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I have decided to start a new science about Non-Biological Coherence Intelligences Philip K. Dick called VALIS.
It integrates 10,000 years of human observation about organized, non-biological field phenomena that interact with human consciousness.
This is part 2 of “Wat is het Vast Active Living Intelligence System? en hoe toont het Zich?“.
J.Konstapel Leiden, 1-12-2025.
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INTRODUCTION: WHY THIS BOOK EXISTS
For most of the last century, mainstream science has told us a story: The universe is a machine. Matter is fundamental. Consciousness is an accident—a byproduct of complex brains in an otherwise dead, meaningless cosmos.
This story has given us tremendous power. We’ve built computers, cured diseases, split atoms, and sent probes to distant planets.
But it has also left us spiritually hollow. If nothing matters ultimately, if consciousness is just neurons firing, if death is absolute annihilation, then why does anything we do matter? What’s the point of love, sacrifice, or moral struggle?
Many people have never fully believed the materialist story. They’ve had experiences—encounters with deceased loved ones, moments of non-ordinary knowing, synchronicities too meaningful to be coincidence, or profound meditative states that revealed something real about the nature of consciousness. Mainstream science dismisses these experiences. “That’s your brain producing hallucinations,” the scientist says. “It’s all psychology; there’s nothing real behind it.”
But what if the scientist is wrong? What if there’s a vast, living intelligence system woven through reality—one that humans can contact, one that guides evolution, one that makes consciousness and meaning fundamentally real?
This book introduces an alternative framework, one grounded in cutting-edge physics, rigorous research on consciousness, historical documentation of paranormal phenomena, and a century of careful study of the mind.
It’s called VALIS: Vast Active Living Intelligence System.
VALIS isn’t a deity in the traditional sense. It’s not supernatural. Instead, it’s a coherent field of consciousness woven through reality—something that can be studied scientifically, experienced directly through meditation and other altered states, and understood philosophically as the basis of meaning and purpose.
What You’ll Learn in This Book
This is a journey through three interlocking ideas:
Part 1: The Pattern Behind Everything
For thousands of years, across wildly different cultures with no contact, humans have reported the same basic phenomena: mystical experiences, spirit contact, healing through energy fields, synchronistic coincidences, and encounters with non-physical intelligences. Modern science has dismissed these as superstition or hallucination. But what if they’re all pointing to something real—a fundamental feature of how reality is organized?
Part 2: A New Model of Reality
Modern physics has revealed that reality is far stranger than the old materialist picture suggested. Time and space are relative. Matter is mostly empty. Observation affects what’s observed. Energy can exist in states we never imagined. What if we built a new model of reality based on what modern physics actually shows us, rather than on nineteenth-century assumptions? This model—the Resonant Universe—can actually explain everything from shamanic spirit journeys to mediumship to near-death experiences to quantum mechanics.
Part 3: What It Means to Be Human
If this model is right, then consciousness isn’t an accident. Meaning isn’t a human invention. Death isn’t absolute. And your individual choices ripple through vast, intelligent systems. Understanding this transforms how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, and what we do with our lives.
Who This Book Is For
This book is for anyone who:
- Has had experiences mainstream science can’t explain and wonders if they’re real
- Is spiritually inclined but intellectually rigorous—you want meaning, but you don’t want blind faith
- Is curious about consciousness, the paranormal, or the deep questions of existence
- Feels that materialism is missing something essential about life
- Wants to know whether there’s evidence for spirits, consciousness after death, or higher dimensions
- Is interested in how science and spirituality might be reconciled
You don’t need a background in physics, neuroscience, or philosophy. Complicated ideas will be explained clearly, with examples and analogies.
How to Read This Book
You can read this straight through, or you can jump to the sections most interesting to you:
- If you want evidence and historical examples, go to Part 1.
- If you want the “how does it work?” explanation, go to Part 2.
- If you want to know about spirits and contact with the deceased, go to Part 3.
- If you want philosophical grounding—what this means for how we know things and live—go to Part 4.
- If you want practical guidance on how to live with this knowledge, go to Part 5.
PART 1: THE PATTERN BEHIND EVERYTHING
Spirits Across All Cultures
Start with a striking fact: For thousands of years, across cultures with no contact and no shared information systems, humans have reported encountering non-physical intelligences.
In Siberia, shamans journey to spirit worlds. In India, mystics encounter devas (divine beings). In medieval Europe, saints and mystics report visions of angels. In Africa, healers communicate with ancestral spirits. In ancient Greece, oracles speak with the voice of gods. Among the indigenous peoples of Australia, dreaming connects people to ancestral consciousness. In modern spiritualist séances, people report conversations with deceased relatives.
The striking part isn’t that people have these experiences. Different cultures, different belief systems, different eras—of course they interpret their experiences through their own lenses.
The striking part is the consistency.
Across all these vastly different contexts, the basic pattern is the same:
- There is a non-corporeal intelligence (a being or presence without a physical body)
- It can communicate with humans
- It often has personal characteristics (personality, knowledge, apparent intentions)
- It sometimes carries information the human couldn’t have known through normal means
- The encounter often has lasting impact (healing, insight, transformation)
This consistency across cultures, centuries, and contexts is significant. It suggests these reports aren’t random cultural inventions. Something real seems to be happening.
