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.

Dean and Patricia White Buffalo teaching at BBSH

The large room was almost silent except for a few whispered conversations between students. My teaching staff stood around the edges of the one hundred and fifty student body, waiting to assist or intervene in the healing if necessary. Over in one corner, a small booth of Japanese interpreters huddled, taking a break from the exhausting work translating lectures for their Japanese-speaking students. I smiled as I passed by them, and approached my AV staff member, motioning him to start the New Age music heralding the beginning of this practice healing segment.

“OK, everyone,” I said, quietly into my lapel microphone, “It’s time to take your place at the foot of your client: we’re about to begin.”

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