A Glossary Entry on Roberto Assagioli’s Conception of Science<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This entry was prepared with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), working from the comprehensive anthology of Assagioli’s articles, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Roberto Assagioli, the scientific method is not a body of techniques borrowed from physics or chemistry but a discipline of sound reasoning, rooted in Bacon’s Novum Organum and the elimination of error. There is one scientific method, but the techniques by which it is applied to different subject matters are many. So understood, the method extends without distortion to the study of the higher reaches of the human psyche \u2014 to intuition, inspiration, the superconscious, and the transpersonal Self \u2014 which Assagioli holds to be no less legitimate as objects of scientific inquiry than reflexes, instincts, and the contents of the subconscious. \u201cThe superconscious and its facts are as scientific as those of the subconscious. A conditioned reflex is no more scientific than an inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This entry gathers Assagioli’s principal statements on the question, drawn from articles, interviews, and lectures spanning six decades, from the 1913 essay on misoneism to the 1974 piece on transpersonal inspiration. The structure follows the order in which Assagioli himself develops the argument: first the conception of science as such; then the critique of the prevailing definition; then the positive case for the scientific study of the higher psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli’s most concentrated statement on the nature of scientific method appears in the piece dictated to Molly Young Brown in 1973, \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology<\/a>: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d He grounds the method in Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum and the analysis of the four idols that distort human reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe scientific method essentially consists in sound reasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d Typed at the request of Roberto Assagioli by Molly Young Brown, 1973. First published in the AAP Online Journal, September 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli pairs Bacon’s four idols \u2014 Idola Tribus (of the tribe), Idola Specus (of the cave), Idola Fori (of the marketplace), Idola Theatri (of the theatre) \u2014 with Locke’s four sources of error, treating them as complementary diagnoses of the obstacles to clear thought. The method itself is then the discipline of recognising and correcting these obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is only one scientific method, while the techniques are many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Same source.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The distinction is decisive. The method is universal: observe carefully, reason soundly, eliminate error, test hypothesis against fact. The techniques \u2014 the microscope, the questionnaire, the introspective protocol, the controlled experiment, the comparative study \u2014 vary with the subject matter. To confine \u201cscience\u201d to those techniques developed for the study of physical bodies is to mistake a particular set of techniques for the method itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a conversation of 9 March 1958 on parapsychology, Assagioli sets out his model of how a science develops. The framework is taxonomic but also normative: it shows what stage a given inquiry has reached and what remains to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are three main stages of science:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first stage is the collection of facts, either through observation or experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second stage involves the investigation of the conditions and manner in which these facts were collected and verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third stage is the interpretation of the facts, examining their meaning and value, and then their inclusion into the body of human knowledge, into scientific and philosophical knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cScience and Parapsychology<\/a>: A Conversation with Dr. Roberto Assagioli,\u201d 9 March 1958. Doc. #23906, Assagioli Archives, Florence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A fourth stage \u2014 practical application and the development of techniques \u2014 follows, but Assagioli urges extreme caution there: premature application by amateurs and enthusiasts has done parapsychology, and psychology more generally, considerable damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Applied to psychology in his time, the diagnosis is precise. The first stage has yielded a great mass of reliably established facts; those who still deny them, he says, \u201care simply far behind \u2026 they are now 50 years behind.\u201d The real work lies in the second stage \u2014 the investigation of conditions and methods \u2014 and in the third \u2014 the integration of psychological findings into the broader body of human knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli’s most sustained polemic concerns the conflation of scientific method with quantitative measurement. This conflation, he argues, is a historical accident of the natural sciences \u2014 a particular technique mistaken for the method itself \u2014 and one of the two great errors of positivism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the article \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life<\/a>,\u201d he names the two errors directly. The first is the assumption that only quantitative phenomena are scientific. The second is the practice of \u201cexplaining away\u201d the higher by reducing it to the lower \u2014 the supposition that to understand inspiration as a neural event is to have understood inspiration as such. Both errors must be set aside if psychology is to become a complete science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1968 conversation with Mariella Crocell\u00e0 of \u201cLa Nazione,\u201d Assagioli illustrates the limits of the quantitative criterion with the familiar example of the half-empty and half-full glass. The same physical fact \u2014 the same volume of water in the same vessel \u2014 constitutes two distinct psychological facts depending on the observer’s attitude. A psychology that