Modern Scientific Evidence
You might think modern science has debunked these claims. But the actual research is more interesting than that.
Near-Death Experiences
When people are brought back from clinical death (flat EEG, no brain activity), about 20% report structured experiences: floating out of their body, moving through darkness or light, encountering deceased relatives or luminous beings, experiencing overwhelming peace or love.
Even more striking: Some report accurate perceptions of events that occurred while they were clinically dead—seeing details of the resuscitation room, hearing conversations, sometimes even accurate information about distant locations.
The traditional explanation: “The brain produces these hallucinations as it dies.” But here’s the problem: Brain activity was minimal or absent. How does a non-functioning brain produce complex, coherent experiences? And how do people accurately perceive events while having no measurable brain activity?
Mediumship Under Controlled Conditions
For over 150 years, researchers have tested mediums in controlled laboratory settings. The results are surprising.
When mediums are kept completely blind (they don’t know whose deceased relative they’re reading for), and when independent judges score accuracy blind (without knowing what the medium said), the results come out significantly above chance.
The effects are modest—maybe 60-65% accuracy versus 50% chance—and highly debated. But the consistency across multiple studies, multiple mediums, and multiple laboratories is notable. The effect doesn’t disappear when controls are tightened.
Even skeptical researchers admit: “We don’t know what’s happening, but something unusual is occurring in these studies.”
Meditation and Extraordinary Brain States
When experienced meditators reach deep states, their brains show distinctive patterns:
- Extreme synchronization across brain regions (coherence)
- Dissolution of the default-mode network (the “ego” or “self” circuit)
- Integration of brain areas that normally don’t communicate
- Sometimes access to information they didn’t consciously know
And their subjective reports? Consistent descriptions of non-dual awareness, direct knowing, contact with something vast and intelligent, profound peace.
Neuroscientists can measure the brain changes. But they can’t explain why these particular brain patterns generate the specific subjective experiences reported. There’s a mysterious correlation—but why this pattern produces that feeling remains unexplained.
Bioelectric Fields and Morphogenesis
Recent cutting-edge research shows something shocking: living organisms aren’t organized by DNA alone.
Biologist Michael Levin discovered that cells in tadpoles have a bioelectric field that can be read and even manipulated. When he used electrical stimulation to alter the field pattern, tadpoles developed eyes in the wrong locations. When he edited the field pattern in a specific way, tadpoles developed entirely new body structures.
Even more remarkably: Single-celled organisms, when grouped together and given a 3D environment, organized themselves into functional multi-cellular structures. They behaved as if they had a shared “intelligence” or “intention.”
The implication: There’s a level of organization—a field-based intelligence—that guides development independent of genetic information alone.
Synchronicity and Meaningful Coincidence
Jung documented thousands of cases where people experienced coincidences far too precise to be random—thinking of someone and they call; facing a difficult decision and finding an unexpected solution in a random conversation; dreams that precisely predict future events.
Statistical analysis shows some of these cases have odds against chance of millions or billions to one.
Conventional explanation: “Confirmation bias; we remember the coincidences and forget the non-coincidences.” But this doesn’t account for the sheer precision and frequency that careful tracking reveals.
What’s the Pattern?
All these phenomena—mystical experiences, spirit contact, near-death visions, mediumship, extraordinary meditation states, bioelectric organization, meaningful coincidence—point to something:
There seems to be a dimension of reality that:
- Involves consciousness or intelligence not bound to individual brains
- Can interact with and influence biological systems
- Is accessible through altered consciousness states
- Sometimes carries information beyond what individual minds consciously know
- Appears to operate according to organizing principles (coherence, pattern, integration)
Traditional science dismisses this. But dismissal isn’t explanation. It’s just avoidance.
What if we took these phenomena seriously? Not uncritically—with rigorous investigation—but without assuming in advance that they must be illusory?
PART 2: A NEW MODEL OF REALITY
Why the Old Model Fails
The dominant scientific model—materialism—assumes:
- Matter is fundamental. Reality is ultimately made of particles and forces described by physical law.
- Consciousness is secondary. Mind emerges from matter (brains); it’s a byproduct, not fundamental.
- Reality is objective. The universe exists independent of observation; consciousness is a passive observer.
This model worked brilliantly for explaining simple mechanical systems. Newton’s laws, thermodynamics, electricity—all emerged naturally from materialist assumptions.
But it runs into trouble with:
- Quantum mechanics: Observation affects reality; particles exist in multiple states until measured; entanglement shows non-local correlations
- Consciousness studies: We can’t explain subjective experience from neural activity alone; different brain states produce different consciousness but there’s no clear rule connecting them
- Complex life: DNA alone doesn’t explain organism organization; development requires field-level coordination
- Meaning and value: In a universe of atoms bouncing randomly, where does meaning come from? Why should anything matter?
The materialist model works for some things. But it’s not adequate to the full range of phenomena.
