​Whatever our spiritual or personal growth philosophy, it is likely to include a striving to deepen our emotional stability and equanimity. Meditation can be a powerful tool for us to find sources of inner peace while we are by ourselves. And it can be quite tempting to assume the blissful states we experience in meditation reflect our true advancement and state of equanimity. But one of the great benefits of this multidimensional school we call life is that it comes with a diversity of people to really assist us in our growth. And there seem to be at least two kinds of people one can readily count on to help us measure our true emotional balance. Close family members and call centre staff. Ok the second is somewhat tongue in cheek, but there is something about the impersonal yet dependent relationship we often have with call centre staff, and the experiences of being on hold for long periods of time and being passed from person to person, that can be especially triggering. This article was inspired by just such a recent call centre experience, which gave me the opportunity to draw on two concepts I value greatly: non-violent communication and an understanding of energetic intrusion. 
 
Non-violent communication
As long as we are subject to involuntary thought processes and emotional upheavals, we are limited in our capacity to serve others and likely to have impacts on ourselves and on those around us that we would prefer not to have. Most of us will know the feelings of deep regret after lashing out or being spiteful because we were in a place of anger or hurt (the two are usually intertwined). Establishing emotional stability is a tricky business, because we cannot do it by simply willing our emotions to change. Emotions need to be experienced and understood. That seems to be the only way in which we can transform them and get to a place where we can be both fully present to them and maintain a sense of peace. 
 
There are different ways to befriend and become familiar with our emotions. For me the most effective tool to achieve this has been the framework of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) as developed by Marshal Rosenberg. You can access extensive resources and training in NVC for free online (for example a full course on youtube here and numerous texts and reference sheets here). NVC is a very comprehensive framework, and here I only give you a glimpse of some key concepts that help me understand, honour and care for my emotions. In a nutshell, NVC is focused on helping us make the connection between our needs and our emotions. NVC is based on the assumption that all human beings, regardless of our cultural, economic or gender background, have certain universal needs. This includes primary needs like, food, water and shelter. But it also includes needs that we may not think of straight away, because many of us have adapted to life without those needs being fully met. They are nonetheless fundamental needs such as connection, appreciation, recognition, affection, creativity, being truly seen, love and purpose.
 
There is a direct connection between our emotions and our needs, because when our needs are met, we are likely to feel positive and pleasant emotions. We may feel alive, content, expansive, relaxed, peaceful or even ecstatic. But when our needs are not met, we will experience different emotions. Unmet needs may cause us to feel furious, exasperated, hurt, anxious, apathetic, sad and so on.

Recognising the connection between needs and feelings is very empowering. It allows us to take full responsibility for our feelings. Rather than blaming someone else for “making us angry”, we can take ownership of our anger and understand that we are feeling angry because a particular need of ours has not been met. That way, rather than finding ourselves subject to our emotions, we can start to understand them as a guiding system to our needs. Because of the way we have been raised, having to fit into a system that imposes external expectations on us from a very young age, many of us are quite cut off from our needs, certainly our deeper ones. In different ways, both males and females in the western world are socialised not to have or express needs. With boys the focus is often on being self-sufficient and strong, i.e. do not to express any needs. With girls the focus tends to be more on taking care of others rather than themselves, but the effect is largely the same: we lose sight of our own fundamental needs and may even develop feelings of shame, guilt and internalised anger for having them. Once we start listening to our emotions, they can remind us. For example, I might feel frustrated and alone because I really need support. I am angry and resentful because I need respect. I am feeling hurt and sad, because my needs for connection and nurturing are not being met and so on.
​
​Making this link can have a profound impact on our relationship with our emotions. It can help us understand and accept them and also empower us to take care of our needs more consciously. Once we realise that we are able to take care of our needs, we start to understand that we are also in charge of the emotions we experience. By honouring our needs, we will naturally experience many more uplifting emotions than heavy and difficult ones. And by realising that any behaviours of others that trigger us are also reflections of them seeking to meet their own needs, we can develop greater empathy. We do not need to necessarily express anything. The simple fact of us feeling genuine empathy for the other person may alter the way they show up and it certainly will alter the way we respond to life. Needs and emotions are a universal feature of the human experience, so we may as well take conscious charge of them!
 
As we develop our emotional awareness, we may find that we feel at peace most of the time. Work issues no longer trigger us the way they used to, nor does being stuck in traffic, someone cutting into the line at the shops, or misplacing our glasses. In each of those cases we may notice feelings of frustration, anger, impatience and so on. But once we become proficient at unpacking the needs that are not being met in that moment, including expressing and honouring those needs, purely in our mind and potentially without talking to another person, that process of self-care and self-acknowledgement alone can assist us come back to feelings of equanimity and balance. Of course, if feelings of frustration, boredom and so on persist and are recurring, for example in a dissatisfying job or relationship, then there comes a time when we do not just want to acknowledge our unmet needs but take deliberate action to meet them and make change. 
 
