Tag Archives: astral travel

Jurgen Ziewe’s Epic Accounts of Astral Travel, Lucid Dreams, Transcendent Meditation Experience Will Blow Reader’s Minds, Impart Sense of Wonder

Review by: KEN KORCZAK

Astral travel and meditation are two esoteric practices that are, in many respects, aspects of each other. They go hand in hand because people who learn to meditate will have much greater success in inducing an out-of-body experience.

One has been largely stripped of its connotation as being “esoteric” in recent decades while the other is probably still relegated to the realm of High Woo-Woo.

I bet I don’t have to tell you which is which.

Chuck Norris, noted meditator

Today meditation is being practiced by millions of people, from corporate board rooms to private bedrooms. Increasingly, meditation has been shorn from its association with Eastern religions or mysticism. Now we can all meditate in an unfettered, secular way, if that’s what we prefer, because it’s seen as a “legitimate mind tool” embraced by everyone from your family physician and therapist to Oprah Winfrey and Chuck Norris.

But astral travel is probably a bridge too far for the general public or mainstream consumption as of yet – though I dare say I believe millions of people are eager to try their hand at inducing the OBE. It’s just that, the average person is much more likely to tell her friends down at the office that she meditates 20 minutes a day while that same person is unlikely to casually admit: “Oh yes, I fly out of my body at night to visit the magical and mysterious Astral Realms.

Jurgen Ziewe

I bring this up because today I am reviewing VISTAS OF INFINITY by the German-born artist and designer JERGEN ZIEWE. He has lived in the U.K. since 1975 and has been practicing meditation and out-of-body travel since about that time – some 40 years, he says.

What is remarkable about this book (among many remarkable things) is how it demonstrates the way an intensive integration of meditation and OBE practice has played out in Mr. Ziewe’s spectacular experiences.

I’ve been reading books about astral travel since the late 1970s, but I’ve never encountered an approach that shows a more unified adoption of both the OBE and meditation practice as does this narrative.

But as I write this – and now that I think of it — I should include a third “esoteric” practice that Jergen Ziewe has leveraged – lucid dreaming. Here, again, it can be said that lucid dreaming is intimately linked to astral travel and both are enhanced or assisted by meditation.

This author is one of the few I’ve read who can achieve the lucid dream state and hold onto it in a highly stable manner – and then while “inside” a lucid dream, he sometimes settles down to practice meditation in the dream realm. This, in turn, often leads to fantastic out-of-body adventures to far-flung magical realms of truly unlimited and infinite variety, potential and location.

Is there a real heaven, or is it a “consensus reality” manufactured by belief systems?

Ziewe regales us with details of journeys to other planets, alternate dimensions of reality, certain places he calls “consensus realities,” parallel universes – and the occasional Hell.

The author’s facility with descriptive language is extraordinary. Even though many of the fabulous locations he enters would seem to defy description using these crude symbols we call words with their limited ability to convey meaning – Ziewe finds a way to impart to us a vivid sense of the mind-boggling experiences he encounters.

He frequently enters realms that are psychedelic. They embody an LSD- or DMT-like quality of experience and environment. There are swirling colors, endless fractal iterations of geometric shapes, organic-biological patterns, hyperspatial structures that can only be defined by mathematical formula in our mundane world, but which Ziewe is able to encounter through direct experience.

Readers will feel Ziewe’s obvious frustration as he strains to find a way to help us relate or impart to us the tiniest taste of the kaleidoscopic transcendent realms. He grapples with the limits of human language to tell us what these exotic realms are like. Sometimes I felt that reading Ziewe’s descriptive prose was the closest thing there is to experiencing an acid trip without actually dropping acid.

He’s an amazing writer!

At the same time, Ziewe comes off as a man rendered genuinely meek and humbled by where is astral odysseys have taken him. He presents an endearing aura of authenticity – like a man who has been granted a direct glimpse of The Godhead – only to make him realize that he is the merest speck, a kind of bacterial-level bit of individuated consciousness – and yet, at the same time, cognizant that he is in possession of what the great JANE ROBERTS called, “an eternal validity of the soul.

The final chapter of the book should be considered a classic essay in which a philosopher lays out his view of reality derived through his own transcendent experience. This crowning statement is wonderful in its lucidity and unrutted approach. It takes on what it means to be a human being and how we can all view and appreciate our own special place within our infinite, awe-inspiring and indescribably extravagant multiverse.


