Meditation – A Guide

Introduction

I want to put up some articles about channeling and mediumship. I’ve stayed away from these articles because most of the techniques involve deconstructing boundaries, and that can be problematic and psychologically harmful if not handled correctly, especially when you’re trying to develop a one size fits all method instead of tailoring the instruction to a particular person. There’s also a fear that someone might try to ‘teach’ my methods, but with additions and omissions for the sole purpose of exploiting someone sexually. I prefer giving this information out on a person-to-person basis, that way I can give the person the exact information they need and make sure they understand it and aren’t harmed by it. However I now want to put the information out there for people, because I haven’t been able to find any good publicly available instructions, and these are very cool things that people want to try, and, especially in regards to channeling, these are extremely valuable tools for acquiring spiritual information.

Also a lot of jack-offs, and this is especially true in the New Thought Movement but it happens in other places as well, make themselves into spiritual leaders because they’re supposedly channeling basic spiritual information from something. I say supposedly because they could be channeling this stuff, but it’s all so basic and has been written down so many times already that they could just be reading books. One thing that I never see the jack-offs teaching, at least to all their followers, is how to channel, which is the one really important spiritual thing they’re doing. For these leaders being a spiritual guru with dependent followers, and all of the emotional and financial validation that comes along with that, is more important than being an actual spiritual leader and teacher and passing down their spiritual techniques to empower others. That’s assuming they even know how to channel and aren’t, like I said, just reading books and slightly rewording things like a teenager plagiarizing Wikipedia for their English paper. Either way, I fucking hate those people, and I want to make it so anyone who wants to learn how to channel can.

The problem I have is that when I talk about intermediate and advanced subjects, like Channeling and Mediumship, or really any magic that isn’t basic beginner exercises and theory, I always come back to the same bit of advice: ‘If you’re having trouble with this, spend more time practicing Energy Manipulation, Meditation, and Visualization.’ Those three things are the basic pillars of magic. Every kind of magic, whatever it is, requires you to have some degree of competency in those three things. Getting better at any of those things will make all of your other magic stronger. If you’re just starting out and you don’t know what magic you should be doing, those three things will pay the biggest dividends and make you a better magician faster than anything else. If you’re an experienced adept, it’s still important to practice those things every day, because getting better and better at those things is going to make you even stronger.

I’ve written about Energy Manipulation and I have some very good beginner exercises for it. I’m hoping to expand on that and finish those exercises soon, but even right now there’s enough there to get someone to a point where they can continue to develop on their own. I haven’t posted much about the other pillars, Meditation and Visualization. That’s because there’s already lot of good information out there, and also they’re kind of boring to write about and I’m lazy, but I’m finally doing an article on each before I get into channeling so I have a resource I trust to point folks towards.

If you’ve already been taught meditation, this article might still be useful to you. Most people never get past the early stages of meditation, and so when most people teach meditation, they teach it as if the early stages are all there is to it. If you’ve been doing meditation for a while and you can’t achieve a meditative state almost every time and a trance state a majority of the time, this article can help you figure out what you’re missing.

Preparing For Your First Meditation

The first few times you meditate, you should try doing it under the best possible conditions. You’ll want to make yourself comfortable and eliminate any distractions. What’s comfortable and what’s a distraction is going to be different for everyone, so it’s important to find what works for you instead of following someone else’s guidelines. I’m going to offer some suggestions, but ultimately you have to figure out what you need to be comfortable and free from distraction.

To start you want a space where you’ll be alone and no one will bother you for at least a little while. It’s best if this is a familiar space that you already feel comfortable in. Like maybe your bedroom, or your living room, or outside in your yard if it’s private.

Next you’ll want to be comfortably dressed. For most people this is going to be loose fitting clothes that don’t restrict movement or cut off circulation. Ideally you want clothes that you won’t feel on you. You may feel more comfortable and less distracted in your underwear, in a bathing suit, or completely naked, but if you feel self conscious not wearing enough clothes, or you’re going to stress about someone walking in on you or peeking through a window and seeing you undressed, wear more clothes. Some people find that a heavy blanket, or a comforter, helps with not getting distracted by physical sensations, and it also relaxes them and helps them feel more comfortable. However if you happen to be that rare person that only ever feels at ease in formal business attire, then wear that because it’s what works best for you.

Whatever you decide to wear, make sure it fits the temperature of where you are. You don’t want to feel hot or cold.

As for lighting, you’ll want some light, but less is better. If it’s daytime, draw the curtains or shut the blinds. If you’re outside in your yard, maybe sit in the shade or something and don’t face the sun. If it’s night, dim the lights. A pitch black or near pitch black environment is going to be counterproductive to learning meditation, and that kind of sensory deprivation is going to open up a whole different can of worms spiritually speaking. A lot of people prefer candlelight for meditation.

Finally you’ll want to get the sounds right. You’ll probably want to find someplace quiet. Of course nothing is completely quiet, so what you really want is someplace with no distracting noises. Some people do best with some kind of white noise or maybe nature sounds or some relaxing music. Other people find all that stuff incredibly distracting. The important thing is to find the environment that suits you, whatever it is.

Keep in mind that these are preparations you’ll want to take when you’re first learning how to meditate. You want to give yourself as much of an advantage as you can, because learning how to meditate, and learning how to do it well, can be difficult. Once you get meditation down, the next step is learning how to meditate in situations where you may not be so comfortable, or where there may be distractions. Eventually you’ll want to be able to meditate in any kind of situation you might find yourself in. That might seem difficult and overwhelming when you’re first learning how to meditate, but don’t worry about it. Once you know how to meditate, teaching yourself to meditate quickly or meditate when you’re distracted is a lot easier than learning how to meditate in the first place.

Your First Meditation

For your first meditation find a position that’s comfortable for you. That can be sitting in your favorite chair, on the floor, or lying in bed. Pretty much any position you could potentially fall asleep in. Next close your eyes, and then try not to think about anything. You’re going to get intrusive thoughts, because you’re trying not to think about things, and that’s what happens when you try not to think about things. That’s okay. This stuff takes practice, and this is your first time. Don’t try to fight the intrusive thoughts too hard, because that will just create a cycle that makes the situation worse. Maybe let the thoughts run their course and then move past them. Also try not to feel anything. Try not to be happy, or sad, or angry, or anything else. Just try to be calm and relaxed. If you can’t do that yet, that’s okay.

Just stay like that for a while. Don’t think about anything, but if you are thinking about things, just think about them. Stay like that for as long as you can. The longer you can stay like that, the better. But if you start to feel restless or bored and it ceases to be relaxing and starts to be a chore, then go ahead and stop.

Now that I’ve gone over your first meditation, maybe reread the last few paragraphs once more, than go meditate right now before you read anymore of the article. I know you have the time to get everything ready and do it for at least a little bit, because this is a really long article. If you have the time to read this, you have the time to meditate. If it’s between reading the rest of this article and meditating right now, go meditate, and you can finish reading this later when you have more time.

Seriously, after you finish this paragraph, go meditate! If you can’t get things perfect so you’re comfortable and free of distractions, just make yourself as comfortable and free of distractions as you can right now and meditate. If you don’t meditate right now, you won’t understand the rest of this article, and even if you plan on doing it later, everything I write after this is going to be worthless to you and won’t help you in any way. There’s no point in reading the rest of the article if you aren’t meditating after this sentence ends, so if you’re not meditating you should do something else that’s more productive or fun.

After Your First Meditation

Congratulations on meditating for the first time. Did you reach a meditative state? Did you reach trance? Was it an amazing spiritual experience that completely changed your life and your perception of the spiritual universe? If you answered yes to any of those questions, that’s awesome, but you probably answered no. If you felt relaxed and managed to clear your mind a bit you’re ahead of the curve. If you felt bored, thought you weren’t doing it right, or felt stupid because some guy on the Internet tricked you into sitting still for a few minutes and is trying to pass that off as a significant spiritual experience, that’s how most people feel the first time they meditate. The important thing is you did some practical work today and took the first step to learning meditation.

Having meditated today you’re 1000 times more spiritually advanced than anyone who has never meditated, which from my experience is most of the magical community. You’re 10 to 100 times more advanced than all of the people who have meditated before, but haven’t meditated today, which is most of the rest of the magical community. Your spiritual advancement is now somewhere in the top percentile of the magic community, so you should be really proud of yourself.

Magical Theory of Meditation

So let’s talk about what meditation is and what we’re trying to achieve when we do it. And we’ll start with altered states of consciousness.

The Meditative and Trance States

So there are a lot of different states of consciousness we can be in. The one we’re all most familiar with, because we spend a lot of time in it, is our sober and awake state. This is the state you’re probably in right now, and it’s the one most people use as their reference point when comparing other states. The other state of consciousness everyone’s really familiar with is the dream state. Arguably there are at least two different dream states, the one where you’re asleep and full on dreaming, and the one where your mind drifts off into dreams as you start to fall asleep. Doing drugs or drinking alcohol can also bring you into other various altered states of consciousness.

