How I stopped smoking marijuana by failing to have an out-of-body experience

I smoked marijuana rather successfully (i.e. I graduated from college in 1978 and

worked throughout the rest of the period as a computer programmer) from 1977 to 1987.

But in 1985 I started reading Robert Monroe's book Journeys Out of the Body, about

his OOBE's. The sequel, Far Journeys, revealed that Monroe had quit his career as

a cable TV executive and founded a research institute to explore the OOBE. 

The Monroe Institute, which still seems to be going strong today, gives various programs for the public. In the 1980's their first program was "The Gateway Voyage". (They're still at it; check their website.)

Far Journeys has a section describing an episode of OOBE sex between two participants.

Since at that point in my life I was unattached (yet on fire sexually!) I signed up the week after I read this.

The Institute responded with an intake form that one was supposed to fill out and return with the fee, and I answered the questions honestly. One was "what mind-altering substances do you use?" ... or words to that effect. I replied honestly that yes, I smoked marijuana once or twice per week.

The Institute replied that "you're accepted for the August 1987 Gateway Voyage ... and please cease your use of marijuana" for the duration. This was in February 1987.

I thought "oh, no" but wanted to give the program a chance on its own
terms. I had "one more for the road" and gave the rest of my stash away to a colleague. I didn't miss it as much as I had  anticipated ...

For one thing, TMI sends participants this audio package (at the time tape but these days probably mp3) of 'hemi-sync' that is designed to get the two halves of your brain in sync and in shape to experience "expanded awareness." OK, I was ready to try this ...

I started using the tapes regularly when they arrived, and at some point I started to feel these episodes of  "vibration," as if I were a water pipe and someone had turned on high pressure water through me. I didn't know what to make of this, though it didn't seem to be harmful.

I kept this up through the 6 months before I left for the Gateway Voyage, just "vibrating" periodically but not otherwise getting much into expanded awareness as far as I could tell.

The course itself wasn't mindblowing, at least for me, but was very pleasant. The setting is in the rolling hills near Charlottesville VA, in a dormitory-style building that has sleeping quarters wired for audio, the better to put hemi-sync through to the participants ... There are way more bathrooms than would otherwise be justified in such a facility, as the staff advises all to relieve themselves before one of the hemi-sync sessions so as not to be slammed back into one's body by having to pee!

As for any improvement in my sex life, there was none either in body nor out. I basically got blasted with hemi-sync all week but I really didn't have anything like a paranormal experience; just "vibrated" a bit.

I came home and was just feeling wonderfully energetically "open" until ...

I got ahold of another batch of marijuana and smoked a bit ...

This was like turning off a light switch the way the energy in my body was closed down.

I was shocked ... until I thought about it a bit.

I started smoking marijuana as a completely left-brained teenager, so the energy blocked would have been mainly my left brain and for the first time allowed me to experience colors, taste food, etc.

But at age 30 when operating on both energy channels ... an energy block is just a block.

I stopped smoking grass after that one joint and haven't had another since ... I since then have been energetically a bit more open or closed at various times and really haven't missed marijuana.

Dowsing for a missing harp

Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer was a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley in 1991 when her daughter's "smaller, uniquely valuable" harp went missing.

She tried all the normal routes: the police, instrument dealers, a television news story. None of this worked.

A friend suggested that "you should be willing to try anything. Try calling a dowser."

She did, and the dowser found the harp's location accurately.

The rest of the book is Dr. Mayer's exploring further out of the bounds of her scientific training, everything from talking with Hal Puthoff on the Pentagon's remote viewing experiments to counseling a Ph.D. researcher who was running scared after intuiting answers to four decimal places that she couldn't have known rationally.

I usually think of dowsing looking for water, something like this:

But apparently there's more than one kind of dowser! As for the dowser ...  his name is Harold McCoy and he's since then founded the Ozark Research Institute, dedicated to "healing, education and research." He's also written a book:

I am ordering this book and I'll report on it in a future post.

The self-expression curve

Often it's easier to conform to the expectations of your peers at work and elsewhere in your social orbit:

This is a mistake when taken too far, though, as you'll miss attracting the people who are most on your wavelength. The range of response to any signal you're sending out, whether by your attitude, writing, singing, anything ... will be distributed something like this:

Negative                                       Meh                         Positive/Resonant

The fat part in the middle will be the majority of the response: indifference, slightly negative to the left and slightly positive to the right. At the extremes will be the people on the left who just hate your signals and the right who just resonate to them.

In certain circumstances you may want to restrict your real signal to a select audience:

Debris outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo after the 2011 attack on their office

But mostly you shouldn't have to worry about the people who don't like what you're putting out: they'll mostly ignore you ... just what you want.

So if you just conform and don't send any signal out that you think might offend anybody, all you get is meh. If you're willing to say something of what you really are, you'll get this wider range and you can gather up people to love and resonate with, like this:

Try it and see what happens!

About this blog

I went to see this psychic named Jan back in the 1980's and talked with her about this book I had been thinking about writing:

Me: I have this book I want to write in mind ...
Jan: That feels wonderful ... going to take a long time, though

Yes; here we are, 30 years later!

Some notes on what I believe and plan to write about here:

• Psychic phenomena (i.e. extrasensory perception) exist and some people (my wife included!) can see beyond present reality and/or predict the future
• This implies that the standard model of physics is incomplete or at least is being interpreted incorrectly by most scientists
• Mind (for example, the placebo effect) is also a determining factor in medical results
• In general I want to give what I perceive to be the "Angel's perspective" on human activity:

Comments are welcome, especially from any angels who happen to be reading this!