Out-of-Body FAQHow can the OBE be explained?Most theories of the OBE either claim that something leaves the physical body, or that it does not. Then within these two major categories there are several different types of explanation, and there is perhaps a last possibility; that any such distinction is meaningless and artificial. The theories can be divided up as follows [Bla82]:A.
Something leaves the body. B.
Nothing leaves the body A.Something Leaves the Body1.Physical Theories To make this theory even worth considering it is necessary to assume that this double is composed of some 'finer' or more subtle material that is invisible to the untrained eye. This kind of idea is sometimes expressed in occult writings. The idea appears, for example, as the 'etheric body' of the Theosophists. Objections to this type of theory are numerous, and are made on both logical and empirical grounds. First, what could the double be made of? The possibilities seem to range between a complete solid duplicate and a kind of misty and insubstantial version. Another problem with this kind of double is its appearance. If all have a second body why does it appear to some as a blob or globe, to other as a flare, or light, and to yet others as a duplicate of the physical body? Muldoon and Carrington [MC29] wrestled with this problem and so has Tart [Tar74b]. If the notion of a physical double is problematic, the notion that it travels in the physical world is just as much so. First there are the types of errors made in OB perception. These tend not to be the sort of errors which might arise from a poor perceptual system, but seem often to be fabricated error, or additions, as well as omissions. Then sometimes the OB world is responsive to thought, just as in a dream the scenery can change if the person imagines it changing; and lastly, there is the fact that many OBEs merge into other kinds of experience. The OBEer may find himself seeing places such as never were on earth, or he may meet strange monsters, religious figures or caricature animals. All these features of the OBE make it harder to see the OB world as the physical world at all, and lead one to the conclusion that the OB world is more like a world of thoughts.
Tart [Tar74b, 78] refers to it as the 'natural' explanation. He describes this theory of the OBE as follows '... in effect there is no need to explain it; it is just what it seems to be. Man has a non-physical soul of some sort that is capable, under certain conditions, of leaving the physical seat of consciousness. While it is like an ordinary physical body in some ways, it is not subject to most of the physical laws of space and time and so is able to travel at will.' The 'theta aspect' has been mentioned in connection with detection experiments. Morris et. al. [MHJHR78] explain that '... the OBE may be more than a special psi-conductive state; they hold that it may in fact be evidence of an aspect of the self which is capable of surviving bodily death. For convenience, such a hypothetical aspect of the self will hereafter be referred to as a Theta Aspect (T.A.).' According to Osis and Mitchell [OM77] it is possible that '... some part of the personality is temporarily out of the body,' and many occult theories involve a non- physical astral double rather than a physical one. Blackmore criticizes this view [Bla82]. She claims if the 'soul' is to interact with the objects of the physical world so as to perceive them then it should not only be detectable, but all the other problems of previous theories arise. On the other hand, if this 'soul' does not interact with the physical, then it cannot possibly do what is expected of it in this theory, namely travel in the physical world. She sees no escape from the dilemma. Moreover, she claims there is already evidence that what is seen in an OBE is not, in any case, the physical world.
The term 'mental world' could mean several different things. It could mean the purely private world created by each of us in our thinking. One possibility is that there is another world (or worlds) which is mental but is in some sense shared, or objective and in which we can all travel if we attain certain states of consciousness. The important question now becomes whether the OB world is peculiar to each individual, or shared and accessible to all. Occultists have suggested that there is a shared thought world. There are many other versions of this kind of theory. The pertinent features of this idea are that there is a non-physical OB world which is accessible by thought, that it is manipulable by thought, and that it is the product of the mind of more than just one person. Tart [74b, 78], as one of his five theories of the OBE, suggests what he calls the 'mentally-manipulatable-state explanation.' He raises here the familiar problem of, as he puts it 'where the pajamas come from.' That is, if the OBE involves the separation of a 'spirit' or 'soul' we have to include the possibility of spiritual dinner jackets and tie pins. Of course any theory which postulates 'thought created' world solves this problem. Tart therefore suggested that a non-physical second body travels in a non-physical world which is capable of being manipulated or changed by 'the conscious and non-conscious thoughts and desires of the person whose second body is in that space.' In 1951 Muldoon and Carrington had come to a similar conclusion [MC51]. Muldoon states '... one thing is clear to me -- the clothing of the phantom is created, and is not a counterpart of the physical clothing.' Through his observations he came to the conclusion that 'Thought creates in the astral, ... In fact the whole astral world is governed by thought.' But he did not mean it was a private world of thoughts. Also relevant here is the occult notion of thought forms. Theosophists Besant and Leadbeater describe the creation of thought forms by the mental and desire bodies, and their manifestations as floating forms in the mental and astral planes. All physical objects are supposed to have their astral counterparts and so when traveling in the astral one sees a mixture of the astral forms of physical things and thought created, or purely astral, entities. There are other versions of a similar idea. For example Whiteman questions the 'one-space theory' of OBEs [Whi75], and Poynton follow him suggesting '... what is described is not the physical world as actualized by the senses of the physical body, but a copy, more or less exact, of the physical world' [Poy75]. Rogo [Rog78b] suggests that the OBE takes place in a non-physical duplicate world which is just as 'real' to the OBEer as our world is to us. The idea of shared thought world, attractive as it is, has some serious problems. The first problem relates to how the thoughts of different people could be combined together to create an astral world and the second problem concerns the storage of ideas. The idea that thoughts can persist independently of the brain has been a cornerstone of many occult theories, but also parapsychologists have used a similar idea to try to explain ESP. According to Blackmore [Bla82] the problem is essentially one of coding. We know that when a person remembers something he has first processed the incoming information, thought about it, structured it, and turned it into a manageable form using some sort of code. We presume that the information persists in this form until needed when the person can use the same coding system to retrieve it and use it. Even if we don't understand the details of how this system works, there is in principle no problem for one person because he uses the same system both in storing the material and retrieving it. But if thoughts are stored in the astral world, then we have to
say that one person can store them there and another can get them
out again. And that other person may have entirely different ways
of coding information. So how can these thoughts in the astral possibly
make sense to him? Go to the Next
chapter Copyright Jouni A. Smed |
