Come to my arms, my child
I will kneel down so you can wrap your arms around my neck, for I will carry you
wherever I go
Embrace me, father of who I am
Place your heart against my heart so that I can learn what I need to know
O, mother of my soul, your sustenance will support me through all my trials and I will
feed the world with compassion
Now, come let us travel together for all time and space belongs to us

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

In collaboration with Barbara, J. S. Epperson composed and performed the evocative musical accompaniment for the CDs. He recently published a lively profile of Barbara, which may be viewed HERE on HigherMusic.com

From the profile:

Professor Bullard’s work as a teacher and her years as a parent raising two children with Attention Deficit Disorder led her to become very interested in music as a universal means by which her students and children could overcome their learning challenges, improve their learning abilities, and heighten their performance in the educational setting. This interest eventually led Bullard to work with The Monroe Institute—where she was exposed to years [of] research on the brain and how frequencies can be used as a tool for healing the body and mind, as well as the fruits of that research: Hemi-Sync®. Read more …

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Matthew Fike is an associate professor of English at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

My Big TOE: A Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics. Book 1, Awakening (288 pp.); Book 2, Discovery (376 pp.); Book 3, Inner Workings (232 pp.). U.S.: Lightning Strike Books, 2003. $38.50 (hardcover); $33.50 (paperback); $25.50 (paperback, 3 vols. in 1).

The “TOE” in the title of Thomas Campbell’s trilogy means Theory Of Everything: not only the philosophy, physics, and metaphysics mentioned in the subtitle but also the other physical sciences, the social sciences, mathematics, computer science, mind and matter, the normal and the paranormal. “It is the task of this trilogy,” he writes, “to clearly and completely construct your consciousness, your world, your science, and your existence in a general, logical, scientific way that comprehensively explains all the personal and professional data you have collected during a lifetime” (author’s emphasis). Less formally, My Big TOE is a “Reality 101” course, which presents a scientific basis for psi phenomena in a comprehensive pattern of cosmic unfolding. Although Campbell does not incorporate any data from psi research (the TOE is an objective edifice built on a foundation of his own subjective paranormal experiences), he successfully demonstrates the conclusion that “you are an individuated portion of a larger fractal pattern that constitutes All That Is within a digital virtual reality based upon evolving consciousness. . . .”

Each of the three volumes—Awakening, Discovery, and Inner Workings—is divided into two sections. Book 1 presents background on the author (physicist, psychic explorer) and then, in a section called “The Foundations of Reality,” cautions against “belief traps” and introduces many of the basic concepts that the other volumes develop. Book 2 constitutes the main part of the TOE, which is summarized below. Book 3 discusses the mechanics of nonphysical reality, examines individual types of psychic functioning in light of the Big Picture, and caps off the trilogy by demonstrating that the TOE is in harmony with what Einstein and other thinkers imagined but did not completely formulate.

The author’s account of his early years is by far the most engaging section. Campbell learned Transcendental Meditation ^SM while a graduate student in physics, and meditation not only helped him perform his academic work with greater ease and speed but also opened up a new reality for him. He developed, for example, the ability to see auras and to live in physical and nonphysical reality at the same time. Meditation thus led to a rebirth of the psi ability that he had enjoyed as a boy and later led him to Robert Monroe. Campbell’s account of his contribution to Monroe’s Whistlefield laboratory—he is the “TC (physicist)” mentioned in Far Journeys—is particularly valuable because it underscores the major assistance that Monroe received from scientists. Campbell and an electrical engineer named Dennis Mennerich were instrumental in helping Monroe set up his lab; it was Mennerich who gave him Gerald Oster’s article, “Auditory Beats in the Brain” (Scientific American, October 1973), which led to Hemi-Sync® and The Monroe Institute®; and Campbell and Mennerich played a key role as trainers in Monroe’s first courses.

The substance of Campbell’s TOE begins with two important assumptions: consciousness and evolution. He does not know where primordial consciousness or the One Source or Absolute Unbounded Oneness (AUO) came from, but he states that it is “the fundamental [digital] energy that is the media [sic] of reality.” Evolution, the Fundamental Process of trial and error or what Campbell more colloquially calls “bootstrapping,” moves toward greater “profitability” by increasing consciousness and decreasing entropy. These two assumptions reflect the limitations of Einstein’s approach and suggest why he failed to create a Big TOE. In attempting to paint a Big Picture with Little Picture mathematics, he missed the fact that the fundamental field is nonphysical, consists of consciousness, transcends and encompasses space-time, and is digital.

When AUO realizes that it can change itself in the direction of greater awareness, evolution takes over and produces a series of fractals (defined by dictionary.com as “a geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales”; so as in a hologram, a part contains a pattern of the whole). AUO evolves Absolute Unbounded Manifold (AUM), which is “aware, active, purposeful” and constitutes a “brilliant love consciousness.” From here, evolution leads to the Even Bigger Computer, The Big Computer (TBC), multiple nonphysical-matter realities (NPMR), a subset called NPMR, Our System, physical-matter reality (PMR, where space-time exists with its various rules such as the speed of light), the Earth, human beings, computers, and (probably someday) computers designed and created by computers. In other words, these stages of consciousness development are “stacked simultaneous virtual realities each in their [sic] own dimension.” Homologies abound (AUM is to us as we are to computers, etc.).

The purpose of evolution in this fractal system is the development of consciousness. AUM evolved us to enhance the quality of its consciousness, and we come to PMR to evolve our own. To that end, we must engage our free will to move us away from lower-energy-consciousness states (ignorance, fear, ego) toward higher-energy-consciousness states (knowledge, wisdom, love). PMR is a great place for humans to achieve this kind of spiritual growth because choices result in feedback/consequences. Meanwhile, our oversouls stay in NPMR, provide guidance, and record every action, thought, and emotion (think life review). In addition, the digital nature of consciousness enables our minds to travel between dimensions, investigate alternative pasts and futures in TBC, communicate instantaneously on the Reality Wide Web (RWW), and manifest a variety of other psi phenomena. The “psi uncertainty principle,” however, makes psychic experiences hard to validate from a scientific standpoint because it “masks the causal mechanics and denies the efficacy and perfect repeatability of psi effects.” As a result, the psi uncertainty principle maintains PMR’s “growth-optimizing balance.”

