Review: Astral Projection: The Amazing Secret of Astral Projection

Review: Astral Projection:

The Amazing Secret of Astral Projection

by Michele Gilbert

Today I'm reviewing the book Astral Projection by Michele Gilbert.

This is a very short book: I counted only 15 double-sided pages, but most of them were not helpful: title page, dedication, table of contents, about the author, and so forth. Needless to say, there's not much content.

The pages are a decent size, but the font is so tiny I could barely read it. The pages aren't numbered, which makes it hard to reference.

The book was obviously converted to a book from a web page, because it says things like, "You are just one click away! Follow the link below and sign up to start receiving awesome content".

The chapter titled "The History of Astral Projection" briefly talks about the ancient Egyptians, the Bible and the Koran in passing, but really says nothing about the modern history: Sylvan Muldoon, Oliver Fox, Robert Monroe, or any of the research that's been done. It's just basically says it has a long rich history, but doesn't give any concrete details.

Gilbert talks about two main ways of achieving astral projection: Through lucid dreaming and through meditation.

The chapter on lucid dreaming is pretty useless. The author spends more time saying "You're going to learn about this" than actually teaching anything, and what she's teaching is dubious at best. For example, she writes:

"By lucid dreaming, you're accessing the astral plane and you're capable of finding some very real and some very tangible answers that you may have questions to. By travelling out onto the astral plane, you're going to find a lot of strange things that are going to be described later on to you, but just take my word for it right now. You're going to find it weird. But, I want to start out with the beginning, because that's where everything should start out."

...But she never does. She really says nothing about what to expect; she doesn't even talk about the vibrations, or pre-OBE phenomena such as hypnagogic imagery. She doesn't talk about spirits, or about anything really.

Her instructions on how to induce lucid dreams is nonsense at best:

"Fall asleep and dream. When you finally hit a moment where you're dreaming, there's a part of your mind that knows you're dreaming. While your subconscious is running amok and you're reacting to everything around you, your mind and your awareness is still turned on. You have to be able to hone in on this awareness. You might find that you already do this on occasion. All you have to do is be aware that you're dreaming. Rather than running through the door or walking around the room where no one has pants on, stop and just take everything in."

Really? These aren't instructions; if I was already aware I was dreaming, the dream would already be a lucid dream by definition. She doesn't say anything more than to "hone in" on the awareness.

The chapter on "The Meditation Route" is almost as bad. She doesn't even tell you to quiet your mind. She doesn't suggest any specific visualizations. She only gives four tips: (1) Seek out someone who has done astral projection and ask for their help, (2) Look into the power of crystals, (3) Look into chakra work, and (4) Test yourself. Gilbert doesn't go into details on any of these things.

There are no concrete OBE techniques. There are no OBE narratives. There's just...nothing.

The writing was very unprofessional: full of grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. The sentences are often painfully wordy, and use passive voice; the hallmarks of a bad writer. Perhaps the best example of this is:

"At first, you might find out that you're going to be creating the world that you're experiencing as you're projecting. So the best way for you to see if you're really projecting is to test yourself with studying things around your house when you're just starting out."

In her "Conclusion" chapter, she thanks you multiple times for downloading her book. Later, she tells you all about her upcoming book on Wicca. Next, she gives you a list of other "books" she's written and invites you to "click" the links below. And to leave positive feedback on amazon.com.

The last page has "Additional Recommended Reading" which contains a list of five books: Erin Pavlina's book, The Astral Projection Guidebook, and William Buhlman's book Adventures Beyond the Body, and three others that have absolutely nothing to do with astral projection: One on angels, one on astrology, and one on palmistry. Really? Is that all the research she could do?

Finally, there's "About Michele". It actually says:

"...she enrolled at Brooklyn College and majored in English."

Really? Really? Gilbert obviously makes money by mass-producing books by doing minimal research, throwing together poorly written draft documents, then throwing them onto amazon.com for money.

The only good thing I can say about this book is that the cover is beautiful.

Thumbs down. Don't waste your money on this book. They can't all be good, folks.


Bob Peterson
02 February 2016