How Astral Projection Was a Witness

I’ve just read “The Second Coming of the New Age,” by Steven Bancarz and Josh Peck.  There is a section on Astral Projection experiences by Josh Peck that is fascinating and I would like to share with you.  By sharing it I do not mean to glorify it, but to consider it an evangelistic tool, as you will see. 

His consistent level of detail and his turnaround to Christian witness that I’ve heard elsewhere and read here suggests strongly that he is telling the truth.  The story aims to prove one thing, if nothing else:  We all have souls.  Souls are immortal.  At death, Scripturally, the soul separates from the body and experiences heaven or hell.  On the negative side, as Scripture tells us in Luke 16, souls can feel pain, thirst, and torture.  Let me share some of Mr. Peck’s story.  Caution:  This was experienced before he became a Christian.  He would not do it now.

The authors begin by telling us that Paul, in Scripture, might have experienced this phenomenon of soul separating from body.  In II Corinthians 12, Paul describes a vision of being “caught up” to the third heaven. “Whether in the body, or out of the body, I do not know.”  This might have been his soul leaving his body—while still healthy.  If that is the case, keep in mind that he was an apostle writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot expect the same result, as all Scripture is already written.  We would be just dabbling at some other goal that the Holy Spirit would not have us be a part of.  Scripture tells us to never mess with the occult.  Anyway, with Paul’s experience, we might today call it an OBE, or out-of-body experience.  (Not a NDE, near-death experience).  Many people, relating the latter experiences, were on the verge of death, but with medical help, came back to life.  Both groups mostly speak of positive things, suggesting heaven.  But their description of heaven is often non-Scriptural.  Actually, Scripture testifies that most people when they die don’t go to heaven, according to Matthew 7:13, 14:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.¹⁴Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

 So their positive experiences were probably not a prelude of where they go when they die.  That’s an easy assumption that people make.  As you see by the Scripture, their minds were deceived.   The problem is, in an OBE, you have opened yourself up to influence by spirits from another dimension; Scripturally, and from experience, these things truly exist.  And evil entities are placing deceiving thoughts into the practitioner’s mind, in almost all cases.  Believers in the occult call the deceivers “trickster entities” or “negative astral entities.”  Christians call them demons. 

Now those who want these experiences, it’s possible for them to learn how to float on an astral plane, in another dimension, without getting on the verge of death.  Followers of occult practices tell us there are ways to protect ourselves against attacks.  They tell us not to fear, since fear attracts the evil entities.  That the demons can only do to us what we allow them to do.  All lies, says Bancarz.  Besides his astral plane experience, the real truth of the results from such experimentation can even be learned by online testimonies.  The internet is filled with the agonies of those who have been tormented by demons after an astral plane experience—their mind and their body--during regular life—if one fails to reverence the entities when he or she is called upon to do so on the astral plane.  Thus, you can have negative astral experiences against your will, despite “protective” measures.  And, to top it off, while one’s soul is outside their body, an opening is created, and that’s when other demons can enter the body or soul and torment them.  Perhaps that’s why it says in Matthew 12:43-45:

 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he (ed., the unclean spirit) goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. ⁴⁴ Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty… ⁴⁵ Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

This torment really has no end, outside of Jesus Christ.

Bancarz has found the following happenings:  demons pose as “spirit guides;” demons disguise themselves as someone significant in someone’s life—a romantic partner, or someone you hurt before they died, all to remind someone of guilt. And, demons can do bodily harm; like paralyzing them against their will.  Mr. Bancarz tells you that if you, after dabbling with deep meditation or occult, ever experience astral projection, you should “tell the first astral being you see, ‘I rebuke you in Jesus’ name…I command you, in Jesus’ name, to leave me alone.”  It will save you a world of hurt, as you will see by Mr. Peck’s ultimately horrifying experience, as we will now finally tell.

Mr. Peck tells us that he was a Baptist as a child, but had a serious interest in the supernatural.  This is because he heard voices in his room and saw a monster in his backyard.  (Maybe he could trace these things back to his mother, as we will see.)   Between 12 and 18, he suffered sleep paralysis almost weekly—that means that at night, he was fully awake, yet unable to move, along with being scared out of his wits by negative auditory and visual “hallucinations,” or contact with evil spirits.  He saw a hooded figure open the door, etc.  Imagine experiencing all that as a child.  Even after he moved out of the house, the sleep paralysis never quit.  His mother and his pastor had no answers (but he learned later that she experienced it too—she never talked about her dealings with the paranormal).  A “spiritual” friend told him that he might defeat the demons attacking him in sleep paralysis if he could learn astral projection and come face to face with them, and convince them to quit. He thought he would give it a try.  Through reading, he learned how to do certain meditation practices, etc, and suddenly he was into it.  It started as a lifting out of the body, a floating vision of current reality, including moving to other floors of apartments, seeing and hearing other people’s activities that you wouldn’t be able to see from where his body still was.  He had a perfect remembrance of his friends’ conversation in another room, and he remembered everything  that happened once he was back into his body.  By the way, he had no control of when his soul left his body, its movements, or when it decided to go back to his body. He did gain more control of where he traveled later. 

He decided to test that this was not a hallucination by asking his friends what their conversation was about.  (He wouldn’t have been able to hear it from where his body was).  They related the same details that he heard when he was out of his body and his soul was near them.  That’s verification that it wasn’t a nightmare or hallucination (he never took drugs, except to try to help him sleep).