On a journey through this difficult material, the reader will encounter a variety of unusual and helpful features in Campbell’s trilogy. Each volume contains the same table of contents, preface, and foreword (two-thirds of the table of contents is dimly printed so that a given volume’s material stands out). The chapters include asides (in a different font and marked with arrowheads) that stand in for footnotes, give the reader a break from the heavy going, and provide helpful analogies or illustrations. A summary of previous volume(s) appears at the beginning of volumes 2 and 3. And the trilogy’s Web site, where readers can participate in a discussion group, e-mail the author, or report problems with the books, is printed at the bottom of every page (http://www.My-Big-TOE.com).

An even more unusual feature is that Campbell works hard to create his readers. The typical reader, who is a nonscientist with an analytical Western mind, needs linear argumentation in order to accept the TOE’s conclusion about evolving consciousness. Campbell counsels the reader to shed belief traps and to embrace open-minded skepticism, patience, hard work, and determination over time. Most of all, he creates a reader who is an interlocutor. Because of the sometimes borderline-technical nature of the material, the text is often conversational: Campbell anticipates the reader’s questions, objections, fatigue, and need for summary and recapitulation.

All of this is to the good, but the trilogy does not always rise to the high standard that it seeks to achieve. As one might expect in a self-published series, there are lower-order errors throughout the three volumes. These include occasional spelling mistakes, regular omission of hyphens and apostrophes, frequent comma splices, and (especially annoying) omnipresent subject-verb agreement errors. The most embarrassing lower-order error for the physicist-author appears in the key to abbreviations in book 1, where C, the speed of light, is defined as 186,000 miles per hour.

On the higher order, a series that purports to develop a “theory of everything,” but does not do so, fails to fulfill its fundamental objective. Unfortunately, the latter is the case in the TOE trilogy. Consider the contradictions in Campbell’s treatment of religion. He condescendingly equates religion’s substantive contribution to believers’ consciousness with “giving a starving person a rubber chicken,” and he dismisses the notion that religious organizations can help their members reduce the entropy of their consciousness as, “for the most part, wishful thinking.” For Campbell, religion is all about “ritual, dogma, closed-mindedness, hate, and violence”—all functions of the ego. But how can such negativity be the final word if religion espouses love, which is the author’s definition of high-quality consciousness? And what about the unacknowledged similarities between the TOE and religious formulations? For example, if NPMR has a CEO whom Campbell dubs The Big Cheese, if there are guides who help us and “negative beings that can lead us to ruin,” and if human beings “are created in AUM’s image,” how are these details not analogous, respectively, to God, angels, demons, and the notion that human beings are created in God’s image? These analogies illustrate principles that Campbell eventually affirms—the “wonderful wisdom and insight that flows [sic] from the great religions and spiritual traditions of the world” and the fact that “all spiritual paths converge on the same absolute truths by means of reducing ego and fear.” But after criticizing and dismissing religion’s contribution to consciousness and excluding religion from the TOE, Campbell’s claim—that the trilogy provides “a sound theoretical basis for understanding . . . theological . . . enigmas,” as if religion has been part of the TOE all along—rings a bit false. This aporia suggests that the author succumbs to the belief trap that he counsels readers to eschew. Although he ultimately reaches the right conclusion, it is unsupported by argument and undermined by his earlier prejudices. If “Uncle Tom,” the Big TOE Guy, can fall prey to such belief perseverance, surely the rest of us have plenty of impediments to overcome.

My Big TOE may not be perfectly written or completely consistent, but Campbell has some important things to teach us about evolving our consciousness to the point where psi phenomena begin to happen. Given our connection through mind to NPMR, the key task is to begin to shift from intellectual awareness that comes, say, from reading My Big TOE, to personal experience through meditation (book 1, chapter 23, provides an excellent set of instructions). Campbell espouses a “consistent plodding in the generally right direction,” not drug use to leap ahead prematurely. If one meditates and makes consciousness-enhancing, entropy-reducing choices, improved consciousness/being will eventually yield psi effects as a byproduct. After exploring NPMR in small increments, one can then enjoy “tasting the pudding,” which means applying objective measures to one’s own subjective experience—a fractal, as it were, of Campbell’s procedure in My Big TOE. Finally, the last thing that the author wants is for us to regard him as a guru; so as the trilogy comes to a close, he leaves us with advice that sounds much like his mentor, Monroe: “At the core, you are consciousness: you have access to all the answers—go find them for yourself and they will make you whole.”

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Karen Malik has been a facilitator of Monroe Institute programs and of TMI’s exploration of consciousness for thirty-one years. She met Bob Monroe in 1977 when assisting at the first ten-day Hemi-Sync® workshop, which was given at Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana. She became director of the Western Division of the Institute and developed its presence on the west coast and also around the country as the national coordinator of OUTREACH® programs. She and Chris Lenz were the initial trainers when the Nancy Penn Center opened in July of 1979. Through the years, she has been instrumental in the ongoing development of the Institute’s residential programs. Together with Peter Russell, Karen has created Exploration Essence, a program focusing on the deepening of one’s spiritual journey and its integration with the psyche. She is currently director of development for the Institute and senior residential facilitator.

She has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and is licensed in the state of California as a marriage and family therapist. She is also extensively trained in the complementary healing arts. Her work in the consciousness field is both national and international. She is on the board of and is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM) and is also on the board and the current president of the Cross-Cultural Studies Program (CCSP). In private practice she specializes in a transpersonal approach when working with clients.

As many of you know, I met and started working with Bob Monroe in 1977. Over the years I have watched and been part of the many phases and changes the Institute has gone through. After Laurie Monroe’s death in 2006, the Institute, once again, went through a significant transition. Over these last three years, Paul Rademacher and Skip Atwater have put together a team whose mission it is to take TMI into this millennium in an innovative and creative way. I am honored to be a part of the team.

There were many projects to be implemented, and becoming a provider for continuing education (CE) hours was high on the list. We realized that many professionals attend our courses and that offering CE hours would provide a meaningful service to them and also add value to what TMI offers. As the new director of development, the project fell into my hands.

Knowing this would be a complex process, in my morning meditation I asked for guidance and “help.” Within a few days of that meditation, I received a call from Carolyn Ball, who wanted to take the GATEWAY VOYAGE® and receive CE hours for the course. I told her that we were in the process of becoming a continuing education provider but were not there yet. She asked how far along I was in the process. I replied that I was just beginning. Carolyn responded, “I can help you with it because I have been through the process and know how to do it.”

There was the answer to my prayers, and it hadn’t taken long at all! I am reminded again and again of how well we are guided and that all we need do is ask. That is especially true when it comes to the Institute. Carolyn and I began the long process of fulfilling the requirements for TMI to become a CE provider.