I wanted to share the practical application of this model through a recent call centre experience, where I spent an hour on the phone with a customer service representative for my phone company. The experience generated strong feelings of frustration, because we seemingly could not understand each other. Using the NVC framework: my needs were for mutual communication, understanding and ease, and these not being met led to feelings of frustration and eventually exasperation. In doing so this interaction provided a beautiful learning opportunity about the relationship between self-responsibility and intrusion from external energies. 

Attending to any energies attached to us from other persons 
So far, I have spoken about emotional self-care and this is very important, because taking such care is what puts us in the driver’s seat of our inner experience. But despite all its richness, NVC does not take account of the multidimensional nature of life and the way we can energetically impact each other across time and space. In conscientiology, the concept of one person’s negative energies (thoughts and emotions) impacting another is called intrusion. In other words, intrusion happens when we are subject to pathological energies from another, or when our pathological energies impact on others. These interactions can occur between us and other physical persons or extraphysical persons and often there is a combination. For example, if a person emits resentful or even hateful thoughts and emotions towards another, it is quite likely that they have extraphysical company who are echoing their sentiments and adding to them, possibly even attaching themselves to the target of these emotional energies and harassing them through hostile energies. Where such extraphysical consciousnesses are involved, we are often completely unaware of the cause of our sudden mood shift or perpetual and unshakable yet quite irrational feelings of, e.g. anger, self-loathing, or depression. 
 
We will all have experienced intrusion at some point, both from other physical people and from extraphysical ones. A very tangible example I have seen far too often in my own life is what I call a chain reaction of anger. For example, I lose my temper with my oldest child (because I did not attend to my needs properly), he then takes it out on his younger sister mirroring any anger he just experienced, and she then does the same on the youngest one. When a parent is angry with their child it can induce feelings of guilt and shame in the child. These are very unpleasant feelings to hold and it is natural to try and find a way to “pass them on”. Taking those emotions out on someone else is of course not a healthy way to manage our unpleasant feelings, but it seems quite instinctive and we can see it all around us. This is a very direct and common-place example of intrusion where any observer could see the emotional energy impacting the other person. 
 
From a multidimensional point of view, it becomes more complicated, because one person’s feelings of shame, anger or frustration can also impact another even if there is no direct physical expression of them. Simply by two people connecting, even if their surface conversation is amicable, energetically we can still be influenced by each other’s subconscious or repressed feelings of resentment, frustration and so on, especially if we carry the seeds for those same feelings, which most of us do. In such as case we may leave the interaction feeling a strange sense of resentment that was not there before and we may direct it at some other issue in our life quite unrelated to the person we just met and completely unaware that our own inner feelings were just stirred up by the other person’s energy. Now imagine the same thing happening when the trigger is an extraphysical person we cannot see and do not even know is there. 
 
Intrusion is a big topic that I will discuss in a dedicated post, but hopefully you get the general idea. In this case, my conversation with the call centre person was courteous but we were both clearly getting frustrated, and while I expressed my frustration (i.e. I told her clearly and calmly that I was getting frustrated and would like to speak with someone else) she professionally masked her feelings with customer service “politeness” and ever increasing determination to “assist me”. After I left the conversation, without her being able to resolve the issue, I felt like I could still feel her resentment and anger at me. But of course, I had to be cautious because maybe I was feeling my own feelings and projecting them onto her.
 
One of the risks of introducing the concept of intrusion into our universe is that we can end up blaming any unpleasant emotion and experience on others. Yes, intrusion is a reality, but the key entry point is always our own inner world. The initial cause for our anger, frustration or grief is found within ourselves. Intrusion then comes in and exploits that trait to amplify and possibly prolong our experience of pain. But to know that it is present and that we are not just projecting on the world, we need to first become really clear about our own inner experience.

​Putting it all together
In this case, this involved first getting really clear about what needs were not being met in my interaction with the call centre lady and what emotions that triggered in me. There were a number of things that frustrated and exasperated me. She did not understand my request, despite repeated attempts to explain my situation. Sometimes she seemed to understand my request, repeating verbatim what I had just told her, but then added other elements that had nothing to do with what I had said, which was confusing. When I eventually asked her to put me through to another person, she did not respond to that request at first, trying to simply keep going as if I had not said anything. After I insisted repeatedly, she told me that I would have to wait at least an hour on the line, which left me feeling both daunted at that prospect and resentful at not being helped. It seemed to me that in her mind she had something at stake to complete this transaction, which made her invest a lot of dogged energy to keep going, even though it cannot have been easy for her either as I expressed my dissatisfaction increasingly clearly. 
 
After the call I felt tense and irritated. So as not to indulge in complaining or negative thoughts about the person I had just dealt with, I needed to take care of myself first. I recognised my unmet needs which included ease, understanding and support. Doing so allowed me to empathise with my feelings and once I did that they quickly calmed down. At that point I became aware of additional thoughts and emotions that were present in my psychosphere, but did not feel like mine. Our psychosphere is the wider energetic field we emit and with which we interact with those around us in subtle ways all the time. If we become sensitive to it we can feel non-physical consciousnesses in our environment as well as the thoughts and emotions of others through that part of our energetic physiology.

