Testing the Astral Projectors: What OBE Experiments Proved About Consciousness

Out-of-body experience experiments have been conducted under controlled conditions since the early 1900s, with results that institutional science has largely declined to integrate. French mesmerist Hector Durville documented luminescent effects produced by extruded subtle bodies. Karlis Osis and Charles Tart's laboratory studies at the ASPR produced strain-gauge registrations, verified EEG signatures, and target-identification results at odds of 1-in-100,000 against chance. The evidence that something leaves the body—and can be detected when it does—is substantial.

The Earliest Controlled OBE Experiments Produced Results Nobody Could Explain Away

The intention here is not a comprehensive overview of a research field that dates back to the 1800s and could fill volumes—Carlos Alvarado's concise survey Does Something Leave the Body? covers the historical record well for the seriously interested reader.¹ What follows is a focused account of the more important and evidentially significant findings, from the early French experiments through to the instrumented laboratory studies of the 1970s and 1980s.

French mesmerist and researcher Hector Durville conducted the first systematic out-of-body experience experiments in the early 1900s. His methodology was simple and the results were striking. Calcium sulphide screens—which luminesce in response to energetic proximity—were placed near subjects who had been placed in deep trance and induced into the OBE state. When the subject was given the suggestion to approach one of the screens in their out-of-body condition, the screen "glowed up with added brilliance as the result of the proximity of the astral body."²

The screens were used repeatedly with consistent results. Durville describes one session:

"I placed one of the large ones on the abdomen of the subject and held the other in the phantom [subtle body/double], which was seated on an arm-chair to the left of the subject. The screen placed in the phantom became rapidly illuminated, and the one on the subject remained completely dark…I then took the screen which had been on the subject, and remained dark, and placed it in the phantom. It immediately became illuminated like the first."³

The finding was structurally clean: the physical body emitted no light when the subject's consciousness had departed. When the mind was present in the body, it did. The subtle bodies—not the physical—were the source of the luminescence. This is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the subtle bodies consist of self-luminous plasma or a plasma-like energetic substrate.

Durville was more esoterically informed than many of his contemporaries, and his notes on the subtle body architecture are precise:

"The phantom of the doubled subject is composed of several bodies that double over again. When it is located near the subject…it is the etheric body, which is animated by the astral body…When it is away for some time, it abandons its etheric form and parts with the astral, which from then on is animated by the mental body. At this moment the etheric body, seat of vitality, reenters into the [physical] to animate it, because without it physical life cannot be prolonged for a long time."⁴

And crucially: "The phantom is all the individual. On it live the sensations, thoughts, will, judgement; it has become the seat of consciousness…'The phantom is me,' said one of my subjects."⁵

This is the experimental confirmation of something the Consciousness Transition Model maps at the structural level: the physical body is the instrument, not the occupant. What Durville's subjects discovered in the out-of-body state—that the body they had vacated was "nothing," while the subtle double was unmistakably them—is precisely what the CTM's Post-Mortem Architecture describes as the natural consequence of the Biological Disengagement Event. The identity does not dissolve with the physical body. It departs with the subtle body complex.

Durville's psychic observers also documented the silver cord: "A cord is sometimes seen connecting the double to the physical body, coming out mostly from the navel of the physical body…the luminous fluid circulating from the subject to the double in one part, and from the double to the subject in the other."⁶ Durville's assistant André commanded one subject to send her double to tread on the feet of another subject in a separate room. The second subject immediately drew her feet back, complaining someone was treading on them. Physical objects were moved by the out-of-body phantom. Raps were obtained. On occasion, when screens were photographed, silhouettes of the phantoms appeared in the images.⁷

Durville concluded without equivocation: "Projection of the astral body is a certain fact, capable of being demonstrated by means of direct experiment…Immortality is a fact which is thus proved scientifically."⁸

Carrington Replicated the Effects—and Located Sensation in the Etheric Vehicle

British psychical researcher Hereward Carrington, writing in Modern Psychical Phenomena, detailed his own OBE laboratory experiments conducted in a similar vein to Durville. Using hypnotic suggestion to partly dissociate the etheric body from the physical, Carrington then pricked the extruded etheric body with a needle—some six to eight inches away from the physical body. The subject responded as if the needle had struck her physically. This phenomenon is known in occult literature as repercussion: an effect upon the subtle vehicle registering sensorially in the physical.⁹

Carrington noted that "experiments of this character have been conducted on a large scale in France, and are known as 'exteriorization of sensibility.'"⁹ The replicated finding carries a specific theoretical implication: perception of physical sensation does not occur in the physical body per se, but in the etheric vehicle—the subtle layer immediately interfacing with physical matter. This is what Allan Kardec (Hippolyte-Léon Denizard Rivail) called the perispirit: "a semi-physical (or fluidic) principle that linked the physical body and the spirit," involved in certain psychic phenomena and apparitions.¹⁰

Carrington subsequently collaborated with Sylvan Muldoon, who had undertaken hundreds of out-of-body excursions across twelve years and co-authored two foundational books on astral projection scientific evidence with Carrington as a result.

