In order to give an Orthodox Christian answer to this teaching we must look more closely at the specific experiences which are undergone on the “astral plane.” But where shall we look? The communication of mediums are notoriously unreliable and hazy; and in any case the contact made with the “spirit world” through mediums is too shadowy and indirect to constitute convincing proof of the nature of that world. The “after-death” experiences of today, on the other hand, are too brief and inconclusive to be taken as evidence of the actual nature of the other world.
But there is a kind of experience on the “astral plane” that can be studied in more detail. In Theosophical language it is called “astral projection” or “the projection of the astral body.” It is possible, through the cultivation of certain mediumistic techniques, not merely to enter into contact with discarnate spirits, as ordinary mediums do (when their seances are genuine), but actually to enter into their realm of being and “travel” in their midst. One may well be skeptical on hearing of such experiences in ancient times but it so happens that this experience has become relatively common — and not only among occultists — in our own times, and there is already an extensive literature of firsthand experience in this realm.
4. “Astral Projection”
It is well known to Orthodox Christians that man can in fact be raised above the limitations of his bodily nature and journey to invisible realms. The exact nature of this journey will not concern us here. The Apostle Paul himself did not know whether he was “in the body or out of the body” when he was caught up to the third heaven (II Cor. 12:2), and there is no need for us to speculate as to how the body can become refined enough to enter heaven (if his experience was actually “in the body”), or what kind of “subtle body” the soul may be clothed in during an “out-of-body” experience — if indeed such things can be known in this life. It is enough for us to know that the soul (in whatever kind of “body”) can indeed be raised up by God’s grace and behold paradise, as well as the aerial realm of spirits under heaven.
Often in Orthodox literature such experiences are described as being “out of the body,” as was St. Anthony’s experience of the “toll-houses” while standing at prayer, described above. Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov mentions two ascetics in the 19th century whose souls likewise left their bodies while they were at prayer — Elder Basilisk of Siberia, whose disciple was the famous Zosima, and Schema-Elder Ignatius (Isaiah), a personal friend of Bishop Ignatius (Bishop Ignatius, Collected Works, vol. III, p. 75). The most striking “out-of-body” experience in the Orthodox Lives of Saints is probably that of St. Andrew the Fool for Christ of Constantinople (10th century), who, while his body evidently lay in the snow of the city streets, was raised up in spirit to behold paradise and the third heaven, a part of which he described to his disciple who recorded the experience (Lives of Saints, Oct. 2).
Such experiences occur only by the grace of God and quite apart from the will or desire of men. But “astral projection” is an “out-of-body” experience that can be sought and initiated by means of certain techniques. This experience is a special form of what Bishop Ignatius describes as the “opening of the senses,” and it is clear that — since contact with spirits is forbidden to men except by God’s direct action — the realm that can be reached by this means is not heaven, but only the aerial realm of the under-heaven, the realm inhabited by the fallen spirits.
Theosophical texts which describe this experience in detail are so full of occult opinions and interpretations as to be largely useless in giving one an idea of the actual experiences of this realm. In the 20th century, however, there has been another kind of literature dealing with this experience: parallel to the rise of research and experiments in the field of “parapsychology,” some individuals have discovered, whether by accident or by experiment, that they are able to have the experience of “astral projection,” and they have written books describing their experiences in non-occult language; and some researchers have compiled and studied accounts of “out-of-body” experiences and have written about them in scientific rather than occult language. Here we shall look at several of these books.
The “earthly” side of “out-of-body” experiences is well described in a book by the Director of the Institute of Psychophysical Research at Oxford, England.23 In answer to an appeal made in September, 1966, in the British press and on the radio, the Institute received some 400 replies from persons who claimed to have had personal out-of-body experiences. Such a response indicates both that these experiences are by no means rare in our days, and that those who have had them are much more willing than in previous years to discuss them without fear of being thought “crazy.” Dr. Moody and other researchers have discovered the same things with regard to “after-death” experiences. These 400 persons were given two questionnaires to fill out, and the book was the result of a comparison and analysis of the replies to these questionnaires.
The experiences described in this book were almost all involuntary ones which were triggered by various physical conditions: stress, fatigue, illness, an accident, anesthetization, sleep. Almost all of them occurred in the proximity of the body (not in any “spirit” realm), and the observations made are very similar to those made by people who have had “after-death” experiences: one views one’s own body from “outside,” possesses all sense faculties (even though in the body one might have been deaf or blind), is unable to touch or interact with one’s environment, “floats” in the air with an extreme sense of pleasantness and well-being; one’s mind is clearer than usual. Some persons described meetings with deceased relatives, or journeying to a landscape which seemed not part of ordinary reality.
One investigator of “out-of-body” experiences, the English geologist Robert Crookall, has gathered an enormous number of examples of them, both from occultists and mediums on the one hand and from ordinary people on the other. He summarizes the experience as follows: “A replica-body, or ‘double’ was ‘born’ from the physical body and took up a position above it. As the ‘double’ separated from the body, there was a ‘blackout’ in consciousness (much as the changing of gears in a car causes a momentary break in the transmission of power).... There was often a panoramic review of the past life, and the vacated physical body was commonly seen from the released ‘double.’.... Contrary to what one would expect, no one described pain or fear as having been caused by leaving the body — everything seemed perfectly natural.... Consciousness, as it operated through the separated ‘double,’ was more extensive than in ordinary life.... There were sometimes telepathy, clairvoyance, and foreknowledge. ‘Dead’ friends were often seen. Many of the deponents expressed great reluctance to re-enter the body and so return to earth-life.... This general pattern of events in out- of-body experiences, hitherto unrecognized, cannot be explained adequately on the hypothesis that all such experiences were dreams and that all the ‘doubles’ described were mere hallucinations. It can, on the other hand, be readily explained on the hypothesis that these were genuine experiences and that the ‘doubles’ seen were objective (though ultra-physical) bodies.”24
24
Robert Crookall,