Astral projection usually does happen for a purpose and "from" a body. People train for years to be able to do it, except those very rare individuals that just "get" it.
Spirit and soul. Many have questioned the true meaning and nature of those. Are they same to even begin with? I believe you do contact something, but i hardly believe those are human souls. Also, i do agree this is a religious debate opening, and this could be tricky cause all of us have different belief sistems. Im sure that, as it always is with those religious things, it could go away from starting point and end up in an endless argument with a lot of pouting
You the say the energy can disperse and reform into something new, so what makes you believe it has to reform into something human? I mean, and I don't say this because of Supernatural though they did have something like it, whos to say that a spirit guide wasn't once a regular human soul? Whos to say where any of these things came to be? Even then, yes I do know people that have come to know spirits. And as to what makes them sure its human, they havn't had reason to believe otherwise. And its not the spirit of someone they knew. Its not about being more comfortable thinking anything to be human either, and while I don't expect any ofyouto trust me simply on my word, understand that these people have never given me reason to doubt them.
I've astral projected three times before, Nina, and I'm relatively young in comparison to those on these forums who post about their experiences. It's not quite as difficult as you are making it sound.
I wouldn't even put it at religion, if we're looking at some basic principles of it. Take information the different types of hauntings, personal accounts, and causes of death, and I feel like you've got it. Not to mention the fact that, while we're all human beings, we're not all the same. It's like comparing the lifetime of an owl to that of a cat's. How can we be so sure as to how long a soul remains on earth? I actually have a fascinating collection of books which discuss the topic of death from a very objective POV. I'll be sure to share excerpts in my next post (or modify this one if no one posts before then) -- you might find it interesting.Now, to talk about personal experiences, I have various anecdotes of relatives recently deceased, who have never met one another; I have notes from my own experience; I have notes from my contacts who have done a lot of study in this field. Again, I'm not at home, so unfortunately I can't provide these things to you right away (my apologies for the constant "holding off" - it's not intentional!).If we were to add religious intonations into the mix (and again, remaining unreligious at the same time), we can add demonic forces into this conversation. Inhuman hauntings are the most dangerous -- and we've agreed that oftentimes they are demonic. [I had a really good point to go with this, but as I'm dead tired the thought has flown out of my head almost completely, lol. I'll put it back in once I've got it again.] However, as you mentioned, religious debates can end in pouting, so we can steer clear of discussing inhuman hauntings altogether.