CHAPTER 6
On Roberts Mountain
By 1976 Bob Monroe was convinced that the time was approaching when they would have to move from Whistlefield. He was sixty-one years old, secure in his marriage and with his extended family now off his hands. He was not always in the best of health, yet his energy and enthusiasm for his new enterprise continued to grow. With the increasing interest in his work it was becoming clear that what was needed was something quite different from a handsome manor house on extensive grounds with a collection of ancillary buildings. To fulfill its promise the new Institute required a residential center with ample space for seminars, an administrative building, and a purpose-built laboratory with up-to-date facilities for research. The Albemarle County authorities were altogether unlikely to grant permission for this kind of development as, being commercial, it would be detrimental to the upmarket image of the locality that they wished to preserve. That was not all. Now that the novelty had worn off, Monroe himself was no longer comfortable with the role of lord of the manor. He was not impressed, he said, to be seen as “the rich guy on the hill in the neat white house,” and the estate itself, grand enough to be featured in “Estates of Virginia,” was very expensive to maintain. It cost $250 a month simply to cut the lawns. He now talked of Whistlefield as “a huge white elephant.” All the same, it was Nancy's house, her “Up Home,” and he found it hard to imagine leaving.
Nancy was at first deeply distressed when Bob told her that Whistlefield had to be sold. For her, after so many years of making-do in Marine Corps accommodations, the house was a dream come true. Here, for the first time in her life, she was able to shine. What chance was there of finding anything that could compare with its spacious elegance in such a beautiful setting? But her basic common sense and her understanding that if her husband's work was to progress—and it was work that she not only believed in but was also a part of, as she had taken her own turn as an Explorer—then a purpose-built center was essential.
So the Monroes started to search the newspapers for a tract of land in the vicinity that they could develop. Next to Albemarle is the much less affluent and wholly rural Nelson County. Here, the authorities let it be known that a commercial undertaking would be warmly welcomed. Monroe contacted a realtor who drove them to Nelson County to view some eight hundred acres of tree-clad countryside, including a farm, on Roberts Mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. They both loved it but the price the realtor quoted was out of their reach.
For the time being the matter was put on hold. Then a few months later a friend who claimed to have psychic abilities offered to do a reading for them. Monroe told him that they were seeking a place to move to. “You've already seen it,” said the friend, “but you haven't considered it.” They agreed this could only mean that Roberts Mountain was the land in question. They visited it again, made further inquiries, and discovered that it belonged to a real estate developer in Florida. Then Nancy spotted an advertisement in the local newspaper for Roberts Mountain Farm. Clearly they needed to act before someone else stepped in. By-passing the realtor, Monroe contacted the owner—his name, he was amused to see, was Warren Harding—who was delighted to find that the prospective buyer was the author of Journeys Out of the Body. “I've been looking for you for the past four years!” he declared.
Monroe invited Harding to Whistlefield, where he discovered that they shared a wide range of interests in a variety of metaphysical matters. They talked with barely an interruption, except for meals, for a whole week. When at last they took time out for business, the sale was quickly agreed for a cash payment of some six hundred thousand dollars plus a slice of the Whistlefield estate. To raise the funds Monroe needed to sell the rest of the estate, the apartments that he still owned in Charlottesville, and most of his remaining interest in Jefferson Cable Corporation. In so doing, he demonstrated his faith in the process that he and his scientist colleagues had worked so intensively to develop and which, he hoped, would also secure his and Nancy's future.
While Monroe was still in the process of financial negotiations, Joseph Pearce stopped by to spend a few days with him. Eager to share his enthusiasm for future possibilities, Monroe took him to see the land where the new Institute would be built. Nancy and he had begun to refer to this as the New Land, not for any spiritual reason but to distinguish it from another stretch of land that they had briefly considered earlier. He talked to Joe about wanting to found what he called a “Survival Community” of some half a dozen farmers, in case some of the widely circulating New Age prophecies of impending disasters happened to come true. The beauty of the area appealed to Pearce immediately, survival community or not. He found a site in woodland in the northeast corner and realized that this was where he wanted to live. Over the next few months he built a wooden house there, becoming the first member of the New Land community despite the fact that the purchase of the land had not then been completed.1
The purchase of the New Land was finalized in 1977. Then, as they were planning their move, Nancy's old home on the James River near Roanoke came up for sale. She dearly wanted to buy the property, but Bob, with his finances now fully committed, had to tell her this was impossible. Having to disappoint Nancy, he said later, made this one of the most difficult decisions he had ever faced.
It was two years before the Monroes were able to relocate. In that time Bob had to sell off the rest of the Whistlefield estate, sort out his financial obligations, and get things moving on Roberts Mountain. While the Center was under construction he sought to form what he described as a Partnership “to own and operate a new training and conference center” and offered “limited partnership” for $15,000 a unit, hoping to attract up to twenty investors who would be granted one free program a year and an estimated 12.5 percent return on their capital. It was an ambitious scheme that failed to attract enough interest and never came to fruition.
The changes in his own life seemed to Monroe to be symptomatic of the major changes that were being prophesied and anticipated by large numbers of adherents of the New Age way of thinking. Although he had been attracted by the writings of Edgar Cayce and Jane Roberts, he was wary of this new enthusiasm and of the “love and light” type of expressions now often bandied around. At the same time he thought there was something to be learned from those, including some of his Explorers, who, like Cayce—or, possibly, influenced by him and by others with apparent prophetic gifts—forecast imminent Earth changes and the subsequent challenges that would have to be faced. But while the New Age bandwagon carried certain items that caught his interest, he was not tempted to jump onto it.
