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Understanding Astral Projection

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By George A. Boyd ©2008

The term astral projection is used in a variety of New Age, Occult and other spiritual groups to denote the phenomenon of the astral body separating from the physical body and traveling in the physical universe, or in the Astral Universe that lies beyond that. As we study this phenomenon, we see there are eight major states of projection; only some of them affect the astral body and produce the astral projection. These eight states are shown below:

  1. Attentional projection – You move your attention progressively through a series of focal points in the conscious or unconscious bands of the mind. This method is used in Raja Yoga. In this practice, the astral body does not move.
  2. Passive astral projection – The astral body moves out of confluence with the physical body due to the influence of a psychotropic medication, anesthetic, or hallucinogen; or during delirium or coma. In this case, you do you will or intend for your astral body to move, but it disengages due to exogenous or endogenous influences upon the physical-etheric matrix.
  3. Intentional astral projection – You command your astral body according to your suggestion, often to carry out a specific task of viewing (e.g., remote viewing) or listening (e.g., telepathic communion with a guide).
  4. Conjoined astral projection – this type of projection occurs when the astral body moves out of conjunction with the physical body while your attention is held within it. This gives rise to the classic out-of-body-experience (OOBE), where you are “in” your astral body, looking down at your physical body from above. You can passively induce an OOBE with drugs, or you can actively train your attention using relaxation with suggestion in self-hypnosis. Some contend that exposure to brain entrainment equipment or specially designed music can also produce an OOBE.

In an OOBE, you have little control over where your astral body goes—this type of astral projection gives rise to dream-like experiences. The dream-like nature of these experiences has led some people who have studied astral projection to speculate that the astral body separates from the physical body during the dream state and wanders.

  1. Guided astral projection – The suggestion of another person using hypnosis or “guided meditation” guides you into states of astral projection. Through suggestion, you are led to visit a physical location such as a beach or forest. You might receive a suggestion to visit an earlier time in the present life or in a past life (past life regression). You might be asked to interact with an unconscious personality element, a symbol or an archetype, or to encounter your spirit of your Higher Self. In this type of projection, you give permission for another person to guide your astral body, who guides your astral body and attention to accomplish a specific therapeutic or insightive purpose.
  2. Direct projection – In this method, you place your attention on the attentional principle. When attention is united with the attentional principle, the attentional principle travels upward out of its ground state in the pituitary center of the Subconscious mind into higher states of consciousness. The astral body assembles around the attentional principle during its ascension and rises with it. It will travel with the attentional principle, until it reaches the top of the Psychic Realm; here the astral body is dropped into its origin. This is an advanced practice of Raja Yoga.
  3. Projection of the spirit – in this method, your spirit opens the channels of the Nada. In these meditations, you place your attention upon the spirit, as it journeys upward in the Nadamic current. Here you become aware of an astral body that encapsulates your spirit; this form is dropped at a particular location on the Path.
  4. Command projection – In this type, you use a higher octave of your will in the Superconscious mind to command your astral body to carry out a specific task. These command centers include the center of Magical Will, which is activated by Occult initiates on the Lower Astral Plane; the Psychic Will, used by psychic guides; the Solar Angelic octave of will, empowered by Ascended Masters and their disciples; and the Cosmic octave of will, which Yogi Preceptors and their disciples stir into activity to perform miraculous powers (siddhis).

It is important for the aspirant to identify each of these types of projection. We teach types (1), (6) and (7) in the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the Accelerated Meditation Program. We also use type (5), guided astral projection, during our training of a technique for self-hypnosis in the Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the Accelerated Meditation Program.

Through your study of projection, you will ultimately gain complete control over your astral body; you may then use it as readily as you do your physical body. Once you achieve this mastery, your astral body will become a valuable tool for your Soul’s Great Work and you will be able to utilize all eight forms of projection.

Stages of Experiencing the Attentional Principle

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By George A. Boyd © 2020

Q: I’m not clear about how the attentional principle gains a greater ability to perceive and operate in meditation. Can you describe how the experience of the attentional principle changes with greater inner development and how it gains enhanced facility for meditation?

A: There are three major stages of experiencing the attentional principle:

Perceptual Union – At the first stage, your attention gains union with the attentional principle. With practice, you begin to be able to see and hear what the attentional principle is seeing and hearing in the present time.

Conscious Intentional Activity – At the second stage, you become aware of your attentional principle’s activity. For example, you become aware that your attentional principle is intending your transformational mantra; it is receiving the Light and sending this out via an attunement; or it is traveling in full consciousness through the dimensions of the upper Subconscious, the Metaconscious, and the Superconscious mind.

Independent existence – At stage three, you become aware that your attentional principle operates 24 hours a day, whether you are awake, dreaming, or are in sound sleep.

Regarding the progressive development of your encounter with the attentional principle, we can characterize a spectrum of states where your experience of this conscious essence deepens.

