What do you think about Astral Travel/Projection? And have you ever tried it yourself?

driftwood-in-the-sun:

grimoire-of-geekery:

Ok, so first off- I have to clarify something.

Astral projection isn’t the same thing as astral travel.  Astral projection is the projection of part (or sometimes the whole) of one’s “astral body” forth from one’s regular body.  This is done in remote viewing (usually just projecting the senses rather than the whole form), possession of objects (also called force projection), and a whole host of other practices (shapeshifting, along with many of a witch’s tricks, to name a few).

Astral travel is traveling through the astral.  Usually this is done via one’s astral body (and sometimes we have more than one, depending on what trad you’re working with, for example the “fetch/fylgja” practice often speaks of having a co-walker), but not always.  And also, this can mean traveling in astral form through the physical world, but again, not always.

And yes, I’ve done both.  I don’t know that there’s much to “think” about it- it’s a pretty handy trick if you can learn to do it properly.  And some of the results can be hilarious.  While learning to shapeshift (I was 14 and grounded for two weeks, so I was bored and had occult books, which is a dangerous combo), I went forth as a black cat and wandered the town (and consequently, my house) a lot.  Unfortunately for my mother’s sanity, she could “see” me out of the corner of her eye.  So convinced was she that my sister had somehow snuck a cat into the house, she actually put food out to try and catch it.

That’s how I learned that my mom was more than a card reader, and that magic didn’t necessarily mean “I read books and did exercises and now I’m magical.”  Sometimes magic was just indwelling and people didn’t always know how to control or even understand their own magic.

So, I learned some valuable stuff from astral projection.

To my readers: if you want to learn full-on out-of-body astral projection and you’re having trouble doing so, don’t despair.  Most witches I’ve spoken to have the same trouble (and the ones who don’t usually have some of their points on their character sheet spent in “spiritworker” or “shaman” as well).

Try reaching out with your mind and heart and remembering the smell and feel of your mother’s hair, or a tree from your yard, or the feel of the water from a fountain nearby.  When you can let yourself feel it and partially “be” there, that’s you projecting your senses, and that’s astral projection.

Hopefully that helped!

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