In this guide

A tape recorder sits on a nightstand in 1958, and a man named Robert Monroe is trying to figure out why he keeps vibrating out of his body. Across the country, a Mexican-American hypnotist named Jose Silva is teaching housewives in Texas to close their eyes and count backward from three. Both men stumbled onto the same territory, the space between sleep and waking, and both built systems that would define how millions try to leave their bodies. Astral projection, the practice of consciously separating one’s awareness from the physical body, has two dominant modern schools: Monroe’s “Out-of-Body Experience” (OBE) model and Silva’s “Mind Control” method. They share a doorway, but they disagree on what lies beyond it.

We keep both schools in our library because they answer different questions. Monroe asks what happens when you leave. Silva asks what you can do while you are gone.

Who Were These Two Men, and What Did Each Actually Build?

Who Were These Two Men, and What Did Each Actually Build

Robert Allan Monroe was a successful broadcasting executive in Virginia when his experiments began. In 1958, during a period of intense personal stress, he started experiencing spontaneous episodes of what he called “vibration,” a full-body sensation he initially feared was a brain tumor. He consulted physicians, found nothing physically wrong, and began methodically exploring the state on his own. By 1971 he had published Journeys Out of the Body, a book that sold steadily for decades and made him the public face of the OBE. In 1974 he founded the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia, a research facility that continues to operate today.

Jose Silva was a self-taught parapsychologist from Laredo, Texas. He began studying hypnosis in the 1940s, not for spiritual reasons but to help his children perform better in school. His breakthrough came when he developed a simple induction technique, counting from three to one, that he claimed could put a person into a “brain frequency” between waking and sleeping. By 1966 he had codified his method into the Silva Mind Control course, later renamed Silva Method, which taught students to use this relaxed state for “mental functioning” at a level he called “dynamic meditation.”

The two men never collaborated. They operated in parallel, Monroe from the East Coast and Silva from the borderlands of Texas, each convinced he had found the operative mechanism of the nonphysical mind. Their differences are not cosmetic. They are structural.

What Is the Core Disagreement: Destination or Utility?

What Is the Core Disagreement Destination or Utility

Monroe’s system is about travel. He mapped the territory he encountered in his own projections, naming regions that have since entered the common vocabulary of the field. His “Focus Levels” are numbered states of consciousness, from Focus 10 (mind awake, body asleep) to Focus 27, which he described as a “parking lot” or staging area for souls. He called the nonphysical environment “the Locale,” and he distinguished between Locale I, the “earth plane” or the immediate surroundings of physical reality, and Locale II, a more abstract region populated by what he called “roamers,” entities that seemed as lost as he was.

Silva’s system is about function. He was not interested in mapping other worlds. He taught his students to use the relaxed state to solve problems, improve memory, and perform what he called “psychic orientation,” a form of distant viewing or intuitive diagnosis. The Silva Method’s signature technique, the “three fingers technique,” is a trigger that returns the practitioner to the relaxed state at will, not a vehicle for leaving the body. In Silva’s framework, the astral plane is a tool, not a destination.

This is the fork in the road. Monroe’s school treats the out-of-body state as an end in itself, a way of knowing what exists beyond the physical. Silva’s school treats it as a means, a way of bringing information back to improve physical life. A Monroe practitioner asks, “Where can I go?” A Silva practitioner asks, “What can I fix?”

How Do Their Practices Actually Differ in the Room?

The practical difference is visible in the first ten minutes of either practice. Monroe’s method, as refined at his institute, relies heavily on audio technology. His patented Hemi-Sync process uses binaural beats, two slightly different frequencies played in each ear, to coax the brain into a desired state. The practitioner lies down, puts on headphones, and follows a guided exercise that moves them through Focus levels. The body is still. The attention is turned inward, and the goal is to let the “second body” separate from the physical one, often described as a sensation of floating upward or rolling out of the body.

Silva’s method is a seated practice. Students are taught to relax in a chair, close their eyes, and count from three to one, visualizing a number at each count. The state is called “alpha level,” a reference to the brain wave frequency of eight to thirteen cycles per second that Silva believed was the gateway to higher functioning. From this state, the practitioner is guided through visualizations, often involving a “mental screen” where they project images of desired outcomes. The body is not meant to separate. The mind is meant to expand.

The sensory details matter. Monroe’s lab rooms at Faber are dim, soundproofed, and equipped with recliners and headphones. Silva’s classrooms were ordinary hotel conference rooms, with rows of chairs and a blackboard. Monroe’s students report physical sensations: vibrations, a rushing sound, the feeling of being pulled upward. Silva’s students report mental clarity: sharper senses, vivid imagery, a sense of calm control. One school is a departure lounge. The other is a control room.

Which School Has the Stronger Historical Pedigree?

Neither man invented the idea of leaving the body. The concept is ancient, and both men drew on traditions they did not always acknowledge. The Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga trains practitioners to recognize the dream state and navigate it consciously, a direct precursor to Monroe’s Focus levels. The shamanic journey, documented across Siberian and Indigenous American traditions, involves the soul traveling to other worlds while the body remains in trance. Silva’s alpha state has clear parallels in the meditative practices of yogic traditions, where the gap between waking and sleeping is considered a doorway to deeper awareness.

What Monroe and Silva added was systematization. They took scattered traditions and gave them repeatable protocols, named stages, and commercial structures. This is their legacy, and it is double-edged. On one hand, they made the practice accessible to people who would never sit with a shaman or a monk. On the other, they stripped the traditions of their cultural and ethical frameworks. A Tibetan lama trains for years under a master before attempting dream yoga. Monroe’s students can buy a CD set and try it that night.

