Astral Plane: an intermediate and invisible level of reality between the physical plane and higher, more divine realms. It is the common boundary between the individual and noumenal reality. A non-physical level of existence which is the basis of the physical plane. The astral plane has several "layers" of density and vibrational rate. The upper astral lies close to the angelic realms, while the lower astral is the world of dreams and phantasms. The astral plane contains many non-physical entites. Astral Projection (or Astral Traveling): the practice of "traveling"out of the physical body in the astral planes. It is the transference of consciousness from the physical to the astral body, in a way that the practitioner perceives and moves about on the astral plane in the "body of light," while the physical body remains inert. By using astral projection, the magician enters this world and interacts with angels, elementals, and other beings. Astral Projection in the Golden Dawn tradition can be described as a form of self-hypnosis which uses symbols as doorways in order to cause changes in consciousness. From these higher levels of consciousness, the magician often tries to see the underlying causes of things. Atlantis: Atlantis presents a mystifying riddle. There are undoubtedly elements of its architecture and remanants of its civilization all around the globe. Yet it is inconceivable that any such global civilization ever existed. The story of Atlantis begins quite literally with two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. These accounts are the only known written records which refer specifically to a lost civilization called Atlantis.Archaeology got a "wake up" call in the mid-Victorian period. Most ruins were very well documented and explored in Georgian times, and the Victorians had meticulously documented the ancient world. The existence of "mythical" Troy had no place in that scheme - Troy was a literary convention invented by Homer. Then in 1871, a German Chemist and amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann found an ancient city of northwest Asia Minor near the Dardanelles. Originally a Phrygian city dating from the Bronze Age, there was little doubt that it was the legendary site of the Trojan War and was captured and destroyed by Greek forces c. 1200 B.C. This began a flurry of new archaeological activity as Archaeologists and students realized there was a great deal yet to be discovered about the ancient world. A new generation of archaeologists was fired by boyhood readings of Schliemann's discovery which was widely publicized (somewhat along the lines of Ballard's discovery of Titanic). In 1898 Sir Arthur Evans discovered a vast palace site on Crete, which he fairly reasonably linked to King Minos. That the palace, and "Minoan" civilization were real was beyond doubt, and the ancient stories of Crete fell neatly into place with scientific fact. Thus Atlantis remains a historic possibility - after all, was not Troy thought fictional? Schliemann and Evans both believed in Atlantis, and Schliemann spent a fair amount of money trying to find it. The classic "map" of Atlantis, developed from the description in Plato, originates with Schliemann. That Atlantis was a place of strange super science seems doubtful, but Atlantis may well have represented a civilization more advanced than the one which came immediately after it as the Greeks went through some periodic cycle of barbarism. Certainly the Greeks possessed great skills at calculation as shown by objects such as the Antikythera device, recovered in 1901, which is a sort of complex astronomical computer.