The New Land, for all its promise, presented a host of problems. There was no power, no drainage, and only one rough road on the property, winding up from the entrance to the top of the mountain. As well as the requirements for the Institute that Monroe envisaged, there also had to be a house for the Monroes themselves. Such a house would at the very least have to compensate Nancy for the loss of Whistlefield, but it would have to wait until the new Institute was up and running. Monroe himself drew up plans for the Residential Center, but before matters were finalized an offer arrived from an anonymous donor willing to pay for the building on condition that the plans were altered to his own requirements. With his own finances now seriously stretched, Monroe agreed. Then, partway through construction, the donor withdrew, claiming that his investments had failed. This left Monroe with a bill for more than seventy thousand dollars, a building more like a bunkhouse for VIPs instead of the spacious and comfortable center he had himself envisaged, and a very sour taste in his mouth.2
As eventually completed, the Residential Center could accommodate twenty-two participants, although there was a marked shortage of toilets and washing facilities. The upside of this, as many Gateway participants remarked, was that the long queues for the toilets provided a good opportunity for them to get to know each other. A research laboratory incorporating a sound studio was built close by. Near the entrance to the New Land was a partly completed structure that was transformed into a three-story building known as the Gate House. Here on the main floor was the administrative center with office spaces and storage facilities. Below there was further office space and an apartment at one time occupied by Cindy and her young daughter Tiffany. The upper floor was to be Bob and Nancy's home while their own house was planned and built. Bob could accept this, but for Nancy it was not a happy time. The idea of living “over the shop” was wholly unattractive—and so very different from the style of Whistlefield. Moreover, the area of her new staging-post (which was perhaps the best way of regarding it) was less than a third of her previous home. There was, however, promise of better things. At one time Nancy had visualized her ideal of a home, to be sited on the very top of Roberts Mountain. So they could begin to draw up plans for the Gift House, as it later became called. But it took seven years before the Gift House was ready for occupation.
Now the owner of a large tract of undeveloped land, Monroe saw the opportunity to put into practice a concept of a kind that resembled certain aspects of the “new thinking” of the time. The land was not only to be the home of his Institute; it was also to become a model of community living, self-sufficient and productive, providing a whole way of life. Farming was to continue, with George Durrette, who had proved at Whistlefield that he could turn his hand to anything, as farm manager. Plans were drawn of the remainder of the land not occupied by the Institute and seventy-nine parcels, each between three and six acres, were offered for sale. Purchasers were to be responsible for building their own houses and digging their own wells for water supply, and were free to earn their living in whatever way they wished. A New Land Association was to be formed to take responsibility for various communal areas, and additional land could be rented from Monroe for vegetable gardens, greenhouses, pasture for horses, chicken runs, and similar purposes. A compulsory payment would be levied on householders for the construction and maintenance of the roads. Membership in the Association included permission to make use of the fourteen-acre Lake Miranon that was formed when he discovered a spring in the valley feeding a stream running through the fields, and so named by Monroe after the channeled entity who had greatly influenced his thinking. The stream was dammed until, as a kind of celebration on Nancy's birthday, the dam was opened and the lake began to fill. The New Land Association stocked the lake with fish and provided all the materials for recreation, including the float that soon became highly popular with Gateway participants.
In 1981, as inquiries about the purchase of lots on the New Land began to arrive, Monroe drew up a document headed “Charter of New Community of Virginia.” This was to be signed by “the Founders and First Elders to establish and form in the service of our Creator the fellowship to be known as New Community.” The original document ran to over 180 pages but a condensed version was made available. The language is a sort of seventeenth-century pastiche; the content is an amalgam of New Age spiritual theory and elements of Monroe's philosophical reflections derived from his out-of-body experiences and also from information and ideas conveyed by some of the Explorers. The document incorporates a set of Beliefs, which could be “translated into Knowledge and Truth by both communal and direct personal experience on the part of the individual.” These Beliefs were to be implemented by certain Purposes, one of which was “to establish, operate, maintain, extend and expand a Pathway into all realities and energy systems, along which human Consciousness may proceed at an accelerating rate to greater wisdom and understanding of that which is perceived.”
To these somewhat magniloquent sentences a list of twelve Basics was appended. Most of these were of an admonitory nature, warning New Landers about profiteering and speculation, informing them not to expect to derive income from either the New Land or the Institute, and instructing them to “conform to the laws of the external culture.” New Landers were told to “respect the space and property of one another, without extreme focus on material possessions, yet with sure recognition that materiality at present is essential to physical survival.” There was, New Landers were advised, one rule: “grow, adapt, evolve—or die.”
It seems that Monroe originally saw the Institute as the lodestar for the New Land. In 1981 he offered a free Gateway Voyage to the residents and repeated the offer in the following year. He hoped that when the laboratory was completed the New Landers would become “the first of a new breed of Explorers.” But while the presence of the Institute and of Monroe himself attracted some of the early purchasers, to those coming later these factors had less relevance. They were drawn by the beauty of the area, the wide choice of location, the reasonable price of each parcel of land, the freedom to design their own houses, and, for some, the prospect of self-sufficiency. To them, Bob Monroe was primarily the developer, to be held responsible for whatever was unsatisfactory or needed attention.
The move to Roberts Mountain marked a shift in both the inner and outer worlds of Monroe himself. At Whistlefield he was the practical investigator, using his knowledge of electrical engineering and audio technology, coupled with his experience in the out-of-body state, to develop a system that would, as it were, intertwine these two very different strands. He lived in a grand house with a gracious wife and several children, entertained frequently, and was in contact with a large number of people who were interested in his research, some of whom were eager to participate in it. At Roberts Mountain he was restricted to quarters on the top floor of the office building. The Institute's Residential Center, laboratory, and lecture hall had to be completed, furnished, and equipped, there were staff members and trainers to be appointed, financial problems to be solved, the Gateway program to be revised and standardized, new programs to be designed, and his second book, Far Journeys, to be finished. In the distant future—or so it must have seemed—was the promise of the house on the mountaintop, together with Monroe's private retreat close by, the log cabin where he would be able to write, compose music, and create new programs for the Institute.
