It might be best to read this book as metaphor: a metaphor for personal development, as well as for developing openness, perception and acceptance. The average reader will likely find the underlying ideas (astral projection/out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, interactions with other consciousnesses and so on) to be too woo-woo, too bizarre, and possibly even too threatening to engage with directly.
Author Robert Monroe first chronicled his lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences in his 1971 book Journeys Out of the Body. This book begins where that book left off, describing his experimental methods as well as some of the tools and techniques he developed over the years (including, interestingly, the use of binaural beats).
But the latter half of Far Journeys is where things get weird. This part of the book could be interpreted on one level as a science fiction story, but it is actually (the author claims) a literal account of Monroe's explorations out-of-body, where he comes into contact with other beings and other consciousnesses who guide and teach him. He then shapes this into a cosmology, a sort of religio-teleological worldview. This part of the book asks quite a lot of the reader, but the reader who "opens" to it receives much in return. Depending on who you are and how you respond to extremely unusual information, you might find it better to approach this part of the book as "just a story."
One gets the idea that Monroe, even though he's been doing this for years, still can't quite grapple with what it is that's actually happening to him. You can see the same wonder and curiosity in the transcript excerpts Monroe shares in the book from his volunteer co-experimenters working on their own OOB explorations. It's quite an experience reading this book, the author is incredibly sincere, and the reader doesn't quite know what to make of it all--except to resolve to remain curious and open and learn what can be learned.
The open-minded reader comes to find that nothing about OOBEs is new: there is in fact a large, rigorous and quite striking literature on the subject dating back to the 19th century. And if one thinks still more openly about it, one could even argue that literature on OOBEs dates much further back: not only to the Middle Ages, but to long before, as all of the world's major religious have deep (albeit often suppressed) mystical traditions.[1]
Finally. the book's epilogue is uniquely striking, although I don't recommend just reading this part by itself: you'll need to read the full book to understand and ingest the author's expressions and terminology. It contains the author's self-described "crib sheet for graduation," and essentially it is a set of practices and mindsets, not unlike what you'd see in Zen Buddhism or practiced among the Holy Desert Fathers. The author's purpose here is quite a generous one: to help you rethink your reality, to adopt a mindset of curiosity and openness, to accept lessons and insight as they come, and to become less attached to this reality, and instead prepare to "graduate" to the next one, whatever it might be.
Bear with me as I briefly share a few meta-ideas that struck me from Far Journeys. I'll start with how this is really a book about curiosity, openness and willingness: the willingness to explore unusual experiences without fear or anxiety. It's also a book about epistemic humility about learning itself: it's not always clear what a given experience (especially an extremely unusual experience) might be teaching you, and thus you have to remain open and accessible to any possible "lesson within the lesson." Ultimately we also learn that the game (this life) is not the full game: perhaps there's a much greater game going on around us (on a spiritual level, on an energy level--feel free to choose whatever words and terms will better help you engage with it) that very few of us even think about, much less perceive.
Related book pairings [links will take you to reviews on this site]:
Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now
Neale Donald Walsch: Conversations with God
Shakti Gawain: Creative Visualization
David Hawkins: Power vs. Force
Dr. John Sarno: The Divided Mind
Footnote:
[1] For those readers curious about religious mysticism, there is a wonderful lecture series on it offered by The Teaching Company. [affiliate link]
[Readers, what follows are my notes and quotes from the text: I include them to help me better remember what I read. Feel free to skim or skip.]
Notes:
Prologue:
xiff The author uses an analogy of helping someone drive on the interstate: you can't just jump right away onto the high-speed road, you need an on-ramp to merge into the flow of traffic; the author then uses another analogy about overcoming inertia, describing how a locomotive uses sliding couplers to gradually move a 100-car train one car at a time; the challenge is overcoming the initial inertia. He doesn't overtly explain the application of this analogy to the book itself, but presumably this is about helping people see that there's more to existence than this plane, this life.
Part I: Near Reaches
Chapter 1: Old Local Traffic
3 "...one can practice 'going out of the body' regularly and survive. Also, after having been tested periodically by experts, I can still make the statement that I am reasonably sane in a not so reasonably sane world."
3ff "What is the out-of-body experience? For those who have not encountered the subject as yet, an out-of-body experience (OOBE) is a condition where you find yourself outside of your physical body, fully conscious and able to perceive and act as if you were functioning physically--with several exceptions. You can move through space (and time?) slowly or apparently somewhere beyond the speed of light. You can observe, participate in events, make willful decisions based on what you perceive and do. You can move through physical matter such as walls, steel plates, concrete, earth, ocean, even atomic radiation without effort or effect... It is not a new phenomenon... Man's history is full of reports of such events."
4 Reference here to psychologist Charles Tart, who popularized the term "out of body experience" rather than the former phrase "astral projection," a label which had connotations of the occult and was non-scientific; the author claims that he began to go out of his body in the fall of 1958; no drugs or alcohol were involved; he was frightened, he even thought he had a brain tumor or maybe was developing insanity, although extensive physical examinations came up negative, he was given "recommendations of psychotherapy for 'minor hallucinatory dysfunction.' I [the author] discarded this diagnosis automatically. Some of my best friends at the time were psychiatrists and psychologists with their own problems, albeit certainly more orthodox."
5ff Discussion of his previous book Journeys Out of the Body, discussing his own exploration into the phenomenon; the book triggered thousands of letters from all parts of the world from people thanking him for "reassurance that they were not mentally deranged." Now, 25 years after that book, "it is now quite acceptable to talk about OOBEs." The author then talks about his frustrations practicing OOBEs, as there were limitations in what he could do; such travels gradually became boring, the excitement had passed and it became an effort, until he disengaged his controlling, left-brain "self." This led to a new era in his out-of-body activities.
7 It appears that the metaphor/analogy from the prologue is actually about the author himself going from one "speed" of out-of-body experience to another level entirely of practicing OOBEs.
8ff The author then shares some extremely implausible "items" that he experienced: a pair of pants that money appears in; a severe fall that he had where something or someone must have cushioned it, because he landed gently; an experience where he's playing poker, ("choir practice" as his poker buddies called it), and he had a feeling of "knowing" that the hole card would give him a straight flush, and on the very next hand he got another straight flush.
8ff The author then shares some extremely implausible "items" that he experienced: a pair of pants that money appears in; a severe fall that he had where something or someone must have cushioned it, because he landed gently; an experience where he's playing poker, ("choir practice" as his poker buddies called it), and he had a feeling of "knowing" that the hole card would give him a straight flush, and on the very next hand he got another straight flush.
Chapter 2: Hemi-Sync et al.
16ff After the publication of his first book, Journeys Out of the Body, the author opens a research lab; the initial research into sleep states led to the discovery of Frequency Following Response (FFR) "which permitted us to hold the subject in a certain state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep for extended periods of time. By introducing certain sound patterns in the subject's ear, we determined that there was a similar electrical response in the brain waves of the subject. By controlling that brain-wave frequency, we were able to help the subject relax, keep him awake, or put him to sleep." They found combinations of sound frequencies that were highly conducive to out-of-body experiences and other stages of consciousness, also they found it was an effective means of putting people into a meditative state.
18ff Next they find a mental state that they call Focus 10, a mental "place" where the mind is awake and the body is asleep; Eventually they stumbled onto further frequencies that produced a set of physical responses and patterns that they came to name the Hemi-Sync process that triggers an out-of-body experience where the individual would move toward a light, much like in a near-death situation.
20ff Discussion of right brain/left brain issues: "Basically, we are a half-brained society. Virtually everything we consider valuable is operated or controlled by our dominant left brain. Even if it originates in the right brain, such as an idea or music, the left brain takes over and puts it to use... We have generally regarded right-brain thinking with amused tolerance, suspicion, disgust, irritation, distrust--and awe."
