The transformations of the Ego

The cultural representation of the identity of our organism

The main protagonist of the various themes dealt with on this site has always been the conscious Ego, intended as a sensitive subject recipient of the various experiences that human life reserves for it, and a processor that interprets the experiences themselves and determines the actions to be performed through its own organism, which can give rise to new experiences. However, as we have seen, the fragmentation of consciousness in a plurality of human organisms makes a sufficiently precise definition of the identity of the conscious Ego impossible, since the same mental self-perception of this subject may not only be different from an individual to another, but can undergo significant changes over time even in the same individual. The most immediate form of identification is that relating to an organism, quite distinct from other organisms, whose behavior and actions are clearly detectable by any other organism. Each organism also receives information and instructions on the ways in which it must solve its organic needs and must interact with other organisms: this learning and programming process takes place partly through instinctive and intuitive imitation of what other reference organisms do, and partly through a linguistic communication (both verbal and written) of instructions on how to behave. These instructions, which often refer to the Ego as an internal control center of the organism, also partly concern the strategies through which the Ego has to deal with the dynamics of the psyche that involve it. In any case, the way in which each of us identifies and perceives the individuality of others refers above all to their organism, each with its own label (name and surname) that classifies it socially, with its own aesthetic appearance, with its own way of behaving, acting, and communicating.

If on the one hand the Ego is formed, developed and consolidated as a result of this cultural process of learning and conditioning, on the other hand a parallel process takes place, internal and secret – as it cannot be perceived directly from the outside – through which the Ego performs its role as a perceptive and sensitive subject of the dynamics of the psyche in which it is involved through the function of consciousness. This double aspect of the Ego is already contaminated by the bipolarity intrinsic to the human psyche, since also the programs of cultural conditioning and the instructions for behavior and social interaction are determined by the progressive effects that the psyche's energy, reacting with the energetic form contained in the sparks emanating from the Spirit, has gradually produced over time. Anyway, in all of us, if our brain works normally, next to an Ego that exerts a significant influence on our behaviors and actions, there is an Ego that sensibly perceives all the dynamics determined by the mental activity that our consciousness registers: thoughts, sensations, feelings, emotions, fantasies, dreams, and so on: however, often these two aspects of the same Ego are not in harmony with each other. First of all, it can be observed that the Ego that controls the behavior and actions of its organism does not always have the time and the ability to evaluate the decisions to be made, given that the dynamics of the psyche can take over, inducing the body to do and say things that the Ego does not fully share, or which it can later regret, or it may happen that the Ego identifies with the dynamics of its own psyche to the point that it defends on principle whatever its organism says or does: this happens above all when the feeling of one's own value depends on what the Ego considers to be the esteem of others towards it. Thus it may happen that the more the dynamics of the psyche involve and ensnare the Ego, the more it allows itself to be deceived by the twisted and arbitrary thoughts and reasoning that the psyche invents and proposes to it, to justify – above all in front of others, but also in front of itself – the behavior of its organism: this mode of operation is so widespread that it is considered almost as a natural right, for example within the judicial system, where it is considered logical that people may lie in order to avoid a conviction for a crime which they know they have committed.

The very functioning of human organism, and in particular of the brain, causes the signals, information and stimuli coming from the environment (including in it also all living organisms, humans included) to determine reactions of the psyche, in relation to which the conscious Ego should play the role of sensor, interpreter and processor. It is evident how this whole complex system of interactions, functions and roles was not conceived and programmed by the Ego, who simply discovers that it is taking part in a game programmed and developed by entities that remain unknown to it (about this topic see The Avatar and the Gamer page in 2020 blog). As we have seen, the Ego receives various programs from its environment which include both systems of interpretation of human life and its needs, and instructions on the behaviors and actions required of its organism in relation to certain goals. At the same time, the Ego is also involved in the inner dynamics of the psyche that reach its consciousness. Obviously, even these programs and instructions coming from the cultural environment are acquired by the Ego through its mental activity, but the interactions between the dynamics of autonomous inner origin and those determined by culturally acquired programs can show different degrees of harmony or conflict, depending on the case. In the event that there is a strong contrast between an acquired and internalized program and a psychic factor of autonomous origin – perceived by the conscious Ego in the form of a more or less intense impulse or desire, a feeling or a value to be defended – the Ego is involved in a conflict in which one of the two factors at stake ends up overcoming the other: if the element that we can define external prevails, that is the acquired program, the Ego must endure the suffering that the renounce to what is required by the psychic factor of autonomous origin, i.e. interior, causes to itself, while if the latter prevails the Ego must endure the consequences of not having adhered to what its socio-cultural environment required.

