Pt.

#

Cap.

PP.

I. Overview

1.

A "Trip" to the Ceiling

10-19

2.

A Journey to the Past

20-6

3.

To Open the Gate of Distance

27-34

II. A Look at the Evidence

4.

I Know I Am Out of My Body

38-46

5.

The 2^nd Body Is Clairvoyant

47-54

6.

Astral Mind-over-Matter

55-64

7.

What Does the Double Look Like?

65-75

III. As Solid as Thou and I

8.

Doubles that Perform Miracles

78-86

9.

Doubles that Walk, Talk, and Breathe

87-94

10.

A Review & a Praeview

95-102

IV. "Why" of Astral Projection

11.

Astral Reunion of Families

106-113

12.

Romance in a 2^nd Body

114-123

13.

Doubles That Help & Heal

124-131

V. When Body & Mind Are Ready

14.

Escape from Fear & from Pain

134-142

15.

Doctors & Their Patients

143-152

16.

Astral Projection at the Hospital

153-160

17.

"I Am in Two Worlds"

161-172

18.

Offbeat Astral Happenings

173-180

VI. Projectors Tell Their Stories

19.

Celebrities & Their Doubles

184-192

20.

OOBEs in Childhood & Adolescence

193-201

21.

A College-Teacher Seeth a Ghost

202-209

22.

Astral Flights of Young Women

210-221

23.

Dramatic Projections

222-231

24.

Conversations : a Dead Philosopher

232-239

25.

The Time-Traveler from Maine

240-252

26.

A Classic Trio of Projectors

253-264

VII. Scientific Approach

27.

Scholars of Astral Travel

268-277

28.

"Trapping the Soul" : Laboratory

278-293

29.

Laboratory Experiments in 1970s

294-306

30.

Psychiatrists, Professors, Perception

307-320

VIII. Ultimate Quaestion

31.

Rehearsal for Dying

324-331

32.

Future of Astral Projection

332-337

p. 10

"I woke with a strange sensation – I was rocking gently back and forth. I felt myself lifted and ... then lowered to the floor. I started to rise to the ceiling. ... My physical body lay inert on the bed below, while "I" hovered near the ceiling."

p. 11

"I was pleased at finally having what I knew was an OOBE – an out-of-body experience. ... I have had other extrasensory {more accurately, extramaterial – the non-material body is still operating sensorially} experiences – seeing objects and hearing voices beyond the range of my {material} eyes and {material} ears, sometimes catching the unspoken thought in someone else’s mind. I have seen ... ghosts. I have had visions of the future."

"Once I woke up in the middle of the night and felt that I was split into two persons. The lower part of my body was rigid, paralytic, a condition that often accompanies OOBEs. But there were two upper halves ..., leaning in opposite directions."

"Saints such as Anthony of Padua and Alphonsus Liguori were seen elsewhere while their physical bodies remained in church or monastery. ... The scientist-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg visited many dimensions and wrote detailed accounts of what he saw. Thomas De Quincy left his body while smoking opium."

"This kind of "possession" was benign ..., arranged by mutual consent, in contrast to the devil-possession recorded in the annals of the Church".

{Spirit-possession is always benign : the Church’s "annals" all consist of malign slanders.}

"Eileen Garrett ... sat in an apartment in New York City and willed herself to ... Reykjavik, Iceland ... to look at the objects on a table. At the same times she described the objects as she sat in a chair in New York."

"Today, in a California university, a parapsychologist attached electrodes to the head of a woman who ... can go out of her body when she wills it".

"In New York City ... parapsychologists ... from the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) ... have designed on OOB experiment in which psychics project their "I" from different parts of the country to a room in the Society’s building. Later they describe by mail or phone what they saw in the room during their visits.

In Durham, North Carolina, the Psychical Research Foundation (PRF) conducts tests in which a psychic projects to a room occupied by human beings and animals who may sense his presence, and by machines that can record any change in the physical environment of the room.

Two physicists at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California, are doing an experiment in which a subject lying in an electrically shielded room describes a location unknown to him where members of the staff have gone by car."

p. 17

"what ... goes out ... [and] can live apart from its own physical body ... is ... seen by both the projector and witnesses, ... is called "the second body," or "double," as distinct from the physical body. It is also known as the "duplicate body" because is frequently appears as an exact replica of the physical body".

p. 18

"The second body may also rotate out of the physical body in a spiral motion and return the same way. The second body generally feels ... weightless, and sometimes gives off a glow that may illuminate a dark room."

p. 22

"The sixth-century B.C. philosopher Hermotimus of Clazomenae ... often fell into a trance and wandered away from his body, which became cataleptic ... . On one such occasion his wife ... quickly had him declared dead and cremated. According to Ce’sar de Vesme in A History of Experimental Spiritualism, mediums later reported that Hermotimus ... when he came back ... found that his physical body had disappeared."

"In his On the Delay of Divine Justice, Plutarch tells of one Aridaeus of Asia Minor, who in A.D. 79 was ... taken out of his body. With his perceptions ... sharpened, as in many modern OOBEs, he could see on all sides at once. Aridaeus met and spoke with the dead, one of them ... assured to astral traveler that he ...

p. 23

was not dead because the rest of his soul was firmly anchored to his body. "The rest of the soul," explained the dead ..., was a cord connecting the two bodies. So long as the cord still attached to his physical body, Aridaeus would remain alive. Aridaeus could also see the difference between his double and the doubles of the dead. His own second body had "a faint and shadowy outline" while "the dead shone all around and were transparent." ... he was suddenly "sucked through a tube ..." and awoke again in his physical body. The "tube" is similar to the "tunnel" that many astral projectors experience on leaving and returning to their physical bodies."

