In esotericism, astral projection (also known as astral travel, soul journey, soul wandering, spiritual journey, spiritual travel) is an intentional out-of-body experience (OBE) in which a subtle body, known as the astral body or body of light which consciousness functions separately through from the physical body, travels throughout the astral plane.

The idea of astral travel is ancient and occurs in multiple cultures. The term "astral projection" was coined and promoted by 19th-century Theosophists. It is sometimes associated with dreams and forms of meditation. Some individuals have reported perceptions similar to descriptions of astral projection that were induced through various hallucinogenic and hypnotic means (including self-hypnosis). There is no scientific evidence that there is a consciousness whose embodied functions are separate from normal neural activity or that one can consciously leave the body and make observations of the physical universe. As a result, astral projection has been characterized as pseudoscience.

Similar concepts of soul travel appear in various other religious traditions. For example, ancient Egyptian teachings present the soul (ba) as having the ability to hover outside the physical body via the ka, or subtle body.

The yaskomo of the Waiwai is believed to have the ability to perform a soul flight that can serve several functions, such as healing; flying to the sky to consult cosmological beings (the Moon or the Brother of the Moon) to obtain a name for a newborn baby; flying to the cave of peccaries' mountains to ask the father of peccaries for abundance of game; or flying deep down into a river to seek the aid of other beings.

In some Inuit groups, individuals with special capabilities, known as angakkuq, are said to be able to travel to (mythological) remote places, and report their experiences and important matters back to their community. Those abilities would be unavailable to individuals with normal capabilities. Among other things, an angakkuq was said to have the ability to stop bad hunting luck or heal a sick person. Soul wandering is classified as a culture-specific disorder.

Similar ideas such as the Liṅga Śarīra are found in ancient Hindu scriptures such as the Yogavashishta-Maharamayana of Valmiki. Modern Indians who have vouched for astral projection include Paramahansa Yogananda who witnessed Swami Pranabananda doing a miracle through a possible astral projection.

The Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba described one's use of astral projection:

In the advancing stages leading to the beginning of the path, the aspirant becomes spiritually prepared for being entrusted with free use of the forces of the inner world of the astral bodies. He may then undertake astral journeys in his astral body, leaving the physical body in sleep or wakefulness. The astral journeys that are taken unconsciously are much less important than those undertaken with full consciousness and as a result of deliberate volition. This implies conscious use of the astral body. Conscious separation of the astral body from the outer vehicle of the gross body has its own value in making the soul feel its distinction from the gross body and in arriving at fuller control of the gross body. One can, at will, put on and take off the external gross body as if it were a cloak and use the astral body for experiencing the inner world of the astral and for undertaking journeys through it, if and when necessary. ... The ability to undertake astral journeys therefore involves considerable expansion of one's scope for experience. It brings opportunities for promoting one's own spiritual advancement, which begins with the involution of consciousness.