---
title: "Review of Far Journeys examines its loosh concept and UFO lore parallels"
url: "https://usubjects.com/article/review-of-far-journeys-examines-its-loosh-concept-and-ufo-lore-parallels-3377"
updated: "2026-08-22T16:01:19.040Z"
description: "A review of Robert Monroe’s \"Far Journeys\" describes how the book’s unusual terminology and ideas, especially its concept of \"Loosh\" as non-physical emotional energy, felt strange and unsettling compared with his earlier work on out-of-body experiences. The article notes that this notion echoes earlier UFO lore about \"soul-sucking aliens\" or beings that harvest human emotional energy, consciousness, or life force."
sources: ["https://obeoutlook.blogspot.com/2026/07/review-far-journeys-part-1.html?m=1"]
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Review of Far Journeys examines its loosh concept and UFO lore parallels

Published: 2026-08-21  
Source: [Anomalist](https://obeoutlook.blogspot.com/2026/07/review-far-journeys-part-1.html?m=1)

### Overview

A recent review of Robert A. Monroe’s **_Far Journeys_** revisits one of the most unusual books in the out-of-body experience genre and finds that its ideas can still feel unsettling decades later. Published in 1985 as Monroe’s long-awaited sequel to **_Journeys Out of the Body_**, the 290-page volume continues his exploration of consciousness, nonphysical states, and encounters beyond ordinary reality. But while the reviewer says Monroe’s first book was “mind-blowing” and life-changing, **_Far Journeys_** initially struck them as strange, opaque, and even “like the ramblings of a madman.”

### Monroe’s Unusual Vocabulary

One of the central points in the review is Monroe’s decision to build a specialized vocabulary to describe experiences he believed conventional language could not capture. The book introduces terms such as **TSI** for “Time-Space Illusion,” **M Band** for psychic noise, **Rote** for an encapsulated thought structure, and **INSPEC** for a helpful “Light being.” The reviewer notes that this terminology was intended to make Monroe’s accounts more precise, but it also made the book feel alien to readers expecting the more grounded tone of his earlier work. For the reviewer, that stylistic shift was part of what made the book difficult to absorb, especially on first reading.

### The Loosh Concept and Its Unsettling Implications

The most provocative idea flagged in the review is **“Loosh,”** Monroe’s term for a type of nonphysical emotional energy. According to the article’s framing, this concept gave the book an eerie quality because it implied that human emotion, consciousness, or life force could be produced, transferred, or perhaps even collected in ways not normally considered. The reviewer suggests that this is where **_Far Journeys_** moves from eccentric to deeply strange, and where its speculative cosmology begins to resemble a kind of spiritual system rather than a straightforward memoir of altered states.

### Parallels in UFO and Paranormal Lore

The review also places Monroe’s loosh idea alongside older strands of **UFO lore** and paranormal speculation, particularly stories about **“soul-sucking aliens”** or beings that feed on human emotional energy. Those ideas have appeared for decades in fringe accounts describing extraterrestrials or nonhuman entities that harvest fear, pain, consciousness, or “vital energy.” While the review does not claim Monroe was borrowing directly from UFO traditions, it argues that the resemblance is hard to ignore. In both cases, the human being is not simply an observer of the extraordinary, but a source of energy or substance for unseen intelligences.

### Why the Book Still Draws Attention

Despite its strangeness, the review suggests that **_Far Journeys_** remains worth revisiting because it marks a turning point in Monroe’s work and in the broader history of consciousness studies. The reviewer says that reading Monroe’s books in chronological order helps make sense of the arc: the accessible first volume, the more abstract and concept-heavy sequel, and then **_Ultimate Journey_**, which the reviewer felt restored some of the earlier clarity. For modern readers, the enduring interest of **_Far Journeys_** may lie less in whether its claims are true than in how it connects out-of-body exploration, altered states, and longstanding cultural fears about what unseen forces might want from human beings.

## Provenance

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