Alex Tanous and the Strain-Gauge: Something Measurable Leaves the Body

In the United States, Karlis Osis—director of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) from 1962 to 1975 and one of the most prolific parapsychological researchers of the twentieth century—spent several years conducting controlled OBE studies with Alex Tanous (1926–1990). Tanous held five academic degrees including a doctorate in theology, had served as a psychic consultant to the FAA, the FBI, and local police agencies (confirmed in a declassified CIA memorandum from October 1979),¹¹ and spent nearly twenty years working with scientists at the ASPR.

One early test involved Tanous travelling astrally to a distant office to observe what was on the table, then reporting back. Unknown to Tanous, a clairvoyant named Christine Whiting was waiting in that office to see if anyone came to visit. She observed Tanous arrive, described his position in the room, and detailed his clothing accurately—a shirt with rolled-up sleeves and corduroy trousers.¹²

In a separate series, Tanous' task was to project astrally and view objects on a target table. He demonstrated a notable tendency to describe objects placed there days later—a characteristic the occult literature accounts for in terms of the non-linear temporal properties of the astral plane, where movement is through time rather than space. In Larson's reciprocal model of space-time and time-space, this is precisely what one would expect: in the reciprocal domain, spatial position is fixed while temporal position varies freely.¹³ The clairvoyant observer present in the target room witnessed Tanous' projected form "bend over the target table like a jack knife."¹⁴

In 1980, Osis and his assistant Donna McCormick reported on the definitive series of OBE research controlled studies with Tanous. The experimental apparatus was an optical viewing device—a shielded structure 2'×2'×3' containing a rotating disc divided into four quadrants, each a different colour, with one of five possible target images randomly selected per trial. Quadrant, colour, and image were all randomised and automatically recorded. The only way to observe the resulting combination was to look through a small window at the front of the device. No one involved could know the final combination in advance.

Tanous was to project himself into the shielded space and view the target through the window. In 197 trials across twenty sessions, he correctly identified the target 114 times—substantially above chance.¹⁵

But the crucial component was what happened next. Strain-gauge sensors had been installed near the viewing window to detect the slightest physical vibration or movement—hopefully, the mechanical signature of Tanous' projected subtle body. Tanous was not told about the strain gauges and did not know they were present. The finding was unambiguous: when Tanous correctly identified the targets, unintentional mechanical effects on the sensors were registered on a connected Beckman polygraph. When he missed, they were not. Something physically detectable was present at the viewing window at precisely the moments Tanous was accurately perceiving the target.¹⁵

Light sensors in a darkened room also registered increased luminosity when Tanous was present out-of-body—directly replicating Durville's calcium sulphide results from sixty years earlier. Temperature shifts were also detected.¹⁶ Theorist Dan Winter offers a framework for the temperature finding: "ghost alarms sense a bit of coolness. Living plasma sucks up heat—just like an imploding vortex."¹⁷ The presence of an organised consciousness unit—a coherent subtle body with centripetal, negentropic field properties—draws thermal energy from its environment, producing the localised cooling that researchers and paranormal investigators consistently detect.

Tanous summarised the cumulative findings from his years of experimental work: brainwave amplitude shifts during OBE, indicating electrical quiescence at the back of the head; sharply localised vision at the ostensible out-of-body location; absence of eye movement indicating the state is not a waking dream; and the kinetic strain-gauge effect present only when he was accurately perceiving the target—absent during misses.¹⁸

Charles Tart and Miss Z.: A 1-in-100,000 Result Under EEG Monitoring

Charles Tart—who studied electrical engineering before becoming a psychologist, receiving his doctorate in 1963 and postdoctoral training in hypnosis research at Stanford—conducted what remains one of the most rigorous single-subject out-of-body experience research studies on record.

