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How to Help the Newly Departed (Pt. 1)

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Nocturnal OBEBelieve it or not, you can be of assistance to those who have recently died.

This three-part series explores the nocturnal out-of-body experience (OBE), how you can help the departed during sleep, and ways to help them while you’re awake.

Part 1 of 3

The Nocturnal OBE

When we sleep, our souls leave our bodies to experience adventures on what is called the astral plane. This first of three posts reveals:

  • Whom we can help
  • What part of us leaves the body during sleep
  • Where we go when we are sleeping
  • What happens when someone dies
  • Where departed souls go

Note: Much material for this article comes from Robert Crookall’s research results published in During Sleep (1974).

Whom We Help While We Sleep

Many people, especially those who are psychically sensitive, can help the following types of individuals during their sleeping hours:

  • Other living people
  • Those who are dying
  • Those who have just died (the “newly dead”)
  • Earthbound spirits (the dead who cling to the earthly plane instead of advancing into the higher spiritual realms)

What Part of Us Leaves the Body?

Human beings are the union of spirit with matter.

Our non-physical form consists of energetic layers that can separate from the physical shell during sleep (also during waking OBEs and near-death experiences).

These are the layers, starting with the physical body at the bottom:Energetic Bodies

Just as your physical body contains all of the energetic layers, each successive layer or body contains the higher bodies (kind of like those nesting Russian matryoshka dolls).

Your etheric body energizes and maintains your physical body, but it is not a vehicle of consciousness. Therefore, if your etheric body separates from your physical body, your out-of-body travel will be limited to the etheric realm, which is closest to earth. If so, what you see on this plane will be cloudy and dim. In this realm are the newly dead, who have vacated their physical bodies but are still ensheathed in their etheric vehicles.

Why We Don’t Remember Our Sleep Travels

The astral body (soul) is our primary vehicle of consciousness. But when it is out of the body, we usually don’t remember what we experience. This is because they are soul-body activities.

During sleep, it is possible that you have visited the spheres whilst your physical body lay dormant. Temporarily released from four-dimensional captivity, you have enjoyed, for a while, the companionship of your beloved. Alas, upon awakening, the remembrance of the astral experience has failed to register. … But the spirit, the larger personality does not forget.
—Sylvia Barbanell, When a Child Dies

To remember our astral travels during our waking hours, they must somehow pass through the brain of the physical body. Crookall states that the experiences that we observe in the body pass through our physical brain, and these we can remember both during our waking hours and when our soul is out of our body.

What we experience while out of the body our soul may remember, but our brains naturally cannot. This is why dreams (memories of astral travel) often fade soon after waking.

To remember your nocturnal soul travels, make the habit of setting your intention to recall them as you are falling asleep.

Note: Metaphysical magician W. E. Butler explains in The Magician: His Training and Work, that “To remember, or ‘bring through’ the recollection of an astral plane activity, it is necessary to so work upon the etheric body, that a certain amount of its substance vibrates in harmony with our astral consciousness. When this has been done, then it is possible to induce in the physical brain some memory of what has been seen and done on the inner planes, though since inner plane experiences are not of the material order, it will be found almost impossible to bring through a full realisation of such experiences; the essence will usually escape us.”

Where We Go When We Leave the Body During Sleep

The seven spiritual bodies of the human being roughly correspond to the spiritual planes of existence. (For a diagram of these realms, see “Where Do We Go When We Die?”) The physical or material world, corresponding to the physical body, is encased in the etheric realm, which pertains to the etheric body.

When our higher form leaves our physical and etheric bodies behind (during sleep, a waking OBE, an NDE, or at death), we enter the astral realm.

What Happens When We Die

The typical events that happen when we die are outlined in “What Happens When You Die.”

When the physical body dies, the energetic bodies are released. Sometimes the soul (astral) and higher bodies remain contained within the etheric body. This ensheathment could last for a few hours or a few days.

During this time, psychically sensitive persons may glimpse the newly dead in their etheric body. From the point of view of the dead, the spirit world looks hazy, and they are unable to progress into the astral realm until they shed the etheric vehicle. When they do, the discarded etheric body decays and its atoms dissolve into the etheric realm for use elsewhere.

During and after the process of death, spirit helpers are present to help transition new arrivals into the astral realm.

Where the Soul Ends Up

If the soul led an exceedingly negative life or formed unhealthy attachments to the earth plane, its activities, or its inhabitants, it may find itself in the lower astral realms. Some may get stuck in the lower realms because of misconceptions about the afterlife or because they refuse help from guides who do not meet their expectations.

If these individuals are able to work through their issues and misguided beliefs, let go of negativity and material attachments, and receive the assistance of the higher beings sent to help them, they may progress to the higher astral realms. This is called “going toward the light.”

Most souls find themselves in the mid astral planes. But those individuals who seem to have lost their way or are for some reason unable to go higher need help to adjust to the afterlife and make progress in the astral planes.

This is where you come in. You can help them while you sleep.

In our next installment, we’ll discover how to help the departed while we’re sleeping.



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