Monroe was seventy years old when Far Journeys was published. His Institute was firmly established with an efficient director on site, and its programs were attracting participants from all across the world. His marriage was secure and all that was needed to perfect his domestic happiness was the completion of the Gift House on the top of Roberts Mountain. Now he could set to work on his final statement: Ultimate Journey.
His first two books had progressed from conception to publication with comparatively little difficulty. Sales of Journeys Out of the Body, after a slow start, had exceeded all expectations, while Far Journeys sold well if not spectacularly. With this eagerly anticipated final statement there should be no problems.
But problems there were. Thanks largely to his earlier books, the out-of-body experience was now a much more familiar phenomenon; therefore, what might be described as its novelty value no longer applied. Monroe himself had learned much from his more recent experiences, knowledge that he considered of great importance to the world at large. This had to be put into shape, welded into a philosophy that he believed would be of great benefit to humanity. On a different level, a widely selling book would provide a useful means for publicizing the work of the Institute. An account of this work would need to be integrated into the overall scheme.
And then, while the book was in progress, Nancy's health began to fail. Although Monroe makes very few references to her illness in Ultimate Journey, it affected him deeply and contributed to the direction his thinking was to take. In the draft that was first submitted to the publisher he introduced each chapter with a snatch of dialogue between himself and his wife, moving in the early chapters from friendly, everyday chat to acknowledgment of her illness and expression of their profound love. But for the great majority of those who would buy and read the book these dialogues would bear no relation to the chapters they headed. With one exception, they were omitted from the published version.
As time passed and Nancy's health continued to deteriorate, it seemed as if the undertaking of this final volume was beginning to overwhelm its author. There were frequent arguments with his agent and close neighbor Eleanor Friede, whose wide experience in the publishing world assured her that what he was presenting was not going to be saleable. Toward the end of the book he sought to include a lengthy extract from the Institute's brochure as well as no fewer than twenty-one addenda, a collection of miscellaneous items that made no contribution to the story he was telling. It was as if he was desperate to omit nothing that might in his mind have some relevance, no matter how distant, to the main text, but was unable to judge how the readers would respond to this.
Progress was very slow and it seemed as if the publishers might run out of patience and give up on the project. In desperation, Eleanor smuggled a typescript to an independent editor who managed to trim and shape the material acceptably for publication. The book eventually appeared in April 1994, four years later than first anticipated. Despite the difficulties Monroe experienced in organizing the material, the complexity of the subject matter, and the distress of Nancy's progressive illness, Ultimate Journey is easy to read, with much of it conversational in tone. Some of the ideas it contains are as mind-stretching as can be imagined, but nevertheless, considering the nature of the subject, Monroe succeeded for the third time in enticing his readers to accept his experiences and seriously consider his conclusions.
Over thirty years of out-of-body activity had brought Monroe to "a calm state of satisfaction"—or so he believed. He knew his origin, why he became human, why he "hung around," when he would leave, and where he would then go. He had mastered most of his fears and had formulated his purpose in life. This purpose was "service to humankind," as he declared to the Inspec in an out-of-body encounter. But he was surprised to be told in response that there were other goals, although what they were was not revealed to him. He was made to understand that this "service," as he had imagined it, would be soon forgotten and in effect was no more than mere ego-gratification. A new goal was required which, he concluded after some thought, was summed up in the very human yearning to go Home. This might be some favorite place on Earth, or the Heaven or Paradise held out as a target or destination in various religious beliefs. Or it might be understood as the place you came from—the place to which you desired to return.
In a subsequent out-of-body experience Monroe was enabled to make a visit Home. He had glimpsed this place before and was convinced that, after several lifetimes on Earth, it would be his ultimate destination. This visit, however, proved an enormous disappointment that took him several weeks to come to terms with. He discovered that the phenomena he experienced—the sights, the sounds, the energy—beautiful though they were, simply repeated themselves over and over again. There was no growth, no development, nothing but a kind of eternal boredom. He woke up tearful and depressed.
