What door and mystery is Roberto Assagioli pointing to when he speaks about the neutrality of Psychosynthesis toward religions?
By Kenneth Sørensen, MA Psychosynthesis
Assagioli makes it clear in the introduction to his first book, Psychosynthesis (1), that psychosynthesis is neutral toward the various theological and philosophical concepts; when it comes to the explanation of the great mystery, psychosynthesis only “leads to the door.” However, he does not specify what the “door” and “great mystery” are metaphors for, in that particular place.
In this short essay, I would like to draw the reader’s attention toward a deeper investigation of this question, because we need to understand what kind of boundaries Assagioli had in mind. Let us start by visiting the often-quoted section and see what we can learn from it.
“At this point the question may arise as to the relationship between this conception of the human being on the one hand and religion and metaphysics on the other. The answer is that psychosynthesis does not attempt in any way to appropriate to itself the fields of religion and of philosophy. It is a scientific conception, and as such it is neutral towards the various religious forms and the various philosophical doctrines, excepting only those which are materialistic and therefore deny the existence of spiritual realities.
Psychosynthesis does not aim nor attempt to give a metaphysical or a theological explanation of the great Mystery—it leads to the door, but stops there.” (Psychosynthesis, 1965, p.6)
From the above, Assagioli clearly intends to establish psychosynthesis as a “scientific conception.” He states this in the context of a need for a scientific investigation of the superconscious, which psychosynthesis is pledged to perform through observation and experimentation with the facts of consciousness in the higher realms of our nature. (1965, p. 5) However, in the above passage, we find no definition of what the door and the great mystery exactly point to and what kind of neutrality he has in mind. We only learn that metaphysics, theology, and philosophy are not the domain of psychosynthesis – it is the direct experience of the self, the will, and the superconscious phenomena that lie at the front of the psychosynthetic investigation (Assagioli, 1965, p. 5)
We must go to his other writings to better understand what is included within Psychosynthesis as a scientific conception. In his illuminating article Psychology and Religion (2), he elaborates in much more detail:
“Thus spiritual psychology, in affirming the existence of a superconscious region or sphere and of the Spiritual Self in man, finds a confirmation in religious philosophy and in its turn gives to this an independent corroboration which I think it should welcome.
But, as a science, spiritual psychology does not go beyond that point. All that concerns the further relationships between the Spiritual Self and God, the Supreme, the ultimate Reality, lies outside its scope, being the realm of religious philosophy and of theology. Therefore spiritual psychology is, and should be, neutral towards the various theological doctrines and the various religious institutions, unless these make claims conflicting with ascertained facts.”
Here, it becomes apparent what is within and what is outside the scope of psychosynthesis. The Superconscious and the Spiritual Self are within reach of scientific investigation; however, what concerns the relationships between the Higher Self and God is not. It seems wise to stay out of that relationship because we avoid taking positions on the many different and conflicting theological understandings between dualism, monism, creationism, or emanationism, etc.. Well, as we shall see later in this essay, there is a difference between the scientific Assagioli and Assagioli’s personal beliefs. However, for now, let us stay on course and clarify what experiences are within the scope of psychosynthesis.
In his introduction to Psychosynthesis, he affirms (1965, p.5):
“In my opinion, the direct experience of the self, of pure self-awareness independent of any content of the field of consciousness and of any situation in which the individual may find himself—is a true “phenomenological” experience, an inner reality which can be empirically verified and deliberately produced through appropriate techniques. An examination of the nature and place of the self in its two aspects is contained in Chapters One and Two: Dynamic Psychology and Psychosynthesis and Self-Realization and Psychological Disturbances.”
The self in its two aspects (personal self and Higher Self) can be verified, because one can have a pure experience of it, independent of any content of awareness and situation one may find oneself in. As students of psychosynthesis, we understand that this refers to the experience of the contentless self, the loving and acting observer within every human being. The experience of self/Self is, in other words, a phenomenological fact of consciousness, which psychosynthesis is pledged to investigate without shrouding it in unnecessary theological language or interpretations.