Shirley Bliley and Ann Vaughan, who serve TMI’s professional members, helped immensely. They pulled together appropriate papers presented at various conferences by professional members over the years—from the mid 1980s through the late ’90s. Those papers were extremely valuable for fulfilling the application requirements.

I am happy to announce that as of March 1, 2009, The Monroe Institute® was approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as provider 6391 to offer continuing education workshops, seminars, and conferences. This means that if you are a licensed or certified counselor, psychotherapist, or marriage and family therapist, or in a related profession, and your state licensing/certifying board accepts continuing education credits approved by NBCC, you can receive CE hours by taking courses at TMI. The courses approved for CE credits and the number of hours received are:

GATEWAY VOYAGE® ………… 50 CE hours
HEARTLINE ……………………. 50 CE hours
Exploration Essence …………… 50 CE hours
Professional Seminar ………….. 12.5 CE hours *
Hemi-Sync® for
Helping Professionals ………….. 14 CE hours

* The Professional Seminar is held every other year for professional members.

Also, on July 7, 2009, Atlantic University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, certified TMI and will award continuing education units (CEUs) to participants who successfully complete the residential programs listed below. Atlantic University is approved as a CEU provider by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). Academic CEUs can be applied as college and/or continuing education credits for a number of different professions that accept CEUs approved by IACET. You can receive your CEUs by taking the following courses at TMI (one CEU is based on ten clock hours):

GATEWAY VOYAGE ……. 6 CEUs
GUIDELINES ……………. 25 CEUs
LIFELINE …………………. 4.5 CEUs

We are in the process of obtaining continuing education credits for other professions such as massage therapy, nursing, and social work.

Carolyn Ball has since become an OUTREACH® facilitator specializing in trainings for professionals. She will make a presentation at TMI’s Professional Seminar in March 2010. The title of her talk is “Bringing Hemi-Sync to Our Professional World.”

Complete continuing education information is HERE. It is important to note that each state and professional board has different requirements for receiving CE hours. Each person desiring to receive CE credits for their profession must check directly with their state to make sure it will accept CEs gained by attending TMI programs.

It is an exciting time here at TMI. The new phase we are entering into has great promise as we continue our mission to serve humanity and support the evolution of consciousness. Those of you reading this are part of that evolution and a part of the TMI family. We truly appreciate you and invite you to join us in this adventure. Bob Monroe would like that!

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Gary D. Chaikin is a medical doctor and psychiatrist with over twenty-seven years of experience. He is currently employed as the regional psychiatrist at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, where he is helping returning U. S. troops deal with their wartime traumas. Additionally, he has a holistic private practice in Onalaska, Wisconsin, to which clients travel from all over the country for innovative healing therapies. He attended the GATEWAY VOYAGE® in October 1999 and became a TMI professional member at that time.

Dr. Chaikin has a special interest in the applications of an integral psychology and is assisting clients to handle life difficulties and to evolve their awareness through a biopsychosocial-spiritual model. His holistic approach was significantly enriched through his wife’s terminal illness and their shared experience of dealing with that process and the medical system. Recently he has begun to incorporate modern technological Chinese approaches into the model. Dr. Chaikin can be contacted by e-mail at awakenedmindvitalityclinic@centurytel.net

Introduction

The journey began July 1, 2005, when my wife, Randi, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her treatment—the triumphs and eventual failure—is another story. I’d like instead to skip to the end and the process of GOING HOME. Randi passed over on May 2, 2007. My wife always wanted to write about and share her interaction with the medical community, but she was too ill. She’d say, “It would all be worth it if just one person would be helped to not go through what I had to experience.” As things never turn out the way our small self thinks, this account ironically may be the help she intended and intuited: a real-life story about GOING HOME.

Who am I? Well, in Consciousness 1 (C-1), I was Randi’s husband and soul mate. By profession I am a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. I graduated from Monroe’s GATEWAY VOYAGE® program in 1999 and then took LIFELINE™ and MC². My last residential program, EXPLORATION 27, occurred in the summer of 2006. I’m a TMI professional member and have published two articles in the Hemi-Sync® Journal in 2001 and 2002. I have also participated in the Dolphin Energy Club (DEC) healing outreach in the past. Most importantly for this story, during EXPLORATION 27 it was revealed to me that Randi was part of my Soul Group/Disc/I-There and that our I-There was the “Intercessor.” Only after the journey I will describe did I understand what that meant.

My wife was never interested in going to TMI (even though I had sent my mother). Usually she avoided my work and exploration with shifts in consciousness, preferring to fully pursue Iyengar yoga. After my father passed away and I retrieved his soul from Focus 23—relocating him to Focus 25—Randi would periodically ask me if I would retrieve her when the time came.

The Trip, GOING HOME

During the course of my wife’s illness we had tried to heal with DEC support, as well as preparing for crossing over with GOING HOME, but Randi each time would just fall asleep. When I’d measured her brain waves through brain mapping, it showed both hemispheres in delta sleep. Was this an effect of the tumor and/or archetypal unconsciousness, the beginning of her transition?

By the end, my wife’s course was progressively downhill, despite the best that traditional and alternative medicine had to offer. On the morning of April 11, 2007, my life’s companion would not awaken, and she was admitted to the hospital’s palliative care unit. The medical staff was initially supportive when they believed she would expire quickly. As time went on, they became hostile to my attempts to provide integrative healing. They believed me to be in denial despite my continuous reassurances to the contrary. Behind the scenes, I had elicited the support of four psychic healers. The tumor’s growth stopped, but it did not shrink. With the doctor’s approval I was permitted to begin the GOING HOME CDs. That may have been because I flashed the name of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross––the most famous individual in the hospice movement––and was unabashed about evoking my religious rights and convictions: “My wife is in God’s hands.”

The nursing staff was mildly curious about what I was doing but mostly just stayed out of my way. During the day there was a parade of family, friends, and medical personnel. Luckily, all would go home by late at night, and I would return—uninhibited by others—and begin the process of assisting my soul mate to cross over.

We used a split line to listen to the GOING HOME exercises, join, communicate, and go out of body (Chaikin 2002), even though Randi was in an altered state of consciousness—a coma. This activity became an island of beauty, sanity, and joy in the midst of a world of pain and suffering. Our love and trust was continuously confirmed during this very difficult time. I don’t know how I could have made those almost impossible, no-win medical decisions for her without our connection in Focus 27. We started by listening to the GOING HOME series beginning with CD 1, track 1: Mind Awake/Body Asleep, proceeding in order to Flying Free, Remove and Release, Edge of Here/Now, Touring the Interstate, and Moment of Revelation.

