Pet theory, or what?

[mjm]

I have a question regarding the following statement on the AD website:

"The astral is the closest dimension to the physical. It overlays and permeates the world like a huge mind net, catching and holding all thought"

What evidence exists that this statement is true? How does Robert know that the astral is the closest dimension to the physical? How does he know it "permeates the world like a huge mind net..." and holds "all thought"? People come up with all sorts of pet theories about all manner of things... I'm just wondering what evidence there is that these statements aren't among them.

Thanks,
Michael

[mjm]

Or how about this one:

"It [the astral] contains all the thoughts, memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the world."

How do we know this is true?

[CFTraveler]

If you want an answer from Robert you'll have to ask him in the 'Ask Robert' forum.
However, the tone of your question indicates to me that you are 'challenging', as opposed to 'wanting to know why' he says that.
The short answer is that most people who OBE successfully and repeatedly come to the same conclusions, even when they word things differently.
My answer would be "learn to do it, observe what you get and come to your own conclusion".

[mjm]

If you want an answer from Robert you'll have to ask him in the 'Ask Robert' forum.
However, the tone of your question indicates to me that you are 'challenging', as opposed to 'wanting to know why' he says that.
The short answer is that most people who OBE successfully and repeatedly come to the same conclusions, even when they word things differently.
My answer would be "learn to do it, observe what you get and come to your own conclusion".

I simply want to know what evidences these claims are based on, that's all. I'll leave it up to you if you want to take that as a challenge or not.

I'd be curious to learn more how practitioners have reached the concensus (if there is one) that the astral "overlays and permeates the world like a huge mind net" and "contains all the thoughts, memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the world." I've personally had numerous "astral" experiences over the years, and I've never found any reason to draw these conclusions myself... so why have others? Why has Robert?

Please understand, I didn't post this topic to say that Robert is necessarily wrong about these statements, I simply want to know if he's right about them. The best way I know how to determine that is to ask what line of reasoning was used to arrive at these sort of conclusions. I think that's fair.

Perhaps I should have posted this in the 'Ask Robert' forum... oh well.

Thanks,
Michael

[mjm]

I don't want to hastily conclude that Roberts claims are unattested by evidential support of any kind, but so far none has been offered here. If you share Roberts views mentioned above, I'd be interested in hearing your views on these issues.

Specifically, what line of evidence, reasoning, or rationale has led you to conclude (with Robert) that:

1) The astral is "the closest dimension to the physical"

and

2) That it [the astral] "contains all the thoughts, memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the world".

Should I simply accept it as a bare fact that these statements are true? Or what? CFTraveler seemed to indicate that these beliefs are arrived at by general consensus among those who practice astral projection... that individuals who have OBE experiences repeatedly come to the same conclusions. But this was just the short answer. Merely explaining that different individuals repeatedly draw the same conclusions doesn't explain how they reached those conclusions. With all due respect to CFTraveler, I didn't find this response very enlightening. I could take his suggestion to draw my own conclusions myself, but this wouldn't satisfy my interest in the above statements regarding the astral.

At any rate, if this latest posting fails to generate any interest I'll just drop the issue, but I'd really like to hear from some of you out there who might be interested in discussing these sort of things.

Thanks again,
Michael

[CFTraveler]

I don't want to hastily conclude that Roberts claims are unattested by evidential support of any kind, but so far none has been offered here. If you share Roberts views mentioned above, I'd be interested in hearing your views on these issues.

Specifically, what line of evidence, reasoning, or rationale has led you to conclude (with Robert) that:

1) The astral is "the closest dimension to the physical"

