The following is an extract from an article by Roberto Assagioli called Vertical Telepathy, translated from Italian by Gordon Symons. Original Italian title: TELEPATIA VERTICALE from the Assagioli Archive in Florence.
…to come out – with a much greater frequency than that foreseen by the calculation of probabilities – a six or a given figure, a given facet of the dice, and these not thrown with the hand but mechanically thrown so that there cannot be the slightest direct interference. Given this, given these powers I would call normal for the supernormal, that is, habitual, demonstrated by the experiments as well as by many direct observations, it may seem less strange that the Soul, which is a center of spiritual intelligence and power, could make use of similar metapsychic forces to make us understand what is written, books, the sentence that contains the answers we need, or to make a person speak, or even change events so that we receive the message or solution invoked.
Regarding books, I will remember certain experiments made by the director of the Italian Metapsychic Society, it seems to me in Belgium, where the presumed control of the medium indicated which word was in the row of the page of the book that was in fourth place on the given shelf, and this repeatedly – so this also confirms the possibility of these phenomena and these responses. The Soul would avail itself of metapsychic supernormal powers which we through experiments find exist in a considerable number of people.
Rhine found many people who did not have the slightest idea that they had these faculties, but who through experiment and training discovered them, and these later developed in them. So I repeat the play on words that the supernormal is becoming more and more normal, that is, in other words it is not about the supernatural, but only about phenomena and aspects of nature – in the highest sense of the term – that were previously unknown. They are no more supernatural than the current applications of electricity seem to those who were in the dark, for example to a primitive man, or as they would appear to a person of the past who would suddenly have to live again. One could ask the question: if all this is natural and real, why then is it so relatively rare for the Soul to inspire the personality? Why does Humanity do so much nonsense, individually and collectively? Why is it not guided and illuminated by the Soul? I repeat here the analogy already mentioned before, but which is very illuminating. Electricity has always existed, it has always been around us, electrical phenomena occur continuously in our body, and electricity has always been ready to serve us. Well, only for a century has humanity been aware it, and has actually used it. While there have been great civilizations in which men have been superior in certain respects, but which have left this enormous cosmic power unused, except for the trick of rubbing amber.
We now live in a similar and hardly lesser ignorance of formidable spiritual psychic forces. But ignorance is only one of the reasons for this. There is also another major and more interesting one, namely the active hostility that the human personality often feels towards what is spiritual, in general, and in particular towards the voices and indications of the Soul. This also has its reasons, and it is very interesting to examine them, also to see how to eliminate this conflict which is entirely to our detriment. The fact is that a whole series of precautions and fears are present in the human personality. To put it in scientific psychoanalytic language, the conscious personality of man is located between the lower unconscious and the superconscious and is afraid of both. Psychoanalysis has amply demonstrated the existence of a repression, of a censure towards all instinctive drives. Instead of recognizing them objectively and sincerely, and therefore disciplining them, using and directing these instinctive lower forces, the conscious part, instead, blocks them, is horrified, condemns them and then removes them to the unconscious, thus believing that they have solved the problem.
Instead, it hasn’t solved anything at all, because these forces stir in the unconscious and produce neuro-psychic disorders, or they suddenly break out. So, the problem is not solved at all: this is pure and simple psychology. What is generally ignored, however, is that the same happens for the energies, impulses and thrusts that come from above. Man is afraid of it for different reasons and rejects them. He is afraid of them, as he is generally afraid of what is new: out of tenacious misoneism, out of tenacious adherence to so-called daily realities, to current opinions. In fact, very few have the intellectual courage to go against the current, to think for themselves, and not to obey collective suggestions. Then there are things that, because of the ignorance I mentioned earlier, seem to be unusual, strange, fantastic. There is a fear of “losing one’s mind” by dealing with these things. Then there are even deeper and more subtle resistances: in fact, there is a great fear of the needs that the Soul can have; the fear that it imposes renunciations, unpleasant, uncomfortable disciplines – and this is partially and superficially justified. The soul really has its needs, but these are by no means unreasonable, excessive, or inhuman. It requires disciplines and obedience that contribute to the benefit of the personality itself. It does it for the best and for our own good, and in this it can be compared to a parent, a wise educator who tries to help the student grow up while making him avoid certain excesses, mistakes and whims.