As we moved through this process, each time we listened I noticed that Randi’s energy body––projected from the physical with my assistance––was becoming duller and duller in Focus 12 and her energy in Focus 27 was becoming brighter and brighter. She was luminous and filled with joy. Additionally, she began to appear nightly (or if I napped) in my dreams and each time in my own meditations, which took me to Focus 27, 35, and 42. She would be ebullient, having found her way to Focus 27 without my help.

It had been my expectation from the beginning that I would have to retrieve my wife’s soul from Focus 23, as I’d done with my father’s, and translocate it to Focus 25. Instead, the process had been so successful we began to create her own place in Focus 27 and connected it to my place. We moved from GOING HOME Moment of Revelation to utilizing my LIFELINE Take-Home Exercise. This gave us unique, specific frequencies and longer periods of time in Focus 27. We built her yoga studio onto my cabin and began to connect and coordinate activities (for example, doing headstands, which she was not allowed to do in C-1 by doctor’s orders—I and her yoga friends had done headstands daily for her throughout her illness). This helped me immensely with the isolation that occurs when a family member has a terminal illness. For myself, I concurrently began to journal; in an altered state of consciousness (Focus 11 or 12) I became my own therapist and assisted myself in handling emotional issues. Other times I did Self-Therapy, “putting it out to the universe” or going to Focus 35 to ask questions. Very difficult decisions had to be made without my wife’s conscious answers. They were accomplished by connecting to her consciousness in Focus 27, 35, or 42, depending on the issue.

After approximately one and a half weeks, Randi had still not died. The medical staff, her family, and friends began, with good intentions, to apply considerable pressure on me to suspend the life-sustaining measures of intravenous steroids, alkalinizing buffers, antiseizure medication, and fluids and—finally—transfer her to a nursing home to die. When a repeat MRI showed no shrinkage of the tumor (but no further growth over two weeks), I consulted Randi in Focus 27. She told me how much she loved me and that she trusted whatever decision I made. I don’t know how I could have made it though this decision point without her permission in Focus 27. What needed to be done was done and my wife’s living body, in “God’s hands,” was transferred to a nursing home on April 25, 2007.

We continued our excursions to Focus 27 each night, with Randi (or what little C-1 energy was left of her) phase-shifting with me to There. Then on May 1, 2007, on my way to work, I was contacted by cell phone. One of the psychics––an archangel healer and DNA adjuster––had been in contact with Randi. The healer said, “She doesn’t want to leave you, but she can’t get back in her body. She’s willing to come back but it’s too far gone and would take too much from her and you.” Two hours later the nursing home contacted me through my brother. I was told that my wife’s breathing had changed and that she would surely die within the next half hour to two hours. I left work immediately and went straight to the nursing home, preparing for Randi’s final breath. It did not come.

We again met in Focus 27 that evening via the LIFELINE Support Exercise. I pledged that if she was still alive the next day, I would initiate rehydration and rescue efforts. In C-1 reality, I went home at 10:30 P.M. Her breathing seemed to have stabilized somewhat. Upon awakening the next morning I contacted the nursing home. They told me that she was “the same,” and that a friend was with her, visiting. A call was made to my wife’s family physician, the situation was explained to the doctor’s nurse, and help was requested. I was promised a call back shortly after a consultation with the doctor. The telephone rang about twenty minutes later. Instead of the doctor’s office, it was the nursing home calling to notify me that Randi had “passed away.” It is like the old saying, “Be careful what you ask for; you might just get it.” I had said, “Let the Higher Self make the decision,” and it did! Randi had chosen the exact moment of her death—her friend had just left and I would have been at the nursing home within thirty minutes with a resuscitative plan for her physical body. What else could ensue but my complete acceptance of what was meant to be?

I arrived at the nursing home to find my wife lying in bed. Randi was beautiful, radiant, with the familiar smile on her face I’d not seen in weeks, only she wasn’t breathing. Family and staff left me alone with her. The funeral home had been called but they were delayed. We finished the journey together, with the GOING HOME Relocation Theme playing through a split line for us. As we listened to Bob Monroe’s words, she lifted out of her physical body for the final time. I felt the ecstatic joy at being able to participate in the process, and I feel like crying right now as I write and remember. What a privilege to have been a part of this event in my wife’s existence. After delivering her soul to Focus 27 and our place There, I returned to C-1 and continued the Relocation Theme, allowing family, staff, and the funeral home to do their things, finally removing the body which I knew she was more than.

After Separation

We made it through her funeral together, and while rejuvenating afterward at my mother’s in California, I came to realize my intense gratitude at Randi’s supreme sacrifice. She trusted to cross over and allow my freedom in C-1. This facilitated an evolution in consciousness beyond intellect into a centering at a level of spiritual unconditional love (Chaikin 2001; Hawkins 2001). On my return from California, a memorial was held at my office for Randi’s many friends. It was a very emotional time for all forty to fifty people who attended. In gratitude, I offered coyly that those who wanted to stay and experience my research work could and might have an “intense recollection of Randi.” Six people—all fairly close to both of us—stayed; I prepared them, then played GOING HOME Touring the Interstate. All I can say is when we returned to C-1 they looked like “deer in the headlamps” and were unable to speak of their experience, although they had the opportunity. Several came back later and could only say, “That was intense!” Maybe we got a few converts?

Now I carry on actively in two lives, embracing the multidimensional like Jane Roberts, who channeled the Seth material. In Focus 27 and up, Randi is present, and in time/space physical reality, she is now absent. This phenomenon occurs almost every morning during my direct and instantaneous phase-shift from C-1 to Focus 27. Serious decisions involving Randi are still knowingly made in higher Focus levels, though the whole experience is far from morbid. Each visit to Focus 27 is a time for enjoying her presence, doing yoga (continuing our headstands), discussing past and future events, having breakfast (and deciding what “I” will eat in C-1), and creating new fun experiences. Randi is back in her thirties in Focus 27: healthy, active, and a whole lot wiser spiritually. Something good really can come from tragedy, with a little help from the resources provided by The Monroe Institute®.

