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Far Journeys (1985)
Far Journeys is Robert Monroe's second book, published by Doubleday in 1985, fourteen years after Journeys Out of the Body. It picks up where the first book left off, but the center of gravity moves. Instead of a lone businessman learning to leave his body, Monroe now writes as the head of a research institute. He covers his own later explorations, the development of Hemi-Sync and the Gateway program, the Focus levels, and what the laboratory's Explorers reported when they seemed to make contact with nonhuman intelligences.
It is also where much of Monroe's best-known and strangest vocabulary first appears in print: nonverbal communication (NVC), the "rote" (a dense bundle of information received all at once), M-band noise, the INSPECs who acted as his guides, the time-space illusion, the Earth Life System, and loosh, the energy he was told that living things, and humans above all, produce and that others harvest. Later chapters describe a visit to a far-future Earth and "the Gathering," a great assembly of intelligences around the planet.
Readers find it harder going than the first book: denser, more allegorical and written partly in Monroe's own coined terms. Joseph Felser, a philosopher who later took the Gateway Voyage, wrote that much of it made sense to him only as allegory, yet it still struck a deep chord. The loosh chapter in particular has taken on a life of its own online, often far from what Monroe or the people who knew him meant by it.
Monroe's 1985 second book moves from his own OBEs to the lab's Explorers, nonverbal communication, INSPECs, loosh and the Gathering.
Key points
From one man's OBEs to an institute's findings
Journeys Out of the Body is a personal diary. Far Journeys reads more like a report from a laboratory and a school. Monroe describes how his own out-of-body work led to experiments with sound, to Hemi-Sync, to the Gateway program and to the Explorer sessions, in which trained volunteers in the lab booth described contacts with intelligences that seemed to be from elsewhere. Monroe's own explorations still run through the book, but they now sit alongside those of a team.
Focus levels replace the locales
The first book mapped its territory as Locales I, II and III. Far Journeys introduces readers to the numbered Focus levels the Institute was teaching, such as Focus 10, mind awake and body asleep, and Focus 12, expanded awareness, along with states further out. This is the vocabulary Gateway listeners still use today.
Nonverbal communication is the core idea
Monroe insists that every other intelligent species he or the Explorers encountered communicates nonverbally, and that words are a narrow and partial way of tuning in to a much fuller exchange. He calls it NVC and distinguishes it from body language and ordinary ideas of telepathy. On The Questline radio show the month the book appeared, he told listeners that nonverbal communication was how these contacts worked, and that the new book was where he had set down what they had to say.
Rotes, M-band noise and a new vocabulary
To describe what he experienced, Monroe coined terms and gathered them in a glossary. A rote is a compact ball of thought that unpacks into a whole body of knowledge. The M-band is the spectrum of thought, and M-band noise is the din of uncontrolled human thinking that can disorient anyone traveling near Earth. These terms recur throughout the book and much of later Monroe literature.
The INSPECs
INSPEC is Monroe's shorthand for intelligent species: radiant, highly developed beings who appear in the book as his guides and teachers. In a later talk he recalled asking one of them to show him the INSPECs' own state, and feeling a flow of warmth, friendliness and love moving toward it. He said that from that moment becoming like them became his goal. In Ultimate Journey he returned to these contacts in the light of his idea of the I-There.
Loosh, the book's most famous chapter
In one chapter Monroe reports receiving a rote that told the story of Earth as a garden created to produce loosh, an energy given off by living things and refined through emotion, from love and friendship to pain and fear, which other beings collect. He writes that it took him months to come to terms with it. Tom Campbell, who worked with Monroe in the lab years, recalls that Bob came to him disturbed by the experience right after it happened, and believes Monroe turned a message about growth and love into a farming metaphor.
Earth life as a time-space illusion
Far Journeys treats physical existence as the time-space illusion, or TSI, a school where consciousness gathers experience it cannot get elsewhere (Monroe later called the whole arrangement the Earth Life System). Monroe tells this partly as a parable of two visitors from a place called KT-95 who drop into human life out of curiosity and discover how strongly it holds on to those who enter it. The idea that people come here to learn, and can eventually graduate, runs through his later work.
The Gathering and a far-future Earth
Near the end of the book Monroe describes a journey to a far-future Earth and a chapter called the Gathering, in which he perceives a vast assembly of intelligences converging around the planet to witness a coming event. Bruce Moen notes that Monroe later associated this region with Focus 34/35, and Institute Focus-level material describes Focus 34 as the area of the Gathering. It is one of the most discussed parts of the book.