21ff More on the author's Hemi-Sync process ("hemispheric synchronization"): the author talks about different applications, like in psychiatry where it can be used to access memories; for reduction of stress/tension; handling pain management; for schizophrenia, etc.; the author gives a range of anecdotal examples. Further examples here of using it to overcome jet lag, for improved sleep, also as a learning tool for holding focus and attention.
25 The author states a four-part formal premise:
1) consciousness and the focusing thereof contain any and all solutions to the life processes that man desires or encounters;
2) greater understanding and appreciation of such consciousness can be achieved only through interdisciplinary approaches and coordination;
3) the results of related research effort are meaningful only if reduced to practical application, to "something" of value within the context of the contemporary culture or era.
And then further discussion here of other foundational ideas: that consciousness is a form of energy at work, that the first step must be to perceive the energy itself and then understand how it is used naturally, and then apply it in new and expanded forms. "This is all a very circumlocatory way to say that if you can find out the stuff that makes you think and be, you can use it in ways that you are not using it now."
Chapter 3: The Gateway Program
26ff The Esalen Institute at Big Sur invited the author and his team to conduct a workshop using their new methods and techniques; because they didn't know the subjects who would be there they brought along an affirmation for all the participants to memorize before the session. [The text of this affirmation is rather interesting; you can also hear it used in the Hemi-Sync guided meditation audio offered on the Monroe Institute's Youtube channel.]
"I am more than my physical body. Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world.
"Therefore, I deeply desire to expand, to experience: to know, to understand, to control, to use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me.
"Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own. I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires."
27ff At this retreat they managed to teach all the participants the "Focus 10" state of "mind awake, body asleep" such that they could produce it within themselves at will; then they started getting requests from other organizations to do more such workshops.
28ff On experiences at other workshops that the author held: there was a group experiment where a collective of participants created a light phenomenon in the sky; many people come to the workshops to have an OOBE, but most of the time this doesn't happen during the session itself, the people just gain insight and understanding of their minds and understand they are more than their physical bodies.
29ff Note the comments here on the "Fear Barrier" a cultural restraint on individual growth, also note this extremely interesting metaphor the author uses that can be a spatial or mental metaphor for conquering your fears: "Think of where you are now as a clearing in a dark forest--we call it C-1 consciousness. We then take you into the forest to a point where you can still 'see' the familiar clearing. That point is a guidepost (Focus 10). After a sufficient number of runs between guidepost and clearing, the fear disappears. At the Focus 10 guidepost, you always know you can get back to the clearing if you get uncomfortable for any reason. From the Focus 10 guidepost, another point is established deeper into the forest and probably 'out of sight' of the clearing. This we call Focus 12. After several runs between guideposts 10 and 12, this too becomes familiar and secondary fears fade away. You know that even if you can't perceive the clearing (C-1) from Focus 12, you can 'see' Focus 10--and from 10, you know the way back to C-1. The process is expanded to succeeding guideposts, each deeper and different, beyond ever expanding limits. With the fear barrier dissolved, one of the greatest gifts to the human species comes into full play. Curiosity." [Fascinating to think of this in metaphorical or mental terms: say if you are socially awkward, to explore social situations of increasing discomfort, at first still "in view" of your baseline state of social comfort, but gradually at nodes further and further away. One could apply this metaphor to any domain where you find yourself fearful or anxious.]
31ff The author offers case studies given by attendees to the author's Gateway Program where people describe OOBEs where they are flying, holding the solar system in their hands, meeting others exploring who were going to be returning to their bodies, losing their time consciousness, perceiving beyond normal reality, even one report where the attendee had extra-sensory sexual experiences where people "melded."
Chapter 4: Explorer Team 1
37ff Description of the sessions themselves: the subject is on a waterbed in a dark room that is both acoustically and electrically shielded; electrodes monitor the head, fingers and body; audio headphones cover each ear; there's a member of the group monitoring each person and feeding also the Hemi-Sync sound into the subject's headphones to test out different frequencies.
38ff More case studies here of subjects' experiences with OOBEs: of someone being sucked through a tunnel into a dizzyingly blind and green light; others where the subjects went to other cities, to the moon, parts of the solar system, all in out-of-body experiences. More comments here on the "timelessness" aspect of these experiences: one minute in the control room could seem like hours to the volunteer.
39: Note here how the group made a change to their affirmation language, adding the final paragraph about "desiring the help and cooperation of those individuals whose wisdom are greater than my own": the author writes, "It was suddenly as if a curtain had been lifted." The subjects now began encountering intelligent beings who were willing to communicate; there's a transcript here of one of the subjects meeting with a female intelligence but having difficulty in communicating with her; another example of a green man who was the subject's "overseer" in an alternate reality; another example of contact with an intelligence who said that the Earth "is my territory" and whose purpose was to help humans get through and maximize their Earth experience.
44 A striking anecdote here where one woman had a specific time slot for her sessions and would "meet" with five intelligences who would "lift" her out of her body. But one week her session was cancelled, and by coincidence a highly skeptical psychologist arrived at the same time slot, went into the booth with the Hemi-Sync recording, and she then met the same five consciousnesses who were discussing lifting her out of her body: She was fine, but left "a very puzzled and preoccupied individual. Things like that are hard on belief systems when they happen to most people."
Chapter 5: New Associations
50-1 General comments here about the nature of the "entities" the author's team comes into contact with, describing the experiences as fascinating, baffling, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes boring. The beings are non-physical third parties that evoke complete trust in the participants; they have no physical form, they usually first appear as a hooded figure; they often use the vocal cords of the participant as well as communicate using the participants' words and vocabulary.
51ff The author shares more excerpts from various session transcripts: examples here where a participant saw himself as a character in the dreams of members of another "over-civilization" with a superior consciousness; another who saw various levels of consciousness, describing them as she was given the opportunity to explore the different levels, with some of the levels functioning as a "bridge" that you explore upon death after you've "given up" your human form; comments on how beings at levels beyond a certain distance from other levels can't really communicate with each other because their "vibrational levels" are different; when planes/levels are closer to each other then communication can occur much more directly.
54 Note the comments here from one of the session transcripts of communication with one of these beings: it feels like it has completed a major "evolvement" of its consciousness, but then it also realizes how far it has yet to go and how little distance it has actually traveled. [This is also true at every level of personal development: there's always a long, long way to go.]
56 On the concept of "misuse": when a being has not added to its present knowledge, or is not making progress; nothing was learned, nothing gained.
59 On human beings as "experiments," part of creation who are tested to see what our potential is, to see how far our spirits can think.
60ff Finally, a session transcript here written in biblical-style writing, discussing the generalized ur-spirit that is in everything. The author comments here that all this explorer material poses more questions than answers.
Chapter 6: Segue
63ff The author now "segues" the reader from "local traffic" to "the interstate," describing first a mix of premises and conclusions he had reached in the mid 1980s:
1) All humans move into the out-of-body state during sleep.
2) A form of dynamic energy yet to be identified is present in all carbon-based organic life... The difference between a human version and that of a cow or a worm is only a degree of complexity of such organization.
3) The dominant waking consciousness that man considers of paramount importance is but a part (and probably the lesser part) of various forms of existence available to him. The addition of other parts can be made systematically, albeit carefully, to the dominant without danger or destruction.
4) Human consciousness is but a manifestation of a system generated under (2). As a vibrational pattern it responds to and acts upon like patterns from external sources.
5) Humans and other patterns of consciousness are inherently non-physical... In short, like it or not, you're going to continue to do and be after you can no longer hang in there physically. There is no rest, not only for the wicked, but for everyone else.
