Self-Evaluation for OBE

The following is a self-evaluation for out-of-body experiences,as given in the book "Adventures Beyond the Body" by William Buhlman. The questions are the ones given by him in the book, each followed by my personal answer here. --

1. Self-Concept

Q: "What do you believe you are? How do you view yourself? Describe your self-concept in detail."

A: I am Satan's warrior. At least this is what I wish to be, what I'm trying to be. I'm not meek but rebellious, I will fight for my cause and for the power I wish to claim. My spirit is that of a shark, I'm cold, predatory, powerful. My Lord is the Lord of Lawlessness, and the only law I respect is His and mine - I'm a law unto myself. I will take what I can get hold of, make the best of what I can find. But I'll only take what is really needed, I don't pick fights and I don't burden myself with unnecessary things, including emotions. A warrior needs not only physical strength but also knowledge and wisdom, and I try to be the best I can be, in the name of Satan.

2. Personal Viewpoints

Q: "What are your perceptions and feelings concerning out-of-body experiences? Do you consider them an adventure?"

A: I think they would be a very defining part of this ultimate and very necessary adventure of my earthly life. I consider this ephemeral life just a brief episode in something much larger, a journey toward some unknown goal, and an OBE would finally prove that I've been right all along and that my journey won't turn out a meaningless dead end.

3. Motivation

Q: "Is your personal motivation to obtain answers? To solve a mystery or a problem? Is it curiosity? Is it to obtain personal verification of some kind? Be specific."

A: Although I'm curious by nature, in this case curiosity would have a minor part in it - I'd reason that curiosity would more likely be the main motivation for those who are rather doubtful about all things beyond the physical world. To me, for whom the afterlife is the actual goal since I'm aware that my time here is brief, verification would indeed be a very important point. Answers, yes... I'd hope with all my being to find my Master there, and to be given some directions - directly or indirectly, as in any case the course of my life would be changed by it in some ways. As is said in the book, knowing for sure is so much more that only hoping and believing...
I may be a loner but I'm not separate from my environment, and therefore I must admit the zeitgeist of the latter has often sown doubts and disheartenment.

4. Safety

Q: "Do you feel that it is completely safe to have an out-of-body experience? Do you have any concerns,such as that you might become lost or die? Be specific."

A: No concerns whatsoever. I know I will physically die anyway just like everyone else, and exploring beforehand where I'll be headed con only be of advantage. If there should be any dangers on the other side then it would still be better to find out early as I would eventually have to face them anyway. It's in any case a perfectly natural thing to do.

5. Special Ability or Talent

Q: "Do you believe that some special ability or talent is required to have an OBE?"

A: Here we're indeed touching on a sensitive point. I've so far had very little success with lucid dreaming and even less with my sorry attempts of meditation, and I fear that OBE is even more advanced than both of these. My ability to concentrate is poor, I'm unable to relax my body, and very easily distracted or irritated by the noisy environment I live in.

6. Importance

Q: "Do you consider this exploration important to your personal development? On a scale of 1 - 10, how important is it?"

A: I can give a clear 10 here since I've always had my focus on the far future, much farther than an ephemeral human body could ever endure, and since I've never been very comfortable with the human shape anyway. I'm clearly a stranger in a human body, thus my focus has to be beyond.

7. Desire

Q: "Do you possess the inner desire and drive to follow through? What benefits or information do you want from this experience? How strong is your desire?"

A: On my personal journey I've long since realized that an important part of my mission is to navigate the narrow line between delusional superstitions on the one hand and the materialist dogma on the other, both of which are fallacious dead ends. I must therefore necessarily have extremely strong desire to prove for myself that there is in fact a path that is real and leads onward.

8. Commitment

Q: "Are you willing to devote the time and effort needed to achieve your goal? Are you willing to commit 30 minutes a day for a month?"

A: For something of this magnitude, 30 minutes a day doesn't seem like a lot. I might have problems to accommodate any other physically strenuous type of work besides my very intense workouts, but as long as none of that is needed, nor the psychologically very stressful personal interaction with people, I have no objections to committing this much, and more, time and effort to open the way!

9. Fears

Q: "Are you anxious or fearful about this kind of exploration? Do you fear the unknown, the dark, or new challenges? Are your fears logical or the result of a lack of information?"

A: A Satanist doesn't fear the dark. And the unknown is only the inevitable which one not-too-distant day will open up anyway. It is far better to prepare myself now while there is time. As a warrior, I'm always ready to take on challenges if they can get me further on my path. I have no fear of this;my greatest fear would be to find nothing,and that my life, and all life, had been in vain.