It is hard to describe what it is like to feel something in the psychosphere, but it was like there were a set of repetitive thoughts and emotions running 10 or 20  centimetres away from my head, as if I could vaguely hear and feel another person right next to me. There was a “high pitched” quality to them that did not seem familiar and a really strong feeling of resentment and even rage. Having taken care of my own feelings, I now felt I could trust my perceptions and knew that these thoughts and emotions were not actually mine, but in some way coming from the person I had just dealt with. If I had not taken care of myself, this emotional energy could have become mixed up with and amplified my own frustration, and possibly even set me on track to think very negative thoughts about a person I had never actually met, or possibly lead me to take this amplified frustration, and a rage that wasn’t mine to begin with, out on someone else. But because I had become clear, I could now empathise with her needs, which I assumed to include competency, recognition and control. Instead of thinking resentful and negative thoughts about her, I could send her appreciation for helping me, not with the comparatively minor task of organising my phone plan, but the much more profound step of gaining greater clarity on the many subtle ways in which we interact and about my own traits that provide potential avenues for intrusion. Once we open up to the concept of intrusion, there is a risk of demonising anybody who “intrudes” us with their negative energies, when actually those are great learning opportunities for us about boundary setting and self-care.
 
This experience inspired the trivocabular megathosene: Others Bring Clarity

Preliminary Comments
This article is more academic than most of the other fare on this blog. It previously appeared in 2005 in the Journal of Conscientiology, Vol.7 No.27:203-221, and it follows formatting conventions I used there. I have decided to reproduce it here to make it more widely accessible for a few reasons. One is that I regularly encounter questions about rainmaking and this usefully sums up my understanding on the matter. The other is that humanity's impact on the weather is becoming an ever more urgent issue.

Addressing physical pollution is clearly a priority in this regard, but the importance of addressing our mental pollution cannot be underestimated. Our relationship with nature begins in our thoughts and emotions, and real life actions flow from them. The idea that we can control the weather with our energies, which are directed by our mind and intention, introduces a degree of consciousness and deliberateness that is largely lacking in our present society when it comes to the weather and climate. Despite all the ways western "civilisation" has domesticated nature, we feel as if we are at the mercy of the weather, while those in denial of climate change claim that our actions have no consequence. This is in stark contrast with indigenous approaches, where it is absolutely assumed that human actions have repercussions on the world around us and that humans can control the environment through conscious actions.

As this article documents, those beliefs have been mocked by Europeans ever since colonisation began and there are plenty of people who still mock them. As I argue in this paper, although advanced in the name of science, such dogmatic ridicule is actually a completely anti-scientific approach. I would suggest that this is the point in history where we need to examine indigenous approaches again with fresh eyes and consider whether we can learn anything from them for the way we relate to and engage with the environment.  

The structural elements of the ceremonies

Essentials. In spite of the great variety of rainmaking ceremonies across Australia (McCarthy, 1953), there are recurring essential elements. They may not all occur in every ceremony, but they stand out in the literature surveyed. Those elements are now analysed from a bioenergetic, holosomatic and multidimensional perspective.

Composite. While presented here in isolation for the sake of analysis, in the ceremonies the elements come together as a composite whole, creating an atmosphere of purposeful, highly charged thosenes, sometimes over several days of intent ceremonial activity.

Arm Movements to direct clouds

Example. “Then a bundle of emu-feathers tied together ... is thrust out towards a cloud and drawn (or waved) slowly back towards the operator. This is repeated many times (when another cloud is selected for a similar operation ...) to bring all the clouds together, then “big fella rain tumble down”. (Reid, 1930; cf. also Cherbury, 1932; Mathew & Anau, 1991)

Auric coupling. The intraphysical consciousness (the rainmaker) is consciously promoting an auric coupling [i.e. a connection] between the hydro-energies of the clouds and his own bioenergies and using his energies as a lever, to will the movement of the clouds.

Control. Consciousness can control energies and as we develop our holochakra and our ability to perceive and focus on energies beyond the soma, we can consciously extend our sphere of influence; for better or for worse.

