Journey home

"Ultimate Journey" by Robert A. Monroe is a very extreme book, which will strain the readers' credulity to the breaking point. Monroe claims to have mastered the occult technique of astral travel, making his soul leave the physical body on a semi-regular basis.

Apparently, Monroe's immortal soul has roamed the astral realms and met a number of highly evolved spiritual creatures, some of whom turned out to be future versions of Monroe's own self. Monroe discovered that his own personality really consists of several different spirit-beings, each representing a separate life-time. He has also met alien intelligences from other planets, including a planet from which his own soul hails. Another part of "Ultimate Journey" deals with Monroe helping the souls of recently deceased people adjust to the astral world. The attempts were unsuccesful, since the souls are snatched away by "the belief system territories", where everyone with dogmatic religious ideas about the afterlife ends up.

The point of our existence is to evolve further and further, into an open-ended future. No personal "god" exists, although some spirit-beings attempt to pass themselves off as such. Everything that happens, including evil and suffering, is "a great learning experience". And so on!

Monroe's book seems to blend Theosophy, reports about near-death experiences, past life regression therapy and even some ideas I associate with Scientology. "The Seth Material" might be another parallel. At one point, he meets a mysterious character named Heshe, who reminds me of Saint Germain. Of course, it's impossible for a causal reader to prove that the book is directly dependent on other sources. Maybe it isn't, since all ideas in "Ultimate Journey" exist as undercurrents in the New Age milieu to which Monroe presumably belonged.

Of course, people who believe in the supernatural will claim that Monroe has confirmed ideas found in other spiritual sources. However, there are also differences between Monroe's out-of-body experiences and certain established religions. How do we know that Christianity or Islam are "belief system territories", while Monroe's version of occultic New Age teachings is the real truth? Interestingly, even Monroe claims to have no idea concerning certain issues, such as the creation or the divine presence behind the creation. Perhaps he couldn't travel far enough? Or perhaps he wanted the Monroe Institute to be able to enrol students from many different faith backgrounds...

"Ultimate Journey" is a sequel to two other books by the same author, "Journeys out of the body" and "Far journeys". I haven't read them (yet). Personally, I think "Ultimate Journey" gets tedious after a while, and another annoying detail is the quaint Monroesque terminology (Known, Basic, ROTE, etc). Still, if you like to read about astral travel, occult phenomena and near-death experiences, this book may be of some interest. I therefore give it three stars.