Boarding the Astral Plane

© Brian Allan 2003

Word count: 3,112

There are many interpretations of what and where the Astral Plain really is, it is my contention that it is identical to the region accessed by psychics, mediums and shamans, the only differences are in name and context. In this short article I will set out my reasons for making this assertion, it is entirely up to the reader whether they accept them or not. (Brian Allan May29th 2003.)

According to standard psychic dogma, there are discrete levels of existence alongside our own collectively called the 'Astral Plane', (AP) a term given to a multi-layered, nebulous region inhabited by spirits. It is, say the psychics, the ultimate destination at which upon death all of us will eventually arrive. While access to this region is often accomplished involuntarily through either 'Near Death Experience' (NDE) or 'Out of Body Experience' (OBE), it is normally implied that mediumship is the sole vehicle by which we may obtain 'controlled' access this particular level of consciousness, however this is demonstrably not the case. We are likewise told that there are several distinct layers, sometimes reckoned as seven (hence 'seventh heaven'), occasionally less and indeed more, in this ultimate spiritual terminus. These levels range from the unpleasant to the sublime and according to popular belief, the worse we have been in life, the lower down the levels we will find ourselves. Those from the lower levels cannot visit the levels above, but the occupants of the upper levels may, for whatever reason, visit those dwelling further down the scale. However, one thing that the all inhabitants of the AP can do irrespective of their position is arrive here in our realm as they see fit to either amicably visit or wreak havoc upon us.

Setting the Boundaries

Spiritually, the concepts here are not new and find close parallels within mainstream religious beliefs of good and bad expressed as Heaven and Hell. Roman Catholicism adds another level, purgatory, designed as a halfway house designed to expunge the sins garnered during life preparatory to attaining sufficient grace and purity to enter heaven. There is nothing wrong with any of these ideas and concepts; they are intended to bring a measure of hope to humanity that its existence here on Earth is not the only reality; there is another, greater and presumably better, existence yet to come. However they also serve another more pragmatic purpose, that of control and indoctrination; depending on how you behave yourself in life, either eternal punishment or glorious reward awaits beyond death. The more law abiding and subservient you are, the greater chance you have of a glorious, afterlife. This is apparently another example of the civil authorities using and modifying whatever device is at hand to ensure compliance among the population.

Early Mediumship

The concept of an astral or ethereal level of existence invites closer examination of other concepts involved in the natural order of human consciousness, especially those dealing with concepts like 'spirit' and 'soul'. The gift of mediumship, which we are told can be taught like any other skill, has, in all its forms has been around for as long as humanity. It began with the spiritual quests and journeys of shamans, normally carried out as an information gathering adjunct to the unique positions the held within the tribal groups to which they belonged. Just how these spiritual odysseys were first discovered is still a puzzle, but since the ingestion of natural hallucinogens was and still is often involved, then presumably there must have been a measure of luck, trial and error. While this conclusion appears logical, is also known that other methods are traditionally used to attain the necessary altered state of consciousness. These include rhythmic chanting, drumming and movement, sleep deprivation and fasting, when combined all of these methods will eventually produce the required mental state. However, while shamans effectively use these techniques in their rituals, it is not true mediumship except in a general sense. Although not a spontaneous action, genuine mediums appear to be able to disengage or attenuate their consciousness more of less at will to attain access to the astral plain.. There is however one question that appears to remain unanswered, is the medium acting purely as a channel for entities already around us, or is the medium actually accessing alternate planes of existence and entering them?

The Golden Years

Traditionally, mediumship as it practised now first appeared on the world stage in the 19th century via the teenage Fox sisters, of Hydesville in New York State. According to accounts from the time, the house where the Fox sisters lived had already been the scene of poltergeist activity which forced previous occupants to depart, leaving one wondering if, in some way, the sisters had somehow become psychically 'sensitised'. They claimed that they could communicate with the dead through a code based on audible taps and knocks. Although the Fox sisters helped launch the craze for spiritualism world-wide, it had been promoted and practised in the 18th century by the talented Swedish scholar and mystic, Emmanuel Swedenborg (1699 - 1782). Swedenborg also revealed that rather than the current acceptance of seven levels of spiritual existence, there were six, comprising three heavens and three hells.

During the Victorian era two of the most prominent mediums were the Scots American, Daniel Dunglass Home, usually referred to as 'DD' Home, and the English medium, Florence Cook. Curiously, some of the abilities attributed to Home were levitation, bodily elongation, resistance to pain, clairvoyance and, self-luminescence; all these bizarre attributes are also credited to Christian saints and mystics. Does this mean that Christian saints were mediums or that Home was a saint? Furthermore, another saintly attribute was the ability to converse directly with invisible entities including God and his angels, which is in effect what mediums do. Or, on the other hand, does sainthood depend on the person, the era, motivation and context? Florence Cook attained fame through her reported ability to materialise apparently totally lifelike organic forms, again presumably drawn from the astral plain, most notably one 'Katie King', supposedly the daughter of a long dead pirate. Claims made on behalf of Florence Cook suggest that her ability to incarnate the dead provided proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; Cook did not refute these remarkable and probably blasphemous, claims. One dubious aspect of the materialisations was the uncanny facial and physical resemblance of the incarnated Katie King to the medium. This similarity, it has been argued, is due to the fact that since mediums require to provide 'essence' or energy to produce the manifestations, perhaps 'Katie King' was superimposed, rather like a projection, upon an energy framework provided by Florence Cook.

