Introduction
by Robert Bruce

Welcome to Mastering Astral Projection!  This book is devoted to teaching you how to have a fully conscious astral projection (also called out-of-body experience or OBE).  It focuses on practical OBE exit training and advice, rather than on covering everything relating to the history, speculation and practice of astral travel.

My first book, Astral Dynamics: a NEW approach to OBE (Hampton Roads, VA, 1999) covered not only projection training and OBE exit techniques, but also many related issues, phenomena and theory associated with astral travel.  During the latter stages of writing Astral Dynamics, it was clear that I needed to include a practical training program, to help readers apply the information I was giving in a step-by-step and goal-oriented way.  But given the eventual size of Astral Dynamics (560 pages), such a weighty addition was impractical.  A few chapters had already been cut to save space.

After Astral Dynamics was published, I received many requests for an OBE training program.  One of my readers, Brian Mercer, a computer programmer, writer and OBE aficionado in the USA, sent me the bones of such a program.  He had developed this for his personal use, offering me a copy out of courtesy.  After studying Brian’s 90-day program, I uploaded it to my website and made it available to the public online.  This quickly became popular and resulted in a lot of constructive feedback.  I passed the feedback along to Brian, plus my own ideas for improvements, and he revised and fine-tuned it accordingly.

It soon became obvious that we were building the foundations of a valuable OBE training manual.  Brian and I soon became good friends.  Following my instincts, I invited Brian to coauthor a book with me, the book you are now holding, Mastering Astral Projection.

In the months that followed we discussed the theme and content of Mastering Astral Projection at great length.  We recognized that an old hand like me and a keen novice like Brian teaming up as OBE teachers would create a winning combination of knowledge, experience, and priceless enthusiasm.  I am not really a fair test subject for any kind of OBE training program, as I have way too much firsthand experience.  Brian, however, was a well-read novice with little actual OBE experience.  He was not one of those fortunate few who can easily induce an OBE.  At this time Brian had tried for many years, but with only enough success to fire his continuing interest.

Brian road tested each section of the program repeatedly.  He put in time and enthusiastic effort, as I watched for problems and worked on solutions.  Together we fine-tuned the methodology of the program for optimal results.  During this process we gained a profound understanding of the numerous problems that beset novice projectors and came up with many new and innovative solutions.  We also began researching and experimenting with helpful technologies, such as light and sound machines and audio devices that help induce altered states of consciousness.  We wanted to include everything that could possibly help projectors.

The structure of this 90-day program is simple.  Information and instructions are given in bite-sized chunks, while readers follow a progressive series of OBE-related exercises.  Only enough instruction and theory are given at any one time to provide context to the work at hand.   Basic skills like deep relaxation, clearing the mind, concentration and energy body stimulation are taught first, and then a variety of OBE exit techniques are introduced, one at a time.  Advice and tips from Brian and me are given every day of the program, as students practice and develop their skills.  Common problems are identified and solved along the way.  Extensive problem solving sections are included.

Each week begins with a new case history to familiarize readers with OBE and to fire their expectations.  A chapter introducing the required information for that week’s activities follows.  Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter.  Summary and review sections are given at the end of each week.  By the end of the program, readers will know and will have practiced everything required to wake induce an OBE exit.  After that it is just a matter of patience and practice.

Projecting out of body requires a delicate balance of mind, body and spirit.  Everyone is different and the time it takes to achieve this balance varies greatly from person to person.  Some people take to OBE like a duck to water, whereas others have to practice harder to achieve results.  This program levels the playing field with structured training and experiential advice.  Everyone following it has an even chance of getting out of body.

Throughout the 90-day program we release new information that has been found to help induce the OBE exit.  An example of this is my Slight Discomfort theory.  In a nutshell, a very slight level of discomfort helps the physical body/mind stay more closely connected with itself, and with its projected double during an OBE.  This makes it easier to download and recall OBE memories.  After all, without the memory of an OBE after the fact, it might as well not have happened.  Everything that helps students retain their precious OBE memories must be recognized and used.

