astral work
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in my personal experience, other than child hood obe's - i've only managed to do it spontaneously so far. This was also during a time when i was meditating for about two hours a day, doing an LBRP and LBRH (banishing and invoking formula's) every day, and attending group ritual work about 4 times a month - hence, I was running a hell of a lot more energy than usual.
I've tried practicing to do "willed" astral projection, but haven't had much luck with it so far.
I do recomend Robert Bruce's "Astral Dynamics" as it is a very good book on the subject.
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I think the question is what do you want to achieve? How are you at doing things like the full LBRP or BRH mentally without breaking concentration?
V
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
concentration isn't my problem, really. i don't do those particular rituals - i'm more a star ruby and liber V kind of girl, although there is a version of the greater and lesser ritual of the hexagrams based on the structure in the Blue Brick edition of Book IV that i do.
thing is, i can get through a full ceremony, from the sealing to the banishing to the consecrations to the oath to opening the circle to the invocation to the license to the adoration without my mind wandering off in a physical temple.
in my mind i can get through the whole thing, too, without much difficulty, but i can't see Sh!t!
this is the thing about having worked alone for decades, i think - i'm very, very well developed on some planes and For Crap on others. this effect was cast into Sharp Relief when i finally made the link to A.'.A.'. after all those years, and starting doing group work with SOTO. there are massive gaps in some places, and working on the astral plane is the Next Big Thing
the eventual goal is to be proficient enough to pass my zelator test, for what it's worth. for now, i'd be content with just being able to explore a bit and such, work out my body of light for it's own sake, as it were.
my superior has his own ideas about it, of course, and they seem good, but i want to get as many perspectives on it as i can.
Love is the law, love under will
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My suggestion would be to try using the tattvas. I've been using them lately and having great success. I go into the dragon asana, close my eyes and clear my mind. I then picture myself in my inner temple and perform the greater invoking ritual of the pentagram. After this, I picture the tattva of the element that I want to explore and then let it grow large enough for me to step through. My mind normally becomes a whirl at this point, but after a minute it'll settle down with the imagery of the vision. When I feel like I've explored enough, I picture the tattva again and step back through it to get back to my inner temple. I then lastly perform the greater banishing ritual of the pentagram.
I've only been exploring the elements, so I've been sticking with the tattvas and the pentagram ritual. I'm looking at starting working with planetary energies, so will be using the hexagram rite, but I'm still deciding on whether the tattvas would be good to use for their exploration.
I'm rather new to astral work. Before I began my elemental work, I practiced the MMM meditation from Liber HHH (which is part of the traditional neophyte curriculum). I think doing it a few times helped me out when approaching the tattvas.
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The tattvas didnt work for me to Abstract even though they are simple .. Start off slowly again I dont know why but I started visualizing a black shiny pool ball you can use a key a plushy animal toy whatever is comfortable to think about.. Focus on in intently in your minds eye after a bit the image should start pulling away. A little trick I learnt is to in your minds eye refocus on the object almost like you would in the physical by squinting your eyes etc keep doing that when you start losing focus.. The Astral Dynamics book by Robert Bruce is great but to seriously get the benefit out of it you have to put six months aside to seriously master the techniques. But I don't think you have a problem with focus just your visualization have you thought of taking up some scrying there is nothing better if you want to hone your Astral chops
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have to ask, to those talking about the Tattva's technique... are you actually talking about full etheric/astral projection? Like.. your consciousness leaves your body, seemingly physically? as if your consciousness is no longer in your body at all but in an astral/etheric body?
oftentimes our words kinda mess us up talking about this whole thing.. "visualising" something or "scrying" it is not the same as actually having an Out of Body Experience and going there..
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@Jonathan said
"have to ask, to those talking about the Tattva's technique... are you actually talking about full etheric/astral projection?"
Don't confuse the two! Etheric projection and astral projection are quite distinct, both in technique and experience.
"oftentimes our words kinda mess us up talking about this whole thing.. "visualising" something or "scrying" it is not the same as actually having an Out of Body Experience and going there.."
OTOH don't confuse OOBE with "astral journeying." Though the training method usually starts quite similarly, in astral journeying it eventually is irrelevant where the body is located since nothing dealt with is on the same plane of density.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Jonathan said
"have to ask, to those talking about the Tattva's technique... are you actually talking about full etheric/astral projection?"Don't confuse the two! Etheric projection and astral projection are quite distinct, both in technique and experience.
"oftentimes our words kinda mess us up talking about this whole thing.. "visualising" something or "scrying" it is not the same as actually having an Out of Body Experience and going there.."
OTOH don't confuse OOBE with "astral journeying." Though the training method usually starts quite similarly, in astral journeying it eventually is irrelevant where the body is located since nothing dealt with is on the same plane of density."
exactly!
I've done both etheric and astral projection, and yes - very different..
(and i'm not skilled at all with either)just wondering if we are all talking about the same thing here..
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I wasn't really clear on the differentiation, terminology wise between etheric and astral project, and after reading up on it, I'm definitely talking about astral projection. I've never really heard the terminology etheric projection used before and it is seemingly another phrasing for OOBE.
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I've achieved both astral and etheric projection during my first run at magick when I was in my early 20's. (I'm 36 now) Etheric took about a month of same time every night practice.
Unfortunately I had 2 absolutely terrifying OOB journeys after about 2 months which certainly stopped any further experimentation, consciously and perhaps subconsciously as I was fairly traumatized for a long while.
Not knowing about the banishing rituals at that time I just 'got out' at will. Obviously a mistake.
The first - I was astrally projecting and ended up in a cave deep in the earth. I could hear a group of people opening something - a box or maybe something buried then many screams. I decided to get back into my body as whatever had been uncovered was bashing down the caves and I had a deep sense of dread.
I woke and realised it was someone at my bedroom door (I was back from University and in my parents house for the summer). So I opened the door and faced this 'demon' that was about 7 feet tall, eyes of fresh blood and its body seemed to be made up of flies that were in constant whirling motion.
Obviously I was freaked beyond rational thought at this time. Jumped into bed and hid under the covers totally awake and recited the Lords Prayer! (Catholic upbringing eh?)
'It' stayed for a good 2 minutes and I didn't get any sleep that night, or for another few...
The second was even more terrifying and I've waned to know what it could mean for a very long time. I do however feel uncomfortable about posting it here.
Jim is it ok if I PM you about it?
No witch/psychic or magician has been able to decode it for me yet which is disappointing as it was a big experience for me - more so than anything that has happened on Malkuth.
I'd like to understand what they mean and how to avoid such things in future since I seem to have put on a mental block which makes projection seem very unpalatable for me and thats a shame as I know I have to eventually make headway in this area.