​​Given our current technological limits, subtle phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, encounters with non-physical beings or the existence of other dimensions of life are not readily proven in ways that will satisfy skeptics who have not had their own experiential proof. Apart from pursuing our own experiences, for now all we can do is collect, compare and analyse the experiences of those who claim to have travelled beyond the body. Surely consistencies in a substantial body of personal records at some point counts as evidence for the veracity of the accounts.
 
One of the reasons I find corroborating evidence from Aboriginal Australian culture so compelling is that we know that Aboriginal people were largely isolated from other cultures for at least 10,000 years (since the last major ice age), and possibly much longer than that. Accounts by self-proclaimed multidimensional travellers from Europe, Asian and Africa may all have influenced each other, as pieces of the different esoteric religious traditions found across these continents were exchanged over the last two millennia or longer, and subsequently influenced more contemporary modes of spirituality. But Australian Aboriginal people had no such influence. So when their accounts of out-of-body travel corroborate what people from elsewhere in the world are saying, it suggests strongly that these diverse people are describing an objective reality, rather than a fantasy that coincidentally happens to be the same across the world.


In this article, I look at one particular and often elusive feature of the out-of-body experience, an energetic link between the physical body and the non-physical body known as the “silver cord” by contemporary OBE researchers. I present  evidence relevant to this “silver cord” found in the records of anthropologists who worked with Australian Aboriginal people in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, I draw on the research assembled by A.P. Elkin in his classic Aboriginal Men of High Degree and on an ethnographic account collected by a German anthropologist called Helmut Petri in the Kimberley region of Australia in the 1930s and published in a book called The Australian Medicine Man. Both Petri and Elkin recorded a number of accounts of out-of-body travel, including references to some kind of cord that was used by people to leave their body and travel in the sky. This cord sounds much like the "silver cord".
 
The silver cord is the name given to the subtle energetic connection between our physical body (soma) and the body with which we manifest in non-physical dimensions (psychosoma or astral body). It is one of the more ambiguous features of out-of-body travel, because while some people report seeing it, there are many others who have had lucid out-of-body experiences but have never seen it. Nonetheless, the general consensus in the OBE community is that when we are projected outside of the physical body, the silver cord connects us back to that body. It acts as a kind of conduit of energy and sensory information between the two and, among other things, ensures that we always end up back in our body after an out-of-body experience. When we “die”, the silver cord breaks and our subtle body (psychosoma) loses its connection to the physical body.

Robert Monroe and Waldo Vieira were two prolific projectors who both left written accounts of their perceptions of the silver cord. In his classic Journeys out of the Body, Monroe writes the following:

I am very grateful to have been given permission to published the below first-hand account of a conscious projection by Khaled Elomar. When I first read this account on Khaled’s Facebook page I was deeply moved. Khaled is a devout Muslim and his religion is an important part of his out-of-body experience, which is natural because it is an important part of his everyday life. I asked him if I could share his account on this blog, because I think it is important to hear voices like his during this time of increasing vilification of Islam in the western world.
Like any religion and spiritual tradition, Islam can be used as a tool of personal and social oppression and become subject to social and political uses that are far removed from its actual spiritual teachings. Yet it is this dysfunctional version of Islam that so many voices in the West currently emphasize, demonizing a large number of the world’s population seemingly without awareness or recognition that there is a very different side to Islam too.
At its best, the devotion to God emphasized in Islamic teaching and practice is a devotion to humanity and life itself. When practiced like that, Islam encourages selfless service and inspires devotees to demand the best of themselves, overcoming their own shortcomings to improve their ability to serve God by serving humanity. These are universal principles of all spiritual traditions. This love and compassion for humanity is very clear in Khaled’s account of his conscious projection with his deceased father.
As a cross-cultural researcher of out-of-body experiences, I am also happy to be able to publish this account because it alerts us to the important role this particular experience of consciousness plays in the Islamic tradition. Unlike in Europe, where centuries of religious repression drove our understanding of these kinds of experiences underground only emerging again over the past hundred years or so, projections of consciousness continued to be an integral and accepted part of the Islamic religious experience.
Finally, reading accounts like this from other cultures is a good reminder of the universality of these experiences, because whatever our religious and cultural background: we can all leave our physical body and experience non-physical realities while still physically alive, we all survive “death”, love connects us all with those who have left the physical dimension before us, and we all increase our ability to be of service to humanity (both in this and in other dimensions) by confronting our fears and insecurities and moving forward to the best of our ability.

