What we are

Human organisms, their interactions, and knowledge

Each human organism, in its individuality, originates from the complexity of the process that determines the evolution of life on this planet, the only living world for which we have reliable information. Since every organism is produced by another mother organism, which precedes it in time, one can imagine the concatenation that traces every currently living organism to the primordial cells from which the evolutionary process originated. The characteristics of our organism determine the quality and quantity of information that we can acquire and process through the nervous system it is endowed with, and the mental activity that follows. The efficiency, power and resources of the nervous system vary from organism to organism, and affect both the ability to acquire and process information, as well as the methods of control and action of the organism. The reliability of the information we can obtain is therefore limited by the resources of the data acquisition and processing system we are equipped with, but one thing is certain: the process that led to the formation of our organism and its nervous system has a much wider extension, in space and time, than the resources of the subject who controls, at least in part, the functioning of the single organism. This subject, the conscious Ego, interacting with other subjects more or less similar to it, who control other human organisms, pursues different objectives, including the various forms of knowledge of the reality of this world, including those that allow us to transform the environmental conditions to our (presumed) advantage, and to optimize the functioning of our organisms.

Precisely due to its role as a conscious subject that pursues knowledge, the Ego must also question itself about its own nature, its own origin and the resources it has at its disposal. If it believes that it is nothing more than the final product (at least at the present stage) of the creative process that determined the evolution of life on our planet, it must necessarily recognize that its cognitive activities represent nothing more than the attempt, by the process, to know the products and the functioning of its own creation, from within the creation itself. Regarding the existence of an autonomous form of consciousness and knowledge, referred to the process itself, the information we humans have is confused and contradictory, and depends on the ways in which the psyche manifests itself to our consciousness. Therefore, in accordance with this unitary but reductive vision, there would be nothing more than the creative process that determines the evolution of life in this world, and every conscious Ego would be nothing else than a temporary and provisional instrument at the service of the progressive development (over time) of the process. This assessment necessarily has two consequences: the first is that we only know the evolutionary process as it manifests itself on our planet, but we have no information on more or less similar phenomena that can take place in the countless other worlds of the universe; the second is that the knowledge that we can conquer is determined by the tools that the creative process develops, and does not depend on our will to know. Indeed, our own will to know would be nothing more than a command that the conscious Ego receives, to diligently carry out the task assigned to it by the creative process, before being liquidated and replaced by another Ego.

Without any doubt, this is indeed the case with regard to our organism and its nervous system. But if we consider the conscious Ego and its mental activities, the picture becomes much more complex, both because the division into a plurality of organisms determines enormous differences in the way in which life is experienced and interpreted by each individual Ego, and because – how is highlighted in many pages of this site – the Ego can experience events that lead it to broaden the reductive interpretation that limits human life (and the Ego's function) to the needs of the organism. Furthermore, as we have seen, through its consciousness and mental activity the Ego experiences psychic dynamics that derive from a form of energy which, although partly connected to the natural process of evolution of life, differs from it in various aspects, determining that human history that had to face – and faces even today, in an often conflictual way – the processes that regulate the natural balances (and imbalances) of organic life. Precisely due to the different ways in which the psychic energy manifests itself to each Ego, and the power with which the individual psychic attunements fascinate, convince and ensnare the Ego, who identifies with them, that enormous diversity derives that characterizes the Egos of humans: depending on the groups they belong to and the conditioning received, these Egos can resemble each other in many respects, but they can also show substantial and irreconcilable differences, which determine the individual and group conflicting tensions that we can frequently observe. Humans, in their overwhelming majority, function in this way throughout all their life, and therefore it can be rightly said that the human psyche rules the events of this world, for better or for worse, prevailing over any other form of energy, at least as long as it can count on the submission of an adequate number of human Egos (in their role of automata).

