Almost as good as the first one...November 8, 2002 6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Robert Monroe uniquely writes about a world known as the spirit realm. He is not religous in any manner, giving a very scientific and objective point of view of astro-projection. Other than writing about his adventures, which are very discriptive and energenic, he keeps a detailed log, and methodically writes down his experiences/data. If his accounts are true, Monroe has writen deeper, clearer and more exciting than any other astro-projection author around. Monroe has even developed a whole scientific center inabeling normal people to learn how to astro-project using non-traditional and non-religious methods (The Monroe Institute). If you have not read the first book ("Journy's Out Of The Body", a 5 star book), I recomend doing so before reading this one.
FAR OUT AND YET MAYBE TRUEOctober 18, 2002 6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Monroe is Robert Monroe of the Monroe Institute and I take this book to be an honest account of what Mr Monroe thinks he saw or experienced. It is like a travel book in which we hear of what was seen and what was intuited (since communication is non-verbal). I believe it is a brave attempt to communicate such stuff. The book should rank amongst the must-reads of any serious student of out of body experiences and related areas. My concerns are about setting the observations into some critical and/or scientific and/or analytical context. A summary of the implied worldview (as found at the back of Sugrues "There is a River") would have been appreciated.
Nothing Scientific or Interesting in this MessOctober 4, 2002 14 out of 28 found this review helpful
This was my first Robert Monroe book. I bought it after reading many enthusiastic Amazon reviews and after being told that Monroe is a top expert in this area.
What a disappointment! The book is very poorly written and excruciating boring. It is difficult to believe anybody could write a dull book about such a fascinating subject.
Monroe can't even write an Introduction. The book starts with a Foreword that doesn't make any sense. As you proceed and read one chapter after the other, it doesn't get any better. You don't find one single interesting insight or explanation about out-of-body-experiences.
Monroe assumed that everybody has read his previous book, so he doesn't care to explain what is going on. It is like entering a theater to watch a (bad) movie that started two hours ago.
There are many pages describing "experiments" that produced nothing but worthless testimonials. There is nothing remotely scientific or interesting about these experiments. They might as well be testimonials from drug consumers. Only hard core New Age lunatics can believe in half this stuff. I am not a skeptic, but Monroe makes me feel like one.
It seems to me that after writing two books about out of body experiences, Mr. Monroe finally ran out of things to say. I am very angry with the Amazon reviewers who induced me into wasting my money into something so totally worthless.
Pure, unadulterated science fiction gibberish!June 30, 2002 14 out of 28 found this review helpful
This book has been a monumental disappointment to me! I bought it expecting it to contain new, improved, easier, and more effective techniques for getting out of body. After all, Robert Monroe is spoken of very highly in all of the other recent books on the subject of OOBE's, and he was one of the early pioneers with his first book, Journeys Beyond The Body. Believe me, this book is none of what I was expecting and less! What I got was a book written in Mr. Monroe's own special, cumbersome, at times almost incomprehensible language that requires a de-coder to figure out. Although a decoder IS contained in two different locations within the text of the book, even that is not enough to save this hopeless piece of science fiction gibberish. If you have already read Out Of Body Experiences by Robert Peterson, Adventures Beyond The Body by William Buhlman, or Astal Dynamics by Robert Bruce, you are familiar with first-class, well-written, believable experiences about OOBE's, as well as useful, easy-to-understand instructions that ACTUALLY work! If your goal is to learn how to have an out of body experience, don't waste your money on Far Journeys. Just keep practicing the techniques described in the books by the other authors mentioned above. I am well-aware that this book is acclaimed as a great classic by big names in the field, but in my personal opinion, I think Mr. Monroe was starting to lose touch with reality when he wrote it.
MONROE'S BEST BY FARJune 5, 2002 55 out of 56 found this review helpful
I've read all three of Monroe's books and this is by far his best. In this book he has accepted the OOB experience for what it is and has stopped worrying about his sanity. In this book, he has also pretty much perfected his OOB techniques and begins to have truly meaningful experiences and revelations.
There is one aspect of this book that Monroe touches upon very briefly but is of utmost importance to understand. Once you master the OOB experience, you become psychic, telepathic and the body is less likely to suffer physical trauma as a result of accidents. Monroe clearly describes two incidents where he fell down a steep flight of stairs head first and landed smack on his head both times. However, he said that his head touched the ground gently, like a feather, while his legs remained dangling in the air. His legs then gently draped down onto the stairs and he suffered no pain and developed no bruises. It is because of these "side-effects" of lucid dreaming, that Toltec sorcerers and Shamans sought to practice and perfect OOB techniques. For more information about this aspect of the OOB experience read 1) The Art of Dreaming- Carlos Castaneda; 2) The Path- Esmeralda Arana.
