Magic

Perfect Ten Magic Card Trick

2009-12-28T23:59:00.001+07:00

e magician card trick is a real reputation maker. The spectator is given complete control of the pack of cards and is allowed to cut and shuffle as much as they like before handing over the deck.This gives the Perfect Ten an even more powerful effect.

Performance :- Your spectator is handed the deck of cards to shuffle and cut as much as they like. The deck is then handed back to you, the magician. You proceed to further mix the deck by dealing cards from the top to the bottom of the deck.
Three cards are then dealt face up on the table. Depending on the value of the face up cards, more cards are dealt face down to each pile to make the value of that pile add up to ten.
You the card magician can now make a stunning prediction of the card hidden in the remainder of the deck thats position in the deck matches the total of the three face up cards.

Tips This card conjuring prediction can have an amazing effect on your audience as they seemingly had complete control of the order of the cards. This street magic type trick can be enhanced a lot by some entertaining chat from you the magician.

Biddle Move

2009-11-18T08:05:00.001+07:00

Biddle Move

Hold the deck face up in the right hand between the four fingers and the thumb. The four fingers are at the top edge of the cards ( the edge closest to the audience ) and the thumb is at the inner edge. Begin sliding cards of the top of the deck ( this is actually the bottom of the deck because it is turned over face up ) with your left thumb. This is basically a dragging action, as you drag the card to your left and the rest of the deck to your right. You are to show the spectators each card as it is slid off the pack. When you slide the selected card off the deck, get a little finger break underneath it.
So now you have a few cards in your left hand with a little finger break under the top card and the rest of the pack in your other hand. When you move to slide the next card onto the small packet, the selected card ( held by the break ) is secretly added to the bottom of the deck ( which is actually the top). With practice, this becomes real easy to conceal the move.
You must not hesitate or fumble. It must seem as if you are just sliding another card off the deck. From here you can continue to slide cards off until you reach a desired number of cards.

Palming a Card

2009-11-18T08:03:00.000+07:00

Palming a Card

	Hold your right hand palm upwards and on it lay a face up card so that the top index corner touches the top joint of the little finger and the lower index corner presses against the fleshy part at the base of the thumb.

Bend the fingers naturally keeping the thumb near the side of the hand and the fingers closely together.

Sacred Geometry

2009-06-14T12:01:00.001+07:00

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Sacred geometry involves sacred universal patterns used in the design of everything in our reality, most often seen in sacred architecture and sacred art. The basic belief is that geometry and mathematical ratios, harmonics and proportion are also found in music, light, cosmology. This value system is seen as widespread even in prehistory, a cultural universal of the human condition. It is considered foundational to building sacred structures such as temples, mosques, megaliths, monuments and churches; sacred spaces such as altars, temenoi and tabernacles; meeting places such as sacred groves, village greens and holy wells and the creation of religious art, iconography and using "divine" proportions. Alternatively, sacred geometry based arts may be ephemeral, such as visualization, sandpainting and medicine wheels.

Sacred geometry may be understood as a worldview of pattern recognition, a complex system of religious symbols and structures involving space, time and form. According to this view the basic patterns of existence are perceived as sacred. By connecting with these, a believer contemplates the Great Mysteries, and the Great Design. By studying the nature of these patterns, forms and relationships and their connections, insight may be gained into the mysteries - the laws and lore of the Universe.

Music

The discovery of the relationship of geometry and mathematics to music within the Classical Period is attributed to Pythagoras, who found that a string stopped halfway along its length produced an octave, while a ratio of 3/2 produced a fifth interval and 4/3 produced a fourth. Pythagoreans believed that this gave music powers of healing, as it could "harmonize" the out-of-balance body, and this belief has been revived in modern times. Hans Jenny, a physician who pioneered the study of geometric figures formed by wave interactions and named that study cymatics, is often cited in this context. However, Dr. Jenny did not make healing claims for his work.

Even though Hans Jenny did pioneer cymatics in modern times, the study of geometric relationships to wave interaction (sound) obviously has much older roots (Pythagoras). A work that shows ancient peoples understanding of sacred geometry can be found in Scotland. In the Rosslyn Chapel, Thomas J. Mitchell, and his son, my friend Stuart Mitchell, have has found what he calls "frozen music". Apparently, there are 213 cubes with different symbols that are believed to have musical significance. After 27 years of study and research, Mitchell has found the correct pitches and tonality that matches each symbol on each cube, revealing harmonic and melodic progressions. He has fully discovered the "frozen music", which he has named the Rosslyn Motet, and is set to have it performed in the chapel on May 18, 2007, and June 1, 2007.

Cosmology

At least as late as Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), a belief in the geometric underpinnings of the cosmos persisted among scientists. Kepler explored the ratios of the planetary orbits, at first in two dimensions (having spotted that the ratio of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn approximate to the in-circle and out-circle of an equilateral triangle). When this did not give him a neat enough outcome, he tried using the Platonic solids. In fact, planetary orbits can be related using two-dimensional geometric figures, but the figures do not occur in a particularly neat order. Even in his own lifetime (with less accurate data than we now possess) Kepler could see that the fit of the Platonic solids was imperfect. However, other geometric configurations are possible.

Natural Forms

Many forms observed in nature can be related to geometry (for sound reasons of resource optimization). For example, the chambered nautilus grows at a constant rate and so its shell forms a logarithmic spiral to accommodate that growth without changing shape. Also, honeybees construct hexagonal cells to hold their honey. These and other correspondences are seen by believers in sacred geometry to be further proof of the cosmic significance of geometric forms. But some scientists see such phenomena as the logical outcome of natural principles.

Art and Architecture

The golden ratio, geometric ratios, and geometric figures were often employed in the design of Egyptian, ancient Indian, Greek and Roman architecture. Medieval European cathedrals also incorporated symbolic geometry. Indian and Himalayan spiritual communities often constructed temples and fortifications on design plans of mandala and yantra. For examples of sacred geometry in art and architecture refer:

Labyrinth (an Eulerian path, as distinct from a maze)
Mandala
Parthenon
Taijitu (Yin-Yang)
Tree of Life
Rose Window
Celtic art such as the Book of Kells
Yantra
Swastika
Dharmacakra

Contemporary Usage

A contemporary usage of the term sacred geometry describes New Age and occult assertions of a mathematical order to the intrinsic nature of the universe. Scientists see the same geometric and mathematical patterns as arising directly from natural principles. Some of the most prevalent traditional geometric forms ascribed to sacred geometry include the sine wave, the sphere, the vesica piscis, the 5 platonic solids, the torus (donut), the tesseract (4-dimensional cube), and the merkaba (2 oppositely oriented and interpenetrating tetrahedrons), and the the golden spiral. Some believers in sacred geometry also see significance in crop circles and in ancient architecture, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge.

Golden Spiral

Blocks - Grids

The golden ratio, also known as the god ratio, golden proportion, golden mean, golden section, golden number, divine proportion or sectio divina, is an irrational number, approximately 1.618 033 988 749 894 848, that possesses many interesting properties. Shapes proportioned according to the golden ratio have long been considered aesthetically pleasing in Western cultures, and the golden ratio is still used frequently in art and design, suggesting a natural balance between symmetry and asymmetry. The ancient Pythagoreans, who defined numbers as expressions of ratios (and not as units as is common today), believed that reality is numerical and that the golden ratio expressed an underlying truth about existence.

References:

Beginnings: Geomancy, Builders' Rites and Electional Astrology in the European Tradition by Nigel Pennick
Sacred Geometry: Symbolism and Purpose in Religious Structures by Nigel Pennick
The Ancient Science of Geomancy: Living in Harmony with the Earth by Nigel Pennick
George Bain.Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction. Dover, 1973.
Robert Lawlor. Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice (Art and Imagination). Thames & Hudson, 1989 (1st edition 1979, 1980, or 1982).
John Michell. City of Revelation. Abacus, 1972.
Michael S. Schneider. A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science. Harper Paperbacks, 1995.
Lucy R Lippard: Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. Pantheon Books New York 1983
Sacred Geometry at the Open Directory Project

Flower of Life

2009-06-14T11:59:00.002+07:00

The Flower of Life is the modern name given to a geometrical figure composed of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles, that are arranged so that they form a flower-like pattern with a sixfold symmetry like a hexagon. The center of each circle is on the circumference of six surrounding circles of the same diameter.

It is considered by some to be a symbol of sacred geometry, said to contain ancient, religious value depicting the fundamental forms of space and time. In this sense, it is a visual expression of the connections life weaves through all sentient beings, believed to contain a type of Akashic Record of basic information of all living things.

There are many spiritual beliefs associated with the Flower of Life; for example, depictions of the five Platonic Solids are found within the symbol of Metatron's Cube, which may be derived from the Flower of Life pattern. These platonic solids are geometrical forms which are said to act as a template from which all life springs.

Another notable example of that which may be derived from the Flower of Life is the Tree of Life. This has been an important symbol of sacred geometry for many people from various religious backgrounds. Particularly, the teachings of the Kabbalah have dealt intricately with the Tree of Life.

According to Drunvalo Melchizedek, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the stages which construct the Seed of Life are said to represent the seven days of Creation, in which Elohim (God/concept of divinity) created life; Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 23:12, 31:16-17, Isaiah 56:6-8. Within these stages, among other things, are the symbols of the Vesica Piscis (an ancient religious symbol) and Borromean rings (which represents the Holy Trinity).

Flower of Life in History and Culture

Egypt

The Temple of Osiris at Abydos, Egypt contains the oldest known examples of the Flower of Life. Precisely how old these inscriptions are is unknown. Suggestions that they are over 6,000 years old and may date back to as long ago as 10,500 B.C. or earlier are entirely speculative and not based on any factual reality.

The most recent research shows that these symbols can be no earlier than 535 B.C. and most probably date to between the 2nd and 4th century AD, based upon photographic evidence of Greek text, still to be fully deciphered, seen alongside the Flower of Life circles and the position of the circles close to the top of columns, which are over 4 metres in height. This suggests the Osirion was half filled with sand prior to the circles being drawn and therefore likely to have been well after the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Possibly five Flower of Life patterns can be seen on one of the granite columns and a further five on a column opposite of the Osirion. Some are very faint and hard to distinguish. They have not been carved into the granite being drawn in red ochre with careful precision.

Christianity

Christianity has many symbolic connections to the Flower of Life. Most notably, the Seed of Life and components within the Seed of Life have strong Christian meaning to them. Such components are the Spherical Octahedron, Vesica Piscis, Tripod of Life, and Tree of Life (Kabbalah). Also the symbol of Metatron's Cube is delineated by a component of the Flower of Life and has appeared in Christian art.

Kabbalah / Judaism

The Kabbalah, which has historically been studied by the followers of Judaism, holds some symbolic connections to the Flower of Life.

The symbol of the Tree of Life, which may be derived from the design of the Flower of Life, is studied as part of the teachings of the Kabbalah.

Additionally, the symbol of Metatron's Cube, found by connecting the centers of each circle in the Fruit of Life, is seen in early Kabbalist scriptures.

New Age

In New Age thought, the Flower of Life has provided what is considered to be deep spiritual meaning and forms of enlightenment to those who have studied it as sacred geometry.There are groups of people all over the world who derive particular beliefs and forms of meditation based (at least in part) on the Flower of Life. FlowerofLife.org, for example, coordinates workshops at locations all over the world, in which they teach their New Age beliefs, methods, and interpretations of the Flower of Life.

Other Religions

The concept of the Tree of life has been adopted by some Hermeticists and pagans. The symbol of the Tree of Life may be derived from the Flower of Life.

One of the earliest known occurrences of the Vesica Piscis, and perhaps first, was among the Pythagoreans, who considered it a holy figure. The Vesica Piscis is a basic component of the Flower of Life.

Alchemy

Components of the Flower of Life have been a part of the work of Alchemists. Metatron's Cube is a symbol derived from the Flower of Life which was used as a containment circle or creation circle.

Alchemy of Time and Consciousness

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci studied the Flower of Life's form and its mathematical properties. He drew the Flower of Life itself, as well as various components such as the Seed of Life. He drew geometric figures representing shapes such as the platonic solids, a sphere, a torus, etc., and also used the golden ratio of phi in his artwork; all of which may be derived from the Flower of Life design.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man

Star of David Merkaba

Sacred Geometry Golden Ratio - Spiral of Consciousness

Composition of the Flower of Life in Stages

The "Seed of Life" is formed from seven circles being placed with sixfold symmetry, forming a pattern of circles and lenses, which acts as a basic component of the Flower of Life's design.

According to some researchers, the Seed of Life is a symbol of depicting the seven days of creation in which God created life; Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 23:12, 31:16-17, Isaiah 56:6-8. The first day is believed to be the creation of the Vesica Piscis, then the creation of the Tripod of Life on the second day, followed by one sphere added for each subsequent day until all seven spheres construct the Seed of Life on the sixth day of Creation. The seventh day is the day of rest, known as the "Sabbath" or "Shabbat."

In the 13th century, a Cabalist group from France succeeded, through geometric interpretation, in dividing the entire Hebrew alphabet into an order using the Seed of Life. The resulting alphabet was remarkably similar to that of the Religious sage Rashi who wrote his commentaries on the Old Testament at that time in France.

Information in the Holographic Universe

2009-06-14T11:59:00.001+07:00

Theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram

Scientific American August 2003

An astonishing theory called the holographic principle holds that the universe is like a hologram: just as a trick of light allows a fully three-dimensional image to be recorded on a flat piece of film, our seemingly three-dimensional universe could be completely equivalent to alternative quantum fields and physical laws "painted" on a distant, vast surface.

The physics of black holes--immensely dense concentrations of mass--provides a hint that the principle might be true. Studies of black holes show that, although it defies common sense, the maximum entropy or information content of any region of space is defined not by its volume but by its surface area.

Physicists hope that this surprising finding is a clue to the ultimate theory of reality.

Ask anybody what the physical world is made of, and you are likely to be told "matter and energy."

Yet if we have learned anything from engineering, biology and physics, information is just as crucial an ingredient. The robot at the automobile factory is supplied with metal and plastic but can make nothing useful without copious instructions telling it which part to weld to what and so on. A ribosome in a cell in your body is supplied with amino acid building blocks and is powered by energy released by the conversion of ATP to ADP, but it can synthesize no proteins without the information brought to it from the DNA in the cell's nucleus. Likewise, a century of developments in physics has taught us that information is a crucial player in physical systems and processes. Indeed, a current trend, initiated by John A. Wheeler of Princeton University, is to regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals.

This viewpoint invites a new look at venerable questions. The information storage capacity of devices such as hard disk drives has been increasing by leaps and bounds. When will such progress halt? What is the ultimate information capacity of a device that weighs, say, less than a gram and can fit inside a cubic centimeter (roughly the size of a computer chip)? How much information does it take to describe a whole universe? Could that description fit in a computer's memory? Could we, as William Blake memorably penned, "see the world in a grain of sand," or is that idea no more than poetic license?

Remarkably, recent developments in theoretical physics answer some of these questions, and the answers might be important clues to the ultimate theory of reality. By studying the mysterious properties of black holes, physicists have deduced absolute limits on how much information a region of space or a quantity of matter and energy can hold. Related results suggest that our universe, which we perceive to have three spatial dimensions, might instead be "written" on a two-dimensional surface, like a hologram. Our everyday perceptions of the world as three-dimensional would then be either a profound illusion or merely one of two alternative ways of viewing reality. A grain of sand may not encompass our world, but a flat screen might.

The Entropy of a Black Hole

The Entropy of a Black Hole is proportional to the area of its event horizon, the surface within which even light cannot escape the gravity of the hole. Specifically, a hole with a horizon spanning A Planck areas has A/4 units of entropy. (The Planck area, approximately 10-66 square centimeter, is the fundamental quantum unit of area determined by the strength of gravity, the speed of light and the size of quanta.) Considered as information, it is as if the entropy were written on the event horizon, with each bit (each digital 1 or 0) corresponding to four Planck areas.

A Tale of Two Entropies

Formal information theory originated in seminal 1948 papers by American applied mathematician Claude E. Shannon, who introduced today's most widely used measure of information content: entropy. Entropy had long been a central concept of thermodynamics, the branch of physics dealing with heat. Thermodynamic entropy is popularly described as the disorder in a physical system. In 1877 Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann characterized it more precisely in terms of the number of distinct microscopic states that the particles composing a chunk of matter could be in while still looking like the same macroscopic chunk of matter. For example, for the air in the room around you, one would count all the ways that the individual gas molecules could be distributed in the room and all the ways they could be moving.

When Shannon cast about for a way to quantify the information contained in, say, a message, he was led by logic to a formula with the same form as Boltzmann's. The Shannon entropy of a message is the number of binary digits, or bits, needed to encode it. Shannon's entropy does not enlighten us about the value of information, which is highly dependent on context. Yet as an objective measure of quantity of information, it has been enormously useful in science and technology. For instance, the design of every modern communications device--from cellular phones to modems to compact-disc players--relies on Shannon entropy.

Thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy are conceptually equivalent: the number of arrangements that are counted by Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information one would need to implement any particular arrangement. The two entropies have two salient differences, though. First, the thermodynamic entropy used by a chemist or a refrigeration engineer is expressed in units of energy divided by temperature, whereas the Shannon entropy used by a communications engineer is in bits, essentially dimensionless. That difference is merely a matter of convention.

Limits of Functional Density

The thermodynamics of black holes allows one to deduce limits on the density of entropy or information in various circumstances. The holographic bound defines how much information can be contained in a specified region of space. It can be derived by considering a roughly spherical distribution of matter that is contained within a surface of area A. The matter is induced to collapse to form a black hole (a). The black hole's area must be smaller than A, so its entropy must be less than A/4 [see illustration]. Because entropy cannot decrease, one infers that the original distribution of matter also must carry less than A/4 units of entropy or information. This result--that the maximum information content of a region of space is fixed by its area--defies the commonsense expectation that the capacity of a region should depend on its volume.

The universal entropy bound defines how much information can be carried by a mass m of diameter d. It is derived by imagining that a capsule of matter is engulfed by a black hole not much wider than it (b). The increase in the black hole's size places a limit on how much entropy the capsule could have contained. This limit is tighter than the holographic bound, except when the capsule is almost as dense as a black hole (in which case the two bounds are equivalent).

The holographic and universal information bounds are far beyond the data storage capacities of any current technology, and they greatly exceed the density of information on chromosomes and the thermodynamic entropy of water (c).

Even when reduced to common units, however, typical values of the two entropies differ vastly in magnitude. A silicon microchip carrying a gigabyte of data, for instance, has a Shannon entropy of about 1010 bits (one byte is eight bits), tremendously smaller than the chip's thermodynamic entropy, which is about 1023 bits at room temperature. This discrepancy occurs because the entropies are computed for different degrees of freedom. A degree of freedom is any quantity that can vary, such as a coordinate specifying a particle's location or one component of its velocity.

The Shannon entropy of the chip cares only about the overall state of each tiny transistor etched in the silicon crystal--the transistor is on or off; it is a 0 or a 1--a single binary degree of freedom. Thermodynamic entropy, in contrast, depends on the states of all the billions of atoms (and their roaming electrons) that make up each transistor. As miniaturization brings closer the day when each atom will store one bit of information for us, the useful Shannon entropy of the state-of-the-art microchip will edge closer in magnitude to its material's thermodynamic entropy. When the two entropies are calculated for the same degrees of freedom, they are equal.