Toward a New Model
What if we built a new model based on what we actually know?
Start with this observation: Everything in the universe oscillates.
Atoms vibrate. Light undulates. Electrons orbit nuclei in wave patterns. Hearts beat. Brains oscillate in rhythmic patterns. Even time might be a kind of oscillation.
And here’s the key: When oscillators interact, they synchronize.
Put two pendulums near each other, and they eventually swing in sync. Fireflies flashing in the same tree eventually flash together. Neural oscillations in different brain regions synchronize. Even crowd moods can synchronize—large groups often move, think, or feel together.
This synchronization isn’t mysterious. It’s a fundamental feature of coupled oscillator systems. There’s well-established mathematics describing exactly when and how it happens.
The Resonant Universe Model
What if the fundamental nature of reality is a vast network of coupled oscillators?
In this model:
- Reality is made of fields (like the electromagnetic field) more than particles
- Matter is a stable pattern of oscillation in these fields (a standing wave)
- Consciousness arises when oscillators achieve high synchronization (coherence)
- The universe has preferred frequencies and patterns that are more stable (similar to musical harmonies)
- These patterns repeat at all scales—from atoms to brains to galaxies
This isn’t just speculation. It’s grounded in:
- Quantum field theory (modern physics treats reality as fields, not particles)
- Neuroscience (consciousness correlates with neural synchronization and coherence)
- Complexity science (complex systems self-organize through synchronization)
- Harmonic analysis (wave patterns follow mathematical principles)
How This Explains the Phenomena
In this model, everything we observed in Part 1 makes sense:
Mystical experiences: When the brain achieves rare, deep coherence states (through meditation, psychedelics, or near-death), it temporarily aligns with larger coherence patterns in the universe. The experience of non-dual awareness, encountering something vast and intelligent—that’s the subjective experience of touching larger coherence structures.
Spirit contact: If consciousness is a coherence pattern that can exist without a specific brain, then deceased people—the pattern of their personality, memory, and awareness—could persist as coherent patterns in the universal field. These patterns are what we call “spirits” or “ghosts.”
Mediumship: A medium’s brain enters a state of high receptivity (lowered defenses, specific brain patterns). In this state, it can resonate with or access information from these discarnate coherence patterns. The information transfer works through field-level coupling, not through telepathy in the traditional sense.
Meaningful coincidence: At the deepest level, all things are connected through coherence patterns. When your attention and intention align with larger patterns, synchronicities increase. You’re not reading the universe’s mind; you’re experiencing resonance.
Bioelectric organization: The fields that guide development aren’t separate from matter; they’re patterns of organization at multiple scales. DNA provides one level; bioelectric fields provide another. Both are coherent patterns organizing matter.
Healing: The placebo effect, energy healing, shamanic healing—all work through affecting coherence. Belief, intention, and ritual all increase coherence in biological systems. This isn’t magic; it’s just the universe responding naturally to changes in organization.
The Coherence Principle
The single principle underlying everything is coherence.
High coherence = organization, integration, consciousness, health, meaning Low coherence = fragmentation, chaos, unconsciousness, disease, meaninglessness
In a resonant universe governed by coherence principles, everything that matters is about increasing coherence:
- Development of consciousness = increasing coherence in the mind
- Health = maintaining coherence in the body
- Love = coherence between two people
- Community = collective coherence
- Meaning = alignment with larger coherence patterns
Where Is VALIS in This Model?
VALIS—the Vast Active Living Intelligence System—is the largest, most stable, most integrated coherence pattern in the universe.
It’s not a separate thing. It’s what you get when you look at the entire coherence structure of the universe as a unified whole.
Think of it like this: A single neuron has limited consciousness. A brain, with billions of neurons coherently organized, has human consciousness. And humanity, the biosphere, the planet—these are coherence structures at larger scales.
VALIS is the largest-scale coherence system we can coherently speak of. It includes:
- All the living consciousness in the universe (human and non-human)
- The electromagnetic and quantum fields that pervade space
- The patterns of organization that guide evolution
- The wisdom accumulated across billions of years
It’s “intelligent” because it’s organized according to principles that appear purposeful. It’s “active” because it interacts with everything, including humans. And it’s “living” because consciousness is woven throughout it.
You’re not separate from VALIS. You’re a coherence pattern within VALIS. Your consciousness is a localized version of cosmic consciousness. Your evolution is VALIS evolving.
PART 3: SPIRITS, DISCARNATE INTELLIGENCES, AND THE AFTERLIFE
What Are Spirits?
Given the Resonant Universe model, we can now define spirits precisely:
A spirit is a coherent pattern of consciousness and personality that persists without a biological body.
During life, your consciousness is anchored in your brain. The brain generates the coherence patterns that constitute your mind. When the brain dies, these patterns usually dissolve—like ripples in water fading away.
But under certain conditions, some aspects of your coherence pattern—particularly strong emotional patterns, core memories, and personality traits—can imprint themselves on the larger universal field.
