they become more of a problem. > You are what, 20 or so? Now is the time to deal with these problems, before they get so > ingraned into your psyche that they can't be delt with. Yep, if anything I am all too trusting. I know this. And funny you should mention that I will the spirits to reveal themselves in their true form. In assignment 2, I put a mirror in front of the door to my temple so that I could see their true intentions when describing who would be welcome. Where I got this idea, I don't know. But it made sense to me at the time. Thanks again! > > I'll tell you what I can do. I'll do what I can from here to keep the spirits from > outside you from harrassing you. So that ALL you have to deal with is those coming from > you, ie, projections of yourself, unresolved issues, and other problems. That much I > can do from here. I am begining to think I can handle this and I don't want to waste your energy. Get over the bronchitis, dear, your family needs you. Besides, you have a purpose here and it isn't to protect me. > > No, I dont' think you are crazy, I sometimes think I'm insane, but that's subjective. > However, in my time I have seen and heard and experienced wierder things. So your > problem so far is pretty normal to me. Again, thank you. "Normal" people wouldn't think so and I have been dealing with normal people far too long. > 2) Don't believe your eyes. Illusions can be formed, so believe what your gut is > telling you.

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This I'm not sure I understand yet. But I don't mind waiting for it. > 4) Don't lie to yourself. As a coralary to 3, if you know the answers, you can't lie > and say that you don't. That's counter productive and the worst kind of betrayal. What most people do not understand about me is that I do not lie. It goes against the grain of me even if it were to save face, I can't do it. Or I can't bring myself to lie. Right before I came into this world, this is one of the many things I was warned about by the spirit who let me come here. > 5) Most things that will ACT scary are some of the parts that are the most afraid. > They are afraid of you discovering them and correcting the problems that created them, > so they look scary to frighten you off and keep you from dealing with the deeper issue. > Don't be frightened off. > 6) Your gut will never steer you wrong. By "gut" I'm talking about that "still small > voice" that speaks to all of us and goes "TRUE" when we encounter something new. It's > an instinct, a viceral reacion, a resonance, or something else that witnesses the truth > of falsehood of what we encountered. With practice, that voice can become even more > amazing in that it will give entire messages straight from God, whatever you want to > call IT. A lot of people call this their intuition. But that part of you ALWAYS works > for your best interests. And you will be able to determine when it is your gut telling > you, and when it's something else trying to trick you into thinking that it's your gut > telling you. There is no faking this kind of reaction. You just have to learn about > using this now. Yes, I understand completely. That voice IS my angel. But I needed affirmation. And now I understand in part what it is I am supposed to do and why these things are attracted to me. I have to mend some fences. My gosh, I've been running away all these years for nothing or almost. I am a great problem solver, I just have to listen. Get past the surface problem and get to the real one. It's that real problem that is scarey or dark. And you can't posibly listen if you are running away trying to block it out.

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However, I wont be so bold to try taking it all on right away. I need practice. Daven, let me explain something that is just now making sense to me. When I wrote yesterday that I was worried they would all come to me at once and bombard me. Still with the concept of fight or flight in mind. If they realize that I can help them or conquer them, they will overwhelm me. And I wasnt mentally prepared to, nor am I to solve all these problems at once. One at a time is much more manageable. Oh, this explains so much to me. The fact that my whole life I've wanted to help people but didn't do the schooling to be in a field that would allow me to do so. The fact that in recent months I felt that, although I had a very successful career, I hadn't done what I came here to accomplish. And sadly didn't know what that was. This last statement has caused me a lot of grief over the last year or so. It caused me to leave my husband who was "blocking", we did get back together by the way. It caused me to quit my job and look for a new avenue regardless of the fact that we needed both incomes to maintain the lifestyle we acquired. Also there has been an overwhelming feeling that I must do what I came here to do before it's too late. And the time to do, is now. note: I've already realized a long time ago that "God" was one and the same for all religions. And believe that I have been spoken directly to "IT" on many occasions. However, I don't go around talking about it. "Normal" people would think it's time to bring out the prozak. Buddhists and other religions would think I am enlightened but perhaps misguided and in need of councelling. And Wiccans would think that I'm trying to pass myself off as higher than a level actually achieved in practice. How to alienate ALL in three easy steps... and there's no way I can achieve what I'm supposed to do here without help. Oddly enough I knew I would write you years ago. But the problem in seeking help meant that I would be exposing myself to these "spirits" and that without the help prior I couldn't deal with them. Vicious circle for me. If someone knows about my little problem, they may inadvertently leave the knowledge within the AP. Kinda like an email on the internet. It's a postcard that can be red by anyone getting their hands on it. Besides, the time wasn't years ago. the time is now. And I knew this time would come. So I'd better learn fast and well. To explain something I don't understand well: Most people are placed here to learn lessons before moving on. There is a reason I am here, but a life's lesson isn't it. It's a test of sorts and the first obstacle is to figure out what that reason is and then do what I am supposed to do. I don't remember what I was told about the concequenses to not accomplishing this, but I know I want to accomplish my purpose and it is very important.

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Perhpas more to me than anything else. Anyway, I will go and read and learn. I wont bother you unless I have a question that I cannot solve myself. Like I said before, you have a purpose and I wont distract you (or waste your energy) unless it is necessary. Do you want me to submit the assignments 3 through 10? Because, I will do them methodically I have all this free time (a gift) until January or February, they will be done rather quickly. Or would you prefer I just ask questions as they come up? Up to you. Thank you ever so much. Sincerely, Michelle

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Question. Assignment 3 Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 3:59 PM Hey Daven, Well, sweetie you have me in stitches. Especially with: > Ah, but my purpose is what *I* define it as. So if I want to protect you, I > will. LOL Sorry to hear you are having a rough week, I kinda knew... ok it was a guess.LOL By the way, I will submit assignment 3 when I get around to doing it. Sounds like procrastination, but I'm stuck going shopping with my Mother in law all day tomorrow. Not my idea of a day in the park. And I've been working on trying to figure out how to set up a web site. Me and my big ideas... I finally called the service desk today and the reason I couldn't figure it out is because the software is "in the mail". Why they couldn't just email it, beyond me. Or have a download section on the site? Needless to say I know the ins and outs of the managing site now. LOL

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But that wasn't the point I wanted to make, I really like the splinter theory of MHB. It just so happens "Space" had a 1hr program about HP Lovecraft. I caught the end of it and loved it. It had some differences, but nevertheless. So, if the psychic I saw one year ago when I was separated from Hubby was right; There's another version of me in South Dakota on a horse ranch with a new love interest which was suposed to be my soul mate. Great! Cause it didn't make sense to me at the time. LOL Joking aside, I does make for a plethora of thought. Especialy in fortune-telling, I always had a feeling that a lot of it depended on the choices we make along the road on whether or not we actually get to the state the psychic predicted. I could actually get started on Déjà vu's here. I've had many of those and am watchful, because I know for instance: If I say this one thing, the conversation will lead x, and the person and I will have an argument and the friendship is lost. It doesn't have to be so drastic. But if I just stop myself short of saying those words in the déjà vu, then I avoid the argument and have altered the stream, which then branches off into a new direction. Depending on whether or not the person is close, I smile and tell them. Which is another deviation. Ok. Well, because that last statement is related: No better time than the present here comes assignment 3: The easiest meditation that I know of is to lie comfortably on your back with your arms at your sides in a comfortable place with little distraction and lights off. By little distraction I mean soft music, whale sounds, rain falling any constant sound is good nothing abrupt. Then you do some heavy breathing (LOL, getting back at you for the masturbating crack ;)). I mean deep breathing, concentrating on filling the lungs completely inhaling through the nose and exhaling through your mouth. Concentrate on the molecules of air filling each pocket in your lungs, feel them expand. Shift your concentration from your breathing to the air around you. Starting at your toes, concentrate on the toes on the left foot, feel the clothing and/or shoes you are wearing and wait til it starts to tingle, feel the heat through the back of your foot and then feel it rise through to the front. Soon your whole foot is warm and tingling, then move to the other foot. Make your way up through your body feeling the heat grow from foot through the legs and lower back, feeling everything that surrounds you. Then come around and feel the heat in your groin area, your belly, through your digestive system and your lungs. Feel the heat around your heart and then up into your shoulders then down each arm. Feel the heat surge up into your neck from all the way down to those toes. Now the face, feel the heat around your chin and over to your lips. Feel the heat flush your cheeks as it rises to your nose and eyes and ears, then on to your forehead and around to the nape of your neck. Feel the heat rise all the way to the top of your head and into your hair. You should be tingling all over at this point.

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Feel the air that surrounds you. Let your mind drift. This method is introverted and concentrates mostly on body function and what is around you. So there is no visualization other than your clothing or the bed you are lying on. But it sure is amazing to feel tingly all over if you get up right away. i've practiced this for years. Now, for some reason i couldn't get to the page with your meditation, so I'm not sure what you mean by a descent. B) Do I really want to go there? Well, I will anyway. One year ago Oct 5, I left hubby. On December 3rd we got back together and on Dec 23rd I moved back in altogether. Hummm, I'm enjoying this one. Had I never picked up the phone when he called me on Dec 3rd (Call display), I wouldn't have heard all the nonsense he was dishing out, which means I would not have moved back and I would not have quitt my job in February. Instead, I would have moved into the Townhouse I bought for July, I would have continued to work, I would have been avoiding calls from several would-be boyfriends. I would be going out when the kids were in his custody, I would still have friends, I would probably be drinking way too much on weekends. My eldest daughter would have failed grade 8, I would have forgotten to register the little one into kindergarten until the last minute. I would have looked for this spiritual path sooner and I wouldn't feel guilty about hiding it (Ok, so there is a person I lie to after all, but with good reason) because I'm not allowed to. I would probably not be on the phone with my friends, but at least I wouldn't have the restrictions of Not allowed. I would not be waiting on his majesty hand and foot and putting up with his derogatory statements. He might have commited suicide, he would have had to sell the house by now. He might have followed through on his threats to have me killed. We would never have had an opportunity to buy a business and the opportunity would never have fallen appart. We would not have argued over who had what percentage of the company I was going to run singlehandedly. I would not have wasted my summer in-doors working 18 hour days on the deal. I would not have met all the people I did while working as a sales rep for the same company. He wouldn't have broken all the promises he made to me. He wouldn't have coherced me into agreeing to stuff I don't believe I ever agreed to in the first place. If he'd had me killed, I'd be in a much less traumatic place....Hmmmm, let's go back to I would be living in that townhouse and able to make plans with friends or have them over once in a blue moon.... By the way, none of this embarasses me unless of course; He were to read it. By goly I married the devil himself. And you don't think he exists? LOL Maybe I should have picked a less important decision? LOL Well, that's it for me for now.

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Hope your week improves, warm regards, M

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 15 Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 4:05 PM i can't remember if it was the book a wind in the door, or a swiftly tilting planet by madeleine l'engle, but it seems eerily familiar to this lesson. charles wallace going in and out of bodies himself in all kinds of different time periods and might-have-beens, while his sister is watching it all through remote viewing. too many connections to be coincidence? has anybody read those books too or is it just me babbling? blackdove01 -----------------------------------------------------------These are dangerous days, to say what you feel is to dig your own grave--Sinead O'Connor ------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [OMS-OOBE] Lesson 15 Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 4:37 PM It was "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" and it was by Madeline L'Engle. I also pulled some thoughts from "A Wrinkle in Time" and "A Wind in the Door", also by her. But you are correct in thinking that it sounded familliar. I read all those books, and I enjoyed every one of them. I

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still go back and re-read them even now. Daven

From: "peter" To: Subject: Little Update Date: Friday, November 09, 2001 5:54 AM Hi Daven, I want to apologize, I haven't written in a while. And, I forgot to include something in my last assignment, but I can't remember what it was at this moment. I know I did want to mention it over a week ago. On Oct 31st, of all days, my husband was given a very nasty letter at work from his boss. It was quite serious so I made all the arrangements and we went to a lawyer. The lawyer asked him if he was sleeping nights and if he was stressed, then sent us to the doctor. Peter doesn't drive, so I say 'us' as yours truly is the chauffeur. Anyway, bottom line here is Peter is on stress leave indefinitely. This really puts a wrench in the works for me, but, admittedly he couldn't go on any longer in the state he was in. I just hope he will finally accept the help he needs. Just like they say, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The good news is, little by little, I have made progress on the web-site. my URL is www.healing-journeys.org I hope you don't mind, I've put you on my links page, you have so much wonderful information. And I consider you a friend. If you visit, do let me know what you think. So far, I've gotten away with sitting on my own because he coaxed me into taking the last University course for my degree which is Finance...absolutely hate the subject, so it is a painful thing to study. Doesn't matter, I'm 3/5 done! But at least it gives me a little breathing space while he is home. Thank you Goddess! And the other good news is since he has been taking sleeping pills and staying home, he is a little nicer to the kids and I. I guess my biggest healing journey has yet to begin. Anyway, now that my 3rd assignment in Finance is ready to be faxed to the University of Toronto, and things are settling with Peter, I can get back to the AP program. Best regards, Michelle

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From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Friday, November 09, 2001 5:04 PM The only thing that I know for sure right now is that death is not the end. When my grandfather died this summer, I never had the feeling of him ever being gone, of his soul leaving and going somewhere else. I had the feeling of him still being there, very close with us, and that he was very happy and at peace now, and his mind was clear from the alzheimers that he had near the end. He was the soul he was meant to be without the failing body holding him back. It was like he was free to be who he was meant to be now. I've seen him once when I projected and I asked him if there was any way that we could make sure that we were together in our later lives. He said no, and avoided any more questions on the subject, which really hurt because we were fairly close but I only knew him when his mind started fading and I would have loved to get to know the soul he was meant to be, but he said we couldn't stay together. Since I haven't died yet, or even met anyone besides my grandfather that was dead while projecting, I don't know what is in store, but I just know that it's not the end. blackdove01

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 5 Date: Monday, November 12, 2001 11:30 AM Dear Daven, Fascinating, but I got confused on the levels. You did say, critique. So, I understand the mind plane, the physical and the world plane as well as the Astral Plane, but what is the Akashic plane? I also got confused in the sense that I'm not certain which does what. So, suffice it to say the simplest of them all, monroe's theory, is the one I will stick with, although it seems all too simplistic.

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On forgetting: Yes, my dear, you hit the nail on the head. I can say that with great confidence as I finally have remembered much. I told you about it in some prior emails. But heck why not refresh here: When I was summoned to enter this life, which by the way I wanted to come to, Two spirits escorted me to the 'door', or barrier as you've coined it. They told me outright that I would forget everything, but I wanted to remember. I was told that I would forget most, but with time would remember. See the sad thing about forgetting is that you also forget what your life lesson is supposed to be. Rather than learn by it, you might spend a lifetime going around in circles and not achieving your goal so that you can move on to the next life. There are some things I was told NEVER to repeat to any human mortal. And I forget what they were, and why, but I KNOW it was of great importance...so great in fact, my very existence depends upon keeping the secrets. Now, on these occasional soul hunters...yes! That is what I'm hiding from. They want me. And they are mighty powerful indeed. That's the darkness. To explain darkness, you could sit under a nightsky with no stars or moon, but the darkness is even deeper black. In January 1997, I went for a CT scan, only to find out I have allergies to Iodine that they had injected me with and nearly died on the table. For the first time in my life, I sat in a completely dark box, neither here nor there. It scared the pants off me because I'd never seen this place of nothing before, and prompted me to behave a little better in this life cycle. Not that I was doing anything wrong to begin with, but I certainly was able of sharing kindness and patience with my fellow man a little better. But, in contrast, the darkness didn't even know I was there, so it was kind of a waiting room in pitch black. On the other planes, they usually catch up to me and I have to escape back to my body where I am safe. It certainly makes me question what on earth do they want with me? Although I know it's these special abilities I have that would add to their portfolio. But honest, to goodness, I am very tired of hiding all the time. Remember that it was that darned darkness that shattered my temple when I doubted for only one instant that they would and propelled myself back to my body in a sweat. I'm finding reading your findings especially drole, as it reaffirms a lot that I already know. Drole as in an affectionate funny, not silly or ridiculous. But anyway, back to my question. Whatever would they do if they caught me? And unfortunately I am probably dealing with 2 sets of things to worry about, one, the darkness - the other, souls that are trying to communicate with me that I ignored for a long time. Anyway, I've set myself up so that I don't ignore them anylonger. And I must tell you that sometimes walking through a room that is empty with no radio or TV or anything else on, that hearing loud discussions can be quite disconcerting. But they don't last long, and if it doesn't involve me, I just pass by and let them get on with their discussion. They don't really know I'm there anyway. But even with a shield and everything, what would these hunters do if they caught me? Have you encountered them yourself? And what behaviour let's them know that I am around? like I said, I'm very, very tired of

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running away. And, It's not a projection of what I'm living here on a daily basis. But unless you know what you are up against, there is no point in standing up to them just yet. Although, the dream I had yesterday, the mindset I have had lately, I am almost at the point where I could stand up to them (I probably already am), and if I bring up how everyone in my dream ran away, I feel that I could probably hold the fort and shelter them as well. Anyway, thanks again, Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Past life regression Date: Monday, November 12, 2001 12:03 PM Dear Daven, Now that I feel very comfortable discussing this with you. I must tell you about a weird experience to say the least. A few years ago, roughly 6 years, before the movie came out, my mother took me to see Evita. I cried through the entire thing as I could sing each and every song on the score. It may not seem very weird, except that I'd never heard any one of them before and I had no idea what the play was about. Let me digress back to grade 1, when I was six and ran into a girl by the name of Maria Perron. When I heard her name I was ecstatic, and immediately approached her and asked her if we were related. The kid thought I was nuts and that was the end of any possible friendship. A little later in life, maybe when I was 7, 8 or 9 at the very oldest, someone summoned me at night to come and give them insight on my past life. All this during my dreams. It was excruciatingly tiresome, but I went along with it. It wasn't Andrew Lloyd Webber, it was his partner and Che. But A.LW. took the credit for it. Anyway, for the most part, the play is the two sided view points although I disagree with some interpretations. But what did upset me is that they didn't emphasize that when I met general Franco, the bugger made a pass at me expecting that I would sleep with him due to my past. And that my reaction was : How dare he? I remember the arena clearly. And that's when I was told that a leopard cannot be expected to change their spots by the Admiral. Anyway, as much as it isn't relevant to me now, I certainly wanted to make that clarification to

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someone, and since I cannot discuss this with rational people, I've kept it to myself until now. Either way, some of the portrayal does upset me. It was within a day or two of seeing the play that it all made perfect sense to me. And when all the pieces fit together, I understood why as a child I would look in the mirror and wish I was blonde and tall, not short and brunette. I just HAD to tell someone! Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assignment 6 Date: Thursday, November 15, 2001 4:57 PM Dear Daven, OK, forget answering questions on assignments 4 & 5. Q: What can these entities do? A: Whatever I want them to do. Yes, I must remember the rules. It is a matter of the strongest will here. So, as a self-critique: I worry too much. As far as progressing is concerned, I have gained ground in that I am not as fearful as when I wrote you a couple of weeks ago. But, I must learn to program myself to understanding the basic rules and not let a couple of phrases here and there un-do all the progress I've made. In assignment 5, I pretty much clung to the soul hunters theory because of my fear...putting aside much valuable information I have learned all the way along. Two words were enough to cause an imbalance. Shame on me. Funny how as a kid I knew it was a matter of will, and being wilful, I always won whatever battle was going on. As a adult, I'm beginning to think that life and circumstances 'break the spirit' or wear you down, and you feel that not every battle can be overcome and sometimes it's just as easy to be submissive and quietly carry on. Outwardly, my husband has noticed a change in me... I still haven't told him what I'm up to. I'm more prone now to stand my ground rather than give in all the time... I guess it's a little extra bonus from listening to myself and educating myself. This is more of the old me, which I'm happy to report. Why hadn't I told him originally was: A) he would dismiss the whole idea and try to convince me (more like demand that I) not to follow my heart. B) he is rather convincing. C) he has been under a great deal of stress and I couldn't deal mentally with any more