What are the ultimate degrees of freedom? Atoms, after all, are made of electrons and nuclei, nuclei are agglomerations of protons and neutrons, and those in turn are composed of quarks. Many physicists today consider electrons and quarks to be excitations of superstrings, which they hypothesize to be the most fundamental entities. But the vicissitudes of a century of revelations in physics warn us not to be dogmatic. There could be more levels of structure in our universe than are dreamt of in today's physics.

One cannot calculate the ultimate information capacity of a chunk of matter or, equivalently, its true thermodynamic entropy, without knowing the nature of the ultimate constituents of matter or of the deepest level of structure, which I shall refer to as level X. (This ambiguity causes no problems in analyzing practical thermodynamics, such as that of car engines, for example, because the quarks within the atoms can be ignored--they do not change their states under the relatively benign conditions in the engine.) Given the dizzying progress in miniaturization, one can playfully contemplate a day when quarks will serve to store information, one bit apiece perhaps. How much information would then fit into our one-centimeter cube? And how much if we harness superstrings or even deeper, yet undreamt of levels? Surprisingly, developments in gravitation physics in the past three decades have supplied some clear answers to what seem to be elusive questions.

The information content of a pile of computer chips increases in proportion with the number of chips or, equivalently, the volume they occupy. That simple rule must break down for a large enough pile of chips because eventually the information would exceed the holographic bound, which depends on the surface area, not the volume. The "breakdown" occurs when the immense pile of chips collapses to form a black hole. Black Hole Thermodynamics

A central player in these developments is the black hole. Black holes are a consequence of general relativity, Albert Einstein's 1915 geometric theory of gravitation. In this theory, gravitation arises from the curvature of spacetime, which makes objects move as if they were pulled by a force. Conversely, the curvature is caused by the presence of matter and energy. According to Einstein's equations, a sufficiently dense concentration of matter or energy will curve spacetime so extremely that it rends, forming a black hole. The laws of relativity forbid anything that went into a black hole from coming out again, at least within the classical (nonquantum) description of the physics. The point of no return, called the event horizon of the black hole, is of crucial importance. In the simplest case, the horizon is a sphere, whose surface area is larger for more massive black holes.

It is impossible to determine what is inside a black hole. No detailed information can emerge across the horizon and escape into the outside world. In disappearing forever into a black hole, however, a piece of matter does leave some traces. Its energy (we count any mass as energy in accordance with Einstein's E = mc2) is permanently reflected in an increment in the black hole's mass. If the matter is captured while circling the hole, its associated angular momentum is added to the black hole's angular momentum. Both the mass and angular momentum of a black hole are measurable from their effects on spacetime around the hole. In this way, the laws of conservation of energy and angular momentum are upheld by black holes. Another fundamental law, the second law of thermodynamics, appears to be violated.

Holographic Space-Time

Two universes of different dimension and obeying disparate physical laws are rendered completely equivalent by the holographic principle. Theorists have demonstrated this principle mathematically for a specific type of five-dimensional spacetime ("antide Sitter") and its four-dimensional boundary. In effect, the 5-D universe is recorded like a hologram on the 4-D surface at its periphery. Superstring theory rules in the 5-D spacetime, but a so-called conformal field theory of point particles operates on the 4-D hologram. A black hole in the 5-D spacetime is equivalent to hot radiation on the hologram--for example, the hole and the radiation have the same entropy even though the physical origin of the entropy is completely different for each case. Although these two descriptions of the universe seem utterly unalike, no experiment could distinguish between them, even in principle.

The second law of thermodynamics summarizes the familiar observation that most processes in nature are irreversible: a teacup falls from the table and shatters, but no one has ever seen shards jump up of their own accord and assemble into a teacup. The second law of thermodynamics forbids such inverse processes. It states that the entropy of an isolated physical system can never decrease; at best, entropy remains constant, and usually it increases. This law is central to physical chemistry and engineering; it is arguably the physical law with the greatest impact outside physics.

As first emphasized by Wheeler, when matter disappears into a black hole, its entropy is gone for good, and the second law seems to be transcended, made irrelevant. A clue to resolving this puzzle came in 1970, when Demetrious Christodoulou, then a graduate student of Wheeler's at Princeton, and Stephen W. Hawking of the University of Cambridge independently proved that in various processes, such as black hole mergers, the total area of the event horizons never decreases. The analogy with the tendency of entropy to increase led me to propose in 1972 that a black hole has entropy proportional to the area of its horizon. I conjectured that when matter falls into a black hole, the increase in black hole entropy always compensates or overcompensates for the "lost" entropy of the matter. More generally, the sum of black hole entropies and the ordinary entropy outside the black holes cannot decrease. This is the generalized second law--GSL for short.

Our innate perception that the world is three-dimensional could be an extraordinary illusion.

Hawking's radiation process allowed him to determine the proportionality constant between black hole entropy and horizon area: black hole entropy is precisely one quarter of the event horizon's area measured in Planck areas. (The Planck length, about 10-33 centimeter, is the fundamental length scale related to gravity and quantum mechanics. The Planck area is its square.) Even in thermodynamic terms, this is a vast quantity of entropy. The entropy of a black hole one centimeter in diameter would be about 1066 bits, roughly equal to the thermodynamic entropy of a cube of water 10 billion kilometers on a side.

The World as a Hologram

The GSL allows us to set bounds on the information capacity of any isolated physical system, limits that refer to the information at all levels of structure down to level X. In 1980 I began studying the first such bound, called the universal entropy bound, which limits how much entropy can be carried by a specified mass of a specified size [see box on opposite page]. A related idea, the holographic bound, was devised in 1995 by Leonard Susskind of Stanford University. It limits how much entropy can be contained in matter and energy occupying a specified volume of space.

In his work on the holographic bound, Susskind considered any approximately spherical isolated mass that is not itself a black hole and that fits inside a closed surface of area A. If the mass can collapse to a black hole, that hole will end up with a horizon area smaller than A. The black hole entropy is therefore smaller than A/4. According to the GSL, the entropy of the system cannot decrease, so the mass's original entropy cannot have been bigger than A/4. It follows that the entropy of an isolated physical system with boundary area A is necessarily less than A/4. What if the mass does not spontaneously collapse? In 2000 I showed that a tiny black hole can be used to convert the system to a black hole not much different from the one in Susskind's argument. The bound is therefore independent of the constitution of the system or of the nature of level X. It just depends on the GSL.

We can now answer some of those elusive questions about the ultimate limits of information storage. A device measuring a centimeter across could in principle hold up to 1066 bits--a mind-boggling amount. The visible universe contains at least 10100 bits of entropy, which could in principle be packed inside a sphere a tenth of a light-year across. Estimating the entropy of the universe is a difficult problem, however, and much larger numbers, requiring a sphere almost as big as the universe itself, are entirely plausible.

But it is another aspect of the holographic bound that is truly astonishing. Namely, that the maximum possible entropy depends on the boundary area instead of the volume. Imagine that we are piling up computer memory chips in a big heap. The number of transistors--the total data storage capacity--increases with the volume of the heap. So, too, does the total thermodynamic entropy of all the chips. Remarkably, though, the theoretical ultimate information capacity of the space occupied by the heap increases only with the surface area. Because volume increases more rapidly than surface area, at some point the entropy of all the chips would exceed the holographic bound. It would seem that either the GSL or our commonsense ideas of entropy and information capacity must fail. In fact, what fails is the pile itself: it would collapse under its own gravity and form a black hole before that impasse was reached. Thereafter each additional memory chip would increase the mass and surface area of the black hole in a way that would continue to preserve the GSL.

This surprising result--that information capacity depends on surface area--has a natural explanation if the holographic principle (proposed in 1993 by Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and elaborated by Susskind) is true. In the everyday world, a hologram is a special kind of photograph that generates a full three-dimensional image when it is illuminated in the right manner. All the information describing the 3-D scene is encoded into the pattern of light and dark areas on the two-dimensional piece of film, ready to be regenerated. The holographic principle contends that an analogue of this visual magic applies to the full physical description of any system occupying a 3-D region: it proposes that another physical theory defined only on the 2-D boundary of the region completely describes the 3-D physics. If a 3-D system can be fully described by a physical theory operating solely on its 2-D boundary, one would expect the information content of the system not to exceed that of the description on the boundary.

A Universe Painted on Its Boundary

Can we apply the holographic principle to the universe at large? The real universe is a 4-D system: it has volume and extends in time. If the physics of our universe is holographic, there would be an alternative set of physical laws, operating on a 3-D boundary of spacetime somewhere, that would be equivalent to our known 4-D physics. We do not yet know of any such 3-D theory that works in that way. Indeed, what surface should we use as the boundary of the universe? One step toward realizing these ideas is to study models that are simpler than our real universe.

A class of concrete examples of the holographic principle at work involves so-called anti-de Sitter spacetimes. The original de Sitter spacetime is a model universe first obtained by Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter in 1917 as a solution of Einstein's equations, including the repulsive force known as the cosmological constant. De Sitter's spacetime is empty, expands at an accelerating rate and is very highly symmetrical. In 1997 astronomers studying distant supernova explosions concluded that our universe now expands in an accelerated fashion and will probably become increasingly like a de Sitter spacetime in the future. Now, if the repulsion in Einstein's equations is changed to attraction, de Sitter's solution turns into the anti-de Sitter spacetime, which has equally as much symmetry. More important for the holographic concept, it possesses a boundary, which is located "at infinity" and is a lot like our everyday spacetime.

Using anti-de Sitter spacetime, theorists have devised a concrete example of the holographic principle at work: a universe described by superstring theory functioning in an anti-de Sitter spacetime is completely equivalent to a quantum field theory operating on the boundary of that spacetime [see box above]. Thus, the full majesty of superstring theory in an anti-de Sitter universe is painted on the boundary of the universe. Juan Maldacena, then at Harvard University, first conjectured such a relation in 1997 for the 5-D anti-de Sitter case, and it was later confirmed for many situations by Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and Steven S. Gubser, Igor R. Klebanov and Alexander M. Polyakov of Princeton University. Examples of this holographic correspondence are now known for spacetimes with a variety of dimensions.

This result means that two ostensibly very different theories--not even acting in spaces of the same dimension--are equivalent. Creatures living in one of these universes would be incapable of determining if they inhabited a 5-D universe described by string theory or a 4-D one described by a quantum field theory of point particles. (Of course, the structures of their brains might give them an overwhelming "commonsense" prejudice in favor of one description or another, in just the way that our brains construct an innate perception that our universe has three spatial dimensions; see the illustration on the opposite page.)

The holographic equivalence can allow a difficult calculation in the 4-D boundary spacetime, such as the behavior of quarks and gluons, to be traded for another, easier calculation in the highly symmetric, 5-D anti-de Sitter spacetime. The correspondence works the other way, too. Witten has shown that a black hole in anti-de Sitter spacetime corresponds to hot radiation in the alternative physics operating on the bounding spacetime. The entropy of the hole--a deeply mysterious concept--equals the radiation's entropy, which is quite mundane.

The Expanding Universe

Highly symmetric and empty, the 5-D anti-de Sitter universe is hardly like our universe existing in 4-D, filled with matter and radiation, and riddled with violent events. Even if we approximate our real universe with one that has matter and radiation spread uniformly throughout, we get not an anti-de Sitter universe but rather a "Friedmann-Robertson-Walker" universe. Most cosmologists today concur that our universe resembles an FRW universe, one that is infinite, has no boundary and will go on expanding ad infinitum.

Does such a universe conform to the holographic principle or the holographic bound? Susskind's argument based on collapse to a black hole is of no help here. Indeed, the holographic bound deduced from black holes must break down in a uniform expanding universe. The entropy of a region uniformly filled with matter and radiation is truly proportional to its volume. A sufficiently large region will therefore violate the holographic bound.

In 1999 Raphael Bousso, then at Stanford, proposed a modified holographic bound, which has since been found to work even in situations where the bounds we discussed earlier cannot be applied. Bousso's formulation starts with any suitable 2-D surface; it may be closed like a sphere or open like a sheet of paper. One then imagines a brief burst of light issuing simultaneously and perpendicularly from all over one side of the surface. The only demand is that the imaginary light rays are converging to start with. Light emitted from the inner surface of a spherical shell, for instance, satisfies that requirement. One then considers the entropy of the matter and radiation that these imaginary rays traverse, up to the points where they start crossing. Bousso conjectured that this entropy cannot exceed the entropy represented by the initial surface--one quarter of its area, measured in Planck areas. This is a different way of tallying up the entropy than that used in the original holographic bound. Bousso's bound refers not to the entropy of a region at one time but rather to the sum of entropies of locales at a variety of times: those that are "illuminated" by the light burst from the surface.

Bousso's bound subsumes other entropy bounds while avoiding their limitations. Both the universal entropy bound and the 't Hooft-Susskind form of the holographic bound can be deduced from Bousso's for any isolated system that is not evolving rapidly and whose gravitational field is not strong. When these conditions are overstepped--as for a collapsing sphere of matter already inside a black hole--these bounds eventually fail, whereas Bousso's bound continues to hold. Bousso has also shown that his strategy can be used to locate the 2-D surfaces on which holograms of the world can be set up.

Researchers have proposed many other entropy bounds. The proliferation of variations on the holographic motif makes it clear that the subject has not yet reached the status of physical law. But although the holographic way of thinking is not yet fully understood, it seems to be here to stay. And with it comes a realization that the fundamental belief, prevalent for 50 years, that field theory is the ultimate language of physics must give way. Fields, such as the electromagnetic field, vary continuously from point to point, and they thereby describe an infinity of degrees of freedom. Superstring theory also embraces an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Holography restricts the number of degrees of freedom that can be present inside a bounding surface to a finite number; field theory with its infinity cannot be the final story. Furthermore, even if the infinity is tamed, the mysterious dependence of information on surface area must be somehow accommodated.

Holography may be a guide to a better theory. What is the fundamental theory like? The chain of reasoning involving holography suggests to some, notably Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, that such a final theory must be concerned not with fields, not even with spacetime, but rather with information exchange among physical processes. If so, the vision of information as the stuff the world is made of will have found a worthy embodiment.

Jacob D. Bekenstein has contributed to the foundation of black hole thermodynamics and to other aspects of the connections between information and gravitation. He is Polak Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and a recipient of the Rothschild Prize. Bekenstein dedicates this article to John Archibald Wheeler (his Ph.D. supervisor 30 years ago). Wheeler belongs to the third generation of Ludwig Boltzmann's students: Wheeler's Ph.D. adviser, Karl Herzfeld, was a student of Boltzmann's student Friedrich Hasenöhrl.

What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal.

The woman's experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.

Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.

Although Grof's newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.

As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.

The holographic prardigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain -- as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.

Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as "reality".

Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall Watson discribes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession.

Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection.

Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.

What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams.

Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.

Whether Bohm and Pribram's holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists. And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect's findings "indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality".

The Holographic Universe

2009-06-14T11:58:00.001+07:00

Michael Talbot (1953-1992), was the author of a number of books highlighting parallels between ancient mysticism and quantum mechanics, and espousing a theoretical model of reality that suggests the physical universe is akin to a giant hologram. In The Holographic Universe, Talbot made many references to the work of David Bohm and Karl Pribram, and it is quite apparent that the combined work of Bohm and Karl Pribram is largely the cornerstone upon which Talbot built his ideas.

The Holographic Universe

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect's experiment is related to the EPR Experiment, a consicousness experiment which had been devised by Albert Einstein, and his colleagues, Poldlsky and Rosen, in order to disprove Quantum Mechanics on the basis of the Pauli Exclusion Principle contradicting Special Relativity.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose.

Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

The Fifth Element,

Hal Puthoff's

Zero-Point

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.

As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them.

When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.

According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality.

Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.

The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky.

Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order.

At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.

What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be -- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from bluü whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through ome gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.

Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross-correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.

Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through he senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.

Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.

Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.

It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.

Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the Holographic Paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far.

More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature. Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.

In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level. It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology. In particular, Stansilov Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.

In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsulated in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal.

The woman¹s experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie, Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.

In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual¹s consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations transpersonal experiences, and in the late '60s he helped found a branch of psychology called transpersonal psychology devoted entirely to their study. Although Grof¹s newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.

As Grof noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.

Perhaps, in Creating Reality, we have already become - as in Star Trek, The Next Generation - a Q of the Continuum or we are part of a consciousness virtual reality experiment.

The holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is Consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.

Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body. Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as reality. Even visions and experiences involving non-ordinary reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm.

In his book Gifts of Unknown Things, biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then click off again and on again several times in succession. Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if hard reality is only a holographic projection.

Perhaps we agree on what is 'there' or 'not there' because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected. If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so.

In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.

What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to events experienced by Carlos Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for Magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams.

Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor. Even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.

Whether Bohm and Pribram's holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists. And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect's findings indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality.

Ice Bergs

2009-06-14T11:51:00.000+07:00

The first to explain the formation of icebergs was the Russian peasant prodigy Mikhail Lomonosov. In the 20th century, several scientific bodies were established to study and monitor the icebergs. The International Ice Patrol, formed in 1914 in response to the Titanic disaster, monitors iceberg dangers near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and provide the "limits of all known ice" in that vicinity to the maritime community.

Icebergs are a mass of ice that has become detached, or calved, from the edge of an ice sheet or glacier and is floating on the ocean. Because ice is slightly less dense than water about one ninth of the total mass of a berg projects above the water.

Icebergs differ from other ocean ices: sea ice is formed directly from the freezing of ocean water; pack ice is tightly packed fragments of sea ice; ice floes are small, floating ice fragments that separate from pack ice. Fast ice - is ice attached to a shore.

Icebergs are mostly white because the ice is full of tiny air bubbles. The bubble surfaces reflect white light giving the iceberg an overall white appearance. Ice that is bubble free has a blue tint which is due to the same light phenomenon that tints the sky.

The bluish streaks of clear, bubble free ice often seen in icebergs results from the refreezing of meltwater which fills crevasses formed in the glacier as it creeps over land. The ice is blue because of the natural light scattering characteristics of pure ice. Occasionally airborne dust or dirt eroded from land ends up on the glacier surface eventually forming a noticeably darkened brown or black layer (in any orientation) within the ice of a floating iceberg.

Greenland is the source of most of the icebergs in the N Atlantic, where the iceberg season lasts roughly from February to October. Greenland and other N Atlantic icebergs are usually peaked and irregular in shape; Antarctic icebergs are tabular, with flat tops and steep sides.

Before the development of radar, sonar, and the Global Positioning System, sailors on watch in the Arctic region would listen for distinctive sounds to help them determine whether icebergs were close or far away.

As a consequence of the loss of the Titanic through collision with an iceberg in 1912, a patrol of N Atlantic shipping channels was initiated in 1914 by the international agreement of 16 nations.

Patrols use planes and surface vessels equipped with radar, loran, and underwater sound equipment. A constant census of bergs is maintained, and the location of an iceberg is reported to any ship in its vicinity.

A fantastic variety of shapes result from the deterioration process of icebergs. Despite the fact that no two icebergs are the same, there are certain categories of shapes that are used for iceberg observation. Often the terms; tabular, blocky, wedge, dome, pinnacle, and drydock are used.

For those who wish to look beyond the beauty of icebergs there are many things to look for which can make iceberg watching more interesting. Besides estimating the iceberg's size and shape there are many features which may be noted. Colored streaks, caves and tunnels, old and new waterline notches, even objects such as boulders or birds are seen on icebergs. Even more spectacular is the occasion of an iceberg calving and rolling which can often be heard from a good distance.