While the similarity in appearance does not diminish the phenomenon, it does tend to raise suspicions, as did her insistence in secluding herself in a curtained booth during the seances. According to contemporary accounts this was lest any light fell upon her and affect her trance. The concealment of physical mediums behind screens during seances was, and in some cases still is, standard practise, as indeed is placing bowls of water in the séance room. Depending on the true nature of the phenomenon and if perhaps it functions at the sub atomic level, the requirement for the absence of light may be due to the nature of visible light which contains a numbers of different frequencies that may be inimical to phenomenon, therefore removing as much light as possible may help facilitate the manifestation. This is why in some instances the only illumination permitted in a séance room is provided by a dim, red light emanating non-harmful frequencies. Also, water is a form of liquid crystal possibly containing viable electromagnetic energy in the form of 'micro vortices'. Despite this, it is also arguable that in earlier times Cook, especially in view of the 'Christ connection', Home and indeed many other mediums would have been burned as witches.

Modern Developments

With the advent of modern thinking on the subject came a different view of what was possible in psychic terms and in the 1970's during the paranoia of the cold war the Russian and American security services entered into a race to gain the psychic high ground. Based on fears that the USSR were developing a system of spying based on the abilities of psychics to remotely 'see' targets, the American CIA in conjunction with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) founded 'Operation Sun Streak', which later evolved into the 'Stargate Project'. This black ops initiative was located in a secluded group of wooden buildings located at the home of the NSA, (National Security Agency), at Fort Meade in Maryland. Probably not by accident, Fort Meade is also the home of the US Army Intelligence service. One of the leading members of this series of experiments was former US Ranger, and Special Forces officer, Major David Morehouse. During his experiences while part of the clandestine 'Stargate Project' he allegedly learned to project part of his consciousness to any given location on the surface of the planet and incredibly, even beyond, aided only by photographs and finally solely using map co-ordinates.

While in the process of projecting his consciousness he described sights, sounds and sensations including visions of beings he describes as 'angels'. Other plans under consideration, which were mentioned by Morehouse and others, suggest that once in a suitable mental state, they could not only travel in space, but also in time to both past and future. This development is perhaps the most exciting and fantastic part of the entire project, where possibly effect proceeds cause, and in a typical example of time paradox the result could be observed before the action was taken. Perhaps fortunately, the entire project was shelved then abandoned because the results were too hit or miss could not be properly quantified and guaranteed. Are these impressions real, or are they part of the brains internal mapping system designed to act as reference points for the mind and therefore consciousness? All these factors are identical to those described by mediums travelling in the astral plain; it is therefore reasonable to assume that Morehouse and his colleagues also achieved access to this nebulous realm. One aspect of this attempt at transcending conventional reality is the prospect of time travel, this apparent impossibility is now becoming theoretically credible as quantum physicists theorise the possibility of manipulating gravity and therefor space/time thereby creating localised time shifts. So far this only appears to exist in one direction, but indications are that once a body, or indeed non-material consciousness, is projected outwith the constraints of Newtonian physics then literally anything is possible.

The Outer Limits

The most recent attempts to explain the nature of the Astral Plain have finally attempted to draw together strands of quasi-religious trappings with an extraterrestrial/interdimensional, hybrid existence that roughly equates with a spiritual dimension that is above human. This begs comparison with the beliefs of certain modern millennial cults, Marshall Applewhite's 'Heavens Gate' is a good particularly example, who decided to leave their 'husks' or bodily constraints and attain a higher level of existence, perhaps a variation on the Astral Plain. According to Applewhite and his followers, their destiny lay in a spaceship hidden within the tail of the spectacular 'Hale-Bop' comet as it passed the solar system a few years ago. They did this by consuming a lethal cocktail of powdered sleeping pills mixed with applesauce washed down with vodka. To make certain of their departure, as they sank into drug induced slumber, another member of the cult placed plastic bags over their heads so that they suffocated. They were uniformly dressed in black and wore light coloured running shoes, whoever placed the plastic bags over their heads also placed squares of purple material in a diamond fashion covering their faces and chests. Bizarrely, they also had passports and driving licenses in their breast pockets, perhaps to aid with posthumous identification.

