Projection is an ability of the witches to manifest their consciousnesses out of their bodies known as spirit or astral projection.[1] Witches commonly use this power to spy-on or converse remotely with others by separating their spirit from their physical body. They are able to project their astral forms using spells that allows them to travel instantaneously to their desired location. Various spells can give different properties to ones astral form to fit their desires such as invisibility or tangibility to affect the physical plane.
More adept users of projection can even move objects or themselves from one location to another without occupying the space in between; this is known as Teleportation. Powerful witches can use this power to transfer someone or something from one point to another by disappearing and appearing instantly to their desired location. This is also possible when traversing through different dimensions such as going to or from prison worlds, in the case of Gemini witches.
Degrees of Variability[]
- Spirit Projection: The most basic form of Projection that allows the witch to freely walk about in spirit form. Like ghosts, spirit projection offers both intangibility and invisibility.
- Astral Projection: An augmented form of spirit projection. Unlike the former, spells of this caliber allow the astral form to be visible, though tangibility is optional. Intangible forms that attempt physical contact results in an "ugly chill".
- Teleportation: An advanced variation of this spell that allows full displacement of the witch's body and consciousness from one location to another, instantaneously. This form of projection seems to not require a spell to achieve or perhaps it is prepared beforehand and activated by thought, such requirements have not been established. To a lesser extend of this spell, objects too can be transported from one location to another. Once an object has been teleported to a desired location, it cannot be brought back in the same manner.
- Bilocation: A rare and an advanced ability that combines both astral projection and teleportation, that allows the witch to split their consciousness to two tangible bodies thereby allowing either to operate independent of each other. Unlike known accounts of teleportation, this requires the use of a spell.
Throughout The Vampire Diaries Series[]
Spirit Projection[]
In The House Guest, Luka and his father, Jonas Martin, performed a spirit projection spell in order to send Luka's spirit to find and remove the dagger from Elijah. Luka was not powerful enough to perform the spell alone, thus the assistance from his father. As Jonas proceeded with the spell, Luka's spirit was sent over to the Salvatore Boarding House where his spirit form invisible and intangible to those around him. Through his father's instruction and augmentation of the spell, he was able to become tangible in order to remove the dagger, though remained invisible. However, Luka's attempts were thwarted, as Katherine was able to keep the dagger from being removed until Damon arrived with a flamethrower and set Luka's semi-astral body on fire. This immediately rebounded on Luka's physical body, causing his physical body to combust and burn to death. Given Jonas' knowledge of witchcraft, this spell is not quite astral projection but an augmented form of spirit projection as tangibility was granted though he remained invisible.
In The Day I Tried To Live, Malachai Parker manages to send his and the spirits of Elena, Damon, and Jeremy to the prison world, which is supposedly, according to Kai, one of the benefits of being the leader of the Gemini Coven. However, the spell was not strong enough and did not allow their spiritual bodies to interact with anyone or anything in the prison world. Even as leader of the Gemini Coven, the spell greatly weakened Kai just to keep their spirits present.
Astral Projection[]
Later in The Day I Tried To Live, without the strain of sending multiple spirits, Kai was briefly able to send Jeremy's astral form into the prison world, allowing him to physically interact with its belongings, though this was quickly interrupted and he lost hold of the spell when he was attacked and severely wounded by Olivia. Therefore, more magic is required to reach astral form than it is to maintain a spirit form.
Teleportation[]
The first instance of teleportation of any kind was shown when Bonnie Bennett was able to teleport a letter to Elena in Rose. The letter caught fire and burst into ashes and appeared by Elena within minutes. Given this advanced spell casting and Bonnie's extensive use of magic in a short amount of time, this spell greatly exhausted Bonnie to the point of falling unconscious. Bonnie would later perform a similar spell in order to transport her magic-infused teddy bear from the 1994 prison world to the mortal plane in Do You Remember the First Time?.
Chronologically, the first instance of Human teleportation was revealed in Fade Into You, a flashback of when Joshua Parker, and his coven performed the Prison World Banishment spell on his son, Kai Parker, who had slaughtered his siblings. Forceful banishment required the power of a full coven channeling a celestial event, specifically an eclipse, to teleport Kai from the Mortal Plane into the fabricated Prison World. Though the first actual use of Human (more specifically Spirit) teleportation was performed by Sheila Bennett in Home. As The Other Side was collapsing, she found a way to save Bonnie's life from its destruction. As they were enveloped in a bright light, she along with Damon, who was in physical contact with her by holding hand, they found themselves transported to an alternate dimension, later revealed to be the 1994 prison world. As there is a spell to be transported to the prison world, subsequently, the Prison World Liberation Spell reverses the effects of the banishment/transportation spell. As the name implies, the spell would transport the user from the prison world back to the mortal plane. Bonnie Bennett first performed this spell in order to successfully teleport Damon back to the mortal plane in The World Has Turned and Left Me Here. Off screen, Kai would perform the same Liberation spell, using Bonnie's blood to free himself. In I Alone, Olivia Parker performed the 1994 Transportation spell to send Elena and Damon to the prison world, using Lucy Bennett's blood, in order to go in and retrieve Bonnie, who lacked her own magic in order to free herself. Though due to Kai's escape and attack on Liv, she was forced to teleport them back early without Bonnie.