PLEASE CHECK OUT MY REVIEWS OF OTHER BOOKS ON THE OBE TOPIC, LINKED BELOW:

BEYOND THE ASTRAL by William and Susan Buhlman

EYES OF AN ANGEL by Paul Elder

CRASH & BURN by Peter Ludvick

EXPLORATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS By Frederick Aadema

BABE IN THE WOODS By Frank DeMarco

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

 

William and Susan Buhlman Explore Implications of the OBE in Fictional Form With “Astral Travel” Themed Short Stories

Review by: KEN KORCZAK

For decades William Buhlman has been among the world’s best-known and passionate advocates of the out-of-body experience (OBE). He doesn’t mind calling it “astral travel” now and then or referring to that place you go to when you are “out there” the “astral plane” or “astral world.”

The term out-of-body experience, or OBE, was adopted by many a few years ago, probably because astral travel seemed “Old World” or archaic. It hearkened back to times when this sort of thing was the realm of occult practitioners steeped in mystical or eastern religious belief systems.

It is the noted psychologist and research scientist Dr. Charles Tart who is credited with coining the term OBE. It was the great Robert Monroe who popularized the term. His three classic books about out-of-body travel, starting with Journeys Out of Body, raised the subject out of the esoteric and occult world into the mainstream — if it can be said out-of-body travel is mainstream today. Probably not yet but it’s getting there. At the very least, it has gained wider acceptance.

It was folks like Tart and Monroe who brought scientific methodology to the study of OBEs.

William Buhlman

Buhlman’s approach can be said to be scientific in that he pursued his study of OBEs with exacting documentation, dogged determination and constant experimentation. He is not a scientist, but neither is he a mystic. One might say he’s an ordinary guy who one day developed an extraordinary desire to not only study the OBE, but to take the experiences to the highest levels of experience and understanding he could achieve.

That theme – striving to go as high as and far as you can go – Buhlman has passionately maintained throughout several books as well as his many lectures and seminars. He teaches OBE practice at the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia.

Susan Buhlman

In this book of short stories, co-written with his wife, Susan Buhlman, the authors are leveraging the power of fiction to dramatize the many facets of what Mr. Buhlman has learned from his many years of exploring the “astral realms.”

It’s an attempt to illustrate the deeper implications of the idea that human beings are more than just a physical body. Buhlman says we are multidimensional beings. If we can learn to master the OBE, we can experience an unlimited number of exotic environments in far-flung trans-physical locations – or just call it Consciousness, with a big “C.”

The first offering – The Boy Who Could Fly — is obviously meant to be a children’s story. It’s one I dearly wish I had available to me when I was eight or nine years old. The fear it would have alleviated and the confusion it would have cleared up for my boyhood self would have been life-altering. During that time, I began experiencing almost nightly the fantastically frightening phenomenon of sleep paralysis. My mind would come awake in a physical body that was 100% numb and seemed frozen solid – the experience was infinitely more terrorizing because I simply had no of understanding what was happening to me.

I eventually discovered – but years later — that sleep paralysis is a fantastically good thing because it can serve as a launching pad for out-of-body travel. If I would have had this book back then – well, let’s just say it would have saved me a lot of grief!

The rest of the 13 short stories presented will serve a similar function for readers of all age groups. The OBE is presented as a natural ability that all human beings have access to. It should be plucked out of the realm of the paranormal, mystical or supernatural and be embraced as a pathway toward a greater understanding of what it means to be a nonphysical entity experiencing life as a physical being on the material earthly plane.

Just as the first story would have been a welcome resource for my 8-year-old self, I think these stories will be illuminating and helpful for people confronting some of the biggest and most difficult aspects of life that touch us all eventually – especially confronting death and dying and the grief associated with the death of a loved one. These stories provide a perspective on what the death of the physical body truly is – and isn’t. It’s not the end, it’s a transition. Furthermore, no one has to take the word of William Buhlman (or anyone) on this matter. We can all prove out these concepts for ourselves by trying our own hand at the OBE.

My initial overall impression of these stories is that they are simple and straightforward, almost to a fault. I sometimes felt they bordered on being excessively maudlin or even trite. But after reading all of the stories I came away thinking the Buhlman’s handled this delicate topic in just the right way. Their light touch brings lofty issues down to a universally accessible sense of understanding.