As well as all this activity, there were also physical problems for Monroe himself. Looking after his own health was not a priority; he smoked quite heavily and his diet was horrific. In earlier days he had enjoyed scuba-diving, sailing, and piloting gliders and light aircraft. Now it was his out-of-body adventures that possessed him and the poor old physical body had to cope as best it could. In 1981 he had to undergo an operation on the subclavial artery, followed a year later by surgery to deal with an aortic aneurism. In both these instances he recovered consciousness while still on the operating table. After the second occasion he described the pain as “exquisite.” He added, “That kind of pain only programs you for the same kind of pressure you feel in other realities.” This episode made him reconsider his priorities, leading to a decision to withdraw from day-to-day responsibilities as soon as it was practicable. It was not a decision that he was always able to hold to.
So much for the outer world, but the New Land Charter and accompanying documents are evidence of a transformation in Monroe's mindset. The words and concepts are those of a visionary. They express an idealistic view of human nature. It was almost as if the New Land was to be the New Jerusalem, supervised by a benevolent deity. At Whistlefield, Monroe was very close to the Explorers and monitored the great majority of the sessions. The prophetic nature of some of the information that the Explorers transmitted seems to have influenced his thinking and led him into believing that it was time for a new vision of community living. The purchase of the New Land, with its forests, meadows, and streams, distant from the bustling, competitive life of the late twentieth century and presumably safe from the Earth changes and other calamities predicted by, among others, Edgar Cayce and the interpreters of Nostrodamus, gave him the opportunity of translating this vision into action.3 On paper, dignified by the archaic language of the Charter, it looked fine. But, as with an earlier idealistic vision, it was not long before the serpent appeared. In this case the serpent was simply human nature.
A letter that Monroe circulated to New Land residents in March 1983 included these sentences: “All of us have made this our home and our future lives, for reasons beyond the beauty of the locale. We might all put it in different words, but basically it would come down to wanting to be a part of the philosophy and future work of the Institute and the Community.” That was no more than an assumption. As one resident remarked: “We moved to the New Land primarily because of the location. I confess that we were somewhat attracted by the idea of community, but this ideal quickly disappeared after attending a few New Land meetings.” Regardless of Monroe's hopes, summed up in Gateway Unity, the name he gave to the Institute programs he offered them, the New Landers failed to fulfill his aspirations that they would become “the first of a new breed of Explorers.”
Unless the vision is strong, shared by all, and reinforced by a unified belief system and the certainty of mutual trust, community living to the satisfaction of all participants is unlikely to endure for long. On all these points the New Land venture fell short of the expectations of its founder. Monroe himself was regarded with suspicion by a number of the residents who felt that in his role as developer some of his transactions were open to question and that his judgments were not always sound. One episode showed that there was some justification for this. A somewhat eccentric scientist from Texas convinced him to buy a large quantity of an algae fertilizer, which he stored in gallon containers in one of his barns. Assured of its value, he bought the rights to its production, entering into partnership with an individual who later turned out to be a swindler. The fertilizer proved useless. A court case ensued, but in the event the whole episode cost him well into six figures.
A particular cause for dissatisfaction was that in issues to be dealt with by the New Land Association, Monroe held two votes for the lots he owned while everyone else had only one. On his part, Monroe complained that some residents were slow to repay loans he had made and showed no gratitude for help he gave them. He was also annoyed that protests were made about Gateway participants walking along the roads or swimming in the lake, when his hope had been that at the end of every course New Landers and course participants would meet and socialize to their mutual benefit.
As long as Monroe took an active role in New Land affairs, he bore the brunt of criticism and complaint, including a petition “to have the cows removed because of their poop,” presumably because the smell permeated the petitioners’ cars or houses. The residents also had reasons to feel slighted. A group got together to produce a set of designs for greenhouses for the use of the community, to be serviced by hydroelectric power generated from the lake. Monroe scrutinized the plans and seemed at first to approve, but then summarily rejected them on the grounds that they did not represent the structures he himself had in mind. Whether that was so or not is irrelevant, because for Monroe it was ultimately a question of control. In his earlier career as producer and director, and later as sole owner, firm control was essential for success, and this was carried over into his new life, very different though it was. To put it bluntly, if it wasn't his idea and was not going to be as he wanted it to be, then it wasn't going to be at all.
For six years Monroe struggled on until it all became too much. In a memo circulated in July 1987, he referred to “indirect allegations and innuendoes…regarding my development and administration of our New Land Subdivision, resentment of me by New Land residents, and most important, the obvious deterioration and fragmentation of what unifying spirit and purpose did exist on New Land.” In view of all this, he declared that it was “vital to all of our welfare and growth” that he should change to a new direction. He would withdraw to his home on the top of the mountain and take no further part in the affairs of the New Land Association. Although his original intention to create a place of peace had been shuffled aside, he still hoped that at least some of what he wanted had been distilled into the area. But now, he said, as far as he was concerned he'd rather be playing cards.
Today there is still a New Land Association. It operates independently of the Institute, and its annual meetings are largely concerned with the state of the roads. As well as the residents’ own vehicles there are, as there were from the very beginning, delivery vans, construction lorries, logging trucks, tractors—in short, all the varieties of traffic to be expected in an area undergoing continuous development together with a farm and extensive tracts of woodland. The roads are rough-surfaced and almost every passing vehicle raises clouds of dust. But the old arguments and resentments are long forgotten. New Landers live their own independent lives and are fortunate in enjoying a most beautiful environment which, over the years, has attracted several outstanding personalities, including a leading New York literary agent, a best-selling novelist, an influential philosopher, an internationally recognized speech-language pathologist, the U.S. Military's number one psychic spy, and a businessman who bred llamas. Some of the residents are associated with the Institute, but its presence and activities are far less dominant than in the earlier days.
For Monroe himself the New Land venture, at least in part, was a failure in that it did not come up to his aspirations. The help he hoped for to realize his vision never materialized. He named just one person, David Francis, owner of a coal mining operation in West Virginia, who had attended one of the early Gateway programs and became a close friend, as the only individual who understood his vision and was prepared to give practical help. Francis empathized with Monroe, made no demands upon him, and provided donations at critical times. He died from diabetes in 1985. In recognition of his generous financial support and his friendship, Monroe gave the name of David Francis to the fine new lecture hall that completed his plans for the Institute buildings.
