Silver Cord

[Dumani]

I'd like to bring up a subject which I'm not quite sure, but maybe considered "taboo" in this forum? that of astral travel..
The concept of tethers reminded me of the silver cord present during astral travel..is the silver cord some type of concentration/power tether, or vice versa?
As such, would either be subject to damage?
Looking into the topic on different sites on the net, there are widely contrasting views..

on the one hand: The new ager/spiritualist view (as in astralvoyage.com), where the cord is indestructible, it's ok to sleep next to your spouse while projecting, and so on, making it "100% safe" in any case.

on the other hand, we have the hermetic and other oldschool views, (as in Bardon's IIH), where the cord is fragile and may break by the slightest movement of the physical body while inert, resulting in a coma and eventual death, through the inability of the astral body to merge with the physical, even if you are standing right next to it (in contrast to being lost out there because you can't find where you started from, having broken the cord).. Does this mean that as soon as I pop my head out the door, someone might be out to get me, making sure I don't get back, for whatever reason?

I need me a one-handed mage! jk
Seriously though, I'd love to hear what the verdict is on this, since I'm too scared to venture out again (not that I've ever gone that far) until I can get some kind of feedback..

I'm not too gun-shy, however I hope I'm not 'that guy' asking 'that question', and I will respect if this question is out of bounds.
Take care guys.

[MageMindy]

As the resident expert in stepping out of body, I guess it's up to me to respond to this one

The silver cord you see when out of body is not unbreakable, nor is it delicate. It is what connects you to your body and soul, so it is important, but it's also strong. You need the right knowledge in order to cut it, and few people possess that knowledge. Also, the cord is there whether you're in or out of body, so it makes no difference in terms of likelyhood of it being cut, wether you're out traveling, or eating breakfast.

It's also a BIG policial no-no out in the astral realms. Those who know how to cut the cord likely have experience in astral politics and know not to do it without a VERY good reason.

The preceeding statements are based on my 8+ years of experience. Others are, of course, welcome to comment.

[Questioner]

As the resident expert in stepping out of body, I guess it's up to me to respond to this one

The silver cord you see when out of body is not unbreakable, nor is it delicate. It is what connects you to your body and soul, so it is important, but it's also strong. You need the right knowledge in order to cut it, and few people possess that knowledge. Also, the cord is there whether you're in or out of body, so it makes no difference in terms of likelyhood of it being cut, wether you're out traveling, or eating breakfast.

It's also a BIG policial no-no out in the astral realms. Those who know how to cut the cord likely have experience in astral politics and know not to do it without a VERY good reason.

The preceeding statements are based on my 8+ years of experience. Others are, of course, welcome to comment.

If you don't mind me asking,what is astral politics?
Is it like regular politics with just... well the astral?

What would be the point in severing your connection to your physical body?

[LordArt]

It's also a BIG policial no-no out in the astral realms. Those who know how to cut the cord likely have experience in astral politics and know not to do it without a VERY good reason.

Wow Mindy, and you complain about MY Arthurisms!

If you don't mind me asking,what is astral politics?
Is it like regular politics with just... well the astral?

It is like regular politics but not in the sense of elections and red and blue states. More like society exists because of force. Police enforce the law, armies enforce the borders of a country. If the army wasn't there, the country would be overrun by one that did. If the police weren't there, the local crazies and criminals would overrun the general public and therefore elections wouldn't exist.

Astral entities (spirits) self organize like you see down here. Some organize better than others and they all have their own agendas. The point that I think Mindy was trying to make was the silver cord isn't an easy thing to cut. The result of cutting it would be likely to kill your physical body. The other result is it going into a coma if it was able to take the initial shock of the cord being cut.

What would be the point in severing your connection to your physical body?

Because you pissed something off enough to make them want to kill you or you were in the way for their agenda. Like any other reason people kill each other.


I think I should pull my own Arthurism and elaborate on what a silver cord really is.

