CHAPTER 8 ACCESSINg ThE ASTRAl WITh A MONITOR AND MOUSE ESOTERIC RElIgION AND ThE ASTRAl lOCATED IN ThREE-DIMENSIONAl VIRTUAl REAlMS John L. Crow During the new moon every month, at a pre-determined time, a worldwide group of occultists astrally meet at Moonbase Temple located under the surface at the centre of the visible part of the moon. Here each participant performs individual rituals in the astral temple, while working with the agreed-upon word of power and sigil. After the ceremony, each participant records his or her experiences, and these are distributed among the group for comparison.1 According to Margaret Ingalls, who uses the pseudonym of Soror Nema and coordinates these ceremonies, there is a relecting pool at the centre of the temple with the Earth centred in it sending all positive energy from the rites back to the planet. When asked if she could see others in the temple when present, she said she could not distinguish individuals but often could feel their presence.2 Ingalls’s description of astral travel is typical within occultism and can be traced back to the techniques and experiences recorded by individuals in such nineteenth-century groups as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the heosophical Society. During these astral travel episodes, the individual imaginatively leaves her or his physical body and travels to places in this world or another dimension. he travellers claim that their inner selves travel into an imaginative environment generally accessible only to themselves. Here they encounter various entities, objects, and structures with which they can interact. In 1895, prominent heosophist and clairvoyant, Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) published he Astral Plane, which described the various sceneries, phenomena, and human and non-human inhabitants one might encounter in the astral environment.3 Within the Hermetic Order of 1. Ingalls, “he Evolution of Maat Magick”, 181. 2. Telephone interview by author, 22 September 2006. 3. Leadbeater, he Astral Plane. 159 JOHN L . CROW the Golden Dawn, a nineteenth-century initiatory occult organization, travelling or “descrying” on the astral plane was an important activity an initiate was required to master in order to “obtain a clear idea of the relation of Man to the Universe, and to the spiritual planes”.4 hese notions of the astral and the abilities and techniques to travel in it were adopted by many occultists, such as Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) and Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), and transmitted into the twentieth century. By the mid- to late twentieth century these ideas and techniques were difused and incorporated into numerous groups and esoteric religions, the most prominent being New Age and neopaganism. With the emergence of computer technology, and the Internet speciically, various groups of people began to transfer the imaginative quality of the astral environment to cyberspace, and language that was previously used to refer to the astral was now used to describe cyber realms. Some of the earliest references to the Internet as the astral plane can be found in the work of Erik Davis, a self-described culture critic. In “Technopagans”, published in Wired in 1995, Davis interviewed Mark Pesce, a computer programmer and neopagan, about his understanding of the Internet. Pesce notes that “Both cyberspace and magical space are purely manifest in the imagination. … Both spaces are entirely constructed by your thoughts and beliefs.”5 Indeed, even the essay’s subtitle, “May the Astral be Reborn in Cyberspace”, denoted the ideological transference of occultism’s astral plane to cyberspace. Yet there were still signiicant impediments to cyberspace becoming just like the astral plane as described by nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultists. One was that text and static images on web pages still required the individual to look at the content and then imaginatively construct the “cyberastral” with their imaginations. he Internet was simply a way to deliver the content, but the person still had to imaginatively assemble it to bring the cyberastral realm alive. his process signiicantly changed with the emergence of three-dimensional graphical representation on the Internet. Another problem was the physical body. What happened to one’s body while in the astral? his question similarly occupied nineteenth-century occultists. Yet contemporary practitioners in the cyberastral have found new ways to deal with this question, or signiicantly adapted older solutions. he newest three-dimensional virtual worlds do provide the possibility to convincingly represent a cyberastral world, and some esoteric religious practitioners are using these worlds as places to practice their religion. One of these virtual environments is a computer system called Second Life. More than just seeing Second Life as an alternative place for communicating with others in virtual reality, some esoteric religious practitioners understand it to actually be the astral world. hat is, they see no substantive diference between an 4. King, Astral Projections, Ritual Magic, and Alchemy, 75. 5. Erik Davis, “Technopagans”. 160 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE imaginary astral plane described by the early occultists and the Second Life computer system itself. Moreover, this cyberastral environment has an added beneit that the astral environments visited by nineteenth-century occultists lacked: one can travel to the cyberastral and communicate with others while doing so. hus the transfer of ideas about the astral plane to cyberspace and the development of sophisticated three-dimensional virtual worlds has led to the emergence of a particularly new type of astral plane, one that is imaginative, embodied, computer generated, and most importantly, social. ThE EMERgENCE OF ThE ASTRAl PlANE AND NOTIONS OF ThE SElF WIThIN IT To understand why these changes in the perception of the astral are signiicant, it is useful to briely trace the philosophical and practical history of the astral and its connection to evolving notions of the self. he idea of an astral plane as a distinct realm emerged during the late nineteenth century. It was made possible by a convergence of concepts about the cosmos and notions of the self and its relationship to the body. In particular it was the closing of the divide between this world and the next and the emergence of the bifurcated self, a notion of the self understood as being separable from the body. Notions of other worlds have existed from ancient times. Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas posited various dualistic cosmologies where the material body was a lesser copy or emanation of the soul just as the material world was a lesser version of the transcendent. A recurring concern of these thinkers was that the body could somehow injure the soul. In turn, salvation depended on disciplining and reining the body, making it a proper vehicle for the soul.6 Underlying all these cosmologies was the notion that there was a distant source, the place where the soul originated, that was separate, diferent, and generally superior to the material world. With the emergence of Christianity, a new understanding of the relationship between the body and soul developed as did man’s relationship to the transcendent. A “productive tension between immanence and transcendence” arose where various communities manifested this tension in their personal and communal practices.7 Christianity’s history includes a number of theologians, such as Augustine and Paul, who wrestled with the way the soul related to the body, building on the previous Greco-Roman ideas and incorporating new understandings of the soul–body relationship. Implicit in these debates was the relationship of this world with the next. What was the 6. Vásquez, More than Belief, 24. Modern, usually psychological notions of the self as being distinct from the soul, which is associated with theological claims, are not relected in the distant past. hus in this section there is a necessary ambiguity and interchangeability between the terms “soul” and “self ”. 