6) "In the awe-inspiring cloud of cosmology that has emanated from the Explorers and their contacts, almost unnoticed is an underlying mosaic of action that becomes an outstanding potential when examined separately. We would not have become aware of it ourselves except that we were exposed time after time to various details of its use."
65ff Various other explorer dream/meditation session transcripts excerpted here: various examples include beings working on the person with beams of light; an energy ball that goes into a subject's spine before leaving her body; beings trying to show the subjects that they're multi-dimensional; on having people's perceptions and awareness levels change based on contact with these beings; another subject being sucked through a tube and then being in a sort of cocoon with beings watching over him, etc.
69ff The author comments on some of the similarities across these subjective reports. He asks, "If you were feeling your way along in an environment new to you, would you accept so eagerly the appearance of an unknown being?" Citing other examples of similarities, similar color patterns or visual patterns of light; the ability to remove the "energy essence" of a human from his physical body; the beings can use the vocal cords and breathing apparatus, and even the memories of the individual; they can also take the human essence out of the body and bring it to other places and other realities, and then return it with what seems to be absolute safety; the author claims these various generalizations are based on several hundred encounters, but then he asks, "How valid is the entire project?"
71ff Various questions, all of them unanswered, on the nature of these beings: where they're from, how they communicate, how it is that they seem to have a benevolent concern for us, etc. Finally, speculations here on the nature of their communications with us, a nonverbal communication involving images which is much more information-dense than simple words.
73 "From this segue, the material following goes 'interstate'--an attempt to translate and transpose the NVC [nonverbal communication] perspective into the written word." [Useful rhetoric here to bring the reader along on the author's journey by making this callback to comments in the prologue.]
Part II: Far Reaches
Chapter 7: Surveys and Schematics
77 "The following is a deliberately free translation of nonverbal communication. To compound the rendering, most if not all represents the transposing of non-time space events and ambience into replicas of conscious human physical experience. Thus a 'humanizing' process is used extensively in the retelling--which may increase comprehension and simultaneously reduce accuracy." [Douglas Hofstadter would be proud! What's coming here is a sort of mini-glossary of terms and ideas that will help the author convey to the reader aspects of these OOBE interactions with other beings. The book is already wild, it is going to become increasingly so.]
77-8 Some of the terms here include:
Rote: a thought-ball or a "packet" of thought/mentation
Ident: mental name or "address"
Percept: an insight or intuition
To open: to be receptive to stimulus, for example a rote
To close: to tune down or shut off external stimuli
Vibrate: to show emotion
Smooth: to get it together, to be in charge of yourself
Rolled: amused, laughed
CLICK!: an instantaneous change in consciousness.
80ff The author shares a dialog with one of his teacher-beings in this realm; he finds he has "graduated" from this teacher, the teacher tells him he is the type of student who wants to go faster ("your type gets impatient, bored") and so he has to go elsewhere, he doesn't belong with his teacher anymore; the author then brings the reader into a new discussion: "The major underlying cause of human worry relates to the Law of Change. All human conflict relates to this law. Some worry that change will take place, others that it will not. Wars are fought to resist change or to accelerate it. At the individual level this translates into various forms of indecision. Fear enters into the pattern, fear of the consequences of any decision or action."
81ff Interesting kind of somatic/NLP process here the author recommends here to make three lists:
The "A" list: a list of worries and anxieties about which you can do nothing, which he says to destroy and then dismiss those things from your consciousness.
The "B" list: a list of all the worries and anxieties about which you can do something today, and he says to take some action, however small, to resolve these, which will then allow you to release and dismiss them from your consciousness. "Others will be reduced in pressure because the flow has begun, a decision has been made."
The "C" list: a list of all your needs, hopes and desires, large or small, which have yet to be fulfilled. the author says to take at least one item on the C list and perform one act--large or small--moving you in the direction of such goal. "Perform this entire process each day until you have no A list, no B list, and all your energy and consciousness are devoted to items on your C list. You will then complete serenely your human life purpose."
82 A discussion of what the author calls a "Defooling Treatment" to remind him of some of his mistakes or his overconfidences; then he comes into contact with someone he has met elsewhere in the human plane as well as in the out of body plane, the person has died in the physical world; they have a conversation and the other person brings him along with him to his "home."
84ff What follows here is a mix of sort of science fiction and Dantean imagery: the author is brought to a civilization he doesn't understand, a catastrophe happens there and he gets thrown back to where his friend and he were talking before; then he sort of wakes up out of his dream state, and then goes back "in" and see a writhing mass of humanity, like worms in a can, all seeking sexual satisfaction; he has tremendous compassion for them all; he pulls on one of the legs of a man in the pile of bodies and tries to talk to him, but gets no response: the man tries to pull himself back into the pile. "From that point on, I had a new technique to control any surfacing sexual drive. All I need to do is think of that wriggling, writhing, mindless pile of humanity. That does it."
Chapter 8: Contact Point
91ff The author discovers that he has had a "helping hand" guiding him through these out-of-body excursions; on his failed attempts to communicate with them in language, but on his later discovery of a rudimentary non-verbal communication by sending thoughts and images; this deepens his out-of-body patterns and then he is escorted frequently to what could be thought of as a sort of "class" with an instructor and other beings all around him; the instruction was in the form of "thought balls," packages of total experiential information absorbed instantly; the author uses the word "rotes" to describe them.
93 Comments on another method of instruction used by these beings, which was to place in the author's consciousness an extra vivid earth-type simulation, the purpose here was to help him clean up minor emotional patterns that were blocking or distorting his clarity of perception. "Most of them were short, single events that were the peak decision-making points under very adverse circumstances. The vital part--the lesson to be learned indelibly--was my constructive and reasoned resolution of the problem. If I did not come up with the desired action, the simulation would be repeated until I did."
95ff He has an opportunity to communicate with one of these beings and receives some early "beginnings of understanding" about these energy beings; how he will pass through these stages himself once he finishes his human life; this leaves him with more questions than answers, although the being tells him "We can meet often at this point." He returns to a wakeful state and realizes that only six minutes have passed.
99ff He meets with these beings again and begins to understand that they are concerned with the flow of energy through the human experience, they help guide people through these "levels" of experience.
103ff The author is placed into a learning situation, a dream sequence where he's flying a plane and is late for an appointment; he has to land it on a building; the lesson repeats: there are instances where he crashes, instances where he decides the appointment he's late for can wait, another version where he doesn't even fly the plane at all once he realizes he can't make the appointment on time anyway. The author doesn't say what the specific lesson learned here is. [I perhaps might read this as guidance against taking unmindful risks in order to squeeze in an experience; to avoid "experience greed."]
Chapter 9: Rainbow Route
107ff "At this point, I began to accept my new role, whatever it was, and no longer pushed hard for further adventures or activities in the other energy systems I knew to exist." Essentially he lets go here and stops forcing things, and is simply supportive of the course that he's on.
108ff Another experience: he's placed into a memory of himself as a very young child when lightning strikes nearby; he regains a more concrete memory of the experience which he had forgotten completely. Also a discussion here about after this experience he no longer feared lightning and thunder, but rather found pleasure in it; this was a sort of awareness/consciousness "leveling up" for him that led to him having more openness and less fear in his physical/real-world life.
110ff Another deep memory scene here, where he is a very young child playing a Victrola, and became emotionally overcome with joy: at the music, the experience of playing the record by himself. As he does everything very carefully, he begins to cry, partly out of sheer joy but also partly out of pain. The beings say to him: "The acceptance of pain as a condition of joy is the symbol of conflict within physical life existence." [Again, this appears to be a sort of small step in "leveling up," as he comes to some increasing level of acceptance and understanding of some of the difficult aspects of human existence. He is better able to "see" (in the Krishnamurtian sense) what life is about and reframe it with that understanding.]