Although one of the two factors that cause this conflict has been defined as external, since it is determined by cultural programs or by events that require a certain behavior on the part of the individual as a member of a social group, the conflict itself, when it occurs, has always an inner nature: there may be cases of people who serenely face the death of their organism, precisely because what is required of them to avoid it is completely incompatible with what their Ego feels intimately. Among the many variants that the forms of coercion imposed by socio-cultural systems on individual organisms present, there are those for which previously acquired and internalized programs come into conflict with other programs of more recent origin: those who manage the propaganda of totalitarian political systems know well how much easier it is to condition younger than adult people, if the latter have already been able to experience a more liberal political system. The practice of torture too is used to introduce an inner element (the physical pain and the mental suffering that comes from it) that conflicts with the Ego's determination to defend its decisions and sustain the values it believes in. The fact remains that in various circumstances the Ego feels compelled to experience a conflict of which it knows neither the origin nor the purpose, but which is an inevitable consequence of the very condition of organic life: the energy of the psyche already sedimented and to a certain extent consolidated that is transmitted to it by social programs can come into conflict with the energy that is produced in a state that could be called magmatic, through the brain activity of its organism, often without the Ego having the resources to direct this process so as to be able to transform conflicting tensions into useful and positive activity for its own evolution. Frequently the energetic conflict arises from the interaction between dynamics of the psyche that are generated within different organisms, causing each of them to behave towards the other – more or less intentionally – so that the Ego of the other must experience a conflictual tension.

As long as the Ego identifies with the dynamics of the psyche that involve it, in the event of a conflict the dynamics determined by the conditioning and adaptation programs transmitted by the social group to which it belongs often prevail, causing the repression or removal of those instances of inner origin that are incompatible with them. But it can also happen that the Ego, identifying itself with the autonomous dynamics of its own psyche, assumes an orientation and a behavior of rebellion against the requests that are presented to it by the social group which it belongs to in the form of assumed obligations or duties (based on the received conditioning programs), also putting at risk the well-being, tranquility and even the very survival of its own organism. In both cases the bipolar character of the human psyche exerts its influence on the Ego, even if not infrequently the risks entailed by the fidelity of the Ego to the dynamics of its own psyche of autonomous origin lead us to look at the rebel's condition under the light of a romantic aura, not devoid of a certain degree of heroism. This happens because to some extent a spiritual origin can be attributed to the dynamics of the psyche of inner origin, especially when they come into conflict with the conditioning programs of a culture mainly oriented on the material needs of the organism. However, a significant step forward in the process of freeing the conscious Ego only occurs when it begins to distance itself from the conflicting dynamics of the human psyche, wondering what its function in this conflict is and why it is involved in it, apparently without having the necessary resources to solve or avoid it. As this process of liberation goes on, the critical orientation of the Ego manifests itself in equal measure both towards the psyche's dynamics determined by the way in which its psychophysical system reacts to the environmental stimuli or is conditioned by the cultural programs that its own social group transmits to it, and towards those dynamics that try to involve it, apparently springing from its most authentic interiority, often opposing themselves to the others: in both cases, in fact, the alternately coercive and seductive character of the human psyche tries to take hold of the Ego, so that it uncritically conforms to what the psyche requires or imposes on it, and gives up to deepen the knowledge of its true essence and its role in human life.