If you look in the public documents, one of the bodies that is mentioned is the astral body. The Astral body for all practical purposes is an energy amoeba. Meaning, it can take whatever shape you wish. Most choose their physical body form. But that doesn't prevent you from extending pseudopods to do other things. This INCLUDES projection. So part of your astral body is still possessing your body to keep things like your heart and brain kicking over. To the casual observer, it looks like a long thin cord, but that is simply because it is stretched, like a piece of melted cheeze. If one bothered to look at the other end which was in the physical body itself, one would see a larger "blob" of astral body still possessing the physical body. Obviously the astral body has a good amount of flexability which allows for this. Believe it or not, your astral senses DEPEND on this.

Hence why cutting the "silver cord" is a bad thing, because it cuts off the part of your astral body keeping your physical body kicking over. This is also why it is actually rather easy to go back to your body (too easy which makes it hard to get out in the first place!)

I hope that clears up what is going on.

[Dumani]

Wow guys that really did clear things up. I really appreciate it..
Sorry I took so long to thank you, but I was preoccupied with a couple of questions raised by your replies:

The silver cord you see when out of body is not unbreakable, nor is it delicate. It is what connects you to your body and soul, so it is important, but it's also strong. You need the right knowledge in order to cut it, and few people possess that knowledge. Also, the cord is there whether you're in or out of body, so it makes no difference in terms of likelyhood of it being cut, wether you're out traveling, or eating breakfast.

First of all thank you Ms Mindy, it was a huge relief to have that verified. The fear factor was holding me back, big-time.
However, from what I gather, this supported my original view, that the silver cord is some sort of trans-dimentional power line, tying the series of energy bodies together, and feeding them energy from the "soul reactor" in a pulsating fashion, ending at the astral body which is integrated with (or "possesses") the physical. If this is not true then what keeps the bodies connected to the soul? Actually how ARE the different bodies/selves connected anyway? The grid?

I was also very fascinated by the Arthurism on the astral body's amoebic behaviour:

The Astral body for all practical purposes is an energy amoeba. Meaning, it can take whatever shape you wish. Most choose their physical body form. But that doesn't prevent you from extending pseudopods to do other things. This INCLUDES projection. So part of your astral body is still possessing your body to keep things like your heart and brain kicking over. To the casual observer, it looks like a long thin cord, but that is simply because it is stretched, like a piece of melted cheeze. If one bothered to look at the other end which was in the physical body itself, one would see a larger "blob" of astral body still possessing the physical body. Obviously the astral body has a good amount of flexability which allows for this. Believe it or not, your astral senses DEPEND on this.

Let's see if I've got the mechanics down..
Since my original question about tethers was not clearly answered, is it safe to say that tethers, or at least concentration tethers are indeed pseudopods extending from the astral body, connecting it with another's, or with spells? Isn't the concentration tether sort of the "glue" holding a tech spell together, or can they run the program without a concentration tether as long as they're properly powered?
How would that work? In the case of the tether between, say, two brothers, would there be two tethers, one from each astral body, or one tether where the two astral body pseudopods sort of meet halfway?...Or am I completely wrong?
Also, how do the senses work? is there some sort of astral osmosis process where the astral body absorbs a bit of the surrounding (if sensing nearby), or sends a pseudopod at the desired location (if far away) and "reads" it? In that case, wouldn't we want to augment the size, flexibility and/or density of the astral body?... Is that what an Amplifier does, more-less?...

[LordArt]

Wow, I should starting calling you fisherman Dumani. You are fishing by dropping terms that from the rest of your statement it doesn't seem you understand. I won't go over everything, but I'll correct what I feel appropriate to. Honestly, if you are that interested, I'm giving a lecture on Astral Biology at this year's Crucible, that I'll go more in-depth on that here on this forum.

...that the silver cord is some sort of trans-dimentional power line, tying the series of energy bodies together, and feeding them energy from the "soul reactor" in a pulsating fashion, ending at the astral body which is integrated with (or "possesses") the physical. If this is not true then what keeps the bodies connected to the soul? Actually how ARE the different bodies/selves connected anyway? The grid?

To your points:

Trans-dimentional power line: Can it be transdimentional? Yes. Doesn't have to be. If you don't project off of Earth astral, the "silver cord" isn't leaving the realm it's on. And I wouldn't call it a power line, any more than I'd call my arm a power line for my hand from the rest of me. The cord is YOU, not just something you plug into a wall outlet for juice. It is part of your astral body.

