Your mind is like a radio: in order to view and travel to other dimensions you have to tune your mind into the frequency you desire (the vibratory rate that that world exists on). In order to do that, you have to learn to alter your states of consciousness at Will. In order to learn THAT, you have to practice altering your conscious states at will by starting small and working your way up. Practice with simple stuff like making yourself feel a particular emotion at will, or work with elemental energy (i.e. the stuff on my site- PRACTICE IT) and make yourself feel filled with each one etc. Meditation is good practice for altering your state of consciousness to that of a 'trance' state (what happens is that the rational part of your consciousness is temporarily taken offline so that the other subconscious psychic parts can come forward more easily).
In response to someone who wanted me to pull them out astrally:
Really, you're way too much like me when I was younger, so I think I can tell you this. I'm NOT going to try to cause your mind to see or feel certain things right now at this point in your development. People tried that with me and it DIDN'T WORK. Now I'll tell you why it didn't work very well, and even when it sorta did work, why it wasn't the best thing for people to do for me.
The mind is usually somewhat hierarchical in structure. This is how I view it (my system of viewing things- this is not the only way to view them, but it works for me). You'll have to ignore the fact that I've reduced reality down to 5 variables and related them to the 5 elements, since reality is infinite and can't possibly be reduced to only 5 variables. But I've done this so that certain aspects of reality (especially the aspects that correspond to the human mind) can make more sense when explained.
Psychic events are often viewed by learning to engage and become conscious of those parts of your mind that correspond to the watery subconscious levels first. Those are the most obvious and easiest to learn to work with for more people, and in order to reach the upper higher-self level intuitive parts, you have to go through your subconscious to get to them under most circumstances. (That is the usual manner of doing things.) You learn to access your subconscious by PRACTICING mental visualizations, learning to control your dreams, and practicing entering into altered states of consciousness such as trance states (this is accomplished through meditation and ritual usually). If you've ever had to do something really boring for a long period of time, found yourself feeling 'zonked' or 'zoned out' while staring at blankly nothing as if pulling your mind away from the task and into some inner daydream state, then you've already been in the beginnings of a trance state of consciousness. Again, meditation and ritual work is good for creating a sort of trance state, and that state of consciousness is good because it helps you to turn off the logic/reasoning part of your mind so that you can tap into other aspects of awareness such as your subconscious.
The reason why it didn't work when people tried to show me stuff at first (like getting me astral, and teaching me about energy) is because I wasn't completely tapping into my subconscious and intuitive facilities at that time. I was aware of them, and had been astral before but didn't believe that I could do it on my own. Lack of confidence in my own abilities, along with the fact that I wasn't turning off the rational/reasoning part of my mind and making use of the usually unconscious psychic levels instead, is why it didn't work when people tried to pull me out astrally or show me energy/psychic phenomena. In other words, I'm telling you nicely to get off your butt, start practicing the stuff I recommended ON YOUR OWN and learn to suspend the reasoning/rational/logical part of your intellectual aspects so you can start to tap into your subconscious MORE DIRECTLY and in a CONTROLLED manner. Heheh I wish someone had told me that so bluntly a long time ago…I'd probably not have taken so long to figure everything out. If you don't believe you can do it and work hard to do it on your own, then you'll never have any success. If I tried to show you anything at this point, chances are either you won't see or feel anything since you haven't done the necessary practice yet, or you'd only see a small part of it.
Side-note: Sometimes when attempting to show non-practitioners an astral or energy phenomenon, I've noticed that touching them astrally will either have no effect since they weren't conscious of that aspect of themselves that was touched, or will only have a slight effect that they brush off as though it was something in their own minds. (Unless of course it happens to cause them extreme discomfort or physical pain.) Usually, the person will believe that any feelings he/she is receiving are entirely from within his/her own mind. That's why it's probably best to ignore the demands for physical 'evidence' by anyone who isn't willing to do the work on their own first. I personally have no more time to waste on non-magickal skeptics.
