Has anyone read the book ‘The Holographic Universe’ by Michael Talbot? After reading this book i believe that alot of things …well, pretty much anything…is possible. It talks briefly and very convincingly about astral travel (out of body experiences). Im a professional daydreamer so naturally astral travel sounds fun as hell to me but one thing i noticed when i tried to look it up on the web is that most web sites about it look like they are written by a 3 year old. They are all extremely unproffesional and full of bullshit assumptions and various other things that are supposed to give you the heebie jeebies…etc. So basically, while im convinced that astral travel is real, i still think that most of the people that write about it or claim to have experienced it are kooks. Does anyone have any helpful info about it or maybe a link to a site thats actually worth a crap?
You want a non-kook who’s written about astral travel? Try Richard Feynman, Nobel-laureate physicist. His basic conclusion is that it’s a hallucination, but a very interesting and entertaining hallucination. He did try experiments with it, and he found that he could reliably produce the sensation of being in various familiar places, but that he couldn’t get any real information in that manner. He talks about it in his memoirs Surely you’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, among other places, and it’s well worth the read, for that and the other colorful stories he tells.
Well, astral travel is a lot of fun. It is also, however (and IMHO), entirely subjective. No physical part of you travels anywhere, believe me. You will not find any empirical evidence of it. I’ve looked.
I used to be very into it. But I have to agree with Chronos - it is a hallucination.
Oh, and yes I did read Holographic Universe about 4 years ago. Don’t remember much of the specifics, but a very interesting book indeed.
Thanks guys. BTW I do believe astral travel is ‘real’ but for that argument we’d have to go into questions like ?"'what is real? how do you define ‘reality’?" and i dont feel like staying up all night heh. I just wanted to read something about it that was written by a person with their head screwed on the right way and i want to do it because it sounds fun as hell, thanks.
I read Holographic Universe. It bases its title on David Bohm’s philosophical works concerning his physics. The cover of the paperback book says “A remarkable new theory of reality that explains the paranormal abilities of the mind.” Of course, it doesn’t. But it does offer up a lot of speculation.
I know you said you didn’t want to debate, but I can’t help myself.
I would define it as real if you can do the following: get a friend to come over and climb to the top of your roof with a paint can and a scrabble dictionary. Have him paint in ten foot tall letters a word he randomly comes to in the dictionary. Now, while staying inside, asrally project yourself 200 feet up in the air. Come back and tell me what word it was. If you get it right and you don’t live in a greenhouse, you win; it’s real to me.
This really isn’t an agruement for or against, it is a definition of reality sort of related to the OP. Anyways, sorry about the hijack and the possible forum jump.
I haven’t read the book but I have been reading a little lately about OBE’s (out of body exp.). If you want another perspective look up “lucid dreaming” on your search engine and OBE’s are mentioned quite a bit.
From the lucid dreaming standpoint, OBE’s are usually considered a concious dream that merely begins from a false sense of not having fallen asleep.
As far as what is “real”, I think a working definition would have to be that reality that is shared by fellow independent sentients. I’ve read a few studies of OBE’s that were trying to see if what a person did during an OBE affected anything in the universe that we actually share; all were negative.
In my opinion OBE’s are not “real” in the sense that your spirit leaves your body and is able to travel and study the same “reality” that your normal physical body does. They are obviously “real” in the sense that people experience and remember them.
The entire universe may be a holograghic construct but it is still a construct that we all seem to share. That makes this reality stand out from the realities of OBE’s ,dreams ,hallucinations ,visions,and so on.
Dr. Lao i’ve read reports of people alledgedly doing pretty much exactly what you mentioned (you know, maybe they didnt use a scrabble dictionary but thats beside the point heh). I dont know if they are true or not but there seems to be a good bit of evidence backing it up. I’m just really interested in the subject for some strange reason, it seems fun. From all accounts ive read, astral projection just seems like a “real” daydream, and if it is actually genuine and you can do things like read 10 foot tall letters on top of a roof that you have otherwise never seen before then that just makes it all the better. Has anybody ever actually had a genuine OOBE that you KNOW for a fact was real (possibly based on something like what Dr. Lao mentioned)?
Cisco, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to discourage you, but since this is a place for fighting ignorance, you are beating a dead horse here.
The evidence is overwhelmingly against the idea of OOBEs or astral projection being what they are often claimed to be (i.e. real in the sense that has been discussed in this thread - as an objective phenomenon).
Just, for a moment, contemplate the implications of this phenomenon being real. If someone ever actually successfully was able separate their consciousness from their physical body, and travel through time and space–well let’s just say space, and to keep it simple, let’s say on earth and not outer space and stuff like that–do you really think this would be an activity explored and practiced only by a small few amateurs who read about it in their spare time, without ever being talked about in mainstream society? covered on the news? taught in school? etc.
What would the government do with such a skill? Picture how this would change warfare, and specifically espionage, as we know it. Don’t you think the US, and every other major nation would spend billions to train many to do this to their advantage against other countries?
How about law enforcement? Wouldn’t investigating crimes be a whole lot easier if you could astral travel around suspects and eaves drop on their conversations?
Do you think my company would spend so much time/energy/money on a firewall if competitors could just astral travel on over and read what’s on our computer screens?
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. I’m sorry to burst your bubble. It is fun, and relaxing, and actually quite fascinating, but it just aint real my friend.
Tonight at work i was thinking about the fact that we humans DO have an energy field around our bodies. It’s been proven. Modern technology can detect it. It is also known as an ‘aura’ or ‘chakras’. Powerful religious figures are known to have especially bright and noticeable auras and these can usually been seen in paintings of saints…etc (this is possibly where the Halo originated from). This ‘energy field’ is presumably what ‘leaves the body’ when you have an out of body experience. My question is this: why doesnt some seasoned astral traveller just leave his body and let them test his energy field while he’s gone? If its not there then this would seem as sufficient proof that astral travel is ‘real’.
A great question. Why don’t they?
You can provide a cite for those assertions, of course.
I’ve never seen any good evidence of auras, in ordinary people or powerful religious figures. There is also no good evidence for them being detectable by modern science, or by so called aura readers. Anyone who could show proof that they can reliably detect auras can collect a million dollars from the James Randi Foundation.
There are some weak emf fields associated with the body, but they are way below the level of detectability by humans, and require fairly sensitive equipment in very close contact to detect them. They certainly don’t seem to fit the definition of ‘aura’ as I usually see it used by the new agers.
If all of the emf associated with your body was gone, you wouldn’t be traveling, astrally or otherwise, you’d be dead. Without the electrical impulses that keep your heart beating and lungs pumping, you’re pinin’ for the fjords.
Ugly
Maybe by “energy field” he meant body heat? That, at least, has been proven to exist, although I don’t know how they’d know that mystics are warmer.
I suspect that the “modern technology” to detect auras is Kirlian photography. Fortunately, Cecil has covered it here.