IT SEEMS THAT, in between our efforts to keep from being totally overcome by this surplus of energy that is flooding our 3D world - there are those among us who are actually beginning to figure out how to open and install some of this marvelous perceptual "software" that has been bundled into those vibrations! And man, are we having fun with it!

For those of you who don't quite get what I mean by "perceptual software," please let me explain. The Reconnections, from whom I channel, are constantly enlisting new and interesting conceptual models to explain spiritual concepts which have no form or substance that a normal human might recognize. So they use correspondence to get their points across. They say: "This is to this what that is to that." In Jesus' day, we called this technique "speaking in parables."

I'll never forget a scene from the movie "Stargate," where James Spader and Kurt Russell lead a group of soldiers into a city, on a remote star system, in an attempt to commune with the locals. In an act of hospitality, the King of the City brings in a platter of meat for all of them to enjoy. What's on the platter looks a bit like an armadillo, though it also has an insect-like quality which could immediately give a person pause. The belly of the beast is opened up, brimming with meat, and Spader's character (Dr. Daniel Jackson) reaches over and takes a piece to taste. As the rest of the company stands there, unnerved at the prospect, Spader comforts them with these words and a smile: "Tastes like chicken."

From that moment on, my friends and I began kidding each other when we were having new and unusual spiritual experiences or journeys. We would smile and say: "Don't worry. It tastes just like chicken."

Technology and Human Consciousness
The Reconnections teach us that humans didn't just stumble on our design for computers and other forms of modern technology. We actually remembered them from how things work in our minds and in spiritual realms. Of course, computers are primitive in comparison to actual consciousness - being limited to certain functions and tasks. But the protocols they follow, and the terminology that accompanies those operations, create a nice context in which to explain the workings of our inner psyche as well as many worlds which interface with us at that level.

At present, Virtual Reality Equipment remains somewhat undeveloped and raw. When that changes, humans will actually be able to climb into their computers, like spaceships, and take off for parts unknown. Until then, we must be content with monitors to display our journeys, and cursors, which declare to us "you are here."

When we look into a monitor, it is correspondent to looking through our eyes into the physical world. The desktop shows an array of icons (points of interest), which can be clicked upon to go deeper, and open new "files," symbolizing alternative dimensions. When we maximize a file, it is just like zooming through a portal, during meditation. When we minimize, we "zoom out" and allow our Desktop to assume center stage again. We can then survey our other options for exploration, or we can log onto a Network, which allows us to visit even more alternative realities, or to download files for later study.

Do you sometimes hear a curious "buzzing" or "ringing" in your ears? Medical Practitioners refer to this as "tinnitus." The Reconnections call it the "Roar of the Multiverse", a sensory comprehension (and download) of various "files" that are now entering our "hard drive." Though it may take us quite awhile to learn how to open and install them, the software is now present.

The message "you are here" reminds us of one of those directories that exist in a super mall, doesn’t it? Even though the arrow (or cursor) symbolizes "you" for purposes of exploring a mall, or a computer desktop... there is also a comprehension that "you" are far more than a monitor, or a few acres of land in the middle of a town. You are all of it, because you are capable of viewing the entire desktop or town, and going anywhere you choose.

In a recent transmission, the Reconnections told us:

We call this awakening process our "return to oneness." Oneness is not a destination, per se. It is more of a realization, an insight, a touchstone for our consciousness of limiting beliefs and fragmented ideas. It represents a coming together that energizes and refocuses us for going apart once again.

I named this article "A Kick in the Astral" because that is the name given to a current project we are sharing on our free Reconnections Discussion List on the Yahoo System. Collectively, we have decided to set a date and time where we would "meet" in the Astral Realms. Our first journey was to a hotel room, high above Paris, with a full view of the Eifel Tower. This time, we're going to meet on a beach somewhere. The details are still being worked out. The Rosicrucians do this all the time, but their journeys and meetings are a good deal more austere than ours. We're like kids, playing with new toys. And that's fine, so long as we maintain the same child-like innocence that Jesus refers to in his statement about children and the Kingdom of Heaven. If we try to get "cute" with our knowledge, we run the risk of ending up like the Sorcerer's Apprentice... up to our necks in waves of water!

