Is the practice of Astral Projection against Christianity?

[ButterflyWoman]

I've never heard of that in Australia. I've lived here for ten years. There are a couple other Aussies around, as well, perhaps one of them will know.

[ButterflyWoman]

Paul very clearly reference OOBE here:

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows.
2 Corinthians 12:2

He goes on, in that passage, to talk about the things he saw/experienced.

[Beekeeper]

"Egypto" is one of the mantras used by Gnosticweb and they have groups in Australia, so I'd say it was their experiment. Basically they run group sessions where I understand they use commonly known methods to induce OBEs. The Great Pyramid is one of their group destinations.

Marilyn Hughes at http://www.outofbodytravel.orgwrites hundreds of articles on mystics of all religious persuasions and their out-of-body experiences. She makes these available as free downloads.

[ButterflyWoman]

I found another reference to OOBE in direct Christian experience. This time it was St Catherine of Siena. She was very much a mystic from the word go, and had all kinds of interesting visions and ecstatic experiences, but on one particular occasion she fell into a kind of trance for three days. Some people observing thought she might be dead, so I assume it was a coma or something similar. Some other observers who knew her and knew about her mystical experiences wondered if her soul had actually been removed from her body and she taken to "the third heaven" (not sure what that is, but it crops up from time to time in Christian mystical literature). After three days and nights, she did "return" but apparently she was quite disoriented and maintained that she had, indeed, left her body. She said she could never describe the things she saw and experienced because there were no words to do so.

Now, you really have to take stories of the lives of saints with a grain of salt, but the point is that this is a recognised Christian saint, and she is widely reported to have experienced OOBE. (As an interesting sidenote, Catherine of Siena was also said to occasionally levitate when she was in a prayer trance, and occasionally witnesses would see things around her like a visible aura of light. I don't know what to make of that, but it's interesting.)