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cruelty...or additional cruelty to what he was already dishing out. D) Although it is a strange relationship and I haven't decided quite yet if it's healthy (it is in some ways, but not in those mentioned above) I'm quite comfortable for the time being and didn't want to cause any rifts that would propel my life into total chaos until I'm good and ready. But, now things are calmer. So, I'm not so worried any longer. My daughter used to tell me that he hypnotised me, this statement goes back about 7 years. But I would put it a little differently; "he's like a grain of sand that gets flung into your eye...after a while the irritation causes you to react by wiping the affected eye." So, I've got to work on my relationship or get out of it altogether... A little drastic for this forum I suppose, but in life all things are connected and so is this. Either way, I'm not concerned with keeping this secret any longer. What he wants when it comes to my mental well-being is irrelevant. Especially since whatever it is, is to suit his purpose and not mine. It seems like the 'darkness' has already caught me and is keeping me bottled up for a useful time. Lately I've been playing Zelda with my youngest, and the mental picture here is one of the fairy caught and kept in a bottle until such a time when your lives run out and you need to replenish. Here, to show you how strange this relationship is; when I left him in 1995, I agreed to see a marriage counsellor because he was threatening suicide. I thought that if I could get him some help, he would work it out for himself. We started dating again, even though I really didn't want to. So one evening we had sex (that part I was very willing), and as soon as he had finished ejaculating he said to me, and I will never forget: 'Now you are pregnant you will never be able to leave me again.' And sure enough, I was. You had to see the reaction of the counsellor when I told him hubby wanted another child right away, and that I didn't think it was an appropriate time. It didn't matter that the counsellor sided with me on this one, I was pregnant and had to deal with it. The scenario was such that I lost my job because of it, and was totally dependant on him for survival. Like I said, cruel mind game designed to make me submit to his will. So, how does this affect AP? Well, this is one mind game I'd better overcome or the fears will prevent me from progressing any further. At least that is the conclusion I come up with having written this paper. Yep! It's a pretty big one. So, I'm signing off for now. Daven, if by chance you did answer my questions in recent days, just so you know, I haven't received the email. If by chance hubby is running interference you can email me at [email protected]. If you didn't reply, don't worry about it. I have all the answers I need from Lecture 6. Which you probably figured out anyway. FYI, I have printed the 75 pages and will read it attentively. Thanks again. Michelle

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From: "Hya cutey" To: Date: Thursday, November 15, 2001 5:40 PM Hi Daven, This is Michelle. I was wondering if maybe I said, or did something wrong? Assignment 6 came back as being rejected by the server, and you haven't emailed me in a while. Are you alright? Anyway, I can't simply re-send the assignment as I delete them right after I send them. But, if there is a problem, please let me know so that I can sort it out... regardless of what it might be. Thank you so much, and should we part here and now, at least let it be on good terms. I will respect your wishes. Best and warmest regards, Michelle [email protected]

From: "Hya cutey" To: Subject: Re: Date: Friday, November 16, 2001 7:34 AM Hi Daven, Thank you for replying so quickly. A friend of mine said "you worry too much", she was right. Honestly, I understand that rushing through these can complicate things. The mind does do some flip flops in the process. I haven't started lesson 7 yet, so as to let it all sink in. Unlike many people, I do have the time to think about it as I'm not working. When you do have a moment, I'd like to know more about that person that took

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something from you and you sent your gardians to wear her down. The concept is familiar to me, and I'd like to know what she took, if you wouldn't mind, what can people take from each other on the Astral Plane? Did she by any chance tell you that she didn't know what you were talking about? As far as my fear of darkness goes, I wonder if it was a warning. The psychologist has given Peter 2 months off for burnout... now we are home together 24/7. It's been good in the sense that he is a better person while relaxing and we are able to talk. I just thought I'd let you know, it's not ALL bad, I'm sure I didn't make that clear on any of my correspondance so far. Bye for now. Michelle ----Original Message Follows---From: "Daven" Reply-To: "Daven" To: "Hya cutey" Subject: Re: Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 20:16:52 -0600 Michelle, Sorry, I'm in the middle of a HUGE project at work, and I don't have consistent internet access from home. So, I have been printing all of what you send me out at work, taking it home and reading it when I have time. Nothing against you, and I have assignment 6 here in my inbox. One thing I did want to mention, we were going through the assignments one every 2 weeks, to give time for practice and research. Speeding through them may complicate matters for you down the road. Just something to think about. I leave it to your discursion. Daven

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From: To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: Assignment 16 Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:27 PM > "What do you think will happen when you die?" > > Answer that question, in as much detail as you can, and send it in. > > Daven "What do you think will happen when you die?" Over the years my views on death has changed a great deal. I think that this has been due to the thoughts expressed in my own family then finally developing a philosophy based on my dreams, and visions. To my grandfather death meant the end of the road. There was nothing afterward. To my mother death is were you can walk the streets of gold, and sing songs with the angels. I can not say that any view on death is wrong, perhaps just as we can manifest things in life we also do so after life!! I am reminded of one culture, in particular, that took both life and death serious to the point of often turning it into an art form. In that culture signs of life and death were exhibited in such grandiose beauty that they are still unmatched in today´s modern world. Had the beetle not spontaneously appeared to me in a dream that became an astral journey it is likely I would not have given much thought to the beetle, to astral travel, and to the spiritual process. Yet in ancient cultures the winged beetle came to be depicted as the victory that the soul has over death. From my own astral experiences I came to understand that there is much more than the physical aspects of life. Thus I tend to think that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, and there is only a physical death. After that we might become beings of light who travel the astral planes. Then we could take on an appearance we desire, sort of like in the movie What Dreams May Come. We could be guided to higher planes by protecting spirits, and to meet with our ancestors, or loved ones who have crossed over.

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Perhaps there would be a life review to see the areas that we need to work on, and a place to study about those areas where we have need of improvement. Mainly I see the after life as one of vast freedom to explore and study the universe where in we are beings of light with great understanding. Then if our life´s work was not completed we will return as a physical being again. As children we tend to forget our past and the wonderful journey of our spirit. We become very grounded and interested in the daily events of life. However if our life work has been completed we can assist others who are still on their paths by occasionally appearing to them in dreams or visions. So we would become as spirit guides. There could be many physical universes, and many worlds we can experience, and learn about. Thus the entire life process could be to teach us of what life is like on these many physical worlds, until that process culminates. Thereby allowing us knowledge to manifest other worlds, and universes that we can oversee. Therefore we would become our highest self. Perhaps the end of life as we see it is actually a new beginning within the infinite energetic design. As Einstein observed energy can not be destroyed it can only be transformed. Our perceptions of this world comes to us through waves of light, sound, and vibrations. To ancient cultures the beetle was seen as one who carried the light, thus teaching of the cycles of life, IMHO. Taima

From: "peter" To: Subject: Just call me nutty Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 11:38 AM Hi Daven, I haven't gone on much lately with the lessons. But I have been giving several things a lot of thought and wanted your insight. First a letter I wrote to a friend of mine on November 15th who is Christian. Actually I wanted to send this one to you, but felt embarrassed.

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Hi Sharon, After giving some thought to your angel, I wondered if maybe the following would interest you. I recently had a visit from the Goddess and a sea of others the other night in my back yard and although I have a lot to say on many subjects, I'll stick with this one. Anyway, I wanted to bring it up, because it just boggles the mind and fascinates me. It has occurred to me on numerous occasions that all living beings live in a little world of their own. Recently, I have found that this theory although speculative does have some merit. For instance in the Astral travel course I am following, the basics are that each person will experience something different on the astral plane and that it is a world of their making. So what CAN happen depends on the wants and fears of the person experiencing the travel. So in itself a world created on the astral plane is an individual world, or each person's world of their own. Amazing to think of the billions of people that reside on this planet and that each lucid dream they have generates thousands upon thousands of new worlds. Talk about infinity? How this relates back to this plane. For several years in my 20's, I felt that I was stuck on a wall (for lack of correct terminology) between worlds. Peter came along and a lot of it disappeared. Which at that time was a big relief... too many voices in one's mind makes for a difficult thought pattern and was driving me crazy. That and the fact that I'm an emotional sponge and absorb emotions like mad. It's a terrible thing to walk past someone you don't know and feel their pain. But, I live in my own little world. People have repeated this to me over and over. Peter actually likes 'my world' as it is a nicer place than the real one. That is not necessarily true, mine is a complex world of very good and very scary... the very scary part I hide from people as they don't need to be subjected to the soul hunters I've called 'the darkness' for years. These darned soul hunters have been chasing me since I had my OOBE when I was 9. So it's been a very long and tiresome journey. Back then, I didn't 'know' any different. I didn't know that you can create good or bad on the astral plane. I didn't create these darned animals, they just were there. For that matter they scare the angel that protects me...funny, eh? Another interesting element of the astral plane is it is truly a matter of will and knowing. In a battle on the Astral plane, the will that is the strongest prevails. Also, just like when you know something to be true to the bottom of your soul and then it happens, KNOWING, not believing, is the way things manifest on the astral plane. So, all the times I've KNOWN that something was going to happen, and then it did, it makes me wonder just how this knowing has affected the 'real' world. Was this a manifestation of my thoughts and wishes? Or was it a revelation? Or, are visions and revelations the same or relatively the same as manifest wishes, good and bad? It truly isn't enough to believe in something, you must KNOW it exists for it to manifest itself... I'm

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thinking back now to the window I wanted open when I was a teenager (I opened it by thinking about it)...I knew it would happen, and it did. It was a combination of wanting (will) and knowing. My, how dangerous this world could be if the population at large would manipulate all the possible outcomes by playing this game of mind over matter. Just think of the ramifications of controlling what happens on this plane as easily as you can in your dreams? Not everyone can control their dreams at first, but with a little practice they do. Now, apply that concept to the earthly plane. WOW, this is what I believe many of us have forgotten over the centuries. This is the magick of Merlin. The tools of magick are a simple way for us to focus our energy. It is a concrete object in a concrete world. An object we know to be true. What if this world is just as whimsical as the astral plane, but because we 'forgot' at birth all the wonderful things that are possible and have been raised and taught that solid, is solid and nothing can transpire it without transformation? What if solid is only solid because we know it to be solid. If we didn't know it to be solid, we could do anything we wanted to it. Think of babies that fall from incredible heights in accidents and survive. They survive because they don't KNOW there is a danger. The question remains the same for those firewalkers, who cross barefoot over coals and are unscathed. Take that same energy and will and knowing and you have a very scary potential. There is so much that I am remembering thanks to the Astral Projection class, and it is very exciting for me as the further down the road I journey, the more I am able to affirm that I haven't been crazy all these years. By the way, you always 'know' if something isn't quite right or something is missing. So far the AP course has hit the nail on the head in each and every lesson. Just food for thought? Michelle Having read ahead this morning, I realized that some of what I wrote above materialized in lessons further along. So if by chance you thought you were crazy, guess what? I must be too. Second; I have always had this terrible feeling that I will eventually report back the progress 'humans' have made to this point, which will have dire consequences on the outcome of humanity. This will happen when I die of course. Like, Am I totally NUTS? Whether or not I'm nuts is totally irrelevant, because that's just the way it will be. But I can't help think it sometimes. Third: YHVH. I've never heard of this deity before. I would like to know who we are talking about. Fourth: Gosh, I must be further ahead than I thought originally. For a couple of reasons. One; I am finally getting back to a state where I was in my early 20's

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(Yeah, like that's progression?) when I was able to see things without much effort. Having taken the time off work to stay home has done me well. Two: A vision I had when I was 21 (1987), a single mom and totally depressed. Frankly I was suicidal and the only thing left was to ask for hope. I had asked to see my future with my husband if I were to have one. I was transported to the house I currently live in (we bought in 1996). I walked around the kitchen, the curtains particularly caught my eye, I thought they were beautiful. I saw my husband and I making love on the livingroom floor. And because I was anorexic at the time I asked my angel to let me see the scale because I couldn't understand how I could be happy at the weight I was at, in my vision. Yes, I did see myself in the kitchen doing chores and the like. Well the weight on the scale was 115 lbs, and that was my weight when we moved here. And sure enough my weight has increased to 130 lbs, a far cry from 90 lbs way back when... The angel told me weight was irrelevant, and that I shouldn't concern myself, but if it did mean that much to me to go have a look. Anyway, it all came true with the exception of making love on the livingroom floor in the manner that I saw in my vision. That must have been a might have been along with the loving relationship I envisioned. Although there are glimmers of it sometimes. Perhaps, that was my own manipulation, something I wanted to see. Well, there is a cute story here. February 1990, When I met my husband and went to his apartment for the first time, I noticed the curtains in the dinning room window and realized I'd seen them before. It was those curtains I saw in my vision. Daven, I think a danger to getting to a particular level is that you get tired of being in this place. For that matter you just want to get on with it and move on to the next plane. Perhaps that is why most growth plateaus are like ebb and flow of the tide. You progress, then regress, get comfortable with the whole thing and progress further. Perhaps that is one of my life lessons is to learn patience and tolerance, without committing suicide before I get to the end of this journey. Not to worry, btw, I'm not suicidal. I have been very, dangerously close when I was much younger. I'm just tired or bored right now, so it's time to learn something new. Perhaps that's why I decided to include such a large section on depression and stress management on my web site. Anyway, I just wanted your thoughts on a few things. If you get a chance I'd love to know what you think of my web site. There is one article which I must re-write, I know it isn't quite right. The wording is completely wrong. But the rest is pretty accurate. I still avoid discussing the Goddess and any possible secrets, such as stating outright that what I report when I move on will affect the outcome of humanity, for simple reasons. It is one of those things I am not to discuss. But I feel it is alright to discuss this with you. And the average person will just not get it. I was very pleased that my parents, although they do not approve, have gained a certain respect for me since telling them. I gave them the address and told them to check it out, nothing more. Mom apparently cried for a week. Although Dad warned that I was lucky to be living in such tolerant times, he seemed to get past this and was curious to know more. Then started discussing

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other enlightened people. Funny, he was probably the one I worried the most about. Hubby has seen the web-site but hasn't admitted to it. He knows I spend a great deal of time writing for it, and the book I started: Guide to attract the right partner. he just isn't sure if me keeping this from him is a treacherous act of defiance or deceit. My biggest worries with him were that if he knew about it, he would make it his. So as long as he isn't discussing it, nor will I. He is under the impression lately that I'm the control freak. Anyway, I would appreciate your comments: www.healing-journeys.org Thanks Daven, Warmest thoughts, Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 15 Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 1:40 PM Dearest Daven, Truly I am enjoying the read. On Walk-in's; The same thing happens when we enter a life cycle. Or birth as a baby. We must meet certain criteria in order to have permission to engage in a new life. A new set of life lessons to progress to the next level. First, you have to be ready. By ready, you must have understood the lessons of your past life. If you remember me going on and on about coming into this life, you will remember my angel escorted me to a wall (?) a threshold of sorts that I could not cross before. We were met by another spirit who was more of an authoritative creature that basically red me the riot act and told me what the rules were. First rule: You will forget all that you have learned here. One rule I vehemely disagreed with. So with the passing of time have been granted the knowledge. Thanks to your course, I have remembered a lot more than I would have alone or with the help of my Angel. Yes, it was time as I indicated when I first wrote you, although I couldn't fathom whatever I was getting myself into. Now I remember. Another Rule: Take care of your body, you only have this one, once it dies it is gone. And

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Another: Do not disclose the secrets. There were other rules, but I don't feel they need to be brought up right now. More interestingly in lesson 15 you note that; "It is possible to use telepathy in this state also, and I would imagine that it would be possible to use psychokinesis as well. I personally have no idea how you would go about it, but the principals are the same." Having made objects move here on this plane, the earth, myself, I thought you might be interested in knowing; In fact it is simply a matter of willing and knowing. In my last email to you today, I explained this a little and called it the magic of Merlin. Well, it is, but it isn't really magic. What is possible on the astral plane is possible here on earth. The safeguards that protect us from magic and and ever chaotic earth, is the fact that most do not either know about it, believe it or comprehend it. This is why we are safe (more or less) here on earth and why so many have difficulty achieving AP. If it were thought of as anything more than 'just' a dream and they (all people) realized it could be reality if in fact they wanted it, what terrible chaos would follow. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Keep this in mind, it is not wise to divulge this to many in the form of an open page web site. A friend of mine used to be jealous of me because she found that I could always get what I wanted. her statement has stayed with me for about 18 years. Back then I didn't realize that I was doing this subconsciously. It's the conscious efforts we tend to place importance on...such as the time I willed a closed window open in the middle of winter. I bring this one up often as I'm still rather impressed by it. Yep, sure enough, anything I want is within my reach, it is just a matter of deciding that I want a certain event, regardless of what others around me may want for me. Then, I know it will happen and it does. I did this to win Backstreet boys tickets for my daughter a few years ago, to get various jobs, etc. If I honestly believed that money were an end all, I'd want to win the lottery. But in reality, most of the time I just like to let things flow without casting my will into the equation. Money is NOT an end all, thank you very much, I'm much happier with less of it. 'Be careful what you wish for' wasn't said for nothing. Ever wonder how certain people with either little education or personality became rich or famous, or whatever their desire? Businessmen often wish for more business, and with a positive attitude or KNOWING that it will come along, it just does. They aren't completely open to the concept of casting spells if they are at all. They are prey to many other influences which they aren't even aware, but the lack of knowledge actually helps them in such a circumstance. This is psychokinetic energy in motion. The barriers between solid and emotional are irrelevant, there aren't any other than in one's mind. In order for this planet to operate at a certain level, we need to have several different levels of people in a hierarchy. Upsetting this balance is bound to happen eventually, in fact it is our destiny. However there are many that aren't prepared for such difficult cataclysmic times that we need to give them a chance to catch up. See, in reality, we as people have not forgotten about magic over

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the years, it still remains in the collective unconscious, asleep. Much like I was asleep when I chose to take the course, and you chose to let me follow. Souls that are too young to understand the ancient ways may be overwhelmed when the change takes place. Some will be lost, others will be gained. It is neither good nor bad, it is just the way. At any rate, the fact that you stated in the manner above demonstrates that you are seeking further knowledge on the subject. Just be careful to fully understand it before explaining it to those around you. I ask only that you meditate on this topic and seek out the truth.