7. Ibid., 29. 161 JOHN L . CROW role of Christ? How was salvation attained? What part of the self was immortal and what was not? Where did the immortal part of the person go when it left this world? During the Middle Ages the soul was fully integrated with the body, “bound to sensations, emotions, reasoning and identity”.8 Not surprisingly, it was this time that the supernatural was often claimed to be penetrating this world, manifesting angels, miracles, demons, and devils. As Europe emerged out of the Middle Ages, philosophical and theological distinctions binding the soul to the body were weakened. Concordant with this separating of the body and soul was the view that the natural world allowed direct access to the transcendent. By the sixteenth century igures such as John Dee (1527–c.1609) and Edward Kelly (1555–97) used a crystal ball, prayers and magic to contact angels in higher realms, bridging the divide between this world and the other, and making it experienceable, in part, while remaining physically embodied.9 In the eighteenth century, Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) claimed to have repeatedly travelled to other worlds through visions, and described the inhabitants and scenery in naturalistic language. Connected to Swedenborgianism,10 modern Spiritualism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, in which mediums claimed the ability to contact the dead lingering on “the other side”. he barriers and distance between the other world and this world had minimized so much that the two were nearly identical. According to the mediums, the self on the other side looked exactly like the physical body, often carrying with it race, gender and age.11 Whereas in Greco-Roman cosmologies the body was a lesser copy of the soul, by the nineteenth century this had become inverted and the soul in the next world resembled its body in this world. Despite the brevity of the previous chronology, the most important aspect to the history of the astral plane is how, over time, otherworldliness became completely accessible while embodied and how its nature changed to resemble the material world. By the end of the nineteenth century, occultists like Leadbeater could assert that the astral plane is an “absolute reality” and that “the objects and inhabitants of the astral plane are real in exactly the same way as our bodies”.12 However, this was not the only way the astral plane was understood. For members of the Golden Dawn, for example, it existed symbolically, structured according to elaborate systems of correspondences. 8. Ibid., 31. 9. For an overview of the activity of John Dee and Edward Kelley, see Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels. 10. J. Arthur Hill, Spiritualism, 228. 11. McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past, 66–93. McGarry documents how Spiritualist mediums saw Native Americans in the other world as retaining their race and cultural roles, to the point where they described the hunting and gathering practices of Indians in the other world, and the need to convert them and civilize them, also projecting Euro-American colonial aspirations. 12. Leadbeater, he Astral Plane, 3. 162 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE Nevertheless, they, like the clairvoyants in the heosophical Society and the Spiritualist mediums, all saw the astral as closely connected to the material word; a place that could be entered through a variety of techniques whereby they would individually leave this world, temporarily leaving behind materiality and their bodies. To leave the physical body behind and enter another world required a certain conceptual understanding of the self. hroughout history humanity has come to understand the self in a variety of ways. Signiicant for our understanding of the astral plane was the sense of self that emerged from Cartesian dualism. he sense of self coming out of Christianity, especially Pauline Christianity, is one in which the self is internal and personal. his changed with the philosophy of René Descartes (1596–1650), which identiied the mind with consciousness and self-awareness. Mind was then placed in contradistinction to the body (and, in particular, to the brain). Manuel Vásquez writes that Paul’s elevation of inner faith and spirituality as signs of the authentic selfhood will interact with Greco-Roman anti-materialist tendencies, feeding into Western thought via Agustine, who, in turn, inspired Descartes’s less ambivalent mind-versus-body and spiritversus-matter dualisms.13 his resulted in a dualism whereby the individual’s sense of self, one’s “consciousness”, was understood to be distinctly separate from the body in which it resided. “hat the thinking thing is not only diferent from the extra-world and the body, but that it is autonomous, that it does not need material reality to exist.”14 Within esoteric traditions, Cartesianism combined with already existing esoteric models of the self. As mentioned before, Neoplatonic ideas understood the physical body as separate from the soul. Bridging this divide is what Wouter Hanegraaf describes as “subtle bodies”.15 hese subtle bodies, their divisions, enumeration, and constitution difer from tradition to tradition, but are often found mediating or constituting parts of a person. For instance many Jewish Kabbalists understood the soul to be divided into four parts that, when combined, formed the whole person. Historian Julie Hall traces numerous threads, including Neoplatonism, Egyptian cosmologies, Kabbalah, Paracelsianism, Spiritualism, and more that contributed to the synthesis which manifested in heosophical understandings of the self and world.16 his evocative amalgam of esoteric representation of the self and its relationship to the body and the world combined with nineteenth-century notions of the 13. 14. 15. 16. Vásquez, More than Belief, 29. Ibid., 38. Hanegraaf, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 221–3. Hall, “he Saptaparna”, 11–24. 163 JOHN L . CROW self which was connected to the spiritual and emotional, creating a “true” or “authentic” self.17 his spiritual self was seen as able to directly connect with the transcendent. he result was the creation of a double-self, or simply “the double” as it was frequently called in heosophical circles, which caused individuals to identify the self as both mind (subject) and body (object) simultaneously. As John Corrigan notes, “[t]he irresistible logic of each of the two compelling views of the self – a spiritual and emotional subject as opposed to embodied, mechanical object – in the end required that the self be both”.18 hus the notion of the double self combined with a view of the other world as accessible in this world while still possessing a body allowed occultists of the nineteenth century to imaginatively leave their physical bodies behind. In this way they could travel in an astral environment that was similar to the material world, but also transcend the limits imposed by materiality and the body. ThE TEChNIQUES, EMbODIMENT AND PhYSICAl STATES OF ASTRAl TRAVEl In general, there were two types of astral travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. he irst was when the individual left his or her body and travelled in the astral level of the material world, either in terms of the present, but also in the past and future. For the purposes of this chapter, I shall label this type of astral travel “geo-temporal astral travel”. he other kind is where the individual travelled in a world very diferent from