“Rita’s Gift” in two ways: It was a gift from Rita and a gift to Rita. And as the years roll on, I see ever more clearly just how much I and others benefitted then, and continue to do today.
Readers of this know that Rita Warren was a Ph.D. psychologist, a respected professor of criminal justice. (Among other things, she invented a questionnaire, still in use, to help social workers determine what different ways to approach different kinds of juvenile delinquents.) In her early 60s, she did one of Bob Monroe’s early Gateways, promptly put in for early retirement, and the following year moved down to the New Land surrounding the Monroe Institute. Given her background, Bob volunteered her to be in charge of his new consciousness lab.
The lab featured an isolation booth (the “black box”) to help people achieve altered states of consciousness. Rita invented the protocols for using it. Then she and her husband Martin conducted hundreds of sessions over four years. She told me later that she sometimes asked volunteers about the afterlife and other aspects of reality, but re-retired (in 1984, age 64), with her curiosity unsatisfied.
She and I started to work together in the fall of 2000, and it turned out that the universe had plans. I posted the transcripts of ten black-box sessions to email friends, naturally including Rita. The following summer, at her suggestion. We began weekly Tuesday night sessions in her home. I would go into an altered state, and she would ask the questions that had long interested her. Rita later told me that neither she nor Martin had ever gotten answers equal in clarity and consistency to what we got from what I called “the guys Upstairs.”
Session by session, “the guys” introduced themes, and built upon them, until after a few months Rita and I were living in a very different world. I set out to edit transcripts of 22 sessions, and got Rita to write an introduction, but by the time The Sphere and the Hologram came out, she had already made her transition.
Rita died March 19, 2008. She came to me in a dream to assure me that she was fine, and I assumed our work together was over. So I was surprised and pleased when, in December, 2014, I dreamed of her saying she was ready for us to work together again. The next morning, I sat down with my journal and announced myself ready, and that was the start of six months of sessions, usually every day. Then we paused, in mid-May, which was all right with me: We had accumulated quite enough material to change anybody’s life.
Rita, while in the body, had been trying to satisfy her curiosity about the hidden nature of things.. Now, she was setting out to answer those same questions, with the benefit of her new vantage point. Direct communication with the non-physical side of life is as close to first-hand information as we can get.
Rita and I set out to provide a new picture of interaction between the physical and the non-physical aspects of the world. How do beings there spend their time? What is it they do, and why do they do it? What if anything is their relationship to us? What light, if any, does their existence shed on our life here? The world’s scriptures have been answering them for centuries. But that doesn’t mean we understand what’s written. Sometimes old truths have to be restated to be heard. What’s more, sometimes new perspectives make old words more understandable.
While living in the physical world, Rita had questions. Now, in the non-physical world, she remembered the questions, and – she and I having worked together while she was here – she had a way to give us some answers.
And that was the gift Rita received, and the gift she presented.
For me, the big gift in this blog and the discussions in here – I am starting to see now – is the wider perspective. The personal dramas/traumas are so exasperating, as if forever and on doing the dirty laundry without getting anywhere. With this blog I have started to get parts of the wider picture: the difficulties of current culture are just the evolution of consciousness at work. The roaring BS rapids of mass media and politics/propaganda keep tugging, and yet, hardly a day goes by without me being able to understand new things, see new beauty, widen my horizons. If I believed in the news, I’d be devastated. I believe almost nothing, but this blog is a lighthouse in these times. So thank you Frank! And everyone participating, in all the relevant D:s, from 1 to wherever.
Gosh, Christiina, that’s a big thank you from me. We all work alone, as you must know, and it’s nice to hear now and again that we aren’t talking only to ourselves.
Frank,
‘Rita’s Gift’ has been indeed important to me … as I’ve said before, it pointed me in directions that have changed my life. I connected with my guidance during a ’98 TMI Guidelines program, and we ‘did life together’ in the following years. A lot of growth and learning went on, but there was very little conscious awareness of that (vast!) non-physical part of me.
Since beginning Rita’s material (in Feb ’15), I’ve been ‘led’ to your/her earlier books (reread several times), to reread (and begin to understand) Bob’s books, and to the teachings from Elias. The corroboration, connection, and interlocking support between these information sources and with earlier sources (Christianity, don Juan Matus, Eckankar, Zen) has been astounding; that resonance and corroboration has changed/is changing my worldview/belief system.
I know you’re not big on science, but the ‘scientific method’ is just a common sense approach to seeing/recognizing reality, gathering information, and morphing it into a coherent system that can be used in daily physical life (and beyond). ‘Rita’s Gift’ pushed me toward the awareness to do just that … once more, my thanks to you, her, and all TGU for these ‘pointers’ toward ????
Jim
That’s great. I ought to be more careful in my comments about science. I respect the scientific method per se, but i object to people using its prestige to validate their quite invalid assumptions about the world. And, i think in our time, especially since World War II, science has become captive to the military-industrial complex, and thus quite distorted.
But i’m really glad the Rita work has helped you.
I am grateful for the partnered efforts (of everyone involved) to get Rita’s World I and II into a product that I can easily download and read. I am about 65% through my first read of book #2. Just having a better understanding of “complex being” explains so much.
I met and confirmed my guidance last year (2015) when projecting out of body, and since then the topic of guidance has been a priority for me. I pursue it regularly. And … Rita’s World has been an integral part of learning how to continue to both connect with and work with my guidance.
Most recently (for about 1 month now), I have been writing out and clustering my questions or comments to guidance in a notebook that I created (most often before going to bed). And then, just wait a day or two for things to show up. It works, and when I get a quick response (like an elaborate dream that same night) I may dig deeper or move on to another item.
And finally Frank … reading about how you personally worked with your own varieties of guidance (TGU, Rita and others) actually helped formulate this idea (e.g., my notebook). So … “thank you” also for that!
Thanks for saying so. I think it’s great that you are pursuing this on your own, and i hope more people will.
Reading this I’m reminded of a sequence in Monroe’s (oob) work–I believe it was recorded in Ultimate Journeys, but not sure at the moment–in which he performs a vital task for his “past” self led by his “future” self, if I’m remembering correctly.
Upon completion of the task, the INSPEC (Bob’s “future” self) says simply: “The pattern is complete.”
The intricacy and recursive-ness of our “patterns” or lives, the way they apparently spiral, fold, and return upon themselves, is quite beautiful and…I can’t quite put it into words. Something about it speaks of the truest love; that nothing and no one is ever forgotten. All the disparate pieces are always recovered and made whole. It is we who answer our own questions.
Interesting comment. I wouldn’t be surprised.