From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Subject: Re: OOBE: How? Why?
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 02:33:24 GMT

On Sun, 13 Dec 1992, Stephen Kuhn <SWK105@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

> I've achieved OOBE several times.  An interesting thought occurred to me
> recently, though, and I've spent a lot of time pondering it.  WHY do we
> OOBE?  Why did evolution or God (It depends on your point of view.) give us
> this ability?  How can we use OOBE to reach some goal?  Surely it isn't just
> a pointless psychic deadend...

A couple of months back I went down to a bookstore in Harvard Square that
specializes in books concerning spirituality and the like, and picked up a
handful of books about OBEs, and wrote down the titles of a bunch more (to
be contributed to the FAQ project, now ongoing (please drop me a note if
you'd like to join the effort)).  Among the books I bought is something
with the title _The Silver Cord_: Lifeline to the Unobstructed, by Martha
Josephine Barham, R.N., Ph.D. and James Thomas Greene, Ph.D. (DeVorss &
Company, P.O. Box 550, Marina del Rey, California 90294-0550, ISBN:
0-87516-562-1).  I thought, as apparently had whoever had put it on the
shelf in the section where I was browsing that evening, that the book had
mainly to do with out of body experiences.  However, the content is the
summary of what the authors claim is a series of interviews with a couple
of disembodied (male) entities by the names of Aenka and Mario, who kindly
manifested themselves in bodily form (having previously spoken by means of
"channeling," it seems) for purposes of making themselves clear.

Well, I don't quite know what to make of the book.  It seems to raise as
many questions as it answers, in my own mind, at least, not that it's not
interesting.  It just doesn't contain enough in the way of evidence, and I
can't quite fit in what it says with things I've come across from other
sources or from personal experience to make it completely convincing, but
I will keep what it says it in mind as I continue my explorations.

Anyway, there is a brief section toward the back of the book on out of body
experiences.  Among other things, it is claimed that OBEs are natural and
necessary and happen to all of us throughout our lives, though most of us
don't recall having them.  I'm not entirely clear on the function of OBEs,
according to our entities-on-the-spot, but it would appear to be educational
and they permit us to visit friends, either in the "obstructed" universe
(the one we live in) or the "unobstructed" one (where souls reside between
incarnations, it is claimed).  They say that what travels during OBEs is the
soul, and that the frightening or seemingly dangerous things that some speak
of have to do with attempts by the personality to resolve the lingering
memories we have of the experience.  They say that there is usually a kind
of memory erasure to provide needed challenge, or some such.

I also got a note recently from someone who says that at least one of the
Seth books (Jane Roberts) also talks about OBEs.

I would like to have some discussions about what sociology professor Dr.
Kyriacos Markides (University of Maine) talks about in his three books about
the healer on Cyprus (his own original homeland) whom he calls "Daskalos"
(which means "teacher" in Greek).  I'll have more to say on this subject
later, after I regain access to my archives which will let me copy in the
text of articles I've posted previously on alt.dreams about these books,
which gives more of a description on their content.  In any event, Daskalos
uses OBEs (which he calls "exomatosis," I think it is) for purposes of
healing, so he says.  I find the books fascinating, and hope some of you
out there might be interested in reading one or more of the books and dis-
cussing their content.

My own primary interest is in trying to build up some kind of coherant
model of who and what we humans are, based on what can be pieced together
from personal experience and from hearing what others have to say (either
based on their experiences or on what has been written or might be the
subject of a teaching in some tradition).  If some element of a teaching
is valid, I would expect for it to be described, in differing ways,
perhaps, in a number of different places.  I know that our Eckankar
friends have a lot to say about OBEs, for example, and now we have the
Barham/Greene book, and Jane Roberts' "Seth" materials, and Markides'
books, and I'm sure there are lots of others.  I hope that we can put
together what we have each read and thought about and experienced for
ourselves to see what makes sense, both on intellectual and gut-levels.

How does this procedure sound?

I see OBEs as just a single element of a broader search for personal
meaning that goes beyond the physical dimension of experience, and which
doesn't rely on a more or less unthinking religious faith.  I don't know
how many of you out there are interested in a similar pursuit, compared
to those who see OBEs as more of a curiosity, or something fun to try to
do rather than dreaming while asleep, or those who have accepted a whole
package of understandings from one tradition or another and don't care to
compare that tradition with others to try to match things up in the manner
I've described.

I'd be interested to hear from those who might have similar inclinations
to my own.

Thanks.

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