Just wanted to point out this is mostly the work of Robert Monroe. The CIA's involvement was only in publishing information about it, the Army did experiements with it and tried to use it for remote viewing for example.
I've used the gateway tapes and it actually is what got me to start thinking about occult topics. I was always looking for spiritual answers and I would watch videos on perennial philosophies, look at Alex Grey's beautiful psychedelic art, and do buddhist meditations. But something about the gateway tape really opened my mind to different possibilities.
Focus 10 is a hypnogagic state, and then Focus 12 is "expanded awareness". There is also affirmations, deep visualization, breathing exercises, etc in these tapes. All of this along with their dynamic binaural beats(it is not a constant frequency, apparently they recorded the brain waves of people in specific states of mind over time, and then tried to replicate this with complex binaural beats, their patents are very interesting they use pink noise with different phase in each ear for focus 12 for example, not just two constant frequencies in each ear).
I've definitely had some very interesting experiences doing these tapes, some hard to explain with words. It doesn't "work" every single time, but about 50 percent of the time I get into a deep trance state, can see and hear things, etc. When I was doing the tapes the most, my dreams got pretty intense and there were a few times I had almost spontaneously astral projected in a dream and it scared me. But they have specific tapes for releasing fears with visualization etc. Its a really unique system, and its pretty secular and scientific, while still being open to some very beautiful mystical possibilities. I ended up moving to the occult to truly understand what was happening in these experiences. I needed a system with more symbolism, more academic vigor, to truly understand the states of mind and what I was seeing. This is what lead me to qaballah and magick.
