Mapping the Astral Plane

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Zelder
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Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Zelder »

Deep in thought, i concluding that
1. All spirits exists like humans on a plane where some are useless, some are rich in souls, some are dangerous, and some are etcetera and etcera and etcera. I want ot get out as much as I can of the tp of my head before its gone so I will try not to edit anything. really. Since it is my new founded belief that all supernatural enitties work the same way like us humans (how some are good, some are bad, and some are unaffiliated, lossly affilaited, some try to be worshipped, others do not) there must be a strutural all these entities use to survive. Perhaps its like the internet, with the clear net, viruses, Deep Web(s), and so forth. But this a digression from the main point. The Gods (who I mean the supernatural entities that have greater power than us, very broad, so do not dwell on the mere word of) must have a strutured path or say highway because i'm playing a dystopian game with the same idea (the idea didnt originate from a video game, no please) and there must be a place they go to collect souls after death, (you may touch on this topic lightly, I'm trying to keep the very broader view since there are so many things that can be holes or dead ends where this forum may lead), where souls of say the reincarnated choose their bodies to carnate to, the Biggers (the entities with the most amount of energy given to from humans) the Losers (the small tornadoes so to speak, they exist, spin a small current, and disapppear) and all the places one can imagine, which in that is a double meaning because dreaming can be a little private room for astral projection so to speak.

2. Such a world must have a large collection of energy. So, to put simply:
Is the Astral Plane there because there lives soul, or has it always existed and will always exist whether or not there are "living" occupants? To phrase this more clearly, say there are two planets, they are both are the same to Earth, one has lifeforms, and the other does not. If there were no lifeforms, a complete lack of vegetation on the lifeless planet, would the earth exist? Or, rather, does this world exist from the total energy of humans (lifeforms/inhabitants)? Or would it continue to exist without vegetation? Now, the astral plane is not exactly Earth, and the Earth will most certainly exist without life forms, but will have the basic building blocks. So, would the Astral Plane continue to exist with no spirits? Or rather, is the astral plane something the entire state of living thing manifested on its own, or has it always existed and will continue to exist with or without us? I hope I made this statement clear; was it all of our energy that made the astral plane, or did the astral plane make us with its energy. (perhaps a separate question than the one I put forth in the beginning of this paragraph)

3. If the astral plane has some static (constant) regions for at least in a time we can sense (whether it be an hour, or a million years, just that humans can notice very little time change, not in seconds, milliseconds, or anything shorter to this) then we can certainly map this great vast plane. A person once said going out in the Astral Plane is like going into a dangerous neighborhood with your windows up in an expensive car and on the side writtign "please dont hurt me, I'm fragile" this would be useful, but no one has of yet to the best of my knowledge actually said what this world looked like. If there is a pictorial (which could be rather large) we can find out where us humans are when we initially enter this plane, or in abroader sense where all humans resides in.

Think about it? :)
There can be a space called "the humans", a space for "smaller entities", I also thought about how angels were the only people who toured with mortals through "hell" like in Dante's Inferno with Archangel Gabriel ( I believe, could be wrong) . Such a monstrosity collection of energy whether or not it is where people go ought to have some notice in the astral realm. Hell (no pun intended) we have found a new planet in our solar system, so why not "explore" the much more significant realm?

I will stop the post here so others may chime in, I invite you all to chime in, though I prefer if its about the how one maps or sorts out this great unknown, and sharing pictures, experiences, landmarks, and so on. There are a lot of topics to dwell upon, so I hope the goal can be achieved and I hope you all don't mind if we get off topic I will bring it back to the main point.

I'd love to hear all your thoughts, thank you for reading!

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Napoli
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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Napoli »

Mapping the astral realm is possible and I believe necessary. I know of a person who did this. I am sure there are many more.
In my sword I trust.

- Ensiferum

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Nahemah »

I am sorry I forgot to post here, got busy with workload and other issues.

This is an interesting subject and one where there is lots of scope for discussion.

I will chime in as soon as I have some free time, I promise.
"He lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel."

Sartre speaking of Che Guevara.

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Zelder
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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Zelder »

Napoli wrote:Mapping the astral realm is possible and I believe necessary. I know of a person who did this. I am sure there are many more.
As soon as I get another Eureka! moment I'll post again, unless some others want to contribute additionally.

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Nahemah »

I have a map of sorts, but it's relative to my own perception and spatial interpretations.

I have various entrance and exit points that connect places and spaces, with interesting liminal zones and other bits n bobs.

I think the perosnal astral, what landscapes we dream in and so on are connected to the greater, or impersonal and interpersonal planes and so forth.

It's all a bit Jungian/ Shamanistic, I suppose, to me.
"He lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel."

Sartre speaking of Che Guevara.

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by the_spiral »

Quick question: are you theorizing from astral work you've done, or from...well, theory?