White Noise - Electronic Voice Phenomena

2009-06-13T07:33:00.000+07:00

Taped contact with spirit is called EVP - (Electronic Voice Phenomena). This is also known as Instrumental Transcommunication which is the collective term for conversing with the Other Side using electronic instrumentation. These instruments can include tape recorders, camcorders, telephones, answer machine, radios, televisions, or anything else that is electronic.

EVP is linked with 'White Noise'. Noise Types - White - Pink

White noise has equal power density across the entire spectrum (per Hz basis). White Noise has constant energy at all frequencies. "white noise" was named such because it has an equal amount of power per Hz (or whatever your unit frequency) just like white light. True white noise (with infinite bandwidth) cannot exist since it has infinite power. White noise is noise in which the intensity of the power spectral density is constant and independent of frequency. It is equivalent to saying that the signal power for a constant bandwidth centered at frequency 'fo', does not change if 'fo' is varied. In electronic recording and communication systems, 'white noise' frequently appears in the form of high frequencies, or hiss.

If you set up a tape recorder - digital recorder - or camcorder while you are sleeping, you will mostly record something not of this physical reality.

Messages from other dimensions may or may not be heard when they are recorded but will be heard when you playback the tape.

Recorded messages should not be confused with sounds picked up from other communications devices - such as satellite communication dishes - radios - etc.

Messages are generally a few words - a phrase rather than a complete sentence.

They are sometimes in a foreign of archaic language. Many are cryptic. Use a search engine to find out more.

Keep dated notes with the messages as if a dream journal.

Recordings can sound like conversations between two or more people.

They can come from entities in other dimensions or grids who want to bring a message. The truth of the messages must be tested for validity.

It's all about frequency and the movement of sound from one level/grid to another.

Messages often come in the form of warnings.

Be discerning with messages received. As with a ouija board - if messages are negative and threaten - do not use this technique to contact the dead. If they are foreboding - one should not continue to record messages.

All is frequency and has a personal frequency signature. It is just about tuning into a specific frequency and listening.

If you capture the image of an entity on video - you capture a projection - as all of reality is projection of consciousnesss - often considered illusions in the spirals of time. Entities in turn - view us as projections.

Improved technologies through the years years - digital equipment that can run for hours and can 'zero in' on changes in the wave stream - decibels - allow you to review the tape quickly and pinpoint any messages given by spirit. This could produce better sound and images.

Sarah Estep has recorded over 20,000 messages. Estep records question on reel to reel audio tape then she leaves the tape running and the voices appear. She says that aliens use other languages and call her an Earth plane Camilla.

CBS Report

A film about evp premiered in January 2007 - White Noise

Kundalini

2009-06-12T10:27:00.000+07:00

Kundalini

Kundalini is a Sanskrit word meaning either "coiled up" or "coiling like a snake." There are a number of other translations of the term usually emphasizing a more serpent nature to the word - e.g. 'serpent power'.

The caduceus symbol of coiling snakes is thought to be an ancient symbolic representation of Kundalini physiology.

The concept of Kundalini comes from yogic philosophy of ancient India and refers to the mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation. It might be regarded by yogis as a sort of deity, hence the occasional capitalization of the term.

Within a western frame of understanding it is often associated with the practice of contemplative or religious practices that might induce an altered state of consciousness, either brought about spontaneously, through a type of yoga, through psychedelic drugs, or through a near-death experience.

According to the yogic tradition Kundalini is curled up in the back part of the root chakra in three and one-half turns around the sacrum. Yogic phenomenology states that kundalini awakening is associated with the appearance of bio-energetic phenomena that are said to be experienced somatically by the yogi.

This appearance is also referred to as "pranic awakening". Prana is interpreted as the vital, life-sustaining force in the body. Uplifted, or intensified life-energy is called pranotthana and is supposed to originate from an apparent reservoir of subtle bio-energy at the base of the spine. This energy is also interpreted as a vibrational phenomena that initiates a period, or a process of vibrational spiritual development.

The source text for the concept of kundalini is the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika" written by Swami Svatmarama (English translation, 1992) somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Any examination of the topic should include this work. The pradipika is one of the later developments in yoga sacred texts. Hatha Yoga is strictly speaking a forcing technique which has as its primary aim the forcing of the arising of kundalini.

The main emphasis is a difficult regime of breathing techniques meant to increase the store of "prana" in the body. The well known physical postures are only meant to be an aid to maintain peak physical fitness, so as to support the real work of the breathing practices. All of this has, according to tradition, to be accompanied by prolonged and unbroken meditation practise (for which the main text is the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali"). The text adds that great good fortune is another requirement, i.e.luck, for the procedure to succeed. However, these techniques are not without dangers.

The Interpretation of Kundalini

Two early western interpretations of Kundalini were supplied by C.W. Leadbeater (1847-1934), of the Theosophical Society, and the analytical psychologist Carl Jung (18751961).

Jung's seminar on Kundalini yoga, presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932, has been widely regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner peace.

Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness, and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation. (Princeton University Press Book description to C. G Jung - "The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga", 1999).

A few western translators interpret the energetic phenomena as a form of psychic or paranormal energy, although the western parapsychological understanding of psychic energy, separated from its cultural-hermeneutic matrix, is probably not the same as the yogic understanding. Yogic philosophy understands this concept as a maturing energy that expresses the individual's soteriological longings. Viewed in a mythological context it is sometimes believed to be an aspect of Shakti, the goddess and consort of Shiva.

Kundalini might be said to be a popular concept, since it is widely quoted among various disciplines of yoga and New Age beliefs. However, the recent popularization of the term within new religious movements has - according to some scholars of religion - not contributed to promote a mature understanding of the concept (Sovatsky, 1998). As with many eastern contemplative concepts there exist considerable difficulties, and possible semantic confusion, connected to the way these concepts are adapted to a western context.

This has led to somewhat different interpretations and applications of the concept of Kundalini within the spiritual and contemplative culture in the west. On the one hand there are the New Age popularizations, and on the other hand there is the traditional lineage of Kundalini Yoga understood from its cultural background and interpreted within the academic fields of Religious Studies, Pastoral Theology and Transpersonal/Humanistic psychology.

With the tools of these academic traditions it is possible to give different interpretations to the concept of Kundalini; such as physiological interpretations, psychological interpretations, clinical interpretations, religious interpretations, mythological interpretations and spiritual interpretations.

Kundalini Yoga

Kundalini Yoga is a meditative discipline - or a system of meditative techniques and movements - within the yogic tradition that focuses on psycho-spiritual growth and the body's potential for maturation. The practice of Kundalini Yoga consists of a number bodily postures, expressive movements and utterances, characterological cultivations, breathing patterns, and degrees of concentration.

The movements and the body-work should not - according to some scholars of religion - be considered mere stretching exercises. The concept of life-energy - pranotthana - is central to the practice and understanding of Kundalini Yoga. It also gives special consideration to the role of the spine and the endocrine system in the understanding of yogic awakening. Recently, there has been a growing interest within the medical community to study the physiological effects of meditation, and some of these studies have applied the discipline of Kundalini Yoga to their clinical settings.

Kundalini in the World's Religions

Kundalini is mainly associated with Hinduism. However, Kundalini as a spiritual experience is thought to have parallels in many of the mystical and gnostic traditions of the world's great religions.

Many factors point to the universality of the phenomenon. The early Christians might have referred to the concept as 'pneuma', and there are some recent parallels in contemporary Christian Charismatic 'Holy Ghost' phenomena. Religious studies also note parallels in Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (torso-rocking prayer), the swaying zikr and whirling dervish of Islam, the quiverings of the Eastern Orthodox hesychast, the flowing movements of tai chi, the ecstatic shamanic dance, the ntum trance dance of the Bushman, Tibetan Buddhist tummo heat as practised by Milarepa, and the Indically-derived Andalusian flamenco (Sovatsky, 1998). Kundalini practice is centerfold in Japan's Aum Shinrikyo group and Kundalini-yoga is also one of the stages the practitioner is able to achieve.

Kundalini Rising

According to yogic terminology the force of Kundalini is supposed to be raised through meditative exercises and activated within the concept of a subtle body, a body of energy and finer substance. This process has been explained in detail by Motoyama (1981) and by Sharp (2005). Motoyama bases the bulk of the Kundalini raising practices listed in the book on the notable Swami Satyananda Saraswati, as well as on personal experience in helping people in various stages of Kundalini awakening. Sharp provides a kundalini meditation called The Great Invocation along with detailed guidance on controlling and managing the energy flow and subsequent manifestation.

Kundalini-experiences are often understood in terms of the Hindu chakra system, the understanding of psycho-spiritual energy centers along the spine (Scotton, 1996). According to Hindu tradition the Kundalini raises from the root-chakra up through the spinal channel, called sushumna, and it is believed to activate each chakra it goes through.

Each chakra is said to contain special characteristics (Scotton, 1996). In raising Kundalini, spiritual powers (siddhis) are also believed to arise, but many spiritual traditions see these phenomena as obstacles on the path, and encourages their students not to get hung up with them (Kason, 2000). Although the opening of higher chakras are believed to mark advanced spiritual unfoldment, it is important not to measure spiritual growth solely by the opening of higher potentials. According to this view chakras might be under- or overdeveloped, and lower chakras are thought to be just as important as higher.

Spiritual literature also describes instances where Kundalini is said to be initiated. Initiation of kundalini activity is usually considered to take place by a practice called shaktipat. This is a form of 'laying on of hands' where physical contact to the body or the forehead of the subject by the guru, or initiator, is supposed to cause an experience of Kundalini that later may persist or grow with continuing practice, or fade away if practice is stopped. Scotton (1996) mentions that kundalini-symptomatology is associated with such practices as shaktipat. He also gives a case-example of such a practice from an American meditation retreat.

According to much contemporary spiritual literature, and the field of Transpersonal Psychology, it is not considered wise to engage in any of these practices without the guidance of a credible teacher or without thorough psychological preparation and education in yoga. Any form of intense contemplative or spiritual practice without the support of a cultural context, or without the support of thorough psychological preparation, is usually considered to be unfortunate, and in some cases even dangerous. Traditional teachers of kundalini meditation also warn neophytes of the potential dangers of experimenting with kundalini Yoga techniques. These warnings should not be underestimated. A growing body of clinical and psychological literature notes the growing occurrence of meditation-related problems in Western contemplative life. Among these we find the Kundalini Syndrome (which is presented more closely later in this article) and different forms of "wind illness" described in the Tibetan tradition.

Kundalini Syndrome

Theorists within the schools of Humanistic psychology, Transpersonal psychology and Near-Death Studies describe a complex pattern of motor functions, sensory, affective and cognitive-hermeneutic symptoms called the Kundalini Syndrome. This psychosomatic arousal and excitation is believed to occur in connection with prolonged and intensive spiritual or contemplative practice (such as meditation or yoga) or as a result of intense life experience or a near encounter with death (such as a near-death experience).

According to these fields of study the Kundalini syndrome is of a different nature than a single Kundalini episode, such as a Kundalini arousal. The Kundalini syndrome is a process that might unfold over several months, or even years. If the accompanying symptoms unfold in an intense manner - that de-stabilizes the person - the process is usually interpreted as what Stanislav Grof has termed "spiritual emergency"

Interdisciplinary dialogues within the mentioned schools of psychology (see references below) have now established some common criteria in order to describe this condition, of which the most prominent feature is a feeling of energy travelling along the spine, or progressing upwards in the body. Motor symptoms are said to include tremors, other spontaneous or involuntary body movements and changes in respiratory function.

Sensory symptoms are said to include subjective changes in body temperature - feelings of heat or cold - a feeling of electricity in the body, persistent sexual arousal syndrome, headache and pressure inside of the head, tingling, vibrations and gastro-intestinal problems. Cognitive and affective symptoms are said to include psychological upheaval, stress, depression, depersonalization or derealization, intense mood-swings, but also moments of bliss, deep peace and other altered states of consciousness. Within the mentioned academic traditions this symptomatology is often referred to as the Physio-Kundalini syndrome or Kundalini-experience Awakening.

Transpersonal literature emphasizes that this list of symptoms is not meant to be used as a tool for self-diagnosis. Any unusual or marked physical or mental symptom needs to be investigated by a qualified medical doctor.

Kundalini and Physiology

Contemporary spiritual literature often notes that the chakras, as described in the esoteric kundalini documents, bear a strong similarity in location and number to the major endocrine glands, as well as nerve bundles called ganglions.

One speculation is that the traditional practices have formalized a method for stimulating the endocrine glands to work in a different mode which has a more direct effect on consciousness, perhaps ultimately by stimulating the release of DMT by the pineal gland, which may be analogous to the 'pineal chakra'.

The late Itzhak Bentov studied Kundalini from an engineering perspective. According to Bentov (1990), the 7.5 Hz oscillation of the heart muscle rhythm induces mechanical Hz frequencies in the brain, that in turn create a stimulus equivalent of a current loop. The nerve endings in that loop correspond to the route through which the Kundalini "rises".

This current polarizes the brain part through which it flows in a homogenous way, effectively releasing tremendous amounts of stress from the body. The body then becomes an effective antenna for the 7.5 Hz frequency, which is one of the resonant frequencies of the ionosphere. In layman's terms, you then pick up information from the air.

This might account for repeated descriptions of heightened senses as a result of rising Kundalini, e.g. as described by Yogananda: "The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive."

Pathological Kundalini

When practiced in a religious context, Kundalini is mostly beneficial and benevolent. However, examples exist of historical figures suffering from kundalini symptoms, such as zen master Hakuin, Saint Theresa, and Nietzsche. The physiological precursors of kundalini also have the potential to diverge into some peculiar types of pathology, as when induced via violence and outside a religious context, where it may be part of a post-traumatic response. Post-traumatic stress disorder researcher Dr. Jonathan Shay (1994) describes several cases with kundalini-like symptoms in his book Achilles in Vietnam.

According to transpersonal theorists the phenomenon of kundalini is not necessarily pathological in itself, but it might produce serious physiological and psychodynamic symptoms if it is activated outside a proper socio-cultural context, or if it conflicts with already existing and underlying psychopathology or issues connected to overall human development.

Zero Point

2009-06-12T10:25:00.001+07:00

Zero Point

Zero Point Energy, Science

In a quantum mechanical system such as the particle in a box or the quantum harmonic oscillator, the lowest possible energy is called the zero-point energy. According to classical physics, the kinetic energy of a particle in a box or the kinetic energy of the harmonic oscillator may be zero if the velocity is zero. Quantum mechanics with its uncertainty principle implies that if the velocity is measured with certainty to be exactly zero, the uncertainty of the position must be infinite. This either violates the condition that the particle remain in the box, or it brings a new potential energy in the case of the harmonic oscillator. To avoid this paradox, quantum mechanics dictates that the minimal velocity is never equal to zero, and hence the minimal energy is never equal to zero.

Does electromagnetic zero-point energy exist, and if so, are there any practical applications and does it have any connection with dark energy? The theoretical basis for electromagnetic zero-point energy is clear.

According to Sciama (1991):

Even in its ground state, a quantum system possesses fluctuations and an associated zero-point energy, since otherwise the uncertainty principle would be violated. In particular the vacuum state of a quantum field has these properties. For example, the electric and magnetic fields in the electromagnetic vacuum are fluctuating quantities.

The Casimir Effect is an example of a one-loop effect in quantum electrodynamics that can be simply explained by the zero-point energy. It is precisely localizable differences in the zero-point energy that may prove to be of some practical use and that may be the basis of dark energy phenomena. Moreover it has also been found that asymmetries in the zero-point field that appear upon acceleration may be associated with certain properties of inertia, gravitation and the principle of equivalence Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff (1994); Rueda and Haisch (1998); Rueda and Haisch (2005)

Properties

Lastly, insights may be offered on certain quantum properties (Compton wavelength, de Broglie wavelength, spin) and on mass-energy equivalence (E=mc2) if it proves to be the case that zero-point fluctuations interact with matter in a phenomenon identified by Erwin Schrödinger known as zitterbewegung (Haisch and Rueda 2000; Haisch, Rueda and Dobyns 2001; Nickisch and Mollere 2002).

As intriguing as these latter possibilities are, the first order of business is to unambiguously detect and measure zero-point energy. While a Casimir experiment such as that of Forward (1984) can in principle measure energy that may be attributed to the existence of real zero-point energy, there are alternative explanations involving source-source quantum interactions in place of real zero-point energy (see Milonni 1994). To move beyond this ambiguity of interpretation experiments that will test for the reality of measurable zero-point energy will need to be devised.

Cultural References

In the Justice League Episode, 'Hereafter', Vandal Savage had taken over the world and invented a Zero Point Generator in the boredom of immortality which was used to power a time machine to transport Superman back to the present.

In the movie 'The Incredibles', the villain Syndrome uses a ray that can immobilize an opponent, suspending him in mid-air. Director Brad Bird, speaking in a DVD commentary, says that in searching for a name for the device (or at least a better one than "the Immobi-ray"), he came across and used a reference to "zero-point energy", which Syndrome himself uses to describe his weapon. (Of course, this is simply a cool name rather than a practical application at this time!)

In the computer game Half-Life 2, one of the weapons used by the player is the "Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator", better known by its nickname the "Gravity Gun". It allows the user to pick up and launch any medium-sized objects, and was used to market the game's detailed physics engine.

The television show Stargate SG-1 and the spinoff, Stargate Atlantis also makes references to zero-point energy in the form of Zero Point Modules or ZPMs. These ZPMs extract energy from small artificially-created subspaces are used to power the technology of the Ancients, such as the energy shield which protects the city of Atlantis and powering the Stargate with sufficient power to allow travel to the Pegasus Galaxy. The Ancients also attempted to extract zero-point energy directly from their own universe in Project Arcturus.

Another television series called ZERO.POINT is in development that centers around the machinations of a quantum physicist searching for zero-point energy technology and a drifter who wanders in perfect synchronicity.

In Marvel Comic's "Ultimate Secret" issue one, the disguised Captain Mahr-vell has helped humans develop a star drive based on ZPE. He offhandedly remarks that quantum wave fluctuations were discovered to cause inertia, which is the SED Hypothesis (covered here).

In the second season of the television series 'Alias', Sydney Bristow is tasked to retrieve a music box that supposedly contains a formula for zero-point energy.

In '3001: The Final Odyssey,' by Arthur C. Clarke humanity is tapping zero point energy (or vacuum energy as it's called in the book). Human astronomers observed an explosion of a far-away star, and on further investigation found that the detonation started at one of the planets which destabilized the star itself. This event gives the characters nightmares, as it was assumed that some alien race was using zero-point energy and lost control.

ZPE is also a potential energy source of interest to independent researchers outside of mainstream research entities, such as the late Eugene Mallove, and figures into discussions on radio programs such as Coast to Coast AM.

Zero Point

Consciousness exists in a virtual reality experiment in which souls enter to experience linear time and emotion. Reality is myth, math and metaphor set in motion for souls to experience linear time. Look upon everything as a metaphor for a greater truth.

Twins, Zero Point Merge, our Spiraling DNA, Our DNA genetic programming set to remember all at Zero Point EXperiment = ZPE. We spend our lives in the search/quest for our truths, who are we and why are we here.

Zero Point, Circle, Completion of a Cycle when both aspects
of your soul merge then blink out of existence.

Zero Point Merge is the coming together of the matter and antimatter aspects of your soul.
It is accompanied by a tone.

