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David Scott Rogo - Leaving the Body: A Complete Guide to Astral Projection

It is also possible that, once one has developed the a priori ability to project, OBEs may occur spontaneously specifically through unconscious acts of will.

This happened to me in 1977 during a business trip I made to New York from my home in Los Angeles. I was awaiting publication of my first book on the out-of-body experience ( Mind Beyond the Body, 1978), and I was very involved in its study. I do not like to leave my home unattended, so Dave, a friend of mine, moved in to take care of it. For some reason I was worried about my house during this trip. I was concerned about my mail not being taken in, that Dave was not keeping the place locked, and a host of other worrisome little matters.

I kept dwelling on them all the time.

About a week after I had left home, I began having out-of-body experiences for the first time in quite a while. After going to sleep I would suddenly find myself back in Los Angeles. I was aware that my body was in New York, and my self-awareness was very different from mere dreaming.

Invariably I would find myself in the hallway of my house, and I would just took around the place for a few moments, make sure everything was in order, and then will myself back to New York. These experiences were so vivid and convincing that I told Blue Harary, who was then working in New York, about them.

The climax to this rash of OBEs came on August 22nd. Once again I projected to my home and decided to see if I could find Dave and make my presence known to him. I materialized in the hallway of the house, entered the spare bedroom where I had suggested Dave should sleep, but saw his brother there instead. This confused me, and I returned to my body in New York.

When I returned to Los Angeles I was greeted with quite a story!

It seems that during the time I was having my experiences in New York, Dave had begun hearing odd sounds and human groans in the house. On the night of August 22nd - the date when I decided to make my presence known to him-Dave had seen a fleeting apparition shooting through the hallway of the house. This had so frightened him that he had left the house!

I also learned that, just as I had seen, Dave's brother had spent the night at the house and had slept in the spare bedroom. I might add that Dave and his brother told me these details before I told them about my projection experiences. The mutually corroborative evidence was, therefore, so strong that I eventually published a report on it.

This incident holds several lessons for us. lt shows how the unconscious motivation to have an OBE, coupled with a pre-existing ability to experience the phenomenon, can lead to spontaneous astral projection.