Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis (from the Greek , "psyche", meaning mind, soul, heart, or breath; , "kinesis", meaning motion; literally "movement from the mind"), also known as telekinesis (Greek te + , literally "distant-movement"), sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term coined by Henry Holt[4] to refer to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy. Examples of psychokinesis could include distorting or moving an object,or influencing the output of a random number generator.
The study of phenomena said to be psychokinetic is an aspect of parapsychology. Some paranormal researchers believe that psychokinesis exists and deserves further study, although the focus of research has shifted away from large-scale phenomena to attempts to influence dice and then to random number generators.
There is currently no convincing scientific evidence that shows psychokinesis exists. A meta-analysis of 380 studies in 2006 found a "very small" effect which could be explained by publication bias. PK experiments have historically been criticised for lack of proper controls and repeatability. However, some experiments have created illusions of PK where none exists, and these illusions depend to an extent on the subject's prior belief in PK.
Early history
Spirit photography hoaxer Édouard Isidore Buguet (1840-1901) of France fakes telekinesis in this 1875 photograph titled Fluidic Effect.
The term "Telekinesis" was coined in 1890 by Russian psychical researcher Alexander N. Aksakof. The term "Psychokinesis" was coined in 1914 by American author-publisher Henry Holt in his book On the Cosmic Relations and adopted by his friend, American parapsychologist J. B. Rhine in 1934 in connection with experiments to determine if a person could influence the outcome of falling dice. Both concepts have been described by other terms, such as "remote influencing", "distant influencing" "remote mental influence", "distant mental influence", "directed conscious intention", " anomalous perturbation", and "mind over matter." Originally telekinesis was coined to refer to the movement of objects thought to be caused by ghosts of deceased persons, mischievous spirits, angels, demons, or other supernatural forces. Later, when speculation increased that humans might be the source of the witnessed phenomena not caused by fraudulent mediums and could possibly cause movement without any connection to a spiritualistic setting, such as in a darkened séance room, psychokinesis was added to the lexicon. Eventually, psychokinesis became the term preferred by the parapsychological community. Popular culture, however, such as movies, television, and literature, over the years preferred telekinesis to describe the paranormal movement of objects, likely due to the word's resemblance to other terms, such as telepathy, teleportation, etc.
Modern usage
As research entered the modern era, it became clear that many different, but related, abilities could be attributed to the wider description of psychokinesis and telekinesis are now regarded as the subspecialties of PK. In the 2004 U.S. Air Force-sponsored research report Teleportation Physics Study, the physicist-author Eric Davis, PhD, described the distinction between PK and TK as "telekinesis is a form of PK."[31] Psychokinesis, then, is the general term that can be used to describe a variety of complex mental force phenomena (including object movement) and telekinesis is used to refer only to the movement of objects, however tiny (a grain of salt or air molecules to create wind)[32] or large (an automobile, building, or bridge). Hypothetically, a person could have very profound telekinetic ability, but not be able to produce any of the additional effects found in psychokinesis, such as softening the metal of a spoon to allow its bending with minimal physical force. Conversely, someone who has succeeded in psychokinetically softening metal once or a number of times may exhibit no telekinetic ability to move objects.
Measurement and observation
A spontaneous PK case featured on the cover of the French magazine La Vie Mysterieuse in 1911.
Parapsychology researchers describe two basic types of measurable and observable psychokinetic and telekinetic effects in experimental laboratory research and in case reports occurring outside of the laboratory. Micro-PK (also micro-TK) is a very small effect, such as the manipulation of molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, etc., that can only be observed with scientific equipment. The words are abbreviations for micro-psychokinesis, micropsychokinesis and micro-telekinesis, microtelekinesis. Macro-PK (also macro-TK) is a large-scale effect that can be seen with the unaided eye. The adjective phrases "microscopic-scale," "macroscopic- scale," "small-scale," and "large-scale" may also be used; for example, "a small-scale PK effect."
Spontaneous effects
Spontaneous movements of objects and other unexplained effects have been reported, and many parapsychologists believe there are possibly forms of psychokinesis/telekinesis. Parapsychologist William G. Roll coined the term "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" (RSPK) in 1958. The sudden movement of objects without deliberate intention in the presence or vicinity of one or more witnesses is thought by some to be related to as-yet-unknown PK/TK processes of the subconscious mind. Researchers use the term "PK agent," especially in spontaneous cases, to describe someone who is suspected of being the source of the PK action. Outbreaks of spontaneous movements or other effects, such as in a private home, and especially those involving violent or physiological effects, such as objects hitting people or scratches or other marks on the body, are sometimes investigated as poltergeist cases.
