Psychic life is essentially made up of a continuous, very complicated and wonderful interplay of a myriad of forces, of the most varied origin and nature, associating and fighting, diverting or transforming each other in a thousand guises.

By Roberto Assagioli. From the Assagioli Archive in Florence, Doc. # 23421. Original Title: Le Forze Psichiche E Il Loro Gioco. Translated with Notes by Jan Kuniholm [Thanks for helpful comments from Claudia Canova. —Tr.]
In order to better understand the true nature of psychic life, and thus to be able to act on it more effectively and transform it according to our ideal of spiritual perfection, we must consider it from a different, deeper and more vital point of view than we have done so far. Until now we have considered our personality from a general, descriptive and static point of view. We have observed and analyzed it as we observe and analyze every other natural phenomenon; that is, “from the outside” in a certain way. This was necessary for a first orientation into the wonderful and complex world of humanity’s inner life.
Now we must penetrate more deeply into that world: we must discover the vital forces that produced it, sustain it and transform it, and we must turn to the study of the dynamic biology of the inner world.
Psychic life is essentially made up of a continuous, very complicated and wonderful interplay of a myriad of forces, of the most varied origin and nature, associating and fighting, diverting or transforming each other in a thousand guises. They obey a whole series of laws which are just as real, certain and inviolable as those which determine the phenomena of physical nature, although on the whole infinitely more subtle and differentiated than those.
We must not, however, make the mistake of conceiving of psychic energies as purely mechanical forces, obeying a rigid determinism; this would give us an entirely erroneous idea of psychic life. Psychic forces are intelligent and above all qualified forces. In short, psychic forces should be regarded as real beings, as separate entities, each endowed with its own life.
This fact will at first arouse a sense of wonder and perhaps even upset, for even those who consider themselves idealists and spiritualists very often have their minds oriented, even molded, according to materialistic preconceptions — very often their minds are oriented to the materialistic preconceptions that are dominant in our civilization. It will therefore not be superfluous to pause for a moment to frame what I have said in the truly and fully spiritual conception of the universe which we advocate, in order to show its full coherence and underlying necessity from this point of view. Let us therefore quickly recall the fundamental principles of that conception.
The only absolute and eternal reality is spirit. Psychic forces, vital forces and physical forces, and so-called “matter” itself, are in their essence only self-transformations and self-limitations of the spirit, almost allotropic states of it, as coal is of diamond; and all those forces always retain — even if in a latent and unmanifest state — the potentialities of the spirit. [1]
The essential qualities of being, i.e., life and consciousness, are thus found throughout the universe, and there is no particle of matter, no charge of energy that is devoid of them, however slight and imperceptible their manifestations may be to us. So too, the laws that regulate the unfolding or becoming of those innumerable forms of consciousness and life are not blind and mechanical, but conscious and living as well; they are the expression of the divine will, enacted by multiple hierarchies of living beings who intelligently carry it out.
Of course, we must not conceive of these beings or their conscious life in a way that corresponds too closely to what is human. Our type and quality of consciousness of life is only one of the qualities and types into which Supreme Consciousness has been individuated,[2] but there are also many others that are profoundly different from our own. There are stages of consciousness and life, of which any one may have the qualities and be one of the types of classes of beings that might be called “parahuman;” that is, that follow a line of development quite different and distinct from ours, not having passed through the human stage in their mysterious cosmic pilgrimage, nor perhaps being destined to do so.
In all times and countries men have had a more or less vague and imperfect knowledge of the existence of those beings. Thus the traditions and beliefs of every people speak of nature spirits, of animating entities of minerals and waters, of air and fire. All religions affirm the existence of hosts of angelic beings, of intelligent ministers of the divine will. Finally, the mystics, the enlightened and the seers, as well as all esoteric doctrines, agree in confirmation of this.
It is not our task to examine the evidence for the reality of such beings, their varied nature and functions, and their relations with us. I will speak only briefly of those that most directly concern us.
Science, too, has recently begun to recognize that every particle of our body is permeated with a “psychism,” that every vital function reveals itself as an intelligent and intentional activity; that is, directed toward a common end. For example, the ability that a gastric or intestinal cell must exercise to choose and to make decisions during digestion, in order to retain or reject, and to assimilate the different substances from food in various forms, may well be compared to the complex work of a government minister.
Thus modern psycho-biologists are coming to recognize that every living cell has its own “psyche,” that every organized grouping of similarly functioning cells — that is, every organ — possesses a “psyche” that is somewhat broader and more complex than the cellular one. The same is then true of the “organ systems,” which go to make up the digestive, circulatory, nervous “systems,” each of which is intended for the performance of one of the main functions of physical life. [3]
Lastly, there is in our organism a central entity which is at the head of the hierarchy of the aforementioned beings and which coordinates and regulates the activity of all the entities subordinate to it, for the purpose of the preservation and full and harmonious development of the life of the body. The greatest part of such psychic life takes place outside of our consciousness, that is, that ordinary consciousness — that “waking” consciousness, which we then misidentify with our true being. Therefore our consciousness is influenced and modified, albeit partially and indirectly, by the psychic entities that constitute our body.