Lessons Learned

I was originally going to call this article “A Celebration: Surviving the Death of a Loved One,” but this is really about Randi, not me. I was just along for the trip of a lifetime. Some might have found this disrespectful up front, before reading her story. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her famous book On Death and Dying, postulated that during the dying process the individual (Subject) and others (Support) go through stages of adaptation, finally arriving at Acceptance. It was our experience that there is a stage beyond Acceptance––Celebration. This includes all the healing, growth, gratitude, and Love that came pouring out in the conclusion of seeming tragedy.

With whom can you share this kind of experience, when family, friends, religious leaders, and medical personnel don’t understand? There are awake and aware beings out there in C-1 (e.g., TMI/DEC) and in non-C-1 (e.g., Focus 12–35, “put it out to the universe”). If worse comes to worst, you can always fall back on the new tried and true: it’s all just a collapse of the quantum wave function. That’s physicists’ explanation for the manifestation of God: potentiality becoming physical. For the hard-core skeptics who don’t believe in an afterlife, my favorite response is to refer to all of the foregoing as a deep layer of the unconscious. This psychological explanation still has great value.

The radical constructivists or Zen adepts would say, “There is a world out there but you really can’t know it with ego or smaller self.” So what do we really know about another or our own Self; the eye trying to see the I, other than our own perception or construct? Did the Randi I knew and loved really exist in C-1 objectively or was she a perception/construct—an energy field, information—in my head? Yes and yes, and so much more than her physical body. When I meet her in Focus 27, am I imagining her, reconstructing her, or does her field of energy as part of the One of Consciousness exist? Yes and yes. Could it be any other way? The ambiguity is sometimes difficult to handle, perhaps that’s why TMI lets us concretize it into images, and that’s okay. But, to the degree we can tolerate the confusion, we will have the celebration of the discovery and freedom of consciousness, living out our lives with purpose. Randi is (not was) my soul mate, though no longer in C-1, and remains part of my Soul Group/Disc/I-There.

Haiku for Randi’s Funeral

For Gentle Blossom,
Sleeping Noble Heart of Gold,
All Have Gathered.

Written in honor of Randi Marlene Chaikin, born (?) November 13, 1952; crossed over May 2, 2007.

Gratefully,
The Intercessor (learned in EXPLORATION 27)

References
Chaikin, G. D. 2001. Enhanced intuitive psychotherapy. Hemi-Sync Journal 19 (2): 1–4.
Chaikin, G. D. 2002. Hemi-Sync: A healing of the self. Hemi-Sync Journal 20 (4): 1–5.
Hawkins, D. 2001. The eye of the I: From which nothing is hidden. Sedona, AZ: Veritas Publishing.

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Karl Boyken is a computer systems administrator for the University of Iowa. He has attended a number of TMI’s residential programs. He is a Monroe Institute Sustaining Member and a Dolphin Energy Club member. Karl also has been a hospice volunteer and is a student of tai chi.

One April day, I’m sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when I feel the urge to take a look at The Monroe Institute® Web site. I pull up the list of programs. One in particular catches my eye: Shaman’s Heart. I don’t know anything about this Byron Metcalf fellow, the person who developed the program and will train it, but something about the description tugs at me. I check my calendar for June, and before I know it, I’ve signed up.

A month later, in mid-May, I have the first sign that Shaman’s Heart will be different from the other programs I’ve attended. A message from Byron arrives in my inbox, encouraging me to formulate a specific intention for the program before I arrive. I puzzle over this. I’m not even sure exactly why I signed up for Shaman’s Heart, and now I’m supposed to set an intention? I sit with this for a while, and gradually something takes shape in my mind, a tentative sketch of an intention—I hope it will do.

My travel day arrives. On the plane, as I get closer to Virginia, I can feel something afoot. I can feel the energy moving already. On the ride to the Institute, I get to know another Shaman’s Heart participant. Another sign that this program will be unusual: she has never been to a program. It turns out that there are four participants who’ve never done a GATEWAY VOYAGE®. But Byron and Karen Malik bring them up to speed quickly, and by Sunday lunch they’re old pros.

Byron leads us through what seems to me to be an interesting and very effective fusion of mindfulness and meditation techniques with shamanic journeying: Hemi-Sync® with drum and rattle. As the week unfolds, he takes us out of our heads and into our belly and heart centers. I begin to feel very open. In our individual CHEC units and group meditation exercises, we call on our helpers, and many physical animal helpers begin showing up. I see a salamander on the deck outside the door to the dining hall. Several people encounter a black snake outside by the dinner bell; we name him Henry. I shepherd wasps out of my room from time to time.

Byron guides us toward the breathwork sessions on Wednesday, sharing his years of experience and his academic knowledge with us. Wednesday morning we gather in David Francis Hall for the breathwork. Some of us have quiet, angelic experiences, while several others have more active and intense sessions. Mine falls more toward the intense end of the scale, dealing with birth issues—a common theme of breathwork. Afterward, I feel incredibly light and empty, open and energetic, new. Later, as I talk with Byron about my session, he leads me out of the story in my head and back into the breath, into the present moment, into the emotional-physical-energetic experience that the story evokes. I realize that this present-moment experience is much more important than what happened in the past. It’s something I can bring home with me.

That evening, I stand on Rainbow Ridge Road, looking over the pasture below, watching a fawn search for his mother. He runs back and forth, and every few seconds he makes a kind of bleating sound. I’d seen the doe earlier; now she must be watching from the tree line. Finally, the fawn realizes he is being watched by a potential predator—me. He drops to the ground in some tall grass and is quiet. As I walk back toward Nancy Penn, I smile at this example of abandonment issues.

After the program ends, the feeling of openness remains. One day I’m sitting at a table with a man I just met, a veteran. He tells me of his experience in the war. As he talks, he seems to be having a difficult time with the emotional energy trying to move through him. I just remain open and present, just sit and listen. When he finishes, he says he usually can’t get through the whole story, that he feels something about me has helped him. I tell him that all I did was listen.

Weeks later, I’m in my ninety-two-year-old mother’s room at the care center where she was admitted a couple of days earlier. My father, ninety-four himself but still living at home, shakes his head as he watches her rummage through the empty drawers of her nightstand. What she’s looking for, we’ll never know—the dementia has stolen her ability to speak sensibly. As I help her open the same drawer she’s just checked, I check in with my breath, with my belly and heart center, and just try to be open and present with her and my father. All I can do is listen.

[Karl’s mother passed away peacefully in her sleep on August 23 .]

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Viola Johnson says she was the child of a spiritually enlightened, psychic mother who encouraged her to seek the path less traveled. By the time she was thirteen, she was meditating regularly, learning the basics of nature, and exploring the inner workings of her mind.