Because I can only speak from my own work, but I think the term "astral travel" tends to cause misunderstandings that it's somewhere far away from the physical plane that you have to travel to. To me it manifests as an inner plane, not an outer plane. Everything that has a physical body also has an astral body, plus you can also see things that have astral bodies but not physical bodies. And yes, astral entities exhibit just as much biodiversity as physical entities do. And the astral plane is only "dangerous" because the world is dangerous and the Universe is dangerous. If there's any special danger we face, it's the number of astral beings who are desperate for physical bodies and will attempt to manipulate us into letting them borrow or ride ours. You will see examples of this every day just walking down the street with your inner Eye open. And of course there are many who wish no harm to us at all. But in general, bigger things eat smaller things and smaller things evolve their defenses in response, just as they do here. And we humans are bigger than some things and smaller than others. Everything is struggle, death, survival and evolution on every plane until we've finished learning the lessons of existence. As above, so below; as without, so within.

So the "astral plane" itself is just made up of the landscape and everything that exists on it, which does have its own independent structure and features like the physical plane (although how it came to be that way, I haven't advanced enough to tell you.) But because it is a plane that is accessed internally, by opening your inner vision and senses, you are more likely to see the landscape according to your own inner archetypes. This accounts for both individual differences in people's experiences and the broader, archetypal understandings that cut across eras and cultures. That's why people tend to have similar visions traversing the spheres of the Sephiroth or Qlipphoth, or evoking certain named spirits on the astral etc.

But I'd be surprised if anyone manages to "map" it completely any time soon. We haven't even managed to fully map our own Earth, which is only one tiny sphere of the physical plane! But you may find interest in reading CW Leadbeater's "The Astral Plane" (1895) if you have not done so. The Theosophists did a lot of the type of work you mention and his descriptions rang true with many of my own UPGs.

http://blavatskyarchives.com/theosophyp ... s_1895.pdf
"Follow the path of the radiant life force as she flashes upward like lightning through your body." - Vijanabhairava Tantra

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

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(Oh and btw I do not endorse the more out-there and racist stuff in there but remember it was 1895)
"Follow the path of the radiant life force as she flashes upward like lightning through your body." - Vijanabhairava Tantra

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Kath »

Hard to write on the astral. my 2 cents:

It is my feeling that the biggest mistake made regarding astral travel, is to make presumptions about it's order and organization. That way dogma lies. Even when you have seen, do not assume that you have seen even the tiniest sliver of the larger whole, with which to form a model. Else you will see all the rest later, through the rose colored (or otherwise tinted) glasses of first impressions.

I'm not saying there is no structure to be seen. There's much too much structure to be seen to actually see it entire. The whole is so vast and weaves in and out of collective and individual realms of conception... it's just much much to vast to map. Although you can map out some bits which become familiar to yourself.

Also, what is seen tends to be relatively representational... much like in dreams, various things, colors, ideas, etc. have various personal or cultural associations in our psyche. When you regard the astral, you do not regard it in a highly concrete manner. Two people could regard the same bit and have very different experiences of it. The human brain is made for dealing with things which have length width depth and move through time, having mass, inertia, a differentiated position in space, etc. When you "see" things which are not really thusly constrained, the brain often will want to see a sort of simplified version of it that makes it more familiar.

Most of which is talking about the broader collective astral, then there's the more personal sort, the individual dreamscape, which to me seems intimately connected to the former, but is somewhat different. Whether you tackle the issue via OBE or lucid dreams I think will define your starting point, between the internal and collective astral.

I define deities differently than the OP. But I won't drag off topic.

3) Is it dangerous? Like going for a ride in a nice car in a bad neighborhood? Sure, if that's where you go. The possibilities are nearly infinite, so you could travel and intercept just about any type of experience I would think. Do not let a preoccupation with caution express as a self fulfilling 'fear' dynamic though. If you expect your astral travel to be perilous, then you will surely drift to perilous bits of it. Personally I have always been drawn to the more dangerous, but more for the adrenaline junky reasons. I will say there is one layer which is overtly dangerous. It's right next door to physical reality. I'd call it a sort of dark shadow of physical reality. It's extremely concrete and static, it's landscape is defined by physical reality. There's broken souls there, and a great deal of sanity-free aggression. Avoid it unless you're feeling ballsy. Wherever you go, you will likely stand out and draw attention. That could be a danger, or not.

Although technically, it's not so much that you actually travel somewhere, you're already everywhere, it's more a matter of where your finite consciousness will focus itself. That's an interesting tidbit of astral travel btw: location = focus

in regards to 1) I think the sorts of "souls" are extremely varied, in nature, in intelligence, in age, in raw energy, in aptitude or ability, etc. I would not limit yourself to regarding yourself as "just a human" though, you're a consciousness having a human experience, don't imagine yourself weak or inept, just inexperienced.
Personally I think beings which are dependent on parasitic collection of souls are fundamentally weak. That's not a moral judgement, I've been plenty parasitic on occasion. It's just that if what you're calling "Biggers" are truly dependent on souls/attention, then that just strikes me as a slightly simplistic being. I assume your view of deities is along the 'big egregore' line of thought? I know such things exist, I just don't regard them as deific particularly, even if some have really amazing energy flows.

