Astral projection + spells to help?

[Catkin]

Hi, there was an old thread asking about this, and I was unsure whether to continue the old thread or start a new one.

I am meditating daily attempting to pierce the veil (astrally project). I am a baby witch. Does anyone have suggestions for spells or correspondences that could help me achieve this goal?

For example, I'm fairly sure using mugwort and St. John's wort in an incense or spell could help. I suspect the element of Air could help. I am a fire sign and tend to be pretty earthy day-to-day. So I would need to try to get some "extra" help from air.

Does anyone have crystals, other herbs, or other types of ingredients / procedures they could suggest?

I am not interested in psychedelics at this time, but I had a good trip once long ago.

Thanks!

[sevensons]

Does anyone have crystals, other herbs, or other types of ingredients / procedures they could suggest?

Thanks!

Hi here's a crystal clear quartz you need to find one with the same form I call it the Goddess its very Physic crystal  [ Invalid Attachment ]  

[Jenett]

Hi, there was an old thread asking about this, and I was unsure whether to continue the old thread or start a new one.

I am meditating daily attempting to pierce the veil (astrally project). I am a baby witch. Does anyone have suggestions for spells or correspondences that could help me achieve this goal?

For example, I'm fairly sure using mugwort and St. John's wort in an incense or spell could help. I suspect the element of Air could help. I am a fire sign and tend to be pretty earthy day-to-day. So I would need to try to get some "extra" help from air.

So, before you focus on external things, what's your practice like in your own head? What kind of meditation work are you doing?

What happens if you try doing a guided meditation/pathworking type approach? Do you see/hear/feel/touch/smell/engage with beings or spaces or objects in those meditations? How does that work for you? Are some senses very strong for you? Are others not so much? Knowing these things about yourself, and developing these skills will help you make sense of astral work, and help you figure out how to engage in it more helpfully.

For example, I do not generally get visuals in meditation work - but I do in certain kinds of deity-focused astral work (not just interacting with them, but being in spaces associated with them.) Knowing that about myself helps me figure out how to interpret and move forward with certain kinds of astral and pathworking work. And it definitely helps a lot with how to interpret what I learn there.

Which brings me to the next question: what's your goal with the astral work? You don't need to answer that here, but being clear about what your actual goal is may help you figure out if there are other ways to get that, possibly better or easier ones for you. (There's no reason we have to do magic the hard way, if there's an easier way that works, right?)

I'm also a big believer in aiming generally at elemental balance across one's life. To address a tendency to earth-centered stuff, I wouldn't look at a short-term thing (like incense), I'd be looking at how to include it in a much broader way in my life. What are your habits and patterns around speech, creativity, discernment, focus, inspiration, dawn, new beginnings, the intangible, wind and moving air, etc. (Deborah Lipp's book The Way of Four has good exercises for this kind of overall long-term sustained balance.)

Some people do find herbal assistance helpful, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

First, those things continue to have an effect on you outside the ritual, as they're processed by your body (and incense will continue to linger in the space for a good bit.) So, for example, using mugwort if you need to drive or cook or focus for a good bit after may not be a great idea. St. John's Wort, in particular, interacts with a number of quite common medications (which may or may not be an issue for you, but may also be an issue if you live with anyone.)

If you live with pets, incense can be tricky for them, too, especially if it's in amounts sufficient to have a physical effect on you, rather than a suggestive spiritual one. (Pets are a lot smaller than we are, even before you get into the fact that they process different chemicals differently and small amounts for us can be super dangerous for them.) And of course, how much you're taking in is hugely variable with incense.

If you do want to experiment with herbal assistance, I'd recommend something in a salve or tincture or tea (depending on the herb and other preferences), initially sourced from a reliable well-trained supplier. It's much easier to do a consistent dose and application, and experiment with what works for you over time.

If you want one that's a lot less likely to have interaction issues, equal amounts of mint and cinnamon as tea can work really well, is easy to make, and doesn't require access to anything but a grocery store.

More fundamentally, though, you're training yourself to need that particular tool to do the thing - which long-term, probably isn't what you want to do (especially when it's something like incense, which may not be an option in many places).

If you do want to train yourself using a support system, doing something that puts you in the right mindset in a more flexible way might work. For example, what happens if you spend some time day dreaming and doodling (more 'air' things) before you settle down to do the meditation? Or free writing, to get things out of your head so they won't be distractions? What happens if you create a playlist of inspirational air-focused music, or spend some time balancing yourself before doing the astral work?

And on your question about starting new threads - we have some guidance here, if it's helpful. When it's a specific question about your personal practice like this, starting a new thread is a fine way to go.

[Catkin]

So, before you focus on external things, what's your practice like in your own head? What kind of meditation work are you doing?

Thank you for your answer. I am returning to meditation after more than a decade away. I am doing this because of how it is taught in thebookoft.wordpress.com. There, learning to project is presented as the clear path to activating one's psychic facilities, which I am strongly desiring now. All I've had up until now has been a few dreams that came true.

This is not a quest for "power" but is a quest for knowledge. I want to know higher things. I want to have more certainty that there is a part of us that's independent of our body and may even transcend bodily death. If I were to become a person who learns information remotely, travels out of the body, or sees ghosts, any of these types of things would help firm up that kind of certainty.

I would think it'd be cool to be able to help folks by using psychic abilities, but it's not my primary motivation.

So, in past meditation I have focused on bringing energy up through the chakras, creating a buzzing-body feeling. I have not yet gotten the clear/full projection experience, complete with physical symptoms, jerks, and loud noises. However, in the last week I have gotten to deeper trances than ever before, and I think I perceived an entity/possible spirit guide last night.

