Far Journeys, by Robert Monroe

If Robert Monroe’s contribution to metaphysical literature had ended with his first book, Journeys Out of the Body, it would have been a considerable accomplishment. As described in a previous review here, in Journeys Out of the Body, Monroe recounts how his consciousness began to spontaneously separate from his physical body, and what he subsequently learned about Out-of-Body-Experiences (OBEs). Monroe’s stated aim, with the book, was to bring comfort and reassurance to other people who had similar experiences and who might otherwise think they were ill or crazy.

Monroe’s first book, however, was actually the first of three he would write in his lifetime.

Far Journeys is the second.

Far Journeys picks up where Journeys out of the Body leaves off. Monroe first describes how he founded The Monroe Institute, a not-for-profit research organization dedicated to studying human consciousness. In the first 50 pages or so of Far Journeys, Monroe describes some of the Institute’s early research and the experiences of the individuals who served as research subjects.

Monroe next returns to the subject of his own OBEs.  By then, he’d been experiencing the phenomenon regularly for 25 years, and, he writes, he’d begun to feel frustrated.

It is hard for some people to believe, I suppose, but such travels actually became boring. The early excitement had long passed . . . there didn’t seem to be anything exciting to do.

It was clear that Monroe needed to do something different, and that “something” was to turn his OBEs over to his “total self.” The results of that decision, he writes,

have been of a nature so far removed from anything my conscious mind could conceive of  . . .

That’s something of an understatement. Where Monroe was once primarily interested in OBEs as a scientifically significant  phenomenon, Far Journeys is a book about spiritual discovery and transformation, set in a world where the boundaries of space and time do not exist. Monroe meets advanced beings who share information about the spiritual origins and future of Earth and humanity. He meets a non-physical entity who he knew before he himself began incarnating.

Monroe continues to refrain, as much as he can, from language that suggests any sort of theology. For this reason, Far Journeys, in addition to serving as an account of his own OBEs, offers a roadmap for readers who wish to explore the phenomenon for themselves.

Click here to purchase a copy of Far Journeys.