A pole shift of consciousness occurs when the polarities of our energy fields merge and shift.
Pole Shift Theories Science and Metaphysics

Zero, 'O', the sphere of creation, also references 911 - Ground Zero! 9=endings, 11=Twin Towers. There is something about New York, and a grid point that goes from the Verrazano Bridge to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, that holds a key to this puzzle. It links to the Masonic Program in which are experiencing. [Ma-mother, feminine and 'Sonic'= created by tones or sound.] Ground Zero is Zero Point consciousness. The program ends in a New York Minute!

The sound of a soul leaving the physical body is a 'thuup' noise that one hears when opening something vacuum sealed, Hermetically sealed, Hermes -- Thoth -- Zoroaster, Z (Zero), Zero Point, the seals are opened and the soul released.

Hermetically sealed Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air, Impervious to outside interference or influence."

Hermetic Mythology relates to Hermes Trismegistus, or the works ascribed to him, deal with the occult sciences, especially alchemy and magic - The Emerald Tablets of Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean which takes us to Atlantis -- the theory of Crustal Displacement -- Helena Blavatsky -- Edgar Cayce and endless others who equate the end of time, zero point with the rise of Atlantis as the poles shift, and Earth Changes take hold as prophesized at the 'end of time'.

The megalodon

2009-06-11T16:04:00.000+07:00

The megalodon (pronounced MEG-a-la-don; meaning "big tooth" in Greek from μέγας and ὀδούς), Carcharodon megalodon or Carcharocles megalodon (in dispute), was a giant shark that lived in prehistoric times. The oldest remains of this species found are about 18 million years oldand C. megalodon became extinct in the Pleistocene epoch probably about 1.5 million years ago. It was the apex predator of its time and is the largest carnivorous fish known to have existed.

C. megalodon could grow to more than 18 metres (59 ft) long and is also quite possibly the largest shark ever to have lived. From scrutiny of its remains, scientists postulate that C. megalodon belongs to order Lamniformes. However, scientists are still debating that which genus would be most appropriate for C. megalodon, from the two proposed. Fossil evidence has revealed that megalodon fed upon large marine animals.

Taxonomy

A Swiss naturalist, Louis Agassiz, gave this shark its scientific name, Carcharodon megalodon in 1835,^[3] in his research work Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (Research on fossil fish), which he completed in 1843. The teeth of the megalodon are morphologically similar to the teeth of the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. On the basis of this observation, Agassiz assigned the genus, Carcharodon to the megalodon. While the scientific name is C. megalodon, it is often informally dubbed the "mega-tooth shark" or "giant white shark."

Classification dispute

Even after decades of research and scrutiny, the controversy on phylogeny of C. megalodon still persists.^[1]^[2] Several shark researchers (e.g. J. E. Randall, A. P. Klimley, D. G. Ainley, M. D. Gottfried, L. J. V. Compagno, S. C. Bowman, and R. W. Purdy) insist that C. megalodon is a close relative of the great white shark. However, several other shark researchers (e.g. D. S. Jordan, H. Hannibal, E. Casier, C. DeMuizon, T. J. DeVries, D. J. Ward, and H. Cappetta) dismiss the proposal that C. megalodon is a close relative of the great white shark, and cite convergent evolution and heterochrony as the reasons for the dental similarity. Most paleontologists, convinced by the arguments, favor Carcharocles genus more over Carcharodon genus for C. megalodon.

Unicorn Deer

2009-06-06T23:44:00.000+07:00

Unicorn Deer

"Unicorn" Roams Italy Park National Geographic - June 13, 2008

Unicorn Deer Seen in Italy National Geographic - June 12, 2008

A young deer nicknamed "Unicorn" is drawing hundreds of curious visitors to a nature preserve in Tuscany, park officials say. The year-old roe deer was born in captivity with an apparent genetic flaw that gave it a single horn in the center of its head, said Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, northwest of Florence. The deer's twin, by contrast, has two horns.

People are now flocking to the nature preserve hoping to see the rare deer and take its picture. In the past few days about 200 visitors have made the pilgrimage to the 2.5-acre (1-hectare) preserve, Tozzi said. "We have received so many calls from people, and many are coming to see it," he said. "Sometimes he comes close to the fence, even if he is very shy." Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of, although experts say the central positioning of Unicorn's antler is unusual. Tozzi speculated that similar anomalies in the past might have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

The horse-like creature with magical healing powers has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.

UNICORNS

From : http://www.crystalinks.com/unicorndeer608.html

2012

2009-06-06T08:47:00.000+07:00

2102 The Alchemy of Consciousness in Time

Prophecies throughout time have named this as the end time, movement to a golden age, gold referencing the alchemy of time and consciousness. To examine the accelerating physical Earth changes and consciousness of humanity, recognizing and healing its issues, is to understand this evolutionary process and what is occurring. There are many factors linked to December 21, 2012 back into light, from which the human biogenetic came. The best barometer for you, is your own intuition, which will allow you to sense great changes. Dreams and meditation will also guide this part of your journey.

On December 21, 2012, for the first time in approximately 26,000 years, the Sun will rise to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way (eye, heart, center) and the ecliptic plane. The sun aligning with the galactic center, is referred to as the Cosmic Cross. According to the ancient Maya, this date will mark the end of one world as we know it and the beginning of another. It is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life, a Tree remembered as sacred in all the world's spiritual traditions. Emerging from this tree, or star alignment, comes a serpent (DNA) rope with an enlightened being named Nine (9, Closure) Winds (Wormholes, Spirals, StarGates, SG, Sacred Geometry). Nine Winds is Quetzalcoatl riding upon a blessed substance the Mayans called 'itz' (it's Z).

The Milky Way Galaxy, Ouroboros

The Milky Way Galaxy is the inspiration for the symbol of the Ouroboros. Mythology refers to a serpent of light residing in the heavens. The Milky Way is this serpent, and viewed at galactic central point near Sagittarius, this serpent eats its own tail. The Milky Way galaxy keeps a great time cycle that ends in catastrophic change. The sign of the Suntelia Aion is the sun rising out of the mouth of the ouroboros, which will occur on the winter solstice December 21, 2012 at 11:11 UT. Ancient historians, including Plato referred to a cycle of catastrophe at the End of the Age. The AION was symbolized by the Ouroboros.

The Mayan Calendar
The Mayan Calendar was allegedly created by Quetzalcoatl.

December 21, 2012: The Long Count calendar used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica completes its thirteenth b'ak'tun cycle since the calendar's mythical starting point (equivalent to 3114 BCE August 11 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, according to the "GMT-correlation" JDN= 584283). The Long Count b'ak'tun date of this starting point (13.0.0.0.0.0) is repeated, for the first time in a span of approximately 5,125 solar years. The significance of this period-ending to the pre-Columbian Maya themselves is unclear, and there is only a single known but incomplete inscription (Tortuguero Stela 6) which records this date. However, it is conjectured that this may represent in the Maya belief system a transition from the current Creation world into the next. A number of modern synchretisms and "New Age" theories co-opt this period-ending into their own speculations on the meaning of this "ending" of a Maya calendar cycle. The December solstice for 2012 also occurs on this day; to the majority of Mayanist scholars this is seen as no more than a coincidence, and the Maya did not deliberately devise their calendar so that this period would end on a solstice point.

Mayan Calendar and 11:11 UT, Universal Time.

2012	month	day	hour	2012	month	day	hour	minute	month	day	hour	minute
Perihelion	Jan	5	00	Equinoxes	Mar	20	05	14	Sept	22	14	49
Aphelion	July	5	03	Solstices	June	20	23	09	Dec	21	11	11

Cherokee Calendar
Prophecy: 2004 and 2012 bring an alignment both on the Cherokee Calendar and in the heavens of the Rattlesnake Constellation. It is the time of the doublehead serpent stick. It is the time of the Red of Orion and Jupiter against White Blue of Pleiades and Venus. It is the time of the Uku's choosing. It is the time of the Beloved Woman and Mysteries of Time Untime. It is the Time Untime of the Thunderbolt and the spirits of Lightning Mountains. Rattlesnake or serpent represents the human DNA biogenetic experiment.

Terence McKenna
Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946 - April 3, 2000) was a writer, philosopher, and ethnobotanist. He is noted for his many speculations on the use of psychedelic, plant-based hallucinogens, and subjects ranging from shamanism, the development of human consciousness, and the Novelty Theory - Time Wave: Zero Point.
Time Wave: Zero Point Google Video (11 minutes). Other Videos

Novelty Theory

King Wen sequence

The theory proposes that the universe is an engine designed for the production and conservation of novelty. Novelty, in this context, can be thought of as newness, or extropy (a term coined by Max More meaning the opposite of entropy). According to McKenna, when novelty is graphed over time, a fractal waveform known as "timewave zero" or simply the "timewave" results. The graph shows at what time periods, but never at what locations, novelty increases or decreases.

Considered by some to represent a model of history's most important events, the universal algorithm has also been extrapolated to be a model for future events. McKenna admitted to the expectation of a "singularity of novelty", and that he and his colleagues projected many hundreds of years into the future to find when this singularity (runaway "newness" or extropy) could occur. The graph of extropy had many enormous fluctuations over the last 25,000 years, but amazingly, it hit an asymptote at exactly December 21, 2012.

In other words, entropy (or habituation) no longer exists after that date. It is impossible to define that state. The technological singularity concept parallels this, only at a date roughly three decades later. According to leading expert Ray Kurzweil), another concept called cultural singularity (essentially cultural dissolution, or language dissolution), parallels this as well.

McKenna claimed to have no knowledge of the Mayan calendar, which ends exactly the same day that the Timewave graph does: December 21, 2012.

Solar Cycles
Solar Cycle 24 began on January 4, 2008 and peaks in 2012.
Solar Max Wikipedia
Solar Max YouTube
Solar Max - Sunspots and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Venus Transit
The next transit of Venus will occur on June 6, 2012. In Astrology, some believe that a doorway opened during the Venus Transit on June 8, 2004 and highlights in June 2012. This is close to the end time date in my screenplay "2012 The Alchemy of Time" adapted from my book 2012 Sarah and Alexander.

Astrology
The center of the Milky Way Galaxy is 26º 54 minutes Sagittarius. It approaches 27º 0 minutes in the year 2010. In the year 2012 the galactic center will be 27º 1 minute. If your birthday is on or around December 18, you are aligned with the sun pointing to the center of the galaxy. People born on this date include Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg.

Related Files

12 Spiraling Cones Around 1

Sacred Geometry, Spiraling DNA, Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Numbers

2012

Sarah and Alexander
The Alchemy of Time

Quetzalcoatl - The Mayan Calendar Prophecy

The Garden of Eden

Sumerian Gods Allegedly Create a Biogenetic Experiment

Dilmun, Iraq

11:11 DNA Codes

All Seeing Eye - Masonic Symbolism

Caduceus Rod of Hermes, DNA

Alchemy

Lyra of Hermes

Using the Rod to Slay the Dragon

Omega Project, Ending the Human DNA Experiment, Leo, Lion

Ouroboros -- 2012

Reptilian Connections

The Great Serpent Mound Creation

Coiling Snake, Dragons

Kundalini

Uraeus, Egyptian Connections Alpha, Omega

Dogon Nommo

Reptilian Part of the Brain

Gods with Water Buckets

Amphibious Gods

Twin Flames - Reunion Balance

Zero Point

The Eclipse of Time and Consciousness

Merkabah
Counter rotating fields - Rotation and Spin
Movement of consciousness between realities

Center, Heart Chakra

Hour Glass Effect - Time - Hours - Horus Rebirth

Qabbalah - Flower of Life - Star of David
Above and Below

The Court Jester and the Fleur de Lis (Flower of Life)

Archetypes

Hermes Trismegistus
The Emerald Tablets of Thoth (thought, consciousness)
As is Above, So is Below

Astral Projection

2009-05-31T10:11:00.000+07:00

Astral Projection

Find out more about Astral Travel / Astral Projection

Astral Projection or Astral Travel is one of the most amazing experiences I have had the pleasure to participate in. It is quite simply, consciously leaving your body as it sleeps. It's like being awake whilst you are dreaming. You leave your body and enter the astral realm, which is the next closest dimension to us here in the physical world. The astral realm is actually all around us we just can't see it. The astral realm contains all our thoughts and emotions.
		It is the place that we go to when we sleep. In our dream state we stay close to our physical body and we project emotional content from our subconscious mind. We are not conscious during this process. Being awake and conscious in this realm is known as astral travel.

Starting Out
After the physical body has fallen asleep, the astral body always projects into the physical world. Once the energy body has expanded, the astral body floats free and hovers just above the physical body, but within the expanded energy body's field of influence. Within this field, known as cord activity range, the astral body is held close to the physical world as it is within a field of etheric matter.

During a conscious astral projection it may appear as if you are projecting straight into an astral plane. But there is always an intermediary phase at the beginning, when you are existing as an astral form close to the physical dimension. This, real time part of any projection, may be missed if you black out at the moment of projection. The area around the body, within cord activity range, is flooded with etheric matter and within this field the astral body is held in real time close to the physical dimension.

Etheric Matter
Etheric matter is the actual life force substance generated by all living things by simply being alive. It is a substance in-between physical matter and astral matter, part physical and part astral. This etheric matter has actual weight. It is a very refined substance in between matter and energy and is similar to its coarser cousin, ectoplasm.

There have been scientific studies done on this phenomena. Dying people in hospitals have had their beds placed on delicate scales shortly before death and hooked up to EEG and ECG monitors. In all cases, at the exact moment of death, a sudden weight loss of approximately one quarter of an ounce is observed. This is caused by a large amount of etheric matter being transferred into the astral body at the moment of physical death. This is similar to the sudden transfer of etheric matter into the astral body during a near death experience where the body believes it is dying. This sudden, massive transfer of etheric matter is the start of the death process.

Ectoplasm
Ectoplasm has been studied in a similar fashion. Materialisation mediums have been placed on delicate scales and then asked to produced ectoplasm onto another set of fine scales. These mediums were observed to lose weight at exactly the same rate as the weighed ectoplasm gained weight. When the medium reabsorbed the ectoplasm this weight transfer was reversed. Ectoplasm is produced by the chakras. It converts part of the physical mass of the mediums body into another substance, ectoplasm.

Interdimensional Manifestation
Any non-physical or disincarnate entity, including the astral body, in order to function, in real time, close to the physical dimension; must contain etheric matter. Without etheric matter, nonphysical entities fade back into their dimension of origin. Etheric matter can only be obtained from living inhabitants of the physical world.

Energy Flow
The famed "Silver Cord" does more than just tie the two bodies together. It is a true umbilical cord, transmitting information and energy between the physical and subtle bodies. It is seen by some projectors and not seen by others. Sometimes it is seen emanating from the navel, sometimes from the forehead. The area the cord is seen emanating from may depend on chakra activity. Whichever chakra is the strongest, most active, could have control of energy flow to the subtle bodies. There is also the belief system of the projector to consider and the creative power of the subconscious mind. The cord will usually appear to be wherever you believe it will be, courtesy of the subconscious.

Once the astral body enters the astral dimension it must have a good supply of astral energy from the chakras in order to interact strongly with that dimension. Clear astral memory depends greatly on the amount of energy available. As the astral dimension is the natural domain of the astral body, it will not fade out of it due to a lack of energy. As in the real world, if a person hasn't eaten or slept for a few days they don't dissolve into another dimension. They just get weak and listless and don't interact strongly with the physical world.

What it boils down to is this: The astral mind must have enough energy to give it strong, vivid memories. These astral memories must be strong enough to make a good sized wrinkle in the physical brain, so the physical mind can recall them when it wakes up.

For example, if you haven't slept for a few days you will be tired, listless and your interaction with reality will be weak and vague. If you see a movie in this tired state you will retain little memory of it. Afterwards, you may only remember fragments of it and your memory of it will be a vague blur. If, however, you see a movie when you are well rested, fresh and full of energy, it is different. You take in everything about the movie and enjoy it. Your memory of it will be crystal clear.

This is similar to what happens after a low powered astral journey. The astral body lacks energy and so does not have clear enough impressions of its journey. This causes it to fail making its memories the dominant ones when it returns return to the physical body. As I stated earlier, there must be strong, vivid memories if a wrinkle is to be made in the physical brain and the experience remembered.

Chakras Use
Fully developing the chakras and learning how to control them can take many years, depending on natural ability. This will not, however, stop you using them in a very basic way; to enhance your OOBE's and lucid dreams, at a very early stage in your development. Raising energy and stimulating the chakras is extremely simple to do. This raised energy will automatically flow into your astral body, prior to and during projection.

By learning to raise energy and control the flow of power through the chakras, the nature of your dreams, lucid dreams and OOBE's will change. They will become vivid and unforgettable experiences. This, in a way, gives you a second life, full of rich experiences you can enjoy, learn and grow from.

Higher Levels And Their Buffer Zones
The commonly accepted names for the seven known levels of existence, from lowest to highest, are: Physical, Astral, Mental, Buddhic, Atmic, Anupadaka and Adi. These higher planes are similar in structure to the astral dimension but at a much higher level of consciousness and are completely separate from it. In between the different levels are intermediary areas or buffer zones, sometimes called lower sub planes.

A good analogy for the different dimensions and their buffer zones is the Earth's atmosphere: If the air in the Earth's atmosphere was the astral dimension, the stratosphere would be the buffer zone and the vacuum of space would be the mental dimension. You can fly in the Earth's atmosphere in a normal air plane/astral body. A very powerful jet plane is needed to take you into the stratosphere, but you need a space ship/mental body, to travel through space. This explains why a different subtle body is needed to travel into these different levels of existence.

The astral body can enter the buffer zones, or sub planes, of the dimensions above and below the astral dimension, if it contains the correct type of energy. i.e. To exist in the buffer zone between the physical/astral levels (in real time) the astral body must contain etheric energy. To exist in the buffer zone between the astral/mental levels it must contain mental energy.

Higher Level Projection
With enough control over the chakras, the energy for these higher levels can be produced. The production of one particular type of energy will raise the consciousness to that level and energise the corresponding subtle body. This is usually done by consciousness raising meditation and advanced energy work on the chakras. The consciousness can then experience that level of existence. If enough energy is available, and conditions are right, the meditator can project that particular subtle body directly into its natural dimension.

Depending on the skill and natural ability of the operator, if a higher body is energised and projected so, usually, are the lower ones. The astral body contains within it all the other subtle bodies and can, during a projection, project the mental body into the mental dimension and so on. This will sometimes give multiple sets of memories from the one projection. The general rule is, whichever subtle body contains the greatest amount of energy, will have the strongest memories. These dominant memories will be the ones retained by the physical mind upon its return to the waking state.

Projecting consciously into levels higher than the astral dimension takes a high level of skill. You need to be proficient in both consciousness raising and chakra control, but it is achievable. I have, so far, projected into the Astral, Mental, Buddhic and Atmic levels of existence. It is commonly believed that it is only possible for a human to project into the Astral, Mental and Buddhic levels and not possible to project into the higher Adi and Anupadaka.

These dimensions have been named, and are described, so someone must have been there or they would be unknown. If you realise the true nature of the mind you will understand there are no limits. It was also once said that the sound barrier would never be broken.

BTW: These dimensions don't have signposts on them saying Welcome to the Astral dimension, ta...daa! or "Mental dimension, watch your mind!". So I will describe the higher levels I have been to using these accepted names.

The Astral Dimension
This is a topsy-turvy world like Alice found in Wonderland. Everything seems objective (real) but is changeable and fluid. Anything and everything can be found there, from base, coarse levels full of sexual energy; to beautiful, serene places full of spiritual harmony. Time is distorted and extended there. An hour in the Astral can seem like only a few minutes here in the physical. Compared to the physical world it is at a much higher vibration. It's like playing a video tape at twenty times normal speed, although this is not apparent when you are there.