Although initially they were all assumed to be highly motivated and intelligent people, later investigation indicated that they were, instead, largely gullible misfits who fell for the allure of Applewhite's utopian vision. Strangely, unlike other mass suicides like the infamous 'Jonestown massacre' in Guyana, all the dead Heavens Gate members conveyed a sense of peace, dignity and ordered tranquillity. Applewhite (who had at one point in his life castrated himself) joined his flock in their final journey and was dressed and covered in an identical manner. Those of the cult who are left alive because they did not feel ready to embark on this very much one way trip, (evidently there was no compunction on them to join the others), appear to fully approve of their comrades decision and Applewhite's teachings. In one sense, Applewhite and his UFO based oddly pacifist and altruistic asexual ethos, mimics earlier religious groups like the 'Perfecti' of the Cathars and the earlier group, the Bogomils. These religious splinter groups rejected the physical world and maintained that celibacy (including the use of castration) brought them closer to spiritual perfection. Significantly, like these other groups Applewhite and his devotees also died unnatural deaths.

Did they reach their hidden spacecraft or did they reach the astral plain? It is possible to argue that they did both. Claims made over millennia have all in the end come down to the same root doctrine; belief in an afterlife. It matters not whether this is heaven, paradise, Allah's garden, a realm above the physical, the astral plain or indeed, a spacecraft. It all ties into an inbuilt survival mechanism and very human need to understand what lies beyond the veil of death. Psychics, mediums and shamans regularly voluntarily travel to this region of spirits using barely understood mechanisms to do so, although perhaps only now is science coming accept the possibility that it is not down to sheer imagination. Evidence is slowly emerging that consciousness is not purely a function of the human brain that exists only as a set of chemical and electrical processes, but rather, it is a detectable entity in its own right. While the use of the term 'spirit' tends to cloud the concepts we are dealing with a quasi-mystical and unnecessary religious tone, it is difficult to use other, less evocative descriptions. Perhaps using expressions like 'external energy matrices' is more accurate but it also tends to dehumanise the experience. If we can assume that we are indeed no more than collections of swirling molecules bound together by an electrical charge the is becomes easier to understand why we interact with other energy fields. As full understudying of the energy of consciousness is understood, it also makes it easier to appreciate the true nature of 'spirit'.

The ET Connection

It is possible that the astral plain is accessible at will in a non-physical from via an altered state of consciousness, then this level of existence acts almost like a 'superhighway' outwith normal constraints of time and space. Once the quasi-religious trappings and traditional, non-mechanistic ritual is stripped away, then the astral plain emerges as one the possible extra dimension at the sub-atomic level theorised by proponents of quantum physics. If the evidence of research groups like the 'Scole Group' is credible, then there are entities, including what we refer to as 'spirits of the dead', existing in perpetuity and in real time outwith our continuum. According to the Scole Group, this level of existence is also known about and recognised by beings resident beyond even this bewildering reality Perhaps they are able to traverse it and arrive here for some as yet unknown purpose. Certainly, the residents of the astral plain are aware of them and are as powerless as we are to prevent their arrival here.

We are told that through the use of their technology they come here because, like them, we exist in physical terms, fortunately, although they are not all necessarily inimical to humanity evidently some are. It is when we actually contemplate entities such as these that we come face to face with what humanity has for millennia deemed as demons, devils and perhaps even Satan himself. It also becomes credible that what we assume is the consummate evil embodied by these beings is no more than how they function naturally, without any artificial constraints of compassion, conscience or responsibility imposed upon them. If this is indeed the case, perhaps it is fortunate we have relatively little contact with them.

In case we assume that the discoveries of theoretical physicists exist solely within the realms of fantasy, consider that they have already been pivotal in the development of the atomic energy, and more recently have led, amongst other things, to the development of 'quantum computers'. Prototypes of these incredible devices have already been constructed and function, literally, in more than one dimension at a time using a phenomenon called 'quantum entanglement'. This phenomenon indicates that once two particles have been in contact there exists a bond between them that is totally intangible and allows changes applied to one particle to be instantly experienced by the other particle creating the potential for these machines to perform billions of tasks simultaneously. It is the implementation of this aspect of quantum theory that indicates that the theory of the existence of alternate universes is coming a fact. Once this becomes proven, then it is only a question of time, determination and resources before human curiosity, inexorably, and probably unwisely, attempts to bridge the gap between.

In Conclusion

Whether or not we ever achieve controlled and intentional access via some form of purely artificial and technological means to the dimension we call the Astral Plain, is, as yet, pure speculation. However, as advances in the field of quantum science reduce the world and universe we live in to its ultimate and indivisible component particles, would this become the physicist's ultimate goal, the 'Theory of Everything'? Perhaps, and if and when we achieve the breakthrough, we could use this alternate reality as a form of interdimensional, stellar transport unfettered by the stifling restrictions of time and space. Using this technology, do we in effect become like the Gods we once worshiped and stride across the boundless infinities of space and time, manipulating and interfering with the realities of lesser beings? The temptations to do this will always be there, and until humanity has learned sufficient humility to use its gifts and abilities wisely, perhaps it is better that our aspirations continue to be greater than our ability to achieve them.

References:

	Psychic Warrior, Auth. David Morehouse, published in 2000 by Clearview.
	Reading the Mind of God, by Brian Allan