Sunday, 5:40pm Concluding the seminar in the right way will improve the general impression students walk away with and increase the quality of their personal practices. It will also keep them interested in your projects and help with enrollment for the next seminar.

It is important to mention that the students should wait until the next weekend to make attempts on their own, and that they shouldn’t make attempts more than 3 days per week. To practice on their own, students may use the book out-of-body experience, our and your internet forums, websites, social-network groups, video-clips and video-seminars, products and services that you may offer, annual summertime phase practitioner conventions, etc. Also provide them with contact information they can reach you at for support and questions.

Sunday, 4:20pm Discussion of the direct method should start with stating that it should only be attempted after mastering the indirect method. It often seems to people that the direct method is better suited to them, and they’re nearly always wrong.

1. Introduction to the Direct Method The direct method for phase entry comprises techniques performed without prior sleep or after being awake for a substantial length of time. Although this class of techniques is the hardest to master, out-of-body experiences can be achieved in at least 50% of attempts when practiced correctly.

2. When to Make Attempts It’s best to start one’s practice of the direct method from the deferred method for direct techniques. In this case one needs to wake up (preferably after 6 or 7 hours of sleep), get up and go do something for several minutes, and then lie back down in bed and immediately make an attempt to enter out-of-body experience without first falling asleep to catch a subsequent awakening (as is done with the indirect method). The second most effective window of time for practicing the direct method is before falling asleep for the night. Once you’re able to get the direct method to work both using the deferred method and before going to bed for the night, you’re ready to try it at any time of the day.

3. Body Position While there is no fixed body position for practicing out-of-body experience due to the uniqueness of each person and situation, there is a principle for selecting which position to assume. For example, if a practitioner knows that he might quickly fall asleep while performing a technique, he ought to lie down in a position that is uncomfortable to sleep in. If a practitioner is wide awake and his mind alert, then he’s better off lying in the most comfortable sleeping position possible. One may change positions over the course of the process.

4. Frequency of Use Direct techniques may be attempted 3 times a week at most, but no more than once a day. This limit may be exceeded only if one’s attempts are successful the majority of the time. A single attempt should not exceed 20 minutes. If one gets no results within this period of time, it’s best to just go to sleep. Otherwise, one risks developing a case of insomnia.

5. General Rules First, performing the direct techniques is to be enjoyable. The practitioner should derive pleasure and enthrallment from the very act of performing the actions instead of irritably and impatiently waiting for results. Second, the direct techniques must be performed with deep-seated desire to get results, and yet this yearning must stay well below the surface – one should keep a poker face and feel emotionally indifferent to the outcome. One’s approach shouldn’t be obsessive. There should not be a sense of exaggerated importance. Just the opposite is called for – the practitioner should be completely indifferent to the outcome, thinking, for example, “If it works, great. If not, no big deal.”

6. The Techniques The indirect method and direct method do not differ in terms of techniques. The role of the techniques is of secondary importance in this case, and it doesn’t make that big a difference which ones are chosen. Options include rotation, observing images, the swimmer technique, the technique of visualizing the hands, and any other technique. Although the techniques might work from beginning to end, that doesn’t mean much with the direct method, unlike with the indirect method. If the practitioner feels that he might fall asleep, then he should switch techniques every few minutes, or even more frequently. If he is wide awake and his mind is clear, then he’s better off selecting one technique he finds interesting and performing it for the entire 15 minutes.

7. The Free-Floating State of Mind This is the most important ingredient for success with the direct method. Achieving nothing more than it alone can bring you into out-of-body experience. You should draw the depicted free-floating state of mind diagram on the board and explain using examples how the aim of the direct techniques is to achieve microsleep (a brief lapse in consciousness) which is followed by out-of-body experience if the microsleep is of the right depth.

For example, a practitioner might lie in a comfortable position despite being sleepy, start doing some technique, and fall asleep within several seconds. Another might lie uncomfortably on his back and begin energetically trying to enter out-of-body experience using some technique. His mind would be “on” for the entire 15 minutes, and he would be waiting for a result the whole time, hoping for a dramatic transition into out-of-body experience. Actually, he’s headed for a dead end, as he’ll be lying down wide awake the whole time.

