Religious OBE Experiments

 by Bob Peterson

 

Many of my readers may wonder: Why don't I share more of my OBEs in my blog? There are several reasons:

• Many of my OBEs are just plain uninteresting. The OBE literature is chock full of authors with much more interesting experiences than mine. A book like Jurgen Ziewe's Multidimensional Man is enough to make me think my OBEs are mostly rubbish.
  
• I shared several of my more interesting OBEs in my first two books.
• I'm saving up my more recent the OBE narratives for another book, which is still a long time away.
  
• Many of my OBEs, especially more recent ones, are deeply personal and I'm not sure I'm ready to share them.
• Even now after 40 years I still feel like some of my experiences make me sound a bit loony.
  

Still, I feel like I should start sharing more of them.

 

I believe that most (or all) of mankind's religious beliefs are the result of someone's personal experience of the divine, and out-of-body experiences offer an ideal way to conduct religious experiments.

 

Over the years I've done several "religious experiments" from the out-of-body state. In December, 2015, I detailed one of those experiments in a blog article titled "Meeting Jesus Christ Face To Face." It was largely excerpted from my second book, Lessons Out of the Body, which is out of print and hard to find.

Here, then, is another religious experiment I did back in 1997, most of which appears in the same chapter in Lessons, titled "Chasing God"):

Kathy and I were at her parents' cabin with some friends. In the mid-afternoon, I lay down to attempt an OBE. I induced the trance, but couldn't sit up, even though I was separate from my body. I struggled a while, then came back.

I decided to try again, so without moving my body, I immediately tried to induce an OBE again. My consciousness was pretty clear. I used a relatively new method that involved intensely imagining that my body was swaying back and forth, swiveling my hips, as if I were standing up and shifting my weight from foot to foot repeatedly. The method worked, and within minutes, I was free from my body again. I made a mental note that I should use this in the future as a method of teaching OBEs.

As soon as I got out, I said, “Yes!” and thought about what I wanted to do. Once again, I tried to sit up and was unable to do so. I struggled a while, then came out of it again.

I induced the OBE state again, reached my arms out in front of me and opened my eyes. I couldn't see my arms, so I knew I was out-of-body for sure. This time I decided to try to contact God.

I stood up, this time successfully. I looked up to the heavens and prayed. I said something like, “God, Almighty, Creator of all things, I reach out for you.” As I said that, I reached up toward the sky with my mind. My soul became charged with energy, and I felt my aura expand in rings of energy out from my astral body.

My energy rose, and reached up to the sky higher and higher. Almost at once, a single bolt of energy came shooting down from above and hit me. The force of the energy bolt was so powerful that it knocked my astral body to the ground. It was just raw power; there was no feeling behind it. I lay there stunned for a second, wondering why I didn't encounter something more religious or loving or holy. Then I came back to my body again. I didn’t feel I was being punished at all; it was more like I had touched an energy force too powerful for me to handle.

I had expected to experience "Transcendence," see "The Light," or maybe some other kind of intense religious experience, but all I got on that particular occasion was raw power, as my astral body lay crumpled on the ground. But it was not my last experiment, and it's not the only one I'll share.

One way to tell the difference between an OBE and a lucid dream is that your expectations are often met in a lucid dream but OBEs usually defy your expectations. Religious OBEs especially seem to defy my expectations every time.

 

By the way: My physical body was not affected by the experience.

Bob Peterson
21 September 2021

Review: Astral Projection by Michael Marr

Review: Astral Projection

by Michael Marr

Today I'm reviewing Astral Projection by Michael Marr. The subtitle is Experience Lucid Dreaming, Hypnogogic [sic] State, Meditation and Prove Your Immortality Ultimate Guide Master to the Art of Lucid Dreaming and Discover Your Own Expanding Consciousness. Whew! That's a mouth full. It was published in January, 2021.

I've complained many times about books that are just knowledge dumps and don't give you any idea the author's level of experience, and this is no exception. There are no personal astral projection narratives or stories. There are no mentions of teachers, gurus or classes. It's just a knowledge dump.

The information Marr gives is actually pretty decent, and most of the book is techniques. Chapter 1 is titled "History of Astral Projection" and like many similar books, this does not go into much detail.

Chapter 2 is how to astral travel. Marr gives very basic instructions including relaxation, meditation, then a few basic techniques:

1. Climb on the Rope - Imagine a rope and slowly climb on it.
2. Float Away - Visualize yourself floating away from your physical body while staying relaxed.
3. Reach for the Object - Imagine a fixed or stationary object.
4. Listen to a binaural beat. (Odd use of the singular instead of beats.)
5. He also gives Sylvan Muldoon's "Thirst" technique.
   