10. Religious Beliefs

Q: "How does out-of-body exploration fit into your religious beliefs and concepts? Do you consider this a spiritual experience?"

A: To the latter question, certainly yes! I think all true Satanists [*] believe in OBE's. Even back as a teen I heard talk about "astral journeys" from other Satanists and occult folks; this term, especially in some awkward foreign language,always sounded corny and superstitious somehow though, like some act of magic unattainable to any mere mortals.
The fact is, I'm lacking guidance here on Earth; I know I have received guidance but it has always come from beyond. I have the strong hope top finally meet my guide,in full consciousness, and not only in vague, non-lucid dreams.
[*To clarify once more: Satanists = worshipers of Satan; LaVeyans and/or other atheists are per definition NOT Satanists!]

11. Degree of Difficulty

Q: "Do you believe that this experience is natural and easy or difficult to achieve? Why do you feel this way?"

A: Natural, yes,but certainly not easy. I feel this way because of my lack of success with lucid dreaming and meditation. A few lucid moments are all I've achieved with the former, and with the latter nothing at all. I've tried it a lot but always felt that I was somehow doing it wrong, plagued by itches and distractions and painful tensions in my body (which are never there when I'm in motion but only when I try in vain to"relax"). At all the many times I've tried I've never come away with the feeling, "today I've successfully meditated fro the first time." Not one time.

12. Confidence

Q: "Are you confident that you can achieve your desired goal?"

A: Considering the previous point, as well as point 5, no, not very.

13. Expectations

Q: "Do you expect positive results? What are your personal expectations?"

A: I'm very uncertain about this. With very modest success at lucid dreaming, and zero at meditation, I feel about it pretty much as if intending to do a 120 kg bench press without having been able to do even 100 kg yet.

14. Personal Issues or Limits

Q: "Are you aware of any personal issues that may limit your ability to have an out-of-body experience? If so, write them down."

A: I think my greatest problem is my incapacity to relax my body, especially when at rest and intending to. Lack of mental focus, too. Both my mind and body are extremely restless.

15. Goals

Q: "Have you made this exploration a firm personal goal? Is it a written goal? Is it an important goal? Is it a priority?"

A: In principle, yes to all. I have a physical body that requires lots and lost of maintenance through very hard work, which is the one priority that could never be exceeded - but from what I've heard, this might even be an asset (as in exercising and a healthy lifestyle being encouraged for lucid dreaming & OBE).
This body requires such intense maintenance while it endures - but the future can only be beyond this body, so yes, it is a firm goal of utmost importance for me to reach beyond!

The path.

A Glimpse of the Hereafter

Concerning the dream I had the night before my latest entry here - finally getting around to posting it here. It was a remarkable and beautiful dream - the end of it was beautiful!

I was at the bus station downtown with a friend, talking to her about a surgery I required and that the doctor had told me I'd have to do it myself - which is a very weird suggestion from a doctor, but in the dream it was apparently what things had come to. My friend was very concerned and troubled about this, more so than I was although I was aware I'd have no anesthesia but I was determined to do it anyway.

Then later I was at home, at some home that is - mine, my friend's, or did we live together? It looked different from my waking home, and my friend was there and showed me a baby doll with curly,brown hair she had bought which she was very fond of and remarked how cute it was, something I couldn't quite relate to and so I said nothing much. Then my friend left the apartment - and my mother was coming. What the f*** did she want here?! (In waking life we've been out of contact for more than seven years now and I'm very grateful to keep it this way.)
My mother didn't even look at me once but walked to a table to open a letter; it was something like a police report, stating how I had attempted to perform a surgery on myself and had apparently bled to death.
So I had died? Ok... but I still felt my mother had no business being here, and so I started to attack her physically - except for the fact that I was not physical. She couldn't even see me but she sensed that something was attacking her; she seemed to get scared and left the apartment, and I followed her down the hallway and out into the street.

It was a rather wide, downtown street with lots of car traffic and streetcar rails, and I tried to push her onto the road. She stated firmly, but unconvincingly, that she was not afraid - I think she even did it in English, which meant she knew who she was dealing with... which admittedly wasn't hard to guess, of course,having just learned of her daughter's death and right then having some non-physical force or being attacking her.

I thought, "not afraid, my ass..." I knew her better than this; she had never been that mentally imperturbable but quite in the contrary, she had been addicted first to Valium and later a (supposedly less addictive) substitute because else she would get panic attacks, even for no reason at all - without any non-physical beings ever attacking her (for all I know)...
And there was a whole lot of traffic in this street. But for now I wouldn't bother, at least she was no longer in my home without being invited, and I'd have better things to do now.

