Reincarnation

It must be argued that the concept of reincarnation and the astral body must have somewhat the same origin. My belief is that the spirit evolves over time by passages from body to spirit and spirit to body. Most theologies that support reincarnation tend to believe in Karma - the concept that your actions in this life will affect the next. In some ways I would agree with this but not in the same way that Hinduism does. I don't believe the path to light or darkness means you pay or are on a similar road in the next life. I think your reincarnated life is a new experience - ways to explore the world in another complementary way. Like evolution and change in nature I believe the spirit grows and evolves as well - close to the beliefs of theosophy.

I found an interesting article on the origin and condemnation of reincarnation in the Christian church.

Astral Info from a Channeled Spirit

There probably isn't a single source of material that I have encountered in my life that has had such an impact as Jane Robert's Seth books. Coming from a scientific background many think my endorsement of this material is not sensible and downright irrational. What can you expect when information is provided by a channeled spirit? I'm not sure but I think the Seth material has lost a lot of its popularity over the last 25 years. It was very popular in the late 70s and early 80s in certain circles. However, once Jane Roberts died and new material wasn't available the interest began to wane.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Seth I can direct you to this Seth site to get the full details. But in a quick overview - Seth is a channeled spirit, or, an energy personality essence independent of Jane Roberts but from a higher dimension. Ms. Roberts started receiving messages from a Ouija board in 1963 and eventually began to dictate them directly. What's unusual about all of the Seth material is how it resonates with my perceptions of the inner world. Most areas of interest are dimensions of reality, consciousness and its affect on reality, dreams and astral projection and the nature of mass events. You may have seen the books, Seth Speaks or The Seth Material. I'm, of course, especially interested in the first hand accounts of their out-of-body (OBE) experiences. If you read the book, Dreams & Projection of Consciousness, you'll get a great quite a few first hand accounts.

The Seth books were the inspiration for my interests in astral and out-of-body experiences when I was young. Jane Roberts died in 1984 but her husband, Robert Butts, continued to publish her works.

'Dreams...' is a fascinating read for anyone since it deals with the early years coming to grips with a channeled presence and astral projection. Highly recommended.

Wartime Astral and OBE Experiences

With the current Iraq war going on I've been searching for any OBE or NDE stories from veterans or partipants from past wars. This has not been an easy task since there seems to be a reluctance to publish these accounts on the web.

Here is an unusual account from the Korean war which I think typifies a very standard NDE and OBE combined but with quite a bit of religious overtones. However, it is also seen as a past life rememberence which makes it difficult to relate as a person's living experience. War experiences abound out there and I assume there are many astral stories yet to be told.

Being Pulled from Your Body

I recently came across this message and started wondering about the feeling of being pulled from your body. Looks like there are quite a few experiencers out there who have felt this kind of sensation. Check out Deb's testimony (link is gone - though this one is similar). She seems to have some sort of 'helper' that wants her to fall out of her body. Now, many see this a some kind of malevolent being - however, I think the fear of the experience tends to create a feeling of being out of control which projects as something bad or evil.

I would love to hear from any others who share this experience and what their feelings are on those 'helpers' - are they benevolent or malevolent?

Tunnels to Other Realities

Holes or tunnels to other realities?

Many accomplished projectors have explored new worlds via similar cosmic holes. Robert Monroe, for instance, spent many of this astral journeys in the "higher worlds." He describes his discovery of these cosmic tunnels in his Journeys Out of the Body. His initial discovery occurred whitle he was OBEing from his bed one night. Next to his bed he found a hole. "That's the only way to describe it," he writes. "To my sense, it seemed to be a hole in the wall which was about two feet thick and stretched endlessly in all directions." The brave explorer peered through the hole, but could not see anything but darkness, so he returned to his body.

Or, from the Astral Dynamics site on astral dimensional tunnels:

"Astral Plane-Type Structure - a flat, two-dimensional plane of infinite proportions, usually first seen as if from a great height, with the plane's surface seen below extending to all horizons. The surface is covered in thin, black, neatly spaced, horizontal and vertical grid lines, making for a neat, checkered appearance. These grid lines outline squares that cover the entire surface. Each square contains a single, identical multicolored geometric pattern, repeated endlessly in every other square.
        
Astral Tube-Type Structure - a more complex tunnel or tubelike structure, containing internal grid lines and geometric patterns, often brightly colored. The grid lines and patterns are internal, thus are not as easily viewed in their entirety as with the astral plane-type of entrance structure. Projectors also usually hear a rushing sound, musical notes, tones, and other sounds as they move through an astral tube. These sounds are, I believe, part of the obviously more complex astral tube structure. Moving through a tube usually produces a rushing sound; each exit point passed often produces a change in sound or tones and melodies or a series of complex musical notes."

 

The Afterlife Experiments

You have to read this book!