the material one; an environment controlled by symbols and symbolic correspondences rather than natural laws. I label this type of astral travel “symbolic astral travel”. Two examples of these kinds of astral travel can be found in the heosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn respectively. While both groups engaged in each type of astral travel, the members of the heosophical Society were more concerned with issues regarding the astral and its relation to the material world. In contrast, the members of the Golden Dawn understood their astral travel experiences as part of a magical and initiatory context where travelling on the astral plane helped develop a deeper understanding of the self and the universe. While heosophical literature has many examples of astral travel, the recorded experiences of two prominent members are illustrative. First, William Quan Judge (1851–1896) headed the US branch of the society until his death in 1896. he other is Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934), who, next to the co-founder of the society, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831– 1891), was one of the most proliic occultists to develop heosophical doctrine. Within the heosophical conception of the world, the astral plane was 17. Corrigan, Business of the Heart, 3; Russett, Sexual Science, 197. 18. Corrigan, Business of the Heart, 3. 164 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE simply another dimension of the physical world, but one not controlled by the ordinary laws of physics. When the double travelled, it travelled in the astral dimension of the physical world. Yet the two were so close that when the double left the physical body it could see the material world as if it was looking at it while embodied. hose in the material world could also see the double, which generally looked like the physical body, including clothing. Moreover, in the early years of the society, astral travelling (or “liberating the double”, as it was called) was seen as the highest possible achievement in magic.19 When Judge gave a lecture in 1876 about his experiments with astral projection, published in the May 1877 issue of Psychische Studien, it was given within this context.20 He describes the experiments he had performed up until that time, and in each of these Judge’s body is left behind, usually sleeping, but his double roams freely. He describes one instance as follows: One evening I lay down in Madame Blavatsky’s, intending to try to see if I could get out of my body. he bystanders said that in a few minutes I snored very loudly, but with me it was totally diferent. I could notice no break of unconsciousness, nor a moment of sleepiness. It seemed to me as though I was awake and standing up to out into the hall, and that a handkerchief lay over my eyes just as I had placed it when lying down. An efort to throw of the obstacle was unsuccessful, and so I went out into the hall down which I thought to go to see my body in the kitchen, and there I threw of the handkerchief through a mighty efort – whereupon I immediately again found myself where I had laid myself down, in the laughter of those watching who had heard my unmusical snoring.21 In another example Judge not only roams free from his body but his double can be seen by others. He states “that while my body was snoring, my double, or simulacrum, scin lecca, or whatever you might call it, which is a visible exact replica of me, could be seen as it went down the way to the kitchen”.22 In both examples his body slept, unconscious of his surroundings, while his double roamed the halls freely. Judge’s descriptions of his geo-temporal astral travel are similar to those attributed to Leadbeater. In 1909 Leadbeater met Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895– 1986), and claimed that through his clairvoyance he could see that one day Krishnamurti would be the next world teacher.23 Leadbeater claimed to have astrally travelled back in time to view the past lives of Krishnamurti, and these 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Deveney, Astral Projection or Liberation of the Double, 17. For the text of the lecture, see Deveny, “An Unpublished Lecture by W. Q. Judge”. Ibid., 15. Ibid. See Jayakar, Krishnamurti, particularly chapter two. 165 JOHN L . CROW accounts were subsequently published as he Lives of Alcyone in the society’s journal, he heosophist, beginning in 1910. In 1947, Earnest Wood (1883– 1965), Leadbeater’s assistant, published a small pamphlet which described the ways in which Leadbeater travelled astrally. Wood’s irst example describes Leadbeater as being suddenly contacted on the astral regarding an emergency. In response Leadbeater told Wood, “[c]all me if I am not back in ten minutes”. He then went to sleep. Upon awakening Leadbeater described how he had assisted some astral “boys” preventing a person from committing suicide.24 Another time Wood was assisting Leadbeater with a project when the latter suddenly “slip[ped] out of his body apparently unintentionally” and seemed “fast asleep with his eyes closed”. However, within minutes Leadbeater awoke, claiming that while he seemed asleep he was still dictating to Wood. hus Leadbeater was forced to “go over the missing portion again”.25 hese examples of geo-temporal astral travel demonstrate that, according to the heosophists involved, it was an activity the double partook in while the physical body was asleep. Moreover, the double could travel in this world, being visible or invisible, and in the present as well as forward and backward in time.26 Geo-temporal astral travel also allowed the astral traveller to see others and at times interact with them in limited ways. his form of astral travel differed signiicantly from the symbolic astral travel undertaken by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Unlike the heosophists mentioned above, the symbolic astral travel was experienced while awake. he Golden Dawn’s internal organizational instructions, called “Flying Rolls”, give detailed instructions as to how to interact with the astral as well as examples of what one should experience. he Golden Dawn divided their astral work into three types: Descrying in the Spirit Vision, Astral Projection, and Rising on the Planes.27 his section will briely focus on one example where a member entered a symbolic astral environment using a tarot card as a portal. he narrative of this astral experience, an example of Descrying in the Spirit Vision, was given in Flying Roll No. IV. In it two female Golden Dawn initiates, Soror SSDD (Florence Farr Emery, 1860–1917) and Soror Fidelis (Elaine Simpson), describe the process of entering the astral plane. First, the traveller is to enter a room and sit still meditating for a period of time. hen preliminary magical rituals are performed, a tarot trump to astrally explore is chosen, and then the card is studied. After a while this studying can be continued with 24. Wood, Clairvoyant Investigations, 8. 25. Ibid., 11. 26. Wood also describes the events in which Leadbeater travelled forward in time describing the upcoming sixth root-race in which humans had evolved to be very diferent creatures than they are today. hese results were published as Leadbeater & Besant, he Beginnings of the Sixth Root Race (1931). 