Extraphysical assistance and projections

Projective account. The following is the account of a projection to produce rain, recorded by the anthropologist Ronald Berndt among Wiradjuri people in western New South Wales. It is interesting to note the distinctly cultural elements of the projective experience as well as the universal elements such as the silver cord (maulwar cord), the importance of controlling emotions and the temporal incongruence:

As informants stressed, it took a very clever doctor to go unharmed through the dangers which accompanied a journey to the world behind the sky, where the water-bags were kept.
When it was necessary, and only then, a discussion would be held between the tribal elders, headmen and doctors as to the advisability of obtaining rain. A doctor would be chosen, and a particular time named when he would undertake his skyward journey. On the auspicious night, he would “sing” all the inmates of the camp, so that they would sleep soundly, and not hear any noise that he might make or cause. He would then sit away from the camp and “sing” the clouds down so that they were about fifty to sixty feet from the ground; so near were they that “the noise of birds and ducks could be heard.” He would then sing out his ‘maulwa(r) cord and send it vertically up towards the clouds; it “would be just like putting a pole up”. He would lie on his back, his head upon his chest, with legs held up above the ground; in this way, watching the cord he would “sing” himself up. As the cord moved upwards past the clouds, it lifted the doctor who was suspended “like a spider.” Coming to Wantangga’ngura he let his cord gradually return to his body and standing upright looked around. He could see the darkness of the night sky, and all the stars, which were the various Ancestral Beings who had in the past climbed up here; being so close to them he could see their human form, whereas from the earth they appeared merely as points of light of varying brilliance. But he did not look long, since he was still outside the place in which the water-bags were kept; this place was called ‘Pali:ma, and was in the Wantangga’ngura country. To pass into Palima, the doctor had to go through a fissure, through which the Ancestral Beings had passed when they left the earth. This fissure or cleft was termed ‘mupara:m (...), and its two walls were continually moving around; this was demonstrated by the informant who used the open palms of both hands, placed them together, and rubbed them in a circular manner. The revolving of the ‘mupara:m left a small aperture which was revealed at intervals; it was through this latter that the doctor had to pass. ... Watching the revolving ‘mupara:m till an aperture appeared, the doctor entered and found himself in Palima, a country much the same as the earth, having also a sky above it. As he walked to and fro, looking around for the hut in which were stored the water-bags that had been sent up by the Eaglehawk, two Ancestral Men called Ngintu-Ngintu and Kunapapa ran up. Both carried clubs. The former began to call out a volley of questions, endeavouring to discover why the doctor had made this journey and entered the ‘mupara:m; but the “clever man” would not answer his questions, since otherwise he would be thrust out of Palima. Before Ngintu-Ngintu and Kunapapa were near, the doctor stopped walking – they must not see him doing this for if they did they would kill him at once. Coming up close to the “clever man”, who now sat down, they began to corroboree. They would dance and sing in the most humorous way, their intention being to make their onlooker smile, laugh or talk; should he do any of these things they would kill him. They danced with their legs well apart; their very long penes waved from side to side, and with the motion of the dance became erect and moved up and down; the doctor did not even twitch his lips. Then with their hands they made as if to poke out his eyes, but the other did not flicker an eyelid. They stared at him, coming close up and looking into his eyes; but still he did not blink or smile. After a while, Ngintu-Ngintu and Kunapapa became tired of receiving no response on the part of the doctor and sat down to one side. Then some women came up and began to corroboree in front of the doctor. They danced in an erotic manner, shuffling along with legs apart and knees bent; as they came close up to the “clever man”, they assumed an inviting posture and acted in other erotic ways. The doctor, however, still remained immobile; if he had been affected by, or if he had made any movement towards the women, he would have been killed. At last the women joined Ngintu-Ngintu and his companion and began to talk amongst themselves, each asking the other what could be done with the doctor. While they were thus engaged the latter “sang” away all of them except Ngintu-Ngintu, who was too powerful to be disposed of in this manner. Then taking out of his small skin bag a ‘nginbaran (emu anus-feathers tied in a bunch) he threw it into the distance and began to sing. The singing created from the bunch of feathers an emu; as the bird became visible the doctor called out to Ngintu-Ngintu ... : “There goes an emu”. Ngintu-Ngintu who was a keen hunter, gathered his spears together and rushed in the direction of his hut, in order to get his dog. While he got his dog, which went after the emu, the doctor sprang up and darted across to the hut in which the water bags were stored. Once there he speared one of the water-bags; as the water spurted out the doctor ran over to the ‘mupara:m in order to escape. However, Ngintu-Ngintu and his dog, who had found out that the emu created by the doctor was not of material substance, saw him running, and saw the water from the bag flowing to the fissure. The dog rushed over to the doctor, and snapped at him urged on by Ngintu-Ngintu. But the clever man reached the mupara:m unharmed; he escaped through it, and just as the dog put his head through it he “sang” the mupara:m closed (i.e. he stopped it revolving). When “he got well out of sight of the dog he sang the mupara:m loose (i.e. open)”. As it opened the water gushed out; because it had been kept in the skin bag since ‘ngerka:nbu times, the water was “stinking” and bad. When the doctor got the water “on this side” (i.e. out of Palima), he “sang” all the clouds up; into these poured the water, to be sieved and purified into clear water, to come down as rain either at once or a little later on. He then “sang” out his cord, and “climbed” down towards the same place from which he had gone up. The next morning he would say to the others: “See it is raining now”, or “It will rain soon”. His actual journey was said to have taken no more than a few seconds (Berndt, 1947, pp.361-363).

