Reflections on the Gateway Process Document
Exploring the Remote Viewing Techniques of the Monroe Institute
The following article will be a little different than usual, and regular readers may decide to pass on this one. Instead of an essay making any specific claims, I am here simply remarking on a document that has been brought to my attention by a number of my friends and colleagues engaged in the field of parapsychology and remote viewing. The following will contain some speculation and “connecting the dots,” but it should not be read as me taking a firm position on any of the ideas.1
The document in question is a briefing delivered to the US Army’s Fort Meade remote viewing unit. The document was produced in 1983 and declassified in 2003, which can be found online here.
The briefing is centered on the Monroe Institute’s theory and practice of “The Gateway Experience”—a method of inducing altered states of consciousness and accessing higher states of awareness, such as out-of-body travel and remote viewing. The Fort Meade unit, it would seem, was interested to know whether or not the Monroe Institute had something of value on their hands. The author of the briefing seemed to think so, and below I will share some of my initial impressions of the document. Of course, these reflections are incomplete, so I may return to this study in the future for further thoughts.
The Metaphysics of Consciousness
Our consciousness, therefore, is that differentiated aspect of the universal consciousness which resides within the Absolute. It accounts for the organization of the energy patterns which constitute our physical body but is distinctly separate from and superior to it. Since consciousness exists quite apart from and outside of reality, beyond the bounds of time-space, it, like the Absolute, has neither beginning nor end. Reality has both a beginning and an end because it is bounded within time-space, but the fundamental quantum of energy and its associated consciousness is eternal. When reality ends, its constituent energy simply returns to infinity in the Absolute. (p. 18)
This (along with other sections) reads like a scientific model of classic Hindu metaphysics. Our own consciousness (atman) is a manifestation of the Absolute infinite consciousness (Brahman). We are all connected to it by nature (and thereby connected to all created things). Part of the goal of Hinduism is the attainment of perfect being, awareness, and bliss (sat, chit, ananda). This model seems to explain the chit aspect of enlightenment (awareness/knowledge). The term “Akashic records,” as popularized by Theosophists, sometimes comes into this discussion. One can enter an altered state of consciousness to access the “universal library” of every datum in time-space-history.
The conceptual idea of “tapping into” some sort of “soup of consciousness” is not inherently repugnant to me. I am just unsure as to how one could connect the dots as to the mechanics of the whole thing. How, for instance, does the consciousness know “where to look” in such an altered state? How is this infinite knowledge “indexed”? I’m also completely unqualified to comment on the underlying scientific models based on quantum physics. I don’t know how much is established consensus and how much is speculation or inference. This is why I haven’t attempted to make too many inferences myself beyond what spiritual masters have experienced and some basic theological concepts, like the spiritual component of human beings (which relates to words like “pneuma,” “psychic,” “noetic,” etc.).
Religious Frameworks
The author of the document claims that the metaphysical model employed by the Gateway Experience can be found in “virtually every religious system of antiquity, whether of eastern or western derivation” (p. 25). While this is an overstatement, there are some Christian theological paradigms that could be adapted to this model, with some clarifications. In Chapter 4 of my own book, I cite comments from C.S. Lewis, where he comments on the interconnectedness of all created things along a metaphysical “web”. The Lewis devotee Peter Kreeft (who fancies himself “both Catholic and Protestant”) goes even further in this direction of universal awareness in his book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven. Below I will include a few of his statements to give an idea of how Kreeft makes these connections.
