Date: 8 Feb 2010 Comments: 0

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.

The ancient Egyptians were fascinated by the astral body, and experimented with many methods of controlling it in order to visit other planes of time and space while the physical body stayed behind. It is suspected that it is through astral projection experiences such as these that they were able to learn the skills necessary to build the pyramids using only the materials they had at the time, which is something that still baffles scientists to this day.

Meditation is the first element that the ancient Egyptians used for out of body travel. They recorded this as concentrating on nothing more than the visions they would see with their eyes closed and being nearly asleep. The flashes of patterns and lights that they would see represented the beginning of their journey to another plane in space and time while traveling in their astral body.

After passing this state, the astral body entered into an emergence phase. This caused the humming and tingling of the physical body and then the feeling of heaviness followed. The feelings of tingling and then heaviness the ancients believed was the feeling of the astral body pulling away from the physical body, while initiating the unknown out of body journey to other planes.

The techniques for accomplishing this varied, but the most common practice seemed to be to simply “walk” out of oneself, beginning through the mind’s eye, followed then by the shoulders and chest, hips, legs, knees, and finally the feet until there were two entities – a physical body and the astral body.

Once separated, the astral body was then not only free to pass through the solid objects that restrained the physical body, but to hover and fly as well without being affected by the changes in atmosphere or the lack of oxygen.

Recordings of the ancient Greeks include examples of out of body astral travel, which expanded on the meditatively-induced state of the ancient Egyptians. This included the experiences of out of body travel by the means of some sort of mental or physical trauma. Plutarch of Queroneia an ancient historian cites that Arisdeu had suffered a blunt head trauma after falling and then slipped into a coma that lasted three days.

While in the coma, Arisdeu had the experience of seeing his physical body lying there immobile on the ground, yet he could move about freely, hover, and travel out of body to previously unimagined places. Once acclimated to his new environment, Arideu was met and was assisted by his spiritual guide, who then advised him regarding the projection of his astral body into other dimensions.

After some time exploring and learning what he could about this altered state of existence, he felt himself forcibly pulled back into his physical body, where he then spent the rest of his life trying to apply the information he learned while on his out of body journey.

The ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks aren’t the only ones with recorded history of out of body travel. Native American history is also full of several accounts of similar experiences, often featuring spirit animals and/or guides meeting and advising an individual’s astral body. For centuries, Native Americans have burned certain plants and inhaled their smoke in order to ease the mind into the state necessary to begin out of body travel.

The human body has the ability to explore different horizons of time and space. This has been recorded since the beginning of time. We are able to channel our consciousness into a spiritual body. However, many modern individuals have forgotten this wonderfully natural gift. Many have forgotten how to alter our consciousness to the point that we can release it from the confines of our physical limitations. However, with practice we can join with our spiritual guides and self on the higher planes of existence.

The door is within each of us, we simply need to remember how to reconnect with the higher more spiritual side so that we are once more about to journey out of body to those higher planes. The possibilities are unlimited. It is a natural process and once we rediscover this inside ourselves we can gain in the potentials of understanding our higher self.