Q: What is your preferred method of achieving astral projection? What works best for you?
Tyson: For informal astral exploration, to lie in bed in the dark and open myself to the perception of images works well. I allow the images to form themselves, and then I enter into them. After long practice, these animated scenes begin to form on the darkness whenever I turn my attention toward them. I can watch what unfolds or interact with the beings who inhabit the scenes.
In the book, I describe a formal ritual structure that uses an astral staging zone where the astral journey is initiated, a zone that is fully protected from intrusion by its very structure. It is useful to go to the same place in the astral world when you initiate astral travel, and use it as a kind of leaping off place. This was the practice of the remote viewers of the CIA and it works well as a general approach to soul flight.
I also describe the use of an astral elevator as a way of separating and defining the various levels of the astral universe, which are sometimes referred to as astral planes. By means of this elevator travel is possible not only to the hither astral realms, but also to the lower realms, such as the land of fairy, which exists just beneath the surface of our waking condition.
Q: You mentioned “malicious astral beings” earlier. Is there any danger in astral projection? If so, how can it be avoided?
Tyson: The dangers of soul flight are overrated. Most beginners mistake frightening encounters that surprise or repulse for actual perils. This is usually not the case, although sometimes a traveler can injure himself in his extreme desire to escape from an astral being or an astral scene that he is emotionally unable to cope with.
One danger that does not exist is the risk of having the silver cord cut. This is supposed by some authorities to cause death. However, as I show very clearly in my book, the silver cord is only a metaphor for the link between the consciousness and the physical body, and since astral travel never really involves travel beyond the body, but only changes in mental states, the connection can never be cut. I agree with Allan Kardec, the famous Spiritist, who wrote that there was no danger of being stranded outside the physical body. At any real danger, the consciousness immediately returns to its awareness of the physical world. The whole concept of a silver cord was an unfortunate fixation of Sylvan Muldoon and is at best merely an artificial and symbolic creation.
Another unnecessary fear is that astral entities can harm you on the astral plane. It is true that astral beings may accost you or even fight with your astral form, but they cannot harm it.
What does sometimes happen in rare instances is that a kind of reaction may occur in which the perceived injury to the astral body shows itself on the physical body. This is known as repercussion. My own view is that these injuries are caused by the mind of the soul flier himself. Just as belief can cause warts to vanish, or the wounds of Christ to appear, so can belief that the astral body has been injured cause reflexive injuries in the physical body. But these are not caused directly by an astral attacker. They are caused by the faith of the traveler himself.
A magic circle around the physical body is a very useful defense against the intrusion of astral beings when the body is in a trance state during soul flight. It prevents the highly unlikely displacement of the consciousness by a spirit, which would result in possession.
The ritual I describe in my book automatically divides the place of working for the soul flier from the greater astral world, thereby excluding possible malicious spirits.
In any emergency it is always possible to snap back into ordinary consciousness. This is not recommended since it can be abrupt and somewhat uncomfortable, but it is not harmful and in the face of a perceived danger is a sure way to remove yourself from any astral confrontation.
Really, the dangers of astral travel are so exaggerated, it is almost unnecessary to consider them. However, they are not entirely imaginary, and in the unlikely event that the traveler ever faces a real danger, I have provided defenses both in the very structure of the general ritual and more actively in the form of a protective amulet, the use of names of power, and through the tried and proven lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram. Fear of possible dangers should not deter anyone from experiencing the wonders of the astral world.
Donald Tyson is the author of more than a dozen books on divination, ceremonial magic, the Kabbalah and other occult subjects.