From Publishers Weekly: Schwartz (The Living Energy Universe), director of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the University of Arizona, proposes "working with a group of top mediums who have consistently received messages, supposedly from the dead," to investigate whether or not there is indeed life after death. Armed with consummate authority (e.g., logic, scientific research and the focus of a recent HBO documentary), the book progresses through the lab's findings. Of particular fun are the session transcripts, which include running commentary provided by lead investigators. (One sitter describes a medium's performance as "dead on.") That their data will convince readers, the authors believe, is a foregone conclusion: "[E]ven skeptics will begin to evolve as a result of these findings." Yet the story comes off like high-grade magic or a splendid infomercial. Despite the reliance on experts (such as magicians, scientists and videographers), the narrative has the suspect tone of a sideshow barker. All the same, Schwartz embraces an admirable passion for curious knowledge and adamantly resolves to uphold his survival-of-consciousness hypothesis until research proves otherwise.

The Seth Material

I was reading Seth again and always find it to be a great source of astral material and instruction. If you haven't read any of the Seth series of books I highly recommend them. Here is a quote about the levels of the astral world:

"...forms one, two and three. Form one will spring out of an ordinary dream state. In spontaneous projections, you may become conscious in form one, project, return to the ordinary dream state and from there project again several times. You can expect these particular projections to be difficult to interpret now....your excursions with form one will be within your own system, largely connected to the earth, although past, present and future may be involved....If you realize your are projecting, you may simply order any unpleasant phantams to disappear, and they will do so. In form two you will not, as a rule, encounter any subconscious phantoms. Ordinary dream elements will not be as frequent, nor will they intrude as much. A longer duration projection is possible. The vividness is extraordinary. Here you will begin to perceive quite clearly constructions that are not your own, where earlier these are but dimly glimpsed....Some [constructions] will exist in your future. Some may have existed in your past, and some where thought of, but never materialized....You may find yourself in a room with certain people....It is possible for you to project yourself into one of your own future landscapes."

-Seth Session 262, May 25, 1966

The Search for Bridey Murphy

I remember when I was about 8 years old a teacher(who would be fired today in the politically correct world) played the audio tape of the hypnosis sessions with Ruth Simmons a.k.a Bridey Murphy. If you are not familiar with this case it probably stands as one of the first true new age breakthroughs mixing hypnosis and regression with reincarnation. To me this is just a consistent part of the astral realm. This tape is one of the things that got me interested in this phenomena. Under hypnosis she regresses to a past life in Ireland (Bridey Murphy being her Irish name - her real name is Ruth Simmons) and reveals details that were verified as historically correct. If you want to read about it; here is the link- The Search for Bridey Murphy

Oddly enough, while writing this article I came across this product -Past Life Regression Software (no longer offered) that claims to unlock your past life. Looks pretty interesting.

Even Seen your Parallel?

A story: a couple "had gone out to dinner with friends and were sitting in the restaurant bar when Don...left the group and moved into an empty stool in one corner of the barroom. Bernice said that she'd let him go so that he could be alone for a while...but that a few minutes later she'd looked up to see Don in animated conversation- with himself! Laughing affectionately, she'd pointed this out to their friends. However, when they drove back home that evening, Bernice said that she'd started to tease Don for talking to himself...and he reacted with angry astonishment. "What do you mean, talking to myself?" he demanded. "For God's sake, I was talking to that old guy all night long!" "What old guy?" Bernice asked, puzzled. "I didn't see any old guy-you were sitting by yourself." Stunned, Don had yelled at her to "stop making stupid jokes!" Bernice said that it took some doing on her part to convince Don that she wasn't up to some elaborate put-on. Don had seen and talked with "a very nice old fellow" for a couple of hours, and as far as Don was concerned, the old guy was as real as Bernice and their friends. "Don said that for some reason, he just spilled all his problems out to this old man,"..."He said that he didn't know why he thought a stranger would care, but the old man listened very carefully and asked him some smart, thought-provoking questions." .p130 Conversations with Seth

Do parallel lives and universes exist? Have you ever encountered a dream or even reality of a parallel life? In a many worlds view of the physical universe perhaps this is not so far fetched.

Astral and Physical Dimensions

I was thinking the other day about the word 'dimension' and how it is used by both scientists and by those who work in psychic or astral realms. Many times we hear or read of the dimensions experienced by those out-of-body. Even though it sounds like a very subjective experience, the description seems to make sense to the traveler. As one becomes more experienced traveling the dimensions of our physical plane seem to dissolve when moving to other realms.

On the science side of things we see physicists now talking of a many dimension universe - concepts like hidden dimensions, parallel universes in branes (that's a new term for a 3D universe in a multi-dimensional reality), holes through dimensions, etc. My question is where do these overlap? When someone experiences a new dimension out-of-body and can sense the astral component of a physical object (such as moving their hand through a door or a wall), what really is that component? Will science come to the realization that the dimensions of consciousness are mixed with the dimensions of our physical world?