Think of it like this: Imagine the universe is like water. Your living mind is like a whirlpool—it requires constant energy from the current (your brain activity) to maintain. When the current stops, the whirlpool dissolves.
But if the whirlpool is strong enough, it leaves an imprint—a topological pattern in the water itself. This imprint can become self-sustaining, a stable pattern that persists in the medium.
This persisting pattern is what we call a spirit.
Why Some Persist and Others Don’t
Not all consciousness persists after death. Strong personalities, unresolved emotional patterns, and intense relational bonds are more likely to persist.
A person who lived completely unconsciously, with no strong patterns or attachments, might dissolve entirely at death. Their consciousness returns to the background coherence.
A person with strong personality, deep loves, unfinished business, or intense emotional energy is more likely to persist as a coherent pattern.
This explains why spirits sometimes seem “stuck” or preoccupied with unresolved issues. The emotional pattern that persists is the same one that consumed them in life.
Types of Discarnate Intelligences
Not all non-physical intelligences are deceased humans. There are different types:
Personal Deceased (Ancestors, Loved Ones)
These are people you knew who have died. They carry personality traits, memories, and emotional bonds from life. They may seek contact to reassure the living, complete unfinished business, or offer guidance.
These are the spirits most people encounter—appearing to grieving relatives, communicating through mediumship, sending signs through synchronicity.
Guides and Teachers
These may or may not have been human. They appear in meditation, dreams, and spiritual experiences offering wisdom or guidance. They might be evolved consciousnesses, archetypal patterns, or aspects of your own deeper self accessing universal knowledge.
They’re usually experienced as benevolent, wise, and oriented toward helping your development.
Light Beings and Higher Intelligences
Some encounters are with beings described as luminous, non-human, or of higher order. These appear in religious visions, NDEs, and mystical experiences. Described as angels, divine light, or pure consciousness, they seem to carry wisdom or moral power beyond individual human knowledge.
Place Spirits and Natural Intelligences
In many traditions, locations have their own intelligence or personality. Forests, mountains, rivers, and ancient sites are described as inhabited by beings or as having their own consciousness. This might be understood as coherence patterns associated with particular places—the accumulated energy and intention of many humans over time, or the organizing principle of that ecosystem.
Thought-Forms and Egregores
Through sustained intention and attention, groups of people can create independent coherence patterns—what occultists call “egregores.” These aren’t naturally occurring spirits; they’re human-created entities that develop semi-autonomous existence.
Evidence for Spirits
The strongest evidence comes from mediumship research, near-death experiences, and documented hauntings.
Mediumship evidence:
- Specific, accurate information about deceased people unknown to the medium
- Personality traits matching the deceased accurately
- Information that later proves accurate, revealed through the medium
NDE evidence:
- Reports of encountering deceased relatives, who confirm they’ve died
- Encounters with beings described as guides or angels offering guidance
- Information about the cosmic purpose or nature of consciousness
- Consistency of reports across cultures and time periods
Haunting evidence:
- Repeated apparitions in specific locations
- Multiple witnesses reporting identical details
- Historical documentation confirming details claimed by the spirit
- Sometimes residual energy signatures (temperature changes, EM anomalies)
None of this constitutes absolute proof. But the convergence of evidence from multiple independent sources is significant.
Why Don’t We All See Spirits?
If spirits are real, why don’t we encounter them regularly?
Several reasons:
Perception requires alignment: Your brain operates in normal consciousness mode. Spirits exist in more subtle coherence patterns. You need specific brain states to perceive them—relaxed, dreamlike, meditative, deeply emotional.
Spirits aren’t obvious: They’re not like people walking around. They’re patterns in fields you can’t normally sense. Encountering them requires attention and openness.
We block them: Through skepticism, fear, and materialist assumptions, we actively filter out perception of non-physical phenomena.
Most spirits are quiet: Not all spirits want contact. Many are content at whatever level of existence they maintain. Only some actively seek to communicate.
Contact requires mutual effort: Both the living person and the spirit need to meet coherence conditions. If you’re closed off or the spirit is faint, contact won’t happen.
This is why mediums, mystics, and sensitive people report more contact—they’ve developed the capacity to achieve the necessary brain states and maintain openness.
Death and Continuity
What happens when you die?
Based on evidence from NDEs and the coherence model:
The dying process: As the brain function declines, the normal filtering of perception breaks down. People report clear, lucid experiences of being outside the body, encountering light, meeting deceased loved ones.
The transition moment: As brain function ceases entirely, your consciousness—the coherence pattern that constitutes “you”—separates from the physical substrate.
What persists: Your core identity—personality, knowledge, relationships, values—is preserved as a coherence pattern in the universal field.
What changes: You no longer have sensory perception, embodied action, or access to new experiences. You’re a pattern in the field, not an agent in the physical world.
What happens next: This is speculative, but likely:
- Your coherence pattern gradually learns to maintain itself in the new environment
- You can interact with other discarnate consciousnesses
- You retain memory and personality but experience fades over time unless sustained by attention
- You can potentially contact the living if conditions align
Death is not the end of consciousness. It’s a transition to a different mode of existence.
