A friend of mine (minorwork) on Facebook provided some text books which offer techniques and discussion of subtle body separation/analysis: 

Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth by Robert Johnson. Or my fav. Experiment in Depth by P.W. Martin which is a look at the “separation” from three perspectives. Jung for technique. Historian Arnold Toy…

nbees assessment of its influence in history, and T.S. Eliots view from one who has accomplished the “withdrawal and return.”

On 2/25/2011 2:18 AM, Terrence Brannon wrote:

I continue to use the term ‘sensory deprivation’ even though Lilly made it clear that only certain people who had not done tank work themselves used this term.Technically, we are liberating ourselves from the distraction of physical senses. From ch.11 in “The Spiritual Notebook” (The Higher and Lower Powers) we read further confirmation of the power of Sensory “Deprivation”

“””
Consciousness is beyond the worlds of thought. It is the foundation of ECK, and the whole of ECK teachings. It is the explanation for the difference between the mental and Soul plane. It is the hardest dividing line to cross. … The secret of entering into the consciousness state is detaching one’s self from the outer, or sense world, and withdrawing one’s attention from all sensory objects. Then the chela begins to concentrate his attention on something inside. So far this is the general method of all systems. But the secret is that the mental world — which consists of the tools of thought — and every plane below it, comprise the negative worlds.
“””

Hmm, so after separating physical from emotional and emotional from thought, we must also separate thought from consciousness. Arunachala Ramana of AHAM.com said the same thing: “the only spiritual practice is separating thought from awareness. Anything else is not worthy of the title of spiritual practice.”

I continue to use the term ‘sensory deprivation’ even though Lilly made it clear that only certain people who had not done tank work themselves used this term.Technically, we are liberating ourselves from the distraction of physical senses. From ch.11 in “The Spiritual Notebook” (The Higher and Lower Powers) we read further confirmation of the power of Sensory “Deprivation”

“””
Consciousness is beyond the worlds of thought. It is the foundation of ECK, and the whole of ECK teachings. It is the explanation for the difference between the mental and Soul plane. It is the hardest dividing line to cross. … The secret of entering into the consciousness state is detaching one’s self from the outer, or sense world, and withdrawing one’s attention from all sensory objects. Then the chela begins to concentrate his attention on something inside. So far this is the general method of all systems. But the secret is that the mental world — which consists of the tools of thought — and every plane below it, comprise the negative worlds.
“””

Hmm, so after separating physical from emotional and emotional from thought, we must also separate thought from consciousness. Arunachala Ramana of AHAM.com said the same thing: “the only spiritual practice is separating thought from awareness. Anything else is not worthy of the title of spiritual practice.”

I had a friend who took an initiation. He wasnt happy with the system because he felt that nothing was happening when he did the meditation. I have two responses to this#1 – the tank always awaits a chance to loosen you

I just finished an hour in the tank. For the most part I was certain that “nothing was happening” and guess why? Because I was locking my body into place in the tank. The second I relaxed just a bit, the tank took the opportunity to loosen all sorts of muscle groups – across the spine, up and down the sides, the neck, you name it. Then I started pointing and flexing my toes and one toe would not flex back as fast as the rest – it had a mini Charley Horse. But then it worked its way out.

I was literally creating a limited tank experience by holding my body fixed. The tank destructured me and exposed my attempt to create a limited body-tank relation.

I’m so impressed with the ability of the tank to loosen up the physical body that “floating”, the secular term for what we do, is called “loosening” in the vocabulary of my religious organization devoted to floating [0]

#2 – expect the unexpected instead of filtering your environment

The instructions to John C. Lilly from E.C.C.O. [1] were: “Expect the unexpected every moment 24/7” – when you simply sit down and expect the unexpected, then your awareness expands and all sorts of trivial things you would never notice come to your attention – the refrigerator turning on, an ant walking across the rug, the wind rustling outside, a cabinet door creaking. You realize that “you” typically are a stick in a fast flowing river of phenomena.

But the ego is so focused on filtering the environment so that only stimuli which enhance/threaten survival come to your attention, that you actually dont even notice 1% of what is usually happening!

