Lehal Library

Eventually I found the courage to talk to a psychiatrist and a psychologist, both of whom I knew as friends. One assured me I was not psychotic—he knew me too well. The other suggested indeterminate years of study under a guru in India—a concept wholly alien to me. I revealed to neither of them, nor to anyone else, how extremely frightened I was. I was a misfit in a culture of which I thought I was a part, a culture that I admired and respected. Yet the drive for survival is very strong. Slowly, very slowly, I learned to control the process. I found that it was not necessarily a prelude to dying, that it could be directed. But it took a full year before I came to accept the reality of the out-of-body experience— now familiarly known as OBE. This came about as the result of some forty carefully validated OBE “trips,” giving me—and no one else— extensive documentation. With this knowledge the fear soon receded, to be replaced by something almost as demanding—curiosity! Still, something had to be done. I needed answers, and I was sure I would not find them in an Indian ashram. My thought processes were the product of Western civilization, for good or ill. Therefore, to provide systematic help to me and also to gather information related to this strange “Unknown,” I set up a research and development division in the corporation privately owned by me and my family. This division later was detached and became eventually what is now The Monroe Institute. Thus the original purpose was solely to solve my own personal and urgent problems: to convert my fear-producing Unknowns into Knowns if at all possible. That meant learning how to control and understand the out-of-body experience. To begin with, I was the only one I knew who needed such help, so the motive was personal and selfish, not profound, idealistic, or noble. I offer no apology for this; I was the one who paid the bills.