I knew it was going to be an interesting evening when, browsing the hosts’ bookselves, I saw the title Astral Projection.

“I’m a pagan,” explained the hostess, and suddenly I wished I had a hidden camera.

Learn how to leave your body–walk through walls–fly around your neighborhood–meet your deceased loved ones and astral spirits–communicate with your guides and teachers–experience other dimensions–and even travel through time to witness past or future events! And Much Much More! 100 percent Guaranteed…

Later in the evening, I overheard the hostess saying, “When I mention love spells, people ask me, ‘Oh, you can cast spells?! Can you make that cute guy fall in love with me?!’ I just laugh and say, ‘It doesn’t work that way.'”

It works, just not that way. How, pray tell, would a “love spell” work, then?

Of course, I wandered around the ‘net for a while the next day. I found this:

Hi. My name is Bob. I’m slowly becoming more and more interested in astral travel but have a few questions. Would you please help me with these?? I included all of you after reading the testimony you gave on machoneaudio.com. Serious responces [sic] only please.

  1. Are you ever in any danger when you are having an OBE? (i.e. demons, evil spirits, danger of not being able to come back, …)
  2. Can you use these OBE for the purposes of becoming a person more loving??
  3. Do you meet angels/gardian [sic] spirits??? If so, what do they say to you??
  4. Have you ever attempted to draw near to the heavenly realms, and what happened if you did??

Again, please bare with me. I always was under the impression that this kinda thing was either dangerous or unhealthy.

I simply have some questions that I want to ask people who have done this theirselves, instead of simply reading a book.

I would appreciate your time and advice, whatever you think I should hear!

I knew that he didn’t want a smart-ass response, and I realized as I typed away, giggling, that I was being very childish…but I couldn’t resist:

Some tips about astral project/travel:

  1. It’s the 21st century, so don’t get caught up in silly gimmicks. Stick to the basics when it comes to obe.
  2. Because it’s only something that exists in your mind, you need to bear in mind that everything you see is not what it seems but only an illusion produced by your gullibility.
  3. It’s the 21st century, so remember that most people have replaced superstition for scientific knowledge. Keep that in mind during your travels.
  4. If you encounter a fellow traveler or a demon, it’s probably just an acid flashback.
  5. It’s perfectly safe to leave your body – nothing will hurt it – as long as you leave a shotgun by your body’s side so it can protect itself.
  6. The body has a mind of it’s own, so always lock the door before leaving your body.
  7. If you’re tempted to take this all as a joke, you’re probably too intelligent to be messing with astral projection.
  8. It’s the 21st century. Remember that.
  9. If you’ve had as much fun reading this as I have writing it, you’re probably too intelligent to be messing with astral projection.
  10. It’s the 21st century. Remember that all religious hoaxes have been cleared by the bright dawn of scientific literacy. If you’re tempted to believe this, you’re probably not firmly in the 21st century.

Hope this helps.

In the exchange that followed, I got called “sagaciously stupid,” “sophmoric [sic],” “childish,” and he referred to my thoughts as “the luminous pearls of wisdom you so enlightened me with.”

Guilty on most counts, I guess.

Astral projection makes objective claims that should, in theory, be testable: your spirit can leave your body. As a non-believer, I have a great problem with the whole notion of a ghost in the machine, but that aside, it’s still problematic. If astral projection is possible, where’s the proof? If it’s this great feat that anyone, with a bit of training and practice, can master, why not prove it?

How could we do this? Easily. Early in the NASA program, before any probes had made it to a foreign planet, an astral projectionist (I don’t know the correct term.) could have “gone” to Venus, for example, an given a detailed account of what we’d find there. Then, when we send a probe ourselves, we check it. If astral projection is true, bingo: we have the evidence.

Funny thing is, something like this was indeed done, only not with Venus but with Jupiter. Of the claims made, something like 15-20% were true, but obvious from current knowledge (i.e., it’s gaseous, there are storms on the surface). A small proportion were unverifiable because either the claim was ambiguous or the data received was ambiguous. The vast majority of the astral projectionist’s claims were dead wrong. Proof that it doesn’t work? Not really. But it certainly makes it extremely suspect. (You can read more about this in James Randi’s Flim-Flam.)