There are two altered states of consciousness that are achieved through meditation, the meditative state and the trance state.

The meditative state is hard to describe. In fact it’s sometimes hard to even notice you’re having it if you’re not used to identifying it. It’s a state of heightened clarity, focus, and awareness. In a meditative state you may find it much easier to think and draw conclusions. You may also find it much easier to feel energy, both your own and what exists around you. The best way I can describe it is it’s kind of like being in a deep sleep, except you’re awake and not dreaming. I have to point out that I don’t mean you’re actually asleep. You’re awake in every sense of the word. If you’re literally asleep you’re not in a meditative state, you accidentally fell asleep while meditating and are no longer meditating.

Even though it can be hard to identify the meditative state the first time you reach it, it does feel distinctly different from both your normal awake state and your dreaming state. Ultimately you’re going to have to trust you’re instincts a bit, but you should be able to figure out that you’ve achieved it after you’ve done it a few times.

The second state is the trance state, and you reach the trance state after you reach the meditative state. The trance state is very distinct, and unlike the meditative state you’ll probably know it when it happens. The trance state is a state of hyper-awareness, hyper-focus, and hyper-clarity. In a trance state you’ll probably feel very empowered. You’re going to have a much easier time feeling your own energy, and without all the normal emotional and mental barriers and distractions that hold you back and a singular focus, your energy is going to be turned up really high, so much so you’ll probably feel it bursting out of you. Not only will you feel these strong energies bursting out of you, but you’ll also have a lot of control over them.

Much like the meditative state, the trance state is great for thinking things over. It’s also great for doing magic. The heightened awareness that comes with it makes it much easier to see spirits and what the energy around you is doing. All that energy that’s bursting out of you and all of the focus you now have is going to make your magic a lot more powerful, and you’ll be a lot more successful with it. In a trance state it’s not unheard of to find previously unknown reserves of energy that can be tapped into and magical abilities that you weren’t even aware you had.

The meditative and trance states are excellent goalposts for when you’re first starting to learn meditation. Your first goal should be to reach a meditative state. Then try to repeat that success several more times. Next you should try to consistently achieve a meditative state when you meditate. That means that almost every time you meditate you achieve a meditative state, and its an expected outcome of meditation. After that, the next goal should be reaching a trance state, and then you should aim to hit a trance state a few more times, and after that have trance be a fairly regular outcome of meditation. Once you reach that point there’s still a lot of room for improvement, but there’s also a lot of different things you can focus on improving.

The Steps of Meditation

There are five parts, or steps, to meditation. They are Clarity, Awareness, Focus, Self-control, and Trance. Typically you go through them in that order, and it’s usually easiest to do it in that order, but they don’t have to be done in that order. They can happen in any order, and you can skip back and forth between them. You can do a little bit of Clarity, and then a little bit of Awareness, and then come back to Clarity and do that some more. They can also be done simultaneously.

When you’re first starting out, it’s best to try doing them in the easy order first:

Clarity—>Awareness—>Focus—>Self-Control—>Trance

When done in that order, when you do well on one step it will naturally lead to doing better in the next step creating a flow that will make it easier to get to Trance. It’s okay to dedicate an entire meditation session to just one step. The first thing you should be doing is spending your meditation sessions working on Clarity and getting it down. Once you feel like you’re doing well with Clarity, move on to Awareness. Move through each step, and once you have all four down you should naturally hit Trance. If you hit a wall with a step, go back to the beginning and strengthen each of the preceding steps. If you get through the first four and aren’t hitting Trance, start over from Clarity and strengthen each step.

Step 1: Clarity

Put simply, Clarity is the process of clearing your mind. It is typically the only step of meditation that’s taught, and often it’s the only step the instructor knows. It is, however, only the first step in a larger process, and even if you master it, you won’t be seeing the results you should if you never work on the proceeding steps.

There is, of course, an argument to be made that a student only needs to be taught Clarity. Because the steps flow from each other, once the student has mastered Clarity they have the necessary skills to discover and improve upon the proceeding steps and eventually reach Trance. However in practice, as proven by numerous forums, blogs, reddits, and con-men selling spirituality, if you only teach Clarity what you end up with is a bunch of people who think that Clarity is the end goal of meditation, because that’s all their instructor ever told them, or that’s all they read about in a book, and if an authority figure didn’t explicitly state something it can only be because it doesn’t exist. So I’m going to teach all the parts of meditation.

Going back to Clarity, ourselves, or more accurately the bunch of bodies that make us up, is the only tool that we need to do a magical operation. Other tools can be helpful, but we don’t need them, and any kind of magic can be done without those tools. In contrast, we need ourselves to do any kind of magic. Also we suck at being magical tools. Everything affects us, and we in turn pollute our magic with all the crap that’s affecting us. If you’re doing a spell and you think, “Did I leave the oven on?”, that thought is now wrapped into your spell. Even thinking about the spell you’re doing wraps your thought about the spell into the spell. If you’re happy, sad, excited, angry, nervous, whatever emotion you’re feeling, that emotion pollutes the spell as well. There are, of course, steps we can take to lessen the impact of these stray thoughts and emotions and other things that influence our spells, and at the end of the day our spells don’t have to be perfect, they just have to work. If a spell produces the desired outcome, even if it’s sloppy and has some superfluous crap about the state of my oven in it, it’s good enough.

Clarity is us recalibrateing our bodies. What we’re trying to do is bring each of our bodies to a neutral state. Perfect Clarity is the goal, but we don’t need to reach a state of perfect Clarity to achieve Trance. Perfect Clarity is likely impossible to achieve, and if you dedicate yourself to reaching perfect Clarity before moving on to the later steps, you’ll never move on. Instead try to do Clarity well, and once you feel you’re doing it well enough move on to Awareness.

To explain Clarity, it’s easiest to break ourselves down into five bodies, the physical, the astral, the mental, the emotional, the creative, and the spiritual, and explain how we achieve Clarity in each one. And yes, I realize I said five bodies and then listed six. That was intentional. You can, if it bothers you, either count the physical and astral bodies as a single body, or just eliminate the spiritual body from the list. The number of bodies isn’t important, and I’m doing it this way because I have other articles I may write in the future, and I don’t want those articles to contradict this one, because if I do sometime after I’m dead middle-aged armchair magicians will argue about what great secret I was hiding by making the contradiction, or they’ll argue about whether or not everything I’ve ever written is wrong because of one small contradiction they found, instead of doing magic so they might actually know a god damn thing. And nobody wants that.

So anyways, body Clarity both in the order of importance and the order you should work on them:

Mental Body: This is the act of clearing your mind and not thinking about anything. That seems like it should be really easy, but for most people it’s not. It is however something that gets easier with practice. Usually if you try to think about nothing you’ll get an intrusive thought, or a thought about thinking about nothing, or you’ll imagine what nothing is. If you try to push the thoughts out that just makes you think them harder, and think other thoughts about pushing them out, and at that point you’re also expending a lot of energy on what should be an effortless process.

If you’re having trouble clearing your mind, the best thing to do is not focus on the thoughts and just let them play themselves out. Intrusive thoughts become less of a problem when you stop giving them energy by trying to get rid of them. The more you relax yourself and fall into meditation, the less likely it is you’ll have them. With practice it gets easier to clear your mind, and eventually this will be a non-issue. Until then remember, the point isn’t to be perfect. The point is to practice and improve yourself so that you’re always getting better at it.

Some people focus on their breathing or a sound in order to help clear their mind. If you’re really struggling that may help, but it’s going to make the later steps harder and you’ll have to come back later and relearn Clarity in order to get through them.

Emotional Body: You don’t want to be feeling any emotion, you just want to be in a state of emotionless calm. That’s actually a lot easier than not thinking any intrusive thoughts, and it’s especially easy when you’ve already cleared your mind. If you’re really emotional you may need to spend some time calming yourself first, but for most people, especially when you’re meditating in an ideal environment, this one’s usually pretty easy to achieve. This one gets more difficult to do when the environment isn’t ideal, or if you’re already very emotional before you start meditating, and those are things you can work on as you get better at meditation.

Physical Body: If you try to meditate and you find yourself getting distracted by your clothes, or the sounds around you that you didn’t even hear before you started meditating, or you start having itches, that’s your physical body acting up. This is actually an easy one to fix if you’re having problems with it, and it’s easy because all of us are very practiced at overcoming it. When you go to bed at night these same annoying issues can keep you from falling asleep. Figure out how you’re dealing with it when you go to sleep, and apply those same techniques to meditation.

If you’re really struggling with this one, you may have to start thinking about what you can do differently before you start meditating to improve your environment. Would you be more comfortable in different clothes? Would you be more comfortable lying down? Is there a source of noise you can eliminate so you can focus better?