An unavoidable side effect of this program is that it can cause the development of psychic abilities.  This is understandable, as learning to induce an OBE requires training that can be applied to any other metaphysical pursuit.  Our program contains extensive energy body stimulation work and, combined with deep relaxation, mind taming, and induced altered states of consciousness, dormant psychic abilities will begin to manifest.

I wish you the very best luck as you begin our 90-day training program.  Astral projection might seem a giant leap for you now, but taken one step at a time it is not nearly as daunting as it appears.  I suppose this is a bit like eating an elephant.  If one looks at a whole elephant, the task of eating it all seems preposterous.  But once the elephant has been reduced to frozen TV-dinner-sized portions, such a task would seem far more achievable.  One might be eating elephant for a very long time, but success will always be in sight at the bottom of one’s proverbial freezer.

Introduction
by Brian Mercer

It can be easy when going about mundane, everyday tasks—working, eating lunch, driving to the store—to be lulled into thinking that the world we can see and touch is the only thing there is.  On this planet of exponentially evolving science and technology, the notion of having a soul, of life after death, seems almost anachronistic. Healthy skepticism is a good thing; essential.  Yet occasionally something very personal happens to make us question.  Is there more to my existence than I can readily observe?  What happens to people when their bodies are used up?  Is there a greater purpose for my being here?

We can have complete faith in our belief system, whether that is science or atheism or some form of religion or spirituality, yet in the end they are only beliefs.  What do we really know?  In the absence of the known, we are left with its poor cousins, assumption and conjecture.  We can say what we don’t know, perhaps, but for want of tangible answers we are only left to ponder.

Even when we read about competent, respected people having out-of-body or near-death experiences, it can still seem a little implausible.  If we accept these accounts, in the final analysis, it is still just a belief.  With something like this, you can’t really know until you’ve experienced it yourself, and that’s what this book is all about.

This is the moment to lay beliefs aside and to do, to find out for yourself who you truly are and what this reality is all about.  Not just reading about it, not just hearing people talk about it, but knowing it and doing it. The survival of the soul: Are we more than these fragile, fleshy shells?

The exercises and techniques in this book work.  I’ve always been interested in astral travel and since high school have tried dozens of methods for fueling an out-of-body experience.  At first I experimented with hypnosis recordings, but received little more than pleasant relaxation sessions for my efforts.  A powerful dream one summer in college led me to explore lucid dream induced OBEs, but I was discouraged by this method’s hit-and-miss results and how often dream elements imposed themselves on the experience.  Since then I have explored dozens of books and recordings promising an out-of-body experience, yet I’d only advanced a few steps toward a true understanding of larger realities.

After all this, I achieved noticeable results the first time I tried the techniques in Robert Bruce’s book about out-of-body experiences, Astral Dynamics, from which this program germinated.  The aspect I loved most about the program was that, from the beginning, I received daily validation that there is something to astral travel.  I learned very quickly that one does not need to have a full-blown out-of-body experience to develop a profound understanding that we are spiritual beings inhabiting physical bodies.

When I finished Astral Dynamics I immediately organized a comprehensive, progressive program that I could more easily learn and implement.  I emailed what I’d done to Robert Bruce and, with suggestions from him and his friends, I created an electronic version of the program, an amalgamation of a day planner, journal and Astral Dynamics reference manual.  Robert posted the program on his web site, which allowed me to receive even more feedback.  Before long, Robert and I recognized that a guidebook was evolving, something that might help many other people experience the out-of-body state.  This book is the result.

Mastering Astral Projection is the book I wish I had had when my interest in out-of-body exploration started all those years ago. The amazing journey that awaits you is something you must experience to understand.  I promise, if you follow the blueprint laid out in these pages, you will know a great deal more about yourself than when you started. But like any great journey, it all begins with that first step.

Preliminary Instructions for the 90-day Program

What you hold before you is a hands-on, step-by-step manual for learning how to have an out-of-body experience (OBE).  It provides a systematic approach for astral projecting out of your body in a fully awake state.

