Whilst I'm waiting on MBT to get here from the US, which of these should I get? Or are they all different and should I get them all?

Far Journeys - 01 December 1996

Journeys Out of the Body - 01 June 1998 (Updated Far journeys?)

Ultimate Journey - 06 October 1998

To me, the best Monroe's book, without a doubt, is Journeys Out of the Body. It is his first book and it's one of the best books I have read in my entire life. The other two books are so filled up with metaphor and personal interpretation that I could hardly resonate with them, while I resonated a lot with the first book. Also, they use a lot of acronyms, which will make them harder to understand.

By the way, Journeys Out of the Body came long before Far Journeys but the book you quote is most likely a re-edition. Journeys Out of the Body came out around the seventies.

I agree that the best place to start is with Journeys Out of the Body for Monroe's first hand account of his early OOBEs. Not much interpretation involved there beyond the fact that it is his subjective view of what was happening to him. That's the case with any first hand account no matter how objective one strives to be.

That being said, personally I learned a lot from Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey as well. Those books laid the foundation for greater understanding and prepared the soil, so to speak, where the ideas of MBT could take root and flourish. It's hard to say what my opinion would be now, post MBT, of those books but at the time they were my motivation and passion. I don't know if I would even have found Tom's books when I did if I hadn't been researching information about the early explorers Monroe describes in Far Journeys. Ultimate Journey is Monroe's most comprehensive work in which he describes his overview of reality after many years of exploration.

They're all good. For the best understanding I would read them in order: JOOTB, Far Journeys, and then Ultimate Journey.

Ramon

This is the dates for the three books:

* Journeys Out of the Body (1971)
* Far Journeys (1985)
* Ultimate Journey (1994)

Why not get them all when I have them in PDF? :-)

Everyone can send my their e-mail in PM and get them, if you want.

Agree with all the above. Just get them all, especially with SS's offer! Like Ramon, I came through Monroe's books (acquiring them, with the exception of JOOB, as they were issued) before finding MBT, and it was only with the reasoning of MBT that the Monroe books finally made coherent sense to me, and I could allow myself to come right down off the fence without feeling guilty, at last! For someone doing it the other way around, like NT, it will I imagine be a fascinating historical perspective.

Arthur

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"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Cool, thanks. I'll get JOOTB then.


Thanks for the offer, but I also have them in PDF and would like to read them on paper. :-)

Yay, books rule! There is nothing like the feel of a nice book in hand.

I discovered Robert Monroe's books after MBT, and read them in the order they were written.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Agree with all the above. Definitely read them in the order they were written!

The last would be completely unacceptable without having the previous in mind. .....way to whip-ding. If Monroe had, before he started OBEing, magically seen the text of his last book, he would have been horrified into complete immobility, I am sure.

I would also suggest giving yourself a space between each book of a couple of weeks or more to help simulate the time distance that RM traversed between his books as he wrote them.

-Montana

I second (fith?) the notion to read them all and in order.

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-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

I sixth your second Justin.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.