Pulsing: Why pulsing? You making a porno? Power just flows steady from the reactor "downwards" through the spiritual guts and eventually into the astral body itself (and out the chakras, which creates the energy effect which we call an aura. I've never seen it pulse on anyone unless something was direly wrong.

Grid: Your name dropping here. I'm not going over "the grid" on the public forum. Nice try.

As far as how everything is connected, the best way to describe it is like this. Your spiritual guts, which includes your soul reactor and a bunch of other things (inner,lower, etc.) rides around via the astral body. The astral body is external to the spiritual guts, much like the physical body is external to the astral body. I'll leave that there since one shouldn't be poking in there.

Let's see if I've got the mechanics down..
Since my original question about tethers was not clearly answered, is it safe to say that tethers, or at least concentration tethers are indeed pseudopods extending from the astral body, connecting it with another's, or with spells? Isn't the concentration tether sort of the "glue" holding a tech spell together, or can they run the program without a concentration tether as long as they're properly powered?
How would that work? In the case of the tether between, say, two brothers, would there be two tethers, one from each astral body, or one tether where the two astral body pseudopods sort of meet halfway?...Or am I completely wrong?
Also, how do the senses work? is there some sort of astral osmosis process where the astral body absorbs a bit of the surrounding (if sensing nearby), or sends a pseudopod at the desired location (if far away) and "reads" it? In that case, wouldn't we want to augment the size, flexibility and/or density of the astral body?... Is that what an Amplifier does, more-less?...

You are making a lot of assumptions in terms which aren't correct.

Concentration tethers aren't a part of the astral body at all. They are a spell effect and therefore made up of normal magical energy. All spells have them, tech, psi, ritual, whatever. A spell would fall apart without them in short order. I will take it back that hard magic doesn't require them, but we aren't talking about that. And I guess instant spells don't really require them either, but if you want something that lasts effectively for more than a few minutes, it needs them. Keep in mind that they are very subtle and can easily be missed if you don't know what you are looking for but they are there. And tech spells aren't programs, BTW, they are mostly hardware. Powering only makes a spell keep from shutting down or eating itself from lack of power. The concentration tether keeps the "pattern" going for lack of a better term for any type of magic.

As far as what can be between two brothers, there are bunch of tether types, but a concentration tether between them wouldn't be normal. A power tether perhaps if you are shifting power back and forthe. As far as how it's hooked up, that is up to the individual and how they made it. But again, this is a spell effect, not a pseudopod effect of the astral body.

You got somewhat close on the astral sensing bit, so I'll elaborate on what senses are (or some at least). What do you do if you are in a room of perpetual swirling brightly colored and glowing gas so dense you can't even see your hand in front of your face? How would you exist and get around in a world like that? A blind person feels around with their hands or other body parts to figuire out where things are. They feel faces rather than seeing them. They create a mental picture of the room they are in, as well as the face they are touching based on what they felt. This is you and your astral body. Since the astral body can't "see" in the swirls of ambient energy, it has to feel it's way. Fortunately, since it can send out tendrils of itself at will, it can easily feel it's way, and is quite adept at it. This is why when you sense an astral object, you can "see" behind it if you wish easily without moving. It isn't line-of-sight based. It is also why you can "feel" when someone is sensing you, because they are touching you via their senses (ie. tendrils). Much like a hand that can feel pressure, texture, temperature and vibration, an astral tendril has it's own complement of sensors to get a good idea of what is around. Yes, there are other ways to sense and not be detected, but I'm not talking about that here. The tendril bit is what most people do.

As far as augmenting the size, that's like saying augmenting the size of your finger would make yourself a better pianist. The astral body already has almost infinite flexability and it certainly doesn't need to be denser. Don't use analogy's from spell casting on your body, because it doesn't translate well. You CAN however, make your astral body more sensitive, or responsive. But that is something different. Most of that is how you use the body itself.

As far as what amplifiers do, no they don't enhance the astral body at all. How they do what they do greatly depends on WHICH amplifier you are speaking about since they all address different short-comings of the spirit to enhance what is lacking. Initially, it's focus, then power, then resolution. Many of them as a side effect give you better senses, but it doesn't do via elephantitis of the astral body.

