Explorers were volunteers, typically Gateway Voyage graduates, who showed their skill in the laboratory and were invited back. Monroe said the first ones were simply people who were available and willing, among them clinical psychologists, physicists and secretaries. In the last tape he concluded that anyone can be an Explorer if their value systems can be self-adjusted, which takes much work and patience, and that the core requirement is accepting the possibility that you are more than your physical body. The tapes identify Explorers only by code. Where can I listen to the Explorer tapes? The Monroe Institute's YouTube channel posts the Explorer Series as numbered episodes, many opening with an introduction by Monroe, Rita Warren or Martin Warren. The Internet Archive holds the Institute's compiled Explorer Series, a set of 32 tapes it says Monroe chose, with audio and transcripts, along with further collections of Explorer audio and transcripts. A good order is Tape 24 for the laboratory, Tape 1 for a complete early session, then the Miranon tapes 5 and 6. Who was the monitor in an Explorer session?
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Explorer sessions
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The monitor sat in the control room and spoke to the Explorer through the sound system. On the original series tapes it is Monroe, who describes sitting there watching the gauges. In later sessions Rita Warren, who coordinated the Explorer work, and Martin Warren, who says he monitored many of the sessions, appear on the recordings. The monitor counted the Explorer through states, asked for detail, relayed questions to the beings the Explorer met and noticed when the Explorer needed help. Were drugs used in Explorer sessions? Monroe said no. He states that no drugs or medication were used during any session, and his standard introduction says the Explorers had learned to reach other states using the Institute's methods, without drugs or electrical stimulation. The tools were the darkened, shielded booth, the waterbed, headphones carrying Hemi-Sync tones, and practice that usually began with the Gateway program. Instruments recorded the body's state throughout, mainly total body voltage through two or three electrodes. Did Monroe believe the Explorers were really contacting other beings?
His public stance was neutral: he offered the tapes without evaluation or comment so listeners could judge for themselves. His own words show serious regard. In his final tape he describes evidence of a technology far beyond present understanding, and he lists helpers, guides, a higher self and God as possible ways to understand the contacts. In a 1987 talk he said the staff were convinced of the contacts' capabilities, glad of their apparent benevolence and left asking who was really doing the driving. The Institute still takes no stand on validity. How are Explorer sessions different from the Gateway Experience tapes? The Gateway Experience is a structured audio program for personal use: a narrator guides you through set exercises with Hemi-Sync, and the same steps are meant to work for everyone. Explorer sessions were free-form laboratory work, with a trained volunteer, a monitor and instruments, the Explorer reporting and the monitor deciding the next question. Gateway Voyage graduates formed the pool from which Explorers were invited, and Hemi-Sync tones were played into the booth, but the recordings are records of what happened rather than lessons.