Not a technique manual
Readers of the first book wanted instructions, and Far Journeys mostly does not give them. Monroe told a 1985 caller that there were no out-of-body techniques in the new book, because the skill takes the kind of training and discipline a concert violinist needs. The main practical material is an affirmation exercise: saying the Gateway affirmation silently as you drift toward sleep, then switching to stating it nonverbally. For structured practice, Monroe pointed people to the Institute's programs and tapes.
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.
“There are no techniques in the new book, because we have found through the years that is something that requires as much training and discipline as one would be, say, if one wanted to be an accomplished violinist, for example.”
“"Can you commune with them in language in any way?" "It's what we call nonverbal communication." "But you do get the message?" "Oh, yes, very much so." "Well, are you going to write a book and tell us anything about your experiences and what they have to say about our world?" "We have done that with this new book."”
“I said, well, could I get into your [INSPEC] land, or [your INSPEC] state, just a little bit? And he, she said, "Oh, sure." And he took me over to this place, and here was this flow of intense warmth, friendliness, love, beings moving in this direction, and they were all heading for this [INSPEC] land. I think I wrote about that in Far Journeys, and that became my goal immediately from that on, because of the tremendous sense of unity that was expressing itself within that flow moving into [INSPEC] land.”
“When he had this experience he talked to me right after, because he was kind of disturbed by it, and that was the idea of [loosh].”
“It's a thing that Bob did, and, and what he said is that we are now producers of [loosh]. [Loosh] was probably a very bad rendition of love.”
“In Monroe's second book, Far Journeys, he talked about this area that he called the Gathering. And he described that you could, you could think of the Gathering as if we have the Earth here, this nice round spherical Earth, but somewhere way out here there's another sort of spherical shell around the Earth that defines an area of consciousness that he, he called the Gathering, later on came to describe as Focus 34/35.”
“I have Far Journeys here, Robert Monroe's second book. It's an amazing book. It's a bit darker than his first and third, which get pretty dark.”
Important things to consider
Read Journeys Out of the Body first
Far Journeys assumes you know Monroe's story: the vibrations, the second body, his years of private research. Without that background, its jumps into rotes, INSPECs and Explorer contacts can feel arbitrary. The first book is also easier going and shows the skeptical, self-questioning voice that makes the later material easier to weigh.
Much of it reads as allegory
Monroe reports conversations with nonhuman beings in his own invented shorthand, and some sections, such as the story of the visitors from KT-95, read as parables. Many careful readers, including Joseph Felser, take parts of the book as allegory rather than literal description. That does not mean Monroe was inventing; it means the book is a translation of nonverbal experience into words, which Monroe himself said is always partial.
Loosh is easily misread
The loosh chapter is often quoted online as proof that Earth is a prison planet farmed by hostile beings. Monroe's own account is more complicated, and he describes struggling with it for months. Tom Campbell, who knew him well, believes Monroe misinterpreted a message about growth and love. Read the chapter in the context of the whole book, and of Ultimate Journey, before deciding what it means.
Explorer contacts are reports
The book draws on the laboratory's Explorer sessions, in which participants described contacts with what seemed to be other intelligences. These are reports made in a deep relaxed state with a monitor guiding them. They are fascinating records, but they are not independent confirmation. The Explorers are identified by code, and those codes are not real identities.
The map keeps changing
The locales of the first book give way here to Focus levels, rings and other terms, and Ultimate Journey redraws the map again with belief system territories and the I-There. Treat each book as a stage in Monroe's thinking rather than expecting one fixed cosmology across all three.
Online readings add their own layers
Popular YouTube book reports read chapters of Far Journeys aloud and connect them to Anunnaki, Nordic aliens, Atlantis and similar themes. Those links are the presenters' interpretations, not Monroe's. If a claim matters to you, check it against the book itself.
It is not a how-to book
If you want to practice, the Gateway Experience and the Institute's programs are the structured route Monroe built. Far Journeys explains why he built them and what his team found, but by his own account it does not teach out-of-body techniques.
Common questions
What is Far Journeys about?
Far Journeys is Robert Monroe's second book, published in 1985. Where his first book recorded his own out-of-body experiences, this one widens out to the work of his institute: the development of Hemi-Sync and Gateway, the Focus levels, and the Explorer sessions in which lab participants described contacts with nonhuman intelligences. It introduces nonverbal communication, rotes, M-band noise, the INSPECs who guided Monroe, the idea of physical life as a time-space illusion within the Earth Life System, and loosh. It ends with a visit to a far-future Earth and the Gathering, an assembly of intelligences around the planet. Monroe said on radio that the book was where he set down what these contacts had to say.
What is loosh in Far Journeys?
