Soul flight is the separation of the mind from the body of a living human being. It encompasses all projections of consciousness, both those widely known and others seldom recognized as astral travel. Soul flight is a much more varied experience than most people realize.

The most common kind of soul flight is dreaming. The dream world is an astral reality that we visit in our sleep. Usually we only observe in our dreams, even when we are playing a part in the drama, but when we become self-aware in a dream, and able to act independently, it is known as lucid dreaming, and this too is a kind of astral travel. Some individuals who come very close to dying experience a spontaneous soul flight that is known as a near-death experience. It has also long been recognized that a severe physical shock on the body, such as a fall from a high place, can temporarily knock out the astral double, dividing the mind from the flesh. These forms of soul flight are spontaneous and can happen to anyone.

Thousands of years ago shamans developed techniques to cause the deliberate separation of the mind from the body. These include chanting, dancing, exhaustion, pain, alcohol, tobacco and drugs. European witches of the Middle Ages carried on this shamanic tradition of soul flight with the use of a complex ointment that they applied to the entire surface of their naked bodies. This is known as the witches' flying ointment. It was an effective method for inducing the projection of the astral double, but it was dangerous, because its ingredients were highly poisonous.

In our modern world astral projection takes different forms. During the Cold War, the Pentagon set up a secret remote viewing project known as Project Stargate for the purpose of psychically gathering information on the Soviet Union. Few involved in it realized that it was just another technique to project the mind astrally. Few who have endured an alien abduction incident realize that their experiences are astral rather than physical. Yet alien abduction is a type of soul flight.

The average person only associates astral projection with the work of the spiritualists and Theosophists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most famous of these was the spiritualist Sylvan Muldoon, who may be said to have written the book on astral travel. In fact, he collaborated on several highly popular and influential books. In them he described techniques to achieve soul flight, but readers are often frustrated when they attempt them because they discover that they do not work, or only work in a limited way.

My book, Soul Flight, is the first to integrate both ancient methods of astral travel and modern methods. It is based on the premise that shamans, witches, and magicians of previous centuries used ritual in their astral projections for a good reason—because it works. Ritual not only aids in the projection of the mind from the body, but also serves to protect both the mind and body when they are separated. A very simple yet powerful ritual framework is presented in Soul Flight by which a ritual space is created as a sanctuary, safe from the intrusion of unwanted astral travelers.

Flight to specific astral levels is achieved by means of an astral elevator, which is visualized as part of this ritual structure. The metaphor of the elevator has long been used by experts in astral projection as a way of raising the mind to higher astral levels. In Soul Flight, the elevator can be set to carry the traveler to specific astral locations that lie both above the middle realm of our physical reality, and below it. The modern astral traveler can visit such subterranean realms as the world of the fairies, which lies just below our own physical world.

By examining the full spectrum of soul flight, ancient and modern, the best has been gathered into a safe yet powerful technique for astral projection within a ritual framework. This is your passport to the astral world, where endless realms both familiar and unimagined wait to be explored. Enjoy your flights!