College brought her first “sensory deprivation tank” experience. In the 1970s she continued to “tank out” at Tranquility Tanks in New York City and at Altered States in Los Angeles. In LA she first learned about the work of Robert Monroe after hearing Hemi-Sync® through the sound system of the tank. The Hemi-Sync “wave” produced one of her most exciting meditations. Viola continued to experiment but seemed to gravitate to Hemi-Sync more than any other tool for enlightenment. After reading the chapter on The Monroe Institute® in MEGABRAIN, she knew that at some time in her life she would make a pilgrimage to the mountain to take her own voyage.

In 2005—thanks to her family—her dream came true. She packed her laptop, the pelt of Luca (the wolf who is her spiritual companion), and almost twenty-five years of excitement to attend the GATEWAY VOYAGE®. She shared that adventure in the winter/spring 2009 issue of the TMI Focus. In October 2005, Viola returned for a private session in the Bob Monroe Research Lab isolation booth. The results of that journey were—unbelievably—even more extraordinary.

The events themselves are simple to record. The feelings and emotions however…

I left Jasper, Georgia, and drove to Faber where I stayed in a little bed and breakfast about two miles up the mountain from the Institute. I settled into my room and meditated for the rest of the evening.

In the morning, I woke, prepped and then drove to the Institute. I was early so there was time to meditate before the PREP session. At 10:30 Dr. Miller and I met to get me ready to go into the chamber. Shortly afterward we went into the lab and I was made comfortable on the flotation bed and covered with a blanket. The vault-like door was closed, and I was ready for my journey.

As soon as the light was turned off the darkness greeted me. I was wrapped in the absolute blackness that most people never see. It was like coming back to an old friend after too long an absence. My guide started the wave. Not the taped sounds of ocean, but the pure Hemi-Sync wave itself, without white noises to mask its tones and beauty. I tuned, stated my resolution, and easily slipped into a Focus 10 state of consciousness. Within a few minutes Dr. Miller asked if I was ready to go to Focus 12. I said yes.

In the Focus 12 state I was enjoying swirling colors and wispy nebulae of clouds dancing before my eyes. As I opened myself to the happenings around me, there was the realization that I was not alone. The surrounding energy easily transformed itself into a somehow familiar male figure. He told me his name, which I now can’t remember. (Thank goodness it is on the tape.) We talked (definitely the wrong word here) until it was time to move into Focus 15.

I could feel and hear the wave change tones and frequencies. My consciousness followed the wave into the timeless blackness of what I can only describe as pre-creation space. As I acclimated to this emptiness my instinct was to roll or float out of body and try to join the blackness. Whether I changed my mind or something stopped me I do not know. Instead, this new state was greeted, and I allowed it to come to me. Soon I was surrounded—make that cradled—in and by what felt like the universe itself. There was no bed, no room, no sense of self, just the vast expanse of space and the twinkling of distant tiny stars.

I floated through the blackness, merging with it and becoming one with all there was. I felt serenely at peace. Off in the distance I watched a door being formed. My curiosity got the better of me, and I drifted toward it. Slowly the door opened and I found myself looking at a light so pure that I was awed by it. There are no words to describe the color. It was not so bright that it could not be looked upon, but so pure in its color that it was either the beginning or the culmination of All. As I was beckoned to step in, the frequencies shifted from Focus 15 to Focus 21. I joined the light and everything changed.

There are few ways that I can describe the next experiences and have them make sense. I communicated with friends long dead, with people (if that is the right word) I never knew. I became one with all who had walked before me. It’s as if all the ancestors zoned in on their own particular genetic marker in my double helix and came to be with me. If I was a drop of water and each of them were drops also, we merged in a limitless pitcher. There we melded together without form or the limitations of the exterior that keeps us all separated. Our essence flowed to and through each other, shared on a level for which there is no point of reference. I knew true and pure joy. I journeyed even farther, deeper into the purity. I heard the voice of Dr. Miller and made a conscious decision to ignore the beacon, the summons if you will.

Then I heard a growl and felt a nuzzle. I turned away from it and kept on. The energy became more insistent until it took form. My best friend Victoria’s totem spirit—a black panther called Lilly—was snapping at the light, trying to put the pieces of my essence back into some kind of nonethereal form. At first I wouldn’t allow it. Then the cat began to speak, send images if you will, of family, love, and commitments as she dragged my essence toward the now-visible door. I crossed back into Focus 15 sobbing and angry at being ripped away from paradise. My guide asked if I was ready to come back. I asked if I really had to. I said that I didn’t want to.

The journey back down to C-1 consciousness was uneventful. When Dr. Miller opened the chamber door she handed me Kleenex® to wipe away the tears. I had only a few moments to table the emotional jumble so that I could exit the chamber and talk about the results.

Upon my leaving the building, all the familiar post-sensory-deprivation-isolation-tank perceptions reoccurred. Everything was sharper, including my emotions. I walked down the path toward the lake and I could see heat waves capturing updrafts to form vortices. I noted the energy patterns as they moved along the grass and through the trees. Everything was crystal clear … except the jumble of emotions that I could not sort out.

I was joyous, elated, and angry. Angry at my family and friends for being part of the anchor that had kept me within this plane, yet thankful at the same time for having such great loves that I could consciously bring that gift to the cosmic consciousness and share it, in and with the great pool of All.

I did little things through the day to help ground me. I walked the property of Oak Ridge. I succeeded in finding the plantation called White Plains where one of my great-great grandmothers had been a slave. I was fortunate enough to be able to converse with the owner and have a tour of the house and lands. He even gave me a nail from the wallboard that was probably in her slave cabin.

I made the seven-hour drive home in silence. I wanted no sound of any kind to intrude while I tried to process and sort my thoughts. I am still doing so, and probably will be for quite a while.

[Editor’s note: I asked Viola if she’d had any new insights related to the session between 2005 and 2009.]

You asked a very interesting question at the end of the PREP session entry. This is not an easy question to answer in that the word “insight” is not encompassing enough.

As a genealogist and family historian, it is my job to tell the stories of those who have come before me. Even as a child I was always comfortable with the spirits of family and friends who came to share time and space with their living descendants.