I laid in bed last night, put my head on my pillow and faced my gorgeous wife. Gave her a kiss and said good night baby. I closed my eyes and thought “if I die in my sleep, then it would be a perfect end to my life as the last face I would have seen, the last odour I would have smelt and that last skin I would have touched is that of the most beautiful person on earth…..
My dad walked into my room. Quietly but forcefully shook me to awaken me. I looked up at him in complete bewilderment only to see that he was gesturing me to remain quiet so that I did not wake anyone up. He was dressed in the traditional White Arabic attire. His face was shining as bright as the moon.
I walked out of the room while he was hovering. I whispered to him “I miss you Baba”…. He responded with “I know. I’ve always been here with you”….
He said “hold my hand tight. We’re going somewhere.” I grabbed his warm soft hand, raised it to my lips and kissed it. As I started asking where we are going, I found myself in a house of 5 people. A Mother, Father, Grand Mother and 2 boys lived in this barely lit house by a few candles. One of the boys was a teenager and the other was around 10 years of age. They spoke Arabic. Heavy Syrian accent.
I instantly felt ashamed for entering the house unannounced and uninvited. I looked at my dad and he knew that shameful feeling I had. He said, “Relax, they can’t see you” …. I said, “Where are we?” Dad answered, “Aleppo, Syria”
The mother was hurriedly preparing a rather small modest dinner using scraps, vegetables that had gone off and outdated ingredients. But nevertheless, the excitement on the family’s face of having “a dinner” as “a family” was immeasurable. As the dinner was placed on the copper tray and put on the floor in the middle of the living room, the family sat around the tray and the father, with a stuttering and almost crying voice, said “hurry up and eat before something happens”. The strange thing is that as they were eating and talking, their language would change to the languages of the different people being oppressed around the world, languages from Zimbabwe, West Papua, Myanmar and so on. Yet I knew exactly what they were saying, irrespective of the language they were speaking. I understood that these different languages were meant to remind me that the experience I was witnessing was not limited to this family or the people of Syria, but is shared by many who are suffering across the world.
With only a few minutes into the dinner, a whistle was strikingly increasing and getting louder and louder with each micro second. The father yelled out “DUCK YOUR HEADS”. And BANG. What seemed a modest poverty stricken yet grateful family dinner ended up a family massacre. Both the mother and grandmother were torn into pieces. The older son simply became non-existent. The father who barely had any strength could only see his youngest son. He got up and ran to the boy to pull him out from under the rubble. As soon as the father grabbed both hands and started to pull, he noticed that he was only dragging the top section of his young son. The father looked straight into my eyes and yelled out from the top of his voice “WHY?”. I stood and watched the father’s agony and trauma. Needless to say that I was, well, the feeling is indescribable.
I clinched onto my Dad’s hand tighter but felt my dad loosen his grip on me. I moved closer to my dad to seek fortification. The closer I tried to get to my dad, the further he moved away from me. I looked into his face only to see him crying. The shine on his face was dimmed by anger and sadness. My tongue was twisted. My stomach was knotted up and I felt sick to my core…
Words eventually came out of my mouth and I said to my dad “why me?”
Baba: “why not?”
Me: “why them?”
Baba: “it’s not only them. There are plenty more like them and even worse?”
Me: “did the father see me when he was looking into my eyes?”
Baba: “No. He was looking into Despair”.
Me: “Was I part of his Despair?”
Baba: “you holding tighter onto my hand and moving closer to me is part of that father’s misery. You’re not doing enough to help. I know you and I know who you are”.
Me: “what can I do?”
Baba whispered something that broke my heart and will continue to break my heart forever. He said “I raised a good decent man. You’re good enough to figure it out for yourself. Plus I have been dead for two and half years. Don’t give up for the love of Allah”.
And with the sound of the 3:30am alarm in my bedroom, he disappeared much the same way he did at 8:30am on that serene day 13th June 2013.
I opened my eyes and saw my wife gorgeously sleeping beside me. Her face is the first face I see each morning. Her odour is the first odour I smell each morning. And her skin is the first thing I touch each day. I walked into each of my boys bedrooms and saw them sleeping peacefully. I thought to myself, how blessed am I.
And there and then it hit me. My father wanted me to know that;
• I need to strive to make a good change in the world. Be a HOPE for Humanity
• Pray and supplicate for all the different people that are being oppressed and are experiencing Genocide and Oppression irrespective of colour, gender, age, faith, race culture and country
• Be thankful for what I have and remember that no matter how bad things are, there is always someone worse off than me
• Never take my family for granted. Cherish and love them forever. Even though I lost my dad and Yasmine, others have LOST EVERYTHING
• Let go of him and be the father to my boys much the same way as he was to me
Baba,
Even though your passing has created a void in my life, your presence in my heart has quadrupled. You’ve been dead for 2.5yrs and yet you are still teaching me. I will do everything in my power to prove to you that I am who you wanted me to be and that my boys will be brought up to be just like you Baba. I will do everything you expect of me. But I promise you I will NEVER let go off you as you haven’t let go of me yet.
LOVE YOU FATTI

The blockbuster movie Inception combines breathtaking and highly innovative action with a complex psychological plot.  Its focus is a team of mercenaries who specialise in entering people’s subconscious through ‘joint dreaming’ for the purpose of stealing valuable information – an advanced form of industrial espionage. This mental theft is called ‘extraction.’  Then, they are given a task most think is impossible. Rather than extract information from a subject’s mind, they are supposed to plant an idea that will lead to particular business decisions. This form of mental manipulation is what’s called ‘inception.’ 
The movie does not seek to make a particular psychological or spiritual point, but the subject matter is fascinating and the movie touches on many issues relevant to both psychology and spirituality.  At one level, the approach of the film is purely materialistic.  Dreams are the creations of people’s subconscious, and the many people who inhabit the places visited on dream journeys are merely ‘projections’ of the dreamers mind.  They are not real, independent consciousnesses. This is good because they get slaughtered in large numbers.  As the inceptors try and crack their target’s subconscious, the projections sense their intrusive presence and seek to defend their mental space by the fairly mundane means of guns and fists.  Where the movie does move into the metaphysical is the way that dreamers increasingly question the nature of the real world. Is the waking state real or is it the dream state with all its creative potential? 
The way in which it is possible for people to share each other’s dreams is not really explored. From a conscientiological perspective a ‘shared dream’ is never a dream, but a shared projection of consciousness.  Projection, here of course, does not have the psychological meaning it has in Inception, but refers to consciousness projecting out of the physical body in another, more subtle body (also known as astral projection, out-of-body experience).  Dreams are inter-neural events, and while we might be able to track them on CT-scans we cannot share them the same way we share going for a walk together. Projections of consciousness can be shared in just that way.  They are extracorporeal events that take to us to non-physical dimensions, populated by real, non-physical, people. Interestingly, there are numerous parallels between the dream experiences of the characters in Inception and the extraphysical experiences of consciousness. 
Just like the people representing subconscious projections in the movie, so the real non-physical people in the extraphysical dimensions may sense the difference of the person who is having an out-of-body experience and become curious about them.  And just as the dreamers in the movie have the ability to create the dreamscape, and sometimes involuntarily introduce unresolved psychological issues, so when we are projected outside the body our thoughts can turn into tangible creations and our conditionings, beliefs and fantasies can influence our experience and distort our perception of the extraphysical reality in which we manifest.  Just as some of the dreamers in Inception don’t realise that they are dreaming, so many of us don’t realise when we are projected. 
A key premise of the movie is that inception, the planting of an idea in someone’s mind, is a highly difficult undertaking.  Yet we know that this is not really the case.  From a purely physical and psychological perspective there is an extensive literature on propaganda, advertising and brain-washing.  Many of the ideas we might most closely identify with as our own were planted there by others: our parents, our peer-group, our culture.  From a multidimensional perspective it goes further. It is possible, and indeed common for non-physical consciousnesses to give us ideas that then appear to us to be ours.  This can happen while we are projected at night; we may wake up with new insights without realising where they come from (this is why people often like to sleep on things).  It can also happen while we are awake, as most of us are unaware of the non-physical people who surround us at all times and may “whisper something into our ear” (telepathically). Such implanted ideas can be negative, or intrusive. But they can also be positive or assistential, such as when a depressed person suddenly glimpses a new mental vista of possibility and future that removes the haze of depression and instils new hope and optimism. Helpers can sow great seeds of inspiration.
I thoroughly enjoyed Inception, but the real world of multidimensional consciousness is much more elaborate and complex than that of the dreamscapes portrayed in the movie and yet awaits a film maker to truly tackle it. 