112ff He then has a flashback, possibly into another life, where he is in the desert, dying along with his wife and children from some sort of plague; the beings tell him that this experience is a sort of prime expression of the human experience; he feels certain echoes from a prior life. Then, he flashes into another life experience, where he's a soldier among a large army, and he's with two other soldier friends who are closer to him than brothers; these last two dream sequences illustrate for him a form of supreme, sublimated love as part of the human experience.
115ff Another dream-like state where he is supposed to sacrifice a woman in a religious ceremony but he doesn't; he looks into her eyes and sees a sort of "knowing," a sort of "depth" there. [This is exactly right: you can just tell by a person's look in their eyes whether they are lightworkers, whether they "get it."] The beings explain to him that this "knowing/depth" in the eyes is a sort of energy radiation that humans can give off to one another. Now another dream-like state here, where the author is with his dog, and his dog is hit by a car and he has to euthanize it; he's overwhelmed with sadness, but he and his dog have an understanding, a form of communication and love between them as well; and then suddenly this didn't happen and his dog is alive again. The beings teaching him say that he has a level of awareness now where instead of being overwhelmed so much by emotion, he can find an opportunity for growth from the situation; they also tell him his "curiosity" [about this emotional growth/awareness process but also curiosity in the general sense] is another form of energy.
119ff Yet another scene where he thinks back about his grandmother, understanding that she was released from the physical world; but then he was confused, as he thinks that maybe this was himself, not his grandmother; he realizes finally it doesn't make any difference which of us it was, the result was the same. At this point he's told that he is now prepared to visit the beings.
120ff A scene here where he travels through a bright white tunnel, moving rapidly, and then is in contact with various other energy sources or energy beings; he learns that we all are still incomplete, there are parts of him and the rest of us still waiting to be transformed until we are complete. He finds he has forgotten all about his human form as it is time to return to it. "I reached for the yellow pad and pen, to get the rote into words immediately. I knew I had changed. For the rest of my physical life, I would remember. But this would never change:
For those who would die, there is life.
For those who would dream, there is reality.
For those who would hope, there is knowledge.
For those who would grow, there is eternity."
Chapter 10: Newfound Friend
124 This chapter starts with another short glossary of the unique vocabulary the author uses to express these various ideas.
125ff The story starts out of order here as the author comes into contact with an energy being who is inexplicably critical of him as a human. "If you're human, you can't help, because you're addicted like all the rest."
126ff Another dreamlike sequence here where two beings, AA and BB, are observing Earth civilization via a cruise [this is an interesting word, we'll see why it applies as a metaphor later]; they are picking up all kinds of what appears to be uncontrolled noise in the form of thought energy, but is actually a wide range of patterns of thought energy that fascinates one of the beings; the other being can't handle all the chaos and noise. AA gets closer to see more, defying BB's cautions. AA wants to see what it would be like to be human. He joins the civilization, and then BB discovers that he's also joined it but elsewhere in the civilization, and with different types of beings who are more aware then he expected; they are called "repeaters": people who want to go through human experience again. "There wasn't anything like that during the TSI Cruise." BB realizes that the "cruise" doesn't show them everything, only superficial things about this culture.
133 A debate here about whether when humans "repeat" do they "lose their rote" [forget who they are].
135ff We learn about AA's experience becoming human; the indemnity form he had to read for the human sojourn "first entry" status; it requires temporary blanking of pre-entry activity; he meets other energy beings also planning to "become human," one who's doing an experiment, another who really, really wants to be a human, but who doesn't seem to understand AA's vocabulary ("What's a rote?"), another who has a grand plan to fix everything about the human condition ("I'm going in there and change it all.") and who tries to rope AA into helping him.
140ff Everything's ready, AA "jumps through a slot," and becomes human. He experiences pain, nothing in his body seems to work properly, he feels trapped, and there's an image of a new baby crying in the bedroom of a New York tenement. Then we have AA and BB discussing the experience; AA got sick so he "only had forty-five years," only half the experience; next he wants to become female. BB tries to warn AA: "AA, you're getting hooked", but AA disappears and goes back into human existence. Another being tells BB: "If he/she follows the pattern, he/she will get more and more involved in the human experience, dropping down a ring each time until he/she is at the bottom... They stay at the bottom and don't come back, or they begin to work their way back up. Most of 'em stay at the bottom."
142-3 The reader learns that the initial conversation [starting on page 125] was the author accidentally bumping into BB in his energy state, and BB mistook him for his friend AA who became addicted to being human. The two exchange "rotes" and the author says "You have a problem, all right." The author then is called back to his physical body by his dog barking to go outdoors. [This is an unexpectedly interesting story because it tells you indirectly about human experience from a much different perspective and it also helps illustrate some of the concepts the author is trying to convey at the same time.]
Chapter 11: Rescue Mission
144ff Three different scenes of the author's dog Steamboat being mangled by a much bigger dog; the author goes through a reaction of rage, a reaction of unhappy acceptance, and then a reaction of gratitude and happiness... and in the final instance, "Still in the jaws of the big white dog, Steamboat raises his head slightly, opens one eye, winks at me, and grins." [The idea here is to not fear death, it's just a passage, you want to be grateful for the experience you had and the various other "idents" you experienced life with on this go-round.]
146ff Now the author is back talking to BB, who tells him "You're one of those slippery eels!" [meaning a human who can do OOBEs]. They go searching for AA, who is lost somewhere in human civilization; there's a discussion here of the different types of beings populating various "rings" of human existence, particularly the Last-Timers, who have a tremendous vital power, complete openness, and a deep understanding of the crucible of human experience. [The author writes here that he tried to understand this level of being but "it was too much." I think the point he's making here is that there is much to learn from the process of being human.] Also on how these Last-Timers usually choose inconspicuous roles, not history-making ones, the clerk or the bookkeeper, "quietly spotted here and there." [Fascinating: it is interesting how, once in a while, you do find an "inconspicuous" person who has what appears to be lifetimes of wisdom and openness.]
149ff They have to go down through a number of rings searching for AA. They find him as an old woman, and at first he doesn't remember them; his life as this woman was extremely hard, and he wants to come back and do yet another human life as a successful warrior. BB continues to try to remind him about going "home." The author is learning here in a sort of indirect way from their various conversations: he learns they don't have gender, their existence in the physical plane is nothing like being human. The author likes BB, he finds him a "nice fellow." They continue to look for AA.
152ff They pass through lower levels of energy beings that contain people dying and people trying to help loved ones at the point of their physical death; some of them understood what was happening at the point of physical death, but "didn't have the rote to do much, if anything, about it" while some were beginning to learn. The author realizes, however, that most of the people aren't doing much thinking at all, they're in a state of shock from dying, or in a fear state, or trying to run and hide from the reality of physical death. They go to a still lower ring, "the M Band," where the inhabitants can't detect anything beyond physical life. These are sort of spirits stuck haunting the physical realm, trying to communicate with friends and loved ones, or haunting physical sites that had important meaning to them during their human lifetime. The M Band noise was "a cacophony of fear, anger, and about every other human emotion." They end up finding AA as a warrior killed in battle and they can't retrieve him.
Chapter 12: Hearsay Evidence
[This is the chapter where we learn Robert Monroe's cosmological/religious model.]
157ff The author finds BB again, with difficulty. They play a sort of "follow the leader" game; the author realizes that this game is one of the drivers of natural disasters on physical planets. He's shaken by the knowledge.
160ff Discussions here of playing the "game" of being a human and what happens after you graduate: how do you practice what you've learned? BB asks the author how he learned to leave his body; the author says he doesn't know, it just happened. Discussions of how most humans go OOB, but only during sleep, and they don't remember what happened when they wake back up.