#3 Praise to Lilly

We results-oriented Westerners would not have ever had a crack at samadhi (samadhi being that crack between events which allows us to create and control as we learn to widen the GAP) because we are so fixated, locked down and focused. The whole lot of meditative experience has been gifted to the West thanks to the bold research efforts of John C. Lilly.

# References

[0] http://git.thedeepself.org/definitions/#loosening
[1] http://www.evolver.net/user/drongo23/blog/dr_john_c_lillys_earth_coincidence_…

Chapter 3 in “The Spiritual Notebook” by Paul Twitchell (founder of ECKANKAR)  provides more rationale for liberating oneself from the physical senses: 

“… the inner universe cannot be realized unless we are able to separate Soul from mind and physical senses, and visualize Truth directly.” 

later in the same chapter, Twitchell describes the 3 common states of deep sleep, dream, and waking. The he says:

 

“The next ascending step is the immortal state. Once we have taken this step we have consciousness of the higher planes where all things are subtle and Truth is the Ultimate Reality. At this stage the brain and the physical organs cease to operates … only by our spiritual senses do we function within these worlds.” 

still later:

 

“The nine doors of the outer world are (list of orifices and sense organs… he omitted the skin)… all attention must be withdrawn from these lower doors and placed upon the spiritual eye.” 

finally:

 

“When Soul passes through the spiritual window it enters into the astral world. We cannot see this world with physical eyes, but instead we view everything on this plane with astral senses. This is true of every higher plane we pass into.” 

I tried focusing on the 3rd eye during my last float but I fell asleep. Maybe I should play HU in the float room to tune myself to the God worlds? Oh yeah, in ECKANKAR you need the help of the Living ECK Master to guide you to the Soul plane. You could only get to the mental plane by yourself – you would never cross the great void – http://santmat.livingcosmos.org

I finished my Bikram Yoga. I get home and my body is pleading with me: “get into the tank NOW”

So I put up my groceries and flop right in… oops! Let’s unplug those heaters first.

So I’m in and drifting off to sleep. Then I feel a sharp electric-like jolt in the neck. I think: “oh god, i left something plugged in”

But then I get a grip and realize that electrical shock is not that selective – the whole water body would’ve been electric.

So I settle back in and it happens again and again and again… about 4 times total.

I think some long-held tension was releasing.

I leave the tank fully recharged and ready for the day.

The ability of the tank to detect tension and release it is simply amazing: THANK YOU JOHN C. LILLY!

I’ve been having a lot of lucid dream experiences in and out of the tank recently.

Outside of the tank, listening to “The Dreaming Gate” by Inlakesh is quite effective. Another thing which is effective is to follow the instructions that Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj gave to Nisagadatta Maharaj: “attend to the sense ‘I am’ and to give attention to nothing else.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj) … a lot of times before I know it, I am swept into a situation where I am operating a subtle body outside the laws of Planet Earth. Now, astral journeys like this are not the goal of that technique, but it has been happening quite a bit because of it.

This morning, I finished my Bikram Hot Yoga class and came home eager to float. So I jumped in. The usual profound loosening of the physical body commenced… it’s simply amazing how the tank finds your tight spots and opens them up. Eventually, the subtle body was free of the physical and the following occurred:

I was browsing a web page. Some spiritual group was having spiritual seminars and I found their local ashram and went for a lesson. They were teaching some sort of breathing technique. A rather chubby girl in red exercise tights began to demonstrate how she could work the breath up her body. She would squeeze the breath into her body and moan in sexual ecstasy. She did this about 5 times.

That ended the instruction. Then a student next to her made a snide comment about Ashtanga Yoga. He said it was ridiculous to think that asanas had to be done in a certain order. Then an older lady who appeared to be the only teacher in the room started gently discussing the actions of both of the boy and the girl. Then a guy in sandals and Indian garb walked over and started sprinkling talcum powder over the floor.

I could see it was time to go, so I rose up to leave… and suddenly I felt as if I were suffocating. I had no idea how to get air. I was on my back. I knew if I flipped over I would not have enough air to make it. I dont exactly know what I did to get out of this situation. But I did notice that the amount of air in the tank was quite low so maybe the sensation of low air created an entire fear drama.

The containment tank is only 16 inches high. So trapped CO2 and no circulating oxygen could be an issue for long floats.