Readers from age 8 to 80 will benefit from the perspectives presented here on the true nature of our reality and what it means to be a human being – that we are multidimensional entities navigating a fantastic journey through an infinite field of Consciousness.

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY REVIEWS OF OTHER BOOKS ON THE OBE TOPIC, LINKED BELOW:

EYES OF AN ANGEL by Paul Elder

CRASH & BURN by Peter Ludvick

EXPLORATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS By Frederick Aadema

BABE IN THE WOODS By Frank DeMarco

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

 

A Fictional Tale of An Astral Traveling Psychic Spy Takes Time to Lift Off, But Soars After Plot Gets Tangled & Intriguing

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

This book starts out flat and bland — the author even manages to make the amazing experience of astral, or out-of-body travel seem mundane and boring – no small feat considering the wild, bizarre ride the OBE is (for those of us who have actually tried the real thing over the years).

And yet, readers who stick with this novel will be rewarded with a plot – even if it is one that develops slowly. If you keep on reading, you’ll get drawn into an intriguing situation that makes the last third of the book a worthwhile read, indeed.

But to enjoy this book, it will probably help if you have a pre-established interest not in just astral travel, but something called REMOTE VIEWING. Remote viewing was a method of psychic spying developed by U.S. Military Intelligence with the help of the CIA beginning in the early 1970s. the program ran through the mid-1990s.

Yes, it was real – and yes – this form of psychic spying really worked. It’s controversial, for sure, but the skeptics of remote viewing are full of crap. That’s my opinion after reading dozens books. articles and academic papers on the topic. But what was even more convincing to me was trying my own hand (mind) at remote viewing – I can tell you it’s real, and it works.

So, our hero in CRASH & BURN is Peter Ludvick, a young man who was born with two unusual gifts: A perfectly photographic memory, and the ability to “go OBE” – to travel outside his physical body each night during his natural periods of REM sleep.

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His abilities attract the watchful attention of the CIA.  They hire him to work as a kind of psychic super spy. Ludvick can float around like a ghost and go anywhere in the world with his astral body. No barrier can stop him. Ludvick can pass through the thickest walls of steel or concrete, travel any distance in a flash, and so he can penetrate any facility belonging to any government anywhere in the world.

Because he has a photographic memory, Ludvick can come back with extremely detailed information about America’s enemies. This makes him worth more than his weight in gold to the CIA – in fact, they pay him millions of dollars a year for his fantastic ability.

Ludvick soon finds himself living the high life. He has a fascinating job working for his country, which he loves with the fervor of a true patriot. He marries a beautiful woman, the love of his life, and together they enjoy a charmed existence of wealth, travel, adventure and career fulfillment. The American government considers Mr. Ludvick among its most precious assets.

What could go wrong?

Plenty – as readers will soon find out. The CIA, after all, is the CIA. You know that old saying, “It takes a criminal to catch a criminal.” Even admirers of the CIA might admit that, over the decades, the darker forces of the international spy game have rubbed off on our own guys. Any government agency with a nearly unlimited “black budget,” which necessarily lurks in the shadows and operates under immense secrecy is a recipe for corruption — a place where evil can fester — an organization that can rot from within.

Astral spy Peter Ludvick eventually develops a deep mistrust for his powerful CIA task masters whose double-dealing in both his professional and personal life gives him good reason to want out —– ah, but just walking away from the CIA has never been easy.

I won’t say anymore, but I give the author great credit for eventually cobbling together a sticky situation for his protagonist, and then concocting a clever way for him fight back and get his life back. When the plot finally gets going, it grabs you like glue — making readers stick with it to the end — and feeling glad they did.

Please see also my reviews of these books on astral travel and remote viewing:

READING THE ENEMY’S MIND BY PAUL H. SMITH

EXPLORATIONS IN CONSCIOUSNESS BY FREDERICK AARDEMA

LIMITLESS MIND BY RUSSELL TARG

MASTER OF MY SHIP, CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL BY SKIP ATWATER

THE TRANSCENDENT INGO SWANN BY RAUL DASILVA

EYES OF AN ANGEL BY PAUL ELDER



Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

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“I Am Titanium” by John Patrick Kennedy is a super hero novel that reflects our violent movie/video game” culture

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

This is a book about two ordinary young people who suddenly become extraordinary beings.