In Let Her Go, it was revealed that there was a second prison world and with the near death of the Gemini Coven's leader, Bonnie was forcefully transported between worlds.With the stabilization of the leader's health, she was able to perform the liberation spell for a final time to free herself. It In A Bird in a Gilded Cage, she and Kai would transport themselves, Damon and Elena to the 1903 prison world to free Damon's mother Lily Salvatore. While separated, Bonnie sought revenge on Kai for the punishment he put her through while trapped together in the 1994 prison world.
She attacked him and nearly killed him, though as the new leader of the coven and having the magic from two of his siblings, he was able to teleport from her final attack. Not being able to kill him, she later performed the 1903 Liberation spell solo to free herself, Damon, Elena and Lily while leaving Kai behind, seemingly with no way to escape. In I'll Wed You in the Golden Summertime, it was revealed that Kai, using Qetsiyah's blood from Silas' tombstone, was able to perform the same spell to teleport himself and the Heretics back to the mortal plane.
Throughout The Originals Series[]
Spirit Projection[]
In Dead Angels, Davina performs a simple spirit projection spell, allowing her to project her spiritual body to the Mikaelson Compound, where she remained invisible and intangible to everyone else, while listening in on their conversation.
Astral Projection[]
In Gonna Set Your Flag On Fire, Rebekah, while possessing Eva Sinclair's body, who was recently trapped in the Asylum for witches is visited by a mysterious woman, later revealed to be her long-lost sister, Freya. It is also revealed that it was in fact her astral body wandering around while her physical body was asleep due to the immortality slumber spell cast by their aunt, Dahlia.
In For the Next Millennium, Freya teleports her astral body from the bar over to the Bayou at Elijah's request to watch over Hope while he handled the issue concerning the wolves and searching for Hayley. Though intoxicated she was able to perform the spell with relative ease. In You Hung the Moon, she has returned to the bar scene and relinquished Hope back into Elijah's care.
In Beautiful Mistake, Freya performs several astral projection spells yet again. Firstly, she projects her astral body over to Morocco where Rebekah was currently staying at. Following this, she performs the same spell again, only this time she also brings Elijah's spirit over to Morocco with their physical bodies maintaining physical contact during the spell. Her astral projection spell while granting her intangibility also allowed Freya to use her magic, though the connection was later disrupted by an unknown Moroccan witch working for the Strix, which forcibly sent Freya's spirit back to her body in New Orleans. The resulting magic from the Moroccan witch knocked Freya unconscious, while blowing out candles and tossing some of her items to the floor.
In Where You Left Your Heart, Freya performed an astral projection spell in order to visit and converse with Keelin; she had moved from New Orleans to Bekaa Valley, Lebanon for her doctor's program. For an unknown reason, Freya temporarily lost hold of the spell, and her astral form returned to New Orleans. Adjusting her crystal used within the spell, she was able to send her astral form back to Lebanon. Additionally, it also seemed as if physical interaction was not possible, as they did not physically touch during their conversation and it was implied as Freya wished to kiss Keelin, though she would have to wait and in five days, she would be able to.
In God's Gonna Trouble the Water, Ivy does Klaus the favor of performing an Astral Projection spell for him so that he could be with Hope for Hayley's funeral. Klaus was initially weary of her actions, believing that it could be some secret vengeance for her or the covens to take on him or for her to send him to the bottom of the Mississippi; however, she tells him that no witch would mess with a man on the day that he buries his daughter's mother. He accepts her offer and Ivy performs the spell twice for him so that he could be with Hope. The second attempt however, resulted in Hope sending his astral body away when she got upset with him.
In We Have Not Long To Love, Emmett has an unknown witch perform an astral projection spell for him and his vampires in order to find out witch side Vincent chose, either the vampire or the werewolves. Emmett got his answer; Vincent chose the werewolves, so Emmett attacked the witches.
Teleportation[]
Similarly to Bonnie's use, Genevieve was shown to have used a similar spell to teleport a newspaper article clipping about Klaus to Mikael in Long Way Back From Hell. Rebekah wanted to be free to love Marcel and be out from under Klaus' rule and Genevieve complied. Genevieve also reveals that objects teleported from one location to another can not be magically brought back in the same manner when Rebekah plead for her to 'undo' the spell.
