Places

A far more common and familiar path to the Otherworlds begins with the ancient discipline of astral travel. Meditating – preferably in a very secure place! – a traveler projects his consciousness out of his physical form, then flies off into the High Realms of concept and ideal. A traditional method of travel among monks, saints, wizards, and – more recently – transhumanist psychonauts, astral travel weaves a silver cord between the living body and the voyaging consciousness.

In astral travel, only your consciousness journeys onward. Generally, this takes you to what’s often called the High Umbra, which we’ll explore shortly. An experienced traveler can shift her consciousness to go to other realms as well, but the High, or Astral, Umbra is the default destination. Like the Vidare Astral I mentioned earlier, this is the domain of abstract, elevated concepts – the realm of heady things. So it’s appropriate, then, that your “head-self” provides the easiest way to get there.

(A similar method jacks you into the Digital Web – the magickal side of the Internet. That’s a whole other subject, though, that I’ll get to shortly.)

Astral travel has two fundamental drawbacks: the first is that your body stays behind while you go voyaging, and that silver cord that links your two selves can be rather vulnerable. The second is that, unless you’re very, very good at astral travel, you go there naked – bringing things along is extraordinarily difficult. Astral projection also employs your mental faculties, not your physical abilities… which is wonderful if you’re exceedingly smart and not so wonderful if you aren’t. An astral voyager essentially projects her mind-self, and so, if you use this mode of travel, you look like a silvery reflection of your ideal self-image. Fortunately for astral travelers, it takes a lot of confidence and self-understanding to master this discipline. Thus, an astral traveler may look more impressive than her physical self looks back in the material world.