This position is also highlighted in Assagioli’s influential paper, Training (3), which he dictated before he died in 1974. Here, he clarifies the seven core experiences psychosynthesis intends to facilitate in the students who take up psychosynthesis as a psycho-spiritual practice. Disidentification, the personal self, the will, the ideal model, synthesis, the superconscious, and the Higher Self are central experiences of psychosynthesis.
In light of these clarifications, we must understand that the limitations or boundaries Assagioli proposes are by no means narrow; the experience of the Higher Self or Soul lies at the root of many spiritual disciplines, from mystical Christianity to esoteric Judaism and Neo-Platonism, Yoga, Vedanta and many more. The Higher Self is known as the Atman or Purusha in the East, and many of the most profound Christian mystics were aware of it and called it the “divine spark of the soul”, its “apex”, its “bottom”, its “center” and the “innermost essence”.
Assagioli points us toward a union or unification with our higher Self, not just a relationship, but a gradual merging and, finally, a complete synthesis and identification between the personal self and Higher Self so we become an embodied soul, a whole soul-infused personality. I have collected some quotes by Assagioli about this union for readers who want to study the unification process. (4) In the free eBook Conflicts, Crises, and Synthesis (2023), a compilation of articles by Roberto Assagioli, I present the developmental theory of psychosynthesis, with its crises and unifications. (5)
We have now clarified that “the door” Assagioli is pointing to is the Higher Self. By becoming the Higher Self and Soul, we can “open the door” and partake in “the great mystery” and discover what type of relationship or identity we share with God, the One, The Good, or Universal Beingness.
Let us now look to the next question of neutrality. What type of neutrality does Assagioli mean regarding the relation between psychosynthesis and metaphysics, philosophies, and religion? In a paper called Psychosynthesis, Religion, Philosophy (6), he elaborates on that question:
“Since the question of the relationship between psychotherapy and religion has been raised, we consider it appropriate to clarify that, as regards Psychosynthesis, there is no possibility of conflict. It can be said that in a certain sense Psychosynthesis can be considered “neutral” with respect to both religion and philosophies. However, “neutrality” does not mean “indifference”.
With regard to religion, two different aspects can be distinguished:
1) “existential religion” or spiritual experience, that is, the direct experience of spiritual realities. This is the experience that the founders of religions, mystics, some philosophers, and many other people have had, albeit in different degrees.
2) The theological and metaphysical formulations of this experience, and the institutions that were established in the different historical periods to communicate the results and fruits of this experience to the masses of men. Finally, the methods, forms and rites to help humanity participate, albeit indirectly, in the “revelation”.
Psychosynthesis fully recognizes the reality and validity of spiritual experience, the existence of higher values and the “noetic” dimension (as Frankl calls it). The neutrality of Psychosynthesis refers only to the second phase of religion: that of formulations and institutions. It appreciates, respects and recognizes the need for those institutions and formulations, but does not take a position on them.
On the contrary, it can help achieve direct experience. It can indicate to those who have no faith nor any clear philosophical conception, methods and techniques for reaching spiritual realization. But whoever has a faith of his own, who belongs to a Church or follows a given philosophical current, has no reason to fear Psychosynthesis. It does not intend to interfere in any way to change their beliefs; rather, it can help make better use of their religion’s methods and techniques.
Furthermore, Psychosynthesis can help to understand that similar or equal experiences can be expressed and formulated with different enunciations and symbols, and in this way it can help each one understand formulations different from his own, and to take an open attitude towards them.” [end of quote]
The way I understand the above statement by Assagioli is that Psychosynthesis has much to say about the direct spiritual experience, how to understand it in a psychological language, and how to facilitate spiritual experiences through the various psycho-spiritual techniques that psychosynthesis offers as a psycho-spiritual practice. However, when it comes to the various doctrines, rituals, and institutions that either frame or build upon such experiences, or which are involved in other aspects of spiritual outlook or practice, psychosynthesis remains neutral.