Umbrella term
Psychokinesis is the umbrella term for various related specialty abilities, which may include:
* Telekinesis; movement of matter (micro and macro; move, lift, agitate, vibrate, spin, bend, break, or impact)
* Speed up or slow down the naturally occurring vibrations of atoms in matter to alter temperature, possibly to the point of ignition if combustible (also known as pyrokinesis and cryokinesis respectively).
* Aerokinesis, the telekinetic subspecialty of being able to control the movement of air molecules specifically.
* Hydrokinesis, the telekinetic subspecialty of being able to control the movement of water molecules specifically
* Self levitation (rising in the air unsupported, flying).
* Object deformation (including metal softening and bending).
* Influencing events.
* Biological healing.
* Teleportation (disappearing and reappearing elsewhere).
* Phasing through matter.
* Transmutation of matter.
* Shape-shifting.
* Energy shield (force field).
* Control of magnetism.
* Control of photons (light waves/particles).
* Thoughtform projection (a physically perceived person, animal, creature, object, ghostly entity, etc., created in the mind and projected into three-dimensional space and observable by others; for thought images allegedly placed on film, see Thoughtography).
Belief
In September 2006, a survey about belief in various religious and paranormal topics conducted by phone and mail-in questionnaire polled Americans on their belief in telekinesis. Of these participants, 28% of male participants and 31% of female participants selected "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement "It is possible to influence the world through the mind alone". There were 1,721 participants, and the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.
In April 2008, British psychologist and skeptic Richard Wiseman published the results of an online survey he conducted entitled "Magicians and the Paranormal: A Survey," in which 400 magicians worldwide participated. For the question Do you believe that psychokinesis exists (i.e., that some people can, by paranormal means, apply a noticeable force to an object or alter its physical characteristics)?, the results were as follows: No 83.5%, Yes 9%, Uncertain 7.5%.
Notable claimants of psychokinetic or telekinetic ability
* Uri Geller (1946 – ), the Israeli famous for his spoon bending demonstrations, allegedly by PK.Geller has been caught many times using sleight of hand and according to author Terence Hines, all his effects have been recreated using conjuring tricks.
* Nina Kulagina (1926 – 1990), alleged Soviet psychic of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
* Felicia Parise, an American medical laboratory technician who allegedly was able to repeatedly demonstrate telekinetic movement of small objects beginning in the 1970s, in the first reported instance spontaneously, and then with practice by intense conscious intention. She said her inspiration for making the attempt was in viewing the black-and-white films of Nina Kulagina performing similar feats.[40] Some of the items Parise reportedly caused movement in were a plastic pill container, compass needle, and pieces of aluminum foil (the latter two under a bell jar filmed by a magician) During the height of her fame in the early 1970s , the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper in the United States, then printed in all black and white, featured her in a large photo on its cover seated at a table attempting to perform telekinesis with the headline: "First American to Move Objects with the Mind." Parise eventually retired from performing telekinesis due to the physical stress on her body.
* Eusapia Palladino (alternate spelling: Eusapia Paladino; 1854 - 1918) was an Italian medium who allegedly could cause objects to move during seances and was endorsed by world famous magician Howard Thurston (1869 – 1936), who witnessed her levitation of a table.
* Swami Rama (1925 – 1996), a yogi skilled in controlling his heart functions who was studied at the Menninger Foundation in the spring and fall of 1970, and was alleged by some observers at the foundation to have telekinetically moved a knitting needle twice from a distance of five feet. Although Swami Rama wore a facemask and gown to prevent allegations that he moved the needle with his breath or body movements, and air vents in the room had been covered, at least one physician observer who was present at the time was not convinced and expressed the opinion that air movement was somehow the cause.
* Many of India's "godmen" have claimed macro-PK abilities and demonstrated apparently miraculous phenomena in public, although as more controls are put in place to prevent trickery, fewer phenomena are produced.
* Miroslaw Magola, alias "Magnetic Man". He claims he can lift objects off the floor, transport them through the air and force them to stick to his body - all using the power of his mind. "I load myself with energy (I connect myself to it) and at the same time I wish for the object to raise" he says of his power. On the UK television programme Beyond and Belief in February 1996, although the viewers and the studio audience were reported to have seen Magoal attracting objects to his body before the show, he was unable to perform any levitation effects despite 30 minutes of quiet preparation. He has been investigated by Friedbert Karger of the Max Planck Institute.
