Internal Action

Assagioli explains that the inner world is real and has different levels or planes that interact with each other. We can influence these by different types of action.

By Dr. Roberto Assagioli (Doc. #23107 – Assagioli Archives-Florence). Original Title: Azione Interna^[i]Translated and Edited With Notes by Jan Kuniholm^[ii]

Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Roberto Assagioli discusses the concept of “internal action” and its importance in the modern world. He highlights the neglect of the inner world by modern humanity, which is solely focused on the external world. Assagioli explains that the inner world is real and has different levels or planes that interact with each other. He emphasizes the need for self-discovery and self-mastery as the first field of internal action. The second field is religious action, which involves connecting with higher levels of the inner world through methods such as prayer, meditation, affirmation, and invocation. Assagioli suggests that in order for these methods to work for modern individuals they should be freed from theological and institutional limitations. The third field is collaborative and group religious action, which involves experimenting with group exercises and communal living. Assagioli concludes by stating that internal action is necessary for shaping and empowering individuals and groups, leading to the establishment of a vital and entirely religious life.

The subject of “internal action” is so vast that it may seem absurd to want to talk about it in a few dozen minutes. And so it would indeed be if I presumed to “treat” it, or to carry it all out, even summarily. But I believe that it is possible, and not useless, at least to bring it to your attention and to highlight its importance — indeed its necessity — so that it will be given an appropriate place in the program of activities that the Religion Movement intends to implement. Moreover I hope, nay I trust, that you are such “good connoisseurs” that a few words will suffice.

I shall begin with the natural starting point: the reality of the inner world. This might seem like a truism, but instead it is a truth whose realization would truly have revolutionary effects in the modern world. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that modern man lives and operates as if the inner world did not exist. He lives in it, to some extent, but does not notice it or at most only experiences it: he is passive in the face of it. Entirely focused on knowledge and domination of the external world, present-day man has neglected the other one to such an extent that he finds himself [unknowingly] absorbed in it, succumbing to it, and thus continually victimized by the powerful forces that rise up and agitate tumultuously and overwhelmingly within him.

A significant symbol of this situation is the fact that, while every university in our country has chairs of mineralogy and zoology, for example, only two or three teach psychology, and only as a “complementary and optional” subject!^[iii]

Yet the inner world is intensely, often terribly real. It too has its gloomy abysses and its glittering peaks, its arid moors and its hidden treasures; it too has its rushing torrents and its unlimited oceans, its storm zone and its serene stratosphere. These are not mere metaphorical expressions or ingenious juxtapositions, they are real and profound analogies; they are close and intimate correspondences of nature and function.

The inner world has several “levels” or “floors,” which are distinct in quality and function, but continually interact with each other and interpenetrate to various degrees.

I cannot even enumerate them here, but I must point out at least one fundamental distinction: that between the sphere that includes all internal activities that are properly “human” or “psychological,” and the sphere that has been variously called “trans-human” or “spiritual” (in the narrow sense), and also the sphere of what is High.

Here one of the problems put on the agenda of this conference comes into full view: the problem of the “beyond.” But I will not talk about it now; if anything, I can do so in the discussion [after this talk].

Synthetically, it can be said that this world is above all the world of meanings, choices, causes, and — in its highest aspects — essential realities. At the limit — or rather, beyond all limits — lies the Supreme Reality.

Internal action has various fields of expression, and correspondingly different methods.

The first field of action is our own human personality: to know, master and transform it.

A second field is the higher levels of the inner world. Here action becomes specifically “religious,” according to three modes, which can be called ascending, horizontal and descending.

The third field is that of associated and group religious action.

Let us now examine them in more detail.

Action on ourselves

This presupposes the knowledge or rather, the discovery of ourselves. What and who are we?

This seems an elementary question, yet it is one of the most difficult and embarrassing to answer. I do not insist on it, partly because Luigi Pirandello^[iv] in almost all his work has dramatically highlighted the inability of modern man to discover who he really is, among the multiple to conflicting “images” that he forms of himself and that others form of him.

But this discovery is possible and necessary.

It is possible. By means of special exercises one can succeed at keeping one’s field of consciousness free from the psychological “contents” (sensations, images, feelings, thoughts, etc.) that generally occupy it and with which we identify. Or sometimes, under exceptional conditions, an interruption of ordinary psychic activity is spontaneously produced. Then comes the wondrous experience of the true “I” or Self, as the Center of pure spiritual self-awareness, which is stable, permanent and powerful. There are numerous testimonies of those who have had this experience. Because of the conviction and evidence with which it is presented, among many, I will mention that of Gratry:^[v]

I felt like an inner force . . . full of strength, beauty and joy . . . a form of light and fire that sustained my whole being; a stable form, always the same, often found in my life, forgotten at intervals but always recognized with ecstasy and with the exclamation, “Here is my true being.” ^[vi]

The recognition of the existence and true nature of the “I” or Self has immense spiritual value and incalculable practical importance. This recognition constitutes a true revelation: it is the beginning of a new life and the key to understanding so many events and to solving so many problems; it is the basis for the work of self-mastery, liberation and inner regeneration. Archimedes said, “Give me a point of support and I will lift the world.”^[vii]Well, to lift our inner world, the point of support is the “I” or Self — the fixed and dynamic Center of our being. ^[viii]

The action we can — and should! — carry out on ourselves is broad and complex. This art, called psychagogy by Plato, includes: methods for the investigation, mastery and use of the unconscious; for the mastery and transmutation and constructive use of the mind; for the education of the will — and together and above all, the harmonious integration of all these elements into a coherent and organic psychosynthesis of the personality.