Programs at The Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences were suspended from the winter of 1978 until July 1979, when the first Gateway was held at the new Center, with Chris Lenz and Karen Malik as trainers. It was only a few days previously that Monroe had obtained permission from the county authorities in Lovingston to run such programs. “They didn't understand what the new educational institution was all about,” said Nancy, “but Bob was persuasive and we got the go-ahead.” Work on the building was still in progress when the participants arrived, with carpets being laid and wiring being installed. They had to wait around for two days before the course could begin. For technical reasons it was not an unqualified success, and those who complained were offered their money back.
The early programs each lasted for ten days and only four were held in the first year. In 1980 the program was reduced to eight days but again only four took place. Then things began to accelerate. Two years earlier, Melissa Jager, a Stanford graduate in philosophy with an MEd from the University of Arizona, who among a variety of rich experiences had been a program consultant for Silva Mind Control and worked with Ned Herrman's Brain Dominance Instrument, had come across a magazine article referring to a certain Robert Monroe, said to be “testing the out-of-body experience.” Her attention captured, she discovered that this same Monroe had some association with the highly reputable Menninger Foundation. Her mother, whose interest was also aroused, suggested that Melissa and her son accompany her to a weekend program in Richmond, to be conducted by Monroe himself—possibly the first time that three generations of a family attended a program together. During the weekend Melissa experienced what she described as a very profound OBE. She signed up for two more weekend sessions and was then invited by Monroe to become a trainer for the M-5000 program. Impressed by her ability, in 1981 he appointed her to succeed Chris Lenz as director of training. In the same year, the first six tapes of the Gateway program were made available to the public at large, under the title of Discovery. Melissa compiled almost all the manual that accompanied the album of tapes, and her informal and informative style set the tone for future publications. Some single taped exercises were also issued. One of those that still finds a place in the current catalogue is the memory exercise “Retain-Recall-Release,” followed two years later by the popular “Catnapper,” designed to provide thirty minutes of refreshing sleep whenever required.
In 1982 a couple arrived who were to have important roles in the development of the Institute. Dave Wallis had served in the U.S. Air Force followed by twenty years in senior posts at Lockheed. He and his wife Jean had attended one of the early Gateway programs in California. This had given them much to think about. They had already been feeling it was time to make a move into a different way of life. They began to investigate various communities around the United States, eventually settling on the New Land in 1981. Eager to make use of his skills, Dave volunteered to work in the planned laboratory, where he helped to design the building and much of the equipment and also installed the electronics. Monroe, appreciating his abilities, then appointed him technical consultant to the Institute. To earn enough to live on, Dave took time out for consultancy work on various communications systems overseas.
Nancy Monroe and Dave Wallis
At the same time, a Professional Division was being established, consisting of individuals who had attended Gateway and who used Hemi-Sync tapes with their clients, patients, or students. Jean Wallis, also seeking to become involved, offered to serve as its director. To cope with the increasing interest in the Institute's activities more staff members were recruited and new taped exercises were developed. The Gateway program was trimmed further to fit into six days and settled into a format that has changed little since. Helen Warring, who joined the Institute in 1981 as secretary and later became program registrar, did much to encourage intending participants, some of whom were doubtful as to what they might be letting themselves in for. Helen was ever generous with her time and advice. From her office on the lower floor of the Gate House, hers for the next decade was the voice of the Institute for the outside world.
Of the new taped exercises issued at this time perhaps the most significant was the Emergency series. This consisted of six tapes to be listened to through headphones, before, during, and after an operation. The series was produced in collaboration with a distinguished psychiatrist from Oakland, California, Dr. Art Gladman, who had used some of the Gateway tapes with his own patients who were suffering from stress-related disorders. Gladman himself had undergone surgery for spinal stenosis that had failed to solve the problem and left him in considerable pain. Needing further surgery, he explained to Dr. Bob Roalfe, who was to be his anesthesiologist, how the Emergency series tapes might be helpful and Roalfe agreed that he could use them. This second operation was successful; more than that, Gladman needed far less anesthesia than usual and was able to leave hospital in five days rather than the ten he required after the previous surgery.
Impressed by this, Dr. Roalfe continued to use the Emergency series with his patients, and ran a trial with eighty-one individuals undergoing lumbar laminectomies and total hysterectomies. The results, based on his own observations and the responses of the patients, showed that sixty-three of the eighty-one received positive benefits from the use of these tapes.4
In 1983 further reports on the Emergency series were published in Breakthrough, the Institute's newsletter. One was from David Edgar, who underwent two days of operations for facial skin cancer followed by reconstructive surgery, all under local anesthetic. Unable to use headphones, he attached the tape player to his belt and was able to maintain continuity by simply turning it over. He commented that “the tapes were so supportive that I would not consider being without them.” Reporting on the effect of the “Intra-Op” exercise, he remarked that “the most meaningful part of the tape was Bob's comment that I was not alone.”
Later that year Gari Carter wrote a first-person account of her use of the Emergency series. In February the previous year she was driving to Baltimore with Tom, her eleven-year-old son, to buy items for her gift shop. It was snowing and the road was covered with ice. They were wondering whether to turn back when a station wagon appeared round a bend, lost control, and hit them head-on. Tom was miraculously uninjured, but Gari's face was crushed by the steering wheel and her legs shattered by the engine driven into them by the impact. Realizing that she had stopped breathing, her son, using training he had received in the Boy Scouts, managed to revive her. A woman living nearby phoned for help, a passing motorist extinguished flames issuing from under the hood, and the rescue squad arrived and freed her.
Gari underwent two long and painful operations at the Plastic Surgery Department of the University of Virginia Hospital and was due for the next operation when a friend told her of some surgery pain-control tapes and insisted that she try them. She listened to them before the operation and decided to trust them. This attracted the interest of the doctors and nursing staff, who were fully cooperative and fascinated by the difference that Gari's use of the tapes over a series of reconstructive operations made both to her degree of relaxation and to the speed of her post-op recovery when, she said, she had no need of pain medication.
