Various cultures have recorded out of body travel, including the ancient Egyptians. Kha is the word they used to describe the soul or astral body, while they also included images of the astral body as if hovering just above or even beyond the physical body. The astral body was depicted as a haloed, airy translucent being.
Fascinated by the astral body the ancient Egyptians experimented with various techniques in order to control the ability to travel in the astral body to other planes of space and time, while their physical body stayed put where it lay. This is also known as astral projection. Perhaps, during such experiences they learned the skills required for building the pyramids, using the materials they had on hand. The building of the pyramids is something that has long been a puzzle to scientists.
It’s recorded that meditation, nearly to the point of sleep, was the first component of out of body travel for the ancient Egyptians, followed by then concentrating on nothing but the visions one sees while his or her eyes were closed. Often, flashes of lights and patterns appeared, which the ancient Egyptians attributed to the beginnings of the astral body’s journey to other planes of time and space.
Upon passing through this meditative state, the astral body would reach a phase of emergence, which would create a tingling and humming within the physical body. Then they would experience the feeling of heaviness. The ancients believed that the feelings of tingling, humming and then heaviness was a sign of the astral body pulling away from their physical body. This would then initiate the journey of the astral body to unknown planes of existence.
They accomplished this in different ways yet the most common was that of walking out of the physical body by using the astral body. Beginning with the minds eye, followed by the shoulders, chest, hips, legs, knees and then the feet. This continued until there were two separate entities, that of the physical body and that of the astral body.
This separating of bodies, then allowed the astral body to pass freely through solid objects, it could also hover and fly about without being effected by the lack of oxygen or changes in the atmosphere.
The ancient Greeks also recorded instances of out of body travel, and expanded on the strictly meditatively-induced state of the ancient Egyptians to include out of body travel by way of physical or mental trauma. The ancient historian Plutarch of Queroneia, for example, cited the case of Arisdeu who, after suffering blunt trauma to his head after a fall slipped into a coma for three days.
At this time, Arisdeu tells of the ability to see his physical body laying on the ground yet he was free to move around without it. In astral form he tells of his ability of out of body travel to go to places that were not conceivable. He was met by his spirit guide while in astral form. His spirit guide assisted and advised him concerning astral travel in other existing astral planes.
While in this altered state he was able to explore and learn, although he was forcibly pulled back into his physical body. There he spent the rest of his life applying what he had learned during his out of body experience.
Other ancient cultures recorded their findings of out of body travel similar to that of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. For instance, the history of the Native Americans includes various full accounts of such happenings to their people as well. Their accounts include the meeting of their spirit guides and totem spirit animals. These entities also advised them concerning the astral plane and the astral body. For centuries, the Native Americans have used specific plants for burning and inhaling in order to relax the mind to the point of being more receptive to out of body travel on the astral planes.
Since the beginning of recorded time, human beings have been able to channel their consciousness into a spiritual body, which is then capable of exploring the limitless horizons of space and time. But in today’s technological age with it fast-paced culture, many of us have lost touch with this ability to alter our consciousness to the point that we can release it from the confines of our physical limitations, and with practice, join our spiritual guides and counterparts on a higher plane of existence.
The door is there, and it is within us. We simply need to reconnect with our spiritual selves in order to once again journey out of body and into the infinite. The process is inherent to who we are as human beings, and there are no limitations once we rediscover our potential for higher understanding.
Tags: astral projection, astral travel, out of body, out of body experience, out of body experiences