Moving amongst the astral dream pools is usually a hit or miss affair for most projectors. It takes a lot of experience to make planned astral journeys to specific realities.

There are an infinite number of realities, planes, realms and dream pools in this dimension. As I stated before, they naturally strata and settle into pools of related thought. During sleep, or in a lucid dream, the subconscious mind usually creates one especially for you, your own personal dream theatre. When you become aware during a dream, you take control over it. This control is taken over from the powerful subconscious mind. Without its powerful controlling influence, your personal custom created realm will change. You will begin tuning into other sympathetic parts of the astral, and the reality you are in will mix with other realities and take on different aspects.

In a conscious projection into the astral dimension, you can tune into any part of it and travel into different realities, other dream pools, or a mix of many. There are various techniques for this but they all involve some way to disorient the subconscious mind, tricking it into moving you into a different Astral reality. Some projectors look at their hands and watch them melt. Others spin around, causing left right reversals. These methods all disorient the mind and trick the subconscious into tuning into another part of the astral.

It's very difficult to describe how to move amongst the levels, you really have to learn by doing it, by trial and error. You have to learn how to use and control the subconscious mind, how to trick it for a specific result.

Virtual Reality Projection
Here is a simple, reliable method, I have developed, to create your own personal realm: Get a poster of a pleasant scene, something bright and sunny. The bigger the better, but standard poster size will do. Hang it on the wall of the room you are going to project in, or another room close by. Get a small spotlight and set it so the poster is highlighted when the main light is turned off, a normal directional bedside lamp will do. Place the light under, or above, so the light spreads out over it giving a diffused effect illuminating it, a bit like a movie screen.

Entering your custom realm: When you project, go towards the poster, keeping your mind blank. Don't think about what you are doing, just gaze at it and move towards it. As you approach it in this way, your subconscious mind will be tricked into creating an astral realm exactly like the poster. Just move up to and into the poster. It is like stepping into another world. Everything in this world will be exactly like in the poster. It will appear to be a normal three dimensional world, an exact copy, indistinguishable from reality.

To customise this world: Cut and paste small pictures of things, or people, you want to find in this world with you when you enter it. Don't just stick a whole picture on the poster. Get scissors and cut around the object, or person. Try and find pictures that are approximately the same scale as the poster. If you cut out a small picture of someone, living or dead, your subconscious will create a thought form shell of them and they will be there waiting for you. This may be an excellent way of communicating with those that have died.

Spirit Communication: (I have a theory) The subconscious creates this thought form shell of a person. This shell can be animated by the perfect, detailed memory of your subconscious. But, if there is love there, between the projector and this created person, the spirit of this, deceased person, will be drawn to this scenario and will use this opportunity to communicate with the projector, by animating the created image of their body.

The Akashic Records
These are found in the buffer zone between the astral and mental worlds, part astral part mental and, in a way, extending into all levels. They are a record of every thought and event that has ever occurred, like a huge, infinite, mental history, picture book. The Akashic records also contain probabilities stemming from, and created by, past events, actions and thoughts. This is like looking into the future. To make any kind of sense of the Akashic records yourself, some skill in clairvoyance is a definite help.

If you tune into the Akashic records yourself you will normally see those events with the greatest amount energy around them. Wars and disasters are the easiest to see because of this. The energy surrounding these events make them stand out above all the rest, making them easier to see. If you look into the future, the area of probabilities, you enter into a confusing maelstrom of symbolism mixed with actual events.

This future symbolism is caused by the belief systems of the major religions. Millions of people in the world have believed in some form of prophecy for thousands of years. Whether it is the Bible's "Book of Revelations" or the prophecies of Nostradamus. These ancient prophecies are all richly steeped in symbolism. This symbolism affects the way people think and dream about the future. This symbolism, in turn, manifests in the Akashic records as symbolic representations of future events. The symbolism is a big help, it makes consulting the Akashic records easier.

You can use the Akashic symbolism as an index. For example, the reference below to "The Dogs of War" is easily understandable as representing war. The "Grim Reaper" is a universal symbol of death and destruction. So, if you are interested in this kind of future event you tune into this symbolic index for WAR, then browse through the category of past and future wars. Apart from some clairvoyant ability, a knowledge of history, geography, religious symbolism, current affairs world leaders and heads of state is a big help; when indexing past and future events.

For example, in the future vision I give below: If I had known WHO the well known person I saw addressing a crowd below WAS, and recognised the country; I could have made an accurate prediction of future events instead of being wise, AFTER the event.

I entered the state of consciousness called the Akashic records. There I was inundated with a mass of symbolism. I was seeing in four dimensions at once. My conscious mind did not assimilate this very well. I saw wars, famines, plagues, disasters, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, plane crashes, murders, etc, it was terribly confusing and depressing.

I saw one piece of symbolism I recognised though and tuned into it, indexed it. The Grim Reaper holding The Dogs of War (as described by various prophets) These dogs were fearsome beasts with Red eyes and slavering jaws. They were held in check by this hooded figure, with an evil skull for a face, carrying a sickle. He released these dogs as I watched, symbolising a coming war.

Tuning into this scene, I was there floating above it all, I could feel the sunshine and smell the city below me. I saw a man standing on a raised dais, under two giant scimitar swords. He was giving a charismatic speech to many thousands of people. One of the swords turned into a Christian Crusader's broad sword. The man was Saddam Hussein, the scene was in Baghdad, at the monument to the unknown soldier. I saw this six months before the Gulf war started. I did not learn WHO Saddam Hussein WAS, or WHERE this scene took place though, until it was televised during the gulf war.

Looking through the Akashic records is like leafing through an infinite mental photo album. You are bombarded with an awesome array of the sights and sounds of past, present and probable futures. You have to select one of these thought records, tune into it and enter it. You will then live through the record as if you were really there, watching it as it happens.

Consulting with the Akashic records can be done alone if you have the skill, but is normally done with the assistance of an advanced being from a higher level of existence. This is done as a sort of telepathic guided tour. The enormous amount of information and chaff is filtered out for you and the selected record, of past events or future probability, is presented to you clairvoyantly, via a telepathic link with the... librarian.

Some people claim to have entered the Akashic Records and found something like a library there, with real books. The past, present and future was recorded as text in these books. Some people even say they have read a record, then entered into it, and experience the record first hand.

All these claims are consistent with the Akashic Records. These are librarian assisted guided tours, where the Akashic Records have been presented as something familiar, easy to use and easy to accept.

The Mental Dimension
This is a spectacular dimension! Iridescent rivers of sound bounded by rainbow shores of pulsating light. Thoughts appear as kaleidoscopic patterns of light and sound. You walk across fields of ideas under a sparkling crystal sky of inspiration. If you enter this world don't try to rationalise or understand it, or you may go mad, for it is beyond human understanding. Just accept it all, go with the flow and enjoy it!

This dimension is what, I believe, the ancient Vikings called the famed "Rainbow Bridge" into Asgard. It truly looks and feels as if you are walking up a rainbow into some wonderful world where the Gods must surely dwell.

Exist here in wondrous amazement. Let loose the child within you to play in this fairy wonderland. Everything feels real and solid. Time is even further distorted here than in the Astral and reality is kaleidoscopic.

Buddhic Dimension
This is a warm, abstract world filled with utter peace and infinite love. It is a dimension of pure White. There is no sight or sound perception here other than the all pervading, brilliant White. In this dimension you very quickly relinquish conscious thought and individuality. You cannot think for long once you enter here and there is no need or desire to do so. There is an irresistible urge drawing you into a quiet stillness. It is like being immersed in warm, pure White cotton wool. In this world you cease to be an individual and you become, PART OF THE ONE. You also cease to be male or female. In a way this is like returning to the Mother's womb. You are surrounded, absorbed and assimilated by infinite loving warmth, understanding, forgiveness and atonement. AT-ONE-MENT

Time here ceases to have any meaning. If you enter this world you will never, ever want to leave it, you cannot leave it, until your physical body calls and drags you back. This is the healing, resting place of the soul.

Atmic Dimension
This dimension appears be the spirit world. Here, spirits wait for those they loved during their time on earth. This is the happy place of the gathering. It is the place where the reunion of souls takes place.

The light in this world is purest, brightest silver, brighter than the flash of an arc welder. It is so bright it seems impossible to look at, but it is, for all that, a supremely gentle light, soft and soothing. It is the light of divine love. The people here appear as they did in the physical world, but at their most magnificent. They glow ecstatically, ablaze with the brightest love, happiness and joy imaginable. The atmosphere is electric and vital, but at the same time deeply spiritual. In this world you can FEEL the presence of God as a tangible all pervading force.

Communication here, is done by high level telepathic imaging, similar to one-on-one clairvoyance only much more vivid and real. It leaves speech and thought for dead. Time stands utterly still here. Reality is more real and solid than normal reality. Compared to this, the physical world is a vague, tired dream full of half dead people.

I have entered this dimension only four times in my life. Each time from the very deepest consciousness raising meditation, with all my chakras wide open and fully functioning. There was also extreme crown chakra activity. The feeling of this was like a thousand fingers vibrating, and deeply massaging, the whole top of my head above the hairline.

On these four occasions my energy has soared to seemingly impossible heights within me, carrying my spirit and consciousness with it. At the climax of this deeply mystical experience I have heard the sound of one long, pure musical note slowly rising in pitch. I have felt this note in the core of my being, in my heart, calling me, drawing me to it.

I have focused on this note and attuned to it. With every ounce of strength and energy I possessed I have focussed my consciousness on it and projected to it. Stripping away my physical body, I have projected straight into this dimension. It was just like stepping, slipping, through a heavy curtain into another place and another world. I am still aware of my physical body, duality, during this whole experience.

I look about me with wonder, the light is so silver and bright it burns deeply into my soul and I can feel its healing touch within me. There in front of me is my long dead son. He was eight years old when he left me, and he looked just as he did when I last saw him. He was beaming with happiness, his eyes bright and shining. I cuddled him up to me and wept with the joy of seeing him. I looked beyond him and there was a large crowd of people waiting for me. These were all the friends and family I had known and loved and lost during my life. There were also many people I did not know. They all seemed very familiar though and I felt I loved them all. They were clapping and jumping up and down, cheering me in greeting. There were many tears of joy and lots of hugging and kissing.

Looking beyond them, I see we are in a natural stone amphitheatre. The ground is smooth rock and it rises to a ridge a couple of hundred meters away that curves towards us. On the top of this ridge are Angels. They looked just like Michaelangelo painted them. They were incredibly beautiful, with large White feathered wings, curly Golden hair and Alabaster skin. They were blowing long sparkling golden horns, and the pure high note came from them.

Stepping from the crowd I walked into the open. I look in awe at these angels and wave at them. The note started to die away as I did this and the Angels began lowering their horns. I stand for a timeless moment in silence, looking all around me. Then everything began to shimmer and I slipped, fell back into my physical body. I wept. I have never wanted to come back.

Death
When you leave your body for the final time, at death, this is what I believe will happen:

You will be projecting, in real time, for the first few days, close to the physical world, until your supply of etheric matter runs out. Then you will go through the second death and enter the Astral dimension. There, you will purge yourself of all desire, by being able to have anything you have ever wanted, in abundance. This is done through having the full use of your subconscious mind's powerful creative ability. Here you can saturate your every need and desire, until you see these desires for the illusions they really are.

You will then shed your Astral (desire body) and enter the Mental dimension. There you will see your past life, examine and express every thought you have ever had and every action you have ever done. There, your thoughts, memories and experiences will be added to the Akashic Record. Which is the recorded experience of the entire human existence in the physical dimension.

Shedding your mental body you will then enter the Buddhic dimension. There you will stay for timeless healing, for rest, atonement, forgiveness and understanding of self. In this world your inner wounds will heal and your soul will be nurtured by divine love. Your spirit will become whole and perfect once more.

Then you will shed your Buddhic body and enter the Atmic dimension. There you will wait in the divine presence for those you love. Then, one day, you will go on to the next level of existence; where the last great mystery of life will be revealed to you....

Projection Training
To trigger the projection of the Astral body, while fully conscious, there are four major requirements:

Relaxing your body 100% while staying awake.
Concentrating 100% on what you are doing.
Having enough energy available.
Pressuring the astral body to separate.

Together, these four things will trigger an OOBE.

Below are exercises that will teach how to relax the body, concentrate, clear the mind, raise energy, stimulate the chakras and enter the trance state.

Calming The Mind

Relaxation
You must learn and master, a full body relaxation exercise. If you know one already it can be adapted to suit. Here is a very simple one:

Sit, or lie down, and relax. Starting with the feet, tense and relax them. Continue this with calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck and face until your whole body is deeply relaxed. Go over this a few times, making sure your muscles stay relaxed.

Note: Deep physical relaxation is the key to bringing on the trance state, i.e., deep relaxation CAUSES the trance state. Once you are in the trance state, projection on the astral body is relatively easy.

Contemplation
When you begin meditation, you will be plagued with thoughts from your surface mind, which acts like a huge Memo pad. It carries messages, reminders, pressing thoughts, problems to solve, unresolved issues etc. It is constantly busy, it NEVER rests, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, one after the other, all clamouring for attention.

Before you attempt to clear your mind, with the breath awareness exercise below, it is wise to deal with these surface thoughts by the act of contemplating them. Sit comfortably, do the relaxation exercise and think, nothing more, just think. Search out the strongest thoughts in your mind and examine them, try to resolve and understand them.

Note the word: THINKING. Contemplation does not involve clearing the mind, or visualisation. It requires you to THINK, deeply and thoroughly, about something, to gain a deeper understanding of its nature and how it relates to you, an insight.

Breath Awareness Meditation
This is a simple form of meditation. It will clear your mind and focus your awareness.

Sit or lie down, close your eyes, do the relaxation exercise and clear your mind. Breathe deeply and slowly and focus on the breath entering and leaving your body. Feel it coming in and feel it going out. Focus your whole attention on your lungs and the breathing process. This simple action is enough to occupy your surface mind. Firmly push intruding thoughts away, as they begin, before they can gather strength and distract you.

Breath awareness occupies the surface mind and allows you to think on a much deeper level.

Surface Thoughts
Sounds are very distracting, they generate surface thoughts. A car horn will generate: "Who's that, what's happening?" A door opening will generate: "Who's coming in or going out?" The surface mind is always very curious about what is happening around you. It wants to know all, and it wants to inform you of every little thing going on around you. It will pressure you to open your eyes, get up and go find out what's happening.

Don't allow this to happen. USE these annoying, attention getting thoughts as a training aide. By learning to quash and ignore them, your powers of concentration will grow.

Stop these annoying little thoughts as they begin, before they can take root and grow into something stronger.

For example:

Who's that, what's happening? becomes: "Who's th............"

Who's coming in, or going out? becomes: "Who's co............"

With practise the start of these distracting thoughts will get shorter and shorter until you get:

Wh....?........?.......... and " W...?................... "

And finally:

.......?........?...........................?...................

Many people say they can't clear their mind as they are too easily distracted by all the small noises that surround them, in normal day to day activity. DON'T use music or other sounds to blanket these out, USE them for training. It's like weight lifting, if you train with feather dusters your strength will not increase. You need to master this, the hard way, if you want to give your mind real muscle.

Slowly but surely you will master the ability to clear your mind. Once accomplished, you will have gained a valuable mental tool. You will be able to concentrate 100% of your attention, on one task, to the TOTAL exclusion of everything else.

I sometimes meditate, in the trance state, successfully, in a noisy, crowded room with little children crawling all over me. NOTHING breaks my concentration.

Concentration
You must be able to concentrate and focus completely on what you are doing. Lack of concentration is the single, biggest cause of projection failure. It affects every aspect of projection, from the relaxation exercise, to the trance state and actual projection.

To test your ability to concentrate: Sit and relax. Close your eyes and clear your mind of ALL thought. Breath slowly and deeply and count each breath, at the end of each exhale. Hold it totally BLANK, apart from the counting, for as long as you can. See how long you can hold it like this. Be honest with yourself, every time a thought intrudes start counting from the beginning again.

You are doing well if can do this for longer than ten breaths. Ten breaths is, however, not long enough. Don't worry though, this can be improved on with the exercises below.

Concentration Exercise (1)
After image retention: Relax, calm your mind, and look at a candle or a light bulb. Place this light in front of you, a couple of feet away, and stare fixedly at it for a minute or two. Close your eyes and concentrate on the after image this will generate behind your closed eyelids. Try and keep sight of it for as long as possible. Use breath awareness to keep the mind clear, while you are doing this. Try and make the after image grow, instead of fading away.

Concentration Exercise (2)
One point stare: Pick a spot on a wall and gaze at it. Don't focus on it, just gaze at it gently. Clear your mind of ALL thoughts and forcibly hold it blank. Concentrate HARD, on breath awareness while you are doing this. When you feel a thought beginning, push it away, don't let it finish! Hold this for as long as you can. Do this several times a day, or more if you can.

Concentration Exercise (3)
Energy breathing: Sit and relax. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Do the breath awareness exercise and imagine the air you are breathing IN is brightly coloured energy of your favourite colour. Imagine the air you are breathing OUT is a murky Grey, full of toxic waste. This is a purification exercise. It stimulates your chakras into absorbing energy on the inhale and getting rid of negative energy on the exhale.

Note: Try your best not to tense up while you are doing these concentration exercises, it is ALL mental. In the beginning, it may feel as if you have to tense your mind into a tight ball to stop it thinking, but in time you will find the opposite to be true. When you get used to it, clearing the mind is VERY relaxing.

The Trance State
When you have attained a deep level of relaxation and mental calmness, you will feel your body begin to get very, very heavy. This heaviness is the main symptom of your brain waves changing from the Beta to the Alpha level as you enter a trance. The trance state is caused by deep physical and mental relaxation. There is nothing weird or supernatural about it. It simply means your body has entered the sleep state while your conscious mind is fully awake.

How To Enter A Trance
Do the relaxation exercise and calm your mind through breath awareness. Imagine you are climbing down a ladder in the dark. Don't visualise a ladder, just imagine you can feel yourself doing it. On the exhale, feel yourself climbing a step or two down the ladder with your imaginary Hands (outlined below). On the inhale, feel yourself holding still on the ladder. What is needed is a mental falling effect inside your mind. This changes the level of brain wave activity from the awake level (Beta) to the asleep level (Alpha) or the deep sleep level (Theta). Once your level of brain wave activity reaches Alpha you will enter a trance. Keep doing this for as long as it takes. The time it takes to enter trance will vary, depending on your experience with deep relaxation and mental calmness.

Note: Once you get the heavy feeling, stop the mental falling exercise.

If you don't like the ladder, imagine you are in a lift, feel yourself falling on the exhale and holding on the inhale. Or, Imagine you are a feather, feel yourself floating down on the exhale and holding still on the inhale. As I stated above, you need a mental falling effect to lower your level of brain wave activity. This mental falling effect, when combined with deep relaxation and mental calmness, will cause you to enter the trance state. Feel free to use any scenario you are familiar with to bring about this going deeper feeling.

A trance feels like: Everything gets quieter and you feel like you are in a much bigger place. There is a very slight humming feeling in your body. Everything feels different. It feels a bit like putting a cardboard box over your head in the dark, you can feel the atmosphere change. It's like everything goes fuzzy or slightly blurred. Any sharp noises, while in trance, feel like a physical blow to the Solar Plexus.