NAOMI KANTJURINY

I was only a teenager when I received the gift, which initially scared me! This power just came to me alone. I'd wander around at night with my powers, and return to my camp early in the morning. All I could think was that I must have become a ngangkari [traditional healer] for some reason. I asked my mother, "Mother, why do I drift around at night so much?" and she replied, "You must be a ngangkari then." My reaction was, "What?" and she said, "Yes, it seems that you have become a ngangkari all by yourself!"

We say wirunymankula waninyi - which means, to declare someone well and to banish the illness. The illness, or pain, can take the form of phlegm, or back pain, and this is what I specialise in. My work was as a healer, mostly helping women and children. Very often they didn't need to tell me what was going on, because I'd know already. So I'd give the appropriate treatment and I know they were good. Women and children were healed by me countless times, especially children.

In Ernabella [mission, in far northwest South Australia], people would go and see the white doctors after they'd seen a ngangkari. They'd tell the doctor they'd seen a ngangkari already and the doctors encouraged this, because it made people stronger. The white nurses would be happy as well. The only difference was, they were on a salary and I was not. I would tell them that I didn't get paid for my work. Ngangkari have always worked for free.

The touch of my hands has a healing effect. I give a firm, strong touch, and remove the pain and sickness, and throw it away from the sufferer. After their treatment they will stand up and tell me how they feel and, of course, there is always an improvement.

At night I see spirits. The kurunpa spirits talk to me. Spirits separate from the body when someone is unwell or suffering and I see them. This is how I find out they are not well. I have dog friends that help me, as well. These dogs are my friends. At night I travel around by myself to make sure the women are all right. I see everyone at night, how they are, if they are all right. Sometimes it scares me but it is my work, I have to do it. I travel alone and that is what I do.

Depressed people can feel a lot better within themselves after a ngangkari treatment. That's one of our specialities. Their spirits are out-of-sorts, and not positioned correctly within their bodies. The ngangkari's job is to reposition their spirits and to reinstate it to where it is happiest.

Some people ask me how I do the treatments that I do. I tell them that I have unique skills that are not easily explained, which I developed by myself. After a treatment, it is our task to ensure the sickness doesn't return and pain doesn't return. So we have to dispose of the pain in our special way. Ngangkari know how to do this. We have special powers in our hands. Our work is to mould the shape of the body so that it can accommodate the spirit properly. In that way, people are well. I ask people afterwards, "Are you feeling better now?" and they tell me, "Yes, I am feeling great!" Ngangkari touch people. We touch, and that is our special art and our skill.

ANDY TJILARI

When I was growing up I had three grandfathers who were all ngangkari: my mother's father, my father's father and my grandfather's brother. So I lived with these three ngangkari. Well, actually there were four, because my father was a ngangkari as well. One day my grandfather asked me, "Do you want us to give you ngangkari power, so that you can live your life as a ngangkari? You'll have to help sick people, and heal them, whether they are men, women or children. If you do become a ngangkari, the power will stay with you all your life and you'll never lose it, or be able to throw it away."

My father was observing all of this. He told me that the way I would have to heal people would be to pull the sickness out of their bodies in the form of pieces of wood, or sticks, or stones, things like that. This is so that people can actually see with their own eyes the sickness that is removed from their bodies. This is the commonly accepted way we ngangkari do our work. It is so that people can see us taking their sickness away from their bodies, which gives them a sense of removal. My father told me I'd have to make sure I showed them what I took out, so they could see it, before I disposed of it.

I said to my father, "But how? How am I supposed to do that? I don't understand how ngangkari work. How could I ever be able to do that?" He replied, "Don't worry, we'll show you. It won't be hard once you know how." So I was shown. I was given the power of a ngangkari by all my grandfathers, and I still have that power today. They taught me everything I know. They didn't tell me how to do it. They showed me. They also placed inside me the sacred objects I would need to be my tools for working as a ngangkari. These are called mapanpa.

In the past, many children became ngangkari at a very early age. Children who took an interest in the healing arts often asked to be given power and to receive training. Often this training took place, as it did for me, at a distance from camp. The ngangkari would light fires at a separate camp and they would wait for the spirits to bring them special powerful tools. During the night, when they were all asleep, all the ngangkari people's spirit bodies would start to rise up from their sleeping bodies and soar upwards. Now you know how people fly around in aeroplanes and drive around in cars? Well, for Anangu [people of the Western Desert], and for ngangkari, when they are asleep at night, their spirits move around in a similar kind of way. The ngangkaris' spirit bodies begin to fly around and to visit the sleeping spirits of other people to make sure all is well.

The spirit of a sick person is usually too sick to fly properly, and often crashes into trees. This is when the ngangkari's night time work is very useful, because they will see the injured spirit holding onto the trunk of the tree, or fallen on the ground. The ngangkari will rescue the spirit. In doing so, he is able to recognise who it is and will say, "Oh, this is such-and-such. He is not well. Poor thing, he needs help here." So he'll pick up the spirit and take him to the body and ask the sleeping person to wake up. "Wake up. Your spirit is not well. Sit up and I'll put you to rights." The person will sit up, the ngangkari will replace the stricken spirit, and all will be well again very soon. By the next day, he will be quite better. This is a very special skill which we ngangkari alone have.