The Ego performs many functions, including that of protection and defense both of its own organism and of the organisms of the people who are part of its family unit or the organized group which it belongs to: consequently, all the resources which the Ego can rely on sometimes are exhausted in coping with the needs of organic life, in an intensely populated environment in which the competition between individuals (and, not infrequently, the conflict of interpersonal relationships) make the protection of one's own organism, and the search for the satisfaction of the needs deriving from organic life, particularly demanding. Moreover, the reactions of pleasure and pain with which the psyche rewards or afflicts the Ego as a consequence of the interactions between the organism and the environment, or between one's organism and other human organisms, can involve the Ego to the point to make it consider the life and well-being of its own organism as the fundamental value that guides and directs its choices and actions, even at the cost of damaging or bullying other people's organisms. Finally, it should be remembered that most of the socio-cultural conditioning programs developed by the human psyche are functional to the needs of organic life within the group which one belongs to, and provide – in our complex societies – an organization of interpersonal relationships aimed, as much as possible, to the non-chaotic coexistence of a considerable number of organisms. Therefore, in our current culture, human life – meant as the life of the organism – has become the fundamental value that inspires most of the Ego conditioning programs, even if the results are not always up to expectations: nor could it be otherwise, considering the physical character of life on our planet, which manifests itself precisely in the complexity of organisms and their interactions. But if all the resources and energies available to the Ego are exhausted in coping with the psychic needs determined by organic life, the Ego's function is also exhausted when this life inevitably ends.

Not for all people, however, the Ego's activity is aimed exclusively at the defense of its organism: some humans – a minority, for sure – consciously and deliberately put at risk the integrity, the good functioning and the very life of their organism, to pursue objectives that are obviously very important for their Ego, thus refuting the pseudoscientific interpretation according to which the Ego is a function of the nervous system solely aimed at the protection and well-being of the organism. See, for example, the achievements of some climbers expert in the free solo technique, such as the one referred to on this blog page. Furthermore, as we have seen with regard to NDEs, it happens to some of those who have returned to organic life after experiencing the Spirit dimension that their Ego feels uncomfortable to the point of intensely longing for the death of its organism, to be able to return as soon as possible to that condition of bliss which it was forced to abandon against its will. This kind of information broadens our knowledge about the essence, function and resources of the conscious Ego, and highlights the substantial differences that are found in the way in which the Egos of various human beings interpret life, even as a consequence of the psychic experiences in which they are involved. These differences are found not only between the Egos of different organisms, but also – at least for some people – in the way in which the Ego of an organism evolves over time: once again, a particularly illuminating example is offered to us by some NDEs, as a result of which the Ego – albeit connected to the same organism – can feel that its orientation towards organic life has been substantially changed by what it has been able to experience in the Spirit dimension.

The Ego's consistency and power

In an attempt to identify the subject who, associated with an organism, experiences the psychic dynamics in which it is involved during the human adventure, I have resorted to the expression conscious Ego, precisely to separate this experimenter from the psychic experience that involves it through consciousness, so as to be able to attribute to it an identity and some stability: it is evident, in fact, that as long as the Ego identifies itself with its own psychic dynamics, it is contaminated by that mutability and instability that characterize the psyche, making difficult to understand what its true essence is. If we refer to what is commonly considered people's character – on the basis of their behavior in interpersonal relationships and in various environmental situations, or in relation to the psychic dynamics that involve them, according to how we are able to intuit them or they are manifested to us – we usually find a variability that we are necessarily led to attribute to a person's Ego. As a consequence of the characteristics of organic life, as it is organized in this world, we are in fact led to identify the Ego of the other with the behavior of its organism and with the psychic reactions determined by the events in which its organism is involved, to the point that the Ego of almost all of us ends up adapting to this model, giving up to differentiate itself with respect to its own psychic dynamics. This essentially depends on the fact that the Ego, endowed with will and decision-making capacity, is also entrusted with the function of controlling the activities of its own organism. It is evident that what the Ego decides to do through its own organism is determined by its mental activity, which in turn tunes some aspects of the human psyche: the latter manifests itself both by dirctly involving the Ego (through desires, rewards, fears, and the various states of mind that leverage the Ego's sensitivity), and by means of the conditioning deriving from the socio-cultural programs transmitted to the organism's control system.