Gari's final surgery to complete the reconstruction of her face, that the accident eight years earlier left, she said, as “one big gory hole,” took place in October 1990. By this time the H-Plus series of exercises was available and she used several of these as extra support to the Emergency series. The last healing, she later wrote, was the best of all. Using the Hemi-Sync exercises together with neuromuscular and craniosacral therapies enabled her to feel “strengthened and invigorated by so much healing help from which to choose.” In her book Healing Myself, in which she vividly describes the accident, the surgical procedures, and her life before and after the whole traumatic experience, she writes: “My tragedy evolved from the worst to the best event in my life. My recovery shows that the mind, body and soul can be transformed.”
Among many others who made use of the Emergency series was Mary Lou Ballweg, who had been diagnosed with endometriosis in 1978. She underwent four operations for this condition and had cofounded the Endometriosis Association, which promoted research into the condition and offered support to those affected. She had come across various reports on the use of relaxation tapes during surgery, in particular one in which the Emergency series had been used in laparoscopy with meaningful results. Facing a fifth operation, Mary Lou decided to use these tapes, finding them helpful in diminishing anxiety, managing pain, and bringing about a feeling of peace and relaxation in the recovery period, so much so that her experience resulted in the Endometriosis Association purchasing a hundred sets for the benefit of their members.5
It is not only the Hemi-Sync sound signals that help the listener to cope before, during, and after a surgical procedure. Listening to Monroe's “calm, trustworthy voice” saying “You are not alone” over and over again, Gari Carter said, “made me feel totally supported by the surgical team and the entire world.” Many others have made similar comments on the heartening effect of this remarkable voice and the absolute rightness of the timing. In addition to the hundreds of individual testimonies, there have been several favorable research articles published on the use of the Surgical Support series, as the Emergency series has been retitled. Among these is a report on a “Double Blind Randomized Trial” published in Anesthesia (54, no. 8 [1999]: 769–73) indicating that patients using the tapes during surgery required only one-quarter of the pain medications needed by the control group.
In the fall of 1982 came a new departure for the Institute. This was the first contact with the military, when three officers from a small army department established to look into new theories of consciousness met at the Institute Center with Monroe and about twenty-five New Land residents. The senior officer, a colonel with a PhD degree, introduced the subject and prepared the group for an experiment in nonordinary phenomena. Joe Pearce, who was among those present, describes what happened:
Each of us had brought a piece of stainless-steel cutlery, and within about twenty minutes, simply by stroking them, twenty-three of us present had bent those pieces of tableware into every conceivable shape. The first to succeed was an eight-year-old girl who neatly creased the bowl of her spoon across its middle and folded the end portion of the bowl back over the shank, giving a double-thick, truncated bowl. We then watched her younger brother corkscrew the handle of his fork from top to bottom, and the effect spread around the room, generally from the youngest to the oldest. People bent knives into knots, interwove the tines of forks, rolled the handles of spoons tightly into the bowls, and generally messed up twenty-three pieces of flatware.6
Although spoon-bending never became a part of the Monroe Institute's activities, or part of military training for that matter, Delta Company, in which the three officers served, continued for a time in its investigations into the possibilities of adapting certain potentials of human consciousness for military use.
There was more productive involvement from another area of the military. Lieutenant Fred Atwater was not the only member of the army who had read Monroe's first book and was attracted to the Institute. Another military intelligence officer, Warrant Officer Joseph McMoneagle, who had a distinguished record of service in several countries, including Vietnam and Thailand, also came into contact with Monroe through reading Journeys Out of the Body. He found a copy on the floor of a bookstore while he was stationed in the Washington, D.C., area. Joe picked it up to return it. Catching sight of the title, he said, “an electric shock ran through my entire body.” Concealing the book from other customers lest they think it was inappropriate reading for a military man, he purchased it and read it avidly. It brought back to him an experience that had occurred in Germany nine years before. He had been dining out with friends when he began to feel ill. He left the table to go outside but collapsed by the door and went into convulsions, swallowed his tongue, was unable to breathe—and his heart stopped. Yet, he reported later, he observed everything that happened: his body lying in the street, the attempts to bring him around, the urgent drive to a hospital, doctors and nurses working on him—and then he moved from what he later came to understand as an out-of-body experience into a near-death experience in which he found himself absorbed by what he described as “a Being of Light.” Gradually emerging from this, he was told he was not going to die—and he opened his eyes and sat up. The experience left him depressed, confused, and subject for some time to uncontrolled out-of-body experiences. It also left him with a gift of what he describes as spontaneous knowledge—an uncalled-for sensitivity to what people around him were thinking.
Once recovered, McMoneagle continued working with intelligence collection and operations in the European military theater for another seven years. While assigned to the headquarters in Washington, he was recruited into the army's secret remote-viewing project, then known as Grill Flame.7 He was interviewed by the scientist in charge, Dr. Hal Puthoff of the Stanford Research Institute (who had visited Monroe at Whistlefield), and qualified for inclusion, having scored five out of six first-place remote viewings. Now a member of Grill Flame, where, as it happened, Fred Atwater was operations officer, he was to be recognized as its most successful remote-viewer.
Atwater suggested to McMoneagle that he might find it interesting to consult Monroe, who might be able to help him with a problem that had arisen with his remote-viewing. In October 1979 they drove to Roberts Mountain. McMoneagle called at the Gate House, where he was immediately impressed by Nancy, whom he described as “a wonderful sort of old-fashioned Southern lady.” He found Monroe polite and friendly but clearly in pain, having recently returned from the hospital after surgery on his leg. During their conversation, Monroe discussed the paranormal as if it was an everyday occurrence, concluding by inviting McMoneagle to take part in a Gateway program.