The exercises in this program are largely based on the New Energy Ways (NEW) system of raising and simulating personal energy.  This method uses body-awareness movements for conscious and direct manipulation of one’s energy body.  The NEW system is easy to understand and learn.  Anyone can do it. 

The CD that accompanies this book is a supplementary aid for this training manual.  It contains a PC program called the BrainWave Generator.  The BrainWave Generator is an advanced artificial aid for inducing deep physical relaxation, stimulating altered states of consciousness and creating the perfect state for inducing an OBE.  This is not essential for this program’s success but is an added extra.  

The version of the BrainWave Generator included on this CD includes 25 custom “presets” designed especially for this 90-day program.  You will be introduced to at least one new preset per week, including 7 presets specially developed for astral projection. 

We designed this 90-day program so that it was:

• Specific and easy to understand.
  

• Comprehensive and goal-oriented.
  

• Flexible and easy to apply.
  

• Fear eliminating through small, gradual steps.
  

• Progressive with measurable results.
  

In short, our program makes OBE more accessible to those uninitiated in the process. This book represents our continued efforts to hone an ideal astral projection program, one that will help newcomers understand the key elements of the process while avoiding common pitfalls.  The idea is that for 90 days you will commit to spending a set amount of spare time applying this program.  We supply the tools and you supply the enthusiasm and stick-to-itiveness.

Achieving a conscious exit out-of-body experience is not as complicated as it may seem at the outset.  It is primarily about focusing your thoughts, harnessing your will and overcoming your fears.  It is also about learning to relax your body to new levels, honing your ability to remain awake and lucid as your physical body falls asleep, and balancing all this to achieve the desired result.  Perhaps most importantly, it is about cultivating your ability to remember altered state experiences.  OBE memories are just as elusive as dream memories.  Because of this, it does not matter how quickly you learn to have an OBE or how often you have one.  If you do not remember them, it is as if you have never had them.

Learning to project out of body is also about courage and mastering one’s natural fear of the unknown.  It is one thing when OBE is just theory, something you read and talk about and would like to try.  But it can be altogether different when you start experiencing what can be rather intense OBE exit symptoms and find yourself suddenly slipping out of your body.  All at once OBE is not just theory.  Early experiences can be quite intimidating, if you are not completely prepared and know what to expect.  It takes courage to go that final distance, but the rewards of facing and overcoming your fears can scarcely be put into words.

Learning conscious exit astral projection takes persistence.  Like learning a sport or playing a new instrument, it takes time to master the fundamentals before you are good enough to perform well.  Some people manage to project during their very first effort.  For others it takes more perseverance.  Sometimes ultimate success requires dogged, long-term determination.

In this course we will be primarily focusing on the skills necessary for having an out-of-body experience, with less emphasis on theory unless it is necessary for understanding and applying the daily exercises.  There are a number of fine books on the market that attempt to explain the complexities of OBE theory.  But because there is so much ground to cover, this program focuses on training students to achieve the actual OBE exit. 

We have included a recommended astral projection reading list in Appendix A: Suggested Supplemental Reading List.  We suggest you read at least one of these books while you are following this 90-day program, especially one containing case histories.  In addition to helping you better understand OBE, it is important to saturate your brain with the subject matter.  This helps program all levels of your mind and body towards achieving an out-of-body experience.

What you read prior to falling asleep affects the theme and content of your dreams.  For example, read a horror novel and you may have bad dreams; read about romance and you may have romantic dreams; read about OBE and you may have OBE flying dreams.  All dreams aside, pre-sleep reading can generate out-of-body experiences because you have OBE on your mind, consciously or subconsciously, while you are falling asleep. 

Everyone has some type of out-of-body experience whenever they sleep, even if the projected double just slips out and hovers, mimicking the sleeping physical body.  If the dream-mind is infused with thoughts and tales of OBE, waking consciousness will sometimes return to the projected double.  You may find yourself waking up already outside your physical body or having a false awakening.  (A false awakening is where you believe you are awake in the real world but are actually having an OBE).  For these reasons, it is advisable to read about OBE during this program, especially before sleeping.

