What is Translocation?
A friend recently asked the question, “What exactly is translocation?”
I’ve had many experiences, which I would classify as translocation, but until today, I’ve never tried to explain exactly what I mean when I use this word.
I think the term translocation encompasses a number of different things, which are related, but different. Because most of us are unfamiliar with these concepts, we tend to lump them all into one broad category, but perhaps we should see them as separate things.
One type of translocation is physical translocation – where your physical body is moved from one location to another. The classic example is when Philip was physically moved from Gaza to Azotus as recorded in Acts 8:39. This type of translocation is pretty easy to understand.
Another type is spiritual translocation. This one is not so easy to understand.
The difficulty lies in how it is experienced and how it is explained by different people. Very few people describe spiritual translocation the same way. The terms we use are confusing and at times misleading and are a product of the culture we come from. Someone from a New Age background might describe the experience a Christian has in very different terms.
When I think of spiritual translocation, I think of an experience where our spirit ‘goes somewhere’ that it normally would not. Or at least that’s how I perceive it.
Most of the time, we perceive the world through our body, with our soul and spirit all from a single perspective. We identify them all as being at one physical location. In a translocation event, our spirit either goes somewhere else or it views things from a different perspective than the normal one. When we perceive the shift of perspective, we call it translocation. But what exactly is happening?
The first problem we run into is that when we talk about these experiences, we tend to think in terms of physical locations. Since our physical body relates to the world in physical terms, it’s our default setting for any discussion that involves perspectives or movement. Â But our spirit doesn’t have its origin in the physical plane of existence. It has its origin in the spiritual plane, which assigns different values to things like time, location and distance. This means that the concept of physical location is more or less irrelevant when describing the movements of a spiritual body.
Since physical location is irrelevant to the spirit, we usually become muddled in a discussion using terms that don’t capture the essence of what’s really happening. It’s impossible to accurately describe the spiritual world in terms that are intended to describe to the physical one.
Having said all that, my understanding of translocation stems from the fact that our spirit is not limited in the same way that our physical body is. Our physical body is confined to a narrow set of physical parameters. It occupies a set amount of space, it can be located by a set of coordinates on a map. It has a certain mass, etc. All of these things describe the limitations of our physical body.
These limitations apply to things that have their origin in the physical plane of existence. They are of little use in describing our spirit, which originates in the spiritual plane. Things that originate in the spiritual plane have a different set of limitations imposed upon them. While these limitations may be similar to the ones of the physical plane, they’re different enough that applying them to the spirit will inevitably create confusion.
But my friend wants this question answered, so here’s my best shot at explaining translocation.
When our spirit begins to explore various planes of existence, both the physical and the spiritual, it begins to view things from a different perspective than the normal, static viewpoint of our physical body. Our spirit experiences a shift of perspective.
The experiences that our spirit has are passed on to our soul through the mind via the imagination. They’re usually perceived by the mind as visions or daydreams and if they happen at night – as the usual nighttime dreams most of us have. When our spirit moves through the spiritual plane or the physical world, it sees different locations and encounters different beings. These experiences are perceived by the mind as a kind of dreamy, visual scene being played out in our imagination. Often, our mind classifies them as the product of an overactive imagination and they’re dismissed as not being ‘real’. The mind has difficulty registering them as ‘real’, because it is used to experiences that stimulate the physical body – not the spiritual one. But in fact, these are the very real experiences of our spirit.
When these things happen. we describe them as translocation.
I discuss this subject in depth in my book Traveling in the Spirit Made Simple.
Translocation…Nice ‘easy’ stuff to wrap my head around after a 12 hour shift! LOL
It’s really interesting to think about….So, when I have a dream and then the things I dreamed about happen, exactly as I dreamed and you get that Déjà vu feeling… Does that mean my spirit acutally already ‘went there’ and experienced these things? And my body and soul are just now catching up? Hmmmmm. I’m gonna ponder these things some more.
Now if you talk about translation…..then we can talk specifics. Yep, done that…!
Good stuff, feeling fed. Thank you very much. Yay
And now, we’re back to the whole terminology thing!
