Highlighted name: Joseph “Joe” McMoneagle. A mention does not establish authorship. Back to profile →
Markdown lines 336–591 · Part 2 of 4
when the marquee caught my eye. Bob Monroe was
listed as one of the speakers. My first thought was,
“Why, he's dead. How could he be giving a lecture?”
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Then at once an explanation involving “time loops” and
other things that I cannot now recall, but which made
eminent good sense at the time, entered my head. “Well,
O.K.,” I thought. “I always wanted to meet him. Now at
least I can go in and listen to his talk.” I find myself
sitting in the second or third row of a small lecture hall
with graduated seats, like an operating theater. A tall,
balding, bearish-looking man with rumpled clothing
whom I recognize as Monroe is standing in the center of
the pit. He and his assistants are passing out white
plastic “identity cards” about the size of a credit card,
and some other strange-looking device that we are
supposed to use by visualizing our energy flowing
through it. Monroe is discussing some rather large piece
of equipment, about the size of a dentist's chair, that he's
going to demonstrate and asks for a volunteer. I find
myself walking front and center and sitting down in the
“chair.” “Well Joe, now if you'll just relax...” Monroe
begins. When I realize that he has used my first name, I
am taken aback. | did not introduce myself. How does he
know me? I wonder. J interrupt to ask him. Monroe just
chuckles warmly, like a tolerant grandfather. “Sure, I
know who you are,” he says. “In fact, I visit you from
time to time to check on your progress. Though lately
I've been unable to do so..”
What had struck me most about the dream, and again
of my vision in my CHEC unit, was the vivid sense of
the presence of a gentle, warm, and wise individual.
Whether it was “really” Bob Monroe or whether I was
merely personifying a source of wisdom (either inside or
outside myself), I did not know. Whatever it was, it
radiated high intelligence, good will, and concern for
me. One of the trainers to whom I mentioned the
experience (and the dream) indicated that others had had
such “Monroe encounters” during Gateway. It would not
be the last time during the week that I would experience
the presence of a Friend.
In Focus 10, we are taught to sense and expand our
Resonant Energy Balloon (REBAL), a field of
nonphysical energy surrounding and penetrating our
physical body. It feels as if someone is applying a
tourniquet to my right leg. I'm also getting that tight
“headband” feeling again. Suddenly I hear a “clicking”
sound (not on the tape), as if a metal latch is being
opened or closed. I behold an image of an old wooden
cabinet with an open door. At the same time, I feel as if]
am opening that door with my left arm. Yet, my physical
arm has not budged from my side. Then I briefly “see”
(as with all of these “seeings,” they are half nonvisual
impression and half mind’s-eye snapshot) the image of a
map. There is an oval-shaped island located in the center
of an oval-shaped lake, with an asterisk at the extreme
right side of the lake indicating a message, “You are
here.” Afterwards I realize that the “map” also
resembled a large eye, the central island being the pupil.
In our debriefing sessions, a number of voyagers have
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been reporting the presence of luminous eyes, seemingly
either human or animal, staring at them in the blackness.
The trainers invite us to read this image metaphorically,
an “eye” for an “I,” so to speak. Who or what is the self
that is looking at me looking at it? I know I have a way
to go before I get to the center. I've just unlocked the
treasure-chest and found the map. But the map is not the
territory.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
In a Free Flow Focus 10 exercise (in a Free Flow
there are no verbal cues and you can do whatever you
want in the allotted time), I invite the inner self, or
guidance, to make itself known and to assist me in
understanding the true purpose of my life. Among the
impressions I receive is the eerie sound of echoing
laughter of many voices. It is an “Olympian” laugh,
somehow godlike, coming from afar, yet compassionate
and not without humor. But it is definitely not human.
When I mention the laughter to Karen, one of the
trainers, she asks me what I think it means. “Lighten
up,” I reply without hesitating. But there's something
else there, too. And it's a bit spooky. I don't mention this
to Karen. I'm not sure why. There was another
impression I received during the exercise, having to do
with a childhood experience in which I was certain that I
had been able to foreknow the future. Karen gently
suggests that I am receiving a form of validation now,
but that I am not fully open to it. “It's like you're being
offered a rose,” she explains, “but you keep saying, ‘No,
I want the lily’.” The lily: what is it? Objective proof?
Intellectual validation? And what, then, is the rose that I
am refusing? At first I feel defensive. I thought I was
being open. Am I more closed down than I realize?
MOonDAY MorNniING
This is our introduction to Focus 12, the state of
expanded awareness. The trainers caution us that we are
dealing with subtle energies that express themselves in
subtle ways, and that we must therefore be alert to
seemingly small and insignificant details of our
experience. They also say that we may only recall some
of the things we experience in these expanded states later
on, after the exercise is over. Focus 12 does feel
somewhat different from Focus 10. In 12, 1 have the
impression of a trap door located in my forehead, which
is slowly opening to form a kind of inverted pyramid
over my head. Several visual impressions dart past my
inner eye (as they had in Focus 10), including the image
of a French door (not unlike the one that divides my
dining and family rooms at home) opening to reveal a
darkened room. I can't make out what's inside. Later, in
another Focus 12 exercise, | behold another series of
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fleeting inner images, including what looks like a
wooden plaque painted with various colorful symbols,
including a Native American totem pole with an eagle at
the top. To me, the eagle means vision and freedom.