In the mid-1960s, while investigating altered consciousness states at UC Davis, Tart obtained an ideal subject: his babysitter, referred to in his published work as "Miss Z.," who claimed she could leave her body at will and was willing to be tested under laboratory conditions. She agreed to spend four nights wired to an electroencephalograph in the university's sleep laboratory. Tart's target was a five-digit number written on paper and placed on top of a tall cabinet—visible only from a vantage point physically inaccessible to someone lying in bed, since any movement of 60 centimetres from the bed would disconnect the EEG electrodes.¹⁹

On the first three nights, Miss Z. reported out-of-body experiences but was unable to control her ecsomatic state sufficiently to perceive the target. On the fourth night she reported the number correctly: 25132. Odds against chance: 1 in 100,000.²⁰ There was no disconnection or disruption to the biometric recording throughout.

The EEG findings were equally significant. During the OBE, Miss Z.'s alpha waves slowed by one and a half cycles per second—a pattern Tart had never previously observed, confirmed as anomalous by his colleague William Dement, then one of the world's leading sleep researchers. Her EEG showed a mixture of Stage 1 sleep and alphoid activity, without rapid eye movements, cardiovascular changes, or skin resistance changes—a pattern not found anywhere in the existing sleep literature.²¹ Absence of eye movement confirmed she was not dreaming. The brain state suggested a Zen-like dissociation from external stimuli—hypnagogic in character, neither sleeping nor waking.

Ingo Swann's 100% Match Rate and What the EEGs of Psychics Show

Tart and Osis subsequently collaborated on experiments with Ingo Swann—whose remote viewing work at SRI is well documented. For these astral projection proof science experiments, Tart devised an optical viewing box containing a picture that functioned as a clever optical illusion—it could only be perceived correctly from directly in front of the box, looking through a small aperture. Swann performed this perception remotely and accurately. On one occasion he reported being unable to see inside the box because it was too dark—it turned out the light inside the box had failed. He had correctly identified a physical condition at a remote location.²²

In 1972, the results of eight OBE perception experiments involving Swann and the Society for Psychical Research were assessed by an independent judge—a judge who believed she was evaluating a standard visual perception series and had no knowledge that out-of-body perception was involved. She correctly matched all eight formal trials: 100%. A second independent judge, also blind to the experimental nature of the study, subsequently matched all eight correctly as well.²³ OBE perception of physical targets, when conditions are right, can be extraordinary.

The EEGs of Swann and all other psychics tested by Osis and Tart showed, consistently, brain-wave activity unlike either normal waking or sleeping states—but only during OBE or psychic performance. The unusual EEG signature was not a baseline characteristic of these subjects. It appeared specifically and exclusively when they were operating out-of-body or psychically.²⁴ The state has a neurological signature. It is not imagination.

Keith Harary, Parity Reversal, and the Physics of Non-Physical Planes

At Duke University in the 1970s, researcher D. Scott Rogo and colleagues conducted OBE laboratory experiments with Keith Harary (formerly Stuart Blue Harary), then an undergraduate who had been able to induce OBEs for several years. In one series of experiments, Harary while out-of-body apparently influenced the behaviour of a kitten named Spirit and a rat snake—separately—in ways the researchers could not attribute to coincidence. The full account of these experiments is available on this site.

A structurally fascinating finding emerged when researchers reverted from OBE trials to standard remote viewing target tests with Harary: mirror vision complicated his observations. This connects to a broader phenomenon noted consistently across OBE research: etheric and astral perception frequently show parity reversal—a left-right or top-bottom inversion of the perceived environment.

Robert Monroe found that upon exiting the physical body, everything about his apparent physicality was reversed—like a mirror image. The thick toenail normally on his left big toe appeared on his right. Monroe speculated that "the Second Body is a direct reversal of the physical."²⁵ Jay Alfred explains this in terms of the chirality of the physical-etheric universe being right-handed, as opposed to physical space-time which is biased to the left—producing what he describes as "a case of double-parity reversal."²⁶

Tom Bearden posited that each mind-world is one additional orthogonal rotation away from the physical referent—the electromagnetic field being one 90° rotation away, the etheric a further 90°, and so forth.

Phase conjugation—defined as "a physical transformation of a wave field where the resulting field has a reversed propagation direction but keeps its amplitudes and phases"²⁷—may be relevant here. If the reciprocal planes are phase-conjugate with physical space-time, parity reversal would be an expected structural consequence, not an anomalous one.

One documented OBE case illustrates this perfectly. A man who could not hear without a hearing aid and could barely see without glasses projected astrally to a theatre about 200 miles from his home. Upon arriving and moving through the corridor toward the auditorium, he found everything reversed: the stalls on the wrong side, the stage at the wrong end. Inexplicable to him—but he reached his seat, watched the play, and for the duration of his OBE he both saw and heard perfectly without either aid. His experience terminated when something on stage amused him and he laughed: immediately he was back in his body.²⁸

Perfect sensory restoration. Parity reversal. Spontaneous termination upon return of ordinary emotional reactivity. These are not the hallmarks of imagination or hallucination. They are the hallmarks of a genuine shift in perceptual reference frame.