In the case of the young man, he’s not so typical because, for starters, he’s 17 but already on his death bed. Pax is dying from a horrific disease called scleroderma – it involves the tightening of the skin and connective tissue. It’s an agonizing way to die.

His only friend, Scarlett, has problems not quite as urgent: She’s a drab, gawky 17-year-old whose lack of feminine grace, good looks and charm means she’s not exactly the most popular girl in school. She’s an outcast and bullied.

But the fortunes of both Pax and Scarlett are about the change in a most amazing way: A couple of meddling “super beings” from the astral world are going to transform them into powerful, indestructible entities with god-like powers – Pax’s diseased body will be replaced with solid titanium and Scarlett will be made of “negative energy” and fire.

If it sounds like an intriguing premise for a thrilling fantasy/science fiction novel, well, it is. It’s made more interesting because there is a decent plot here – Pax and Scarlett are immediately caught up in a game of inter-dimensional politics which will determine nothing less than the survival of the entire human race.

Author JOHN PATRICK KENNEDY writes extremely well; his prose is natural and fluid. He has a lucid, no-nonsense style. He definitely has a sense of pacing and rhythm, balancing scenes of intense, violent action with periods of serene and calm.

And yet, acknowledging all of the above, I AM TITANIUM left me feeling bland and uninspired, even depressed. I’ll be brutally honest: I felt relieved to get to the last page – much in the same way that people are glad when one of Michael Bay’s over-long Transformer movies finally rolls credits.

It’s that frustrating feeling to be inexplicably bored while embroiled in long scenes of spectacular, intense action and eye-popping special effects – while at the same time knowing that all this eye candy is about as nutritious as real candy – empty calories that taste good, but ultimately leave you starved.

The action scenes in this book go on way too long, especially the epic battle between Pax and “the monster” in the latter third of the book. It grinds away page after page and quickly wears tedious – and then after all that, the “monster” and Pax end up working for the same cause anyway!

There are other factors that also seriously erode our reading experience. For example, before obtaining super powers, Scarlett was a typical angst-ridden teen, at odds with her parents, a loser at love (actually, a total nonstarter) and socially alienated. After she gets super powers, she becomes something even worse. Still angst ridden, alienated and troubled in love – even though all on a different level and for different reasons now.

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John Patrick Kennedy

Despite the fact that he’s dying, Pax starts out as a hopeful, even positive young man with a meaningful goal – the study of the astral realms — but after he obtains super powers, he becomes a typical sullen teen with an endless stream of things to aggravate him and complain about.

A long bout of losing his virginity (having sex seven times in one session) only results in complicated “girlfriend” problems.

His dialogue devolves into a series of grunted monosyllabic phrases liberally seasoned with the “F word.”

His own inept actions (such as accidentally killing a street protestor) infuses him with existential angst.

His rocky relationship with his mother deteriorates to an even lower order.

Speaking of mom, Pax’s mother, Dr. Julia Black, is revealed to have a level of humanity barely above that of the infamous Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele – and she becomes the focal point of an almost inexplicable series of scenes wherein she interacts with some AI robots – which is at best, tangential to the entire narrative and, at worst, borders on not making much sense.

However, for me, what is truly dejecting and saddening about this book is that the mass of humanity is treated as so much insignificant cannon fodder – uncounted thousands of people are killed, maimed, burned, crushed, eaten, hacked up, stabbed, flung through the air, smashed against walls, mashed into pulpy lumps of flesh – it’s all part of the collateral damage resulting from the wacky adventures of two teen super heroes fighting to save humanity.

I found myself wishing that a book that centers on an epic battle to save humanity would display an overall greater sense or empathy for that humanity.




Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN’S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

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‘Babe In The Woods’ by Frank DeMarco: Destined to be a cult classic on par with David Lindsay’s ‘Voyage to Arcturus’

babeReview by: KEN KORCZAK

I experienced a minor synchronistic “mind blast” while reading this book.

Sometimes an author’s style will remind me of another writer, but I can’t put my finger on it right away. In this case, it had been nagging at me for some 250 pages, like a steady itch. Then suddenly on page 255 it crashed into my mind: CLIFFORD SIMAK! That’s it! Ahhh! The itch was scratched!