27. King, Astral Projections, Ritual Magic, and Alchemy, 76 166 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE the eyes closed. At the point where the member feels “a state of reverie” she imaginatively steps into the tarot card and begins symbolic astral travel. he initial part of an example is as follows: he Tarot Trump, the Empress was taken; placed before the persons and contemplated upon, spiritualized, heightened in coloring, puriied in design and idealized. In vibratory manner pronounced Daleth. hen, in spirit, saw a greenish blue distant landscape, suggestive of the mediaeval tapestry. Efort to ascend was then made; rising on the planes seemed to pass up through clouds and then appeared a pale green landscape and in its midst a gothic temple of ghostly outlines marked with light. Approached it and found the temple gained in deiniteness and was concrete, and seemed a solid structure. … Opposite the entrance perceived a cross with three bars and a dove upon it; and beside this, were steps leading forwards into the dark, by a dark passage. Here was met a beautiful green dragon, who moved aside, meaning no harm, and the spirit vision passed on. Turning a corner … there appeared a woman of heroic proportions, clothed in green with a jewelled girdle, crown of stars on her head, in her hand a sceptre of gold, having at one apex a lustrously white closed lotus lower; in her left hand an orb bearing a cross. She also had a shield with a dove upon it. She smiled proudly, and as the human spirit sought her name, replied: I am the mighty Mother Isis; most powerful of all the worlds, I am she who ights not, but is always victorious.28 he vision continues for some time, ending with a message of universal love, a theme attributed to the Empress Tarot card. With the presence of a dragon and the Egyptian goddess Isis, symbolic astral travel operates in an environment not connected directly with the physical world but rather in a fantastic or mythical one. It is an imaginary world where individuals can ly and encounter myriad entities, including angels, monsters, gods and goddesses. While the realm may seem completely dreamlike and plastic, this was not how it was understood by occultists. hese symbolic astral realms have rules and laws. Certain actions, rituals, and words brought from the physical world obtain great efects in the astral. Moreover, these realms are bounded by a complex set of symbolic correspondences. hese limits predetermined the experience of the astral. Nevertheless, symbolic astral travel was generally practiced individually with results frequently being recorded afterwards. 28. Ibid., 72. 167 JOHN L . CROW RElIgIOSITY IN ThE ASTRAl AND ThE INTERNET Before continuing the examination of the cyberastral plane, it is necessary to take a moment to follow the trajectory of religious development in the late twentieth century. Two important factors need to be explicated. he irst is the transference of astral travel to a larger cultural and religious context. he second is the emergence of religious activity online. Much has been written about the 1960s and the occult revival, where nineteenth-century occultism was combined with an emergence of neopaganism and the incorporation of Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism. Notions of the astral were part of this cluster of ideas and were gradually difused into a larger religious context. Within neopaganism, the astral plane became fused with traditions claimed to trace back to ancient times. One of the most important igures for modern neopaganism is the British civil servant Gerald B. Gardner (1884–1964). Prior to founding Wicca in the 1950s, Gardner was involved with individuals who traced their occult and religious practices back to the heosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ordo Templi Orientis, Aleister Crowley and older occult or esoteric traditions.29 It was through these channels that we ind Gardner incorporating numerous occult doctrines into Wicca, which subsequently disseminated into the larger neopagan milieu. One example can be found in A Witches’ Bible Complete, written by Janet and Stewart Farrar, inluential igures in modern neopaganism and Wicca. Quoting from Gardner’s Book of Shadows, his magical ritual book, the Farrars detail Gardner’s instructions “To Leave the Body”. hey write that the purpose of this practice is “to help bring about what may variously be called clairvoyance, expansion of consciousness, opening up the levels, opening the hird Eye, or communication with the Goddess; and, at a more advanced stage, astral projection”.30 Neopaganism was not the only tradition to absorb notions of the astral. As Hanegraaf observes, a central aspect of New Age religion is the belief in “other realities” which can be accessed freely by human beings. his he notes can be accomplished through what he labels “Altered States of Consciousness” (ASC).31 In these altered states of consciousness, New Age practitioners experience other realities, frequently similar to experiences described above in both symbolic and geo-temporal astral travel. hroughout the twentieth century, occult practices and worldviews difused and were adopted and incorporated into a variety of New Age religions.32 As Hanegraaf notes, the complex 29. See Philip G. Davis, Goddess Unmasked, chapter 14. See also Kaczynski, Perdurabo, chapter 22, for Gardner’s relationship with Crowley. 30. Farrar & Farrar, A Witches’ Bible, II: 60. 31. Hanegraaf, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 259–62. See also Chapter 19 of the present volume. 32. See Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, chapter three, where she meticulously traces New Age and neopagan practices back through nineteenth-century America and Europe. 168 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE hierarchy of worlds developed by the heosophical Society compare to the view found in New Age religion.33 Various aspects of the astral have also been incorporated into New Age channelling practices where, as Michael F. Brown describes, “practitioners believe that they can use altered states of consciousness to connect to wisdom emanating from the collective unconsciousness or even from other planets, dimensions, or historical eras”.34 Brown traces New Age channelling back to Spiritualist mediums who also communicated with those on the other side. Christopher Partridge has traced notions of the astral in mid-twentiethcentury UFO-related religions back to heosophy.35 He also sees numerous similarities with New Age and heosophy including ideas of “reincarnation, chakras, past lives, future lives, psychic therapy, oneness with the Earth, channelling, astral travel and so on”.36 Also, “churches of magic” have retained similar astral practices throughout the twentieth century. One example is the Church of the Sun, which operated in the 1960s and 1970s. As Frederick R. Lynch documents, the organization incorporated astral cosmologies and travel as part of its doctrine.37 Similarly, during the same time period, a different church of magic, the Solar Lodge, incorporated various astral occult practices into its organization.38 Lastly, Ordo Templi Orientis, still active today with international headquarters in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, traces its origin, ideas, and practices back to a number of organizations including esoteric Freemasonry and, through Crowley, the Golden Dawn. Crowley incorporated astral travel into his magical curricula and this is still promoted by the group.39 hus it becomes evident quickly that the various concepts and practices regarding the astral that were practiced by the heosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, found their way into a wide spectrum of alternative religious practice throughout the Western world. However, these practitioners did not just practice their esoteric religions in their communities. Beginning in the mid-1990s the Internet became a central place for the dissemination of religious information, communication, and community. Indeed, the Internet became a central place for all of these traditions to meet and communicate. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. Hanegraaf, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 260. Michael F. Brown, he Channeling Zone, 6. Partridge, he Re-enchantment of the West, vol. 2, 177. Ibid., 196. See Frederick R. Lynch, “‘Occult Establishment’ or ‘Deviant Religion’?”