Ok, I'll give the 'slightly longer' answer- The astral, a term coined by early metaphysical thinkers, which means 'of the stars' and also means 'essential or primordial' by (one of the greek philosophers, maybe Paracelsus but I have to look at my sources again because I forgot for the moment and it would take a long time to find out) indicates or names the state of matter/energy that is closest to the physical. What does this mean? It means that if you consider the astral as subdivided in degrees of materiality or closeness to physical experience, which is what Robert means by 'dimension' in this case, you can categorize the experience as
Extremely separated from physical experience
to very close to physical experience.
In an OBE you can have an experience that is like flying around your living room (which is the etheric form of the astral) and this is considered the closest to the physical you can get while out of body, or you can have a mystical experience where you see a religious figure and still be in the astral, and this is said to be further away from physical reality but the symbolism still comes from things you have learned in the physical, so you are still in the astral.
At some point the original classifiers decided that some experiences are so 'distant' from the physical experience that they considered other 'dimensions' further away from the physical than the astral, and coined other terms like atmic, or buddhic, or mental planes, which are so distant from the way we perceive that they were considered to be 'non astral'.
In other words, the term astral and dimension are ways of categorizing subjective perceptile reality. There is no way to 'gather evidence' with subjective reality, except for verification for when the experience is in the RTZ or etheric, and a target is 'seen'.
The terms 'dimension' 'close to' etc. are ways of classifying experiential information in comparison to physical reality. Other terms and descriptions can be used just as appropriately, for example 'psychological distance' or focus of consciousness.
'Astral' is preferred (in my opinion) because it already is used and is quite appropriate in it's descriptive qualities.

and

2) That it [the astral] "contains all the thoughts, memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the world".

On the occasion some of us receive information that we didn't know and we got them from somewhere other than physical observation in the material world. This is not something 'provable' but some of us have received information that we know we didn't know before, or that in some cases the information didn't exist before. Some of us have visited others' experiences as they were happening (such as a visit to the RTZ while witnessing something from the other person's point of view- something that I have done on many occasions) and other times (and the most curious) sometimes gone into someone else's dreams or ponderings. I have done this also, so of all the other possible explanations (other than esp, which IMO is the same thing) the 'matrix theory' makes more sense as an explanation because it would explain all the ways these experiences happen. For example, I have had visions of what happens to others from their point of view, not as an observer, and also have had experiences that are explained by the symbolic representation of a belief system of the past. I don't know about you, but I think the 'matrix theory' explains a lot of these experiences quite well, and other ones too about nature that fall out of the purview of the OBE.
Occam's razor.

Should I simply accept it as a bare fact that these statements are true? Or what? CFTraveler seemed to indicate that these beliefs are arrived at by general consensus among those who practice astral projection... that individuals who have OBE experiences repeatedly come to the same conclusions. But this was just the short answer. Merely explaining that different individuals repeatedly draw the same conclusions doesn't explain how they reached those conclusions. With all due respect to CFTraveler, I didn't find this response very enlightening. I could take his suggestion to draw my own conclusions myself, but this wouldn't satisfy my interest in the above statements regarding the astral.

I still reiterate that you should take these statements of ways of explaining observed phenomena and of classifying them. Have the experiences, and classify them in ways that satisfy your worldview, and if it doesn't work for you, don't adopt it.

At any rate, if this latest posting fails to generate any interest I'll just drop the issue, but I'd really like to hear from some of you out there who might be interested in discussing these sort of things.

Thanks again,
Michael

I invite anyone who has anything of value to come in and post as long as it is in a respectful manner, as pertains to the rules of the forum.

[Korpo]

1) The astral is "the closest dimension to the physical"

This seems to be the consensus from the so-called "theosophic" material. Try to read up on that, especially a person called Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ( http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/ ). Also the so-called "Seth material", channeled by a non-incarnate entity. Etc.

2) That it [the astral] "contains all the thoughts, memories, fantasies, and dreams of every living thing in the world".

Kurt Leland writes in "Otherwhere" how dreams happen in sealed-off parts of the astral that don't interfere with the entities living in what he calls "Otherwhere". The idea that the astral is something like a personal sub-conscious (possibly at the "lower levels") or even a common sub-conscious (the "higher sub-layers"?) has crept up again and again.

The astral seems to be reactive to thought and emotion, and experiences there seem to be highly tainted with your personal emotional "baggage". As far as I can discern from what I've read the "astral body" is at the same time the energy body of emotion, carrying our lower, self-related emotions. The link between what Monroe called the "animal sub-self" and our higher faculties. The symbolistic drama early projections seem to be (see Monroe's "Journeys Out Of Body") seems to be indicative of that. If you follow Leland's conclusions this evolves into mental projections with higher lucidity, clarity and different focus (like in Monroe's later books).

The theosophic or Seth materials might be helpful in finding out more.

Take good care,
Oliver

[mjm]

Sorry for the delay... just wanted to say thanks for the responses (CFTraveler, Korpo).