At first Monroe’s “journeys” were to recognizable places on earth — nearby places in the beginning, then places farther away — with some successful attempts to bring back actual evidence of the experiences. Then he began to contact “ghost-like” figures, the first contact being as part of a mediumistic experiment (the “Indian guide” sent by the medium actually came for him! —p. 52). Finally, he began to enter into contact with strange landscapes seemingly not of earth.
Taking detailed notes on his experiences (which he recorded as soon as he returned to the body), he categorized them all as belonging to three “locales”: “Locale I” is the “here-now,” the normal this-worldly environment. “Locale II” is a “non-material” environment seemingly immense, with characteristics identical with those of the “astral plane.” This locale is the “natural environment” of the “Second Body,” as Monroe calls the entity that travels in this realm; it “interpenetrates” the physical world, and its laws are those of thought: “as you think, so you are,” “like attracts like,” in order to travel one need only think of one’s destination. Monroe visited various “places” in this realm, where he saw such things as a group of people wearing long robes in a narrow valley (p. 81), and a number of uniformed people who called themselves a “target army” waiting for assignments (p. 82). “Locale III” is a seemingly earth-like reality that is, however, unlike anything known on this earth, with strangely anachronistic features; Theosophists would probably understand this as just another more “solid” part of the “astral plane.”
After largely overcoming his initial feeling of fear when finding himself in these unknown realms, Monroe began to explore them and to describe the many intelligent beings he encountered there. On some “journeys” he encountered “dead” friends and conversed with them, but more often he found strange impersonal beings who sometimes “helped” him but just as often failed to respond when he called, who gave vague “mystical” messages that sound like the communications of mediums, who might shake his hand but were just as likely to dig a hook into his offered hand (p. 89). Some of these beings he recognized as “hinderers”: beast-like creatures with rubbery bodies that easily change into the shapes of dogs, bats, or his own children (pp. 137-40), and others who tease and torment him and merely laugh when he calls (not in faith, it is true, but only as another “experiment”) on the name of Jesus Christ (p. 119).
Having no faith of his own, Monroe opened himself to the “religious” suggestions of the beings of this realm. He was given “prophetic” visions of future events, which sometimes did, in fact, come to pass as he saw them (pp. 145ff). Once, when a white ray of light appeared to him on the boundary of the out-of-body state, he asked it for an answer to his questions about this realm. A voice from the ray answered: “Ask your father to tell you of the great secret.” At the next opportunity Monroe accordingly prayed: “Father, guide me. Father, tell me the great secret” (pp. 131-32). It is obvious from all this that Monroe, although remaining “secular” and “agnostic” in his own religious outlook, gave himself over freely to be used by the beings of the occult realm (who, of course, are demons).
Just like Dr. Moody and other investigators in this realm, Monroe writes that “in twelve years of non-physical activities, I find no evidence to substantiate the biblical notions of God and afterlife in a place called heaven” (p. 116). However, just like Swedenborg, Theosophists, and investigators like Dr. Crookall, he finds in the “non-material” environment he explored “all of the aspects we attribute to heaven and hell, which are but part of Locale II” (p. 73). In the area seemingly “closest” to the material world he encountered a gray-black area populated by “nibbling and tormenting beings”; this, he thinks, may be the “border of hell” (pp. 120-21), rather like the “Hades” region Dr. Crookall has identified.
Most revealing, however, is Monroe’s experience of “heaven.” Three times he travelled to a place of “pure peace,” floating in warm, soft clouds which were swept by constantly-changing colored rays of light; he vibrated in harmony with the music of wordless choirs; there were nameless beings around him in the same state, with whom he had no personal contact. He felt this place to be his ultimate “Home,” and was lonely for it for some days after the experience ended (pp. 123-25). This “astral heaven,” of course, is the ultimate source of the Theosophist teaching on the “pleasantness” of the other world; but how far it is from the true Christian teaching of the Kingdom of Heaven, far outside this aerial realm, which in its fullness of love and personality and the conscious presence of God has become utterly remote from the unbelievers of our times, who ask nothing more than a “nirvana” of soft clouds and colored lights! The fallen spirits can easily provide such an experience of “heaven”; but only Christian struggle and the grace of God can raise one into the true heaven of God.
On several occasions, Monroe has encountered the “God” of his heaven. This event, he says, can occur anywhere in “Locale II.” “In the midst of normal activity, wherever it may be, there is a distant Signal, almost like heraldic trumpets. Everyone takes the Signal calmly, and with it, everyone stops speaking or whatever he may be doing. It is the Signal that He (or They) is coming through His Kingdom.
“There is no awestruck prostration or falling down on one’s knees. Rather, the attitude is most matter-of-fact. It is an occurrence to which all are accustomed and to comply takes absolute precedence over everything. There are no exceptions.
“At the Signal, each living thing lies down ... with head turned to one side so that one does not see Him as He passes by. The purpose seems to be to form a living road over which He can travel.... There is no movement, not even thought, as He passes by….
“In the several times that I have experienced this, I lay down with the others. At the time, the thought of doing otherwise was inconceivable. As He passes, there is a roaring musical sound and a feeling of radiant, irresistible living force of ultimate power that peaks overhead and fades in the distance…. It is an action as casual as halting for a traffic light at a busy intersection, or waiting at the railroad crossing when the signal indicates that a train is coming; you are unconcerned and yet feel unspoken respect for the power represented in the passing train. The event is also impersonal.
“Is this God? Or God’s son? Or His representative?” (pp. 122-23).
It would be difficult to find, in the occult literature of the world, a more vivid account of the worship of satan in his own realm by his impersonal slaves. In another place, Monroe describes his own relationship to the prince of the realm into which he has penetrated. One night, some two years after the start of his “out-of-body” journeys, he felt himself bathed in the same kind of light that accompanied the beginning of these experiences, and he felt the presence of a very strong, intelligent, personal force which rendered him powerless and with no will of his own. “I received the firm impression that I was inextricably bound by loyalty to this intelligent force, always had been, and that I had a job to perform here on earth” (pp. 260-61). In another similar experience with this unseen force or “entity” several weeks later, it (or they) seemed to enter and “search” his mind, and then, “they seemed to soar up into the sky, while I called after them, pleading.28 Then I was sure that their mentality and intelligence were far beyond my understanding. It is an impersonal, cold intelligence, with none of the emotions of love or compassion which we respect so much.... I sat down and cried, great deep sobs as I have never cried before, because then I knew without any qualification or future hope of change that the God of my childhood, of the churches, of religion throughout the world was not as we worshiped him to be — that for the rest of my life, I would ‘suffer’ the loss of this illusion” (p. 262). One could scarcely imagine a better description of the encounter with the devil which so many of our unsuspecting contemporaries are now undergoing, being helpless to resist it because of their estrangement from true Christianity.
28
This latter experience is very similar to that undergone by many people today in close encounters with “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs). The occult experience of encountering the fallen spirits of the air is always one and the same experience, even though it is expressed in different images and symbols in accordance with human expectations. (For a discussion of the occult side of UFO encounters, see