recognises only what can be measured will lose precisely what matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He invokes Goethe’s principle in support: \u201cWirklichkeit was wirkt\u201d \u2014 reality is what acts. An intuition that redirects a life, a fear that paralyses an action, an inspiration that produces a work of art \u2014 these act, and therefore are real, and therefore are facts in the proper scientific sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themes drawn from \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale, translated by Gordon Symons), the Crocell\u00e0 conversation of 21 February 1968 (Doc. <\/em>#23493), and \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology\u201d (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From the Goethean criterion follows a definition of \u201cfact\u201d wide enough to include psychological and spiritual realities. In \u201cPsychology in the Future<\/a>\u201d (1968), Assagioli develops this point at length, drawing again on Bacon and arguing that the definition of fact must be enlarged to include the psychological facts that genuinely shape human reality. A premonition that turns out to be accurate, a religious experience that transforms a life, an act of moral courage \u2014 these are facts. Their reality is not diminished by the absence of a meter or a graduated cylinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most direct application of this principle to the question of the Self appears in a Q&A session preserved in the anthology. A questioner asks whether the transpersonal Self can be proven scientifically. Assagioli’s answer is careful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy ordinary science it cannot be proven \u2026 But if you take the scientific attitude and method in the way I have put it, then yes \u2026 primary experiences which are evidences of themselves \u2026 full scientific value, in the broader sense \u2026 It should be the ABC of the scientific method \u2026 let us take a hypothesis and then let us see if the facts corroborate or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Transcribed Q&A in the Assagioli anthology.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The structure of the answer is precise. Ordinary science, restricted to its quantitative techniques, cannot prove the Self. But the scientific method properly understood \u2014 the discipline of advancing a hypothesis and testing it against the facts of experience \u2014 can be applied to inner experience as it is applied to outer. Primary experiences, Assagioli says, are evidences of themselves. The work of science is to take them seriously, frame them as testable hypotheses, and submit them to the discipline of verification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout his writings Assagioli distinguishes the scientific method from the scientific attitude, and treats the latter as the necessary inner condition of the former. The attitude is one of \u201cserene, dispassionate, impartial\u201d observation, equally distinct from credulity and from dogmatic skepticism. It must be cultivated; it is not the natural reaction either of the believer or of the debunker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cTranspersonal Inspiration<\/a>\u201d (June 1974, published 1976), he formulates the attitude in still broader terms. To be scientific, in the sense he defends, is to be \u201cindependent of every doctrine, system and personal authority.\u201d Independence from doctrine includes independence from the doctrines of materialism and reductionism no less than from the doctrines of religion or of any particular philosophical school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The principal obstacle to this attitude is misoneism \u2014 the reflex hostility to novelty. In his earliest essay on the question, published in Psiche in 1913, Assagioli describes misoneism<\/a> as a deep-seated psychological tendency rooted in the biological drive to maintain equilibrium and in mental \u201ceconomy.\u201d When uncounterbalanced by curiosity and theoretical interest, this economy becomes \u201cavarice of thought.\u201d He notes, with characteristic directness, that the progress of modern science has not eliminated misoneism among scientists; the attitude of many of them toward parapsychological phenomena demonstrates this clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMisoneism is a serious obstacle to the progress of science and civilization, and all those who care about such progress should vigorously fight it whenever the opportunity arises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cA Contribution to the Psychology of Misoneism<\/a>,\u201d Psiche II, 5\u20136, 1913. Doc. #23194, 24216, Assagioli Archives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be a misunderstanding of Assagioli’s position to suppose that his expanded conception of science marginalises rigour in favour of inspiration. The opposite is the case. He insists that the recognition and use of intuition is itself a feature of the scientific attitude, attested by some of the most rigorous scientists. He puts the point directly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is, furthermore, another aspect of the scientific attitude which some prominent scientists have spontaneously or deliberately utilized. It is the recognition and use in scientific research of certain psychological functions, such as imagination, intuition, and creativity. Many scientists have testified to this, among those having done so in precise terms was the mathematician, Henri Poincar\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology<\/a>: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d Typed at the request of Roberto Assagioli by Molly Young Brown, 1973. First published in the AAP Online Journal, September 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere in the same piece Assagioli observes that the phases of creative problem-solving \u2014 preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration \u2014 \u201creceive ample confirmation in descriptions given by Einstein, the mathematician Poincar\u00e9 and the chemist Kekul\u00e9 of the ways in which they reached solutions of their scientific problems.\u201d Intuition and verification are therefore complementary, not opposed: the moment of discovery is non-discursive, while verification, which comes afterwards, is the discipline that distinguishes a scientific intuition from a private conviction. The proper relation between the two \u2014 hypothesis followed by test \u2014 is what Assagioli calls \u201cthe ABC of the scientific method.