Although similar to the methods used by Genevieve and Bonnie, Freya was also able to send a letter to her sister Rebekah, without the need for the letter to catch fire in For the Next Millennium. She would attempt another message spell to Rebekah in Beautiful Mistake, though the spell failed due to the death of the vessel she was inhabiting.
Dahlia had shown a mastery over teleportation having used it repeatedly in Night Has A Thousand Eyes. She was able to simultaneously appear and disappear within a matter of seconds simultaneously without the need of a spell or verbal action of any kind. This though does not exclude the possibility of her preparing the spell ahead of time or whether or not the action was astral projection; it remains unclear.
Once again in The Feast of All Sinners, Freya performed more message spells to teleport messages to Kol in the hopes to bring him back to New Orleans to help save Hope from the Hollow.
Like her aunt, Hope would perform a similar message spell in Don't It Just Break Your Heart to send Roman a secret message, wanting him to meet her before she had her aunt place the Hybrid Curse on her. Hope feared she would die; therefore, she wanted to cross a few things off her bucket list.
An unknown witch at the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted, on the behalf of Caroline, sent Klaus a message in New Orleans. She had to abruptly leave New Orleans to return to her daughters and wanted to pass on her condolences when Hayley passed.
Bilocation[]
In The Map of Moments, Esther couples both an astral projection and teleportation spell, allowing her to project her astral body in the Bayou despite her physical body being in the City of the Dead's Lycée. She performs this spell in order to contact Mikael and make a deal with him, though without risking her safe-being due to his anger that she brought Klaus' father Ansel from the Other Side while leaving Mikael there. She utilized an unknown dark object, a beaded necklace to perform the spell.
Throughout Legacies Series[]
Astral Projection[]
In You Can't Save Them All, after Hope learns that Alyssa sent the Saltzman to the Prison World that held Kai. Hope decides to perform an astral projection spell to send herself to the 2018 Prison World to find out if the Saltzman are still alive. While there, she learns that Josie broke the sandclock and that Kai has escaped from the Prison World by jumping into Malivore. Hope believes that Kai is already at the boarding school, pretending to be someone else. When she completes her spell, she's confronted by Kai. She lies and tells him that she didn't reach the Prison World but he finds the ascendant that was hidden by Alyssa. Later, after Josie and the others escaped the dimension, Lizzie performs an astral projection spell, aided by Josie, to warn Sebastian about it's impending collapse. She instructs him that there is a portal in Fort Valley, Georgia and, if he jumps in, he could escape. In Life Was So Much Easier When I Only Cared About Myself, Josie founds the Necromancer's means of spying on the Salvatore School — a detached eyeball and optic nerve. Using black magic while peering into the eye, Josie astral projected to the Salvatore crypt and to the Necromancer and Chad. Chad, while amused with Josie's ability, the Necromancer brushed it off — a mere parlor trick, to which Josie agreed with. They then struck up a deal to work together and complete the Merge.
In Goodbyes Sure Do Suck, after banishing Rafael Waithe to the 2028 prison world to save him and prevent his body from dying, Lizzie, Hope and the witches of the Salvatoer School projected the students to the prison world so that they could say their goodbyes to Rafael. In Salvatore: The Musical!, Alyssa Chang casts an astral projection spell to appear in MG's bedroom at the Salvatore School. Though he's surprised to see her, she's there to warn him. She tells him that the Necromancer is preparing for his big, evil plan and has sent a monster to distract the school. For him and everyone else, they won't even know he's a monster because he can trick them into believing anything he wants. Even though she's on the Necromancer's side, she still has feelings for feelings for him. Before she leaves, she tells him not to be a hero and urges him to get out, even if he does figure out the monster's identity.
In The Story of My Life, Lizzie appears behind MG and Cleo encourages him to hug her. He passes right through her, as she's not back at the school but astral projecting. They have a lot to catch up on, namely her death at Hope's hands and her transition into a vampire. After Lizzie ends the astral projection, she returns to her body and to Hope. She's mad at Hope for making her lie to MG, but as far as MG's concerned, she's going to spend some time with her mom to get accustomed to being a vampire and far away from Hope. In This Can Only End in Blood, Hope appears behind Ken, mocking him by saying she wouldn't bother praying to gods because they tend to suck. Her unexpected appearance surprises him and questions why she's come. Hope explains that Cleo told her that only one person has to die. She's come to accept his terms. As self-sacrificing as it is, it's also disappointing. However, Hope has actually come to issue her own challenge, according to the Old Ways. Trial by single combat. Between her and him. Ken assumes that Ben has informed her of their customs. Hope confirms that he has and that once a challenge is issued, it can't be refused. She proposes to start the battle in two hours at the school. He accepts, but decides why wait when she's here, now. He takes the spear and lunges it towards her; however, instead of the spear impaling her, it goes through her and strikes a bearing wall behind her. Jen compliments her on her sweet move, while Hope assumed Ken would try something so shady, hence the astral projection. She tells him she'll see him on the battlefield and astral projection ends.