Notable witnesses to PK events
Alleged psychokinetic events have been witnessed by psychologists in the United States, and elsewhere in the world by professionals with medical degrees, physicists, electrical engineers, military personnel, police officers, and other professionals and ordinary citizens. Robert M. Schoch PhD, professor at Boston University, has written "I do believe that some psychokinesis is real" referring to the evidence for micro-psychokinesis obtained by the Princeton PEAR laboratory experiments and similar studies and some reports of macro-RSPK observed in poltergeist cases. He reports once seeing a book "jumping off a shelf" while in a room where a female psychokinesis agent was also present. Best-selling author and medical doctor Michael Crichton described what he termed a "successful experience" with psychokinesis at a "spoon bending party" in his 1988 book Travels. Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, author Dean Radin has reported that he, like Michael Crichton, was able to bend the bowl of a spoon over with unexplained ease of force with witnesses present at a different informal PK experiment gathering. He described his experience in his 2006 book Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality and online (with photos). Author Michael Talbot (1953-1992) described a variety of spontaneous psychokinetic events he experienced and were witnessed by family and friends in two of his books, Beyond the Quantum and The Holographic Universe.
PK Parties
"PK Parties" were a cultural fad in the 1980s, where groups of people were guided through rituals and chants to awaken metal-bending powers. They were encouraged to shout at the items of cutlery they had brought and to jump and scream to create an atmosphere of pandemonium (or what scientific investigators called heightened suggestibility). Critics were excluded and participants were told to avoid looking at their hands. Thousands of people attended these emotionally charged parties, and many became convinced that they had bent silverware by paranormal means.
Scientific controversy
If PK were to exist as claimed by some experimenters, it would violate some well-established laws of physics, including the inverse square law, the second law of thermodynamics and the conservation of momentum.[69][70] Hence scientists have demanded a high standard of evidence for PK, in line with Marcello Truzzi's dictum "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". When apparent PK can be produced in ordinary ways—by trickery, special effects or by poor experimental design—scientists accept that explanation as more parsimonious than to accept that the laws of physics should be rewritten.
The late Carl Sagan included telekinesis in a long list of "offerings of pseudoscience and superstition" which "it would be foolish to accept (...) without solid scientific data" though even highly improbable claims may possibly be eventually verified. He placed the burden of proof on the proponents, but cautioned readers to "await—or, much better, to seek—supporting or disconfirming evidence" for claims that have not been resolved either way. Physicist Richard Feynman advocated a similar position.
In their 1991 research paper Biological Utilization of Quantum Nonlocality, Nobel Prize laureate Brian Josephson and coauthor Fotini Pallikara-Viras proposed that explanations for both psychokinesis and telepathy might be found in quantum physics.[74][75]
There is a broad consensus, including several proponents of parapsychology, that PK research, and parapsychology more generally, has not produced a reliable, repeatable demonstration.
In 1984, the United States National Academy of Sciences, at the request of the US Army Research Institute, formed a scientific panel to assess the best evidence from 130 years of parapsychology. Part of its purpose was to investigate military applications of PK, for example to remotely jam or disrupt enemy weaponry. The panel heard from a variety of military staff who believed in PK and made visits to the PEAR laboratory and two other laboratories that had claimed positive results from micro-PK experiments.
The panel criticised macro-PK experiments for being open to deception by conjurors, and said that virtually all micro-PK experiments "depart from good scientific practice in a variety of ways". Their conclusion, published in a 1987 report, was that there was no scientific evidence for the existence of psychokinesis. Parapsychology advocates responded by accusing the panel of bias.
Research with random number generators has been influenced by signal detection theory, viewing the effect of PK as weak but real "signal" hidden in the "noise" of experimental results. An effect too weak to be demonstrated in a replicable experiment would still show up as a statistically significant effect in a large set of data. To test this, parapsychologists have carried out meta-analyses of large data sets, with apparently impressive positive results. This has in turn been criticized as an invalid use of meta-analysis, since the original studies are too dissimilar for the resulting statistics to be meaningful.[11] A 2006 meta-analysis of 380 studies found a small positive effect within the margin that could be explained by publication bias.
Physicist Robert L. Park finds it suspicious that a phenomenon should only ever appear at the limits of detectability of questionable statistical techniques. He cites this feature as one of Irving Langmuir's indicators of pathological science. Park argues that if PK really existed it would be easily and unambiguously detectable, for example using modern microbalances which can detect tiny amounts of force.
