Group Life – A Living Entity

In this fascinating article, Assagioli speaks about the creation and functioning of groups as living entities.

By Roberto Assagioli[i], date unknown, From the Assagioli Archive. Formatted and Edited With Notes by Jan Kuniholm[ii]

Abstract: Group integration, consciousness and life represent an advance on the individualistic attitudes of most people. It is imperative that we think clearly about this matter, which is divided into these points: 1) What is a group? 2) Various kinds of groups; 3) The birth of a group; 4) The process of group integration and relationships between units and the group, and between the units; and 5) Inter-group relationships. Groups are living Entities, which manifest physically, and as well as at the levels of soul and spirit. Each Entity has mental, emotional, and physical aspects. The highest Group-Being of which we have any clear conception is the Solar Entity. The birth of a Group is analogous to the production of a living organism which its Stages. All theory and practice of psychosynthesis is a contribution to bridging gaps within and between individuals and groups. There are several stages to this process. Harmonizing the conflicting affiliations of groups requires the wisdom and power of the Soul. It is important to use wise discrimination in keeping conflicting group influences apart and selecting well-chosen messages in definite directions.

We can observe at present a rapidly increasing tendency towards the creation of groups of various kinds and towards the integration and absorption of individuals into such groups. Group integration, group consciousness, group life represent a definite advance upon the mere individualistic and self-centered attitudes of average men and women. But, like all other developments, it is apt to be misinterpreted, exaggerated, perverted and misused. Some of these dangers and misapplications are manifesting in a dramatic way at present under our eyes.

Therefore I think it is imperative for all of us to try and think clearly about the matter, and to endeavor to realize what a group really is, how it comes into existence, how it develops and what should be the right relationship between each of its component units and the other units, between each unit and the group as a whole, and between the group and other groups. We may thus divide our subject into the following points:

• What is a group?
• Various kinds of groups.
• The birth of a group.
• The process of group-integration – intra-group relationships
• between each unit and the group
• between the units.
• Inter-group relationships.

What is a Group?

We are all so immersed in the maya of materiality, we are all so hypnotized by sense impressions, we are all so dominated by the glamour of emotional self-centeredness and by the mental illusion of separateness, that we fail to grasp the reality and the far- reaching implications of the fact that a Group is in truth a LIVING ENTITY.

We are so accustomed, in our objective consciousness, to associate each living being with one corresponding separate and visible body, or vehicle of expression, that we find it difficult to realize the actual existence and nature of an Entity, of a living Being, which simultaneously functions through a multiplicity of forms and subordinated living units. Our lack of realization in this respect is such that we easily commit two opposite kinds of errors: a) we do not grasp the wonderful opportunities for inner development and for service offered by our conscious and willing integration into a group; and b) we allow ourselves, with amazing blindness, to be hypnotized and carried away mentally, emotionally by group or collective in­fluences of an inferior kind, of which we remain unaware, and which we believe to be our own ideas, feelings and urges.

These illusions and mistakes, which may — and often do — have serious consequences, can be eliminated by understanding the true nature of Groups as Living Entities. In order to arrive at this understanding, let us briefly recall what an Entity essentially is. First and foremost, an Entity is characterized by life. “Life” has two very different meanings, which must not be confused. Life, in its highest and essential sense, is synonymous with Being, ultimate Reality, the great Mystery, the final Synthesis of Matter, Soul[iii] and Spirit.

The reflection of this ultimate Reality on the physical plane is the vitality of living beings, that which the Orientals call prana, and which also produces the magnetic aura of each living form.

The Life of an Entity, in the first and higher sense, can be considered to be its participation in the Universal Life, but of this little can be said at our present state of awareness.

The Spirit of an Entity is its underlying purpose, the will-to-be, which has brought it into being and which keeps it in existence.

The Soul of an Entity determines its quality, according to its Ray and the type[iv] of its consciousness.

