A few months back, I shared some news about how TikTok users had revitalized interest in the "Gateway Experience," the CIA's now-abandoned 1980s project exploring the Cold War Defense potential of Astral Projection. The CIA had declassified a 28-page report on the 1983 project back in 2003, but the 25th page was bizarrely missing. As former Motherboard publisher Thobey Campion explained:
For 24 pages, [the report] winds its way through the spiritual and scientific underpinnings, techniques to achieve and potential applications of space-time transcendence. It introduces methodological frames of reference like hypnosis, transcendental meditation, spiritual belief systems, biofeedback, quantum physics, and universal holograms only so that its intended audience—CIA top brass—might merely begin to grasp its (and our) bigger reason for being. By the bottom of page 24, McDonnell reaches a full existential crescendo, broaching the very nature of reality itself. It's a cliff-hanger:
"In order to attain self-consciousness, the consciousness of the Absolute must project a hologram of itself and then perceive it. That hologram is a mirror image of the Absolute in infinity, still exists outside time and space, but is one step removed from the Absolute and is the actual agent of all creation (all reality). And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the"
And then … the report skips to page 26.
Campion finally uncovered the missing page after publishing a story about the Gateway Experience in Vice in February 2021. It turned out, the Monroe Institute — a sort-of offshoot of the project, founded by Robert Monroe, whose teachings on Astral Projection had informed the original Gateway Experience — had had the full report all along. But no one ever bothered to ask them, because everyone who was interested was already too busy trying to get answers from the CIA.
Campion breaks down the significance of that re-discovered 25th page in his newsletter. He also turned it into a work of digital art called The Gateway:
'The Gateway' is a high-resolution reinterpretation of the missing page 25 from the formerly classified CIA's Gateway Report on astral projection. It contains 659 digital micro-inscriptions of reader-submitted Out-Of-Body Experience accounts, only visible at 300% magnification.
'The Gateway' NFT is a minted 1/1 46.7MB JPEG. It comes with an encrypted digital shoebox containing: 1) The full original report, 2) A hyper-high res TIFF, 3) The original two Gateway articles, 4) Stand-alone imagery/pdfs/gifs, 5) All my research materials, 6) A library of vintage and cutting-edge audio gems, 7) Documentation of my production process, 8) A directory of Out-Of-Body Experiences and 9) A first look at the Next Wave.
For now, you can explore the high-resolution scan online, but Campion will ultimately auction off 'The Gateway' as an NFT on OpenSea, with the funds going to support Mind Science, a foundation that explores the mystery of human consciousness by funding the work of early-career neuroscientists.
What a time to be alive.
(Also, if I'm understanding OpenSea correctly, there are not currently any bids on it … so now's your chance! I guess.)
Found: Page 25 of the CIA's Gateway Report on Astral Projection [Thobey Campion / Exogenesis]
'The Gateway' NFT [Thobey Campion /Exogenesis]
Image: Public Domain via NeedPix
