Ticket to the Astral Realms

The astral realms are where you go when you close your eyes to go to sleep, or plan to have an Out Of Body Experience, called an OOBE in the trade. Tegwedd has an astral temple. It looks like a cross between a Middle Eastern seraglio and a Babylonian temple, but lately I have been thinking of changing it to reflect my interests in the Celtic and Norse Hearths. Stephen’s astral temple has purple draperies. The ceiling is dark, with glow-in-the-dark stars. The floor has black carpeting. The altar is wooden, with a dark finish, black walnut or ebony, big enough the Magician’s tools. The 4 Aces of the Minor Arcana are set up on the altar as an equal armed cross with the Magician card in the center. The four Aces are the tools of the Magician, and the Magician is Stephen’s Main significator. His other significator is the Knight of Cups, in the Book of Thoth, commonly called the Crowley deck, which Tegwedd calls the Lady Frieda Harris deck, called the Prince of Cups. The High Priestess is Tegwedd’s Significator, along with the Queen of Swords.. What is your astral temple like? Post to this group and tell us.

This group’s secondary title is Uncle Al and the Astral Realms. Its tertiary title is Stephen Abbott and the Half-Astral Realm (which he created). Uncle Al had a lot to do with the astral realms. He claimed communication from Khemetic deities and visionaries. Rising on the planes refers to pathworking on the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Pathworking can also be found in shamanism and in Witchcraft, which is basically European shamanism. If we haven’t mentioned this in other posts before, this group is basically a sister group to Adventures in Shamanism. The astral realms can also be related to H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands stories. A board game called Arkham Horror has the players play on different planes. This game has been out of print for years, but Stephen still has his copy of it.

Stephen is really pissed off that My Space has done away with its groups. As of this writing, Stephen has written and published a blog condemning MySpace for doing away with the groups. We don’t see how MySpace can possibly compete with Facebook without groups. Stephen says, “It took a lot of effort to create those groups, get people to join them, and post to them. You tell me if you wouldn’t be pissed off too at this. And they didn’t warn people. No warning at all!” Our groups were killed on Yahoo, and because they kill groups at the drop of a hat, and the process of forming groups there is so draconian, we won’t be expanding on Yahoo. But Googlegroups has been good to us,, so we’ll expand there. The only problem is that our groups there have been repeatedly hacked by Eastern Europeans posing as members who continually post things that are off topic, in bad taste, not funny, and probably full of malware. If you are members of any of our groups there, and receive emails from anyone except Tegwedd, Stephen, or Dylan Cook, delete them immediately, without opening them if you can. We are continuing to expand here at Hi5, and will be expanding at PaganSpace.net, WiccanTogether.ning.com, AbbottsInn.ning.com, and Stephen on his own will expand on IMVU, BlessedBeUK, and Avalon.

There are many parts to the astral realms;the etheric plane where the etheric double dwells, the astral plane, the half-astral plane which Stephen created as a place for dead stoners, among other realms. We highly recommend that you check out sacred-texts.com, which has out of print books you can download for free, and other books you can buy. Another site that has books on astral travel that you have to pay for, is SacredMagick.com. And of course there’s Mind-n-Magick.com which also has books on on the astral that you can buy. Gemini Moon is another place with books you can buy. Three of these also have toolbars which you can download for free. Stephen highly recommends all three. While we’re on the subject of free toolbars, you can’t go wrong with the Pagan Radio Network toolbar, which has music you can use for astral travel. It’s 24/7 Pagan music. You can become a member like we did. You can participate in the forums. Example: you can do a posting there on using PRN’s music for astral travel. PRN has been completely revamped, and is thoroughly connected to PaganSpace.net.

