Coming soon: accompanying articles on The Middle Astral and The Higher Astral. 

1. The physical body is experienced through reflection: light from an outer source (the sun or other photon-emitter) is bounced off the material world, and our brains then construct a model of solid reality in a way reminiscent of bats and their sonar. But rather than using sonic reflection, humans use photonic reflection, and then their brains fill in the details in order to create “reality”.

2. The body of light can experienced whenever we come into the awareness of who we are as consciousness rather than as mechanical beings. The light body has an anatomy of nadis (energy channels) and chakras (specialized centers of consciousness), and operates through etheric reality: an underlying and fundamental interconnection all sentient beings have with the living world around them. Etheric light is not reflected (photonic) light; it is a structured reality unrestricted by physical distance. While  my physical eyes cannot see beyond the horizon my etheric “eyes” are limited only by my consciousness and my focus. If I can create a fix (including an emotional connection) on another person via my etheric energy system I can then interact with that person in some way. The body of light can be more accurately labeled as the etheric light body.

3. The astral body uses neither reflected nor etheric light to function. Astral realities are self-generated forms: they are lit from within. If you remember an astral or a lucid dream, you may recall how what you see is fully lit from any angle, and in every situation. Many lucid dreams are experiences of our traversing the Astral worlds during sleep, when we are no longer fixated on the physical or etheric (relational) worlds. Astral dreams give us a glimpse into worlds where sentient life of many varieties co-exist and interact. The Shaman learns to navigate these realms for the good of the people, forming allies with some spirit beings, and defending us from the predatory ones.

These three bodies – the body of physical matter, the body of light, and the astral body – make up a full human experience. Science, of course, tells us that only the physical body is real. But thousands of years of spiritual development and Shamanic experience demonstrate otherwise. How to know which is right? Only by personally exploring the three bodies for ourselves. We should not accept any self-appointed authority when it comes to discovering our true spiritual nature. We can set out on the quest to re-claim our body of light, and to expand upon our Astral body. These three bodies together make up our full birthright. These three bodies functioning in harmony empower our lives. These three bodies, when awakened, hold our destiny.

Human beings over the course of thousands of years have explored contact with the Astral world. Sorcererers, witches, priests and shamans have learned how to interact with these invisible realms. The modern-day energy healer will often come across Astral people or objects that have become attached to the etheric structure of a client’s energy body.

The Astral world is not always a toxic or evil influence. In actual fact, my current assumption is that the Astral world has always co-existed alongside our world, playing a major and beneficial part in the physical evolutionary process. In many ways, the Astral world may be the sentient yin to the material world’s yang: it is receptive and fluid in contrast to the structured boundaries and natural laws built into a material universe.

When an energy healer comes across Astral phenomena she may welcome such an interaction as an important entry point into understanding the client’s development, at a level deeper than the human personality. Astral influences often connect the client more clearly to their identity as a soul: our true nature as an energetic conscious being unlimited by physical death, unrestrained by organic entropy. Despite our eventual death as a body our soul nature absorbs all of our life lessons,  in order to evolve.

I see the Astral realm as a vital partner in our ongoing soul development, rather than a hindrance to it. To work with the Astral is to work with the forces that help develop soul growth because when we work with spirits or Astral energies, we are breaking out of the restrictions placed upon us by our short and limited physical life span. We are touching deeply into spiritual immortality, as our identity dissolves and reforms constantly across the time line.

Unexpected interactions with the Astral world can occur during any life-threatening event (such as a Near Death Experience), any form of trance-inducing spiritual ritual, or under the influence of psychotropic drugs (Ayahuasca, Peyote, Psilocybin mushrooms, etc.) But it is more commonly experienced in the dream state: either sleeping or the waking or hypnogogic state of consciousness. In contrast, the psychic healer learns to interact with the Astral while remaining in the waking state, which resembles a form of healing trance to the outside person. The energy healer acts as an organic bridge between the material world, the etheric world, and the Astral realms. This bridge allows for personal growth to occur by the healer supporting a shift in an individual’s perception of themselves, and of the nature of the world around them. When such a shift of perception occurs the old way of seeing “reality” will fade away, and a new and more integrated reality will supersede it. The observer will change or – more accurately – begin to remember their higher spiritual perception.

When that happens – the remembrance of your true nature – everything in your life will begin to change. You will awaken to new possibilities, and become aware of multiple hidden influences upon your life. With this experience you can begin to take charge of your life, rather than be a spectator to it. This changes everything.

