Between the Gates: Lucid Dreaming, Astral Projection, and the Body of Light in Western Esotericism

269 Pages·2008·1.47 MB·English

by  Mark Stavish

Now Enter the Doors of Perception
The best practical guide to inner journeying in the realm of Western esotericism.
- Russell House, author of The Portal: A Story of Love, Immortality,
and the Philosopher's Stone
Mark Stavish's Between the Gates is an A-to-Z guide to lucid dreaming and
astral projection. You'll find everything you need to undertake self-initiation
and reach higher planes of consciousness: exercises, rituals, practices, and tech-
niques that are simple to perform and astonishingly effective. It also addresses
'The Great Transition," death and dying, from an alchemical and Qabalistic
perspective.
In Mark Stavish's own words, "What you hold in your hand is a treasure passed
down to you through generations, in secret, and now made public in a clear,
comprehensive, and easy-to-understand form, with instructions anyone can follow."
For anyone who endeavors to have a direct experience into the very nature of
life, consciousness, and reality itself, Between the Gates is the only book you need.
'A tour de force of common sense occult theory, and practical and effective
magical exercises, written by a teacher whose wisdom, erudition, and humility
come through on every page."
- James Wasserman, editor of Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the
Magical Diary and the Weiser Concise Guide Series
Praise for Between the Gates
"Mark Stavish has managed what few in the postmodern age can even
conceive. He introduces here a methodology that instructs us in the art
of conscious living, and more startlingly, in that of conscious dying. The
Body of Light, included here, is an extraordinary concept that will enrich
our years while wrapped in skin, while also providing a means of self-
determination as we transition out of this mortal coil. Between the Gates is
a masterpiece of esotericism and Stavish's finest work to date."
- Colleen Deatsman, author ofInner Power: Six Techniques for
Increased Energy & Self-Healing and Energy For Life: Connect with the
Source
"Never before has such a body of practices on lucid dreaming, astral
projection, spirit vision, rising on the planes, pathworking, scrying, and
the Body of Light been presented in a single volume, nor so seamlessly as
to guide students step-by-step through their stages of progress and interre-
lationship. Mark Stavish has written what may be the best practical guide
to inner journeying in the realm of Western esotericism."
- Russell House, author of The Portal - A Story of Love, Immortality,
and the Philosopher's Stone and past President of The Philosophers of
Nature (PON)
BETWEEN
the GATES
Lucid Dreaming, Astral Projection, and the
Body of Light in Western Esotericism
M A R K S T A V I S H
Founder of The Institute for Hermetic Studies
Introduction by John Michael Greer,
Author of Learning Ritual Magic
This book is dedicated to Andrea, Luke, and Nathaniel, and to all who
seek to remove fear of death and thereby show us how to live.
First published in 2008 by
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
500 Third Street, Suite 230
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.redwheelweiser.com
Copyright © 2008 by Mark Stavish.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any infor-
mation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser,
LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
ISBN: 978-1-57863-396-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.
Cover and interior design by Maija Tollefson
Typeset in Grajon
Cover photograph © abpeo0030618/inmagine.com
Interior art on pages 30, 35, and 40 by Marc Thorner, Thornergraphics
Printed in Canada
T C P
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials
Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
Contents
Acknowledgments iv
Foreword by John Michael Greer v
Introduction viii
How to Use This Book xvi
C H A P T E R ONE - Mansions of the Soul I
C H A P T E R TWO - Maps of Eternity: The Invisible in Western
Esotericism 23
CHAPTER T H R E E - Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Invisible 56
C H A P T E R FOUR - The Magical Voice and the Body of Light 72
C H A P T E R Five - Astral Projection in Qabala 99
C H A P T E R S I X - Astral Projection in Alchemy 119
CHAPTER SEVEN - The Body of Light: Its Creation and Use 138
C H A P T E R E I G H T - Assumption of the Godform 164
C H A P T E R N I N E - Preparing for Death and Beyond 180
C H A P T E R T E N - Assisting the Dying 210
Appendix A - Reading List 222
Appendix B - Physical Resurrection and Incorruptibility 225
Appendix C - The Hebrew Letters and Their Esoteric Meanings 230
Appendix D - The Powers of the Hebrew Letters, According to
Eliphas Levi 233
Notes 236
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the following who without their generous assistance in
time, talent, and treasure, this book would not have been possible:
Christopher Bilardi, Paul Bowersox, Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D., Donald
