Lessons Out of the Body
Today I'm reviewing Lessons Out of the Body: A Journal of Spiritual Growth and Out of Body Travel by Robert Peterson. Actually, no. I'm not reviewing it because I wrote it, and I'm obviously biased.
Many
people buy astral projection and out-of-body experience books without
knowing much about the contents. To help people make an informed
decision, I've been doing detailed book reviews for many of these books for the past 8 years.
And I recommend that before you buy any book about it, check to see if
I've done a book review. But it recently occurred to me: my own
books--the books I wrote--are not represented in my list, so it is
unfair to me to keep them out and say nothing. So here it is.
In my first book, Out of Body Experiences, I tried to be as objective and scientific as possible. I basically reported my observations about the out-of-body experience, but I didn't talk about where it has led me in life. People really liked that.
In Lessons Out of the Body, I wrote about how out-of-body experiences have changed my life, made me a more spiritual person, and the life-lessons they taught me. Whereas the first book was the scientific side of OBEs, this book is the spiritual side of OBEs. As the subtitle implies, it is more geared toward "new age" and "spiritual" people. Readers who bought it with different expectations were disappointed. It's also a collection of things I had learned about OBEs in the two years since the first book's publication, and all the little things I regretted not mentioning in the first book.
Like the first book, this one is divided into two parts. Part one is "Life Lessons." This includes narratives of some of my most spiritually impactful out-of-body experiences. The chapters are as follows:
1. The Next Step
2. Perspective
3. The Wolf’s Lesson
4. Meeting With A Master
5. Astral Lynch Mobs
6. The Soulmate Experience
7. The JoAnn Lessons
8. Peggy's Gift
9. On Soulmates
10. Cathy
11. The Edge of Thorns
12. Cathys and Kathys
13. A Parting Gift
14. Helping
15. The Test
16. Chasing God
17. The OBE Outlook on Life
Part two is "Twenty Years of Out-of-Body Research." The chapters are:
18. Explore Your World...And Others!
19. The Continuum of Consciousness
20. OBEs and Organized Religion
21. The Problem of Obtaining Proof
22. How OBE is Like Tightrope Walking
23. OBEs and Psychic Protection
24. Are Alien Abductions OBEs?
25. Out-of-Body Experiences versus Lucid Dreams
26. Keys for Inducing an OBE
27. Using Desire to Achieve Out of Body Experiences
28. State of Mind Required to Induce an OBE
29. A Simplified Technique for Inducing an OBE
30. Improving Your OBE Ability
31. Overcoming Problems During an OBE
32. Questions and Answers
The book is 271 pages. It was published in 2001.
I'm giving it 3 and a 1/2 stars out of 5, just because readers didn't like it as well as my first book.
Bob Peterson
10 January 2021
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If you want me to review
a book about out-of-body experiences or astral projection, send me an
email: bob@robertpeterson.org, but please check the index first to see
if I've already reviewed it. Also, I've got a huge pile of books I'm
planning to review, so don't expect a quick turnaround.
If you like my work, visit my website, robertpeterson.org, where you'll find lots of other free OBE advice and links.
I'm currently reading this book and am delighted - actually, relieved! - to have found your comments regarding Bob Monroe's Focus Levels as experienced at TMI in the Gateway (and Guidelines) program. Why? Because I attended Gateway & Guidelines at TMI in 2000 & 2001 respectively, and have been confused about what it was that I actually experienced there. Based on the many books I'd read previously and afterward, and based on my own feelings, I knew I hadn't experienced full-blown OBEs, so I merely thought of my experiences there (and from the Gateway Voyage CDs used at home)_ as "trippy dreams while awake" even though I was flying in some of them, and transported to other realms and focus levels, etc..
ReplyDeleteIt's really been bugging me for 22 years because some OBE travelers and authors contradict each other, with some saying that you have NO DOUBT when you have an OBE, and others saying you might not realize that you had one and thought you were merely dreaming. My feeling was that I SHOULD KNOW for certain, so I was very disappointed because I always instinctively felt & believed that I did NOT have OBEs at TMI or from their CDs at home. So I am relieved to know for certain that I did not have OBES because it just made no sense to think that someone would have them and not know it.
The experiences at TMI were nice, and I'm glad that I attended the programs, but I really wish that my confusion had been cleared up long ago. Also, despite practicing their meditations and listening to the CDs daily for well over a year plus intermittently, I still had zero OBEs, so I felt like a failure and gave up on it after a while; and when I occasionally resumed brief interest in trying again I really had no trust that I would succeed. In recent months I resumed reading about and trying to have OBES although I have PTSD, ADHD, insomnia, etc. which make it extremely difficult to sit still and to still my mind for even 2 minutes... But with the confusion resolved about what I had experienced, and recently learning that some well known OBE travelers cannot sit still for meditation, I'm going to start all over again with a different perspective.
Likewise, as a young child especially, and then sporadically over several decades, I had flying dreams that did not feel like true OBES, but I was told by some people that they were OBES. I'm so relieved that your book cleared this up for me.
I also had a visit from my father on the night that he died in 1990. At that time I'd already been meditating regularly, etc. for a while. My family & I had visited him in the hospital for the last time when he was unplugged from life support machines (his wish) at 8:30 PM.. While I was sleeping later that night he visited me very briefly to let me know he was very well. He didn't speak but he looked radiant as in very happy, and his blue eyes lit up like they always had during his earth life whenever he was happy. He was sometimes called "Johnny Blue Eyes" by his sister, etc. He was standing behind a barrier that looked like clear glass which let me know that I was not to approach him or go where he was. Despite being a very brief visit it was great to know that he cared enough to contact me, and that he was happy and well. He & I were not close, and he was very strict :-(a Catholic) in some ways but surprisingly open minded in others, but he did his best to be a good father.