I thought readers might be interested in Robert Bruce's response on his website to a question about apparent contradictions between his astral "geography" and Robert Monroe's Focus levels.  In my view, RB glosses over significant contradictions.  But his own assessment of such a comparison is surely of unique interest to those here who have wrestled with his books and those of Robert Monroe.  So I have pasted RB's reply below.
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G'day Folks!

An interesting topic. Thank you for raising this subject and providing a platform to examine and compare these apparently different points of view...What Robert Monroe did was quite brilliant. Like myself, more so than I even, he threw away as much of the Eastern terminology and dogma as he could. He cleaned the whiteboard and started fresh, through personal experience. Lacking accurate and verifiable empirical data, this is the only effective way to approach anything spiritual or metaphysical, methinks.

All great teachers and holy books tell us this. Spiritual truths and all too easily buried under wordage, to one day become obscure dogma.

Robert Monroe mapped out levels of consciousness, over many years of trial and error. He found that particular levels of altered states of consciousness could be revisited, using particular sound frequencies, and that persons could be trained to tune into these particular levels, with a high degree of success.

What Robert Monroe's focus levels are, in my opinion, are dimensional levels. Each of these levels has vast depth and scope and space, including structured areas. Many of the major focus levels have not been explored, eg, focus 8, focus 9, focus 13, etc.

Again, each of the main focus levels contains within it many sub levels and structured areas. This can be fairly compared with the astral planes, sub planes and realms.

Monroe's focus level model and the traditional astral levels could be compared with the Imperial weights and measures system and the decimal system of weights and measures, and differences between the corresponding mathematical systems.

Another consideration here is my work on the astral planes and the different angles of perception involved, depending on the energy body activity of projectors, eg, heart or brow center projections, which can provide totally different perceptions of the astral planes structure. A heart center projection will provide a layered astral plane scenario, whereas a brow or crown center projection will provide an astral tube or tunnel structure.

You could also compare these different angles of perceptions to the data you would get using different sensory systems to examine a geographical area. Lets say we want to examine a small island with a lake at its center. We send out several teams, each armed with different technology.

1. The first team land and explore by hand, taking notes and pictures.

2. The second team flies over taking ariel pictures.

3. The third team uses radar.

4. The fourth team uses satelite photography.

5. The fifth team uses sonar from an underwater submarine.

6. The sixth team uses infra red sensing to build a heat image map

7. The seventh team gathers data from people who have visited the island in the past, and examine books and texts written about the island.

To increase the complexity of the above, it should be noted that each of the above studies would be completely different depending on the training and bias of the people used in each study. EG, scientists, military, artists, priests, poets, would each give totally different biased descriptions of things.

The fluid complexity of the dimensional structures involved is obvious, if you look at the above. Robert Monroe's approach provides yet another 'angle of perception' in the complex dimensional structure. It is also likely that there are many other 'angles of perception' possible.

Take care, Robert [Bruce]

spooky2 wrote on Dec 5^th, 2007 at 11:25pm:


  I second the above Spooky.   That's part of the reason why i believe PUL and getting to the point of becoming PUL completely is so important in any consciousnesses journey...because pure PUL is the awareness and state of being which encompasses, and is all inclusive all those different dimensions, all at once, and so one gets the FULL picture finally.  One gets to step out of the relativistic 'reality', and yet still be aware of it and its influence and conditions for others.

  When we raise the inner vibrations of self, to the fastest vibration of which this Universe was created from, then all else is opened up to us, and we and our perceptions become as clear as the White Light is.  We can then view reality from the perceptions of others as individuals or perhaps even all at once?

  See y'all in the White Light.  In a sense, we are already there, but yet we must stay and be active and positive/constructive ever in this relativistic reality.

Bob Monroe although very experienced in OBE is nevertheless delving into areas simply beyond human comprehension and extremely dangerous and if not careful could find himself lost forever in the dark void unable to return to his mortal body. (My point of view based on personal experience with this phenomenon). The vibratory phase before an OBE can be so severe as to induce a fatal stroke in some people.

I am not attempting to argue but enter meaningful dialogue!

Regards

Alan

Alan

Most people who come here are a little more subtle with their efforts to engage in dialogue. Why do you think your long monologues are an effort to engage in dialogue?

Have you read any/all of Bob Monroe's books? Have you ever listened to a hemi-sync tape?

I've never heard of someone having a fatal stroke before going OBE. Where is your evidence? Since it is possible that we  all go OBE in the sleep state, how it is that any of us are alive?

Albert,

Robert Bruce claims to have discovered a secret alien moon base during his OBEs and Gordon Phinn claims to have corroborated this "discovery" during his own astral travels.  Such claims often go hand in hand with absurd conspiracy theories that our Apollo moon program was well aware of this alien base, but suppresses this information to avert panic.  In an earlier age, Emanuel Swedenborg [= ES] claimed to have astral dialogues with discarnate aliens from other planets in our solar system.  Such claims display a gullibility that calls into question the other astral "insights" of these explorers.  