These are processes that occur automatically, influencing the life and destiny of every human organism: the Ego, as a conscious subject, experiences their effects, but controls them only to the extent that the functioning of its own organic system allows it to do. One of the most singular aspects of human interactions is given by the possibility and capacity of some individuals to influence and control, through various means, the behavior and actions of other people. In a certain sense, it can be stated that all complex social organizations are founded on this capacity for control, which can be exerted by persuasion or by coercion: in the absence of it, the relations between human organisms would be absolutely chaotic (especially considering the huge number of humans currently living). Although a person who is able to exert this control over others may feel within her/himself the will and the ambition to conquer a position of power, her/his conscious Ego identifies with those psychic dynamics that push it to decide and act according to the goals that it feels it has to achieve, also controlling – in one form or another – the actions of others, so that they conform to its will. As a result of the way in which the psychic dynamics manifest themselves in human organisms, those hierarchical structures are formed that characterize our complex societies, determining the way in which the power to control the behaviors and actions of a large number of human organisms can be exerted. Obviously, the complexity of the structures of social education, management and control, as well as that of the cultural conditioning programs, is inversely proportional to the number of humans interacting in a certain territory.

If, by hypothesis, we could imagine a single human living in a sufficiently large and isolated territory to allow him not to interact with other humans, his conscious Ego would directly experience all the psychic reactions deriving from the way its organism reacts to environmental conditions – especially if these threaten its survival or vital equilibrium – but it would not be subject to any form of conditioning by a social power.  Yet, even in this case, that human organism would have been originated by another maternal organism (as it happens for any animal), and in the growth phase it would have received that information and those forms of minimal protection, sufficient to make possible its survival in a not infrequently hostile environment. But even within human groups that are numerically small and quite isolated from each other, cultural conditioning programs generally did not exceed a basic level – which was repeated unchanged for many generations – often sufficient to allow individuals or family groups to survive for long periods, even isolated, in balance with natural resources. The various cultural groups of American Indians were an example of this, until the vast territories in which they lived were invaded by other humans, very numerous and programmed by a completely different kind of culture. It should be remembered that still in the nineteenth century there were various human groups in the world, numerically reduced and sufficiently isolated as to never have come into contact with cultures much more complex than theirs, founded on the organization of human societies much more consistent in number and more technologically advanced. It should also always be kept in mind that in the last century the world population has almost quadrupled, mainly due to the progress in maintaining and protecting organic life, determined by our currently dominant culture.

Due to the bipolar and intrinsically contradictory character of the human psyche, it not infrequently happens that the psychic dynamics that directly involve a person's Ego come into conflict with the conditioning programs received, forcing the Ego to make a not easy and sometimes suffered choice between the removal of direct psychic instances in favor of the loyalty to acquired programs, or the rebellion against the latter: this conflict can also manifest itself within consolidated social groups, in the form of revolt against the current rules by more or less consistent minorities. All this shows the weak and precarious condition in which the conscious Ego finds itself due to its involvement in the psychic dynamics that rule the life of human organisms in this world, especially when it is unable to escape the identification with its own psyche. Due to the insufficient level of spiritual evolution, the Ego of a large number of humans cannot overcome this condition for the duration of their whole life, remaining awkwardly entangled in the dynamics of a psyche that dominates and uses them, we do not know for which goals, if any. What is certain is that humankind, as a whole, is completely dominated by the psyche, to the point that, in the various forms that have culturally developed, a divine and superior character is often attributed to it – especially when it manifests itself in its collective aspects – in front of which the conscious Ego should bow and inevitably submit, at least if it wants to preserve the life of its organism. If this is the normal human condition, which the conscious Ego experiences in one form or another according to what its destiny states as a consequence of the fragmentation of consciousness into a plurality of organisms, on what information and resources can the Ego rely on to escape, at least in part, from the psyche's subjection?

We have seen that, in the sphere of organic life, the psychic state of the Ego – that is, its subjection to the needs and demands that the psyche imposes on it – is by far predominant. However, on this site we have presented numerous examples of real events and experiences that imply the possibility, for the Ego, to access at least another dimension that we call (for lack of a better term) spiritual, as it is free from the needs of organic life. The reflections of the Ego's experiences in the Spirit dimension are also present in the human psyche, but they are incorporated within the confused, chaotic and often conflicting dynamics determined by the psyche's bipolar character, even if they are generally oriented towards its positive polarity. Only when the Ego is able to access the Spirit dimension, that is a non-bipolar, and therefore in itself coherent and devoid of any inner conflict, form of energy, does it free itself from the legacies connected to the psychic experiences that have characterized its human life. On the basis of the accounts of many NDErs, there is a substantial continuity in the feeling of identity of the Ego in the transition from the organic to the spiritual dimension, except for some possible interruptions in the continuity of the flow of consciousness caused by trauma or by the administration of anesthetic substances, due to the critical conditions of the organism. Therefore we have enaugh information to be able to affirm that the Ego, as a conscious subject, can have access to experiences of a different nature than those that usually characterize its organic life, in particular with regard to the one-way flow and the duration of time, which can be transformed into a perception of eternity and identity of past and future in a timeless present that encompasses everything.

