Various cultures have recorded out of body travel, including the ancient Egyptians. Kha is the word they used to describe the soul or astral body, while they also included images of the astral body as if hovering just above or even beyond the physical body. The astral body was depicted as a haloed, airy translucent being.
In their fascination of the astral body these ancient people used various methods of controlling their ability of out of body travels to other planes of space and time, all the while their physical body stayed put. It is possible that practising astral projection, they learned the secret skills needed to build the ancient pyramids using the materials they already had. Even today scientists are baffled as to the construction of the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians.
It's recorded that meditation, nearly to the point of sleep, was the first component of out of body travel for the ancient Egyptians, followed by then concentrating on nothing but the visions one sees while his or her eyes were closed. Often, flashes of lights and patterns appeared, which the ancient Egyptians attributed to the beginnings of the astral body's journey to other planes of time and space.
When this state passed, the astral body was said to then enter into an emergence phase, which in turn caused the physical body to hum or tingle and then feel very heavy. The ancients believed this feeling of tingling and heaviness was actually the feeling of the astral body pulling away from the physical body, and initiating the out of body journey into the unknown.
The techniques for accomplishing this varied, but the most common practice seemed to be to simply "walk" out of oneself, beginning through the mind's eye, followed then by the shoulders and chest, hips, legs, knees, and finally the feet until there were two entities - a physical body and the astral body.
This separating of bodies, then allowed the astral body to pass freely through solid objects, it could also hover and fly about without being effected by the lack of oxygen or changes in the atmosphere.
Examples of out of body travel is also recorded by the ancient Greeks. They simply expanded on the state induced by meditation according to the ancient Egyptians. They also recorded out of body experiences that were caused by various types of mental or physical trauma. Plutarch of Queroneia an ancient historian mentions a person named Arisdeu after suffering from a blunt head trauma, which occurred by falling and who then slipped into a three day coma.
At this time, Arisdeu tells of the ability to see his physical body laying on the ground yet he was free to move around without it. In astral form he tells of his ability of out of body travel to go to places that were not conceivable. He was met by his spirit guide while in astral form. His spirit guide assisted and advised him concerning astral travel in other existing astral planes.
Although, he was eventually pulled back into his physical body, while in his altered state he did learn and explore. Once returning to his physical body, he did spend the rest of his life using the knowledge he found during the time of his out of body experience.
Other ancient cultures recorded their findings of out of body travel similar to that of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. For instance, the history of the Native Americans includes various full accounts of such happenings to their people as well. Their accounts include the meeting of their spirit guides and totem spirit animals. These entities also advised them concerning the astral plane and the astral body. For centuries, the Native Americans have used specific plants for burning and inhaling in order to relax the mind to the point of being more receptive to out of body travel on the astral planes.
The human body has the ability to explore different horizons of time and space. This has been recorded since the beginning of time. We are able to channel our consciousness into a spiritual body. However, many modern individuals have forgotten this wonderfully natural gift. Many have forgotten how to alter our consciousness to the point that we can release it from the confines of our physical limitations. However, with practice we can join with our spiritual guides and self on the higher planes of existence.
The door is within each of us, we simply need to remember how to reconnect with the higher more spiritual side so that we are once more about to journey out of body to those higher planes. The possibilities are unlimited. It is a natural process and once we rediscover this inside ourselves we can gain in the potentials of understanding our higher self.
