In preparation for an upcoming move from the house where we’ve lived for 18 years, we’ve been going through our massive collection of thousands of books, packing some for the move and turning others over to the library or Goodwill. The process has also provided an opportunity to rediscover books we’ve forgotten about, and others that we didn’t even know we had.
One such example of the latter is a book called Projections of the Consciousness: A Diary of Out-of-Body Experiences, by Waldo Vieira. Vieira is a Brazilian and this book was published in Portuguese in the mid-1980s. An English edition came out in 1995. The author was the founder of an organization he created in 1988 called the International Institute of Projectiology, based in Rio de Janiero. The institute apparently still exists with a broader title to include consciousness studies, in general. Vieira, who died in 2015, was a dentist, doctor, and also a spiritist—the Brazilian take on spiritualism—and rallied other physicians and scientists to his organization. He wrote more than a dozen books on the paranormal.
My first impression of the book by reading the flap and the back cover and flipping through it was that the text is incredibly detailed in describing Vieira’s theory and methods and his stories.
I opened it at random one recent evening after returning from my meditation workshop. What I read startled me. Of all the stories in this book, why that one? I wondered. It relates to the very question that I’ve been thinking and writing about regarding OBEs in recent months. It’s the theme of a novella, called Spinning Out, that will soon appear with a collection of short stories that Trish and I wrote called OUTLIERS.
The issue in question is whether or not it is possible to manipulate physical matter while out of body. We’ve written here about Wesley Meeks, who is security director of a hospital in Texas and a former police officer, who contends that he indeed has affected physical matter while out of body. In fact, he has regrets about one particular instance involving a waitress in a bar. I adapted that story in Spinning Out.
So what does Vieira say about manipulating matter while OBE? Keep in mind that, at this writing, this passage is the only thing I’ve read in the book. The diary entry is dated November 1, 1979. After a few preliminary notes, he begins describing the experience this way: “I became aware that I was projected as I left the apartment with the target idea of finding a place with switches in order to try switching lights off and on.”
He goes on to say, “As soon as I had the idea, a resounding clarification echoed close by, as if it were inside my head. It addressed the fact that when we think, we create. I heard: ‘There is a difference between physical objects and the creations of your mind. This bag of toys, for example, is a mental creation.’”
Vieira writes that a bag appeared and seemed to be full of toys. He was told he could pick it up and throw it and the sound it made when it hit the floor would also be created in his mind. He did so and when it hit the cement floor, it made a “tap sound.” The voice then assured him that the physical objects he see are real and that he was seeing them from outside of his physical body.
At that point, Vieira decided to move elsewhere and an instant later he saw a wide door near a dimly lit street. He went through the door and found himself on another street, next to a large warehouse similar to those in the dock area of Rio de Janeiro. “Now gliding and totally lucid, I discovered a few light switches in the dark warehouse. As I neared them, I again hear the explanation:
“‘You think that you switched the light on. It seems to you as though you have, but you really haven’t. Try to observe: what you think of happens, because the will desired it to be so. But the will is only able to affect the extraphysical dimension that you are in right now and not the intraphysical dimension that you are seeing and are appearing to touch, but are really not affecting.’”
Vieira goes on to say that everything the voice predicted came true. When he attempted to move the switches, he firmly felt the movement of the switches on the wall. “It seemed that I had touched and switched them all into the on position; however, the lights did not turn on. The action had merely been simulated.”
Finally, the voice said: “Do not concern yourself with moving physical objects. In order to do that, you would need to expend a lot more of your energies, while your extraphysical body is in a much denser state.”
Vieira’s story certainly muddies the waters regarding OBEs, which usually focus on travels in the physical world, and lucid dreaming, where you seem awake while dreaming but are in a dream world. Vieira’s experience seems to bridge the two. In doing so, it also questions the nature of any experience where matter is manipulated while in the out-of-body dreamers state.
Could Wesley Meeks have been visiting an imaginary bar while in a lucid dream during his experience in which he moved matter to the surprise of a waitress? The problem with that assessment is that Wesley later found that bar while awake and in his body, and he says it looked the same as when he was out of body.
Some time ago, I e-mailed Nancy McMoneagle, the director of the Monroe Institute that studies OBEs and offers visitor the opportunity to explore such experiences through the late Robert Monroe’s system. I asked Nancy if she had heard of examples of people moving physical objects while out of body. She said she only knew of one example. Robert Monroe once pinched his wife on the arm while he was out of body. She not only felt it, but a slight bruise latter appeared at the spot.
So, the true nature of OBEs remains a mystery. How much is imagination and how much can we impact the world while traveling out of body?