McMoneagle's problem was the length of time it took him to prepare for a remote-viewing session. To begin with he needed about thirty-five minutes to move into the appropriate state of mind, but the more sessions he undertook the longer the period became. This, he felt, was due to the considerable stress incurred in working on cases often involving life and death and needing immediate responses. Moreover, everyday emotions, happenings, and problems kept getting in the way. He needed to ignore everything he had ever been taught regarding information-gathering, especially any feelings associated with targets such as kidnappings, bombings, and terrorist activities. As he said, “The concept with which you are dealing flies in the face of all that you have been imprinted with, by parents, siblings, friends, peer group, school, religion, etc. So you deal with it by increasing the time you spend before a remote viewing session in order to convince yourself that what you are about to do is okay.” To do that was taking him two hours or more and it was becoming a major problem.
McMoneagle obtained the army's permission to sign up for Gateway in June 1982. The experiences he shared with his fellow participants and with the trainer, Melissa Jager, made him realize that at least twenty other people were able to feel and think as he did. In a break in the program he came across Scooter, recently returned from the West Coast. They talked for a while, a conversation that Scooter later described as the most noninformational meeting she had ever experienced. McMoneagle also took part in a second Gateway the following year, this time with Scooter as his trainer. He found that the skills acquired in these programs enhanced his remote-viewing ability, and, as he later wrote, “they also contribute a great deal to the mastering of one's environment, regardless of occupation.” Joe soon became recognized as the most accomplished remote-viewer operating on what was eventually named the Star Gate program.
Because McMoneagle seemed to be well suited to the Hemi-Sync training, the Star Gate administration contracted with Monroe to work with him under Atwater's supervision for ten nonconsecutive weeks over a period of about fourteen months to see if this training might enhance Joe's remote-viewing abilities. Monroe first taught him to relax by focusing his attention on different parts of his body, directing them in turn to “relax, let go, sleep.” Next he was required to breathe more slowly and imagine that his breath represented the flow of life-energy. Monroe suggested that Joe set his intent through a process of affirmation. Once these three ingredients were in place, he encouraged Joe to pay attention to his internal world, to become aware of his own mental realm without the “noise” of the physical senses. Next Joe learned to release stress and quickly enter a meditative state. Subsequently, he found his preparation time would last no more than five minutes. He later listed the skills that aided the remote-viewing experience: learning to achieve relaxation; meditation, or learning to become centered; opening your awareness and sensitivity; and communicating your intuitive perceptions. Lastly came the addition of certain Hemi-Sync frequencies, designed to alter the brain's cortical level of arousal. The effect of this training enabled Joe to report and record his remote-viewing perceptions to maximum effect.
Atwater, as Star Gate's operations and training officer, conducted frequent audit remote-viewing sessions to try to determine any improvement in Joe's performance. On one occasion, he decided to use coordinates provided by Puthoff of certain unusual formations on the planet Mars. In preparation for the exercise Atwater had written “The planet Mars, one million years B.C.” on a standard 3 × 5 index card, and sealed it in a small opaque envelope that Monroe placed in his breast pocket. Neither Monroe nor Joe had any idea of the target or the coordinates.
When Joe was ready, Atwater directed him to use the information in the envelope and then read him the first Martian coordinate. As Monroe adjusted the Hemi-Sync patterns, Joe's respiration slowed and his speech became slurred, with incomplete sentences—all signs that he was moving deeply into the process. When he began to describe an “arid climate” in “some distant place,” Atwater knew he was probably on target. He checked the list of Martian coordinates and directed Joe to “move” from his present location to the next set of coordinates on Puthoff's list.
Perceiving the time period “one million years B.C.,” Joe reported “the after-effect of a major geologic problem.” Asked to move to a time before this problem (perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of years), he reported a “total difference” in the terrain. He also found “a shadow” of “very large people,” and explained that by “shadow” he meant they weren't there anymore. Atwater then asked Joe to move to the time when the people were still there, no matter how far back that might be. He described “very large people” who were “wearing very strange clothes.”
Altogether Joe described eight different coordinate-designated locations on Mars, including several unusual structures. He talked of a cataclysmic disaster that had destroyed the home of this ancient race. At one point it seemed to the listeners that he was in some form of telepathic communication with one of the Martians. During this deep-contact period, Joe's skin potential voltage, measured from the finger electrodes, reversed polarity (crossing the zero or null point), indicating a discrete shift in perception.
Joe McMoneagle, Cairn Holy, Galloway 2005
When the session was over, Atwater and Monroe debriefed Joe before revealing the contents of the sealed envelope. He remarked on what it felt to be such a long way off and declared, not surprisingly, that this session had been very different from his previous remoteviewing experience.8
Whatever implications this remote-viewing may have for future exploration of Mars, its importance goes beyond that. It demonstrated that McMoneagle was not only able to lock on to a target of which he had no information whatsoever, but was also able to extend his consciousness across millions of miles and millions of years. This in itself adds a new dimension to our human potential.
Hemi-Sync training did not necessarily affect the overall remote-viewing quality, but it did improve the viewer's reliability. It provided a dependable tool that could be used to access beneficial states of cortical arousal, states conducive to relaxing physically and mentally, to connecting with the target, to listening quietly to internal perceptual processes, to becoming aware of the information of interest, and to reporting accurately such information. As it happened, Joe McMoneagle was the only remote-viewer to be trained personally by Bob Monroe. The Star Gate administrators found that the Gateway Voyage itself provided sufficient support for those selected to attend it, although as it turned out none of them performed as consistently as did Joe. It may be that in terms of reliability or dependability the ten weeks of individual training was the better preparation after all.
This involvement with the Institute attracted the attention of General Burt Stubblebine, at the time commanding officer of INSCOM (Intelligence & Security Command). Having studied McMoneagle's report on his experiences at the Institute, he proposed that a special course be arranged for certain INSCOM personnel. Monroe agreed and Scooter was given the task of adapting the Gateway program to suit this particular group.