Further experiences under the tutelage of the Inspec eventually restored Monroe's spirits until the time came when he was told that they would no longer be meeting. He was made to understand that he had to follow a new path, and to discover and explore an essential knowledge, a basic, that hitherto he had missed despite the different overview that he had acquired through his decades of out-of-body travel. To prepare himself for this he needed to establish "a clear understanding of the here and now, of physical life just as it is without philosophical and emotional discoloration." In the following chapters this is what he attempted to do.
Monroe was not an academic. There is no reference in any of his books to anything that he had read, to any authority, to any specific religious belief or philosophical system. He was that very rare bird—an entirely original thinker. While there are strong resemblances to Darwin's theory of evolution in his account of the development of what he calls the Earth Life System, the use he makes of this concept, whether deriving from Darwin or not, is very much his own. Although some of his ideas may seem bizarre or far-fetched, he succeeds in integrating them into a consistent and comprehensive whole. Moreover, he was gifted with the ability to express himself clearly and succinctly. Certainly his fondness for acronyms (ASS—Animal Sub-Self; LIFE—Layered Intelligence-Forming Energy) at times brings the reader up short, but in Ultimate Journey he provides a helpful glossary for these and other idiosyncratic expressions.
Towards the end of his account of the Earth Life System, Monroe outlines the development of certain aspects of the Human Mind which, as he says, expresses and demonstrates "elements completely incompatible" with this System. Concern, empathy, and curiosity are three of these elements. He devotes a chapter to an examination of the many components—or facets—of the Human Mind, with suggestions for how to cope with problems presented by the Earth Life System. He considers the current concept that our thinking is divided into two categories, identified as left brain and right brain. Pointing out that the left-right distinction is only symbolic, he insists that it is what we regard as left-brain function that can make "Unknowns into Knowns, dissolve fears, enhance experience, open new vistas, clean out the false belief-system refuse." He continues: "It is the left brain that takes any idea, information or inspiration emanating from the right brain and puts it into action." The right brain, he says, has not grown or evolved; it is "the timeless, nonphysical part of us, untouched and unaffected by the Earth Life System." And he adds: "You should never abandon one for the other."
None of this, however, reveals anything about the "Missing Basic." So he decides to search in the area where he has been working for the past thirty years—the exploration of consciousness. In this regard, Monroe stands as far as can be imagined from the orthodox scientific view, prevalent in the last decades of the twentieth century, that consciousness is simply a product of the human brain and hence when the brain dies the individual's consciousness dies also. Monroe sees consciousness not as a function manufactured by and dependent on the brain, but as a continuum:
The spectrum of consciousness ranges, seemingly endlessly, beyond time-space into other energy systems. It also continues "downward" through animal and plant life, possibly into the subatomic level. Everyday human consciousness is active commonly in only a small segment of the consciousness continuum.
Much of what Monroe discusses here is relevant to the work of the Institute. Yet as he expresses it, he is also aware that what has so far been achieved is not enough. He is aware that the Earth Life System is not the whole story, and his own purpose has not been fulfilled. It is clear to him that he had missed something—an understanding, a "Known," as he called it—that was of vital importance. Perhaps it was only by moving out of physical reality into the out-of-body state that he could find what he was searching for.
With this in mind, Monroe began on a series of voluntary out-of-body journeys that he describes as "traveling the Interstate." No longer was he guided by the Inspec; instead, he became an actor in a series of dramas, each occurring at a different period in human history. In each of these dramas he found himself helping some individual who was physically dead but convinced that he or she was still alive. In one instance his help was rejected, but in the others he was able to remove the individual from what appeared to be a dangerous or unpleasant situation and lift him out and upwards until, without warning, he vanished.
In the final episode of this series, however, it happened differently. Monroe was now able to construct a map of the areas where his out-of-body journeys were taking him. He saw the whole of time-space, including the Earth Life System, as being permeated by what he called the (M) Field, a nonphysical energy field that he had referred to several times in Far Journeys. Now, however, he has a fuller understanding of what it is. He uses the term There to apply to the (M) Field energy spectrum in nonphysical form—that is, separate from time-space. The route traveled from one state of consciousness to another he calls the interstate, and those parts of the (M) Field adjacent to the Earth Life System he designates the belief system territories. In these territories those who have completed physical life come to reside according to which powerful religious belief they had been attached during their days on Earth. In this episode he is guided beyond these territories, finding himself among a multitude of souls bound together by shared love. In this multitude he meets the friend whom he first encountered in the experiences recorded in Far Journeys—the friend he knew as BB.
