Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Body of Light Projection
Build a vivid imagined double of yourself (‘the Body of Light’) standing apart from the physical body, then deliberately shift the sense of ‘I am here’ into that double, as a trained step-by-step approach to out-of-body practice.
Body of Light Projection: Relax deeply with rhythmic breath and a preliminary energising. Build a vivid double of yourself standing apart from your body; hold it steady. Feel it as you — then transfer your awareness into it so you perceive from its standpoint. Move briefly, with control. Then bring the double back, re-merge, draw awareness fully home, and ground. Formulate the double, inhabit it, return cleanly.
What it is
This is Denning & Phillips’s structured, build-the-double-first method of astral projection from their Practical Guide to Astral Projection (1979). Rather than waiting passively for spontaneous separation, you deliberately construct a “Body of Light” — a vivid, detailed imagined replica of yourself, formed standing a little apart from (often in front of) your physical body — and then, through trained, graded practice, transfer the centre of your awareness into that double so that “I am here” relocates into the Body of Light.
The whole approach treats imagination as the trained vehicle: you first learn to formulate and sustain the simulacrum reliably, then learn to inhabit it. It is preceded by their preliminary energising (the Rousing of the Citadels) and rhythmic-breath relaxation.
The Method
A faithful summary of Denning & Phillips’s graded approach (short attributed phrases only; their book teaches it over many staged exercises):
- Prepare the state. Settle deeply: rhythmic breathing, full relaxation, and a preliminary energising/centring (their Rousing of the Citadels) to reach a calm, charged, absorbed condition.
- Formulate the Body of Light. Build, in imagination, a clear simulacrum of yourself — a luminous or substantial double — standing a short distance away (commonly facing you or just before you). Construct it deliberately: shape, posture, detail, until it is steady and vivid. Early practice is simply getting good at holding this image.
- Vitalise and identify with it. Feel the double as yourself — your identity, your “I”, out there in that form, not merely a picture you are looking at. The shift from “I see a double” to “that is me” is the crux.
- Transfer awareness into it. Deliberately move the sense of being-located from the physical body into the Body of Light: see from its eyes, feel as it, so the room is now perceived from the double’s standpoint. They drill this transfer gradually; it is learned, not forced in one leap.
- Move and explore, briefly and with control. Once awareness is established in the Body of Light, practise simple, controlled movement and observation. Keep early outings short and deliberate.
- Return, re-merge, and ground. Bring the Body of Light back to coincide with the physical body, draw awareness fully home, then ground (settle the light/energy to the feet and earth) and re-orient before resuming ordinary activity. A clean return is part of the discipline. (Sourcing note: a faithful, compressed summary of Denning & Phillips’s staged method; the term “Body of Light” and the formulate-then-transfer structure are theirs, attributed; descriptions are paraphrase, not reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips, senior officers of the Aurum Solis, wrote the Llewellyn Practical Guide to Astral Projection (1979) to give home practitioners a disciplined, step-by-step Western-magical protocol for out-of-body practice.
The “Body of Light” as a deliberately formulated vehicle of consciousness is a Golden Dawn / Hermetic concept (the trained imaginal double that the magician projects), which they systematised for a mass audience.
The Traditions' versions
Out-of-body practice is taught many ways; Denning & Phillips are distinctive in building and inhabiting a formulated double rather than inducing separation from the sleeping body: - Monroe / Bruce systematised OBE — vibrational-state and “rope” exit techniques that detach awareness from the relaxed body, rather than constructing a double first.
- Muldoon’s dream-of-action projection — using a planned dream/will-to-move to draw the double out.
- Rampa’s astral-swing release — a rocking/swinging release of the astral form.
- Buhlman’s affirmation/target method — intention-and-affirmation aimed at a target location.
- Ziewe’s stabilising and exploring the OBE — once out, holding and deepening the state.
- Tibetan dream/illusory-body yoga — the disciplined cultivation of an illusory body, a deep parallel.
Common refinements
Skipping the build-up. The double must be formulated and held reliably before transfer is attempted; rushing to “project” produces only frustration.
- Watching the double instead of becoming it. The decisive move is the identity shift — “that is me“ — not admiring an image from the physical body.
- Forcing / straining. Tension blocks the absorbed state; the transfer is allowed and trained, not muscled.
- Practising sleep-deprived or distressed. This invites fear, sleep-paralysis-like states, and poor control; practise rested and calm.
- No clean return. Always re-merge, draw awareness fully home, and ground; a sloppy return leaves disorientation.
- Chasing dramatic results. Steady short sessions build the skill; spectacular expectations breed disappointment and over-reaching.