The Ego as attentive observer of psychic dynamics

As long as the Ego fully identifies with the psychic dynamics that involve it, its role in human life is reduced to that of a mere executor of what the human psyche requires of it, as a consequence of those particular circumstances of time and place that characterize the human events of the organism to which the Ego is linked, marking its destiny. Living its life in this condition, the Ego records its emotional and sentimental reactions – whether positive or negative – in relation to the various events it experiences over time, complying with what its psyche imposes on it and remaining often entangled in the psychic conflicts determined by the complexity of the interactions between a multitude of human organisms, each with its own needs and peculiarities. As we have seen, in most cases the Ego's human adventure does not go beyond this level. In some cases, however, under the drive of a need of a different origin, the Ego can undertake a path of differentiation from its own psychic dynamics. The first part of this path is characterized by the fact that the Ego feels an intense interest in the various manifestations of the human psyche, in particular towards those aspects that directly and personally involve it through the mental activity of the organism to which it is connected. Being a conscious subject, the Ego is able to assume the role of observer of the psyche: to the extent that it succeeds, it also fulfills the psychic task that human life assigns to it, allowing the psyche to react – at least within certain limits – to the fact that its dynamics are consciously observed and examined.

The role of observer implies that the Ego can refrain from any form of behavior and activity which, obviously, would require the energy and attention necessary for the control of the organism. This is the main reason why meditation and introspection practices – for example – require a stasis of the organism's activity, which can be particularly difficult to attain for all those who have been conditioned by the programs of a culture mainly oriented towards doing. The dynamism of the human organism implies a control function on the part of the Ego, who, in order to be able to adequately perform its role in often shortened times, usually, and often automatically, relies on the psyche's dynamics that involve it and on the acquired conditioning programs. In this way, all those habitual mechanisms that underlie the functioning of our organism are created and strengthened, which prove to be very useful for a non-dispersive management of the limited mental resources which the Ego can rely on. Of course, if we want to cope with the needs of organic life and the various social commitments that derive from them, we cannot completely renounce the dynamism of doing: however, if it is possible for us and if we are interested in doing so, we can limit our human activities to the minimum indispensable, in order to be able to find the time to devote to the observation of the human psyche in general, and in particular of the psychic dynamics that directly involve our Ego. These periods of stasis, that is, the suspension of the actions consequent to the Ego's consent to the requests determined by the psyche's activity, allow the Ego to progressively distance itself from the psyche's dynamics that keep on involving it, and to examine with careful precision the emotional effect they exert: what it likes and exerts a charm and attraction that often triggers a desire, what leaves it more or less indifferent, what bores or can annoy it, and what irritates it, is disliked and must be avoided, because it causes harm, pain and suffering that can sometimes become unbearable.

Through this introspective training, the Ego not only recognizes its own orientation towards the psyche's dynamics in which it is directly involved, but also realizes – on a more general level – that the orientation of another person's Ego can be very different from its, contrary to what its own psyche can lead it to (naively) believe. This diversity of orientation, determined by the fragmentation of consciousness in a multitude of organisms, represents the fundamental aspect of the conflict deriving from the psyche's bipolar character: the more the Ego identifies itself with the negative dynamics of its own psyche, the more it will be inclined to interacting in a conflictual way with another Ego. Continuing in its path of differentiation from the psyche, the Ego realizes that its orientation too can be arbitrary – like that of the other Egos – as it is marked by the peculiar destiny of each human life. To give a trivial example, it is as if each Ego were equipped with a compass whose needle on one side marks the north (positive polarity) and on the other the south (negative polarity), but instead of orienting itself towards the Earth's only north pole (the good), the needle of each compass would orient itself randomly in any direction, while the Ego continues to trust its compass in the belief that it is indicating the right direction to follow. We can recall here the substantial difference between the condition in which the Ego finds itself when it experiences the Spirit's energy during an NDE, and the condition in which it is under the psyche's dominion during its organic life: the non-bipolar energy of the Spirit offers the Ego a certain and absolute orientation, making it feel a perfect harmony (not to say the identity) with every other conscious Ego, while organic life – by splitting consciousness – determines the differences in orientation, the contrasts and the conflicts between the various Egos, single or grouped.