Eventually you want to get to the point where none of that crap matters, because you want to be able to meditate in an environment that’s uncomfortable, but the goal for now is just to get to the meditative state, and then the trance state. If you struggle to meditate when you’re uncomfortable, that’s something you can come back to and work on later.

Astral Body: If you’ve also been practicing Energy Manipulation, it’s a good idea to spend some time balancing your energy during meditation and bringing it to a neutral state. If you’re not skilled enough at Energy Manipulation that you can easily do that, don’t worry about it. Clearing your mind of thoughts and calming your emotions is going to naturally balance your energy to a degree anyways.

Creative Body: This mother fucker is the reason you’ll never achieve perfect Clarity. The Creative Body is a doer, it’s about what you’re doing. If you’re meditating, you’re not doing nothing, you’re meditating, and the better you’re meditating the more your meditating. It’s a good lesson that the endgame isn’t achieving perfection, the point is to aim for perfection to constantly improve ourselves even though we know we’ll probably never get there. To get what Clarity you can out of the Creative Body, do as little as possible when you meditate, and expend as little effort as possible on meditating and anything else you’re doing.

Spiritual Body: If you’ve got all the other bodies doing well, this one will naturally take care of itself, so you don’t really need to worry about it.

Step 2: Awareness

The second step is Awareness, both External Awareness and Self-Awareness. Once you’ve achieved Clarity in all of your bodies, Awareness becomes much easier to achieve. It’s almost a natural consequence of Clarity.

By External Awareness, I mean the energies, and maybe spirits, that are flowing around you, how it feels to exist in a physical space, as opposed to when you dream (or astrally project if you’ve done that), and just the general way the area feels.

By Self-Awareness I mean being able to feel the energies flowing inside of you, how it feels to be you and to exist and be meditating, how it feels in your mind and your body especially now that they’re in a state of clarity.

In addition to External Awareness and Self-Awareness, you should also be able to feel how your internal energies and the external energies around you are interacting with each other.

To achieve Awareness, all you have to do is sit there, and while maintaining Clarity, feel everything around you.

The trick is you have to just feel everything around you, and not do anything else. Don’t think about how everything feels, don’t think about the energy, and don’t try to identify the energy. You know how I talked about the physical space and how it feels different from dreaming or the astral plane earlier? Don’t think about that, and don’t try to figure out how these places feel different and start comparing and contrasting them. Definitely don’t try to manipulate the energy.

If you do any of that stuff, you’ve messed up your Clarity and you need to go back to step one.

Just feel everything and let the sensation wash over you, don’t interact with it, don’t think about it, don’t analyze it, and don’t think about yourself and how you’re doing it.

That’s the trick, and it can be hard. And the thing is if you try really hard to get Awareness down and not think about these things or pay attention to them and do your best and put your all into it, you’ve fucked it up, because now you’re putting effort into things and your making conscious decisions and you have intent and you’re doing something. If that happens, you have to go back and work on your Clarity again.

If you get Awareness right away and it comes naturally to you, that’s great, you’re awesome, but most of us struggle with this, because it’s a difficult thing to do. It takes time and practice, but you can definitely get there. If you mess it up, you can always go back and do Clarity again, and then give Awareness another try. If no matter how many times you try you still can’t get it, that’s okay, the important thing is you’re practicing it, and if you’re practicing it you’re definitely improving, even if you don’t notice the improvement.

The goal here, with Awareness, is to get to a point where you feel yourself and everything around you spiritually, but you don’t think about it or analyze it, and you also don’t put any effort into not thinking about it and not analyzing it. Pretty much you want to be able to do it without trying so you can preserve your Clarity.

–The Meditative State–

If you do the first two steps well, there’s a good chance you can achieve a meditative state either with just those two steps or with a little bit of work on Focus. If you’re not achieving a meditative state, don’t worry about it, just keep working on all the steps, but be aware that you could potentially fall into it, and if you analyze your meditation after you finish and you believe you were in a meditative state after only doing the first two steps, you probably were.

Step 3: Focus

There’s actually two different ways you can focus in a meditation. The easier way is focusing on a particular thing, and the difficult way is to just focus but not focus on anything in particular. Both have their advantages.

If you’re going into a meditation because you want to ponder something spiritually, like why are red candles good for love spells, you can just go in with that question to ponder it. If you reach Trance, you will probably realize a bunch of new spiritual insights on the subject. Even if you don’t reach Trance, being in a meditative state will give you a lot of Clarity to make new connections and develop new insights. Even if you don’t reach a meditative state, meditation may still help you think about it and reflect on it more clearly.

It doesn’t have to be a spiritual thing either. You can meditate on if your romantic relationship is healthy, if you’re really happy at your job, or if you’re better off buying Skyrim or Witcher 3. In regard to the last one. both games are awesome and both offer things the other doesn’t, so if you like those sorts of games and can afford both and have the time to play them, get both, but if you have to choose go with Witcher 3, and get the GOTY edition because the expansions add a lot of additional content.

The other way, focusing but not focusing on anything, is hard because if you think about doing it or if you put some effort into doing it, you’re failing other parts of the meditation while also losing focus. Additionally you don’t have a specific thing to focus on, which is so much easier, you just have this abstract idea of focusing.

A lot of time the advice is to meditate on a question, even if it’s unimportant, just to help you learn how to focus and retain Clarity while you do it. There’s a couple problems with that approach. First off, if you go into meditation with a question, and you happen to figure out the answer to that question, you have nothing left to focus on and the meditation will probably end there and you’ll miss out on some practice.

One work around to this is using a koan, which are from Zen Buddhism. The most famous is probably, ‘What’s the sound of one hand clapping.’ Koans don’t have direct answers, and even if you do find an answer, they have deep layers that go on and on so there’s still room to continue meditating and expand upon it.

The second issue with going in with a question is it makes focusing easier, and it even makes the next step a little easier too, but it makes getting into Trance harder, and if you aren’t already in a meditative state when you start focusing it makes that more difficult too. You’re making it so Focus is easier to get through, but you’re making the rest of the process more difficult.

Also if you can only get through Focus and reach Trance by using a question, that’s a very big limitation on your ability to meditate and reach Trance.

Much like Skyrim and Witcher 3, both approaches offer advantages the other doesn’t, and I would recommend learning and practicing both in tandem.

The first few times you work on Focus, don’t come in with a question. Try to do it without focusing on anything at all.

After you’ve attempted doing it a few times and have some experience, then try it with a question. It will most likely be easier to do this way, and you’ll hopefully get a better grasp on it. It’ll also force you to learn some new skills with your Clarity and Awareness to get to that stage with a question in your head.

Then take what you’ve learned and go back to trying it without a question. Alternate between the two so you can learn both approaches and get the benefits each has to offer knowing that getting better at one approach will make you stronger when you attempt the other approach.

Ultimately you should aim to be able to achieve Trance with either approach. The approaches have different uses, and either one may be a better fit for a particular situation. Overall, you’ll probably use meditating without a question much more frequently on your spiritual path.

Step 4: Self-Control

Once you have the first three steps down, the next step is to hold on to them as long as possible. Eventually you’ll have intrusive thoughts, or boredom will set in, or your mind will wander, or you might even fall asleep and take a nap. In any case, when those things happen your meditation is broken and you need to go back and do the earlier steps again or end the meditation.

Once you get the first three steps down you may find that you can’t maintain it for very long before you break yourself out of it. Maybe you can only manage for a couple minutes. That’s okay. Just keep meditating and holding it for as long as you can. With practice the amount of time you’re able to hold it will increase.

Step 5: Trance

Trance is the end goal, and when you get there you’re going to feel it and it will be a distinct feeling. All you have to do to get to Trance is get the first three steps down, and then hold it long enough in Self-Control, and you should just slip into it.

You should be hitting a meditative state in the second or third step. If you’re not, you’re weak in at least one of the first two steps, and if you’re not sure which one than work on improving both of them. Likewise if you do the first three steps well, reach a meditative state, and hold it long enough you should reach Trance, and if that isn’t happening it means you’re weak in at least one of the four steps. If you don’t know which one you’re weak in, work on all four.

Coming Out Of Meditation

Before you get really good at meditation, it’s important to learn how to come out of meditation. The first few times you meditate it probably won’t matter and you can just stand up when you’re finished, but once you get better at meditating, and especially once you hit a meditative state, it’s a bitch to come out of meditation wrong. So practice coming out of meditation correctly from the start, and that way once you need it you’ll already have developed the skill.

You want to come out of meditation slowly and carefully, like slowly waking up from a deep sleep.

Stay relaxed, make sure you’re breathing, and slowly let yourself come out of it. One trick is to just concentrate on your breathing and pay attention to how you’re breathing. Pay attention to when you inhale and when you exhale. After you’ve done that for a bit, change your breathing. Take a few deeper breaths and then let it out. When you feel comfortable slowly open your eyes. Take it easy for a few minutes, and then start to move your body and slowly get up.

