"the astral plane" is not yet another name for a long-known phenomenon, as many mistakenly believe. The issue at hand is that the phenomenon itself has too many names, each of which implies different things – e.g. astral travel, out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, and still a number of less well-known terms. In my opinion, these phenomena all have much in common, and their division into different categories has become more and more contested into the 21st century, as the propagation of the practice reaches a global scale. Earlier, it was still possible to divide these phenomena into different things, as everything was only theoretical. But now, anyone with personal experience can easily confirm that the properties of the space entered during all of these experiences are identical.

As the above statement may strike some as controversial (especially as the personal experiences referred to were not introduced), we will not pause to treat the issue in detail. Either way, any state in which you are completely self-aware, but at the same time conscious that you are outside of your physical body is the astral plane. Meanwhile, you don’t feel your real body, but the perceived body finds itself in a world as palpably real as that of waking life. As we can see, this definition fits all of the hitherto known terms.

A person encountered in the astral plane who is already deceased may have all of the external traits and ways of behaving that the practitioner grew accustomed to while the subject was still among the living. This includes everything from how the subject dressed to his conversational style. Such a person may behave as if he were still alive up through the present moment, and as if the practitioner had simply run into him on the street in everyday life. That is, he might not notice or realize the situation, as his breathing and heartbeat will be that of a living person.

More often than not, in this situation the subject will not possess any special knowledge or ability to control the astral plane space, and all his actions will be no different from those of his in the physical world, and governed by its laws – those laws of nature and physics that do not apply in the astral plane.

Faced with the subject acting as if he were still alive, the practitioner may still be quite satisfied with the encounter. Alternatively, the practitioner may wish that the subject were fully aware of the situation. The fact is, if the subject were aware of his situation, this could have a serious affect on his attitude towards everything going on around him, creating unnecessary problems, and unnecessary anxiety for him. If for any reason such behavior is not to the practitioner’s liking, he could once again employ the techniques for achieving contact, placing increased attention on the subject not having the same attitude again towards his surroundings. Likewise, the practitioner could just tell him about his death, but this is fraught with evoking a whole slew of negative forms of behavior.

By and large, the astral plane practitioner can reasonably talk with such psychological types as if the encounter were something occurring during the subject’s lifetime. It is primarily in this case that behavior will be the most appropriate and acceptable for both the practitioner and the subject.

If you veer off the path I have shown you, you’ll be either completely depriving yourself of a rewarding experience, or at least making such an experience a very rare event. I often have to fight with one very strange aspect of human psychology: the desire to do things in one’s own way in a field that one knows nothing about. I’ve done nearly everything I can: I’ve tested and described everything exactly, you can be quite sure that it will work. But then I’ll go to talk with another practitioner, and it suddenly turns out that nothing is working for him. At least, that’s what he says.

But once he starts to tell you what he did and how he did it, you immediately hear that he did exactly what you’ve told him dozens of times not to do. It turns out that he’s done everything backwards. And if steps were taken in the right direction, then everything was done half-way, the wrong way, or no way, and the most fundamental elements were given no more than a passing try. Of course, it doesn’t always turn out like that. It only does when someone is having problems with his practice. If there are no problems, that means that he’s doing everything just as he was told.

And so, friend, I beg you to follow all of the instructions exactly. You’re guaranteed to get a result. The more correctly you perform the techniques, the quicker the results will come. Some people get results during their first attempts.

But let’s take a look at the most common mistake. I’ve already mentioned more than once here that one’s practice should start only from the indirect techniques, that is techniques performed upon awakening. I’ve taught this phenomenon to thousands of people personally, and to a countless number through my books. I’m not saying that that’s where you need to start just to have something to say. Indirect techniques are simply the easiest and most effective ones. For some reason, every second student will get some irresistible urge to buck my arguments and start from the hardest techniques: the direct ones, which are performed without accompanying sleep.

They usually tell me that direct techniques deliver more controllability. Yes, they do. And therein lies the problem. That’s exactly why novices are unsuccessful with them, because beginners try to control them. In the section on direct techniques, you’ll learn how they need to be performed in the opposite way – it is necessary to deliberately give up control over them and your conscious awareness for a certain period of time. And this is much more difficult than awakening and then entering the astral plane within a few moments.

Based on outward appearances, direct techniques seem preferable, which in and of itself draws people to them. However, indirect techniques need to be mastered first before trying anything else. Friend, such a desire will surely arise within you as well. But keep one thing in mind: indirect techniques work for everyone, while direct techniques are fraught with difficulty, even for those with much experience, let alone for a novice who has yet to learn the phenomenon from the inside out.

Starting from direct techniques is the same as walking into a weight-room for the first time in your life and trying to bench-press 500 pounds. No sane person would even think about doing that. It’s simply unrealistic. It’s first necessary to train for a certain period of time, which requires starting out from light weights. If the bench-press is a clear analogy, then direct techniques are a very near equivalent to those 400 pounds – lifting them would obviously be possible only after spending months working out, and require an incredible amount of strength. Yet the astral plane can be yours in literally a couple of days…

Yes, some people do have a predisposition for direct techniques, especially women. But whenever I talk about such predisposition, almost everyone thinks that I’m talking about them. You can forget about it. First learn what kind of phenomenon this is by performing specific actions upon awakening, and then – and only then – start experiments with direct techniques.

What’s more, a lot of people may think that if they try both direct and indirect techniques simultaneously, then they will get, for example, guaranteed practice upon awakening, and sure practice with direct techniques before falling asleep. I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, and even warn you. You are not a bottomless well of energy and strength. If you’ve been exhausting yourself with direct techniques all evening, then you’ll have no energy or strength left to do anything correctly or effectively upon awakening. Based on my substantial observational data, I can categorically state that such an approach decreases the probability of having a successful experience by 50 to 80 percent.

The situation is even more ridiculous when a person attempting direct techniques has already suffered a fiasco with indirect techniques due to making mistakes, after having worked on them for say several weeks. I would like to emphasize that such a fiasco is possible only in the face of major mistakes and misunderstandings. And so, having tripped up over what is easiest, the unfortunate practitioner decides to move on to direct techniques – the hardest ones. Where’s the logic? Being unable to do the easiest things, do you think that you will suddenly be able to do the hardest things? Now really? It’s just the other way around! If you are still unable to take your conscious awareness out of your body upon awakening, then the one thing you have left to consider is becoming conscious while dreaming – but don’t even think about direct techniques.

And so don’t fiddle around, put all of your effort from the beginning into actions performed upon awakening – into the universal indirect techniques.

(Sadly, even after this being emphasized so much, a significant proportion of readers will nevertheless throw these warnings out the window and begin to torture themselves with direct techniques…)

The instructor may assume responsibility for all issues related to organizing training sessions. This especially makes sense when trying keep startup costs down. Otherwise, the instructor can hire others to enroll people and organize training sessions.

It’s also possible that you yourself might be only the organizer and busy yourself with enrolling attendees and setting up educational events. You might hire someone else to use the methodologies in this book to do the actual teaching or invite an experienced instructor to fly in – you may find the contact information for such instructors on the School’s website.

The author would like to remind readers that they follow the instructions in this book at their own risk and that they alone are fully responsibility for their actions. When followed correctly, these instructions for practicing out-of-body travel and lucid dreaming bring no harm to the body or mind. However, due to the impossibility of monitoring or checking how closely the instructions in this book are followed, all liability arising from the application of the methods and procedures given hereunder rests with the reader.

Michael Raduga

OOBE Research Center

June 19th, 2012