Then an Entity has a mental aspect, an emotional aspect and a physical aspect. I have purposely called them aspects and not bodies, because a Being such as a Group Entity can function through several, and at times very many, mental and emotional “bodies,” more or less fused and unified in collective mental and emotional vehicles. Entities that have reached a certain degree of integration and co-ordination do moreover organize their mental and emotional aspects into coherent personalities.

Let us finally remember that each of all these aspects and dif­ferentiations has its corresponding kind, quality and caliber of consciousness. These kinds of consciousness are very different, and often do not have the character of self-consciousness such as our own personal awareness, with which we are familiar. But let us remember also that those various aspects are all conscious in some way. As has been said . . . “The universe is an aggregate of states of conscious­ness.” In order truly to know and understand any group, we must therefore become well acquainted with its Spirit, its Soul, its personality (if it has reached the point of having one), and its mental, emotional and physical aspects.

Various Kinds of Groups

The highest and widest Group-Being of which we may have any clear, though very inadequate, conception is . . .  the Life ensouling our Solar System. We may surmise that the enormous aggregations of stars which form the Milky Way and the countless other galaxies may be the visible aspects of stupendous cosmic Group Entities of unthinkable scope. This may suggest to us the glorious magnitude of Cosmic Manifestation and help us in acquiring a right sense of proportion — but it is useless for us to speculate further in this direction.

Of the Life ensouling our Solar System, however, we can have some knowledge. [Its] purpose certainly escapes us, but we may realize to some extent in ourselves [its] outstanding Ray-quality of Love-Wisdom; we may grasp with a certain degree of intelligence a few of the other qualities which characterize [it] and which have been indicated as:

1. The tendency to synthesis                                               
2. The quality of the inner vision
3. The urge to formulate a plan                                           
4. The urge to creative life
5. The factor of analysis                                                      
6. The power to idealize
7. The interplay of the great dualities

We may reach a certain measure of understanding of [its] chosen lines of functioning through the consideration of the three fundamental laws: the Law of Economy, the Law of Attraction and the Law of Synthesis.

We can acquire a slightly more definite knowledge of the “smaller” Entities forming part of the Solar [Entity] . . . its intelligent assimilation enables us to acquire some idea of the wonderful complexity of our Planetary Life and of our place, function and purpose therein. This complexity is constituted by the number and variety of Group Entities included in a Planetary [Entity]. These Entities are, in descending order, the various Creative Hierarchies and Kingdoms of Nature; the racial and national entities; the Group entities of communities and tribes; and the many small family group-entities, which are in some cases closely knit together.

There are, moreover, all the various cultural, spiritual and esoteric groups, which form a special class having a somewhat different character. (Something will be said about these later.)

In this way we arrive at ourselves, at the so-called individuals, the cells in the centers of the Planetary Life. I have said so-called individuals, because the belief that we are simple and clear-cut units is an illusion. The psychological investigation of man reveals that he too is a “group entity,” in which diverse and semi-independent entities are connected at various degrees of integration or more often of conflict. This somewhat startling realization, that we are group entities, may help us better to grasp the reality of Group life, consciousness and activity.

All the groups mentioned, including man, may be regarded as being relatively permanent or enduring, generally having a span or cycle of existence longer than that of its constituent units. But there are groups of a more occasional kind and much briefer duration, which nevertheless may have far-reaching influence and produce interesting effects. It is a real, if generally ignored, fact that whenever two or more persons meet, their mutual interplay on the various levels starts a blending and coalescence of forces, both individual and collective, which bring about new combinations (analogous to those of the various chemical elements) and therefore the beginning of some kind of group life. This happens in a more defin­ite way whenever there is a collectivity united by some common pur­pose, interest or emotion, such as mobs, audiences, conventions, communities, orchestras, choirs, classes, etc., of any sort, size and quality. Such temporary group-Entities are often chaotic and very unstable, but may be potent while functioning, while their pre­cipitated urges and passions may bring about fateful decisions and have grave consequences. This has happened and may happen again in the case of parliamentary assemblies deliberating about important laws or about war or peace.