Warmest thoughts,

Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 16 & 17 Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:46 PM Bravo! In lesson 16, the only thing missing would be the feeling of infinite peace, happiness and understanding. Bliss, what can I say? That all of a sudden everything makes perfect balanced sense. It is a feeling, by the way, that when you do return quickly to your body, is a difficult one to shake. And no one can understand why you have absolutely no fears or worries. You speak at a level that is of higher intelligence for a short time. Again, making it difficult for those around you to understand where this wisdom came from. Sometimes wisdom is confused for heresy. But this is a transitional stage and eventually you snap back to your old self but with a little bonus where knowledge and abilities are concerned. As you know, I did this at age 9. I will never forget it, nor will I ever dismiss it, although I spent a lot of years trying to understand it. As for Lesson 17. Until I red chapter 15 a little earlier today, I thought for certain you were the one who attacked me when I inadvertently walked into a body on the AP, I think it was years ago but I really don't remember. The 4 years of being sick with Fibromyalgia, possibly MS, and sleeping 18 hour days really screwed up my perception of time. What I find interesting is, that was my only battle on the AP. I didn't go looking for it, in fact, I think I was trying to help by

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resuscitating the life into a person. I don't remember losing, in fact it was more or less a draw. And if my illness was due to this battle it would explain a heck of a lot. LOL Anyway, I know I sent out spheres of energy in the counter attack. Like I said in a previous email though, several spirits tried to reason with me (3 maybe 4, tops) and all I could tell them was that I didn't know what they were talking about. They did believe me and left me alone, it's the last one who didn't want to listen to a word I said that started it. That's when my angel told me the rules you just listed and basically said it's you or him. Anyway, I wasn't out to kill him. Just calm him down so he would behave. And I do remember very clearly that it was a battle of wills and basically confidence,...unshakable confidence. The Angel reminded me of "I am stronger than you" when I was 13... I'm beginning to realize that it's commonly used on the AP as a mantra to psyche out your opponent. So here I am at 35...man it took me a while!!! Well, I'm off to go read the Grimoires. Love and warmest thoughts Daven, Michelle

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Just call me nutty Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:55 PM Love ya, Daven! Funny, you popped into my mind several times in the last few days. I felt rather guilty about not reading past chapter 6...So I red all those chapters today. Yep, I know, give it some time to sink in. But really I knew a lot of it and have seriously been thinking quite heavily about it ever since and before sending that letter to my friend Sharon. Poor thing, she has a ghost or something that makes noises and physically moves things around her house. Throws things at her. I finally asked her if she would consider asking it why it was tormenting her, and that perhaps it was trying to tell her something. Her reaction was amazing. She then went on to tell me about an event when she did and a pad a paper flew at her with writing on it. It was forewarning her daughter that the move they were about to make was going to cause them grief. So, I gather she rather live with the noise, then be responsive to the other signs it manifests. If you want to discuss me with your friend, I have absolutely no objection. And if he wants to contact me, there is no problem. I find the whole thing rather

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flattering. Tell me whenever you are ready, if there is ever a need. I find that when I address a situation (premonitions, deja-vus) head on, I usually avert the trouble. So chances are, by bringing it to my attention you've already diffused the bomb. Regardless of the fact that you haven't told me what you are talking about. If It's out there, it's already on its way to resolution. Besides, my biggest fear if you remember was that you would speak to someone, the wrong person, about me before I was ready. This way I might fall under attack prematurely. Anyway, I'm not worried about that anymore. I also knew before having even known there was a course to be had that it would come to be. Thankfully, we are on the same wavelength here or anyone listening in on this conversation would really wonder what planet we were from. LOL I just red the book of history grimoire and it gave me major Goosebumps...from my face all the way down. I'm going to read more. Has your wife tried bathing in a hot bath with eucalyptus oil? I've had chronic bronchitis all my life, that and buckleys cough syrup does the trick. It is absolutely wonderful and relaxing. Later, M

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Assignments Date: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 9:33 AM Hey again Daven, Thank you so much, what an honour. I'll get to work, but today the mind is a wee bit sleepy. I just couldn't get 'guardians' off my mind since reading the history, awakening etc., yesterday, so last night I was up til about 2 AM and then up again this morning at 6:30. So, making sense of anything today is futile. However, it is very strange that I've been looking for 'guardians' on the internet... such as guardian angels, but I guess I either misspelled or something because the searches brought me to some site related to, if I can remember the term, leviticans? Which really didn't say anything at all. anyway, then I thought perhaps 'ancients', yeah like that was going to be fruitful! And I've had this crazy catch phrase running through my brain the last few weeks, figuring maybe I should pick up the book or something, "guardians at the gate". OK, guardians at the gate what!?! It has proven rather frustrating. Anyway, that was a really

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freaky physical reaction I had yesterday. During all the time I was ill and had lots of 'fun' symptoms like waking up paralyzed, or getting up to do something only to realize my legs WERE there, but where did they go? and landing face first into the floor, I never experienced Goosebumps all over like that. And certainly never in my life on my face. Even when in my 20's and I'd talk about my grim reaper and all the hair on my arms would stand straight on end, vision would go dark, etc., not even then did I get Goosebumps on my face. Did I ever mention my grim reaper? Nasty little guy, very quiet, never said a word, only stood there in the shadows watching in his hooded cloak I could never see his face. It scared the begeebees out of me, and if by chance he were standing between me and the bathroom, I would only go if absolutely necessary and then I'd take a deep breath and force my way through. Actually it was more determination to get to where I wanted to and block out the fear than anything else, oh yes and saying 'you're not going to stop me'. LOL (he doesn't bother me any more, btw, I have no idea where he went or why) Well, here I am rambling off the subject again. What was it I wanted to say? Yes, Thank you, but what ever did I say that would have you offer this to me? If it will get you into trouble, realize that I wont accept. Serious, what ever did I say? Well, I've spent the better part of the last hour composing this letter. Simply because I'm a little too tired to make coherent statements, I know what I mean, but chances are I'll lose you in the mess along the way. So, I'm off again. Love, Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Funny stories (caution, very lengthy letter) Date: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:09 AM p.s. Upon trying to send this letter, the connection suddenly shut down. This is usually a sign that I should just delete the message. But in this case, I feel this is a sign that I should go ahead and send it. There are a few things you might find interesting here. Things I don't go around telling people. Dearest Daven,

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The pieces of this sordid puzzle are finally falling into place. For starters, my initial reaction when reading the history grimoire was that you might lose some of your students along the way. Although it wasn't a deterrent in my case, I wanted to know much much more. But I did worry about it for you. Another concern of mine, which my foggy brain couldn't convey yesterday, was that entering an open forum and letting others see my thoughts might not be the best of ideas. Such as the one about magic on the physical plane. There is much I can tell you about controlling peoples thoughts and actions, and I'm not certain that this information should be shared with, well, just anyone. Spells are one thing, this kind of magic comes from deep within. It becomes much easier with time and practice, which brings me to the point of practice...you did mention I should practice. After some thought on the matter, I've realized that I never stopped practicing. While working, there was a reason my bad debt ratio was a superhuman 0.000614%...not bad if you consider that is essentially my error margin ratio. And all those times that 5 minutes before my boss would call me for something out of the blue, I knew about it and took care of doing it. Call it mental manipulation, I call it survival in a field that I truly despised. Anyway, I feel that if my assignments are going to be public, then I will be a little more candid, unless you feel that I should just let it all out there and we'll sort out the mess as it comes. This one is UP TO YOU. LOL Another event that was earth shaking happened this summer and ended on August 3rd. The company that I was working for wished to sell up. So, without funds, I discussed this with my husband. A very long story about how I ended up without funds might be interesting here, but not necessary. Anyway, he agreed that I could turn the company around. After all, I'd only been doing sales since February and managed to clinch several customers that would play a big part in turning the company around. They were loosing $40,000/year. Anyway, I got the ball rolling. The only reason I got as far as I did was because Peter was kept in the background. The moment he surfaced, I lost allies and further hopes for funding etc. He involved himself (as 51% shareholder, he insisted on being the president of our company, and I had little argument in the matter as HE had put up the collateral and re-mortgaged HIS house) in the negotiations of the sale contract, we were buying the company with 60% financing through the owner. And when Peter entered the negotiationsin the last two weeks of negotiation, on the day of the signing, the owner sent us a letter stating we were dealing in bad faith and he no longer wished to deal with us. Peter did make some pretty difficult demands, such as one months free rent. That following Monday, the owner asked me to continue working with him. To which I refused. But the funny thing here is that a) I knew from the onset if Peter got involved, I may as well forget it. b) Something was telling me that although I could easily pull it off, this was not my path. In fact, I overcame many obstacles that most self-starters would have considered too great and the project would have been dropped much earlier. And no matter how much I willed it, it wasn't my path, they kept telling me so, and I refused to listen. It was a rather good lesson for me and it eventually

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brought me to you through a series of other events. I just think it's a good lesson and deserves mention. No matter how hard you try to steer away from your destiny and create your own, there are 'things' that will force you on the right path at the right time...it's just too cute. Anyway, the conclusion that I draw from the experience: a) Don't let Peter touch anything that is 'mine', but the why is more important. On a couple of occasions you have mentioned that the relationship is bordering on abuse. Yes, in fact it is blatantly abusive. And my whimpering about it certainly isn't beneficial. I usually do this when I get into a 'poor me' mode. So, why do I put up with it? Me, who has never put up with any kind of abuse whatsoever, why play the martyr in the eyes of my friends and family who unfortunately feel the need to distance themselves in order to 'save' me from his tirades by their absence. In fact, I'm not playing a martyr at all, and yes there are many occasions which I have either left or planned to leave. The man needs serious help and yet at the same time is a beautiful person once you get past the nonsense (or bullshit, if you don't mind me being graphic). He is capable of long intellectual discussions, is capable of warmth and is very supportive of me. Actually, when he isn't being stupid, he idolizes me (which I find hard to digest at times). Peter has been on stress leave now since November 1st. He has visited the psychologist 4 times, is taking medication for sleep and depression. Yes, the first couple of weeks were almost impossible. I would ask anyone to try sitting in a cage with a wounded lion and ask them how badly they want out within a few seconds, the answer is obvious. However, there has been progress over the last few weeks. He is reverting to something closer to the wonderful man I married. Not to say that I haven't had to take a stand, in fact I have on many subjects. And one argument we had last Friday, almost convinced me to leave everything behind and go on welfare until more suitable arrangements could be made. Just take the kids and go. And what convinced me not to? I don't even know. But things have quieted down considerably, I was even able to mention to him that I was reading about Astral Projection. He thinks it's an utter waste of time. That's nice, and it's HIS opinion, and like always I will do what I feel I should on the subject. So why not tell him about the web site which in fact would be beneficial to him? Yes, there is much I could do for him, but as the old adage goes ; You can lead a horse to water,.... He'll just have to figure it out for himself. Another thing, I've always attracted the strangest people, usually bordering on psychopathic, if not completely psychopathic. Peter emanates such a negative energy that they stay away, this in itself has helped me to grow and repair myself over time. I very much doubt you will ever meet someone who is always smiling, always able to give of herself and love unconditionally. This is where his fears take over and he becomes controlling and fanatically rigid. He thinks that the poor souls I help are taking advantage of me. He is somewhat of a very nasty guard dog. Anyway, like I might have mentioned, and if not I'm saying it here; He and I have our issues, mostly his admittedly, and one day I just might very well

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get tired of smacking my head against the wall and move on. The time I've taken off of work, has enabled me to recover from his tirades. Please don't think I am fooling myself into believing that he will eventually change. I cannot change him, I know better, but I have worn off on him over time, making him a much kinder, gentler person. That dark side of him, will never leave him completely. Something I wanted to mention: Since you told me about shielding a little while ago, I have tried it and conducted my own little survey here. It seems that whenever I have shielded myself, Peter gets more insecure as he cannot read me. But, I have also found that I can shield certain thoughts from him. This can be a selective process and does not necessarily have to be a complete shield over everything. Yet, I do understand that the more I remember, the more dangerous he will become to me. There is something deep inside him that is asleep. That something is what caused my something to hide for a while and stop the remembering process in my mid 20's. When he and I first got together, I questioned him why my little nasties had completely gone away, his answer was that his 'demons' had frightened them off. he had many demons in his closet, was a quote he used to use often. A sign that he has calmed down? He used to have a quick fighting reflexes. Which might have been fine had it only been used in self defence. The reason the man doesn't drive although he has a licence and access to the car is simply because: "I might have to get out and kill someone". Which is the frankest truth. If someone were to cut him off, he just might get out of the car and let out his rage on that person. By the time he realized what he was doing it would be too late. In 1994 we had a car accident. Some kid on a Cel phone ran a stop sign. We both KNEW it was about to happen although the kid seemed to slow down when I entered the intersection. Before our car had stopped under the trunk of a 4x4, Peter had sprung out of the car ready to kill him with his bare fists. I got out of the car and yelled at him "Peter, get in the car". It was the first time I stood up to him and, I couldn't believe he was actually listening to me. He stood on the opposite side of the street pacing while I dealt with the kid and paperwork. We have no fault insurance throughout the Province of Quebec, so we don't need to wait for Police to come running. It also means we cannot sue for negligence. But over all it's a pretty good system. Basically I ordered the man to "sit and stay", and like a good Doberman would, he did. I was very surprised by this, but I also threw something extra into the command. That something is there when needed to prevent him from hurting others. I just don't go around using it unless it is an emergency like this one. Remember that most dogs don't bite without provocation. Perhaps I should tell you about the green mist? When Peter and I first moved in together (March 1990), I had a dream about a green mist that had come to swallow up everything in its path. Anyone standing in its path died of suffocation. I woke up in a panic when it reached me and insisted we sleep with the lights on as I was convinced it had spilled over into our bedroom when I came back. In

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the dream I had tried to stand in its way in order to prevent it from getting to the people that were behind me. But because of its nature, like water, it filtered its way around me and eventually when all were gone and I was surrounded it came after me. Sorry, dreams like this no one needs to write down, you can't help but remember them in great detail. It literally took weeks for me to get over the sheer terror of this dream. There is a reason why I am still with Peter despite all that I've said above. On the night he called me just about one year ago, it was December 3rd, he called to apologize for all that was about to happen. Since at this point in time I had already been separated from him for 2 months and had gained a lot of strength and independence (and I was having a hell of a good time without him) it wasn't his final apology that convinced me to move back with him and it had nothing to do with the kids or Xmas. It was a conscious decision that something needed to be done. And I had to do it. It wasn't Love or Pity or anything lacking within myself, I felt no need to be with him for myself, I didn't grieve over being alone or without him. But, I had to be with him for a reason, even though I don't really know what it is. Upon coming into this life, I was told outright that it wouldn't be easy and I accepted the challenge. So regardless of whether I fully understand what on earth I am talking about or not, I guess I'm here until I figure it out. Daven, I must thank you for putting some of the pieces together for me. And on that note, I will get on with the LOAD of work I have ahead of me. LOL! But, below is another story. You can skip it altogether if you feel the need. Warmest thoughts and love, Michelle, Here's a strange story that I've included in my book, but it's how Peter and I met and it's rather fitting and perhaps it may explain a thing or two that I haven't covered in this lengthy letter. "Behind the bar, roared the flames in a large stone fireplace. Eight tables with four chairs each adorned the floor between the patrons sitting quietly sipping their drinks on the barstools. On the other side of the partition, the room opened up to a rustic central hall, another twenty tables or so filled the west side of the room, while two heavy wood stair cases leading to the mezzanine framed the entrance. She stood at the edge of the service area of the bar chatting with the bartender and her friends. The conversation was light and joyful. She was a tiny girl, eyes of blue, long chestnut hair and a smile that never left her. The male patrons came to see her every day. Her youth and innocence seemed to revitalize their mundane lives. She’d earned the reputation of pure virginal seductress, as they all lusted for her perfect body. But never once had she dated them. Some even joked that she must be a lesbian easing their hurt pride and

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ego from her subtle rejections. Her shift was over at 7 P.M. and she often hung around after-hours to be with those she considered her family. As evening darkened the skies, the glow from the fireplace enchanted the surroundings. Patrons sparsely poured in off the street, two sometimes three at a time. The doors swung open again. "Jonathan" she exclaimed in surprise. But, he didn’t answer. He and his friend made their way up the stairs to the mezzanine for a round of pool. "Jonathan, it’s me" she shouted, and again the call was lost in the immense building. She ran after him, leaving her friends bewildered at the bar. Chasing him up the stairs to the landing she placed her hand on his arm and kissed him on the cheek. He turned slowly and smiled as he said; "I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else." Her heart sank as she stammered an apology finally realizing her mistake. After all, this behaviour was atypical of her. He gently reassured her that it was a simple mistake and there was nothing to feel guilty or badly about. His friend who had seen the display shouted out; "Come on Pete, she just wants you to buy her a drink". Her heart broke at the cruelty of such a remark and she slipped away to the safety of her friend behind the mezzanine bar. "Steve, I need a drink" and she recounted the events to the bartender. "You’re kidding" he replied "is he about 5’9", large build wearing a sports jacket?" A puzzled look lit her face as she questioned "how did you know?" Steve pointed to the gentleman standing behind her. Suddenly, the blood rushed to her face in angst as she wished the floor would engulf her physical body. There he was waiting his turn to be served behind her. He made no incident of this mishap, in fact he tried to console and alleviate her embarrassment. They parted ways as the evening played on. She with her friends at the main bar, he with his friend at the pool tables. As the evening drew to a close, he joined her at the main bar where they spoke briefly. "Look, I’d give you my number but you’ll only throw it away" he insisted. In contrast, she desperately wanted to continue the conversation and reassured him that she would keep it preciously as he handed her a torn matchbook cover. "What about Betty?" his friend bellowed adjusting his clothing ready to leave. Her saddened eyes looked into Pete’s as she questioned "Betty?". Pete answered that Betty was his girlfriend, but that they had broken up even though she was still living with him. "Well, it was nice meeting you" she said agreeing to stay in touch. Already knowing that she would never make that phone call. As she watched him slip out the door and out of her life, a voice told her; "Don’t worry, that’s the man you will marry." Six long years passed when they crossed paths again. This time she worked in customer service for a courier company and he was the customer. And yes, they did marry. She knew she had met him somewhere before, but the memory had

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been repressed until well after the wedding. And the sweet irony of the story? The friend, who was so quick to judge and hurt her feelings, was the best man. During the speeches he had gone to extra lengths to tell the crowd what a wonderful girl she was. This story is true, we have the best man’s speech on video tape. And it was only after the honeymoon that Pete told me that he was this person. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life, and I married him. ..."

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assingment #7 Date: Saturday, December 08, 2001 11:08 AM Hi Daven, Here we go... Assignment 7: As simplistic as this assignment is, it is difficult for me to write about it. I can and do visualize anything and am transported there without much effort. So practice here, although I did do it, is difficult to describe in detail. Anyway, I'll try. Visualizing a familiar face is all too easy, but the neet thing is that when it is a pleasant face, it tends to glow a soft white...kind of like GE's light bulb LOL. A Galloping horse was fun, I could hear the thumping of the hooves as they hit the grass covered ground and see the divots raise behind. I could smell and see the sweat of the horse and see its nostrils flare, and I could also see the drool from its mouth. It's mane and tail bouncing in the wind, it's dark brown skin shimmer with beads of sweat. The air was crisp and cold so you could see the horses breath as it exhaled at a regular interval upon landing during his gallop. I could feel his muscles tense and relax with the rhythm of the course. I loved the sound of rain on the roof...I get all involved in this one and actually feel the wet drops stinging my skin then effacing and mingling with the sweat on my skin, my arms and face. I feel the air swirling around driving the rain harder against my face and now pounding my body. My hair lifting off my forehead and away from my ears and neck. My eyes squinting as the energies of water and air force them shut. Ok, so it's not what you asked for, but I had fun doing it. The Orange: Well I like this one too, the smell is divine, so much in fact I can taste it as the orange splits into pieces the juices spurt out filling the air with their fragrance. The wet juices well in my mouth as I yearn to taste it.... this is starting to sound like erotica!!!LOL Anyway, all this being said, I'm rather comfortable with the way I visualize and don't feel any urgent need to try to improve it.