While these experiences—the retrieval dramas and the explorations of the areas in and beyond time-space—seemed to Monroe to be moving him in what he felt was a new direction, he also sensed that he was in some way losing control. As he expressed it: "Some part of me that I wasn't aware of had taken over, and I certainly didn't understand it." That part he designated "I There," and he concluded that the exploration of this was to be the next stage in his journey.
Several events that occurred long before his first OBE returned to mind as Monroe began this exploration. But now they took on a deeper meaning, revealing to him more about himself. On investigating his "I There," he discovered what he interpreted as a multitude of personalities, each with its own life experience, each representing a past life. Of these personalities, one seemed especially significant. This was an architect/builder, involved with construction of cathedrals and castles many centuries ago. That so many workers were killed during construction caused him to object to his employers. One of these, an authority figure in a French cathedral, was so irked by what he saw as unwarranted interference that he ordered him to be beheaded. Monroe saw this as the reason why on a recent holiday his visits to cathedrals in France and England had made him physically ill. He claimed to have found direct evidence of this previous personality in the similarities between the Foulis Castle tower and the tower he designed for the Institute's residential center. All this and more convinced Monroe that he was an element in a continuum of personalities, "more than a thousand lifetimes," he suggests, that combined to form his present being, his "I Here," as he called it. Those past personalities combine together to become components of what Monroe (with his fondness for acronyms) describes as the EXCOM that all human beings possess—the Executive Committee of our I There, "emerging from the many life personalities that each of us contain." What binds these personalities together is love.
In a subsequent out-of-body experience Monroe received further information about the (M) Field. He emphasized that this energy field was unrecognized in the present civilization. However, about this time a number of scientists were beginning to show interest in what became known as the Zero Point Field. This was described by Lynne McTaggart in The Field (HarperCollins, 2001), a popular and controversial introduction to the subject, as "a field of energy connected to every other living thing in the world. This pulsating energy field is the central engine of our being and our consciousness, the alpha and omega of our existence." That Monroe knew of the research and experiments over different branches of science that led to the concept of the Zero Point Field is unlikely, especially as most of this work was published after Ultimate Journey. Nevertheless, his description of the (M) Field would have fitted neatly into McTaggart's study, even though his information came from his EXCOM during an out-of-body session and not from controlled experimentation in laboratory conditions.
By now Monroe felt that he was establishing what he called a "good, solid Different Overview." He was, however, concerned that he might have overlooked certain discrepancies so he determined to make one more out-of-body inquiry. In this it was revealed to him that his old friend the Inspec was none other than elements of his "I There"—that, in effect, he had been talking with an aspect of himself during all those journeys. It was also becoming clear that he was approaching a climax in his investigative experiences. For the first time for many years he records the date and time when this full-scale approach, as he describes it, took place.
So we know that it was at three in the morning on November 27, 1987, that this apotheotic experience, Monroe's ultimate journey, began. It took him away from the Earth Life System, through the belief system territories, on to an encounter with the entity he knew as Miranon, and farther still. This was a journey of self-discovery, the final one in a series of journeys that he had taken for the past three decades. The farther he traveled, the more was revealed to him about himself. Ultimately, he was able to perceive the source of the energy that creates the physical Universe and to sense the power of its radiation. This source he calls the Emitter.
Monroe's experience is personal yet he seems to imply that he is both Bob Monroe and at the same time a significant representative of humankind. He is made aware that as an individual he is incomplete. In a kind of mystical revelation he is filled with the knowledge of what he truly is: not simply an individual but a part of what he calls a cluster made up of all his "I Theres," all his previous personalities. Every individual soul is part of such a cluster and for what he calls "completion" all lost parts—souls who have wandered astray—must be retrieved. When completion is achieved, humanity will take its final journey—into the Unknown.
The physical Universe that includes all living creatures, as Monroe understands, is a continuous creative process, designed and adjusted by a Creator who makes no demands, inflicts no punishments, remains aloof from human's life activity, and has a purpose which we are unable to comprehend. Incorporated in this design is the need for all of us to become truly One, ready to move on to whatever lies ahead "with a multitude of gifts of experience and love." This, he says, is a Known firmly fixed in his mind-consciousness. It is the "missing Basic" for which he had been searching.
