From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Subject: Welcome to alt.out-of-body!
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 18:39:29 GMT
Expires: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 00:00:00 GMT

On behalf of those who took part in the recent vote which established
"alt.out-of-body" as the name of choice for the discussion of out-of-
body experiences, I'd like to welcome those who may have just seen the
message from their news system announcing the creation of this news-
group.

While I don't have time at present to write anything like a formal
charter for the newsgroup, and I'm sure I'm not the right person any-
way (I conducted the vote and issued the control message which estab-
lished the newsgroup), I'd like to at least say what the newsgroup is
for, since you may be wondering.

"Out-of-body" experiences are reported by some people who have a sense
of having visual and (sometimes, I think) auditory experiences from a
perspective other than that of seeing through their physical eyes or
hearing through their physical ears.  There is a sense of being in a
body - of the same size and shape as the physical body, but that body
is not of a fleshly nature.  In fact, often the experience starts with
an experience of seeing one's own physical body from a short distance
away, and feeling some connection to that body (the literature on the
subject talks, in fact, about there being a kind of umbilical cord
connection, with the attachment being at the back of the head of the
non-physical body).  Those who have the experience (I am not one, BTW)
report being able to exercise a degree of control over this non-corporeal
body, being able to reach out and touch things, or to reach through
physical objects, yet to feel substantial objects with a sense of touch.
There is often also control in the sense of being able to move from one
place to another, often with the sense of flying, but also in some cases
with a sense of being able to just will oneself to a place of one's
choosing without having to cover the intervening distance.

It seems that typically, an out-of-body experience is achieved from a
sleeping state, but some reports indicate that it is possible to go
into the state directly from waking consciousness, leaving the physical
consciousness in a trance-like state, I would assume.

From recent postings to the alt.oobe newsgroup, which has existed since
22 July, when I hastily created it without giving much thought to the
issue of whether that name would be a good one, there may be techniques
that one who has not spontaneously had the experience can learn and
practice which can help one to achieve the experience.  I expect that a
good deal of the discussion, at least initially, will be on this topic.

Personally, I am interested in gaining a better understanding of what
such experiences might have to tell us about ourselves, and what kinds
of creatures we are, rather than merely looking at this phenomenon as
something akin to a sport like scuba-diving or hang-gliding.  :-)  I
would hope that at least some participants in the discussion might be
interested in a more systematic exploration of the subject, including an
examination of the world's literature for references to such phenomena,
and that we might attempt to look for some common understandings of what
we either learn about in an academic way or in a direct experiential
manner.  I hope that we can compile a bibliography on the subject, and
that we might even conduct some discussions of particular books and
articles.

In any event, I'd like to welcome all the newcomers to alt.out-of-body,
and to repeat the suggestion I made recently in the still-extant alt.oobe
(which will be phased out once alt.out-of-body is securely established
throughout net-land) that all articles sent to alt.out-of-body be cross-
posted to alt.oobe during this transitional period, which will probably
last several weeks at least.

I'll be looking forward to getting to know some new people, and that we
might even get some understandings which help us all to see ourselves as
"new people," in a sense.

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body,alt.oobe,alt.config