The goal? To convert the energy of your mind and body into a kind of laser beam that can transcend spacetime.
Different Dimensions

In 1983, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Wayne M. McDonnell was asked to write a report for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) about a project called the Gateway Process. His report, declassified in 2003, gives the "scientific" underpinnings — as well as instructions and technical assistance — to help people convert the energy of their minds and bodies into a kind of laser beam that can transcend spacetime. The goal was to "gain access to the ... intuitive knowledge which the universe offers," as well as travel in time and commune with other-dimensional beings.

Even more intriguing, one seemingly crucial part of the document, page 25, went missing for 40 years.

Gateway Process
© CIA
For a lot of people, hearing about this report was right up there with finding out that the CIA had tested clairvoyance as a spying tool, or that U.S. Department of Defense had been secretly collecting data on Unidentified Flying Objects, even as it labeled UFO spotters as crazy. Non-scientists have long been frustrated by scientists claiming the exclusive right to pose implausible theories with impunity. After all, scientists expect to be believed when they say that 95 percent of what's in the universe is invisible, composed of dark matter and dark energy. They say it's conceptually possible that, as in The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, we create new timeline universes through daily decisions. And many lauded scientists embrace string theory, which suggests our universe might be a multi-dimensional hologram.

But when someone tries to apply this information to postulate a deeper meaning behind human existence, many physicists roll their eyes. It's one thing to claim that quantum field theory says the universe comprises multiple energy fields that connect everything; it's another when someone applies that to humans' communing with trees. Scientists' theories are the result of mathematical equations that can be replicated, not human experience, which can be easily faked or imagined. As far as many physicists are concerned, the question "Why are we here?" has the same answer as the question "By what process did we come into being?"

So a project like Gateway that marries science with the human yearning for meaning seemed awfully promising. But, as it turned out, the process was not a gateway between materialistic science and experiential consciousness; it was more like an effort to write a technical manual for the ineffable.

Inside the Report

The Gateway project was originally the brainchild of Robert Monroe, a radio producer who shifted his focus in the 1950s to study the effects of certain sound patterns on human consciousness. His experiments led to his having "out-of-body experiences."

It also relies on the biomedical models of Itzhak Bentov, a Czech-born, Israeli-American engineer known for designing a remote-controlled cardiac catheter, creating diet spaghetti, and writing books about consciousness. The premise of the Gateway method of transcending spacetime also required quantum mechanical sources which, Lt. Col. McDonnell wrote, "describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness." And it leaned on theoretical physics "to explain the character of the time-space dimension and the means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it."
Energy Grid
© CIA
Finally, McDonnell had to put the whole package in the language of the physical sciences to avoid any unfortunate connection with the occult.

In creating its unique methodology, called Hemi-Sync, the Gateway project borrowed from various consciousness-altering methodologies including biofeedback, transcendental meditation, Kundalini yoga, and hypnosis.

According to the report, when a person listens to binaural beats (different sounds) in each ear, the difference confuses the brain, causing it to shift out of its normal, somewhat scattered, wave pattern and into a coherent pattern shared between the left and right hemispheres. In other words, it syncs the hemispheres of the brain into a single, powerful stream of energy, like a laser. The same effect can be seen in people who meditate for many years, the report says, but Hemi-Sync is faster. Once in a state of deep meditation, the other sounds of the body also align, the report says.

McDonell writes:
The entire body, based on its own micromotion, functions as a tuned vibrational system which transfers energy in a range of between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz into the earth's ionospheric cavity, which itself resonates at about 7-7.5 Hertz.
Some call this ionospheric resonance "the earth's heartbeat." Basically, this brain/body energy connects with the sounds of the earth's ionosphere, and can travel around the planet in one-seventh of a second, the report says.

The Cosmic Egg, Holograms, and the Absolute

Things start getting really dicey when the report explains the nature of the universe into which the brain sends these signals. It blithely layers physics theories that have some acceptance with statements that sound completely made up. For example: "Energy in infinity ... retains its inherent capacity for consciousness in that it can receive and passively perceive holograms generated by energy in motion out in the various dimensions which make up the created universe."

Much of the theory rests on a field of energy it calls the "Absolute." It exists in all dimensions, has uniform energy throughout, and is infinite, so it has no location and no momentum and is, therefore, outside of spacetime. Hemi-Sync aspires to connect people with the Absolute through a wavelength of consciousness that "clicks out" of spacetime at certain frequencies.
Hologram
© CIA
The world in which this process takes place is a giant cosmic egg with a nucleus in the middle where the Absolute spews matter from a white hole into one side of the ovoid-shaped universe. The matter then travels the shell of the egg and exits a black hole also at the nucleus. As McDonnell writes, "time begins as a measure of the cadence of this evolutionary movement as 'reality' goes around the shell of the egg on its journey to the black hole at the far end."
The interaction of our holograms with the universal hologram allows us to reflect back on ourselves with information from the Absolute, gaining a more complete understanding of ourselves.
This activity creates an interference pattern that "constitutes the universal hologram or Torus," McDonnell writes. "Since the Torus is being simultaneously generated by matter in all the various phases of 'time,' it reflects the development of the universe in the past, present and future (as it would be seen from our particular perspective in one phase of time)."

White Hole
© CIA
This Torus hologram seems to be based on string theorists' views about a holographic universe. The string theorists are inspired by equations showing that, while objects might fall into a black hole and be forever gone, the information about those objects must be retained, and is retained in 2D form on the event horizon. When projected onto a surface, all the properties and information about the 3D object would be represented in a hologram. Likewise, all that happens with matter in one side of this egg-shaped universe is projected as a holographic experience.

Meanwhile, the report states, the human brain — which is a binary system like a computer — similarly projects itself as a 3D hologram. The interaction of our holograms with the universal hologram allows us to reflect back on ourselves with information from the Absolute, gaining a more complete understanding of ourselves.

The Answer to "What Happens When You Die" and Page 25

"The out-of-body state involves projection of a major portion of the energy pattern that represents human consciousness," McDonnell writes, "so that it may move either freely throughout the terrestrial sphere for purposes of information aquisition [sic] or into other dimensions outside of time-space, perhaps to interact with other forms of consciousness. ... Consciousness is the organizing and sustaining principle that provides the impetus and guidance to bring and keep energy in motion within a given set of parameters so that a specific reality will result. When consciousness reaches a state of sophistication in which it can perceive itself (its own hologram) it reaches the point of self-cognition."

In other words, the Absolute knows itself. Consciousness knows itself. When the material, physical reality plays out in spacetime, consciousness returns to the Absolute.

In the meantime, a small percentage of people can successfully use Hemi-Sync to slip the bounds of their own bodies and spacetime, and check out other dimensions and consciousnesses. Though, like meditation and other methodologies, it requires a lot of practice.

So, the contents of the missing Page 25 aren't that much of a surprise:
"And the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the Absolute as the model around which the evolution of time-space revolves to ultimately attain a reflection of and union with Him."
Let's face it — even physicists don't know whether many of their most revered mathematical equations and theorems actually describe the universe we live in, just as many spiritual traditions might be off on the nature of consciousness.

Maybe one day, the CIA will figure it all out.