Before returning to full, physical, waking consciousness Monroe asks, "What happens when we enter and rejoin the Whole?" He receives no direct answer. As yet, he is told, he is incomplete and he has to return. But the new consciousness he has acquired will return with him. "What is it to become complete?" he asks. In reply he is given a poem. "It may help you to be patient," he is told, "you and the sum of you."
There is no beginning, there is no end,
There is only change.
There is no teacher, there is no student,
There is only remembering.
There is no good, there is no evil,
There is only expression.
There is no union, there is no sharing,
There is only one.
There is no joy, there is no sadness,
There is only love.
There is no greater, there is no lesser,
There is only balance.
There is no stasis, there is no entropy,
There is only motion.
There is no wakefulness, there is no sleep,
There is only being.
There is no limit, there is no chance,
There is only a plan.
It took Monroe several weeks, he says, before he could absorb what he experienced on this traumatic journey. It stands as the most profound experience recorded in any of his books. While he rejects the word spiritual, it is hard to find another term with which to describe it. Transcendent is as close as one can get. It owes nothing to the teachings or vocabulary of organized religion or to the extensive literature dealing with reincarnation and past lives. What makes it especially remarkable is its originality, with nothing derived from any belief system or ancient text. He is now convinced that "there is indeed a Creator" who is beyond human understanding and yet is "the designer of the ongoing process of which we are a part." The "Knowing" he has acquired, he says, cannot be transferred to another human mind. It can come only through direct individual experience. Now he wonders how this experience might be provided.
At the same time Monroe was aware that Nancy's time was limited. He felt that what he called "a personal inventory" was necessary and decided to investigate, so far as he could, what had happened to some of those friends whom he had already contacted in an out-of-body state after their physical deaths. In a further exploration he discovered that those he had known were no longer where he had previously found them. Then he came across what appeared to be a doctor's office where two men were talking. He asked if they knew anything about his old friend Dr. Gordon, as this resembled the place where he had previously met him in an earlier out-of-body exploration. They told him that this "office" was where many medical professionals paused for a while to calm down after their transition. One of them referred to the Park—and this brought back to Monroe the memory of occasions many years ago when on out-of body journeys he had arrived at the Park and was warmly welcomed. That was the place he was looking for.
He left the office and found himself walking through a forest. Everything he encountered appeared real; he could feel the breeze, hear the birds, taste the leaf he plucked from a maple. Suddenly, he was aware that all this—the wood, the doctor's office, the places he had visited—was a continuing human creation, the product of human mind-consciousness over countless thousands of years. He walked on, turned away from the woods, and found himself in the Park, "with winding walks, benches, flowers and shrubbery, different colored grass lawns, clusters of stately trees, small streams and fountains and with a warm sun overhead among small cumulus clouds." There he was greeted by a woman whom he was certain he had met before. She greeted him as Ashaneen, a name he remembered from another lifetime, and explained to him that the Park was where those who died could rest and be guided as to what might be their next stage. Many of them were moving on to become part of what Monroe understood as their "I There."
Back "in the body," Monroe turned to consider the concept of the Park. He concluded that it was "an artificial synthesis created by human minds, a way station designed to ease the trauma and shock of the transition out of physical reality. It takes on the form of various earth environments in order to be acceptable to the enormously wide variety of newcomers." This differs considerably from his first impression of what he once called Home, with its music, fluffy white clouds, curls of energy—a sort of New Age vision of the landscape of Heaven without any religious connotations or connections. The Park is not Home. It is a place where you have the opportunity to decide on "the next step to take along the path to growth."
Viewed from a different perspective, Monroe's Park has much in common with the twelfth-century Sufi concept of the next world, "a world created solely out of the subtle matter of alam almithal, or thought…a plane of existence created by the imagination of many people and yet one that still had its own corporeality and dimension, its own forests, mountains and even cities."1 This is the "imaginal realm," as Henry Corbin, the great authority on Sufi thought, called it, "a world that is created by the imagination but is ontologically no less real than physical reality." In Monroe's second visit to the Park, he was told that it was "a creation that is here and will be here whatever your beliefs. It will not disappear if you don't believe it exists."