161ff [This is the beginning of the discussion of Monroe's "Loosh" concept as well as a sort of creation myth.] They compare notes between what the "brochure" on BB's "cruise" says about humanity and the author's actual experience being human; what follows here is the discussion of the substance "Loosh," which is first variously and metaphorically described as gold, wheat, water, forms of wealth, or forms of energy that humans like, need, value, collect, eat, drink, or use as a drug. [Later the reader comes to learn that Loosh is a form of emotional or spiritual energy created when humans are experiencing strong emotions: in Monroe's world view, someone created Earth in order to harvest this Loosh; note also that fear-based Loosh is much less valuable than love-based Loosh]. Then a story about someone trying to "grow" Loosh and initially producing it in low quantities of poor grade that could only be harvested at the end of the being's lifespan; then an attempt at growing a second crop which was still unsatisfactory; then a third crop, etc. This is a metaphor for the evolving biodiversity of planet Earth from cellular life to plant life to motile life; and how there develops a food chain as where the higher beings, by consuming the lower beings, contained higher levels of Loosh. "Thus it was that the Rule of the Prime Catalyst came into being. Conflict among carbon-oxygen cycle units brings forth consistent emanations of Loosh. It was as simple as that."
165ff What follows here is the long explanation of the food chain on Earth, where beings with more concentrated spirit feed off lower beings in the food chain: plants being eaten by animals, being eaten by larger animals, etc., and then when an animal reaches the end of its life it is quickly "eaten" by smaller animals or plants etc. "The result was a steady flow of Loosh--from the life-span termination of the Stationaries, from the intense conflict among the Mobiles to avoid ingestion, and finally from the sudden termination of the life spans of such Mobiles as the inevitable product of such conflicts."
166 Other beings create their own "Loosh gardens," collectors would collect the Loosh; and then the Creator--"Someone" as the author calls it--creates a "Fourth Crop" based on human emotions and human spirit, and this crop exceeded all expectations.
167ff At one point the "Someone" studies samples of Loosh from his Fourth Crop garden, and finds a particular sample that was different somehow, it had a fragment of purified and distilled Loosh, which came from a human who was defending its young from life-termination; another being was radiating purified Loosh because it was lonely and crying. Upon this discovery, the "Someone designed subtle changes in his Garden, all of them familiar to every historian" including splitting these beings into men and women "to engender loneliness as they sought to reunite."
169 Next, the Someone begins using the "DLP Formula" [readers will come to learn that this means "divide, label and punish"] which maximizes Loosh due to suffering. [This is another useful metaphor: we see how nation-states do this with their people: divide them, give them separate group labels, variously tax, punish or persecute one group followed by another, etc.]
170 Now describing the tools for harvesting maximum Loosh, including love, friendship, family, greed, hate, pain, guilt, disease, pride, ambition, ownership, possession, sacrifice, and then "on a larger scale," nations, provincialism, wars, famine, religion, machines, freedom, industry, trade, plus many more. "Loosh production is higher than ever before." [Interesting synergies here with Buddhism, Hinduism, you can see the concept of samsara for example here, etc.]
170ff The author hears all this and can't believe it; he's stunned, there has to be some mistake. He asks BB where his society got this "rote" of knowledge; it seems to the author as if this is just an exchange of games among noncorporeal civilizations. The author is appalled at the idea that he would be "on the receiving end of a huge deception" where humans were nothing but a Loosh fuel tank to be harvested by other civilizations. The author returns to his body. The chapter ends with another dream sequence of a cow being managed by a farmer: the cow only does what the farmer directs, the farmer milks her, and by milking her, the farmer eases the pain in her udders; the cow doesn't know anything conceptually about "milk" or why the farmer wants it, and she doesn't care. [Obviously, here, the cow is to the farmer as human beings are to the Loosh collectors.]
Chapter 13: Shock Treatment
173ff The author take several months to adjust to this new knowledge; going through shock, anger, resignation and then acceptance, much like the human response to approaching death. "The Loosh rote explained everything very neatly. Most important, it explained the purpose, the reason for it all, the why of it. This factor had long eluded me... If one finally was able to get past the emotional barriers involved, it became hard even then to find holes in the general concept. An explanation of total human behavior and history." The other now wants to understand more about the INSPECs, the "intelligent species": whether they were gardeners, Loosh collectors, overseers; he wants to understand more about Loosh, etc.
175 He reviews his life, and finds many instances where he missed flashes of loosh-type energy in various experiences that he failed to really "see" and appreciate when he experienced them. "I wasn't much of a loosh producer... Except for now. I knew some strong emissions in a few points were coming out of me. Did it take that long!" The author realizes now that he's going through a carefully designed school "to learn to be high-quality loosh/love producers." "The fact that human physical consciousness was for the most part totally unaware of being involved in the process may be an important ingredient itself." He tries to work out the various aspects of the system/cosmology here using the Guernsey cow analogy from the prior chapter. The INSPECs (the spiritual energy beings) around him say that they're not involved in loosh production, they're just here to participate in human learning, to help it along when there's a blockage in the flow. The author works out that these beings and the concepts he is learning would fit neatly into many concepts of heaven.
178ff The beings arrange for the author to come into a gentle, indirect contact with the INSPEC realm; he's overwhelmed with emotions just from very limited, partial contact. He returns to his body, his wife sleeping next to him, and he remembers: "Not much, but I remembered! I sat up in bed, wanting to jump up and shout in incomprehensible joy."
Chapter 14: One Easy Lesson
182ff The author meets BB again on another OOBE excursion. BB seems sad, grieving the loss of his friend AA. He asked the author to "feed me rotes" about humanity, to act as his sort of "tour guide of humanity; the author jokes that it would be like the blind leading the blind, but he also explains the importance of "survival" [the survival instinct, but in the context here of surviving in the human physical body]. BB doesn't comprehend at first, he doesn't understand "survival," "physical body," he doesn't understand "eating"; the author then shows him a subsistence family hunting, taking their meals, copulating, etc., and then he shows him midtown Manhattan, with all the emotional noise from all the beings there. The author struggles to explain to BB how humans all want the same thing and will kill each other to get it: they're so involved in "survival" that they don't know when to stop, when they have enough; they even form nations and try to destroy other nations; all of this is so deeply ingrained in humans that they forget any notions of existence other than physical human existence.
190ff The author is suddenly pulled away from his OOBE and has to leave BB; it's not until the next day that he was able to get back and do another excursion. The author shows BB 42nd Street again: this time they see people who have died but don't know it, who are trying to hang on to their physical existence; he also shows BB the writhing, copulating humans from earlier in the book [see p84ff].
194 Next he takes BB to an outer energy "ring" where humans know they no longer have physical bodies but aren't aware of much more: this is kind of like an upper circle of hell here, with more Dantean imagery [it's reminiscent of some of the imagery from A Christmas Carol as Scrooge sees the various ghosts suffering on the human plane of existence], with different people groaning about the mistakes they made during their physical/human body existence. The author talks to one of the beings, a woman seeking her daughter, and counsels her, telling her to just rest quietly and think of her daughter and her daughter would come and find you.
196ff They then go and visit one of the author's friends, Charlie, who also "lives" in this energy plane, and who has created his own environment: a cabin on the ocean with a sunset. The author introduces BB to him, but Charlie can barely see BB, although they can hear each other. The author tells Charlie that BB isn't human, that he's not from earth.
199ff Next they meet a woman who is in a sort of a purgatory, limited by limited thinking about her own religious doctrine.