In that PREP session I had the opportunity to know them all. Generations so far past that I really had no way of being able to sort out (or cared to sort out) what part of them flowed through me. Since that hour, I have––how in the world do I explain this?––become an aware vessel for those spirits. I can hear and feel them when they come to visit. I am far more aware (and as a result fight less) when they choose to guide me. I know when dreams are my own, versus when they are messages that I should heed. I now accept as usual the fact that “lights can go on” when I am working on the family story. I know that when it happens a family member is trying to communicate with me and that I should stop, slip into a Focus 12 or 15, and just listen.  Would you call that insight or revelation?

Hemi-Sync® is a registered trademark of Interstate Industries, Inc.

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

A big part of body surfing is waiting: waiting for the right wave, of exactly the right shape and power, breaking at precisely the right place. It’s as much sensing as seeing, for after a while you develop a “feel” for it that can only be learned through experience. In the waiting is a oneness with sea and wind and sky that is as precious as the ride itself—a communion with the forces of nature.

But beyond that, timing is the key. Start swimming too early and you’ll miss the power of the wave to sweep you along; too late and you’ll drop straight down from the heights of the curl as the crashing surf drives you into the bottom, violently twisting and wrenching your limbs as if they were made of seaweed.

But if you catch it just right, you will soar down the slope of the wave gathering so much momentum that your body will skim the surface, bouncing and skipping like a flat stone heaved expertly onto the stillness of a pond. And then you’ll be far enough in front of the wave that it will crash in behind you harmlessly and then gather you up gently in the white foam for a second ride.

Believe me, when that happens there is no way to stifle a shout of glee or to suppress a grin as bright as the sun. It is a moment of perfection.

So many who come through TMI also develop a “feel” for, and sensitivity to, this thing we call consciousness. And, like body surfing, many of us seem to be sensing a new wave of consciousness heading our way. It’s something we’ve been waiting for, though we only perceive its outlines dimly.

Each of us has felt the thrill of riding waves of awareness that have propelled us on adventures, perceptions, and insights that had previously occurred solely in dreams. But once we have taken the ride of direct experience, we know that there is indeed much more to us than the physical body. I’m convinced that these journeys into the rich dimensions of mystery are the first inklings of a wave that will sweep humanity into the next stage of evolution.

Often, one of the signs of transition is a period of chaos. Old systems, assumptions, and cultural norms start to break down. Severing ties with the past throws everything into a state of uncertainty until the “new” starts to emerge and eventually stabilizes.

The chaos is just the beginning of a gathering wave of new energy. Right now, many sense that chaos and are frightened by it because they don’t have a context for understanding what’s going on or because they haven’t had the experience to develop a “feel” for the times.

To be too far in front of the wave is to be ungrounded and to lose touch with the forces of nature. Being too far behind can put you out of sync and lead to a frightening experience: clinging to a dissolving past.

But to catch it just right means a ride of wonder, joy, and awe. As we move to the future, TMI will be a place where people will continue to get a “feel” for a new way of being. But we will also seek to explore the nature of this new wave and to interpret it to the world.

At present we are toying with the idea of creating a new EXPLORERS * program that will focus on exploring such questions as: What is the nature of the next stage of human evolution? How will consciousness be different? Is there a new language or symbol system that can more adequately express the nature of this new “wave” sensed by so many of us?

This idea is a dream that seems to be gathering energy. You’ll be informed of details as they unfold.

Meanwhile, I hope those of you who are interested will turn your sensing and intuition to this “Big” question. This will be a community project designed—not just for our own benefit—but for all of humanity. Perhaps, working together, we will find a way to catch this wave with exquisite timing.

Can you feel it? The wind has shifted. Narrow your eyes and look. There is a wave forming on the horizon.

Hemi-Sync® is a registered trademark of Interstate Industries, Inc.

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

The best evidence for The Monroe Institute’s global reach lies in the activities of TMI OUTREACH facilitators and professional members beyond United States borders. This is especially obvious in the island nation of Cyprus where professional member and OUTREACH facilitator Linda Leblanc resides with her husband, John Knowles, a former United Nations diplomat.

Linda and John are close friends of Ronald (Russ) and Jill Russell, who spent two restorative weeks with them in early March 2009. Russ and Jill are British citizens who live in Scotland, where they spread the word about TMI. They are involved with establishing a center that will offer Monroe-style programs. The Russells are members of the TMI Board of Advisors, as well as professional members.

During the visit to Cyprus, Russ gave a radio interview on Cyprus National Broadcasting on March 6 and discussed his book The Journey of Robert Monroe.

On Sunday, March 8, the two couples hosted a Hemi-Sync® grads and friends open afternoon. The opportunity to be with like-minded souls was much appreciated by about twenty visitors, three of whom had attended the GATEWAY VOYAGE in Europe.

The agenda for March 9 included a meeting with the founder and retired chief executive officer (CEO) of Disabilities Trust (UK) to discuss Hemi-Sync as a resource for people who had suffered brain damage. Russ made plans to contact the current CEO for further discussion on his return to Great Britain.

Linda and the Russells visited the Paphos Hospice on March 13 and met with the hospice director, Dr. Aristos Georghiou. They lent him the SURGICAL SUPPORT series. The hospice is open-minded, and they have complementary therapists working with the staff, family, and patients and offering Reiki, massage, etc. They are also starting to use METAMUSIC®. The two GOING HOME albums were donated as well. One therapist who had attended two OUTREACH courses recently told Linda that she reads the GATEWAY Affirmation to patients and finds that they settle down quickly on hearing it.

On March 14–15, Russ and Jill joined Linda and John at their Hemi-Sync display table at the annual Paphos Health and Well-Being Exhibition. Russ signed copies of his books, The Vast Enquiring Soul, Focusing the Whole Brain, and The Journey of Robert Monroe. Linda gave a PowerPoint presentation, “Psychic Imprints from Past Lives,” on March 14. It was so well attended that the organizers had to bring in extra chairs. The talk included Bob Monroe’s Tower story and a short guided meditation with METAMUSIC and the Reincarnation Cards® created by John and Linda in collaboration with Patty Ray Avalon, artist and TMI residential program facilitator. The cards are part of the Awakening Far Memory set and are available from the TMI Store. During this presentation, which Jill and Russ sat in on, at least two people in the audience were deeply moved when the colorful, evocative images were flashed on the screen. Jill helped to hold the energy, and playing METAMUSIC really seemed to open things up during the presentation.

In the midst of the visit, The Cyprus Weekly—Cyprus’s largest English-language newspaper—featured “On a Mission,” a profile of Linda, in its magazine Flair. The article spotlighted her support of ecologically sound policies and open government in her position as the first foreigner elected to the council of the town of Peyia, as well as her involvement in personal development through offering the EXCURSION workshops. The Monroe vision is obviously well represented in Cyprus.