Monroe expresses no theology. His experiences, especially those recorded in Ultimate Journey, convinced him that "the physical universe, including the whole of humankind, is an ongoing creative process." For him, "death" is simply a label for another energy system, and he would have no argument (except possibly for the inclusion of the word spiritual in the quotation) with the doctrine of the Baha'i' faith that "humans are essentially spiritual beings who undergo a temporary physical experience on this planet." He is not critical of the teachings of organized religions and is not into the business of conversion. These religions he sees simply as belief systems, with no sense that they are divinely inspired but simply existing to provide a haven for those who subscribe to them. His experiences also showed him that there are countless numbers of individuals who are no longer in physical existence but are unable to accept that this is so. These individuals, although no longer in physical form, continue to act as if they are still alive. There are also, he discovered, countless others who seem to be lingering in an in-between state, comatose, heavily drugged, or semiconscious.
After much reflection, Monroe's task became clear to him. He was to be a facilitator. He was to use his Known—the knowledge and understanding he had been vouchsafed—to find a way by which others could travel into the areas beyond the physical and provide help to those who, for whatever reason, were unaware that they were no longer alive and were stuck or marooned in a kind of no-man's land. This was what everything he had been doing in the past twenty years had been leading to. So far the results of his research had shown that it was possible to enable human consciousness to move to the very boundary of time-space. Now he understood that he should return to what had become his life's work, to see how much farther he could take it.
Monroe was well aware that what he had in mind ran counter to what the majority of scientists and medical professionals believed. As the scientific approach to death depended ultimately on measurement, when measurement was no longer able to record any response then the conclusion was simply "Nothing." Although he points out that some of the greatest scientists have deduced that we are more than our physical bodies, nevertheless "the bulk of our scientific knowledge is not germane to any approach that tries to make Something out of Nothing." Therefore, it is only personal experience that could provide the evidence that death does not equal finality. With the knowledge provided by that experience, fear would be eliminated and lives would be transformed.
In this way Monroe put together the results of his recent out-of-body experiences with his left-brain logical approach. With the resources of the Institute at his disposal, he determined to see if it was possible to enable the individual mind-consciousness to move beyond the point of physical death and, having accomplished what he was now convinced was to be a mission of service, to return safely. This involved research into frequencies that could enable the body to rest in a state as near suspended animation as possible while the consciousness was free to be guided into this other energy system beyond physical life. He invited Mark Certo to his cabin and explained to him what he had in mind.
Monroe began by outlining his concept of the Park as he had encountered it in his out-of-body journeys. Using his now familiar numerical system of identifying states of consciousness, he equated the Park to Focus 27. To reach the Park you had to pass through the H Band, the designation he gave to the cacophonous region of human thought that surrounds the planet. Having done this, you arrive at Focus 23, where those are found who are still trapped in the Earth Life System—physically dead but unable to comprehend that this is so. From there you pass through the various belief systems centered on Focus 25. Finally, you arrive at the Park, the way-station where you may rest and be helped as needed, creating your own space in this illimitable paradise. This program would be called Lifeline.
Mark's task was to create the tapes to which Monroe would later add his voice. First came the "H Band noise," with Monroe checking almost daily on the effects and complaining that more sound and more drama were needed.2 When at last he was satisfied—although Mark felt that no one would be able to maintain an altered state of consciousness while listening to such sounds—they moved on to Focus 23. For this a medley of human voices was needed and various members of staff came in to contribute. Listening hard, you might be able to discern the voice of Monroe himself. Then for the next stage you follow a light that leads you through Focus 24, Focus 25, and Focus 26. These are the areas of the belief systems. As markers, it was decided that snatches of music appropriate to various religions, ranging from the primitive to the major current faiths, would be utilized. At Focus 27 you pass through the light and before you is the Reception Center, the Park.
On one occasion, having studied the scripts and read some chapters of an early version of Ultimate Journey, Mark asked Monroe what his experience was beyond Focus 27. "Beyond that…mmmmm…you couldn't go beyond that and come back to tell about it," he replied. Mark was puzzled. "You mean you would somehow get absorbed into that strata?" he asked. "No. It's an existence that as I perceive it cannot be translated into anything that we humans can relate to or translate into words." That was what he thought at the time, but it turned out not to be the end of the story.