Give yourself a little bit of time after meditation to relax and be in the moment so you can fully process the meditation you’ve just finished.

If you have to, of course, you can jolt yourself out of a meditation, and if like your house is on fire or something else important is happening you should jolt yourself out of the meditation, it just won’t feel very good.

Eventually, with some experience, you’ll be able to come out of meditations quicker and it won’t feel so bad when you jolt yourself out of one.

Stepping Up Your Game

Now that you’re meditating, here are a few things that might help you improve your meditation a little bit.

Yoga

If you’re able to do it, yoga is a wonderful aid to meditation. Many yoga poses are designed to help energy flow through your body more freely and to clean out your energy a bit. Several common poses, Lotus being the most well-known and probably best, make it easier to get through the steps of mediation if you’re already good at doing the pose.

If holding a pose is causing you discomfort or pain, that’ll negate a lot of the positive benefits of the pose. If a pose hurts, you’ll probably get better results lying down or sitting. However if you can comfortably manage a partial pose, like half-lotus or even sitting crossed-legged, you’ll still get some of the benefits of the pose.

Incense

Incense can help you raise energy, help you redirect your energy, help you with Focus, and just, in general, make meditation easier. You may wish to use incense that you have a particular affinity for, or you may choose one that is tied in to what you’re trying to accomplish with the meditation. A few common ones that are generally good for meditation are sandalwood, vanilla, frankincense, and nag champa.

Although incense can help with meditation, I’d recommend against using it so often that it becomes a crutch. If you’re really struggling with meditation, it can help you break through to the next level, but once you get there you should start working on meditating without incense. Otherwise I would recommend using incense infrequently. Definitely try it out so you have the experience, definitely use it if it’s a special occasion or something really important or you just want a deep meditation that day, but also make sure you’re practicing doing meditation without the help of incense.

Where do you go from here?

So you’ve gotten good at meditation. You always hit a meditative state when you try, and you usually hit a trance state. Maybe you always hit a trance state. Does that mean you’ve mastered meditation?

Well, no. We never master anything, and there’s always room for improvement. In particular the meditative and trance states, although very useful on their own, are far more useful when you can fall in and out of them in seconds and in any environment. If you can fall into trance before doing any kind of magical operation, and hold it for the entire operation, your magic is going to be quite a bit stronger. If you’re just starting with meditation going into Trance like that might seem difficult, and something you’ll only achieve after decades of practice, but once you start getting better at meditation it actually isn’t that hard to learn.

Below are some advanced meditation exercises you can try once you feel like you’ve gotten the hang of meditation.

Speed Meditation

One thing to work on is to practice meditating faster. As you go through the five steps, try to do them as quickly as you can. Set a goal of reaching either a meditative state or a trance state and work on going through the steps as fast as you can to get there. Only count the speedrun as successful if you reach a meditative and/or trance state. If you’re not able to reach an altered state, slow down the individual steps and practice them until you’ve improved some more, and then try to speed them up again.

Meditate While Standing

Instead of lying down, or sitting down, or being in any kind of comfortable position, or gaining the benefits of doing a yoga pose, meditate while standing up. Once you’re able to achieve Trance while standing, try to achieve Trance without closing your eyes. Once you’re able to achieve Trance without closing your eyes, try to achieve Trance while standing with your eyes open. If you want, you can even try to achieve Trance while walking or running.

Meditate While Distracted

Try meditating while you’re distracted. Maybe turn on the TV, or the radio, or go someplace noisy to meditate. Try meditating in uncomfortable clothes. Try meditating in public places with lots of active people around you.

It’s actually difficult to come up with good general exercises for this, because all of us have different things that distract us. Ultimately you’re going to have to come up with your own situations that make you, personally, feel distracted and uncomfortable, and then try meditating in them. Once you become good at meditating in a particular situation, find one that’s even more distracting and uncomfortable.

Multitasking And Meditating

Once you can meditate while standing with your eyes open, and while walking (hopefully also with your eyes open), and while distracted, try meditating while also doing something else. Start with something that you already know how to do and is mostly physical and doesn’t require a lot of thought or attention. Domestic chores, like sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing are good fits. So are physical exercises, like lifting weights or doing sit-ups. From there move on to things that require more thought and attention. Try meditating while playing a video game, while reading a book, while building furniture, while doing a hobby. Then try meditating while doing very complicated things like having a conversation with someone.

Instant Trance Trick

So this is a pretty common trick to drop into Trace very quickly. Unlike a lot of other meditation shortcuts, this one isn’t a crutch and it won’t make it more difficult for you to meditate or get into Trance when you’re not using it. In fact, in my experience, this trick usually opens the practitioner up to a lot of new revelations about how to quickly get into Trance, making it easier to develop other methods.

So in order to do this, you need to be really good at Clarity, because you have to be able to finish Clarity quickly and move right into Awareness. In fact, you need to be pretty good at all the steps to get this to work.

Remember when I talked about feeling all that energy during Awareness? What you’re going to want to do is let that energy wash over yourself and lose yourself in it. Now remember when I said each step of meditation naturally leads into the next step, and there’s a flow to it? If you have all the steps down, and you do this right, the forward momentum of the flow of meditation should naturally push you into Trance without much effort.

You want to practice doing this a lot: Feel the energy —> Go to Trance / Feel the Energy —> Go to Trance, ect.

After you’ve done it a bit, it should be happening pretty fast. The next thing you want to do is setup a metaphysical trigger. Basically when A happens, you automatically do B.

There’s a few different ways to go about this depending on how experienced you are with magic. One way is to just practice this frequently, like several times a day, and to always push yourself into Trance as soon as you feel the energy. Eventually you’ll internalize the process like with muscle memory.

The easier way is to just hide a trigger in yourself so that when you feel the energy, you do the process. It’s pretty much putting a strong trigger in the back of your head so you never think about it, and it sets your metaphysical bodies to do X whenever Y happens.

I don’t want to get into an indepth explanation about how to set up a metaphysical trigger, because even though I know how to do it, it’ll take me months to figure out how to explain it from scratch, and I want to get this article posted.

If you know how to set a trigger, you should already understand what I’m talking about, and if you don’t know how to do it, you might be able to figure it out from what I said. If you can’t figure it out, just use the first method.

Once you have that down, the next step is learning some muscle memory. Whenever you feel energy, or a spike in energy, drop into meditation and do Clarity. And this is why I say you have to be really good at Clarity. You want to be able to go from not meditating, to meditating, to finishing Clarity in less then a second. Ideally you want to do all of that in a lot less than a second. And you’re going to want to be able to do it while you’re standing up, while you’re distracted, while you’re doing other things.

Putting all of it together you should end up with a process where energy rises, or there is unfamiliar or aggressive energy maybe, and by muscle memory you drop into meditation and complete Clarity in less than a second, then you feel all the energy more intensely in Awareness, and that triggers you and you’re in Trance.

Here’s the fun part. Typically when you do a magical operation, one of the first things you do, if not the very first thing, is raise energy. If you’re at a public ritual, if it’s being done right, there should be a lot of energy around. If you’re about to be attacked spiritually, typically you’ll feel some extra or aggressive energy first. If you’re doing energy manipulation, you’re probably going to start by feeling out the energy. If you start talking about or even thinking about spiritual topics, a lot of times energy will just start rising up.

You’ve now trained yourself so that just about any time something magical is happening around you, even if you’re the one doing it, you immediately slip into Trance.

Magick 101: Astral Projection and Out of Body Experiences: An FAQ

General Terms

What is Astral Projection?

Astral projection is the act of leaving your physical body and moving about in an astral or energy body. When you first begin astral projecting, it seems as if a part of you, your soul for lack of a better term, is leaving your body and moving about. In actuality though you simultaneously exist in multiple bodies, in two different bodies for our purposes here, your physical and astral body. Most of the time, while you’re awake, your consciousness is shifted to your physical body. When you astral project what you are actually doing is shifting your consciousness from your physical body to your astral body. You never actually leave your physical body. Your astral body is not something that exists within your physical body, although with most people the astral body typically follows around and occupies the same space as the physical body. This isn’t important information to know in order to project, although it does answer some other questions further down.

What is the difference between Astral Projection and Out of Body Experiences (OBE or OOBE)?

There is no difference. An Out of Body Experience is exactly the same as an astral projection. Astral projection and OBE are two terms for the same thing which developed among different groups. Astral projection is a more common terminology among Ceremonial Magicians and Neopagans, where as OBE is more common in the New Age and New Thought movements. The two terms are starting to become interchangeable among all groups.

What is a Near Death Experience (NDE)?

A near death experience refers to an out of body experience that is brought about by almost dying, or even achieving clinical death and then being resuscitated. The astral body can survive the physical body, and when your two bodies are tricked into believing you are dead, your astral body may just take off. Once you’re resuscitated you’re pulled back into your physical body.

Is a NDE a prerequisite for Astral Projection?