Implicit. Aboriginal people often imply the importance of extraphysical consciousnesses in rain making by statements that claim that the success or failure of a ceremony depends on the co- operation of certain Dreaming ancestors.

Extraphysical consciousness. Although it is not possible here to illustrate the role of extraphysical consciousnesses in weather phenomena, I do accept Vieira’s theory that they play some role in all natural phenomena (Vieira, personal comment during the course “Sensibilização Energetica”, Foz de Iguaçu, 1997).

Evocation

Imitation. Ceremonial participants will imitate the calls and actions of creatures related to water, such as ducks, fish, frogs, pelicans, swans and others. Such acts serve to focus the mind of the participants and evoke the atmosphere during which such creatures are usually encountered.

Ceremonies. Feathers are a key ingredient to many ceremonies, being one of the few traditional items for creating “costumes” or for general adornment. Using the feathers of water birds may serve to establish an energetic link with those creatures, and by implication their moist habitat.

Human Blood

Sacrifice. Many agricultural societies sacrifice the lives (soma) of animal and even human intraphysical consciousnesses in their rituals, in the belief that this will please the Gods and make them grant a desired physical outcome, for example rainfall. It is possible that there were extraphysical consciousnesses associated with those rituals who would indeed see that the wishes of the intraphysical sacrificers were fulfilled.

Pathology. The actions of the intraphysical and extraphysical consciousnesses in such cases are pathological to the extreme. Sacrifice of that kind is a social institution based on energetic vampirism of the life energy of the intraphysical victims. While it may bring immediate results during one intraphysical life, it leads to multi-existential stigmas and groupkarmic interprison.

Bloodletting. Human blood is used in many Aboriginal ceremonies, but neither human nor sub-human animal is killed. The individual sacrifices from him or herself. Usually men will tie their upper arms tightly with a ligature and open a vein in their lower arm. The blood is collected in vessels or applied directly to the bodies of other ceremonial participants. It is drunk or sprinkled on objects and is used as a glue to attach feathers, wood shavings or other forms of decoration.

Power. From the Aboriginal perspective blood has various powers. Its external application or consumption is thought to energise. It is also considered to feed the Dreaming ancestors. From a bioenergetic perspective, a person’s blood is a very strong carrier of their holothosenic imprint. From a multidimensional perspective, blood can be a food for tropospheric extraphysical consciousnesses and its density may facilitate inter-dimensional psychokinetic (PK) phenomena.

“Rain stones” and pearl shells

Shells. Throughout the Australian Western Desert pearl shells traded from the north-west of the country are used in rain ceremonies (Berndt & Berndt, 1944; Mountford, 1962, p.138). A part of the shell is ground into liquid, blood or spittle, which is then either ingested or spat out in various directions.

Ocean. The connection between the shell and water, in this case the ocean, is obvious.

Rain Stones. In other parts of the country, clear crystals are used in a similar way. A certain area along the Birdsville track in northeastern South Australia used to be called “rain country” because it is prolifically covered in gypsum, the “rain-stone”.

Moisture. One researcher notes that his Aboriginal informants “observed the water-absorber mineral gypsum, and, on perceiving moisture induced changes or deliberately moistening the gypsum to promote such changes, crushed the mineral to free the water spirit.” (Kimber, 1997, p.8)

Amplification. Crystals form a part of many “magical” practices among indigenous and non- indigenous people, possibly for their capacity to amplify the bioenergies of the intraphysical consciousness manipulating them.

Red ochre

Energise. Ochre is an essential ingredient to almost every ritual practice among Aboriginal people. It is applied to the body and ceremonial objects and is thought to energise. Often, red ochre is considered the metamorphosed blood of Dreaming ancestors.

Grounding. From the bioenergetic perspective, the geoenergies of the ochre would arguably ground the individual applying it.

Songs and Chants

Words. The power of words is used in most indigenous societies. In Aboriginal Australia there are songs for many ends. People speak of having been “sung” to describe the acts of sorcerers who sing harmful songs to hurt their victim. Healing also occurs through song. There are songs for every “sacred site” and through singing them the places are energised and “come to life”. There are songs for increase ceremonies, to attract a desired lover and to influence the behaviour of humans and other animals. There are songs to make rain and songs to cause drought. (e.g. Hume, 2002, p.94; Martin 1988, p.26, Strehlow, 1971)

Rules. Because of their power, songs are transmitted according to strict social rules.

Composers. Ceremonial songs are never considered the product of human composition. They are thought to be ancient, from the Dreaming and composed by the Dreaming ancestors. Songs are either handed down across intraphysical generations or are the result of revelations during projections in which intraphysical consciousnesses are given the songs by the extraphysical consciousnesses “from the Dreaming” (Poirier, 1996; Strehlow, 1971, p.260).

Repetition. Arguably, their repeated use over millennia has increased the bioenergetic charge of the words and actions in the same way as that of objects is increased through repeated use (psychometry).