. Solar Lodge traces its origins through igures like Aleister Crowley and organizations like Ordo Templi Orientis. Little scholarship discusses the Solar Lodge except Starr, “Chaos from Order”. A former Solar Lodge member published an account of the group which, in part, discusses the group’s astral travel teachings and practices. See Frater Shiva, Inside Solar Lodge/Outside the Law. 39. he website of the US branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis explicitly recommends Crowley’s Magick in heory and Practice which contains extensive instructions as to the use of the astral. See OTO, “Library”. 169 JOHN L . CROW Since its emergence, the Internet has been used for religious purposes. he Pew Internet and American Life report for 2001 states that a quarter of the Americans who had access to the Internet used it for religious purposes, often information searching, accessing religious material or connecting to others of the same faith.40 In a similar report in 2004 this number had increased to 64 per cent.41 here can be no doubt that for many, the Internet is a place where religion is alive and lourishing. Indeed, as Lorne L. Dawson notes, “Religion of every kind, big and small, old and new, mainstream and more exotic, is present online, and in great abundance.”42 Not surprisingly, this includes those who practice esoteric religions. In fact, as Stef Aupers remarks, recent studies have found that neopagans are more active on the Internet than any other religious group.43 Yet, being so active on the Internet has its challenges. Coming from a relatively new and individualistic religion, neopagans are not averse to religious experimentation and change. Indeed, they are willing to take traditional forms of practice and adapt them for online use. As Dawson and Douglas Cowan note, “when covens go online – when they become ‘cybercovens’ … the notion of a coven [becomes] considerably more elastic”.44 Nonetheless, having the coven online is central to the religious practice of many neopagans. Community is the focus of many people who use the Internet for religious purposes. his communal orientation derives from the social networking aspect where the members do not just create individual social connections, but large social webs of interaction.45 Within the neopagan community, these cybercovens act as places where large social networks emerge, but still within boundaries. It is this boundary that psychologically contributes to the participants understanding of the cybercoven as a sacred space, even if the interaction is through a website or online message boards.46 It is not only neopagans that view online community as itting into their esoteric religious worldview. As Brown writes about the New Age channelling community: he problem of Internet-based community, however, is that it is both specialized and diluted. “Probably the irst thing anybody notices when they go online,” writes another believer in the Net’s social magic, “is the community-building taking place all through cyberspace”.47 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. Larsen, CyberFaith. For more discussion on this, see Chapter 7 of the present volume. Clark et al., Faith Online. Dawson, “he Mediation of Religious Experience in Cyberspace”, 15. Aupers, “‘Where the Zeros Meet the Ones’”, 221. Dawson & Cowan, Religion Online, 2. See also Cowan, Cyberhenge, chapter 4, where he discusses cybercovens in depth. 45. Heidi Campbell, Exploring Religious Community Online, 41. 46. Cowan, Cyberhenge, 144. 47. Michael F. Brown, he Channeling Zone, 125. 170 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE Brown continues by mentioning the way the community “consists of a shared identity rather than an enduring commitment to a circle of neighbors and kin”.48 his is central to social networking with groups that practice esoteric religion. Because their numbers are few and they are geographically scattered, the Internet acts as a way for individuals to create ainity communities with others who share the same interests and beliefs. Indeed, this is one of the primary reasons why many cybercovens were created, to overcome geographic isolation of many solitary neopagans.49 Nevertheless, there are still signiicant barriers to creating a community through text and static images. While one may feel an ainity with those who share the same chat group or discussion board, the episodic interaction requires one to revisit frequently to see replies. While one may feel a sort of presence from the website that feeling can only get members so close. his is a barrier some have tried to overcome. ADDINg ThREE DIMENSIONS AND EMbODIMENT TO VIRTUAl ENVIRONMENTS AND WORlDS As mentioned previously, Erik Davis’s “Technopagans” essay frequently refers to cyberspace in terms similar to the astral plane. his is also the case of many others in the neopagan community. Cowan quotes Lisa McSherry as writing that cyberspace is “a technological doorway to the astral plane”.50 Yet, as he continues: he hyperbole and exaggerated rhetoric in which so many claims for the power of the Internet seem to come cloaked is met by the reality that we are all ineluctably embodied, subject to the constraints of time and space, and that our ability to interact online is hardly a global phenomenon.51 his embodied state is a challenge to all those who wish to create community in cyberspace. he diiculty is that the medium of text and static graphics does not create an immersive experience. To meet this need many have turned to three-dimensional virtual environments. One of the technopagans Davis interviewed, Mark Pesce, was on the forefront of meeting this challenge as he helped develop one of the irst three-dimensional modelling languages used on the Internet. Called VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language), this language, developed in the mid-1990s, was one of the attempts to move beyond text and static images towards three-dimensional realms. However, the results 48. 49. 50. 51. Ibid. Cowan, Cyberhenge, 83–90. Ibid., 1. Ibid., 3. 171 JOHN L . CROW were very rudimentary and it has taken many years before computer graphics and computational abilities have allowed wide adoption of convincing threedimensional realms. Gordon Calleja traces the evolution of virtual worlds and environments leading to modern, sophisticated systems.52 Building on the graduate work of Lisbeth Klastrup, he makes the important distinction between a virtual world and a virtual environment: “Virtual environments are computer generated domains which create a perception of space and permit modiication through the exertion of agency.”53 hese environments are then encapsulated in virtual worlds, which are “composite assemblages of persistent, multi-user virtual environments extending over a vast geographical expanse”.54 he distinction becomes one of agency. In the irst, the individual can exert agency to manipulate the environment, whereas on websites and discussion boards this type of manipulation is precluded. Secondly, the virtual world is a persistent, multi-user collection where virtual environments overlap creating a polyvalent system of interaction where each individual’s action becomes part of the environment for others. Moving beyond websites with virtual reality dimensions as originally created by Pesce and others utilizing VRML technologies, Calleja traces the evolution of three-dimensional multi-users environments and worlds through text-based MUDs (multi-user domains/dimensions/dungeons) to sophisticated three-dimensional graphic realms. Beginning with MUDs, text-only environments with lists indicated the presence of others, and then moving towards more sophisticated systems with graphics and the ability to interact with others simultaneously, Calleja discusses MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games). hese online games, accessed through commercial software, evolved on the Internet and attracted millions of players worldwide. While these virtual worlds were designed with episodic goals requiring collaboration, many players found other uses for the system. In MMOGs and MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), like World of Warcraft, participants look for information, help each other, or socialize via text and voice chat.55 In this way they often foster small communities. However, these virtual worlds impose teleology; one generally plays to win the game. One example of a virtual world without teleology is Second Life. his is a three-dimensional virtual world where individuals are free to purchase digital property and supplies, build whatever they want, and travel wherever they like. he virtual world embodies participants with customizable avatars that allow changing of the skin, hair and eye colours, gender, clothes, and more. his ability to alter the appearance of the avatar is signiicant since, Craig D. Murray and Judith Sixsmith argue, participants in virtual worlds bring their 52. 