Etheric template body

[anagogy]

I found this article of a Franz Bardon's student who say unless you've the proper training true astral projection can be dangerous. He says that what many call astral projection is not a true one, but a technique more similar to mental projection where you create with your mind an artificial astral body and project it elsewhere but your real astral body is still within the physical body. According to him, true astral projection is quite similar to a NDE experience.

I would only stress that its not an either/or scenario, and you can have a broad range of conscious states during astral projection. Your consciousness can be extremely muddy, or extraordinarily bright and lucid. Depending on the way you initiate the experience, it can be extremely terrifying or not. If you induce the experience from a lucid dream state, for example, it will not be a traumatic experience, as separation has already occurred, seemlessly. However, if you induce one from a fully conscious state, it will most likely scare the bejeesus out of you because you will likely encounter the terrifying vibrational state. You feel like you could die when that is occurring (there seems to be an instinctual association with death), but to be honest, I have seen no evidence that is actually the case, and every experienced astral projector I've talked to has said the same. Most of mine have occurred from the lucid dream state, but you will occasionally experience a toned down version of the vibes when you are inevitably forced to return, as well a couple minutes of sleep paralysis before you reconnect.

To be honest, there are plethora of misconceptions and superstitions people have about these occult states. The mental projection state he's talking about is simply what happens when you are not fully focused out of your body. I would probably liken it to remote viewing or possibly 'traveling clairvoyance'. You can attain that in lighter states of trance and meditation. In time/space, "where you are" is simply a matter of where you are focused. If you are partially focused out of your physical body, then you are partially there, and partially in your body. Or you can fully focus out of your body. If you are fully focused, the experience is naturally going to be "more real". Just like whatever you are focused on right now is more vivid, and if your attention withdraws it seems less vivid.

But honestly, all this talk of "the true astral body" or the "natural one" in that article you referenced comes across as sheer nonsense to me (and I mean no disrespect to anybody who wrote that article). There is no "true astral body" from my perspective . As I see it, the way it works is that as a focused point of consciousness, or self, you naturally create a container for your consciousness -- an 'outer layer' to define the edges of your conscious perception. If you leave the red ray physical, you'll likely find yourself on the orange ray lower astral, and you unconsciously and automatically coalesce a "form" about yourself composed of that orange ray field of energy (ordinarily an exact replica even down to scars of your physical body). And that becomes your so called astral body. So you coalesce a form about yourself out of whatever layer you find yourself on, whether it be the astral levels (orange/yellow/green), or the more intangible mental levels (blue ray). Your physical body itself, is just a coalesced form composed of red ray material patternized by yellow ray seated consciousness, which results in a physical apparatus capable of carrying self awareness. A body is always formed from the substance of whatever plane it occurs on.

But as to discarnates inhabiting your mind/body, this can happen, but what you need to know is that this can just as well happen while you are fully awake and conscious. This is another area rife with superstition and misunderstanding. There are elementals constantly merging and departing us all the time based on the vibes we are giving off. The law of attraction is always on, and consciousness is attracted to similar consciousness. So as an example, somebody who has anger problems attracts elementals that resonate with that red ray energy, if there anger continues unchecked for a large amount of time they begin to attract a more complex lower astral creatures/thought form which attaches themselves, because they resonate with those distortions. I don't want to make too much out of it, because for the most part such beings are relatively benign. It's like the constant barrage and comings and goings of bacteria in your physical body -- this is the nonphysical equivalent. If those bacteria get out of control, you get sick, and the same is true for nonphysical checks and balances. One of the basic reasons addictions are so hard to beat is that your actions go against the nonphysical ecoystem around you. You want to stop eating so much but it deprives some of the elementals around you of some of their experience, so they energize your desires into overdrive (when they've attached themselves to you, you perceive their desires as your own).

Anyway, the best advice I can give you is be skeptical of everything you read (including my own words). These are just thoughts to consider.