We note this not to dismiss either school. We note it because the difference matters. Monroe and Silva were not creating new practices. They were translating old ones into a language their contemporaries could use, the language of science and self-improvement. The question is what gets lost in translation.

What Do Their Critics Say, and What Is Fair?

The most common criticism of Monroe’s school is that his maps are unverifiable. His Focus levels, his Locales, his descriptions of “roamers” and “guides,” all come from his own testimony and that of his students. There is no external check. Critics argue that the entire system could be a sophisticated form of lucid dreaming, the brain’s way of constructing a convincing alternative reality while the body sleeps. The Monroe Institute responds with decades of anecdotal reports and ongoing research, but the evidence remains subjective.

Silva’s school faces a different criticism: that it overpromises. The Silva Method has been marketed as a cure for everything from poor grades to serious illness, and Silva himself made claims about psychic healing that have not held up to scrutiny. His “psychic orientation” technique, in which students are taught to mentally scan a person’s body for health issues, has been criticized as dangerous if taken as a substitute for medical care. The method’s core relaxation techniques are sound, but the marketing has often outpaced the evidence.

Both criticisms are fair, and both miss the point. The value of these schools is not in their scientific proof, which is thin, but in their practical effects. People who practice either method report reduced anxiety, improved focus, and a deeper sense of connection to something beyond the self. Those outcomes are real, even if the mechanisms are disputed. We do not promise that either method will let you leave your body. We note that both methods have helped people sit more quietly with their own minds.

How Do These Schools Compare to Other Astral Traditions?

Monroe and Silva are the modern, Westernized faces of a practice with many faces. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, taught a form of astral projection called “rising on the planes,” a structured visualization exercise that moved the practitioner through the Sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This is closer to Monroe in its emphasis on exploring a mapped spiritual geography, but it is far more ceremonial, requiring ritual preparation and symbolic knowledge. Monroe’s system is deliberately stripped of ceremony. The Golden Dawn’s is built on it.

The Theosophical Society, founded by Helena Blavatsky in 1875, offered a different model. Theosophists spoke of the “astral body” as one of several subtle bodies surrounding the physical, and they treated astral projection as a byproduct of spiritual development rather than a skill to be cultivated directly. This is closer to Silva in its emphasis on the state of the practitioner rather than the act of travel, but it is far more doctrine-heavy. Silva’s method is pragmatic. Theosophy is philosophical.

The closest modern cousin to Monroe is the work of Thomas Campbell, a physicist who was one of Monroe’s early students and who later developed his own system, “My Big TOE” (Theory of Everything), which frames the astral plane as a virtual reality simulation. Campbell’s work is a direct intellectual descendant of Monroe’s, but it replaces Monroe’s mystical language with computer metaphors. The closest cousin to Silva is the broader field of “psychic development” courses, which teach relaxation and visualization as tools for intuitive information gathering. Both schools have spawned imitators, but neither has been surpassed.

What Do People Get Wrong About These Two Schools?

The biggest misconception is that they are the same thing. Both involve relaxation, both claim access to nonphysical reality, and both are often lumped together under the label “astral projection.” But the goals are different, the methods are different, and the experiences are different. A Monroe practitioner is trying to leave the body. A Silva practitioner is trying to use the mind more effectively while staying in it. Confusing them is like confusing a traveler with a cartographer.

Another misconception is that either method requires belief. Monroe was a businessman who approached his experiences with skepticism, testing them against physical reality before accepting them. Silva was a pragmatist who told his students they could use the method regardless of whether they believed in the paranormal. Both men were more interested in results than in faith. The practices work, to the extent that they work, as techniques, not as creeds.

A third misconception is that these are ancient traditions in modern clothing. They are not. They are modern inventions that draw on ancient sources, but they are shaped by their time: Monroe’s by the 1970s fascination with altered states, Silva’s by the 1960s self-help movement. They are products of their era, and they should be understood as such. That does not make them worthless. It makes them historical artifacts, and we treat them as such in our library of astral projection guides.

FAQ

Can I practice both Monroe and Silva methods at the same time? Yes, but they are not complementary. Monroe’s method requires deep physical stillness and a willingness to let go of control. Silva’s method requires active mental engagement and a focus on outcomes. Trying to do both at once usually results in doing neither well.

Which method is better for beginners? Silva’s method is easier to learn. The three-to-one count and the mental screen are simple, repeatable, and do not require the dramatic physical sensations that Monroe’s method often produces. Monroe’s method can be disorienting for people who are not used to altered states.

Are the experiences real or imagined? We do not know, and we do not claim to know. Both schools produce vivid, convincing experiences, but whether those experiences reflect an external reality or an internal one is a question that neither science nor philosophy has settled. We suggest you try the practices and draw your own conclusions.

Do I need special equipment for either method? Silva’s method requires nothing but a quiet room and a chair. Monroe’s method is often practiced with binaural beat recordings, but his original experiments were done without them. The equipment is a convenience, not a requirement.

Where to Go Next

Both schools are doorways, and the choice between them is a choice about what you want on the other side. If you want to explore, Monroe’s maps will give you a territory to navigate. If you want to work, Silva’s tools will give you a method to apply. The astral projection hub holds the full landscape of this practice, from the Golden Dawn’s ceremonial approach to the modern science of lucid dreaming. The door is open. The question is which way you walk through it.