In mystical beliefs, astral projection, also called astral travel, soul journey, or spiritual travel, is a deliberate experience where a person feels they are leaving their physical body. During this experience, a non-physical form, known as the astral body or body of light, is said to travel through a spiritual realm called the astral plane.
The concept of astral travel has existed for many years and appears in various cultures around the world. The term "astral projection" was introduced by members of a 19th-century group called Theosophists. This practice is sometimes linked to dreams or meditation. Some people have described experiences that resemble astral projection after using hallucinogenic substances or hypnotic techniques, including self-hypnosis. However, there is no scientific proof that a person’s mind can exist separately from their brain’s normal activity or that they can leave their body to observe the physical world. Because of this, astral projection is often labeled as pseudoscience.
Accounts
Similar ideas about the soul traveling are found in many religious traditions. For example, ancient Egyptian beliefs describe the soul (called the ba) as being able to leave the physical body through the ka, or subtle body.
In the Waiwai culture, the yaskomo is believed to have the ability to send the soul on journeys for different purposes. These journeys might include healing, visiting the sky to speak with celestial beings like the Moon or the Moon's brother to give a baby a name, traveling to the mountains where peccaries live to ask for more animals, or going into rivers to seek help from other spirits.
Some Inuit groups believe that special people called angakkuq can travel to distant, mythical places and return with important information for their community. These individuals are thought to have the power to change bad luck during hunting or help sick people recover. Soul wandering is considered a condition that is specific to certain cultures.
Similar beliefs appear in ancient Hindu texts, such as the Yogavashishta-Maharamayana by Valmiki, which describes the Liṅga Śarīra, or spiritual body. Modern Indian spiritual leaders, like Paramahansa Yogananda, have mentioned experiences that might involve astral projection, such as when Swami Pranabananda performed a miracle.
The spiritual teacher Meher Baba explained that as people grow spiritually, they may learn to control their astral body. This allows them to leave their physical body while sleeping or being awake and travel to other realms. These journeys are more meaningful when done intentionally, as they help the soul understand its separation from the physical body and improve control over it. Astral projection is considered one of the siddhis, or special powers, that can be achieved through yoga. In the Mahabharata, a character named Drona leaves his body to check if his son is alive.
In Japanese mythology, an ikiryō is the spirit of a living person that appears separately from their body. It is believed that if someone holds a strong grudge, their spirit might leave their body to harm the person they hate, similar to an evil eye. However, ikiryō can also appear when a person is very sick or in a coma, and these spirits are not always harmful.
Taoist practices involve creating an energy body through breathing exercises and meditation. This energy is gathered into a "pearl" and moved around the body.
In a story, a Taoist named Xiangzi fell asleep with a drum as his pillow. His spirit, however, went to a banquet and greeted others. When officials saw two Taoists who looked identical—one sleeping and one singing—they believed the man had the ability to split his body and be in two places at once.
Some spiritual traditions, like those of Carrington, Muldoon, Peterson, and Williams, describe the subtle body as connected to the physical body by a psychic "silver cord." A passage from Ecclesiastes 12:6 mentions this idea, comparing the body to a machine with the silver cord representing the spine. However, some scholars, like Rabbi Nosson Scherman, believe this is a metaphor.
James Hankins suggests that a verse in 2 Corinthians 12:2 might refer to traveling to the astral planes. According to Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucian thought, the "astral body" is a spiritual form that connects the rational soul to the physical body. The astral plane is seen as a spiritual world between Earth and Heaven, filled with spirits, angels, and demons.
In Neoplatonism, as taught by Plotinus, a person is a small version of the universe. The rational soul is connected to the universe's greater soul, and the physical world is a less perfect copy of the spiritual world. Ideas about the astral body were later expanded by occultists like Eliphas Levi and used by Theosophy and other spiritual groups.
In some esoteric systems, the subtle bodies and their spiritual realms are shown as layers or circles, with each body traveling through different levels of existence.