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Means of transportation, well, I would venture that it depends on the situation. Phasing would be excellent for instance in one dream I was in some building with concrete stones for walls, yet there was something wrong with the plumbing and water was seeping through the walls. So I phased through the wall to fix the pipes and stop the water. I know concrete seems like a hard structure to phase through, but it didn't seem to phase me at the time!!! LOL Flying, I love the feeling of flying in my dreams. I actually woke up once thinking that I could bring this over into the physical plane...silly girl. Most of the time walking is good, it gives you enough time to see what surrounds you...sort of stop and smell the flowers. Teleporting, flying and phasing are good to 'escape' or just get somewhere fast. Unless you are hovering instead of flying, that will give you an entirely different perspective of the subject you are studying. Sliding is fun too. I had several dreams of sliding down waterfalls. These waterfalls were incredibly high, but regardless I couldn't get hurt, it was like being in an amusement park on a roller coaster ride except safer. Ok, this is a short one. You can use my comments in your book or anywhere else you chose, Daven, it is not a problem. Best regards, M

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assignment 8 Date: Saturday, December 08, 2001 1:01 PM Hi Daven, I haven't been very regular in the way I've been writing my dreams. Actually, for the most part I've written them in one place, but on occasion have written them down on a scrap of paper...and lost it. And I just realized there is a lot of information missing. Anyway, this is a start on the excel spreadsheet, perhaps I could re-submit this one a little later? TELL ME. Also, I realized that although I project throughout the day, I don't keep track of it. Those are basically daydreams and I do this so much I'd be writing non stop...which I already am. As far as Monroe's theory goes, I do agree somewhat that anything restrictive will cause a distraction. For that matter when I do heavy meditation I do not even cross my fingers or legs. But, I do wear certain jewellery at all times even in the shower, and they do not affect me at all. But, once off there is very seldom

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anything that will distract me into coming back including physical pain. Time of day, for the heavier meditation is better at night, because it's dark and I sleep in the buff anyway. Day time I don't like tight clothes anyway and seldom wear anything that causes me discomfort on any level. Actually, I feel rather crappy about this assignment as I haven't really kept as good a record of my dreams as I would have liked...time seemed to have flown by since November 11th. Basically I recognize some trends of always trying to fix problems. Sometimes they correspond with actual life events, sometimes not. Where I made the mistake, is that I wrote down the ones that has particular meaning to me and forgot the rest although I have been putting a larger emphasis on keeping track of them in the last 2 weeks. One common factor is time of war. It seems to come up regardless of whether or not it is a good dream. By the way, none of these classify as nightmares. It seems I have gotten over the "fear" factor of being hurt and concentrate more on fixing the problem. Something else to mention: most of the time when something happens during the day, I get "flashes". Like a spontaneous draw out of my body to somewhere else. I could be having a conversation with someone, reading material on the internet or in a book, and when I come back I've totally lost the train of thought prior to going. This is most noticeable when talking to someone, actually its listening to someone and I come back I have no idea where the conversation has turned or what on earth we are discussing now. Anyway, that's all for now. Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Assignment 10 Date: Sunday, December 09, 2001 1:55 PM Hi Daven, Some assignments are easier than others...LOL. I'll do assignment 9 when humanly possible instead of giving you guess work. ;)

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Well, since my favourites are taken, I think I'll go with Medusa. The Greek creature with snakes for hair, and should your human eyes ever cross her glare...whabang! You're stone! She certainly isn't a favourite, but why make this easy? And I hope you don't mind if I completely get into character here, I sorta enjoy it. Since my Greek mythology dates back to grade 9 or grade 8. More than 20 years ago. I'm brushing up on the subject at the same time. >From the perspective of Medusa. As I walk through the corridors of my cold bronze maze looking for trespassers, looking at the all too familiar cracks in the tiles of the floor and walls. I have been here for centuries, millennia, pacing, pacing, I know these walls so well. (Let's pretend, medusa didn't die at the hand of Perseus yet) I have been imprisoned by the Gods and it is a great injustice that I may never lay my eyes on a man again. Cruel are the Gods, and I care nothing more than to disdain those little creatures called humans. If it pains the Gods to see them hurt, then so shall I do what I can to inflict them with hurt. Here it is cold, dark and damp, I have no torch to light my path as it is not my element. But I see. I keep my visitors in a great hall so that I may look upon them and see the terror of their last sight. Trapped in eternal stone, a trophy to my own greatness. Shield your eyes when you see me as I will turn you to stone and add you to my collection. Hahahahaha! In the distance I see that flicker of light, the warmth of a torch. There you are, you unwitting soldier, sent no doubt by Athena to defeat me. Ha! You senseless fool, did no one tell you? Just look over at me, come on. I won't hurt you, really. Lay down your shield, has anyone told you of my beauty? Look, you'll see there is nothing to be frightened of....There now, one more to add to my little collection, such a fine prize. Blast you Athena, you're jealousy doth you no good. With all your efforts you vanquished me, yet they continue to seek me out. ******* If I were to meet someone on the AP who would it be? Didn't we go there before? Well, having given it some thought after submitting it last time, there is a slue of people and things I want to see. None quite so nasty as my friend above. Pegasus might be one, but I really have no questions for him, except maybe can you help me learn how to fly? And can you help me with my poetry? The Arch Angel Michael, might be more helpful. Question 1: Why am I here? Question 2: Why is it taking so long for me to figure out what it is I am supposed to do? Question 3: What am I supposed to do? Question 4: All this spiritual stuff is fine and dandy but it doesn't pay the bills...what can I do, if anything, to combine my natural talents with career objectives? Question 5: Is my memory a true one about my mother requesting that she be at least allowed to name me?

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OK, so I already have answers to some of these questions, but I'd rather hear it from him. List of things to encounter: Hey why not? Pegasus, Zeus, The Virgin Mary, That Puma I had a vision of., the Butterfly (vision) had so much to say I'd like to talk to him for awhile, I want to go back and visit that friend of mine and see if she forgave the one who had us burnt at the stake (although I know she hasn't, it's supposed to take her a couple of lifetimes to get over it), I want to have a good long talk with my Angel and find out why the heck I only get short sentences from him and not a whole lot of explanations. Now, I want to encounter one of the nasties and figure out if I'm able to ...(?) just have a chat and not run away. Especially the nasty that tore down my temple. I'd like to see him back down. Well, that's it for now. Thanks for the link for assignment 9, I just got the notification. I may not get a chance to finish up this week. I have my last (thank GOD) Finance assignment due. As much as this is 20,000 times more fun than finance, I doubt finance is ever any fun but I'll assign it a value of 1 not 0, I've got to finish it and be prepared for my final exam in January. Love and hugs, Michelle

From: "peter" To: Subject: Question Date: Sunday, December 09, 2001 2:03 PM What is a psyvamp anyway? M (Ed comment, a psyvamp is one who sucks the psychic and emotional energy off someone, usually they don't know they are doing it. D)

From: "peter"

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To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Assignment 8 Date: Thursday, December 13, 2001 7:21 AM Hey Daven,

No problem... I already had a long hand version on hand for most.

Well, I've been *training* to remember my dreams for years, I should be more disciplined. LOL

Since Pegasus was Medusa's son, I had thought of it, but I wasn't sure what to write, so i went with her... I don't know why. >>>back to reality here. I hate gore!!! and this vision was only a split second although I thought it best to reveal as much detail as possible. I had to turn my head when they dropped the first stone on him and crushed him and asked that the vision be stopped so that I could regain my serenity. It was truly awful and I have no idea who this man was. Best guess would be Osama, but I don't get why his own followers would kill him in this manner. Anyway, the name was not revealed. And you could ask Peter about me and gore, he'll tell you I can't even watch the animal programs when there is a hunt in progress, I always ask that he change the channel. It bothers me way too much.

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So what the heck to do with THIS? Why, why, why do they send me these pictures when frankly I couldn't care less, why not send me something I AM interested in?...Ok that was just a stupid question, I had to let out some frustration.LOL Have a great New Year and I'll be writing tomorrow with more assignments. Love, Michelle

From: "taimaloudthunder" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 17 assignment Date: Monday, December 31, 2001 2:54 PM --- In Astral_Travel@y..., "Daven" wrote: > To keep: I want you to think of a list of personality problems that you want to get fixed. Try to creatively solve some of them in the Astral Plane. > > To turn in: Your results from the above assignment. List the problem, your idea, steps you took, and outcome (even if it is "outcome pending") > >

I have been trying to give this assignment some thought, and it has not been easy .... as things were not exactly "normal" around here! Anyway here is a short list. 1. Getting my time more organized, and scheduled. I need to be more organized in day to day activities. 2. Getting back into meditation, which I´ve really missed in the last few weeks. Spending half an hour at the start of the day in meditation is very uplifting! 3. Having the finances to get the maintenance done on my car. I

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have to admit to recent over spending!! I apologize for being late with this assignment. My husband´s mom recently had heart surgery, and my son was home on leave for the holidays. When are the results on our problems due? Thanks for sharing the nice web site! Taima

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 17 assignment Date: Monday, December 31, 2001 3:06 PM > I apologize for being late with this assignment. My husband´s mom > recently had heart surgery, and my son was home on leave for the > holidays. When are the results on our problems due? > > Thanks for sharing the nice web site! As to the results, I wanted them at the same time, but it's not a requirement. I wanted you all to think about what you wanted to improve in your life, and start taking steps to fix them. Yes, the meditation at the beginning of the day can be VERY helpful, I usually defer it to just before sleep. I find it tends to give me VERY intense dreams. I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your mother in law. I hope she's doing better now? I don't remember the website I shared.... Oops. Daven

From: "peter"

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To: Subject: Assignment #9 part 2 Date: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 1:53 PM Hi Daven, Here we go again! Page 24. the Void. Glad to see someone else has been there too. I experienced it in January 1997 when I first experienced extreme dizziness and the doctors thought I had a brain tumour and sent me for a CT scan...they didn't bother to test me for allergies since I claimed to only be allergic to cats and didn't know about any others. So, while they nearly killed me with the fluid they injected into me, I ended up going blind and couldn't breath or speak because my tongue had swelled so badly and you wouldn't believe the stomach cramps!!! Anyway there was a few moments of respite from these awful symptoms when I was suddenly in a black box, silent and dark. And I thought immediately, well if this is the afterlife, I must have done something wrong along my path, so I vowed to come back and try to set things straight. Actually it was so different in contrast to what I'd experienced as a child that it frustrated me after a little while. Nice to see that you can get out of this box, for the next time I happen to end up there again. And it's even better or more of a relief that it isn't a symptom that I've done something wrong. But again, that's got to be the Catholic upbringing... which by the way, I'm glad enough to shed. As far as projecting into a MHB, I've experienced the same thing. As hard as I've tried to be in exactly the same place, there is always a few details that are not quite exactly as they were in the physical room, just like you said... Gosh, I wish I could have a contrary opinion somewhere and not sound like I agree to everything. Ok, so we don't agree on the good/evil thing...lol. Question: While projecting, I usually hear music...I always wake up with a song in my head...but the thing that got my attention on page 27 is sight, touch and sound...well I realized that when people talk to me on the planes it usually isn't by voice, it is telepathy. Unless, they for some reason aren't able to communicate that way, and it's been a long time since I've had to communicate in this manner. I just thought it was interesting and it hasn't come up yet so, I guess my question is: Have you experienced this? As far as lock molds go, I understand where he is coming from, but it is a bit elementary. Page 29...Shaboom, shaboom, falalalalala, shaboom, shaboom, falalalalalalalala...life could be a dream sweetheart. No other comment. I live in a dreamworld, what can I say? Page 30...Got it...keep up the journal.

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Page 31...I do question why it is so much easier for myself than others to be "creative". I wonder if it is because I've had many lifetimes of "practice", I mean, as far as I'm concerned creativity and the spiritual planes are interrelated. Why is it Michael Angelo was so versatile, with art, architecture, and inventions... because he probably had an ease to travel back and forth and do these things while in a trance like state. I correlate the experience to my own paintings and problem resolution skills. Heck at 21 without having taken a course in physics and not being a mathematician, I ventured to create a power source from elements that I already knew would work to a certain extent. I had no money and was looking at creating a power source that would heat and light a fictive shack in the woods in order to be self sufficient without having to pay exorbitant costs to any denomination. After the brainstorming session, I asked my dad, because I couldn't quite figure out how to regulate the energy...and he was shocked that I'd invented a generator from scratch all the way up to the coils...Dad was an engineer and trust me, we never listened to shop talk because it bored the heck out of us, so he just never talked about it. The point is: All this stuff comes from the planes... the fact that one individual is better at reaping the fruits of the planes does not make them genius, it just makes them practiced, older and hopefully wiser. Beethoven having written his first symphony at age 5, probably never completely left the planes to exist here. this also explains the insanity of those like Van Gogh who cut off his ear. The physical plane is so different from the Astral planes, that it is enough to drive people to insanity as they are never quite understood by those who refuse to accept that it exists. The fact that those who are considered insane, may actually be closer to reality than those who are not will make the average person cringe. And thus, the reason why the practice of projection, dream worlds, magick and whatnot is hard to swallow for the majority...AH! But wait... Movies such as Star Wars, the Force; any fan of the series fantasizes they had the force...so, they are not so far from the consciousness that such a force does exist. Anyway, just a little note to rejustify the word "genius" that is incorrectly used on this page. Older, practiced, and hopefully wiser but yet equal to all others. The Hell part is dead on and I've had to make some adjustments to my own personality over the duration of this course to compensate and re-gain my abilities. That Bible as far as I'm concerned is the work of some pretty awful men who wished to conceal the truth from the majority of the population in order to gain power over them... This is where I switch off the religious soapbox as I'll keep you here all day. Page 32&33....I was adopted and have no idea my time of birth, my *real* name, so astrology, numerology is a waste unfortunately. Thankfully I do remember LOTS of stuff. And, I wonder why our general population went from being a society that took dreams seriously (the Bible is a good example of historical data on this subject, but yet that part is ignored, HA), to being a population that considers concrete evidence as the only sufficient evidence that such things do exist... Now why do we waste so much time and energy to disprove the best part

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of our lives? I'll go further and say that anything psychological is considered negative by society by and large, because it is individual and because of narrowmindedness which causes doubt in the minds of the weak. And really? You never considered it this way? Chills eh? like the ones I got when I red about guardians. Well, I hate to disappoint, but I've never really seen the concept of dreams in any other fashion. So, unfortunately, thinking in terms of dreams not being real has always been foreign to me, although I have worked very hard to try to see it in the conventional way... it just never worked for me, and I'm glad I've changed my attitude back to what I think it should be. Page 35: Memory. Okay, here is something important that should not really be told to just anyone. We all have repressed memories from prior to birth and are told that we will forget upon entry. I specifically asked that I be allowed to remember, more because I wanted to, and I was then told I would eventually remember most of it... I'm almost there, which is a shame to an extent as it means something (that part I don't remember, but when I do, that's when the something happens). But most people will spend their lifetime NOT remembering. Why do we forget our dreams? Why is it so easy? It is just as easy to forget the time before we were born, and the time before that. We forget because we are meant to. It is impossible to learn a lesson if you already know the answer without having to work it out. We could never actually improve ourselves if we didn't work at our day to day lessons and put them into PHYSICAL practice. Like you said about pulling out of the Aethers... well, no, not really. The information is there for anyone to access, you just have to know how to get it. Memory is the same, once an "awakening" happens, there is very little that can stop the process other than the person experiencing it. By person, I do mean the culmination of their life experience, knowledge and fears, and whatever else you can throw in to the pot. Well, I'm stopping here for today. I know this one will take a while, do bare with me. Michelle

From: "peter" To:

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Subject: shared projections. Date: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 2:22 PM Hey Daven, Now, I don't know if you mention shared projections, but this is something I thought I should bring up. As you know I'd recently joined Witches of the Solstice Moon, who are a wonderful bunch BTW. About 2 nights ago, one of the girls asked for help in protecting another with mirror type magick. So, without reading who sent this message or reading further to find out what it was about... which really I should have, but didn't have the time... that night I thought of shielding the person in question. So I started by creating a sphere around what I perceived to be her, and I got a flash of the girl in question lying on her back in her bed... I still don't know if that was truly the case or not, but it was a flash. I then saw the girl who made the request, and invited her in to the sphere where I was keeping the other girl company. She was frightened and in a foetal position. Then it seemed like a storm was raging outside and things were banging on the sphere. At one point, I'd had quite enough of this bad behaviour and left the two together to confront the assailants. I saw 3 bore like monsters...if you want to call them that... with fangs or tusks protruding from their faces, armed up ready for their assault. So I told them to stand down or face me...they basically evaporated one by one, starting with the one farthest from me. My Angel told me to leave, that I should not be there unprotected and that they might come after me now that I've exposed myself. Well, the situation seemed to be under control, so I came back. the whole process took about 30 minutes and I left the sphere as a sphere knowing full well it could be traced back to me. At the end of all this (about 2:30 in the morning) I got on the board and lo and behold found out that the author of the message was the other girl there helping me with the protection. So I asked if she saw me, here is her reply: Hey Mitch, Hungry wasn't the word LOL famished is more like it. *cackle* I had, now just listen to this,4white castles,now they are tiny ya know,an orange cause I sure felt the need for the C. Am out of mead so I had to have some tea w/about an inch of honey in it.Oh Oh, I forgot and a yeast donut LOL. The travel was flash,you left the most beautiful trail of silver & white I think I have ever seen. I cant wait to hear more from you about your light work. That DL,oh she is so rotten, she tried to keep me there LOL. I gave her a special shield,and upon it reflects ill deeds of these paticulars. This one has always reminded me of the Old saying I am Rubber you are glue. There was one who takes form of Falcon,this is a

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very powerful light force. Would you by any chance know who this is????? I am so anxious to share with this One in this realm. But heshe has escaped me,for whatever reason's I dont know,unless it is just not time to reveal. Hugs and boy this was a very successful travel. --- [email protected] wrote: > I've just spent the last half hour shielding her... > I can't remember the last time I was so hungry! So > I took a break to let you know... Did I see you? > >M Anyway, if I am delusional, at least I have good company...but I must admit, the process did take a lot out of me and I ended up sleeping until 4PM (kids jumping on me on the couch) the next day. I'm adding this one to the journal. *grin* I hope I'm not getting too WEIRD for you...LOL M

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 4:07 PM > > "who says we don't live several lives simultaneously, > > following the I-forget-the-name-of-the-theory that says each molecule >takes > > every possible route in its destination from point A to point B." >Although >I > > suppose that fits with your personal theories about multiple selves, >Daven. > > But then it also begs the question of who decides, or 'how is it >decided'

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> > the "real" outcome in the end? >You want my theory on this? Sure. More for me to think about :)

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 9:40 AM > > > But then it also begs the question of who decides, or 'how is it > >decided' > > > the "real" outcome in the end? > > >You want my theory on this? > > Sure. More for me to think about :) Okay, here we go. I believe (and have checked this through those who have died and I spoke to after ALL their incarnations died as well) that once we are dead that all the lives recombine into one. As you know, the spirit and soul is what leaves the physical body upon death. The soul recombines into one soul, rather than staying in 100,000,000,000,000,000 pieces. But the Spirit does stay in as many pieces as were left when all the bodies died. Here's what I think happens next. All those spirits are put into a "data bank" that the soul can access at any point, with each spirit being separate and unique. I liken it to having a hard drive and putting 100,000,000,000,000,000 one kilobyte files on that drive. Pretty quickly it fills up and you keep putting more files in to that drive. Each file is unique, even though they may look the same. However, I can access those files at any time I need to. It's just a matter of finding the right file. After a while, I decide to index those files. In that indexing, I find that 44% of those files have the line "Was born in California". 22% of those

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files have "was male" 77% of those files say "married with one child" and so on. The point here is that the majority of the "lifetimes" led by those versions of me have a child, a majority of them are female and a majority of those lifetimes were started in someplace other than California. It's that average which determines which lifetime "wins" as the predominent lifetime. When accessing past lives, you get the lifetime that has ALL those majority components and that is what is examined. It is possible to examine some of the unlikely lifetimes, where something really odd happened, but the majority lifetime (henseforth called the default) is what is normally looked at. That default life is also the one that determines if you learned the necessary lessons that you chose for yourself. Think about it, if you have 50.1% of the lifetimes that you led learning to be patient, that is a majority of sorts. You can choose to learn that lesson again if you want until that percentage is somewhere around 75 or so, but that's enough. That lesson has affected the soul to the degree that it does not need to learn that lesson again, because in those 100,000,000,000,000,000 lifetimes, 50.1% of the soul you now have from all of them rejoining know how to be patient. Understand? Davem

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 4:33 PM do all the lives recombine all at once when one of the lives die? or does each piece recombine as the bit of soul from That life die? since i'm sure not all the lives die at once. it may sound confusing the way i've put it. blackdove01

From: "taimaloudthunder"

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To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 17 assignment Date: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 4:43 PM > I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your mother in law. I hope she's doing better now? > > I don't remember the website I shared.... Oops. > > Daven Hi Daven, My mother-in-law is doing fine for someone who has recently had a heart valve replacement, and pace maker implant. The web site I was writing about is The Guardian Home page. Thanks for sharing your insights on assignment 16. I tend to agree with the concept of learning from our past lives, and like the computer analogy you used. Taima

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 17 assignment Date: Thursday, January 03, 2002 1:56 PM Hi Tamia, > Hi Daven, > > My mother-in-law is doing fine for someone who has recently had a > heart valve replacement, and pace maker implant. Glad to hear it, and I hope she continues to do well. > > The web site I was writing about is The Guardian Home page.

