Don't ask me, pal. I only wrote what I'd been told long time ago by a family friend who was a psychic. He experimented with many alternative methods to improve his ability to leave the physical body and enter the astral. Cold water was one of those crude techniques to cleanse your astral body.
There are many different methods to accomplish that but you might not be ready for such an experience, therefore, Steiner, for instance, warned against certain rapid techniques.