Douglas M Baker - The Techniques Of Astral Projection

The Techniques of

Astral Projection

By Dr. Douglas M. Baker

B.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., F.Z.S.

Printed and Published by Dr. Douglas Baker

Little Elephant

Essendon

Hatfield, Herts.

England

Gratefully Dedicated to the Master R.B.

THE AUTHOR GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE HELP OF BETTY

MOSELEY, RICHARD PAINTER AND STEPHEN FLYNN, WITHOUT

WHOSE HELP. THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED.

SECTION I

INTRODUCTION The Nature of Astral Projection (What astral projection is and is not) SECTION II

TYPES AND STAGES OF ASTRAL PROJECTION

SECTION III

THE TECHNIQUES

SECTION IV

THE ASTRAL WORLD

(What astral projection is and is not.)

We live at a time when increasing numbers of people are having out of-body experiences. Many of them are young. Most often they are teenagers. Some of their experiences result from the taking of psychedelic drugs. More often it is because they are psychic in some way. We overlook the fact that this is an Age in which the young people of today are far more spiritually developed than their parents. Such precocious spirituality is typical of any New Age.

This phenomenon will go on increasing as the Age of Aquarius blossoms. More especially will it be accelerated by the period of 1975 to A.D. 2000 for, in this twenty five years, it is said that the Mysteries will be restored and that already an effort by Five great Masters of the Wisdom towards this end has begun.

When such young people tell their psychiatrists of their out-of-body experiences, they get little understanding in return. They are told that their experiences are hallucinatory and should be ignored and even avoided. But to thousands of mankind, out-of-body experiences are not confused with dreams and hallucinations. There is a tremendous difference. Out-of-body means just that. The physical body was left behind in bed whilst the consciousness dwelt in some other vehicle of consciousness, usually a replica of the physical but far more ethereal or ephemeral. Such is the reality of the experience that no other possible interpretation for it can be given by the one experiencing it than that of astral projection, i.e.

projection away from the physical body in an astral body.

NOMENCLATURE

It is difficult to describe what happens in adequate language. The writer has had many thousands of astral projections and knows the procedures well enough, but, nevertheless, must often falter in his explanations for lack of suitable nomenclature. He has had to resort sometimes herein to the use of words associated with Yoga and with Theosophy because no others exist in English. But these words are restricted to a minimum.

There is another group of people having out-of-body experiences which is worth mentioning. It is those rare individuals who suffer clinical death. During a heart attack or whilst undergoing surgery, someone occasionally 'dies'. By this we mean that the heart stops and to all intents and purposes, the person is dead.

If or when he is successfully resuscitated, he frequently reports an out-of-body experience which is astral projection pure and simple whilst the physical body lies 'dead' on the operating table.

Leslie Sharpe, a Toronto business man had just this experience. Late one spring afternoon in 1970, his heart stopped beating and for three minutes and eleven seconds, he was 'dead'. But he survived and recalled, in vivid detail, his sensations during clinical death. I quote now from the report by the Toronto Daily Star columnist Sidney Katz....

Upon recovering consciousness, the first thing he told the doctor at his bedside was: "If I go out again, don't bring me back - it's so beautiful out there" ....

.... "I saw myself leave my body, coming out through my head and shoulders. The body was somewhat transparent, although not exactly in vapour form. Watching, I thought 'So this is what happens when you die.'"

The scene suddenly shifted and Sharpe now found himself sitting on a small object, tilted at a 45 degree angle, travelling through a blue-grey sky at a great speed....

The next sensation was of a "delightful floating" in a bright yellow light. Sharpe recalled: "I have a scar on my right leg, the result of an old injury. Although, at the time, I was not conscious of having any lower limbs, I felt the scar being torn away and I thought `They have always said that your body is made whole out here. I wonder if my scars are gone?'"

"I tried unsuccessfully to locate my legs. In the meantime, I continued to float, enjoying the most beautiful, tranquil sensation. I have never experienced such a delightful sensation and have no words to describe it."

Then a series of hard blows to his left side brought him back to consciousness. (His heart had been restarted by means of shocks from-an electric paddle.) Looking up, he could recognise the doctors and nurses. They explained that he had taken "a bad turn".

Leslie Sharpe's experience contains many elements of astral projection which provide important keys to the understanding of the phenomenon. Firstly, he insists that he was in another body. He also describes how that body had a sensory equipment of its own which did not detract from his having sensations in his more solid body lying, as it was, in bed. He had dual sensory equipment. His physical body possessed sensation and his astral body also had sensory equipment. For the student of astral projection, this is most important to understand. He must be prepared for this duality of sensation experienced in two different vehicles of consciousness. The astral double possesses its own organs of sensation. The great New York medium and clairvoyant Eileen Garrett often stressed this in connection with her astral projections:

"While I am in a state of projection, the DOUBLE is apparently able to use the normal activity of all five senses which work in my physical body. For example I may be sitting in the drawingroom on a snowy day and yet be able in projection to reach a place where summer is at the moment full-blown. In that instant I can register with all my five physical senses the sight of the flowers and the sea; I can smell the scent of the blossoms and the tang of the ocean spray, and hear the birds sing and the waves beat against the shore. Strange to say, I never forget the smallest detail of any such experience which has come to me through conscious projection, though in ordinary daily living I can be quite forgetful, and memories of places and things may grow dim."

[ A line drawing of the chakras, labeled, from the top, "Continuity ofConsciousness", "Clairvoyance", "Clairaudience", "Understanding",

"Travelling", "Feeling", and finally, at the bottom, "Seat of Kundalini". ]

The mechanism whereby one gains impressions of the inner worlds and of physical places a great distance away, is through the etheric centres or chakras which are shown allied to their respective senses and psychic powers in the picture above.

Diagram from "THE ETHERIC DOUBLE" by Major A.E. Powell

Note.

The diagram is of special interest here because it shows the pathways of vitality energising the centres with the energy of prana derived mainly from breath. In the section on TECHNIQUES, we shall be referring to the importance of breathing in relation to astral activity.

One is not likely to confuse the two bodies so far described. The physical body is interpenetrated and surrounded by a force-field most generally called THE ETHERIC BODY or double. This is a vehicle of subtle matter made of a material that interpenetrates any gas, liquid or solid just as easily as water interpenetrates sand. The etheric body has its own organs which are adequately described in any textbook of Theosophy. It energises the physical tissues and therefore, cannot be separated from the physical body for long. Dislodgement of the etheric matrix soon brings death to the overlying physical body. It cannot be projected.