Terminology
The term "astral projection" has been used in two main ways. For groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and some Theosophists, it refers to traveling to other worlds, such as heavens, hells, or areas in the sky, as described by ancient philosophers. However, outside these groups, the term has come to mean traveling through the physical world without a physical body.
Even though this meaning is still common, some later Theosophists used the term "etheric travel" to describe a different kind of experience. Some people who practice this say they visit real places or times. "Etheric" describes the feeling of being outside the body in the physical world, while "astral" may involve a change in how time feels. Robert Monroe called the physical-world experience "Locale I" or "Here-Now," which involves real people and places. Robert Bruce referred to this as the "Real Time Zone" (RTZ), the non-physical level closest to the physical world. The etheric body is often invisible but may feel connected to the physical body through a silver cord during separation. Some people associate dreams with this kind of experience.
According to Max Heindel, the etheric double acts as a link between the astral and physical worlds. He described the ether, also called prana, as the energy that gives life to physical forms. From his descriptions, it seems that seeing the physical world during an out-of-body experience does not mean one is in the astral realm.
Some experiences describe places that do not match any known physical world. These environments may be empty or filled with people, natural or man-made, or abstract. The experience might feel peaceful, frightening, or neutral. A common belief among Theosophists is that people can access a spiritual record called the Akashic records. Many describe the astral world as similar to the world of dreams. Some report seeing other dreamers acting out their dreams without realizing their surroundings.
The astral world may be divided into levels or sub-planes by some theorists. However, different traditions have varying ideas about the structure of the astral planes. These may include heavens and hells, afterlife realms, spiritual environments, or other states that are harder to describe.
Scientific reception
There is no scientific proof that astral projection, a real event, exists. However, some people who receive brain stimulation treatments or use drugs like ketamine, phencyclidine, and DMT have reported experiences that seem similar to astral projection. In experiments related to the mind, people have tried to send their astral bodies to other rooms to observe events. These experiments have not provided clear results.
Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe explained that astral projection can be understood as false beliefs, seeing things that are not real, or intense dreams. Arthur W. Wiggins stated that claims about traveling great distances through astral projection are mostly based on personal stories. He believes these experiences can be explained by the structure of the brain, knowledge people already have, and their beliefs or imagination. Robert Todd Carroll noted that the main support for astral travel comes from stories shared by people who say they felt separated from their bodies, even though they may not have been thinking clearly at the time.
Notable practitioners
Emanuel Swedenborg was one of the first people to write a lot about out-of-body experiences in his book Spiritual Diary (1747–1765). In her book My Religion, Helen Keller shared her beliefs in Swedenborgianism and described how she once traveled spiritually to Athens:
"I have been far away all this time, and I haven't left the room…It was clear to me that it was because I was a spirit that I had so vividly 'seen' and felt a place a thousand miles away. Space was nothing to spirit!"
In occult traditions, practices include entering trance states or creating a second body through visualization and controlled breathing. This second body is called the "body of light" by Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), and it is formed by a mental act of will.
Many books from the 20th century discuss astral projection, though only a few writers are still widely mentioned. These include Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), Hereward Carrington (1880–1958), Oliver Fox (1885–1949), Sylvan Muldoon (1903–1969), and Robert Monroe (1915–1995).
Robert Monroe's stories about traveling to other realms (1971–1994) helped make the term "OBE" popular. His books focused more on describing these journeys than explaining the methods. Monroe also started an institute to study and share sound-based technology that helps people achieve projection and other altered states of consciousness.
Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) wrote about his teacher Don Juan's ideas about "the double" and its abilities in his books Tales of Power (1974), The Second Ring of Power (1977), and The Art of Dreaming (1993). Florinda Donner, a student of Castaneda, explained in her 1992 book Being-in-Dreaming how to use the double to explore the physical world while dreaming and the dream world while awake.
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) wrote in detail about astral projection in his 1988 non-fiction book Travels. Robert Bruce, William Buhlman, Marilynn Hughes, and Albert Taylor have also shared their ideas about astral projection on the radio show Coast to Coast AM.