53. 54. 55. 172 Calleja, “Virtual Worlds Today”. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 15. Subrahmanyam & Greenield, “Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships”, 122. ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE notions of race, gender, ethnicity and culture into the virtual.56 Moreover, participants understand the virtual environment from their own embodied perspective. By drawing on our evolutionary history, VR [virtual reality] has allowed our embodied reality to map onto our embodied experiences in cyberspace. … the point of projection is at standing height. he perspective ofered to viewers mimics their experience in the world, and viewers measure objects in the virtual environments as they do in reality – that is, against their own bodies.57 his naturalized representation of the virtual environment allows for a more convincing experience. Second Life also allows two views – one of the body of the avatar and the other through the eyes of the avatar. his reinforces a perception of physical presence in the virtual. However, in contradistinction to the earlier nineteenth-century understanding of the self, Murray and Sixsmith argue that what virtual reality users experience is not a projection of the subjective self into the virtual world as the nineteenth-century occultists did. Instead, a model is ofered where the subjective understanding of the body’s boundaries become malleable and ambiguous. hey use a phenomenological model because “it is concerned with perception and bodily activity, enabling the exploration of phenomena as they are lived and experienced”.58 With this understanding of the body, and building on research in which users of prosthetic devices come to see the mechanical limb as part of their body, Murray and Sixsmith argue that a phenomenological polymorphic understanding of the body is necessary because it “reveals that the body in the world is both foreground and background. It constitutes our locus, so that we are ‘here,’ rather than ‘there.’ Yet, at the same time, the body recedes from conscious relection.”59 his means that the body is both present and distant, allowing the participant in the virtual environment to use their body, for instance to view the screen and use a mouse, but also to be distanced from it and present in the virtual world, interacting with others. As they note, “[a] sense of presence, of being there in virtual environments … calls for a dampening of awareness in reality and a heightening acceptance of the surrounding virtuality”.60 his distancing process becomes easier as the individual becomes more comfortable with technology. his comfort level is most evident in the generations growing up with digital technology. Being a signiicant issue for educators, cognitive scientists 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. Murray & Sixsmith, “he Corporeal Body in Virtual Reality”, 320–22. Ibid., 320. Ibid., 322. Ibid., 323. Ibid., 324. 173 JOHN L . CROW have been examining the ways digital technologies afect children in regard to learning. hey have found that not only does immersion in digital technological environments stress some skills over others, it physiologically changes the brain. here is an increase in the density of neurological connections in the areas of the brain used for experiencing virtual environments. However, as Marc Prensky, a specialist in digital learning, writes, “these diferences … are less a matter of kind than a diference of degree”.61 Nevertheless, these changes are signiicant because the exposure to digital environments improve the very mental skills needed to traverse virtual worlds. he thinking skills enhanced by repeated exposure to computer games and other digital media include: reading visual images as representations of three-dimensional space (representational competence), multidimensional visualspatial skills, mental maps, “mental paper folding” (i.e. picturing the results of various origami-like folds in your mind without actually doing them), “inductive discovery” (i.e. making observations, formulating hypotheses and iguring out the rules governing the behavior of a dynamic representation), “attentional deployment” (such as monitoring multiple locations simultaneously), and responding faster to expected and unexpected stimuli.62 Moreover, events experienced while immersed in the digital environment can have direct psychological and physiological feedback within the body. his kind of feedback from the virtual is noted by Chris Dede in Science: Inducing a participant’s symbolic immersion involves triggering powerful semantic, psychological associations by means of the content of an experience. As an illustration, digitally ighting a terrifying, horrible virtual monster can build a mounting sense of fear, even though one’s physical context is unchanging and rationally safe.63 In many examples, Dede points to highly immersive three-dimensional environments, such as using headsets or panoramic displays. However, as Ciaran Scott Hill of the Institute of Neurology, University College London, replied, children already have these kinds of immersive environments with commercially available game consoles. He writes: the opportunity for motor skill development by immersive interfaces is not limited to specialist training – the Nintendo Wii console is one example of a commercially available games system that 61. Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II”. 62. Ibid. 63. Dede, “Immersive Interfaces for Engagement and Learning”, 66. 174 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE integrates hand and, in some cases, whole body movements in a range of simulated environments.64 Indeed, the view that the whole environment needs to be simulated ignores the fact that a focus can be centred on a set of stimuli with the exclusion of the surrounding environment. It is no diferent than being absorbed in a book, movie, or television show to the point that one’s surroundings are temporarily forgotten. hus, while the three-dimensional virtual immersion experience was rudimentary initially, its sophistication, matched with the heightened skills and familiarity with technology by the last couple digital generations, have acculturated many to allow their sense of self to become malleable and to be able to operate in the physical world while simultaneously existing subjectively embodied to varying degrees in a virtual environment interacting with others in a virtual world creating community. VIRTUAl RElIgION, RITUAl AND ASTRAl TRAVEl IN SECOND lIFE As noted earlier, the Internet was used for religious purposes right from its inception and this trend has increased since. hus it is not surprising to ind myriad religious traditions and communities bringing their practices and beliefs into the virtual world of Second Life. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Simon Jenkins, both scholars publishing in Online: Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, have made extensive studies of religion and ritual in three-dimensional virtual worlds, with Radde-Antweiler speciically focusing on Second Life. What they found was that, indeed, numerous people have participated in online religious rituals and have had, to some degree, satisfying experiences. Jenkins notes comments from participants, such as “I was touched by how everyone ‘fell silent’ for the duration of the service” and that many felt a “reverence in the services”.65 He continued to note how the textual input of the Lord’s Prayer allowed the participants to bond and form community: he experience of praying the Lord’s Prayer together focused attention on our togetherness in prayer and worship, despite our distance in terms of geography, culture, language and faith expression. he people sitting on either side of you in a Church of Fools pew could be from Melbourne and Kansas City, and yet here you were, sitting in the same imaginative space, and being able to talk and pray together, even though you would probably never meet each other face to face in the physical world.66 64. Ciaran Scott Hill, “Developing Psychomotor Skills the Wii Way”. 65. Jenkins, “Rituals and Pixels”, 108. 66. Ibid., 109. 175 JOHN L . CROW Similar to Jenkins, Radde-Antweiler notes that there have been numerous “clusters” of religiosity in Second Life. She documents the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, New Age, Buddhist and Hindu clusters, which ofer information and a variety of services.67 For instance, in one virtual temple the participant can have his/her avatar meditate in front of the digital representation of the Hindu God Ganesh. Radde-Antweiler also notes how the Second Temple in Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 ce, has been rebuilt. When entering the temple a digital note greets the visitor: Welcome to our Holy City. Outside you will see the walls of a fullscale reconstruction of the Second Temple that stood in Jerusalem until the year 70. To experience the size of the building move around in mouse-mode: it will be you walking through the gates.68 As is evident by the greeting, the makers of the temple equate the viewing of the virtual temple as equivalent to seeing the temple in the physical world, at least to some degree. Not surprisingly, neopagans, New Age practitioners and occultists have also established presences in Second Life. Following the pattern of earlier formats, cybercovens have been established, but unlike previous versions this technology allows a full manifestation of the romantic imagery associated with neopaganism. One cybercoven, called Covenstead, consists of a massive digital campus with multiple parts, including a pub for drinking cyber-mead, dancing and playing trivia, a library with digital versions of magical and neopagan texts, a marketplace to purchase various virtual clothes and objects for use by the avatar, a large ield for group meditation, a Stonehenge setting used for community ritual (complete with altar and central bonire), and more. here is also a digital carriage ride so one’s avatar can tour the campus, as well as multiple teleports that can whisk one’s avatar to diferent places on the campus without the need to walk or ly there. However, for many Covenstead members, Second Life is not just a place for community. hey view their participation in it, especially during ritual, as a form of astral travel. Unlike Ingalls and her group of occultists who travel to a distant temple and perform their rituals separately, these neopagans, who are spread throughout the world, come together in their cyberastral Stonehenge temple to celebrate neopagan religious events. In June of 2009, I interviewed some members of Covenstead and observed the celebration of one of their online sabbaths. he cybercoven was created by Ainsley Weatherwax69 and is 67. Radde-Antweiler, “‘Virtual Religion’”. 68. Ibid., 177. 69. All names given for participants are avatar pseudonyms. In some cases the participants gave their real names and personal details, but in most cases they preferred to simply use their avatar’s identity for the interview. hose who did give their physical world location 176 ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE operated by her and a number of volunteers who contributes time and money for the continuation and maintenance of the cybercoven. When discussing the community with Weatherwax, she noted that as a cybercoven “the community expects to be able to be themselves among other Pagans and to have classes, rituals and events ofered”.70 One of the ways they coordinate their schedule is by using an online calendaring system where event titles, descriptions, and times are posted. As individuals from around the world participate, all the times are standardized on Paciic Standard Time. She also noted that most of the participants were from North America and Europe, and that the events were generally conducted in English. When our discussion turned to cyber-ritual, she noted that there were positive and negative aspects regarding its performance in Second Life. She mentioned that some of the technical limitations for Second Life hampered the performance of ritual. With more participants, there is a greater lag time for the animation and this disturbed the semblance of the ritual. She also said that there were conceptual diiculties with cyber-rituals. Mirroring the cultural transference noted by Murray and Sixsmith, Weatherwax stated that many participants bring their experiences with ritual in the physical world into Second Life. Moreover, she said that the negotiation of ritual in Second Life is ongoing: “I see ritual in Cyberspace as a work in progress. No one seems to really know what works best yet.” She continued: We need to experiment to ind out what works in Cyberspace best. And a lot of people seem so mired in the trappings of RL [real life] traditions in ritual they aren’t willing to let go of them to discover what really works. I see cyberspace as an amazing vehicle for magic. SL [Second Life] could be even more so with its amazing graphic creation capabilities. … hese could add amazing dimension to [what] was once just “chatroom” ritual. And if you have a totally hearing crowd, the ability to add voice and sound to the imagery is wonderful. … he ritual should it what is available. Imagination plays [a part in] all of it. So why should we force our avatars into human shapes to do human gestures for ritual when this is obviously not a necessity in cyberspace? We could do the whole ritual in colour and light and pure visual efect. [his] might work much better. he environs always dictated ritual in RL, so perhaps diferent environs should dictate diferent ritual technique were located in the United States and Canada. No formal questions were prearranged but the general nature of the discussion, goals for the interview and the physical world identity of the interviewer was given to the participant prior to their agreeing to be interviewed. hus each interview began at a similar starting point but went in the direction generally determined by the interviewee. For issues regarding virtual ethnography see Hine, Virtual Ethnography; Hine, Virtual Methods. 70. Interview by author, 13 June 2009. 