But now the “mind blast”: I finished reading page 255 and at the bottom of page 256, lo and behold, I find this sentence:

“I thought, unexpectedly, of Clifford Simak. Years ago, when I was a kid, I read one of his science fiction stories …”

Woo-hoo!

I don’t mean to make too much of it, but it was just one of those tiny “That was a neat feeling!” moments of synchronicity when you get buffeted unexpectedly by a wave on the ocean of Universal Consciousness.

Anyway – after 250 pages of  BABE IN THE WOODS  – I think anyone would become more in tune to transcendent wavelengths. This book not only gives you an idea of what it is like to tap into expanded consciousness, but dishes out insight after insight – it actually makes you feel what it might be like to push yourself to the edge of higher consciousness – a rare literary feat.

It tells the story of an ordinary group of people from widely divergent walks of life and professions who come together to challenge themselves – to open up their minds, to reach for new concepts, to expand what it means to be an “ordinary” human being in our dreary world calcified by scientific-materialism.

The model for the situation is a real-life program offered by THE MONROE INSTITUTE of Faber, Virginia. The Monroe Institute is an organization founded by the late ROBERT MONROE who became famous after publishing his first book about his experiences with out-of-body travel.

“Journeys Out of Body” came out in 1971. It was an unlikely bestseller, and was followed up with two more books, “Far Journeys,” and “Ultimate Journey.”

Perhaps no other books on astral travel have been more influential. Part of the reason is that Robert Monroe had never been a mystic or associated with any of the established traditions (such as Theosophy, for example, or Eastern religions) which trucked in arcane dabblings like “soul travel” (which also had scary occult overtones for many mainstream folks).

Monroe was no-nonsense, successful businessman who had made a considerable fortune in the burgeoning 1940s-50s world of radio. He was an entirely grounded, nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. However, in the late 1950s, he began to undergo unwanted spontaneous out-of-body experiences. This prompted the pragmatic Monroe to launch into an intense study of what was happening to him.

The eventual result was the establishment of the Monroe Institute. Its original purpose was to study the OBE and all of the mind-boggling implications which fall out of the possibility that our physical bodies are not “all that there is,” and indeed, that what we perceive as physical-material reality is not nearly all there is to consider.

The Monroe Institute developed a number of methods, mostly centered on sound technology that was designed to help any person achieve a state of higher or altered consciousness. These sound technologies leveraged something called binaural beats – and I won’t go into detail here about them, except to say that it was demonstrated that when people listened to binaural beats through headphones while in a highly relaxed state and in a supportive environment, the result could be an out-of-body experience, or some kind of realization of transcendent thought – in short, an expansion of the mind.

So this book, Babe In The Woods, takes us through a group of people who have decided to put themselves through the paces of a Monroe Institute program – except here it is thinly fictionalized as the “Merriman Institute.” Robert Monroe himself is fictionalized as “C.T” and his famous book, Journeys Out of Body is renamed “Extraordinary Potential.”

This is an incredibly ambitious book because it necessarily must employ a large group of characters – some two dozen people involved in the program – whom the author is tasked with not only introducing us to, but must rely on the reader’s patience as he builds them into believable characters of some depth, enough so that we can care about them and learn from them later.

The viewpoint character is modeled on the author himself — DeMarco is a veteran of several Monroe Institute programs.

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Frank DeMarco

DeMarco’s fictional incarnation is Angelo Chiari, a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer. The premise is that his editor sends him to the Merriman Institute to do some stealthy investigative journalism – and hopefully come out with an expose that might blow the lid off the weird snake oil the Institute is most likely selling to gullible people with enough money and desperation to seek answers to life anywhere.

But these journalist are professionals – both editor and reporter are not out to do a pre-determined hack job. Rather, they intend to get the story in a fair and objective manner. They’ll go where the facts lead them. If reporter Angel Chiari finds a legitimate program – he’ll write about that. If not, it’s blast away with both journalistic barrels. He very much expects it to be the latter, however.

The Chiari character is a classic example of what Henry Thoreau meant when he said: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

Chiari’s career is okay, but on cruise control. His work has long since become bland and meaningless. The heat of his decades-long marriage has cooled to a husband and wife more akin to roommates. His relationship with his children is shallow and distant.

Chiari holds no particular cherished beliefs. He’s a rational-materialist cog in the post-modern machine. He gets up every day and goes through the motions, running out the time clock on his life. His existence is like a tasteless block of tofu.