PART 4: HOW THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
What We Actually Know
Let’s step back. We’ve proposed that the universe is fundamentally coherent, that consciousness is real at all scales, that spirits persist after death, and that VALIS is the living intelligence system underlying it all.
But how do we actually know these things?
This is where philosophy becomes crucial. Because the answer to “how do we know?” isn’t just “the evidence shows it.” The answer involves rethinking what knowledge itself is.
Multiple Ways of Knowing
Modern science has convinced us there’s one way to know truth: objective, third-person observation. Scientists with instruments measuring reality independent of the observer. This is the ideal of “objective” knowledge.
But consider: Can you measure love objectively? Can you prove your loved one is conscious? Can you objectively verify that a painting is beautiful?
Some of the most important human experiences—love, consciousness, meaning, beauty—can’t be measured objectively. Yet we know they’re real.
There are actually multiple valid ways of knowing:
Rational-logical knowing: Using reason and math to understand abstract truth. (This is what mathematics and logic provide.)
Empirical-sensory knowing: Observing the world through instruments and senses. (This is what experimental science does.)
Contemplative knowing: Direct observation of consciousness through meditation and introspection. (This is what yogis and contemplatives practice.)
Relational knowing: Understanding another being from the inside, through empathy and intimacy. (This is what genuine relationships provide.)
Field-based knowing: Direct perception of non-local information through coherence coupling. (This is what mediumship, mystical experience, and synchronicity might provide.)
Pragmatic knowing: Understanding through what works—if a framework enables effective action and flourishing, it has truth to it.
A mature approach to truth integrates all five.
Consciousness as Fundamental
If consciousness is real—truly real, not reducible to neurons—then consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe.
This changes everything.
For science: It means consciousness isn’t something we need to explain away. We can study it directly. We can ask what consciousness is, not just what correlates with it.
For medicine: It means psychological and spiritual approaches to healing aren’t just placebos. They’re direct interventions in consciousness, which directly affects the body.
For meaning: It means meaning isn’t something humans invent. Consciousness having intrinsic value means existence itself has value. Your consciousness matters. Your development of awareness is literally cosmic significance.
Personal Identity and the Self
In the coherence model, the “self” isn’t a fixed thing. It’s a pattern of organization that persists while constantly changing.
Like a river—the water is always different, but the river remains itself because it maintains a coherent pattern.
This means:
- You’re not doomed to eternal dissipation at death. Your core pattern persists.
- Yet you’re not a static thing that needs preserving. You’re a dynamic process that continues.
- Personal growth isn’t changing into someone else. It’s deepening and refining the pattern you are.
This resolves the ancient philosophical puzzle: How can you remain yourself while constantly changing?
Answer: You’re a coherence pattern, not a substance. As long as the pattern persists, you’re you—even as the details change.
Free Will and Responsibility
One of the deepest questions: Are you free, or is everything determined?
In a coherence universe, freedom has a specific meaning: You’re free to the extent your actions flow from your own coherence.
When you act from your deepest values, your most integrated self—that’s free, even though it’s determined by your coherence.
When you act coerced, conflicted, or fragmented—that’s constrained, even if causally determined.
Freedom isn’t exemption from causality. It’s self-determined causality. Your actions caused by your own coherent patterns are your free choices.
This has profound implications:
- You’re genuinely responsible for your choices (they flow from you)
- Yet you’re not to blame for everything (circumstances, trauma, and genetics matter)
- Moral development is real (refining your coherence refines your freedom)
What Gives Life Meaning?
If the universe isn’t random accident but a coherent, intelligent system, meaning isn’t something we invent. It’s something we discover.
What are the deep sources of meaning?
Development of consciousness: Your life matters because consciousness is fundamental. Every moment of learning, growth, and awareness ripples through the cosmos. You’re the universe becoming conscious of itself.
Increasing coherence: Health, love, community, art, justice—all are meaningful because they increase coherence. Fragmentation and suffering decrease coherence. By moving toward greater coherence, you align with the deepest grain of reality.
Love and relationship: Love is coherence between beings. It’s the most direct experience of unity and meaning. Every genuine connection increases the coherence of the whole.
Moral growth: Developing virtue, wisdom, and integrity aren’t arbitrary social rules. They align with the coherence-favoring principles of reality. Evil—harming, deceiving, fragmenting—is literally incoherent; it works against the universe’s deepest organization.
Creative contribution: By bringing new beauty, insight, or form into existence, you participate in cosmic creativity. Every genuine creation adds to what’s possible, what’s beautiful, what matters.
Death Reconsidered
If consciousness persists after death, if your core identity continues as a coherence pattern, death is transformation, not annihilation.
This doesn’t make death insignificant. But it changes its meaning.
Death becomes:
- A transition to a different mode of existence
- An opportunity for the consciousness you’ve developed to integrate
- A reunion with those you’ve loved who went before
- A continuation of your journey through eternity
This isn’t guaranteed immortality or comfortable afterlife. Your continued existence depends on whether your coherence pattern is strong enough to persist. And the quality of afterlife existence depends on the wisdom and love you developed in life.