201ff Finally, Monroe takes BB to the outermost energy ring, where teachers and helpers/guides of the inner rings reside. One form breaks away from a group and approaches them, it's the author's friend Bill, who he introduces to BB. Bill asks BB for his take on human experience, now that he's experienced the "tour" Monroe gave him. BB calls it "the wildest bunch of games inside of games" with people so busy playing so many games that they forget it's a game, that they forget "even why they're playing it and how they got in it to start."
203ff BB then says, "Where's the fun! Why play a game if you don't have fun playing it! All those humans in there, I didn't get a percept of just one having fun." [Playing the game of life, living in this simulation we call life.] Bill explains that emotion is the score: that humans "feed score to the big game in the form of emotional energy." Finally Bill essentially shocks BB into a moment of satori as BB is confused by the idea of love energy and emotion, and Bill asks him "Why have you been... hanging around?... Why not just back to KT-95 [his realm] and play some games?" BB basically shuts down here, presumably this is because Bill got him to think about his own purpose, that is more than just playing games. The author worries aloud that he shouldn't have brought BB here, but Bob tells him not to worry: "It's a big rote he's absorbing... He'll be fine."
Chapter 15: Promised Plan
205ff The INSPEC beings tell him he is ready for another "awareness": a visit to his own people's future to see "humans-plus"; he visits Earth a thousand years into the future; the planet is pollution free, it has a ring around it like Saturn's, there are hardly any people and there is no emotional "noise" [M Band noise, see p152ff]. Humans have made the leap to NVC, nonverbal communication, and the author is thrilled to learn this. He meets with a being he sort of recognizes, and it turns out to be BB. Also AA is there too. In this world people hibernate their physical bodies and spend most of their time in energy states. They "skip" [in their energy form] to other places if they want to travel, which is why there's no roads, traffic, jet contrails, etc., in this era.
215ff As they explore the author asks these beings if they can take over any physical body that's in hibernation--vice versa: if anyone can take over their bodies back home. BB answers "Sure, why not?" And then as the author thinks back to his early OOBE experiments where other beings had occupied the physical bodies of volunteers in the lab in order to communicate, and concludes "why not?"
216ff The author learns that the ring around Earth consists of beings waiting to "graduate," all producing loosh, knowingly, and happy to do it. "I turned inward and closed. This one I did understand, but the vastness of the change was near-unbelievable." The beings experience a full "loosh food chain" and even the physical Earth itself has an active consciousness [see Ray Peat's discussion of a "noosphere"!] The author is taken into the consciousness of a cloud, a fish, a tree, a panther, a condor.
225ff Discussion here of the concept of "graduating," where humans "go physical" [occupy their physical bodies] less and less often, to the point where they finally stop needing it, at which point they "click out." The author badly wants to understand [and he actually shows a bit of experience greed here], saying "I need as much of a rote as I can get. I may not get another chance." He then travels back and returns to his body and discovers that the entire OOBE lasted only eight minutes.
Chapter 16: The Gathering
228ff Months pass by without any unusual OOBE activity for the author. He writes, "During this interim, I had no sense of isolation or deprivation whatsoever." He writes [in an interesting metaphor], "I simply went back to the grazing principle--knowing what I found today would lead me to tomorrow, whatever tomorrow was. The signal would come when it was appropriate." [e.g.: you graze--gratefully--like the Guernsey cow until it's time to give milk.] He then has another OOBE and is told he's ready for the next step.
229 Interesting comments here on the author's curiosity about death, but also on his desire to be in his physical body, whatever the situation, as long as it was operational. He wants to find out what's going to happen tomorrow! [Very interesting comments here about curiosity, on practicing it, on always having it, almost as if you are practicing it as a virtue.]
230ff The author also learns that there are spaceships visiting the Earth in this era, a sort of gathering of energy beings from various energy systems, this era may witness the birth of a new form of energy.
232ff The author is told that he needs to bring his friend BB and they find AA in his physical form; they lift AA from his physical body. The author muses, "I watched with fascination, wondering if this was the way it had started with me, if some non-physical friend had been enlisted to help me move out of body during the early stages. But I didn't have any non-physical friends back then--that I knew of." They lift AA out of his body, but he gives off so much M Band emotional noise that they have to move further away. The author comes to a new understanding about individuation, knowing that it is not necessary, and he and BB share a laugh, share an understanding about "pulling" AA out. The author also reaches a new understanding about his responsibility to serve humankind, in whatever way he can and at whatever "level" he happens to be. [I think I see now why some readers consider the author, AA and BB to be instantiations of the same person, a sort of metaphor for "the illusion of the self." Very, very interesting].
Epilogue: End Game
238 "...if the following helps just one individual achieve a profound understanding of who and what he is, the purpose has been served." Note the comments here about remembering memories of these types of spiritual or quasi-spiritual events: you'll want to be in a relaxed, awake state, isolated, and focusing on using your "left brain consciousness." Think of the subject and just wait, dictate notes or write down notes as you convert this information into written or spoken words. "This takes time and patience, thus the need for isolation."
238ff The author describes "cruising the rings" [the energy rings of spirit-beings around the Earth] and gives here a sort of heirarchy or field guide : the first "layer" of inner rings contained beings completely focused on in-human activities: any attempt to communicate or divert their attention "were met with total unawareness at the least and, at the most, bewilderment, fear, or outright hostility. All were attempting to participate in physical life in one way or another with no success whatsoever. All seemed to have one common characteristic. They were completely unaware of any existence other than physical." The author then categorizes three types of people in this first layer: "The Dreamers" (people dreaming but not OOB), "Locked-Ins" (these people are dead from their physical body but don't know it and remain "locked" around physical locations or near physically living persons that they are attached to); and "The Wild Ones" (these people are likewise "stuck" in the physical world and don't perceive anything other than physical reality, yet they feel they are different somehow, but yet have no desire to learn how or why. They construe this as a form of absolute freedom, which they express in various ways, see for example "the human sexual pile" the author referred to earlier.) "There was much to be learned from these inner rings..." [Although most of the things "to be learned" are contra-lessons: what not to do! People are focused on the wrong things, they have extremely limited thinking, they are distracted, discordant, unaware of their possibilities for growth, etc. Also I can see perhaps that the concept of "M Band noise" is sort of like peoples' pain bodies, how people broadcast their discordance, their neuroses, their anomie, their rage, or their spiritual malaise.]
241 "The next ring outward is fairly straightforward": it is composed of people who realize they are no longer in physical human life, but have no awareness or memory of any other possibility, they are stunned by the loss of their physical life and remain in a motionless, non-perceiving state, waiting; but they are usually easy to contact, instruct, and led to a suitable outer ring.
241ff The next ring, which contains a limitless number of sub-rings, contains residents who know they have passed through physical death with varying beliefs and levels of vagueness about where they are; the author describes a pattern of human passage through this particular ring from the human time space illusion ["HTSI"] side to the non-physical reality ["NPR"] side. For some this journey is relatively direct, requiring a few in-human physical existences; but for the great majority it requires several hundred lifetimes. And then in the outermost sub-ring are the "Last-Timers" preparing for their final in-human experience, after this they disappear, or "graduate."
242ff "In some respects, the entire process resembles crudely the cycle of an innocent coping with an addictive drug or chemical such as alcohol. The first taste is scarcely palatable, but the effect is interesting, something new. When the opportunity arises, the neophyte takes two drinks just to see if the effect is enhanced--and it is. Uncontrolled, the pattern is all too familiar, all the way down to skid row. Nothing is more important to the wino, nothing occupies his thinking other than where the next shot or hit is coming from. Near-total amnesia is common, and more significantly, a lack of desire to change. He has forgotten who he is and couldn't care less. Reclamation and remembering is a slow and sometimes painful charade. Once achieved, however, the innocent has transformed into a state of being far different from the original first-taster. Where the analogy does not match; in the human life experience sequence, the change is permanent."