The Birth of a Group

The birth of a Group bears a close analogy to the production of a living organism, with its stages of fecundation, conception, gestation, birth and subsequent growth and active functioning. But physical fecundation and gestation, while indeed marvelous processes, implying a most intelligent activity of the organic psyche, appear comparatively simple happenings in comparison with the wonderful, mysterious and subtle creation of a Group Entity. . .

In some cases the initiating impulse to the creation of a Group may be given by the deliberate action of a pre-existing Being who decides and wills to give birth to it. In other cases the Group comes into existence in a more gradual way owing to the spontaneous magnetic attraction exerted by an “archetype,” an idea, a quality, a “need” of some kind, which draws to itself other lives and entities.

The Process of Group Integration – Intra-Group Relationships

The process of Group integration entails two different kinds of relationships and interplays:

1. Relationships between each unit and the Group.
2. Relationships between each unit and the other units.

These interplays very greatly according to the type of Group in question, to the stage of development of the individual and to the levels on which the relationship takes place. Let us consider them separately.

1. Relationships between a unit and a Group

Until comparatively recent times — and to a great extent even now in the case of the undeveloped masses — the prevalent and often overwhelming factor was, or is, the Group. Men and women generally lived, or live, in an unthinking way, without true spiritual self-consciousness, within the Group-psyche and usually on its instinctive and emotional level. The race, the tribe, the community and the family were the primary reality, in function of which each individual lived. This has been graphically expressed by Edward Carpenter[v] in the following way:

Exactly as a (human) body is a complex of cells, descended and differentiated from a single pair, so is a (human) Race a complex of bodies, which for our present purpose we may suppose descended and differentiated from a single pair. I am not alluding to Adam and Eve especially as progenitors of the whole human race, but rather (in order to gain clearness) to smaller tribes and peoples — such as the Maoris, or the Apache Indians, or the old Israelites — much inter-related, and in many cases descended from a very few progenitors, if not actually (as their traditions often relate) a single pair. Such a race has all the characteristics of an organic being: it has well-marked customs, instincts, religion, ideals, external habits of life, grade of mental development, and so forth. It has its individual members, its groups and larger groups, culminating in the whole tribe or race as an entity, just the same as the cells with regard to the human body. And it has its phases of emotion and belief and action — its patriotisms, religions and warlike and other enthusiasms — belonging to it only as a whole, and called forth somehow by the sentiment of the whole. “Crowds are sometimes accessible to a very lofty morality,” says a French writer[vi] — “a much loftier one, indeed, than that of which the isolated individual is capable.” And anyhow we see that societies, not only of bees (as Maeterlinck[vii] has shown), but of all creatures up to man have, qua societies, a life of their own inclusive and superadded to that of their individual members.

It is difficult, therefore, in view of all this, to refuse to credit an Ego and a consciousness to a well-marked race or people or tribe; and of course this has often been done; while the cognate idea of the “social organism” has become a thing of common acceptance. Now if this ascription of an organic conscious life of huge col­lections of human beings were merely an abstract affair, like Auguste Comte’s[viii] “Humanity” or the Spencerian[ix] “social organism,” it would be, to say the least, a trifle dull and uninteresting. But the moment we realize that it means just the opposite — something very much alive indeed, and entangled in the very heart of our own nature — then it becomes absorbingly important. Not only do we recognize, when these huge crowd-emotions come along, that immense unexpected forces are working within us; but we see that at all times, in some mysterious way, the capacity of entering into the Race-Consciousness is in us, and that daily and hourly this fact is molding and modifying our lives: just the same as in every limb of my body there lurks the capacity of being thrilled by the great emotions of my total ego, and this fact in its turn guides and molds the destinies and activities of my tiniest cells. [x]

The importance of such collective elements in each of us, and the extent to which we are dominated by them has been well proved and strongly emphasized by Jung in his studies on the “collective unconscious.” Up to a certain point this fact has been necessary and good. Undeveloped humans have found and still find in these collective entities many opportunities for experience and growth.

