Robert Monroe Quotes

Important aftermath: We phoned Dr. and Mrs, Bradshaw that evening...With Mrs. Bradshaw on the phone, I asked the simple question. She stated that roughly at four twenty-five they were walking out of the house toward the garage... The coincidences involved were too much. It was not important to prove this to anyone else... It proves to me—truly for the first time—that there might well be more to this than normal science and psychology and psychiatry allow—more than an aberration, trauma, or hallucination— and I needed some form of proof more than anyone else... It is a simple incident, but unforgettable.

Any acknowledgment of the existence of the Second Body immediately demands the question mankind has pondered since the day he learned to think: Do we live on? Is there life beyond the grave? Our religions say believe, have faith. This is not quite enough for the syllogistic thinker who seeks valid premises that are clear-cut, leading to an inescapable conclusion.

Even after I had determined that there was no physiological cause, and that I was no more insane than most of my fellow men, the fears persisted. It was a defect, illness, or deformity that had to be hidden from "normal" people.

In non-physical trips to Locale II, often there is a "layer" or area which one must pass through...It is a gray-black hungry ocean where the slightest motion attracts nibbling and tormenting beings... If you move slowly and do not react to the curious "fish" who come to investigate, you pass through without much incident. Move violently and fight back, then more excited denizens come rushing in to bite, pull, push, shove.
Could this be the borders of hell? It is easy to conclude that a momentary penetration of this nearby layer would bring "demons" and "devils" to mind as the chief inhabitants. They seem subhuman, yet have an evident ability to act and think independently. Who and what are they? I don't know. I haven't taken the trouble to stay there long enough to find out. Only by terrified trial and error did I find the method to pass through in reasonable peace.

Some of the key reports from the notes, which aroused their interest. 9/10/58 Afternoon. Again, I floated upward, with the intent of visiting Dr. Bradshaw... ill in bed with a cold... I would visit him in the bedroom, which was a room I had not seen in his house and if I could describe it later, could thus document my visit../Momentarily, I saw (in the sky?) a figure of a rounded human form, seemingly dressed in robes and a headpiece on his head (an oriental concept remains), sitting, arms in lap, perhaps cross-legged a la Buddha; then it faded... I had the feeling that the energy was leaving, and I felt I wouldn't make it. With this thought, an amazing thing happened. It felt precisely as if someone had placed a hand under each arm and lifted me... I came upon Dr. and Mrs. Brad-show. They were outside the house... I floated around in front of them, waving, trying to get their attention without result...

It is the purity of a truth of which you have had only a glimpse. This is the feast, and the tiny tidbits you tasted before, back there, had made you hope for the existence of the Whole. The nameless emotion, longing, nostalgia, sense of destiny that you felt back there when you stared at the cloud layered sunset in Hawaii, when you stood quietly among the tall, waving trees in the silent forest, when a musical selection, passage, or song recalled memories of the past or brought forth a longing for which there was no associated memory, when you longed for the place where you belonged, whether city, town, country, nation, or family—these are now fulfilled. You are Home. You are where you belong. Where you always should have been.

The best introduction to Locale II is to suggest a room with a sign over the door saying, "Please Check All Physical Concepts Here." If getting accustomed to the idea of a Second Body was an uneasy experience, Locale II may be hard to take.

Most important, you are not alone. With you, beside you, interlocked in you are others. They do not have names, nor are you aware of them as shapes, but you know them and you are bonded to them with a great single knowledge. They are exactly like you, they are you, and like you, they are Home. You feel with them, like gentle waves of electricity passing between you, a completeness of love, of which all the facets you have experienced are but segments and incomplete portions. Only here, the emotion is without need of intense display or demonstration. You give and receive as an automatic action, with no deliberate effort. It is not something you need or that needs you. The "reaching out" is gone. The interchange flows naturally. You are unaware of differences in sex, you yourself as a part of the whole are both male and female, positive and negative, electron and proton. Man-woman love moves to you and from you, parent-child-sibling-idol and idyll and ideal—all interplay in soft waves about you, in you, and through you. You are in perfect balance because you are where you belong. You are Home.