PK hypotheses are also tested implicitly in a number of contexts outside parapsychological experiments. Gardner considers a dice game played in casinos, where gamblers have a large incentive to affect the numbers that come up. This is in effect a large sample-size test of the same hypothesis as the J. B. Rhine dice experiments, but year after year the house takings are exactly those predicted by chance.[80] Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argues that many experiments in psychology, biology or physics assume that the intentions of the subjects or experimenter do not physically distort the apparatus. Humphrey counts them as replications of PK experiments (but implicitly so) in which PK fails to appear.
In the book Parapsychology: The Controversial Science (1991), British parapsychologist Richard S. Broughton, Ph.D, wrote of the differences of opinion among top scientists encountered by Robert G. Jahn, director of the (now-closed) PEAR laboratory, regarding the psychokinesis research that the lab was engaged in at the time.
Laboratory experiments versus field research
Many scientists have concluded that psychokinesis, especially the visible movement of objects, does not exist because it cannot be replicated in a controlled laboratory setting to match anecdotal reports.[81] There are many areas of accepted science, however, such as in astronomy, geology, and meteorology, that do not rely on replicable results in a laboratory and instead depend on spontaneous cases in nature to provide evidence for study and the formation of theories.[82] On the problem of eyewitness testimony of alleged spontaneous psychokinetic events, anecdotes; that is, stories by eyewitnesses outside of controlled laboratory conditions, are considered insufficient evidence by the majority of scientists to establish the scientific validity of psychokinesis.
Explanations in terms of bias
Cognitive bias research has been interpreted to argue that people are susceptible to illusions of PK. These include both the illusion that they themselves have the power, and that events they witness are real demonstrations of PK. For example, Illusion of control is an illusory correlation between intention and external events, and believers in the paranormal have been shown to be more susceptible to this illusion than skeptics. Psychologist Thomas Gilovich explains this as a biased interpretation of personal experience. For example, to someone in a dice game willing for a high score, high numbers can be interpreted as "success" and low numbers as "not enough concentration." Bias towards belief in PK may be an example of the human tendency to see patterns where none exist, which believers are also more susceptible to.
A 1952 study tested for experimenter's bias in a PK context. Richard Kaufman of Yale University gave subjects the task of trying to influence 8 dice and allowed them to record their own scores. They were secretly filmed, so their records could be checked for errors. The results in each case were random and provided no evidence for PK, but believers made errors that favoured the PK hypothesis, while disbelievers made opposite errors. A similar pattern of errors was found in J. B. Rhine's dice experiments which at that time were the strongest evidence for PK.
Wiseman and Morris (1995) showed subjects an unedited videotape of a magician's performance in which a fork bent and eventually broke. Believers in the paranormal were significantly more likely to misinterpret the tape as a demonstration of PK, and were more likely to misremember crucial details of the presentation. This suggests that confirmation bias affects people's interpretation of PK demonstrations. Psychologist Robert Sternberg cites confirmation bias as an explanation of why belief in psi phenomena persists, despite the lack of evidence: "[P]eople want to believe, and so they find ways to believe."
Magic and special effects
Magicians, sleight-of-hand-artists, etc., have successfully simulated some of the specialized abilities of PK (object movement, spoon bending, levitation, teleportation), but not all of the feats of claimed spontaneous and intentional psychokinesis have been reproduced under the same observed conditions as the original.[27] According to philosopher Robert Todd Carroll, there are many impressive magic tricks available to amateurs and professionals to simulate psychokinetic powers.[88] These can be purchased on the Internet from magic supply companies. Metal objects such as keys or cutlery can be bent by a number of different techniques, even if the performer has not had access to them beforehand. Amateur-made videos alleging to show feats of psychokinesis, particularly spoon bending and the telekinetic movement of objects, can be found on video-sharing websites such as YouTube. Critics point out that it is now easier than ever for the average person to fake psychokinetic events and that without more concrete proof, the topic, apart from its enjoyment in fiction, will continue to remain controversial.
The need for PK researchers to be aware of conjuring techniques was illustrated by events in the early 1980s. The McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at Washington University reported a series of experiments in which two subjects had demonstrated PK phenomena (including metal-bending and causing images to appear on film) and other psychic powers under laboratory conditions. Magician James Randi revealed that the subjects were two of his associates, amateur conjurers Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards. The pair had created the effects by standard trickery, but the researchers, being unfamiliar with magic techniques, interpreted them as proof of PK. The laboratory closed not long after.