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On these foundations Assagioli builds his central methodological claim: the superconscious is no less a proper subject of scientific study than the subconscious. The asymmetry that has prevailed in modern psychology \u2014 the willingness to study the lower while dismissing the higher \u2014 is a methodological prejudice, not a scientific principle. He sets the point in the context of a historical narrative on how psychology, having rightly freed itself from theology and philosophy, then submitted itself to the methods of chemistry and physics and so produced \u201cthat hybrid called \u2018physiological psychology\u2019,\u201d in which only what could be measured was admitted as scientific. The diagnosis ends with a now-famous formulation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur starting point for spiritual psychology, in Psychosynthesis, is different, because we argue that higher manifestations are equally important facts of behavior and sensations and that, when they happen, can also be studied scientifically. Intuition can be the origin of an invention that can change our civilization. The intuition of a poet can ignite a generation. Creative imagination has mechanical effects. The superconscious and its facts are as scientific as those of the subconscious. A conditioned reflex is no more scientific than an inspiration. This is the basis of our attitude, the very solid platform on which we can take a position with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe Position of Psychosynthesis in Contemporary Psychology<\/a>.\u201d Original Italian title: La Posizione della Psicosintesi nella Psicologia Contemporanea. Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most explicit programmatic statement comes in \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life,\u201d where Assagioli names the scientific study of the higher manifestations of the human soul as the defining task of psychosynthesis as a science:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPsychosynthesis as a science aims to investigate with a sound and rigorous scientific method the superior manifestations of the human soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life<\/a>\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale), translated by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He then poses the question that puts the asymmetry plainly: \u201cWhy should an intuition, a telepathic perception, a premonition be less worthy and acceptable for study than the scientific study of an instinct, an impulse, or a tropism?\u201d The question has no good answer; the asymmetry has no methodological justification. It is sustained only by the prejudices of materialism and the inertia of academic convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli does not present his position as an innovation but as a return \u2014 a recovery of what science is when it is not unduly narrowed. He cites a roll-call of scientists who, on his view, have approached the higher and supernormal phenomena scientifically rather than apologetically, and who therefore exemplify the method as he defends it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n William James is the figure most frequently invoked. Assagioli describes The Varieties of Religious Experience as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026 a model of impartial and scientific examination of this subject [\u2026] [where James] has vigorously demonstrated the reality and value of the transcendental realm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe Awakening and Development of Spiritual Consciousness<\/a>\u201d (Il Risveglio E Lo Sviluppo Della Coscienza Spirituale). Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n C. G. Jung is invoked, in similar terms, for what Assagioli calls his \u201ctrue scientific spirit\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis understanding of the relativity of our knowledge and the recognition of the unavoidable subjective element in every researcher made him shun all systematic formulations and categorical statements. He took up a firm position on the ground of psychological experience and the empirical method, thus demonstrating a true scientific spirit \u2026 Jung \u2026 assumes an agnostic attitude \u2026; he admits the subjective, \u2018psychological\u2019 reality of the experience, but maintains that its essential, transcendental reality cannot be regarded as demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cC. G. Jung and Psychosynthesis,<\/a>\u201d 1967. Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Issue No. 19.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The agnosticism, on Assagioli’s reading, is methodological: a discipline of staying with what can be observed while leaving the larger questions open. Assagioli adopts a similar discipline in psychosynthesis, while extending the field of observation to include inner experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abraham Maslow and Michael Polanyi are credited, in a 1972 interview, with having broadened the working definition of science in a direction compatible with Assagioli’s own:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaslow and Michael Polanyi, among others, have enlarged the notion of what is science and the scientific method, and I applaud this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Stuart Miller interview, \u201cThe Will.<\/a>\u201d Intellectual Digest, October 1972.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the field of parapsychology, Assagioli names a long list of scientists who have, on his view, applied the method properly understood to the study of the supernormal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy way of honor I quote first of all W. James, who in his classic book Varieties \u2026 subjected the study of the various aspects of spiritual consciousness to a dispassionate, respectful and rigorous process, that is a model of scientific probity and dignity \u2026 After him there was a valiant and not so small group of scientists who investigated the dark and arduous regions of the supernormal: the best of them are Crookes and Lodges, Geley and Osty, Driesch, Ribot and under certain respects Jung, and from us, Morselli, Bottazzi, Mackenzie and currently Cazzamalli. Also Rhine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale). Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two further parapsychologists \u2014 W. H. C. Tenhaeff (Professor of Parapsychology at the State University of Utrecht) and Hans Bender (founder of the Institut f\u00fcr Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg) \u2014 are named in \u201cPsychology and Human Existence\u201d as exemplars of academic parapsychology, holding university chairs in the Netherlands and Germany respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychology and Human Existence<\/a>,\u201d translator’s notes [10] and [11]. Available on kennethsorensen.dk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A late but characteristic theme in Assagioli’s writing on this question is the role of semantics in refining the scientific method. In the Crocell\u00e0 conversation<\/a> he notes that semantic analysis has come to refine the method by exposing the idols of the marketplace \u2014 the errors that arise from imprecise language. This refinement is particularly important in the study of inner experience, where the available vocabulary is shaped by cultures and traditions that may not have been concerned to make the distinctions a scientific investigator must make. Many disagreements about the higher psyche turn out, on inspection, to be disagreements about words. Disciplining the words is a scientific task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli’s conception of the scientific method received its most explicit institutional form in the Vision and Mission Statement of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, drafted in April 1957 prior to the Foundation’s incorporation later that year. The document spells out a research programme based directly on the principles outlined above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe study of the superconscious, the activation of its faculties and energies, and their harmonious integration in, and utilization by, the conscious personality. This includes the study of genius; the discovery and development of special talents; the study and development of the will (a precious human function which has been curiously neglected by psychology, by psychotherapy, and, to some extent, by education); the establishment of a harmonious integration of all human aspects: biological, emotional, mental, and spiritual, under the direction of the Self.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe Psychosynthesis Research Foundation<\/a> \u2014 Its Vision, Mission, and Program,\u201d April 1957. AAP Archive, folder PRF_AAP_Correspondences.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The programme is not a piece of speculative philosophy but a research agenda, framed in the language of scientific investigation and intended to issue in concrete results. That this agenda was conceived in 1957 \u2014 more than a decade before the formal emergence of transpersonal psychology as a recognised field \u2014 is itself of historical interest. Assagioli was, on his own conception of the term, doing transpersonal science before transpersonal science had a name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli’s conception of the scientific method can be stated in a few propositions. The method is one and universal; the techniques are many. It consists in sound reasoning, in the elimination of error, and in the submission of hypothesis to verification. The reduction of \u201cscientific\u201d to \u201cquantitative\u201d is a historical accident, not a defining feature. Psychological and spiritual facts are facts in the proper sense, because, in Goethe’s formulation, reality is what acts. Inner experience is admissible as primary evidence, provided it is approached with the discipline of impartial observation, hypothesis, and test. The superconscious is as legitimate a subject of scientific study as the subconscious. And psychosynthesis, on this conception, is the systematic application of the scientific method to the higher manifestations of the human soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All quotations are drawn from the comprehensive anthology \u201cKomplet Samling af Roberto Assagiolis artikler,\u201d compiled by Kenneth S\u00f8rensen and translated into English by Jan Kuniholm, Gordon Symons, and others. The principal source articles for this entry are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA Contribution to the Psychology of Misoneism\u201d (Psiche II, 5\u20136, 1913); the Crocell\u00e0 conversation of 21 February 1968 (Doc. #23493); \u201cScience and Parapsychology,\u201d 9 March 1958 (Doc. #23906); \u201cPsychology in the Future\u201d (1968, Doc. #23977); \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces\u201d (dictated 1973, published AAP 2016); \u201cTranspersonal Inspiration\u201d (June 1974, PRF Issue 36, 1976); \u201cOn the Scientific Method\u201d (Newsletter of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, February 1970); the Stuart Miller interview, \u201cThe Will\u201d (Intellectual Digest, October 1972); \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale, translator Gordon Symons); and the Vision and Mission Statement of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, April 1957.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Science, The Scientific Method, and Scientific Knowledge A Glossary Entry on Roberto Assagioli’s Conception of Science Editor’s Note: This entry was prepared with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), working from the comprehensive anthology of Assagioli’s articles, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen. Definition For Roberto Assagioli, the scientific method is not a body of techniques borrowed from physics or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"glossary-categories":[],"glossary-tags":[],"glossary-languages":[],"class_list":["post-30252","glossary","type-glossary","status-publish","entry","override","gs-1","gs-odd","gs-even","gs-featured-content-entry"],"post_title":"Science","post_content":"\n A Glossary Entry on Roberto Assagioli's Conception of Science<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Editor's Note<\/strong>: This entry was prepared with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), working from the comprehensive anthology of Assagioli's articles, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Roberto Assagioli, the scientific method is not a body of techniques borrowed from physics or chemistry but a discipline of sound reasoning, rooted in Bacon's Novum Organum and the elimination of error. There is one scientific method, but the techniques by which it is applied to different subject matters