No. Astral projection can be achieved through nothing more than training and persistence. However some people who have experienced a NDE do report being able to astrally project afterwards, or find that astral projection comes very easily to them. Some believe that a NDE loosens the astral body from the physical body making projection easier. However the more likely reason is that having experienced astral projection once (via the NDE), subsequent experiences are easier to initiate.

What is a spontaneous projection?

Spontaneous projection is when you just astrally project without any effort or even wanting to astrally project. Spontaneous projections almost always occur while trying to go to sleep, while sleeping, during meditation, or as part of a NDE. Some people naturally experience spontaneous projections their entire life. The more you astrally project, the more likely it is that you’ll experience spontaneous projections.

What is lucid dreaming and how is it related to astral projection?

Lucid dreaming is when you are dreaming, and you know you are dreaming. Typically this gives you a great deal of control over the dream and your actions in it. You can actually train yourself in various ways to make lucid dreaming more common. A lot of the information dealing with astral projection deals with lucid dreaming. Both the confused mental state and recall difficulties that occur while dreaming occur in a similar way while astrally projecting. Also astrally projecting from a lucid dream is very easy to do.

What is dreamwalking?

Dreamwalking is the act of moving into another’s dream. There are methods to dreamwalk from both an astral projection and from a lucid dream state.

Methods

How do I astrally project?

Some people can very easily shift their consciousness and astrally project. We see a phenomena especially in certain children where astral projection is performed so seamlessly while awake that the child is unaware of any transition from a physical to a spiritual form.

Most people however need a technique, at least in order to get started astrally projecting. Every technique out there is based on the idea that our consciousness experiences a shift when we fall asleep and begin to dream, and this shift gives us a very short window in which we can astrally project. Most methods fall into one of two broad categories, projecting while awake and projecting while asleep. There is a third category, projecting from a meditative or trance state, although this is typically, at least initially, a spontaneous projection.

How do I astrally project while awake?

In order to astrally project while awake we need to get to the point right before falling sleep, and then push ourselves out of our body. Usually what is happening is that we are mentally awake and we forcefully calm our body down and force it to go to sleep (you will experience sleep paralysis while doing this, but you probably won’t notice it). Although our physical body goes to sleep, our astral body stays awake, which triggers the shift in consciousness, and we can very easily walk right out of our body.

In fact, you may already have astrally projected a little. Have you ever woken up and tried to go back to sleep, and as you’re laying there you get an itch on some part of your body, like your leg. You move your hand down and scratch the itch, but it doesn’t go away. You scratch and scratch and scratch, and still the itch persists. Finally you wake up, and realize that you were asleep and dreaming you were laying in your bed as you are now, eyes closed, scratching an itch, and that’s why the itch wouldn’t go away? If so, what happened is that you were astrally projecting your hand out of your body and using it to attempt to scratch the itch. If you would’ve rolled over just then, you would have had your first astral projection!

Remember that this is all a very technical explanation of what happens during an astral projection.

How do I astrally project while asleep and dreaming?

The second method of astral projection is to do it while dreaming. If you try to astrally project while dreaming, it will most likely succeed. If you practice your astral projection methods daily, even if you’re not successful, you will probably eventually dream that you’re doing your astral projection exercises, and they’ll work. People who exclusively use this method, however, are usually very good at initiating and controlling lucid dreams. If you are lucid dreaming, you can astrally project just by wanting to astrally project. If you can’t think of a way to do it, just mimic the methods you attempt while awake.

What is the difference between projecting while awake and projecting while dreaming?

There isn’t that much of a difference since both methods bring you to the same place. However if you project while awake you’ll generally have less confusion while astrally projecting and have better recall when you come back into your physical body. However people who frequently project while dreaming are also very good at lucid dreaming and dream recall, which in turn actually makes them more capable of remaining lucid and recalling their projection.

What method should I use to astrally project?

The best answer is whatever method works best for you. Do look around and explore various methods, but eventually you need to find a method or system you like and stick to it. If don’t see any success after several months move on to a different system, but at the same time practice your exercises daily and stick with the system for a while before giving up on it. More than anything astral projecting is just a matter of persistence and daily practice. A lot of the systems that are out there work so well because they provide structure and daily exercises which help keep you on track.

How does meditation relate to astral projection?

The meditative state is very conductive to astral projection. In the same way people can easily fall asleep during a deep meditation if they’re not careful, they can astrally project. Very few of the systems out there use meditation as a means to astrally project, although many steal techniques from meditation in order to relax the body while strengthening the mind. Most of the people who prefer to achieve projection through meditation first experienced a spontaneous projection and then worked to forcefully recreate the event.

Geography

What are the mental planes/heavenly realms?

These refer to higher planes where matter and energy cease to exist and everything exists as thought and emotion. These planes are known for being full of information and also being very happy places that are wonderful to be in. The colors here tend to be very bright and varied, and colors exist that are beyond the normal physical spectrum. If you do make it to these realms, you are no longer astrally projecting. Your astral body can not access these realms. You need to shift consciousness into a third body you simultaneously inhabit, your mental body (or your holy guardian angel in some systems).

What is the ethereal plane?

The ethereal plane is an idea that has popped up in some systems of astral projection and it refers to an astral projection that is very close to the physical plane of existence. During this type of projection your astral body is very nearly physical, it is in sync with physical time, and it can peer into the physical realm and notice events that are happening, possibly even physically move things if you’re really good. However the term ethereal plane is not used in every system, and it’s not even a very common term, and so a lot of people may not understand what you’re talking about when you use it.

What is the difference between the ethereal planes and the astral planes?

People who use the term ethereal plane tend to use it to refer to any near physical projection, and they use the term astral plane to refer to projections where either you’re close enough to the physical plane to see the same or a similar geography, although you don’t notice events that are happening and you may or may not be in sync with physical time, or to refer to projections that are so far removed from the physical plane that the geography bears no resemblance to actual geography. Technically though all of the projections listed above are astral projections and occur on the astral planes. Furthermore very few people use the term ethereal plane and most would refer to everything as being an astral projection.

What are the lower realms?

The lower realms typically refer to the realms that exist below the astral realms, although it is sometimes used to refer to realms that exist below even higher realms, such as the mental plane. In the first case the lower realms consists of several different areas (including the land of the dead and the shadowlands), and these areas are generally marked by bland and dark colors and depending on where you go they can be unpleasant to visit.

If your dreams are generally bright and/or full of color you are connected into the astral realms or higher while you’re dreaming. If, however, your dreams are dark, typically filled with black, lighter shades of black, and shades of gray, then you’re probably connected into the lower realms while you dream.

General Questions

How long will it take me to learn to astrally project?

It depends on how well you take to it. There are lots of variables that can make it easier or more difficult to learn how to project. A lot of systems claim they can teach you how to project in 30, 60, or 90 days. That is a bit of a gimmick. Even if they do make good on a money back guarantee, what those systems really mean is that most people will be able to project within that time frame, enough for the system to be successful. However there is a minority of people who will need much longer to project. These types of systems can actually be detrimental to these people, because when they don’t achieve success in the time they should they feel discouraged and may give up or lose faith in astral projection.

The important thing is to remain persistence and work at astral projection every day until you get it. If you suffer from insomnia, if you smoke, if your diet is heavy in caffeine, if you have high blood pressure, if you are a hyper person, if you have lots of sex or masturbate frequently, all of these things can make it more difficult to project. However even if you have all of these problems, you can still astrally project.

What does an Astral Projection feel like?

Awesome! The first thing you’ll notice when you astrally project is that you seem to revert back to a truer version of yourself. A lot of the environmental problems that plague us go away, as does a lot of the stress and anxiety we deal with in our day to day life. Gone too are a lot of the biological factors such as clinical depression and hormonal problems (post pubescent  horniness). You’ll feel more like your true self than you ever have.

Secondly you’ll notice that it may be somewhat similar to a dream state. There is a bit of confusion to start. What you want and what you want to do while in your physical body may not be the same as what you want and what you want to do in your astral body. This goes back to what I talked about before, becoming more like your true self. For instance, in my physical body I may want to seek out some key piece of spiritual information or I may want to find something that can tell me what the lotto numbers are going to be tomorrow. But in my astral body I find I’m more than amused hanging out in my bedroom doing back flips, because the fact that I can astrally back flip is fucking cool!

Also expect there to be some issues with recall. The transition from one state of consciousness to another makes it difficult to carry information. Generally you’ll have a much better recall of astral projections than what you do from dreaming, but still expect to have problems remembering things. When you start going higher than the astral planes you’re actually shifting through multiple bodies. For instance to get to the mental planes you need to shift into your astral body and then shift into your mental body, and you need to go through the same process to get back. Each shift comes with recall problems, ending with a lot of holes in your memory once you get back into your physical body.

More than likely an astral projection will feel different and distinct. It really is not quite like anything else. Sometimes they are close enough to dreams that a person can get them confused. Most of the time though you’ll know that you are most definitely projecting right now because of the way you feel and the way it feels.