Prize money for proof of psychokinesis
Internationally, there are several individual skeptics of the paranormal and skeptics' organizations who offer cash prize money for demonstration of the existence of an extraordinary psychic power, such as psychokinesis. Experimental design must be agreed upon prior to execution, and additional conditions, such as a minimum level of fame, may be imposed. Prizes have been offered specifically for PK demonstrations, for example businessman Gerald Fleming's offer of 250,000 pounds sterling to Uri Geller if he can bend a spoon under controlled conditions. These prizes remain uncollected by people claiming to possess paranormal abilities.
The James Randi Educational Foundation offers 1,000,000 US dollars to anyone who has a demonstrated media profile as well as the support from some member of the academic community, and who can produce a paranormal event, such as psychokinesis, in a controlled, mutually agreed upon experiment.
Psychokinesis in religion, mythology, and popular culture
Religion and mythology
There are written accounts and oral legends of events fitting the description of psychokinesis dating back to early history, most notably in the stories found in various religions and mythology. In the Bible, for example, Jesus is described as transmuting water into wine, which "could be called psychokinesis", healing the sick, and multiplying food.
Mythological beings, such as witches, have been accused of levitating people, animals, and objects. The court wizard and prophet Merlin in the King Arthur legend, is said to have used his power to transport Stonehenge across the sea to England from Ireland.
Popular culture
See also: Superpower (ability) and List of fictional characters with telekinesis
Psychokinesis has a well-established existence in movies, television, computer games, literature, and other forms of popular culture. In the 1976 film Carrie, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Sissy Spacek portrayed a troubled high school student with telekinetic powers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first psychokinetic character in a film ever to be so recognized (Ellen Burstyn was the second, in 1980's Resurrection). Numerous characters have the ability to control the movement of objects using the "the Force" in the Star Wars canon. In the 1988 anime movie Akira, a few of the main characters use telekinesis throughout the film. Prue Halliwell's main power as a witch was telekinesis in the series Charmed.
The comic book character Jean Grey of the X-Men exhibits extremely powerful telekinetic ability. Also from the TV show Heroes, the serial killer Sylar frequently exhibits telekinetic ability. It is also commonly used as a power in a large number of videogames and role playing games.
This article is about the paranormal concept. For the electronica musical group, see Astral Projection (group).
Artist's illustration of an astral projection.
Astral projection (or astral travel) refers to episodes of out-of-body experiences perceived as unfolding in environments other than the physical world, by an astral counterpart of the physical body that separates from it and travels to one or more astral planes.Astral projection is experienced as being "out of the body". Unlike dreaming or near death experiences, astral projection may be practiced deliberately.
Descriptions of such experiences are found in common worldwide religious accounts of the afterlife, with the soul's journey or "ascent" being described in such terms as "an...out-of-body experience, wherein the spiritual traveller leaves the physical body and travels in his/her subtle body (or dreambody or astral body) into ‘other’ realms."
Although there is no scientific evidence regarding the validity of astral projection, there are subjective personal accounts of the experience,[5] and the belief that one has had an out-of-body experience, whether spoken of as "astral projection" or not, is common. Hundreds of personal accounts of astral projection were published in a number of books through the 1960s and 70s. Surveys have reported percentages ranging from 8% (as much as 50% in certain groups of respondents) who state they have had such an experience. Because of the subjective nature of the experience, however, there are a number of materialist explanations that do not rely on the existence of an "astral" body and plane.
Contents
Beliefs
Planes of existence
Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body or double leaving the physical body to travel in the astral plane. According to classical, medieval, renaissance Neoplatonist, later Theosophist and Rosicrucian philosophy, the astral body is an intermediate body of light linking the rational soul to the physical body, and the astral plane is an intermediate world of light between Heaven and Earth composed of the spheres of the planets and stars. These astral spheres were held to be populated by gods, angels, demons and spirits.
The subtle bodies, and their associated planes of existence, form an essential part of the esoteric systems that deal with astral phenomena. In the neo-platonism of Plotinus, for example, the individual is a microcosm ("small world") of the universe (the macrocosm or "great world"). "The rational soul...is akin to the great Soul of the World" while "the material universe, like the body, is made as a faded image of the Intelligible". Each succeeding plane of manifestation is causal to the next, a world-view called emanationism; "from the One proceeds Intellect, from Intellect Soul, and from Soul - in its lower phase, or Nature - the material universe". Often these bodies and their corresponding planes of existence are depicted as a series of concentric circles or nested spheres, with a separate body traversing each realm.