L. Melchior, Ph.D., Flinn Mueller, Andrea M. Nerozzi, Ph.D., and Marc
Thorner. And thanks to all of the students, adepts, and masters of the
traditions, who have each added in their own special way to the continual
advancement of the Great Work.
Foreword
One of the most overused phrases in the English language these days is
"I just don't have the time." It's particularly familiar to those of us who
teach spiritual traditions that place regular practice and the development
of the self's hidden potentials at center stage. If you'd like to get a rueful
laugh wherever teachers of spirituality gather, just ask how many stu-
dents utter those words when asked to put even so little as ten minutes a
day into some form of inner work.
Granted, leisure time can be in short supply these days, and an
industrial society that thrives on the manufacture of artificial desires has
no shortage of distractions to throw in the way of the novice in any spir-
itual path. Yet it's equally true that much of what passes for a shortage
of spare time can be solved by figuring out one's real priorities and pay-
ing attention to where time actually goes. Plenty of people who are con-
vinced that they have no time for an inner life spend time every evening
staring blankly at TV shows that don't really interest them, or fidget
away an hour or more on a commuter train every workday. And, of
course, nearly every one of us spends six or eight hours coursing through
the realms of dream every night, only to brush aside the fading memo-
ries of our inner adventures as we stumble from bed to shower to break-
fast table to front door.
Dreams are simply the most common route into a realm of experi-
ence that has been central to spiritual traditions all around the world for
thousands of years. What Henri Corbin called the imaginal world, the
realm of symbols and similitudes accessed in dreams, visions, and out-
of-body experience, forms a crucial element in the wider world of
human experience recognized by spiritual traditions, and practices that
open the door to that world are among the core disciplines of most
BETWEEN THE GATES
branches of esoteric spirituality. The otherworld trance journeys of
shamans, the dream yoga of Tibetan Buddhism, and the visionary
flights of the Abrahamic religions, to name only three branches from
the exuberant tree of the earth's spiritual traditions, all access the same
dimension of experience.
Western esoteric traditions have their own disciplines for entering
the imaginal realm, but factors woven into the structure of contempo-
rary Western society have made those disciplines and their associated
practices difficult for many people nowadays to access. Caught between
a mainstream culture obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and
power and an alternative culture convinced that spirituality has to be
imported from the far side of the world to be valid, much of the Western
world's own esoteric traditions have suffered serious neglect in recent
centuries. Certain aspects of imaginal work have seen much discussion
in recent literature, but the wider context of this aspect of our Western
inner way - to say nothing of entire branches of practice such as dream-
work - have remained obscure even to initiates of those traditions,
much less to a wider audience.
This book may well change that. Mark Stavish, one of the handful
of creative teachers and writers who have helped bring many less widely
known branches of Western esoteric spirituality into the light of day, has
penned a practical, comprehensive, and user-friendly guide to the prac-
tices of imaginal experience in the Western tradition - the first such
guide to see print in centuries. Between the Gates: Lucid Dreaming, Astral
Projection, and the Body of Light in Western Esotericism presents the core
theories and practices of the arts of inner journeying and puts them in
the context of more than two thousand years of Western esoteric teach-
ings about the subtle body and its role in spiritual development. It's a
bravura performance and one that deserves a wide readership among
students and practitioners of the world's spiritual traditions.
Since the time of the scientific revolution three centuries ago, peo-
ple in the Western world have prided themselves on being wide awake
to the realities of life. The irony in this claim is that for thousands of
vi
FOREWORD
years before our time, the wisest of our species have described the obses-
sion with material reality that haunts us nowadays as a dream, one from
which we all awake sooner or later, whether in sleep, in trance, in the
heights of spiritual attainment, or in death. To venture out of the dream
of matter and into the imaginal realms, by way of lucid dreaming, astral
projection, the discipline of the body of light, or any other means, marks
a step into a wider world. In that world, though our physical eyes are
closed, it becomes possible not only to awaken ourselves, but also to
dream the whole world awake.
John Michael Greer
Ashland, Oregon
vii