CONSCIOUSNESS BEYOND THE BODY EVIDENCE AND REFLECTIONS ALEXANDER DE FOE EDITOR Melbourne Centre for Exceptional Human Potential http://exceptionalpotential.com.au/ CONSCIOUSNESS BEYOND THE BODY: EVIDENCE AND REFLECTIONS ISBN: 0646950223 Published in 2016 as a digital edition pdf Melbourne Centre for Exceptional Human Potential Australia Direct enquiries can be made to the publisher at: [email protected] Copyright © 2016: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Cover design by Jurgen Ziewe Open Access: This pdf may be freely distributed. The copyright license specified enables re-sharing of this document provided its contents remain as presented and unaltered. You may not sell or make a profit from the contents herein. 2 “This remarkable book serves as a metaphor for the current status of this enigmatic field – the efforts of psi researchers to transcend and expand mainstream understandings of living systems. ‘Consciousness Beyond the Body’ is unlike anything I have read in the parapsychological literature and it is especially needed in order to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of OBEs.” – Professor Alejandro Parra, Ph.D., Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Abierta Interamericana “It is a rare pleasure to read a book on the out-of-body state from a variety of different perspectives by experts in the field. ‘Consciousness Beyond the Body’ not only shows how collaboration between renowned authors is possible, it also provides an exciting glimpse at what such a collaboration can accomplish. From theory to practice and controversies, ‘Consciousness Beyond the Body’ provides a rich and up-to-date account of out-of-body states. Anyone with an interest in these mystifying, yet universal experiences, will find this book of great value. I highly recommend it!” – Frederick Aardema, Ph.D., Research Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal “Having spent a considerable amount of my time personally researching the OBE studies of Karlis Osis and Alex Tanous, I can thoroughly appreciate the depths and complexities of studying such phenomena. The evidence on the whole suggests that perhaps these experiences are not purely internal processes. While in an OBE, in some cases, it appears that information is obtained by some aspect of consciousness leaving the body – information of which the percipient would not have otherwise known about by using conventional sensory means. ‘Consciousness Beyond the Body’ is a welcomed anthology of varying contemporary research on the out-of-body state and first hand experiences, which I believe will be great use to scholars and students of today.” – Callum E. Cooper, Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes, University of Northampton 3 CONTENTS Opening Remarks, Natasha Tassell-Matamua .................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction, Alexander De Foe ........................................................................................................................................... 11 Section I: Theories of the Out-of-Body Experience ...................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 1: What is an Out-of-Body Experience?, Nelson Abreu .....................................................................................................17 Chapter 2: There is Much More to Us than Meets the Eye, Luis Minero ......................................................................................32 Chapter 3: Out-of-Body Experiences and Lucid Dreams: A Phenomenological Approach, Ed Kellogg ..........................43 Chapter 4: Towards an Evolutionary Psychology of Out-of-Body Experiences, Ryan Hurd .................................................56 Section II: Evidence for Verifiable Out-of-Body Travel ................................................................................................ 70 Chapter 5: Does the Soul Leave the Body?, Robert Peterson ...........................................................................................................71 Chapter 6: The Case for Anecdotal Evidence, Preston Dennett .......................................................................................................85 Chapter 7: Out-of-body Experiences and Non-Local Perception, Graham Nicholls ............................................................ 100 Chapter 8: Challenges in Obtaining Verifiable Data during Out-of-Body-Experiences, Jurgen Ziewe......................... 116 Section III: Personal Benefits of Out-of-Body Exploration ...................................................................................... 129 Chapter 9: Surfing the Rainbow: Fearless and Creative Out-of-Body Experiences, Clare R Johnson ............................ 130 Chapter 10: A Practical Progression from Lucid Dream to Out-of-Body States, Robert Waggoner ............................. 143 Chapter 11: Healing in the Astral Worlds, Preston Dennett ........................................................................................................... 154 Chapter 12: A New Emergence of Consciousness, Alexander De Foe........................................................................................ 165 Conclusion, Alexander De Foe ........................................................................................................................................... 177 Closing Remarks, Anthony Peake ..................................................................................................................................... 184 Appendices ............................................................................................................................................................................... 189 Appendix A: Future Research Directions ................................................................................................................................................. 190 Appendix B: About the Authors .................................................................................................................................................................. 195 4 TABLES Table 1. Incidence of OBEs. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................19 Table 2. Characteristics of OBEs and LDs based on personal observations. ........................................................................................................53 FIGURES Figure 1. The damage and repairs outside the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral taken shortly after the OBE. ......................................... 103 Figure 2. According to Sam Parnia, this is the only remaining example of a ‘sign’ from the AWARE study (source: ‘The Times’). ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 108 Figure 3. The visible light spectrum violet through to red with the filters marked below in-line with the band of colour they represent. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 113 Figure 4. The shell represents the physical body and the seabed the physical world. The air bubble represents the projected subtle energy body and the area above the sea the higher dimensional counter part. As the OBE body is composed of the energy of the higher dimension its natural attraction is towards it and it passes very quickly from one dimension to the next, like an air bubble would find the quickest way to the surface and into the air. My theory is that only in exceptional circumstances is it possible for the air bubble (the finer energy double) to remain suspended in the water (the physical dimension). It will nearly always zoom towards its natural energetic condition, except where attention still employs the sensory organs of the near physical energy body, as during anaesthetics or immediately after a drowning or accident. Most people confuse the next dimensional counter part with the physical because at first sight it appears identical until we begin to notice subtle differences. ............................................................ 120 Figure 5. Four different experiences of disembodiment. Note: original body position is highlighted in yellow; newly perceived self-location is highlighted in blue. Top-left: a traditional OBE may be represented by a person floating above the physical body, sometimes with the sense of embodiment in a secondary body. Top-right: Ehrsson’s ‘Out-of-Body Illusion’, in which a person perceives themselves standing behind their body via a camera lens connected to a head- set. Bottom-left: distributed embodiment. Bottom-right: partial disembodiment may occur in OBEs in particular limbs or body regions. .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 167 Figure 6. Google Cardboard can create the three-dimensional experience of virtual reality by using a very simple goggle setup with the use of a smart