Effects. That words and songs should have physical effects of the magnitude contemplated by Aboriginal traditions is not supported by conventional science. From a multidimensional perspective the source of their power could lie in:

1. their ability to produce energetic vibrations which have physical effects;
   
   
2. their ability to focus the consciential energies or thosenes of the speaker or singer on a desired outcome through the use of descriptive language; and perhaps more importantly
3. the fact that they are linked to certain extraphysical consciousnesses who are evoked and come to the assistance of the singers by means of their consciential energies or thosenes;

Objects

Tjurunga. Engraved stones and pieces of wood were used as ceremonial objects throughout Aboriginal Australia. Among the Arrernte speaking people of central Australia they are called tjurunga, and anthropologists often use that term generically.

Individual. Different ceremonies and different places in the landscape have their own individual objects, only brought from hiding at the appropriate time. Like the songs, these objects are considered the product, or even the embodiment, of the Dreaming ancestors (extraphysical consciousness).

Attention. During ceremonies, these objects are subject to close attention; they are handed from person to person with each individual consciously exchanging energies with the object. People will meditate on the objects and sing the appropriate ceremonial songs while contemplating them.

Reinforce. Like songs, the objects seem to function as a connector to extraphysical dimensions, and a way of tapping into an old and powerful source of consciential energies that has been reinforced over generations. These energies are channelled towards specific purposes according to the designated function of the ceremony with which the tjurunga is associated.

Water

Water. Most ceremonies involve sprinkling, splashing or diving into water. In some cases, participants spit. The sympathetic element is obvious; participants are seeking to replicate rainfall to attract or induce the real thing.

Summary. To summarise, a rainmaking ceremony is composed of a set of energetic, physical and mental actions designed to fully focus the consciential energies of the participating intra- and extraphysical consciousnesses. In some cases, the rainmakers use the more direct method of conscious projections to influence the weather from the extraphysical dimensions.

Serene. The Homo Sapiens Serenisimus does not require a ceremony to influence the weather. He or she does it directly through his or her holosoma. (Vieira, 1994).

The following account is of an experience I had more than 20 years ago, but its profound impact on my sense of self has resonated throughout my life since. You may have heard it said that we are not really human beings having spiritual experiences, that we are not really “going out of the body” in an OBE, but really that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. From that perspective this human life is one long "in-body-experience" of a consciousness whose real home is beyond the physical dimension.

The projection of consciousness I describe below made this idea very tangible for me. I truly came to experience my real self as something much vaster and expansive than the personality of my current life. At the same time I came away with a strong sense of the importance of not alienating myself from my current physical life by focusing too much on what I consider my real multidimensional identity. Even if I do not fully understand the purpose of my current life in the scheme of the vastness of existence that I glimpsed, I was given the understanding that the best thing I could do for my own evolution was to live a strongly integrated physical life. After all, that is why we are here. Embodying our consciousness in every aspect of our physical life is a task that can prove to be much more challenging than the pursuit of transcendent states. It is certainly a task that has challenged me ever since, as there always seem to be more areas of life to integrate and it is precisely these challenges that seem to make our lives such amazing opportunities for learning and growth.

​Background
 
To help with understanding the below account, I briefly give an outline of the way I have come to conceptualise our various out-of-body states. The picture below shows the different bodies we, as consciousnesses, use. Of course there is the physical body, which is our densest “vehicle of manifestation”, and consciousness uses it to manifest itself in this physical dimension. When we fall asleep, we normally separate ourselves from the physical body in a more subtle vehicle, designed for more subtle dimensions. This subtle body is known as the astral body, the spirit body, or in conscientiology as the psychosoma or emotional body. It looks pretty much like a replica of the physical body, although this appears to be more a result of our psychological conditioning rather than a fundamental quality of the psychosoma. In fact, the psychosoma is highly suggestible to our thoughts and emotions, and we are in theory able to completely change its appearance. But for the most part we go with what we are familiar with, shaping it from our subconscious according to our self-image.

Beyond the psychoma is the mentalsoma, or mental body. This body is very subtle, and basically formless. It still seems to consist of some kind of energy, but it does not share many other attributes that we normally associate with a “body”. As far as we know, consciousness is beyond the mentalsoma again. So the mentalsoma is another vehicle just like the physical body and the psychosoma. But because the mentalsoma is that much more subtle and that much closer to consciousness it gives us uniquely transcendental experiences. Projections in the mentalsoma are considerably rarer than in the psychosoma, and often accompanied by profound experiences described by terms such as cosmic consciousness, oneness, god experience and so on. This is the kind of experience I share here.

​What made this experience especially compelling for me, were the very tangible energetic phenomena that accompanied it and truly set it apart from other projections I have had. The projective experience itself was profound, but also extremely subtle. So the energetic phenomena provided personal corroboration that something out of the ordinary had truly happened.
 
The following text is as I wrote it down at the time with a few clarifying comments in brackets.