243 note the multi-page map here of the itinerary of human experience: below is a vertical scroll-style graphic I found online that replicates what the author renders across some 3-4 pages of the book. [If the below is too hard to read you can find a magnifiable and slightly easier to read copy of it here.]
248ff What follows here is sort of a description of "school," the human version of learning about this evolution process; the author uses an interesting metaphor here about peculiar aspects of human existence: "To some it is like attending a vast amusement park with a multitude of different types of exciting rides to try." [One could think of this as a self-fulfilling belief set that really takes a lot of the pressure off of human existence.] "When you encounter and perceive a graduate, your only goal is to be one yourself once you realize it is possible. And it is."
250ff Comments on primary, secondary, and tertiary learning: primary learning is just regular learning; secondary learning is learning when we are largely unaware we are learning, via osmosis, it takes place beyond a conscious level; tertiary learning is learning during sleep.
251ff Comments on human life: the "first-timer" moving through human physical life "picks up and absorbs many unsuspected attachments," emotional attachments in particular, and this causes "a compulsive need to re-enter and recycle" to repay imagined debts or complete things which had been begun, and this "turns a first-timer into a repeater: human physical life is addictive."
252ff Comments on two factors making this journey nearly incomprehensible to non-humans: 1) "survival drive distortion" expressed in the form of body protection and maintenance as well as sexuality/reproduction and 2) "prime energy diffusion" [see 254-257 below].
252ff Comments here on the Survival Drive: the human need for food and water, pressure to keep the body suitably warm or cool, to keep the body safe from predation or disease, etc.; also on the fight-or-flight reaction to these problems, thus "Most humans spend most of their waking hours taking care of these matters." [You can't help but think about the various fasting and other ascetic rituals of The Holy Desert Fathers in Christianity, the fasting and other practices of the Hindus (see Ramana Maharshi for example) as efforts to escape this, to somehow abnegate the physical body in favor of the spiritual body.] Comments on all the distortions that have to happen to meet these basic survival needs, like storage of food and assets, making sure you have access to varieties of food; and then on the application of aesthetics to these things: examples here include entertainment "foods" (like alcohol, drugs or tobacco) which then cause us to cycle back to foods that are "good for you"; the same applies here to clothes and shelter; see also the use of technology which makes it actually difficult to die, like expensive life support systems; see also all the effort that goes into protecting these accumulated items, ranging from fences, locks and guns to lawyers, banks and armies. [This is just a short section for the book but it is extremely thought-provoking.]
253ff Comments here on the sexuality/reproduction expression of the survival drive distortion: this drive results in attachments and commitments that are restrictive and distorted; they produce illusory burdens of guilt and obligations, and memory patterns that are too potent to release; also the drive to reproduce has been reduced and "become secondary to the temporary sensory peak of the act itself." The author calls this "glue that binds the humans in low orbit."
254ff Now a discussion here of "Prime Energy Diffusion"; "Consider emotion in all forms to be unknowing expressions of our Prime Energy Drive, or the creative force inherent in each of us." Also: "The concept of unemotionalism is an illusion... "In every moment of existence, we are a seething brew of emotional response to both internal and external stimuli." On how we place value judgments on everything, how we become disappointed, we hope, we laugh in joy but then become depressed when the moment fades. We hate it when a person, place or thing does not fit our concept of what it "ought" to be; we think we love; many of us eventually become cynics without realizing the obvious fact "that cynicism is itself an emotion." [Insightful point.]
256 A discussion of the accumulated heavy load of the "emotional mass" of the human ego: "it requires and consumes constantly immense amounts of reinforcing emotional patterns, all of which are by their very nature distorted and distorting."
257 Finally, comments on how the human experience ("the in-human learning system") is magnificently worth it according to the "graduates" and "seniors" that the author has encountered.
257ff The author now offers a "crib sheet" for preparation to graduate, although he qualifies it as a "cup of murky water."
257 1) Detoxification/Load Reduction/Purging: this is not a retreat from life, in fact the author calls for an expansion of physical life activity in all forms; the change he recommends here is that you practice greater "perception, control and redirection of the energy forms that are you, just as coherent light produces far more effective results as a laser."
258 2) Reality Is That Which Is Perceived: [This section reminds me of the notion that "reality is a desktop," from Donald Hoffman's book The Case Against Reality.] "As a participant in time-space, you perceive it and it is a reality to you. If you have not perceived any other energy systems, they are not real to you. However, you must consider that you have done so but they are not within your present awareness. It then becomes simply a matter of remembering."
258 3) Energy Does Not Exist Until Expressed: Comments here on how we are expressions of energy, knowledge and information are nothing without dissemination or application, thoughts are not real unless they are instilled into or act upon others or other things.
258 4) Energy Focused Is Exponential: The metaphor here is how a lens concentrates light; likewise energy available to human consciousness can be focused; unfortunately, for the most part, we exercise our consciousness randomly and unknowingly.
258 5) Consciousness Is Focused Energy: The author argues here that human consciousness can be focused much more.
258ff With these above ideas "tucked away" the author says it is possible to get to the "hands on" phase; the following notes are not in a fixed pattern as these previous crib notes are.
259 1) Establish Grazing Principle: "Live and just be as you have until you perceive an emotion that is so obvious you can't ignore it. [See chapters 12 and 13.]
259 2) Live a Twenty-four-Hour Day: The author here is saying become aware of what you do and think at all times, including in your sleep. Ask yourself why, and then detach and release the energy. "Start with the small and work into the large."
259 3) Begin Ego Diet Regimen: The author argues against a frontal assault on the ego ("Much too many lose that battle, most never begin it.") but rather to cut off the emotional power that feeds the ego, and then modify and redirect that energy. "Bear in mind that you are bombarded constantly with ego gratification ploys aimed at modification of your behavior for the benefit of others." Also note this cheat code: the author says "If you have to put 'my' in front of the identification [e.g.: my car, my job], you've found an ego power feed. Keep this perspective and apply it when the need arises, and act accordingly." Also comments on ego-emotional power feeds from the drive for achievement or ambition; the author suggests this test: "will these needs be happily met if you in no way receive any public or private credit for your success? Are they absolutely essential to your physical survival? If the answer is affirmative to both, you're further along than you realize... If both come out negative, start unplugging the feed by asking why."
260 4) Divest Survival Sex Ties: On understanding the difference between the sex act and the super love emotion, the prime energy that comes from this expression: "...what you experience here sexually is a very weak imitation of a part of totality."
260-1 5) Release Value Judgments: "...it is impossible for anyone to discern accurately the quality of any thought or action, good-evil, right-wrong, exist only as illusion. ...we cannot understand the ultimate value of what we do. Therefore, follow your own design, lighten the load by refusing to bond lasting emotion onto any physical act or the action of others." [Interesting, this sounds a lot like Krishnamurtian "seeing" once again, staying epistemically humble, using Zen mu shin, etc.]
261 6) Detach Matter-Emotion: Physical things are not ours, we don't own or possess any thing or person; nothing belongs to us everything is borrowed. "Store the memory and the experience, leave the emotion behind."
261 7) You Are Your Responsibility: We like to blame conditions or anyone else for what we do and who we are. "Calmly accepting the results will get you lift-off points."
261 8) Free Will Is Fantasy: The author discusses how in the time-space realm we're bound by our physical existence, we are stuck with the genetic structure of the body we inhabit; much of the setting of our physical existence is controlled by others, although what remains "might be considered free will." You lighten your load by accepting without emotion these limitations.
261-2 9) Laughter Is a Purging Process: "As a direct expression of the Prime Energy, when in doubt let it out... It's one of the best of emotions, but must be spontaneous to produce results... It relaxes, de-tunes the ego, puts any event into its proper perspective."