What should I expect from my first astral experience?

Expect it to be short. Most people don’t project for very long their first time. If it lasts more than a few minutes, consider yourself very lucky. Also expect to remain in your bedroom or where ever it is your body is resting. It takes some time for most people to get to the point where they will leave their room, and longer still to get to the point where they will leave their house. Also expect your first time out to be very, well, physical. Its possible to astrally project very calmly and gently to where you don’t even feel a transition. Most people don’t experience this their first few times. What they do experience is violent shaking and shooting out at high speeds, very much like an amusement park ride, or even getting stuck halfway in and out and struggling to free themselves.

Can something else possess my body while I’m away from it?

No. Well, at least not unless you give it permission to, the same way you’d have to give it permission to possess you while you aren’t astrally projecting. This fear that something may take over your body goes back to the belief discussed earlier that your astral body is leaving your physical body behind. This isn’t the case. You are still inside your physical body when you astrally project. All that happens is you shift your consciousness and awareness over to your astral body.

What if I get lost and can’t find my body?

This will never happen. You are more connected to your physical body than just about anything else in the universe. You will always be able to find it and travel to it just by thinking about it. Furthermore when the projection ends you will be pulled back into your physical body wherever you are.

Will I always be able to get back into my body?

No. You can get stuck outside your body for short periods of time. Sometimes you may be able to forcefully end an astral projection, but this won’t always be the case. Sometimes you just have to wait for an astral projection to end. Don’t worry about it though. They never last all that long.

What is a silver cord and do I have one?

The silver cord was a metaphorical idea created by some people as a way to explain the fact that your astral and physical bodies are always connected, and so you’ll never get lost or have something else take over your physical body. However some people have taken this metaphor to be a literal silver cord that connects the two bodies, and because on the astral planes thoughts tend to manifest, when they look for this cord while projecting they find it. It is just a metaphor however, based on the erroneous idea that the astral body leaves the physical body no less, and there is no actual cord, unless you imagine it there in which case it appears.

Can I be hurt while astrally projecting?

Yes. Things can hurt you. You can feel pain. What’s more, some people have reported being injured while astrally projecting and then noticing these same injuries on their physical body. Remember the two bodies are always connected. With most people though, the injuries tend to manifest at the point where they shift back into their physical body. Which means if you magically heal yourself before the projection ends, you won’t be injured when you awake. Also usually the injuries you sustain to your astral body will not injure your physical body as badly. For instance being stabbed in the stomach may translate physically into a minor cut which barely breaks the skin and a little bit of pain there for the first few hours after the projection.

Can I die while astrally projecting?

Yes. Your astral body can be killed. If this happens, your astral body will cease to exist, there will be no connection between your mental and physical bodies, and your physical body will die.

Why do so many people say you can’t be hurt or killed?

Some probably believe this. For several reasons though, it’s probably better that you think you can’t be hurt or killed when you first start projecting. A lot of what happens on the astral plane is dependent upon thought and belief. It’s much more difficult to hurt or kill you if you think that these things can’t happen (although it is not impossible). Also when you try to astral project you need to not be afraid or scared. Fear will get your heart pumping and wake you up, a state that isn’t conductive to projection. If you manage to project while full of fear, you’re probably either going to draw yourself down into the lower planes or attract something to yourself that wants to hurt you, neither of which are good things to experience when you’re first starting out.

What if I meet a spirit while astrally projecting?

You may come across something while astrally projecting. This may be a ghost, an ascended spirit, or something that is normally non-incarnate (like a fae spirit for instance). Unless you do a lot of magical work where you sleep or you’re very good at meditating or you have strong innate psychic abilities, or someone sleeping in your home does or projects frequently, you probably will not come across any spirits in your first few astral projections. It’s something that you probably don’t have to worry about.

If you do come across a spirit, it’s probably not going to be a bad thing. More than 90% of the time, regardless if the spirit is malicious or not, the spirit probably will not even care about you and will leave you alone if you don’t bother it. Most things will be friendly if you approach them. If something does attack you, fight back. You can punch it or throw fireballs or a hundred other things when you’re astrally projecting.

If you’re just starting to astrally project, the amount of power you have magically is going to be relatively weak. The things you need to be afraid of aren’t going to bother with you because you aren’t strong enough for them to care yet. The things that will attack you tend to be weaker things which are easy enough to deal with. As you progress down your magical path and become stronger then maybe the big things will come out to fight you, but by then you’ll hopefully be strong enough to deal with them.

What if I meet another projector while astrally projecting?

Unless someone who lives with you is astrally projecting or trying to astral project, the odds of this happening are super slim. The one exception is if you’re doing a lot of magical work and have a lot of energy in your home it may act as a beacon and draw someone there.

Granted once you get better at astrally projecting you may be able to find your friends and loved ones while you both are projecting.

Is astral projection a substitute for sleep?

Yes and no. A lot of systems recommend against astrally projecting when you’re supposed to be sleeping. Most people however astral project instead of sleeping. Your physical body is going to get some rest while you’re astrally projecting. However you will not get as much rest as you would from actually sleeping and dreaming. If you normally spend eight hours sleeping, you’re probably not going to spend the entire eight hours astrally projecting.

Look at it this way, sometimes you don’t get as much sleep as you would like to. Maybe you decided to stay up late to watch a movie or because you got a new video game you wanted to play. Now instead of eight hours of sleep you only got five. You’re still going to be able to go to work and function. You’ll get through your day. But you may be a bit more tired. Most of us do this sort of stuff all the time, and we get by. For most people astral projection is just another thing that keeps them from a full night’s sleep.

Can I have sex while astrally projecting?

Yes. There are a lot of sexual things you can do, including everything you can do in your physical body and quite a few things you can’t.

How does magic work while astrally projecting?

Very well. While astrally projecting you’ll notice that things tend to manifest by thinking about them or concentrating on them. Rules concerning space, distance, and matter are fuzzy on the astral planes, and how these things operate has a lot to do with how we believe they operate. You can fly or teleport across the world just by thinking you can. You can also move energy much easier, and you can shoot fireballs from your hand without much practice. If you actually perform a magical ritual there, you’ll notice it will tend to be much more successful and you’ll see results much more quickly, probably instantaneously. Mostly though you’ll probably find yourself using psionic magic, where you think something and it manifests. All of these things are going to come much more naturally to you, and you’ll better understand how to do them, once you get out in your astral body.

Will my astral body look like me?

Most likely it will look something like you. Your astral body doesn’t have a set form. It can actually look like whatever you want it to look like. Most people, when they astrally project, look more or less like their physical selves. We can’t really see our own faces or most of our body though, outside of looking in a mirror, so we may not get everything right. We may also imagine ourselves a bit younger than we really are, or if we’ve recently lost or put on some weight it may not be reflected in our astral body. Those of us with positive body images may actually look a little bit more attractive in our astral form (those wrinkles will go away, those muscles will be more defined), where as those of us with negative body images may look less attractive (we may be as fat as we feel, or as old as we feel). Sometimes people may get mismatched. It’s not all that uncommon to see someone astrally projecting with the body they had at eighteen, and the face they had at fifty. Also little details, like the lines on your palm and the small gap between your front teeth may not translate well onto the astral. A very detailed astral body usually points to a person that is very self-aware and very strong magically.

As you astral project you will learn how to change your astral body into other forms. For a handful of people this comes naturally. It’s not too uncommon to have someone very adept at turning into a spirit animal or changing their astral body to that of a past life. In fact a handful of people will astrally project out like this the first time they astrally project. But this is very uncommon.

Will my astral body be naked when I astrally project?

It might be.

A lot of people don’t even take a second to see if they are wearing clothes when they astrally project. Most people, when they do look, find that they are wearing clothes (you can however take these clothes off, and then you would be naked). Most of us are used to wearing clothes most of the time, and so when we project, naturally our astral bodies are dressed.

If you happen to be very comfortable in your own skin, and if you actually spend a lot of time doing things naked, there’s a much higher chance that you’ll astrally project naked. If you’re naked when you astrally project it might increase your chances of projecting out naked a little bit, but there’s still a very good chance you’ll project out clothed.

If you’re really that uncomfortable about being naked that you’re afraid you’ll project out naked and someone or something else out there might see you, the odds are very much in favor of you not projecting out naked. If you do, I wouldn’t be that concerned about it. What you meet out there probably won’t care if you’re naked or not (it might not even understand the concept of clothes), and you’ll probably never meet it again anyways.

Can I move my physical body while astrally projecting?

Yes you actually can. It’s a very difficult trick, but remember that you simultaneously exist in both bodies at once, you don’t actually leave your body, so you still have the ability to physically control your muscles. Concentrate on moving muscles while astrally projecting and you should be able to do it. It will feel a lot like trying to move your muscles while in a state of sleep paralysis.

