experiences have occurred.
This is certainly not a matter of belief “in” a reality other than the ordinary three-dimensional one. It is, to the contrary, an awareness that we all have within us another component that passes on to the next stage of life fully intact in most cases, and somewhat disturbed in some. For everyone, except the skeptic, the evidence of this is overwhelming. For the skeptic all of this will always be unacceptable, no matter how concrete the grounds for believing. Above all, the nature of life and death requires a full understanding of the nature of man. One must come to this from an unbiased point of view, unafraid of the philosophical consequences of making adjustments in one’s attitude toward life and death.
Although humans have walked on the moon and will soon reach for the stars, we have yet to learn what we are. After millions of years of existence on this planet, we are still unable to come to grips with the most important question of all: What is man? Why is man? How is man?
To toss the problem of man into the lap of religion by judging it to be the whim of an omnipotent creator is merely to beg the question. Even if we were to accept uncritically the notion of instantaneous creation by a superior force, it would leave unanswered the questions that would immediately arise from such a notion: Who created the creator?
To go the other end of the scale and ascribe our existence to a slow process of natural evolution in which particles of matter—chemicals—were mixed in certain ways to form larger pieces of matter and ultimately reached the stage where life began sounds like a more sensible approach to the puzzle of our existence. But only on the surface. For if we were to accept the theory of evolution—and there is good enough evidence that is valid—we would still be faced with the very problem religion leaves us: Who arranged things in this way, so that infinitesimal bits of matter would join to create life and follow what is obviously an orderly pattern of development?
Whether we are theistic or atheistic, materialistic or idealistic, the end result, as I see it, seems to lead to the same door. That door, however, is closed. Behind it lies the one big answer man has searched for, consciously or unconsciously, since the dawn of time.
Is man an animal, derived from the primates, as Dr. Desmond Morris asserted in The Naked Ape? Is he merely an accidental development, whereby at one point in time a large ape became a primitive man?
To this day, this hypothesis is unacceptable to large segments of the population. The revulsion against such a hypothesis stems largely from strongly entrenched fundamentalist religious feelings rather than from any enlightened understanding that knows better than Darwin. When religion goes against science, even imperfect science, it is bound to lose out.
On the other hand, the less violent but much more effective resistance, by scientists, doctors, and intellectuals, to the hypothesis that supports man’s spontaneous creation by a superior being is so widespread today that it has made heavy inroads in church attendance and forced the religious denominations to think of new approaches to lure large segments of the population back into the fold, or at least to interest them in the nonreligious aspects of the church. But the professionals and intellectuals are by no means alone in their rejection of traditional views. A large majority of students, on both college and high school levels, are nonbelievers or outright cynics. They don’t always cherish that position, but they have not found an alternative. At least they had not until ESP (extrasensory perception) came along to offer them a glimpse at a kind of immorality that their scientific training could let them accept.
To the average person, then, the problem of what man is remains unsolved and as puzzling as ever. But this is not true of the psychic or esoteric person.
An increasing number of people throughout the world have at one time or another encountered personal proof of man’s immortality. To them, their own experiences are sufficient to assure them that we are part of a greater scheme of things, with some sort of superior law operating for the benefit of all. They do not always agree on what form this superior force takes, and they generally reject the traditional concepts of a personal God, but they acknowledge the existence of an orderly scheme of things and