Gateway practices · 12 MIN READ · 7 SOURCE QUOTES
The Energy Bar Tool
The Energy Bar Tool is the fifth of the six exercises on Threshold, the second Gateway Experience album. In Focus 12 you imagine a small, intensely pulsating dot of light, charge it with energy until it pulses, and stretch it into a sparkling, vibrating cylinder: the bar. The publisher describes the exercise as a way to direct your nonphysical energies. What you end up with is an imagined instrument you can place, aim and carry.
The 1983 Army assessment of the Gateway Process, written by Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell, introduces the tool through magic wands, scepters, staffs and maces, which it treats as an archetypal symbol the human mind seems to appreciate. It says the participant uses the bar to channel force from the universe to selected parts of the body for healing and revitalization, and it gives two further uses: a whirling vortex as a portal for what it calls remote viewing, and application through the Living Body Map.
Laboratory transcripts show the tool in use. A June 1977 session summary has Monroe telling an Explorer to reach for the bar and charge it. In sessions from 1984 and 1988, Explorers recharged the bar, carried it with the Resonant Energy Balloon to Focus 15, placed their awareness inside it and used it as a pointer. Participants today report a range of uses, and some admit they mostly fall asleep. The sources collected here contain no controlled test of the report's healing or remote-viewing claims.
A Threshold exercise: charge a point of light in Focus 12, stretch it into a vibrating bar, and use it as an imagined pointer, applicator or vehicle.
Key points
The fifth exercise on Threshold
The Energy Bar Tool follows Color Breathing and comes before the Living Body Map. Threshold is voiced by Bob Monroe and packaged with a Guidance Manual. The publisher says the albums must be used in order because each builds on the tools of the one before, so the bar assumes you can reach Focus 12 and know the Gateway preparation. Its one-line purpose, in the publisher's words, is to direct your nonphysical energies.
How the bar is built
The Army report gives three steps. Envisage a small, intensely pulsating dot of light. Charge it in your imagination with enormous energy until it is virtually pulsating. Then extrude it into a sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy, which you use to channel force from the universe to selected parts of your body. On the album Bob Monroe's voice leads you through the sequence in Focus 12. The report does not give the size of the bar or say where it sits.
Charging it: one Explorer's method
In a June 1984 laboratory session an Explorer who had not recharged the tool in a long time reported shifting its colors up through the color system they were using to white, then blinking the bar on and off, slowly at first and then faster, until it held a continuous white. The Explorer then judged it charged. The report says only that the dot is charged until it pulses, so this is one personal way of getting there.
Three uses in the 1983 Army report
The assessment gives the bar three jobs. It channels force from the universe to selected parts of the body for healing and revitalization. It is a portal for what the report calls remote viewing, where the bar becomes a whirling vortex through which the participant sends imagination in search of new insights. And it is the applicator in the Living Body Map, which the report says provides amplification for using the bar on specific areas or systems of the body.
Already in use in Monroe's 1977 sessions
A summary of a June 1977 session with Bob Monroe records his instruction to "reach for your energy bar tool and charge it." The Explorer noted that this time the tool sat in the chest area rather than in the solar plexus or head, and that a shaking, vibrating feeling began. The tool was already part of Explorer sessions guided by Monroe six years before the Army report.
In lab sessions: a pointer and a vehicle
In a November 1988 session a monitor guided an Explorer to build the bar in Focus 12 and carry it with the Resonant Energy Balloon to Focus 15. In December 1988 a monitor had an Explorer set the bar in the center of the balloon, place awareness inside it (the Explorer likened that to a laser beam taking off), then use it as a pointer while asking about point of origin and human consciousness. In 1989 an Explorer reported cleaning an energy body map with the bar and noticed the stomach relax.
Trainers and participants use it differently
At a 1993 professional seminar the presenters described a weekend workshop for people living with HIV/AIDS that did the Energy Bar Tool and Living Body Map after dinner on the first day. One Explorer described pointing the bar at each of the chakras and putting a little more in. Podcaster Jordan Crowder describes resting one end of the bar on the part of his body he was working on and imagining energy pouring in through the other end like a funnel.
