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Autoscopy
From the Greek
autos (self) and skopeein (to see), it is the
alleged phenomenon, or perhaps visual hallucination or psychotic episode, of
seeing yourself from a position outside of your body.
This peculiar
phenomenon has puzzled humankind from time immemorial and is abundant in the
folklore, mythology, and spiritual narratives of most ancient and modern
societies. Autoscopy is associated with
astral travel, astral
projection, doppelganger
effect, and near-death experiences.
The word itself, dating from the
Mesmeric age, was coined by neurologist
Charles Féré,
and originally he applied it to the vision his patients saw of their double
in a morbid state. This is external Autoscopy, as contrasted by
Baron du Potet to internal Autoscopy: selfdiagnosis in a trance. Dr. Sollier wrote a
monograph, Les Phénomènes D’Autoscopie (Paris, 1903), on the subject.
Eventually the term came to denote the power of somnambules to see their own
organs and give a description of their state.
Autoscopy and
out of body experiences
sometimes share symptoms with pathological conditions such as schizophrenia.
Some people who experience OBEs worry that they are "going mad."
Modern research conducted by
Dr Susan Blackmore and published in 1986 suggested that there was no proven
statistical link between schizophrenia and experience of "classic" out of
body experiences.
See
Out-of-body
Experience,
Aura,
Astral Projection,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1) Spence, Lewis,
An Encyclopedia of
Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (2) Muldoon, Sylvan Joseph and Carrington, Hereward,
Projection of the Astral
Body, Kessinger Publishing; (3) Blackmore, Susan,
Out-of-Body Experiences
in Schizophrenia, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (1986).
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