In observing the human psyche as a whole, in the light of the information relating to the experiences in the Spirit dimension, the Ego realizes that the psyche's positive polarity represents, at least in part, the reflection of the Spirit in the dimension of organic life. Consequently, if one asks what is the origin of the energy that influences the psyche's negative polarity, one runs the risk of hypothesizing the existence of an antithetical dimension to that of the Spirit, for which, however, there is no experimental evidence. Indeed, the distressing, painful or infernal NDE accounts we know of, do not have the same requisites of coherence and stability that characterize the homecoming in the Spirit dimension, but rather seem to be a wandering without orientation in an intermediate dimension, still subject to a control of the psyche, whose negative dynamics are often amplified without the Ego being able to find the resources to get out of the subjective labyrinth in which it finds itself imprisoned. Evil certainly exists in the dimension of organic life, but it must be remembered that, even before the human psyche was formed, carnivorous animals, in order to feed themselves, often attacked, killed and devoured other live animals, whose nervous system reacted to the threat by producing those symptoms that even today our Ego experiences in conditions of distress and suffering. Evil, the psyche's negative polarity, is closely linked to organic life: for this reason the conscious Ego, as long as it lives bound to an organism, can feel the influence of the spiritual Ego to a greater or lesser extent, but cannot completely identify with it, given the incompatibility between the Spirit dimension and that of organic life. This is why I believe that in distressing NDEs the Ego still remains entangled – for reasons that are far from clear to me – in the psyche's dynamics of organic life, at least as long as the definitive detachment from the organism that should mark true death does not occur. Is it possible, I ask myself, that some errors can also occur in the transit between the dimension of organic life and that of the Spirit?

If the conscious Ego intends to rigorously continue on the path of differentiation and separation from its own psychic dynamics, sooner or later it can undertake one of the ascetic techniques that involve a complete indifference towards the needs deriving from organic life – including the very survival of the organism – and a renunciation of those forms of flattery and contentment with which the psyche tries to entice and involve it by means of (often illusory) desires and promises of a temporary human happiness. However, it can also follow a softer path, which does not imply the renunciation of the so-called pleasures of human life, but rather recognizes their importance as a source of joy and happiness in the often troubled waters of life. Anyway, even in this case the Ego maintains the caution shown by the fish when it tries to eat the bait it likes, without biting the hook: in no case should the Ego harm someone else, or make them suffer, in order to get pleasure. Furthermore, it must be careful not to compromise the integrity of its condition as an observer of the psyche, letting itself be ensnared by the latter's flattering dynamics. The bipolar character of the human psyche must always be kept in mind, especially when its positive aspects are experienced: in fact, in the course of our life, a state of happiness and satisfaction can at any moment – and for the most diverse causes – be replaced by another of suffering and pain, for which we may not have sufficient individual or collective resources to allow us to get free of it, and which therefore the Ego will have to endure for a more or less long time. Ultimately, the process of detachment of the Ego from the psyche always involves the Ego's awareness of being imprisoned in an organism: even if the Ego organizes itself to spend its time in the most pleasant and interesting way possible while been confined in this condition of imprisonment, it is yet aware of the fact that, beyond the walls of its prison, there are the open spaces of true freedom, which it cannot access as long as it is bound to its organism.