177 JOHN L . CROW … I think imagination can get around mostly anything and electricity has always been an amazing channel for spiritual energy. We might actually ind a way to use it [Second Life] that will exceed our results in RL.71 Clearly Weatherwax notes the limitations of cyber-ritual. Not surprisingly, she is not one who sees Second Life as synonymous with the astral. She also mentions the limits the physical body introduces to the performance of the cyberritual. In general the cybercoven desires to be inclusive during its ritual and thus does not use voice but instead uses text to deliver speech as it is inclusive of the hearing impaired. Although it is not the case for all the participants, this limits the ability for some to feel completely immersed in cyber-ritual. One participant, Tamaya Rayna, claimed that she did understand her participation in Second Life as being like the astral plane: “My thought on that is, if I am actually a spirit being, then my ‘physical‘ body is a form of an avatar. If we are doing energy work on the astral or other planes, I am just using a different kind of avatar to identify with.”72 Cartesian dualism underlies Rayna’s language, mirroring the language used by nineteenth-century occultists. Later in the conversation she added that “Part of magical training and practice is learning to focus and feel the energies. … I can get that sense either in SL or RL. My theory is that whether I am in physical proximity to a person or not, I can still sense their energy.” Rayna’s language here parallels Ingall’s and her astral ritual on Moonbase Temple. Another participant who saw Second Life as a form of the astral was Jimmy Orsini. He also claimed to feel the energies of others while in ritual,73 and, moreover, saw his laptop as a ritual object to enter the cyberastral, much like nineteenth-century occultists used magic mirrors and crystal balls. While participating in cyber-ritual, Orsini, who is a solitary pagan, places his laptop on his altar with other ritual objects. “I usually sit in front of my altar and light a candle during the rituals”,74 Orsini says. He also notes that he uses the scripts and chants of others during the ritual to build energies to connect with other participants. he use of the computer as a ritual object is becoming more common with neopagans. As the complexity of the device exceeds the knowledge of the user, the device becomes opaque and unpredictable. his opacity opens up the opportunity for enchantment whereby the laptop becomes an object for ritual.75 As Aupers comments, “Magic and (computer) technology are not mutually exclusive and, more than that, technological progress may paradoxically be responsible for the growth and lowering of mystery and magic in the late modern world.”76 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 178 Ibid. Interview by author, 15 June 2009. Interview by author, 12 June 2009. Ibid. Aupers, “‘Where the Zeros Meet the Ones’”, 234–5. Ibid, 237. ACCESSING THE ASTRAL WITH A MONITOR AND MOUSE Aupers also remarks that those who can master computer technology, particularly the computer programmers, are seen as magicians.77 As one programmer said, “we put these words together, these little characters together, and create these magical things”.78 his perception of being a magician due to creative programming was found in one of the Second Life interviewees. His avatar name is haleenin Sydney, and in the physical world he is a ceremonial magician and works as a programmer. He claimed that his programming skills were part of his magical practice, which included creating scripts for avatars in Second Life to use in ritual. His scripts included ones used in ritual at Covenstead. hese scripts, when run on an avatar, make them mimic speciic ritualistic actions. For neopagans these include motions for invoking and banishing pentagrams, and the ive-fold kiss. During our conversation, he stated that scripting avatars was not always easy: “we have some of the sounds done and I’m in the middle of scripting them so the timing is right, which is turning out to be the hardest part”.79 Nevertheless, Sydney saw the incorporation of Second Life into his magical and astral work as natural. In fact, he claimed that Second Life was so much like the astral that he used it to help with his magical students with initial astral experiences: For someone advanced SL is just another aspect of the astral depending on what they want to do. For a beginner SL is best. People can get here in 5 min of downloading the program as opposed to whatever it may take to get on the astral.80 hroughout the interview Sydney continued to mix his discussion of scripting Second Life avatars and working on the astral. It seemed, from his point of view, there really was little diference, or, as he noted, it was an educational tool where students learn their magical practices and obtain access to the astral in both types of embodiment, digital and physical.81 his kind of ambiguous embodiment supports the model of Murray and Sixsmith. In each of the cases where the participant saw Second Life as some form of astral, there was a mixing of the self, the body, the technology, the imagination, and community where all of these come together to blend the physical world with the virtual. Moreover, the ways the participants discussed the cyberastral showed a blending of geo-temporal and symbolic astral travel. he virtual world is lexible like the symbolic, but with the ability to interact with others, it also had aspects of geo-temporal thus creating the cyberastral as its own category of astral travel. he participants would generally eschew these categories, instead substituting 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. Ibid., 230–31. Ibid., 231. Interview by author, 16 June 2009. Ibid. Ibid. 179 JOHN L . CROW traditional terminology and adapting it to their circumstances. Nevertheless, these categories allow the scholar to historicize and contextualize the types of astral travel experienced. his, in turn, could help to include these kinds of phenomena into the larger discourse of religious practice and embodiment. CONClUSION his chapter has traced the continuities regarding the astral from nineteenth-century occultism to modern three-dimensional virtual communities embodied in Second Life. Because of the difusion of occult ideas and their combination with notions of cyberspace and virtual reality, the emergence of a cyberastral has taken place for some who practice esoteric religion. Extending notions of the self to include the physical body and the digital, users create subjective selves which navigate virtual worlds. hese virtual embodied selves, or avatars, can represent the gender, race, and culture embodied in the physical or they can embrace a polymorphic identity taking on the form of the creatures listed in Leadbeater’s he Astral Plane, or assuming alternative genders and bodily characteristics. Indeed, many avatars have wings, ly, wear clothing the person is unlikely to don in the physical world, or are have the appearance of a gender diferent from the normative gender performed by the participant. hus the virtual world is not only a place where the astral manifests, but forms a larger context for identity exploration. Does this mean that everyone who participates in Second Life views it as the astral plane? No; this is hardly the case, and I located only a small number of participants who made such a claim. Nevertheless, this should cause scholars to pause and think more about the role of digital technologies when it comes to the practice of religion as well as pay attention to notions of self and identity when it comes to religious embodiment, virtual and physical. he Internet and virtual reality technology are adding a signiicant dimension to religious practice and this does not only apply to esoteric religion. In 1995 Erik Davis hoped that the astral would be reborn in cyberspace. With Second Life one might ask if it inally has been. With the way digital technology and three-dimensional reality is progressing, it might not be long before more people develop an expansive embodiment, and perhaps, for them at least, the astral may actually be reborn in cyberspace. 180