But there comes a point in the psychological evolution of the individual when he must develop his discriminating mind, his separate and, at first, separative personality. Thus begins his growing isol­ation from, and rebellion against, the groups to which he belonged. It is the phase of intense individualism, which has prevailed in Europe since the Renaissance and particularly after the French Revolution, and had its climax in the “rugged individualism” that characterized American life until the World War.

Now the pendulum is beginning to swing in the other direction, towards a new emphasis on groups and group life. This is necessary in order to avoid the dangers of social chaos, anarchy, ruthless competition, license, etc., but much will depend on the kind and level of the new groups and of the inner relationship between the individual and the group to which he belongs. This point of “level” is essential and has not been adequately recognized. Even those relatively advanced, like Carpenter and Jung, fail to make a clear distinction between the instinctual-emotional level of a group, its personality and its soul. This lack of discrimination produces confusion between lower and higher elements, between retrospective, archaic and generally undesirable influences, on the one hand, and progressive, inspiring ideas and ideals on the other.

Instead, in some . . . presentations . . . this distinction is clearly formulated, especially through the illuminating teaching that nations as well as individuals, have a personality Ray and a Soul Ray. This indicates the right relationship which should be established between the individual and the Group Entity and which might synthetically be formulated in the following way:

Each individual should free himself more and more from the collective influences and unconscious participations of a mere instinctual and emotional kind and increase instead his deliberate and conscious participation in the higher life of the Group, identifying himself with the Group Soul and the Group purpose.

This rule is easy to understand, but not at all easy to follow. All of us are apt to be too much absorbed in, and ruled by, collective factors, or by reaction to become suspicious and fearful of all vital contact and subjective interplay and blending. Some develop a real “independence complex” and are deluded by the “glamour of freedom,” thus limiting their usefulness and retarding their spiritual progress. Such individuals, who are in reality imprisoned by their freedom, might find true inner freedom through meditation on, and acceptance of, the two wise maxims . . . :

“Co-operation is the crown of individuality.”

“Who is afraid to lose his individuality does not possess it.”

Some may have fallen into the paradoxical condition of erring in both opposite ways at the same time, being swept by collective passions on the emotional level, while being mentally too individual­istic and separative towards their group brothers. Indeed the snares of the lower self are many. For our encouragement, but chiefly in order not to judge our brothers who err on this point, it is fair to recognize that the achieving of a right relationship and a correct adjustment between the individual and the group is a very difficult attainment. But those who have succeeded in entering a Group to a certain degree have realized that there is no loss or dissipation of the individual, but rather a great enhancement and intensification of their subjective life, which leaves them enriched and energized.

Such conscious realization of a Group’s influence is very real. I shall quote a good description of one given by a student:

I am under the impression that when I am writing sometimes about the group’s work . . . it is not so much I who am writing for myself, as that I am voicing a living condition within the group itself . . . It is very much as if at times I am in a sense ‘overshadowed’ by the group. . . It would seem to indicate that the collective status and general tenor of the group finds reflection, and a very pronounced reflection, in myself. . . When I write this way it is under an urgent impetus. There is no rest, or mental relief, until it is so written.

b. Relationship between each unit and the other units

These relationships entail various problems, some of which are similar to those just mentioned, while others are different and connected with the various Rays to which the various aspects of each unit belong, and with their harmonious or inharmonious mutual impacts and interplays. A clear knowledge of the qualities of the Rays and a growing understanding of our own Rays and of those of our group brothers are of great help in eliminating friction and establishing right relations. The chief qualities needed for this purpose are mutual love, mutual understanding, corporate vision and united service. Through such qualities an increasing unification or psychosynthesis between the group members is brought about. This process has various stages, which may be briefly indicated as follows.