Meanwhile, an example of the right way to perform it would be a sleepy practitioner intent on entering out-of-body experience lying uncomfortably while thinking about something else and starting to do some technique. His awareness gradually fades, but he suddenly comes to and realizes that out-of-body experience isn’t there yet. He then strives to temporarily “zone out” into a still deeper state. He concentrates on monotonously performing a technique. His consciousness submerges deeper and deeper, but after some time he comes back to. Though a number of unusual sensations make themselves felt, out-of-body experience is not yet there. He then starts to do a technique that distracts him and gradually powers down his conscious awareness. After submerging even deeper into unconsciousness, he abruptly comes to and feels out-of-body experience. He realizes that he will be able to separate. This is usually immediately clear. He separates and carries out his plan of action.

It should be made clear to students that it is practically impossible to both control the direct techniques and remain fully conscious without interruption. Indeed, temporarily “zoning out” is what creates the necessary physiological transition. Although sometimes this is less important with the deferred method for direct techniques, it nearly always holds true for attempts made before going to bed for the night and during the day.

Examples Using your own personal experience and the experiences of practitioners provided in the book out-of-body experience, give some examples of phase entries using the direct method. Try to point out evidence of lapses in consciousness before phase entry. Ask the students in the group about their lapses in consciousness and subsequent phase entries. It’s almost guaranteed that someone will have had a spontaneous encounter with this phenomenon – but thought nothing of it at the time.

Popular websites devoted to esoterica, personal development, and other related topics have sufficiently large day-to-day audiences, with unique visitors sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands. They keep themselves afloat by selling advertisements and publishing announcements. You can easily make a deal with them to get your banner-ads up on their site. The cost will depend on the amount of website traffic: from practically free to quite large sums of money. A list of such websites can be found in various rankings, which will usually include statistics on how popular the sites actually are.

Taking out such an advertisement isn’t the most effective promotional tool, especially if your activities are limited to a certain geographical location. However, it may be justifiable for distance learning and selling educational materials.

It happened this morning. It seemed that I had awoken, but then I felt that my hand held the teaspoon that I had used to stir my coffee while in bed. I immediately realized that this couldn’t be, and rolled out of bed. I was suspended in air (lack of deepening). I realized that I could fly (lack of a plan of action). I flew up to the window. The drapes on it were different. I tried to fly through the window, but was unable to. I turned around and flew up to the door, and then easily flew through it and into the kitchen. My mom, who is now deceased, was standing in the kitchen and cooking something. I joyfully greeted her (lack of maintaining; possible loss of activeness) and out-of-body experience quickly ended (lack of secondary separation from the body).

At this stage, there is nearly always but one primary aim: to motivate seminar participants to keep practicing and intensively try out the methods they have been taught. No matter what lengths the teacher goes to, the only person who can make a student make attempts is the student himself. Motivation is the only key to a person’s own actions. No motivation means no focused attempts and no results. The result is a total waste of time. Experience shows that the seminar success rate is much determined by how well-motivated students were at the very beginning. And this is exactly where instructors often make their mistake when starting out. An instructor who is still hardly acquainted with how people’s minds work might immediately focus on the techniques and count on them to yield results since they have been finely honed on thousands of people – and he would be correct to do so. However, what he doesn’t realize is that people need to know what’s in it for them before they will perform the techniques.

That’s why he should use all possible means to put an emphasis on motivation. He needs to do everything he can to try to light a fire under the audience so that they are extremely impatient to get to the part where he goes over the first techniques, and think to themselves, "Are we there yet? When will he finally tell us how to do it?!" After this module, students should be literally squirming in their seats with impatience. That’s exactly the level that you need to get the group to – the boiling point where they all immediately and happily "soak up" all the techniques taught and then eagerly go home to try them out.

Another obvious problem during the introductory part of the lesson is the theoretical approach to the problem. There’s practically no way to avoid questions regarding the most diverse views on out-of-body experience-state phenomenon. Groups nearly always have many people with completely contradictory views. Nearly everyone shows up for lessons counting on some unrealistic expectation they have of the phenomenon being met. That’s why there will be constant nagging like, "So what on earth is it?" Or, "So it’s all in your head?" Although at times it can’t be easy to deal with a tough audience, there are some ways to turn down the pressure.

First, never put your weight as an instructor behind any theory regarding the nature of the phenomenon. Second, state upfront that everyone has his own worldview and a different explanation for out-of-body experience phenomenon. Third, explain that your task is to provide actual practice, unlike many others instructors who teach only theory. Meanwhile, let everyone decide what out-of-body experience actually is on the basis of the actual practice you help him achieve.