What are the limitations of the Astral?

[CFTraveler]

What is fundamentally different about the astral.

As opposed to what? Define telepathy.
If you are in a realm without a body, and communication happens, then there is the ability to communicate. I imagine that 'thought/information' transfer can be described as telepathy, but I don't know if that's what it is.
If you look up the definition of ROTE (it's in the AD Pedia) you can get a better idea of how communication happens.

[Korpo]

Hello, Grey.

Greetings Korpo
I am simply stating that where a person ends up in the astral after physical death is likely determined by their religious and social conditioning during physical life. Thus a person brought up in a strict religious community is apt to wind up in a very similar religious intolerant BST after death. A person heavily involved in drugs and crime while on Earth is likely to inhabit a non-physical location where similar activities take place. etc.

I would expect the following:

Plane and subplane one initially ends up on depend on the state of being one is in when dying. Someone having a lot of "heavy stuff" to clear will probably end up in the lower astral, the realm of unexpressed heavy emotions. A person who stayed mostly clear of the "heavier" emotions would pass through to the middle and upper astral planes, depending on what life has been led.

An interesting description of these subplanes and how they relate to the afterlife is here: Lowest four subplanes of the astral plane and Upper three subplanes of the astral plane

I would, on the other hand, expect beliefs to affect how one experiences these planes. From what I've read I would also expect that certain beliefs hinder progress through certain stages the afterlife - like not believing one has died (early stage) or not believing in reincarnation (later stage). Such things might or might not correlate with the Belief System Territories Monroe described.

Oliver

[Korpo]

What is fundamentally different about the astral?

Reality manifestation works faster than in the physical, time and space have less meaning than in the physical. Emotions, desires and intent have a rather pronounced effect on the environment one is in and also the environment finds oneself in and can access. What is seen, heard and understood depends heavily on the level of development of the chakras and inner senses. Your shape can be modified.

[greytraveller]

Greetings Korpo
Yes I think that we are basically in agreement here. Although there may be a few exceptions to what you wrote (there Always appear to be a few exceptions to everything) fundamental emotions and beliefs are the deciding factors to where a person ends up in the Afterlife.
Where you wrote

"certain beliefs hinder progress through certain stages the afterlife"

I would simply rewrite as
"certain religious and cultural indoctrination from the past physical life hinder progress through certain stages of the afterlife."

Regards
Grey

[dan4112]

As opposed to what? Define telepathy.
If you are in a realm without a body, and communication happens, then there is the ability to communicate. I imagine that 'thought/information' transfer can be described as telepathy, but I don't know if that's what it is.

Yes, essentially what I mean is thought/emotional transference. This opposed to how things work in the physical. When I'm depressed about my deceased grandmother and I want to communicate this to another person I have to use spoken words to describe my feelings and express my emotion through body language and voice tone. But the other person cannot directly feel and experience what I'm feeling. They may have a degree of empathy and understand my language, but they can't directly experience my emotions or thoughts. However, from my reading of OBE's pretty much without exception I see reports of mind to mind communication where you just know the other persons thoughts and like with Monroe's rote's it seems that you can give someone entire experiental sets or sequences so that they can directly experience something you've been through. So my question is, if you are next to another spirit in the astral can you directly experience what they are thinking/feeling? And if so is there any way to block another being from knowing your thoughts in the astral, i.e. are there any secret thoughts?

Now Korpo you said that time and space have less meaning. This also seems to be suggested that in the astral body you can move by thought. Like Monroe in Far Journey's talks about getting a signal on INSPEC, reaching and going there almost instantly. Other NDE's I have read describe people who think about someone or something and are instantly there with that person or at that place. So, it seems that movement and travel is fundamentally different in the astral. You can fly and float. You don't have to walk unless you want to. And you don't even have to move your astral body through "space" to get somewhere. You can just think about where you want to be and boom you're there. Any thoughts on this from experienced travelers? How do you move around in the astral?

So, as I see it right now telepathy and the ability to move at the speed of thought are specific examples of fundamental differences between the physical and the astral. Also, Korpo mentioned the ability to modify your shape. Now, saying that your emotions and desires have a pronounced effect on the environment is a good point, but it's not specific. I mean, suppose I'm angry because I was abused as a child (just an example, not actually true). Just to say that anger will make my astral environment an ominous place is kind of vague. Without knowing exactly what form that anger will take on in my astral environment I really don't know what will happen.

[CFTraveler]

So my question is, if you are next to another spirit in the astral can you directly experience what they are thinking/feeling? And if so is there any way to block another being from knowing your thoughts in the astral, i.e. are there any secret thoughts?