Deep Trance
The level of trance you achieve depends greatly on your relaxation, concentration skills and will power. To enter a deeper trance, i.e., Theta level and beyond, you have to concentrate much more and for much longer, on the mental falling sensation aided by breath awareness. The first level of trance, i.e., when you get very heavy, is quite deep enough for projection. I strongly advise against forcing yourself deeper than a light trance, until you have plenty of experience with the trance state.

How can you tell if you are entering a deep trance? There are four very noticeable symptoms:

An uncomfortable feeling of cold that doesn't make you shiver, coupled with a steady loss of body heat.
Mentally, you will feel very odd and everything will feel extremely slooooow. Your thought processes will slow down as if you had been given a strong pain killing injection.
You will feel disassociated from your body, i.e., a strong floating sensation and everything will seem far away.
Total physical Paralysis.

Note: These four things, ALL TOGETHER, signify you are entering a deep trance.

Do not mistake the mild floating sensation you sometimes get with light trance, i.e., as you astral body comes loose. Or the slight loss of body heat from sitting still for a long time and the mild paralysis, i.e., the heaviness, for a deep trance. The sensation of deep trance is quite uncomfortable and unmistakable for what it is.

It is very difficult to get into the deep trance state, as you need highly developed relaxation, concentration and trance state skills plus lots and lots of will power and mental energy. You will not accidentally fall into it.

If you are worried you are going too deep, remember this:

You CAN pull yourself out of it at any time. Concentrate ALL your will on moving your fingers or toes. Once you can move a finger or toe, flex your hands, move your arms, shake your head, i.e., reanimate your body; and get up and walk around for a few minutes. Falling into a deep trance should not be a problem with these exercises.

I have seen many people in meditation groups etc, enter a light trance and not be able to pull themselves out of it, i.e., they float away with the faeries. Usually some kind person will talk them out of it or massage their wrists etc to get them to come back to reality. This is unnecessary and is the result of lop- sided training, i.e., no concentration or will power training. The person only THINKS they cannot come back and therefore does not try very hard. It is also a good way of getting attention from the group.

Note: Your mind is extremely powerful and has vast untapped resources. It can do ANYTHING, no limits, if it is trained, conditioned and properly motivated.

Energy Body Expansion
At some point after entering the trance state, you will feel a mild paralysis come over you. This will soon be accompanied by a deepening vibration and a buzzing feeling all over. You may also feel like you are huge and swollen. The paralysis, vibrations and the huge feeling are symptoms of the energy body expanding and the astral body loosening. This is part of the normal sleep process. The energy body expands and opens in order to accumulate and store energy. During this, the astral body drifts free, slightly out phase with the physical body.

Trance Familiarity
Many people blow their projection simply because they are not used to the trance state. They think it is a briefly opened window into the Astral dimension. This is simply NOT true. If you stay mentally and physically calm when you enter the trance state, you can maintain it for hours. I regularly spend several hours at a time in the trance state, during meditation.

If, when you enter trance, you think: "Yes! I've done it!...I'm in a trance! Gotta hurry and get out quick...before it stops!" You'll blow it for sure! The trance will be ended by the simple act of getting over excited, i.e., breaking relaxation and mental calmness.

It's a good idea to spend time in the trance state, just getting used to it, before you try and project. Just relax, stay calm, focus on breath awareness, and hold the trance. It won't end until you want it to. Get used to how it feels.

When you are comfortable doing this, do the energy raising and chakra stimulation exercises, below, in trance.

Note:

You do not HAVE to be in a trance to learn energy and chakra work, it just works better in trance.
Trance practise can be done lying down, but is best done in a comfortable arm chair.

Your astral body will be loose in the trance state, so try lifting your astral arms and legs out, one at a time. Use your HANDS to do this, as shown in the next section. Focus and FEEL your awareness in an arm and slowly lift it free of your body. You may feel a slight tickling or localised dizziness inside your arm or leg, as you do this. Lift your astral arm up and look at it, with your eyes closed, but DON'T move a muscle. In this state you should be able to see it through your closed eyelids, but don't worry if you can't, this will come later.

Lifting your astral arms free is good practise for projection. Later, you will use these astral arms to pull your astral body free of the physical.

Tactile Imaging
Tactile imaging is a perception or FEELING of localised bodily awareness.

Your hands are very closely linked to your bodily awareness. They are intimately aware of every part of your body. Imaginary HANDS, outlined below, is only an extension of this (hand to body) awareness. When you are asked to feel your awareness, in any part of your body, PRETEND your hands, your real hands, are going to touch that area of your body. Then use the awareness this generates in that area to imagine your imaginary HANDS are there.

Keep your eyes closed and hold your hands out a foot or so in front of your face. Concentrate, FEEL where they are and try and SEE them through the blackness behind your closed eyes. Cross your wrists, slowly move them about, turn your hands over, open and close your fingers. Look hard, concentrate, as if you were trying to see in the dark, and you will see a faint moving shadow in your minds eye, where your hands and arms are.

Close your eyes and touch the tip of your nose with the index finger of your right hand. You'll find you can accurately put that finger on any part of your body with your eyes closed. Try it, put your hand, your real hand, on different parts of your body like this. You know exactly where your hands are at all times, you can sense and feel where they are. If you observe what is happening in your mind, while you are doing this, you will notice you become aware of the part of your body you are going to touch, the instant you make the decision to touch it.

Go over your whole body like this, getting used to the sensation of awareness it generates in different areas of your body.

What is happening is this: Part of your mind is shifting into, and HIGHLIGHTING, the area you are going to touch, in order to guide your hand to the exact spot. Your mind shifts part of its awareness to this spot and acts like a homing beacon for your hand.

The ability to shift your awareness into different parts of your body like this is VITAL to energy work and this projection method.

Note: You do not have to actually visualise these HANDS, i.e., see or imagine you can see them. It is ALL tactile, NOT visual. You just have to be able to pretend to FEEL them doing something, like you are rehearsing some simple action in your mind.

I originally developed this technique for blind people. Blind people cannot visualise AT ALL, if they have been blind since birth, but they do have a very keen sense of bodily awareness. The majority of sighted people also have great trouble with visualisation of any kind, and all projection techniques depend heavily on visualisation. This being the case, I developed a projection technique that does NOT depend on visualisation to exert pressure on the astral body to separate. It turned out to be so much easier, and more successful, than the other visualisation based techniques, that I discarded them in favour of this simple tactile method.

Note: Blind people are not blind in astral form. The astral body does not have any organs as such, it is a point of consciousness only. The astral body you are aware of while projecting is provided courtesy of the subconscious minds creative ability.

Basic Energy Work (The Major Chakras)

The major chakras are situated at:

Base chakra (base of spine, between anus and genitals)
Spleen chakra (slightly below the belly button)
Solar Plexus chakra (1 hand-span above the belly button)
Heart chakra (centre of the chest)
Throat chakra (base of throat, above where it joins the chest)
Brow chakra (exact centre of forehead)
Crown chakra (whole top of head above the hairline)

They are best imagined as roughly the size of the palm of your hand, except for the crown chakra which is much larger.

What Are Chakras?
Chakras are non-physical organs that transform raw subtle energy into more subtle, and useable, forms of energy, of a different type. The chakras do not, themselves, contain energy. Raw energy is drawn up from the planet, by the minor chakras in the legs and feet, and fed into the main chakra system.

Subtle energy is, in essence, pure thought energy that permeates and binds the universe together. This living energy field can be tapped, more deeply, by the application of focussed, creative will. It can be drawn into the human body and transformed, by the chakra system, into a more subtle and useable form of energy.

The chakras are attached to the spinal cord and nervous system via certain glands and nerve ganglia. The full chakra system is extremely complex. There are 7 major and over 300 minor chakras in the human body. There are also several non-physical chakras situated outside of the body. Detailed maps of the chakra system and their connecting meridians and pathways, have been used for thousands of years in Eastern mysticism and medicine, i.e., acupuncture. The chakra system is used with every psychic ability, no exceptions. Whatever the psychic ability, the method of development or the terminology used to describe it, it is all done the same way, through chakra stimulation. It is impossible to manifest any psychic ability without first stimulating the chakras.

Many people will deny this, above, and claim they have never done any chakra, energy work, but still have psychic abilities. There are many ways to develop yourself, agreed, but they all, directly or indirectly, stimulate the chakra system. And let's not forget natural ability. Many people are born with naturally active chakras and hence, natural psychic ability.

Mediums are people who exhibit psychic abilities when aided by a nonphysical spirit entity. This entity stimulates the chakras of the medium directly, by melding with the medium and causing psychic abilities, clairvoyance, channelling, healing, production of ectoplasm etc to manifest through the medium. This is why they are called Mediums or channels, i.e., they have the ability to become a passive vehicle for a spirit entity to affect, or communicate with, the physical world.

You do not need a spirit entity to develop and use, a psychic ability. If you learn to control your own chakras and energy, you can do these things on your own, with no spirit entity involved, and without the inherent risk involved with that method.

Energy Raising
Sit, or lie down, do the relaxation exercise and clear you mind with breath awareness. Focus your awareness in your feet. Use your HANDS to pull energy up from your feet, through your legs, to the base chakra. Imagine you are gripping energy and pulling it up through you. Just like you did when you used these HANDS with breath awareness and colour breathing, pulling air and energy into your lungs.

Note: Try and imagine your HANDS are inside your legs and just inside the front of your torso as you do this.

Use breath awareness as an aide to energy raising. Draw energy up through you, with the inhale, and hold it in place on the exhale. Do this over and over again, pulling energy to the Base chakra, for at least a few minutes. You may or may not feel anything while you do this. Even if you don't, you are still drawing some energy with this exercise. The amount of energy drawn up through you will increase as the chakras develop with time and use.

From the feet, up the legs to the base centre, is a natural path for the energy that flows through you. This energy will stimulate your chakras and they will transform this, basic energy, into energy of a different type. This transformed energy will then flow into your subtle bodies, energising them. With practise, you will actually FEEL this energy tingling and surging through you.

Chakra Stimulation
Opening a chakra: Your imaginary HANDS are used for this. Imagine you are tearing open a bread roll at the site of a chakra when you are asked to do this. You don't have to visualise anything, just FEEL like you are doing this, as if you were doing it in real life without looking at what you are doing.

Chakras are non-physical centres, so you need a non physical method to stimulate them. This is achieved by focusing your awareness in the area of a chakra and using your mind to manipulate it. You need a localised, mental opening effect in a chakra to stimulate it; this tearing open action, with your imaginary HANDS, provides it. By moving your point of awareness to the site of a chakra and causing a mental opening effect with your HANDS, you are directly stimulating the chakra.

Note: Do the energy raising exercise, as above, before stimulating the chakras. Use breath awareness to aide your HANDS in pulling energy into each chakra, i.e., draw energy UP on the inhale and HOLD it on the exhale, with all the chakra stimulation exercises below.

Base chakra: Raise energy up to your Base chakra. Use your HANDS to open it. Pull energy INTO the Base chakra. Repeat this first step, thoroughly, seven times.

Spleen chakra: Draw energy from the feet, through the Base chakra and on up to the Spleen chakra. Open the Spleen chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet.
Solar Plexus chakra: Draw energy from the feet, through the Base and Spleen chakras and on up to the Solar Plexus chakra. Open the Solar Plexus chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet.
Heart chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen and Solar Plexus chakras and on up to the Heart chakra. Open the Heart chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet.
Throat chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen, Solar Plexus and heart chakras to the Throat chakra. Open the Throat chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet.
Brow chakra: Draw energy up from the feet, through the Base, Spleen, Solar Plexus, Heart and Throat chakras to the Brow chakra. Open the Brow chakra. Repeat this three times, starting at feet.
Crown chakra: Draw energy up to the Crown chakra as in the previous step. Open the Crown chakra. This chakra is much larger than the others ( whole top of head, above hairline). Imagine you have a much larger, flatter bread roll inside the top of your head and are tearing it open with your HANDS, or like you are tearing your scalp open. Repeat this entire process twice, starting with the feet.

Note: Try your best not to tense any muscles during these exercises. You may, however, feel a slight internal contracting, a feeling that is NOT muscular while you are stimulating your chakras. These are the glands and nerve ganglia, linked to the chakras, contracting in response to the stimulation. This internal contracting is normal.

The Base, or Root chakra, is THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE TO ACTIVATE. This chakra is the doorway for the subtle energy. Unless this is opened sufficiently, the energy cannot flow into the other chakras. I suggest you concentrate most of your time and energy into stimulating your Base chakra, at least in the early stages of chakra development.

Note: When I first started raising energy and developing my chakras, many years ago, I didn't feel ANY sensation for several months. Many people, though, have reported to me strong energy and chakra sensation the first time they used them. Some people have more natural chakra activity than others. Lack of any sensation, though, will not stop you from stimulating and developing them, even if, as was my case, you feel nothing at first. I did not have ANY natural chakra activity or ANY natural psychic ability when I first started energy work.

Stop And Check
Check your muscles for any tensing during the energy raising and chakra stimulation exercises, and re-relax as needed. Your muscles will automatically try and respond to the mental action of pulling energy up through you. Remember, this is ALL mental, your body must stay calm and relaxed throughout.

Chakra Sensations
The sensations you will feel in your chakras can vary, according to the degree of activity occurring in them, i.e., your physical make up, natural ability, concentration and relaxation skills affect this. It can vary from a gentle warmth, a localised pressure, or bubbling (like stomach wind), a localised dizziness, a tingling, a gentle pulsing, to a heavier throbbing, or a combination of some or all of the above. The heavier the thrumming, the more active the chakra. If you place your hand on a chakra, when it is active, you will actually feel the flesh pulsing.

Some of the chakras, when active, can cause other odd, localised sensations:

Base chakra: You may feel a very slight burning or tingling, or a cramping, like you have been riding a bicycle for too long, to begin with. Once it is working properly, you will feel a gentle pulsing or throbbing between your legs, at the site of the chakra.

Solar Plexus Chakra: This can sometimes cause a shortness of breath feeling, which can cause you to hyper-ventilate. This will pass, with time and use, as the chakra stabilises.

Heart Chakra: The heart chakra merits special mention due to the strong, and sometimes frightening, sensation it can cause. When strongly activated it can feel like your heart is racing at an impossible rate. It is a powerful sensation. Try and ignore this when it happens, it won't hurt you. It is not your heart racing but the chakra working. I know this is easier said than done, ignoring it, but with practise and familiarity you can. This racing is more apparent in the early stages of development. I think this is caused by a lack of energy flowing from the lower centres. In a way it is like a pump racing, when it does not have enough fluid to pump.

The heart chakra, when fully operational, feels like: Place one hand on your chest, with your finger tips resting in the middle of it over your heart. Tap your fingers on your chest, in time with your heart. Increase this rate until you are tapping as fast and hard as your fingers can move.

Note: Your actual heart rate does NOT speed up with this racing sensation. If you hook yourself up to a heart monitor, you will see that your heat beat hardly changes at all.

Throat Chakra: The throbbing in it can cause a very mild choking feeling, because of the sensitive area it is in. This feels something like having an emotional lump in the base of your throat.

Crown Chakra: When fully active it feels like a thousand soft, warm fingers gently massaging the inside of the top of your head, above the hairline, and extending down in the centre of the forehead, to include the brow chakra, which is part of it. This sensation is the reason the Buddhists call it "The Thousand Petalled Lotus".

Note: You may feel a stronger sensation in some chakras and little or none in others. Concentrate on the lowest ones with the least sensation. This will help balance the energy flow in the chakra system.

If you are unbalanced, during projection the inactive chakras can cause failure, i.e., you may get your body partly loose but find you are stuck to your body at the site of the inactive chakra. If this happens, concentrate on stimulating the inactive chakra prior to projection.

(Editors Note - See also Part 8 Closing Energy Centres)

Psychic Abilities
After beginning chakra work, you may find psychic abilities start to grow in you. This is a natural offshoot of stimulating the chakras. In my next series, on more advanced energy work, I will show how to develop and use some of these abilities and how to raise the Kundalini.

Practise
Some relaxation, breath awareness, concentration and mental hands exercises should, ideally, be carried out daily. They can be done anywhere and anytime you have a few minutes to spare.

How Long Does It All Take?
Many people have asked me "How long does it take to learn projection?" My answer is: Because everybody has different levels of natural ability and skill, it will take as long as it takes. I have had letters from people, who have been trying various other methods for several years, but with no results; get out the very first time they tried this technique. Other people, with NO relaxation or concentration skills at all, are looking at several months training before they will get out.

Astral Rope
A key ingredient to the new projection techniques is an invisible, imaginary ROPE hanging from your ceiling. This ROPE will be used to exert dynamic pressure at a single point on your astral body to force its separation from the physical.

The ROPE technique is similar, but more direct and hence more effective than other more passive and indirect methods, such as reaching out and pulling vibrations into you, or visualizing yourself in front of yourself. The idea of pulling vibrations into you is vaguely illogical, if you understand the mechanics of projection.

The vibrations are an effect and NOT a cause of projection. When enough pressure is exerted on the astral body to loosen it sufficiently, the energy body expands and energy flows through the chakra system to be stored in the energy body. This flow of energy through the hundreds of chakras and their connecting web, or meridians, CAUSES these vibrations. This normally happens, unnoticed, during sleep.

Putting The Pressure On
The more passive, indirect methods of projection do exert some pressure on the astral body to separate, but over a wide area. They still shift the point of consciousness out of the body, albeit obtusely. Any mental action that exteriorizes the point of consciousness will exert some pressure on the astral body.

The action of pulling yourself hand over hand up a rope is a strong, one pointed, natural action that is easy to imagine yourself doing. The ROPE technique concentrates ALL your mental resources into one strong, DYNAMIC action which exerts a high level of pressure directly on a single point of the astral body.

There are many other, more subtle, ways that exert pressure on the astral body as well. Many of these are unsuspected for what they are. Most meditation exercises, for example, exert PASSIVE pressure on the astral body. You may imagine you are going down in a lift, falling, climbing down a ladder, or just floating downwards. Whatever the technique, it is designed to reduce brain activity. Any self induced, inward falling sensation places passive pressure on the astral body, which will cause brain activity to lower and bring on the trance state where a deeper level of the mind is revealed.

The action of inward falling obtusely shifts the consciousness out of the body, exerting passive pressure on the astral body over a wide area, but in the reverse to that needed for projection, i.e., general downwards pressure. This, in a way, is like trying to get your astral body to FALL out of your physical body on its own, i.e., your point of consciousness tries to FALL, downwards, out of the physical body.

What most people do to project is to either exert forward, passive pressure on the astral body, by visualizing themselves floating out of themselves, and HOPE, they can make it happen, i.e., trigger the projection reflex. Or, they try a more direct method, such as visualizing themselves out of their body, which is very, very, difficult. Lets face it, 99% of people can't visualize for peanuts and the act of mentally visualizing yourself OUT of your body, AND shifting your consciousness INTO this visualization is almost impossible for most people. The other popular method is to try to pull vibrations into you. This method is slightly more effective than most as it exerts some pressure at a single point, but it is still an indirect mental action and, therefore, obtuse.

All the above, and the general lack of information about the mechanics of projection, i.e., HOW it happens, accounts for the extremely high failure rate amongst people learning to project.

Holding passive pressure, over a wide area, on the astral body, for long enough, WILL activate the projection reflex, eventually. But this can take a long time and can be mentally exhausting. I have developed, through recent research, a better, faster and more dynamic method of projection that is very effective. I call this technique simply ROPE. It is not that using an imaginary rope for projection is such a new idea, it's not, but the understanding of the mechanics of it and the application of this knowledge to ROPE is.

