Moving Out of Body, Belief Changing

cammy

stevenmu wrote:

I was under the (very possibly mistaken) impression that lucid dreaming, and in fact all dreaming, is a form of astral travelling

This is my personal opinion and one theory is as good as another until there is some sort of objective understanding of OBEs and Remote Viewing.

stevenmu wrote:

I read a few chapters of 'Psychology of a Psychic' but ended up putting it down, I found the authors a bit too dismissive. I thought that they discounted several things because they weren't 100% scientifically verifiable, even though some results were impressive even taking their criticisms into account. I understand that they'd like to find 100% proof, but they seem to immediatly dismiss some things which could have been promising and maybe lead to better protocols. I'll have to look out for 'Conscious Universe' and see what that says.

I think we're getting slightly off-topic here. There is a multitude of mis-information in 'Psychology of a Psychic'. While I was reading it I was making notes but it got too much of chore. I had planned to do a review of it for my website (as a way of formulating my thinking about the book).

The scientific part of it is correct though (it's just that they focus on the broken experiments). The original RV experiments were seriously flawed.

While I understand the 100% proof thing, you can't say that every single experiment that has a potential for fraud did involve fraud. That kind of level of paranoia is equivalent to some of the mad-cap theories that the authors claim parapsychology wish to uphold.

To get back on topic there is some interesting bits and pieces in 'Psychology of a Psychic', in particular a whole chapter related to the history of the Stargate project.

Nevyn

Personally I dont like or get on with egyptian gods,
but Anubis is not a bad choice here.

Egyptian God Anubis

Egyptian god of the dead, represented as a black jackal or dog, or as a man with the head of a dog or jackal. He was the guide of the dead as they made their way through the darkness of the underworld. As a patron of magic, it was believed he could foresee a persons destiny, in this role he was the announcer of death. God of orphans, travelers, and the lost.

There are a whole lot of so called Dark or Death Gods and Goddesses that are
pretty much misunderstood.

cammy

Thaed wrote:

Egyptian god of the dead, represented as a black jackal or dog, or as a man with the head of a dog or jackal. He was the guide of the dead as they made their way through the darkness of the underworld. As a patron of magic, it was believed he could foresee a persons destiny, in this role he was the announcer of death. God of orphans, travelers, and the lost.

According to wikipedia's entry on Anubis, Anubis is more the god of dying than a god of death. Osiris became the God of death when he became more popular.

I'm particularly fond of Egyptian Gods (not in terms of magick though, just as a mythology) and I always considered Anubis to be the Judger of the Dead like St. Peter, except if you fail you get eaten by a monster rather than go to hell (which is worse, you decide!). I always thought Isis was the Egyptian Goddess of magic. She's a particular favourite of mine too.

Is the process of an OBE a process of 'dying'?

Thaed wrote:

There are a whole lot of so called Dark or Death Gods and Goddesses that are pretty much misunderstood.

In what way? (Genuine question, I'm intrigued)

I understand, that for example, many Gods where painted as dark gods or as belongomg to the land of the dead to demonize the followers (like what the Greeks did to Hectate by describing her as living in the Underworld). Is this what you meant?

Nevyn

pretty much.

Anything that was icky and not nice was demonised.
I am not saying they are not harsh gods and goddesses at times but
death and war were and still part of life.

For me it was the story of lillths that is a good example of this.
http://www.lilitu.com/lilith/rappoport.html
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Power/lilith.htm
http://www.dharma6.com/html/the_myth.html
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/l/lilith.html

Hecate is another one.
She went from the young torch bearer guiding souls in the under world and persphone on her travels, her symbols being torches and door ways and keys, to the patron of midwifes, birth being a door way between worlds and from there she became the Goddess of witches during medevil times as those investigating midwifes would often hear of thier devotion to her and offerings in her name and so she became the Nighthag of the cross roads.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hecate.html
http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/hecatecont3.html

And dont forget our own Lady, The Morrigan.
http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/goddessmorrigan.html
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/morrigan.html
http://www.tarot-decks.com/morrigan.htm
http://druidry.org/obod/deities/morrigan.html

Talliesin

Thaed wrote:

Anything that was icky and not nice was demonised.