This program was known as Rapid Acquisition Personnel Training (RAPT). Volunteers were interviewed to ensure they observed certain requirements. The first two RAPT programs were full, the participants including several senior officers. There were no negative reports and many highly positive responses. On the third program, however, one participant had to withdraw at short notice and was replaced by a man who had not been thoroughly interviewed and who also had concealed relevant personal details when he applied to join the army. He had to be removed during the program and taken to the hospital. Learning of this, the army chief of staff for intelligence ordered the program to be terminated. Stubblebine himself, whose interest in matters psychic and paranormal was regarded with suspicion by his seniors, retired shortly afterwards, to be replaced in the following year by an officer with a different outlook.
Another involvement with the military took place in the closing months of 1982, when the psychologist Ray Waldkoetter organized a project at the Defense Department Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison to see if introducing Hemi-Sync to the training program would enhance the ability to learn. Monroe himself was scheduled to attend, but at the last moment he decided to send Melissa Jager and Rick Lawrence in his stead. The first results were promising, but the project came to an untimely end when an article on stress management in soldiers with reference to Monroe and the Institute appeared in the press. This came to the notice of several representatives, and the army authorities, concerned about possible political pressure, terminated the program.9
The Institute's periodical Breakthrough gave members of the Professional Division the opportunity to publicize the many applications of Hemi-Sync that were now being developed. The first three issues in 1983 included reports on using Hemi-Sync with an autistic child, the effects of music and Hemi-Sync on a child with a seizure disorder, a personal testimony on using specially designed Hemi-Sync exercises during several episodes of major surgery, and a report on a cognitive learning experiment in a community college in Washington State. In the same year the first Professional Seminar took place at the Institute, the program including a presentation on using Hemi-Sync with alcohol-abuse patients and two presentations on what was being achieved by combining Hemi-Sync with music. A board of advisors was also established at the time, its membership having a strong academic slant with twelve of the seventeen members holding doctorates of various kinds.
By this time Director of Training Melissa Jager was living in her own house on the New Land, across the valley from the Institute buildings. Among her fellow trainers were Bill Schul, PhD, a social psychologist, and Dr. Stuart Twemlow, as at the time it was practice, when possible, to include a psychologist, psychiatrist, or other professional to mentor the programs. Psychologists and psychiatrists also often featured among the participants, as well as physicists and medical practitioners, with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross turning up now and again. Among the participants from overseas was Rupert Sheldrake, holder of a PhD from Cambridge University, whose ground-breaking book, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation, was published in 1981. “I greatly admire your scientific spirit of exploration and your great originality,” Sheldrake wrote to Monroe on his return to the United Kingdom. “For not only have you explored regions of consciousness of which most people remain unaware, but you have also made it possible for others to enter them by means of your ‘inner space shuttle.’ I believe you are doing pioneering work of the greatest importance.” He added, “I was helped a lot by the cheerful and reassuring presence of Melissa and Joe.”
Now securely established on its new site, with its courses in demand, its reputation spreading, and research using Hemi-Sync beginning to produce results, the Institute had justified its move to Roberts Mountain. Melissa Jager was setting a high standard and related well with participants in her programs, being always willing to share with them her own wide range of interests. A paper she wrote in 1981 under the title “The Lamp Turn Laser” showed her deep understanding of the Hemi-Sync process. In July 1983 she began training her thirtieth Gateway, with Stuart Twemlow as her cotrainer. Then, midway through the week, for reasons known only to himself, with no prior warning or discussion, Monroe sent for her and fired her, adding that it was not professional for her to leave until the course was finished. Possibly in an attempt to justify his action, Monroe for the first time prepared assessment sheets for the course participants. Whatever he may have hoped for, the assessments contained nothing but praise for Melissa and her co-trainer as well as acclamation for the content of the program. “Melissa is superb,” said one participant. “She meets you wherever you are and knows how to make the ‘next step’ appear easy, plain and fun.” “The staff were excellent, the feedback tremendous, the support nurturing and timely,” commented another. A further assessment expressed appreciation of the “wonderful” tapes, adding that the course provided “an opportunity to share and be shared with, to open up and question attitudes and beliefs in a free and encouraging atmosphere of support and love.” This was to no avail. Following a brief, unfriendly meeting with Monroe, Melissa accepted that there was no future for her with the Institute. She sold her house as soon as she could and moved away.
What impelled Monroe to act as he did can only be a matter for conjecture, although it may be relevant that after the two previous programs, in April and June 1983, he had fired the trainers, both of them locally based, who had been working with Melissa. There were certainly other occasions when he acted in a way that seemed to defy explanation. Rosalind McKnight, whose nature was such that she tended to shine a kindly light on most situations, recalled an incident concerning George Durrette, Bob's “dream manager,” as she described him, “since he was the main factor that helped Bob's dreams in his new location become a reality.” She continued: “Bob would have an idea, such as building a fence in a certain spot, and George would manifest it. But sometimes George would have to unmanifest it until Bob decided for sure what he wanted. In fact, George was so patient with Bob's somewhat flexible energies that he should really be called Saint George.” No more sympathetic expression than “somewhat flexible energies” could have been applied to such an event. Yet this does not seem to be an adequate explanation for Monroe's treatment of Melissa.
As the Institute now seemed ready for expansion, it was becoming clear that it was not only a new director of training that was needed but someone who was also able to take control of the day-today running of the Institute with the ability to transform ideas into action. Seeking a person to fill this demanding role, Monroe was persuaded by Morrie Coleman, a New Land resident who worked for a short time as an administrator in the Institute office, to recall the one individual who had enjoyed rich and varied experience during the years at Whistlefield as secretary, program coordinator, registrar, trainer, Explorer, and monitor. This was Bob's stepdaughter Scooter. In August 1983, now aged thirty-one, she returned to the Institute as its director.
Bob and Scooter
Scooter's appointment was regarded with suspicion by some of the staff, but it was not long before those who remained, and those recently appointed, became aware that a new dynamic was at work. On her arrival she found there were no trainers available. To begin with she had to train the programs herself, with occasional assistance from Fowler Jones and Stuart Twemlow. They traveled in from the Midwest to co-train no more than twice a year, but Scooter also had to recruit and prepare new trainers to cope with the growing interest in Gateway. Hers was rather more than a full-time occupation.
