TMI Journal 2011-1&2 (Winter/Spring)

that, should I find myself spinning out of control, the group or an individual would likely be able to help me ground out of it. Simply knowing that backup was there was almost adequate assurance in and of itself, negating the need to actually call upon it directly. Regardless of not having been led to entirely new and strange places, my experience of GATEWAY VOYAGE was enjoyable and personally useful. Before I had even completed the week, I was plotting to return for another program. I chose LIFELINE for my next foray. Since childhood I’ve had many experiences “seeing” and speaking with spirits of people who have passed over, often helping them to move on from some position in which they’ve become stuck. Being an archeologist perhaps offered me unusual opportunities for this sort of work. Walking mile after mile of transects across Wyoming or South Dakota, or mapping ancient sites, I would often sense the presence of others or find myself experiencing both my own immediate reality and a vivid and detailed internal movie of a whole different reality: that of past events. I would often converse with these nonphysical spirits about their lives and experiences before helping them to move on. I thought that LIFELINE might help give me new insight or new ideas about that work. Once again, I must have expected, on some level, to discover places that I hadn’t experienced on my own because, again, I was surprised to find myself on such familiar ground in the Focus Levels. I immediately connected with the nonphysical friends with whom I have partnered for many years, and we went right to work. The unfulfilled expectation that I would visit new places was, again, startling without being disappointing. In moving in and out of the Focus Levels all week, it felt as if I were in some way solidifying the places where I’ve always gone. When I visit a new physical landscape, be it a wildlife refuge or a foreign country, I like to learn the names of plants and animals, the history and geology, or a little of the language of the country. These things help me to ground myself within the context of that particular and specific landscape. Grounding myself in that landscape allows me to navigate with confidence through it and to share my experiences within it. TMI offered some names for the places that I visit beyond the physical, something that I didn’t have and now find useful and rewarding. The names and language have allowed me to move with more confidence. Discovering that others recognize these same landscapes has added to the confidence in the way that sharing can often be both comforting and fun. I also found that I was gaining a new ease in moving between levels. It was certainly fascinating to me that “my” places were the same places that Bob and other TMI explorers visit. Bob Monroe and other TMI alumni, having independently made their way to “my” destinations, offered the ever-vigilant logical, linear, science-trained half of myself some assurance that it needed. It was another drop in my ever-flowing river of proof that energy is real, usable, and relevant, and that the places that I go are not simply vivid imagination or the result of a hard knock to the head. My grandmother was institutionalized for hearing voices and acting inappropriately in certain circumstances, so perhaps I carry an internal check that desires periodic assurance that I’m not just loopy. When I signed up for GUIDELINES, I no longer expected the Focus Levels to be unfamiliar landscapes–and they weren’t. I was, however, startled by the depth of experience that came forth during the lab Personal Resources Exploration Program (PREP) session.1 Having Skip as a “control” sitting in the next room–another backup–allowed me to let go and explore further than I might have without him there as a safety net ready to bring me back to this particular physical world. In fact, I knew as soon as I walked out of 2 hours of channeling2 that the lab session was the entire reason I had felt compelled to attend the GUIDELINES program. I had channeled before in a limited way, never letting go fully to allow the nonphysical beings very far into my body nor admitting to anyone that I was receiving this information from a nonphysical being separate from myself. I had held back because I’d had some reservations about whether I would get the body back for myself, and I didn’t often interact with people who would accept it were I to admit that I was channeling. In addition to the safety net that the presence of Skip provided for my cautious mind, the simple fact that someone else had listened to the information I had channeled proved to be important. This was information that I’d received previously on more than one occasion yet never shared with anyone. Some specific information seemed too “out there” to talk about, and the rest of it felt as if it could too easily be interpreted as fueling an ego trip when taken out Next Page 11 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 of context. Having shared it now with Skip as monitor, the information somehow took on substance and found a legitimate place inside myself in the same way–again, that learning the names of plants and animals in a landscape that is new to me helps to make me feel more grounded in that place. In that sense, the information I channeled became manifest through having shared it with a respectful fellow