I just finished looking over the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is a fascinating and slightly frustrating read. On the one hand give them credit for being aware of the between lives area (called the "Bardo" by Tibetans). But on the other hand their handle on it consists of too much prayer and not enough drilling. The basics in the Book of the Dead seems to have been added to by well meaning but unenlightened monks whose lamentable tendency toward worship has added distractions from its workability. For the umpteenth time I found myself swearing at flowery, overblown use of adjectives by Mahayana Buddhists who seemed to have spent too much time being swept up in grand visions of beatitude and too little time doing good old Gautama's drills. If it weren't for the Zen and Pali flavors of Buddhism I would be tempted to give up on the lot of them. I have serious doubts as to the efficacy for most people of the Tibetan practice as described in that book. For one thing it assumes abilities to perceive and decide which are blocked in most people.

Ex-Scios and others in the free zone are even more aware of the between lives area than the Tibetans. They have their own explanations for what occurs at that time between bodies -- explanations which may or may not be accurate. They also have a handle on the problem using processing, which is far superior to Tibetan Buddhism simply because it's a mixture of the latest subjective processes and exterior drills intended to free the spirit. Techniques have advanced quite a bit beyond what was available in India in the days of geniuses like Gautama and Patanjali (the man who codified yoga). Unfortunately most of these modern techniques do not keep a person from dramatizing any between lives automaticities hidden in the subconscious mind. Some do, and some people seem to be advanced enough to be safe. Overall the free zone techniques beat the hell out of any amount of prayer, whether Mahayana Buddhist or Christian. This is definitely the best route to go.

But sometimes a person discovers that they have a disease which will kill them in a matter of weeks or months, and not enough time remains to receive a full course of free zone processing. For those people there is a third possible way of which I am aware. It comes from the practices of magicians.

First a little background. Most magick is done exterior to the body. Around the world various means are used by practicing magicians to get out of their bodies. Dancing, drugs, repetitive chanting, visualization drills, and fasting are some of them. Among those I would recommend the visualization drills obviously -- except that the Scios and freezoners have probably the best collection of exteriorization techniques on the planet, so why bother with anything else? But once exterior, some magickal groups drill their trainees in something the Scios and freezoners do NOT have. The next step by the magician is to create a "body of light" for use when exterior. A body of light is an energized mockup of the body which has been created by many hours and days of repetitive visualization. (By the way, don't call it a hologram. I eschew that trendy word because it is unnecessary. There is no need to redefine reality as a projected three dimensional image. We already know that it's a created image, and the "projected" part implies an action which is not quite true -- as anyone who can visualize a three dimensional space knows.) The body of light is deliberately created with a full personality, that is to say, it is mocked up with a beingness of its own included in the process of its creation. The best advice for proceeding are to set up a sealed space from which all other entities and thetans have been banished, go slowly and precisely in your mockups, cap its awareness so that it does not become self aware or wonder what is happening to it, and maintain operational control of it. The body is projected out through the solar plexus, linked there by the "silver cord", and then reabsorbed into the body at the end of each session. The implanting of consciousness into it results in (stripping away the usual mumbo-jumbo explanations given in occult literature) what is called a "thing." What is a "thing?" A "thing" is an entity of the non self aware variety (it's aware but not aware of being aware, an entity like a GE, but not quite a thetan) which has been given a simple mind and a shape made of "ethereal" energies. Actually since "ethereal" is effort level energy, let me specify that a "thing" is composed of theta (like a BT, only you make it yourself) with thoughts, emotion and efforts, the latter being what its body is made of. The physical body you normally operate also contains an entity (unless you exorcised it), so this arrangement is nothing unusual. Creating a solidly mocked up body of light has a curious effect on the subconscious mechanisms of the mind: they accept the mockup as a "real" body. The body of light can even become real enough for people to see it -- I would assume Jesus was using one during his resurrection for example. My guess is that a body of light is a body like the ones used a universe or two back (probably Magic Universe, but maybe farther back).

A method of creating a Body of Light can be found in the ritual called "The Magician" in Mysteria Magica, vol 3 of The Magical Philosophy by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips. These two have made much of the old knowledge available. (1/23/01, just found a web link to the ritual here.)

An amusing practice in some of the rituals is that the magician is instructed to visualize the seven planets inside the projected body's spine. I raaather would advise you to visualize the chakras a little more clearly than that! ;-)

Warnings: because a body of light is run by an entity it can act out of your control. It should be tightly controlled at all times so that it doesn't exteriorize from your body without you. Also I would advise not using Ken Ogger's split piece command "Point to the being you divided from." around it. It might obey -- and its beingness vanish. But if it does go out of your control and causes mayhem (walks around pretending to be you, etc), the usual NOTs techniques should work on it instantly, especially Ogger's "Point to..." , unless it's been hijacked by a thetan. Even then you should still be able to dissolve it out from under the other thetan using NOTs tech and persistence.

There have been numerous accounts in the magickal and spiritual literature of magicians:

Leaving their aging bodies and assuming younger ones. In some cases this consists of stealing fully grown bodies from their owners. Others have been more ethical and taken over injured adult bodies which have been abandoned by their owners.

Dying and haunting their houses or familiar neighborhoods as semi-visible ghosts who do not enter the between lives area (thereby retaining their full memories and identities).

So what triggers the automatic mechanisms of the between lives experience? Death does: the sight and knowledge of the body's demise. BUT! But if the magician is accustomed to exteriorizing, and while exterior wearing a solid seeming body of light, then the magician may cheat the mechanism of the Bardo by abandoning the physical body in his body of light before the flesh is fully dead. No images of the dead physical body enter the mind, and besides, the subconscious sees a solid appearing body -- albeit an ethereal one. This is how some magicians on this planet have cheated the between lives mechanism by deceiving it.

Lately I've seen accounts of people who made advances in spiritual clearing in past lives, only to lose most of their gains during the between lives period, reborn barely above normal rather than enlightened. Here's merely one example (from Ken Ogger):

I have seen and heard of times when some young child originated
some snippet from a past life in Scientology.  I know of one
case where a toddler saw somebody else's clear bracelet and
distintly said "my number is ...." and it was looked up and
confirmed as having been the clear number of one of only
a handful of clears who had died at by that time (this was
years ago).

And yet the few reborn Scientology OTs do not have a consecutive
conscious recall of their previous lifetime.  They have vague
recalls and slight snippets of things which are in a few cases
just barely good enough to be confirmed.  If these people had
come through with solid recall and consciousness, the orgs
would be promoting it, at least among the upper level public.

They act like they have been mindwiped.  They seem to come
through better than most, but they are a shadow of their
former selves and coming back up from scratch.

If true this is a serious problem that badly needs a solution. But until a solution is found, perhaps it would be wise for anyone not completely freed and who is about to die, to maintain a continuous consciousness of identity and memory by means of a body of light (though ultimately it may be that identity and memory are the real problem...). It's worth a shot...

Who the hell wants to start all over from scratch?

Ouran