Hannibal, MO: “America’s Hometown” Amidst Fictional Landscape

We, as humans, are continually connecting with our surroundings in an interactive manner that has a profound effect on how we move through the world subjectively and react to the landscapes we inhabit. Bonding with specific locales is natural and pronounced when each individual is able to thrive within a regional group that has historical ties to an area rich with culture, generating substantial tradition. Fundamental to this place-based connection is an understanding of the transformative nature of landscapes.

A Journey to Other Worlds

The astral body appears in many different cultures throughout time and throughout the world. In Egypt, the “KA was not the soul of man . . . but its vehicle” (Muldoon & Carrington, 2011, p. xxii). In the Qur’an, Muhammad’s astral body travels in the Isra and Mi’raj story.  And, among other sacred and secular texts, the astral body appears in Hindu scripture, Taoist practice, and even Christianity. In his article regarding the afterlife, Woolger (2014)  notes that “in such journeys in the world religions and innumerable tribal practices” scholars have “described a common pattern of ‘ascent’, which is to say an ecstatic, mystical or out-of body experience, wherein the spiritual traveler leaves the physical body and travels in his/her subtle body into ‘higher’ realms” (para. 4).