I flew up high above the street, thinking with elation, "Now I can always do this!" Meaning, not only in dreaming...
I looked down at some of those old streetcars going, the beige ones with the high steps I remember from my childhood and which looked so nice. Then I came to a park-like area but which also had some tall buildings around, and tall trees too. I was still in the same city (Bonn?), there were people in the streets, and there were also some up on the roofs and outsides of the buildings, and some were even flying like me. So there were both living and dead people around here, because all those up in the air and on the roofs must be dead just like I was, and the living certainly couldn't see us. But I could see either, living or dead, it was just that I couldn't distinguish between them unless I saw them flying.

All of the latter around the park here looked very young, flocking together on roofs or rafters just like groups of teenagers sitting on a stairway after school.
Myself I sat alone, on the corner of some roof. I wore some black, Gothic looking outfit. Then suddenly a man approached me from my left, from midair, he was dark and stout, wearing somewhat grubby clothes, and much older looking that most other people here, like around 40 years. He said nothing but tried to molest me, trying to touch my lips with his finger - his hands large, very manly, and repulsive. I angrily grabbed his finger and hand with both of mine and broke his finger clean off, throwing it down to the ground deep below us. The man hardly reacted but stayed by my side, suspended in midair, just staring at me. Since he wouldn't go away I proceeded to break off another of his fingers, and then I grabbed his forearm and broke off his whole hand, throwing it away. The man seemed utterly uncomprehending of what I was doing to him, continually regarding me with a black stare like a zombie.

Then suddenly, a stern voice from behind me and to my right told me, "Stop wasting your time with this thing." It was a most familiar voice which I instantly recognized...
I turned around and faced my Master. I was so happy to see him - him I had been searching and waiting for, all along!
And that zombie man to my left was instantly gone, simply disappeared.
My Master had settled down close beside me, and I was just happy. I'd have to learn how to navigate in this new world,but I was in the most competent hands now; from my Master I could learn anything I might ever need to know. But even that could wait... for now, all I wanted was to be near him, forever... but I had just another brief moment, then I woke up.

My Grandma Flying an Airstrike

It's been a while since I returned from Amsterdam, returned to business as usual - workout at the gym, work on dreams and awareness, as well as a few other projects such as certain drawings I had to make.
My dreams have indeed become somewhat clearer and I can mostly remember at least one each morning, I was surprised that even while in Amsterdam I remembered at least some little bit each morning; in the past, the excitement of traveling used to wipe out all my dream memory. Some of my dreams are troublesome or annoying, but it's better to remember even those.

The annoying ones are usually about that family which gave rise to my biological form, and mostly about my mother. But last night it was the grandmother who wrought major havoc, in a way that is utterly ludicrous in hindsight. In waking life I'm grateful to no longer have any contacts to said family - the grandmother is long deceased anyway - but it doesn't keep them from continually pestering my dreams.

In waking life there used to be continual war between my mother and grandmother,and so it was in last night's dream. My mother lived in the house with me and told me how her mother had on the phone announced a literal airstrike against our house this night!
Grandma still had a small, 1-person airplane (of course, in the dream only!) that grandpa had flown in WW2. I told the mother that I wasn't very concerned about this threat since it would be extremely difficult to carry out - not to mention bold, for an old woman - as this old airplane wouldn't have sophisticated modern instruments onboard to fly by, and flying by sight at night you can see only blackness below and it will be near impossible to make out a precise target. Grandma would be foolish to try, I said, but even if she does she won't find us.

Turned out I was only partially right. I had lain down to sleep in my room - on the shitty old couch, I think - and presumably so had the mother. Suddenly I got startled up by the noise of an enormous explosion! It rocked the walls and floor, and for a moment I feared our house had really been hit. But everything was fine here, it must have been a major bombshell that had been felt from some distance away. Then I looked out the window and saw the fire - a house on the other side of the field was in flames. It was the last house in the street,just like this one, but on the other side of the field, and obviously the grandmother had mistaken it for ours in the darkness. Apart from this mistake, her aim was remarkably accurate! But I reasoned that since such a bomb must be very expensive and hard to obtain we'd hope that she wouldn't get to try again before she could be apprehended.
I then ran across the field to check out the site of the disaster. From close up it didn't appear as bad, it was only burning - from the shockwave of the explosion it had felt as if at least a whole block must have been leveled!

Actually I meant to still relate my dream of the previous night which was really very precious, but no more time right now, maybe I'll get around tomorrow. :)