Once all this was completed, Monroe began to lay down the voice tracks. He was tired, anxious about Nancy, and, according to Mark, who edited the tapes to wipe out any mistakes or intrusions, frustrated with the sound of his voice. Listening to the unedited versions years later, Mark was impressed by the way Bob used his voice to move the participant into the next highest Focus level, noting how he was able to guide and direct you while leaving you to have your own experience. Mark recalled how, in one instance, he was leading the listener "from the familiar territory of Focus 25 into the Park of Focus 27. As he was encouraging you to move 'more and more through the light' he stumbled on a word and said 'Ah, shit!' It cracked me up to the point of tears. Perhaps because I was remembering my now departed friend, or perhaps because Bob rarely used expletives of that sort! Probably Nancy's influence."
While all this was in process, Nancy's health was causing increasing concern. Monroe very seldom referred to personal matters in his books. In all of them his out-of-body existence is kept apart from his daily life so that it is rarely possible to detect how the one impacts on the other. Apart from this, there is only one reference to Nancy's illness where, in a later chapter, it is referred to as "the Variable." This term Monroe explained as "a change that occurs in an individual life experience that was not planned or necessarily foreseen." Among the examples he gives are winning a major lottery or moving to a different area. Death of a loved one, perhaps the most traumatic lifetime event, is not mentioned. It is as if Monroe is concerned to conceal or suppress any emotional response. The most he can do at this stage is to admit that the Variable "forced a new direction," compelling him to face the prospect of her "transition from physical life," as he put it. This prospect impelled him to intensify his efforts to complete his new program as quickly as he could.
While Mark was working on the production of the Lifeline materials, he would take time out to listen to each completed exercise as if he was a participant in a program. Having finished the Focus 23 tape, he put headphones on and relaxed. He found himself moving into what he described as an exotic state of consciousness and in a space that was amber in color and misty. His grandfather had recently died and Mark wondered if he might be in such a space. In his mind he called his name but there was no response. He tried again.
I felt some sort of movement and all of a sudden there was my grandfather's face, looking very stone-like in expression but with a hint of pain. I had no idea of what to do or say…I tried to speak to him but he seemed unaware of my presence. Then I said the silliest thing to him, almost in a panic. "Grandpa, I have no idea what to do for you, but if you wait here I'll come back and get you. I haven't made the tape yet that will help you get where you need to go." I heard Bob prompting me to return back now to full physical waking consciousness. He began to count backwards but I was already back.
Feeling sad and confused, Mark resumed working on the rest of the series. It never occurred to him to ask Monroe for help. He completed the rest of the tapes, calling his grandfather's name at each Focus level but with no response until he came to the final tape, Focus 27. Then, as he listened to it, he found himself entering the Park, that for him was an extensive grassy field. There he saw Winslow, his golden retriever, running towards him, followed by his grandfather. He was surprised and also greatly relieved, but curious to see his dog who, unlike his grandfather, was alive and well and living with his ex-wife and stepson. He talked with his grandfather, who said that his wife, who was still alive at that time, had helped him to get where he was and visited him quite often. Mark decided that he had some psychological need to connect with his grandfather, but he could not understand what the dog was doing in the Focus 27 Park. After his grandfather left, saying he would make contact again, Mark looked at the dog, assuming this was nothing more than a Freudian wish-fulfillment vision, and asked: "So is there any message you have for me, O product of my subconscious mind?" The dog looked at him, and in his head Mark heard quite clearly: "Yes. When we meet next time around, for God's sake give me a better name than Winslow!" Then he heard Monroe prompting him back to ordinary everyday consciousness.
Two days later, a Sunday, Mark met his stepson as usual for an outing. "Over breakfast he looked at me and said 'I have some bad news,'" said Mark later. "'We found Winslow in the woods on Thursday. He died.'"