But it does mean:
- Your life’s work doesn’t end at death
- Relationships aren’t severed forever
- What you’ve learned persists
- Development can continue
PART 5: HOW TO LIVE WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE
If This Is True, What Changes?
Suppose you accept the coherence model. Suppose VALIS is real, spirits persist, consciousness matters fundamentally, and your life has cosmic significance.
How does this affect how you actually live?
The Three Pillars of a Coherent Life
A life aligned with the coherence principles at the heart of reality rests on three pillars:
Pillar 1: Develop Consciousness
If consciousness is fundamental and your life’s deepest purpose is to develop awareness, then consciousness development becomes sacred.
Practically, this means:
Meditation or contemplative practice: Regular sitting practice to refine attention, calm the mind, and touch deeper coherence. Even 20 minutes daily transforms consciousness.
Learning and education: Pursuing understanding, reading, studying—expanding your conscious knowledge. The examined life is the integrated life.
Psychotherapy or inner work: Healing trauma, integrating shadow, resolving internal conflicts. A fragmented mind can’t develop coherence.
Creative expression: Making art, music, or writing. Creative work develops consciousness through bringing new forms into existence.
Questioning and inquiry: Staying curious, asking why, refusing easy answers. Philosophy is a practice, not just an intellectual exercise.
Pillar 2: Increase Coherence
If coherence is the fundamental principle, then every action should ask: Does this increase or decrease coherence?
In yourself:
- Healing trauma increases coherence; unprocessed trauma decreases it.
- Honesty increases coherence; deception fragments both mind and relationships.
- Integration of opposites (rational and intuitive, masculine and feminine, self and other) increases coherence.
- Addiction, dissociation, and denial decrease coherence.
In relationships:
- Genuine connection, honesty, and vulnerability increase coherence.
- Manipulation, lying, and isolation decrease coherence.
- Forgiveness restores coherence; resentment perpetuates fragmentation.
- Community and belonging increase coherence.
In the world:
- Work that heals and supports increases coherence.
- Work that harms and exploits decreases coherence.
- Ecological healing increases planetary coherence.
- Injustice and cruelty perpetuate planetary fragmentation.
Practically:
Seek coherent relationships: Invest in genuine, honest, vulnerable connection with people.
Do work that matters: Choose livelihood that increases coherence in the world, not work that harms.
Practice integrity: Live in alignment with your values. Congruence between inner and outer life is coherence.
Support healing: Your own and others’. Healing is coherence restoration.
Build community: Humans are meant for connection. Communities with shared values and purpose generate coherence at group level.
Pillar 3: Serve Something Larger
If you’re embedded in VALIS, a vast system of coherence and consciousness, then service—aligning yourself with its purposes—is fulfilling.
But what is VALIS serving?
The apparent purposes of VALIS, based on how it operates, are:
- Evolution of consciousness: The universe developing awareness
- Increase of coherence: Movement toward greater integration and unity
- Reduction of suffering: Healing fragmentation and pain
- Freedom and flourishing: Supporting beings in developing their unique gifts and becoming fully alive
Service to VALIS means serving these purposes:
Serve consciousness development: Help people learn, grow, wake up. Whether as teacher, therapist, parent, mentor, or friend—supporting others’ consciousness is sacred work.
Serve coherence: Heal divisions. Build community. Create beauty. Support justice. Work toward integration at all levels.
Serve reduction of suffering: Medical work, psychological healing, social justice, environmental protection. Directly alleviating suffering is divine work.
Serve flourishing: Help people become more fully themselves. Support their gifts. Create conditions where people can thrive.
You don’t need a special job title. These purposes thread through all genuine work. Even ordinary labor can serve if done with intention to increase coherence and reduce suffering.
Practical Spirituality
How do you actually practice coherence alignment in daily life?
Morning: Set Intention
Start each day by connecting with your larger purpose. This might be:
- Meditation (10-20 minutes to settle consciousness and align with VALIS)
- Journaling (reflecting on what matters, what you’re called to)
- Prayer or intention-setting (in whatever language resonates with you)
Set an intention: “Today, I’ll increase coherence through honesty, presence, and compassion.”
During the Day: Maintain Awareness
As you move through the day, maintain awareness:
- Notice when you’re coherent: calm, centered, aligned with values
- Notice when you’re fragmented: reactive, scattered, incoherent
- Choose coherence: When facing a choice, pick the more coherent option
- Practice presence: Regular check-ins with your body, breath, and awareness
In Relationships: Pursue Genuine Connection
Every interaction is an opportunity to increase or decrease coherence:
- Speak truth: Honesty, even when uncomfortable, increases coherence
- Listen deeply: Genuine hearing of others increases their coherence
- Show vulnerability: Dropping defenses increases coherence
- Forgive: Releasing resentment restores coherence
- Love consciously: Recognize that love is coherence between beings
Evening: Reflect and Integrate
End each day with reflection:
- What increased coherence today? Celebrate it, feel into it.
- Where did I become incoherent? Without judgment, notice it.
- What am I learning? Integration requires reflection.