The stages of life

As life goes on, the heritage of experiences and information available to the Ego increases, helping to modify the way in which the Ego deals with the various conditions that occur and the consequent dynamics of the psyche that involve it: this is a process of maturation that we could define as natural, by virtue of which the Ego may also recognize that it would not repeat some of its past behaviors and choices again, if it could hypothetically use, in the same circumstances, the resources of knowledge and experience now available to it. Obviously, these changes are partly attributable to the processes that modify the biological structure of the organism over time, also intervening on the functioning of the nervous system and especially the brain, as a tool through which the dynamics of the psyche involving the Ego are tuned. The Ego itself can feel quite disconcerted and perplexed when it has to acknowledge that its identity is linked to that of an organism that changes over time, a fact continually confirmed by the way others refer to its existence solely on the basis of the recognition of its organism, in the phase of life in which it currently is. Indeed, the Ego retains the memory of a part of its past experiences, the most important of which can involve it with more or less intense emotional reactions when they are recalled, thus giving a sense of continuity and identity to its existence: in some case these emotional reactions involve feelings of remorse, regret or nostalgia, so that what has been experienced in the past also influences the current dynamics of the psyche. It is interesting to note how the life review that occurs, in various forms, in a good number of NDEs, often involves a new experience of various episodes of one's life, as if such events had been recorded – we know neither how nor where – so that they can be relived by the Ego in a much more complete and precise way than is normally allowed by its memory. On the other hand, it is also true that in the course of its organic life the Ego can lose all memories of its past, and therefore any link with the sense of continuity and identity that memory gives it, due to a trauma or an illness (including various forms of senile dementia) that compromise the correct functioning of the brain.

When the Ego, based on the experiences of its own life, finds in itself the capacity and resources to reflect and meditate on the changes that have occurred over time, especially in relation to its emancipation from the dynamics of the psyche in which it is involved and with which in the past it completely identified, in many cases it embarks on a path of research towards a way of life that fosters the knowledge and manifestation of its most authentic inner essence. In this path, which could be defined as spiritual evolution, the Ego does not want to identify itself with any model of religious asceticism, but searches for the meaning of the uniqueness of its way of being, while even considering it in the context of the countless possible manifestations that can arise from the creative process, by which itself was emanated. This spiritual evolution involves at a certain point a sort of awakening whereby the Ego no longer feels isolated in the crowd or alone, but feels that it is associated with one or more spiritual entities towards which it assumes the role first of a simple witness and then of an explorer of the possibilities offered by the experimentation of human life. The perception of the connection with these spiritual entities, in addition to balancing the involvement of the Ego in the dynamics of the human psyche, allows it to live in harmony with its own essence, and positively influences the state of health of its organism as well as the functioning of the mind and, consequently, the psyche's dynamics that are tuned through it. This condition translates into a fairly stable form of human happiness, which is not contaminated even by the negative events in which the Ego, for one reason or another, can still be involved, but within certain limits: in fact, the feeling of connection with the spiritual entities means that the Ego feels particularly protected against those life events that could provoke reactions of the psyche incompatible with its sensitivity, which has developed and sharpened as a consequence of the evolutionary path it has taken through the strengthening of its conscious activity. Therefore the Ego feels that even the reactions caused by the negative circumstances that it may possibly have to face will not be able to overcome the limit that alters the balance determined by its connection with the spiritual dimension.