[Dumani]

And tech spells aren't programs, BTW, they are mostly hardware. Powering only makes a spell keep from shutting down or eating itself from lack of power. The concentration tether keeps the "pattern" going for lack of a better term for any type of magic.

That makes sense. I was asking more like if the concentration tether is the software for the spell or doesn't have to be. Like, if somebody set up a tech spell a long time ago, could it be made self-sufficient (with hardware, software and power arrangements) as to keep working after the person has passed on completely? Would that be the case with the harder stuff you mentioned?

Also, on the original topic of projection, are we in the astral when we dream? are dreams a kind of unconscious full-immersion projection or can they be a proper one after you become lucid, or are dreams and projections completely different things? Because again I seem to find contrary views from different sources..

[Dumani]

Sorry, is it full-emersion as in 'emerged from the body' or full-immersion as in 'immersed in the astral'?.. My bad...

[LordArt]

Sorry for the delay. Work has been rather nuts...

That makes sense. I was asking more like if the concentration tether is the software for the spell or doesn't have to be. Like, if somebody set up a tech spell a long time ago, could it be made self-sufficient (with hardware, software and power arrangements) as to keep working after the person has passed on completely? Would that be the case with the harder stuff you mentioned?

The concentration tether isn't software for the spell. It is what maintains the pattern. An implementer if you will or a supervisor (but more than that). It is otherwise referred to as a maintenance tether, because it does exactly that. It maintains the spell. It also provides status information back to the caster.

As far as a spell working after death, the spell isn't coming from their physical body, but their astral spirit in the first place, so there is no interruption to the spell upon physical death. Soul death is another matter and it would fail then (or if a person was "shutdown" magically). Depending on the spell, it would either fail immediately, or slowly degrade. Hard magic would likely still degrade but on such a large time scale that it wouldn't be noticeable, however it could be easily made so that it wouldn't degrade at all and still function full strength, but that would require self-powering (which can be done via certain tech).

A spell CAN be made self-sufficient without external maintenance but one would have to specifically make it so, and account for all the degrading factors. The main one is power, but another one is spell integrity, which means one would have to emulate what the maintenance tether does in part of the spell itself. I've seen things created by bigger things that are self-contained because they have their power in a "battery" on-board, but once the power is used up, that's it. Which is fine because normally they aren't going for some eternal spell, but something to deal with whatever that doesn't require that kind of overkill. Symbolically, they always look like they are made of some REALLY hard materials like crystal or rock, which to me indicates that the structure of the spell is specifically made to resist the normal degradation that happens to all spells, even ones fully powered (which then requires a maintenance tether to renew the degradation). Now this still isn’t hard magic, but does address the same issues to a lesser degree. A good example of this in physical life is your computer. Entropy does affect it, even though it doesn’t have moving parts. The parts it does have will eventually fail and need to be replaced. The cause is environmental, in the computer’s case, generally thermal related. In a spell’s case, it has to do with the sea of energy that it (and our own spirits) exist in. Kind of like solar winds, but not as dramatic. But again, most spells you or anyone else creates are such short term that it doesn’t matter and the maintenance tether counteracts what problems (in general) that do occur.

Also, on the original topic of projection, are we in the astral when we dream? are dreams a kind of unconscious full-immersion projection or can they be a proper one after you become lucid, or are dreams and projections completely different things? Because again I seem to find contrary views from different sources..

You go full-immersion when you dream, yes. So it is astral projection in a technical sense. But you generally go to the same place, and it's a place specifically for it, so one can debate if it's the "astral" as you are talking about it. I'm not going to go into the details beyond that here, because answering such questions always leads to other questions that I don't want to answer.

Sorry, is it full-emersion as in 'emerged from the body' or full-immersion as in 'immersed in the astral'?.. My bad...

It's technically full immersion, as in your perception of your senses are fully immersed by the information from your astral senses. It could just as easily be emersion, as in fully (or fully enough) leaving your body so you don't pay any attention to your physical senses. It's semantics, and with my notoriously bad spelling, I've used both.

[cawritergirl]

If the silver cord was that fragile, wouldn't half the people on the earth be dead already. I'm sure many people astral project without knowing it. I don't particularly know whether I ever have, but I suspect that I have.

This silver cord is not some easily cut physical thing. It is energetic and as such has different properties.