I have never thought of hiding my thoughts- the way I communicate with another purposefully is by immersion, but I never have thought of trying to hide my thoughts- there doesn't seem to be any reason to (at least in my experience).
I have read by various authors (Monroe comes to mind, and Leland too) when they describe beings of light 'powering down' to avoid hurting us, because their energy may be 'too much' for us to handle, a sort of 'cloaking' maneuver. The thing is that information seems to me to be either purposeful (as in "I came here to give you this message") or if incidental, more a merging into an emotional state of the other- not an 'accidental' knowing of something I wasn't meant to know.
I imagine that if I wanted to shield my thoughts (although the idea is foreign to me) I would mentally wish to shield myself, and assume it would work.

Without knowing exactly what form that anger will take on in my astral environment I really don't know what will happen.

And this is why I'm a firm believer in 'knowing thyself' as much as possible, do as much introspective work as you can before you embark in these types of disciplines, to avoid being unpleasantly surprised, because your subconscious will help you deal with any unresolved stuff you may have by objectifying it for your conscious mind.

[CFTraveler]

I have to add, that this way of information sharing is usable and used in the physical also. I can always tell when I'm with someone whether they like me or not, before they say a word, so what some may call 'telepathy' (others 'intuition') is used routinely if not entirely consciously in everyday waking life.

[defectron]

Hello everyone and thanks for the great information! I understand that the Physical is a consensus reality that we all agree to participate in. And I gather that many places in the astral are communities of many souls of like mindset living together and there are various limitations in the astral based on beliefs. But I guess I'm really interested in the fundamentals. What is fundamentally different about the astral. So regardless of my mentally imposed limitations in the astal, what are the fundamental abilities that one has in the astral that they lack in the physical? Like telepathy for instance. Is that a fundamental ability that 99% of astral beings posses?

From what I understand all psychic abilities are amplified when one is on the astral.

One interesting story I heard was of a remote viewer who was looking in on a terrorist and was able to use his intent to detonate the terrorists vest in the physical world before he could go commit any crimes. I'm very interested in the possibility of using amplified intention from the astral in possibly affecting change in the physical world. I'm going to try doing some experiments with this later.

[dan4112]

One interesting story I heard was of a remote viewer who was looking in on a terrorist and was able to use his intent to detonate the terrorists vest in the physical world before he could go commit any crimes. I'm very interested in the possibility of using amplified intention from the astral in possibly affecting change in the physical world.

Well, thank heavens (as my grandmother would say) you brought this up. It reminds me of the experiments they've done with people trying to effect random number generators (producing randomly 1's or 0's, or square's and circle's) to try and produce a given number a statistically greater amount. This is done through the person just sitting at the computer while it's running and willing it in one direction. They've found over successive trials a statistically significant fluxuation from chance in the willed direction. However the effect is very small, say 51% square's compared to 50% which is the result you would expect by chance. But this is just done on the physical level, so it would be interesting to have someone in an out of body state or in deep meditation try to effect the computer and see if they get better results.

In fact, an experiment has been done involving transcendental meditators, not effecting computers, but consciousness. In this study the effect was a reduction in crime in the city they meditated in. The size of the group was quite large, about 4,000 meditators who meditated in Washington DC. By the final week that they gathered, there was a reduction of 23.3% in violent crimes in the city. I don't think they meditated with the specific intent to reduce crime, but the effect seemed to be that. Link here: http://www.mum.edu/m_effect/dc_md.html

Actually what I have related above are just side thoughts in my mind right now. The real purpose of this post is to ask: How can astral entities effect those who are living physical lives?

This is a very pertinent and pressing question on my mind. I was reading the book "Ghosts" by James Van Praagh today and he explains that earthbound spirits can latch onto people who have negative emotions and drain their energy. He says that if you have some kind of hole in your aura, earthbound spirits can enter and feed off your negative energy. Now, I've also read about earthbound spirits influencing people through giving them urges or thoughts. I have a hard time accepting this kind of influence because it seems to divert someone's free will. I mean, if you have this negative astral entity giving you the thought to smoke or harm someone you might easily mistake this for your own urge or thought. So, I really need to know how astral entities can effect the living. Can a deceased spirit in the lower astral realms latch onto someone and drain their energy? Can they give someone thoughts or urges to do things they wouldn't otherwise do?

[dan4112]

As a follow up I'll just say that there are two sides to this coin. On one hand you've got near-death experiencers who try desperately to communicate with others, sometimes even screaming at the person "I'm right here, can't you see me?" They inevitably find that they can't communicate with the living, even though they can hear and see the living sometimes even becomming aware of their thoughts.

On the other hand you've got these hypnotic regression therapists and mediums saying that spirits can attach themselves to you, drain your energy and give you thoughts or unexplained urges to do something.

So this is the basis for my confusion. Are the near-death experiencers unable to communicate because they don't know how, but these other disembodied entities have figured it out? Has anyone ever seen any of this spirit attachment while out of body? Anyone ever experimented with affecting the living while obe?