I find this a wise position, because it makes psychosynthesis a much more open vision, which can be apprehended and used by many different types of people from various backgrounds. However, how did Assagioli, who was born Jewish, consider his personal (not scientific) relationship to the great mystery? Let us see how he speaks about it in a fascinating conversation (7) with Michael Murphy and Stuart Miller from the Esalen Institute in California.
Assagioli the universalist
(Assagioli): “That takes me to a subject of more interest, that is my relationship with all these religions and philosophies. My attitude since the beginning has been in a sense universal, not binding myself to any presentation — if you want to call it philosophical relativism — that there is one universal truth, and that all human presentations are only partial and conditioned by many individual, cultural, historical reasons; but the core is the same in all, and the variations are of less importance, secondary, and due to these other conditioning elements. So I always tried to go to the core of each; and I never [. . .] bound myself to any presentation, to any philosophy, to any religion, and always tried to make a synthesis of all the good parts of all of them. That I had begun already — we must go back to 1906, when I was a medical student — and not only did I study Sanskrit, but there was a group of the literary cultural men, and then they had [started] the magazine Leonardo — the name shows the trend towards universality. And I contributed to that, and one of my articles was “For a New Humanism: Synthesis of East and West;” so this tendency to humanistic psychology was already there [in me] in 1907.”
“The fundamental trend of psychosynthesis was already there, and the curious result is that more broadminded people of the various religions, each [has] considered psychosynthesis as very [much] in harmony with their presentations; […] The beginning trend of psychosynthesis existed [in my life] very early, all the rest was a development. . This is all psychodynamics in a nutshell: idee-forza: dynamic ideas. Psicagogia is really a synonym for psychosynthesis, it is a word used by Plato to lead the psyche toward synthesis and perfection. So before 1910, all the trends [toward] psychosynthesis were already at [its] beginning — psychodynamic, psychosomatic, trends to integration, to synthesis, and the upward trend, towards the superconscious. […]”
“Then another thing I give you is by this Jesuit father, who said that the psychology and psychotherapy most akin to Christian tradition is psychosynthesis, and very cleverly pointed out the similarities with St. John of the Cross. He was very clever, because they are there, and I have studied St. John of the Cross very much. Then, an English Protestant priest wrote an article showing the similarities between Christianity and psychosynthesis. So the Hindus find it similar to Vedanta, the Jesuits to St. John of the Cross, and others to Christianity in general. So that proves my claim that psychosynthesis is neutral theologically, religiously, and philosophically. It is like a picture which can be framed with a golden or silver [frame] or painted wood. That I like to be emphasized. But existential, because these feelings do exist, and can and should be investigated scientifically and favored with special techniques. But independently of any framework.” [end of quote]
From the above, we can conclude that Assagioli, from a personal point of view, takes the universalist position regarding the various religions and philosophies. He believes there “is one universal truth” that the “core is the same in all.” This type of understanding seems to point to the same conception we find in the perennial philosophy.
The perennial philosophy is a concept that became popular during the Renaissance, although some of its proponents say that it has always existed, so that some call it “ageless wisdom.”. It is based on the insight that there is essentially the same esoteric core in many of the world’s religions. According to Arthur Versluis (2015: 2): “Perennial philosophy does not mean that all religions are one. Rather, it means that there is an underlying basic shared human metaphysical reality.” (8)
This is not the time and place to verify that claim’s details here. However, I have presented that argument in my text, The Perennial Philosophy (9), and when we compare all the principal elements of perennialism with Assagioli’s personal metaphysical understanding, they all align. These are:
- There is a transcendent and unmanifested Ground or Spirit behind all manifestations.
- This Ground or Spirit is both immanent and transcendent.
- The Spirit manifests the universe through a process of emanation and creates a great chain of being – a series of inner worlds that includes the physical.
- That there is a return to Spirit through a spiritual path, where we become unified with our divine source or the Unborn.
