Having been a Humanities and English college teacher for thirty-six years, I now manage Ye Olde Consciousness Shoppe which presents ideas about transforming consciousness and reaching a higher level of reality. The website has information about my three books: Hermes Beckons, a tale of alchemy and magic, is the most recent publication. The earlier books are Foundation for a New Consciousness: An Essay on Art, Science, and Meditation, and Reality Inspector, a novel set in San Francisco involving a world championship chess match and computer hacking at the Federal Reserve Bank. Education is the foundation for my life's journey, and so I have followed that path, both as a profession and as a means of personal fulfillment. A student and teacher and writer, I have spent many years inspecting the doings and makings of us human beings. In pursuit of knowledge I began studying philosophy, religion, psychology, and literature. Before long I realized that these categories set false barriers, and so I reshaped my quest for understanding by inspecting the arts and sciences and then extending the search to all human activities, following two main threads: who are we (essence or identity) and why are we here (existence)? The human spirit is expressed in everything that we do. Though cultures can be distinguished by their differences, underneath flows the human soul. Each culture, then, is one facet reflecting the soul's myriad possibilities. For good or evil, the human spirit is capable of dancing to the cosmic rhythms of life, death, and regeneration. The human world is a miniature of the universe, and if we look carefully, we see the microcosm-macrocosm link.