Astral Journeys
As we gravitate from Old Paradigm thinking (Separation) to New Paradigm thinking (Universal Oneness), our models for understanding Astral Journeying begin to change. Instead of thinking of ourselves as leaving the body, and going "elsewhere," we begin to envision that we are simply expanding our body... like a bubble... zooming out with our lens, capturing anything and everything we wish to integrate into our new definition of "self." Our Watcher Self sits happily on the rim of the bubble, and rides the expansion to its next destination.

Though many of us still look down, and see a sleeping body as we fly, we no longer require a "silver cord" to keep us from drifting away. In truth, humanity is now building a conceptual bridge between these older concepts of viewing life (like reincarnation) and the New Paradigm, which links everything to here and now.

The movie mentioned above (Stargate) provides some excellent visuals for what many have described as Astral Journeys. One such visual is seen on the Astral Journeys Page of my site. But conceptual models for these journeys can be as numerous as the people who take them. And this is what I mean by "perceptual software."

One of the benchmarks of New Age Philosophy is found in the statement: "We create our own reality with our thoughts." That truth is now making a big time comeback, packaged and exposited as "The Secret." And, even as the "secret" comes to light, in mass media, new "secrets" are taking its place in the worlds of esoteric knowledge. One of these secrets is the realization that it isn't just thought that creates, it is a person's entire vibratory essence that does the creating. This "essence" consists of thought and feeling and hidden desire and multiversal connection.

As the Reconnections once put it so well:

And so... my very own "Kick in the Astral" took place... on November 11, 1991 (11/11/91). On that day, the Reconnections began handing me "secrets" to expand my being beyond anything I could have ever imagined. And, I am told, we all have our own "Reconnections" to accomplish this purpose for us, when the time is right.

Energy Gates and Portals
In their series "Trans-Portals: Energy Gates in Space and Time," the Recons had this to say about the multitude of opportunities for Inner and Outer Exploration which exist all around us:

Just about anything a person can visualize, within or without himself, can be expanded to include the rest of what that limited figure symbolizes. A single candle brings up the idea of "light" onto our computer screen. Immediately, the "search function" for that term produces a whole list of alternative renditions of "light" that can also be explored. We can either be content to stare happily at the candle, or we can initiate "software" in our consciousness to shift our gaze from outer vision to expanded, inner vision. This was called "the sight" in olden days.

When a person clicks over from 3D vision to Multi-D, his (or her) focus begins to diffuse, beyond that candle or other objects of interest. His mind leaps through the Gateway of his Imagination, which is a real place, not just illusion. In mid-flight, a destination is chosen, and a course is set.

We don't create our 3D reality from nothing. We create it from the everything that is always there, filtering out all the possible/probable alternative realities which flow in that same space. When we diffuse focus, it's like scrolling down a menu online. We find a "file" we wish to explore, and click on it. Immediately, a new image comes up on our screen. The Reconnections liken human consciousness to a TV set, on which many stations are playing at the same time. If you want to change a station, you simply change the channel, in just the method I have described above.

Astral Travel, or an OBE, is not just an "experience." It is an operation that is conducted by Internal Human Technology. Those who claim they've had "a harrowing experience" have forgotten that they, themselves are doing all this. Still caught up in the Separation Dream, they imagine that something or someone else is initiating upon them, that they have been "abducted" against their will.

Part of waking up from a Separation Dream is a realization that WE and WE ALONE are writing this novel. Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing "The Notebook," a movie that was made from Nicholas Sparks' lovely novel about a woman who is suffering from Altsheimer's Disease. She keeps "going away" into a land of forgetfulness, and is gently coaxed to come back by a lovely old gentleman who keeps reading to her from a love story which she, herself, put into a notebook before she left. It's such a great analogy for what our Reconnections are doing for us now.

Next month, I'll speak more about the New Paradigm Version of Astral Travel, as described by The Reconnections. In the meantime, enjoy each and every journey you find yourself making. We all "travel," many times a day! Your questions and comments are always welcome.

© 2007, Daniel Jacob