At first I was disappointed. Then I moved on to chapter 3 which is "Advanced Astral Projection Techniques." Here he gives a couple of Robert Monroe's techniques that involve rolling out of your body as in the hammock. Oddly, he says remember not to roll physically, but rather to visualize your astral body rolling out of your physical body. In my opinion, that's often not enough. What I often recommend is that you wait until the vibrations reach their peak intensity, then try to roll out of your body (or stand up, etc.) physically. If you're in the right state, your astral body should move and your physical body should not.

In spite of having described a rope technique in Chapter 2, Marr also gives a more detailed version in chapter 3. This is more like Robert Bruce's original rope technique where you imagine what it would feel like to reach up with your hands grab the rope and pull yourself upwards. Most books don't describe the tactile nature of this technique, so I've got to give him some credit there.

Chapter 4 is "What to Expect in the Astral World" and it's pretty basic stuff.

Chapter 5 is "Water, a Lifeline for Astral Projection!" Now this technique is unique in the genre. Marr gives the following steps for this technique:

1. Creating a Charge - Basically you take a glass of water place it in your hands relax and get comfortable imagine that your right hand is positive and left hand has a negative charge when you hold the glass with both hands placing them on opposite sides of the glass you basically charge the water.
2. Feel the change - Try to feel warm spreading all over through your wrists and hands this is the generation of energy required to "magnetize" the water.
3. Feel the vibrations - Focus on the glass: the increased pulsing sensation makes you feel a vibrating sensation emitting from the glass.
4. Drink the water - And imagine the water charges you.
   
5. Practice - Repeat the above four steps for about a week.
6. Charge the Water again on the 8th day - Charge the water again as before.
7. Cover yourself with white light
8. Deep breathing breath 1 and 2 - breath deeply and holding the breath for about 10 to 12 seconds and then releasing it slowly.
9. Deep breathing breath 3 - On the 3rd breath count up to 12 then release the breath as quickly and forcefully as you can.
10. Practice that over and over.
    

Chapter 6 is "Chakras Expanded." Ho hum.

Chapter 7 is "Acetylcholine Supplements and Memory."

Chapter 8 is "Psychic power is real".

Chapter 9 is "Understanding the Different Planes That Make Up The Human Nature."

Chapter 10 is "Protecting Yourself In The Astral World."

Chapter 11 is "Best Astral Projection Techniques And How To Perform Them." Here he gives some decent information, such as charging up the chakras and:

"You must work to keep your mind active and engaged in the process, or you run the risk of simply falling asleep and missing out on the astral projection experience." (pg. 109)

But the most interesting technique Mar gives is chapter 12 - "The Anchor Technique." I liked this technique best because it reminds me of my own favorite technique: the one I described in chapter 24 of my first book. In my version I:

1. Imagine myself floating and swaying in my bed.
2. Visualize a moving object, like a cube or octahedron floating in space.
3. I pretend the object has a gravity that pulls me toward it.
4. I pretend the object and I swing in an opposite rhythm.
5. When the object gets close to me, I grab onto the object and let the gravity pull me out-of-body.
   

Marr's version is similar, but you visualize or imagine a non-moving stationary object, like a tree. Then you imagine reaching out and pulling yourself toward it. The tree is stationary, so it does not move, and therefore your astral body must move when you pull.

In the same chapter, he gives a variant called the "Moving Anchor Technique" that's even more like mine. You visualize an object, like a television, and imagine it repeatedly swaying back and forth toward you, then away from you. He doesn't give me credit, but this is almost the same as mine and I wonder if he got it from one of my books. (I later revised this technique to use hypnagogic images rather than visualizations because they're easier.)

Chapter 13 is "Protecting Yourself."

Chapter 14 is "Lucid Dreaming." In this chapter he gives some solid lucid dreaming techniques, such as reality checks. Another technique he gives is called "The Diamond Method."

"In this you meditate and visualize your dream life and awake life as facets on a single diamond. Whatever you call the diamond, the aim is for you to realize that everything is happening at once. It is your perception that arranges the events of your life into a linear order.
So therefore your life is like the diamond, each facet can be viewed as a separate experience meaning your waking life and dreaming life exist simultaneously. As you are meditating, shift your awareness from the waking facet to the dreaming facet and you should be able to enter a lucid dream very easily." (pg. 142)

There are a couple more chapters, but basically that's it. The book is 154 pages. The format is somewhat small and the font somewhat large. That means you're getting an adequate amount of content. Still, it's better than a lot of books out there.

I'll give the book 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5.

07 September 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.

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