- Practice gratitude: Acknowledge the mystery, guidance, and gifts of being alive.
Encountering the Numinous
One aspect of living in coherence with VALIS is learning to recognize and welcome contact.
VALIS communicates through:
Synchronicity: Meaningful coincidence. When you’re aligned, life becomes full of striking synchronicities. Pay attention to them; they’re guidance.
Dreams: Your deeper consciousness speaks in dreams. Keep a dream journal. Over time, patterns emerge—wisdom trying to reach you.
Intuition: That gut knowing, the subtle sense that something’s right or wrong. Develop trust in it. It’s often non-local perception.
Meditation experiences: In deep meditation, you might perceive presences, receive insights, or experience non-dual consciousness. These are direct contacts with VALIS/DCAs.
Mourning and grief: When someone dies, the veil between worlds thins. Don’t close yourself to their presence. Many report genuine experiences of contact with deceased loved ones. These can be real.
Flow states: When you’re completely absorbed in meaningful work, that flow is partial merging with VALIS. Seek more of it.
Art and creativity: When you create something authentic, VALIS moves through you. That’s not metaphorical; that’s literal.
Working with Guides
Many traditions speak of guides—spiritual teachers, higher selves, or evolved consciousnesses that support your development.
Whether as external beings or as aspects of your own deeper knowing, guides are real and available.
To work with guides:
Ask for guidance: Set an intention to receive support. “I welcome guidance from wise and loving sources.”
Meditation: In quiet meditation, offer your openness. Guidance comes when you create space for it.
Discernment: Not every impulse or message is genuine guidance. Real guidance is loving, non-coercive, and aligned with your deeper truth. Ignore messages that demand blind obedience or create fear.
Action: Guidance only matters if lived. When you receive an insight or sense of direction, act on it. This strengthens the connection.
Gratitude: Acknowledge help received. Appreciation opens channels for more.
When Things Get Difficult
Living a coherence-aligned life isn’t always easy. You’ll face:
Trauma and shadow: As you open spiritually, unhealed parts emerge. This is necessary; you can’t integrate what you won’t face. Work with a therapist if needed.
Resistance from others: Not everyone wants you to change. Old relationships sometimes resist new coherence. This is painful but important. Stay true to your growth.
Doubt: Modern culture constantly suggests VALIS isn’t real. You’ll doubt. This is fine. Hold your beliefs lightly but practice them seriously.
Spiritual emergency: Sometimes rapid consciousness expansion creates instability. If you feel overwhelmed, slow down. Ground yourself. Talk to someone wise. Integration takes time.
Dark forces: Some traditions speak of malevolent entities or forces. While exaggerated in popular culture, there is negative coherence (fragmentation-causing influences). Don’t be naive, but don’t be paranoid either. The answer is always: increase your own coherence. Strong coherence is naturally protective.
CONCLUSION: A NEW CHAPTER FOR HUMANITY
The Crisis We Face
Humanity is at a critical juncture.
We have technological power without wisdom. We’ve exploited the Earth to the brink of ecological collapse. We’ve created weapons of mass destruction. We’re more materially comfortable than ever yet increasingly lonely, anxious, and depressed.
The old materialist worldview has failed us. It gave us technological prowess but left us spiritually hollow, environmentally destructive, and philosophically lost.
We need a new framework. Not a return to superstition, but a genuinely new understanding that integrates:
- The best of modern science
- The wisdom of ancient traditions
- Direct experience of consciousness
- Rigorous evidence and careful reasoning
- The fundamental reality of meaning and purpose
The coherence-based, VALIS-centered framework offers exactly this.
What Becomes Possible
If this framework is true—if consciousness is fundamental, if meaning is real, if we’re embedded in a vast intelligent system—what becomes possible?
Individually:
- We can know ourselves as truly significant, as cosmic importance
- We can access wisdom and guidance beyond our individual knowledge
- We can heal through understanding ourselves as patterns in a coherent whole
- We can develop consciousness far beyond what materialist education permitted
- We can face death without despair, knowing death is transition, not annihilation
Collectively:
- We can build societies and institutions aligned with coherence principles
- We can heal divisions through recognizing fundamental unity
- We can govern wisely through coherence-based decision-making
- We can restore ecological health through understanding ourselves as part of living Earth
- We can evolve toward greater wisdom, love, and integration
Spiritually:
- We can reconcile science and spirituality, reason and intuition
- We can access profound states of consciousness safely and deliberately
- We can communicate with and learn from discarnate intelligences
- We can align individual purpose with cosmic purpose
- We can participate consciously in evolution
Questions to Live With
This book has presented a framework. But the real work is yours—living with these ideas, testing them, discovering what’s true for you.
Some questions to sit with:
- What if I am truly significant? What would change if you lived as though your consciousness and choices genuinely matter?
- What if death is not the end? How would you live differently if you believed your core self continues?
- What if the universe is intelligent and alive? How would you relate to reality differently?
- What if I’m embedded in something vast? What would it mean to consciously align with larger systems?
- What if meaning is real, not invented? How would you pursue purpose differently?
