The out-of-body experience is at the core of most religious, shamanic, and magical practices. Many of the techniques for inducing the"OBE" have long been kept secret by priests and magicians for political and personal power. The ability to project personal consciousness to places and dimensions beyond the physical body has provided access to knowledge and information that are, themselves, god-like.

Many of the techniques for astral projection have lacked personal control, or else involved discipline—hypnosis, fasting, sensory deprivation, difficult postures, drugs, and Tantra. Others have involved guided meditation and prayer, or the environment of ceremony and dramatic ritual controlled by others.

At the same time, many people do experience spontaneous out-of-body episodes while dreaming, in times of sleep deprivation or in near-death situations.

Why Project?
The goal of all spiritual and occult practice is to extend awareness beyond the limitations of the physical domain in order to access knowledge and expand consciousness. To grow and develop, to continue to evolve and to access and converse with higher beings is the one purpose to life that we can know with certainty. To experience consciousness outside the physical body is, for many, the ultimate proof of continuity after death of the physical body.

The Brain is the Computer
The computer age has brought new understanding of the brain and its mechanism as an instrument of mind and spirit. Most of the life processes are established "programs" that automatically guide the growth and health of the body, that set cycles of life functions and that meet the challenges of everyday survival for the individual and the species.

But, while many of these programs are automatic, we have the ability to exercise control over some of them and even to write new codes. We do this all the time as we educate our children, as we function within new knowledge about health and new understanding of emotional and mental processes, and as we adapt to ethical and legal guidance for personal behavior and social interaction.

The brain is not, however, the source of consciousness. It is an instrument for its expression within our physical incarnation. As an instrument, it can accept instruction and patterns of induced brain wave activity that facilitate the out-of-body experience.

The "Next Step"
The combination of book and CD-ROM provides the reader/user with all the information and practical guidance (including step-by-step exercises) leading to successful astral projection—allowing our personal consciousness to use the astral body as a vehicle for consciousness, just as we normally use the physical body as our vehicle.

The astral body is one of several sheaths, or vehicles, for the incarnating soul and is sometimes referred to as the dream body, emotional body, soul body and even as spirit. In esoteric theory, it is the next body above the physical and is normally experienced unconsciously during sleep. Becoming conscious while in the astral body is the result of extensive training and practice.

In Mastering Astral Projection, we move one step further with the inclusion of a CD-ROM with a Trance Meditation Program & Brain Wave Generator. Our understanding of the brain as computer and the new technology covered enables the user of this product to encapsulate specialized training and practice in an easy ninety-day guide to the out-of-body experience.

Some people object to this simplification of core esoteric practices, but it is such simplification of processes that is the very essence of knowledge and power for the people, upon which our modern world rests. And, in this instance of merging computer technology with the written word, we transfer the responsibility for spiritual growth and development from teacher to student—the very message of the New Age and the Aquarian influx of dimensional energy.

A Vital Necessity, for the Time is Now
Our World is in crisis. There are challenges to modern civilization, to the global economy, to our very physical and spiritual survival. While the challenges come from many directions, our only successful response depends upon personal growth and expanded consciousness. Every person must grow, or we may all fail. The mastery of astral projection provides a powerful technique for such growth and higher awareness.

We have provided the "Next Step" in applied esoteric technology, but you have to take that step yourself. Every journey starts with a single step, and this is a journey to a world without physical boundary, one of glory and magnificence, of access to knowledge and experience leading to the next step in human evolution.

Carl Llewellyn Weschcke
Publisher