While all the ngangkari are gathered in the special camps, hundreds of mapanpa will come flying in. Mapanpa are special, powerful tools. They hit the ground with small explosions, "boom, boom, boom!" The ngangkari dash around collecting up the objects: kanti that look like sharp stone blades, kuuti that resemble black shiny round tektites, and tarka - slivers of bone. Each ngangkari gathers up the pieces he wants. These pieces become his own property.

I realise all this sounds very different to all you doctors and nurses who worked so hard at university to get where you are today. You have studied so many books. But we are working towards the same goal of healing sick people and making them feel better in themselves, as you are. In that way we are equal.

MARINGKA BURTON

My father had been a ngangkari his whole life, and his mapanpa had been given to him by his father. When he finally did give me the mapanpa, I became mara ala - meaning, my hands became open, my forehead became open, and I could see everything differently. I was able to travel into the skies with other ngangkari, soaring around in the sky, travelling great distances, and coming back home in time for breakfast. Ngangkari travel around in the sky, just our spirits travelling, while our bodies remain sleeping on earth. My father taught me that. He taught me everything, carefully and slowly.

We used to go for holidays a long way from the communities, and the white people used to follow us with the ration truck to give us our food ration in exchange for dingo scalps. All that flour and food! Sugar, sweet tinned milk, golden syrup and tins of meat. I know that a lot of our people are on dialysis now. It is from that sugar we ate back then. We all know this now. It is a shame because we have always had wonderful traditional bush foods. We had all the bush medicines that were used by everybody, it wasn't part of the ngangkari's specialised work. We used the bark on the roots of the wakalpuka bush for a splint if a child broke their leg or arm. We'd put the skin of the nest of the itchy caterpillar onto burns and itchy sores; you take the nest and remove all of the droppings from the inside of the nest and wash it and then you put it on the skin. It was a fantastically good treatment for burns, rather like doing a skin graft! If somebody scratched and itched, we'd put it on that as well.

My mapanpa live in my body. I am a painter, and when I paint, my mapanpa move right up into my shoulder and sit up there, out of the way. If somebody comes to me, needing help, I would have to ease my mapanpa back into my hands again. Sometimes I would push them from one arm to the other. When I am giving a healing treatment, I push with my left hand and I extract with my right.

I work on the head a lot and I heal people if they've got a headache. If there is something serious like a car accident and we are called to attend, we go straight there without delay. People have been hurt and the terrible shock of an accident shakes the kurunpa [spirit] out of a person and so we go there to find the kurunpa and we bring it back and replace it. Without the spirit any bodily healing takes much longer. Afterwards we attend the clinics, and when they call us, we do our work courageously without fear.

In the past non-Aboriginal doctors would do their work, yet they didn't know about us traditional healers. Our traditional healers were always busy healing people at home, looking after the entire community, while the doctors did their work in their clinics. But neither knew how the other one worked. We are unable to do too much work with renal patients; we never touch their kidneys, they are too vulnerable. But we do help with pain and discomfort.

Dealing with the deceased, sometimes we can capture the spirit of the deceased and place it into the living spouse, which is a really caring and strengthening thing to do. Sometimes if a son passes away, and the mother is really sick and bereaved, the dead son's spirit is placed inside the mother. In that way everybody is happier and it ensures that they get back to their normal health more quickly and are happier and healthier during their time of grief, because it is really terrible if somebody is too sad for too long.

Sometimes I can call a spirit with a branch. Using the branch I can usher it along, into the burial place, where the spirit should be. Sometimes the spirit will leave the body and leave the burial ceremony and travel around and make people sick. Sometimes, if I see that, I use a branch to brush it along, to brush it along so it goes back to the cemetery.

See here on my elbow? That's where my mapanpa sits. I've got openings in my hand and an opening in the forehead. We say that ngangkari people are mara ala and ngalya ala, which means open hands and open mind. When you hear someone say, "Oh, he's mara ala," that just tells you instantly that she's a healer, a traditional healer, a ngangkari.

Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari (NPY Women's Council) is out now, $49.95.

There seems to be a range of ways in which people use the concepts of lucid dreaming and what I call “projection of consciousness” but others may refer to as “astral projection” or “out-of-body experience” (OBE). In this post I explain how those terms are used from the perspective of projectiology (the study of the projection of consciousness).

First, it is good to be aware that there are two fundamentally different approaches to understanding these kinds of experiences. One is the “psychological model”.  According to this model any experiences we have, whether we call them “lucid dream” or “astral projection”, are only taking place within our own psyche. Basically, this model has the underlying assumption that consciousness is a product of matter and all our experiences take place in the brain. This model dominates most mainstream scientific research into dreams and is also the starting point for some lucid dream researchers. The other is the “projection model”. This model assumes that we can actually leave the physical body in some other body and experience ourselves on another dimension of manifestation. According to this model, consciousness is something beyond matter; consciousness is not created by matter, it simply uses matter to manifest in this dimension.

If our basic starting point is the psychological model then it makes sense to use the term “lucid dreaming” for any conscious experience that we have during our sleep state. After all, no matter how aware we are the experience has to be a subjective dream of sorts, because in our model it is not possible to have experiences beyond our physical body during sleep. From the view point of the psychological model there is no such thing as a projection of consciousness (astral projection etc.).

If our basic starting point is the projective model, however, we can start to think more carefully about the range of experiences that we can have while our body is asleep. From the perspective of projectiology, leaving the physical body happens to all of us every night. It is simply a result of our multidimensional physiology (para-physiology). As our physical body goes to sleep, our subtle body (the psychosoma in projectiology) floats out. But that does not mean that we all then have out-of-body experiences, because most of us don’t experience anything. We sleep in our psychosoma (astral body). There is no lucidity. In the projective model, the lucid dream is a particular state of consciousness that sits between an unconscious or sleep state on the one hand and the fully lucid projection of consciousness on the other.

