Robert Monroe - Journeys out of the body, Practical Guidebook

For example, if a practitioner needs to get to a location - even very far away - it may be reached by teleportation. If an object needs to be moved from one side of the room to the other, it may be moved by telekinesis. One of the major benefits of the phase experience is unencumbered freedom of action.

To master unusual abilities, only a few phases need to be spent in concentrated development of the methods.

Telekinesis

In order to learn telekinesis (moving object by thought), the practitioner concentrate on an object while experiencing a deepened phase, and attempt to move the object by thinking about the movement. The only required action is aggressive visualization of the object’s movement. No specific external actions are required.

Telekinetic ability is inherent to every human being. If attempts are unsuccessful at first, press on. Before too long, the full effect of the practitioner’s will yield results. Using this ability helps to encourage a good phase experience by providing a tool for carrying out planned tasks.

Pyrokinesis

Igniting an object in the phase just by staring at it requires a strong desire to heat up and set fire to the object. Performed successfully, an object will smoke, distort, darken and then burst into flames.

Telepathy

To develop telepathy in the phase, it is necessary to peer at animate objects while listening surrounding external and internal sounds with the intention of hearing thoughts expressed by thought.

Even experienced practitioners encounter difficulty while developing telepathy, but when successful, contact with people in the phase is substantially simplified. Using telepathy, discerning the thoughts of people, animals, and objects is possible. However, this should not be taken too seriously, since it is merely the nature of the phase to simulate what is expected.

Transmutation

Transforming an object’s form requires the technique of transmutation (refer to Chapter 9). It should also be noted that if the goal is not to convert something but rather to transform oneself, then it is necessary to use the translocation techniques (also described in Chapter 9), whereby attention has to be concentrated not on the desired place but on the desired form. Here again there are no limitations apart from individual courage and fantasy. It is possible to become a butterfly or a dinosaur. It is possible to become a bird or a worm. It’s even possible to become a child or a person of the opposite sex. These are not simply external changes, but real transmutations, within and without. If a practitioner becomes a butterfly, it accompanies the sensation of having wings, many legs, and an unusual body. The practitioner will intuitively know how to control each part of this new body. This is a superficial description of the transmutation experience, which obviously defies a customary understanding of reality.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONFIDENCE

A crucial factor in developing phase abilities is self-confidence in the ability to use the skills. Initially, these abilities are absent because the human brain, tuned in to ordinariness, blocks confidence in the ability to do anything unusual. As soon as strong confidence is reached in the performance of phase abilities, all others become easy to achieve.

Although confidence in phase abilities may grow strong, practitioners should remain soundly aware that abilities in the phase are limited to the phase. Attempting telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or transmutation in the real world is a waste of time and energy.

CONTROLLING PAIN

Along with all the positive experiences and sensations that may be enjoy in the phase, painful experiences nature may also manifest.

Punching a wall in a deep phase state will cause the same pain as if a wall had been struck in physical reality.

Some actions in the phase may unavoidably cause unpleasant feelings of pain; therefore, it is necessary to know how to avoid painful actions. Focusing on an internal confidence that pain will not result from an action will alleviate the problem. A practitioner may experiment with this type of focus by pummeling a wall while resolving that there is no pain. If the experiment succeeds, then obtaining the same result will never again require the same level of effort; thinking that the phase is painless will suffice.

MORAL STANDARDS IN THE PHASE

From the very beginning, it should be understood that the moral compass of phase space has nothing in common with the properties and laws in the physical world that promulgate reality. The phase space seemingly imitates the physical world with all its properties and functions only because we are used to perceiving it and are not expecting anything else. Moral principles and rules apply only to the place where these have been. It does not make sense to follow the same rules while in the phase.

The practitioner should not refrain from certain actions in the phase because some would be unacceptable, improper, or bad in the real world. These are merely behavioral patterns that are unfounded in the world of the phase, where everything operates on the basis of entirely different laws.

The only moral rules that might exist in the phase are those that the practitioner establishes. If desired, complete, unhindered freedom may be experienced.

STUDYING POSSIBILITIES AND SENSATIONS

Novice practitioners should not immediately rush towards a single specific goal if long-term practice is desired. It is better to extensively investigate the phase and its surroundings before focusing on accomplishment. This will build intimacy with the experience and allow unhindered entry and interaction with the phase.

As in reality, learning whatever first reveals itself is the key to increasing and specializing knowledge. A beginning practitioner should at first enjoy the simple fact of actually being in the phase, then lean its details and functions. Once inside the phase, a practitioner should explore it, examining and interacting with everything encountered.

He should also try to fully sharpen all the possible feelings in the phase in order to fully understand how unusual the phase is in its realism. A practitioner must experience movement: walking, running, jumping, flying, falling, swimming. Test the sensations of pain by striking a wall with a fist. The simplest way to experience taste sensations is to get to the refrigerator and try to eat everything that you find there, at the same time not forgetting to smell each item.

Walk through the walls, translocate, create and handle objects.

Explore. All these actions are very interesting in and of themselves.

The possibilities really are infinite. However, only when they are well understood and thoroughly explored can it be said that the practitioner really knows what the phase is about.

TYPICAL MISTAKES WITH PRIMARY SKILLS

• When trying to discern whether or not a phase is intact, a judgment is based on a similarity to the departed physical environment. In the phase, physical attributes are simulations.

• Hyper-concentrating on an object for too short a time while trying to determine whether the surroundings are in the phase or in the physical world.

• Deliberately attempting to end the phase prematurely when the entire natural length of the phase should be taken advantage of.

• Panic in case of paralysis instead of calm, relaxed action.

• Refusal to practice the phase because of fear, though this problem is temporary and resolvable.

• Opening the eyes at the initial stages of the phase since this frequently leads to a foul.

• Premature attempts to create vision in the phase, whereas separating from the body and deepening should occur.