Whereas an out-of-body experience is said to involve a person’s spirit or consciousness becoming separated from the physical body, astral projection is said to occur when the astral body, rather than the spirit or consciousness, leaves the physical body. Believers say that astral bodies consist of emotion; some also say that each human being has seven astral bodies in all, but others insist that a person has only one. In any case, an astral body can supposedly leave the physical body to travel the universe and interact with other astral bodies, but it remains tethered by an extremely thin, ethereal—that is, nonphysical—cord.
One of the leading proponents of astral projection was nineteenth-century psychic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society.
SEE ALSO:
- Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna;
- outof-body experiences
SOURCE:
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
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