Bob Peterson - Lessons Out of the Body

Also by Robert S. Peterson

Out of Body Experiences

Copyright 2001 by Robert S. Peterson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof in any form whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover painting by Louis Jones titled Neptune's Daughter

Cover design by Marjoram Productions

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001094008

ISBN 1-57174-251-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper in Canada

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I gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint portions of the following material:

Anderson, Jon. Horizon Copyright, 1983, Spheric B.V. / Warner Bros. Music, from the Polydor Ltd. Jon and Vangelis album, Private Collection. Quotation used with permission.

Gabbard, Glen O., Twemlow, Stuart W. With the Eyes of the Mind: An Empirical Analysis of Out-of-Body States Praeger Publishers, New York, NY., 1984. Portions reprinted with permission.

Grosso, Michael. The Parapsychology of God appears as of the book Body Mind Spirit Hampton Roads Publishing, 1997. Portions used with permission.

Mack, John E. Abduction Ballantine Books, New York, NY., 1994. Portions reprinted with permission.

O'Neill, Paul. Edge of Thorns Copyright, 1993, MCA Music Corporation, from the Atlantic Records Savatage album, Edge of Thorns. Quotation used with permission.

Scholz, Tom. My Destination Copyright, 1986, Hideaway Hits, from the MCA Records Boston album, Third Stage. Quotation used with permission.

I'd like to thank the following people for their support:

My wife, Kathy, whose love and encouragement kept me flying high, and whose wholesomeness kept me centered and grounded.

My mom, who made me who I am today. She taught me to believe in myself, and in God. She taught me that I should love and have faith in myself, in God, and in others. She taught me to reach for the stars, set my sights high and never give up my dreams. She taught me that we can do anything we set our minds to, and that we should not let anything come between us and our goals.

Julia Jablonski for her outstanding editing work and suggestions.

Those who have inspired me with their music: Paul O'Neill, Jon Oliva, and the bands Savatage, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Stratovarius, and Dream Theater.

Glide on silver wings of air,

Float on top of mountain breezes,

Reach up for the highest good,

Lift your spirit higher than the farthest reaches of space,

Pour your soul into the ocean of Love,

For Love is the most sacred accomplishment.

To this end, will we all one day meet.

Inner Voice

On September 9, 1979, I read the book Journeys Out of the Body by Robert Monroe. It was a book that changed my life forever. Instantly, I became fascinated with the possibility that we could somehow learn to leave our bodies and step into a different reality, transcending the limitations of the flesh. Most of the books called this astral projection, out-of-body experiences, or OBEs. Up to that point, I was skeptical and science-oriented. Everything Monroe said went against all of my religious and scientific beliefs, but Monroe explained astral projection in such a logical and scientific manner that it appealed to me right away. Instead of asking readers to believe his assertions, he asked them to try it for themselves. Monroe even gave a technique to induce OBEs in his book. I decided to try Monroe's method, mainly out of curiosity.

Much to my surprise, Monroe's method gave me immediate results: I had a terrifying run-in with the vibrations, a convincingly real precursor to an out-of-body experience. From that point on, I was hooked; I had to explore it further. Had it not been for that instant gratification, I would probably have lost interest in OBEs and gone back to living my shallow, mundane, and materialistic life. Instead, Monroe's book started me on a high-speed roller-coaster ride of out-of-body experiences and psychic powers.

My mom and dad instilled in me a firm belief that I could achieve any goal if I had enough willpower, focus, and determination to learn the necessary skills. Though I've always set high expectations for myself, I've also always had the determination of a barracuda. For example, I once took a community education class to learn woodworking. When the instructor asked me to pick out my very first woodworking project, I didn't ask him for suggestions. Instead, I told him I was going to build a grandfather clock. Somehow he managed to keep from laughing, and kindly suggested that I try something simpler. To appease him, I built a simple wooden box that was done in one week, but my second project was, in fact, a grandfather clock, and I built it entirely from plans and planks of wood, not from a kit.

So after I finished reading Monroe's book, I had the same determination to learn how to induce out-of-body experiences. I began meditating, studying, and inducing altered states of consciousness, including OBEs. Although I only wanted to have OBEs, I got an unexpected by-product: I started having weird psychic experiences of every kind. Often the coincidences and synchronicities in my life piled up to the point of absurdity, to the point where I could no longer deny that psychic experiences were real or that they were happening to me. I also discovered how to communicate with an inner source of wisdom I call my inner voice. I don't know exactly what my inner voice is, but I'm sure that everyone has one. Some people may call it their spirit guide, but I don't think it's all that complex or mysterious; I think it's just a link from my conscious self to my higher self via my subconscious. Fortunately for me, I documented almost all of my unusual experiences in several journals. (I highly recommend journal writing, not only as a means of documenting your experiences, but also to help you organize, remember, and focus your spiritual life.)

My out-of-body adventures were many and varied. After studying and practicing OBEs for more than ten years, I had amassed a collection of books containing almost every volume on the subject of OBEs. After having read all but a few, I felt that there were a lot of misunderstandings and superstitions about the subject. For example, many of the OBE books approached the subject from an occult point of view, treating astral projection as some sort of psychic paranormal power, despite the fact that most OBEs happen to normal, ordinary people. Gabbard and Twemlow, in their 1984 book With the Eyes of the Mind, point out the typical profile of the OBE subject is remarkably similar to the average, healthy American individual. The individual may be of any age and is equally likely to be male or female (p. 40). I believe there's no such thing as a paranormal experience. No one out there is breaking the laws of physics. I think it's more correct to say that our knowledge of the laws of physics is incomplete, since those laws don't leave room for the experiences we label paranormal, such as OBEs.