At the Monroe Institute in Virginia, non-local consciousness is a reality. Ditto life after death. Out-of-body experiences occur on a daily basis and in the labs they’re conducting research into the reported collapse of sub-atomic randomness during periods when human consciousness is focused on particular events. Oh yes, and you can learn Remote Viewing techniques from alumni of the US military psychic spying programmes. It seems fair to say that it’s not your average rural retreat.

As F Holmes ‘Skip’ Atwater, Research Director at the Institute and, from 1977 to 1987, Operations and Training Officer for the Army Intelligence Branch of the US government’s RV programme, points out: “A week-long cruise in the Bahamas is about the same price as a week-long cruise in consciousness.”

The Institute emerged out of the experimental work of Robert Monroe (pictured below), a radio producer and television executive, who had become interested in human consciousness research in the late 1950s, when he began having what would come to be termed ‘out-of-body-experiences’.