As the Ego distances itself from the dynamics of its own psyche, especially from those it does not feel as congenial and in harmony with its own essence, it feels a sense of separation and indifference even towards those aspects of its personality of the past that determined choices and behaviors strongly influenced by the dynamics of the psyche in which it was involved. In this case, the Ego does not forget that in those circumstances, and with the resources it had at the time, it would not have been able to act differently, nor does it evade responsibility for the choices it made: nevertheless, the fact of realizing that the same process of identification with the psyche's dynamics that influenced its choices and actions also determines the choices and actions of other humans (each with its own Ego), regardless of whether it judges positive or negative, good or bad, such actions, induce it to leave behind its own personal history, or at least that part of it which corresponds to the condition of human automaton. In light of its connection with the spiritual dimension, the Ego is now able to consider the events of human life, and their reflections in the conscious activity of its mind, for what they are: that is, precisely, experiences. The attribution to such experiences of a positive or negative emotional tone no longer depends on the often whimsical arbitrariness of an ambivalent psyche over which the Ego has little control, but is almost always determined in a positive way, or at least significant from an evolutionary point of view, by the very raison d'etre of the Ego as an exploratory subject of organic life, in relation to which it is now well aware of the difficulties involved in interacting with a dimension so different with respect to its spiritual essence. If a human organism were to explore a planet whose environmental conditions were not adequate for its vital needs, it should first of all equip itself with a suitable envelope which, by isolating it and protecting it from the external environment, would supply it with the substances it needs and allow it to expel those to be eliminated: similarly, once the conscious Ego has reached an adequate level of evolution, the organism that allows it to explore the dimension of human life becomes for it the equivalent of this spacesuit.

Time, or at least the perception of it that our mind gives us, reveals itself once again as the key factor of the human experience, both because – from the point of view of the conscious Ego – experiences accumulate over time, and because these experiences contribute to those transformations that can have effect on the self-perception of the Ego as a subject independent of the dynamics of the psyche with which it was initially forced to identify. It could be said that human life consists of a more or less prolonged immersion in that form of energy that we call time, to the perception of which every other experience, whether positive or negative, is connected: it is no coincidence that when the Ego experiences a condition of pleasure or happiness it would like time to stop, or at least slow down, while in the opposite case, when it is forced to endure physical pain or mental suffering, it would like time to flow as quickly as possible. The very fact that life has a beginning and an end, and that in the period in which it takes place the organism too is subject to transformations of various kinds, which substantially influence the experiences made by the conscious Ego, shows us the importance of time as an essential factor of human condition. For this reason, when the Ego manages to free itself (or is freed) from the dynamics of human psyche, the perception of time radically changes, as confirmed by most of NDEs: the linear and unidirectional flow of time is substituted by something similar to a cosmic eternity, in which everything is experienced in what can be evaluated as an instant, yet so completely and intensely that the passing of time seems to have been stopped. The essence of the spiritual Ego is no longer subordinated to the needs of an organism that first grows, then changes, and finally is subject to a process of deterioration as time goes by: the Ego is freed from the tensions that arise in this life between past and present, and between present and future. Moreover, already in the course of human life the Ego – once it has set out on the path of liberation from the identification with the dynamics of its own psyche – becomes self-aware of its immutable identity, beyond the passage of time.

The time factor implies a substantial difference between the condition of human life and the Spirit dimension, at least according to the descriptions of the latter reported by almost all NDEs. Our organic and social life is conditioned by time to the point that we feel we exist essentially in the present, and we look to the future with hope or apprehension, alternatively eager, worried or fearful to experience what may happen. The past, on the other hand, whether it is transformed into pleasant memories, or it is forgotten or removed, soon loses interest, even if it determines our personal history and if some of the experienced events often influence the dynamics of the psyche with which the Ego is forced to identify. Therefore the perception of the events and experiences of our life, our personal history and the transformations that this process entails for the conscious Ego, are determined by time, and above all by the way in which the ordinary working of our mind makes us experience its flowing. The same human life becomes, for each of us, the time between two dates, that of birth and that of death, which are nothing more than two points marked on a timeline: outside the segment delimited by these two points, that is, before the birth and after the death of our organism, what possibilities remain for the conscious Ego to experience this dimension? And the same is true also for the Ego of other people that we have known through the manifestations of their organism, as we can notice every day: once such organism has ceased to function, their Ego is no longer able to show itself in our dimension, and of its human existence only the past memories remain in us. Furthermore, time itself, through its continuous flow, determines the unidirectional shift of the present moment for each of us, dividing the segment of our life into two parts, one – the past – which is lengthening, the other – the future – which is shortened by the same amount, often leaving us in the illusion that the final point can be arbitrarily moved forward: which, of course, cannot happen, since this illusion is fueled only by the fact that the future is unknown to us.

