Recently, I was introduced to the work of Robert A. Monroe and his home-study program called Gateway Experience, "dedicated to developing, exploring and applying expanded states of awareness". The Gateway Experience utilizes special patented sounds proven to synchronize the hemispheres of the brain. I began this set of 18 CDs in early July, and will start the last CD tomorrow morning. So far, I have not experienced anything out of the ordinary as a result of doing the Gateway Experience, but I do find each session deeply relaxing and I think it is helping me to manage my stress better, so I will probably go through most of the tracks again and again in the months ahead, and maybe one day I will be surprised.
I had never heard of Robert Monroe before about two months ago, although the term he is very famous for, "out-of-body experience" (a.k.a. "OBE"), has been in my vocabulary for at least forty years. If you are interested, it is best if you read about his life here in his website, as I could only imperfectly rehash what has already been written there, and there are other things I want to tell you about now. There are many interesting things in the website, including some free downloads that would give you a taste of what the Gateway Experience is like.
After doing the first few tracks of the Gateway Experience, I felt I also wanted to read the three books that Robert Monroe had written during his lifetime about his OBEs, so I ordered them online, received his second book, Far Journeys, a few days later, and started to read it right away. The first chapter seemed pretty normal, but after that, I felt like I was reading science fiction! It was truly one of the strangest books I have read in a really long time, but I enjoyed it very much, and was very happy when his third book, Ultimate Journey, arrived a few days before I finished Far Journeys so that I didn't have to wait to find out what was going to happen next. His first book, Journeys Out Of The Body, arrived late last week, so I have only just started it, and it seems quite tame in comparison to the other two books, but I am sure it will probably fill in some gaps in my understanding so far. I think it is really useful to read these books as part of going through the Gateway Experience, but you could also read the books alone, without doing the Gateway Experience.
Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey have caused me to rethink entirely my philosphy of how things work here. I still think most things here are random, but I have abandoned the idea of "karma", and now believe it is possible to have just one life here, if that is all one really wants to have.
If you like science fiction, or if you think you might enjoy a really different reading experience that might possibly be mind-opening, read Robert Monroe's books.
Monday, August 6, 2012
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2 comments:
”.........Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey have caused me to rethink entirely my philosophy of how things work here.........”
How does your philosophy of how things work here explain what is quaintly called the “paranormal”?
I, for what it's worth, think the “paranormal” can be explained by “String Theory” - famously written about by a Dr Brian Greene in a book called “The Elegant Universe”.
String Theory postulates, among other things, that there are eleven parallel universes. So, we may live, not in a universe, but in a multiverse.
String Theory is too complex for an untutored, two-fisted, hard-drinking fellow like me, to understand fully.
However, as far as I can make out, it postulates a scenario of vibrating strings which are the basic essence of everything. These strings vibrate at frequencies within given boundaries, which will manifest as phenomena (life forms) like us.
Change the frequency of the strings of any particular phenomenon (life form), it will disappear out of the perceptions of the other related life-forms (like us).
But, that phenomenon (life form) which has disappeared because the strings of which it is composed, changed their frequency of vibration, may now be perceived by beings in another parallel universe, which vibrates at the same frequency as the life form which disappeared from its former universe.
Hence, phenomena like UFOs, which so many people have seen and experienced, may manifest in our universe only because their vibrational frequencies changed sufficiently to enter our universe from another.
When they disappear, this is because they have changed their vibrational frequency, and have, in effect, gone back to their original universe, or entered another one.
This dynamic could explain ghostly visitations, and everything else coming under the rubric of “paranormal”. How about that when we die, our “souls” continue to exist in one of these parallel universes?
Many scientists of the more enlightened kind (who therefore wouldn't include Richard Dawkins) take String Theory seriously, and believe it may one day be proved mathematically.
On that happy day, the “paranormal” would be regarded by all as merely the “normal”.
I have never read the book you refer to - “The Elegant Universe”, by Dr. Brian Greene. I will put it on my reading list.
Why does string theory say that there are only eleven parallel universes? Could there not be an infinite number of them? Maybe black holes open into these other universes.
I think that we probably have other "selves" that exist in other dimensions and/or parallel universes. In Robert Monroe's first book, "Journeys Out Of The Body", which I am reading now, he describes going to a place he labels as Locale 3, where he inadvertently enters the body of another person who he thinks is an alternative self and refers to this other self as his "I-There". He describes going into his I-There at awkward moments like where someone is asking his I-There some question and he's not able to give the answer, making his I-There look stupid.
I have read (don't remember where) that the past, present, and future are all going on at the same "time".
I think UFOs probably do exist in our universe as well as in other parallel ones. In Robert Monroe's "Far Journeys", one of his out-of-body experiences involved travelling out in space to very near the moon where he observed a large number of UFOs.
I think that people who have seen "ghosts" may have been seeing either actual persons who have passed away and are still earthbound or, alternatively, someone in the out-of-body state who is still alive.
I am certain that we will continue to exist when we die.
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