He or she is aware of a different kind of being. He or she encounters his and her consciousness first, and then he and she encounters the world — so I am saying, of course, that each person has an identity that is larger than the framework of consciousness with which we are usually familiar in life.

When we are born, we understand that we have a new consciousness. We explore its ramifications. It is our primary evidence that we exist in flesh. basically, each person must confront the experience of reality through a direct encounter with it. this encounter takes place through the use of the physical senses, of course, as they are used to perceive and interpret physical data. the very utilization of those senses, however, is dependent upon the nature of our consciousness itself, and that consciousness is aware of its power and action through the exercise of its own properties.

Those “properties” are the faculties of the imagination, creativity, telepathy, clairvoyance, and dreaming, as well as the functions of logic and reason. We know that we dream. We know that we think. Those are direct experiences. Anytime we use instruments to probe into the nature of reality, we are looking at a kind of secondary evidence, no matter how excellent the instruments may be. The subjective evidence of dreaming, for example, is far more “convincing” and irrefutable than is the evidence for an expanding universe, black holes, or even atoms and molecules themselves. Although instruments can indeed be most advantageous in many ways, they still present us with secondary rather than primary tools of investigation — and they distort the nature of reality far more than the subjective attributes of thoughts, feelings, and intuitions do.

The human consciousness has not, therefore, developed the best and most proper “tool” with which to examine the nature of reality. It is because we have used other methods that much evidence escapes us — evidence that would show that the physical universe exists in quite different terms than is supposed.

We are taught not to trust our subjective experience, which means that we are told not to trust our initial and primary connection with reality.

Evidence for reincarnation is quite available. there are enough instances of it, known and tabulated, to make an excellent case; and beside this there is evidence that remains psychologically invisible in our private lives, because we have been taught not to concentrate in that direction.

There is enough evidence to build an excellent case for life after death. All of this involves direct experience — episodes, encountered by individuals, that are highly suggestive of the after death hypothesis; but the hypothesis is never taken seriously by our established sciences. There is far more evidence for reincarnation and life after death than is, for example, for the existence of black holes. Few people have seen a black hole, to make the most generous statement possible, while countless people have had private reincarnational experiences, or encounters that suggest the survival of the personality beyond death.

Those experiences are usual. They have been reported by people of all kinds and in all ages, and they represent a common-sense kind of knowledge that is frowned upon by the men and women of learned universities. Throughout my blogs we will often be talking about experiences that are encountered in one way or another by most people, but are not given credence to on the part of the established fields of knowledge. Therefore, dreams will be considered throughout the blogs in various capacities as they are related through genetics, reincarnation, culture, and private life. We will also be considering the matter of free will and its role in individual value fulfillment.