Toward the end of 1983 Monroe drew up a flow chart entitled “Vision.” Research and development remained the first priority, but he was now considering the possibilities of expansion, making use of ideas from professional members, Gateway participants, and Institute staff. Hemi-Sync should be made available “to as many people throughout the world as possible, to aid man in understanding and controlling his life.” Another aim was “to integrate Hemi-Sync into all levels of educational systems,” inspired by the progress achieved by Devon Edrington in schools in Washington State. Programs should be offered to prisons, nursing homes, and orphanages, and in the medical field Hemi-Sync should be applied “to upgrade present barbaric medical practices, e.g. overuse of drugs and consequent habituation; to aid in psychiatric treatment; to speed up and enhance the healing process.” The only reference to finance was to have sufficient funds for research and development and to pay all the bills. It is clear from this document that Monroe's aim, now that he was aware of the potential of the technology, was not to make huge profits—there was not much prospect of that—but to provide help in some of the most important areas of life. Now that the expression “Hemi-Sync” was becoming more widely known, it was registered as a trademark in May 1984.
Later that year Joe McMoneagle retired from the army, having taken part in over 1,500 intelligence missions. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for “providing critical intelligence reported at the highest echelons of our military government…producing crucial and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source.” Over the past two years Joe and Scooter had spent as much time as possible together, becoming very close to each other. In November 1984 they married. Then a few months later Joe suffered a major heart attack. Characteristically, part of his recovery program was building their self-designed house on the New Land. Joe was then hired by the Stanford Research Institute, which kept him in the remote-viewing program both operationally and for research purposes. He continued to act as a consultant to this program until it was closed down in November 1995. Although Joe took no part in the daily activities of the Institute, he did agree to give presentations at Gateway and other programs on request, and the added touch of glamour he gave to the occasion was much appreciated by course participants.
The following months saw a significant increase in the Institute's activities, many of them inspired and promoted by the new director. With the success of Gateway, it was becoming obvious that a second residential course was needed for those graduates who wished to continue and extend their forays into nonphysical reality. Incorporating ideas and experiences reported by Rosalind McKnight and other Explorers, Monroe created a new course entitled Guidelines. This was designed to enable participants to make contact with their inner guidance, or total self, to learn ways of accessing inner information and to use that expanded perspective to improve their daily lives. They would also learn to report verbally while in Focus 15 and Focus 21. In addition, several new tapes were created, all voiced by Monroe, as part of a series known as Mind Food. These were single exercises with various practical applications, including helping with relaxation, concentration, memory, and sleep. Tapes carrying musical compositions combined with Hemi-Sync began to be issued in the early 1980s, some composed by Alan Phillips and others by Monroe himself. The most popular of these early issues, Alan Phillips's Midsummer Night, still finds a place in the 2006 catalogue.
In 1984 an attempt was made to introduce Gateway to England by Harold Wessbacher, a psychotherapist and clinical hypnotist from West Germany. After qualifying as a trainer he organized three programs in England, but failed to attract sufficient participants to continue with the project. Harold also translated and voiced many of the exercises into German and for a time used Monroe materials alongside his other activities. As for England, in 1987 weekend programs began to be offered by The Russell Centre in Cambridge. These continued for about six years until the Centre relocated to South-West Scotland, where these programs are still held from time to time.
Nancy and Bob on vacation
Seeking to expand the Institute's work beyond Roberts Mountain, in 1985 Scooter initiated the Gateway Outreach program, based on the first part of the residential course and designed by a trainer, James Jones. Those interested in becoming Outreach trainers could follow a week's course at the Institute and were then qualified to present introductory weekend workshops on the mainland or overseas. In addition to the single exercises and Metamusic compositions already on sale, six albums of tapes in Focus 10 and Focus 12, many of them taken from Gateway, were made available. Expansion was in the air. This was also the year in which for the first time the finances of the Institute moved into the black. Then in December there was a major change in the Institute's financial structure when it was transformed into a nonprofit organization under U.S. law, thus enabling any contributions to be tax-deductible. The phrase “of Applied Sciences” was dropped from its name. Henceforth it was to be known simply as The Monroe Institute.
Notes
1. Joseph Chilton Pearce still lives in the same house on the New Land (2006).
2. This same donor, according to Nancy Monroe, returned early in 1980 offering to buy the entire place for $12 million (see Catapult, p. 136).
3. See, for example, Fringes of Reason, edited by Ted Schultz (Harmony Books, 1989) and We Are the Earthquake Generation, by Jeffrey Goodman (Seaview, 1978).
4. Both Dr. Gladman and Dr. Roalfe became members of the Institute's board of advisors. A more detailed account of Dr. Roalfe's Hemi-Sync trial appeared in Using the Whole Brain, edited by R. Russell (Hampton Roads, 1993).
5. See also Focusing the Whole Brain, edited by R. Russell (Hampton Roads, 2004): “Support for Surgery,” by Marty Gerken.
6. See From Magical Child to Magical Teen, by Joseph Chilton Pearce (Park Street Press, 1985).
7. The program went through various changes of name. It became Center Lane for a time, as President Carter had inadvertently exposed the name Grill Flame during a press conference when he disclosed how a member of the program with psychic abilities had located two lost nuclear weapons on a Soviet bomber that had crashed in Zaire. Then it was retitled Star Gate, the name by which it is generally known.
8. See The Stargate Chronicles, by Joseph McMoneagle (Hampton Roads, 2000) and Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul, by F. Holmes Atwater (Hampton Roads, 2001), which contains a CD-ROM including an audio recording of McMoneagle's remote-viewing of Mars.
9. Ray Waldkoetter reported that one not-quite-traumatic incident occurred when Colonel Billy Spangles, commanding officer of the unit working with the tapes, objected to the instruction in one exercise “to relax your genitals.” Monroe assured the colonel (described by Waldkoetter as “a good old boy”) that this tape would be appropriately edited to suit the sensitivity of the enlisted men.