The forces that drive and influence the Ego's orientations and choices

The Ego's condition in human life is almost always determined by the psychic dynamics resulting from the successes and failures that the Ego gets in supporting what its own psyche suggests or imposes on it. Obviously, the Ego feels attracted to the satisfaction and pleasure deriving from the success in obtaining what it desires, but it is still a consequence of its identification with the psychic dynamics that involve it. Successes and failures depend on the personal destiny, which manifests itself both as luck in the conditions in which an undertaken activity is developed, and in the particular and uncommon resources available to the Ego: under this aspect, the condition in which each Ego finds itself can be very different from one individual to another, and therefore we cannot delude ourselves that intention and good will are enough to get what we want, because what a person gets quite well may be impossible for another. In the context of the dynamics determined by the human psyche, the admiration – often accompanied by envy – stands out for people with an uncommon talent that allows them to achieve success in the various activities undertaken. The same identification of the Ego with the psychic dynamics that induce it to aspire to success, leads it to admire and adore those personalities who, through their talent and their commitment, have been successful in their field. These forms of greater or lesser capability and availability of resources also extend to human groups, within which the personalities of charismatic leaders are entrusted with the task of representing and interpreting the needs imposed by the collective psyche, extending the influence of these dynamics also to other human groups, both through the bonds determined by the intertwining of interests, and, in some cases, through force coercion. In any case, these manifestations of the human psyche confirm the almost absolute dominion that it exerts over the conscious Ego of each individual and over the interactions between the various individuals, within more or less numerous groups, as long as the Ego accepts being relegated to the role of a human automaton.

During its life, the Ego can certainly take advantage of the resources at its disposal, even if it does not know where they originate from and for what reasons it is gifted or lacking them: in observing the differences that certainly exist in the resources of which various humans are gifted, the Ego finds that some of these (such as physical strength or beauty) can undoubtedly be attributed to the structure of the organism, others are most likely due to the functioning of the nervous system and brain (for example the alertness of reflexes and the ability to perform certain actions), while others more, such as intelligence or creativity, are culturally attributed to the quality and functioning of the brain, without however knowing with sufficient precision what the relationships are between the neural circuits involved, the programs activated and the results obtained. But as regards other aspects that are an expression of the orientation and choices of the Ego under a moral and character profile, the exclusive attribution to the brain functioning appears rather problematic: it is certainly true that the environmental and cultural conditions in which a person lived in the first period of his life – the one in which the transmission of cultural programs usually has a very strong impact on the psyche's dynamics that involve the Ego and affect its choices – show their importance in shaping the brain, but not for everyone in the same way, and with results that can be surprisingly different from one individual to another. As we have seen, our current knowledge on the brain functioning is still too limited to let us surely attribute every aspect of mental dynamics to the complexity of the neural circuits, even if obviously the latter are fundamental for the transposition of mental activities on the organic and physical plane.

Sometimes, in the course of life, a person's Ego makes choices that seem to be in stark contrast to their previous orientation: evidently such decisions are preceded and determined by an inner change in mental dynamics, which can also make us think about the intervention of presumed non-organic and non-physical entities, endowed with the power to influence the Ego. Before considering the possibility that these entities actually exist, it is necessary to underline that in most cases these changes in orientation are determined by the bipolar and contradictory character of the human psyche, due to which, for example, the cultural programs of adaptation and conditioning that a person may have acquired in the first phase of her life at some point come into conflict with other needs – always of a psychic origin – that intensely involve that person's Ego, after being removed or kept in check for a long time from those same programs. The sense of liberation that the Ego often feels in changing its orientation is rather illusory, so much so that in many cases the consequences of the choices made by the Ego prove to be very different from its expectations. There can be no liberation as long as the Ego remains subject to the psyche's dominion, whether this domination is exerted through cultural programs of conditioning, or it directly manifests itself through dynamics endowed with a numinous power that charms the Ego. For centuries and centuries the bipolar dynamics of the human psyche have been attributed – always after an inspiration of the psyche itself – to the intervention of inorganic entities, positive or negative according to the point of view, able to influence in various ways the orientations and decisions of the various Egos associated with the multitude of human organisms: even if we do not have sufficient resources to ascertain the existence of such entities (which at times, as in the case of poltergeist phenomena, can produce physical effects), the fact remains that the psyche, as a whole, is the energy in charge to rule our life in this world.

