A smile opened the door that fear had shut: silent suggestion proves that what we carry inside reshapes every encounter before a single word is spoken
Final teaching session with Roberto Assagioli
Dialogue with students and participants
Assagioli Archives, Florence
Original title: What Can Psychosynthesis Offer?
Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons
Editorial note
This text documents the final teaching session held by Roberto Assagioli before his death in August 1974. The session consists of an introductory reflection by Assagioli followed by testimonials and dialogue with students concerning the effects of psychosynthesis practice. Roberto Assagioli is the principal teacher and speaker, but the text is a multi-voice pedagogical exchange rather than a single-authored work. The title, abstract, and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth Sørensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.
Abstract
In this lecture, Assagioli’s last before his death in 1974, he invites students to take stock of what psychosynthesis practice has given them. One student describes how affirmation cards bearing words such as ‘faith’ and ‘courage’ transformed her work as a book representative, turning closed doors into sales. Assagioli draws from this the principle of silent suggestion: that an inner attitude exerts a powerful, almost magical influence on the behaviour of others. Further testimonials confirm gains in emotional calm, public speaking, and practical competence, offering a rare glimpse of psychosynthesis as lived discipline.
RA: Before starting, I would like to thank you for the expressions of sympathy which I received during the last period, and I am happy to say that I can now resume my activities in full. I will take the opportunity to do, like commercial companies do, the final balance and the budget.
The final balance consists of examining with each of you what psychosynthesis has given you and – more precisely – what a greater understanding of others and of yourself has given you, what changes and developments it has produced in you, both internally and in relationships with others, and particularly what results you have had in doing the exercises.
Then, those present can try to answer that. But I must tell you that today will be a reckoning, and not a lesson that we can do together; after this we will do the budget, that is, a program for the summer, autumn and next year. So, we already had a very interesting testimony from MLC the other day. Do you want to briefly summarize it for those who were not there?
MLC: I tried to write it down after I decided what I wanted to say, that is, I am very afraid of everything in general, I am very afraid, especially of spoken exams, and usually when I get there I start to tremble and say nothing. Then I thought of an exercise through which I gain trust, and I wrote in fairly large letters, usually in bright colors: faith, courage, etc. This also helped me a lot in another business: that is, I was the sales representative for a year for a publishing house, a well-known publishing house, and I had to go to people’s houses. Now this job was very scary for me as I am very shy, I did this exercise, and I noticed that when I did it, I always sold and earned about eight thousand lire, and when I didn’t do it I did not earn almost anything, and it was also, as I must say, very profitable, as well as cheering me up from an economic point of view as well.
RA: So, you got effects and results that you didn’t…
MLC: People, when I didn’t do this exercise before, closed the door saying: “In short, what do you want?”. Instead when I did this exercise beforehand, I went there sure that they would open to me and before talking I smiled, and seeing this smile they had me enter the house, and when I entered the house it was great, and everything got done.
RA .: See, the demeanor of others in response to your demeanour. This is not just a response, this is not just a change in you, but a change in the behavior of others: this is very interesting.
MLC .: Actually, I found it so every time, I mentioned that it could happen with any person, and when I did that exercise, the first person whose bell I rang invariably let me in and almost always bought.
RA .: Therefore our internal attitude exerts a silent but powerful suggestion on others. With our internal attitude we evoke, we call forth in others a corresponding attitude. This I would say, is almost magical.
C.: In fact, this helped you in the last competitive exam.
MLC .: Yes, I was terribly afraid, I thought: I didn’t know if I would make it. Usually, they give us two hours for textbook exams: after an hour I had done everything, so I thought “you will win, you will win”. And then the first professor, the Italian one, a rather scary professor, was really impressed, and he kept saying: “good, good”. In short, everything went well, it could not have gone better, also because I had been sick the day before the exams and I had taken antibiotics, and therefore I was feeling very weak, I wasn’t feeling very strong, and yet the exam went brilliantly.
RA .: Thank you for this testimony, very encouraging for everyone. Now I would like to hear some more.
X .: I could say that I do the rose exercise, when for example, I am on edge, when I argue with my sister, doing the rose exercise helps me to calm down internally. My sister feels this calm and can no longer quarrel with me, because I am calm in myself and I find here more calm too; not the kind of silent calm that makes things even worse, but a true calm.
RA: Excellent. It is particularly interesting to feel the effect of the exercises. Is there anyone else who wants to talk about it?
X .: I can say that since I have been coming here and doing these exercises, for a couple of years already, and before, I used to speak in public for the preparation of the course […], while instead here I had never been able to intervene. Now, since I have been coming here, I am unlocked, I can even speak here in public whereas once I would not have spoken at all.
RA .: Any other? We need to hear various testimonials. Be brave, this is a friendly conversation.
C.: Well, I can say something. I must say that I am a dreamer by temperament, in the clouds, anything but practical, that is, that I find myself like a chick in tow when I have to do something concrete. And now instead I have managed, to a considerable extent, to become dynamic, let’s say to do several things, to deal with many practical matters.
Now the most reliable testimony, I would say, of this change, was given by my housekeeper, who always tells me: “But how the professor has changed, how he has changed!”.
RA .: This is a welcome testimony! […]