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Ahhh, yes. Duh. I do that a lot. You are welcome. Daven PS, yes, that's me on Astral and Beyond as well. LOL Just so you can stop worrying about it. ;-)

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Thursday, January 03, 2002 1:56 PM Tell you all what, some of this is going to be covered again in Lesson 19, so I'll wait to answer this particular question in there. Plus, I'll recover what I sent out to you in the last post. So, if you have any questions on AP, Reincarnation and this subject in specific, any of you, please send them in, but be aware that I won't be sending a response until I get Lesson 19 written. LOL Daven

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] blackdove01 Lesson 19 assignment Date: Friday, January 04, 2002 6:51 PM A)ok. new question. so if all time is now, and all "past" lives are also now, if once you die you decide to come back to earth again for a new life, it would also be now, is it possible to have you living in several different incarnations at the same time and is there a possibility of these several different incarnations meeting somehow? B)I think the class takes too long, i know there's a lot of information, but having a two week span between lessons is a little much i think. i do understand that it takes a while to do some of the excercises and practice

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them and come up with actual results, but i still would like it to go a bit faster. maybe a writing assignment a week and two weeks to turn in excercise results or someting. i think daven is a wonderful teacher and very knowledgeable, but since this is the first internet course i've taken, i don't really have much to compare him to besides teachers i've had in person. he's great at answering questions, but since it's through email it takes a bit longer than i'd wish and sometimes i forget my questions before i get them written down somewhere and sent off. the class has helped a lot and i can't project at will yet, but i can do it about once a week or so, which i wasn't able to do at all before. i also have more info now on people and things i may meet, even though i haven't yet. i didn't even meet a watcher at the gate my first few times out, still haven't met one yet. i also feel much more prepared now when i do project instead of just blindly wandering around like a fool poking at everything i meet. C) i can't think of anything off hand that i'd like to know about which you haven't already covered, but if i think of one i'll send it in To think about: Tell me what kind of exam you want: i think a bit of each would be nice, and is also what i'm used to for tests, a little true and false, a little multiple choice, maybe some short answer or fill in the blank, and then a few essay questions at the end. i don't think i'd deal well with all essay questions. by the way, how much is the test going to be worth compared to all the writing assignments and excercises? blackdove01

From: "peter" To: Subject: 2 things (Crisis) Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 10:23 AM Hi Daven, A couple of things... first, I was wondering if you minded me sending group emails to the 2 girls and yourself that are willing to write for the magazine. I'd rather ask and protect identities, than just go ahead and have you pissed at me. That's what the test email was about yesterday. I thought I could send a group

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mail without the addresses showing, and it just didn't work. I know they wont mind at all, but I felt I should ask you first. Second, that experience I had the other night was also confirmed by the other girl who was there and she saw exactly what I did. She is feeling much better and told me about it... so at least I KNOW I'm not delusional...LOL. But, because the other girl helping me knows how well it went she referred someone to me and that event disturbed me a lot. Please help me with this one, part of the reason I started looking for my path in the first place was to make sure that I don't harm anyone and although I didn't, the potential was there BIG TIME> I started by shielding her up like a mummy, which is the way you are supposed to do it, not like DL (but then again with DL I wanted to be able to get inside and comfort her). Then I turned to face a WHOLE LOT of things coming at me. I started zapping them right up until my angel turned dark and stood right in front of me preventing me from this attack. I almost fired at him, just because he was in my way. And I told him to get out of my way. Please understand that when I do this I end up using all my emotions good and bad. He sternly told me to stop and that she had brought this on herself. Daven, the rage that went through me isn't even funny. I told her I had to leave before I did something I would regret. I ended up binding the girl, preventing her from causing harm to herself and anyone else. So today, I get this email telling me she is feeling much better... I only hope it is true. She confided that she didn't have an urge to cut, which I assume is self inflicted wounds./ a head case to say the least.... and frankly I don't believe I can help her. Anyway, I need to talk about this rage I felt and the consequences of that rage... It's that rage that worried me, I have caused real life things to happen in the past and when Sept 11. happened I thought I had caused it. Ok, a little weird I'll admit. But MY big reason for seeking a path was to get this under control so that I DON't inadvertently hurt anyone or anything. It's an ability and a curse all wrapped up in one. Part of my reason for being watchful on the AP is because if *the bad guys* get me to believe their story, I might end up fighting for them...Thankfully I have my Angel...BUT when he turns dark like that I don't recognize him. If it wasn't for the fact he was right next to me and I saw him change, I would have seriously hurt him or worse. Blasted the s... out of him. That combined with this rage...And I almost turned on her... Not a way to help someone! I'm very upset about it, no, I'm very upset with myself about it. And I'm not sure what to do or how to deal with it. I wont be helping this girl again any time soon. And I couldn't care less if they booted me out of the Solstice Moon for it. I can't believe I'm still so angry about it. And honestly, what is there to be angry about? I've always been happy with the way I am compassionate and understanding even when people do nasties against me personally, I usually can get over it, or at the very least understand why they did what they did...

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I don't understand what has come over me, and I don't like it. Can you help me? Thanks sweetie, M

From: "peter" To: Subject: Crisis over... Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 12:35 PM Woooof! Got the anger out. Please realize I'm mad only at myself and I'll explain why. this is very personal and dark and I don't run around telling everyone. But I feel it necessary to bring up. honesty cleanses, well I find it does. When my first daughter's father (back in 1986) caused me to nearly lose my job. My EX... he was a real idiot and brainless but really good looking... he was saying some really hurtful things to my friends.... I didn't have very many so the ones I did have meant a lot to me. It infuriated me to the point I wanted him dead. On the same day I sent out the vibes he ended up in an accident. He was on his motorcycle and got hit by a car... a hit and run. He ended up in critical condition in hospital. Word got back to me the next day, so realizing that I had caused this, I wished he would get better with all the love I could muster. Then he did and survived. I was 20 at that time, inexperienced and my emotions ran me. I've grown up a lot since. A few years later (age 24) this guy I knew bought my old car for $200.00. The check bounced and I spent hours chasing him down, I never got it in the end. Again my anger got the better of me and I sent out a vibe that he should get his just rewards. Well it wasn't very long before there was a news item on TV. They didn't show any pictures, but the reporting was that a man in his 20's was held down on the train tracks due to a settlement of account and lost his legs as they were run over by the train. It didn't kill him and a few years later I ran into one of his friends who told me; that was him. I KNEW it was him when I saw the news and I KNEW it was the message that my "vibe" had been fulfilled. The person only confirmed it for me. Like I said, I can cause an awful lot of damage and it's just not where I want to go. I almost blasted Legs right out of existence, and this scares the crap out of me. It also makes me very upset with myself. Over the years, I've made lots of

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adjustments to my personality in order to prevent such occurrences. I even spent years ignoring my abilities hoping they would just go away. I wrote a poem one year before Sept 11th, and freaked when I red it again. It turns out this was only a vision ( and I keep bringing it up). But while I searched for answers I was terrified that I'd lost control of these powers and that they were leaking out like water through a sieve. So, I'm a very controlled individual and that's why I got so mad at myself... I need to keep that control. I watch every fleeting thought and analyse it to make sure there is no ill intent lurking or being sent out. I've worked hard to send only love and positiveness into the universe. And now I feel like I have failed.... so I'm mad with myself. I'm a bit of a perfectionist at that. I feel there is no excuse for causing harm and I live by that rule... I don't impose it, I just figure I have my rules let the others deal with their conscience. Maybe that's it? maybe I'm just dealing with my conscience. Essentially I didn't harm anyone... the potential was there and I nearly blasted the kid out of existence,...but I didn't. I got scared when she wrote me back, yet again, I didn't imagine this. I'd dismissed the event after the fact figuring I MUST be imagining things. Yes, what I learned when I was there was true and she had lied to me... I suspect that's what caused her to write me in the first place. This is not very funny and I surely don't take it as a joke... in fact I take it rather seriously. I guess I'll just learn by it and go back and read the grimoires, I'm sure there was something along the lines of choosing who to help and so on... Thank the GODS I didn't lose control...! Anyway, sorry for the sob story. I needed to let it out. And yep! I'm sure it tarnishes that image of mine...but I don't care. I'd rather figure out where I'm going wrong than worry about looking good. And No, there is no way in hell I'm ever going to be unprepared like that again! This wouldn't happen to be the incident you were talking about? Just curious... behaving myself and not asking about it, but REALLY curious. Love, M From: "peter" To: Subject: Oh no, not her again! Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 12:59 PM Hey! Look what I found!!!

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"Just as a safety valve, try to find someone who is experienced in this work and stay with them. You will need their support when things get to be too much for you. Mental, emotional, and spiritual fatigues are very real in this kind of work. You will need a good support structure in order to cope. Preferably someone who has done this for a while and who can talk you down from the stress this will place in your life. It is only sensible to have this kind of support, if only to swap stories with and to vent to. And one day… you will have to do this duty for another. Probably the one you are going to, for who heals the healer? Why… another healer of course. Blessings Daven"

Sorry, I just had to let you know that I've red a few grimoires and found one you wrote. I'm feeling a lot better... not so pissed off anymore... I've decided that mistakes make us human... like it or not. And if you ever want me to screw up on you,... well, the offer is there! LOL Thanks for being there,

Love,

M

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Crisis over... Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 3:54 PM Hi There! On anger management: Often I try to read inspirational material in order to find perspective. But I like your idea better.

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Yep, in fact I called him repeatedly over it. Week after week it was one excuse after another and I gave up in the end. It turns out, I didn't explain this one very well from what I can see, he was doing the same thing to people that were unscrupulous. And I'm sure what he owed them wasn't a mere $200 bucks. That's who put him on the train tracks. Now, I'm going back over 11 years ago. And that's when I decided not to mess with the universe. I wished him to get what he deserved, and frankly there were bigger and worse out there that gave it to him... Would it have happened otherwise, I don't believe so. I knew by instinct alone that if he was doing this to me, he was doing it to others and basically I sicked them on him in a cosmic sense. A lot of people will tell me it is coincidence, but I Know what part I had in it. I don't feel good about it, but I wont deny it either. I did learn something from this experience today, well the other day really it only materialized today because that's when I got her unsolicited thank you. One) Be SURE of what you are walking into. 2) At least I didn't blast the girl (legs) into oblivion so my self control is still in place. Check! 3) Study!!!! I've neglected my studies because I'm overcomplicating lesson #9. Bad, bad girl. I must learn to stop nit picking right down to the last detail...So expect a much shorter finale for lesson 9. Otherwise I'll never finish..LOL One thing at a time... Interestingly enough, I wrote the girl who referred me to ask her if I'd lost my mind... if so, maybe she'd seen it? And she wrote me back one heck of an apology letter. That I wasn't the first person she'd referred this (legs) to, and that I wasn't the first who reacted in such a fashion. She thought I "could handle this with ease". I told her not to mess with this stuff and I admitted that I was entirely too trusting to walk in blindly like that... MY FAULT. She claims to be a guardian... and I usually don't question other people's beliefs unless it affects me negatively. I'm beginning to wonder just who the student is here. Man, I told everyone I don't know didley, the only thing I didn't do is rent a billboard! Somehow they think that I'm something special... I'm rethinking the membership to WSM... I need to learn, not be praised for stuff I know nothing about. And practicing on people who are starting to idolize me without just cause, is vain and uncaring.... nevermind unfair... Sorry, just thinking out loud. Anyway, I think I'll make myself scarce and keep my opinions to myself for awhile. This just isn't right. They are wonderful people, but I don't want to start trouble. I can always come back to it later if it still suits me. And that kid needs serious help, I'm no psychiatrist! I'll be there if she needs advice, but I wont do that again.... I just now received confirmation that she DOES self mutilate. Crap this hurts me.

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And that thing hasn't passed yet... drat! Oh well, I was hoping! And one last thing... the other two girls don't know what that test was about, I never brought it up to them. I figured it would be important to you. Thanks for the info! Love, M

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 19...assignment Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 6:06 PM LOL shared projections! Well, seeing as how I've been discussing this since the 1st and exploring on my own, I really don't have any new questions. I do like you interpretation of time and the fabric weaving... it makes a lot of sense to me. If you want to throw some of my questions in to the class, go ahead. I'm not offended in any way. As far as teacher is concerned, I have found you to be extremely receptive and accurate on things that I really couldn't adequately explain. I still think I met you in that first battle on the AP... but you never DID comment on that. *wink* As far as past lives go, I remember several of mine... as clear as day, and you are dead on when you mention that we chose to come here. I know I mentioned it in a previous email. The fact you mention that we sometimes chose to repeat certain lessons... well that I'd forgotten about. But you are right again. Awwww! Do I have to read it over again??? LOL Yes, I know you want it reinforced. I can already answer you on the exam question: It doesn't matter to me. I can do the verbal diarhea thing or the true or false, It doesn't make a difference. Which is a better evaluation tool of learnt material? I always found that multiple guess doesn't necessarily give you a correct estimate of learning...thus multiple guess...but it is probably a lot less time consuming to correct. Now, that is probably the shortest assignment response for me so far! LOL

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Again, thanks for being there! M

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 18 Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 7:13 PM Hi Daven, I decided to read them backwards... it makes it more interesting. Especially since I had skipped ahead in November through to 15 & 16. "His ascertation was that the information is out there, all you have to do is to look for it." Edgar Cayce said this? WOW! I'm getting that book! Or was I reading your mind or something? I know I wrote you about this not too long ago. As far as magick goes, I never do any rituals. Actually seeing as how I think I have a problem with controlling it, I don't want to use items that would make it more powerful. Even though I know I should do the grounding thing, I don't. I don't think about it too much in terms of how, I just do it... the energy is there, I can feel it escalate and then I do what I want with it. Sounds too good to be true. eh? (Had to throw in a Canadian thing) Don't think that way, it can literally be a curse as much as a cure. Did i ever mention to you that when I was a kid, I managed to open a window from miles away... I just never wanted anything so badly and bang! it happened! Like they say: Be careful what you wish for. I just got a really funny feeling that something isn't right. So I'm stopping here. I'm not sure what this one is about. But I'll let you know. M

From: "Just Curious"

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To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:01 PM I just sent this to another newsgroup I'm on, then realized people on this list could have some interesting perspectives so I'm posting it here as well. I moved a few months ago, and my new apartment seems to have lots of 'activity' in it. For the most part I ignore it, but my husband hates feeling like there are invisible people or entities around, so I've cleaned it out a couple of times. Last night was especially bizarre (my husband had a dream where a deep, menacing voice was chanting, telling him that hell isn't very bad--it's cold and dark, but quiet and peaceful, and it scared him so much he woke up, only to see me on the bed next to him asleep but hissing and biting the air). The mundane theory would be that I was having a weird dream and he incorporated signals from me into his dream. Another theory would be that we were both sensing and responding to something else in our own ways. So that was bizarre/interesting, but it led to a philosophical discussion between my husband and myself and I wanted to get your take on it. My general belief is that there are levels of energy in this world that aren't physical in the sense that most of us are used to. But that the forces/entities follow general patterns, so if we learn what they are we can use them to our benefit, just as we've learned to manipulate the physical world around us. My husband's theory is that there are forces on other levels that most people don't tap into, but they're controlled/manipulated by entities who are experienced in working on that plane. And humans can learn to use them, but that simply means we're moving into an arena where the other entities will have more power over us. And even if we 'experiment' with things and find they are helpful and feel safe, it could just be "like watching some predator lure its prey in by letting them play with it's tail until they feel safe enough to go into its den." So his take is that it's safest just to block out / ignore everything as completely as possible to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, since any dabbling into that plane can lead to trouble, since the other forces are much stronger than we are, and liable to hurt us if we get too involved... so he knows that things aren't optimal, but feels that more active involvement could only make them worse. I actually think he has some really good points, even though my personal inclination is to continue as is (although I admit I've never spent time getting to know any gods because i don't really know their nature or what that would entail and what the drawbacks would be). So I was wondering what the rest of you think about the nature of things on the other plane and the implications of tapping into it. Given the potential harm of just 'jumping

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in and trying it,' are there any logical perspectives that one could use when considering involvement in the other sphere(s)?

