Astral Magick
Learning the Techniques of Astral Projection and Lucid Dreaming
Lucid Dreaming is something that all humans do – whether you realize it not. From a non metaphysical sense, Lucid Dreaming simply means “conscious dreaming”. In other words a lucid dream as opposed to an ordinary dream is one in which you become actively aware that you are within the dream. Once having achieved this awareness with training you can take control of the dream and become a more active participant in it.
On a more esoteric level lucid dreaming is also referred to as Astral Projection or Astral Travel. In the metaphysical sense dreams are not merely manifestations of the subconscious, but the “dream world” is an actual ethereal world in which one can travel, experience visions, and connect with higher spiritual powers. In this regard lucid dreaming is also a similar phenomenon to near-death experiences and so-called “out of body experiences”
Whether from the psychological or para-psychological standpoint lucid dreaming can be induced. In the practical world that means using techniques of self-hypnosis or meditation, in the world of the paranormal that means magical ritual. Astral projection and the entering of other realms of conscious or planes of existence are common to many magical practices. Kabbalah in particular embraces the idea of Astral Projection.
The ability to project consciousness has been an historical and indispensable part of kabalistic teachings throughout its history. From the earliest mentions of the Chariot Riders, who in ancient writings had the ability to journey to the cosmic palaces of the invisible world, to the first adepts of the Order of the Golden Dawn’s descriptions of Spirit Visions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. .
There are rituals of varying complexities involved in Kabbalah designed to take the practitioner to the Alternative Planes. However they and Magic Rituals of other doctrines relating to Astral Projection all have one thing in common. They rely on a need to visualize the separation between “the body” and the “astral self” and depend on strong symbolic representations of the various planes of existence.
The assumption across all Spiritual or Magical doctrine is that our consciousness begins in the Eternal Mind of God, or The Infinite, or Supreme Being. We start as an incorporeal “soul’ a spark of God-Matter, and come into physical being by passing through various stages of increasing dense matter or “reality” until we reach the present physical world.
In the Kabbalist tradition as physical bodies we are only “Potential Beings”, with the physical body put here on this most dense of planes so that we may gain the experiences and insights to start our ascension back to the Godhead. Through that ascension we slough off these physical bodies and in their stead develop more insubstantial bodies of light that can transcend the various plans of existence.
In Kabbalah the ability to Astrally Travel these alternative realms is following the pathways of the Tree of Life. These Worlds of light have alternatively been described in Gnostic, Hermetic, Buddhist, Alchemical and other texts with different names and numbers of “levels” but all share the same essential characteristics and structure. That is, they ascend from the physical plan, the most “dense” world of the material Earth, and progress to the most ethereal of the Infinity - our point of origin, the Mind of the Creator. And dreams are often the bridge between the two.