What the Cumulative Experimental Evidence Proves

The experimental record on out-of-body experience spans over a century, multiple independent research groups, and a range of instrumented methodologies—luminescent screens, strain gauges, EEG monitoring, optical viewing devices, blind independent judging. The convergent findings are:

Something physically detectable departs the body during the OBE state. Tanous' strain-gauge results established this instrumentally. Durville's luminescent screens established it six decades earlier. The two findings, produced with entirely different technology by researchers in different countries who had no contact with each other, describe the same phenomenon.

The out-of-body state has a distinct neurological signature unlike either normal sleep or waking. The EEG patterns of Miss Z., Ingo Swann, and Alex Tanous during OBE were anomalous, unprecedented, and consistently distinguished from all other states.

OBE perception of physical targets can be verified, precise, and reproducible under controlled conditions. Swann's 100% match rate across two independent blind judges, Miss Z.'s 1-in-100,000 correct identification, and Tanous' 114 correct identifications in 197 trials collectively constitute an evidential record that straightforward materialist explanations cannot accommodate.

This body of astral projection scientific evidence is precisely what the Consciousness Transition Model was built to account for. If consciousness can detach from the physical body, perceive physical targets from a non-physical vantage point, register a mechanical presence at a remote location, and return to the physical body—then consciousness is not produced by the brain and is not confined to it. This is the CTM's foundational premise: substrate independence. The experimental OBE literature is not peripheral evidence for this premise. It is among the strongest direct evidence we have.

The implications for what happens at death follow naturally. If the subtle body complex departs the physical at death—taking identity, memory, and perceptual capacity with it, as Durville's subjects experienced directly—then the Biological Disengagement Event is not the end of experience. It is a change of reference frame. The full architecture of that transition is mapped in the Consciousness Transition Model and developed in Reverse Engineering the Afterlife.

"The phantom is all the individual. On it live the sensations, thoughts, will, judgement; it has become the seat of consciousness…'The phantom is me,' said one of my subjects."—Hector Durville, early 1900s OBE researcher

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is there scientific evidence for out-of-body experiences?

Yes. Out-of-body experience experiments conducted under controlled laboratory conditions have produced multiple independent lines of evidence. Charles Tart's EEG-monitored study at UC Davis documented a 1-in-100,000 correct target identification alongside an anomalous brain-wave signature not found in the sleep literature. Karlis Osis and Donna McCormick's strain-gauge studies at the ASPR detected a verifiable mechanical presence at the out-of-body location when subjects correctly perceived remote targets. Hector Durville's early 1900s luminescent screen experiments documented light emission from the extruded subtle body. These are not anecdotes—they are instrumented, documented experimental findings.

What did the ASPR's OBE experiments with Alex Tanous prove?

The ASPR's OBE research controlled studies with Tanous produced two principal findings. First, in 197 trials across twenty sessions, Tanous correctly identified randomly selected optical targets 114 times—far above chance. Second, and more significantly, mechanical strain-gauge sensors installed near the viewing window registered physical effects at precisely the moments Tanous correctly perceived the target—and registered nothing during his misses. The sensors were not disclosed to Tanous. The most parsimonious explanation is that a physically detectable subtle body was present at the location Tanous reported occupying out-of-body.

What is the silver cord and has it been experimentally documented?

The silver cord—an energetic link connecting the subtle double to the physical body during OBE—was documented by the clairvoyant observers Durville employed in his early OBE laboratory experiments. They described it consistently as a cord emerging from the navel region, "the seat of a very intense luminous circulation," with energetic current flowing in both directions simultaneously. While the silver cord has not been instrumentally measured in the way the strain-gauge effects have been, its consistent independent description across traditions and experimental observers constitutes convergent testimonial evidence for a real structural feature of the OBE state.

Why do people see everything reversed during an out-of-body experience?

Parity reversal—the left-right or top-bottom inversion of the perceived environment during OBE—is a consistently reported and theoretically coherent phenomenon. Robert Monroe found his subtle body was a mirror image of his physical, with left and right reversed. Jay Alfred explains this as a consequence of the physical-etheric domain being right-handed, in contrast to physical space-time's left-handed bias. Theoretically, if the subtle planes are phase-conjugate with physical space-time—each one an additional orthogonal rotation away from the physical reference frame, as Bearden proposed—parity reversal is a structural expectation, not an anomaly.