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Thursday, January 10, 2002 10:57 PM Wow. Okay, I'll take a stab at it, but I would like to see Tamia and Blackdove put in their two cents on this as well. Your husband does have some interesting points, but more to the point, what do you believe? See, that's one thing that I want this class to start thinking about is what their personal thoughts are on the planes and the nature of the entities on those planes. It could be that you are cautious, and that's to the good, but more to the point, if reality is dictated by your belief in that reality, then it's what you think that is really important. Did that sound as confusing as I think it did? What I'm trying to say is that if you believe that the entities on the other planes are just messing around and trying to lure you into a trap to hurt you and use you, then that is what you will see. If, however, you believe that you can get some solid experiences out of this, then you will be able to do so as well. It really comes down to your belief and your Will, once again. I see that there are some entities out there that are malevolent, who want to hurt people and use them, and it's one of my self-imposed duties to prevent them wherever I know of their activities. However, I also believe that AP and the other worlds are simply like different sections of our house, one that we can explore to our heart's

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content without ever seeing it all. Mostly things aren't that frightening or scary, but there is the odd scary place that one has to be prepared for. One fallacy that I think is critical in this perceptions is this one: You can't apply logic to something that acts and reacts on emotion and illogic. It makes no sense for a rhinoceros to talk, nor for a fish to fly, but in AP I have seen and talked to both. So getting logical rules of thumb is not an option here. The only rules that apply are the ones you make. But, once again, that's me and your mileage may vary. Daven ----- Original Message ----From: "Just Curious" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 3:00 PM Subject: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes > I just sent this to another newsgroup I'm on, then realized people on this > list could have some interesting perspectives so I'm posting it here as > well. > > I moved a few months ago, and my new apartment seems to have lots of > 'activity' in it. For the most part I ignore it, but my husband hates > feeling like there are invisible people or entities around, so I've cleaned > it out a couple of times. Last night was especially bizarre (my husband had > a dream where a deep, menacing voice was chanting, telling him that hell > isn't very bad--it's cold and dark, but quiet and peaceful, and it scared > him so much he woke up, only to see me on the bed next to him asleep but > hissing and biting the air). The mundane theory would be that I was having a > weird dream and he incorporated signals from me into his dream. Another > theory would be that we were both sensing and responding to something else > in our own ways. > > So that was bizarre/interesting, but it led to a philosophical discussion > between my husband and myself and I wanted to get your take on it. My > general belief is that there are levels of energy in this world that aren't > physical in the sense that most of us are used to. But that the > forces/entities follow general patterns, so if we learn what they are we can > use them to our benefit, just as we've learned to manipulate the physical

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> world around us. My husband's theory is that there are forces on other > levels that most people don't tap into, but they're controlled/manipulated > by entities who are experienced in working on that plane. And humans can > learn to use them, but that simply means we're moving into an arena where > the other entities will have more power over us. And even if we 'experiment' > with things and find they are helpful and feel safe, it could just be "like > watching some predator lure its prey in by letting them play with it's tail > until they feel safe enough to go into its den." So his take is that it's > safest just to block out / ignore everything as completely as possible to > avoid drawing attention to ourselves, since any dabbling into that plane can > lead to trouble, since the other forces are much stronger than we are, and > liable to hurt us if we get too involved... so he knows that things aren't > optimal, but feels that more active involvement could only make them worse. > > I actually think he has some really good points, even though my personal > inclination is to continue as is (although I admit I've never spent time > getting to know any gods because i don't really know their nature or what > that would entail and what the drawbacks would be). So I was wondering what > the rest of you think about the nature of things on the other plane and the > implications of tapping into it. Given the potential harm of just 'jumping > in and trying it,' are there any logical perspectives that one could use > when considering involvement in the other sphere(s)? > > > >

From: "Daven" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Oops Date: Thursday, January 10, 2002 11:00 PM I realized after I sent my last post that I didn't answer the question that had been posted about people and the tapestry. Hmmm, I'll have to dig that post out and refresh my memory and post the response later. sorry about that. Must be getting old. Daven

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From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Friday, January 11, 2002 1:47 PM >Your husband does have some interesting points, but more to the point, what >do you >believe? Heh. I believe that there are dangerous entities out there, but that overall it's better to learn the rules--the risk is worth the potential learning. But (fortunately, I suppose) my husband won't pick up that point of view simply because I happen to believe it (just like I won't believe things simply because he does). So I'm curious to see if other people have perspectives or insights that I could share with him. Fortunately, he's open to reason and logic--I just have to find or think of the compelling arguments to make my point. Actually, I think he makes his life more difficult by firmly believing that entities exist, that they will persecute him, and that the best he can do is try super-hard to not get involved in any way... almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. But telling someone "you're making your life more difficult than it needs to be" is hardly ever enough to help them actually adopt a new perspective, since in this intangible arena 'proof' is difficult to come by if one believes that acquiring such proof might put their life at risk. So we stick to logic and opinion and being respectful. >then it's what you think that is >really important. Yup. Which means that his astral plane might truly be incredibly dangerous unless he starts believing otherwise before going there. >It really comes down to your Will, once again. Heh. And his current assumption is that people like to believe they have more control over the world than they actually do, to make it less scary. (I actually agree with him on that point--he's a PhD in psychology, BTW), but my perspective is that we still have *influence* on the world around us, whether or not our control is as absolute as some people would like to think.

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>One fallacy that I think is critical in this perceptions is this one: You >can't apply >logic to something that acts and reacts on emotion and illogic. I agree. Although here we're basic an argument around a premise (that the other planes react to emotion and illogic) that is not accepted as a given by both parties :) >But, once again, that's me and your mileage may vary. I really like that "your mileage may vary" part of your sig. Thanks for the thoughts!

From: "peter" To: Subject: Thank You Date: Saturday, January 12, 2002 9:29 AM Dear Daven, Thank you. A dear friend of mine passed away unexpectedly Thursday night. Sharon was probably one of my best friends, although I never met her. We had met in 1998 on a Fibromyalgia Christian chat board, although neither of us ever got into the Bible thumping the other girls did, the relationship stayed and we corresponded long after (her last email was this week) I left the board 18 months ago. I just couldn't put up with the BS on the board any longer. So I left quietly. Anyway, Sharon was the first person I spoke to about Wicca, with a deep seeded fear that she would reject my friendship. When she wrote back that her daughter was Wiccan and pretty much laughed at me for worrying so much, I could have kissed her I was so happy. She is a wonderful person and I love her very much. Anyway, Peter pretty much repeated what you'd said about relationships and connecting with people... I just thought I should mention that the email you sent me about (Dyna) the Cat helped me deal with this information a lot better than I might have otherwise. This event has reminded me that all it takes is a few minutes to tell someone that they bring so much richness into your life. Which thankfully I already had told

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Sharon and replied to her email this week. (well, something told me I would feel guilty if I didn't reply to her joke, but I didn't think anything more than that... I guess the picture legacy crosses over onto the computer?) Thank you so much for being there, and thank you for being a friend. And Thank You for everything. All my love to you and Mary & the little one. Michelle

From: "taimaloudthunder" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Monday, January 14, 2002 2:15 PM >Wow. Okay, I´ll take a stab at it, but I would like to see Tamia and >Blackdove put in their two cents on this as well. The thought that I had on this dream, and your reaction is that it might have been caused by a shared dream between your husband and you. When looking at dreams one can look at them on several different levels the physical, astral, intuitive, psychological, spiritual, mystical, mythological, symbolic and so on. Often our own dreams can reveal several different complex layers of consciousness. This dream could have been caused or influenced by the activity around your apartment, especially if neither of you have noticed such activity prior to moving to the apartment. You did not say what way you used to cleanse the apartment. There are ways to protect one´s surroundings, from undesirable entities. You might find a trusted person, who is very experienced in working with spirits, to communicate with them and guide the entities to another plane. Yet if for some reason the entities are strongly bound to the place by deep emotional ties it may take some effort to get them to move on. Information on shielding can be very useful. I am sorry to read that your husband feels the astral can be a harmful place filled with menacing spirits. While in several cases this might be true one need not overlook the other side. When we

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start to rationalize in terms of absolutes, the truth suffers. The astral similar to most things can prove to be either a negative or positive experience. This is the main reason why I occasionally compare it to driving a car. For we sure don´t go through life driving around while thinking about all of the accidents that might await us due to the many hazards beyond our control. A dog could run into our path, a deer could bound across the road, a tree limb could fall, the other drivers could cause an accident, a child could run in front of our vehicle, the brakes could fail, and so on. If we did think of the many things that could go wrong while driving...then what? It would become a nerve-wracking experience in which we would tend to draw negative things to us, as this is exactly what we would be looking for and expecting. Sure it is a fine thing to be concerned about safety. However one need not allow it to overshadow their enjoyment of life, or the astral. It is my view that astral travel is a very normal, and natural state that we explore through dreamtime. We are spirit beings having a physical experience. While the physical body is mortal, our spirit is eternal. Some people will not consciously travel the astral without first seeking protection from their spirit guides, Creator, higher self, or using a shield. Yet it is for everyone to decide what is required, and how safe they feel with astral travel. For many people astral travel can be a very healing, and influential experience that expands their perceptions. For the most part, my astral travels are filled with benevolent beings, or those who are nutrual. Still I do like to say a prayer for protection. My philosophical viewpoints on this subject have been influenced by reading about mystical topics, reading about the views held by a variety of cultures, hearing about other peoples experiences, as well as my own experiences. To me astral travel is one of the most inspiring adventures one can undertake, as it can enhance one's psychic abilities! In order to appreciate the possibilities of exploring mystical topics one might read about other peoples adventures, and thoughts on the subject. There are several on-line pages that a person can read. Some I generally recommend are: the mystical: are http://www.tadma.net/psychic/psybook/book.html And http://www.tanega.com/astral/astral.html Both of these consider a person´s approach to mystical topics. It could be that your husband is just not ready to explore such topics. Again it is up to each individual to decide. We should respect a person´s right to free will. As with most things how one feels about the astral, or the metaphysical can also vary as a result of cultural ideas. To study

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about other cultural perceptions is also interesting. Our universe has held mystery regardless of how scientifically, or technologically advanced we become. This Mystery is what tends to make our lives a magnificent, and motivating journey. You could enjoy reading Carl Jung´s writings, if you have not already done so. Anyway your question is a great one, and I am sure one that others often consider. Taima >So I was wondering what the rest of you think about the nature of >things on the other plane and the implications of tapping into it. >Given the potential harm of just `jumping in and trying it,´ are >there any logical perspectives that one could use when considering >involvement in the other sphere(s)?

From: "taimaloudthunder" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 19 assignment Date: Monday, January 14, 2002 2:19 PM Daven, your thoughts about how the astral can expand one´s perspectives as being similar to a tapestry viewed both near, and at a distance is really very lovely! I enjoyed reading about it. A. At this moment I have no questions, yet there might be some later on. B. The one year term of each class does seem rather lengthy. Still I am glad that we are given two weeks per assignment, since it allows us some leeway, and time for thought on each assignment. I have taken a few other on-line courses, and am thankful for the various perspectives that are always a part of them. Often one can gain added insight from the questions, views of their classmates, as well as that of the teacher. Daven has been a fine teacher. He has presented the assignments in a timely manner. He has given examples, and answered questions. It can add greater depth to a topic when both published data along with a few personal experiences are presented, just as they have been in our class.

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C. We have covered the topic fairly well. We could cover the suggestions of the other students. As I am eager to learn from their suggestions. To think about: Tell me what kind of exam you want: A varied test with of questions of each type would be preferred. Taima

From: "bella donna" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Thursday, January 17, 2002 2:33 AM i actually have very little experience dealing with astral entities and things i can't see. a sort of similar thing happened to me when i was about eleven or twelve. i would be in my room and get this awful feeling that someone was watching me. i could feel it's eyes. it was only at night though. my skin would get itchy and i'd get really panicky, but if i left my room, i'd be perfectly fine and normal, but the second i would go back into my room, it would start all over again. i couldn't make myself open the shades because i was terrified of what i might see. i almost think it couldn't see through the blinds, but it knew i was there, it could sense me, but not see me. i had no idea what it was, but it scared me to death. eventually it went away, and i forgot about it. i don't actually think that astral dabbling can bring anything evil down on you. i was raised a jehovah's witness and heard all the stories about people dabbling in the occult and all the evil things that happened to them, when i was about 13 i started breaking away and praying to other various gods, egyptian, greek, etc, and trying to deal with demons, but nothing ever happened.i thought the demons would be happy to have someone try and contact them and be on their side willingly, and would surely come, but they never did. i tried dabbling, to get strange things to happen to me,but nothing ever happened. i don't believe that just because you believe all these astral things are evil that the moment you try any "experiments" all hell will break loose and they'll all come after you. there are evil things out there, like whatever was outside my room, but those are the exception and not the rule. that's my little two cents worth for now.

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blackdove01

-----------------------------------------------------------Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once. -- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 6:32 PM Just thinking/writing out loud as I track what you're saying... >I believe (and have checked this through those who have died and I spoke to >after ALL their incarnations died as well) that once we are dead that all >the lives recombine into one. So we actually live many lives simultaneously, and all of them "count" to a certain degree. >As you know, the spirit and soul is what leaves the physical body upon >death. The soul recombines into one soul, rather than staying in >100,000,000,000,000,000 pieces. But the Spirit does stay in as many pieces >as were left when all the bodies died. Ah. The distinction between Spirit and Soul is new for me, but I've seen it in a few places recently. And it sounds like you view the separation along the lines of Soul = central, organizing identity, and Spirit = chunk of individual experience, with both having access to the other. >Here's what I think happens next. All those spirits are put into a "data >bank" that the soul can access at any point, with each spirit being >separate >and unique. I liken it to having a hard drive and putting >100,000,000,000,000,000 one kilobyte files on that drive. Pretty quickly it >fills up and you keep putting more files in to that drive. Nice analogy. But it implies that the Soul must do a LOT of sorting and reading to discover its key attributes, and it strikes me that the Soul might be able to distill simply the primary learnings or units of meaning,

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rather than garnering reams upon reams of unsorted data. So presumably (and this fits with your note below), eventually it assembles the key items and discards or at least archives the other data. And perhaps it does this when all the might-have-beens from a particular go-around have died. >Each file is >unique, even though they may look the same. However, I can access those >files at any time I need to. It's just a matter of finding the right file. So we have full access to all of the lives we've lived simultaneously. Or perhaps this is better stated as 'we have full access to our might-have-beens.' Makes sense. >After a while, I decide to index those files. In that indexing, I find >that >44% of those files have the line "Was born in California". 22% of those >files have "was male" 77% of those files say "married with one child" and >so >on. The point here is that the majority of the "lifetimes" led by those >versions of me have a child, a majority of them are female and a majority >of >those lifetimes were started in someplace other than California. Fascinating. So a portion (or portions) of each life ends up being the "real" one. This would certainly uphold something you've stated before--that all might-have-beens are equally valid, and no single life (or single expression of your Soul's identity) is worth more than any other. Even when it's all said and done, it doesn't turn out that one life was the "real" one, or one life counted more than any other... Sort of like when scientists ask "is light a wave or a particle?" and the answer is simply "yes" because apparently it's both. We could ask if our life was A or if our life was B, and the answer may simply be "yes." You can demonstrate that both aspects were true, even when they're apparently mutually contradictory. >It's that average which determines which lifetime "wins" as the predominent >lifetime. When accessing past lives, you get the lifetime that has ALL >those majority components and that is what is examined. It is possible to >examine some of the unlikely lifetimes, where something really odd >happened, >but the majority lifetime (henseforth called the default) is what is >normally looked at. Hmmm. On one hand that makes sense, but on the other hand I have to wonder if the answer "it's an average of them all, and the majority wins" isn't just a little bit too easy.

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>That default life is also the one that determines if you learned the >necessary lessons that you chose for yourself. Think about it, if you have >50.1% of the lifetimes that you led learning to be patient, that is a >majority of sorts. You can choose to learn that lesson again if you want >until that percentage is somewhere around 75 or so, but that's enough. >That >lesson has affected the soul to the degree that it does not need to learn >that lesson again, because in those 100,000,000,000,000,000 lifetimes, >50.1% >of the soul you now have from all of them rejoining know how to be patient. Hah! You seem to be saying that the Soul works like the subconscious mind seems to--it's full of many contradictory statements, and whichever one comes across the loudest, "wins" and makes it into our conscious mind... which is why humans are so notorious about changing our minds and our feelings... two or three minor things in our environment can shift, causing the "majority wins" balance to shift from one side to another, so someone we hated we now love, and vice versa. I wonder if the Soul is really that transitory. And if it's not that random (e.g. if it eventually "locks down" into one position or another), whether that is really a good thing or a sign of stagnation. >Understand? Only enough to wonder about even more things. But that's good, I suppose :) Thanks for taking the time to explain.

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Lesson 19 Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 7:13 PM Random thoughts (then I'll get to the assignment email)... >Which brought up the question of how those lifetimes are rejoined once they >are dead. Whether or not it's all at once, or one at a time as bodies die >from might-have-beens. > >To which I say, pick one.

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Hmmmm. Do you mean pick the lifetime that was the most representative? Or pick out the portions that most renditions of your life shared? >So, no matter how you look at it, they DO rejoin, there IS a period of >contemplation, and there is a decision to come back to a physical plane to >life another life or to stay on the Astral plane and guide others. Tibetan Book of the Dead says this is why it's important to learn to be comfortable navigating in the Astral Plane (although it doesn't call it the Astral Plane)--because the period of contemplation happens, but if you're weirded out and have no idea what's happening, you'll be less able to control what happens next or where you go next. But if you're familiar with how the plane works, you'll be able to nudge things in the direction you'd prefer. >One of the things that needs to be thrown out rather quickly, is the belief >in a time/space. Once you die, there is no more time nor is there space. Or perhaps time/space do exist, but are irrelevant. Or serve as "bookmarks" rather than absolute governing principles. ... maybe rephrased more poetically but less understandably as "they're the bookmarks, not the book"?? >Some choose to move through the worlds and retain knowledge of their >previous existance and retain knowledge of the overall tapestry. Apparently, many enlightened Tibetans chose to be reincarnated into Tibet. And were able as children to answer questions that only their former reincarnation would have been able to answer. And not only did this happen, but it became so commonplace that it was not a big deal unless a person were on their 7th or so reincarnation. >Some choose to only know the little thread they are on and forget >everything else. And presumably, some don't have the wherewithall to be able to remember. >Here, on this planet in this physical form, we have forgotten that tapestry >and know only this existance. Not to mention that parents and other people strongly encourage us to ignore anything else. (And social skills also require it.) >Is it possible for two people to share one projection? Is it possible for >two people to be witness to the same accident? Yes, it is possible, but >once again your own perceptions will come into play and change it somewhat.