Once we realize that every human being projects every night, we come to understand that the challenge of the out-of-body experience is not getting “out of” the body. It is maintaining our consciousness in a state of awareness during our regular slip into multidimensionality. We leave the physical body, but we sleep and dream in our extraphysical, subtle body. To paraphrase from Waldo Vieira’s comprehensive Projectiology treatise: Many people are awake in the extraphysical dimension, but most are not awake to the extraphysical dimension.

Lucid projectors regularly report encountering friends and family out of the body who are sleeping or “sleep walking” in their psychosoma.

The movie What Dreams May Come provides a great illustration of the process by which a consciousness can be in the extraphysical dimensions, but essentially confined to a world of its own creation. After the main character, played by Robin Williams, “dies” he finds himself in a beautiful world of paintings. These are paintings like those his wife used to produce. It is a familiar comforting space and he remains there until his helper (or extraphysical guide) decides that he has adjusted well enough to confront the extraphysical reality. At that point the paintings fall away and a whole world shared with many other consciousnesses becomes apparent (what William Buhlman calls a “consensus reality”).  The vast majority of us move through our natural nightly projections in the same way that Robin Williams’ character did after his death; surrounded by images of our own creation.

But as we look more carefully we realize that our dreams can have different qualities to them. Some are purely psychological. For example, we may be floating just centimeters above our physical body while having a dream based purely on the inner content of our mind (fears, desires, unexpressed emotions etc.), without any external influences. In other cases we are actually projected some distance from our body, floating along and our dream involves us flying as our mind taps into the external experience and incorporates it into the dream. Such a subtle, extraphysical stimulus can be incorporated in the same way that that external physical stimuli sometimes are. For example, when the blanket has fallen off and our feet start getting cold, or when birds begin to sing early in the morning these things can become woven into our dreams as well. Clearly, the physical and extraphysical are not completely separate, as is also apparent from the fact that there appears to be a correlation between dreaming and certain physiological changes (Rapid-Eye-Movement, particular brain wave activity, etc.).  From a bioenergetic perspective we know that the physical body and the psychosoma are in continuous connection through the so-called silver cord of energy. This connection appears to involve the transmission of information between the two vehicles in ways that we do not yet fully understand.

From this multidimensional perspective, a lucid dream is still a dream, i.e. an experience dominated by images created by our own mind, but one in which we become aware that we are dreaming. Something triggers our awareness, whether it is the absurdity of a given scenario – “Hang on, why am I walking around in a video game?”, or a sudden recall of our actual situation – “Hey why am I in my office? I am in bed sleeping!” Or perhaps it is simply something we have willed ourselves to do prior to going to sleep. Whatever the trigger, we become aware of the fact that we are dreaming; we become lucid in our dream. But if this is all that happens we are still dreaming. We may realize that we can create our own environment, for example by changing an unpleasant scenario into something more appealing, and start taking conscious control over our actions, but our experience is still dominated by our own thought-form creations (called morphothosenes in projectiology). In other words, we are still cut off from the extraphysical reality that surrounds us, moving about in a mental world of our creation. If we do not accept the possibility of multidimensional life, it is entirely possible that this is where we will leave it.

Being lucid in our dreams is already a great accomplishment. It feels good and can have psychological benefits and we may think that we have reached the pinnacle of our nocturnal awareness. But from a multidimensional point of view, the next step is that we break through our own mental creations and start to see the more objective aspects of extraphysical life; the next step it to actually awaken to the extraphysical dimensions. It is at this point that we start talking about a projection of consciousness. If we are open to the existence of other dimensions, then the lucid dream can represent a great springboard for our exploration. Once we gain awareness of the fact that we are dreaming, rather than focusing on creating more dream images, we can set our intention on gaining awareness of the underlying extraphysical reality (e.g. through affirmations such as “Awareness now” or “See reality now”, but also through ongoing practice and conditioning of our mind in our daily life).

So in summary, lucid dreams and conscious projections are distinct experiences. They are both on a continuum that begins with complete unconsciousness and ends with the incredible expansion of cosmic consciousness. Lucid dreams still see us essentially caught within our own mental creations, but they represent a final threshold between our own subjective inner world and potential entry into the vastness of extraphysical life. While lucid dreaming can teach us about our creative potential in all areas of our life, and thereby be of great psychological benefit, the conscious projection connects us to our sense of immortality and can be the portal to deep self-knowledge and understanding of our evolutionary journey. 

On 14 September I gave a talk at the Cosmic Pages Bookstore (Adelaide) about some of the concepts discussed in my new book. The talk touched on projections of consciousness, the impact of pathological karmic relationships and ways of healing them, the benefits of providing assistance and other ideas. While I followed some key themes I also responded to numerous questions and comments so the talk moves across topics a fair bit.  The recording does not capture the sound of all of the questions, so below is a brief summary of the main topics discussed and the questions asked. I have noted the times on the recording so you can skip to points of interest.

0 min -1:20 min Opening and definition of multidimensional evolution

@ 1:25 min Question as to whether evolution results in a loss of individual consciousness and an assumption or merging with some form of collective consciousness

@ 2:20min Discussion of the concept of universalism

4:12min - 5:00min Question about how the concept of universalism sits with the need for division of labour

@ 5:00 Thinking about how past lives change our perspective, seeing this moment both as the result of our past and the beginning of our future beyond this life

@ 7:50 Briefly explain a meditation technique and the effects I experienced when first applying it, including profound energetic clearing and perceptions of non-physical beings.

@ 11:55 Question asked whether the experiences I was having were a form of energetic clearing

@ 12:40min Challenge of bringing new energetic sensitivity into everyday life

@ 13:55min -16:40min Introduction of the idea of a "walk-in"

@ 17:40min - 18:55 Account of experiencing intrusion during a projection

@19:00min Realisation that I was experiencing intrusion relating to a previous life and the process of healing
Question at 19:20min  whether I thought the intrusion was by a version of myself from a previous life

@21:10min Introducing a Buddhist meditation on death

@24:00min Introducing the concept of karmic groups, ego-karma, group-karma and poly-karma

@26:05min Question about children being part of ones karmic group

@28:50min Question whether I would have suffered the same kind of intrusion of the consciousness in question had forgiven me at the time.

