Astral Projection and OBE!

[tim_from_pa]

It should not be our concern to get caught up with the mechanisms or science behind this or any other phenomenon. It’s not that it isn’t allowed to know this, but our focus should be Christ. If He wants to take your spirit on a ride for awhile and leave your body in limbo for a sec then what is that to Him. To think it incapable just because you can’t understand it is no impedance to Him who created the parts. Also what of death? Does your spirit linger at your decomposing remains?
I will bend to agree with you on this thought: Maybe OBE experiences the spirit does not leave the body, but is still out there. That is not a contradiction necessarily, as in the spirit world there is no time or space as we know it.It this same "Einsteinian theology" that I use to explain the so-called contradicition of soul-sleeping vs. being immediately with the Lord at death. I believe we are immediately with the Lord at death, because in eternity there is no time. Here on this earth, we "sleep" until the resurrection so from the earthly point of view that person is not conscious. In other words, their spirit returns to God who gave it, and without life there is no soul. That person's gone until they are recreated. But yet, they presently exist in eternity with God. I also believe that free choice and predestination also coexists.Forgive me if I for a moment in time

looked at OBE from a physical location perspective. It's the body in time and space that dictates that.

 

[PilgrimLostInTraffic]

(BearingChristaHammer;32607)
Well I don't exactly understand what you find curious or contradicting of these statements in context to everything else I've said?
I never said contradicting. I honestly had no comment to make, but thanks for the clarification.(BearingChristaHammer;32607)
Is there something telling you that there has to be a meaning behind your experiences, obviously not from the content of the experiences themselves but from you personally?
Yes. I'm a scientist by training and by trade (which may also explain to you why I found the above to be curious). You might say that God has made me, among other weird tendencies, to be insatiably curious. I look for meaning in everything, and consider this drive to be a gift from God.The way I see the world, all human experience can be categorized into two categories:[list type=decimal][*]"Natural", and hence explainable by science, and[*]"Supernatural", and hence given by God who does not need to work in what we can observe in physical reality.[/list]I don't think there's really any subject in the card catalog that escapes my interest in the first category. In this realm, I look for meaning and generally I find it.For the second one, I don't know what I can't know. I believe I've witnessed miracles, which I cannot explain and choose not to try. I'm just thankful and keep moving. Generally, the meaning is made very clear, however.So, when I have an experience that I don't know how to place into either of those categories, and seems completely meaningless, I get the heebie-jeebies. If this is not a God-given experience, then it is natural. And yet these kinds of experiences are hallmarks of what one might term witchcraft. Now, this suggests that either it *isn't* a necessarily evil thing in and of itself, or else that there is a large moral gray area between the natural and the supernatural.If the latter is true, then this raises a number of very large theological questions with immedate practical implications. It postulates the existence of a gray area, but does not demark its boundaries. Do some of these boundaries lie within mainstream science? Could it be that scientists are truly studying some things that really and truly should not be studied? If so, how can I understand where this boundary is, in order not to cross it?Or could it be that the natural boundaries are further out and that this is subject really is a permissible thing to study? Once upon a time, not so long ago in historical terms, the study of anaesthesia was strongly considered anathema to many different churches. The idea was, if God didn't want you to have pain during childbirth or amputation, or whatever else, you wouldn't have it. If there is any remnant of this theological argument that survives to this day I'm not aware of it.As a typical male of the species, I deeply dislike asking for directions unless I'm really, really lost. But on the other hand, I don't expect anyone on this forum, or any mere human for that matter, to offer real, definitive answers to these questions. I do doubt however that I'm the first person to try to tackle these, and I'm just looking for what others might have already thought on the subject, from a Christian perspective.Apologies to josh55plus. I didn't realize that the Bentley book you recommended was written from a Christian perspective, I had thought it was one of the many esoteric, almost "druidic", spiritualist books out there like I used to read. This is exactly the sort of pointer I was looking for, so thanks!