  1. Initial discovery of the location of the attentional principle (passive) – Through the use of hypnosis, psychoactive drugs, or reception of an attunement, you experience temporary union with your attentional principle. However, you cannot under your own efforts, return to this experience.
  2. Discovery of the attentional principle (active) – You move your attention through the focal points of the Conscious and Subconscious mind until your it reaches the feet of the tiny form of the attentional principle behind the pituitary center of the system of chakras of the Subconscious mind. After some practice, you can replicate this at will. We call this method, Purusa Dhyan. We describe this method in our article, “How to Open Your Own Third Eye” on our website. This meditation is the precursor to the more advanced practice of Raja Yoga, which we call direct projection.
  3. Fusion with your attention with the wave of consciousness – This state marks the dawning of stage one. When you achieve this level of control over your attention, you can experience what your attentional principle is sensing in the present time.
  4. Awareness of the intentional activity of your attentional principle – This deeper level of perception marks the beginning of stage two. You become aware of your attentional principle using its intention to travel through the inner Planes of Light, to activate your transformational mantra, and to make attunements. In this state, you become aware that you are doing conscious inner work; you can detect that you are consciously meditating.
  5. Microconcentration on the activity of the attentional principle’s chakras – In addition to intention that operates through the point between the eyebrows chakra of the tiny form of the attentional principle (Purusa), in this state you become aware of the activity of the other chakras of this form. In the throat center, you become aware of its ability to receive intuitive and telepathic impress. In the heart center, you become aware of its ability to contemplate. In its solar plexus center, you become aware of its ability to anchor suggestions in the vehicles of consciousness of the mind and in the unconscious mind. In its navel center, you become aware of its ability to empathically enter the experience of others. At the center at the base of the spine, you become aware of the attentional principles ability to marshal its forces to affirm and create what it wishes to manifest.
  6. Encounter with the guide – At this state, you become aware of your attentional principle’s dialog with an inner guide and its reception of guidance from that guide’s form. You become aware that your attentional principle is listening to the guide’s discourse and it is speaking to the guide through silent, telepathic thought. When you are able to maintain your attention in union with the attentional principle in this state, you experience conscious encounter with the inner guide, which we call Guru Dhyan.
  7. Enhanced noumenal experience – In this state, you have a heightened awareness of your attentional principle’s experience on the higher Planes, and you are able to clearly cognize what it sees and hears. You may become aware that it is attending inner schools or Temples of Wisdom. You may behold it carrying out directed Light Ministry under the aegis of the Masters. You may discover it is consciously communing with Masters of the Hierarchy of Light or Initiates of other spiritual traditions. You make this initial discovery of your attentional principle’s activities when you are meditating while you are awake.
  8. Turiya – This is the start of the third stage of experiencing the attentional principle, where you realize it has a fully independent existence. You become aware that your attentional principle is inwardly awake during all states of consciousness—waking, dream, sound sleep, coma, and death—and you experience your attentional principle is immortal, eternally conscious, and has full remembrance of its experiences on the inner Planes. You realize that its activity is not governed by where your attention is focused—rather, it has the ability to allow your attention to become aware of what your attentional principle is experiencing, and it has the ability to direct your attention to any focal point within the personality or any nodal point in the Superconscious mind, up to the attention’s origin.
  9. Spiritual empowerment – In this state, you become aware of the attentional principle’s ability to guide the attentional principle of others on the inner Planes. In the Mudrashram® tradition, this ability first dawns when we train advanced disciples, who reach the Form of the Disciple on the Bridge Path, to bestow the Raja Yoga Attunement during Teacher Training One. This ability is significantly augmented during Teacher Training Two, which occurs when disciples reach the Mahatma Stage on the Bridge Path, and they learn how to manifest the guide form to the attentional principle of others.
  10. Maha Chaitanya Samadhi – In this deepest stage of meditation, you gain the ability to return attention (chittam) to its origin, the form of the attentional principle (purusa) to its source, and the wave of consciousness (chetan) to where it originated in the Infinite Stage.

During the neophyte phase of spirituality, you may have the passive experience of your attentional principle of state one. You do not have control over this experience, but it shows you aspect of your mind beyond the confines of your Conscious mind.

The aspirant phase of spirituality activates states two through five. You become aware of your attentional principle and its abilities.

In the disciple phase, you have a heightened experience of your attentional principle through states six through eight. You are able to commune with the guide, have full awareness of your attentional principle’s adventures in the inner Planes, and finally realize it as an immortal, eternally conscious spiritual essence.

When you become an Initiate, you activate state nine. Here you are empowered to send the Light to awaken and guide the attentional principles of others.

You can learn to consciously encounter your attentional principle in state two through using the Purusa Dhyan technique. This allows you to open the inner seeing of your attentional principle, and experience what mystics call the opening of the third eye.

We teach you how to activate states three through five in our intermediate mediation courses, the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program. We teach you how to activate state six, which enables you to commune with the inner guide (Guru Dhyan) in the Mudrashram® Advanced Course in Meditation.

Steps seven and eight mark the attainment of advanced discipleship. This comes about gradually after several years of meditation, as your ensouling entity progressively opens deeper and deeper bands of the Great Continuum of Consciousness. Regular practice of Raja Yoga is key to this enhancement of your attentional principle’s experience; those who ignore this important aspect of core Integral meditation practice often lag behind in their ability to experience these more profound stages of attentional principle development.

Those spiritual traditions that grant the ability to bestow the Raja Yoga attunement can awaken and guide the attentional principles of others—these can demonstrate state nine. We empower out students to make this attunement in our advanced Teacher Training programs.

You experience state ten when you complete your spiritual journey in Mudrashram® and you arrive at the Infinite Stage at the top of the Seventh Transcendental Path. This is the most profound state of the experience of attention and the attentional principle, where you consciously experience their origin—where they originally came forth from the Divine.

If you will learn the steps of Raja Yoga meditation and practice it regularly, you will in time experience states two to ten of the development of the abilities of your attentional principle. Your meditations will become ineffable immersion in boundless vistas of sublime knowledge and endless love. And God will not be an abstraction: you will know the Divine As It Is.