Related Post: The Lower Astral

Then it hit me. This Japanese Spa looked and felt like the great white hospital in the Astral World. A huge and brilliant-white building, the Astral hospital is one of the places that recently-departed souls may visit if they have undergone a traumatic or sudden physical death. If we are impacted by a rapid transition from the physical realm into the non-physical, or if we leave the material world disorientated or traumatized, we may find ourselves transported to a triage facility, for immediate help. But, soon after, we will be moved up into the Astral Hospital, for long-term recovery, and for necessary spiritual healing. Physical death can be tough on a soul; sometimes you need time to integrate the life lessons just learned, in preparation for your  return to your next physical incarnation.

The late Robert Monroe, a master in the art of Astral projection, had often referred to this facility as a “Way Station”, a place where souls transition from one life time to the next. I have spent time at this Astral Hospital myself, although I have almost no memory of why I was there. Today the impact of the DHC Spa architecture and ambience was evoking a powerful déjà vu experience for me. Something triggered my animal body to breathe deeper, and I dropped into the Astral Hospital altered state. No effort, no time, and no agenda were present, here in this bone-white healing space. Only rejuvenation awaited, only compassionate release from painful memories, and the preparation for a new adventure and a new body. It was delightfully familiar to me.

Three hours later, we had left the salt-water Spa for a traditional Japanese dinner, ending when our Kimono-clad hostess brought in the final course: fruit jelly, topped with a scoop of cream. The entire meal to that point had comprised of outrageously-fresh seafood, rice, and vegetables. As the dairy in the dessert hit my taste buds, my body woke up anew, joyously impacted by a familiar taste from the West. For the second time in the day I was shocked awake by a memory of the past. Once again my soul dropped unexpectedly into the place of wholeness, and the recognition of what we we gain when we choose to embrace life. In this moment of sensory delight, where novelty danced with the familiar, all was well. We are reminded, again and again, that the shock of any event we can experience in life can ultimately be healed, leading us to regain what we thought had been lost.

The Astral Hospital remains out there still, ready for any of us that may need it should this incarnation thing ever get out of hand.

The first hurdle in learning to see in the Astral world is to understand that, in these realms we do not utilize corneas and retinas, nor do we use eye muscles to change directional viewpoint. In the Astral realms the eye is singular: we see with the Eye of Light: Agnya (Ajna) chakra.

The second hurdle is to realize that the Astral’s four-dimensional realms are not lit from the light from any Astral sun. The light in the Astral world emanates from within an Astral person, or other life form. Astral light permeates these realms without throwing shadows. This gives Astral vision a hyper-saturated visual quality, similar to what we see in some of the new digital effect-dominated movies, such as James Cameron’s Avatar (2010). In Avatar we watch an eerily Astral-like simulation, as the characters move from the everyday world into visceral contact with an alien world. Of course, in the Astral realms we are unaware of our body, mostly experiencing it visually, in addition to some emotional content. But, similar to the storyline in Cameron’s movie, healers can learn how the Astral works on its own terms, rather than on our own.

How do you locate yourself in the Astral realms? The best way to begin is to develop Agnya chakra, and then observe the quality of the light around you, or within your client’s energy body. Then you can adjust your healing work to one of three distinctive levels in these forty-nine dimensional realities.

The Higher Astral is filled with over-saturated colors and textures, interpreted that way because our brain has a limited experience of higher-dimensional frequencies. Additionally, the Higher Astral tends to raise your overall vibration away from your egoic self identity, and closer towards your eternal soul identity. Our present-day life is experienced in context to all other incarnation experiences, and may seem to contradict our experience of the flow of linear time. In the Higher Astral the time dimension is fluid, not fixed and linear. In this realm, time can flow backwards, or move forwards rapidly. It should be noted that time distort effects are apparent at every level of the Astral realms.

The Middle Astral can be recognized when you find yourself relating to familiar or unfamiliar life forms, all of which are interconnected and inter-related to each other. If you are talking to trees, plants or insects in an Astral dream, or during an Astral healing, then you are probably in the Middle Astral. These dimensions are incredibly diverse and rich; your interaction with it is only limited by your imagination and openness to creativity. You are Alice down the Rabbit Hole.

The Lower Astral shuns light at all costs, preferring the cover of darkness, and often conceal any direct perception of their true form. If you find yourself in a dark and gloomy place, or if the Astral entity will not show himself, then the chances are good that you in contact with the Lower Astral. There are many levels of the Lower Astral, not all of which are bad. But it is good to keep in mind one of the most recognized spiritual truths: when in doubt, head for the brightest light you see. This is the reason: absence of light is the classic Lower Astral red flag. We may need to go there, as spiritual warriors, to retrieve a part of our client (or ourselves) but for some individuals there is a danger in spending too long in such a low vibrational state. You could forget who you are, and why you are there.