In their own words
Quotes are checked word for word against the recordings and documents they come from. Bracketed words correct transcription errors; “…” marks an omission.
“The energy bar tool technique involves envisaging [a] small, intensely pulsating dot of light which the participant charges in his imagination with enormous energy until it is virtually pulsating. The participant then extrudes the dot into the shape of a sparkling, vibrating cylinder of energy which he then uses to channel force from the universe to selected parts of his body for purposes of healing and revitalization.”
“In addition, the energy bar tool is used as a portal for initiating a follow-on technique called "remote viewing." In this context, the participant turns his bar of energy into a whirling vortex through which he sends his imagination in search of new and illuminating insights. The apparent purpose of the symbolism involved in the vortex seems to be to cue the subconscious and convey to it instructions as to what the participant wishes to do, but in terms of nonverbal symbols which the right hemisphere of the mind is capable of understanding.”
“Reach for your energy bar tool and charge it.”
“I've taken my energy bar tool, I brought the colors of it, I changed them from the colors of the mirror nine system, brought them up through those to white, then [blinked] it on and off. Slowly at first, gradually picking up the pace till the on-off was so fast that just became a continuous white, and so I believe it's charged.”
“Construct your energy bar tool, your energy [bar] tool. Now imagine your energy bar tool in the center of your resonant energy balloon, and then place your consciousness inside your energy [bar]. Now describe what you're experiencing.”
“And then I have discovered a little tool to enhance the energy coming in. I'm sure everyone else had. Okay, I use the energy bar tool, and I focus myself out. And I take the energy bar tool, and I point it to all the [chakras]. And I kind of put a little more in there. And then I kind of turn around and get back in. So easy.”
“Fond memories of this one, and by fond memories I mean I definitely fell asleep or, if you want to be romantic about it, clicked out for most of this meditation, anyway.”
Important things to consider
Come to it through Focus 12
The bar is built in Focus 12 and relies on the tools taught before it, so it works best after Introduction to Focus 12 and Color Breathing. The publisher says the albums must be used in sequence, and in the 1988 session where an Explorer built the bar, the monitor first guided the Explorer into Focus 12. Treat the earlier Threshold exercises as part of the technique.
Intensity and placement are personal
The report says to charge the dot until it is virtually pulsating; one Explorer got there by shifting the bar's colors up to white and blinking it faster and faster. Explorers also place the bar in different spots: the solar plexus, the head, the chest, the center of the Resonant Energy Balloon, or pointed at the chakras. The report specifies no position. Start with what the recording gives you, treat variations as personal, and do not force the image; straining works against the relaxed attention Focus 12 depends on.
Falling asleep is common
Drifting off is common with the Gateway tapes, including this one. A YouTuber who reads the report aloud admits he fell asleep for most of the exercise at a retreat, and the 1993 workshop presenters said participants were often so tired at the end of a long first day that they let them sleep through the Living Body Map. Listening when rested helps. A lapse is part of learning, not a failure.
Remote viewing here is the report's label
The report uses remote viewing for an imagination exercise: the bar becomes a vortex and the participant sends imagination through it in search of insights. As described there is no hidden target, no blinding and no scoring, which are features of structured protocols such as those used in Project Stargate. Jordan Crowder, who studied remote viewing with Joe McMoneagle at the Monroe Institute, says they never did this in that training. Read the term as a Gateway label, not a claim of equivalence.
What the report does and does not show
The assessment describes the exercise and explains it through symbolism and right-hemisphere communication. In its passages on the Energy Bar Tool it offers no trial, measurement or case study, and its statements about channeling force from the universe, healing and remote viewing are descriptions of the exercise's intended purposes, not findings. Explorer and participant accounts add experience, not verification.
A practice, not a treatment
The Energy Bar Tool is presented here as a practice and as participants' reports. The Army report describes it as a means of healing and revitalization, and some participants use it that way, but nothing in these sources shows that it treats any condition. Do not use it in place of medical care, and do not change or stop treatment because of it. The publisher advises consulting a medical professional before starting the Gateway Experience if you have a medical condition, a tendency toward seizures, an auditory disorder or an adverse mental condition, or take medication that affects your ability to relax.