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Fair enough. One of my favorite things to do (although not with AP'ing since I'm sadly deficient in that area... tangent: I downloaded bwgen software and played the Monroe lab's brainwave patterns for an OOBE, and felt like my legs/torso started floating out of my body, but couldn't leave because I had been bound/tied to my own body at my wrists, head, and chest. and assume the bonds were real, but couldn't help wondering where they came from, e.g. a benevolent force, myself in a previous lifetime, something malevolent, or something that wanted me to "stay put" by default until I made a very conscious choice to do otherwise...) anyway, one of my favorite things to do is "connect" with someone in a non-AP level, but remotely, and then compare experiences. Usually the language is rather different but you can notice and identify the same types of things. Very cool. And very validating :) >And that is my collective wisdom on this subject. ;-) Heh. I like that statement :) >Shields and Wards (Previously published on an email group called Astral >and Beyond) >One of the first things that needs to be assumed when dealing with these >protections is that they are real. If you assume that they are simply a >projection of your immagination, you may as well stop now. Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not. "Imagination" is an amazing thing and far more powerful than generally assumed. Like doctors tend to treat the placebo effect as if it's bogus, but the truth is it's simply amazing--60% effectiveness with zero side effects! It doesn't mean that people "imagine" either diseases or cures. It means that our brain can do a hell of a lot more than we like to give it credit for, but we haven't figured out how to get it to do what we'd like it to on a reliable basis. So who cares if wands and shields are simply your imagination? Your brain is a powerful thing, and imagination makes many things possible. In fact, imagining things has been shown to alter your body's energy patterns. And experiments have shown that things grow into their energy signature--e.g. when a seed sprouts, its energy field resembles that of a grown tree. And scientists only clue about how a human zygote knows *which* cells to turn into livers vs. bones vs. skin vs. brain has to do with the electrical orientation of the stem cells.... an electrical field that humans can change by using their unjustly-disparaged imagination. So imagination isn't just fantasy... it's a (perhaps not as reliable as we'd like) way to get your brain to start doing its thing on the level that scientists and doctors and most other humans don't yet understand. >However, when dealing with the Astral World, one must assume that because

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>you are able to interact with that world, that there are things that need >to be protected against. Some of them are nuicences, some are curious, and >some are truly dangerous. Also you must keep in mind that just as you can >protect an area for yourself, so can others. So, if you encounter a wall >on the Astral Plane that you cannot get past, leave it alone. My guess is that in some cases, the wall is a symbol put up by our own brains--a way of them recognizing something as a "stay away" zone, and giving our conscious minds a symbol that it can interpret. >First is the preparation; getting yourself into a meditative or ecstatic >mindset in which your consiousness is altered enough to allow you to see on >the Astral Plane without leaving your body. Heh. That's the only part of this whole thing that I *can* do :) >Second is the visualization of what you want to do. Thrid is usually the >actual construction of the protections (generally with the medium of a >god-like being helping or doing it themselves). *sigh* Any advice on picking a god or higher power? This seems like really tricky territory, especially since it's as easy (or easier?) to lie on the other plane than it is on this one. How does one decide who to trust? >This is where you decide just what you need. Do you shield yourself or >Ward the House you are in? A shield is mobile and will travel with you, >and consequently is easier to construct, but a Ward will protect anyone in >the home with you. However, to counteract that advantage, anyone on the >inside of the wards will be able to invite other beings across. Hmmm. Interesting. >Understand, a Shield or Ward acts exactly like a force field on the Astral >Plane. It will repel and prevent things on the Astral Plane from crossing >it's boundaries so long as it is in existance. In addition, anything that >exists on the Astral plane inside those protections will be unable to cross >those protections to get out, so it could be effective in trapping a spirit >that you wish to be contained. I wonder about the potential for mistakenly trapping a malevolent entity *inside* your ward, e.g. if you set it up after a less-than-completely-thorough purging. >Generally, the mental visualization that many use is a sphere or egg of >light, surrounding and encasing whatever it is they want to protect. That >sphere is sometimes shrunk down to the surface of whatever is being

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>protected, but not always. In this case, your aura is almost exactly like >a shield, the only difference being that the aura itself is completely >unconsious protection, and a shield is under consious control. Hmmm. Is the aura only a protection? >Most shields and Wards are created entirely with the visualization of the >mind. Yup. And visualizing it is precisely what is required to get our mind to create it. > Most times, the caster creates the structure of the protection in his >imagination, feeds energy into it from themselves, Or feeds in energy not from ourselves, but drawn in from the ground and the air and any other sources willing/worthy of drawing from. Much less draining that way. >As the sphere continues to exapnd, the walls get thinner and everything >that is negative in my is driven out in front of those expanding walls of >light. I'm told that layered shields are more powerful than others. So having several of these, each designed to protect something different, could be interesting to try. >Eventually, I finish expanding it around me. Now I'm in the center of that >sphere of light, with it surrounding me I love that visual, btw >and taking it's energy directly from me and my lifeforce. I wonder what the pros and cons are of having it draw directly from your lifeforce rather than, say, the magic in the ocean or other parts of mother nature. > Usually at this point, I shrink the sphere down so that it is right next >to my skin, once again surrounding me and continuing to glow brightly. I >dim the intensity of the glow down so that it is not so bright, and thin >the walls of that shield until I can sense the things I need to outside of >the shield. I'm also told that mirrored sheilds are particularly effective, or ones that distort the light so people see around you without even noticing their attention has been deflected. >The process is simmilar for a Ward, and my first ones were exactly the

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>same, save that I kept expanding the shield until it surrounded my house, >then shrunk it down to the walls of the house I was in, and then I hooked >the electrical power in the walls into the shields so that the ward would >be powered by the electricity itself, rather than from me. lol! excellent idea! I hadn't thought of plain ol' electromagnetic energy (although the Handbook of Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber has some incredible ideas about magneto-electric energy). Ummm. But what happens when there's a power surge? Does your warding system falter, or is there some kind of backup generator? >1) These do not necessarily get rid of something that is already there, it >will only protect from new outside influences Ah. That answers my question earlier. >4) These need power continuously. Most commonly a shield is directly >linked into the spine ouch!!! (gut reaction. sorry.) >5) As the creator of them, YOU will know if someone breaches them without >concent, but you will have to figure out what that "feels" like. Hmmm. But once a person gets in, they've left their "signature" behind, so you can track it back to the source. Assuming you feel so inclined. And then you get to figure out what, if anything, you feel like doing in response (ignoring them, sending mean energy, deciding to block them, or just saying "hi, who are you?"). >Your Angels, Guardians, Guides, Teachers, what-have-you will not >cross this barrier unless you tell them it's okay for them to be present. Can you say more about these? I've had lots of 'people' around me my entire life. And most seem like well-wishers, like the adults who know your parents at a social event when you're a kid. But I don't know what my relationship to them is or could be or should be. Maybe they're the ones who tied my spirit to my body so I don't go floating off? Except for dreams... and lately 3 out of 5 Vivid dreams I've had have come true... makes you wonder....

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From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Lesson 19 assignment Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 7:53 PM >A) Any questions or points of clarification you may need. I'll compile >them into one document for lessons 21 and 22. See previous email :) >B) An evaluation of this class. It took me a long time to start feeling like this class had teeth, or like it might have any credibility other than that which was tied 100% to the teacher whom I didn't happen to know. I wonder if there's a way to introduce credibility or a theoretical base for this stuff--to the extent that it's possible, and with the caveat that it can't be explained/proven completely--earlier on. I also wonder if it could start with exercises for "feeling energy" or sensitizing the hands like other things do... they say "try step A, then B, then C" just to get the students to feel things, to help them start believing in the other plane, until the point in the class where it's appropriate for them to actually try to go there. Or maybe start with the "remember your dreams because that's exactly how the Astral Plane is" thing even earlier on. I think that, especially since this class lasts for a year, it could be helpful for people to feel some kind of reward earlier on, so they don't drop out early like many of us did (although I personally ended up coming back). (BTW, these are unrelated to AP per se, but I've been reading a lot and both Energy Medicine by Donna Eden and Miracles Through Pranic Healing by Choa Kok Sui have some fascinating things that seem legit. And they start off by saying "don't take my word for it. Try A and B and C, and see what you feel." Perhaps that kind of an approach for something on 'the other plane,' could be nice as a first step before a full-body journey onto the other plane) Speaking of which, I'd love it if the other students here could share in their own words what it feels like to leave the body and go onto the other plane, focusing specifically on the _transition_ from here to there. I'm curious how it's similar/different from what's described in the books. Ditto on whether once you get there it feels like imagination (which I have down pat) or whether it's more like a dream and you *really* seem to see and hear the things you experience. Otherwise, on the class evaluation. I think it would have been nice if a same-time-for-everyone chat room could have been set up, despite the logistics involved. It's probably worth finding out how that has worked in the other classes, since it seems like it could be valuable. The

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same-day-newsroom thing we tried didn't seem much more helpful than email. And what about an email list for class graduates? Is there one of those? That could be a useful resource, too (well, it has the potential, although it could go either way). >Include in there an evaluation of me as an instructor I really appreciated that you responded to our individual assignments--it helped me feel more connection in a class that is otherwise rather disembodied.... made it feel more like being in a class than reading a book, so that was nice. I also appreciated your personal experiences, but especially liked it when you would say "but other people have had this other experience instead." By having the guts to say where you're with and where you're against mainstream, it not only taught us the two positions, but let us know that you're comfortable enough to not need to hide things or only show one side. I loved it when you referred to external sources, but I think it would be helpful if you did that more often when possible, just so we don't have to rely 100% on your strength as an instructor, since your humanity means you won't be right _all_ the time, and we'd hate to throw out all your good ideas if you ever present an idea that happens to be flawed. So a healthy balance of "here's what other people say" (just quotes or references, not 200-page assignments) along with "here's what I think" would be valuable. (Although I was grateful for the 200-page references and printed some of them out as well.) And it would be helpful in letting us feel like we know you and can trust you before the really out-there theories start coming up. Hmmm. But a few out-there theories early on might be OK so people don't assume you're gettting progressively weirder, either :) >C) Anything else that I have not covered in previous lessons that you >thinks needs to be covered in this class that you may have heard about from >other sources. I have a mind like a steel trap when it comes to >metaphysics, K, you've gotta read the appendix (about 5 pages) in the Handbook of Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber and tell me what you think of his theory (combines Einstein's equation, the irrelevance of space/time, and how things can operate over time and space). The scientific crux of his theory is conveniently summarized in the appendix, so you might just be able to find this book in a local bookstore and flip through it--I had a geeky friend of mine look at in in a Borders store so he could tell me if it seemed bogus, and his initial review was positive. (BTW the rest of the book is pretty amazing as well, at least as far as giving the strongest scientific basis you could hope for, for a wide wide wide range of "vibrational medicine," to use his term. He even talked about Atlantis in a way that at least made me wonder--something no one had ever done before. Gives all the weird (and possibly real?) theories a really solid shot at credibility). Heh. I should post this as a review on Amazon :)

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>To think about: Tell me what kind of exam you want: Ummmm. I've gotta ask why this would matter at all. I know it's a pass/fail class, but so what if we fail? Not like it will go on our permanent record :) So maybe there's something you can do that will let us see just how much we have or haven't learned from the class. Or something that will benefit us over time. Like a final exam to meet you on the Astral Plane. Granted, I'd fail, but it could be really cool to try. Or we could write our own personal theory on XYZ, with the benefit(?) that it would be posted on a site somewhere, e.g. as "what graduates of the class have felt" and we could write our own theories on what the Astral Plane or OOBEs are all about. Or have it be a two-parter where 1) we write what we think, and 2) have everyone give everyone else feedback, so not only do we integrate our ideas into something, but we get challenged or supported and are given different perspectives to help us in our continued quest of learning even after the class ends. And then maybe get a reward by being allowed or added onto a list of XYZ where information is shared over time or something. Or just rewarded with the knowledge itself, which I think is what this class is about. But perhaps other people really do learn a lot in studying for final exams--I could be an outlier. >although I will be bringing down the lesson site when we actually have it. Ah. I didn't realize it was up again. And so it goes :)

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] blackdove01 Lesson 19 assignment Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 7:57 PM >A)ok. new question. so if all time is now, and all "past" lives are also >now, if once you die you decide to come back to earth again for a new life, >it would also be now, is it possible to have you living in several >different >incarnations at the same time and is there a possibility of these several >different incarnations meeting somehow? Very cool question!! >B) i still would like it to go a bit faster me too--maybe by breaking the lessons into smaller chunks? so we'd still have enough time to do our assignments, but each assignment wouldn't require as much time all at once. (just a thought)

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>i >also feel much more prepared now when i do project instead of just blindly >wandering around like a fool poking at everything i meet. :)

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Re: philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 8:20 PM Thanks for your replies to my question :) >From: "taimaloudthunder" >Reply-To: [email protected] > >The thought that I had on this dream, and your reaction is that it >might have been caused by a shared dream between your husband and >you. When looking at dreams one can look at them on several >different levels the physical, astral, intuitive, psychological, >spiritual, mystical, mythological, symbolic and so on. Often our own >dreams can reveal several different complex layers of consciousness. Makes sense. Good point. >This dream could have been caused or influenced by the activity >around your apartment, especially if neither of you have noticed such >activity prior to moving to the apartment. We did, but not this often and it was only rarely malicious. >You did not say what way >you used to cleanse the apartment. Just visualization, similar to what Daven described in his article on Warding. Of course, both times I tried doing it and got a "nope, sorry" impression from the universe, so I reworded what I was focusing on to something temporary. Not sure if that makes any sense... sort of like whatever guiding force I follow was telling me not to go about it the way I

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intended. So eventually I'll need to really buckle down and figure out how to make the stuff go away for longer. >There are ways to protect >one´s >surroundings, from undesirable entities. You might find a trusted >person, who is very experienced in working with spirits, to >communicate with them and guide the entities to another plane. That's a good idea. I don't know anyone in my normal life, but there are one or two people in newsgroups who might help. >Yet >if for some reason the entities are strongly bound to the place by >deep emotional ties it may take some effort to get them to move on. >Information on shielding can be very useful. Good point. >I am sorry to read that your husband feels the astral can be a >harmful place filled with menacing spirits. While in several cases >this might be true one need not overlook the other side. When we >start to rationalize in terms of absolutes, the truth suffers. Yup. Seems like a classic case of Black And White thinking to me. Probably from his religious upbringing :-/ >It would become a nerve-wracking experience in which we would >tend to draw negative things to us, as this is exactly what we would >be looking for and expecting. Yup. Hopefully I can wean him off this idea eventually, for that precise reason. >In order to appreciate the possibilities of exploring mystical topics >one might read about other peoples adventures, and thoughts on the >subject. There are several on-line pages that a person can read. >Some I generally recommend are: the mystical: are >http://www.tadma.net/psychic/psybook/book.html And >http://www.tanega.com/astral/astral.html Thanks for the URLs! > It could be that your husband >is just not ready to explore such topics. Good point. >Again it is up to each >individual to decide. We should respect a person´s right to free

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>will. Thanks. >Our universe has held mystery regardless of how scientifically, or >technologically advanced we become. This Mystery is what tends to >make our lives a magnificent, and motivating journey. You could >enjoy reading Carl Jung´s writings, if you have not already done >so. Hmmm. I tend to enjoy reading things written about him or written by his disciples more than things he wrote directly. But he does have some interesting points. >Anyway your question is a great one, and I am sure one that others >often consider. > > >Taima Thanks again for your response. I appreciate it.

From: "Just Curious" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] philosophical question on working with other planes Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 8:31 PM >a sort of similar thing happened to me when i was about >eleven or twelve. i would be in my room and get this awful feeling that >someone was watching me. i could feel it's eyes. it was only at night >though. my skin would get itchy and i'd get really panicky, but if i left >my >room, i'd be perfectly fine and normal, but the second i would go back into >my room, it would start all over again. creepy >eventually it went away, and i forgot about it. interesting. I wonder why it went away. >when i was about 13 i >started breaking away and praying to other various gods, egyptian, greek, >etc, and trying to deal with demons, but nothing ever happened.i thought >the >demons would be happy to have someone try and contact them and be on their

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>side willingly, lol >and would surely come, but they never did. i tried dabbling, >to get strange things to happen to me,but nothing ever happened. hmmm. interesting >i don't >believe that just because you believe all these astral things are evil that >the moment you try any "experiments" all hell will break loose and they'll >all come after you. makes sense. and I guess your own experience is proof of that. >there are evil things out there, like whatever was >outside my room, but those are the exception and not the rule. that's my >little two cents worth for now. cool. thanks.

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Assignment 16 Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 10:04 AM > Ah. The distinction between Spirit and Soul is new for me, but I've seen it > in a few places recently. And it sounds like you view the separation along > the lines of Soul = central, organizing identity, and Spirit = chunk of > individual experience, with both having access to the other. Correct. If I were talking about the mental identities I would say that the Soul=Subconsious and the Spirit=Superconsious. The soul is always there and influencing us, it is the collection of a LOT more than we know, it has too many functions to list. The Superconsious is there and is reasoning and logical based on input from this lifetime. Reasoned decisions have nothing to do with the overall picture of the universe, but they do have everything to do with our own experiences and comfort. > Nice analogy. But it implies that the Soul must do a LOT of sorting and > reading to discover its key attributes, and it strikes me that the Soul > might be able to distill simply the primary learnings or units of meaning,

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> rather than garnering reams upon reams of unsorted data. So presumably (and > this fits with your note below), eventually it assembles the key items and > discards or at least archives the other data. And perhaps it does this when > all the might-have-beens from a particular go-around have died. Thank you and pretty much. There is a sorting process that happens, but the Soul already has the program to do it and it has all the time necessary to do this as well. It is my thought that as an incarnation dies and the soul/spirit goes to wherever, it is integrated to the overall being at once and the sorting is done then, rather than once all the incarnations have died. But that is also assuming a time/space linear existance for some period of time after the soul discarnates. > So we have full access to all of the lives we've lived simultaneously. Or > perhaps this is better stated as 'we have full access to our > might-have-beens.' Makes sense. Yes. I have actually looked at some of the more unlikely might have beens in some of the past lives. It's interesting to see the differences. It's like looking at a might have been from this life. > Fascinating. So a portion (or portions) of each life ends up being the > "real" one. This would certainly uphold something you've stated before--that > all might-have-beens are equally valid, and no single life (or single > expression of your Soul's identity) is worth more than any other. Even when > it's all said and done, it doesn't turn out that one life was the "real" > one, or one life counted more than any other... Yes, the only caveat here is if you were looking at a past life in a hypnotic session (for instance) and wanted to see it completely, your Soul (subconsious) would provide a lifetime's memories out of that databank that most closely matched the "concensus lifetime" from that period of incarnation. Instead of showing a life that had skips and jumps where the scenes didn't quite mesh up correctly, the life that would be shown would have all the elements in it that made up the general overall existance. Gods, that sounds confusing.... > Hmmm. On one hand that makes sense, but on the other hand I have to wonder > if the answer "it's an average of them all, and the majority wins" isn't > just a little bit too easy.

