People & places · 12 MIN READ · 8 SOURCE QUOTES
Nancy "Scooter" McMoneagle
Nancy "Scooter" McMoneagle is Robert Monroe's stepdaughter and one of the few people who has seen the Monroe Institute from every side. Her mother, Nancy Penn, married Bob Monroe on February 6, 1971, the year Journeys Out of the Body came out. Scooter was already part of his experiments by then: at about fourteen and a half he put a reel-to-reel tape deck beside her bed, playing his early sounds with an affirmation on cue. She went on to be a booth subject and control-room operator at the Whistlefield lab, answered his fan mail, toured with the first traveling workshops, and served as his secretary and assistant.
In 1983 Monroe asked her back to run the place. By her account she was director for about seven and a half years, during which the operation went into the black for the first time and, on December 1, 1985, became the nonprofit Monroe Institute. She left in 1991 and spent what she calls a 23-year vacation running Intuitive Intelligence Applications with her husband, the remote viewer Joe McMoneagle, whom she met when the Army sent him to the Institute for training. A 2014 magazine profile introduced her as the Institute's recently appointed executive director and president.
That long view makes her the Institute's most-quoted living memory. Her talks and interviews explain how the Focus levels were worked out in the booth, why the first touring program was called the M5000, and how a farm laboratory became a residential campus. Her accounts are recollections told decades later, but they are first-hand, specific and consistent with the archive.
Monroe's stepdaughter: a teenage test subject at Whistlefield, director from 1983 to 1991, and the Institute's president again from 2014.
Key points
Family: Nancy Lee, called Scooter
Her given names are Nancy Lee; Tom Campbell, who knew her in the Whistlefield years, still calls her Nancy Lee to tell her apart from her mother, Nancy Penn. The nickname, she told a podcast in 2016, came from a woman who helped her mother and called the baby her "little scooter cake." Monroe was a family friend first. He was helping her mother with a book when the two fell for each other, and he became Scooter's stepfather in 1971. A.J. Honeycutt, later president of Monroe Products, is the brother she introduced as "my baby brother."
A teenage test subject
Scooter says her involvement started at about fourteen and a half, when Monroe put a tape deck next to her bed. The tapes carried relaxing sounds and, at the ding of a bell, an affirmation about knowing and understanding herself. A 2014 magazine profile adds that for her fifteenth birthday Monroe guided her into a deep state in which she had her first "free-floating peak experience," which she credits for her lifelong interest in the work.
Booth and control room at Whistlefield
When Monroe built Whistlefield Research Labs in a modular house, the first subjects were family and friends: Nancy Penn Monroe, Scooter, her siblings and anyone else willing. Monroe tuned the sounds from the control room while they lay in the booth, and he taught them to report aloud what was happening. Scooter later ran the control room herself. She recalls Monroe's rule never to leave anyone out more than 45 minutes, and putting Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the actor Eddie Albert through one-on-one lab sessions.
Fan mail, Esalen and the M5000
At Wittenberg University in Ohio, which Monroe suggested, she answered his fan mail for Journeys Out of the Body. She dates the first public program to 1973, when Monroe and engineer Bill Yost ran a round-the-clock weekend at Esalen in California. The touring workshops that followed were called the M5000, she says, because Bob wanted to train 5,000 people and hoped to find gifted out-of-body explorers and psychics among them. Campbell remembers the three of them, with Dennis Mennerich, hauling a sound harness to Boston and California.
Director from 1983 to 1991
After about four and a half years in publishing in the San Francisco Bay Area and a job with John Wiley and Sons that brought her back to Virginia, she was asked in 1983 to return as director. She says that while she ran the place Monroe was able to finish his second book, Far Journeys (1985), and that it went into the black for the first time on her watch. A 1990 Hemi-Sync Journal interview calls her "the director," and early-1990s mastheads list her as an editor of the journal.
From Whistlefield Research Labs to the Monroe Institute
Scooter is the clearest source on the name changes. Whistlefield Research Labs, always plural, became the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, and then the Monroe Institute. She dates the last step to December 1, 1985, when the Institute became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that could accept donations. A separate company, Interstate Industries, held the Hemi-Sync business; she jokes that the name came from Monroe's advice not to get caught in local traffic but to take the interstate.