@30:05min Question whether the intruder who I detached from might now latch onto someone else.

@31:20min Comment on the importance of combining inner work and outer work

@32:05min Question as to whether some very successful people who started from humble and difficult beginnings might be walk-ins

@34:30min discuss process by which we recuperate our awareness after re-birth every life

@37.10min discuss how an unhealthy death can turn us into unconscious intruders

@38:10min Question as to whether it is possible for a consciousness to be in several locations at the same time and a follow up question about bilocation

@40:40min Comment made about someone who does distant healing and was seen energetically by a patient in their bedroom. Someone else makes a comment about parateleportation (see my previous blog article on that topic)

@42:20min Question as to why a soul would want to occupy a body that does really bad and cruel things

@43:50min  Question about how things done in accordance with a particular cultural norm can be evil (the example was human sacrifices in mesoamerican cultures)

@45:10min Question about my views on self-destructive behaviour and destructive behaviour generally

@49:20min In response to a question about changes happening on planet earth I discuss the concept of multidimensional reurbanization. I mention an article on the topic which you can access here

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to participate in a fascinating conference panel at the 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Panel sessions explored mediumship, spirit possession, depression and others issues from an anthropological perspective. All presentations can be heard under the Events tab on the website of the Afterlife Research Centre.  My paper looked at a phenomenon in which people are allegedly transported from one location to another by non-physical means. In the research literature this phenomenon is sometimes known as parateleportation and it has frequently been reported by Aboriginal people of the Australian Western Desert area. I am making a written copy of the conference paper available here.

Pushing the boundaries of reality: Accounts of parateleportation among Western Desert Aboriginal people
Paper presented at the 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Manchester 2013 to the panel WMW13 The extended self: relations between material and immaterial worlds

This paper is essentially about paradigms and genuine scientific engagement with things we do not yet understand. It reflects my strong view that anthropology can make significant contributions to our understanding of consciousness and the full spectrum of the human experience.  There are two key aspects that strongly position anthropology to make such contribution in my view: first is our relationship with peoples whose paradigms of the world are not confined by materialism and who instead view life to include both physical and extraphysical dimensions. In other words, we are consistently confronted with experiences and world-views that challenge us to go beyond our own cultural preconceptions. Second, is the requirement of our positioning as cultural translators, to not simply accept the paradigms and interpretations of our informants, but continuously seek to distill universal human principles that underpin cultural variation, and thereby develop new models of understanding the human experience.

I have on previous occasions focused on the out-of-body experience (projection of consciousness, astral projection) as a significant area of research (e.g. McCaul 2003, 2008). Not only does that experience go to the heart of our understanding of life beyond the physical dimension, but it is also both ubiquitous among indigenous cultures (Sheils 1978) and potentially achievable by the anthropologist. This latter aspect is relevant not only from our own disciplinary priority of participant-observation, but also means that the experience can be explored “from within” in accordance with Charles Tart’s proposal of state-specific sciences (Tart 1998). A full understanding of the OBE profoundly challenges the conventional materialistic paradigm and challenges us to develop new models of understanding reality (unless of course we seek to explain away the significant data about the experience from a position of fundamentalist reductionism).

This again advocates that there is a need for a broader paradigm if we want to genuinely understand the full range of experiences of consciousness, but the experiences it draws on are, in my view, of a different order than the by now very extensively reported and documented OBE (Vieira 2002). It was prompted by accounts of seemingly impossible human feats from among Aboriginal people of the Australian Western Desert region. They were the type of accounts that most non-Aboriginal people who heard them would smile at benignly while “knowing”, from within the security of their own paradigm, that they could be no more than “old wives tales”. If we move beyond that security, however, into the space of genuine scientific inquiry we need to consider whether these accounts are more than simple indications of cultural beliefs, but may in fact be pointing to an understanding of reality that reflects genuine experience rather than misguided tralatitious belief.

Ethnographic Background
Life beyond the physical dimension features strongly among Australian Aboriginal people. The benign and malign actions of spirits, the ability of old people to connect with creation ancestors in their sleep through out-of-body experiences, and the ability of humans to influence the natural environment through song and ceremony are all widely reported and well documented (Berndt 1947, Elkin 1977). Significantly for the phenomenon discussed here, song appears to be a methodology for interdimensional communication, i.e. a way in which physical people evoke and obtain particular assistance from extraphysical people.

The ethnographic data for this paper is derived from the Western Desert of Australia. The Western Desert area is the largest homogenous cultural area in Australia stretching from just to the east of the coast of Western Australia at Broome to Oodnadatta and Coober Pedy in South Australia and from the Nullarbor Plain in the south to Yuendumu and Balgo in the north (see map). This vast area is marked by significant linguistic and cultural cohesion, argued convincingly by Berndt (1959) to reflect a single cultural bloc. This cohesion is expressed up until the present through significant mobility across this region including for the purpose of large ceremonial processes uniting people from the far-flung communities (Peterson 2000). The information discussed in this paper is from the south-eastern extent of this vast area, in South Australia where I have been working in Aboriginal affairs since 2000.

The Western Desert area is one of the main bastions of traditional Aboriginal culture in Australia and widely known for its conservative approach to ceremonial business. Men from many other areas where ceremonies are no longer practiced regularly travel to Western Desert communities to “go through the law”, i.e. to achieve full classificatory manhood by going through initiation ceremonies. As well as maintaining what could be considered the bedrock of classical Aboriginal religious structures through the standard male initiation processes, the Western Desert is also one of few areas in Australia that continues to produce a significant number of traditional healers (Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation 2003). Known as ngangkari, at least in the eastern part of the region, these healers could be broadly considered as part of the shamanic spectrum with much of their healing focused on managing subtle energies and battling extraphysical consciousnesses (spirits).