Astral vision is most available to you when you are in the dream worlds, or in a hypnogogic altered state usually associated with Shamanism, or spiritual healing. To see into the Astral in the waking state requires tremendous stabilization in Agnya chakra: the Eye of Light. This personal development requires much practice, not only to perceive but to then learn to affect a change in the Astral. But before change must come perception. You can’t change what you can’t see.

The Astral healer first learns to see the Astral worlds during sleep, or during Shamanic initiation rituals, and can observe the quality of lighting in their dreams as a way to orientate themselves. When we apply this experience to our waking consciousness state we learn how to shift from ocular vision to inner vision: from the secondary physical eyes and into the singular, inner eye, sometimes known as the “mind screen”. The Eye of Light is how you see the Astral while awake, as well as when you are in the dream state. The Eye of Light is anchored in Agnya chakra, but is supported by other energetic nervous system structures, including prefrontal lobe development and the lower brain stem (Talu Chakra). When healthy and balanced, the Eye of Light can bridge the gap between the energetic brain and the Astral worlds. But, when the healer is traumatized or uninitiated, this same Eye of Light can project energy consciousness out of itself, distorting what it sees, or creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Fantasy fears become realities.

Being an Astral healer requires us to always be working towards opening the Eye of Light, as well as developing a strong Etheric body. But we do not discard the valuable information we get from our physical eyes. These three “eyes” must learn to work together, as each holds vital information for us, to both see the truth, and to look to where we can affect a change. Opening the Eye of Light will show you many things about the world in which you live, and about the transformational process of your client. It will also reveal many things about you to yourself.

Are you ready to open all three of your eyes, and see?

If our emotional and mental development is weak, voices from another dimension may destabilize our connection to consensual, or “normal”, reality. Schizophrenia can be the ensue, resulting in an individual who is vulnerable to destructive “inner” voices, or paranoid about suspiciously-motivated “outer” voices. But to the initiated Shaman (and to a functional Psychic) voices from another dimension are the direct line of communication to and from the Astral world. If your mental and emotional container of self is strong, if you can handle the experience of a voice that is Wholly Other talking to you, you can enter into the Shamanic experience. Spirits – Astral people – do want to talk with you.

Often the first experience we humans have with spirit communication is through meaningful dreams, or being given an important insight upon waking from deep sleep: an understanding, relevant to your life situation. The next step that follows is usually the witnessing of hypnogogic messages, where, in the half-awake consciousness prior to waking (or to falling asleep) voices that are not your own are heard to speak. Finally, once a stable bridge of connection to the Astral is formed, the voices of the Wholly Other may begin to dictate – perhaps in complete sentences, and with a coherent meaning and structure – talks on the meaning of reality. Or, important personal information is passed on to the healer, to enhance the healing and transformational process of their client.

Many of our famous scientific breakthroughs come about through a similar process. Much art is created from these energies of the Numinous washing over the artist, handing to him or her a completed masterpiece. All the receptive individual has to do is listen, to write, to paint. The creation pours forth, and the creator is as much a witness to the result as are all others. Creations from the Astral come into the everyday world fully formed; not assembled over time, piece by piece. “This is not mine”, we find ourselves saying. “This is my Muse, working through me”.

For a healer working with the Astral world more is required than with other creative individuals. The Astral dimension has technical and specific ways in which it interacts with the human consciousness system. This knowledge is historically passed down from Shaman to Shaman, from healer to healer. It is taught through a process we call Initiation – the deep learning of a body of knowledge through direct and indirect transmission – and is a process that is also used to screen the Shaman, to make sure they can handle what will come their way once the Astral becomes part of their healing work.

If the Shaman-in-training is not ready, or does not have the requisite temperament for interactions with the Astral world, tremendous challenges await them. Their emotional and mental apparatus – paralleling that of the less-functional schizophrenic – can become compromised. Their lives may become an incoherent mess for a while, until the boundary with the Astral has been reset, strengthened, and re-insulated against Astral contact. Such healers can actually do more damage than good, as they are the product of the Failed Initiation. But if the healer/shaman completes their Initiations successfully, and is willing to take on the continual challenges and personal hurdles that are required of a Shamanic practitioner, they will come to know the multiple benefits of Astral Healing.

The Astral Healing Initiation and training process cannot be learned from a book. Astral healing cannot be taught over a few weekend courses. No certificates are awarded. Dedication is required, in combination with the right temperament and the appropriate life-experience.

