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.

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 Data-Storage, 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.

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

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 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 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.

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 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 multi-task. 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 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 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.

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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.

Daven

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