It is important to realize that this internal practice is not “religious” in itself; indeed it is not even necessarily “ethical.” It is a technique that develops efficacy, but it can be used for selfish and even evil purposes, and it is by some people. All the more, therefore, is it incumbent and necessary that those who set themselves ethical and religious goals learn it and know how to use it at least as effectively as those others, to be able to confront and overcome them when necessary. And this is often needed, and increasingly will be needed, if we are to be pioneers and soldiers (as our presence here indicates) of the great renewal, the radical transmutation of individuals, culture and the whole of human society, which are already underway.

To urge and encourage ourselves and others, it should be emphasized — as will be apparent from what I am about to say — that those who propose those ends can avail themselves of superior means and energies that are closed to others.

Religious action

Specifically religious action is the “connection” (religio actually means “connection”) between the individual being and the higher levels of the inner world, which modern psychology has called the superconscious, which — as has been mentioned — culminate in what has been variously called the Supreme Reality, the Supreme Good, the Absolute, the Supreme, the Eternal, Brahman, God.

This connection has been, and can be implemented, by various methods of internal action, of which the main ones are: prayer, meditation, affirmation and invocation.

Prayer, understood in the strict sense, is primarily affective or emotional in character, aiming at a loving communion with God.

Meditation is a predominantly mental means of action, although in its higher aspects it transcends the ordinary mind, uses intuition and becomes pure and direct contemplation of Reality.

Affirmation has a volitional character, in a somewhat “magical” sense; it is an act of will by which one “requires” or “expects” unification with the Supreme, or in which the individual will freely immerses itself and identifies with the Universal Will.

Invocation is, or can be used, as a synthetic method in which the three aspects — affective, mental and volitional — are merged into a single internal act that is therefore complete, much more effective and capable of evoking an appropriate “response.”

These methods have been widely used in every place and time, and still are by those who have a genuinely religious life. But there is a serious obstacle to their use by modern people. They have mostly been formed within established religions and are thus closely connected with their respective theologies and ideologies, their rituals and formulas. They often aim not toward direct connection with the Supreme Reality, but toward individual, historical or mystical Beings, generally the Founders of those religions, and also with lesser intermediaries such as saints or angels. So those who do not want or cannot accept those theologies or be part of those churches cannot adopt their procedures either. 

Here then is a definite practical task for the Religion Movement: To free those methods from their theological, historical, institutional and sectarian connections and limitations, and to make them pure practices free from all dogma, from all conceptual systems, from all traditional ritualistic forms; to experiment with them and modify them appropriately, according to the nature and conditions of modern people, living in the present world; to transmute them, according to the emerging need for “something new.”

There are also the methods of religious action which may be called “horizontal,” and which consist of the emanation and irradiation of psycho-spiritual energies. Modern studies on telepathy give them a scientific basis and corroboration. Here, even more, there are new techniques to be invented, experimented with and used.

The methods of “descending” action aim to transmute the human personality “religiously” and, in a broader sense, to make every activity sacred and to recognize the external world itself as sacred; to imbue humanity and the world with spirituality, to establish the kingdom of God on earth. These include the psychagogical methods mentioned above, but inform them with a higher meaning and “direct” them toward specifically ethical-religious ends.

If we want to use scientific and “neutral” terminology instead, we can say that this is how spiritual psychosynthesis is implemented, which individually includes the body and in general strives toward the unification of inner life and outer life.

Collaborative religious action

The word “religion” can also be and has been interpreted as an inter-individual or social connection between people of the same faith, or persuasion, and the same religious practice. Therefore there is a need for new forms of religious communities suited to new people and new times.

Before we get to our real continual living together, which is very demanding and difficult to implement, it is appropriate to experiment with group religious exercises and short periods of communal living. As some friends here know, in the years leading up to the last war I did both of these kinds of experiments together with others with, I must say truthfully, very satisfactory results. 

The exercises consisted of a series of meetings in which anagogic symbols of a universal character, or rather to which universal meaning could be given. In one series the symbols of the Knight and the Grail Community were adopted (with the help of evocative Wagnerian music); in another series the theme was Dante’s pilgrimage through all the spheres of the inner world, from the lowest levels of the unconscious to the heights of the superconscious. I have also devised, but not yet experimented with, a series of symbols that are new in their religious applications, drawn from modern life and technology, such as the motorist, the aviator, the explorer, etc.

All these can — and should — be taken up, extended and variously developed.

To conclude:

The various modes of internal action that have been mentioned are the necessary preparation for shaping and empowering individuals, groups. [We trust that this will include] the gradually increasing ranks of those who are [themselves] liberated, and who liberate [others] from adopted patterns, and who will be able to establish a religion that is all vital, and a life that is entirely religious.

^[i] This essay is the author’s address to the Fourth Conference of the Religion Movement, Florence, July 26-28, 1947.

It is substantially identical to Archive Doc. #24210. —Ed.

^[ii] Editor’s interpolations are indicated by [brackets]. —Ed. 

^[iii] This situation has radically changed since the date this essay was written, which suggests that the author’s objectives have been met at least in this area. Almost every college or university now (as of 2024) has a psychology department and issues degrees in this discipline. —Ed.

^[iv] Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. Most of the Florentine audience would probably be familiar with his works.—Ed.

^[v] Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry, usually known as Joseph Gratry (1805-1872), was a French Catholic priest, author and theologian. —Ed. 

^[vi] Gratry, De la connaissance de l’âme [On the Knowledge of the Soul (1861)].—Author’s Note.

^[vii] The most common English version of this quote from Archimedes (c.287-c.212 BC) is “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth,” quoted by Pappas of Alexandria in Synagoge, Book VIII, c.340 AD. Many variants of this quote include mention of the lever, which is used at the point of support (fulcrum) to initiate the movement. —Ed.

^[viii] This point is further developed in my essay “The Mystery of the I.” —Author’s Note.