What allows our natural development is energy dedicated to it, undistracted goals, freedom from tension and anxiety, and absence of addictive behaviours taking energy away from that goal. The biggest block to mastering astral projection and other metaphysical arts in modern society is addiction. Addictions form strong eggregores or larvae which keep compelling you to repeat the same behaviour while feeding off your vital energy. This drains away the metaphysical energy you need to succeed in your practices. Most spiritual people avoid common addictions such as alcohol, food, smoking, porn, etc, but the greatest modern addiction is to the internet, particularly social media. 

As the internet robots analyse online activity and respond in a way that draws most user time, social media naturally becomes more and more addictive. It ends up taking a great deal of your energy. Observe how much compulsion you feel to go back to it, keep up on messages, etc, even though they have no real use in your life. This is a strong addiction that devours a lot of your energy. Spiritual practices become secondary to something unimportant. The addiction draws you back to the social media, so you no longer have that easy, natural drive to meditate and do your other spiritual or magickal practices. The mind has been drawn out of its deeper brain waves, and you are no longer in a proper meditative state when you practice.

Practising this regularly will build a positive energy of gratitude that will open doors to attract what you want, as long as you also build value.

The goal of Tantra is to develop the Siddhi’s, or occult powers. This is accompanied by the rising of the kundalini. Many of the practices are for awakening kundalini, and there are series of dikshas (spiritual empowerments) to achieve this faster. There is Candali or Gtummo, which raises kundalini in safe stages, Metaram, which opens and clears the shushumni channel so the kundalini can rise freely without any obstacles, then Ishana Vajra, which is a series of empowerments from Shiva, to develop the upper chakras to a more profound level. (I will be giving all these empowerments in my upcoming Tantrik Empowerment course).

The most common misconception about Tantra is that it is all about sex, but this is just one small part of some Tantra schools. It is easy to understand how this misconception arises, as the kundalini first rises from the base chakra, so you experience sexual energy first. It is quite normal in yoga ashrams for students to go around with an erection for days when the kundalini awakens. However, the goal is to let it rise up through all the chakras. If one allows himself to be distracted by the sexual energy, it tends to get dissipated and not rise higher.  The most common pitfall is when students get caught up in sexual activity, because it is so enhanced, and simply repeat the first steps, never moving higher. The danger is that the base chakra gets overloaded to a point where it forms vampiric tentacles, taking others power through sexual activity, and closing the path to higher consciousness. To look at them psychically, the chakras are black, and from the base chakra, dark tentacles reach out. This is far from the desired image of bright fiery chakras. The problem is further exaggerated by the fact that getting caught on the base level tends to get the person stuck in ego, so you have would-be Tantra teachers thinking they are so advanced, when they have never even experienced their kundalini rising, nor have they read any of the Tantras. Their egotism leads them to prey on others sexually, feeding off their vital energy and leaving them empty and drained. Their students lose all boundaries and become like prostitutes for the school, eventually being drained of all vital energy until they are empty shells. At this point, they become physically and mentally ill.

Secondly, realise that gratitude isn’t something demanded of you by the Gods, but rather something they give you for your benefit, not theirs. So many people in the spiritual world teach that you have to be grateful, as if it’s a debt you owe, or that you are somehow bad if you are not grateful. Again, this is shame-based. How can you feel your value with this kind of shame being dumped on you? So you can see how true gratitude goes hand in hand with value. As gratitude is a gift from the gods and a major tool of creation, it is available for us to gather. The causal plane is full of it, so those who know how to journey can go there to collect it; otherwise, you can intentionally breathe it in from all around you.

Practising this regularly will build a positive energy of gratitude that will open doors to attract what you want, as long as you also build value.