I say this because I know what drug perception is like, I know what imagination is like, and this did not have those characteristics. It was somewhat similar to drug visuals, but without drugs. Also, the image of this figure had no resemblance to anything I've seen or thought about in the last week. Whereas, drug visuals often play off recent actual experiences... this figure came from a "new" place.

What happens if you try doing a guided meditation/pathworking type approach? Do you see/hear/feel/touch/smell/engage with beings or spaces or objects in those meditations? How does that work for you? Are some senses very strong for you? Are others not so much? Knowing these things about yourself, and developing these skills will help you make sense of astral work, and help you figure out how to engage in it more helpfully.

Not being very experienced, I do however know that I can often be good at perceiving visuals,  and I also know that verbalizing what should happen (talking myself inwardly thru the steps of meditation) is helpful to get me into trance.

I had never heard of pathworking until now and I am eager to read and watch youtubes about it.

I'm also a big believer in aiming generally at elemental balance across one's life. To address a tendency to earth-centered stuff, I wouldn't look at a short-term thing (like incense), I'd be looking at how to include it in a much broader way in my life. What are your habits and patterns around speech, creativity, discernment, focus, inspiration, dawn, new beginnings, the intangible, wind and moving air, etc. (Deborah Lipp's book The Way of Four has good exercises for this kind of overall long-term sustained balance.)

I love this concept. I used to be a doodler/daydreamer and this has been forced out of my life for years. Also used to sail, occasionally, and this has also been missing from my life. I'll look for this book.

If you want one that's a lot less likely to have interaction issues, equal amounts of mint and cinnamon as tea can work really well, is easy to make, and doesn't require access to anything but a grocery store.

More fundamentally, though, you're training yourself to need that particular tool to do the thing - which long-term, probably isn't what you want to do (especially when it's something like incense, which may not be an option in many places).

I am totally going to make that tea, and I will try the doodling suggestion as well. Doodling is more of a psychological stretch for me here because it may not feel like I am "doing" anything, whereas tea and/or incense feels like a real and specific aid.

To sevensons: I may just keep a quartz nearby as well. Not quite sure why the specific shape of it would have an effect, though?

Thank you so much!

[sevensons]

To sevensons: I may just keep a quartz nearby as well. Not quite sure why the specific shape of it would have an effect, though?

Thank you so much!

It's the shape of an eye all freeform crystal are repeated in shape. like breeds of dogs it's like when the Gods made Earth they couldn't be bothered to make and design single stones so they just made them the same.

[Jenett]

This is not a quest for "power" but is a quest for knowledge. I want to know higher things. I want to have more certainty that there is a part of us that's independent of our body and may even transcend bodily death. If I were to become a person who learns information remotely, travels out of the body, or sees ghosts, any of these types of things would help firm up that kind of certainty.

So, I'll start by saying that I'm not sure that either psychic ability or astral projection are necessarily the thing that's going to make that happen. They might. They might not. And even if you build your psychic abilities, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to end up with a ton of certainty about the nature of the soul or what happens after death - people have been trying to figure those out pretty much since there have been people. Maybe longer.

More to the point, if they work, they can get you more sources of information - but that doesn't mean the information you get from them is good, or makes a lot of sense outside of a specific context, or is particularly useful. Or that you'll be able to access information when you want it, in a form you want it, and in a timely manner so you can do something useful with it.

(My most reliable psychic hits have been about other people's relationships. Not issues, but like "Oh, hey, you're dating X, aren't you?" when, really, that info is not particularly useful to anyone and/or they'd have told me about it anyway sometime soon. I'm also really good at the psychometrics of holding a book and getting its age, which is maybe a fun party trick and actually not entirely useless given my job (librarian), but not very exciting in the grand scheme of things since I can, y'know, generally open the book and look at the copyright page.)

Which means that you might find it worthwhile to explore some other stuff. One of the things I meant to recommend last post and forgot to is the book Trance-Portation by Diana Paxson. It's a book some people bounce off, but it's one of the few books on meditation and pathworking I know of that has a really thorough and well-tested troubleshooting section (she ran the contents as a series of classes multiple times, then had friends run it, so it's gone through multiple batches of people with different needs/skills). And it's one of the few that doesn't assume everyone reading it is primarily a visual processor.

A lot of the work in that is specifically aimed at "How do I make connections so I can talk to beings that don't have bodies in a way that leads to information/knowledge/etc."

Beyond that, some people find the way to that kind of info/data isn't meditation/pathworking/astral work/related stuff, but instead via divination, via ritual, via other kinds of interaction (including art and music, or silent prayer, or.. well, lots of things.)

None of which is to say that the astral projection might not be a useful route for you - but if some idea of information or connection is what you're actually aiming for, there might be other options to get there.

[Catkin]

Which means that you might find it worthwhile to explore some other stuff. One of the things I meant to recommend last post and forgot to is the book Trance-Portation by Diana Paxson. It's a book some people bounce off, but it's one of the few books on meditation and pathworking I know of that has a really thorough and well-tested troubleshooting section (she ran the contents as a series of classes multiple times, then had friends run it, so it's gone through multiple batches of people with different needs/skills). And it's one of the few that doesn't assume everyone reading it is primarily a visual processor.

I wanted to follow up and thank you for your detailed replies. Haven't achieved projection yet, but I'm halfway thru trance-portation and I met two guides using a youtube guided journey video.



I'm also experimenting with a pendulum and have had strong enough results to continue using it.

Thanks!