If you fully understand how a thing works, you can use that thing more efficiently and, therefore, get better results.

The new ROPE method overcomes the general misdirection of mental resources and the chronic waste of mental energy caused by the usual lengthy procedures needed for projection. ROPE shortens the time needed to cause a projection and optimizes the use of available energy.

One of the most important ingredients for a successful projection is to be properly motivated. Without this motivation you will not have enough mental energy to succeed and will either fall asleep or forget the projection afterwards. It is, therefore, important to keep preparation time as short as possible so it is not such a daunting and mentally exhausting task.

One thing a new projector has in abundance is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is pure mental energy. ROPE, plus the understanding of HOW it works, harnesses and makes better use of this energy resource and vastly improves the success rate.

Getting The Feel Of Rope
Pin a length of ribbon, string or rope to the ceiling above you. Have it hanging within arms reach so you can easily reach up and touch it. Reach out and touch it frequently, until you are used to where it is in your mind. This ribbon is only a tactile aide. By being able to reach out and touch the ribbon, you used to the spatial coordinates of where the invisible, imaginary ROPE is. This grows both in your mind and hence as a thought form, making it easier to imagine yourself reaching out and climbing the ROPE with your imaginary HANDS.

Note: You do NOT have to actually visualize, or see, the ROPE at any time, just know where it is supposed to be. This method uses NO visualization at all.

Reaching out and pulling on this invisible, imaginary ROPE with your imaginary HANDS shifts the bodily awareness induced point of consciousness, out of the body, with a strong natural action that puts direct pressure on one point of the astral body.

Active Chakra
One important point, if you happen to have more activity in your Brow Chakra, rather than in your Heart Chakra, which is sometimes the case. Move the position of your imaginary ROPE so your arms would be at a 45 degree angle above your head. If you use the visual aide, ribbon, move this so it is hanging down over your head, rather than over your chest.

Changing the angle of the ROPE shifts the point of pressure you are exerting on your astral body to the most active chakra area and gives better results.

In any case, position the angle of the ROPE at the most natural, and easy to imagine attitude for you. It is important that the angle and position of the imaginary ROPE feels natural. Experiment with this angle until it feels right for you.

Are You Ready To Project?
All the exercises in the previous parts of this series ARE necessary training for projection. They are, however, not all needed, in themselves, for the projection process. If you do all the relaxation, mental calming, mental falling, chakra opening and energy raising exercises during the actual projection, you can use up your supply of mental energy. This can cause mental exhaustion and you may find yourself short of energy and willpower for the all important exit.

All the exercises should be done separately from the projection itself. They are training and development exercises, designed to improve control over body and mind and to increase the flow of energy through the chakras. This is like working out in a gym as a part of football training. You don't actually use these exercises to play football, they just improve your fitness and strength so you are able to play football effectively.

Do the training exercises separately UNLESS you are trying for an advanced, real time projection. It is, then, still necessary to go through the full procedure, and activate all the chakras, prior to the actual projection.

The whole point of learning to project is to get your astral body to separate from the physical while fully conscious. The earlier you get a fully conscious projection the better. Otherwise, you may eventually give it all up as just too difficult. Therefore, I strongly suggest all beginners concentrate on the simplest, most effective way of getting a conscious projection. Once you have some projection experiences under your belt you can try for some of the more advanced, and hence, more difficult, types of projection.

By doing the training exercises you have learned to relax your body, to clear your mind and to concentrate. You have begun to develop (MBA) (mobile bodily awareness) and how to use MBA, i.e., using your imaginary HANDS to preform certain tasks both inside and outside of your body. You have also begun to awaken and develop your chakras so your energy flow is stronger and you have, hopefully, spent time getting used to being in trance. These skills have prepared your body and mind for projection.

When To Do The Exercises
Even though the exercises, in themselves, are not all used during the projection sequence, they still need to be done regularly in order to develop the necessary skills and energy levels for conscious projection.

I suggest the relaxation, concentration and mental calming exercises are done daily. Use your imaginary HANDS with these exercises. The energy, chakra work and other exercises should be done at least once a week to be effective. If you wish to do them more often, fine, just don't tire yourself out too much.

Your Projection Sequence
It is difficult to give one, universal projection sequence as everybody has different levels of skill and natural ability. For this reason I give a more flexible sequence and I suggest you tailor a projection method to fit your own needs and level of skill. Keep in mind the old saying "What works, works!" Play around with your sequence until you find what is right for you, what is easiest and most effective.

First, here is the full sequence for advanced, real time projection.

Full Sequence
Do relaxation exercises thoroughly.

Clear your mind through breath awareness.
*Enter trance using mental falling method.
*Raise energy and open all chakras.
Pull yourself out with the imaginary rope.

Note:

Steps 3* and 4* can be swapped to suit, i.e., do the energy work before, or after, entering trance. Energy and chakra work is more effective done in trance, but some people have trouble getting into that state. Doing the energy work first will usually help bring about the trance state.
IF you still have trouble getting into trance, use the ROPE climbing method at step 3* instead of the mental falling exercise, until you are in trance. Then stop the ROPE climbing and do the energy work before continuing with the projection, i.e., using the ROPE at step 3* will help force your body into the trance state.

How To Use ROPE
This is a complete projection method in itself, if you have good powers of concentration. I suggest beginners concentrate solely on this method until they have more experience. This projection method will give you a normal Astral projection. The duration of this projection, in real time, will depend on the level of chakra development and energy flow you have attained.

Do the relaxation exercise thoroughly, until you are completely settled. This should only take a few minutes, don't overdo it.

Reach out with your imaginary HANDS and pull yourself, hand over hand, up the strong, invisible, imaginary ROPE hanging above you. Try and imagine the feel of a strong, thick, coarse rope in your HANDS.

Don't try and visualize this ROPE! I want you to imagine you are reaching out and climbing this ROPE in the pitch dark, so you can't see it at all, you just know where it is and can imagine the feel of it. Visualization wastes valuable mental energy that can be better put to use exerting direct pressure on your astral body.
You will feel a slight dizzy sensation inside you as you do this, specifically in your upper torso. This is caused by exerting dynamic pressure on the astral body. The dizzy sensation comes from the astral body loosening. This feeling of vertigo will intensify the more you pull on the rope.

Very Important Note:
1. This dizzy feeling and any feelings of pressure or vertigo, etc, caused by your mental action of pulling on the ROPE MUST be carefully noted by you. Learn the EXACT mental action you are doing to cause this vertigo. You will have to train your mental climbing action to cause this feeling. So, the first few times you try this ROPE method, concentrate on finding the right mental action to do this. Once you learn what it is you are doing to cause this, and can recreate it at will, you are really starting to get somewhere.
2. IGNORE *ALL* SENSATION YOU FEEL DURING PROJECTION or it will distract you, break your concentration, and ruin your chances for projection. Concentrate on the single act of climbing your ROPE to the TOTAL exclusion of everything else. Put everything you have into this one action, but don't tense up, it must be all mental.
Keep climbing, hand over hand, ever upwards, and you will feel the heavy sensation come over you. The pressure you are exerting on your astral body will force you into the trance state. Ignore this when it happens and concentrate on what you are doing.
Keep climbing and you will feel your chakras open in response to the pressure, don't stop.
Next you will feel the vibrations start, your whole body will seem to be vibrating and you will feel paralysed. Concentrate, single minded, on climbing your rope, don't stop.
Next you will feel yourself coming free of your body. You will buzz slightly as you pull yourself out of your body. You will exit your body in the direction of your imaginary ROPE and will be hovering above your body. You're free at last!

Note:

Do *NOT* allow yourself to break concentration when the vibrations start. They are a natural EFFECT caused by energy coursing through all the hundreds of major and minor chakras in your body. If you do find yourself being distracted by this, spend more time and effort doing the concentration exercises until you overcome this problem.

If you have not mastered using your imaginary HANDS for relaxation, raising energy and chakra work, you may have difficulty using them for climbing the ROPE. This does not mean you have to be able to open your chakras successfully to project using this method, you don't, it just helps if you can.

This method is very direct. It shortens the time needed to project dramatically! Once you start pulling in earnest on your ROPE you WILL enter trance, your chakras WILL open, the vibrations WILL start and you WILL project, very quickly! The speed of this method may frighten you, the first time you try it. Everything will seem to happen TOO fast. You will get used to this, though, and will appreciate having plenty of mental energy to use during your projection.

If your powers of concentration are good, you have a better chance of getting out with this method than any other, even if you haven't mastered deep relaxation and trance skills. What is needed, apart from the ability to concentrate, is the ability to carry out strong mental actions, without any corresponding muscular action, i.e., you have to be able to separate mental and physical actions.

If you have trouble with any part of the ROPE method, analyse it, find the problem area, then go back and concentrate on the related training exercises until you overcome the problem.

A ROPE Variation
Note: One good variation for the simple ROPE technique, is to do the full sequence of exercises and energy, chakra work first, but separate from, the actual projection. Do the full sequence, but `don't' close your chakras. Get up and have a break, make yourself comfortable, have a drink etc. Then return to your bed /chair fresh, spend a couple of minutes relaxing and go straight to your ROPE. This will increase the amount of chakra energy available during the projection.

The Mechanics OF How ROPE Works
ROPE is the most dynamic projection method to date and can override the need to do just about anything else, once it is learned. Let me explain a little more of the mechanics of what actually happens when you use ROPE, by breaking it down:

Clearing The Mind:
The mental act of climbing the ROPE fully occupies and clears the mind.

Brain Wave Activity:
Clearing the mind and exerting, one pointed, dynamic pressure on the astral body, forces the reduction of brain wave activity.

Deep Relaxation:
Reducing brain wave activity forces the body into a deep level of relaxation.

Trance State:
Exerting dynamic pressure on the astral body, while the physical body is deeply relaxed, and brain wave activity is at a low level, FORCES the mind and body into the trance state.

The Chakras:
Exerting dynamic pressure on the astral body, while in trance, FORCES the energy body to expand and the chakras to open.

Vibrations:
Exerting dynamic pressure on the astral body while the energy body is in its expanded state and the chakras are open causes energy to flow through the 300 odd chakras in the body and causes the vibrational state.

Separation:
Exerting dynamic pressure on the astral body while the energy body is in its expanded, vibrational state forces the astral body to separate from the physical.

Note: If you exert enough pressure on the astral body, during the final phase of the projection sequence, the exit, it will override the projection reflex completely. This forces a manual separation of the physical / astral bodies.

This means: Instead of involuntarily buzzing out of your body via the projection reflex, at the climax of the projection, and ending standing at the foot of your bed etc, you will exit your body in the direction you are pulling on the ROPE.

How Long Does It All Take?
The whole projection process can be done in less than fifteen minutes, I can do it in under five minutes. The speed of the method allows you to use ALL your available energy in one burst. If you don't get out in the first fifteen minutes I doubt if you will during that attempt. IF this is the case, either get up and have a break and come back to it later, or get some sleep.

Using the ROPE method, literally, amazed me with it's ease and simplicity the first time I used it. It shortened my usual projection time (20-30 minutes, from a cold start) to about 5 minutes, for a normal astral projection. I still, though, use the full sequence when I do a real time projection.

My analysis of the mechanics of this process comes from using the ROPE method myself and carefully observing what was happening to my body during the separation.

My First ROPE Projection
Here is an account of the first time I tried ROPE, while I was developing it as a viable theory:

I laid down on my bed, I was thinking of my new theory. I had been working out a projection technique that blind people could do. A technique that did not require ANY optical visualization. I had come up with the idea of using the sense of touch to exert pressure on the astral body, tactile imaging, as this sense is strongly developed in blind people.

I lay there for a few minutes, mulling it over in my mind, while I generally relaxed and settled myself, ready for sleep. Then I decided to try it out, to see if it was practical.

Note: I did not do any of the usual relaxation, mental calming or chakra energy exercises. I just wanted to see if I could exert pressure on my astral body with this method.

I reached out my imaginary hands and began climbing the ROPE, hand over hand. I immediately felt a sensation of vertigo in my stomach and upper torso and a dizzy feeling inside my bones, like a tickling inside my arms and legs. I snapped my mind shut, stopped all thought, and focussed my will on the climbing action. I could feel the enormous pressure it was exerting on my astral body, my astral head and upper torso was starting to lift free, trying to go up the ROPE following the line of pressure I was creating.

Still pulling, I felt my brain waves drop into the alpha state and the heavy sensation came over me as I entered trance. I kept pulling and the trance deepened, my body was now paralysed. Still pulling, my chakras opened and the vibrations started. I was amazed, I had only been doing this for a couple of minutes! I kept pulling and my astral body soon buzzed free of the physical.

This was completely different from any other projection I had ever done. The projection reflex did not seem to have time to cut in and project me out of my body. I had, literally, pulled myself free on my own. I floated above my physical body, still aware of myself on the bed.

I went to go through the wall into the lounge, where there was more light, as it was pretty dark in my room. Suddenly I was in a strange world. "Where the hell am I" I thought. There was very dim light and there was a damp fog all around me. There was a large building in front of me with an old fashioned thatched roof. To the side of me was an old rail fence made of massive, rough hewn timbers. I leaned against the fence and thought about it all. I looked past the house and saw the reflection of water. There was a lake on the other side of the house.

This didn't make any sense to me and I was getting bored, so I tried to move to another realm in the dream pool. I looked at my hand, this usually works. It was white and pale and unreal looking, it began to melt quickly, like white ice under a blowtorch. My fingers were soon stumps and then my hand melted and my arm began to follow. I tried remaking it. It grew back as I concentrated on visualizing what it should look like, but started to melt again as soon as I stopped concentrating.

Then it hit me, why this scene was so familiar to me, I was in a picture! I have a large picture hanging on the wall in my room, in the exact position where I had tried to pass through the wall. This picture has an old house with a thatched roof and a rough hewn fence around it. There is a lake behind it and it is early dawn, when the sun is just starting to illuminate things. There was no doubt about it, I was in my picture.

I'd had enough of this, it was too dim to enjoy the projection, or to do anything. I focussed on my physical body, which I could still feel. I concentrated on moving my mouth and eyes and this soon brought me back to my physical body. I sat up in bed and thought about it while I recorded the results of my experiment.

Settling back down again I tried climbing the ROPE again. Within a couple of minutes I was back out of my body again. "This is great," I thought! I hovered above my body and looked about the room. There in the gloom was the picture on the wall, the one I had entered by accident. I went towards it again, just to see if it would happen again. As I got closer it got bigger and bigger and I seemed to shrink into it. As I got right up to it, instead of passing through it, I seemed to move into it and there I was again in this dimly lit, damp world with the old house and the fence. Everything felt real about it, the fence felt like wood and even the air smelled different, it had a farm like, swampish smell about it.

Leaving the picture again and returning to my body, I again wrote everything down in my notebook. I lay there for most of the night, thinking about what had happened, mulling over the implications of it all, what it all meant....

This is how I discovered `Virtual Reality Projection' or (VRP) This technique is, at the moment, in its infancy and only a rough method for creating a custom made world. I plan to do some more experiments with it in the near future, though, to get the bugs out of it.

Remembering It All
One of the biggest problems with any kind of conscious OOBE is remembering it all when you wake up.

Here's what you can do about this not remembering. As soon as you wake up, sit up in bed and pull those memories back. Sit up and think hard. Put aside a few minutes quiet time each morning to do this. It will train your dream memory.

During this quiet time, run key phrases through your mind until you hit on something. Say things like: I looked at my watch and... I looked at my hands and... I was walking... I was talking to... I was just going to... I was over at... I was flying over... I was having a... I was inside a... I was with... These are examples of phrases that can lead you to a fragment of dream memory you can lock on to. Make up some more phrases to suit yourself.

It may feel like there is nothing in your mind to remember, but try hard and put some REAL effort into it. They are there, you just have to reach in and locate them. Once you lock onto a fragment of memory, more can be located and more and more. You will be surprised how much you can remember this way.

It is important to write these down as soon as you remember them. Even if you have to do this several times during the night. They may seem vivid and unforgettable at the time but dream, or astral, memories will usually vanish in a few seconds if you don't record them. Just write down a few key words and you can fill in the blanks later. With practise, this writing down can be dispensed with as your astral recall develops.

Stuck ?
Some people may find they are stuck in part of their body during projection. They may come free of their body but be stuck at their head or stomach area. If this happens, exerting too much pressure by pulling on the rope may cause some physical pain and discomfort. There are two possible reasons for this: If you are stuck in the middle, stomach area, it may be diet related, i.e., a heavy protein or meat meal before projection can cause this.

Remedy: Eat a light meal, eat plenty but have fish or white meat instead of red meat and avoid fats, oils, nuts and cheese.

If you are stuck at the head, or some other part, this is a sign of an inactive chakra, possibly caused by an energy blockage.

Remedy: Concentrate on opening this stuck chakra during the energy exercises. If this happens during your projection sequence, stop everything and open that chakra, you will be in trance so it will be easier. Once you have done some work on it, try pulling on the ROPE again.

More On Rope
ROPE is a very effective projection technique, but it still has to be learned to be effective. I would like to elaborate on a couple of points about the technique, inspired by the feedback I have received so far.

There is NO visualisation required - AT ALL - in the ROPE technique. It is ALL tactile imaging. This means you do NOT have to picture yourself doing it.

That is, to climb ROPE, the correct mental action is to REHEARSE the climbing action in your mind.
* This mental rehearsal - IS - the ROPE technique *
You need to *mentally* grit your teeth and strain with the action, i.e., you have to put maximum mental effort into it, as if you were really climbing a ROPE, but without allowing your muscles to take part in it - this is ALL mental. Your body must not be allowed to respond. You also need to feel you are very strong, full of energy and could climb like this all night.
You will find that a certain way of holding the focus of your mind, while you climb, will exert more pressure on your astral body than another. It is VERY important you note what this is and learn how to apply it. This will tune your climbing action for the maximum effect. When you hit on the right mental focus for the action, you will feel a corresponding dizzy/falling sensation in your Solar Plexus.
To use ROPE successfully, it is extremely important to make a firm decision to DO IT. This commitment is VERY important to success. A DO OR DIE effort is needed. This focuses all your mental energy into a single point, for a single purpose - to exit your body.
Many people have emailed me with ROPE success stories. In every case - they have been practising ROPE when they suddenly decided to give it a go - TO REALLY DO IT! This commitment to succeed means the difference between actually getting out - OOBE - and experiencing various levels of ROPE induced relaxation, trance, paralysis, chakra activity etc. I cannot stress enough the importance of this commitment to the success of ROPE induced OOBE.
While using ROPE, completely IGNORE ALL PHYSICAL SENSATION AND ANY NOISES YOU HEAR. If you react to a sensation, in any way, you will lose the focus of your mental energy and dilute your effort considerably.

All the energy/chakra work and other exercises in Parts 3 and 4, are designed to stimulate the flow of energy in your body and increase concentration, will power and mental control. By increasing the energy flow during a projection and controlling your mind better, your duration in real time is increased. It is also easier to exit.

You CAN skip all the exercises entirely and just concentrate on learning ROPE. Everyone has different levels of skill, natural ability and energy flow. Some people need lots of training in order to OOBE, others do not. Some people will prefer to learn ROPE by DOING it, rather than training for it. If your goal is just to have a conscious OOBE, of any kind, the simple use of ROPE, below, is your best option.

