Lehal Library

producer usually puts to the job-seeking performer. He is listening to what he knows already, that the actor appeared in The Great One in 1922, starred in Who Goes There? in 1938, won the Critics Award for his lead in Nose to Nose, and in 1949 played the role of Willie in What Makes Willie Weep. The producer interrupts and puts the very simple question: “That’s great, but what have you done yesterday?” And so it is. What have I been doing (out of body) since the publication of Journeys Out of the Body? The answer I usually give is this: Beginning in the seventies, I began to experience a frustration, a limitation in my out-of-body activities. It is hard for some people to believe, I suppose, but such travels actually became boring. The early excitement had long passed. It became an effort to participate in controlled tests, and because it was an effort, I began to sense that the particular theme of “proof” was not part of my mode of operation. Moreover, when free of such testing limitations, there didn’t seem to be anything exciting to do. My deliberate inducement of the second state also became tedious because I had found a simpler way to achieve it. I would wake up after two or possibly three sleep cycles, or approximately after three or four hours, and find myself already relaxed physically, rested, and completely wide awake. In that state, I found it ridiculously easy to “unhook” and flow freely out of the body. This, of course, posed the question of what to do. Everyone else was asleep at three or fourthirty in the morning. There seemed nothing to be gained by going and meeting people while they were asleep, not any easy prospect for validation because of the hour. So with no particular goal or attraction, I usually would drift around a bit, then slip back in, turn on the light, read until I was sleepy again, and that was it. This compounded the frustration, as there was still the compulsion. All of the effort to work in the out-of-body state had to have some meaning or importance beyond what my conscious mind (or those of others) thought to be important. In the spring of 1972, a decision was made that provided the answer. The limiting factor was my conscious mind. Therefore, if