Astral Body
So if you’re going to be doing astral traveling, you will need a vehicle. Just like you might use a car or an airplane or your own two feet in the physical dimension, in the astral dimension, you will require the use of the astral body.
There are many theories as to what an Astral Body is. You will need to be aware of the traditional esoteric view of the dimensions to understand this. Imagine all of creation as an onion. Just go with me on this one. Pretend the onion has exactly seven layers. The outermost layer of the onion represents the physical universe, i.e., all that we can see with our eyes, with telescopes and microscopes, etc.
This includes cells, stars, people, anything we can use or buy with our physical bodies. If you were to peel away the outermost layer of the onion, leaving only 6 layers, the outermost layer of those remaining six would be the astral dimension. Instead of using a physical body to interact with physical objects, you use an astral body to interact with astral objects. Now astral means stars, but it is just the first thing ancient mystics saw when they astral projected, so they named it “astral projection”.
The truth of the astral realm truly is that it is actually the realm of emotions. That’s right, emotions that you cannot see or touch here, are made manifest in that dimension. Instead of physical interaction controlling your journey, over there your emotional state controls all. So when I say astral body, we are actually talking about your emotional body, but for the sake of convenience, we will continue saying astral body, as it is the misnomer that everyone has gotten used to.
There are many theories as to how the astral body is entered into by our awareness. We either create the astral body with chakra energy upon successfully focusing our awareness to the astral realm, OR we already concurrently exist in the astral realm and simply tune into our experience there. At this point, even I am not sure which one it is. Make no mistake, when I master the art of projecting into the astral body, we will be making a new article: “Astral Body Part 2” to clarify this. It might be one or the other, or something else entirely. This is the theory that seems to be the most widely accepted among mystics.
Now back to the realm of emotions that your astral body will visit. When I say emotions, we are talking about a pure type of emotion that stems from choice. It is possible to influence a person’s emotional state in the physical realm with nothing more than a chemical injection of pheromones. This is the physical body affecting the emotional state. Most of the emotions we know are this type of hormone induced feelings, and not truly pure emotions of the astral realm.
Therefore, when you astral project, be very conscious of your emotional state; do not allow your emotions to be influenced offhand. Excitement for example, is not a pure emotion, though it will have an effect on the astral body and dimension, being too excited will remind you of your physical body, where we are most used to being excited, and when you think of your physical body, unless you are very well trained, you will end up back in your body, thus ending your astral projection.
Though we spoke of 7 dimensions, one of which being the one where the astral body would interact with the nearest dimension to us, there are most probably sub-dimensions acting as buffers between the dimensions. I have read about etheric projections and the etheric body which acts as an intermediary between the physical and astral body.
Supposedly the etheric dimension is a mirror image duplicate of the physical dimension. My first projection, in fact, was when I did a chakra meditation, trying to activate my chakra energies. Supposedly the chakras belong to the etheric body, in which case, feeling the etheric body would act as a stepping stone to being able to feel the astral body. It may seem roundabout, however, this knowledge aided me in achieving my first fully conscious success with projecting (or rather tuning into) the astral body. Perhaps it may help some of you as well. In fact, that is my hope.
So is all this talk about dimensions just hocus pocus? Is it all made up? Is it something else entirely? There is no feasible way for me to prove it to you, as I have not yet mastered it to the extent that I can use it reliably. The only way for you to know if this out of body stuff is real… is to try it for yourself! One success is all it takes, and you will know.
The feeling of freedom from the physical body is unmistakable.