The phenomenon in the cultural context
Soon after starting work with Aboriginal communities in South Australia I heard the story of Aeroplane George – a story that I have since heard in slightly different variations at least half a dozen times. According to this story, Aeroplane George earned his name for his uncanny ability to travel at seemingly impossible speeds.

In all the versions I heard he was seen at one train station waving to people who had boarded a train, for example at Tarcoola. Next they saw him when they arrived at their destination, for example Cooper Pedy, waiting as the train pulled into the station. The specific stations in the stories varied, but the fundamental aspect of the story was always the same. And apparently it was not only Aboriginal people who experienced this. On his death in 1978 a newspaper reported that “many a tourist was puzzled at seeing George at Cooper Pedy and then upon arrival at Kulgera, they would be greeted by Aeroplane George. No one knows how George managed to travel so fast.”

I already had an interest in so-called paranormal phenomena at that time and so I registered that story among many others involving spirits and out-of-body experiences, all of which seemed to be treated as common-place and natural by the Aboriginal people I spoke with.

It was not until several years later, however, that I spoke with a Pitjantjatjara man called Murray, who actually claimed to have experienced what Aeroplane George had. After telling me about the making of a traditional healer and the significance of the out-of-body experience in his culture, he spoke about an experience he once had as a young man when some old men showed him and a group of youngsters something he referred to as walpa (“wind”). He described this as a skill that involved using an emu feather and certain songs, which allowed them to all travel from Ernabella to Alice Springs and back in 2 or 3 hours. A return trip from Ernabella to Alice Springs is about 660km through the desert as the crow flies.

On this trip the group apparently passed through hills, cars and buildings. They went into a bank vault and saw all the money but were not allowed to pick any up. There were lots of white people there, but they did not see any of the Anangu (the term by which these Western Desert people describe themselves). Murray said that this was the skill Aeroplane George used. He said he and others were a bit ambivalent about this skill as it could be used to steal things or commit other crimes. In other words it had to be used with caution and could be dangerous in the hands of unscrupulous individuals.

Despite my long-term interest in such matters, this account seemed quite fanciful to me. I had studied OBEs for many years, had met many people who had experienced them and had experienced my own. I knew that traversing matter is a common feature of those experiences. In that state it makes sense as the consciousness is using a body that is more subtle than physical matter and can therefore pass through it. So I double checked. Was he talking about travelling in his spirit body? No, he was very clear that this was not a “spirit journey”. His physical body had gone on this trip.

It would have been easy to dismiss this experience as one step too far, but doing so would have been hypocritical. If I were to only accept those accounts I could relate to from a basis of personal experience, my position would be just another variation on the classic paradigmatic limitations of inquiry. And I should emphasis here that I am not advocating blind acceptance of all beliefs and accounts of experiences, but open minded and genuine inquiry.   

The Phenomenon
I discovered that Elkin reported the phenomenon of ‘fast travelling’ in his classic and still unrivaled account of Australian Aboriginal shamanism (Aboriginal Men of High Degree, Elkin 1977) as occurring among numerous groups across Australia. He in turn drew parallels between the accounts he had recorded and accounts recorded from Tibet (David-Neel 1965). Clearly, the phenomenon was not isolated in its occurrence or simply the result of a localized delusion.

I consulted the work of Vieira (2002), who focuses on the OBE, but nonetheless provides a comprehensive discussion of concomitant phenomena. Among them is the phenomenon he terms parateleportation, which he defines as follows:

a phenomenon composed of dematerialization, levitation, apport and rematerialization, in which the intraphysical consciousness suddenly disappears and reappears in another location; the act or process of transporting objects, human beings or subhuman animals through space, without any mechanical means. (Vieira 2002:195)

Vieira then identifies 24 frequent characteristics of this experience, including relevantly:

• that the phenomenon is not planned or desired by the person experiencing it,
• that the phenomenon usually only involves one person,
• that the person experiencing it usually has no self-awareness or recollection of the period between disappearance and reappearance.

The account given me by Murray of course differs on all these counts as the experience was deliberately induced by a group of men and experienced as a conscious journey. Similarly the apparent ubiquity of Aeroplane George’s feats suggests some degree of conscious control over the phenomenon.

A parallel, however, is found in Vieira’s observation that the experience is often referred to by references to “whirlwind” or “wind” in ancient traditions and Murray’ Pitjantjatjara name walpa (“wind”) for it.

A key reference in Vieira’s analysis is Fodor (1962) who provides a summary of accounts of the experience in historic texts and in the context of mediumistic sessions. Accepting the consistency with which the phenomenon has been reported in the mediumistic literature as carrying some weight, it certainly appears as if in rare circumstances human bodies can traverse space, including physical objects in ways as yet not understood. Many of the mediumistic accounts bear out Vieira’s suggestion that the phenomenon usually involves an unconscious medium. The usual pattern appears to be that the dematerialization is provoked by extraphysical consciousnesses while the medium is in a trance state. Even in the remarkable case of the spontaneous parateleportation of the famous Brazilian medium Carlos Mirabelli who was waiting at one train station when he suddenly disappeared in front of numerous witnesses and was then found at his final destination, 90kms away, circa two minutes later, there is no suggestion that he intended to induce the phenomenon or recalled any of his journey (Goes 1937).

A partial exception among the cases reported by Fodor, is one that took place in 1871 which involved the serial parateleporation first of a Mrs Guppy and then of two other mediums whose séance had in fact provoked the whole affair. The latter two both recalled interactions with other physical people at brief stops in the course of being parateleported from one location to another and then returned, i.e. they disappeared from the local of their séance, found themselves elsewhere where they interacted with people and objects and were then returned to the original location. In fact, both returned with physical objects (Fodor 1962:112-121), providing support to Murray’s expressed belief that he could have taken money from the bank if he had wanted. 

In summary, there is in my view sufficient supportive information to warrant taking seriously the accounts by Aboriginal people. In fact, it appears that the Aboriginal cultural context could provide a privileged environment for its study, because unlike the generally spontaneous and involuntary occurrence among western mediums, Aboriginal people appear to have a ceremonially encoded methodology that offers high levels of control and replicability of the experience.