Some here can't imagine that someone like me would be impressed by ES's astral insights if I didn't buy the whole package of his perspective on the afterlife.  I often try to learn from explorers with whom I am in fundamental disagreement.  ES seems to have far superior verifications to those of Robert Monroe and Robert Bruce.   But I deem it possible that ES's insights are simply gained by a clairvoyance that has nothing to do with the afterlife and the structure of astral territories.    

Albert, your cautionary example from RB's "high astral" encounter with Sai Baba is another important case in point.  It challenges Robert Bruce's astral insights in a way analogous to (1) Monroe's alleged astral encounter with aliens who come here to collect jokes and (2) some of Monroe's obviously bogus astral reincarnational "memories."  (e.g. a pilot dodging the spears of otherworldly cave men; his past life as a novitiate Catholic priest ordered to ritually spear his most recent wife in a Catholic initiation).  

I am increasingly haunted by a "Coast to Coast" program that featured experts on lucid dreaming as guests.  They explained how they routinely enjoy OBE adventures which were nothing more than unique dreams and they dismiss sleeping OBEs as misunderstood lucid dreams.  As I've often noted, I experienced an OBE in which I floated near the ceiling, looked down on my sleeping body, and lay over my body to explore the extent to which my astral body was coextensive with my physical body.  I've argued with dream figures that they must be figments of my imagination because I was "back there" in bed.  I've visited friends and poked their astral bodies to feel how siimilar they are to physical bodies.  I've even performed a retrieval of a beloved ex-girlfriend who committed suicide.  I now recognize that all these astral experiences were nothing more than lucid dreams fueled by wishful thinking.  That insight is painful and poses a problem for my Christian convictions.  
So I am very sensitve to the reservations of skeptical seekers like Roger.

I welcome Robert Bruce's assessment of Robert Monroe, though I consider it long overdue and misguided.  Astral explorers seem so insulated from the challenges posed by contrary claims of rival adepts as well as from the challenges posed by scientific skeptics and rival religious experience-based claims.  The absence of a meaningful interdisciplinary approach or even of an ongoing bristling debate among adepts confines this important area of research to the level of mindless occultism.  I say this not as an outsider trying to justify a Christian perspective, but as an insider who longs to explore the astral realms in a legitimate way as a part of a relentlessly self-critical quest for knowledge.  Sadly, I feel compelled to reaffirm my characterization of the New Age focus on astral exploration as a mindless Ghetto that is rightly marginalized by the respectable academic consensus.  I hope that one day astral exploration will truly evolve to the level of a science with the parry and thrust of constant testing, refutation, and interdisciplinary insights that force constant theoretical revisions.  Then, at last this disguised quest for comfort might become a quest for truth and knowledge.

Don

Don:

Robert didn't just simply claim that Sai Baba appeared to him astrally. He claimed that Sai Baba manifested "materially" to him.

Regarding Robert Monroe's W.C. Fields experience, I figure Robert was intelligent enough to realize that some people would find the experience ridiculous. Yet with all the things he could've shared he shared this story. It is possible the experience was symbolic. Made the point of showing that different races of beings share different types of information.  In order to consider if there are beings who don't have humor, I believe it helps to consider what enables us to have humor. I believe it is the wierd play of opposities we engage in while in the physical that enables the contrasts to exist that enable humor to come into being. Could there be other ways for humor to be created? Sure. But this doesn't mean that all beings have found a way to create it on their own. Regarding a being appearing as W.C. Fields, to tell you the truth, it would surprise me at all if a spirit being chose to appear in such a way, because if there is one thing I've found out while communicating with spirits is that they have a sense of humor and can appear in many different ways.  It isn't possible that if a race of beings did learn about humor from the human race, in order to keep in the spirit of what was taking place, they appeared as W.C. Fields? I would say that such a meeting would have more meaning than when for example politicians meet in very "formal" way, when in truth they are very opposed to each other.

Regarding natives throwing spears at airplanes, yes this experience does sound silly. Robert Monroe did write that this did take place on a planet other than earth.

I do agree with you that one shouldn't assume that everything somebody writes is accurate. When it comes to Robert I mainly focus on what he wrote about his I-there, because I've had experiences and have received messages stating that it is true in some way.  Regarding the possibility of my mind just making something up, I'm very careful about this, and have found that my experiences have taken place in an order that enables me to grow spiritually. When I look at all of the things I have experienced, the dots connect together quite well.

I haven't been to the other side of the moon, so I don't know.

A late note I want to add when it comes to the validity of what one experiences. When I've experienced spirits it wasn't just a matter of what I saw and heard. It is also a matter of the presence I felt during such an experience. I've also found that when imagery is sent by spirits that distortion is usually experienced at the thought and sound level, rather than by what I see. Therefore, if a spirit projects an image to me, no matter how silly it might seem, this is what they chose to send me.