As you think, so you are. In this environment, no mechanical supplements are found. No cars, boats, airplanes, or rockets are needed for transportation. You think movement, and it is fact. No telephones, radio, television, and other communication aids have value. Communication is instantaneous. No farms, gardens, cattle ranches, processing plants, or retail outlets are in evidence. In all experimental visits, no food energy needs were indicated. How energy is replaced—if it is truly spent—is not known. "Mere" thought is the force that supplies any need or desire, and what you think is the matrix of your action, situation, and position in this greater reality. This is essentially the message that religion and philosophy have been attempting to convey throughout the ages, although perhaps less bluntly and often distorted.

Most of all, who quietly insisted that I return to the physical when I drifted in that seemingly eternal bliss? I don't know whether to be grateful or sad for that particular help.

One of the greatest enigmas of this whole affair is that someone—or more than one—has been helping me from time to time in such experimentation. Perhaps they are with me every time, and I am just not aware of them. I do not know who these helpers are or why they are helping me. They certainly do not seem to be guardian angels, although a more conventionally oriented personality might so interpret them. They do not always respond when I need help, nor are they always responsive to prayer. Mental anguish and screaming have sometimes brought one of them. More often, they help me when I do not ask for help—or again, when I am not aware of asking. Their assistance seems to be more of their choosing and deliberation than mine. They are rarely "friendly" in the sense that we understand the term. Yet there is a definite sense of understanding, knowledge, and purposefulness in their actions toward me. I feel no intent on their part to bring harm to me and I trust their directions.

We had no idea that sounds existed beyond the range of human hearing until we developed instruments to detect, measure, and create them. Until comparatively recently, those who claimed they could hear what others could not were considered insane or persecuted as witches and sorcerers. We were able to perceive the electromagnetic spectrum only in terms of heat and light until the last century. We are still unaware of the capacity of the human brain, an electrochemical organism, in terms of transmission and reception of electromagnetic radiation. With this gap unbridged, it is easy to understand why modern science has not begun to consider the ability of the human mind to penetrate an area where no serious theory has been promulgated.

I was about to lift out when two hands held a book in front of my closed eyes. The book was riffled, turned around on all sides so that I could see that it was a book. The book was then opened, and I started to read. The gist of what I read was that in order willfully to bring back a condition, it was necessary to recreate the feeling of a similar experience that had occurred in the past (i.e., was a part of your memory). I took this to mean that one should think of the "feeling," rather than the details of the incident. Several illustrations were given, then gradually the book went out of focus as the vibrations faded, and try as I might, I could not continue reading. Finally, I sat up physically and made notes.

On a sunny afternoon, you start off. Naturally, you rise high in the air so as to avoid obstacles of trees, buildings, etc. Uncertain, you don't go too high. You want to be able to recognize landmarks which might be difficult to see from five thousand feet. Therefore, you stay low, about a hundred feet off the ground. Now, which way to go. You look for points of familiarity. It is at that moment you realize you have a problem. You don't have a compass course to George's house, and it wouldn't do you any good if you did. You don't have a compass. Undaunted, you decide to cut across the city, using the familiar buildings and streets as guideposts. You have driven the route many times, so you should find your way easily.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least.. The publication of the book quite thoroughly “blew my cover” as a reasonably orthodox business executive. However, a good many of the results were totally unexpected, and some of the serious trepidations were unfounded... I was greatly concerned about the reaction to the book of the board of directors of the corporation of which I was president... At the first board meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after the book publication, no one mentioned it... However, as we cruised up the canal in the board chairman's yacht, on our way to dinner at the country club, the chairman's wife came up from below deck with a copy of Journeys in her hand, “Bob, will you autograph this for me?” she asked. I complied, more than a little self-conscious and surprised. I should not have been. “Interesting stuff,” the chairman called over his shoulder as he steered for the yacht club dock. “My wife is a real psychic. I never make a major business deal without a reading from her. It works, too”... I was not asked to resign. Actually, I found little or no adverse effect on my business relationships as a result of the public disclosure of this “private” side of my life. Instead, many broad new avenues opened up to me, totally unexpected. Who could have guessed that I would speak on out-of-body experiences at such an august and conservative body as the Smithsonian Institution!