How does OBE evidence relate to what happens after death?

The experimental astral projection proof science record implies directly that consciousness is not confined to the physical body and does not depend on the physical body for its perceptual or cognitive functioning. Durville's subjects discovered in the out-of-body state that the physical body was "nothing"—that they were fully themselves in the subtle double. Charles Tart's Miss Z. perceived accurately from a vantage point physically inaccessible to her body. Tanous was instrumentally detected at remote locations. If the subtle body complex can depart the physical, perceive, and be detected—and if at death this departure becomes permanent rather than temporary—then the Consciousness Transition Model's account of the Biological Disengagement Event is not speculation. It is the logical extension of what the experimental record already shows.

What was unusual about the EEG readings during OBE experiments?

In every case where EEG monitoring was used during out-of-body experience research—Miss Z., Ingo Swann, Alex Tanous, and other subjects tested by Osis and Tart—brain-wave activity during OBE was anomalous: unlike both normal waking and normal sleep states, and unlike any pattern previously recorded in the sleep literature. Miss Z.'s EEG showed Stage 1 sleep mixed with alphoid activity, without rapid eye movements—consistent with hypnagogic dissociation rather than dreaming. The anomalous EEG did not appear as a baseline characteristic of these subjects. It appeared specifically and exclusively during the OBE state, providing neurological corroboration of a genuine shift in perceptual reference frame.

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Explore Further

→ The Consciousness Transition Model — The first structured, cross-tradition map of how consciousness moves through post-mortem states.

→ What Happens When We Sleep: The Nightly Out-of-Body State — Monroe Institute research and the nightly exit from the physical body.

→ What NDE Research Actually Shows — The parallel evidential record from near-death experience research.

→ Psychokinesis: What the US Military's Research Actually Found — The documented evidence for mind-matter interaction from laboratory and military research.

→ The Grand Illusion — Book 1: the foundational research into OBE, the subtle body, remote viewing, and the failure of the materialist model.

→ Reverse Engineering the Afterlife — Book 2: the full CTM account of post-mortem consciousness states.

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References

1. Alvarado, C.S. Does Something Leave the Body? OBE Historical Perspectives. Psi Encyclopedia, Society for Psychical Research. https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/does-something-leave-body-obe-historical-perspectives
2. Muldoon, S. & Carrington, H. The Projection of the Astral Body. Rider & Co., 1929. xxix.
3. Alvarado, C.S. Does Something Leave the Body? (as above).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Muldoon, S. & Carrington, H. The Projection of the Astral Body. 31–2.
9. Carrington, H. Modern Psychical Phenomena. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1919. 86.
10. Alvarado, C.S. Does Something Leave the Body? (as above).
11. CIA memorandum, October 1979. CIA-RDP96-00788R002000240004-1. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R002000240004-1.pdf
12. Zammit, V. A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife. Chapter 7. http://www.victorzammit.com
13. Panchadasi (Atkinson, W.W.). The Astral World. 1916. Chapter 10. [Note: Atkinson also wrote as "Yogi Ramacharaka"; The Astral World appears to be a republication of "Ramacharaka's" 1909 The Life Beyond Death. Atkinson is also the primary author behind The Kybalion.]
14. Tanous, A. Conversations with Ghosts. 90–1.
15. Ibid. 90–3. See also: Osis, K. & McCormick, D. (1980). Kinetic effects at the ostensible location of an OBE. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 74(3), 245–262.
16. Tanous, A. Conversations with Ghosts. 92–3.
17. Winter, D. Fractal Conjugate Space & Time. 105.
18. Tanous, A. Conversations with Ghosts. 94.
19. Tart, C.T. (1998). Six studies of out-of-body experiences. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 17(2), Winter 1998.
20. Ibid. See also: Calvi-Parisetti, P. 21 Days into the Afterlife. 44.
21. Tart (1998), as above. See also: Talbot, M. The Holographic Universe. HarperCollins, 1991.
22. Williamson, L. Contacting the Spirit World. Piatkus Books, 2006. 35.
23. Swann, I. www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/RealStoryCh30.html
24. Williamson, L. Contacting the Spirit World. 35.
25. Monroe, R.A. Journeys Out of the Body. Doubleday, 1971.
26. Alfred, J. Between the Moon and Earth. Lulu Press, 2006. 29.
27. Phase conjugation definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_conjugation
28. Green, C. & McCreery, C. Apparitions. Hamish Hamilton, 1975. 169–70.
29. Rogo, D.S. Leaving the Body: A Practical Guide to Astral Projection. Prentice-Hall, 1983. 220.