210 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard
lutely automatically, without your knowing what will
be written. This method can also give you draw-
ings, paintings, messages in other languages, etc.- Inspirational: It’s as if you were “thinking aloud”
inside or outside your own personality. The mes-
sages may come from the depths of your soul or
from outside. You know what you will write. - Intuitive: You have the feeling that you did it your-
self.
Lesson 7: Astral Projection
Astral projection is the practice of separating your
astral body from your physical one and sending it out
on a journey. This most often happens when you are
sleeping, and such experiences may seem very similar
to regular dreams. But the more you get into the prac-
tice of Magick and train yourself in
techniques of meditation, visualiza-
tion, and lucid dreaming (see 1.VI.5),
the more you will find that “regular dreams”
are seldom that! One way to tell the differ-
ence between dreams and astral projec-
tion is in your point of view. In a dream, as in waking
life, you “see” only what is in front of you. But in
astral projection, you can see in all directions, all
around you. Often the first thing you see, in fact, is
your own body lying in bed as your astral self
separates from it.
In astral projection, the astral body is con-
nected to the physical body by a “silver cord” that
only severs at the time of death. This cord is infi-
nitely elastic and will retain its connection no mat-
ter how far you journey. And like Ariadne’s thread
that Theseus followed back out of the Cretan Laby-
rinth, you can always return to your body along
the length of the cord, so you don’t have to worry
about getting lost—unless, of course, you go bor-
rowing (that is, transferring your consciousness into
the mind of another living creature). We’ll deal with
borrowing in the Class on “Beast Mastery” (6.I).
By now, if you have been keeping your dream
journal for some time, you will have developed your
ability to remember your dreams quite well. If you have,
in the evenings just before going to sleep, fix your
mind on some place you would like to visit, or some
person you would like to see. Then, in your dreams,
will yourself to be wearing different clothes, or
will yourself to suddenly be in some other
place. Practice this very frequently.How to Astral
ProjectHere is a technique to get into your astral body:
First, you must learn to visualize and develop your
astral body until it is just as real to you as your physi-
cal body. Practice by standing naked in front of a full-
length mirror and memorizing every detail of your body.
Then close your eyes and visualize seeing
yourself clearly. Hold that image for a
few min- utes, then open your eyes
slowly, mor-phing your internal vision
with the im- age in the mirror.
Do this over and
over until you can see
yourself just as
clearly inside your
mind as in the mir-
ror. Then prac-
tice
moving your arms
and legs, matching
those movements with those
in your astral body as if by re-
mote control. Finally, make the
arms and legs of your astral body move
without moving your physical body.
When you are able to do all this, the next
thing to do is to move your astral body outside of
your own. Try to transfer your consciousness to
your astral body, looking back at your physical body
from the other side. Your own body has its eyes shut.
Use the eyes of your astral body to see and describe
objects in the room behind you. When you can do
this, try and rotate your astral body to look all around
the room, and finally back to see your own physical
body still in its place. By this time, it might be better to
sit down in a chair.
Practice this for many sessions, until you can do
it easily. Over time, try lying down on your back, and
visualize your astral body rising up from your physi-
cal one, taking your consciousness with it. As you
come to feel more at home in your astral body, let it
rise higher into the air. Keep on feeling the sense
of rising; keep looking about you as you rise until
you see landscapes and beings of the Astral Plane
or of the physical world. As you get better and
better at this, you may venture further afield—to
anyplace, in fact, that you may wish to go.
Take short journeys at first, and extend them into
longer periods as you become more experienced.
When you are ready to return to your physical body,
you don’t have to retrace your steps. All you have to
do is visualize your physical body lying where you
left it, and make your astral body coincide in space
with your physical one, until they are merged com-
pletely together in a unity of consciousness. Then
open your physical eyes and look around
you; you’re back, safe and sound!- Spectrum 1.p65 210 1/15/2004, 9:15 AM