The above principles are found in mystical Christianity, Sufism (Islam), Kabbalah or Mystical Judaism, Vedanta, Buddhism, and Neo-Platonism, according to scholars in the field. Well, if these are Assagioli’s personal views — and they are found in his writings — what became of his “scientific neutrality?”
We might resolve this by differentiating between Assagioli’s personal beliefs and psychosynthesis as a scientific conception. Psychosynthesis, as he conceived it, is more limited than his personal beliefs. Not all of RA’s writings or talks are limited to psychosynthesis. His writings on spirituality and religion especially need to be viewed in that light because he often let his personal and religious beliefs spill over into psychosynthesis. Let us investigate that claim.
Did Assagioli leave his neutrality behind?
If we are to believe the neutrality of psychosynthesis toward the great mystery, that it only leads to the door, which is the realization of the Higher Self, then there seems to be a discrepancy between the scientific Assagioli and Assagioli’s personal belief in the perennial philosophy.
Most students of psychosynthesis have encountered ideas in Assagioli’s writings that clearly violate the principle of neutrality, and let us be clear: perennialism is not a neutral conception; it is highly contested. Perennialism is monistic and upholds the idea that all living beings share the same divine substance, so they are equal in essence to the One Life. This also stresses that no soul is lost or forsaken, there is no eternal hell, and every living being will eventually return to their divine offspring because they are the direct emanation – a ray of light from the source of light.
This view contradicts many conceptions in the traditional systems of religion. However, it also seems to violate the principle of neutrality, where psychosynthesis has nothing to say about God but leaves that to the theologians.
If we look at his last published book (10), The Act of Will (1974), which was published nine years after Psychosynthesis, he seems to leave his neutrality principle behind because he dedicated a whole chapter to the Universal Will, and “the larger problem of the relation between man and the ultimate Universal Reality.” (1974, p. 123) In this chapter Assagioli introduces God as a Reality into psychosynthesis and boldly claims, as have many mystics before him (1974: 125)
“Man can have the intuitive realization of his essential identity with the supreme Reality. In the East, it has been expressed as the identity between the Atman and the Brahman. In the West some mystics have boldly proclaimed the identity between man and God. Others have emphasized that Life is One, that there is only One Life.”
In this chapter, Assagioli more or less presents the perennial vision: that there is a way for man to expand his consciousness through a series of expansions to unite with God. All human qualities are only reflections of a transcendent Reality, mirroring Plato’s idea of emanation. Finally, let me show another perennialist view and point to how Assagioli aligns himself with negative theology or the Apophatic way, where God or the unmanifest can only be described by saying what it is not. This is the way of disidentification. and the transcendent way, what has been called neti neti in Vedanta. (1974, p. 129):
“Of the unmanifest, or transcendent Reality in an absolute sense nothing can be said. It can be indicated or hinted at only through negations: not this, not that, nothing, the “Void.” This aspect of Reality has been emphasized by some schools of Northern Buddhism and in the West by Meister Eckhart.”
It is crucial to mention that transcendence is not the only way Assagioli envisions the path of self-realization. “Manifesting one’s divinity through service” is equally essential because Assagioli proposes an evolutionary and incarnational spirituality, where we embody our divinity and partake in the synthesis of humanity and even a cosmic synthesis. A few pages after his note on the neutrality of psychosynthesis, he writes about the cosmic and supreme synthesis (1965, p. 27):
“Psychosynthesis may also be considered as the individual expression of a wider principle, of a general law of inter-individual and cosmic synthesis. Indeed, the isolated individual does not exist; every person has intimate relationships with other individuals which make them all interdependent. Moreover, each and all are included in and part of the spiritual super-individual Reality. …
From a still wider and more comprehensive point of view, universal life itself appears to us as a struggle between multiplicity and unity—a labor and an aspiration towards union. We seem to sense that—whether we conceive it as a divine Being or as cosmic energy—the Spirit working upon and within all creation is shaping it into order, harmony and beauty, uniting all beings (some willing but the majority as yet blind and rebellious) with each other through links of love, achieving—slowly and silently, but powerfully and irresistibly—the Supreme Synthesis.” [end of quote]
I think we can state, without much doubt, that Assagioli did not consistently uphold his neutrality principle, but expounded his personal religious beliefs and experiences from the rooftop in many of his writings. Let us review his position from earlier: “All that concerns the further relationships between the Spiritual Self and God, the Supreme, the ultimate Reality, lies outside its scope, being the realm of religious philosophy and of theology.”