We have the flip side to that happening also, where people wishing to reclaim such Gods and Goddesses try to water them down to little more than self-assertive but still "nice", which I really don't think the Gods appreciate. At least those who demonise them leave well alone rather than try to work with them.

I love the Morrigan, the Calliach, and especially Scáthach, but they sure ain't pleasant. But often the less nice people are those that it is most worthwhile working with, which goes for humans and other beings too.

There are also some Gods and Goddesses with dark natures mixed in with other stuff. I'm thinking particularly of Aradia here, protective, compassionate, caring, who can hold you and tell you that it's okay, that the bad stuff hurts but you're strong enough to deal with it and reminds you of the joy she was sent to bring, but who is also poisoner of her people's enemies.

stevenmu

Thaed wrote:

Personally I dont like or get on with egyptian gods,
but Anubis is not a bad choice here.


There are a whole lot of so called Dark or Death Gods and Goddesses that are
pretty much misunderstood.

Reading this just reminded me, I think I read somewhere that Anubis was actually regarded more as a gatekeeper between this world and the esoteric, or the physical plane and the astral. Because crossing over is usually related to death then this is what Anubis is generally associated with.

amazingemmet

just a random thing that some people i know have gotten results with is eat alot of salty food before bed then leave a glass of water beside your bed and focus on wanting to drink the water as you go to sleep, and if your lucky you'll wake up seperate from your body beside the water ready to go travelling

Personally i haven't got this method to work but friends of mine swear by it.

stevenmu

amazingemmet wrote:

just a random thing that some people i know have gotten results with is eat alot of salty food before bed then leave a glass of water beside your bed and focus on wanting to drink the water as you go to sleep, and if your lucky you'll wake up seperate from your body beside the water ready to go travelling

Personally i haven't got this method to work but friends of mine swear by it.

I've heard of various similar things, mainly people say to focus on something in particular when you're awake and then when you see it in your dream you should realise that you're dreaming and then 'wake up' within your dream. Unfortunatly I haven't got it to work fully yet, I either just completly wake up, or something else happens in the dream and I forget all about it :rolleyes:

amazingemmet

Yeah i think thats the reasoning behind it alright. But i think i could be a bit more effective as its something your body is gonna remind you of as oppose to trying to remember it your self in your dream.

cammy

stevenmu wrote:

I've heard of various similar things, mainly people say to focus on something in particular when you're awake and then when you see it in your dream you should realise that you're dreaming and then 'wake up' within your dream. Unfortunatly I haven't got it to work fully yet, I either just completly wake up, or something else happens in the dream and I forget all about it :rolleyes:

Well the one technique that really worked for me was this: during the day when you do something regularly such as checking the time, check to see if your dreaming. You can do this by looking at your hands and seeing if they remain the same or reading a piece of text, looking away for a second and then rereading the text, if it's changed your dreaming. Theres lots of little bits of dream logic you can test for.

Once this becomes a habit, when your dreaming, your mind will check to see if your dreaming at some point and you'll, hopefully, wake up.

stevenmu

That sounds like another technique I found and tried for a while without much luck. Basically it involved being very aware of everything you do during the day, how everything looked, smelled and felt. Your idea seems to be similar but it's really getting to the core of the idea. I'll give it a try for the next few days and see how I get on, thanks.

stevenmu

stevenmu wrote:

I think someone once claimed there were rings around neptune and was ridiculed at the time, but it later turned out that there are. I'll have a look for links later.

Sorry, forgot about this till I saw a discovery channel documentary mentioning it over the weekend. It was actually Ingo Swann who remote viewed Jupiter. Details available here