The monitor sits in the control room, hears the Explorer through the microphone and speaks back through the headphones. The job has four parts: guiding the Explorer into Focus 10, Focus 12 and beyond; asking for descriptions and relaying questions to whatever the Explorer meets; feeding Hemi-Sync signals and adjusting sounds; and watching the gauges and the Explorer's comfort. At the end the monitor brings the Explorer back with a count, sometimes a signal, and a debrief. Was Monroe always the monitor? On the original Explorer Series tapes the monitor is Monroe, who introduces them in the first person and describes the monitor as himself or another staff member. Rita Warren, who coordinated the Explorer work, and Martin Warren, who says he monitored many sessions, introduce and appear on later tapes. Transcripts of other sessions label the monitor's lines Monitor, with a first name, or not at all, so a name on a line is not enough to say who ran a session. What happened if an Explorer got into trouble in the booth?
SOURCE CONTEXT
The monitor's role in an Explorer session
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The monitor watched the gauges and could send staff in. Monroe describes a session in which every life-support reading dropped to nothing for about two and a half minutes and he was heading into the booth when the readings returned. Smaller interventions appear too: monitors add a grounding signal to help an Explorer return, and in one session an Explorer who asked for someone to come in was told staff would be right there. The Explorer had a microphone close to the mouth and could speak to the control room. How did the monitor bring an Explorer back? By count and by voice. A typical closing asks the Explorer to come back to the region of Focus 10, take their time and let the monitor know when they arrive. The monitor then guides a return to ordinary waking consciousness, alert and full of energy, with a count from 10 to one and sometimes a short beta signal to help. Some monitors also offer a grounding signal, check that the Explorer feels centered and ask where the Explorer would like to hold the debrief. Did the monitor's questions shape what Explorers said?
Often, and the transcripts show it. In one 1984 session a communicator told the monitor that a question about how life entered the universe was built on a false distinction, and the monitor restated it. The communicator said such basic ideas require questions to be redirected for the answer to make sense. A monitor may also hold back: one explained that the Explorer was in such a good flow that they chose not to risk stopping it. Reading what the monitor said just before an answer shows what the Explorer was responding to. Do I need a monitor to explore consciousness myself? Not for the Gateway Experience, which is self-guided: recorded narration and Hemi-Sync do the monitor's guiding. Explorer sessions were laboratory work with a monitor because the Explorer was talking to the control room, being measured and sometimes in contact with other beings. The Institute's lab still runs personal resource exploration sessions in the booth with a monitor in the control room, a Monroe Institute leader said on a 2017 podcast. A communicator in one 1985 session said progress without the equipment is possible. Is an Explorer monitor the same as a remote viewing monitor?