Rising on the planes is a technique of Western ceremonial magic, developed within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in which the magician seeks to ascend in vision through the successive levels or "planes" of the inner worlds, rising from the material toward the spiritual and, ultimately, the divine. Building on the related practice of the "astral" journey, the magician uses controlled visualisation, often beginning from a symbol, a tarot image or a point on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, to project the consciousness upward and inward, passing through the imagined landscapes of each plane and testing the visions encountered against the symbolic correspondences of the system to guard against self-deception. The aim is not idle vision but a disciplined spiritual ascent, a means of attaining higher knowledge and of drawing nearer to the divine source mapped by the Tree of Life.
The practice is understood within the tradition as an inner or spiritual journey rather than a literal separation of a body, and it is closely bound to the Golden Dawn's framework of astral vision, in which the practitioner explores the inner planes through the gateways of magical symbols. It requires a grounding in visualisation and in the symbolic system that gives the journey its map and its safeguards, and practitioners are warned that the images of the inner planes are treacherous and must be constantly tested. Like much of modern ceremonial magic, rising on the planes is often interpreted by its practitioners as a discipline of the imagination and the higher mind, a structured exploration of the deeper reaches of consciousness, as well as a means of spiritual ascent.