Monroe released selections as the Explorer Series, introducing each tape in his own voice and offering the material without evaluation. The original series ran to 24 tapes, and the Institute's YouTube channel now posts the recordings as numbered episodes, with later sessions from other Explorers identified only by code. The tapes are a small part of what happened in the booth: most session time went to routine testing of sounds and states, and the released segments were chosen for general interest. They are best heard as recorded conversations to compare, not as exercises to follow. Volunteers who trained first Rita Warren, who coordinated the Explorer work, defined an Explorer as a volunteer who has typically attended a Gateway Voyage and mastered the Institute's techniques. Candidates were tested in the laboratory and invited back. Monroe admitted the earliest Explorers were simply people who were available and willing, and that screening came later. His conclusion was that anyone can be an Explorer if their value systems can be self-adjusted, which takes a lot of work and patience that most people lack. A shielded booth, a waterbed, no drugs
SOURCE CONTEXT
Explorer sessions
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The setting is consistent across the tapes. The Explorer lies in total darkness, usually on a temperature-controlled waterbed, in a soundproof booth shielded with copper sheet metal. A microphone sits close to the mouth, electrodes on the head, hands and feet report body states to the control room, and headphones carry Hemi-Sync tones. Monroe said he came to rely mainly on total body voltage, which needed only two or three electrodes, to read the Explorer's state. No drugs or medication were used. The monitor is half of every recording Every Explorer tape is the audio track of a conversation between the Explorer in the booth and a monitor in the control room. On the original series the monitor is Monroe; later sessions feature Rita Warren and Martin Warren. The monitor counts the Explorer through states, asks for detail, checks on comfort and relays questions to whatever the Explorer meets. Monroe compared the pair to two brains working together to draw information from the contact. Three patterns of contact
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