So, let me preface this by saying that I have never astral projected before. I've only just started learning about it.
This past week, I reached out to a friend for help with something. To keep the story short, I won't really go into what it was since I kind of posted another thread on that a few days ago, but it had to do with communicating with a spirit.
So, basically, my friend told me had an idea that would help me solve this problem I was having with communicating to a spirit. I agreed. A little while later, she came back and told me... She traveled across the veil, and that the spirit I was trying to communicate with had sold her soul, and she knows this because she read it in the "book of souls."
I'm, clearly, not a skeptic... But something about the whole concept felt very fluffy and fantasy-like to me, and I had a hard time taking her seriously. But, I feel really bad about that, because I have never experienced astral projection, and so I don't know the full extent of where someone can go or what people see when they've left their body.
So, I guess I'm really looking for an opinion on whether I should believe what my friend is saying? Is she being serious, or is she trying to mess with me? Is AP dangerous? My friend said 'going across the veil' gave her a chronic migraine, sometimes gives her nosebleeds? Is this even AP?
i suppose the first thing i will say is that it is never a bad thing to question. In fact it is very wise. If you want to understand something, especially something new, you need to question it. examine where it comes from. How it works. Where the limitations lie. And, of course, to test if something holds up to personal scrutiny.
Now that doesn't mean you have to doubt your friend directly, or try to prove or refute their own beliefs. But consider what is said and how it compares to your own knowledge. if you personally find some valuable tidbit of information feel free to keep it with you. If something doesn't sound right then let it go. No skin from your friends back either way. After all it is you deciding your own beliefs for yourself.
The trick, in my eye, is that ever present idea of the golden mean. In this case it would mean that balance of open mind but critical thought. Blind acceptance is just as toxic as blind rejection.
All of that said, there are a couple of odd points with your friend's story that raises questions for myself. The idea of travelling across the veil is fine and dandy to me, to me that is comparable to saying they committed to a session of astral travel/projection. And as far as i am aware there is no entity or concept known as a book of souls, that can be read to gain information about other souls. I suppose it could be a metaphorical reading of the spirit, as in the saying 'reading you like a book'. But that still raises a few questions all of its own. Either way I would want to know what this 'book of souls' is or what it refers to and what was done to read it, as that would help me gauge the validity of such a statement.
As for the concept of selling one's soul to begin with, I suppose that for some it is a legitimate thing. Sort of a voluntary selling of yourself or your dedicated services to an entity or being in exchange for something. Sort of the spiritual version of "If you give me a ride to work today so I am not late, I'll wash your car for you tomorrow." One can not claim ownership of another, but one can give ownership of themselves away if they so choose. But this doesn't automatically mean it is for all eternity, nor that the entity/person sold themselves to the devil (or some other evil being, for that matter.) So it would be helpful to once again get a bit more information towards the precise meaning and terms of this 'selling of the soul'.
As for astral travel itself and what can be seen or done, that is indeed a tricky question, because experiences gained from the practice can be ... subjective. Each person connects to the astral in different ways, at different levels, and the experiences get interpreted through the individual mind/consciousness of the person doing the travelling. For some, it is like wandering about in a vivid, colorful dream. For others, it is an ebb and flow of emotion and impression. Or a stream of ideas and thoughts. or a dreamlike pile of individual fragments of memory, scenes, and images. This is why the hardest part of astral travel is maintaining grounding. IE; a sense of that fine line between reality and imagination/wishful thinking.
The astral levels/planes tend to operate much more on idea, consciousness, energy, and emotion and so have little by way of physical references for the mind to make comparison. So the mind has to interpret it into a personal frame of reference. "The energy of his place feels warm and shaded. happy. peaceful. -like- being in an old forest." and so the mind paints a picture of an old comfortable peaceful forest.
As for where a person can go, that tends to be heavily influenced by the person themselves. Where they want to go, and where they can connect with. People tend to go to areas and places that are similar in feel and energy to their own levels of awareness and spiritual connection. In essence people tend to travel to places with a similar vibration to their own. Potentially, this opens up the possibilities to potentially anywhere at any level, but depending on the individual. Spiritually aware masters and Guru's can reach all the way up to christ-consciousness/the higher spiritual places where guides and other higher beings tend to operate. Less experienced people might reach a level that is more general and unfocused, like being in a dream land or perhaps an umbral reflection of our own physical plane. Some people with focused attention on other worlds or dimensions might eventually find a portal or method of moving more 'sideways' than upwards and get to experience a connection with alternate locales or realities. Starseed Pleiades and the like.
