Are Out-of-Body Experiences Sacrilegious?

What does the Bible say about OOBEs?

In research for my blog, I recently ran across a TV interview with a Christian pastor who was asked about OOBEs. I found his reply quite interesting in the way he separated what he considered to be “of God” and what was not.

He began by referring to several books of the Bible like Isaiah, Ezekiel and John’s Revelations. He spoke about the visions that these prophets had had and the fact that they seemed to have been in an out-of-body state when they received this information.

He referred more than once to the Revelations which is, of course, a visionary tale of epic proportions. But since there is no specific reference in the book to John’s state of “being”, so to speak, we can only assume that he was definitely in some sort of altered state of consciousness or awareness. In other words, he was in a special state of mind that allowed him to receive this information.

What is the Difference between an OOBE and Astral Travel?

The pastor went on to clearly state that those visionary states recounted in the Bible were out of body experiences. However, he just as clearly stated that those had nothing to do with astral projections although he didn’t explain what the differences were in his opinion.

When asked by the interviewer how to tell whether these experiences were “of God” or not, he replied that if it was a true OOBE then God would be present, and there would be angels as well. Any other experience would then, by default, not be “of God”.

This opens the very personal discussion of what God is and how we recognize when God is present in our lives, either in the body or out.

The Gateway Experience and God

This question will be on the minds of many people who are using The Gateway Experience for the first time. Anytime we begin to experience things that are outside our normal frame of reference, we want answers and want to understand what exactly we are doing. This is a natural, healthy reaction to exploration.

Robert A. Monroe, who probably had more experience with OOBEs than anyone else in recent history said that he often got the following question when people would begin either the in-house Gateway Voyage, or the at-home version, The Gateway Experience:

“Is God appearing when I ”see” a flood of light during an exercise?”

His answer was that perception of light indicates that your potential for non-physical awareness is developing. He went on to say that many “explorers’ will explain that phenomenon to themselves in religious terms. The Buddhist will “see” Buddah; the Moslem, Allah; and the Christian, Christ. He finished by saying that he, and his organization, did not endorse any particular interpretation or meaning, but that they encouraged each person to find their own.

So, I’d like to ask any readers of this article, especially those of you who have experience with The Gateway Experience, to answer this question at http://blog.thegatewayexperience.com for our other readers:

“Are the experiences you have had “of God”, or not?”