Pre-projective period
 
I was taking the second stage of a course in projective techniques at the IIPC’s office in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro. The course took place over four consecutive days from May 11-14, 1998. Ever since the course began I had noticed a difference in my nocturnal perceptions, with more lucid projective experiences. During the course itself, although I had had a sense of having been projected, so far I had not had any experiences I could recall. The last lesson was the technique of projecting with the mentalsoma. There had been three or four students in each of the previous classes but today I was alone with the instructor. (This seemed significant to me, because it felt I was getting special attention, not just from the physical instructor, but more importantly from the extraphysical team of helpers supporting the course)
I did not have any expectations and felt calm although with many thoughts relating to my daily life running through my mind. These continued even during the energetic exercises preceding the technique (Basic Mobilization of Energies, which consists of various mental exercises to move our energy (Chi or Qui) throughout our energetic body) . During the absorption of energies, the final exercise before starting the technique itself, I felt a lot of activity in the two superior chakras (frontal and crown) which seemed to form one single chakra, situated more or less half-way between the two. The inside of my head appeared to heat up from the inside out, starting from the pineal gland until the heat focussed itself on this midway point between the chakras. So far I had been sitting and now as I lay down this part of my body remained active. After being talked through the psycho-physiological relaxation (a deep muscle relaxation technique), I put all my attention into this energetic process, knowing (intuitively) that it was the “entrance” to the mentalsoma.
 
Projective period
 
There was no sense of “take off” whatsoever. It merely felt as if the body disappeared and instead, I found myself in a vast space, or rather it was I who was vastly spacious, expanded. This occurred without any great sense of ecstasy or even the feeling that this experience was in any way special. It simply felt like a change of environment or better of perception. I felt as if I was looking at my intraphysical life from the outside. From here I saw that all the hazards of life, and all those events which we might call “intrusions” are nothing other than energetic phenomena. This realization made me feel very calm. I wondered how they managed to appear so “real”.
I understood that I was not the person who was having the projection of the mentalsoma, but rather a mentalsoma who was having the experience of being an intraphysical being. In an inversion of the usual perception which sees the ‘I’ going from the intraphysical to engage in extraphysical experiences I saw that in relation to the infinity of the mentalsoma any experiences of the personality with which I was currently identifying myself were merely ephemeral phenomena. 
I attempted to understand how the intraphysical experiences of the intraphysical consciousness related to this timeless state of the mentalsoma, i.e. what is the meaning of life?, without succeeding, but also not really caring too much about the answer.
 
Post-projective period
 
I had no awareness of any interiorization and no sense of the time that might have passed. When my perception returned to the soma it was rigid, the hands were cold, and balls of hot energy were pulsating at the base of my spine as well as at the top of the head. Now the crown chakra was distinctly active. I spent another ten minutes or so lying there without moving until the instructor gave the command to return to intraphysicality (as the projection time was scheduled for 60 minutes, the whole experience would have lasted about 45 minutes). My mouth was dry and my body felt at the same time rigid and subtle.
The experience had energetic impacts which lasted at least for the subsequent two weeks during which I felt my holochakra expanded and my mind much calmer than usual. It was easy to reestablish an energetic connection with the recently experienced projection and this caused an increase of my intraphysical vibrations. Gradually this faded.
 
Observations
 
The experience gave me some insights into a problem I had pondered for a while. Why don’t we manage to live more from the perspective of the time-less mentalsoma during our day-to-day life? One possible explanation might be the great difference between its reality and our intraphysical needs. The perception of the mentalsoma, when pure or naked, without the interference of denser energies, is so far removed from the needs of our day to day that bringing it into our life would have to be learnt slowly. Put differently, the intraphysical consciousness must be trained to know its own reality without alienating itself from itself, i.e. causing mental imbalances. When healthily balanced however, experiences of the mentalsoma can have profoundly curative and life enhancing capacities as they allow the intraphysical consciousness to act in knowledge of its actual extraphysical origin, thus providing a source of inner freedom and happiness. 


(I have previously published this account on the IAC blog as well as in my book. I know when I first wrote it I felt it's revelatory impact spoke for itself. Reading it now, it actually seems very low key and probably a bit obscure if you have not had a similar experience. But if you have I'd love for you to share in the comments how it came about and how it impacted your life, and of course if you have any questions about it I'd also love those.)

One of the big challenges to a coherent discussion and universal understanding of consciousness is that we have such a wide diversity of experiences and very little “objective data”. Nobody has yet created a device that lets us objectively see and experience life after death or talk to consciousnesses without physical bodies ("dead people"), and at this point there is no way for most of us to access memories from our past lives. And so we find ourselves in a situation where people  have such different experiential backgrounds that it is difficult for them to have meaningful dialogues. Some people have experiences that leave them in no doubt that they will survive physical death, or have lived before. They are sure that they are communicating with “dead people" and that they have left their physical body in their psychosomatic (astral body). On the other hand, there are people who have had no experience to make them even question that there is anything beyond physical live. They are utterly convinced that this physical dimension and this particular life is all there is, and that people who are talking about their near-death-experiences or mediumship experiences are either deluded or even lying. And the fact that there are no objective measures for most of the experiences that relate to the non-physical manifestation of consciousness means that dishonesty and deceit can not be ruled out. 

