CIA Gateway process page 25: what it says and why it was missing
Page 25 of the 1983 Gateway report covers religion, “left brain” limits and self knowledge. The CIA copy skips it; the Monroe Institute shared it in 2021.
- The report: “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process” was written by US Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, dated 9 June 1983, approved for release in 2003 and now kept in the CIA’s reading room.
- The gap: the CIA’s released copy jumps from page 24 to page 26, and Vice reported in 2021 that the CIA said in replies to information requests that it never had page 25.
- The find: in April 2021 the Monroe Institute said it held page 25 in its archive in Faber, Virginia, shared it with Vice, and uploaded the full report to the Internet Archive on 14 April 2021.
- What it says: page 25 ends a section on religious belief, then covers “Left Brain Limitations” and “Self Knowledge”; it contains no instructions and no secret technique.
Shimmr Binaural beats for meditation, sleep and focus Get Shimmr What is on page 25 of the Gateway process report?
Gateway process page 25 is a page of philosophy, not a hidden method. It holds the end of one paragraph and two short paragraphs more, numbered 34 to 36, in a report called “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process”. US Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell wrote it in 1983 to assess the Gateway Experience, a guided audio course from the Monroe Institute. Our guide to the Gateway tapes covers the course and the report as a whole.
Here is what the page covers, read from the copy the Monroe Institute published:
| Paragraph | What it says |
|---|---|
| 34, end of “Belief System Considerations” | Compares the report’s “Absolute” to the Christian idea of the Holy Spirit, and says the spiral or torus shape it uses for the universe appears in symbols across many old religions |
| 35, “Left Brain Limitations” | Argues that modern physics and old mystics reach for the same ideas, and suggests Gateway could give people in strategic work a more intuitive, holistic kind of thinking |
| 36, “Self Knowledge” | Starts from the old saying “Know thyself” and presents Gateway as a possible path to self knowledge, “based on months if not years of practice” |
That is the whole page. On page 26 the report moves on to paragraph 37, “Motivational Aspect”, about the step by step way the course is taught.
Why was page 25 missing?
Page 25 was missing because the copy released through the CIA simply does not have it, and nobody has confirmed why. The report sits in the CIA’s public reading room as document CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5, released in 2003. That copy goes straight from page 24 to page 26.
Page 24 ends mid-sentence, in the middle of a discussion of the Absolute, the report’s word for a universal consciousness at rest in infinity. That cliffhanger did a lot to fuel the mystery. According to a 2021 Vice report, people filed information requests for the page for years, and the CIA replied that it never had page 25 at all.
The Monroe Institute told Vice it did not know whether the page had been left out by accident or on purpose.
Who found page 25?
The Monroe Institute, which makes the Gateway course, said in 2021 that page 25 had been in its archive in Faber, Virginia, all along. Its communications director emailed the full report to Vice journalist Thobey Campion, who published the page on 8 April 2021.
Six days later, on 14 April 2021, the institute uploaded the report to the Internet Archive, with a note that page 25 is included as a separate document. On 29 December 2022, an editor on Wikimedia Commons inserted the page into the copy of the report kept there, so that version now reads straight through.
So the page was not leaked or decoded. It came from the organisation the report was written about.
Is page 25 a secret manifestation technique?
No, page 25 contains no technique of any kind. Many videos and blog posts say it holds a hidden method for manifestation, astral travel or activating the pineal gland. The page itself mentions none of these. It has no steps, no instructions and no numbers to follow.
What it does have is a big claim in plain sight: that altered states of consciousness could help people see themselves more clearly than any personality test. That is the author’s opinion. The report contains no experiment that tests it, and no study since has shown that the Gateway method produces the states it describes.
If you are curious about the out-of-body experiences the report discusses elsewhere, our guide to whether astral projection is real covers what neuroscience has found.
Where can you read the full Gateway report?
You can read the full report, page 25 included, in two free places. The Internet Archive item from the Monroe Institute has the report and page 25 as separate files. The Wikimedia Commons copy has page 25 inserted in order.
The CIA reading room copy is the original release from 2003 and is still the one most often linked, but it is missing page 25. Be ready for dense reading: the 1983 report explains the Gateway method with ideas from physics, brain waves, holograms and religion.
What is the Gateway process actually based on?
The Gateway process is a mix of deep relaxation, guided attention and binaural beats. The report describes how listeners are guided to Focus 10, “mind awake, body asleep”, while the sound on the tape plays a slightly different tone in each ear. Your brain hears the difference as a slow pulse, called a binaural beat.
There is no need for a missing page to try the sound underneath. Shimmr is not affiliated with the Monroe Institute and has no Gateway content; it is simply a way to try binaural beats on your iPhone. A Theta session, or the Tense → At Ease Shift, which glides from Beta to Theta over 15 minutes on headphones, lets you hear what slow beats feel like while you lie still. Isochronic theta sessions work on speakers.
Common questions
What is on page 25 of the CIA Gateway report?
Page 25 finishes paragraph 34 on religious belief, comparing the report’s ideas to the Holy Spirit and to spiral symbols in old religions. It then has paragraph 35, “Left Brain Limitations”, and paragraph 36, “Self Knowledge”, which presents Gateway as a path to knowing yourself.
Why was page 25 missing?
Nobody has a confirmed answer. The CIA said in replies to information requests that it never had the page, and the Monroe Institute told Vice it did not know whether the page was left out by accident or on purpose.
Who found page 25?
The Monroe Institute, the organisation behind the Gateway course, said in 2021 that a copy of the full report sat in its own archive. It emailed the report to Vice journalist Thobey Campion, who published the page on 8 April 2021.
Is page 25 a secret manifestation technique?
No. Page 25 is three paragraphs of philosophy about religion, intuition and self knowledge. It has no steps, no technique and nothing about manifestation or the pineal gland.
Where can I read the full Gateway report?
The CIA’s copy, without page 25, is in the CIA reading room as document CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5. The Monroe Institute’s upload on the Internet Archive includes page 25 as a separate file, and the copy on Wikimedia Commons has had it inserted since December 2022.
From Gareth, who makes Shimmr This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Binaural beats are not a treatment for insomnia or any other condition.