We now know that everyone has a second invisible
body inside their physical body. Some people call this the
"astral body" and under some circumstances it
is able to move out of the physical body. Many people say
they have seen that the two bodies joined by a silver cord
which stays connected while the person is alive. If the
person dies the cord is cut.
For over 2000 years there have been
reports of people finding themselves floating up above their
bodies while sleeping, or finding themselves suddenly behind
or above their body looking down on it.
• Socrates, Pliny and Plotonius in
Ancient Greece described out of body experiences
• Plutarch described an OBE that occurred
to Aridanaeus in A.D. 79
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes
a duplicate of the physical body which lifts out of the
physical body
• Mahayana Buddhism acknowledges the
existence of a duplicate body
• the ancient Chinese said that they
could experience an OBE after meditation.
Many famous writers of this century wrote
about their out of body experiences: Ernest Hemingway; Tolstoy;
Dostoevsky; Tennyson; Edgar Alan Poe; D H Lawrence; Virginia
Woolf.
Recent studies show that Out of Body Experiences
are quite common
• a 1954 survey showed that 27.1% of
American students reported having experienced OBEs
• two surveys of students in 1967
and 1973 in England showed that 19% and 34% had OBEs
• a survey in 1975 in the USA showed
that 25 % of students and 14% of residents from Charlottesville,
Virginia, claimed to have had OBEs.
In this 1979 video interview Robert Monroe talks about his
first OBE and explains that the evidence is that we all
go out of our bodies while we sleep.
Scientists have investigated them
A most highly credible scientist, Dr Robert
Crookall, analyzed over seven hundred reports of OBEs from
all over the world. He was surprised that they were all
consistent. (Crookall 1970).
The Society for Psychical Research investigated
a great number of cases of OBEs. In some of them the person
in the out of body state could be seen as if they were really
living by another person.
THE WANDERING MIND:
EXPLORING OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES WITH DR CARLOS S. ALVARADO
AND DR NANCY ZINRONE presenting at the Rhine Research Centre
In the United States, Karlis Osis and Boneita Perskari spent
several years doing scientific research with Alex Tanous.
A psychic was able to see him when he was out of his body
and described in detail his position and the shirt with
rolled-up sleeves and the pants he was wearing.
Keith 'Blue' Harary, was able to lie down
in a sealed laboratory room and move in his astral body
to another house twenty yards away. While there he was able
to read letters and report accurately on where the other
experimenters were sitting.
Dutch scientists succeeded in weighing the physical body
before and after a person went out of their body. They found
a weight loss of 2 1/4 ounces while the person was having
an out of body experience. (Carrington, 1973)
French researchers including Professor Richet
spent many years having a person go out of their body and
move material objects, produce raps at a distance and affect
photographic plates and calcium screens. They even photographed
the astral body while people were out of their physical
bodies.
Afterlife researcher George Meek was able
to have a photo taken of his astral body while he was having
an out of body experience.
The Monroe Institute
In 1965 Dr Charles Tart, a psychologist
at the University of California, conducted controlled experiments
with Robert Monroe, a highly gifted out of body experiencer,
who developed a way of having repeated out of body experiences.
Monroe started the Monroe Institute in Virginia USA to teach
others how to have out of body experiences.
The American Military found this was so useful that their
used it to train all of the people who were doing remote
viewing for the government. In this interview Skip Atwater
talks about his first out of body experience.
Out of Body experiences and the afterlife
Those who have had an out of body experience
usually accept that they survive physical death. They know
that the reason why they return to their physical body is
because their astral body is still connected to the physical
body by a silver cord.
When the silver cord is cut the second body
moves on to another world on a different frequency.
Robert Monroe wrote more than three books
giving details about his out of body explorations. He described
many different places outside the body that he claims are
worlds we go to when we die. For a summary of the different
levels see Overview
of focus levels.
The Monroe Institute put together
a program to help people who are dying understand that they
will survive death.
There are many books and videos available on how
to have an out of body experience.
The Out of Body Experience Research foundation
run by Dr Jeff and Jody Long has a wonderful page with lots
of recent examples of out of spontaneous and meditation
induced out of body experiences http://www.oberf.org/
We now know that everyone has a second invisible
body inside their physical body. Some people call this the
"astral body" and under some circumstances it
is able to move out of the physical body. Many people say
they have seen that the two bodies joined by a silver cord
which stays connected while the person is alive. If the
person dies the cord is cut.