Marriage to Joe McMoneagle
The 2014 Echo profile says she met Joe McMoneagle at the Institute when the Army sent him for training during the remote viewing program, and that she was once his trainer. She jokes that if Bob had waited, she could have told him she would marry one of the gifted people he was searching for. The couple run Intuitive Intelligence Applications; a 2017 podcast introduced her as having provided astrological services through the company.
The 23-year vacation and the return
She left the Institute in 1991 and returned more than two decades later. The 2014 profile calls her the recently appointed executive director and president, and she introduced Charles Tart at the Institute in 2015 and spoke for it in interviews and livestreams through 2018. In 2017 she described outreach trainers in about 30 countries offering weekend Excursion programs as a way into the longer residential courses.
Keeper of the record
Much of what is known about the early years comes through her: her 2014 Professional Seminar talk on the Institute's past, her interviews, and her help to researchers. A booklet of Miranon session transcripts that she assembled includes her drawing of the "Seven Resonant Colors," later reproduced in an edition assembled and commented by Daniel Erickson.
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.
“This is starting when I was 14 and a half years old, which is when I dove into this business with Mr. Monroe. He had put a reel to reel tape deck next to my bed. And on the tapes were these strange sounds that were interesting. They would help me relax, helped me go to sleep.”
“Bob would be in the control room doing this; we were all in the booth. And we all being Nancy Penn Monroe, my siblings, friends, anybody who could bring in. We were all guinea pigs. And we were listening to these, and he taught us how to report what was going on.”
“The reason it was 5000 is Bob wanted to train 5000 people. And he was hoping to find some good out of body explorers, some good [psychics], some good people who had talent in these areas. And if he just waited, I would have told him I was going to marry one later on in life.”
“And in 1983, Bob Monroe … asked me to come back as the director. So I did. I came back as a director for about seven and a half years. Bob was able to finish his second book, and I was able, while he was writing his book, to be a good director of the place. We got it into the black for the first time.”
“So December 1, 1985, we became the Monroe Institute. Now, you have to understand [there are] a bunch of names in between time: [Whistlefield] Research Labs, then became Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, then became the Monroe Institute.”
“I had the great fortune of, they say, being involved with the Institute since the outset, and I took a break for a while. They call it my, quote unquote, 23 year vacation, when I had left the Institute back in 1991. And my husband Joe McMoneagle and I have our own company, Intuitive Intelligence Applications.”
“In another 6 months after that, myself and Dennis and, at that time, Nancy Lee [Honeycutt], is called Scooter, that's Bob's stepdaughter, and Dennis and I, we were on the road. We were going to Boston and we were going to California.”
“I want the Monroe Institute to continue to be a world leader in consciousness exploration and education, and, as Bob Monroe envisioned with this work, to bring something of value to contemporary culture.”
Important things to consider
Two Nancys, and a few more names
Her mother, Nancy Penn Monroe, was Bob's wife and is the Nancy of the Nancy Penn Center. Scooter is Nancy Lee by birth and Nancy McMoneagle by marriage; transcripts also render her surname a dozen ways. When a source says "Nancy" in the 1970s or 1980s, check which one is meant before drawing conclusions.
Her accounts are memories, told decades later
Most of what she says about the 1970s comes from talks and interviews given in 2014 to 2018. The details are specific and match other sources, such as Campbell's account of the touring workshops and the journals' references to her as director. Small differences are normal: she says her involvement began at fourteen and a half, while a magazine profile describes a session on her fifteenth birthday.
Founding dates depend on what you count
Her date of December 1, 1985 is when the nonprofit Monroe Institute was formed. The Institute's own pages date its creation to 1971 and 1973, and a 1985 radio biography says Monroe founded the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences in 1973. These are different steps in one history, not contradictions to resolve.
She speaks as an insider
Scooter is family, a former employee and a former president. That makes her the best source on what happened in the lab and the office, and a less neutral one on how the Institute should be judged. Read her history alongside independent researchers and the Institute's critics when weighing claims about results.