262 10) Pain-Pleasure (PP) Is a Learning Curve: Think of pain and pleasure as a sine wave with amplitude as an indicator of intensity, which can be controlled. the author says to sort out and remove emotional energy adhered to your pain-pleasure memory and control the waveform so you can increase or decrease the amplitude at will. "You are approaching escape velocity status when you can reduce your PP waveform to a near-perfect straight line."
262-3 11) Maximize Your Sleep Periods: "This is the most neglected and misunderstood portion of our existence." The author talks about how in sleep we are freed of left brain restrictions and physical limitations; he talks about the importance of sleep consistency and frequency, and also the importance of stating his affirmation as words in your mind just as you are drifting off to sleep:
"I am more than my physical body. Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world.
"Therefore, I deeply desire to expand, to experience: to know, to understand, to control, to use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me.
"Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own. I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires."
262-3 Also note the author's recommendation here to to convert the affirmation from verbal form into nonverbal communication (NVC) form; into the form of mental action rather than words; and then after becoming well-established in that technique, adding specific needs (for problem-solving, communication, healthcare, etc.) using NVC, and the answers will come not in words but in pictures or sound or action in your mind. "If you need help, ask for it by NVC. You will receive it, perhaps not immediately, but you will, often in the most astounding serendipitous and synchronistic ways. Be sure that you qualify your need and that you can handle the answer or result."
263 12) Measure Your Load-Energy Ratio: A discussion of the "loss of innocence" we experience along our path to adulthood; maturity can be thought of as totaling the percentage of illusions that you have released and discarded deliberately. On wisdom as "the lightest and most valuable of payloads." On how your progress is reflected in your willful action and the result of the release of such illusions. "The Detoxification/Load Reduction/Purging process can be interpreted as simply the sequence of these three: adulthood, maturity, and wisdom. You ultimately are your own instructor and you will fill out your own report card."
263 13) Building Escape Velocity Energy: "It will begin to generate automatically as the result of the human learning experience, more than enough to achieve a tangent to your previous orbit when you graduate."
263-4 14) "Pas de Lieu Rhône que Nous" [Hilarious: this is a homonym for "----" (I don't want to give it away!)] The author talks about how his father used this phrase with students in his French class, claiming it was an old and famous French proverb; the students would work for hours trying to solve it. The author says to say it out loud and listen to what you are saying.
Appendices:
Appendix 1: The Out-of-Body Experience: Most Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
265 "Question: how do you know it isn't just a type of dreaming?" On how most see this as just a vivid dream or potentially a lucid dream; but the OOBE is a near-totally conscious experience where most physical sensory perception is replicated, and your perspective is from a position outside your physical body. "It is the extreme reality of the OOBE that sets it apart from a dream. It is as real as any physical life experience."
265 "Question: can anyone go out of body?" The author says that 25% of adult humans remember having at least one spontaneous OOBE; he believes anyone can indeed consciously move into these states.
265ff Other questions to follow here: is there physical risk? No, although some of the experiences might be emotionally traumatic; on how alcohol tends to inhibit OOBEs, or at least the memories of the experience; the author says there's some support to the idea that anesthetics are chemical triggers to produce deep OOB states. Also comments that OOBE is similar to the near-death experience, except with much less anxiety and stress.
267 On the "wiggle your big right toe" signal: the idea here is to think of one part of your physical body and attempt to move or wiggle it as a way to ensure a quick return to your physical body.
270 "Question: have your religious beliefs changed as a result of your OOB activities?" The author simply answers "Yes."
Appendix 2: The OBE Psychophysiology of Robert A. Monroe, by Stewart W. Twemlow, MD, and Glen O. Gabbard, MD
271ff This is an extended bio and backgrounder on Robert Monroe; he did not have any out-of-body experiences until the age of 42, the authors here suggest that Monroe's fascination with out-of-body travel is an adult derivative of a Daedalus fantasy [interesting metaphor]; further psych analysis of him where he has defenses of denial and avoidance when it comes to topics like sexuality and aggression; he detaches himself from his feelings as indicated by his use of language and his interpersonal relations; the authors speculate that his out-of-body experiences might serve as an avoidance of conflict, they also performed polygraphs on him during an out of body experience, noting his apneic period and gulping breathing, as well as various unusual readings from an EEG; the authors call the EEG "less easily explained" but consistent with borderline sleep/wakefulness states. [Quite interesting both to read this third-party bio of Monroe and to think that the author decided to include it here in his book.]
Appendix 3: The Out-of-Body Experience: Phenomenology by Stewart W. Twemlow, MD, Glen O. Gabbard, MD, and Fowler C. Jones, Ed.D
274ff This is a "studies show science" paper, "supported in part" by the Monroe Institute itself; it is taxonomy of types and examples of out-of-body experiences; asking what the phenomenological features are, how it compares to other states of consciousness such as dreaming; how does it relate to pathological states like psychosis; and what are the effects on individuals who do this and what does the experience mean to them; also the paper explores if there are any implications for the practice of psychiatry. There are a few paragraphs here defining what "out-of-body experience" actually means; the authors offer a very loose definition; also comments on some of the more negatively associated terms used in various reports on OOBEs: terms like ESP, "astral projection," etc. Then a taxonomy of OOBEs, including subjective reports with "precipitating agents" (like meds or drugs), and then also what mental/emotional states the individuals are in during these experiences (ranging from fearful, lonely to ecstatic); then, finally, the authors offer a taxonomy of analogies one can use to describe these experiences: like peak or plateau experiences; psychopathological states like "body boundary loss," etc.
278 Comments on the few extant surveys of OOBE incidents: the earliest was done in 1954 asking 155 students if they'd ever had one and 27% said yes. Another study found 34% of 380 Oxford undergraduates had had such an experience; other examples including one from a non-western sample of people with similar results.
279ff The study was done by questionnaire, it was self-reported, most of the experiences were also in the past and so the authors openly admit the obvious defects here. At the same time the study authors remark on how striking it was that many of the experiences were remembered from many years previously; that the subjects were fully conscious; that they knew they were not dreaming; and considered the experience to be a happy or even very meaningful one. Finally the paper finishes with a reference to Plato's Republic where Plato argues that "freeing the psyche from the body is an essential condition for the philosophic journey to ultimate wisdom." The authors conclude with a comment about how these epiphenomena "may teach us to be less dogmatic about the way we toss about epithets like 'real.'"
285ff Finally it's worth noting some of the works cited in this paper: there is actually quite a large literature on this subject, I never would have guessed! I've copy-pasted down some of most interesting sounding books in the "To Read" section below.
About the Author:
291-2 Interesting to see here the author's career beginnings in radio and TV network programming; later he came to be president and owner of radio stations in North Carolina and Virginia, and also started a cable company in Virginia, this part of his career took place across the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Next a discussion of Monroe's interest in accelerated learning and expanded forms of consciousness; his development of "binaural beats" and hemispheric synchronization ("Hemi-Sync"), both for relaxation techniques, but both also as methods to explore the potentials of our minds. [All very interesting!]
Media:
To Read:
Robert A. Monroe: Journeys Out of the Body
Robert A. Monroe: Journeys Out of the Body
Robert A. Monroe: Ultimate Journey
Charles T. Tart: States of Consciousness
Charles T. Tart: States of Consciousness
***Charles T. Tart: Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential
***Charles T. Tart: Altered States of Consciousness: A Book of Readings
Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington: The Projection of the Astral Body
Sylvan Muldoon: The Case for Astral Projection, 1936
Robert Cookall: The Study and Practice of Astral Projection
***Abraham Maslow: Religions, Values and Peak Experiences
William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
***C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant: Thought-Forms