The CIA Used This Psychic Meditation Program. It’s Never Been More Popular
Sarah didn’t expect being paralyzed at 7 a.m. on a weekday while meditating at home.
But in August, as she listened to “The Gateway Tapes” — a series of guided meditations meant to help people reach new planes of consciousness — she says her limbs froze.
Sarah, who is in her early 30s and did not want her real name used for privacy reasons, says the tapes — which she had been listening to on and off for months — took her on a roller coaster journey of out-of-body experiences. “I was in and out of time and space,” she says. It felt like a bad trip, she said, even though she was sober.
She recalls a subsequent three-week period of disorienting instability, moving from feelings of intense spiritual connection to fear of never having relationships with others again. Looking back, she is relieved that she was not left “in a kind of spiritual psychosis”, but she sees the events as part of an ultimately positive “awakening” process.
Sarah isn’t the only one reporting confusing and petrifying experiences thanks to the Gateway Process, which has been around for more than 50 years and has exploded in popularity since the pandemic. But, like many others, she also credits it with helping her calm her mind and make transformative changes in her life.
Developed by radio executive Robert Monroe, the Gateway Process claims to be “a journey of self-discovery” that can help people go “further, deeper and faster into different dimensions of consciousness.” Monroe founded the Monroe Institute in 1971 in Faber, Virginia. Dubbed America’s “Hogwarts” by one consciousness content creator, the facility claims to help people get out of their bodies via in-person and virtual retreats, and even Spotify playlists, through self-hypnosis-style exercises fueled by “binaural beats” — sounds tuned to different frequencies that play in each ear of the headset. Proponents claim that binaural beats balance both sides of the brain and improve well-being. And while there is still an absence of scientific evidence to support the institute’s methods, that hasn’t stopped the military from taking an interest in Monroe’s mysterious courses that also include manifestation and “remote viewing” — a form of clairvoyance in which one leaves the body to explore the real world using only the mind.
Since 2022, some 12,500 people, including military personnel, psychonauts and meditators, have joined “Gateway Voyage” programs online and in person. This represents a 35% increase in participants compared to the pre-pandemic period of 2016 to 2019. In 2025, there were 80 in-person retreats with 20 participants each, according to the institute. “For the first time in our history, we reached the absolute maximum capacity of our campus retreats this year,” says Paul Citarella, executive vice president of the Monroe Institute. In-person retreats cost $2,695, while virtual retreats cost $1,150. Growing demand has prompted the institute to host retreats beyond Virginia, in other locations across the United States, as well as in Romania, Italy, Switzerland and Greece. The organization’s Expand app has been installed 386,000 times since its launch in July 2021, according to company data.
In June, the institute announced it was undertaking what it calls “the world’s first study of higher states of consciousness” with neurofeedback company Neuphoria, which says the research could help people become “among the first humans in history to map, master, and return to altered states – on demand, with data.” Some 333 Gateway Voyage graduates have signed up and will soon spend four weeks tracking their brain data while listening to the meditations, paying $897 apiece.
