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From Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections

Case No. 287-A man with a weak heart

According to Borderland, ii, 1896, a recent number of The Path contained the following account. A patient said,

All my life the fact of life itself has been represented to me by a small purplish flame burning at the centre of my heart ...'When I fainted my inner sense shared the faintness of my body ... the purple flame burned low.

And now I seemed to identify myself with an inner breath. This gathered itself round the heart and watched the flame. The breath saw the flame wax dim, saw it disappear.

From this part of my tale, I must speak of the breath as 'I'-my consciousness-was wholly situated in it. 'I', then, began to vibrate rapidly, to surge about and soon I felt myself floating upwards through a passage in the middle of my spine. I went in a spiral. Just as I arrived at a point opposite the mouth I felt another breath pass me on its outward way, and it rushed out of a cavity which I now know for the mouth, with a loud rushing sound, as of breath wholly expelled.   I-the other and conscious breath, I went into a circular space and issued from thence after one tremendous throb of separation ... I was free and with a freedom not known before. As the conscious breath leapt from the head, it took form, a form of radiant light, and in this guise shot forth into the open air.

Above the buildings I soared and soon no longer saw them. I was met up there by one I knew. About us were many sleeping spheres, and he bade me observe these.

There were other forms and messengers coming and going. The atmosphere was all luminous. The sense of freedom, knowledge and power was magnificent.

Then l felt a slight pull upon me and saw that a shadowy thread, one of less radiant matter, extended from me down through the air into an open aperture. It was as if this pull had altered all my vibrations and changed my state of consciousness, for I now ceased to see the wonders about me and saw instead the buildings on the snow far beneath. Yes, I had returned to a lower order of matter. I felt myself drawn rapidly downwards and backwards, always by the ethereal thread, until I was drawn through a window and into a room.

I noticed there a young man, lying stiff and cold on a couch. He seemed to be dead. A vortex of air  sucked me towards him. Again that deep rending throb and I was drawn into the head of this horrible object. I was again a conscious breath, travelling rapidly down a long, narrow, spiral descent on the right of the body. Again I gathered myself about a centre, a dark but pulsating ocean, in whose depths I looked for a light, a glow. There was nothing. The breath that was 'I' concentrated itself and waited. Another sudden change occurred. Now the feeling of identity with that inner heart disappeared. The brain-consciousness was again mine. It was plain that the dark ocean was my heart.

 I thought, 'I am dead. I must send a message to X of my death!' I tried to speak but the brain-consciousness had no tongue.

I was not yet co-ordinated with the body. Calming myself, I watched the heart closely and saw the scintillating point was rising out of the dark centre, gradually to burn at last a violet flame. When it burned clear at last I felt myself, all at once, to be co-ordinated with the body, identical with my everyday self. ...

What I was told when out of the body has since been all fulfilled. It seems that I was removed (I myself) from a crisis of the physical heart.