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Occam's razor. Personally I like easy, and the majority rules is a rule that is constant in my experiences, from the Will, to magick to this reality and so on. > Hah! You seem to be saying that the Soul works like the subconscious mind > seems to--it's full of many contradictory statements, and whichever one > comes across the loudest, "wins" and makes it into our conscious mind... > which is why humans are so notorious about changing our minds and our > feelings... two or three minor things in our environment can shift, causing > the "majority wins" balance to shift from one side to another, so someone we > hated we now love, and vice versa. I wonder if the Soul is really that > transitory. And if it's not that random (e.g. if it eventually "locks down" > into one position or another), whether that is really a good thing or a sign > of stagnation. In many cases yes, this is exactly what I think happens. However, while the information is there, it does not necessarily make it to our consious mind. It makes it to the "antechamber" between our deep subconsious and our consious mind so that we are being influenced by these thoughts or strings of thoughts without our being necessarily cognizant of it. The soul can be that transitory, when the percentage is low or borderline. In issues where there is a clear majority (75% or so) then it does get stubborn and lock down a position. Besides, your consious thought process negates a lot of that wishy-washiness. YOU decide that THIS is the proper thing to do, rather than your subconsious mind. That's the critical difference. Good going. Daven

From: "Daven" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Lesson 19 Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 10:44 AM

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> Hmmmm. Do you mean pick the lifetime that was the most representative? Or > pick out the portions that most renditions of your life shared? No, pick a theory that makes you comfortable. Both are equally valid and correct, it's a question of comfort. > ... maybe rephrased more poetically but less understandably as "they're the > bookmarks, not the book"?? Yep, that is the gist of it, and a good ascended master's quote. Kind of like "don't try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead believe that there is no spoon and bend yourself." If you know what they are talking about, it's rather obvious, but if you have no clue, it's incomprehensable gibber. > >Some choose to only know the little thread they are on and forget > >everything else. > And presumably, some don't have the wherewithall to be able to remember. We all forget, and that is for our own protection. Immagine how it would be on this world if EVERYONE knew all about the Tapestry and knew how to manipulate it. Talk about anarchy.... So we voulenteer to have amnesia for a while so that the only actions/reactions that we have to deal with are what we can percieve. > Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not. "Imagination" is an amazing thing and far more > powerful than generally assumed. Like doctors tend to treat the placebo > effect as if it's bogus, but the truth is it's simply amazing--60% > effectiveness with zero side effects! It doesn't mean that people "imagine" > either diseases or cures. It means that our brain can do a hell of a lot > more than we like to give it credit for, but we haven't figured out how to > get it to do what we'd like it to on a reliable basis. Okay, time for some term definitons again. In this, the placebo effect is valid and correct, very powerful, but it's not immagination. Immagination is the belief that something that is not there actually is. It's self-delusion in many cases (like believeing in a presidental candidate suited for the job). However, the placebo effect and other cases simmilar to that are not immagination, it's a willed act on a level too low to see it. Part of the Subconsious becomes convinced that this is going to happen, and they Will that action into existance. Because

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it's expected, we make it real. It's a fundamental manipulation of the forces underlying the entire universe and all of creation. This is magick of the highest order. Which I have discussed somewhat in other posts. ;-) > My guess is that in some cases, the wall is a symbol put up by our own > brains--a way of them recognizing something as a "stay away" zone, and > giving our conscious minds a symbol that it can interpret. Good! In some cases that is exactly what it is. Our soul/subconsious can see and determine that something we don't know about is a danger to us, creates the wall to keep us away from it since we have no experience with it, and like dummies, many people break through those walls to see what is on the other side. Sometimes we are too stupid to live. > *sigh* Any advice on picking a god or higher power? This seems like really > tricky territory, especially since it's as easy (or easier?) to lie on the > other plane than it is on this one. How does one decide who to trust? Who does your "gut feeling" tell you to trust? This center is your soul, the one with all those experiences and past lives and databases and such interacting with your consious mind on a level you can actually recognize. And you don't have to have a "higher power" helping you. You can do it all yourself. In Christo-Magick however, they use the Jesus or Heavenly Father icons to do what the Wiccan/Pagan does by willpower alone. That is what I meant. > I wonder about the potential for mistakenly trapping a malevolent entity > *inside* your ward, e.g. if you set it up after a > less-than-completely-thorough purging. Actually that has happened on any number of occasions. Usually the correction is to re-ward or do a better cleansing, or to ask your guides to evict the entity. That's why the cleansing stage is so critical. > Hmmm. Is the aura only a protection? To be honest, I don't know. In my experiences, it is along with being an emotional indicator and a visible representation of bodily health, but I don't have that much experience with the aura directly (I really suck at this section of metaphysics) so I can't say. So, research it, and keep all theories as equally valid until something jumps up and tells you that THIS theory is correct. And it is entirely possible that ALL theories are correct, just like the many lifes/one life analogy from above. > I wonder what the pros and cons are of having it draw directly from your

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> lifeforce rather than, say, the magic in the ocean or other parts of mother > nature. Pro: Having it tied into you directly makes sure that when the ward/shield is hit, that will backlash through you and you WILL know it. It can be treated as a permanent "ground" where you can shunt excess energy to without loosing it. Kept up long time, or put on an object, it can make that object "enchanted" long after you are gone. Keeping the power internal to you, the ward/shield is not vulnerable to changing conditions of the external power source. IE if your ward is not tied into the Earth, then it is not vulnerable to low power times when the Earth sleeps in Winter. Con: It is a constant drain on your resources. You will feel damned seedy until you get used to channeling a LOT of power through you to the ward/shield and keep it erect. Stray thoughts can bring the shield/ward down. With it powered by an external source, thinking about it will usually not bring it down or create holes, however with it linked intimately to you, that is not the case. One stray thought can and has (IME) brought down years of work. You won't be able to set wards/shields for others. I cast a shield on your house to keep you safe, if it is tied to my energy to power it, then it will be a constant drain on my resources and is affected by how many other wards/shields I have going for others as well. Usually the energy drain is too much for most to keep it going off personal power. Tying the power to other sources will allow a ward/shield to continue past your death. Stonehenge's wards are tied to the ley lines in the area, but if they operated off the power of the magickian who cast it, they would be long gone. Get the general idea? > I'm also told that mirrored sheilds are particularly effective, or ones that > distort the light so people see around you without even noticing their > attention has been deflected. The visual I use is more like the material they make stelth technology from rather than a mirror. I only use a mirror shield if I want to send something coming at me right back at the caster. > lol! excellent idea! I hadn't thought of plain ol' electromagnetic energy > (although the Handbook of Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber has some > incredible ideas about magneto-electric energy). Ummm. But what happens

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when > there's a power surge? Does your warding system falter, or is there some > kind of backup generator? Which is why I also tie it into the phone lines (which have a low level EM current in it and that's very rarely cut) and tied into me. Plus, the Ward I use has a "life" of about 2 day's duration before it completely fades out of existance. By that time I should be able to take steps to keep it going in case of a catastrophe. > Can you say more about these? I've had lots of 'people' around me my entire > life. And most seem like well-wishers, like the adults who know your parents > at a social event when you're a kid. But I don't know what my relationship > to them is or could be or should be. Maybe they're the ones who tied my > spirit to my body so I don't go floating off? Except for dreams... and > lately 3 out of 5 Vivid dreams I've had have come true... makes you > wonder.... Okay, I'll tell you what: go back and re read Lesson 10. I think I talk about who you may meet, but if it comes down to it, ward them out, and wait for them to ask permission to come in and check your gut reaction. These entities are there usually to help you, so talk to them and ask them these questions, ask them who they are and so on. Normally they will answer, and check it with your gut reaction. That gut reaction will NEVER lead you wrong. Daven

From: "peter" To: Subject: Lesson 17 Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 7:26 PM What to improve? Well ok, my first draft got trashed here as I felt it was a load of baloney.

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Truth hurts, so here goes: First: 0 to 100... I always want to know everything at a professional level without having gone through the beginner stages. I always have been this way, which means that if something starts to bore me, I don't finish it. How to deal with it? Well, over the years I have learned to curb this character flaw, but I suspect that since it is so ingrained it may never completely leave me. But, I have learned patience, I have learned to take baby steps, I have learned perseverance. These are not easily achieved and I have already been working on them a long time. A very good example of perseverance and not giving up is this dratted Finance course that I have now repeated for the 5th time... my final was Saturday the 19th, I do hope it was the FINAL. An example of baby steps is the fact that I started taking correspondence courses through the University of Toronto in 1994 and thought it would only last 4 years, although at the beginning I thought 4 years was WAY too long. So basically taking one thing at a time and working through the problems. A very good example of 0 to 100 was experience #2 when I jumped right in to help without any prior knowledge... Ok, learned that one too. So, oups! I thought I had this under a level of control and have figured out that it blindsided me when I wasn't paying much attention. This I have to watch out for. I've given this question a lot of thought and would say that this is the single most enormous character flaw to which impatience, having too many irons in the fire (multitasking), are directly linked, I feel that if I can work on all of these issues a bit at a time, with some perseverance I will eventually have the problem under a certain level of control... if I can rid myself of it completely the better. So how does one learn patience? By learning to empathize with their fellow beings. If you completely understand their point of view, than it becomes easier to accept them with their flaws and have patience with their short-comings. Since empathy is a great quality of mine, I've been told on a professional level that sometimes I had too much patience... go figure! Each situation is individual as each person is individual, and all deserve an individual approach to solution. This means that one should never give up thinking of new ways to resolve issues and find commonality and ways to discuss a problem in a form which is acceptable to the individual or situation confronted. Second: Honesty... while honesty is respectable, not every situation or individual deserves or even should hear the complete truth. Since I have a problem with being overly honest, some people have difficulty digesting the whole truth. It is not so difficult for me to keep my personal opinions to myself when dictating company policy to an employee, so, if I just use the same principal and apply it to my personal life, then the overflow of truth may stop and I wont have so many people looking at me like I'm a nut case...or a loveable nut case. Still I'd better learn to restrain a little better at times.

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On the emotional level, I have done a lot of growing up in the last few months. I've grown much in the last few years, but not as such an important rate. Why is this important? Because now I am able to live in concert with my beliefs instead of practicing without rhyme or reason. We can all improve in these areas, and one that I feel I have made major progress in is insecurity & fear. I am more selfconfident than I've ever been and have fewer fears than I have ever had. From the perspective of a person who would apologize to a chair for walking into it and being self-professed paranoid, this is a big change. I'm not sure how much improvement is possible here as I am discovering new territory and getting used to this new self-confidence right now. But I must say it is a sincere release! Well that's it for today. Love M

From: "peter" To: "Daven" Subject: Re: Lesson 20 Date: Friday, January 25, 2002 10:29 PM Hi Daven, Well, I had a good laugh reading through, more than likely because I'm floating right about now, and just like a cat, would laugh at anything... which I do anyway. Your lesson really put a big smile on my face. To answer a few questions first: I have no problem whatsoever if you want to include me on an email list. I have no problem sharing any information, experiences whatsoever, in fact I'd love to. I don't know what list you are referring to "Tamia"? It doesn't matter to me if the last 2 reviews are skipped, and if you want to have an exam, I'm there! I honestly have to tell you how wonderful this course has been for me, even the look at yourself portions... maybe you did need to clue in, which I suspected anyway, but, it really did help me in SOOOOO many ways. As good as it is to be tough on yourself and your teaching abilities (yes, YOU), don't sell yourself short. I figured I was dealing with someone who had been teaching for years, because anyone worth a salt is interested in their students and their performance...no teacher makes life easy if they are any good. You have changed my life in the

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most positive ways.... THANKS! Of course a lot of it has to do with me investing the time in ME, but I give credit to those who deserve it for either kicking me in the butt or for steering me straight.... and you've done both! :) LOL Thanks! Little update: Now, I know you sent me your address, and I will send a copy of the mag when I get around to having it printed....here's what's up: Remember one of my first emails to you? You had told me it was too late to join the class and go ahead and register for March...hahahaha... well, my answer to that was by then (January or March) I will be working, right now I have the time... or something along those lines (at the time I was deleting my emails so that Peter couldn't see them). Well in the last 2 weeks, I decided to send out some "energy" to the universe to help with my magazine project... in return, I have had 3 interviews, one two weeks ago, one yesterday, one Monday (28th) and one possible second interview coming up next week. All of these job opportunities have come to me without me having sent my CV recently... I had dealt with agencies over a year ago and they are all crawling out of the woodwork. The job will help me afford to get the publication going financially and well, me too. All three are for Credit Manager and at the pay range that I wanted which is roughly $10,000 more than I was earning at my last job. Peter is laughing his head off saying NO ONE has such luck, and he could kick me for it right about now... so I'm teasing him back and rubbing it in a little "3 in 2 weeks and I never mailed a CV, not bad, what's next?".LOL Also, I became a member of WARD and asked a stupid question... long story short: as of 2 days ago, I am the Provincial Director for the Province of Quebec... What the hell am I doing to myself? Well, I did want to "expose" myself to a certain extent by producing a mag, so why not? And while helping others I can use the attention to promote the mag or just send it to members either free or for a nominal fee (I haven't thought it out yet, It's more ethics than budget that is an issue as far as I'm concerned). What ever did I say to these people? Again, what the hell am I doing to myself? LOL All that and I wrote my University of Toronto Finance exam, which meant a few days worth of review and mental acrobatics. So, yes, I will get around to doing this project, it just has to take a little longer than I'd hoped, and spring isn't over yet. Besides, things usually take longer than I'd like anyway. Well other than that, I had registered for the high magick course beginning in March, so it's a toss up right now if I will actually have the time to invest in it... although I would really like to, but you see what I mean? Anyway, I'll just take it one thing at a time and see what happens and maybe I'll be able to follow through with it. My problem is I hate to start something and not bring about a conclusion, so dropping out would rack me with guilt... but I'm not going to fuss over it any more than that. Are you teaching this class too? If so, there is no way I will drop out...NO WAY. Because as things are progressing, I'd better get a

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handle on my wills and wants or be a loaded gun all over again. Then again, I'm doing fine in controlling my emotions and since that is so fundamental here, it's not as dangerous as I'd originally thought... remember the paranoid person who was terrified and wrote you sometime in October, November?... was that me? I'm going back to the discussion board thing. I like the interaction of a discussion board, especially when there is a specific topic to throw around. Ever since I said I didn't want to continue with Solstice Moon, their board also went down... I don't remember wishing for that, so I'm not taking credit there (LOL)...anyway, their conversations were getting a little routine and unchallenging. But I accept this as a fact of life since I get bored rather quickly... it's not ADD, it's just a matter of absorbing material quickly and outgrowing at times more than other times. So I usually have to pace myself a lot slower than I would like... I've had to work with this my whole life, so I'm pretty used to it by now. Well, that a pretty long letter for a short update...lol Thanks again, I've really and truly enjoyed the course (No BULL), Love, Michelle

From: "belladonna" To: Subject: Re: [Astral_Travel] Lesson 20 Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 8:10 PM i actually wouldn't mind having the reviews, because i know i certainly won't remember everything and they'd be good to keep around. i don't mind if we have a test or not, i'd probably want one anyway, just to make me think even more about what i've done and where i've been so far and have everything sink in another layer. just my opinion. blackdove01

From: "peter"

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To: "Daven" Subject: Update Date: Thursday, January 31, 2002 8:11 AM Hi there Daven!!! Well what a strange twist of fate! I ended up getting both jobs. But I'd misunderstood the title for the one I was interviewed for on Monday. Assistant Underwriter, Credit Insurance. The gentleman is a Parisian French so my ear not being used to hearing the accent missed it I guess... besides, I hadn't been speaking the language and it's easy to forget the more intricate workings of it. Anyway, It's a large insurance company with a few hundred million behind this project. They have just opened a new division and were looking for someone they could groom into a senior underwriter. It's not a credit manager, in fact, credit managers envy the underwriters as they have the power! There is a Vice President, a senior underwriter, myself and a secretary. So this is really a ground floor opportunity. Both jobs paid the same, so it was a matter of what I want to do with this career of mine. In fact when I told them both I needed the night to think over my options they both started throwing money at me. I had to tell them to stop, because it's not a money issue. (Stupid I know, but why lie?) So I guess I'd better polish that fictitious crystal ball of mine, because I'll be dealing with the Enron's of the future! I took the Credit Insurance job... hey! There aren't too many companies that offer pension plans and 3 weeks vacation and indoor parking on top of a great starting salary anymore. Another bonus, the hours are great and they don't believe in overtime... I've never seen a place that doesn't treat their employees like slaves, so, it will be a nice change. Besides, I would have been bored at the other place within 6 months... and that was sad, although the people were wonderful, and that might have kept me there a little longer. Any draw backs? It's downtown, it's new, and it's new territory. But these things are minor for me. For Downtown: I can drive in with Hubby in the morning, he'll have to take the train home as usual...my hours are better and I have to be home to pick up the kids from school and such. New: I like new, because I always have so many ideas. New Territory: How to keep things interesting? by ongoing learning. Like I said, minor. So, opening the universe to possibilities was a good thing. I'll kept that spell in mind for the next time. If you'd like, I'd be happy to share it. It's a 2 part thing, but it worked and I never really solicited these people. The agency that brought me the Credit Mgr position had had my CV on file for over 1 year, maybe 18 months or so and I didn't even know the agent who called me (shows how often I called her, LOL). The other had posted a job on Monster.ca or something and I'd emailed my CV way back in November, I don't usually look back, it takes more than a week and it's dead.

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Anyway, just a note to mention I didn't receive the message twice, so I guess I'm not in the loop! And with this rollercoaster ride I've been on the last few days, I haven't stopped to talk to anyone...Sorry! GREAT! I'll see you in March for the High Magick course! WoW that's a lot of students! How are you going to manage?... Ok, you are probably asking yourself that same question, so forget I asked. LOL Well, that's pretty much it for now...have a great day! Michelle

From: "taimaloudthunder" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Re: Lesson 20 Date: Friday, February 08, 2002 8:51 PM Hi Daven, I think you´ve done remarkably well with the assignments for this class seeing how you came to be the teacher, and considering the amount of preparation it took to put the lessons together. Thanks for giving us some insight as to what was going on behind the scenes, and for recommending the Astral & Beyond Group to your students. The reviews would prove to be an excellent way to refresh our memories about the information we have covered in this class. I am all for it! It would provide a summary of what the class was about. As for the test I would like to leave that to your discretion. The book Illusions is very enjoyable, and contains many truths. It is nice to be able to start reading it today. And to know the book is recommended reading for this class. Taima

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From: "Daven" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Lessons 21, 22, 23 and 24 Date: Saturday, February 09, 2002 11:41 PM Okay, understanding how far behind I am with the lessons, I am in the process of writing lessons 21 and 22 and will send them out simultaneously for your review. As soon as I get the exam written and posted to a site, I will send out a email informing you all where it is. Along with that, I'll be writing lesson 24 for after the exam and results, and where you can find your certificate. ;-) I'll have the PDF copies of the class for you all sometime after the beginning of April. It will take me some time to get the errors, typos and other errors corrected and into a file for you all. So, as soon as I get the reviews up, I'll be sending them. Because of that, you may get lesson 22 first, since I have the partial file for lesson 21 at work, and didn't bring it home. ;-) Stars light your path. Daven

From: "MysticalSchool.com" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] KUDOS! Date: Monday, February 11, 2002 10:40 AM KUDOS to everyone in this class! bella donna taimaloudthunder Just Curious You are all doing great!

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The Astral Travel class is the smallest (at the moment) group of MysticalSchool.com but it is (in my opinion) the best group in the batch. *wink* You require very little supervision (which is good in my case - less load of work *LOL*). But of course, you have an excellent teacher, that's why. *grin* The class is becoming very popular with about 265 applicants waiting for next year's class. (We only had less than 20 when we started.) And so an additional KUDO to Daven! You are doing an excellent job! Thank you! Goddess bless! Umbria of OMS Admin Online Mystical School http://MysticalSchool.com

From: "MysticalSchool.com" To: Subject: [Astral_Travel] Student ID: meanwell - Michelle Date: Monday, February 11, 2002 11:07 AM Please welcome the newest member of this class, Michelle . Michelle has completed all the work that have been assigned to her, and all the lessons. :-) Warmest Regards, Umbria of OMS Admin Online Mystical School http://mysticalschool.com

From: "Daven"

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To: "OOBE Class" Subject: [Astral_Travel] Reviews and Exam Date: Monday, February 11, 2002 4:33 PM Well, I warned you all. The reviews should be in your inbox now, and I'll be posting the Exam in a day or two. I'll probably finish the exam questions up tonight and I'll be able to post them tomorrow. There will be 20 T/F Multiple Choice questions there will be 5 short essay questions These together will be 75% of the grade. 3 points per question. There will be 1 essay question, minimum 300 words. You will have 6 topics to choose from, and you will have to write an essay on that topic. So, start thinking. This last question will be 1/4 of the overall exam grade. 70% correct will pass the exam. I'll contact you privately with the results when I have them all in. Daven

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