The Ego, experience and time

Proceeding in our exploration of the dynamics of human life, we have seen how from the ordinary condition, naively considered as normal, with which the Ego experiences what destiny reserves for it, remaining entangled in the attunements of the psyche with which it identifies, it is possible to arrive at a more complex but more satisfying vision, in which the role of the Ego acquires a meaning, an importance and a value of a completely different relevance. In this new condition, every event that the Ego experiences is almost necessarily harmonized with its authentic essence, quite differently from what happens when the Ego identifies itself with the dynamics that the human psyche imposes on it: it is as if the Ego, instead of living influenced by a past that does not cease conditioning it, and in function of a future to which it entrusts its hopes, but which can also arouse reactions of fear and worry caused by the psyche, manages to live the experiences of life in an eternal present, and almost outside of time, except for the deadlines and obligations that membership in social group imposes on it, unless it decides to go and live as a hermit!

From this point of view we understand how the Ego, having to cope with the vital needs of its own organism, can encounter many difficulties in adapting to the conditioning programs of those socio-cultural system in which currently most people live: these programs, originating from the psyche, are largely based on the competitive needs of activities that take place over time, often at a hectic pace. On the other hand, as I have already pointed out, this site is addressed above all to those who, having already most of the experiences of the human life behind them, can benefit of the advantages offered by our social pension systems, which allow us to no longer be forced to work to live. In this condition, continuing to work becomes a free choice on the part of the Ego, often determined by the belief that the contribution offered to the social functioning has a profound meaning and gives value to one's life: however, in most cases, it is the same conditioning due to the socio-cultural programs, on the basis of which everyone has organized their life, that over time determine the habits and mental laziness that no longer allow the Ego to undertake its own evolutionary and liberation path, even when it would have the chance.

The experiences of life and the passing of time determine a personal history of which the Ego can become a prisoner, given that precisely on the basis of this some dynamics of the psyche are activated rather than others: these dynamics, which have become habits, prevent the Ego to undertake alternative paths and in some way bind it to a coherent continuity with the conditions of life determined by its past. As is evident, it is the condition of greater or lesser satisfaction with which each Ego evaluates its own life, in relation to the meaning it attributes to it, that establishes the Ego's orientation, influencing the choices on which it must decide over time, when the opportunity arises: it must however be recognized that, in this respect, there are substantial differences between one Ego and the other, differences that can only be partially attributed to the influence of destiny on the personal history of each of us. Furthermore, we must not forget the huge power that the collective dynamics, which are activated through the interactions with others, exert on the psyche of each of us, consequently influencing the decisions of the Ego: an aspect that should not be underestimated even in those cases in which the Ego believes that the value of life consists in putting itself, in one form or another, at the service of others.

The evident differences found in the personalities and characters of human beings – which manifest themselves with particular importance also in their social roles – lead us to believe that in each of us the Ego is able to consciously choose what it wishes to achieve, and the way how it wants to build its future. But, beyond the fact that the Ego usually tends to identify itself with the dynamics of its own psyche, the personality changes that often occur in those who have experienced an NDE help us understand how the adhesion of the Ego to the planning needs determined by the human psyche may not be in harmony with its spiritual essence. At this point it is advisable not to proceed further, so as not to run the risk of wanting to suggest to others forms of behavior or orientation that should be independently sought by each Ego, however always in the light of a demanding work of deepening the knowledge of its own essence, and of critical evaluation of the dynamics of the psyche in which it is involved in an individual form. Anyway, in the pages of this blog the power of the human psyche, in the various forms in which the bipolar character of psychic energy manifests itself, in subjecting the Ego to its own needs, relying above all on the requests of the organism, has already been sufficiently highlighted.

