Over the years, I have had many wonderful and growth-filled consciousness experiences through The Monroe Institute. However, my friends at the Institute know that I have long contested and battled with my guidance group over their actions and inaction. In the past few years, I have had three soul journeys related to that issue that have furthered my life progression.

I endeavored to communicate with my guidance group. There was one particular guide who said, “we were supposed to follow the directions, but I've decided to disobey.”

The first of these major journeys occurred during Guided Exercise Day at the Professional Seminar when we experienced a combination of Shamanic journeying and Hemi-Sync. In the course of this experience, we were instructed to work with the crow spirit. However, for me, the crow turned into a Firebird and I rode on its back. We were instructed to work in the lower realm of spirit. However, my Firebird took me swooping down and then up even through the middle realm into the upper realm. It flew around this Mesa on which were standing my guidance group, hands joined, facing outwards and resolutely blocking any influence. However, the Firebird flew around them circling and circling until they started to move in time with the Firebird. I landed in the middle of the Mesa and was then transported upwards into further realms and there the journey ended.

The follow-up to this experience was that there didn't seem to be a major change in my relationship to guidance or the blocked and thwarted nature of my professional life. I endeavored to communicate with my guidance group. There was one particular guide who said, “we were supposed to follow the directions, but I've decided to disobey.”

The difficulties with guidance prompted me to explore in other directions. I was aware of Michael Newton's work using hypnosis to contact the realm of “lives between lives.” What was most attractive about using this method was that it allowed the hypnotist to use their personal guidance system to negotiate with the subject and their "soul." The self of that soul struck me as different from the self that in Monroe moves through the various focus levels. The self of the soul of Michael Newton struck me as more like the I-There or Oversoul.

I found a life-between-lives therapist in my city and contracted to do the work. We had a preliminary past life regression that took me into the most recent life (at least chronologically speaking). It turned out that this was a European of mixed Jewish heritage who ended his life in a concentration camp. He least spent some time in the camp known as Theresienstadt. It's unclear whether he died there or in a subsequent camp. During that regression the therapist asked me if I wanted to go elsewhere and somehow from within the life in the concentration camp I found myself on some other world with beings that were observing our world. I then returned to the life in the concentration camp and I saw my death. I had approached the fence deliberately and I'd been shot to death by the guard. As I transitioned into the afterlife, I was met by several guides. The first guide I sensed as extraordinarily passive. This struck me as explanatory of how my life had been going the way that it had.

The final regression session took me back to a life in colonial America. This life seemed to go through a less troubled progression and when that life ended from natural causes I again transitioned into the afterlife. What I sensed was that the self that was involved in that life went forward probably into the regions of 27, but I experienced myself as going upwards to join with what Michael Newton calls the soul. This entity joined with two othersouls or oversouls that were part of some project from another system joining into the earth system. This other system is the system that I had experienced in the previous regression. Part of the project of this other system of entities was to help push forward in some way the development within the earth system. It seemed to me that this oversoul was more interested in this overall project and not interested in the details of my life. Also as part of the Newton methodology, I was asked to sense how much soul energy had been invested in my life. I found that a relatively minor part had been invested in my life, and major parts had been invested in other projects elsewhere. This also seemed to explain why the guidance group aiding in this life was not coherently engaged in being helpful in my own earth life. Also as part of this methodology, I moved to experience a higher collaborating group. This group turned to my soul and basically upbraided that soul for under-investing in my life. There was some sense of the possibility of change going forward but not a definite promise of it. This is where the life-between-life regression ended.  I have to say that it makes sense to me as I see things.

I came up with two [intentions for my PREP session]. One was to review my previous soul trips to my guidance group and upper levels and to further clarify our relations, our agreements, and disagreements. My second intention was to have a fun trip.

In this journey, I found that my sense of the various focus levels was confirmed. I found Focus 10 to be somewhat contained, even squished in, as if there was a low ceiling. My sense of Focus 12 was of expansion and roominess, somewhat like being on the top of a mountain with a vista before me. My sense of Focus 15 was once again both somewhat thick and with a strange feeling of hardening of the waterbed underneath me. I found myself trying to process, clear, and work on strands of time. We moved on to Focus 21 where things opened up again. I got the message, however, that this was not the level at which I would have a useful interaction and conversation with guidance, so we moved further onward. At Focus 27, I found myself flying through various courtyards and over buildings. The flying was a fun sensation. This was not an area where work would be done but my second intention was being fulfilled. 

At the February 2014 Professional Seminar, I had the opportunity to do a PREP session [in the isolation booth at the TMI Lab]. I used this opportunity to review and to enhance my previous journeys. My facilitator was Patty Ray Avalon. She asked me for my intention or intentions for the PREP session. I came up with two. One was to review my previous soul trips to my guidance group and upper levels and to further clarify our relations, our agreements, and disagreements. My second intention was to have a fun trip. I grant you that the second intention may seem ironic and even oxymoronic.

I moved on to encounter my higher self. At that time, I experienced it as loving and positive.

Matters intensified when we went on to Focus 34-35. Here we went outward through vast amounts of space with different groups of entities placed around. I found a group of entities in a distant place that was clearly connected to that other civilization that I had contacted during my first Michael Newton regression. I received a communication that went something like, “Damn, that's one f*ing difficult and f*ed up place you come from.” I found myself breaking out in peals of laughter. Patty Ray was somewhat confused as to what was going on. I briefly explained. One of the wonderful aspects of Hemi-Sync in this PREP session was that, despite the interruption of the laughter, the frequencies helped me to maintain my place in the soul journey and the different levels of consciousness.


We then moved to a farther Focus level. Here I sensed a group of guides, at least one of whom was stubbornly resistant. I manifested a two-by-four and, as in many Looney Tunes cartoons, I bashed him thoroughly over the head multiple times. This was most satisfying.

I moved on to encounter my higher self. At that time, I experienced it as loving and positive. I had more of a sense of it moving to have positive and helpful intentions towards me. Yet, once again, there was no actual promise of a different approach. I then had this intuition to peek further, as it were, “up the ladder.” I had this vague sense of beings, including one that felt like some higher octave of myself. At this time Patty Ray said that we needed to move towards the end of the PREP session. I experienced the return as both quick and wonderfully exhilarating, like flying through some wonderful spiritual amusement park ride, except through time and space.

Subsequently, some things have moved forward in my professional life, though some other aspects have still been trailing behind. There hasn’t been a complete quantum change in my relationship with my guidance group, but I do feel some progress is being made. Perhaps, there’s even enough progress to justify moving forward in life.

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Jonathan Holt, MD

Professional Division Member

Jonathan H. Holt, MD, graduated from Yale University in 1980 and received Yale’s Lidz Prize in psychiatry. Dr. Holt also did his residency at Yale and completed a fellowship in consultation-liaison psychiatry (medical psychiatry) at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. He has been a member of the Monroe Institute Professional Division since 1996.