Journeys Out of the Body [Paperback]

Robert Monroe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1992

With more than 300,000 copies sold to date, this is the definitive work on the extraordinary phenomenon of out-of-body experiences, by the founder of the internationally known Monroe Institute.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

With more than 300,000 copies sold to date, this is the definitive work on the extraordinary phenomenon of out-of-body experiences, by the founder of the internationally known Monroe Institute.

From the Inside Flap

With more than 300,000 copies sold to date, this is the definitive work on the extraordinary phenomenon of out-of-body experiences, by the founder of the internationally known Monroe Institute.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Books; Updated edition (December 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385008619
• ISBN-13: 978-0385008617
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic that's worth owning, July 19, 2000

By 

Vincent J. Lasorso (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journeys Out of the Body (Paperback)

This is not the best book on OBE's. The value of the book is Monroe's descriptions of his process and the effects that they had on his life contextualized in the times that they occured. The reader should realize that Monroe later changed most of his conclusions about his perceptions once he had more experience and understanding of the OBE process. I recommend that his second book, Far Journey's, be read before reading this book. That will allow the reader to discount the perceptions that Monroe changed.

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I read it years ago, January 12, 2002

By 

Jason Howard (Oxford, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journeys Out of the Body (Paperback)

I read this book years ago, when I was only about 12 years old. Monroe's experiences are intriguing, and have influenced me to this day. He writes about mystical experiences (as another reviewer wrote, in a very non-spiritual way). Sometimes, I will admit, Monroe can be somewhat dry, but he doesn't fill his book with pages of unnecessary words like some writers do. Monroe treats what some people would call "lucid dreams" or "astral projections," as if they could really be journeys out of the body in THIS world, almost as if he were a ghost. (Occultists would call this the etheral body). For example, he writes that he obtained knowledge of things in the physical world, that he couldn't have possibly known if his experiences didn't actually take him to real places.

Years after reading this book, I experienced some of the things Monroe wrote about were true to my own life. Not until a first-person experience did I understand what Monroe meant by "vibrations" (the first step toward an out of body experience). Monroe is classic reading on this topic, and I recommend "Journeys Out of the Body" to anyone interested in such things.

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It will change your mind about everything you though you new, April 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Journeys Out of the Body (Paperback)

I was only 17 years old when I first read this book, I had a keen interest in the occult from a very early age much to the dismay of my parents but was becoming rather disheartened with the whole thing, so many questions and very few if any, concrete answers. I am now 33 years old and still cannot forget the overall impact this book and it's author had on my life and my religious understanding. I found this book covered in dust in the back of a friends car 16 years ago and they said I could borrow it. I read it cover to cover, over and over again, it really fascinated me, there was defiantly something different about the way the author conveyed his experiences, somehow you new these things were really happening to him just as he described them and I suppose I must have willed my first out of body experience which started as a very normal dream. I stumbled and knocked my head in this dream which I suppose triggered something.

Suddenly there was a very loud whistling and crackling sound in my ears and a rush of consciousness and I stood up in my dream more awake than I had ever felt before, everything that had been present in my dream was still there, buildings, streets and gardens, none of which I recognised. What the hell was going on? I remember the shire disbelief and shock that this was actually happening to me, I was wide awake in a dream, conscious of all my faculties and able to make conscious decisions about where I would go and what I would do, although something attached to me from behind was definitely pulling me back as if I was wading through Ink. I clearly remember looking down at the clothes I was wearing and then at my hands, I got really scared at that point because I thought I had died in my sleep. Suddenly without warning there was a huge tugging from behind and I was pulled backwards through some lavender bushes, I remember the smell and branches scratching in my face and the loud whistling and crackling sound in my ears again. I was pulled up in to the air and watched the streets and strange gardens pass by under me, I lost my vision and all went dark but I could still hear the whistle and then I felt a definite transition in consciousness from higher to lower, I think? I opened my eyes and was back in my bed at home my night light was still on, my heart was racing and my usually docile cat was going crazy, staring right at me, growling and hissing as if she had seen a ghost.

I think I would have been happy with just one Out of body experience, but that night I opened a door I have never been able to shut and for many years afterwards they continued almost every night sometimes two or three times a night, sometimes beautiful sometimes terrifying but always different. I have many times been turned and guided by the invisible hands he described in his book and talked at length with someone and yet no one, I am not crazy!, I am not a liar!

But who honestly could I tell? I quickly realised that it was not something you can mention in passing conversation, even to ones own parents and at the risk of being branded a nutcase or a fraud, I decided to keep it to myself for many years. Yes! it was a lot for a young lad to carry.

They still happen to me now 16 years on, although they are rare and they don't bring the fear that they used to, I think I have just learnt to live with it now although I still don't really know what was happening to me.

I would give anything to be able to speak to, or send a message to Dr Robert A Monroe the author of this enlightening book, to thank him for the most mind broadening experience a man could ever have and to tell him that he is not alone in this strange world.

I do not know where you are or even if you are still alive but wherever you are,

Thank you.