Our interest in the conscious Ego therefore has a particular meaning only insofar as the Ego feels the need to escape the power that the human psyche exercises over it, otherwise it is reduced to an investigation of the various ways in which the one or the other range of attunements present in the vast galaxy of the psyche involves and ensnares the Ego, forcing it to identify with the dynamics of its own psyche and to defend them in front of itself and, above all, in front of others. The path of differentiation of the Ego from the attunements that involve it does not imply the interruption or cessation of its mental activity, since the latter is intrinsically connected to the functioning of the organism's nervous system: however, the critical evaluation that the conscious Ego learns to exercise towards the dynamics of its own psyche, through constant training, produces significant changes over time not only in the ways in which the psyche manifests itself to the Ego, but also in the very contents of the psyche's attunements, which become less coercive and much more in accordance with the needs of spiritual evolution that the Ego feels it has. In this sense, what can be considered and perceived as changes of the Ego can be – more appropriately – interpreted as changes in the attunements by which the psyche manifests itself to the Ego and confronts it: the conscious Ego, in fact, could be considered as an entity that is immutable by nature, but still capable of being subjugated by the psyche.

Once again, therefore, the human condition leads us to interpret a double process from the point of view of its temporal development, which on the one hand sees the conscious Ego less and less conditioned and conditionable by the dynamics of the psyche with which it initially identified itself, and on the other involves an evolution of the attunements of the psyche activated by the nervous system of its organism, which manifest themselves in a form more suited to the needs arising from the Ego's spiritual essence. Most likely, the purpose of this process can be fully understood only when the conscious Ego, once it has left the temporal dimension of human life, returns to the dimension of the Spirit, bringing with it – in its very essence and in the recording of the mental events of its life – the effects of that transformation that began when the first glimmers of consciousness involved it in the experiences determined by the psyche. Once understood in its entirety – beyond the relativization that our perception of time entails, offering us the vision of a set of linked events that the Ego experiences one after the other – the process by which the conscious Ego, interacting with the human psyche, causes transformations also in the latter, appears to us ineluctable in the light of its own energetic dynamics.

A careful and in-depth study of non-ordinary states of consciousness – whether they occur spontaneously or are induced by the assimilation of psychedelic substances – and, above all, of NDEs, allows us to ascertain how the range of the mental attunements that the conscious Ego can experience is much wider than the already complex one that we normally experience in the course of our human life. The way in which each conscious Ego moves within this complicated labyrinth of experiences evidently depends on something that orients and guides it, and which nevertheless manifests itself differently in the individuality of organic life and in its temporal development. In most cases the Ego is oriented and guided by the conditioning programs determined by particularly powerful attunements of the psyche which are activated through the interactions between a large number of human brains: identifying with the attunements of its own psyche, to which the Ego attributes the value of its own individuality, considering them particularly significant, the Ego plays its role in life, whatever it may be, almost automatically. Generally speaking, this is the condition in which human beings find themselves in the first half of their life, when consciousness and intelligence have not yet sufficiently evolved to be able to independently deal with the problem of the meaning of life for the Ego's evolution. The fact that in many cases, as has been said, this condition also persists in the second half of life, shows that it too must be attributed a meaning, or at least an important function, in the context of the dynamics that guide – or rather rule – the Ego in its organic life.

Even in those cases of rebellion or contestation against the prevailing socio-cultural programs, the Ego becomes involved in the conflicting contradictions determined by the dynamics of the human psyche, which can manifest themselves through the sharing, by the Ego, of the value of anarchoid, rebellious, and even criminal positions. The subduing of the Ego by the attunements of the psyche that involve it, and the consequent identification with the dynamics activated by its own organism and its personal history, are identical to those of the people whose Ego uncritically adapts to the dominant cultural programs: the only difference may consist in the fact that, while cultural programs that pursue a more or less satisfactory form of social order can be considered, on the whole, as manifestations of the positive polarity of the psyche, the anarchic and delinquent dynamics have chaotic and disruptive effects, and therefore mostly fall within the scope of the negative polarity. This inability of the Ego to take an autonomous position towards the dynamics of the psyche that fascinate and ensnare it because – since they come from what it considers to be its own interiority – are opposed to the cultural programs that its milieu transmits to it, can determine over time a series of changes of orientation, when the Ego realizes that the results of its decisions are very different from what it expected: the naive trust that the Ego places in the tunings of its own psyche, that is, in those determined by the functioning of its brain, must somehow enter into crisis so that the Ego can undertake its own path of self-knowledge and differentiation from the psyche.