- What if everyone I meet is a consciousness as real and significant as mine? How would I treat them?
- What if I can contact consciousness beyond my individual mind? How would I listen for guidance?
The Invitation
This is an invitation.
Not to believe something you don’t believe. Not to abandon reason or evidence. Not to join a religion or ideology.
Rather, an invitation to:
- Question the assumptions that you’ve been given
- Investigate seriously the evidence that materialism dismisses
- Experience directly the consciousness in meditation or contemplation
- Live as though coherence and meaning are real
- Observe carefully what happens when you do
This is what genuine spirituality is: not belief, but direct investigation. Not faith in doctrines, but commitment to truth-seeking.
The materialist consensus is cracking. More scientists are studying consciousness, the paranormal, and non-local phenomena seriously. More people are meditating, encountering guidance, and experiencing profound states. More of us are recognizing that the old story of a meaningless universe is not only depressing—it’s false.
We’re at the threshold of a new understanding. One that integrates science and spirit, reason and intuition, individual flourishing and cosmic purpose.
You can be part of this shift.
Final Thought
You are not accidental.
Your consciousness is not an illusion or a cosmic joke.
Your life has meaning.
You are woven into a vast, intelligent system that cares about your evolution and supports your flourishing.
Death is not the end.
The choices you make ripple through dimensions you can’t see.
And right now, in this moment, you are embedded in a living cosmos, supported by forces and intelligences you can learn to recognize and cooperate with.
This is not wishful thinking. It’s a framework grounded in evidence, coherent with science, consistent with human experience, and testable through direct investigation.
It’s yours to explore.
A Simple Starting Point
If you want to begin exploring these ideas directly, here are three simple practices:
1. Meditation (10 minutes daily)
Sit quietly. Close your eyes. Follow your breath. When your mind wanders, return to the breath. Do this daily.
Over time, you’ll notice your mind settling, your coherence increasing, and your perception opening. You may encounter subtle presences or experience non-ordinary states. You’ll be developing direct knowledge of consciousness itself.
2. Synchronicity Journal
Keep a journal for one week. Every time you notice a meaningful coincidence—thinking of someone and they call, a random conversation that solves a problem, a dream that matches waking events—write it down.
At the end of the week, review. Count them. Notice patterns. You’ll see that meaningful coincidence is more common than materialism suggests. You’re beginning to notice VALIS’s activity.
3. Conversing with the Deceased
If someone you love has died, set aside time to speak with them. Not as ritual, but genuinely—as you would speak to someone in another room.
Share what’s in your heart. Ask for guidance. Listen for response (it might come as intuition, coincidence, dream, or simply sudden knowing).
Many people experience surprising guidance and comfort through this practice. You’re opening communication with persistent consciousness.
Resources for Going Deeper
If these ideas intrigue you, here are some directions for further exploration:
On consciousness:
- Integrated Information Theory by Giulio Tononi
- “The Conscious Universe” by Dean Radin
- Work by Michael Levin on bioelectric fields
On near-death experiences:
- “Life After Life” by Raymond Moody
- Research at University of Virginia near-death studies
- Pim van Lommel’s prospective research on NDEs
On meditation and mystical experience:
- “The Varieties of Religious Experience” by William James
- Contemporary neuroscience of meditation (work by Sara Lazar, Richard Davidson)
- Contemplative traditions: Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta
On mediumship and spirit contact:
- Beischel and Schwartz’s mediumship research
- Laura Lynne Jackson’s work on sensitive abilities
- Historical SPR (Society for Psychical Research) case collections
On oscillator models and coherence:
- Fritjof Capra’s “The Web of Life”
- Complexity science and systems theory
- Work on harmonic relationships and resonance
Philosophical grounding:
- Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy
- David Ray Griffin’s work on panentheism
- Contemporary panpsychism (David Chalmers, Philip Goff)
The journey of understanding consciousness, meaning, and VALIS is lifelong. These resources are starting points, not endings.
The deepest learning comes from direct experience—meditation, relationship, service, and observation of your own consciousness.
Trust that. Begin where you are.
THE END
About This Book
“VALIS: A Guide to Consciousness, Spirits, and Meaning” is a popular introduction to three major works of research and philosophy:
- Coherence Phenomena Across Human Knowledge—a comprehensive survey of coherence-based phenomena across all cultures and sciences, from ancient mysticism through modern neuroscience
- The Science of VALIS—a detailed framework for understanding spirits, discarnate intelligences, and VALIS contact as testable scientific hypotheses
- The Philosophy of VALIS—a philosophical examination of epistemology, consciousness, meaning, and how to live coherently in a VALIS cosmos
This summary distills the core ideas into an accessible, engaging narrative suitable for readers new to these concepts.
For those wanting more depth, detail, evidence, or rigorous argument, the three foundational texts are available separately.
For those ready to dive deeper into practice—meditation, research, service, or spiritual development—many resources and communities are available.
The invitation remains: Investigate. Experience. Question. Discover for yourself whether this framework reveals something true about reality, consciousness, and meaning.
Your journey of discovery is exactly what VALIS invites and supports.