Paradigm
I want to conclude this paper with a brief discussion of the importance of paradigms in understanding this phenomenon, and multidimensional phenomena more broadly.

It is in my view incumbent on a researcher to start with the hypothesis that the account is genuine. Fantasy, fraud, deceit or delusion are of course all possibilities, but in my view they do not represent sound or productive starting points. We may eventually arrive at the conclusion that those are factors in play, but in my view we need to precede this conclusion with careful inquiry. In my case, I did not have the opportunity to pursue the account with further research. Ideally, the participant-observer would of course not only seek other informants on the topic, but participation in the described ceremony.

For the purposes of this paper, I will assume that the accounts about Aeroplane George and by my informant are accurate. In that case they clearly point to a reality that is broader than our conventional paradigm allows for. The differences between the way the experience manifests in Aboriginal culture and the way it does at the fringes of our cultures (i.e. in the “spiritualist” circles) could plausibly be explained on the basis of the different world views in operation.

Firstly, mediums in our culture are already operating outside the mainstream paradigm. Every aspect of mediumship is subject to derision, criticism or incredulity by the majority of the other members of the medium’s cultural group. Within its own reality, much of the mediumistic tradition is passive, which means the medium enters a trance to allow the work of spirits (or of God depending on the tradition) to be done through them. It is the extraphysical consciousnesses (spirits) who are in control.

In Aboriginal culture, on the other hand, the phenomenon of “fast travelling” is embedded in an overall world view in which it is not only plausible but something to be expected (Elkin 1977:). The creation narratives of the Dreaming, which provide the blue-print for human society are replete with accounts of “supernatural” feats by the creation beings. In the traditional philosophy, every human being who participates in ceremony across a life-time has the potential to ultimately embody these creation beings who are considered both the spiritual and “genetic” origin of humanity. In other words, anything that was done by the creation beings is potentially available to human beings as well. Reaching a state where a person can induce this and other kinds of paranormal phenomena is consequently built into the expected life trajectory for at least some members of the community and accepted by all.

A second significant difference is the notion of agency. I believe the ultimate question of the locus of agency in Aboriginal culture is fairly complex and would involve careful consideration of kinship networks and the position of the individual as a link in the chain of ancestral traditions. This would go beyond the scope of this brief paper. What is most relevant here is that, unlike the European medium, the Aboriginal ceremonial leader knows that he (or she) can achieve particular results through the “technology” of song and ritual. I use the term technology here to indicate the clear causal link between certain ceremonial actions and an expected outcome. In singing the requisite songs the human actor is evoking and drawing on powers that surpass him – the ancestral beings – but rather than submit to their superior powers, my interpretation of the Aboriginal context is that the humans are in a sense temporarily aligning themselves and essentially occupying the same ontological space as those creation ancestors.

Beyond this brief comparison of distinct cultural differences around the same phenomenon, what should be the working paradigm of the anthropologist in their analysis? In brief my view is that it should allow for an engagement with the experience as a possible reality. I expect there are numerous ways in which this could be construed. Personally, I do not profess any expertise in quantum mechanics, but imagine that this field may offer models that could explain de- and rematerialisation. My personal preference is for a paradigm originally stipulated by Vieira (Vieira 1994) that I have adopted following long-term study of subtle energy (chi, qui, prana) and the projection of consciousness. This paradigm essentially considers the manifestation of life (consciousness) to occur on a range of interconnected yet seemingly distinct energetic frequencies. In addition to the gross physical dimension we are all aware of every day, there are other more subtle dimensions that we can access through projections of consciousness or perceive if we have developed the appropriate senses. From this perspective, physical matter is simply one way in which energy can manifest, and while it is more solid and stable than some of the other forms, it can nonetheless behave like those more subtle energies on certain occasions.

There are other key elements to this paradigm which I will not go into here, but it is important to emphasise that while it may be simple to summarise the paradigm as I just have this does not mean that it is a simplistic model or that the reality it points to is unremarkable. On the contrary, the reality it points to is vast, complex and awe-inspiring and it is precisely for this reason that every attempt at deepening our understanding of it is valuable. In the case of parateleportation, the challenge for us as European trained anthropologists is in the first instance to maintain an open mind. This is the first challenge before we can even contemplate the next step, which is to explore the possibility of pursuing the experience ourselves so as to understand it, and the reality described by our informants from the inside.

References
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Berndt, R. 1959. The concept of the ‘Tribe’ in the Western Desert of Australia. Oceania 30(2):81-107.

Cane, Scott 2002 Pila Nguru: The Spinifex People. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press

David-Neel, Alexandra. 1965. Magic and Mystery in Tibet. London: Souvenir Press

Elkin, Adolphus Peter. 1994 Aboriginal Men of High Degree. St. Lucia: Queensland University Press

Fodor, Nandor. 1962. Mind over space. New York: The Citadel Press

Goes, Eurico. 1937. Prodigios da Biopsichquica Obtidos com o medium Mirabelli. São Paulo: Typographia Cupolo

McCaul, Kim. 2008. The persistence of traditional healers in the 21st century and of anthropology’s struggle to understand them. Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia. Vol.33:129-159

McCaul, Kim. 2003. Anthropology and the consciential paradigm in Journal of Conscientiology 6(22):107-125

Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation. (ed.) 2003. Ngankari Work - Anangu Way. Alice Springs: NPY Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation.

Peterson, Nicolas 2000. An expanding Aboriginal domain: mobility and the initiation journey. Oceania. Vol.70(3):205-218

Sheils, D. 1978. A cross-cultural study of beliefs in out-of-the-body experiences, waking and sleeping. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 49 (775): 697-740

Tart, Charles. 1998 Investigating altered states of consciousness on their own terms: A proposal for the creation of state-specific sciences. Journal of the Brazilian Association for the advancement of science 50, 2/3 March/June: 103-116

Vieira, Waldo. 1994. 700 Experimentos da Conscientiologia. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Internacional de Projeciologia e Conscienciologia

Vieira, Waldo. 2002. Projectiology: A panorama of experiences of the consciousness outside the human body. Rio de Janeiro: International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology.