THE VOID - Best/Most Corroborated Spiritual 'Place/State-Of-Being' (my article from 2018).

[Open Minded Dude]

In 2018, I wrote a kind of 'article' on my OBE-Board (it is not active so don't register there at the moment please) and then on my Blog. It was 'published' only on some spiritual websites mostly dealing with Astral Projection.

It is for me the most important topic but also the most disregarded one in spirituality in general. With THE VOID / 3-D-BLACKNESS (and many other names it goes by) we talk about sth that has 'to do' with the very BASIS of reality (and/or reality creation). Maybe it is a little too 'boring' but if you look at it closely or experience it you will realise it can be quite the opposite of boring.

Therefore IMV it is an important article and I thought that by now this information and topic should not be missing on Avalon either.


Problem is that I can only post the first chapter now, so the rest can be read on either of the two original links given below. There is a lot of formatting to do and paste&copy does not work properly or involves a lot of work (and yes, I admit I am lazy) and maybe there is also character restrictions per post (did not check though now).

Later on, I might copy and re-format the other Chapters each in differnet posts for better reading here too. It is probably worth it.

Anyway, if you read the rest externally (be warned: it is a really LOOONG article). It can of course be discussed then in this forum thread and you can add your own experiences with THE VOID which I would be interested in.


The below-mentioned problem with broken links which it heavily relies on is even stronger today, even the first one mentioned for the first quote does not exist anymore either on that URL. As said in the article, you can trust me that all of the quotes were accurately done then.

It has and relies on so many links because the statement of 'most/best' corroborated phenomenon was to be proven. Therefore many many 'witnesses' (from new or old experiencers) are quoted, some of them are famous authors and another chapter deals with all the internet forum posts in Astral Projection boards (some even don't exist anymore or will cease soon).

From all the accounts you will see that there is something 'behind' it because many people experience it. My own experiences and conclusions are added in a later chapter but should not bother you since we all have our own reality anyway.

Anyways. Have fun reading.



Table of content and first Chapter here and the rest can be found on one of these two links below:

https://out-of-body.boards.net/thread/26/void

https://astral-blog.weebly.com/blog/the-void

Start of original article
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THE VOID

Content

Part I - Introduction & Definitions
Part II - Authors, Experts, Researchers & Teachers
Part III - Internet Forums & Articles (Astral Projectors)
Part IV - My Personal Void Research
Part V - Conclusions & Outlook

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Part I - Introduction & Definitions

Not formed into anything
as regards characteristics or colour,
naturally void, is the very Reality,
the All-Good.
- The Tibetan Book Of The Dead

The Void or 3D-Blackness (as Out-of-body-pioneer Robert Monroe called it) is a place or state of being where Astral Projectors (APers) / Out-Of-Body Experiencers (OBErs), Near-Death-Experiencers (NDErs) and in rare cases even Regression Hypnosis Clients and Meditators can go.

To Astral Projectors it is often a 'stopover' or a gateway leading to many other realms and it is also often the transition phase between the physical and non-physical (astral) planes. It's a kind of buffer zone. It is also described and conceived as the primordial consciousness. It is probably even a part or expression of our 'Source' / 'God' / 'All That Is'. To Near Death Experiencers it can be more frightening and 'new' if they have had no prior experience with it.

In the Void you are normally 'body-less' with no or a 'kind of' blackened visual sense and usually your thinking capacity turned on fully lucid. However, despite the usual state of 'sense deprivation' different senses can be turned on or off, sometimes even at will. There are many variations possible. Actually all of them can be 'added'. You can hear sounds (talk and even music never heard before!), smell, communicate and even touch and feel things when floating in the Void.

This article will deal with both viewpoints (hub / bufferzone and 'Source' / primordial mind) which are not mutually exclusive, of course. However, there is even more to say about it and the following quotes from many different experiencers will make that very clear. Usually I will not make a distinction between the reports of NDErs and APers but the links will show where it comes from.

In Parts I,II and III I will not write too much myself but mostly just stick to a collection of quotes that often speak for themselves. With Part I here being the introduction, Part II is about what famous authors and experts have to say. I spoke to some of them myself via the internet (e-mail, pm, message board) and asked them for statements. Part III will be drawn from internet articles and mostly forums all around the world wide web and focus even more on astral projection. Part IV will describe my own experience and experiments with the Void. I will draw my conclusions in Part V.

A necessary note ahead on the fragility of internet links: The internet changes daily and we all know that links come and go and thus get 'broken'. This especially happened to all of my links I had gathered in 2017 from the 'Explorations In Consciousness'-forum founded by author Frank Aardema. Therefore you will not be able to get back to the original source although I still provide the links in the text. At this time only the start page would then appear with the message that the forum has been terminated. Maybe it will also vanish completely soon. However, I can vouch for the quotes' authenticity. Take my word for it that they are - except for occasional slight edits (e.g. omissions, shortening, paragraphs) - unchanged in their meaning from how I had copied them from the browser into a word processing document.

To begin with, I take this quote from the article "The Void and the Near-Death Experience'. It is very good although it lacks the perspective of Astral Projection entirely. Yet, for a start I can restrict myself to this description:

The general consensus among near-death testimonies is that the Void is a realm of complete and profound darkness - empty of everything except for the thought and emotional patterns of those who enter it. The Void is a perfect place for experiencers to examine themselves, contemplate their recent earth experience, and decide where they want to go next. For some experiencers, the Void is a beautiful and heavenly realm because, in the absence of all else, they are able to perfectly see the love and light within themselves. For other experiencers, the Void is a terrifying, confusing, horrible hell because, in the absence of everything, they are temporarily unable to see the love and light within themselves. For this reason, the Void also acts as a heavenly "Time Out" where the experiencer is forced to look within themselves. There is no judgment in the Void except the possibility of self-judgment - a harsher form of self-understanding. The Void has also been understood as a process of "ego death" where the "mask" of the personality is dissolved to allow the individuality of the soul to be experienced in relation to the Whole that is God. (...) For some souls, the time spent in the Void may feel like only a moment. For others, it may seem like eternity. This is because the nature of the Void is for contemplation. Once the soul is ready, the light appears and the tunnel takes them into higher realms. For souls who either refuse the light or have spent a lifetime ignoring the light within themselves, it may take what seems like an "eternity" before they are ready to move on.

www.near-death.com/science/research/void.html

The article also mentions the historical record in traditions, myths and religion.

The Void is known by many religious traditions by many different names. Some of them are: purgatory, hell, outer darkness, prison, Gehennom, She'ol, pit, abyss, an-nar, and Preta-Loka.

www.near-death.com/science/research/void.html

I am not a Scandinavian but I like listening to Nordic (Viking / Pagan) Folk music. So from there I know another name for the Void coming from Norse creation mythology. It is called 'Ginnungagap'. Since many lyrics are of a spiritual nature this term appears quite often in different songs and by different performers.

In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap ("gaping abyss", "yawning void") is the primordial void, mentioned in the Gylfaginning, the Eddaic text recording Norse cosmogony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginnungagap

Someone also made a nice graphic even calling it the 'dark void' on Pinterest (not added in here for copyright reasons):

www.pinterest.de/pin/534872893226452506/ (account needed to view)

Or gap Ginnunga du er, du var, du vert, du vinn, du veks!
Du vaknar! Du vaknar! Liv av kvar ein død, død av kvart eit liv.
Out of the gap of Ginnunga you are, you were, you become, you gain, you grow!
You awaken! You awaken! Life from every death, death from every life.
- Einar Selvik & Ivar Bjørnson (Song: Kvervandi)

However, this NDE and religious or mythological focus is not enough. This article is intended to also show it from another angle: The one that astral projectors have. Due to the 'voluntary' nature of AP and projecting to and then experiencing the Void you will notice a higher playfulness and with it - even more strikingly - almost always the complete absence of fear.

Some projectors even go there voluntarily because they seek the Void for pleasure, self-reflection and -experience as 'mind' or pure consciousness, relaxation or to be playing with it. Some seek information, even future information is possible. I also gather (so far preferably past) information (see Part IV) and use it as a hub for travel, but many other experiencers just seek to play with senses next to, before or even instead of using it as a springboard to 'teleport' to other planes and adventures.

Last not least, next to the AP viewpoint, another very important aspect and even main purpose of this article is the following:

Corroboration!

There is hardly any astral projector who has not come across The Void before, even most beginners know it. If many people from all over the world independently write about something you can be certain there is some truth in it, or even a lot! This is the very reason I gathered all the quotes and links about this topic. You will notice the commonalities and similarities among their accounts. I cannot even post all of the material and links I have found, so I am already restricting myself here. I could fill an entire book about what I found. A long book could, however, be a bit boring due to the repetitiveness of the experience descriptions by different people. Since I already left out material for this article even this long essay is still just an extract!

We all love lists. Therefore let me sum up in this introduction what we can already say about Void experiences. Many of these hypotheses will be touched upon in the following parts again.

Access/Experience Types:

1. Astral Projection / Out-Of-Body Experience / Phasing
2. Near Death Experience
3. Regression Hypnosis (In-Between-Lives, Higher Self Channelling)
4. Deep Meditation (Limited*)

* In my view, however, Meditation is in this case perhaps just another 'direct' induction method for an Astral Projection (especially of the so-called 'Phasing'-type which is a mainly visualisation- and meditation-based projection method), but this can be debated.

Void Types:

Three main types of the Void can be identified. Note that this can be a spectrum and that there are 'in-betweens'. Examples for all of these will be shown very clearly also in Part II and III with the expert statements and the many forum entries. So I am anticipating this a little, but I add it all to my introduction in order to show all the people without any Void experience how it 'looks' and 'feels' like or what I am talking about in general.

Here are in shorthand form the main categories of Void experience / perception. They are ordered according to their 'visibility' and dubbed in short as 'BLIND', 'SWIRLS' and 'WHITE':

(A) BLIND = "TOTAL (EXIT) BLINDNESS" - Sometimes also described as 'exit blindness' from the physical to astral, a usual problem for projectors who want to go 'somewhere', it's a completely dark Void but still with a 3D and a 'moving' weightless quality.

(B) SWIRLS = "DARK-GREY SWIRLS / TV-STATIC" - Darkness, floating, but often with stars or moving swirls or veils, or (grey-ish) smoke, the starfield is often described as 'pinpricks' or 'pinpoints of light' that are 'like space', background or general colour most often dark-greyish (in my case), sometimes entire galaxies of light spinning (side note: it is NOT outer space where APers of course also can go and quite often do!). Like Type A, there is 'deepness' to it (hence the '3D'tag added).

(C) WHITE = "WHITE VOID" - This is a rare case but it happens.

Below you will find two very rough visualisations of type (B), in my experience Type B is the most common type. Note this is just an approximation by example, it can still be very different from that. The link below the image contains a video / image from a commercial stock foto site that gives you an even better (and darker) impression of what it can be like if it is more of the star field type (B). Note again that the experience also ranges from individual to individual and can change from one moment to the other or from projection to projection, too. Yes, it can at times indeed be a bit similar to that kind of 'dark tv static' we know of. However, in my case, I also often see greyish-black-white swirls or smoke screens waving or sometimes turning galaxies of greyish light points on the black background. And there is also (wilful) colouring possible, but I will only get to this in Part IV, which is about my own experiments.



Possible Void Purposes / Usage:

1. Hub, springboard, gateway for entering astral planes, 'pre-OBE' state
2. Contemplation, meditation, self-realization
3. God/Source experience, 'going / feeling home' (?)
4. Information gathering, 'akashic' access (past, present, future)

Involuntary ('Accidental') Experiences:

1. Fearful 'trap' in complete or partial darkness during a Near Death Experience
2. 'Exit Blindness' (Type 2) by Astral Projectors who seek to overcome it because they actually want(ed) to go 'somewhere' on the physical / etheric plane or astral / mental planes

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- As said, you can find the other chapters on the links given above -
OMD/Sinera

[Open Minded Dude]

I will for reasons of reading convenience also add Parts II and III here since they are important for the corroboration purpose of the article - which is the best method in truthseeking in my view. Parts IV to V (personal experiments/experience and my conclusions) are not that important for this purpose and can then still be read on the links (given above) if wished for.

One quote from down below I repeat already up here because really like it:

From my vantage point, I can tell you that the light comes from the darkness. Not – again from my vantage point – to confuse darkness with evil or anything negative. It is simply that which contains light. And from my vantage point, that is the Source. There may be something beyond that, but that is what I see from where I am. The nothingness. And from the nothingness comes the light. And from the light comes the differentiation that we call the somethingness.
- Teresa

So here is Chapter II now (quite some format editing was to be done from the raw text, I might edit this later with corrections then):

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Part II - Authors, Experts, Researchers & Teachers

I do not introduce these well-known experts in this article. Many can be found with their books on Amazon or on their own websites. The exceptions are Frank Kepple and Nick Newport who were solely 'internet based' teachers although they are not active anymore today. Dolores Cannon is also an exception of another kind since she is not an astral projector or author on OBEs at all but a past life regression therapist. However, she has a whole chapter on The Void in one of her books. This in turn is a highly valuable source which gives us more corroborating information gained via regression hypnosis from her clients. It is so very interesting because it is coming from a completely different methodical source.

Tom Campbell

I asked Tom Campbell via PM on his MBT forum (https://www.my-big-toe.com/forums/) to make a short statement for my article and he kindly answered.

Sinera, The void is what is left after all your sense data disappears (you let go of the data-stream defining your so-called "physical" reality) and your mind is still (without thoughts of any sort). What you are left with is an awareness that you exist and nothing else. I call that state "point consciousness" because it appears as if you are a point of consciousness (awareness) floating in an infinite black void. Being able to attain point consciousness and remain undisturbed in that state as long as you wish is an excellent doorway (altered state) from which to effectively project your intent toward some end. Tom Campbell

Tom Campbell (via PM)

There's more on his forum and the MBT Wiki about it. The first quote is directly from his book.

Let's start with the most difficult concept first, the one that appears mystical from the PMR point of view. This concept assumes the existence of an apparently (not necessarily actual) infinite absolute something: A Oneness that is uniform, plain, and without differentiation. This apparently infinite source of our larger reality has no discernible boundaries, edges, or limits (as a perfectly calm ocean would appear to you if you were floating in the middle of it). This undifferentiated something would seem to be, and has often been called "All That Is," "The One," "The Void," "The Primordial Big Dude," {i. e., God, inserted for clarity in the present context.} and other similar philosophical descriptions. It represents the fundamental core of existence. It is a familiar concept to various religious and spiritual conceptualizations. An absolute no-thing, pervasive, yet exists beyond our space and time. It is simultaneously everything (in potential) and nothing (no-thing, no differentiation or boundaries).

https://wiki.my-big-toe.com/index.php?title=The_Void

Tom points out the difference of an 'astral' or mystical Void experience to a 'Void'(-like)-experience during meditation, which is not necessarily the same thing. Normally that kind of void is just the expression for being completely 'void of thoughs' by the art of stilling the mind via mediation. Yet, for very skilled practitioners of deep meditation it can happen that you access the 'real thing', probably also (or only?) by using meditation as a launchpad for astral projection (note: LCS = Larger Consciousness System / NPMR = Non-physical Matter Reality / VR = Virtual Reality):

In meditation, we seek to gradually turn off the chatter of our Internal Dialog, leaving us with only transient passing thoughts which we do not allow to engage our attention or perhaps to even totally remove this dialog for increasing lengths of time or to even have it cease for longer periods of hours. The purpose is the removal of 'noise' in order to let the 'signal' from the LCS reach our attention. That is in technical terms, to improve the signal to noise ration and thus allow the signal of LCS or NPMR contact to be more readily perceived. While this is sometimes referred to as accessing the Void state, it probably is not the actual Void unless one reaches the point of being able to maintain very deep states of meditation with internal silence for extended periods and specifically seeks to experience the Void. Then we apply our Intent to perhaps establish communication clearly with guidance or perhaps to request access to or contact with the Void. If one chooses the latter of these two options, the Void may be presented to us as described above by the LCS. The Void is something which we cannot 'see' or otherwise experience on our own. It is an experience which must be supplied to us by the LCS as it is not a VR experience but rather a special experience of direct apprehension and where we have no senses as no sense organs. So while we can access the Void during meditation, doing so is not the normal result and purpose of meditation.

https://wiki.my-big-toe.com/index.php?title=The_Void

In a forum post Tom also aligns the Void with his understanding of the term 'point consciousness' which is when you are just awareness and do not exist or move in a form or a 'body' (physical, astral, etc.). Although we will see in other examples below that point consciousness is not necessarily always used to describe The Void and The Void is not necessarily always point consciousness, this is certainly spot-on regarding the 'perfect' Void state where you are 'only awareness' and in meditation, self-reflection, contemplation or observer mode.

I am not familiar with what Bruce Moen calls the 3D Blackness but the name sort of fits -- I would like "dimensionless blackness" better but this experience is not about space or visual color. It is not so much that one experiences blackness as it is that one experiences nothing (the void) except their own existence. With no awareness of ANY input to or from any of your senses, it is like the ultimate sensory deprivation chamber. Nothing but an awareness of existing and being aware -- i.e., the pure experience of being conscious with absolutely nothing else going on. A point (no sense of dimension) of consciousness existing within the void.

www.my-big-toe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2848&p=4818#p4635

Robert Monroe

Robert Monroe coined many terms used by today's OBErs. Among them also was the expression '3D blackness' or 'velvety blackness'. On googlebooks I could not find a direct quote for this term but I remember it from reading the books myself.

It was not the blackness of a dark room, but a feeling of infinite distance and space, as if I were looking through a window into distant space.

Googlebooks: Journeys Ouf Of The Body

https://books.google.de/books?id=KNg...ckness&f=false

In the Void, your only source of stimulation will be your own thoughts.

www.near-death.com/science/research/void.html *

*Annotation: This quote is actually not 100% literal but derived from his technique description:

www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers/out-of-body-experiences.html

Frank Kepple

Frank Kepple was member and moderator of the Astral Pulse forums years ago. We need to make a little excursion to the Monroe Institute before we get to his vast research and his writings on The Void.

Kepple wrote a lot of influential posts on that forum since he was a skilled explorer himself. His initial approach was based on the Robert Monroe Focus Level model (see TMI) but then he developed his own simplified model out of it. The following given links and quotes in their order will be self-explanatory. Let's first examine the Monroe Focus Levels and then Kepple's system.

The Monroe Institute (here: TMI UK) on Monroe's levels:

The Focus levels are the awareness points that our consciousness can occuppy. The Void is not mentioned directly but it might be represented by or somewhere between Focus 15 and 21:

States of Consciousness and Focus™ Levels

As a result of extensive experiential and brainwave research at The MonroeInstitute, a simple system of labels (called Focus Levels) was devised to indicate various states or phases of consciousness. These labels are a means of neutral identification, and are used extensively as part of the training process throughout our weekend and week-long experiential programs.

Focus 1 – Normal, everyday waking consciousness. Completely in phase with physical matter reality. Also referred to as “C1 Consciousness”.

Focus 10 – The physical body is deeply relaxed while the mind remains conscious, awake and alert. “Mind awake, body asleep.”

Focus 11 – The Access Channel – the ultimate communication channel to all levels of awareness -mental, physical, and emotional. Opened during each Human Plus® exercise.

Focus 12 – A state of expanded awareness while the body remains deeply relaxed and asleep.

Focus 15 – A state of No-Time. Consciousness is now far removed from physical body signals. Linear time is no longer relevant to experience.

Focus 21 – On the very edge of perception of the time/space continuum. Mind remains fully conscious and active.

Focus 22 – On the border between time/space and non-physical states of being. Comatose.

Focus 23 – The condition in which an individual may find him or herself immediately following physical death.

Focus 24 – The site of non-physical activity generated by simple or primitive religious or cultural beliefs.

Focus 25 – The expression of the major organized religious beliefs in recent human history.

Focus 26 – Here are identified certain areas, few in number, containing the structures and knowledge of various highly individual religious and other beliefs based on direct experience of self.

(Focus Levels 24 to 26 are referred to as the Belief System Territories, and are explored extensively during the Lifeline program)

Focus 27 – The edge of human thought capacity. The site of a way-station (not a terminus) for rest and recovery from the trauma of physical death.

Focus 34/35 – The area of the Gathering. Beings from many other locations within the physical universe are gathered here to witness the upcoming Earth Changes. First mentioned in Bob Monroe’s second book, Far Journeys.

Focus 42 – I-There cluster consciousness.

Focus 49 – Sea of I-There clusters.

www.monroeinstituteuk.org/focus-levels/

Now let's have a look at Frank Kepple and his own comparison of his F1-F4 system to the Monroe model of reality:

So how does my model equate with Monroe's? Well, in most ways they sit very well together. My model can best be viewed as a simplified version of Monroe's, but with additional features which are due to discoveries made by me during the course of my explorations. For those familiar with Monroe's system of labels, here is a basic comparison as far as possible:
Monroe's Focus C1 = my Focus 1
Monroe Focus 3, 10, 12, 15 & 21 = my Focus 2
Monroe Focus 23, 24, 25, 26 & 27 = my Focus 3
Here the comparison ends, as my Focus 4 has no Monroe counterpart.

www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html

Frank was a skilled explorer of the non-physical planes or dimensions (4D/5D) and is held in high regard among the projector community. This collection (Frank Kepple Resource http://www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html ) as a merging of his posts from the Astral Pulse forums is excellent and an interesting read. It is a summary done by someone else compiling the forum posts. Frank Kepple vanished years ago (last post in 2005) and some speculate due to his then already known health problems that he might not be on this physical plane anymore.

So taken into account that this is a spectrum with lots of gradients this would be my own (rough) comparison with the often used 3/4/5-D model and also with the 'historical' (Eastern, Theosophical) 'planes/bodies' model:

F1 - physical plane - 3D
F2 - astral private / (lucid or unlucid) dream planes - 4 D
(Between F2+F3 (Focus Z) - The Void)
F3 - astral lower and higher / public planes - 4 or in part already 5 D ? (this is rather muddy)
F4 - mental (and higher, e.g. buddhic) planes / 'spiritual essence' (quote Kepple) / Higher Selves / or even 'Source'? - 5 D

Frank's posts on the Void regarding its 'place' in the system as well as using it as a transition / buffer zone between the Focus levels F2 and F3, he also called it 'Focus Z':

More on Monroe's FOCUS 21 state:

Those familiar with Monroe's model will be aware of the Focus 21 state. This state is also known by many astral explorers as the '3D Blackness' state. You know when you arrive at this state as the black field of vision in front of you becomes completely 3D and you find yourself floating freely within it, rather than just observing it in a 2D fashion. As you can see, it lies right at the top end of my Focus 2 and it borders on Focus 3. The 3D Blackness state, or Monroe's F21 is what can best be described as a bridge state. This state can be viewed as the point at which your individual mind meets the wider astral, i.e. the state where your individual Consciousness Continuum (FOCUS 2) meets the 'common area' of your Consciousness Continuum (FOCUS 3). It is the jumping off point for all adventures in Focus 3, or the Astral Proper as some people call it. I decided to use the label 'Focus Z' (as in Zero) to describe this state as it is unique in the Wider Reality and seems to deserve a label of its very own.

During the phasing process, people will pass through this state on their way to F3, but many people are unaware of it as they tend to flash through it so quickly. This is a shame since the FZ state is quite awesome in its own right. You can simply relax and float peacefully through the black void, just chilling out. Another thing you can do is to call forth any piece of music you care to think of and you will hear it all around you in glorious surround sound! You can also form 'astral windows' in this state, which will display any particular scene you care to think of in glorious high definition! You can use this as a jumping off point into F3 if you like: all you need to do is will yourself to step into the scene and there you go. There is likely to be plenty more to discover about the FZ state and further exploration is warranted.

www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html

Further down he goes on to describe historic explorers who got stuck in the Void entering it from their 'private astral' area (F2):

This is about as far as those olden-day inner explorers went. Some of them tried to venture “beyond” F2 but by and large they were captured by their superstitions when they came across the 3D Blackness or FZ area.
Getting lost or getting mutilated by some monster hidden in the dark recesses of 'The Void' was a big thing in those days. The tales of which would be filed alongside all manner of other scary “facts”, such as, if a person travelled at more than 15mph their physical body would fall apart. But these days the more forward-thinking practitioners realise this infamous Void of old is just an area of 3D Blackness situated between Focus 2 and Focus 3 of consciousness. To followers of the Monroe School,The Void is simply the 3D-Blackness at Focus 21. Simple as that. No superstitious nonsense getting in the way. Just place your Intent and away you go.
So when you “take off” into the 3D Blackness, you generally emerge within Focus 3 of consciousness, or what is becoming commonly known as the Transition Area, where you will come into contact with other people who are very real indeed, not just F2 'dream characters'.

www.astralpulse.com/frankkepple.html

Using a 'Venetian Blinds' metaphor, in this post Frank describes even in more detail how to navigate betwen F2 (dream area) and F3 (public astral planes) using the Void as the transit area. (This is not on the Resource page but another thread):

[K]nowing where you are at in the general scheme of things you want to then make another transition. What you need to find, if you can, is the 3D blackness, or the Void as mystics tend to call it. This is the “border” between Focus 2 and Focus 3 of consciousness. You should be able to “see through” your dreamscape and intertwined with it will be a kind of aperture. Remember, the Focus areas are not places. When you mentioned this word, you put it in double quotes so it looks like you realise this already. But I’m stressing it again here for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t yet picked this up.

(...)

[Y]ou need to “detune” your focus of attention from Focus 2. In a way, it’s like looking at one of those subliminal pictures that were all the rage a number of years ago. The ones where you apply a soft focus and the picture comes into view. Take the same idea and do this within Focus 2. What we are creating, in effect, is a highly controlled overlay experience. As you do this, you should start to see, like, slats with a blackness inbetween them. Imagine a large vertical Venetian blind that was in front of an identical Venetian blind. Each blind had a large picture painted over the slats. Imagine this picture being representative of you objectively viewing a focus area or focus of attention. Now fully close both blinds.

So now, you can see the whole picture of blind one and nothing of the picture painted on blind two behind it. Imagine the picture you can see now as your current dreamscape, i.e. Focus 2. Imagine the picture painted over the slats of the blind behind as Focus 3. Now slowly open the first blind and turn the slats through 45 degrees. At which point you can still see the picture but it’s broken up. Now the picture is interspersed with the picture on the slats of the blind behind it. The act of opening the blind is like “detuning” your focus of attention. This is what I mean when I say you should start to see “slats” with a blackness between them. You can still see your dreamscape but it is interspersed with the 3D-Blackness, which is the “border” between Focus 2 and Focus 3 of consciousness.

If you were to open the imaginary blind so the thin edge of each slat is now directly facing you, you would not be able to see the initial picture at all now. All you would see is the picture painted on the second blind, which takes up your full focus of attention.

Note: when this happens you don’t actually “travel” anywhere. You can if you want to. You can start “flying” around all over the place if you want to. But doing that just gets in the way of any kind of serious work. Now and again, it’s good to have a fly around. However, if you want to start making good inroads you must resist the urge to play around within Focus 2.

So “detune” your focus and when you see the slat-effect appear, keep your attention focused on the blackness between the slats. The slats should seem to turn wider open to the point where your previous dreamscape will fall away entirely. Now you will be standing on what feels like a precipice. It will feel like that “behind you” is where you have just “come from” and before you is the infamous Void, the bane of many a mystic, lol. But this is just the 3D-Blackness at Focus 21 of the Monroe model.

www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/how_can_i_leave_foc_2-t18538.0.html;msg160373;topicseen#msg160373

Dolores Cannon

This is the third experience type through which we can experience the Void besides Near Death Experience and Astral Projection (with Meditation being the 4th). The late Dolores Cannon was a famous regression hypnotherapist. She used it also for life-between-lives reports and 'channellings' of beings or the client's Higher Self. This example below seems to be of the latter kind.

Here we get an unmistakably clear description of The Void. It seems to be emanating from either Source or the Higher Self, or even be a representation of itself. Parts are sent out and come back 'home' to bring back life experience and enrich 'the whole', either as sparks from Source or as avatars of the Higher Self. This 'home' is at least visualised as The Void here very clearly.

It is an entire chapter that can be seen on Googlebooks. I will cite only a few parts of it but recommend to read it in full there or buy the book anyway. (Note: The mentioned 'cloud' is part of the hypnosis technique using it as a starting point for the regressed person to go to the place and time chosen by their Higher Self or as asked by the regressionist.)

Jenny came from Canada to have this session while I was in Ashtabula, Ohio in 2005, giving lectures and workshops. She thought this would be closer than coming to my office in Arkansas, and she was able to attend the lectures, also.

When Jenny came off the cloud, she was confused because there was a sense of nothingness. “There’s nothing. There’s black, and I don’t see any land. I feel that I’m in space. I’m not on any surface. I’m in, I guess, the void. I don’t even see stars of any kind. I guess I better mention what’s important: when I was on the cloud, I felt I was being accompanied by spacecraft, sort of like an honor guard of some sort. But now I’m in space, and I can’t see anything.”
(...)
I can be part of everything when I’m in the blackness. And then I can bring it back together to be a form. If I have a purpose or a task to do, I bring it to more of a form. And if not, then I become a part of everything again. I go back in and out.
(...)
It’s everything. Where I am is everything. It’s familiar. It’s not like I can define it as there’s a beginning and an end. There’s none of that. It’s just expansive. And it goes on forever in my mind’s eye. And I’m part of that. But there’s no, on some surface. It’s not a structure. It just goes on and on and on, like there’s no end to it. And yet I know I have a place in it. That form becomes a form of many.
(...)
Yes, there are many, many others. Let’s say there’s a whole view of different energy sparks, entities, whatever. And when I go into this place, I know where I belong as part of the Whole, but then we become the Whole. If I move out, there’s a space that’s there for me specifically. It’s not like the others won’t encroach on that space and fill it in, like it’s an empty spot. It’s as if I was a spaceship and was going into a mothership, and there’s – I don’t know what the wording is – my goodness. There’s a space like a docking area for that particular ship, let’s say, or you would know where to go and land. There would be that place for that ship. It’s something like that, only I’m a spark of light and these are other sparks of light. And they know where I belong and I know where they belong. They each have their own space within this bigger space. They merge, like we merge as one.
(...)

And yet we have the ability to individualize that particular consciousness, so that I can be an individual. And yet there are times of rest where you go back in there and it’s a loving thing. It’s beautiful. It’s safe, it’s calm, it’s like a resting time. But when it’s needed, I can come out of there and be individual.

(...)

I see that it’s a dark space. Not fearful of the dark, it’s just dark. And the only light is our light. It’s like having stars all over in the black sky, and those stars are individuals. Who, when they’re at rest, they know they’re individuals, but they become one and there’s nothing else. There is one loving mass, I guess, but yet you could see the individual stars, if you will, or sparks. It’s a comfortable feeling. It’s a loving feeling. It feels like home. It’s safe. And again, it’s like a resting place.
(...)
It’s like we all become a central mind, but yet we’re individual minds. I don’t know how to describe that. But when we’re one, there is direction out of our knowing, and the mere existence of who we are.
(...)
It’s a safe haven, really a very safe haven. We have to go out of that safe haven sometimes to places that are not very pleasing or very nice or very safe. But we have such love of that force, that we know we must go. And we’re willing to go to these unsafe places, because we don’t question the asking of whatever has to be done. We just have to trust.
(...)
It’s important that we forget, because in bringing whatever lesson or light into another existence – if we knew who we are, if we knew we could do certain things, or that it was only a temporary stay – that we’re there to do a task and go back, it would give a bias to what is happening. Because there are certain light codes that we give off when we’re in these places. So it would taint, it would bias what we’re bringing.
(...)
You’re more than that. In this thing that I see, you’re more than a soul. Maybe a soul is like a lower – I’m not trying to say “lower, upper.” It’s a different extension of this world. We’re almost like a star, like a sun is a star. So it’s like everything into one. It’s spiritual, it’s physical, it’s non-dimensional and dimensional. It’s everything rolled into one. And as you step down, different tasks are involved. You could be involved in creating something that are systems of physical places. But then you could step down really, really further, and you are an individual spark as a soul. And you go to certain places for a job. At the same time while you’re helping others, you’re also learning by accumulating information that you’ve learned there. So you take it back to the systems, to the world. And then again you go back to this place that’s like the loading dock. Like you’re part of the Whole.
(...)
[T]he knowledge that was acquired during that period of time of creation, of manifestation, is not lost. That’s a part of that entity. It’s a part of that individual spark, so it’s never lost. It’s part of you. So you go out now and create some more. And you go through that process again of learning. But yet it’s like something new, something fresh, and yet it’s something old.

https://books.google.de/books?id=NNy...q=Void&f=false

From another of her cases in the same chapter. This is a rare example of accessing the Void via meditation:

Teresa wanted to know what happened during an experience she had in February 2005. She was meditating when she suddenly found herself in a dark, formless place of nothingness, which she could only explain as the “void”. It was not frightening, instead, it gave her a great sense of enlightenment. When she returned to a conscious state, she tried to understand it logically, and it made no sense to her. The subconscious was explaining:
T: That was just an experience of being more in touch with some of these more refined levels, or other levels of consciousness. Dropping away the pictures without dropping away this particular body. I allowed her to have that experience. So it’s nothing else but to show her that it really is all one consciousness. And that experience of the void that she had is even going to a more elementary level of that consciousness. It is the nothingness out of which everything comes. Everything comes from that. That is infinite, and that is everything, at its most unrefined level. And as she had that experience, it would be natural for her to recognize that none of this is real. To see that, yes, on one level it is real, but from that level of the void, this is just near surface, just near hue, just a tint of color. Very little. That the real reality is the consciousness and is the base of the consciousness, the pure emptiness, the nothingness, from which all consciousness stems.
D: Is that nothingness comparable to the Source, or are those two different things?
T: It would be the Source.
D: Because I’ve heard the Source described as light.
T: It is the darkness from which the light comes. It is beyond the light.
D: People say when they return to the Source, or when they started at the Source, it is always a bright light.
T: From my vantage point, I can tell you that the light comes from the darkness. Not – again from my vantage point – to confuse darkness with evil or anything negative. It is simply that which contains light. And from my vantage point, that is the Source. There may be something beyond that, but that is what I see from where I am. The nothingness. And from the nothingness comes the light. And from the light comes the differentiation that we call the somethingness.

William Buhlman

I asked William Buhlman via E-mail to give a short statement for my article and he kindly answered.

Sinera, Hi.

I refer to three major types of environments in Adventures Beyond the Body, Chapter 3 page 95. "Natural (raw) energy environments are completely unformed areas of the universe that appear without a specific shape or form of any kind. These areas are often described as voids, empty space or featureless."

Best of luck on your project,

William

William Buhlman (via E-mail)

Kurt Leland

I asked Kurt Leland via E-mail to make a short statement for my article and he kindly answered. His answer highlights the Void's buffer zone aspect with regard to a more traditional angle. For Kurt the Void experience or state occurs by the shifting of one body to another and therefore with it from one plane to another since bodies correspond to their planes (e.g. physical body - physical plane / astral body - astral plane / mental body - mental plane). This makes sense to me, especially when we are including the 'disabled' chakras because according to Kurt it is the first chakra that roots you in a body / plane / reality while the 2nd in a 'space' / area. His answer is thus very interesting and really gives a different and unique but also highly valuable perspective.

I haven't used this word void because it is essentially meaningless. It's not the name of a distinct place or state of consciousness, though there are places and states of consciousness that can be experienced as void of content. In my opinion, an experience of voidness means only that the required inner senses aren't available to perceive the environment or state one is in. Often this is a result of shifting from one body to another in the aura (which is probably what you mean by phasing, another fancy but probably meaningless word). It's easy to move one's awareness between the bodies and then the question arises as to whether that body's senses are capable of perceiving the plane that body operates on. Sometimes the body is turned away from the plane and an experience of voidness occurs. Sometimes, as mentioned, the inner senses aren't sufficiently developed to perceive the plane, or even presence in a different body.

In theosophical literature there is a novel explanation of four states of consciousness described in ancient Sanskrit texts: waking, dreaming, deep and dreamless sleep, and samadhi or ecstasy. For most people, waking correlates to the physical body, dreaming to the astral body, dreamless sleep to the mental body, and samadhi to the causal body. The notion of samadhi is said to correspond to the highest body you have access to, but from which you can bring back no memory of experience, except the feeling of ecstasy. That would be what is called the void in the OBE literature you asked me about.

More advanced souls bump everything up a level: They're constantly awake in both the physical and astral realms, they dream in the mental body, experience dreamless sleep in the causal body, and samadhi in the buddhic body. Really advanced souls would experience waking consciousness in the physical, astral, and mental bodies, dreaming in the causal body, dreamless sleep in the buddhic body, and samadhi in the nirvanic body.

What creates the feeling of voidness is that only one or two chakras of the body in question are active:
First chakra gives the sense of being in a different body, but no sense of being in a space. The body may itself be perceived as a self-contained space; no beings, no possibility of movement. This would be one example of voidness.
Second chakra gives the sense of being in a different space or on a plane, but without perception of beings, and with no experience of movement. This would be a more expansive experience of voidness.
Third chakra provides movement.
Fourth chakra provides ability to perceive other beings and identify them through empathy.
Fifth chakra provides ability to communicate with other entities.
Sixth chakra coordinates all sense perceptions from other chakras into a coherent whole.
Seventh chakra dissolves the perceptual biases of a body and plane in preparation for shifting the focus of exploration and growth to the next higher body.

(...)

As far as your own practice is concerned, it's good to hang out in the voidness, since that gets you used to being in a body. A next step would be to hang out there and request help or training for movement within that body, working with teachers in that body, and so on. A series of simulations designed to develop the inner senses of that body might then show up.

Kurt Leland (via E-mail)

Robert Bruce

I asked Robert Bruce in his forum subboard 'Ask Robert' to give a short statement for my article and he kindly answered.

This place, if it can even be called that, called The Void, seems to be a dimensional area with no structure or content.

Because of the lack of information concerning this phenomenon, anything I might say is purely speculative.

I have found myself there a dozen or so times, but not for many years. It is quiet and dark and non threatening.

Astral projectors will occasionally find themselves in the void. They are aware that they are out of body, but that is all. There is zero sensory input. It is just very quiet and dark.

There is no sense of anything...no sense of whether the area you are in is vast or small and close. No sense of up or down. Nothing.

This can be likened to being in a dark float tank. Or, like being inside your mother's womb at night while she sleeps.

Total sensory deprivation. No sense of even having a body.

The void is completely non threatening. It is very peaceful there.

At times I have found myself there, I have been unable to project elsewhere, or even to deliberately return to my physical body.

The duration of void experiences vary, but time spent there is usually not very long....some minutes or so.

Void experiences are not usually frequent occurrences.

My best advice is to just relax and meditate and wait for it to end.

peace, robert

www.astraldynamics.com.au/showthread.php?19389-The-Void-3D-Blackness&p=147196#post147196

This is also from Robert, but reported indirectly from literature via member and moderator CFTraveler on his Forum Astraldynamics:

Robert talks about projecting into the void in Mastering Astral Projection. It's also known as 3-D black, 3-D white...It is a place in-between realms, a place of possibilities, and a starting point for an astral projection.
It usually is an experience of nothingness, but sometimes it can have 'stars' which become doorways, and sometimes it can be an experience of white nothingness.

CFTraveler on Astraldynamics

www.astraldynamics.com.au/showthread.php?6877-Black-Void&p=58529#post58529

Bruce Moen

This is from the late Bruce Moen's forum. He used a special 'phasing'-related technique to access the non-physical:

One of the shifts that I experience that I could call a telltale sign of phasing is what I call the 3D Blackness. With my eyes closed the flat, two-dimensional blackness before my eyes suddenly changes to a blackness with depth. As I recall Monroe used the term Velvety Blackness to describe his similar experience. One other telltale sign is the Flying Fuzzy Zone. While peering into the two-dimensional blackness I am suddenly seeing many (100) tiny pinpoints of light all randomly moving in tight spirals. The instant I realize what has happened high pop back out of that area of onsciousness. Of these two the 3D Blackness has been the most useful. More detail is given in the Guidebook but basically by peering into the depths of this 3D blackness small, generally circular or spiral discontinuities and the blackness will be noticed. By focusing attention upon one of these and intending to examine it more closely, or move toward it, interesting things happen. Typically, it would seem that shortly after I focused my attention on one of these discontinuities I would have the sense of moving toward it, and popping out on the other side of it within what ever reality or situation I had originally intended to explore.

https://afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-...num=1195540884

Fred Aardema

The first is an indirect quote (quote of a quote, if you will) out of his book 'Explorations In Consciousness' found on a website. This website 'Unworlding' will again be quoted from in Part III.

'To fully understand the void, it is important to realize that it does not only occur at the end of the transition process. Rather, the void constitutes a space of nothingness that exists in between all OBE environments. It is the invisible glue that permeates all conceivable environments you could possibly encounter.'

--Frederick Aardema, Explorations in Consciousness, p. 276

https://unworlding.com/whatsvoid

This is from him in a post of his own (now terminated) forum. He stresses the function of a 'buffer' or 'stopover' zone for travels in between dimensions / planes.

If you want a baseline to travel from, it is the void. It's not the same as a momentary state that people sometimes report during meditation. The void is the out of body state itself, completely free from physical limitations, but without having yet engaged with an environment. Cultivating that state is probably the best thing I have ever done in all my own activity.

www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-void-revisited.689/

Here are two quotes from different threads about the possibilities of senses (chakras?) turned on or off respectively:

It manifests in different ways. 1) 3D blackness with (non-physical) body awareness and tactile input is what happens when you're stumbling in dark and walking. This is the blindness people often complain about, since the visual has not yet engaged. What appears once the visual has engaged depends on expectation mostly - usually the bedroom if that's where the person was last. 2) 3D blackness with (non-physical) body awareness. This like floating in the void with a second body. 3) 3D blackness without (non-physical) body awareness. This like a black movie screen effect. It's all the same, it just depends on which faculties are operational or not. The less faculties, the better in general, in order to "get somewhere".

www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/forums/index.php?threads/meaning-of-the-void-and-frequencies.240/

I sometimes wonder whether it's really a "beginner's area", at least being able to remain in this state for prolonged period rather than rushing through it, since it really requires a lot of fine tuning and slowing down the transition process to a considerable extent in order to be able hit the void in an asomatic way without a second body. Even with no real body awareness, vibrations are quite likely, since body awareness is only just around the corner in the background. Btw...one can still float around in the void with a second body, which I occasionally end up doing when I forget to let go of non-physical body awareness during the transition. I prefer the mind-like experience though. Either way, it's quite a great thing, and like you you, I don't mind living there. Did you notice how crystal clear awareness is in the void? That's what I like about it.

www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/forums/index.php?threads/experiencing-the-void.213/

Nick Newport

Nick Newport is or was another internet teacher and expert. He had a nice YouTube channel and a course concept called 'Lucidology' on his website but there have been no more updates for years. It is always worth the time watching some of his old videos though.

www.youtube.com/user/LucidDreamTricks/featured

www.lucidology.com/

I cannot quote what he said about The Void directly since what I have is from non-published material from his 'Oversoul'-course. There he also treated the 'buffer zones' of the non-physical which touches on The Void:

How To Navigate The Nonphysical Planes Using Buffer Zones The nonphysical world has a very specific structure and you can use this knowledge to get around and explore much more easily

www.lucidology.com/oversoul/

From this material I can summarise in my own words that he talked about 'black and 'white' buffer zones which you can use in order to navigate between planes. In his experience the structure is as follows:

astral plane 1 <--> white buffer zone <---> black buffer zone <--> astral plane 2 <--> and so on

So Nick Newport experienced the black Void and the white Void used for navigation purposes between reality planes.

Of course, this succession is logical since anything turns more to light while you are in the black Void and enter a new reality, which you do with your intent and/or by activating your 'astral' body (By the way, in my view the most famous and effective method applied against 'exit blindness' and for entering a 'reality plane' is clapping or rubbing your astral hands).

A white zone would thus make sense. From my own experience however I cannot confirm or remember a specific all-white zone. For me it always is a kind of fading into the scene which first is dark and gradually gets more brighter and clearer the more I 'anchor' myself with techniques in this astral plane until I'm 'there' probaby at full daylight. It is like turning on a dimmer light gradually.

Newport also mentions that the Oversoul (hence the course name) or 'Higher Self' exists or can be visualised as a 'disk' or 'jelly fish' floating in the 'Black Void'.

The Higher Self visualisation concept of a 'Soul Disc' goes back to Bruce Moen, while the 'Jelly-Fish in Black Space' goes back to the author Val Valerian. While I have read two books by Bruce Moen I do not know Valerian's works. However, just take a look at the cover of one of his books and you can clearly see it illustrated as the jelly-fish in the Void / black space with 'dangling' incarnations / avatars 'below' it and the 'Source' above it:



Graham Nicholls

This is a transcript taken from this YouTube video 'What Does Astral Projection Feel Like'. I edited and adjusted it a little as readable text because it is automatically transcripted by YouTube's software from spoken language. He also describes the Void as a springboard for entering an astral plane or any out-of-body experience. In his view it is thus not (yet) part of the OBE, but a preliminary state.

(...) A void state is quite commonly described which is essentially like being in a kind of womb like state where you're conscious but only just. There's no visual dimension, there's no really complex thought. It's just like being in some kind of really deep meditational state and that can often then from lead to an out-of-body experience. Some people describe it as the first stage of their out-of-body experience but in most cases that I've worked with it happens prior to the out-of-body experience. (...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlNJdIiuUdg

Juergen Ziewe

Juergen Ziewe did not answer my e-mail request but I found something interesting on his website about 'Voids' he encountered in his travels and on another page an account with regard to the creation of the universe and the 'Big Bang' in relation to sound. (I will get to the issue of primordial sound vs. light in creation in Part V again).

Voids:
On some occasions other travellers, and I myself, have experienced traveling through voids or blackness. Whether these are actual environments or a product of our inability to tune into the new super-dimensional environment is not clear. Some people may argue that we create all the experience on the hoof so to speak and there could simply be an inability of our brains to generate the information quickly enough, (because of the unusual state it is in) to do so. I, personally, have experienced environments which were no more than empty spaces, with, for example, lights floating by or bands of colour until, when deepening my awareness or wakefulness, I have found some kind of environment emerging.

www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/Life_after_death_-_a_description_of_the_afterlife.html

I requested consciousness to be taken to the “Big Bang”. Suspended within a black void and in full waking consciousness I observed four sounds with their wave forms which influence and modified one another on feedback. A feedback of incredible harmonies and of increasing complexity, escalating and generating an almost infinite complexity of wave forms. At one point the experience became all too much for me and I returned to the relative comfort of my physical identity, but I figured that the feedback process may have reached such a high degree of intensity that it may have finally exploded into a “Big Bang”, but that I did not see.

www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/What_was_before_the_Big_Bang.html