In any case, all the changes that we perceive in their temporal development can be interpreted as a single process by which the Ego evolves from a condition of passive acquiescence towards the dynamics of the psyche by which it is involved – which manifest themselves both in the socio-cultural conditioning programs as well as in one's own inner reactions – to a position of research of its own true identitary essence, in which it can feel freer and more independent, and towards which the manifestations of the psyche determined by the functioning of its organism and its brain show a harmony, sensitivity and finesse suited to the role it is called to play in this life. Although it is not correct to state that, with this research path, the Ego can achieve complete control of its mental activity, and therefore of the psyche's dynamics that derive from it (very few are able to obtain such control), however not only the involvement of the Ego by unsatisfactory dynamics progressively decreases, but the very possibility of the psyche to manifest itself in an aggressive or coercive way towards the Ego disappears. What was a domination relationship, in which the Ego, subjugated by the dynamics of its own psyche, then had to defend them in order to defend itself against the reactions of others, turns into a relationship of friendly collaboration, in which the psyche operates in a positive way, helping the Ego in the path of life, without causing it useless and disheartening difficulties, also as regards the functioning of its organism.

The defence of the Ego

As we have seen, the dynamics of the psyche that involve the Ego sometimes give the impression of wanting to defend it from the consequences – imagined or perceived by the Ego as unpleasant or painful – of particular events, or of choices and behaviors implemented by the Ego itself on certain occasions. This is the reason why, for example, in some circumstances it is considered normal – or at least humanly understandable – to lie. In addressing this issue, however, it is important to make a preliminary distinction between what is the defense of the Ego and what is the defense of the organism to which the Ego is connected: obviously, if we believe that the Ego must identify itself with its organism, such a distinction becomes pointless. Anyway, even a superficial investigation points out how the bipolar character of the psyche's dynamics can determine both protective behaviors and actions that are risky for the integrity, health and good functioning of the organism. The way in which these dynamics manifest themselves varies from one individual to another, and also changes in the different phases of a person's life: young people are undoubtedly more inclined to perform actions that risk damaging the body than older people. Furthermore, the psyche, in its spontaneous functioning as it can be observed in natural conditions, does not seem to have reliable knowledge about the complexity of the functioning of the organism and the risks that the actions it induces to perform may entail for the latter. We can conclude that the dynamics of the psyche are aimed at the defense of the organism, but they can also involve the Ego in activities that are risky, unhealthy or harmful to the organism itself.

With regard to the possible defense function of the Ego, the dynamics of the psyche often manifest themselves under a twofold aspect: on the one hand they oppose the Ego to the other, or to the others, convincing it of its particular value and assigning it a privileged position, while on the other hand they make the Ego believe that others also function in the same way, and therefore competition must be considered as a necessity imposed by organic life. These dynamics are largely incorporated into the cultural programs that determine the social conditioning of the Ego: such programs, beyond generic declarations of solidarity and mutual respect, cannot avoid clashing with the contradictions caused by the bipolarism of the psyche from which they originated. Therefore, the psyche often has a good game in persuading the Ego to take advantage of particular circumstances, even if this advantage involves damage or suffering for someone else. Then in the event that social laws want to punish the Ego for having damaged other people, causing it harm or suffering in turn, the psyche almost always does its best to devise some defense plan that the Ego readily accepts, without considering the fact that precisely because of its acquiescence to the psyche's dynamics in which it has become involved it is now in an unpleasant condition.