2) tons of energy, yeah. I do not think that "we" made made the astral exactly, not humanity or recycling of human souls anyway. Perhaps all sentient beings everywhere in every infinite version of time collectively made it though. Hard to say, that's getting into pretty deep water. There appears to be a great deal of energy that is not tied to individuated entities/souls/etc. Although who is to say if that's not just the background energy of myriad bygone beings, much like soil is the remains of much bygone life... I dunno. non-finite consciousness envelopes everything though, so perhaps it's simplest to just call all the energy part of the less organized substance of that.

I dunno, sometimes what people say about the astral strikes me as ...a rather internal astral experience, reflecting more their own personal narratives over real openminded exploration.

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

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The idea of which came first the astral or physical world is a question that i randomly kick around from time to time. To some extent its irrelevant and merely a curiosity, and on the other its seems of the utmost importance to understanding the whole. Typically from a religious/spiritual perspective we see the astral comes first and the physical is the final expression of divine light. i think it's interesting to examine it from the other direction from time to time though. This would require us to assume that what we call physical energy(electromagnetic) is not related to what we call spiritual energy. Taken from the big bang then the physical universe expanded and cooled and matter was formed. through random chance life began, and overtime adapted and evolved developing a mind and this mind through gradual development could have spawned the astral plane which is suspected to be the realm of the mind, thought, and imagination without which its questionable that a mind could function. It could be theorized then from the development of consciousness the astral plane was also formed and expanded with the energy of life. Other so called dead matter like rocks and gases may not produced this energy, only the brain generates mind and mind is just a part of the the newly developed and expanding astral plane. We could imagine that as these first beings evolved further they no longer had need to maintain physical vessels so long as there was other life generating the mind/spirit energy that created the astral plane. these beings became immortal then but dependant on the mind energy of the universe to continue manifesting the astral plane. this is obviously a very matter centric view but if the first beings became what we know as gods it could explain the idea of hyperdimensional beings that watch over us and intervene when possible. From this view point though we material beings could simply be complex power units that these beings are using to maintain their eternal existence. We are being exploited with every breath we take and every thought we think.
i prefer the idea of the spiritual energy being more closely related to what we call light waves and much as a snake sees the world through a very different lens than humans these being exist beyond what we normally perceive, and so it is interwoven but separate. it may be better to say they exist at a level which we are still developing the ability to perceive. These thoughts i think lead us naturally to question what thought is, and what constitutes sentience. Humans tend to have a narrow point of view regarding what we consider our equals much less what we believe has intelligence. One could argue that if thought is energy then all energy may be thought. stretching the imagination to try and understand what a being that has existed for a billion years and spans the length and width of galaxy might be like or occupy its time with is an excellent exercise for expanding our concept of being and existence. I always say that just because we have discovered the sun is a giant gas ball doesn't make it any less of a god than some dude in a chariot riding across the sky. How could we perceive the what the intelligence of the sun is like, let alone have experiences that allow us to relate to its life time of experience, its like asking an amoeba what it believes humans think about. it doesn't seem pertinent but it is definitely interesting to ponder.

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Abyss »

Hi all, interesting comments and thread. Other words for astral plane would be dimensional or vibrational existence. As above so below. It seems to be a hierarchy of vibrational existence. The higher your vibration, the higher your will proceed to view higher dimensions or existence. We are portals and vortexes of energy that can be used as communication with other astral planes of existence. We look at these as separate, but actually we are also all dimensional beings, living in different planes of existence as well as experiencing this one. The higher the dimension of energetic existence, the more powerful and non-physical the beings become and unify as one consciousness. This is a short version of a very complex yet simple, beautiful and wondrous form or our existence. Love (unconditional of self/all life) is the understanding of our highest vibration on this 3rd dimension and it will shift to be an understanding that is beyond knowledge of this world.
“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by RockShan »

Okay, mapping the plain is very important, many have worked on it. but I think I need to correct some things on here.

The Astral Plain, is generally believed and described as the "Imaginary Plain", while you can obviously meet others, and Entities there, the environment around you can be changed fairly easily.

The Etheric Plain(s), are the unchangeable ones, unless you are powerful enough (While in the physical), or as a spirit etc.

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Re: Mapping the Astral Plane

Post by Cerber »

Finished mapping?
I personally believe it's very incorrect to compare it to human world. Should be compared more to the wider natural world, where only a small minority of "life" is of higher intelligence, and the was majority is just beasts, insects, pest, worms and other critters. And don't forget the trees and fugi.
There is structure, but not one, many, and new ones popping up all the time. It seems.
It seems there is a few ancient "houses" that work on different aspects of this world, specific to each of them. I could make up a magic number of how many there are, but I have no idea. I'm aware of only 3. Neither good nor bad, they just have jobs to do. That exclude most if not all religious groups, I've no idea where those guys go, never seen their realm. I just suspect they have a hideout somewhere nearby. Those "outpost" of higher intelligence workers are not that close, either you know the way already, someone might show you from afar, or you need a guide, I'd be long gone otherwise, probably. And then anybody can build their own "house" and populate it with life if they choose so, for whatever reason they might have.
That's what it seems to me, from my own experience and a couple of other people whose memories and experiences I trust.
If you feel like adding that to your map.
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