In a 1983 Gateway Voyage talk, Monroe said contact organized itself in three ways. By far the most common was an Explorer meeting a nonphysical being and reporting the conversation while the monitor supplied questions. In a second, the information was dictated to the Explorer, who simply repeated it word for word. Far less often, with the Explorer's consent, the being used the Explorer's body and vocal cords directly, as on Explorer 1 and the Miranon tapes. The common thread, he said, was concern for the Explorer's welfare. The helpers keep appointments Monroe tells this story in the last series tape. A regular Explorer who came Wednesdays at five, helped out of the body by four helpers, canceled one week. At about five past five, a visiting psychologist resting in a booth on a lab tour asked if anyone else was supposed to be there. Four people, she said, two arguing over whether to pull her out of her body. Monroe checked the clock, remembered the missed appointment and laughed. The helpers, he concluded, must have some sense of time. What the original 24 tapes cover
SOURCE CONTEXT
Explorer sessions
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Explorer 1 follows an out-of-body sequence; Explorer 2 moves from the Resonant Energy Balloon into past-life regressions. Explorers 5, 6, 13 and 14 are the Miranon sessions, and Explorer 6 lays out his levels and planes of existence. Explorer 17 reports the rescue of a soul who died over a century earlier, Explorer 18 tells a story of creation and Explorer 22 relays comments from a Council of Love. Monroe reviews ten years of work on 23 and summarizes the laboratory on 24. Most booth time was routine testing Monroe was blunt that the released tapes were a small part of the total. Most of a session was tedious testing of sound patterns while the Explorer reported how each one felt. In the last tape he plays an exchange about sweeping a tone up and down four times a second, which the Explorer says suppresses body awareness while heightening mental awareness, and says hours upon hours went into patterns like this. How the material reached listeners
The Institute's members' newsletter began a regular Explorer's Notebook feature in 1978, printing excerpts from the team's recorded reports with the monitor's questions and the responses marked. By 1980 members were writing in with reactions to the Explorer tapes. Monroe's standard introduction says the series was released at the request of many who believed such information belongs in general knowledge. Today the Internet Archive holds a compiled set of 32 tapes that the Institute says Monroe chose, and the Institute's YouTube channel posts numbered episodes. The Institute takes no stand on what it means Monroe offered the first tape without his evaluation or comment, so listeners could form their own interpretation. Rita Warren's introductions repeat the stance: the Institute takes no position on validity and urges listeners to test whatever rings true for themselves. Monroe's closing statement lists the possibilities, another part of you, a higher self, a soul, helpers, guides, angels, nonphysical friends or God, and says that choice belongs to each person. Later episodes add new ideas Later episodes, introduced by Rita Warren and Martin Warren, present ideas such as aspects, the personality and emotional energies the communicators say overlay every individual, and the friends, the Institute's name for the group energy that spoke through one Explorer across 232 recorded sessions.