  Hi all, just wanted to say that there is another possible explanation for Robert Bruce's experience with Sai Baba.   I know very little about R.B. and never have been attracted to him or his info, and so i'm not supporting him, nor speaking out against him, but this thought came into my head when reading this thread. 

  Perhaps R.B. had at some point, been holding limiting and negative thoughts in relation to Sai Baba and what's been said of him.    Maybe his guidance, some truly very fast vibrational consciousnesses, decided to teach him a lesson regarding being judgmental.   So maybe one of them, decided to appear as Sai Baba to try to show them that we all have the potential for fast vibrations even someone like Sai Baba, and that its important to not judge another even if they have done some very unloving things?   

  Maybe R.B. didn't have enough clear insight to realize that this was in fact guidance, and not really Sai Baba and that guidance was trying to make a personal, individualized point to him?   After all, isn't much of our experience of the nonphysical in symbolic form, similar in nature to dreams, and that its very individualized for each of us?   Perhaps R.B. took something relative, symbolic, and individualized for him, and made the mistake of trying to make it universal and literal for everyone?

  Hi Lucy,
Yes we are our own map makers, but at the same time, we make our maps within the collective which includes others, and there were certain impersonal and Universal laws set up and in place to govern all map making in this Universe we are in.   Maybe when we fully graduate from and phase out of this Universe, we can become both the map makers and even "law" makers for other Universes or what not, like the Planning Intelligence was of this one? 

But until then, to graduate from and fully phase out of this Universe, one must learn to completely and purely follow the laws of this Universe, and in becoming the law, in personifying the law, we come to transcend same?  The law of this Universe is the law of Love, and its this basic core reality, which then enables and manifests the reality of the law of energy resonation or aka like attracts, begets, and becomes like like.

  Hi Albert, i dunno for sure ultimately.   You bring up some important questions and points though.

   But haven't you ever misinterpreted what guidance has shown you?  I know i have before, and may again until i become the White Light myself. 

  I've found that one's clarity, depth of perception, and degree of accuracy of same, is primarily related to two things.   

One's overall and more long term spiritual development, and to the degree of PUL and fast vibrations within self, within any given moment.    And of course, those very spiritually developed tend to have more moments of, and much more consistently the latter reality.   

  Perhaps your overall and more long term degree of spiritual development is greater than R.B's, hence you tend to perceive more accurately, deeply, etc. what your guidance is trying to get across and are more open and sensitive in general?   

  The fact that R.B. talks so much of and focuses so much on the classic OBE type stuff, seems to imply that while he may be having real nonphysical experiences and perceptions, he's not necessarily the most intune and fast vibrating person out there.    The faster one raises and maintains their inner frequencies, the less "bells and whistles" one tends to experience in relation to the nonphysical, or at least i've observed for myself and in others.    Because the less and less attached to, and more and more they vibrate out of the range of the dense, slow vibrating physical energies.   

  As you've noticed in yourself, you don't tend to have the classic OBE's much at all anymore correct?   This would seem to imply that your inner frequencies are vibrating overall at faster rates than R.B.'s who seems to still primarily explore via his etheric energy levels.   

  Or look at Monroe and Moen for example.   When Monroe was still rather materialistic in nature, he always had the classic OBE type experiences and sensations, but towards the latter part of his life when he got more intune, clear, balanced, and loving, the less bells and whistles accompanied his experiences, the more he just felt a vibrational shift in his consciousness and not so much the physical sensations.   

  Conversely, Moen whom i do believe is another self relating to Monroe's Disc, tried for years and years to go OBE in that classic, with all the bells and whistle sense, but mostly failed except for a couple of times.    Maybe this was because he started out at faster vibratory levels than did Monroe his other self?

  Anyways, what i'm saying is that it's easier for some people, and most all of us at times, to misinterpret what guidance clearly tries to get across.    They cannot make us understand something, they can just try to outline and explain as well, logically, and holistically accurately as they can.   In the end, it's up to and dependent on us for the accurate or inaccurate interpretation of same.   When it comes to basic realities of the Universe, which relate very strongly to feelings, its easier to interpret things more accurately, like for example that there is a Creator, the life is essentially good, that love is real, that we survive physical death, etc.

  But when one gets into more specific and individualized ideas, concepts, etc. with guidance, its much easier and more likely for us to misinterpret at times, wouldn't you say?

  Anyways, like i said, i don't know for sure what's going on with R.B., his defense of and experiences with Sai Baba.    Like you, i'm fairly certain that Sai Baba is not the real deal, and not very spiritually developed, but that's about it.    I don't know R.B's inner intents, motivations, or exactly how and why he came to those conclusions.   I was just trying to generally point out some stuff about guidance and the nature of perceiving same.  The basic and general principles are rather simple, but the individual cases and experiences can make it more complex and relative.