This is what happened to me, many years ago, after my very first successful deliberate wake induced OBE. I had been trying to project for several months at this time, and had made a projection attempt almost every night for the previous two weeks. Trying to balance everything, relaxation, trance, energy, technique, etc, for a conscious exit projection is very difficult and can take some time to master. At this time, I was sleeping in a strange house and bed as I was watching over a depressed (suicidal) friend who was asleep in another room at the time.

Amidst massive waves of energy, pressure and vibrations: thinking I might actually be dying -- I buzzed free of my body. I floated across the room and hovered there, internally awed by my success as I looked around and got my sea legs. Just as I was about to head for the great outdoors, only a few seconds after the exit, I felt myself in the grip of a powerful force. Unlike the Astral Wind phenomenon, this force pulled me to the middle of the room and transfixed me in a horizontal position several feet above the floor. I hung there looking up at the ceiling for a few moments as the room slowly dissolved around me.

I found myself lying in near-darkness on what appeared to be a stone altar. I was unable to do more than move my head very slightly from side to side. The scene around me grew more solid and was soon broken by several burning torches. They floated towards me and hung in the air all around me, suspended several feet in midair. I sensed movement and heard the muttering of many voices nearby, and realized I was not alone.

Straining to move my head, I made out the shapes of trees and stone pillars in the distance, faintly illuminated at the outer edge of the ring of light cast by the flickering torches. Several groups of strangely dressed people, men and women of many different races, were approaching me. Some wore long robes while others were almost naked, and many wore elaborate headgear. They spread out and formed a deep circle around me several feet away and waited, quietly talking among themselves as if I were not even there.

Suddenly, a ripple of excitement spread through the crowd and they parted in the direction my feet were pointing, all now facing this direction. Floating down a pillar-lined path came several large shields, all brightly painted and glowing. Each one held a colorful, glowing magical symbol. The shields were oval in shape and looked very African in design. They came to rest a few feet away and hung several feet in the air around me. I heard several voices say at once "The Master is coming!" and a reverent hush settled over the crowd. The inner-circle of people closest to me kneeled and joined hands.

An old but powerfully built African-looking man, at least seven foot tall, walked solemnly towards me through the break in the crowd near my feet. He was bare headed and wore a simple loin cloth made of some kind of animal skin. There were symbols and designs painted in glowing-white over most of his body. The Master walked up to the altar and stood just to the side near my head. He looked down at me solemnly for a moment before raising his hands over my head. He moved them over my body, making what appeared to be magical signs and gestures, his deep voice chanting resonantly in a strange tongue.

His words and gestures had a great power to them. From his hands came colorful sparks and glowing trails formed in their wake as they moved. Symbols and magical designs appeared in the air above me, some flowering and spreading and some sinking into my body. His palms slowly dissolved as multiple rays of colored-light sprayed from them. I felt these rays touching and burning into me and something very strange seemed to be happening inside my body. It felt as if my internal organs were being warmed and moved about in response to these penetrating beams of magical light.

After what seemed to me like several minutes, the light coming from the master's hands changed dramatically, solidifying into a single gorgeous royal-blue colour, only deeper, brighter and more vibrant. The colour was simply breathtaking and no colour on earth could compare with it. I heard awed whispers from beside me saying    "Look…look…the master's using the blue ray now!" This single ray of light grew in size and power and burned right through me.

I felt a tugging pressure in my chest and throat and my heart fizzed and tingled and thrummed wildly as the light burned through it. The blue ray spread upwards through my throat and head, growing stronger and brighter until it filled my mind's eye, blotting out everything around me. This light was breathtakingly beautiful and my whole world filled with its royal-blue light and energy. I felt myself falling into and becoming this light. I adored this light and was this light and the light became me. Then, the light slowly faded away like an afterimage and the bedroom started materializing around me.

I floated free and hovered awhile, trying to work out what had happened while holding onto the light I could still see in my mind's eye. I could see a royal-blue tint in the atmosphere all around me and took a quick look at my hands. As they melted, they glowed brightly with a royal-blue aura around them.

I slid back into my body and came wide awake, but could still feel the peculiar fizzy-tingling sensation in my heart. This lasted for several days and during this time I loved everything around me intensely. I was on something like a spiritual high. After this experience, my heart center became my most active primary energy center. This changed the course of my life dramatically. Even now, whenever I cover my closed eyes with the palms of my hands, as I always do immediately after meditation, my mind's eye still floods with this same wonderful royal-blue light…the sight of which I still adore.

For interest's sake: Two weeks after the above experience, my mother and I attended a large development circle at a Christian Spiritualist church in a town nearby. This was at the invitation of some acquaintances. I had not told a soul about the above Blue Ray experience (being rather staggered by it) not even my mother. During the ensuing development circle, two of the mediums working there (total strangers to us at the time) commented on a thick ray of blue light they claimed to see coming through the ceiling and penetrating my upper chest. Because of this blue ray, one of these mediums talked us into attending a healing center with them the following night, and literally wouldn't take no for an answer.

Thus began a very important chapter in my life, one of healing, service, learning and development. The minute I entered this healing sanctuary I was requested to work as a healer: something fairly new to me at that time. There, at this healing center, my mother and I met an small, elderly, buxom lady with a twinkle in her eye and a wonderful sense of humour: Selena. My mother had briefly met Selena once before at a spiritualist convention several years earlier. During the course of the evening we three took an instant shine to each other and quickly became the best of friends. Selena is one of the finest mediums (clairvoyant and clairaudient) and wisest person I have ever had the privilege to meet. She was destined to became my teacher, mentor and dearest friend for many years to come. Selena passed away fairly recently (1999) but she still comes to visit us occasionally.

To be truthful, I have a slight problem with death. When people die its really sad (tell me about it!) but I 'still' see them and talk to them at certain times, and its often hard to tell deceased people from living people. I remember once, many years back, riding on a bus in the evening, chatting to the guy next to me; as one does. A pretty normal event by all accounts; or was it? Read on and see what happened....

I was chatting with this young man and having a normal transient-type conversation (we'd both had a few beers, re why I was taking the bus instead of driving) when we came to the scene of a car accident. We'd only been on the bus a few minutes when the bus slowed to move around the wreckage. He was totally amazed and said "That looks just like my car! That is my car! But who's driving it? I'm on my way home from my sister's wedding. But what am I doing on a bus. Oh my God! I was driving! What happed? I wasn't that drunk!" (But he 'was' that drunk: totally legless) He broke down after this and slipped into a kind of trance-like stupor as the gravity of his situation dawned on him. Although by then I had realized what was happening (he was a recently deceased spirit) I could not get any sense out of him after this. Sad but true. He vanished shortly after this. Realizing this, I was not surprised when the bus driver made tactful inquiries about my wellbeing as I got off the bus. I explained I had been rehearsing a play; which usually works in situations like this.

Just so you don't get the wrong idea: please note that I don't see spirits all the time. That would be a most uncomfortable way to live. But sometimes my clairvoyant ability is triggered without my noticing it. Because of this, occasionally I'll have trouble telling the flesh-and-blood living from the not so flesh-and-blood living. This is especially likely to happen in the presence of recently departed spirits, especially at the scene of accidents and places where people have died suddenly. I think this may be due to the large amount of energy surrounding this type of event.