The Dreamer of Muscoy and Astral Projection -- Part II

Last time out when we talked about astral projection and Douglas Q. McMasters, the Dreamer of Muscoy, we looked at what my Dad had to say about Doug. My father was never a believer in Doug's astral projection claims, figuring that Doug had some trick up his sleeve, but my brother Jack did eventually believe what Doug was saying.

Jack recalled, "Doug introduced me to the concept of astral projection" during a visit to his barber shop. "On one visit he asked me where 'I' resided in my body. I didn't know.

He said something like, "Well, ask yourself where 'I' am when you say the word 'I.' Do you feel 'I' in your feet?"

"No," I said. "Do you feel 'I' in your chest?"

"No, but I feel it more in my chest that I do in my feet."

"Do you feel 'I' in your head?"

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"But exactly where?" I didn't know. "Come back when you do and I'll teach you how to leave your body," he said.

I was back the next day. "I got it," I said. "When I say 'I' I feel it right between my eyes and a few inches back." That was close, he said, but not exact enough. Well, I wouldn't leave until he told me where 'I' was. Finally, he had me hold a mirror and he put a finger to each of my temples and asked me if 'I' was between his fingers. I said yes and he said to think about it while saying, "I am here."

I did this and finally said, "No, 'I' wasn't there." He asked me to guide his fingers up or down, forward or back, until I could feel 'I' between his fingers. I did this for what seemed like a long time until I finally said, "There." 'I' was about a half-inch below the plane centered between my eyes and about 4-3/4 inches back. That was the spot in my head where 'I' resided whenever I said the word 'I' or thought about me.

Doug was very happy with my answer."

Astral Projection 101

Doug taught Jack a process to assist in pushing the 'I' from his body. "He said to tie a string around my head so it was knotted in the front and the knot was between my eyes and 1/2 inch down on my nose. I was to then take the running end of the string and tie it to an object, like a pole lamp or a Coca Cola bottle, and lean back until the string was tight but not so tight that it pulled the object. While concentrating on keeping the tension of the string just right, i was to push the 'I' from back in my head forward onto the string. He said it would not be easy, but I could do it if I just kept saying, "Here 'I' come" and each time I said it I moved the 'I' forward just a bit. He said the object was to push myself out onto the string, across it, and into the object. Then turn around and look at my body from the object and say, "Here 'I' am, and there 'I' was."

Jack's friend "Ralph Christiansen (Buzzy) was working at the Orange Bowl (bowling alley) as a pin grabber -- the guy who worked back behind the automatic pin-setting machines and answered the buzzer whenever a machine got stuck or dropped a pin or missed a pin or whatever. When it did something wrong, the bowler pushed a button that rang a buzzer and lit up a number in a little room in back and Buzzy ran to the machine whose number lit up. He then fixed whatever was wrong. Danny Kidwell, Don Gray, Wayne Welker and I often went with Buzzy and we all sat in the back and BS'd because most of the time there wasn't anything to do back there." Jack decided this was the perfect place to practice Doug's astral projection process.

"I tied the string to a bowling pin in that little room in the back of the Orange Bowl and sat there night after night talking myself out onto that string. I don't think I moved the 'I' in me forward even a millimeter. There were just too many distractions with my friends sitting there talking and cutting up and I couldn't concentrate, so I gave up on it."

But one night, "just Buzzy and I were there and I slipped the string over my head and tied it to a pin on the bench and leaned back just so and BAM! -- just like that I was out there in the pin looking back at me sitting there with a piece of string tied from my head to me (the pin). I was so startled I jerked and pulled the pin off the bench."

Jack said, "I was so excited that I went to Doug's shop the next day and told him. He said, "Keep doing it until you can jump out there into the pin without the string and sit there for 10 minutes without any conscious thought of what is going on in your body. Then come back and we'll talk about the next step."

Doug related to Jack that the "next step was to exit the body from the back of the head, toward the top. There is an advantage to doing it this way. Your eyes may be looking at the object you want to be in, but the 'I' isn't when it exits the back of the head. So, as soon as you exit, you're where you want to be. And it doesn't have to be an object you can see. It can be across town, over E Street, above the entrance into the Big M (the original McDonald's in San Bernardino). Or so Doug said, but I could never manage to go anywhere but into that bowling pin...

Until several years later..."

Next time: If you could learn to do this why would you ever stop and other scary shit!