Frank DeMarco boldly goes where no mind has gone before

Review By KEN KORCZAK

While I was reading his book I was thinking of documentary I was watching about how animals might evolve into new forms in the future. There was footage of an octopus near the shore of the ocean. It was struggling to make its way along some rocks among the shallow water -- the octopus was half in and half out of the water, grappling to navigate an environment that was somewhat familiar, but also vastly different.

FRANK DEMARCO is that kind of explorer. He is daring to send his mind into those exotic areas that straddle our normal mode of mentally framing reality with more exotic ways of determining what's going on. He's attempting to expand the way we make sense of reality -- and maybe even to find a different way to be a human being.

This book documents 10 sessions DeMarco conducted at the MONROE INSTITUTE of Faber, Virginia. The facility is named after its founder, Robert Monroe, who wrote three best-selling books about out-of-body travel. It was Monroe who really blew the lid off the OBE, a centuries old phenomenon that had long been relegated to mysticism and arcane eastern religious sects. Monroe brought if forward in a way that more Western, scientific minds could deal with it using a modern scientific approach.

Equally as important to this book is the man who facilitated the sessions with DeMarco, none other than FRED "SKIP" ATWATER. Atwater is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who was the founder of Army's top secret remote viewing unit. He was among an elite corp of men who were the Founding Fathers of so-called "psychic spying." After retiring from the military, Atwater became the science director and later president of the Monroe Institute.

So in these sessions, DeMarco is resting in a kind of isolation chamber. He's reclined in a waterbed, and he wears headphones through which he is fed a variety of sound frequencies containing something called binaural beats. I won't go into details about what these are, except to say they have been shown to induce altered states of consciousness.

As DeMarco is sent into an altered state of consciousness, but he also holds onto a portion of his

Frank DeMarco

waking mind so that he can chat with and report back to Atwater via a microphone. Atwater sits in another room where he controls the tones and frequencies DeMarco hears. DeMarco is also wired with fingertip sensors which monitor things like his galvanic skin responses, body temperature and more.

DeMarco then sends his perceptions into other realms of consciousness and reports his perceptions. He finds two contacts from two other eras of time: An ancient Egyptian and a Medieval monk. He feels he is deeply involved in some kind of mutual project of consciousness manipulation with these two -- this is not a simplistic reincarnational kind of situation in which DeMarco "trades notes" about past lives, or stuff life that.

DeMarco also interacts with a more advanced set of entities he simply calls "The Guides" or "Guidance," and sometimes just "the guys." To facilitate a greater connection with him, these higher entities encase DeMarco (or cause him to become) what he perceives as a crystalline structure. In this state he is able to receive a variety of novel concepts, expand his psychology, gain insights, and so on.

DeMarco then "debriefs" in an informal discussion with Atwater. Both the sessions and the debrief sessions were tape recorded, and DeMarco fills the pages of this book by basically giving us the raw transcripts of all that was said.

For me, this was a five-star read because it provides a fascinating "fly-on-the-wall" view of how people on the cutting edge of consciousness exploration are endeavoring to probe uncharted territories of the mind. They go places for which no road maps exist. The explorers are pushing the edges of perception, have no idea what to expect, and don't even have a good way to recognize "things" when they encounter them.

But wait --I should backtrack that statement a little. There may actually be a few road maps: Over the years, Monroe Institute researchers have worked out a series of auditory frequencies which seem to match certain mental states which in turn correspond with certain kinds of nonphysical locations. They call them Focus 10, Focus 12, Focus 15, Focus 27, etc. Each of these states, identified by specific frequencies and brain states, would seem to match up with specific territories "out there."

When people become immersed in Focus 27, for example, they will find themselves in a specific afterlife kind of location -- a place where dead people gather after leaving their bodies. Here they create a kind of resting place, perhaps a peaceful cabin in a wooded area, where they can simply rest and get used to the idea that they no longer have a physical body. They can come to grips with the fact that they are physically dead, and now can contemplate their next stage in consciousness development.

Focus 27 is a place of pure mind -- that is, a cabin in the woods is not made up of physical lumber and nails -- but a construct of the mind. Think of the way you might have a dream about a visit to a cabin in the mountains. While you are in the dream, the cabin would seem as real and solid as anything else. When you wake up, you would tell yourself: "Well, that wasn't a real cabin. It was all being created by my dream mind!" The structures of Focus 27 apparently are a kind of group-mind creations of structures -- buildings, parks, gathering places -- which are collective construct by those who have passed on.

Anyway, I digress.

I should say that for some readers this book might be something less than a five-star read -- you won't get the exciting New Age, out-of-body wonder type of fireworks provided by such folks as Robert Monroe, Richard Buhlman or others who have written popular books about OBE adventures involving lively interactions with strange beings, exotic otherworldly locales, although there is a certain element of that here.

