Ba

Ancient Egyptian concept of a person's essence, which is believed to be immortal.

Ba is represented as a human-headed bird that leaves the body when a person dies. The face of Ba was the exact likeness of that of the deceased person.

Aura

In parapsychology, spirituality and New Age belief, an aura is a subtle field of luminous multicolored radiation surrounding a person or object as a cocoon or halo. An aura may be held to represent or be composed of soul vibrations or chakras, and may reflect the moods or thoughts of the person it surrounds.

Absent Healing

Healing that takes place when the healer is not in direct contact with the person to be healed.

Absent healing is a spiritual faith healing ceremony performed by practitioners of witchcraft and of other related belief systems. The ceremony can be performed collectively with a Coven or in Solitary. According to modern Wiccan practice, the person to be healed is not required to be present where the ceremony is performed, but the practitioner has an obligation to obtain the person's permission before beginning the ceremony.

Astral Projection

Astral projection (or astral travel) is a paranormal interpretation of an out-of-body experience achieved either awake or via lucid dreaming or deep meditation. People who believe in astral projection believe that the spirit or astral body leaves the physical body to travel in the spirit world or astral, etheric, or spiritual plane.

While there is no hard scientific evidence for astral projection, believers rely on personal experience.

Astral Body

The astral body refers to the concept of a subtle body which exists alongside the physical body, as a vehicle of the soul or higher consciousness. It is usually understood as being of an emotional nature and, as such, it is equated to the desire body or emotional body. However, some philosophies conceive that the astral body is a body made of either (the soul body), built by each individual during the current evolutionary stage (the Philosophers' Stone), which is said to give support to the desire (emotional) body during the astral projection.

Astral Plane

The Astral Plane is another level of existence beyond the physical plane.

The term "astral plane" has also more recently come to mean a plane of existence where souls and spirits reside.

The word "astral" (like celestial) means of or like the stars and is used in reference to the astral plane because astral matter does not require a light source to make it visible -astral matter gives off its own light, like stars do.

According to Occult, Theosophical, and New Age teachings, the astral plane can be visited consciously with the astral body through means of meditation and mantra, lucid dreaming, or other forms of training and development. The common human being normally separates his or her consciousness and astral vehicle from the physical body every night as he or she sleeps. Clairvoyants can see the astral vehicle floating a few inches over the sleeping physical body. This separation of the astral vehicle from the physical body every night is necessary for the human being to receive and process energies coming from higher, spiritual or more subtle planes of existence allowing the individual to awake the following day with his or her energies renewed. Human individuals that are spiritually advanced or trained in the use of their astral vehicle, can separate their consciousness and astral vehicle from the physical body at will and remain fully aware of the circumstances, using this capability at night to perform altruistic services or receive esoteric knowledge and training while in the astral plane.

The astral vehicle remains connected to the physical body during the separation through a so called “silver cord”, mentioned in Ecclesiastes 12:6. All physical things have astral and other more subtle or spiritual counterparts that interpenetrates them.

Apparition

An apparition refers to an astral body that materializes in the physical plane.

Astral

Astral is an adjective relating to stars or the realms one is said to perceive after death or during an out-of-body experience.

Altered state of Consciousness

An altered state of consciousness, also named altered state of mind is any condition which is significantly different from a normative waking beta wave state. The expression was coined by Charles Tart and describes induced changes in one's mental state, almost always temporary. A synonymous phrase is "altered states of awareness". An associated body of research has been conducted in trance and this is becoming the predominant auspice terminology. Trance includes all "altered states of consciousness" as well as the various forms of waking trance states.

An altered state of consciousness can come about accidentally through, for example, fever, sleep deprivation, fasting, oxygen deprivation, nitrogen narcosis (deep diving), or a traumatic accident.

It can sometimes be reached intentionally by the use of sensory deprivation, Isolation tank, or mind-control techniques, hypnosis, meditation, prayer, or disciplines (e.g. Mantra Meditation, Yoga, Sufism or Surat Shabda Yoga).

It can also be attained through the ingestion of psychoactive drugs such as alcohol and opiates, or psychoactive plants and chemicals such as LSD, DXM, 2C-I, peyote, marijuana, mescaline, Salvia divinorum, MDMA, psychedelic mushrooms, ayahuasca or datura (Jimson weed).

Another effective way to induce an altered state of consciousness is using a variety of Neurotechnology such as Hemi-Sync, psychoacoustics, Mind machines, light and sound stimulation, Cranial electrotherapy stimulation, and such; these methods attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns, and a particular altered state of consciousness.

Naturally occurring altered states of consciousness include dreams, lucid dreams, euphoria, ecstasy, psychosis as well as purported premonitions, out-of-body experiences, and channeling.

Angel

An angel is a spirit aligned with the forces of good. According to some religions, they are sons/daughters of God, whose responsibility is to carry out God's will throughout the entire universe.

Among the powers they possess are the power to control the elements and all forms of energy, to an extent of influencing all manners of creatures, including mankind, and the power to change one's destiny.

Some religion described them as having human form, with wings of a dove, and a ring over their head, called a "Halo."

This supernatural being is enigmatic and is often surrounded by mysteries.