Ginny – i’m not sure of the differences (or whether there are differences) between the terms translation, translocation, transrelocation, traveling in the spirit, astral projection, remote viewing or any number of other terms people use for these experiences. I’m certain the people using them have a definite experience in mind then they use a certain term. But I’m not certain whether any of these term identifies a particular phenomenon. It might be that they are all describing essentially the same thing.
Hmmmm, I have experienced the actual walking into my dreams and it actually was so much bigger than a Déjà vu thing. There was nothing foggy about it but an actual knowing that I saw it before it happened. Then there is the thing about arriving some place sooner than is physically possible. Like it talks 45 minutes minimum to get to work and you pray and then you get there in less than 20 minutes…Yeah, that kind of stuff. So, whatever the term is….I want more. I was reading about someone touching someone as they prayed for healing and later discovered that the person actually felt them there…..they felt the connect. That was awesome. Along simular lines, I’ve been praying for someone far away and felt my hand physically on them before….maybe it was my imagination or maybe it wasn’t . Either way, I’m willing and ready to learn more.
That is a decent synopsis actually. In my limited experience we are body soul and spirit each with it’s own abilities and limitations and each with it’s own personality if you will. In my hospital experience I wrote about, each of them had different thoughts and feelings about what was happening to me. Apparently this is true all the time but they are merged most of the time and are experienced as a single personality. In that instance I experienced all three in the same place separated by only a small distance since they were all three caught up in the same situation. I’ve experienced different things including watching a get together i was not able to attend , upon relating what i saw to people who were there… jaws dropped and they agreed what I saw did happen exactly the way I saw it. To me that was a distance translocation to a place several miles away. The third and least frequent for me are time translocations, where I see an event or conversation that occurs a considerable time later in real life, word for word or detail for detail.I am pretty sure the time translocations are completely spiritual in nature and gives a good example of the difference of limitations say between distance travel or even near death experiences of observing the hospital room and precognition or visions of the future. I have become quite certain when God said ” let us make them in our likeness” he meant alot more than just physically or visually, we are triune creatures just like our creator.
I had an interesting experience where I was wide awake in worship & it felt like some part of my inner being suddenly rocketed out of me like a burst of energy, yet I lost track of how far “it” went after about 4 or so meters; but my physical awareness stayed the same, and left me surprised & wondering. Recently I found the verse in Song of Songs that says ” My Soul went out to Him” – that was very much what it seemed like. A very unusual experience. Any body else experience that?
I was thinking of the time after being in the recording studio hours at the time that when I went to bed I was still suspended in the beauty of the music.l It lifted me up and wrapped me in its beauty. I had an image of what MUSIC “looks like” in heaven which was like pillars of Jello and all its colors vibrating with the sound, which I got to walk in and through, touching it and feeling it on my skin. It was fantastic. I wish I could paint it but painting is limited in what it can reveal. It falls way short of what I experienced. I can’t wait to be in heaven again and experience that. The music totally enveloped me. It was beautiful to be actually touched by it too. LUV B
and don’t forget TRANSPORTATIONS!
Do you have details of what each means? Thanks everyone for your sharing. B
Does anyone have the experience of their dreams invading and continuing into their daytime experience? It is like I am two people at once. It has been happening a lot lately. I felt I had to take authority over it, but maybe I should take a different approach. This behavior continues sometimes into the late afternoon. Anyone? B
How would you know if you for sure that you spiritually translocated in a dream? I’ve had a very vivid Jesus dream and so I suspect my spirit translocated in that particular dream…. I’ve heard other accounts of physical translocation, back when Spain colonized the Philippines the natives were gonna stage an uprising and this Spanish soldier got translocated back to Spain, he was initially jailed because no one believed him…I’ve also heard of Akiane Kramarik’s story where got translocated her to heaven while her mom and the police were searching for her for hours and when everyone was getting desperate she appeared right in their midst…..
Translocation to me means physical transfer of location. I appear somewhere else and people see me there and then I return to my home base. Jesus translocated from one side of the Jordan to the other side.