Even if I did manage to show you something or even pull you out astrally, the other problem is that you probably wouldn't be able to recreate the experience for yourself later, since you didn't do it for yourself in the first place! And that's the problem I had for YEARS! It also made me dependent on others and constantly wishing that I could have someone pull me out all the time. I had to realize that I can do it all on my own. Complete relaxation is the key to projecting more easily, by the way.
The Airy/Intellectual/rational/logical aspects of the mind aren't directly involved in the perception of energy and psychic phenomena. (To me, it has always appeared that their function was more for description/analysis of such things.) That's why it does no good to show normal (non-magickal) people ANYTHING most of the time. That would be like pointing to the sky and trying to tell a blind man about clouds; he can't see the sky much less clouds and talking about the color blue would be pointless too. Each person has to learn on their own to make their minds think in the necessary ways in order to become Conscious of that which is usually Unconscious. Until they've done that, it's normally not possible to show them anything. You just can't show the normal Airy intellect mind-level things on the Watery subconscious level and expect it to notice anything. Gotta get those levels/aspects of mind communicating with each other first. The only way to do that is through your own effort. That's the one thing that has helped to keep the unworthy out of magick over the centuries. The study of magick isn't for the lazy.
Another thing: Asking me to manipulate your mind so that you can see a certain level of reality or even go astral etc., is like asking someone to make your hand move and learn to write before you've ever had the chance to hold a pencil and practice forming letters. When you were young and learning to write in school, they put a pencil in your hand and showed you a bunch of letters and told you to copy them and learn on your own, didn't they? And when you were learning to ride a bike you had to do that all on your own too didn't you? The reason for that was because you were learning things that dealt with control of your own mind. No one can show you how to control your own mind, they can only talk about it and describe it. You have to experiment and practice ON YOUR OWN or you'll never figure it out properly. I NEVER figured out much at all until I was almost abandoned by my friends (who I relied way too much on to the point of annoying them with my constant questions and requests) and forced to practice and work on my own for quite a while. You need to understand that you're perfectly capable of doing all this stuff on your own and you don't need to rely on other people to make your mind/consciousness move in new ways in order for you to be effective. All it takes is practice. You'll only get out of it however much effort you put into it.
Recommended Order of Importance in Practice:
Step One for learning magick: Learn to sense energy. Practice trying to sense energy of objects around the room, practice sensing your own energy and making energy balls and playing around with them etc. There are plenty of exercises available for that. Tai Chi practice is also good for that.
Step Two: Learn to tell the difference between your own energy (internal) and energy from outside of you (external). The only way to do that is to KNOW YOURSELF very well inside and out. That can take years. You'll have to do extensive research and exploration within your own subconscious to really get a good idea of how your own energy 'feels'. Psychic stuff is a 'feel' thing remember. Everything has a different feel to it. Even information can be transferred in just an abstract and profound non-verbal feeling. After a while, you'll be able to tell the difference easier.
Hypothetical Example: You suddenly hear a voice in your head talking to you, or sense a message from somewhere astrally/mentally. Your 2 choices of action are to:
OR
Step Three: Learn to alter your states of consciousness at Will. Begin learning to enter into a trance state since it's probably one of the easiest to learn first. In order to ascend to higher levels of reality, you have to make your own energies/consciousness resonate or vibrate at the same frequency as the one you are trying to go to.
Example: If I want to go to an elemental plane of Fire, I would make myself feel fiery in order to get into the place I'm trying to find. You have to put yourself on the same frequency as the place you want to go to. There is no other way I can think of to describe this action. That's why some people have so many problems while astral; they unconsciously attract negative things because they don't realize that they have similar negativity within them.
Another side-note: Like attracts Like. (Yes I know this seems contrary to the 'laws' of physics, but laws are made by humans, and humans make mistakes and are not omnipotent.) Opposites can attract and/or repel, just as well as like objects can attract and repel like objects for various reasons. You'll have to do some meditation to really get the gist for now. Energy/Psychic realities don't always conform to or even resemble the laws of the physical realm. Paradoxes can overwhelm the magickian at every turn.