So, the image that many make of the Soul, of the Spirit of God as something hard, demanding, almost inhuman, is completely wrong. It is our own rebellion, it is our opposition that creates this conflict, this polarization. But if instead we open ourselves without resistance to the influence of the Soul, then we find that everything really is better, more harmonious. We feel we are entering a truly superior harmony and we open ourselves to powerful and beneficial influences. It can be proved that if a given manifestation has a lower, let’s say instinctive, motive, this does not exclude that other superior, higher, even spiritual, motives are associated with that reaction. Given the complexity of the human Being – who has the whole range of waves, so to speak: short, medium and long wave – very often in each of our manifestations different motives act on various levels, the percentage of which is difficult to ascertain. So I believe, applying what was said, that certain collective and individual manifestations, for example the reaction towards death, can be determined by various reasons, one of which may be an injured survival instinct, which we could ascribe to, for example, those who have been sentenced to death. But this does not exclude that there may also be a superior motive of a sense of justice, in the sense that society does not have the right to take life, to judge. There is therefore a concurrence of motives, of very different instinctive and spiritual motives, and it is very difficult to ascertain which one prevails, as the proportions are variable on a case-by-case basis. […][…] It is not uncommon for vertical telepathy messages to have a negative, inhibiting, warning to be avoided. A famous and significant example is that of Socrates. His “daimon” (understood not in the inferior sense, but in that of a higher, invisible entity) seems to have intervened to tell him what he should not do. It never intervened in a positive way. This also happened to others; and I believe that the most frequent mode of intervention by the Soul is this warning of to stop, and the simplest form is what is called the voice of conscience, that is, when one senses that something is wrong. This feeling of a warning, an invitation not to do, is the most usual form of the intervention of the Soul. Instead, positive messages are rarer, almost more dramatic, and it is then a fuller intervention, an indication of a whole way, of a program, of a task.
[…] This falls into the “anxiety”, category of psychic phenomena that come from the unconscious, or metapsychic: when we put ourselves in a state of concentration, almost of passivity and of unawareness of the impressions from the senses, then we become sensitive to psychic currents of the environment in a broad sense, since on a metapsychic level, distance does not matter. From currents of the great psychic ocean in which, as psychic beings, we are immersed, impressions of various kinds can be received, among which, that of sounds and music is not uncommon. We said of a person who somehow had awakened a sensitivity that he could hear radio broadcasts without radio, within himself. Other people, as soon as they try to meditate, see a phantasmagoria of disordered images, music, sounds, etc. But this has nothing to do with the Soul and its messages.TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION
Roberto Assagioli, (Assagioli Archives-Florence), Original Title: La Communicazione Telepatia, Translated and Edited With Notes by Jan Kuniholm[1]
Abstract: This essay discusses the existence of telepathic communication, which is more common than we realize. We often absorb thoughts and emotions that are not our own, leading us to believe they are. The challenge is to reject personal telepathic influences and open ourselves to spiritual influences. Recognizing and discerning what is not in harmony with our beliefs liberates us from its power. The goal is to master our sensitivity and create conditions for receiving and transmitting positive communication.
Telepathic communication exists, and we will insist on this a lot because it is much more common than we think. There is a telepathy of which we are not aware that happens all the time. The fact that we are not aware of it means that very often we absorb things that are not our own, and yet we believe them to be our own; or we follow currents of ideas and emotions passively without realizing that they run over us and drag us along — but do not correspond at all to what we really think and feel.
So at first the problem with telepathy is, paradoxically, to reject telepathic influences more than to welcome them, because the usual telepathic influences are 99% wrong, because they come from purely personal levels. In short, it is gradually a matter of closing [ourselves] to influences at the personality level and opening to influences at the spiritual levels, at the soul levels. Easy to say, but very difficult to do. But closing oneself does not mean creating a shell and becoming insensitive, creating a shell and putting oneself in an attitude of fear or defense. No, it is about recognizing and discriminating what comes to us. When you have recognized its true nature, its origin, you have already done more than half the work of defending yourself.
When we have recognized that something is not ours, or does not correspond to us, or is not in harmony with what we believe, it loses much of its power over us. It may annoy us, and it does; but it does not delude us or drag us down. This is our liberation, which is done by distinguishing, discriminating, noticing. It is not a matter of suppressing a sensitivity that actually cannot be suppressed, but it is a matter of mastering it and not being mastered by it. Only in this way are those conditions created, both to receive at higher levels and to transmit what is good and constructive.
[1] Original manuscript not found by this editor; Italian version from www.psicoenergetica.com. Editor’s interpolations in [brackets]. —Ed.
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