On sat, chit, ananda in Christian theology:
“Light, life, and love”; sat, chit, and ananda; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—Johannine imagery. Hindu theology of the attributes of Brahman, and Christian Trinitarian dogma all agree on the three ultimate realities and ultimate values. They also happen to be the three primary human needs. (Of course; we are designed “in the image of God”, designed like a glove to fit a hand.) (p. 180)
On the assimilation of all experiences into our awareness:
If this hypostatic union with nature is one of our natural desires, and if “no natural desire is in vain”, then this desire is not in vain but destined for fulfillment. The pagan dream is fulfilled in the Christian reality . . . . Another reason for this total stretching of the spirit is our task of thoroughly understanding every other soul that God created. Since every soul assimilates a different part and aspect of nature as part of its earthly experience, we would have to assimilate all experienced nature to fulfill this “Communion of Saints.” (pp. 108–109)
On the “permanent record” of all information in eternity:
in Heaven every event is remembered forever. It becomes one of the billions of pictures in God’s museum—rather, God’s zoo, for they are alive there, not dead—open to inspection with no deadlines and with total understanding. (p. 188)
On ecstasy (an altered state of consciousness) as a means of accessing eternity:
The presence of eternity in time explains this experience [ecstasy], for when we transcend ourselves we transcend time too. For time-consciousness and ego-consciousness are two sides of the same coin. (pp. 189–190)
The inimitable Kreeft—like his heroes C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams—is famous for his “love of both orthodoxy and wild speculation.”2 Whether his imaginative statements are truly legitimate, or whether they are mere idiosyncrasies, is up for debate. But Kreeft does offer some plausible points of overlap between a Christian cosmology and the metaphysical framework presented by the Gateway Process.
Removing Energy Blockages
The Gateway Experience attempts to “unblock” barriers to energy in the subject’s body. This calls to mind the Hindu techniques of opening the chakras.
use the insights gained to release anxieties and stresses within both the mind and the body. These points of energy blockage seem to provide the principal barriers to achieving the enhanced energy states and focus of mind needed for rapid progression. (p. 26)
And on the next page:
Encourage pursuit of full self knowledge by all individuals involved in the foregoing experiments to enhance objectivity in out-of-body observation and thinking, and to remove personal energy blockages likely to retard rapid progress. (p. 27)
This “unblocking” is performed through techniques of hypnosis, autohypnosis, biofeedback, and other trappings related to altered states of consciousness. There may be some overlap with the Wiesinger Hypothesis (on the “loosening of the soul”) that I have written about previously:
Holograms & Thought Forms
The notion that consciousness is fundamental to reality leads to the idea that our intentions (conscious and unconscious) can create present and future realities. These are variously called “holograms” or “thought forms.” Kyriacos Markides, a lifelong student of esoteric mystical traditions, calls them “elementals”:
Thoughts and feelings have power, literally. Just like everything else within Creation, thought and feelings are Mind. In the same way that the Absolute God through Mind creates the worlds . . ., we as present personalities create elementals.3
Markides speaks of elementals as “objective realities” which, when once created, “will have an existence independent of my consciousness” and which “can be seen by psychic sight” or “felt by the sensitive.”4
Back to the Gateway Experience document:
Energy creates, stores and retrieves meaning in the universe by projecting or expanding at certain frequencies in a three dimensional mode that creates a living pattern called a hologram. (p. 7)
This concept is elaborated later in the document:
Patterning. This technique involves use of the consciousness to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere. It involves concentration on the desired objective while in a Focus 12 state, extension of the individual’s perception of that objective into the whole expanded consciousness, and its projection into the universe with the intention that the desired objective is already a matter of established achievement which is destined to be realized within the time frame specified. This particular methodology is based on the belief that the thought patterns generated by our consciousness in a state of expanded awareness create holograms which represent the situation we desire to bring about and, in so doing, establish the basis for actual realization of that goal. Once the thought-generated hologram of the sought after objective is established in the universe it becomes an aspect of reality which interacts with the universal hologram to bring about the desired objective which might not, under other circumstances, ever occur. In other words, the technique of patterning recognizes the fact that since consciousness is the source of all reality, our thoughts have the power to influence the development of reality in time-space as it applies to us if those thoughts can be projected with adequate intensity. (p. 20)
These thought forms or holograms, so it is claimed, can be seen and encountered in the out-of-body state:
In addition, since thoughts are the product of energy patterns, and energy patterns are reality, it may also be possible that individuals encounter thought forms while in an out-of-body state which mingle with physical reality and are not easily differentiated. . . . Some of the distortions occurring may ultimately prove to be traceable to this cause because in the out-of-body state an individual may perceive the holographic energy patterns given off by people or things interacting in time-space reality in a somewhat distorted form. (p. 24)
The notion that humans can create entities or influences through their consciousness is an idea that has been around for a long time. From the tulpas of Tibetan religion to the archetypes of Carl Jung, to the Philip Psychokinesis Experiments, to (arguably) the logismoi of Athonite Christian spirituality,5 there is a vast amount of data pointing to the idea that the mind qua mind can create “thought forms.”