Simple Use Of Rope
Some people have the impression ROPE is too complicated. This was possibly because by the detailed explanation I gave about the mechanics of ROPE in Part 5, i.e., HOW it works.

ROPE is THE simplest projection technique to date. All that is needed to use ROPE in its simplest form, are these two steps:

Go to bed, or sit in your chair, relax and settle yourself down, as you normally would do before going to sleep.

Start climbing the ROPE.

* This is all there is to the simple use of ROPE *

As there are no time consuming exercises or complicated relaxation exercises involved, the simple use of ROPE has many advantages. It allows you to focus all your mental resources on it. In many cases this is all that is needed to give you your first conscious OOBE.

Because the simple use of ROPE is less complex, you will find yourself attempting projection more often, even when you are tired one of the best times to try - and cannot be bothered with anything complicated. The increased frequency of your projection attempts gives you more practise with ROPE and hence the technique will be mastered sooner.

Lucid Dream Backup
I have had a great many reports of vivid dreams and heightened lucid dream activity (L.D.) from people doing the energy/chakra training exercises. This is happening far too frequently for it to be coincidence.

The energy/chakra work increases the level of energy flowing into the energy body and heightens awareness and memory of the dream and OOBE state. It is a shame to waste all this energy on uncontrolled dreams, so I suggest L.D. be used as a secondary goal. This will give you OOBE experience earlier, in the form of L.D., and help keep your interest high until you learn how to do the conscious exit.

Lucid Dreaming
To become Lucid in dream you need to program yourself with a trigger to make you realise when you are dreaming, in order to take control over it, i.e., become lucid. The best way of doing this is by getting into the habit of doing frequent reality checks during your daily life.

Reality Checking
A reality check is when you stop what you are doing and check the reality level of your situation. This is simple to do. Every time you do a reality check. Ask yourself:

Is this a normal situation, is there anything strange about it?
Can I fly? Try floating up in the air.
Try closing your eyes. This is a dead giveaway as you cannot close your eyes in astral form.

Note: This reality checking must become habitual to be effective.

When you do a reality check during a dream, you will realise you are dreaming and can take control of it. It is then important to affirm to yourself you are going to remember everything. Tell yourself over and over, " I will remember this when I wake up."

L.D. Trigger
The key to success with reality checks is to have a good trigger for it. This should be something you would normally do many times a day. This can be any kind of habitual action, but here are a few ideas:

Time: Every time you look at your watch, do a reality check. An electronic watch is a good aid. Set the timer to beep hourly. When it beeps, do a reality check.

* A wrist watch, beeping hourly, is the most effective *
Hands: Every time you notice your hands, do a reality check.
Smoking: If you smoke, every time you have a cigarette, do a reality check. You will usually find yourself reaching for a cigarette during the course of a dream, if you are a habitual smoker.

Note: It takes time to make your trigger habitual, usually a few weeks. It also helps to do a few affirmations before you go to sleep, e.g., "I will remember to look at my watch"

When you become aware in a dream, L.D., you should already be in a communal dream pool. If you want to try changing this to a real time projection, try and become aware of your physical body. If you can sense it, you may be able to return to a time location near it. This is difficult, though, and may end the experience completely, i.e., forcing a return to the waking state.

I suggest you enjoy the L.D. for what it is. Communal dream pools are very colourful places and usually lots of fun. You will see all kinds of weird and wonderful things there and have all kinds of adventures.

Note: To improve your memory of the L.D. don't forget to remind yourself constantly during the L.D., to remember it all.

Changing Your Reality Location
If you don't like the dream pool you are in, or are in a real time OOBE and want to enter a dream pool, here are a couple of ways to do it:

Look closely at your hands and watch them melt. (This is worth doing just to see the melting hands phenomenon).
Spin around until you become disoriented.
Visualise a place you would like to be. (Instantaneous travel). This will usually move you to a dream pool similar to your visualised target destination.
Fly straight up, as fast as you can. If this fails to shift your reality location, at least you will experience space flight.
Fly away fast, close to the surface, until you find a place you like. The blurring of speed will cause a reality shift.
Walk into a mirror, picture or painting. This is the same as VRP (virtual reality projection).

These techniques all trick the subconscious, through disorientation, into moving you to another reality location.

The Astral Form In Motion
Many people have motion problems in their first few projections. Simply getting across a room in the right direction, can be a major accomplishment. This lack of control is simply because they are unfamiliar with astral form. It is like being in zero gravity. You have to learn to move all over again. When you project in real time, you are just a point of consciousness with a poorly constructed etheric shell surrounding it. Motion is provided by thought - not muscles.

Astral Momentum
There is a type of momentum in astral form that causes most of the problems. This causes you to continue moving for a while, after you decide to stop. This may take you through a wall or a ceiling etc. This impetus is caused by the thought you used to cause the motion. If it is too strong, or too prolonged for the action, you will move too quickly or too far. Only practise teaches you how to get about with any degree of accuracy and grace.

It really is quite a comical process, learning astral motion. I remember learning to move about my home town, in my youth. I would start by trying to navigate through my house, usually ending up stuck in the roof, for a while. Then I would run down the road, trying to build up speed and take off like a plane. I would get airborne for a while, but could never quite clear the roof tops of the surrounding houses. I would often float unintentionally into strange houses, blundering about like a drunk in zero G. I seemed to be endlessly apologising to all these strangers in passing, as I floated in and out of their houses.

How To Move
To move about in astral form, simply - DO IT. Do not think about what you are doing, just DO IT. Be aware that motion is provided by your mind. You have to will yourself into motion, to change direction, and to stop. This is the best advice I can give you on this. It really has to be learned by doing. Have fun.

When you have learned basic motion, do not try anything too ambitious for a while. Stick close to the surface and learn to get around your local area first. Practise varying your speed until you gain some control over it.

Learning To Fly
Learn to fly the same way as you learned to move, by using your mind. At first you may find something very much like gravity affecting you. You may get yourself into the air only to find yourself slowly arcing back to earth again. If you persevere you'll find yourself moving in a series of short flight hops. This is caused partly by habit and partly by the basic motion problem in general. You sink back to earth when your motion causing mental action falters. This causes your flight impetus to stop and the gravity habit then pulls you down.

You may find yourself, as I did, trying to fly by running down the road and leaping into the air. This is not necessary. Focus your will into floating up into the air. Then use your will to provide motion, same as with basic motion. There is NO gravity affecting you in astral form. Convince yourself of this and you will be flying in no time.

Speed
The three speeds as defined by, S. Muldoon, and commonly accepted, are a basic guide only. These are:

Walking speed.
Motor car speed.
Instantaneous travel.

I think these three speeds were a sign of the times back then. These would have been the only types of speed known to most people. Today, movies, computer games and air travel have thoroughly prepared our minds to accept much higher speeds.

With practise and good mental control, you CAN vary your speed to your purpose, from walking speed to supersonic speed. This is a big problem for the beginner though, the control of direction and speed. It has a lot to do with how stable the projection is and how experienced you are at applying your will to motion.

Instantaneous Travel
It is generally accepted that if you can visualise a destination you can project yourself there instantly, at the speed of thought.

* I have found this to be highly unreliable *

I find this instantaneous method usually projects you straight into a subjective location created by the visualisation of your target. You may appear to be at your destination but you will usually find many discrepancies between the real location and where you are.

Instantaneous travel is very like VRP. By using your visualisation powers to travel with, you will not actually travel. You will create a subjective copy of a destination and enter it.

Long Distance Travel
I have found it more reliable to follow the surface for short to medium distance projection of up to a few hundred miles. Even this can be difficult as it is easy to fall into the Alice effect while travelling. All you have to do is break concentration once and you will slip into a dream pool. Strict mental control must be maintained at all times when travelling in real time.

It is not really practical to follow the surface for a long distance. For example, a country on the other side of the world from you is 12000 miles away. You would need to travel at about 64 times the speed of sound to reach there in 15 minutes. At this speed in the atmosphere, everything blurs and clouds and surface features cause disorientation and a corresponding reality shift. Any real time objective aspect of the projection will then be lost.

Note: Newbie projectors can normally hold themselves in real time for only a few minutes. Therefore, any long distance travel is limited by the real time part of a projection.

To travel long distance you need to study geography. You have to be able to recognise continents, oceans, countries, states and cities. You also need to study a map of your target area and note any landmarks. To project there, after this is memorised, you must go into orbit and re-enter over your target. As you approach the earth you must adjust your approach and aim for the geological features and landmarks around your destination.

Orbiting the Earth
To enter orbit is a little more difficult than it sounds. Getting up there is easy, you just go straight up, but stopping when you get high enough is difficult. Most people, myself included, tend to blast themselves straight out of the solar system, sometimes right out of the galaxy. To avoid this, it is important to control your speed during the ascent.

It is easier to project to the moon first, as a way of entering orbit. This gives you a large visual target you can project to in moments. Once there, it is a simple matter to head back to Earth, enter orbit, and circle until you are above your target. In space, away from the atmosphere, there are no problems with speed induced blurring.

How Far Can You Go?
There are * NO * limits to distance, destination or speed. You can travel to the most distant galaxy. The speed of thought is infinite. It is like folding space and moving without moving. If you can see something, you can be there....as quick as that. In comparison, the speed of light is that of a snail. I often go out into deep space, where the galaxies are just tiny smudges in the distance, to think and meditate. That is easy, but the trick is getting back for a conscious re-entry. Unless you have a good knowledge of astronomy, which I do not, this is difficult. Following the silver cord, if you can see one, is not practical at that kind of speed, though it will give you a basic direction to go in.

To return from a long distance projection, tune into your body and become aware of it. Then try moving part of your physical body, i.e., a finger or toe. This will return you to your body, and end the projection with full memories of the OOBE.

Future Wind
There is a strange phenomenon you will come across, from time to time, while you are projecting. I call this "Future Wind."

You will be OOBE'ing somewhere, minding your own business, when all of a sudden you will feel an irresistible force. You will feel yourself being moved against your will, usually backwards, by this force. You can fight it for a while but it will grow steadily stronger until you are blown away; over the roof tops, up into the sky and....into the future.

Then, after a while, you will come down in a different place....and time. Often it will be somewhere mundane, maybe a domestic setting of some sort. You will be released there and left to wander about... confused. You may even meet people you do not know, yet, and they will be just as confused as you are.

This may be an actual scene out of your future life, it may be a symbolic vision, or a mixture of both. You may be an invisible spectator to this scene, or you may merge with your future self, and see out of your future eyes for a while.

This can also be a scene of an important future event. It could be a disaster, natural or otherwise, or something unusual or exciting on the world scene. These type of events usually have a lot of energy surrounding them, and this may be part of the reason for the vision.

The only explanations I can give for this are:

The intervention of your higher self: For some reason it decides that now is the time to show you something from your future.
Clairvoyant interference: Your Brow chakra has become clairvoyantly active and has tuned into a future setting. Your point of consciousness is caught up by this vision and projected into the vision.
A combination of both of the above - this is the most logical.

Symbolic Visions
There is another aspect of this wind that is very similar to the above but the vision you experience is symbolic, or has a symbolic aspect, rather than an actual future event or scene.

Note: I would like to warn you about the symbolic aspect of visions. If you don't understand the nature of symbolism it can cause great harm to your life. This warning applies to all clairvoyant visions in general, whether experienced in astral form or not.

For example: You are taken, by a future wind, to a scene in which you see yourself winning a lot of money. You are sitting at a table checking your lottery ticket with the results. You see the prize money is $18 million. You check your numbers, or ticket, and find you have the winning ticket. You feel all the excitement, the surge of adrenalin, dreams of wealth come flooding into you and your heart races with excitement.

After this vision, you start buying lots of tickets. You also start to make decisions that affect your life with a "When the money comes through" type of attitude. This can cause irreparable damage to your life! You lose your drive, your initiative, your ambition, i.e., you stop trying. This imparts a "Cargo Cult" type of belief system on you, a belief that everything will be given to you - with all the negative aspects this primitive belief system has.

This can cause you to mark time in your life, instead of living it to the full.

* What you may have missed, from the symbolism of the above vision is:

The amount of money may be unusual for that lottery draw. $18 million is an odd amount of money and may be a rare event. This is what I call a SIGN POST - a date stamp of a future event. This means that when your local lottery has a prize of the above amount, something important is going to happen in your life or in the world around you. If you know how symbolism works, during the vision you would have been able to pick up more information about this coming event. The setting, the symbols, the connections to you, the action and the sequence of events in it, are all important aspects of its meaning. Misunderstanding a vision can ruin your life. Only experience and the intelligent application of logic can teach you how to interpret a symbolic vision. Until you have this experience, it is best to treat any sort of vision with caution.

Some possible reasons for a symbolic vision are:

You are being given a warning or guidance by your higher self.
You are being given proof there is a future, a destiny, a meaning, a purpose to your life.
The sign post of this vision may mark a good or bad event in your life.
You may actually win the lottery. Personally, I would always make sure I had a ticket in the draw, just in case, but I would not depend on it.

Future Wind Example
I left my body and was moving about my home, getting my sea legs. Suddenly, a force moved me across the room. I tried to fight it but it grew stronger until I was blown out of the house and up into the night sky. A short time later I was brought down again, outside my home. I was just left standing there in the middle of the road. In front of me stood a refrigerator. It was just sitting there in the road with its door open. I examined it and could tell it was not working. Behind it was a massive red brick wall, 40 feet high and twice as wide. There are no REAL brick walls in this street. Then I noticed my wife was standing beside me. I turned and said hello to her. She just said goodbye, very coldly, then turned and walked away. Perplexed, I watched her walk away. Oddly, instead of walking to our home, she walked away from it and off into the distance.

Being experienced with the symbolism and nature of visions I knew what this foretold, the end of my marriage. I could not understand it as we were only recently married and very happy together.

To decipher a symbolic vision it is necessary to analyse it and break it down into its parts.

The six significant aspects of this vision are:

The sign post... (the date stamp of the event) * The refrigerator that did not work.

The connections... (something, or someone, in the vision that connects the events to me). *
1. My wife.
2. It was outside my home.
3. I was there as me.
The symbol... (the basic nature of the coming event) * The large brick wall. This symbolises a barrier or an end to something. This was the only actual symbol in the vision, but other parts of it were by nature or action - symbolic.
The symbolic action... (this signifies the meaning of the vision) * My wife's cold goodbye.
The symbolic modifiers... (these modify the symbol or, in this case, the symbolic action in the vision). a) My wife departed in a direction away from our home. b) She walked away until she disappeared from view.
The sequence of events:
1. The broken fridge.
2. The large brick wall.
3. My wife's actions.

OR: When I saw the broken fridge (sign post) I saw the brick wall (symbol) and my wife (connection) said goodbye and left (symbolic action) in a direction away from our home, until she disappeared (symbolic modifiers)

The timing and sequence of a vision is important to unravelling its meaning. It is important to break a symbolic vision into its 5 basic parts and to note this in your journal, while it is still fresh in your mind.

Note: There may be more than one modifier to each part of a vision.

Hindsight
A year after I had the above vision, we moved to another town. The day we moved, we had to borrow a refrigerator from a relative. Ours had broken down and was in for repairs. The borrowed fridge did not work either. After our's was repaired, this other fridge sat on our porch for two and a half years, waiting to be collected. I remembered the vision clearly, and knew this fridge was the date stamp of an upcoming event. I also knew what the event was, but honestly could not see it happening. One day, though, they came and collected this fridge. A week later my marriage ended. Suddenly, permanently, and for no foreseeable reason.

Looking at it in hind sight, it is crystal clear what the vision meant. It was as simple as it was accurate. Most symbolic visions are this simple. Be very careful not to read too much into vision otherwise the true message in the vision will be obscured.

Always break a vision down into its parts.

Ask of each part:

"What is it in itself?"
"What does it do?"
"What is its simplest, most basic, symbolic meaning?"

Write these answers down and then apply common sense and logic to them. This will give you insight into the true meaning of the vision.

Mirrors
Mirrors, historically, are magical devices used as doorways to other worlds. There are also numerous superstitions and old wives tales concerning their effect on the recently departed. After a person had died, all mirrors in their home were covered. This was so they could not see their lack of a reflection and be shocked. Another reason for this was to prevent them from being accidentally trapped in a mirror.

There is some logic to this if you look at the mechanics of projection. Death, in the early stages, is very much like a powerful real time projection. The biggest difference being the lack of a living body to return to.

Spirits are normally held close to the physical dimension, in real time, for a week or so after death. This is until the supply of etheric matter that binds the spirit to its physical body runs out.

During this time it is normal for the spirit to wander among relatives and loved ones, saying goodbye and coming to terms with their new state of existence. This goodbye process, eases the psychological trauma of death, and helps prepare the spirit for the next stage of existence.

What can happen with mirrors, is this: A new spirit can inadvertently enter a mirror. If this happens, they enter a mirror world in the same way a projector enters a picture through VRP. Once in a mirror world they usually do not know where they are, or how to get out of it, and can be stuck there for the duration of their real time stay. This will not interfere with the journey of the soul. It will just cause confusion for a few days until it enters the next stage of existence. This can though, make their last days near the physical world very confusing and interfere in the natural goodbye process.

This, I believe, is where the old superstitions came from. Therefore, in the light of my understanding of projection and the death process, I think the covering of mirrors after a death is a VERY good idea, for the benefit of the deceased. This is best done for two weeks, to be sure.

A Better Goodbye
It is possible to communicate with a recently departed spirit during its real time, post death wandering. This can be done by leaving a letter, uncovered, for the spirit to read. They can also hear you, so talking to them is also effective. I think a good practise would be to have goodbye letters, from all the people that loved the deceased, stuck to the wall in the spirit's old room. Leave the letters open, with all pages clearly in view, to make reading easier.

Simple Shape Prediction

2009-05-28T17:26:00.000+07:00

A prediction is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future in more certain terms than a forecast. The etymology of this word is Latin (from præ- "before" plus dicere "to say"). In regards to predicting the future Howard H. Stevenson Says, "Prediction is at least two things: Important and hard." Important, because we have to act, and hard because we have to realize the future we want, and what is the best way to get there.
*Wikipedia

The Effect:
You walk out on stage and place a large card on a chair or`easel facing the audience. The card has three shapes drawn on it; a square, a triangle and a circle.

You choose an audience member and ask him to stand. You explain that when people are asked to think of a simple shape, these are the three commonest designs chosen. You ask him to choose one of the shapes, in this case he chooses the square.

You then ask him to reach under his chair where he'll find an envelope stuck underneath. Ask him to remove the envelope and as he does so, explain that earlier on you made a prediction as to which shape he would choose and stuck it under his chair.

When he opens the envelope, there is a postcard inside that reads 'You will choose the square'.

The Explanation:
This is a nice opening effect and usually works very effectively.

Make a large card with the three shapes drawn on it as described above. On the back write, "You will choose the triangle". Write "You
will choose the square" on a postcard and seal it in an envelope.

Before the show, stick the envelope underneath a chair in the auditorium.

To perform the effect, simply reveal the appropriate prediction either by asking the spectator to remove the card from under their chair or by asking him to come on stage and turning the card around to reveal the prediction.

If he chooses the circle, then your prediction fails but all is not lost. State that most people choose either the square or the triangle and because he has not done so, that makes him an interesting choice to participate with an experiment.

Note that you don't mention anything about the prediction until the spectator has named their choice.

If your prediction is right, then great! If not, disappointing but you've not yet mentioned your prediction so no one is the wiser. Just get the person up on stage to assist with a sure fire effect whether the prediction works or not.