Even though we might share those conceptions, as I do, we must still, in my opinion, make it clear that no student of psychosynthesis needs to believe in any specific metaphysical philosophy. There is no dogma in psychosynthesis; it is, first and foremost, an experiential approach.
Let me offer a conclusion on resolving the discrepancy between the neutrality principle of psychosynthesis and Assagioli’s personal beliefs. Assagioli seems to intend to keep the neutrality principle as a guiding star for psychosynthesis; however, that must not limit our right to hold religious beliefs, including for Assagioli himself. The student of Assagioli’s writings must keep that distinction in mind, because rarely (or ever) does Assagioli come forward with a disclaimer that he is expressing his personal beliefs. Perhaps because he didn’t see himself as a sole authority on psychosynthesis, something he expresses in his Letter of Freedom (11):
“There is no orthodoxy in Psychosynthesis and no one, beginning with myself, should claim to be its real or true representative, its head or leader. Each of its exponents tries to express and apply it as well as he or she is able to, and all who read or listen to the message, or receive the benefit of the methods of Psychosynthesis, can decide how successful any exponent has been or will be in expressing its “spirits”.”
I will conclude this essay with another quote from Assagioli that stresses the absolute free spirit of psychosynthesis (12).
“What distinguishes psychosynthesis above all is the constantly synthetic, that is, existential attitude: to always focus on the concrete case, on the human being in his living and immediate concreteness and uniqueness, not only as regards the patient, but also the clinician.
So we take an anti-theoretical and anti-intellectualistic attitude, always based on lived life. Psychosynthesis is not bound to any theory, to any doctrine, and any conception is merely the result or formulation of the ascertained data of the living experience of therapeutic practice; therefore, it neither affirms nor denies any theory but always tends to find the point of synthesis among conflicting or disparate elements.”
Notes.
- Roberto Assagioli, 1965, Psychosynthesis – A Manual of Principles and Techniques.
- Roberto Assagioli, undated, Psychology and Religion, https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/psychology-and-religion-psychology-and-religious-experience/
- Roberto Assagioli, 1974, Training – A Statement by Roberto Assagioli. https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/psychosynthesis-training-a-statement-by-roberto-assagioli/
- Roberto Assagioli, Union, a compilation of quotes: https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/glossary/union/
- Roberto Assagioli, 2023, Conflicts, Crises and Synthesis, https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/conflict-crises-and-synthesis-introduction/
- Roberto Assagioli, undated, Psychosynthesis, Religion, Philosophy, from the Assagioli Archive in Florence, translated by Gordon Symons. Original title: Psicosintesi – Religione – Filosofia. https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/glossary/neutrality-of-psychosynthesis/
- Michael Murphy, Stuart Miller, Interview with Roberto Assagioli. https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/interview-with-roberto-assagioli-2/
- Arthur Versluis 2015, Perennial Philosophy, https://www.amazon.com/Perennial-Philosophy-Arthur-Versluis/dp/1596500166
- Kenneth Sørensen, 2024, The Perennial Philosophy: https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/glossary/perennial-philosophy/
- Roberto Assagioli, 1974, The Act of Will, The Psychosynthesis and Education Trust.
- Roberto Assagioli, 1967, Letter of Freedom, https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/letter-of-freedom/
- Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis and Psychotherapy II, https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/psychosynthesis-and-psychotherapy-ii/
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