Group Formation and Group Psychosynthesis

All the theory and practice of psychosynthesis is a contribution to the bridging of gaps within each individual and each group, and between individuals and groups. Such bridging should be three-fold (besides the preliminary bridging which each has to bring about in some measure between his integrated personality and his Soul).

1. Bridging between individuals on all planes.
2. Bridging between the Group and its leader.
3. Bridging between the Group and other Groups.

Our aim is to achieve a bridging in consciousness. In order to have a clear conception of what such bridging implies and what it leads to, it may be well to consider:

1. The “Building of the Bridge”

This means the initial linking together of two or several pre­viously unrelated beings, and entails the breaking down of the separate barriers of criticism, antagonism, etc., and the spanning of the gaps created by lack of understanding or appreciation, or by indifference, etc. A living bridge must be created, which may be symbolized by a beam of light.

• The Interplay Across the Bridge

The bridge in itself is only a link, a possibility, a “faculty.” It is a necessary basis, but its actual usefulness is demonstrated by the vital interplay of forces which takes place through it, by the number and quality of the thoughts and feelings, of the “waves of light and love,” which cross it in both directions.

• The Approach

The active interplay gradually brings about an approach. This can be crudely illustrated by a material analogy: an elastic band, which tends to bring two objects to which it is fastened nearer to each other. From a vital and qualitative standpoint, we may say that an active exchange of forces, of life substances, brings about an in­creasing mutual coloring with the respective qualities, a growing into the likeness of each other, which constitutes a subjective “nearing” or approach. Symbolically speaking, the bridges become shorter and broader.

• Contact

The increasing approach eventually brings about an actual direct contact. The auras of the living beings get so close that they touch each other. At this stage the interplay is easy and becomes more and more frequent.

• Fusing and Blending

This is the culmination of the process of synthesis. At first it may be partial and fluctuating, then it becomes more and more intimate and lasting. Each unit recognizes that its most important and vital interests are those of the higher unity thus created, and he lives more and more in function of the Group, as one of its “organs.”

The chief faculty which makes this process of unification possible is telepathic sensitivity. Only through an increasingly potent and correct telepathic interplay can this aim be achieved. The true nature and functioning of the telepathic faculty have been so well described  . . . [elsewhere] that I need not expatiate on it.

• Inter-Group Relationships

The many existing Groups which we have previously mentioned remain not isolated and unrelated, but have manifold and often conflicting relationships with each other. Such conflicts are particularly acute and often violent now in this period of transition between two Ages, during which some large Groups are doomed to disintegration or to radical transformation. These often cling desperately to their crystallized forms and “die hard,” while new Groups are rapidly and at times emerging aggressively, animated and energized by the powerful forces of the incoming Sign (Aquarius) and Ray (the Seventh), which are both Living Entities of a very high order. And as each of us belongs to several of the conflicting Group Lives, our problem is very serious. Let us clearly realize its extent and complexity.

First, each of us belongs personally to his family in the heredit­ary sense in some degree, and through this we are influenced by the ancestral Group Entity of our people and race (in the ethnological sense). Second, many of us have formed a new family, which constitutes a present small Group Entity, having definite life, quality, vibration and limitations. Third, we belong to various community Groups, which also impinge with their various notes and qualities upon us, and often bind us much more than we are aware of. Fourth, each of us belongs to some nation; and National Entities are rather imperious and exacting. Then come our various affiliations with spiritual Groups. . . . Each of these Groups has a special rate of vibration, and a special color; sounds a special note and has a different and distinctive consciousness, purpose and life. I have tried to picture this fact roughly in a diagram, in which the various colored surfaces represent various Groups and should be imagined as existing in three-dimensional and four-dimensional space, crossing and partially overlapping at various angles.

Different colors for each:

The task of doing justice to and harmonizing all these various and often conflicting affiliations seems formidable and almost hopeless. Such indeed it would be to us as personalities. But we are not mere personalities; we can more and ever more invoke the light, the wisdom and the power of the Soul. We can increasingly learn and succeed in living as Souls — and the Soul is competent to deal with the problem.