First, there habitually comes to our consciousness a confused and generic sense of the general state of harmony and disharmony in which the entities of our body find themselves, of well-being or discomfort. This is the so-called coenesthesia or “coenesthetic sense,” in which some materialist psychologists even claim to have found the origin and basis of human consciousness. [4]
That coenesthesia exerts a continuous and important influence on our personality, and especially on our emotional life, is an easily ascertainable fact, which no balanced spiritualist wants to deny. But equally sure and ascertainable is the fact that coenesthesia is only one of the many factors that contribute to making up our conscious personality — and not the most important one. We have all had occasion to observe that when we are in the grip of a vivid personal emotion or concern that is unrelated to the body, we are no longer aware of the state of its well-being or discomfort.
What we said about coenesthesia also applies — both in a positive and negative sense — to individual physical sensations. Normally our ordinary consciousness feels the painful sensations transmitted to it by a given entity [organ or system] of the organism whose physiological activity has been disturbed; for example, by an outside cause.[5] However, this is not so in all cases: those who know how to concentrate their attention strongly may go so far as to feel in a very minor way — to the point of excluding it altogether from their consciousness — a painful sensation, which nevertheless persists in the entity of the organism where it has its origin. This is shown by the fact that as soon as attention is released, the sensation itself immediately reappears in our consciousness: thus the sensation itself was not abolished, but its transmission was inhibited.
Even clearer examples of such interdependence between the psychic life of the entities of the body and that of our personality occur in people who are hypnotized, who do not feel the pain that under normal conditions is produced by stings or other stimuli; or in the cases of those who are subjected to anesthesia by means of chloroform, ether, etc. In the latter case, defensive reactions and other clear manifestations of pain show that there is an entity in the body that experiences the painful sensations produced by the surgeon’s cuts, while the person’s ordinary consciousness is completely unaware of them. Indeed, there are some who remember consciously being outside the body during anesthesia, and being able to observe the scene of the surgery as a non-sensing spectator. [6]
Then there is a category of psychic events that are the manifestation of entities of a fairly complex order, which on the one hand have a close relationship to our organism and on the other exert an intense and important action on our personality. These are the instinctive tendencies. [7]
Above the instinctive tendencies, in the hierarchy of psychic entities, stand the more properly human emotions and feelings. Emotions and feelings should also be considered as “entities,” either isolated or more often grouped together with each other and with other psychic phenomena such as images, ideas and concepts, thus forming more or less large and organized complexes. Some of these can then come together with each other to form quite firm and stable subpersonalities, analogous to the organs or apparatuses of our physical organism.
Unfortunately, however, the analogy is not complete — I say “unfortunately” because we must recognize that the entities that make up our ordinary psychological personality are far from coordinated.
This way of conceiving the nature of psychic occurrences is certainly quite different from the ordinary one, and cannot fail at first to arouse surprise and even opposition. But an objective and dispassionate examination of psychic life as it really unfolds, and not as we are accustomed to regard it subjectively, obliges us, I believe, to recognize the truth of this pluralistic, polypsychistic and animistic conception of the psychic world.
For we habitually, and moreover automatically and unconsciously, identify ourselves with the various psychic elements that gradually come to occupy our ordinary consciousness, so that we have the illusion that we really are that given element in various cases. Thus we say, “I am sad, or cheerful, or irritated or desperate, etc.” But if we can overcome the tenacious habit of identification, then we can clearly recognize that the self (“I”) is not and cannot actually be sad or cheerful, irritated or despairing: those are only temporary and contingent, multiple and changing contents of our being. But these are not — I repeat — passive contents, formal qualities, but rather living and intelligent forces, constantly tending to their particular purposes.
But then, someone may ask at this point, what, who are we really? Where has our self (“I”) gone, in this menagerie of entities? Is there really a real being, a self (“I”), or are we perhaps just a temporary jumble of disparate elements? The latter hypothesis, which would be, if true, very sterile and puzzling, has been advocated by some materialistic psychologists, and also in the past by some Buddhist schools that had misinterpreted the austere silence maintained by the Buddha — at least in his public teaching — about the ultimate questions of being.
But such an assumption does not hold up to careful examination. If on the one hand we have had to recognize that our ordinary personality is not a homogeneous and static unit as it appears to a superficial and naive consideration; on the other hand we can — indeed must — discover in ourselves a stable, fixed and permanent element. Its most direct and immediate subjective manifestation is the irrepressible sense of individual identity that persists in spite of and through all the vicissitudes and developments of psychic life, from childhood to old age, in spite of the most radical changes, in spite of and through all the most contrasting events and elements.
In another respect, that stable and permanent element can be regarded as the principle of self-consciousness, of that reflexive self-awareness that gives us a sense of being, of being absolutely, without attributes. It could be said that, like all elements that are essential or irreducible, this too can hardly be expressed in words, and can only be “indicated” indirectly and imperfectly. Perhaps some comparisons will help to understand it better. It may be regarded as the unchanging stage on which the innumerable actors of a living tragicomedy take turns, playing their various parts. Or as the snow-white screen on which the colorful images of the inner life are projected, so that from time to time the screen seems to become gloomy by somber colors, and glad in pink or blue, while in reality it has always remained immaculately white.