Common questions
What is the Energy Bar Tool?
The Energy Bar Tool is the fifth exercise on Threshold, the second Gateway Experience album. In Focus 12 you imagine a small, intensely pulsating dot of light, charge it with energy until it pulses, and extend it into a sparkling, vibrating cylinder: the bar. The 1983 Army assessment describes it as a means to channel force from the universe to selected parts of the body for healing and revitalization, as a portal for what it calls remote viewing, and as the applicator in the Living Body Map. The publisher describes it as a way to direct your nonphysical energies. Monroe's laboratory sessions also used it as a pointer and a vehicle for awareness.
How do I make and use the Energy Bar Tool?
Work through Threshold in order so you can reach Focus 12 on cue, then play the Energy Bar Tool recording after the usual Gateway preparation. The report's version has three steps: envisage a small, intensely pulsating dot of light, charge it in your imagination with enormous energy until it is virtually pulsating, then extrude it into a sparkling, vibrating cylinder. One Explorer described charging the bar by bringing its colors up to white and blinking it on and off, faster and faster, until it held a continuous white. The bar is then directed where the exercise tells you: toward parts of the body, inside the Resonant Energy Balloon, or as a pointer. The recorded guidance gives the sequence and timing.
What does the 1983 Army report say about the Energy Bar Tool?
Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell's assessment begins with the folklore of magic wands, scepters, staffs and maces, which it reads as an archetypal symbol the human mind appreciates, perhaps subliminally. It describes the technique as envisaging a pulsating dot of light, charging it, and extruding it into a vibrating cylinder used to channel force from the universe to selected parts of the body for healing and revitalization. It adds that the bar is a portal for what it calls remote viewing, in which the bar becomes a whirling vortex, and that the Living Body Map amplifies the bar's application to specific areas or systems of the body.
Is the Energy Bar Tool the same as remote viewing?
No. The report uses the term for an imagination exercise: the participant turns the bar into a whirling vortex and sends his imagination through it in search of new and illuminating insights, a symbol that cues the subconscious in nonverbal terms. Structured remote viewing, as practiced in Project Stargate, works from a hidden target with blinded sessions and feedback, and the report's description contains none of those. Podcaster Jordan Crowder, who studied remote viewing with Joe McMoneagle at the Monroe Institute, says they never used the bar this way in that training. The two share a name, not a method.
Does the Energy Bar Tool heal the body?
The sources do not establish that it does. The Army report describes the bar as a channel for healing and revitalization, but its passages cite no study of the exercise. The evidence here is Explorer and participant reports, such as an Explorer who noted that a stomach relaxed after cleaning an energy body map with the bar, and facilitators who included the tool in a weekend workshop for people living with HIV/AIDS. Those are reports of a practice, not evidence of treatment. The bar does not replace medical care, and nothing about it should change how you take or stop any treatment.
Why do I fall asleep during the Energy Bar Tool exercise?
Falling asleep is common with the Gateway tapes, because they ask the body to relax deeply while the mind stays alert, and the old habit is to follow relaxation all the way into sleep. A YouTuber who reads the 1983 report aloud says he fell asleep, or clicked out, for most of the exercise at a retreat. The presenters of a 1993 workshop said participants were often so tired by the end of the first evening, when the Energy Bar Tool and Living Body Map were done, that they let them sleep. Listening when you are rested helps, and a lapse is not a failure.
Can I use the Energy Bar Tool without the recording?
Experienced practitioners do. Monroe told an Explorer in 1977 to reach for the bar and charge it, later monitors had Explorers build it during sessions, and one Explorer chose to recharge it in 1984. Another described pointing it at each chakra after the usual preparation. Podcaster Jordan Crowder says he taught himself the tool at home during the pandemic, while the Monroe Institute was closed, working from Monroe's books and material he found online. Even so, the Monroe Institute teaches the tool through the Threshold album and the publisher says the albums must be used in order, so the recording is the place to learn it first.
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