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute

Matthew Fike is an associate professor of English at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C.

“We feel an urgency to get the material through so that it can get into written form, and thereby into the consciousness level of souls who are in need of growth and are searching for new inspiration and openings into their higher selves.”1 This quotation, which is spoken by a nonphysical entity through Rosalind McKnight in Robert Monroe’s research laboratory, nicely encapsulates the overall purpose of the two books under review in this issue. To that end, Cosmic Journeys and Soul Journeys provide a formidable and comprehensive cosmology that includes the consciousness of plants, animals, and the earth itself; multiple destinations in the afterlife, including “The Patrick Event”; the author’s own birth and preexistence; alien spaceships; Monroe’s death, which frames the first book; and the distant future of our planet.

Cosmic Journeys is the result of the author’s work as one of Monroe’s Explorers between 1971 and 1982. Its twenty-four chapters—divided into sections that correspond to parts of the “Gateway Affirmation”—are mostly dialogues between Monroe and either Rosie herself or guides who speak through her. Chapter 19, though, is typed as it is channeled, a technique that she employs throughout Soul Journeys, most of which is recorded at a computer keyboard as her guide, Radiant Lady, takes her on a tour of the afterlife. The author’s body functions “as a transmitting set between dimensions,” and the material has an immediacy and a conversational quality that result from her rare ability to report psychic events as she experiences them.

Cosmic Journeys not only describes the origin of numerous meditative techniques taught at The Monroe Institute® but also sheds light on several passages from Monroe’s second book, Far Journeys. It is interesting, however, that a wide variety of theological material conveyed by Rosie’s Guides did not make it into the Institute’s course cosmology or Monroe’s writings. At the very least, this pattern of references reflects Rosie’s MDiv degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Along with echoes of biblical language (especially Paul’s image of seeing “through a glass darkly” and the twin principles “Ask and you shall receive,” “Seek and you shall find”), the Guides stress, among many other important points, that God is pure love energy, that the fall is separation, that salvation means emulating Jesus who “came from the highest God-energy” to teach unconditional love, and that prayer and thanksgiving are important to spiritual development.

The fuller cosmology laid out in Cosmic Journeys is a treasure trove to which no brief review can do proper justice, but a sampling of concepts most interesting to TMI readers will provide a sense of what awaits between its covers. A fundamental principle is that “all that is exists within.” Thus the key to accessing “universal knowledge” is to look within to the five levels of consciousness or vibration. From lowest to highest, these are “the physical, etheric-substance, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.” The lower levels are subject to time and fear; the higher levels—beyond time—correspond to realms of love. Human beings can separate from the physical at the etheric-substance level on up to the spirit level. For example, if separation occurs at the mental level, the mental and spiritual levels separate, while the etheric-substance and emotional levels remain with the physical body. The more levels are left behind, the safer the physical body remains. The five-level system also suggests that there is no genuine OBE (only phase shifting) and accounts for how we can travel during sleep but not remember doing so: unless one lives consciously in the “higher energy state of two and a half and beyond,” one is unlikely to remember the experience.

Whereas the afterlife is a subset of Cosmic Journeys, it is the author’s exclusive focus in Soul Journeys, a title that anticipates phrases like “soul journeys back to our original forms” and “journey back to the Godhead.” The book’s purpose is to help people realize that there is no death and to counsel self-recognition, faith, hope, and joy. More so than the first book, Soul Journeys provides snapshots from Rosie’s life: various jobs, her nine-acre farm, her love of cats and dogs who play supporting roles in the drama Here and There, and even a past lifetime in which she was sacrificed by a high priest (her ex-husband in this lifetime). With brutal honesty, she narrates the darkest period of her life when, in Europe, she nearly committed suicide but was saved when her beloved guide AhSo from Cosmic Journeys intervened. Since that nearly fatal moment, she has lived in the “eternal presence of God,” which may partially explain her talent for channeling spiritual beings. Her close brush with suicide illustrates two principles that reappear throughout the book: the Disconnect Principle (disconnection from God and others is bad) and the Chaos Principle 13 (when everything “seems to fall apart, it’s simply coming together at a higher level”). Of course, Soul Journeys includes a variety of other interesting psychic experiences as well. The most notable are Rosie’s reunion with her brother Larry, who was killed at a young age in an automobile accident; face-to-face meetings with AhSo, Patrick, and various pets in the afterlife; a visit to Monroe’s heavenly conference center; and a Dantesque scene in the Dark Realm where stuck souls self-punish according to their own negative thought forms.

Soul Journeys describes a soul’s incarnation as a circular journey from the spirit world to the Earth and back again. Highlights of this process include a life contract with an Earth Council, guidance while on Earth, and an automatic life review upon return to the spirit world. Most souls migrate to Summerland (a subset of which is the Park known to LIFELINE™ participants)—a realm of love, joy, and pleasure, where souls engage in learning, hobbies, and service. Over and over again, Rosie’s Guides stress a variety of key points about this soul journey. Suicide is a great no-no because it breaks one’s contract with God. We must clear ourselves of addictions while on Earth and live joyfully and meaningfully so that we may die peacefully and ascend to the level of our highest energy. Thought is incredibly important because “we attract everything to ourselves by the way we think.” God energy or spirit is the only thing that is real. And as in Platonic philosophy, everything on Earth originates on the spiritual plane.

Residing in the background of Rosie’s two books are not only Dante and Plato but also the English poet John Milton. Cosmic Journeys makes four references to the point that Milton has the angel Raphael tell Adam and Eve: “And from these corporal nutriments perhaps / Your bodies may at last turn all to Spirit, / Improv’d by tract of time, and wing’d ascend / Ethereal.” The implication of this happy thought is that the Earth and all who live on her will eventually, through spiritual ascension, come to enjoy some of the qualities that Soul Journeys associates primarily with the afterlife. Living well in love and joy is therefore of utmost importance. Perhaps Rosie will say more about this in her next book, which her Guides, she says in the final chapter, are ready to download through her fingertips—Earth Journeys: Spirit-World Guidance for Living in the Here and the Hereafter. In the meantime, readers will find much of interest in the two volumes already published, which rival Monroe’s trilogy for depth and breadth of insight, come highly recommended, and are virtually indispensable reading for serious metaphysicians.

1 For the sake of simplicity, all quotations within quotations in this review appear in a single set of quotation marks.

© 2009 by The Monroe Institute