Teleportation[]
In We're Being Punked, Pedro, while Dorian was teaching a class, a witch at the Salvatore school sent Dorian a note from headmaster Saltzman. The note required Lizzie, Josie, and Hope to report to Alaric. Lizzie was in trouble for starting a brawl at the Annual Charity Football Game and the latter two were in trouble for using black magic.
In Death Keeps Knocking On My Door, the Necromancer was released from Malivore and resurrected several people in his attempt to steal the supernatural knife in order to return it to Malivore. Having failed in his first attempt at stealing the knife by resurrecting Josette Laughlin, he resurrected Cassie and, using her as a puppet, succeeded. With the knife now in his possession, he resurrected an unnamed Bennett witch, one of the many buried in the local cemetery that excelled in the art of mystical transportation, to transport the supernatural knife to Malivore quickly and without incident. Once the spell was cast and the supernatural knife returned, he released both Cassie and the Bennett witch from his control to return to peace; having done what he was commanded to do, he was released and found peace.
In Salvatore: The Musical! Caroline has a witch teleport a letter to the Salvatore School for Lizzie. The Letter, however, ends up in Hope's possession before being given to Lizzie.
Known Users[]
- Bonnie Bennett
- Luka Martin †
- Jonas Martin †
- Genevieve †
- Esther Mikaelson †
- Freya Mikaelson
- Malachai Parker †
- Davina Claire
- Dahlia †
- Hope Mikaelson
- Ivy †
- Bennett Witch †
- Lizzie Saltzman
- Josie Saltzman
- Alyssa Chang
Trivia[]
- The first instance of Projection in The Vampire Diaries was demonstrated by Bonnie Bennett, using Teleportation by sending Elena a letter, a feat that greatly exhausted her magic at the time given her inexperience and lack of power.
- Luka Martin (with his father, Jonas Martin) is the first witch, in general to use spirit projection, with Malachai Parker being the second.
- Esther Mikaelson is the first witch in The Originals universe to use Projection, and the only witch to specifically use Bilocation.
- Esther's Sister, Dahlia was the second, using Teleportation.
- Following in her mother's footsteps, Freya Mikaelson was the third, using Astral Projection.
- Freya is the first witch shown to be able to use her magic while teleported in her Astral body. This has never been established until now.
- The Astral Plane is set on the actual dimension similar to the Other Side. However, while beings cannot be seen, they can still interact with physical objects.
- This is unless astral bodies are drawn to artificially constructed locations on the astral plane through magic like the Chambre de Chasse.
- Unlike the spirit, ones astral form takes on the appearance of the body they inhabit, this includes bodies they are currently possessing.
- Teleportation is one of the rarest forms of Projection, having been shown to be used by only a handful of witches, all of whom are noted to be very powerful.
- Dahlia is the first witch to be seen using actual teleportation on oneself in the The Originals. **Whether or not Freya being the second, is disputed though a deleted scene would suggest that it was astral projection.[2]
- The Gemini Coven leader, Malachai Parker demonstrated this ability once, following the Merge with his younger brother, Lucas Parker, as when he teleported from Bonnie who was trying to kill him in the Prison World.
- With the Ascendant and the blood of a Bennett witch, as well as a celestial event, a witch can teleport themselves (and others) from the Mortal plane to the Prison World, or vice versa. This was thus far performed by Bonnie Bennett, Malachai Parker and Olivia Parker.
- Though spirits can traverse from the mortal plane to the Other Side, or the Ancestral Plane, in reference to Ancestral witches, death typically facilitates this occurrence. Spells can also deliberately cause the user to travel to these realms, though again, death, though temporary, is usually involved. The context here refers Teleportation as the movement of the living and not a deceased person, who's spirit has moved on from the body.
- In Death Keeps Knocking On My Door, the Necromancer claimed that a lot of the Bennett witches buried in the local cemetery excel in the art of mystical transportation.
- Though not a witch, the Krampus has the ability to 'teleport', rather to turn into a smoke and dissipate through fireplaces. This was accomplished when he placed a finger on his nose.
- In Everything That Can Be Lost May Also Be Found, Hope explains to Marcel how she doesn't understand some aspects of astral projection, such as how she can sit next to him, yet unable to grab a toy. Marcel also questions how her feet can touch the ground but not go through it. He tells her that it's all witch stuff and it's best not to think about it.