Furthermore, the idea that these thought forms can distort perception of reality while in an out-of-body state jibes with the idea that “telepathic overlay” often contaminates remote viewing sessions. Ingo Swann writes:
In the contexts of remote viewing, telepathic overlay would introduce into the responses of a remote viewer a kind of dirty-data contamination originating in the mind of someone else.
The pathway for the contamination probably would not be a conscious one, but a subconscious one.
Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs)
Teachers of the Gateway Experience acknowledge the possibility of running into other “intelligences” or “entities” while in an out-of-body or altered state. This is cause for enough concern that they recommend procedures for self-protection:
The “energy balloon” . . . not only enhances bodily energy flow and encourages early achievement of a suitable resonant state but it is also designed to provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels which the participant might encounter in the event that he achieves an out-of-body state. It serves a precautionary purpose in the unlikely event that the participant’s first out-of-body experience involves direct projection outside the terrestrial sphere. (p. 19)
And at the end of the document:
Be intellectually prepared to react to possible encounters with intelligent, non-corporal energy forms when time-space boundaries are exceeded. (p. 27)
As a Christian, part of me wants to respond by saying No duh! One is tempted to quote from Saint Anthony’s famous out-of-body vision:
Once, about the ninth hour, when he had stood up to pray before eating, he felt himself carried away in spirit, and, incredible as it may seem, as he stood he saw himself from outside himself, as it were, being guided through the air by certain beings; then he saw malign and terrifying beings stationed in the air who were endeavoring to hinder his passage . . . . he was astonished to see against how many enemies we wrestle, and with what great difficulties we have to pass through the air (Athanasius, Life of Anthony 65)
The astral realm is nothing to be trifled with.
Sleep
The documents makes some statements about the relationship of REM sleep with astral activity:
most if not all people reputedly go into an out-of-body state during REM sleep. REM sleep is the deepest possible level of ordinary sleep . . . . memory of what was achieved in the altered states of consciousness cannot usually be retrieved (p. 23)
While I’m not sure these statements can withstand scientific scrutiny, it is notable that a large percentage of premonitions and after-death communications occur in REM sleep. Alois Wiesinger himself incorporated sleep states into his own hypothesis for paranormal phenomena.
Overall Impression
My overall impression of this briefing document is that the Gateway Experience likely does “work” to bring about the requisite altered states to manifest psi phenomena, although it could be disputed as to whether it works for everyone as implied (e.g., the veteran parapsychologist Edwin May would take issue with that claim).
The metaphysical questions are somewhat beyond me, but they do provide a conceptual framework that one can suggest to the subconscious in an effort to attain extrasensory knowledge. Whether or not that metaphysical model is ontologically true is another matter.
Lastly, my own interest largely lies in whether a training procedure like this is safe for the mind/consciousness/psyche/nous/pneuma. Based on some of the document’s acknowledgments about the risks of the astral realm and encountering intelligent entities, there seems to be an element of “playing with fire” involved.
I should also make the disclaimer that the Monroe Institute has likely modified and improved their techniques in the 40 years since this briefing was written.
George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, 2nd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 1994), 295 (emphasis mine).
Kyriacos Markides, Riding with the Lion: In Search of Mystical Christianity (New York: Penguin, 1995), 47.
Markides, Riding with the Lion, 48.
Kyriacos Markides, The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality (New York: Doubleday, 2001), Chapter 9.