The Out Of Body Experience
Out of body travel has been recorded in the annals of history, dating back several centuries to the times of the ancient Egyptians. They called the soul, or the astral body, “Kha,” and often reproduced images of it hovering over or beyond the flesh-and-blood body. It was shown to be airy and translucent, and often haloed by light.
Fascinated by the astral body the ancient Egyptians experimented with various techniques in order to control the ability to travel in the astral body to other planes of space and time, while their physical body stayed put where it lay. This is also known as astral projection. Perhaps, during such experiences they learned the skills required for building the pyramids, using the materials they had on hand. The building of the pyramids is something that has long been a puzzle to scientists.
The first component of out of body travel for the ancient Egyptians involved meditation, it is recorded. Followed by focusing on nothing except the visions seen with the eyes closed, while nearly at the point of being asleep. The ancient Egyptians associated the flashing patterns and lights as a sign of the beginning of the journey to other planes of space and time by the astral body.
Upon passing through this meditative state, the astral body would reach a phase of emergence, which would create a tingling and humming within the physical body. Then they would experience the feeling of heaviness. The ancients believed that the feelings of tingling, humming and then heaviness was a sign of the astral body pulling away from their physical body. This would then initiate the journey of the astral body to unknown planes of existence.
The techniques for accomplishing this varied, but the most common practice seemed to be to simply “walk” out of oneself, beginning through the mind’s eye, followed then by the shoulders and chest, hips, legs, knees, and finally the feet until there were two entities – a physical body and the astral body.
After this separation, the astral body could freely pass through solid objects that the physical body could not. It could also fly and hover without becoming influenced by the lack of oxygen or changes in the atmosphere.
Recordings of the ancient Greeks include examples of out of body astral travel, which expanded on the meditatively-induced state of the ancient Egyptians. This included the experiences of out of body travel by the means of some sort of mental or physical trauma. Plutarch of Queroneia an ancient historian cites that Arisdeu had suffered a blunt head trauma after falling and then slipped into a coma that lasted three days.
During this time the experience of Arisdeu included seeing his immobile physical body on the ground, although he was able to freely move about. He was able to travel out of body to previously unimagined places. After adapting to this new environment, the spirit guide of Arideu met him and assisted him and then advised him of the projection of his astral body into other dimensions.
After some time exploring and learning what he could about this altered state of existence, he felt himself forcibly pulled back into his physical body, where he then spent the rest of his life trying to apply the information he learned while on his out of body journey.
Ancient Egyptians and Greeks are not the only cultures to record the history of out of body travel. The history of the Native Americans contains many full accounts of similar occurrences. These include meeting spirit guides and spirit animals advising on the traveling of the astral body. Native Americans have for centuries burned and then inhaled the smoke of particular plants to help relax the mind to the point required for out of body travel.
Since the beginning of recorded time, human beings have been able to channel their consciousness into a spiritual body, which is then capable of exploring the limitless horizons of space and time. But in today’s technological age with it fast-paced culture, many of us have lost touch with this ability to alter our consciousness to the point that we can release it from the confines of our physical limitations, and with practice, join our spiritual guides and counterparts on a higher plane of existence.
The door is within each of us, we simply need to remember how to reconnect with the higher more spiritual side so that we are once more about to journey out of body to those higher planes. The possibilities are unlimited. It is a natural process and once we rediscover this inside ourselves we can gain in the potentials of understanding our higher self.