Therefore in order that we may be able to cope with this problem (and it changes all the time and requires ever new adjustments) two things are needed: increasing harmony and increasing cooperation between Soul and personality, and increasing mutual help between members of spiritual groups, between fellow-aspirants and disciples, travelers along the same road. Let us then wisely and lovingly and fearlessly tackle the problem. We must eventually arrive at the point of mastering such psychological complexities and intricacies with the same ability as mathematicians display in mastering the complexities of complicated equations and the other arduous problems of higher mathematics which baffle and appall laymen such as most of us are.

The first step, which all of us can take, is in the direction of wise discrimination in theory and practice. As much trouble arises from the confusion and clashing between the various group influences, the first thing to be done is to keep them as much as possible apart, each in its own magnetic field of action, and without unnecessary contacts. It can be accomplished by a careful defining and keeping of the respective “ring-pass-nots,”[xi] by creating and maintaining protective shields, or “webs,” between the various groups. This entails the art of keeping silent, of strictly guarding and controlling speech, a wise and careful distribution of attention, forces and activities, and an increasing ability to shift rapidly and harmoniously from one “magnetic field” to another.

We should become psychologically and spiritually sensitive and selective like a radio receiver, and able to transmit clearly well-chosen and opportunely alternated messages and influences in definite directions, as do certain short-wave transmitting stations.

[i] This is an edited version of a longer essay. A different, shorter edited version was translated into Italian by M. Luisa Macchia and published as “Vita di Gruppo” in the March 1989 issue Psicosintesi:Rivista dell’Istituto di Psicosintesi. —Ed.

[ii] The English version of the original longer essay, from which this presentation is taken, was found as a copy of a typed manuscript, found in the papers of the late Phyllis Clay, who was actively involved with the Assagioli Archives. The date of its writing is unknown but it is believed to be after 1957. Editor’s interpolations are shown in [brackets]. —Ed.

[iii] Note that in other writings Assagioli has indicated that “HIgher Self” and “Soul” refer to the same entity. —Ed.

[iv] “The Seven Rays” is an understanding of cosmic energy. In an essay of the same name, Assagioli (using his pseudonym of “Considerator”) wrote, “The conception of the Seven Rays is based on the principle of cosmic creation and manifestation through the successive differentiation of the primordial substance. The One becomes the Three, the Three become the Seven and the Seven, through further differentiation, give the immense multiplicity,the wonderful richness and variety of life manifested in the visible and invisible worlds.” The types of human personality were addressed in the monograph Psychosynthesis Typology.— Ed.

[v] Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was an English socialist, poet, philosopher, and anthologist. —Ed.

[vi] G. Le Bon, “Psychologie des foules,” p. 46. —footnote in original work by Carpenter.—Ed.

[vii] Maurice Polydore Marie Barnard Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian playwright, poet and essayist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. Among his works was an essay titled “La Vie des abeilles” [The Life of Bees} from 1901. —Ed.

[viii] Isadore Marie Auguste Xavier Comte (1798-1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of “positivism.” His ideas were important to the development of sociology, a term he invented. His social theories culminated in his “religion of humanity,” which pre-saged the development of non-theistic religious humanism. His work was said to have influenced Herbert Spencer (note below.) —Ed.

[ix] Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was an English sociologist and philosopher, advocate of the theory of evolution, and author of The Synthetic Philosophy (1896). He is best remembered for his doctrine of “social Darwinism” and the phrase “survival of the fittest” which he introduced, suggesting that the principles of evolution, including “natural selection” apply to human societies. —Ed.

[x] from Carpenter, Edward, Essays on the Self and Its Powers, Chapter II. The Art of Creation. London, George Allen, 1904, pp. 90-92. Accessed online at Forgottenbooks.com. —Ed.

[xi] In the edited Italian version of this essay this term is “reti,” meaning nets or networks. This term is so awkward in English that it leads one to speculate as to the existence of an earlier version of the complete essay in Italian.—Ed.