As long as the Ego remains subordinate to the psyche's dynamics activated by the functioning of its organism, identifying with them, it suffers the consequences of the mutable and contradictory ambivalence of the same psyche, which is expressed above all through the interactions between organisms: each one, interpreting more or less automatically or consciously the role that destiny and the attunements of their own psyche have determined, interacts with others in the (partly regulated and partly chaotic) complexity of a game of parts that seems to constitute the quintessence of human life. But from the point of view of an Ego that has become aware of the importance of life as an opportunity for knowledge and evolution of its spiritual component, the match with the psyche is interesting only to the extent that the Ego manages not to allow itself to be assimilated and subdued by the psyche, whose tendency is to protect the Ego in order to control and to use it, often without any particular regard for its spiritual essence. Obviously, in order to deal effectively with the human psyche, the Ego must experience it directly and live it, immersing itself in organic life to register with its sensitivity the whole range of attunements of the psyche that its organism and the events in which it is involved allow it to activate. But, once a certain age is reached, it is necessary for the evolution of the Ego that this phase of experimentation is followed by another phase of study, reflection and understanding.

What the Ego perceives as the flow of time, in which all the things done follow one another in an immutable order, and the things to do are programmed and executed at intense rhythms, in a continuous interaction of the activities of billions of human organisms (each endowed with an Ego more or less aware of its existence), loses importance and disappears as a reality when the brain definitively stops functioning and – according to what many NDEs reveal to us – the Ego begins to experience a dimension outside of time. The most bewildering, and at the same time most fascinating, aspect of this process is given by the fact that death is the inevitable destiny of every organism, and therefore the Ego almost always lives not to avoid death – from which it cannot escape – but to extend the time in which it has to experience the vicissitudes and events of this life, trying to understand the meaning of this enigmatic phenomenon. But precisely the flow of time, as we experience it, determines that becoming – in which everything can change – which makes it impossible for the Ego to understand the phenomenon in its totality. Furthermore, as we have repeatedly observed, the fragmentation of consciousness into a plurality of human organisms entails a natural diversity in the orientations of individual Egos, which usually identify more or less completely with the tunings of the psyche that destiny reserved for each of them.

Being understood that, in the conditions determined by this life, the Ego has to take care to some extent of the needs of its organism, there is nevertheless a substantial difference between being passively subjected to the dynamics of the human psyche – considered not only as individual phenomena, but also as a consequence of cultural conditioning and social relations – and the feeling of the need to reach, in relation to these dynamics, an autonomy and an ability to evaluate that are more in tune with what the Ego feels as its authentic essence, which is eternal in the sense that it goes beyond the contingencies determined by the flow of time. But it is also true that the destiny of the Ego of most humans seems to be to live their role – whatever it may be, as it is determined by the psyche's complex bipolar interplays – in a more or less passive and unconscious way. According to what is reported to us by many NDErs, the Spirit welcomes every conscious Ego into its absolute and unconditional love, once the Ego has been freed from the conditioning of its organism and, consequently, of the human psyche: it therefore seems that, for the mere fact of living, the Ego has accomplished the task that was assigned to it, regardless of whether it remained subjected, in a submissive way, to the psyche's positive or negative dynamics. The Spirit, therefore, does not judge or reward or punish, but welcomes the Ego at the end of a journey that can be difficult and often troubled.

However, when the Ego returns to organic life after having experienced an NDE, it is almost always transformed in accordance with an orientation that we could define as more spiritual, as it is less conditioned by the needs of organic life and above all by the acquiescence towards the dynamics of the psyche prevailing in the social and cultural context which one belongs to. The spread of information on the experiences in the Spirit dimension and on the impact they had on the way in which the Ego afterwards experiences and interprets organic life, can determine a ripple effect capable of exerting, over time, some changes also in the dynamics with which the psyche culturally manifests itself. The most significant aspect of the transformations of the Ego consequent to an NDE is given by the fact that almost always the Ego is perfectly aware of having changed, as it retains the memory of how it was before the NDE, and of what its orientations, its values, and the meaning it attributed to its own life, were. It could be added that this change of the Ego essentially consists in the ability to consciously experience a new range of mental attunements that were previously precluded from it and which – when they reach its consciousness – reveal to be much more in harmony with its true essence than all of those it had previously been able to experience.

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