Loosh is the name Monroe gives to an energy he was told living things produce, especially through emotion, from love and friendship to pain and fear. In the book he receives a rote, a compressed packet of information, describing Earth as a garden created to grow loosh, which other beings collect. He writes that it took months to come to terms with it. Tom Campbell, who worked with Monroe, recalls that Bob was disturbed when he first told him about it, and thinks loosh was probably a poor rendering of love: a message about growth that Monroe turned into a farming metaphor. Many readers today treat the chapter as a parable rather than literal fact.
What are INSPECs?
INSPEC is Monroe's short form of intelligent species. In Far Journeys they are radiant, highly developed nonphysical beings who appear as his guides and teachers, communicating with him nonverbally and delivering rotes of information. In a later talk Monroe recalled asking one to show him the INSPECs' own state, and feeling a flow of intense warmth, friendliness and love moving toward it. He said that experience made becoming like them his goal. In Ultimate Journey he revisited these contacts in the light of his concept of the I-There, the larger self of which a person is one part.
What is the Gathering in Far Journeys?
The Gathering is a chapter near the end of Far Journeys in which Monroe describes perceiving a vast number of intelligences, from many places, assembled around Earth to observe a coming event. Bruce Moen describes it as a spherical shell of consciousness surrounding the planet, which Monroe later associated with Focus 34/35. Institute Focus-level material likewise describes Focus 34 as the area of the Gathering. It is one of the most discussed chapters of the book. As with the rest of Far Journeys, it is Monroe's report of his own experience, not something independently confirmed.
Is Far Journeys harder to read than Journeys Out of the Body?
Yes, for most people. The first book is a straightforward first-person account. Far Journeys mixes reports, laboratory sessions, dialogues with nonhuman beings and parables, much of it in terms Monroe coined, and it relies on a glossary. One popular YouTube reader calls it a bit darker than the other two books. The philosopher Joseph Felser wrote that much of it made sense to him only as allegory, yet it still struck a deep chord. Read Journeys Out of the Body first, take Far Journeys slowly, and expect parts of it to make more sense on a second reading.
Does Far Journeys teach how to have an out-of-body experience?
No. Monroe told a radio caller in 1985 that there were no techniques in the new book, because the skill takes as much training and discipline as becoming an accomplished violinist. The book does include an affirmation exercise, saying the Gateway affirmation in your mind as you drift toward sleep and then switching to stating it nonverbally, but its main purpose is to report what Monroe and his Explorers found. For structured practice, Monroe pointed people to the Gateway Experience and the Institute's residential programs.
In Monroe’s books
Summarized in our own words; the books are not reproduced on this site.
Far Journeys. Monroe argues that every other intelligent species communicates without words, and treats spoken language as a narrow, partial tuning of a much fuller exchange.
Far Journeys. After the loosh rote, Monroe says he needed months to absorb it, moving through a sequence of reactions, from shock to acceptance, that he likened to how people respond on learning they are dying.
Far Journeys. The book's sleep practice uses the Gateway affirmation: you say it silently in words as sleep approaches, then shift to expressing it nonverbally, as a mental act.
Far Journeys. Monroe tells of two visitors from KT-95 who sample Earth life on a TSI cruise and find out how strongly human experience holds on to those who enter it.
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Connected ideas
Books & records
Journeys Out of the Body (1971)
Monroe's 1971 record of his first twelve years out of the body: the vibrations, the second body, and Locales I, II and III.
Read the summary →13 min · 8 quotes · 7 answersBooks & records
Ultimate Journey (1994)
Monroe's last book, from 1994: the I-There, the Park, retrievals and the after-death territories behind Lifeline and Exploration 27.
Read the summary →12 min · 8 quotes · 7 answersBig ideas
Loosh
Loosh is the energy Far Journeys says life gives off and collectors harvest: a story of Earth as a garden that shook Monroe and still divides readers.
Read the summary →12 min · 8 quotes · 6 answersBig ideas
INSPECs: the intelligent species
Monroe's name for the non-physical beings who guided his later journeys: first taken for aliens, later understood as part of his own larger self.
Read the summary →11 min · 8 quotes · 6 answersBig ideas
Nonverbal communication in Explorer accounts
Communication without words: whole meanings and experiences received directly, which Explorers then have to translate into speech for the monitor.
Read the summary →11 min · 7 quotes · 6 answersStates of awareness
The Gathering: Focus 34–35
Monroe's name for an assembly of nonhuman presences watching Earth, placed by the Institute at Focus 34/35 and explored only in advanced programs.
Read the summary →12 min · 6 quotes · 7 answers