Perhaps it’s his training as a journalist that saves him – his fundamental dedication to objectivity leaves the door open just enough for Chiari to approach the Merriman program with an open mind and reserved judgment. That small crack in that door is enough for the Larger Consciousness System (to borrow a term from physicist Tom Campbell) to send Chiari tantalizing, subtle clues to convince him that, by golly, there might be something more to his existence – something remarkable..

This is the fourth Frank DeMarco book I have read. His writing style puts me in the mind of not only Simak, but also Sinclair Lewis (winner of the Noble Prize for Literature). That’s because there is a certain workmanlike doggedness to the way DeMarco hammers out his themes, and the way he develops and cobbles together his messages.

DeMarco somehow leverages the necessarily mundane and uses it to fetch glimpses of the transcendent. He is like a grounded, unspectacular Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, but bringing it back to us with the stolid work ethic of a UPS delivery truck driver.

Because of that, the insights we gain ultimately feel deeper and more authentic. DeMarco’s works are characterized by a  persistent and worrisome expression of doubt – the uncertainty of a person who knows he is threading a fine line between making sense of highly original and novel forms of information — while ever cognizant of the innate capacity of the human mind to fool itself with egoic delusions and struggles with Freudian “wish fulfillment.”

I’m guessing that Babe In the Woods, published in 2008, has since found only a small audience, but I can imagine it developing an ardent cult following – much in the same way that A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS by Scottish writer DAVID LINDSAY has persisted and moved people since it was published in 1920.

You might be wondering how I can compare the syrupy surrealism of Lindsay’s ‘Voyage’ with DeMarco’s more staid ‘Babe,’ but I would challenge the reader to read both — tell me if you don’t see that, in a weird way, both works have the same heart.

Clifford Simak, Sinclair Lewis, David Lindsay — Frank DeMarco stands with guys like these in the literary world – and that’s not a bad place to stand, indeed.

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

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Paul Elder joins a pantheon of famous out-of-body travelers with semi-autobiographical book

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Review by: KEN KORCZAK

So here I am reviewing another book by a man with ties to the MONROE INSTITUTE, the consciousness research and training facility in Faber, Virginia.

Like so many others, PAUL ELDER, a Canadian and former TV broadcast personality, was inspired by reading “Journeys Out Of Body” by Robert Monroe, the namesake of the Institute.

But Elder said he all-but forgot about the book after reading it years ago. Then he unexpectedly encountered his own spontaneous out-of-body experience. Suddenly, that strange but somewhat unbelievable book didn’t seem so unbelievable anymore.

Elder went back to the library and re-read all of Monroe’s books – and so began his own personal journey into the “astral realms” and beyond.

Here you will find many of the same experiences reported by other famous Monroe Institute alums – the experience of the soul (or energy body, or second body, or choose your term) leaving the physical body behind to hover around the bedroom, float through walls and go soaring through the local earth-like environment.

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Paul Elder

Eventually, the explorer graduates from mere “fooling around” inside his own home or the immediate environment to penetrate more exotic realms – higher plains of existence, upper levels of spiritual dwelling, cosmic libraries and the abodes of other earthlings who have passed on.

Angelic beings and entities that defy categorization are also encountered.

If you are familiar with other Monroe-associated writers — such as Monroe himself, William Buhlman, Rosalind McKnight, Bruce Moen – Paul Elders book might seem like “more of the same.”

Still, the author brings enough of his unique personality, personal history, story and background to make this a more than a worthwhile, inspiring read. There is no doubting Elder’s passion for his subject, his sincerity, and I believe, the authenticity of experience.

In addition to his OBE experiments, Elder tells of three harrowing brushes with death which resulted in near death experiences (NDEs) — a drowning, a car accident and a heart attack.

He survived all!

Elder’s NDE elements add dimension to the big issues conjured by altered states of consciousness sought out in a proactive way.

One last thing: The writing itself is clear and straightforward, but Elder occasionally rises to higher literary heights with descriptions of the mysterious astral realms. At times, his words shimmer and scintillate across the page – it’s no small challenge to relate the exotic experience of the OBE, describe strange environments, and explain trans-psychological processes. I give high marks to this author for rising to the challenge when he needs to.

If you are like me, and can’t get enough of these kinds of books, then you must have this volume in your collection.

See book details here: EYES OF AND ANGEL

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

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