Low Magick by Lon DuQuette (the reading strategies book TXT) 📕

feeling of an electrical current passing through my entire body. That “current” is actually the body we might call the astral body, and the fact that I’m feeling it is the signal that my conscious self is about to take residence in it. At that fragile moment of transition, I am nestled uncomfortably within the general vicinity of my physical body. It is at this moment that I can transfer my consciousness from I’m in my bed body to I’m in this buzzing electrical body. At this point I can get up, wander around the house (which always looks just a little different than my material house), or take a diving leap into the air and fly straight through the ceiling into the glorious sky.

On most occasions, my out-of-body experiences begin without a conscious effort on my part and within the context of a dream-in-progress. I become conscious within the dream state that I am dreaming and already out. I then become consciously aware of my situation and take control from there. I partially achieve this state when I experience magically induced altered states of consciousness, such as when I purposefully induce a trance in order to scry into tarot cards or Enochian magick tablets and squares.

Most of my projections, however, are those in which I find myself accidentally out, wandering only a few yards away from my snoring body, and this is the story of one such adventure. I wish I could tell you there is some kind of great magical lesson to be learned from this tale. Perhaps there is. But mostly I would like simply to illustrate some of the strange and interesting characteristics of these experiences and, in doing so, encourage you to fearlessly start your own program of exploration.

Before I begin, however, I need to share a strange and often terrifying occurrence that often accompanies out-of-body experiences and which (I believe) has since time immemorial been the cause of all manner of religiously motivated nonsense concerning demons, devils, ghosts, vampires, and the torments of hell. We might call this phenomenon the “terror of the threshold.” The dynamics of consciousness that explain this phenomenon are, however, anything but terrifying. In fact, I believe when the facts are properly understood, they are very interesting and at times downright funny.

A few moments ago, I described the ancient Egyptian concept of the “self” of the deceased progressively passing from lower to higher levels of consciousness during the death experience, and how at each new level the mind creates an escape pod for the essential “self” of the individual. These temporary shuttlecrafts are also bodies formed from progressively finer and more subtle energy “material.” Yogic literature identifies these various bodies as “astral body” or “etheric body” or “causal body” or “mental body” or “emotional body.” These subtle bodies do not necessarily need to be created and cast off only by a person who is dying. Indeed, our thoughts, desires, and emotions are constantly in the process of creating and discarding them the over course of the agonies and ecstasies of this roller-coaster ride we call everyday life.

If you have this concept clearly in mind, I now put to you the idea that all these discarded bodies live on for a time in the same way a decaying corpse and its hair and fingernails, bacteria, DNA, etc., live on in physical bodies buried in your neighborhood cemetery. The only difference being, these astral corpses remain somewhat animated for a period of time while the remaining energy still residually resident in their shell completely decays. And like discarded shells or husks, these astral zombies are made of the heaviest stratum—the slowest and lowest frequencies of energy. They sink to the very lowest levels of the sea of consciousness—the area that is very close to the material plane. This is the borderland between dream and waking consciousness. It is quite literally an astral graveyard.

When we are tired and relaxed, we fall fast asleep and ride an express elevator directly to some pretty high levels of consciousness, those whose environs are revealed in the metaphoric imagery as the dream sky into which we blissfully soar. But if something is burdening our minds and forcing us to slowly drag our sorry astral consciousness kicking and screaming out of our physical body and step-by-step up the back stairs of consciousness, then the first place we slog through on our way “up” is the lowest place in up-land—the graveyard.

The dramatic terrors and ordeals that candidates of ancient mystery schools were required to undergo during their initiation ceremonies illustrated this frightening, yet ultimately harmless, fact of spiritual life. Because this area is so close to the material plane and the solid coordinates of waking space-time consciousness, the “bodies” that populate the cemetery of your threshold are literally those that are hanging around your neighborhood. That is why so many of these bad “dream” experiences seem to include situations dealing with neighborhood “bad people” who, to all dream appearances, are attempting to violate your home or your body or your loved ones. In nine out of ten of my terror of the threshold projections, I find myself trying to chase away neighborhood vandals or (get this … and please forgive my politically incorrect subconscious mind) deranged homeless people who are attempting to get in my house. But in the metaphoric reality of this plane of consciousness, that is exactly what they are—homeless bodies who are no longer animated by a living self, drifting in obedience to the laws of cosmic osmoses toward a realm (my house) that is inhabited by an abundance of living. These astral zombies mean no harm. They mean nothing because there is no “self” inside to provide them with intent. But boy! They scare the living daylights out of you when you stumble into their world.

A moment ago I mentioned that I am not very good at consciously entering into an out-of-body experience. I think I should probably rephrase that to say, “I am not