Sometimes, however, the changes induced in the Ego's orientation cannot be attributed to the more or less conflicting dynamics of the human psyche: this is the case, for example, of many of those who come back to organic life after having experienced the Spirit dimension during an NDE. The energy experienced by the Ego in that dimension often produces permanent effects even when the Ego has to face again – sometimes with regret – the usual dynamics of the psyche. In these cases, what modifies the orientation and the choices of the Ego is the awareness of the fact that the need to satisfy the psyche's demands is determined by the temporary life of the organism to which it is bound and in which it can feel imprisoned. The inheritance that the Ego brings with it from the Spirit dimension is the absolute certainty that its existence is not bound to that of the organism with which it is associated, except within the limits of the period in which the latter is alive, from birth to death. The human life that it is experiencing thus becomes for the Ego one experience among others, transitory and fleeting (and to some extent illusory), to which it no longer necessarily has to sacrifice the fundamental values deriving from its true spiritual essence. Consequently, the same dynamics of the human psyche – whose effects of involvement, fascination and identification, the Ego may have experienced intensely in the period of its life prior to the NDE – are now observed with some detachment and sometimes with annoyance, as temporary nuisances that the Ego has to deal with for all the remaining time of its current organic life. What is evident is that, after the experience of the Spirit dimension, the human psyche loses much of its power of charming the Ego, since the spiritual component of the latter has received an extra dose of energy by which it has been reanimated and invigorated.

There remain, however, many open questions, for which our human reason – with all its limitations, which the Ego must unfortunately recognize – cannot find satisfactory answers. First of all it must be observed how what becomes clear, evident and indubitable in the Spirit dimension – including the absolute power of the energy of love that permeates every aspect of the universe – is then contaminated and fogged by the confused and contradictory dynamics of the human psyche, once that the Ego has come back to organic life. Furthermore, the direct experience of the Spirit dimension is reserved for a clear minority of living humans, and therefore cannot be considered part of the resources that every Ego could be endowed with when, having begun its organic life, it starts confronting the psychic dynamics that involve it. The contractual erasing of all the Ego's memories relating to its existence in the Spirit dimension – according to the explanation that is also given by many NDErs – is not very convincing: why should the Ego forget something so important, if then, in some cases, it is allowed to have an elitist experience, and to bring back an often unforgettable memory to communicate and spread in this world? Finally, the differences in orientation between the Egos of humans always remain in effect, determined as they are by the psyche's bipolarity and its dominion over the organic life of this planet: the resources available to the Ego to cope with the complexity of the psyche – both in relation to those aspects of the latter that frighten it, and to those that fascinate it in the negative sense – are on average scarce. One does therefore not see how humankind, as a whole, can evolve in a spiritual sense, except in extremely long times, unless the Spirit intends to intervene directly – and not only through the Egos sent by it – to exert its influence on the human psyche, assuming that it has the power to do so: something that has not happened up to now, as clearly demonstrated by the enduring power of the psyche's negative polarity.

When we consider in its evidence the bipolarity of the human psyche, in the various forms in which it continues to manifest in our world in a persistent way, we are often inclined to attribute its positive polarity to the influence on the conscious Ego of the experiences it had in the Spirit dimension. On the other hand, we are then induced to attribute the psyche's negative polarity to the influence of an energy belonging to another dimension: that energy would be able to deceive the Ego (exerting its power over the nervous system of its organism), leading it to believe that its personal advantage (or the advantage of the group to which it belongs) is the supreme good to which to aspire, regardless of the damage and suffering caused to others in pursuing such goals. By interpreting the psyche's dynamics in this way, however, one runs the risk of believing in the existence of a plurality of different energies, each dominant in its own dimension, none of which would anyway have a real power to overcome the others outside the limits of its own dimension. Consequently, we would find ourselves in the difficult condition of having to hypothesize a higher level, in the cosmic hierarchies, by which these different dimensions would have been originated. However, in the pragmatic empiricism I followed in the research that gave rise to this site, I have not found any trace of experiences similar to the NDEs, in which the Ego feels attracted to a dimension other than the Spirit one: in fact, also in the case of distressing NDEs, and even in those characterized by the typical contents of the hellish imaginary, the Ego finds itself imprisoned in a condition from which it would absolutely want to escape, if only it could. No attraction, therefore, no desire to remain eternally in that dimension, no firm opposition to the proposal of having to return to the dimension of organic life: nay, a strong desire to be able to return as soon as possible to the human condition, in order to escape the intense sufferings experienced. As far as I know, there is no evidence of an antithetical dimension, so to speak, to that of the Spirit, which exerts an equally strong attraction on the spiritual Ego, determining in it that intense feeling of finally being back home, experienced by many NDErs.     

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