It’s not as difficult to get onto the astral plane as most books would have you believe. You don’t have to go to all the trouble of visualizing your personality going into your astral double, levitating next to the ceiling. Tegwedd just visualizes a place, and she’s there. Stephen has his own techniques as well. One technique he calls the dead man’s pose. This is a pose made popular by Uncle Al. Lie flat on the bed, sofa or floor with your arms down at your sides. Take deep slow breaths. The room should be as dark as possible. Close your eyes and keep breathing deeply. You can have music on; the spacier the better. Don’t move other than breathing. If you do this right, you’ll feel as though you’re lifting off. Keep a pad of paper and a writing instrument nearby so that you can write down what happens. Put time, date, length of the experience, exterior weather conditions, anything that seems relevant. Remember the lab notes you took in high school or college? Your magickal diary or journal is a lot like a lab notebook. These are experiments in the science of the mind. Remember Uncle Al’s slogan, “The aim of religion, the method of science.”

Write down if you see objects, vistas, living beings, or if you just see yourself, your astral double. Write down if you notice the astral silver cord; if you feel it tugging at you. Write down if you feel any physical sensations like warmth or coolth. Write down if you hear any sounds. Describe what they are. Take notes on any other sensations you may have. Note which parts of your body they’re in. If you see animals, write down what they are. If you see humans, write down who they are. Are they wearing present day clothes or period costumes? Are there buildings? What do they look like? Are they present day buildings or ancient? Some people believe that astral travel is a form of time travel. Some people think that astral travel is past life travel. Tegwedd has done a bit of this herself. Once on her birthday, she was high on shroom tea, and regressed herself to her immediately previous past life. She had to come back early because her then husband, also high on shroom tea, was getting himself into trouble wandering around the trailer park. This is an example of how psychotropics have been used traditionally as an aid to astral travel. It makes it easier, but we have to stress that it’s not necessary. You can easily travel while sober. And you’ll have more control over the experience. Hashish has been used to do astral travel, especially by the hashishim. It was used to do astral reconnaissance of their targets.

Another way is through a Lilly sensory deprivation tank. The Witch’s Cradle is another method of sensory deprivation often used for astral travel for centuries. There are many movies on astral travel. There are many books on the topic. Stephen himself has over 30 books on it, and he hasn’t bought any books for awhile. He is sure many more books have been published since then. Self-hypnosis is still another means to astral travel. “No Time to Fear” (2009) is about the doppelganger. “Altered States”, and “Flat-Liners” are classics in the field. You can get them either through the internet or Netflix. For spacy music you can astral travel to, we recommend that you get a Rhapsody account if you have a Windows system.

We were on a shopping junket, and when Tegwedd had to stop to rest, we discussed the group we were working on. Terence McKenna’s “Invisible Landscapes is is a book well worth looking into. J.K. Brennan’s “Astral Doorways” is another good book. Upon arriving home, we watched “Inside the Doctor in America”. What does Dr. Who do but if not travel to the astral realms? “He travels in the astral realms, the spatial realms, the temporal realms, and many consider time travel to be astral travel,” says Stephen.

The game “Hammer of Thor” features Yggdrasil which is the world ash wonder tree, the tree that leads us to the 9 worlds: Midgard, Myrkheim, Helheim, Niflheim, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Godheim, Vanaheim, and Muspelheim. We consider worlds and realms to be basically synonymous. “The Underworld Initiation” by R.J. Stewart is a book that tours the Celtic Otherworld. The Otherworld, Land of the Blessed Ones, the Blessed Land, Isle of Women, Tir-Na-Nog, Faerieland, Land of the Ever Living, Annwfn, are some of the names for the Celtic Otherworld. Then there’s the Mayan Underworld--Popol Vuh. I saw a movie on it once. And of course there are the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft.

To sum up, each of us must build an astral temple. In this temple is an altar. On this altar are the four Aces of the Tarot and the Magician in the center. Uncle Al had a lot to do with the astral realms, and Stephen uses his dead man’s pose in which to astral travel. There are techniques which make use of sensory deprivation for astral travel. The ash tree Yggdrasil encompassed the nine worlds of the Germans, people of the Low Countries and the Norse. The Celtic Otherworld encompass parts of the astral realms. The astral realms are huge, as nearly infinite as any human creation can be, but it doubles back on itself.

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