Astral initiation asks of us the heroism of the warrior, and the thoroughness of the scientist. It requires us to become eternal students of soul growth. We will come to experience the multiple nuances of potent energetic forces once invisible to us. The Astral world can enrich, and heal … but it can also pull us down into the depths of despair. Which is why we need Initiation and training. Not to mention a certain talent. A sense of ironic humor will also help you tremendously, as will the vital companionship of other students along the way. Oh, and you’ll need a lot of luck.

The problem for students moving through the Barbara Brennan School of Healing program is that not everyone has the ability – or the natural disposition – to work effectively with the Astral world. My experience is that you cannot train just any student to connect to the Astral world, do their astral healing technique, and then just leave unscathed, and unaffected by Astral energies. Working in the Astral world (and with those that inhabit it) is specialist work. Plus, there are various influences on Westerners that take it beyond the issue of a healer’s individual skill level. Westerners have all been taught, since childhood, to ignore the Astral as unscientific, to disparage it as a realm of spirits and demons, and to view it as a dangerous place that means to do us harm. Our preconceptions automatically distort our perceptions.

In this article I want to present to you what I truly consider the Astral world to be: a fourth spatial dimension (comprising of 49 sub-domains) that co-exists with our linear time-and-space everyday world. The Astral world is not a dimension in opposition to human reality. It is an integral part of our human evolution from the very beginning, a dimension that actively co-creates our personal and spiritual journey for both human and non-human alike. It is a realm filled with other beings, with other “people”. These Astral beings may look, to the inner psychic eye, like goblins and serpents, but they have their own spiritual depth, and individual personalities.

Astral “entities” are people. To call them entities, or demons, does them more than a disservice. It is a subtle form of racism, if we agree to extend the racist ethical concept beyond humankind and into the rest of the universe. If  we share time and space with other non-human beings they deserve the same respect, rights, and consideration that we would naturally extend to members of the human race.

They are “people” the way our pets have a unique nature that we come to know, and to love. Astral beings deserve the same respect that we offer to other human persons in the world. This is so even though the Astral is mostly an unseen world, seemingly existing within our inner reality,  glimpsed only through dreams or moments of hypnogogic lucidity.

Occasionally there are physical manifestations of the Astral, such as poltergeist activity, or photographic evidence (such as ghostly apparitions, or photographic orbs). But if a healer is drawn to work with the Astral realm these manifestations become more real to our inner vision, and more apparent in how they affect many of the life issues that we – and our clients – have to deal with. We come to see the imprint of the Astral everywhere: from our personal issues all the way, to social and global issues.

Within the Astral world we find different species of beings at various levels of evolution, similar to the range and development of animal and plant life here, in the physical world. Describing something as a “Lower Astral Entity” is akin to pointing at a large dangerous-looking spider or centipede, and calling it evil. There is nothing evil about a spider, nor the so-called Lower Astral being. Yes, it is true that it may bite you if you pick it up, or disturb it. But that is the nature of the spider, or the Astral being. It’s not personal.

Just as we divide up the animal kingdom into various domains, so we can place different Astral or non-physical species within useful categories. The “Lower” Astral are one category of Astral people that don’t have a highly-developed individuated consciousness. They exist in the domain of instinct, survival, and of propagation. Lower Astral people seek the nourishment of your pranic emotional energy. They are often found in the warm, moist cavities of the human body, nestled close to an endocrine gland or a digestive/elimination body organ. They happily suck up human prana and, in return, deposit a waste material which healers experience as Astral Gunk. Yes, that sticky and viscous material that you pull out of a client’s body during an Astral healing is spirit being waste matter. Don’t forget to wash your hands once you are done.

The second category is the “Higher” Astral, and is usually experienced as the place where angels and spirit teachers (or guides) cluster; those who interact with the human race in order to promote spiritual growth. Unfortunately, just because an Astral person tells you that they are from the Higher Astral does not always guarantee that they are Higher Astral. Many Astral people feed off the human radiance of attention, and may say anything to get it.  Just like getting to know a new friend, it takes time to get to know any Astral being. They may tell you they are a priestess or a guru from the past, in order to impress you, but they may have a hidden agenda. Unless their actions and counseling lead you on a consistently-upward growth curve you could be dealing with a trickster rather than a teacher. Remember the Biblical adage: “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

The third category of Astral people are ambivalent entities, or the Middle Astral. Like ourselves, these are developed beings of energy consciousness but who have taken on a different evolutionary direction from we three-dimensionally-bound humans. They exist as energy beings in a Fourth-Dimensional reality. They can take on different elemental forms, or adapt their personalities to new and creative roles. Where a Higher Astral angel may be following and implementing Divine Laws, the Middle Astral likes to bend those Laws, twisting them into new shapes. They are creative life forms. They contribute to the novelty and diversity of the Universe. And they are unpredictable.

