The Difference

New Magician Help & Introductions
1

Between mental/astral travel and imagination.

I have personally done the “fake it till you make it” method, but upon rereading some of Uncle Chuckie’s works, like Psionic Warfare, I realize he doesn’t set a boundary between the astral and the imagination. I am aware of the third person scenes as being imagination, but what of the “fake it” travels? Is that really traveling, accomplishing these things, or is it but an exercise of the imagination?

What, in your opinion, is the difference?

Stride forth,
-Sev

2

Get a partner. Agree that the two of you will meet on the Astral for a little chit chat. Actually a very small chit chat. Your partner is going to give you a word, just one.

Here is the requirement for the word. It has to be easy to remember, but be uncommon. Something you are unlikely to think up yourself. “Car” does not work but something like “Studebaker” does.

The next day contact your partner and tell them the word. If they confirm it, congratulations…if not, well ya got more work to do.

Repeat until you can go for two weeks without missing a word.

3

Will do. Thanks for the testing idea, might use that for more than just this.

4

It’s all the same place, the difference is how you access and process the information contained in that place. I’d say different realms describe different methods to access the same place rather than actual different physical locations.

[quote=“Orismen, post:2, topic:2909”]Get a partner. Agree that the two of you will meet on the Astral for a little chit chat. Actually a very small chit chat. Your partner is going to give you a word, just one.

Here is the requirement for the word. It has to be easy to remember, but be uncommon. Something you are unlikely to think up yourself. “Car” does not work but something like “Studebaker” does.

The next day contact your partner and tell them the word. If they confirm it, congratulations…if not, well ya got more work to do.

Repeat until you can go for two weeks without missing a word.[/quote]

That doesn’t work, words mean different things to different people. The ideas you’re trying to express with one word might be called something completely different to someone else. That word gets processed at the archetypal level. It could yield passwords ranging from “car” to “station wagon”, especially among those too young to know what a studebaker is.

You can’t expect the other person is seeing and hearing exactly what you are. There will be differences when you compare notes. Differences that are sort of the same.

5

I’d always done both imaginary stuff and astral travelling, with mixed results, and then when I studied core shamanism (where this question comes up a LOT) I found the difference was clear when working for other people, to heal them and to bring back info. That method gave me a structure and paradigm that permanently erased doubt once and for all.

It’s one thing to go into the astral and slay a horrible entity, another thing when you journey for someone who’s come to you with various problems, and you do the journey then you describe how that entity was ringing a bell all the time and coughing, and they say that sounds just like their horrible aunt who was an invalid who ruled the family from her sickbed, and made everyone live in fear.

I’ve anonymised that example a bit by changing details, but that’s the kind of symbolism that you get where there’s no doubt you’re seeing real stuff, and when the person reports that their problems got better or disappeared afterwards, then you know you’re really affecting the “real” world.

Healing isn’t always the go-to choice for black magicians but it’s a great way to build power and start learning what’s on the astral that’s just for you, and what’s going to make concrete changes in this reality.

It’s usually easier to mend people than destroy them using those methods, I think the general rule of the universe is for more life, not less, and even the most “everyday joe” kind of person will have guardians, ancestors and even godforms watching out for his welfare.

Even the “darkness channel” I discovered working with Ahriman was forms striving towards existance, and we can see this on the material level as well - leave a piece of bread out and mold will grow and flourish on it, cement over a yard and weeds will grow through the cracks, life’s kind of a cosmic law on its own in my experience.

In the case I based my example on, I healed the relative who was malignantly blighting people’s lives because that’s usually easier and more effective, and more beneficial to the surviving family, than any other option.

This answer is about how I did it - other people are bound to have different opinions and experiences.

6

I quite dont understand.

For months you talk to us about your war stories in the astral and how you spend all your time soul traveling and now you ask what is the difference between astral/mental travel and imagination ?

7

[quote=“The Eye, post:6, topic:2909”]I quite dont understand.

For months you talk to us about your war stories in the astral and how you spend all your time soul traveling and now you ask what is the difference between astral/mental travel and imagination ?[/quote]

I don’t see why this is a weird question. He’s asking if there is merit to imagination and if it is linked to mental and astral travel. Just because a person can travel doesn’t mean that they would automatically know the difference, if any, between imagining and mental travel.

8

when I Read his posts, it seemed to me that Sevarn was a very skilled projector (spending all his time in those planes, eating planets, killing angels and spirits etc), hence my surprise.

9

I don’t soul travel/AP at the moment so forgive my ignorance. I was under the impression that AP was a conscious act, while done in a deep relaxed state. Wouldn’t being in a conscious state allow one to know which is which? Not trying to break balls, I’m genuinely asking.

When I was doing the waking lucid dreaming practices I had some interesting occurance and met some “entities” that showed me things and taught me some things. I was unsure how much was imagination and how much was lucid contact. I can see the lines blurring much easier in this method as one is on the verge of sleep and then once in a dream state takes control of the dream.

10

In my understanding of this, because astral travel to realms that exist in spirit-form alone was one of the earliest methods I used as a kid and I then trained in the core shamanic version, it’s not so much “either/or” as a sliding scale: and it’s not a relaxed state so much as an altered state, which is why repetitive drumming is used by some people, or herbs, and with practice or innate ability, some people use none of those things to get into that state.

Some of the things one encounters will be connected to you, and only you, but they will be meaningful and important, others will be able to materially affect other people through their own own astral “roots” so to speak, so it becomes possible to heal someone by astrally treating the stuff that you see, if that’s your intent.

This btw includes if they don’t know or don’t believe in what you’re doing, and they can be on the other side of the planet, those things make no difference in my experience, but you can be limited if their “higher self” for some reason wants them to continue to remain sick, or to die.

The value of core shamanism is that it gives you a framework for astral travel and the downside is that it’s taught mainly by white-light people, so you have to see past that in order to progress to a full flourishing of your abilities.

11

Apologies, a better thing to say would’ve been along the lines of: “What’s the difference between feeling it and seeing it?”

When I combine both of the two, I know I am projecting. My question was more along the lines of whether or not these two separate components: the seeing, like one does if one is imagining, and the feeling, like you’re actually projecting, if one does one and not the other if that still counts as a projection.

Because if it does, then there is a very easy way to project that I just discovered.