The Other World

Beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 22, some of Rita’s friends and neighbors gathered in David Francis Hall at the Monroe Institute to celebrate her life — not least by telling stories. As usual I had my camera in my pocket, but it never seemed appropriate to take photos of the room or the participants beforehand, and, I admit, afterward I entirely forgot. There weren’t a tremendous lot of people there — maybe 50 — mostly I imagine because few of her extended network of friends, former students, fellow TMI participants, and former colleagues were able to attend on such short notice, and on the day before Easter. But I noticed that pretty nearly everybody from the New Land (the residential community surrounding the Institute) was there, which didn’t surprise me.

Continue reading Memorial ceremony for Rita Warren

Before we get into this short transcript, a caveat. To the question, “How do you know that you were really talking with Rita and not making it up?” there can only be one true answer: I don’t know. I think so, but I don’t know so. I can’t prove it, any more than I could prove any other conversation I have ever had Upstairs. All I can do is present the material as it came, and let you decide.

Rita Warren was stricken with a massive stroke at a little after 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, March 11, and lingered, paralyzed on her right side, without the power of speech, before finally obtaining release late Wednesday afternoon, March 19. While she was in that in-between state, on Friday morning, I decided to try to communicate with her, on the theory that although she was still tethered to the body she might have more freedom to communicate. Hence this. Material in brackets is added by me for the sake of clarity.]

Continue reading A conversation with Rita

This was to be part two of the introduction to the book that would explain what Rita and I had learned in extensive conversations with The Guys Upstairs. Rita’s training as academic comes through quite clearly here, I think.

The background

As Frank has reported, Bob Monroe turned his Explorer program over to my husband Martin and me shortly after his new lab was opened in early l984. Here is how that came about.

In 1979 Bob and his family had sold their home (“Whistlefield”) near Charlottesville, Virginia, and re-located about 30 miles south, in rural Nelson County, to build The Monroe Institute (TMI). He opened the first Gateway Voyage program in July, l979.
A friend and I had read about Bob’s work in his first book, Journeys out of the Body, and were eager to visit the Institute and participate in a Gateway. Fortunately, we were able to attend the second program given in Virginia, in August, 1979. My world changed in that week as it did for many who have experienced Gateway. [Those who have written about that life-changing event include Joseph McMoneagle (Mind Trek); Bruce Moen (Voyages into the Unknown), Ronald Russell (The Vast Enquiring Soul); F. Holmes Atwater (Captain of my Ship, Master of my Soul), and Frank himself (Muddy Tracks).]

I had thought of myself as a rather stodgy University professor during the l970s and early 1980s, although I had had some periods showing promise earlier. During Gateway, my life was full of color and amazing adventures, experiences beyond ego. I hadn’t planned to retire from teaching for another ten years or so, but when Bob offered lots near TMI for sale in 1980, I couldn’t resist. Martin, having already retired, came down to the New Land to build a large house so that we would have room for us and for Nan Wilson (the friend with whom I had done Gateway) and, shortly thereafter, Darlene Miller. Bob offered another Gateway for New Landers (as we were now being called) and although I was concerned that a second Gateway could offer nothing so incredible a second time, Nan and I attended, and I did indeed have more heart-warming and soul-stirring experiences.

Continue reading Rita’s Legacy (2)

This entry, and the one to follow, were two parts of an introduction that Rita and I wrote to a book about the TGU material that has yet to appear. We wrote these explanations in 2002 but nothing needs changing. I can’t think of a better way of expressing Rita Warren’s legacy as experienced by me. This first entry is by me; Rita’s follows.

by Frank DeMarco

Probably you don’t need this book if the world makes sense to you, if your life makes sense to you. But perhaps you are puzzled, depressed, disheartened, by the life you see around you. Perhaps you ask yourself why you were born, why anybody was born. Perhaps you ask what’s the sense in it. Perhaps you find yourself unable to believe in any of the traditional faiths that have sustained humanity throughout the ages, the little you know of them. (To name them roughly in chronological order: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and materialism, often called “science.”) Living without faith either in the west’s materialism or in any of the revealed religions, perhaps you suspect that life is by its nature not merely puzzling, but meaningless.

And perhaps-one final “perhaps”-perhaps you say to yourself, “If only I knew how to find the truth! I’m not in the mood for fairy tales. I want the truth, no matter how depressing the truth turns out to be. And I don’t want to be told, and then required to believe. I’m willing to listen to new ideas, but I want to be able to test them, to find out for myself.”

If that describes your situation, you’ve come to the right book.

Continue reading Rita’s legacy (1)

For the past week, as my friend Rita Warren has been slowly dying, I have been occupying my mind partly by going through old journals, continuing a task I set myself of finding and indexing all the quotations I have noted in 41 years of journal-keeping. Among them I find this one, to which, despite diverging terminologies and concepts, I have resonated for all the 19 years since I came across it. It seems particularly appropriate to days and nights spent in the near presence of death and life as we experience them, inextricably mixed.

Continue reading The Spiritual life