If you take the disbelief principle seriously – don’t believe in anything, have your own experiences – then extreme scepticism of those who have not experienced themselves as separate from the physical body is a perfectly legitimate attitude.

I once worked with a man who had been clinically dead on 3 occasions, each time through a different traumatic accident. He recalled nothing at all from any of his periods of physical “death” and so for him the matters was clear: there is nothing after death! He had after all experienced it. This is a logical conclusion to come to. Of course, if we start thinking about things more deeply, we realise that just because we are not aware of experiencing something it does not mean nothing happened. Science tells us that we all dream, yet some people do not recall any dreams ever, while others can fill pages of detail with their dreams. So even if we do not recall dreams, we are inclined to accept that we must dream because science tells us that our brain measurements show this. Just as scientific research that brought us an understanding of the universality of dreams, there are also studies that mean we do not need to rely solely on our own personal experiences to become open to the possibility of non-physical consciousness. 

I readily admit that I am biased, as my ideas of the non-physical nature of consciousness are a result of my own experiences first and external study second. And I acknowledge that this will influence the way in which I read and interpret data. But to me the work of researchers like Charles Tart (The End of Materialism) and Victor Zammit (A Lawyer presents the evidence for the afterlife) is objectively compelling. While coming from quite different backgrounds (Tart is a psychologist and Zammit a lawyer) they both have forensic skills that they apply to compiling the data of many other researchers to strongly make the case that this data points to non-physical consciousness.
​

​One of the areas of research they both comment on in their books is the evidence for the fact that we have lived more than one life. In terms of mainstream research, this subject matter was originally studied in detail by Ian Stevenson, and upon his retirement by Jim Tucker, both psychiatrists. Cumulatively their work is now in the sixth decade and they have documented thousands of cases by children who remember being another person in a previous life. As part of their research, Stevenson and Tucker interview the child, parents and other significant people who witnessed the child recall his or her past life to get as much detail about their memories as possible. Then Stevenson and Tucker seek to verify the recalled information through research. In some cases, the child’s last life is so recent that the people they recall from it are still alive and able to corroborate details of the child’s account. Stevenson and Tucker's research also considers the fact that many of the children had unusual abilities, illnesses, phobias and philias which could not be explained by the environment or their heredity, but rational explanations for them could be found when the previous life was taken into consideration.
 
Because of the compelling nature of the data there are many summary accounts of it online and I do not intend to reproduce them here, but if you have not already seen the data I encourage you to have a look at the links below, or even go all out and read Tucker’s Life before Life: Children’s Memories of previous lives. 
 
John Cleese Interviews Dr. Jim Tucker re: DOPS Research into Children's Past Life Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aoew3jKMb4
 
6 Extraordinary Cases Of Kids Who Remember Their Past Lives
https://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/05/05/6-extraordinary-cases-of-kids-who-remember-their-past-lives/

The fact is though, that most of us do not recall our past lives, or if we do the memories are much more diffuse than those of the young children studied by Stevenson and Tucker. For most of us there are no specific names and actual street addresses. Instead we have inexplicable feelings, bodily sensations, movie like dreams, déjà vu experiences and moments of strange familiarity with people and places we have not encountered before. All of these experiences are much more readily dismissed as indicators of past lives on the basis of psychological explanations, than those of the children in the studies. And yet, much like the scientific studies into our dream lives, the implication of the studies by Stevenson and Tucker is precisely that we should not be dismissing our subtle and ambiguous experiences. If we follow the science, it invites the interpretation that past lives may be a significant part of what it means to be a consciousness in human form. If we are at least open to that possibility, it broadens our interpretive range by which we can understand the various subtle experiences and sensations I mentioned. And if we are not aware even of those experiences, a psychology based on the genuine acceptance of the possibility of past lives would still open entirely new avenues for understanding not only our individual character traits, but also our family and relationship dynamics. Because once we start to realise that we’ve all been here before, we can’t help but consider whether we have a shared history with those around us and how that may be affecting our relationships in the present. What if we are here to work things out with our family, our colleagues, our friends and neighbours and above all with ourselves? What if every encounter is an opportunity to rewrite old scripts and bring at least some more balance to any given relationship?  What if we can come to understand that many of our natural tendencies, life experiences and circumstances have a basis in a past we have forgotten? And if we know that we will be coming back, how may that motivate us to think ahead in this life time, as well as relax a bit into the greater spaciousness we now have? This kind of awareness can open new avenues of understanding and acceptance, as well as a more expansive sense of being involved in a larger project of communal healing and reconciliation. 

​​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