I would actually recommend practicing moving your physical body while projecting every once in a while. It’s a trick that seems useless most of the time, but I swear that if you know how to do this, at some point in your life (especially if you practice magick) you’ll be in a situation where this trick saves your ass.

So like, if astral projection is real, why isn’t it being used by government intelligence agencies / corporate spies / ect.?

Who says it isn’t.

Actually it’s very difficult to use astral projection for intelligence gathering. Remember when you astrally project, you tend to suffer from some confusion and your personality changes. It’s very hard to get your astral body to go and do what your physical body wants it to. If you do get past that hurdle, you then have a problem with recall. When you get that vital piece of intelligence, there’s no guarantee that you’ll remember it when the projection ends. Finally there’s no guarantee that you’re seeing an actual event. You can astrally project and see an event as it is happening. You can also astrally project to an entirely imaginary world that looks just like our own and see an event that happens there. You can astrally project to a parallel world very close to our own and see an event that happens there that doesn’t happen in our world. You can even create an event on the astral plane because you expect it to happen or believe it should happen, and then confuse that with the event physically occurring.

Of course all of these problems can be dealt with. You can train yourself so that there is less of a difference between what your physical body and astral body want. You can train yourself so you have real good recall. You can train yourself so you have a heightened awareness and, at least most of the time, you know where you are astrally and exactly what you’re looking at. People who reach that state are adepts and spiritual masters. Usually when people achieve that level of spiritual attainment, the politics of nations and corporate espionage are petty things that they aren’t all that concerned with anymore.

What is Remote Viewing and how is it related to astral projection?

Remote viewing is when you see a place or event that is happening presently and is happening somewhere other than where you are.

Remember how we said that we simultaneously exist in our astral and physical bodies and when we astrally project we are just shifting consciousness from one body to another and not actually leaving our body? Remember how we also said that when we astrally project we can still move our physical body, albeit with some difficulty, because we still inhabit that body? Remote viewing is just a further extension of this theory.

With most people their astral body follows them around and exists in the same place as their physical body. It doesn’t have to though. It could be on the other side of the world, and it wouldn’t make a difference. In much the same way that we can make our physical body move while astrally projecting, we can make our astral body do things while we’re physically awake. With remote viewing what we want our astral body to do is see something. It’s actually possible for us to look through the eyes of our astral body while completely awake.

Just because we can do these things though doesn’t mean they’re easy things to do. Making your astral body appear in a specific location or having it track down a specific person or item while you’re in a physical state of consciousness is hard. Looking through your astral eyes in that state is also hard. To some people it may come naturally. For most people though it will take a lot of practice and training to achieve just a little bit of success, and that little bit of success may be exhausting to come by. Of course over time, and with enough practice, it will get easier.

Side Effects

Why can’t I remember my projection all that well?

As was discussed earlier, it’s hard to take memories when shifting from one body to another. It is usually easier to remember your projections than it is to remember your dreams. However the same techniques that people use to train themselves to have better dream recall can be used to have better projection recall, and people that are good at remembering their dreams tend to be good at remembering their projections.

Help! I’ve been hurt while astrally projecting!

Once again, as was discussed earlier, it happens. Once you shift back into your physical body there isn’t much you can do about it besides taking an aspirin and dealing with the pain. When you do get hurt astrally projecting however, try to heal yourself magically. Focus and concentrate on healing yourself and like anything else on the astral it should work. If it doesn’t fully heal you, healing yourself prior to returning to your physical body should at least mitigate some of the damage.

What is sleep paralysis and how do I deal with it?

Sleep paralysis is a medically recognized state in which your mind is fully awake yet your body remains in a state of near paralysis as if you were still asleep. While in this state you may be able to move some muscles, although with great difficulty. There are a lot of factors that can cause sleep paralysis, one being astral projection.

If you try to astrally project either from a waking state or from meditation your body will go into a state of sleep paralysis just prior to the projection, although you probably won’t even notice it. If you do find yourself in a state of sleep paralysis, you may be able to easily astrally project out. When coming back from an astral projection you may find yourself in a state of sleep paralysis and this is when it’s going to become a problem. Some astral projectors may never experience sleep paralysis. It would be very rare to experience it every time you astrally projected. However most astral projectors will come back into a state of sleep paralysis at some point in their life.

For most people, when they find themselves in a state of sleep paralysis, their first reaction is to try to fully wake themselves up. This is a very stressful and difficult process, and the fact that they don’t immediately succeed can cause them to panic. If you’ve experienced sleep paralysis in the past, finding yourself in that state can cause a lot of anxiety and make you panic even more. Doing this you’ll eventually get yourself awake, but this is a very stressful and unnecessary process.

When you find yourself in a state of sleep paralysis don’t panic and don’t get anxious. You want to come out of your sleep paralysis slowly and calmly like you’re coming out of a state of deep meditation. Don’t try to wake yourself up and don’t try to move your muscles. Instead relax. You’ll notice that you are breathing. You can’t control your breathing yet, but you will be aware that it’s happening. Focus on your breathing. Pay attention to it. Notice the tempo. Notice how deep or shallow your breaths are. Just focus on it and pay attention to it. You’ll notice after a time that you start to gain some control over your breathing. You can make it shorter or longer. Deep breaths and shallow breaths. Calmly play with your breathing a bit. After a time slowly and calmly try to move some muscles. If you doing well moving your muscles, start moving some more. Open your eyes and sit up, you’re now awake.

I spent a lot of time explaining it, but in reality the whole process will take maybe one or two minutes. You’ll also come to very calmly and peacefully. There won’t be any difficulty or stress. And there won’t be any anxiety the next time you find yourself in a state of sleep paralysis.

What is the doppleganger phenomena?

A very small percentage of people who astrally project claim to have experienced the doppleganger phenomena. More than likely it will never happen to you. The doppleganger phenomena happens pretty much exclusively to people astrally project very frequently. It typically occurs when they are sleeping or astrally projecting, although in a very few cases it has happened while they were completely awake. What happens is that they appear to people in a place that they are not. This appearance usually occurs in a place they frequent and would normally be at, such as at their home or at work. They are almost always seen performing a common task they frequently perform, such as vacuuming the floor or fixing a sandwich. The doppleganger can be engaged in conversation, and when they are they tend to answer and act just like the person would, and have full knowledge of their memories and feelings. Like I said, the actual person is in a completely different place, has no knowledge of the event occurring, has no memory of any astral projection or dream of the occurrence, and usually only finds out about it after the person or people who saw them bring up the event to them later.

As far as I know, no one has yet figured out what the doppleganger phenomena is. It is an extremely rare occurrence though, so most people never have an opportunity to explore a first hand account. I’ve never heard of the doppleganger phenomena having a negative impact on a person (other than people thinking you’re crazy because you claim not to have been where you clearly were). The doppleganger never does or says anything the actual person wouldn’t, and they never seem to take life altering actions. On the contrary they tend to do typical, repetitive tasks and engage in casual conversation. This event doesn’t seem to be a prelude to any sort of attack or attempt to take over their life. And it almost always seems to happen in singular instances. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I’ve yet to hear of an account where a person had this happen to them twice in their lifetime.

Koans in Practical Usage

Koans are specific to Zen Buddhism, although they can be incorporated and used in the spiritual practices of most practitioners. A Koan has two specific uses. The first use is as a spiritual exercise for the practitioner. The second use is as a test to gage the enlightenment and spiritual attainment of the practitioner.

When Koans have entered into Western practices, they have unfortunately been misrepresented in what they are meant to be and how they are meant to be used. A Koan will usually come in the form of a question. Sometimes it will also have an answer to the question. Often times this question and answer will be phrased into a very short story. A koan will, at a glance, appear to be nonsense or have no meaning. However it will actually have a very deep meaning. This meaning can only be determined through spiritual attainment, and often times koans are meditated on in order for the meaning to be derived.

The first misrepresentation is that a koan is a meditative tool. It is a thing without meaning that you’re supposed to meditate on to bring your mind to a state of nothingness and clarity. However meditating on nonsense to bring yourself to a mental void doesn’t really work that well in practice. Doing that isn’t going to bring about the kind of success a person usually wants. It’s also a tactic that would be tried by someone that isn’t very comfortable and experienced with meditation. That’s not something most would expect to find in the toolbox of a zen master. Also koans do have a meaning. They only appear as nonsense.

The second misrepresentation is that a koan is a sort of riddle. It’s not a riddle, although it is like a riddle in some ways, which may be how the confusion starts. Unlike a riddle, you will not be able to solve a koan with your mental prowess. It isn’t a matter of paying close attention to the wording and the meaning can’t be deduced and there isn’t a logical explanation. However it is like a riddle in a few ways. A riddle is a test of your mental prowess. It also practices your mental abilities and solving a riddle makes you more intelligent. In the same way a koan is a test of your spiritual prowess, and solving a koan increases your spiritual attainment. The difference between spiritual and mental prowess I’ll get more into when I start talking about what a koan is.