The Middle Astral often appear to us as spirit allies, as teachers, or even as our Muse. Less authority, more friend and colleague, Middle Astral people can assist our growth and personal transformation far beyond any earth-bound human friend. But this is not all about you; Middle Astrals have their own lives, their own goals, their own personal agendas. Just like humans.

From this perspective Astral healing is not about removing the “evil”or negative activity of a shadow world from the physical world. Astral healing is learning to interact with, to understand, and to benefit from, relationships with non-human and non-physical people. As I wrote earlier, these are not alien “entities”. They are people. And this is why Astral healers must have a certain kind of personality that can interact with this realm, especially as the power of the Astral may overload your auric system with energies that you are not yet able to handle.

Astral energies will often lead you towards great transformation and change in your life, but (and for energy healers especially) it is common to have excess Astral influence in our lives. If Astral energies flood, or overcharge, the auric energy system (especially the brain stem area, where Talu chakra is located) there can be a tremendous destabilizing effect on the human nervous system. The common symptoms of Astral overwhelm are: chronic insomnia, hyperactive thoughts, paranoia, obsession, the sabotaging of our relationships, and hearing inner voices that may not have our best interests in mind if we follow their lead. And then there are the body shaking, nervous system jerking, and involuntary sounds or movements that affect us at the physical level.

Working with the Astral is a very specialized form of energy healing. If this work is not for you (as a healer or student healer) don’t feel bad, don’t feel inadequate. There is plenty of powerful and important energy healing techniques that can be done with our clients, such as Chakra Cord healing. Astral work is best suited for adventurers and quirky individuals: those with strong stomachs, flexible hearts, and an appreciation for spending time in the trenches of the human spirit. It is for those people who enjoy “digging in the dirt”, prospectors looking for gold. Oh, and a sense of self deprecating humor will help you  tremendously. There are many intermediate and advanced Astral healing skills to learn, but Astral healers do a lot of astral plumbing work … just pulling nasty stuff out of people. It is not romantic work. Along the way we get to meet challenging spirit beings that may – or may not – have our health and evolution as their primary concern. We always have to sort out the Astral crooks from the good Astral people, to help our clients navigate their individual path of personal growth.

The study of Astral healing is not for everyone. But, if it is for you, I promise one thing … you will never be bored.

An example of ambivalents are the many types of astral beings that I have seen attached to humans that both feed and stimulate an addiction. Classical Shamanic energy healing usually works towards removing such entities using the same paradigm as Western medicine: if it appears bad for you, pull it out or block it. But if we apply a more Eastern approach to addictive entities we can see them as possessing great potential in assisting humans to expand their life experience. The trick is, of course, to know when enough is enough. Two glass of wine shared with an old friend is a warm, delightful time of human connection. Drinking an entire bottle alone may be symptomatic of depression, or alcohol dependency. Ambivalent astral beings will be attracted to the energy of both situations: feeding on the delight of the higher and the dark pleasure of the lower, in effect straddling human moral systems. Where experiencing life fully in order to transcend a polarity’s illusory grip is always the goal of personal growth, we often find any astral entity involved in the struggle of healing an addiction to be the gatekeeper of higher wisdom. It may be a symbolic “Dragon” guarding the pearl of great price… our transformation to higher consciousness.

Metaphysics is one thing; effecting real change in an energy healing is quite another. On the practical side of my astral work with clients I utilize a major gateway to the spirit world known as Talu chakra, a tiny psychic center located in the human brain stem. It is this primitive doorway to other realms that is brings together both the gift and the curse of the astral realms: it opens up our consciousness to experience alternate life forms, but it is deeply embedded in the Reptilian (ie, pre-Mammalian) part of our physical brain’s evolutionary development. As such, we tend to react to the astral with the emotional wiring of our early ancestors: with either disarming awe, or paranoid distrust. These reactions (rather than our reasoned adult responses) downgrade our options in any meeting we may have with denizens of the spirit world. Unless a certain amount of conscious awareness has developed in us we will remain in a cartoonish relationship with the spirit realms, and unable to meet with them as co-equal inhabitants of a shared and evolving universe.

So, the next time you come across an astral entity in your healing work, maybe take pause. Are you reacting towards it according to your Reptilian brain? Either through fear, or with awe? Overly positive or overwhelmingly negative? Or can you meet it as a co-equal sentient being, as a potential ally?  I encourage you to take a chance to befriend that which your biology fears, and reach towards a new world of understanding.