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Hi char,
In previous lessons, I gave you a basic outline of how I view the planes and I have been elaborating on some of the places where you can go. Here is where I take the 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 - the one I believe, Dr. DeGarcia's, and Monroe's.
Monroe states in his book, Journies 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 where he states that he lays down and exposes his stomache to a 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 interperatation is that this being is the Christian God, although Monroe makes repeated statements that he is an athiest. 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 boundaries between the planes bleed over into one another due to their simmilarity. 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." Dr. DeGarcia describes the Void as the sections between radio stations, where all you get is static. He also talks about "lockmolds" as being how strongly you are tuned into a particular plane.
From his writing, I understood that there are about 7 different planes. To quote his list:
1. Physical Plane (which includes the Etheric Plane)
2. Astral Plane
3. Mental Plane
4. Buddhic Plane
5. Atmic Plane
6. Anupadaka Plane
7. 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 most of the 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. He does not discuss either fictions or might-have-beens (aka the 'multiverse' theory) although he does mention them occasionally as places he goes to. I would also immagine that when one projects in this place, that one only projects out to the Etheric Plane.
The Etheric Plane -- 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, YEVH, Allah, Diania, 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.
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, Dr. 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 its' own versions of "levels." Each has its' own Etheric Plane, its' own Mental Plane, and its' 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 noplace.
There are planes between realities. If here is 1, and the plane you are going to is 2, then you could wind up 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 beleive 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 quesiton 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.
ETHERIC PLANE
The Etheric plane 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 Monroe's Locale 1 as well as the "Ghost" image of this plane, like 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 subconsciously interact with the Etheric plane on an ongoing basis, but it's not something that we all can do in a conscious waking state. The Third eye can 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 one.
I'll go over the "levels" of the realities in more detail in later lessons, as adjunts, just as 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.
The Etheric plane is usually where we go when we project while sleeping. You will meet many people there, from angels to sleepers to the newly deadl. 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 nothing.
This is kind of standard for the Etheric Plane and even the Astral Plane; unless you are looking for trouble, you generally 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.
FORGETTING
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 universe. So, we come here, embody, and then we spend the rest of our lives looking for knowledge. This is because we forgot our prior existance 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. This forgetting is essential for us to learn as beings. If we came into our bodies with all of our information intact, where would our incentive be to learn and grow? It's the searching for the knowledge we once had that forces us to learn new things.
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 clairity 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, we forget everything again, 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 the rest 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, after 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 existances, 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 forgetfullness in a moment, but the divisions of our body are germaine 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. The physical body, made out of atoms and carbon and many other chemicals, is worth about $20 American if it were rendered down for it's chemical components.
SPIRIT AND SOUL
However, we have two other bodies (or parts) as well: our Spirit and our Soul. The spirit is the body that is our mind, the thinking part of ourselves. It's 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 existances. 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 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 well, 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. Those records are called Akashic Records.
Because the Soul wants to live a lifetime uncontaminated by the clutter of a previous one, 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. Immagine 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. Thisimplies that the 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 subconscience to remember these events. And I know it's hard to do the exercises and write in your journals daily, but I practice what I preach and write in mine every day as well.
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 was writing this lesson, and for the life of me, I can't remember any of it, 10 short hours later. I did have the opportunity to write down my dream before I fully woke up, but 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 is irrelevent.
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 awareness, IE more or less advanced spiritually = more or less 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) is 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 who has not been there. It's like trying to explain the English term "Love" to someone who has spoken Erdu 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 similar enough that we can both understand.
However, I think a look at the other explanations would do us good.
It's what they interact with: Remember how I told you 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, char, how can what I tell what will 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 Dr. DeGarcia and I have presented as the Etheric Plane. What DeGarcia describes as the Atmic plane, I call the Astral, and Monroe calles 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 familliar with, and 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 awareness: Everyone is familliar 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 awareness. 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 learned. No one grade is better than any other.
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 represents 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 undefinable is ridiculous. 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 some questions that have usually been raised at this point.
1) 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 possilbe 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? Yes, you can, but it's REALLY hard to do.
*Can you lose 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 lose your body. Get that firmly planted into your mind. If your body is moved, hurt, hidden or whatever, you still can't lose 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 yanks us back into our physical form. It is almost like a spring or rubber band snapping us back into our bodies. 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, everytime.
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. 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, with total certainty that you will get home by thinking of your hand and moving a finger.
The times that I have done this, I usually bolted 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.
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 mussel has. It can stretch forever, getting thinner, but never losing 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. He decided to project out, and snap that cord. Almost instantly, his body ceased functioning and he drifted off to other realms. While I was sad, I did not stop him since I knew some of what he was going through and I didn't blame him.
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.
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Assignment:
Tell me: Which theory of the structure of the planes do you feel most comfortable with and 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.ulcseminary.org/astralprojection.pdf. Read this document (the author gave his permission). It is the Online CompuServe class 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.
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