Such comparisons, however, are very crude and imperfect. For they are worthwhile in highlighting only the static element of the “I” (self) which is certainly a very important element; but they fail, however, to manifest its dynamic and vital element. For the “I” is itself also a living and active entity, continually acting on the other inner psychic entities with which it comes into contact.
But what is its true nature? What are its essential notes? What is its origin?
The “I”(self) is exalted in nature; its origin in the bosom of the Absolute is hidden, and perhaps no person is given to penetrate all its mysteries, to unveil all its transcendent potentialities. Yet perhaps we can “divine” something of it. Recalling the great stages of the involution of spirit by successive waves of life and other great laws of the macrocosm, I believe we can, enlightened by intuition and analogy, conceive of the “I” (self) as manifested in our ordinary consciousness as a reflection of the divine spark, sprung in its turn from the Great Central Flame and projected in space and time. That is, our ordinary self would be the reflection and a projection of the higher and eternal Self residing in the highest levels of Spirit. The ray of the divine spark, in descending from level to level, through denser and denser layers, undergoes various attenuations, refractions and colorings, in the same way as a sunbeam descending to the bottom of a lake, so that its reflection on the screen of the coarsest matter gives a very pale and inadequate image of the dazzling and purest light that it is at its source.
Thus our “I,” our self, imprisoned and limited in the body and obscured by dense clouds of passion, continually agitated and distracted by the clamors of the thousand entities with which it is intimately associated, has lost the memory of its divine origin and intrinsic nobility. It is just like the prodigal son, who far from his father’s house full of riches, lives miserably as a swineherd.[8] The true consciousness of our self is not awake down here: ours is a mere dream consciousness, fallacious and illusory like that of the legend of the mighty caliph who in a dream believed he was a beggar.
If this is, in its essentials, the true nature of our being, what practical consequences follow? What are our tasks? The answer is theoretically easy and clear: to resolutely awaken our “I” to the consciousness of its true being, driving out the ghosts of the dream, freeing it from the multiple inner and outer attachments that grip it, taming the beasts with which it is enclosed in the cage of the body.
The program, I repeat, is quite simple and clear in theory, but its practical implementation is equally arduous and complex, requiring long and tenacious work.
We shall continue to deal with it in the coming lectures, and we shall first make a more precise and concrete study of the main psychic entities living in us, their various combinations and their bitter conflicts; after that we shall see what powers our “I” can make use of to accomplish the great work of spiritual regeneration.
In the meantime, by having given the problem an inward and vital focus, by having highlighted the true nature of the forces stirring within us, in our personal microcosm, we believe that we have now acquired the necessary basis of knowledge, and that we have thus made considerable progress toward achieving the lofty goal we have set for ourselves.
[1] Allotropy or allotropism is the property of some chemical elements to exist in two or more different forms, in the same physical state, known as allotropes of the elements. —Tr.
[2] In Italian this reads “costituiscono solo una delle qualità e uno dei tipi nei quali si è individuata la Coscienza Suprema,” and a common way to translate this would be to say “one of the types in which the Supreme Consciousness has identified itself,” however in psychosynthesis “identification” has a particular technical meaning which is not indicated here. It turns out that “indivuated” also has a technical meaning to Jungian psychologists, which we are not using here. The text suggests a sense of “developing an indivual aspect” of the One.—Tr.
[3] Assagioli here uses the Italian word destinato,which could be rendered “intended,”“allocated,” “destined,” or “meant.” There is clearly an element of purpose or entelechy intended here, however he does not choose to discuss the philosophical roots of this concept. But it is clear that he does not accept random adaptation as a fundamental concept. —Tr.
[4] Coenesthesia: the general feeling of inhabiting one’s body that arises from multiple stimuli from various bodily organs. —Tr.
[5] We have added the words “organ or system” in brackets to remind the reader that in this essay Assagioli uses the word “entity” in the way that Arthur Koestler intends the meaning of the word “holon,” that he coined: i.e. something that is simultaneously a whole within itself as well as part of a larger whole. That is, a constituent part of a functioning hierarchy. —Tr.
[6] This last statement must refer to cases of awareness that can be retrieved under hypnosis, or of the relatively rare cases of conscious out-of-body experiences (OBE), for it is not reported as a normal process of response to anesthesia. According to anesthesiaweb.org. about 0.7% of patients undergoing general anesthesia report an OBE (2005-2023). —Tr.
[7] It is interesting that Assagioli refers to “instinctive tendencies” as the “manifestation of entities of a fairly complex order.” It cannot be ascertained whether he is referring to ”entities” within the body or outside it (with “a close relationship” to it?), or both. He says no more about this topic in this essay, but it may be assumed that he may have clarified this issue in some other context. —Tr.
[8] The Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus, told in the Gospel According to Luke 15:11-32. —Tr.
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