But he learned, over time, with more astral experiences, that this was not helping his sleep paralysis problem—he couldn’t confront these entities since he never saw any to talk to. He had heard that it was possible.  But for him, he only saw real people.  But it was a trip. But he needed help:  He was experiencing sleep paralysis two or three times a week now.  But he was hooked on New Age astral projection, so he kept playing with it.  He could not convince anyone of the reality of his experiences; so he noted, later, that he felt superior to them.  He also felt himself getting more selfish and untrustworthy.  Real life became dull for him.  He didn’t care about anything that wasn’t related to New Age.  His goal was to meet a being from the astral plane, hopefully a “spirit guide.” Some were even called “angels.”  New Agers like to use Biblical words—interpreted their way—to explain their beliefs to one who had a Christian exposure.  All this he kept a secret from family and most friends.  Mr. Peck even tried to write about how New Age was confirmed in Christianity, but a mysterious “circumstance” erased all of his months of computer notes.  Discouraged, he abandoned that idea. 

By this time he was married and had a child.  On what would become his last astral experience, evidently the head demon over him (he felt he was always under observation) gave him what he wanted—lots of entities were around him. Some looked human, others looked monstrous.  He had no fear, and asked a question to open up to the idea to get them to quit tormenting him.  They ignored the question, and asked lots of questions about him.  This would presumably enable them to deceive him better later.  Then one of the entities told him “if I ever wanted help leaving my body, I could ask them to help me.”  Then he was back in his body.  Later, he was unsuccessful in his efforts to leave his body again, and he remembered their offer to help. They made sure they were now inaccessible unless he did their bidding.   But he couldn’t do it, because to ask them was really praying; it would really be praying to something that wasn’t God.  So he was willing to close his life to them.  Unbeknownst to him, this was a crucial decision.

“That was when all hell broke loose,” he wrote.  Everyone living in his trailer began experiencing horrifying manifestations of things otherworldly. They all began having sleep paralysis—every night.  This time, the images were gnarled, twisted, dark, and hate-filled.  His one-year-old daughter was screaming with night terror. They heard explosion-like crashes in the bathroom. The atheist roommate began seeing glowing orbs shoot into the bedroom.  (She soon lost her atheism.)  They all began sleeping on the living room floor at night.  Even during the day, they heard angry whispering voices out in the yard.  Mr. Peck finally saw that the “angels” were really demons.  Peck finally confessed to his wife his history of contact with spiritual powers, including the fateful last one.  He couldn’t seek outside help, since all psychiatrists would put a non-spiritual name on it and lock him away or give him strong pills.  In desperation, he called on Jesus for help—which he had never done before.  

Only a couple days later, he channel-surfed on his TV and saw L.A. Marzulli answering Biblically about aliens.  Marzulli had himself come out of New Age to Christianity, and related some facts about spiritual warfare.  Josh saw this as a partial answer to prayer, and Peck and his wife rededicated themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and renounced New Age theology.  Getting Marzulli’s web address, he actually wrote to this busy man, and Marzulli actually responded—and gave him more help—and the result was God’s grace.  With Jesus’ help, He and his family never had another demonic experience again. 

Now I would like to tell of a short story that was originally researched by Dr. Gary Habermas, a Doctor of Philosophy, a college professor, and a well-known Christian apologist.  This man knows how to research, and he interviewed all the people involved.  The story is related by Chris Putnam (also a researcher and writer of some great books) in a Skywatch TV episode.  He is relating how some NDEs (near-death experiences) are verifiable fact (though most NDEs are what the demons want you to see and which you pass on).  We have a possible example of that verifiability above, in how Peck was able to determine that his friends’ conversations were the same as what he heard under astral projection.  But the problem was, he never told his friends, or anybody, what he had found.  The lack of good witnesses make it unverifiable to a secularist.  But the story, if Josh is a consistent Christian, is verifiable.

Putnam relates the Habermas story, as follows:   A migrant worker, Maria, is wheeled into a hospital in Seattle, flatlining of a heart attack. She had never been to Seattle before.  After she was revived, and she had never been out of the hospital, she told the social worker who came to talk to her, how she left her body and floated out of the hospital and up several floors.  And, she said, by the way, on the ledge of the third floor outside, there is a red shoe.  It has a hole in the corner of the pinky toe. And she told other details.  Though they didn’t believe her, she finally talked the social worker to go and look for it.  With some help, the social worker found it—exactly as described.  What’s noteworthy here is that the shoe was positioned in a way that it couldn’t be seen from the ground—it was behind a brick mass.  The hole in the toe was almost in a gutter, and could not be seen—except by someone floating near and above it.  

All of this came to my mind (I believe God put it there) after I tried to evangelize our next door neighbor.  I told of my belief in an afterlife.  He told of his belief—he would die and be six feet under, and that was it.  I was taken aback and stumbled for words after that (most everyone says they’re going to heaven), except to say that the Bible is God’s Word and says otherwise.  But you know people—they don’t want to hear that Scripture is God’s Word; they want “real facts.”  (I mean, look at all of our denominations.  The unbeliever would say; if Scripture was His Word, wouldn’t it have clarity, and not be subject to so many interpretations?  Another blog someday, I guess.)   Of course, they could still write off Dr. Habermas, Josh Peck, the migrant worker, and the social worker--as all conspirators and con artists.  That doesn’t sound rational, though, since none of them knew one another before this event.

Now I have some proof to share to my neighbors, outside the Bible, about how we all have souls—in fact, we’re embodied souls—and I could go on, and tell how the soul has a place, decided by God, as to where we spend eternity.  We are accountable to God, and need to find His plan for salvation from Hell--I have many blogs on that subject.  By the way, Scripture also teaches that later our new perfect bodies join our souls in heaven--for those going there.

Acknowledgements:  Skywatch TV and the book “The Second Coming of the New Age,” by Peck and Bancarz