human being on the physical plane. Sharing with people is a powerful and valuable aspect of TMI. In my experience, when two people join together, the power of the All That Is doesn’t just double; it multiplies. When 20 people join together for a week of focused energy work, the power available becomes immense, assisting everyone with their own individual work as well as creating a group personality that carries its own unique force that we all experience. Even those of us who attend a program and keep quiet in the background throughout it are adding essential energy to the whole and sharing simply by being present. When we share experience with each other, we share our souls. A respectful audience–for speech or silence– heals and strengthens the soul. I am looking forward to attending more programs–after all, I may yet be surprised! I may yet find Focus Levels or learn skills that aren’t familiar from my own explorations. And whether or not that happens, without a doubt I’ll find the space for valuable personal growth. I’ll undoubtedly meet interesting people with which to share stories and experiences, helping to seat me in harmony with life in this physical world. Endnotes Editors Note: 1 The Personal Resources Exploration Program (PREP) is a personalized auditory-guidance session conducted in a specially designed, secluded cubical in which the participant is individually supported through customized, computer-generated sounds and verbal guidance provided by a trained facilitator. The PREP session is included as an aspect of the GUIDELINES® program but is also available to GATEWAY graduates. For more information about PREP Sessions, see http://www.monroeinstitute.org/prep/ 2 During the lab session, I channeled four different nonphysical beings. I sensed and watched them trading places in my body, depending upon their individual skill in expressing specific information that was being transmitted. They talked about my role in a physical body at this particular time in physical world history, confirmed my own understanding of the reasons I had chosen to be blown up in Iraq, and discussed some of my skills and the side effects and quirks related to those skills, as well as revealing some information about what many refer to as the “2012 Shift.” They explained that The Shift is not a 2012 event; it has been underway for some time now and continues as a gradual creation. It doesn’t belong to earth physicality; it’s a dimensional shift that could be said to originate anywhere and everywhere at once since all is one. Certain people are embodied right now in order to assist with the energy shift, as the multidimensionality of the energies is complex. The skills of these beings are such that they are more effective from within the physical than they would be without bodies. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours. ~Unknown Next Page 12 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 The State of Parapsychological Research in the U.S. and Abroad: An Interview with The Rhine Center’s Senior Research Fellow Christine Simmonds-Moore Christine Simmonds-Moore is currently the Senior Research Fellow at The Rhine Research Center (successor to the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory) in Durham, North Carolina. From an early age, Simmonds-Moore had been interested in paranormal and extraordinary experiences—phenomena that were part of the lived experience of several of her family members (“My gran once dreamed all six numbers of the national lottery—but didn’t put any money on it”). Simmonds-Moore herself approached the subject from a more academic angle. While attending Swansea University in Wales, she came across a number of books on parapsychology in the university library. “There were lots of books on parapsychology,” she says, “but I thought parapsychology must be dead because all the journals in the library stopped at about 1975. But I thought I’d have a look and read them. I later found out that the skeptic Hansel had been at Swansea, and that was the reason for the presence of the books and journals. I was doing my undergraduate research project on the hypnogogic state, and I realized that a lot of paranormal experiences happen during that state. And so I decided that I wanted to do a study on the hypnogogic state and [related] aspects of consciousness and dream research.” After earning a master’s degree in Cognitive Science at Dundee University, Simmonds-Moore returned to North Wales to take a teaching and research position at Bangor University. It so happened that a PA member, Robert Turner, was running a short parapsychology class in Bangor, where she realized that “the field of parapsychology is very much alive.” She was put in contact with the late Bob Morris, who at the time held the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh. Morris eventually become her “academic grandfather,” when Simmonds-Moore later went on to earn her Ph.D. on the psychology of anomalous experiences (with a focus on anomaly-prone personalities) at Northampton University in England under the supervision of Morris’s student Chris Roe. As part of her training during that time, Simmonds-Moore traveled to The Rhine Research Institute’s North Carolina campus in order to attend the 2-month parapsychology Summer Study Program (SSP). “[Up to that point] I’d heard of some of the people and some of the terms, but I didn’t know how everything