In Reply to: Re: before I were a Christian posted by porceleindoll on July 08, 2003 at 20:30:13:
I don't think a person's spirit leaving their body is automatically evil. "Astral projection" is an occult term because "projecting" is something people into the occult often do. But the fact that the spirit can leave the body and go other places is something that God designed it to do, or it wouldn't be able to do. So though it is commonly associated with the occult, it is not evil by nature.
For example though I have had bad experiences with leaving my body, literally being buffeted by demons, I have also had another totally awesome experience. One night shortly before joining the Family I was dreaming when suddenly I saw a tongue of flame moving across the sky. It was one of those super-real dreams that occur only rarely, when everything was so vivid and "more than real". I looked up and cried out, "Jesus, Jesus" wanting to be with Him and suddenly....
It was no longer a dream. The dream ended and my spirit was pulled right out of my body into a heavenly plane. Physically I could sense that my spirit was hovering just below the ceiling of the room, but spiritually I had been immediately taken to these huge double-doors, arched at their tops, a gateway to heaven I believe. So much intense light was pouring out from behind the doors through the cracks that I could not even see the doors themselves. The light was brighter than anything I had ever seen in my life but it didn't hurt my eyes.
I was kneeling in front of the doors and I had a Bible open and began reading from it. My voice sounded like an incredible rushing of water. Then it was over. I closed the Bible and ZOOM, I was back in my body again, wide awake, very wide awake. And I knew instantly what passage I had been reading: "I knew a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven andheard words which it is not lawful for a man to utter....whether in the body or out, I cannot tell." (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)
In the 2 or 3 times I had bad experiences leaving my body, with angel's voices warning me, or with demons buffeting me, it was when I had tried to do it on my own. The one time God's Spirit transported me out of my body, I was up before what must have been a doorway into paradise. So though I'm no expert on the subject, that seems to me to be the difference.
About magic, that's another subject, but I wanted to answer this one right now.