Finally the third misrepresentation is that a koan is a thing that can be understood if you understand the history and concepts of Zen Buddhism, or Buddhism in general, or Chinese language and culture.  Now most of the most famous koans come out of Zen Buddhism and were written in China. If you have a good grasp of these things, you will have a better understanding of the koans, at least in regards as to what is written on the page. You’ll also have a better understanding of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Journey to the West, or any other piece of Chinese literature. However you don’t need an understanding of these things in order to understand most koans (and some printed editions come with cliff notes for each koan to help you with these things). What I’m saying is that koans do not have blinds. This is an aspect of Western occultism, where there is information that is meant for the enlightened only, and the information won’t make sense unless you have a firm grasp of the basic concepts of the system. Understanding Zen Buddhism will not give you the tools you need to understand a koan.

So how does a koan work. A koan is filled with deep spiritual meaning if you can understand it, and your goal is to find that meaning. And there is more than one right answer. Koans can have multiple meanings. Koans can also have many different layers, with the meaning changing and evolving the deeper you get. Also each person is a vessel and medium through which the koan’s meaning is expressed, and so this expression will differ with each person.

Koans are generally solved through meditation. Being able to focus on the koan, to concentrate on it, and to look inside yourself and pull answers out of yourself is at the very beginning of solving the koan. You need to be able to do several other things though. For one you should be able to pull the energy off the koan. This will help you get an idea of what it feels like, what its creator was feeling and thinking, what it connects to, and it will help you read the very hidden subtext of it. You also need to be able to channel outward. Not just being able to speak to other things to get their opinion on it, but also being able to channel in the sense that you can access the storehouses of information that are out there. And if you can do that correctly, you should be able to find the connections, which can’t be derived logically, that you need to understand the meaning of the piece. And then you actually do need to have both the mental capacity and an understanding of life, the universe, and everything to the point where you can actually understand all of this information and what it means. Then you also need to be capable enough to express this meaning, at least to yourself if not to others.

There are several different collections of koans that have been put together. Two of the most famous classic collections are the Blue Cliff Record and the Gateless Gate. An English translation of these two works exists together in a book called “Two Zen Classics”. In addition to the koans, it also has a translation of the commentary that comes with it. My only problem lies with the notes. Sometimes they’re great, giving information on history, culture, and Buddhism that pertain to the koan. I do think that it’s lacking in regards to information on the actual translation choices chosen. But at other times the notes try to interpret the koan or the commentary, essentially providing a modern commentary on the koans. I think it’s unnecessary to do this, and I find this particular commentary to be from someone who does not fully understand the meaning of the koans. I also have to comment on the print quality of the book, which is not up to par considering the price of the book. On most pages the print is just fine, but in my copy there are definite printing errors where ink is smeared across the entire page.

Magick 101: Meditation & Trance: An FAQ

What is meditation?

Meditation is the act of actively calming your body and mind and bringing yourself to a state of rest and mental clarity, typically with the intention of achieving trance.

How do I meditate?

Most, especially the inexperienced, begin meditation by bringing their body to a relaxed state. If you are new to meditation, it’s best to begin during a time when you’re already tired and relaxed. To start, sit or lay down in a comfortable relaxed position. Close your eyes, and let your body relax itself, but be careful not to fall asleep. Some find that incense, music, or calming white noise aids in relaxing themselves and clearing their mind.

Next ones mind needs to be brought to a calm and relaxed state, which is more difficult than calming ones body. Tricks like counting ones breath or focusing on an unanswerable problem are counter-productive to achieving trance and should be avoided. Generally one should attempt to clear ones mind, or else to calmly focus on those things which will be dealt with during the meditation. All thought needs to flow without excitement or stress or anxiety, or any other emotion. The mind needs to slow itself down. During meditation one should be introspective, detail oriented, and analytical slowly spending however much time is needed on each thing. One should refrain from thinking quickly or covering many things in a short period and from thinking about things that illicit emotion. Once the mind begins to relax and some level of clarity is achieved, the practitioner should then allow the mind to wander where it may, to look at whatever comes up.

What is the purpose of Meditation?

Meditation provides many benefits to the practitioner over time. It helps to strengthen ones mental capacities including concentration and focus, and also allows one more control over the physical aspects of their body, and at the same time mediation becomes easier as one continues to practice it. However the typical purpose of a meditation session is to achieve trance.

What is trance?

Trance is an altered state of consciousness in which the mind is more finely attuned and working at a higher level. A person in a state of trance has a greater degree of focus, clarity, and concentration. Additionally almost all of their psychic abilities are working at a higher level, including psionic magick, channeling, energy manipulation, divination, past life regression, and remote viewing. A person in a trance state has greater access to their subconscious and untapped mental and magickal potential. A person in this state may experience changes in personality, regressions, and a higher intelligence.

What does trance feel like?

The best thing that it can be compared to is the state an exhausted person is in shortly before they fall asleep, where they are still awake and actively aware of their surroundings but their mind is wandering and creating images and dreams seem to be flooding in, except that one is wide awake, and the mind seems more focused. Beyond that, it can only be said that it must be experienced in order for it to be explained because it is not completely like anything else.

What can be done with trance?

Many things can be done in trance. Channeling, remote viewing, and speaking with entities and ghosts are all easier to do in trance. Energy manipulation, psionic magick, and spell and ritual work are all more powerful when done in a trance state. Many practitioners like to use meditation for past life regressions and to balance their energy (and sometimes its almost mandatory to balance energy). Puzzling over riddles and questions or general introspection are easier to do in trance, partly because of ones heightened mental state and access to their subconscious, but also because things like channeling, divination, and remote viewing are easier in this state and may lend new information to aid in solving the problem.

Are there different degrees of trance?

Yes. There are light trances in which the practitioner’s state of consciousness has barely been altered at all, all the way up to heavy trances where the practitioner may even appear to be asleep. Generally, the heavier the trance the more powerful the trance. One should note though that sometimes, while attempting to achieve trance, practitioners fall asleep, so it may just be that a practitioner has fallen asleep and has not achieved trance at all.

Is meditation necessary to achieve trance?

No. Trance can be achieved without meditation, especially by one who has spent time training themselves to achieve trance in meditation. Spell and ritual work and large amounts of raised energy may also trigger trance in an individual.

What is the relationship between trance and spellwork/ritual?

Trance amps up any spell or ritual work and makes the practitioner much more powerful. For any type of spell or ritual work the practitioner should, at some point during the working, achieve trance, at least lightly if not heavily. For powerful spells that require large amounts of energy, a trance state is pretty much mandatory for success.

What is the relationship between trance and psionic magick?

The same as that between trance and spellwork/ritual. Most who are, well, talented are able to pull off simple psionics without much effort or need for trance, but for greater feats trance becomes an invaluable aid, and in any case will increase the power and success rate of the practitioner.

How should I position myself for meditation?

The body should be in a relaxed state, either sitting or laying down. The practitioner should feel comfortable and in a position they could, under typical circumstances, fall asleep in.

What should I wear for meditation?

Meditation can be done wearing anything, or nothing at all, especially by a trained practitioner. If one is just beginning though its best to wear clothing that makes one feel comfortable, as if they are going to bed, and nothing that will make them self-conscious. Clothing that may physically irritate the practitioner and call the attention of their mind should be avoided, as should clothing that makes one too hot or cold (a blanket is fine if one is too cold). Holding or wearing magickally enchanted objects and ritual tools should be avoided during meditation unless they are the reason for the meditation.

Is there any benefit to using yogic positions (ie the lotus position)?

Certain yogic positions better align the body for energy movement and naturally raise large amounts of energy, both of which aid in meditation and trance, and a practitioner utilizing certain positions will generally have more success and more intense experiences. However in order for the yogic positions to be used one must be at a point in their yoga exercises that they feel completely at ease in the position and their is no pain or undo stress put on the muscles, otherwise the physical and mental strains the yoga positions will put on the practitioner will be more counterproductive to the meditation than helpful.

Will drowsiness effect meditation?

Typically drowsiness will aid in bringing ones body and mind to a relaxed state and may make meditation easier, the only downside being that one may end up falling asleep instead.

Will energy effect meditation or trance?

Large amounts of energy will aid the meditation and make achieving trance easier, and it will intensify the trance once it is achieved. The type of energy used, however, may taint process and could effect the direction in which the mind is drawn.

How do I meditate on a question?

Simply keep the question in your mind and ponder it during meditation, and hopefully it will still be your focus when you hit trance. Not only will you be more adept at answering the question in trance, but you may also be able to break free and channel other sources, remote view related things, divine into the future, and you may draw entities more knowledgable about the subject to you for conversation.

How do I meditate on an object?

Generally you should be holding or wearing the object during meditation, or have it close to you. You should focus and concentrate on the object during meditation, and hopefully take that focus into trance. It’s almost exactly like meditating on a question.