I’ve meandered through deep ponderings of these queries about the”Births” into existence of All That Is for quite a long time,, and the limitations of my finite mind simply remain in stasis. Has Everything always been? Was there a moment when there was Nothing? And if there was Nothing, How did that Nothing Become Something? Of course there are myriad schools of thought regarding this. With Christians, it is God. With certain scientists, the Big Bang Theory. But if a God, who begot that God? If the Big Bang, who or What created the Big Bang? I can’t give credence to either of these. My mind can’t wrap around the various hypotheses that “explain” creating Something out of the Nothing. For me, it’s a valid conundrum that even the likes of the late Stephen Hawking couldn’t access, and he was probably the most brilliant mind EVER existing in a human body. In fact, he was ONLY Mind, expressing from a lifeless body long dead from ALS . (By no means would I ever dare to try to understand Hawking’s
infinite knowledge!)
bh, tea, not coffee, and definitely via emails if you would be on board with that ? Unfortunately I am making a journey through the challenges of Parkinson’s Disease, which hasn’t in any manner affected my abilities to THINK….as a matter of fact, these abilities seem to be increasing as my body continues to lose the battle , and I’m on NO medications that impair my mental state. I would be very interested in discussing with you certain information taught to me by my Dad; would like to hear your ideas in that regard, among other matters and issues. Your comments are compelling for me and bring ‘new’ ideas for me to ponder. Trish and Rob have my email address if you’d like to have it. Between us, perhaps we might be able to unravel at least a bit of the Mysteries of Life….and Death…..of Beginnings and Endings….of Alpha and Omega…..
of Something and Nothing………….
BH can send a note through the contact form on the blog and I can send your email, CJ.
Beautiful, Nancy. Through the decades of my spiritual journey and search for answers and wisdom from many sources, it’s become an aspect of my spiritual core convictions that when we permanently sever the umbilical that keeps us corporeal, our Souls move into whatever dimension (and there infinite dimensions) that is appropriate. In my personal experience, there have been discarnates who visit briefly then no more, and there are discarnates who are “ON CALL” and when I call out to them, they do come.
I also seem to have a “group” of discarnates who guide specific areas of my life here, and some who bring others to assist. From time to time, one may offer me an identifiable message that is totally unfamiliar to me and that I must research as a means of comprehension and knowing who the person is. As an example, my Mother amd Father in this life, both deceased, had a very loving marriage. Dad died at age
42, Mom at age 63. For whatever reasons of their individual Souls, they do not occupy the same After-Earth dimension. This has been made undeniably clear to me, but not the reasons, and the reasons are not essential for me to know, only that they are not
‘together’.
I have a question relative to comments by bh in yesterday’s blog post, and he may have
similar questions. Does anyone, besides me, ever wonder HOW, WHY, WHEN, the multiple universes were born into existence? I do not believe in the “GOD” created
All That Is. I DO wonder about the Beginning of All That Is, and HOW it happened.
Has it always been? If so, HOW? If not, HOW? A genuine brain teaser, this.
CJ, lately I’ve been leaning more and more toward the simulation hypothesis when it comes to the nature of the universe/multiverse/whatever.
Briefly summarized, it goes like this: given the current state of computer simulation technology and how far it has come in the last 40 years (think of today’s virtual reality computer games compared to what was available in 1980 or so – Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc), consider where that technology will be a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, ten thousand years from now, and so on. It is easy to imagine computer simulations in the distant future so realistic and detailed as to be completely indistinguishable from reality. And if you believe that this technology will eventually exist, then imagine an infinite future in which an infinite number of such simulations will run. What is the probability that we are currently living in the one “real” universe, and not one of the infinite number of simulated ones? Mathematically, the probability approaches zero.
You and I might even be real, but the reality we occupy could be completely simulated (think brain in a jar being fed electrical stimuli). We might even be able to interact with others (other brains in jars) living in the same simulated universe. Or we could all be completely simulated, with all our thoughts, feelings, emotions, everything that makes us “us”, generated by a computer.
It is an interesting theory, and fun to ponder. I’m far from ready to say I’m certain of it, but I am leaning more and more in that direction.
Fascinating, BH. Doesn’t this come back to The Matrix? I suspect if you and CJ sat down over coffee, the conversation might well be endless. A simulation?
Kind of like The Matrix, but with less Keanu Reeves.
CJ, you available for coffee? 🙂
You come up with the most evocative questions and musings, CJ.
Interesting. Before my husband passed I read him a passage from a book that I was reading that stated we could communicate after death. He was not able to respond at that point, but I told him not to worry, we could still talk after he was gone. I meant it as a light-hearted statement that I hoped he would take as “humor” on my part. However, a few weeks after he passed I had a weird thing happen. I had just received a little kitten from my brother and had gone to sleep with the kitten and with the door to my bedroom closed as my brother and his wife were still visiting. I have a king-size platform bed with big drawers on three sides. I woke up to find the drawer under my side of the bed wide open! It takes some effort to open, and I could not have stepped over it to get in bed, nor could the kitten open that big drawer. So my question – who opened the drawer? At the same time the light bulb quit working in the lamp on that side of the bed. I really felt it was my husband trying to communicate (this was long before the text message on my I-Phone.) Was he letting me know you can still manipulate matter when you die? As an aside, I have not “felt” his presence for quite some time. I’m beginning to think they hang around for a while, but eventually move on after death.
Fascinating! Maybe Rich drops in for visits, then is on to his next afterlife adventure. Have always wondered about that. Keep us posted, Nancy!