Summary

The Adventures of a Solitary Soul - H. J. Sharp

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Dream 8 - On leaving the body

And so there was a big gap in which I applied myself to ordinary life, to becoming a Good Householder. But then when I was around 38, all the big deep thoughts and questions began to return. Was this all that there was? What was behind it all? I spent some time with a Spiritualist group. Although I knew all the people involved well and was completely familiar with the house in which we met each week, I could not understand many of the things that went on during the sceances; the way the furniture moved around, the trumpets which floated in the dim light, the voices which came from them, the transfiguration of the medium. It must be a trick, but how was it done? I finally left because I felt that the younger people in the group became more and more suggestible. They simply believed what they wanted to. Objectivity was impossible.

I then began to conclude that if there in fact was life after death, knowledge at a distance, foreknowledge, and other such paranormal phenomenon, they all depended upon there being an entity in each of us which could operate without our physical body. So the key was to be able to leave ones body. I searched the literature for the way to do this, but could find no sensible instructions of any detail. I began to develop a series of exercises and meditational techniques. Although at the time many seemed to be talking about the use of meditation, I could not find anything published which told you exactly how to do it. The nearest was a book by Edward Carpenter, called "From Adams Peak to Elephanta" . This was classified by the library as a travel book. In fact it contained a wealth of information on methods related to esoteric development of the individual. I did not fully realise this at the time.

I began to practice meditation as well as I could. I came across the concept of Hermetic Sealing used by some monks. In this one lies flat with the hands clasped together and the feet crossed at the ankles. In this way, symbolically, one becomes cut off from the external environment and progressively sinks within oneself.

But all the procedures I tried did not seem to give any result as regards leaving my body. And then, when I least expected it and was not even thinking about it, while sitting at the head of the table in the staff dining room at Hoovers where I still worked, and with a room full of people, I suddenly found myself up by the ceiling, looking down on my physical body talking to the others about what seemed very mundane matters, matters that did not need the help of the watching Angel. It was as if I was watching the mechanical part of myself quiet efficiently operating without any need of my consciousness or conscious control; a fully automatic animal with a moving part and an intellectual part in a body operated by an instinctive part, and communicating with the other fully automatic animals round the table by means of what is called personality. The experience lasted several minutes. Whatever it was, it was "as if' a part of me, the observing part, the observing Angel, had no longer any direct contact or need of my body. I was conscious outside of it and without it.

The key had turned and the door had opened for a moment.

There followed many out of the body experiences by means of which I was able to obtain information at a distance for example. These experiences led me to sit for a while, as I have already mentioned, in a spiritualist development group. Eventually, I decided that all this was simply distractions on the way.

I also developed a series of exercises with the purpose of increasing tension so that greater relaxation was achieved when at the end one "let it all go". These consisted of lying flat on the floor and taking five deep breaths. On the fifth exhalation, one stopped breathing while slowly lifting the legs straight and together about a foot off the floor five times. One then took another five deep breaths, at the end of which again one stopped breathing while sitting up, arms over the head to touch ones toes five times. Then another five breaths and so repeating the whole sequence five times. At the end one sat up into the lotus position and allowed the breathing to find its own level. One then on simply watched the breathing as one slowly went deeper within.

I began to use this procedure before going to bed and as a result I found that I could often watch myself fall asleep without loosing awareness and so enter the dream. The dreams also changed in as much as many of them were in full colour and very intense, what some today call lucid dreams. I would know that I was in the dream. It is many of these special dreams which I now intend to recall.