"The story of Curma ... was first reported in the fifth century A.D. by Augustine ... of Hippo, in Numidia ... . Curma, a senator, was seriously ill and in a coma for several days. As he left his body, he heard his name called from somewhere ... . But, as in the case of Aridaeus, the dead he met assured him that he was still alive. ... Curma the senator noticed that the spirit world contained not only the dead but those like himself who were alive and merely on out-of-body excursions."

p. 23

"The double had a different name in each of the ancient countries. ...

The Greeks knew it as the eidolon,

the Romans as the larva, while

in Tibet it is still referred to as the bardo body.

In Germany it was the Ju:del or Doppelga:nger and

in Norway the fylga. ...

In China the thankhi left the body ... and was seen by others. ...

p. 24

The ancient Hindus spoke of the second-body principle as the Pranamayakosha {Pran.a-maya-kos`a].

The Buddhists called the double the rupa [rupa]."

<ibri^

"on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him."

Ho^s^e<a 6:2

Zaratustrian

It taketh 3 days for "the Spirit of a departed person to find its home in Paradise."

M. K. Spencer : The Other World.

Bodish

"the departed second body wanders about a Hadeslike Bardo region for three days before the separation of physical and astral bodies is complete."

Bardo Thodol [Bar-do bTags-grol]

"crying "Hik!" in a shrill voice . ... the lama utters this cry in order to free the spirit of a man as he dies, causing it "to leave the body through a hole that this magic syllable opens in the summit of the skull." After "hik" the word "phat[.]" is shouted and this assures a proper separation of body and spirit."

p.

African

27

[cited from HES] "of the African tribe of Yabikou ... a fetish man ... was preparing now to join the magicians from other tribes in the M’fang country ... . Their meeting place was the plateau of Yemvi ... . ... "Oh, I shall go there but I will also be here at the same time. ..." ... rubbing a reddish

28

liquid on his body ... . ... see a snake {a supernatural one?} fall from the roof and wrap itself around the [sorcerer]’s rigid body as he slept ... ." While asleep he delivered a message to another man : "... during the night I heard him call from outside my hut. ..."

29

[another case cited from HES] "a native witch doctor ... promised "to open the gate of distance" and travel through it. The witch doctor asked for the names [of persons hundreds of miles distant], then lit eight fires, one for each [such person], and cast roots into them. He inhaled the fumes of a medicine and went into a trance for ten minutes. When he awoke, he ... described the eight ... . ... The information proved accurate in every case."

p.

Amerindian

29

[18^th-century account by Lafiteau] "Several Huron ... did not return on schedule and the sorceress was ask to go out [of her body] and find them. She retired to her hut and went through a complicated ritual that resulted in a state of delirium. When she came out of it, she told exactly what had happened ... – the road they had taken, the villages they had passed through, and where they were at present." Later, they "verified all that the sorceress had said."

30

[a first-hand account of a personal experience, cited from IS] "he lay down for a nap but woke up and saw two of his tribesmen in the room, dressed in white robes. ... He called out to his wife that he would be gone for awhile, but she paid no attention. This puzzled him and he looked back and saw that his physical body was still asleep on the mat. ... The men in white robes reassured him – they were merely taking him on a journey but would bring him back ... . He and his guides seemed to float away ... above "a great shining river" that reached far into the sky. His guides told him that the river wound through the land ... where ... Indians went when they died. ... many of his old friends, now dead, came out to greet him. But when he reached the biggest wigwam, where a Great Spirit lived, he was told that he must return to his body ... . When [he] came back to his own wigwam, he found his sleeping body ... . He looked with indifference upon is physical body and turned to go back to the land of the dead. But his guides barred the way and told him solemnly that he must re-enter his body. The next moment he lost consciousness, then awoke in his body ... . ... . ... he had been out of his body for "three sleeps.""

p.

South American

31

"Hallucinogens and Shamanism, edited by Michael J. Harner, describes how shamans of South America take a ... drink made from the ayahuasca, or yage`, vine to release the second body. The projectors feel a "spinning in the head, then a sensation of being lifted up into the air" as they begin their journey. ... After imbibing yage`, Jivaro shamans can clairvoyantly see persons far away and describe what they are doing. ... The shamans ... travel astrally not only to familiar places in the tropical forest but sometimes to the unfamiliar cities of white men hundreds of miles away, which they can accurately describe.

Members of a tribe in the Ucayali River region frequently go off on astral trips as a group. Sitting in a circle and drinking yage`, a proposal is made to visit a certain location together. Once someone suggested, "Let’s see cities!" and off the group went to a distant urban center none of them had ever visited

32

in the flesh. Later they ... were describing automobiles, which they had never seen with their physical eyes."

[quoted from PhAP, from THE METAPHYSICAL MAGAZINE of October 1896] "The Tahitians ... affirm that, shortly after a human body ceases to breathe, a vapour arises from the head, hovering a little way above it, but attached by a vapoury cord. The substance ... gradually increases in bulk and assumes the form of the inert body. When it [the inert body] has become quite cold, the connecting cord disappears and the disentangled soul-form floats away as if borne by invisible carriers."

""Ronald Rose has devoted a complete chapter in Living Magic to the importance of the cord ... of Australian aborigines. During an initiation [into shamanhood] ceremony a man [the initiator] lies on his back and goes into a trance. His body shivers and his mouth begins to open, a cordlike object writhing out of it like a snake. It stretches to the length of a man’s ear, then leaves and crawls about on the ground. finally withdrawing into the initiate’s body."

Onward ..., the ... spirit’s departure in sleep may be traced ... in the Vedanta system, and in the Kabbala {Qabbalah}."