Her husband is a separate story
Joe McMoneagle's remote viewing work belongs to the Army program and his own books. Scooter's role is the Institute's: training, administration and leadership. Their shared company did both kinds of work, but her own record at the Institute stands on its own.
Current leadership has moved on
The sources here show her as president from about 2014 and speaking for the Institute through 2018. They do not give the date she stepped down. The Institute's website now lists Allyn Evans as chief executive officer. Check the Institute's own pages for current leadership.
This site is independent
Gateway Explorer is not affiliated with the Monroe Institute or with the McMoneagles. It summarizes their public talks, interviews and the Institute's journals, and leaves out private family matters that the sources do not address.
Common questions
Who is Scooter McMoneagle?
Nancy "Scooter" McMoneagle is Robert Monroe's stepdaughter and a longtime leader of the Monroe Institute. Her mother, Nancy Penn, married Monroe in 1971. As a teenager she was one of the first subjects in his sound experiments, then a booth subject and control-room operator at the Whistlefield lab, his assistant, and a member of the first touring workshop team. She was the Institute's director from 1983 to 1991, left to run a company with her husband, the remote viewer Joe McMoneagle, and returned around 2014 as executive director and president. Today she is best known as the Institute's living memory of its early years.
How was Scooter related to Robert Monroe?
She is his stepdaughter. Monroe was a friend of her family and was helping her mother, Nancy Penn, write a book when the two became a couple; they married on February 6, 1971. Scooter describes him as a mentor and friend before he became her stepfather, and says he was already playing her tapes of his early sounds when she was about fourteen and a half. A 2014 profile calls her mother the Institute's co-founder, and the Nancy Penn Center on the campus carries her name. A.J. Honeycutt, later president of Monroe Products, is Scooter's brother.
What did Scooter do at the Monroe Institute?
Almost everything. In the Whistlefield years she was a test subject in the booth, ran the control room for visitors' sessions, answered Monroe's fan mail and traveled with the first workshops. From 1983 to about 1991 she was director, a period in which she says the Institute went into the black for the first time and became a nonprofit on December 1, 1985. In the early 1990s she was also an editor of the Hemi-Sync Journal. After a long break she came back as executive director and president around 2014 and spoke for the Institute in podcasts and events.
Why is she called Scooter?
She explained it on a 2016 podcast. Her mother, her aunt and a cousin were all named Nancy. A woman who helped her mother with the children called the baby her "little scooter cake," a sweet cake, and the name stuck. People often assume it means she was always scooting around with high energy, but she says that was not the origin. Friends from the early years, such as Tom Campbell, also call her Nancy Lee, her first and middle names, to distinguish her from her mother.
How did Scooter meet Joe McMoneagle?
According to a 2014 magazine profile, they met at the Monroe Institute when the Army sent Joe there for training during its remote viewing program. The training helped him control the spontaneous out-of-body experiences he had been having since a near-death experience in 1970. The profile says Scooter was once his trainer. She jokes that Monroe's first touring workshop was meant to find gifted psychics among 5,000 trainees, and that she could have told him she would marry one. The couple later ran their own company, Intuitive Intelligence Applications.
What was the M5000?
It was the name of Monroe's first traveling workshop, in the years after Journeys Out of the Body made him well known. Scooter says Bob called it the M5000 because he wanted to train 5,000 people, hoping to find good out-of-body explorers and psychics among them. Tom Campbell remembers the team, himself, Dennis Mennerich and Scooter, building a sound harness so a whole group could lie on air mattresses wearing headphones, and taking it to Boston and California. That traveling format grew into the residential Gateway Voyage.
Is Scooter McMoneagle still running the Monroe Institute?
The sources here show her as executive director and president from about 2014 and speaking in that role through at least 2018. They do not record when she stepped down. The Institute's website now lists Allyn Evans as chief executive officer, so check the Institute's own pages for current leadership. Her husband, Joe McMoneagle, has continued to teach remote viewing at the Institute.
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