A word about skipping ahead and prematurely trying some of the later exercises in this program: DON’T!  If you have read other books on OBE, particularly Robert Bruce’s Astral Dynamics, you will already have been exposed to some of the exercises and techniques contained herein.  But there is definitely an effective order in which this program should be followed.  Early attempts at advanced exercises before mastering “the basics” may create mental blocks that can grossly interfere with the ultimate purpose of this program.  Brian (coauthor of this book) discovered this first-hand in the following experience.

“I had for some time been trying to have an OBE, using a mishmash of techniques, when I first stumbled across Robert’s book, Astral Dynamics.  I skipped ahead and read some of the more advanced exercises on my lunch hour and couldn’t wait to experiment.  As soon as I returned home, I lay down and tried an OBE exit technique without even relaxing properly.  I immediately felt my body turn to liquid as huge waves of my energy ran up and down from my head to my feet and past the borders of my physical body.  I suddenly found myself instinctively holding on, trying with all my power NOT to project.  I had tried the exercises too soon; I simply wasn’t ready.  In all the collective years that I’d been experimenting with different processes, I’d never experienced anything so powerful so fast.  The effect of this failed experiment and its resulting trauma was that I developed a gut-level response to abort the projection process once it started.  It took me years to undo that simple, five-minute experiment.”

There is a lot to this program.  It has been designed to be consumed in small bites so as not to overwhelm students with too much information at one time.  For best results, focus all your efforts on each week’s material and exercises.  This is not to say you cannot peek ahead to see what is coming, only that you should avoid getting too involved in what’s ahead.  Please do not let your enthusiasm go to waste, however.  Pick up something on the reading list from Appendix A and immerse yourself!

How the 90-Day Program Develops 

This program is divided into thirteen chapters; one new chapter of material should be read per week.  The first half of each chapter contains information necessary for completing that week’s exercises.  This includes special instructions, background information, diagrams, and relevant tips.  Each chapter also includes directions for using the BrainWave Generator, the computer program on the CD that accompanies this book.

The BrainWave Generator is a computer program that generates sounds to induce altered states of consciousness.  Use of the BrainWave Generator is optional; it is definitely not required for this program to be effective.  However, it can help enormously.  When used with headphones, the BrainWave Generator is capable of helping users relax, meditate, and induce altered states of consciousness ideal for OBE.  When used with “Light and Sound Machines”, which add light goggles into the mix, the BrainWave Generator becomes an even more powerful OBE aid.  (For more details, see Appendix B: BrainWave Generator: Installation Guide and Helpful Tips.)

The second part of each chapter consists of a day planner style calendar that includes:

• Daily Tasks:  A list of OBE program-related activities, divided into morning, daytime and evening “To Do’s”.

• Affirmations:  Short, present-tense positive statements help program you for OBE success.  Daily affirmations are used during waking hours.  Nightly affirmations are used as you drift off to sleep.

• Daily Exercises:  Step-by-step instructions on how to complete each day’s exercises (mind taming, breathwork, energy work, OBE exit methods).

• Author Comments:  Advice from both expert and novice perspectives.

• Journaling Space:  A place to write down your progress, make observations and catalogue your OBE-related experiences.

The 90-day program itself is divided into two distinct parts.

Part 1 (Weeks 1 – 6) focuses on learning core skills associated with OBE.  Primarily it’s about learning to relax, how to breathe, and how to keep your mind clear of intruding thoughts.  It’s also about developing your energy body, which greatly aids the OBE exit process.  Key, too, is training your ability to recapture what we call “shadow memories”, those dream-like OBE memories that you bring back with you from your astral travels. 

Part 2 (Weeks 7 – 13) focuses on OBE exit training.  During this part of the program we will introduce you to a number of proven techniques for achieving OBE.  We also introduce ways of overcoming key fears and how to adjust your mindset for best results.  More importantly, we give advice for setting up conditions that are most favorable for OBE, discuss common roadblocks and offer solutions.  We also provide some advanced projection inducing techniques for the OBE challenged.