The Lifeline program was launched on June 22, 1991. Monroe was unusually anxious before the launch of the first program and his anxiety continued throughout the week. His concern was twofold. He was not confident that the Hemi-Sync exercises and the new frequencies he had developed for the program would be the correct mixes to support participants in their explorations of these new territories and in their rescue and retrieval operations. His second concern was that the potential emotional reactions to the situations the participants encountered might prove overwhelming. Darlene Miller recalled that he would come into the control room several times a day—something he never did in other residential programs—to check with the trainers on how things were going. His concerns were needless. When the program ended and the trainers reported that all had gone according to plan, his relief was evident. At his final meeting with the group Monroe brought Steamboat with him and together they led the company in a robust round of resonant howling.
A requirement for taking part in this program was that participants must have previously attended Gateway so that they were already acquainted with Hemi-Sync and therefore could move easily into the higher Focus levels. It was notable that, while Gateway participants came from a variety of backgrounds, those who elected to take Lifeline, including Monroe's daughter Laurie in the first program, were largely drawn from professional or practical occupations. The third program, for example, included five doctors or other medical professionals, three educationists, three therapists, an Alaska pipeline worker, a baker, a script writer, a telecommunications worker, a physics professor, an author, a librarian, a psychologist, a public relations consultant, a machine shop worker, a detective, and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
By the time Ultimate Journey was published, there had been thirteen Lifeline sessions involving some 250 participants. The program as designed differed from Gateway and Guidelines in one important respect. In the two earlier programs those taking part were enabled to move into different states of consciousness, being provided with simple tasks or exercises to perform but not given an environment in which to perform them. In Lifeline, Monroe provided the environment: the three "belief system territories" and the Park, described as he had seen it himself. It seemed as if participants might be conditioned by this, with the result that the reports of their experiences would have many features in common, and their accounts would resemble those of a group of visitors to a foreign city who had read the same guidebook and undertaken the same sightseeing tours. Yet this did not happen. The responses were wholly personal and often idiosyncratic.
Submitting written reports on their experiences was a requirement for all participants and these reports, some of which are included in Ultimate Journey, demonstrated that for almost all of them the process worked. Interestingly, and without any briefing from Monroe, several reported that what they had found or retrieved were not other individuals but parts or aspects of themselves that they had neglected or forgotten and were now able to reabsorb. One wrote that it had been a week of growth and expanding. "The very thin phase between what we know as reality, Here, and what Monroe calls 'There' becomes apparent. Life as a whole has begun to take on a different perspective." Now sixteen years after its inception, the Lifeline program remains unchanged and is usually oversubscribed.3
As Charles Tart points out, throughout Ultimate Journey Monroe holds his position as the objective reporter while he struggles to convey his experiences as accurately as words will allow. As in his previous books, he strives only to tell it as it is. Reviewing Ultimate Journey for the journal of the Scientific & Medical Network, David Lorimer described it as "the most accessible and profound of Monroe's books" and ranks it as "one of the most important books I have read in this field," adding that it is "required reading for anyone interested in the inner horizons of consciousness."
The final chapter of Ultimate Journey includes a moving tribute to Nancy Monroe, whose death, Bob said later, "cut off twenty-three years of daily sharing in total love and devotion."4 Shortly after she died, he made two attempts to visit her out-of-body. He found the experience too much to handle and resolved henceforth to restrict himself from any form of nonphysical activity. At one time he questioned if it were possible to meet a new challenge: to adjust himself so that he could live simultaneously with Nancy in Focus 27 and with his seven cats and two dogs in a lonely house. Then he realized that it was no challenge at all and to his question there would be no answer.
Notes
1. See Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe (HarperCollins, 1991).
2. It is a moot point whether any distinction can be made between M Band noise, explained in Far Journeys as "uncontrolled thought," and H Band noise, "the peak of uncontrolled thought that emanates from all living forms on Earth, particularly humans," according to Ultimate Journey. If there is no distinction, we may ascribe this apparent confusion to a cosmic alphabetical slip.
3. Soon after the launch of Lifeline, a small team was formed from those in and around the Institute who felt that they were able to help individuals who had died but might need assistance to find their way to the Park. Members of this team were on call when Nancy Monroe died and were able to describe how they helped her on her way to Focus 27.
4. Quotations from Ultimate Journey by Robert Monroe, copyright © 1994 by Robert Monroe are used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.