Similar concepts of "soul" travel appear in various other religious traditions, for example ancient Egyptian teachings present the soul as having the ability to hover outside the physical body in the ka, or subtle body. A common belief is that the subtle body is attached to the physical body by means of a psychic silver cord.
The idea of the astral figured prominently in the work of the ninteteenth-century French occultist Eliphas Levi, whence it was adopted by Theosophy and Golden Dawn magical society. The Theosophists also took note of similar ideas (Lin'ga S'ari-ra) found in ancient Hindu scriptures such as the YogaVashishta-Maharamayana of Valmiki.
However, the expression "astral projection" came to be used in two different ways. For the Golden Dawn[14] and some Theosophists[15] it retained the classical and mediaeval philosophers' meaning of journeying to other worlds, heavens, hells, the astrological spheres and other imaginal[16] landscapes, but outside these circles the term was increasingly applied to non-physical travel around the physical world rather than the astral. Though this usage continues to be widespread, the "etheric travel" label coined by later Theosophists such as Leadbetter and Bailey[citation needed] is more appropriate to such scenarios.
The Subtle body and the cosmic man, Nepal 1600's
Astral projection
Commonly in the astral projection experience, the experiencer describes themselves as being in a domain which often has no parallel to any physical setting, although they say they can visit different times and/or physical settings. Environments may be populated or unpopulated, artificial, natural or completely abstract and from beatific to horrific. A common belief is that one may access a compendium of mystical knowledge called the Akashic records. In many of these accounts, the experiencer correlates the astral world with the world of dreams. They report seeing dreamers enact dream scenarios on the astral plane, unaware of the wider environment around them. Some also state that "falling" dreams are brought about by projection.
The astral environment is often theoretically divided into levels or planes. There are many different views concerning the overall structure of the astral planes in various traditions. These planes may include heavens and hells and other after-death spheres, transcendent environments or other less-easily characterized states.
Etheric projection
In contrast to astral projection, etheric projection is described as the ability to move about in the material world in an etheric body which is usually, though not always, invisible to people who are presently "in their bodies." Robert Monroe describes this type of projection as a projection to "Locale I" or the "Here-Now", and describes it as containing people and places that he feels actually exist in the material world.[22] Robert Bruce refers to a similar area as the "Real Time Zone" (RTZ) and describes it as the nonphysical, dimension-level closest to the physical
According to Max Heindel, the etheric "double" serves as a medium between the astral and physical realms. In his system, the ether, also called prana, is the "vital force" that empowers the physical forms in order for that change to take place. From his descriptions it can be inferred that when one views the physical during an out-of-body experience, they are not technically "in" the astral realm at all.
The subtle vehicle remains connected to the physical body during the separation by a so-called “silver cord”, said to be that mentioned in Ecclesiastes 12:6.
Stephen LaBerge suggested in his 1985 book Lucid Dreaming that all such "out-of-body experiences" may represent partially lucid dreams or "misinterpreted dream experiences", in which the sleeper does not fully recognize the situation. "In the dark forest, one may experience a tree as a tiger, but it is still in fact only a tree."Applying identical reasoning to waking consciousness, real life could be a dream too (see Descartes' Evil daemon).
Practices
Hugh G. Callaway, under the pseudonym Oliver Fox, published a series of articles in The Occult Review during the 1920s that later became the basis of a book, Astral Projection (1939). Hereward Carrington, a psychical researcher, along with Sylvan Muldoon, who professed ease with astral projection, published The Projection of the Astral Body in 1929. Both Callaway and Muldoon wrote of techniques they felt facilitated a projection into the astral. Among these practices included visualizing such mental images as flying or being in an elevator traveling upward, just before going to sleep. They also recommended trying to regain waking consciousness while in a dream state (lucid dreaming). This was done, they wrote, by habitually recognizing apparent incongruities in one's dream, such as noticing a different pattern of wallpaper in one's home. Such recognition, they said, sometimes resulted in normal consciousness, but with the feeling of being outside the physical body and able to look down on it.
In occult traditions, practices range from inducing trance states to the mental construction of a second body, called the Body of Light in Aleister Crowley's writings, through visualization and controlled breathing, followed by the transfer of consciousness to the secondary body by a mental act of will.