Monbay AFTERNOON
Over lunch, Jon, an optometrist from California with
a dry sense of humor, makes a joke about the Wizard of
Oz. This immediately reminds me of a forgotten image
that had flashed before me in the morning's last Focus 12
exercise. (The trainers were right.) | saw myself being
fitted with a new pair of shoes. Are these like Dorothy's
magic slippers? Will they take me “Home”? Am | being
invited to assume a new stance, a new perspective? The
open door, the eagle, the new pair of shoes all seem to
suggest, in complementary ways, the accessing of a new
form of awareness. It feels as if I am being encouraged.
But by whom or what? Where is the feedback coming
from?
Later, during a Free Flow Focus 12 exercise, I request
a “meeting” with the source of these messages, or what
the trainers refer to as “guidance.” I'm not even sure I
believe in such a thing. Much to my surprise, I am
greeted with the image of a handsome man sitting at a
table and a pretty woman standing beside him. They
appear to be dressed in 19th-century clothing. The man
in the vested suit, who looks to be in his thirties, has
chestnut-brown hair and a full beard. He is smiling
broadly. I know, or he tells me, that his name is Arthur.
The woman wearing a long dress standing next to Arthur
has black hair done up in some sort of a bun. Maybe
she's in her twenties. Her head is tilted back in a playful
way, stray locks of her hair casually falling down around
the bun, and she, too is grinning. She introduces herself
as Melissa, but says that she prefers the less formal
Lissa—which seems to fit her personality. Then a third
impression superimposes itself on this friendly tableau.
It is an old woman with dark, weathered skin and white
hair. She does not smile or speak. Her name is Noona.
My sense is that she is a Native American.
Afterwards, 1 am reminded of an eerie dream that I'd
had years ago. In the dream, I am trudging along the
snow-packed ground in an arctic-like environment when
I see an old woman with black, leathery skin. She
appears, like a spectral vision, out of nowhere. That old
woman, I now realize, was also Noona. But just who is
Noona? Is she “real,” or simply a figure out of my own
imaginings? Am I just making it up as I go? Am |
gaining conscious access to the archetypes, the Oz-land
machinery that manufactures my own dream images? Or
am I perceiving nonphysical entities and energies and
then translating those perceptions into terms that I can
comprehend? Part of me rejects the whole idea of
“guidance” as hokey, a leftover folk superstition. I don't
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know what to think. I recall the words of the Cheyenne
writer Hyemehosts Storm to the effect that each of us
contains a man and a woman, a little boy and a little girl,
an old man and an old woman. Perhaps Arthur and Lissa
are members of my own “inner council.” (After
returning home, I was glancing through my journal when
I came across an interesting item. Several months
previous, during a meditation, I heard the name “Arthur
Green[e]” uttered “out loud,” so to speak. It didn't ring a
bell or mean anything to me, but I jotted it down. Was
this the full name of the Arthur guide I glimpsed at
TMI? Or had I unconsciously picked up the thread of
that earlier experience and merely woven an image
around a name?)
MonDAy EVENING
We troop into David Francis Hall after dinner for
what the trainers mysteriously dub a “special program.”
The subject that is introduced is remote viewing, which
we are invited to try firsthand by going into Focus 10 or
12 and reporting on the impressions we receive about a
set of geographical coordinates mentioned in a video
clip. 1 am dubious that I can achieve the various focus
states outside the CHEC unit and away from the tapes,
but I am willing to give it a try. As soon as I breathe
deeply and shift focus, three successive impressions pop
into my mind with astonishing speed: stone, black, and
triangle. We go around the room and each of us tells
what we got. Many mention seeing a spindly structure
like a spider's web, others describe seaside scenery
where land and water meet. I fear I must be way off, but
I dutifully report my results. The target turns out to be
the St. Louis Arch, and the individual on the video—
who we will momentarily learn is the famous remote
viewer (and live guest) Joe McMoneagle—is giving a
stunningly accurate remote viewing not only of the arch,
but also of the surrounding area. However, the second
object turns out to be Devil's Tower in Wyoming (the
image that obsessed Richard Dreyfuss's character in
Steven Spielberg's movie Close Encounters of the Third
Kind). Perhaps, then, my perception of “stone, black,
and triangle” jumped ahead to the second target. Joe
himself is introduced shortly thereafter and gives a
mind-boggling talk on remote viewing, his near-death
experience, and the paranormal. There's so much energy
flowing around that by the end of the evening, when we
troop back to the Center, I have a massive tension
headache. I overhear Jon, the California optometrist,
complain that he, too, is feeling so much energy in his
body that his head hurts.
TUESDAY MORNING/AFTERNOON
We are introduced to Focus 15, which is described as
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the state of No Time. We aren't told much about it
beforehand in the briefing. “Just go experience it for
yourself” is the idea. I feel myself momentarily pooling
out in all directions as Bob's voice on the tape takes us
from Focus 12 to 15. In 15, I feel like an astronaut in
space; weightless, gently rocking from side to side in
slow motion. One of the images I see looks like a section
of a wooden dartboard, with triangular-shaped “slices”
marked off in woods of different shades. Even as |
attempt to hold the image, it is replaced by another. I
watch as three women in shawls enter a house of
mourning. Their backs are to me and I can't see their