MIND BEYOND THE BODY: The Mystery of ESP Projection

OB, OBE, OOBE. . . in the jargon of the trade it's Out Of Body Experience and it is rapidly becoming the hottest item in the psychic world. With very little beyond descriptive anecdote to go on, D. Scott Rogo has assembled a scholarly anthology of interesting experiences, theories, and commentaries on the phenomenon. Contributors include Stanford investigators Puthoff and Targ, Charles Tart, and such acknowledged specialists in OBE as Michael Grosso, Stuart Blue Harary (a star performer), and Rogo himself, a former director of research for the Southern California Society for Psychical Research. At this stage of study there is a little in the way of consensus. Some people don't even like the OB experience. One woman wanted more than anything else to return to her body. Psychological theories suggest hallucinations, depersonalization. Pure psychic theories postulate astral realms of experience, a non-physical ""soul"" leaving the body. Rogo attempts a synthesis of theories at the close, believing OBE to be part psychological, part psychic. The emphasis in research, he believes, should be on the OBE phenomenon itself, not on ESP or PK. Two seasoned subjects might project to the same place and compare notes--as good an idea as any. Skeptics may well conclude, however, that the kind of intelligence exhibited here would formerly have been employed in numbering those pin-balanced angels.