Intuition, the Spiritual Self, and the Art of Inner Consultation
By Roberto Assagioli
(Doc. #14375 – Assagioli Archives – Florence)
Original Title: Come Decidere?
Translated by Jan Kuniholm
Editorial note
The abstract, subheading, and cross-sections in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth Sørensen, to support readability and navigation. They were not part of the original publication and do not modify, interpret, or alter the original text.
Abstract
In this practical spiritual-psychological instruction, Roberto Assagioli outlines a method for decision-making based on consultation with the spiritual Self. He describes the Soul as an inner Master capable of guidance when the ordinary personality quiets mental, emotional, and sensory interference. Assagioli explains three modes of response—direct, symbolic, and external—and introduces a psychosynthetic exercise designed to facilitate intuitive clarity through imaginative personification. The text anticipates core psychosynthesis principles, including disidentification, inner concentration, symbolic interpretation, and the mediation between the personal “I” and the spiritual Self.
The Soul as Inner Master
The Soul, the spiritual “I’ or Self, is the first Master. It is like a Sage, like an Instructor ready to guide, instruct and enlighten. I recommend doing particular exercises; that is, proposing a specific, precise problem to the Soul, to the spiritual “I” or Self; preferably an unimportant problem, so that it does not arouse worries or other emotional resonances. So focus more on the exercise itself than on the importance and usefulness of the answer. Then ask for the answer and try to grasp it. There are various ways of reception.
Obstacles Between the Personal and Spiritual Self
What would seem most natural and easiest, that is, an immediate response, is often less easy — less easy precisely because many psychological elements stand between the ordinary “I” or self and the spiritual “I” or Self: the workings of the mind, the tumult of emotions, desires, impulses, the influx of sensations from the body and the outside world. “The line is not clear,” to use a telephone image. So not infrequently the reception is delayed; that is, the message “comes down” little by little — when it finds an opening — into the illuminated area of consciousness. Therefore, if there is no immediate response, don’t be discouraged; this is to be expected. Moreover, it can come at the most unexpected moments, when we least expect it.
The Three Modes of Inner Response
As for the mode of responses, they can be of three kinds: Direct responses, either expressed in words, or as clear impressions, and clear urges to act.
Direct and Symbolic Guidance
Symbolic responses: these are frequent, since the natural “language” of the unconscious is symbolic. These are images or scenes that must be interpreted.
External Events as Answers
Finally, Responses from outside: it is not easy to understand their mode of action, but in many cases they are so obvious that their reality cannot be doubted. They may come through speech, “messages” from other people, in which we recognize the answer to our question while the “messenger” is unaware of it. Or we find the answer in a book we open “at random,” in a publication that falls into our lap or is sent to us. In other cases it is events, circumstances, sometimes sudden changes, in which we can recognize the “answers.”
The Psychosynthetic Exercise of Personification
Then there is a special “exercise” by which responses can be encouraged, even provoked. It is an exercise that I have people do in psychosynthetic treatments and which has given and gives good results. It involves putting oneself in a state of inner concentration, of calm, then clearly formulating the problem, the question; finally trying to imagine what a Master, a Sage, known to us or not, would tell us. Sometimes the answer comes ready, clear, and convincing. This should not be surprising because a part of us, the spiritual Self, already knows. The “staging,” the imaginative “personification,” helps to circumvent certain conscious or unconscious resistances of our personality, to create an ‘objectification,” a detachment that allows us to “see clearly.”