The idea is that you will be spending the next 90 days eating, sleeping and breathing this training program.  But this course is flexible, so do not feel constrained by its Monday through Sunday schedule.  If you need to take longer for a given day’s exercises, you can always take more time.  The weekly format and the task schedule are guidelines only.  It can be reworked to accommodate your needs.  You can extend the 90 days into 100 days or 110 days or 120 days.  The important thing is not to feel rushed so you learn everything well.  However, the reverse does not apply, unless you already have the prerequisite basic skills.

Part 1: Preparations for Liftoff – What to Expect

Part 1 of Mastering Astral Projection focuses on basic training, on teaching the core skills necessary to achieve conscious exit projection.  Each day there will be an exercise or a series of exercises that will take you through one or more of the core skills.  The steps for an entire technique are not always given all at once.  For example, on Monday of Week 1 you will learn the first few steps of a deep physical relaxation routine.  On Tuesday, you’ll learn the next few steps, and so on, until by the end of the week you are well-versed in the entire routine.  This lets you get comfortable with each part of an exercise before moving on to the next part.  It also allows you to memorize a few small steps each day, rather than trying to digest the whole thing in one sitting.

The first six weeks of the program will cover the following core skills:

Breathing:  An ancient way to increase the flow of subtle energy and vitality through the body is by using breathing techniques.  The breathing exercises employed herein have been designed to start simply and continue in small, incremental steps.  If the core OBE skills were a tree, the breath would be the trunk from which the branches of all other skills grew.  Deep physical relaxation, clearing the mind, energy body stimulation, and the trance state, are all intimately associated with the proper flow of breath and energy.

Deep Physical Relaxation:  Deep physical relaxation involves more than just sitting back and willing your body to relax.  The method given herein involves contracting and relaxing specific muscle groups to progressively relax your whole physical body.  Without deep physical relaxation, all the core skills that follow are useless.  In order to project you must be deeply relaxed, physically and mentally.

Shadow Memory Recall:  This is key to successful OBE.  You will need to be able to download your OBE memories in order to recall and realize them.  The ability to remember your dreams is the first step toward remembering your out-of-body experiences.  We give techniques to help you remember dreams and to capture the shadow memories from your projectable double, so they are successfully transferred to recallable levels of your physical brain/mind after an OBE.

Energy Body Stimulation:  One of the most profound exercises for discovering that you are more than just physical matter are the revolutionary methods for simulating your energy body that are given herein.  Throughout one’s life, due to a variety of factors, one accumulates energy blockages.  The energy techniques provided here allow you to heal these and increase your flow of personal energy.

Quieting the Mind:  Where your attention goes so too does your energy.  The ability to clear your mind of internal dialogue and maintain a calm perspective is critical to astral projection, in order to remain composed and in control during and after an OBE exit.  For the average person, stilling the mind can be quite a challenge.  But the techniques provided here are introduced in easy, progressive steps.  Anyone can learn how to do this with a little regular practice.

Primary Energy Center Stimulation:  Primary energy centers (also called “Chakras”) can be thought of as gateways between the physical body, the energy body, and the projected double in the OBE state.  The main purpose of energy body stimulation exercises is to prepare you for the higher flow of energy that both allows and accompanies the OBE exit.  The purpose for stimulating the primary centers is to open the floodgates through which that higher level of energy can flow.

The Trance State:   “Trance” states are altered states of consciousness.  The basic trance state occurs when your physical body goes to sleep while your mind remains awake and lucid.  There are varying degrees of sleep, with corresponding levels of trance.  Deep physical relaxation and the ability to hold your mind awake and clear are prerequisites for entering trance states.

Energy Body Loosening:  There are ways to stimulate your energy body that prepare it for projection.  Energy body loosening is one of the final steps in preparation for employing OBE exit techniques.