A PLACE TO STAND is more sober and less sensational. It doggedly plods along. DeMarco also displays healthy levels of skepticism and self doubt about his own perceptions, which adds to our feeling that he is an authentic guy who is endeavoring to bring back reliable information from strange places, rather than hyping it all up to make for an exiting New Age book.

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

All NEW: KEN'S BOOK REVIEW SITE ON FACEBOOK: REMOTE BOOK REVIEWING

Follow @KenKorczak

Skip Atwater's "Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul" is about a lot more than remote viewing; It's a profound testament of one man's spiritual journey

Review by KEN KORCZAK

A twist on an old Hindu proverb goes something like this: “There are a million paths to God (or enlightenment or heaven); it doesn’t matter which one you take, as long as you get there.”

It’s this quote that makes me think of FRED HOLMES ATWATER, best known as Skip Atwater. Here is a man who found his personal path to enlightenment, but ah, what a strange road he took.

Think back to when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was grinding away. Both sides are harboring enough nuclear weapons to not only destroy the other – but take out the whole world in the process. The hate and enmity of these two behemoths threatened swallow our beautiful blue-green planet in a nuclear fire of mutual madness.

Now imagine that one of the key warriors in this global stalemate of loathing is working diligently to ensure that his side prevails. He is a member of the most feared corps of elite warriors – an operative in the dark, seamy, paranoid, dangerous world of military intelligence -- he's a spy.

Skip Atwater could fairly be described as a kind of elite “super spy,” not because he was traveling the dark corridors of the world collecting information or performing assassinations – but because of the amazing assignment he landed.

It became Atwater's task to study, and possibly develop, a team of psychic spies that could use ESP to snoop on the Soviet Union, or any enemy of America. Even today this sounds like an insane idea –- a mixture of New Age or occult voodoo mixed with the militaristic paranoia of the Cold War. It sounds more like a paranoid Philip K. Dick novel.

Except that it's all true. Skip Atwater was the spearhead that led the U.S. Army to spend millions of dollars and years of manpower to develop elite super corps of spies who could reach out with only their minds to get behind any wall, bunker or secret hidden base the Soviets might be hiding anywhere in the world.

By all accounts, Skip Atwater would seem to be the opposite of anyone’s definition of a Cold War spy. He is a gentle man by nature – sweet, kind, humble, unassuming, blonde and handsome – a guy with a natural but quiet charisma -- the kind of guy that makes everyone feel strangely good when he enters a room.

That’s the way I bet you will feel when you read Atwater’s book, CAPTAIN OF MY SHIP, MASTER OF MY SOUL: LIVING WITH GUIDANCE.

These pages are part autobiography, and part detailed record of what Atwater did to develop the now famous (or infamous) PSI method known as remote viewing as a tool for U.S. intelligence.

Atwater starts with his childhood, telling of strange mystical events he experienced, but which his metaphysical-minded parents encouraged him to think of as “natural.” These experiences including things like out-of-body experiences, seeing auras and even an instance of levitation!

SKIP ATWATER

Atwater voluntarily joined the U.S. Army at a time when the Vietnam War was heating up and getting ugly – but he joined only to stave off being drafted, and to prevent himself from having to kill someone. Instead, Atwater asked to join military intelligence – and he got his wish –or as he repeatedly puts it, "I was on my path, I was being guided, I was on track, I was being protected”by something he calls "Guidance."

The middle part of the book is a fairly detailed and exacting account of how the remote viewing program was developed, including some pretty terrific “how to” information for those interested in trying their own hand at this esoteric process.

For me, the juicy part of the book (to borrow a phrase from DEAN RADIN who wrote an intro) is the latter third where Atwater describes his work at the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia, his post-military job.

THE MONROE INSTITUTE was established by the famous out-of-body traveler ROBERT MONROE, author of several superior books on the topic.

It was here that the now also famous HEMI-SYNC TECHNOLOGY was developed – an audio system using something called binaural beats – to enhance brainwave activity, enabling people to explore alternate or advanced states of consciousness.

Atwater's is probably the very best book I have read about remote viewing (though I have only read about a half-dozen). It goes well beyond remote viewing itself to discuss issues of spiritual growth and expansion.

Like another early remote viewing pioneer – physicist Russell Targ – what began for Atwater as a hard-nosed attempt to bring scientific understanding and military application to ESP ended up a journey of profound spiritual transformation -- and his story is beautifully and eloquently told in these pages.

Ken Korczak is the author of THE FAIRY REDEMPTION OF JUBAL CRANCH

Follow @KenKorczak