are many. So understood, the method extends without distortion to the study of the higher reaches of the human psyche \u2014 to intuition, inspiration, the superconscious, and the transpersonal Self \u2014 which Assagioli holds to be no less legitimate as objects of scientific inquiry than reflexes, instincts, and the contents of the subconscious. \u201cThe superconscious and its facts are as scientific as those of the subconscious. A conditioned reflex is no more scientific than an inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This entry gathers Assagioli's principal statements on the question, drawn from articles, interviews, and lectures spanning six decades, from the 1913 essay on misoneism to the 1974 piece on transpersonal inspiration. The structure follows the order in which Assagioli himself develops the argument: first the conception of science as such; then the critique of the prevailing definition; then the positive case for the scientific study of the higher psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli's most concentrated statement on the nature of scientific method appears in the piece dictated to Molly Young Brown in 1973, \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology<\/a>: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d He grounds the method in Francis Bacon's Novum Organum and the analysis of the four idols that distort human reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe scientific method essentially consists in sound reasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d Typed at the request of Roberto Assagioli by Molly Young Brown, 1973. First published in the AAP Online Journal, September 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli pairs Bacon's four idols \u2014 Idola Tribus (of the tribe), Idola Specus (of the cave), Idola Fori (of the marketplace), Idola Theatri (of the theatre) \u2014 with Locke's four sources of error, treating them as complementary diagnoses of the obstacles to clear thought. The method itself is then the discipline of recognising and correcting these obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is only one scientific method, while the techniques are many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Same source.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The distinction is decisive. The method is universal: observe carefully, reason soundly, eliminate error, test hypothesis against fact. The techniques \u2014 the microscope, the questionnaire, the introspective protocol, the controlled experiment, the comparative study \u2014 vary with the subject matter. To confine \u201cscience\u201d to those techniques developed for the study of physical bodies is to mistake a particular set of techniques for the method itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a conversation of 9 March 1958 on parapsychology, Assagioli sets out his model of how a science develops. The framework is taxonomic but also normative: it shows what stage a given inquiry has reached and what remains to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are three main stages of science:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first stage is the collection of facts, either through observation or experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second stage involves the investigation of the conditions and manner in which these facts were collected and verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third stage is the interpretation of the facts, examining their meaning and value, and then their inclusion into the body of human knowledge, into scientific and philosophical knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cScience and Parapsychology<\/a>: A Conversation with Dr. Roberto Assagioli,\u201d 9 March 1958. Doc. #23906, Assagioli Archives, Florence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A fourth stage \u2014 practical application and the development of techniques \u2014 follows, but Assagioli urges extreme caution there: premature application by amateurs and enthusiasts has done parapsychology, and psychology more generally, considerable damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Applied to psychology in his time, the diagnosis is precise. The first stage has yielded a great mass of reliably established facts; those who still deny them, he says, \u201care simply far behind \u2026 they are now 50 years behind.\u201d The real work lies in the second stage \u2014 the investigation of conditions and methods \u2014 and in the third \u2014 the integration of psychological findings into the broader body of human knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli's most sustained polemic concerns the conflation of scientific method with quantitative measurement. This conflation, he argues, is a historical accident of the natural sciences \u2014 a particular technique mistaken for the method itself \u2014 and one of the two great errors of positivism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the article \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life<\/a>,\u201d he names the two errors directly. The first is the assumption that only quantitative phenomena are scientific. The second is the practice of \u201cexplaining away\u201d the higher by reducing it to the lower \u2014 the supposition that to understand inspiration as a neural event is to have understood inspiration as such. Both errors must be set aside if psychology is to become a complete science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1968 conversation with Mariella Crocell\u00e0 of \u201cLa Nazione,\u201d Assagioli illustrates the limits of the quantitative criterion with the familiar example of the half-empty and half-full glass. The same physical fact \u2014 the same volume of water in the same vessel \u2014 constitutes two distinct psychological facts depending on the observer's attitude. A psychology that recognises only what can be measured will lose precisely what matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He invokes Goethe's principle in support: \u201cWirklichkeit was wirkt\u201d \u2014 reality is what acts. An intuition that redirects a life, a fear that paralyses an action, an inspiration that produces a work of art \u2014 these act, and therefore are real, and therefore are facts in the proper scientific sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Themes drawn from \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale, translated by Gordon Symons), the Crocell\u00e0 conversation of 21 February 1968 (Doc. <\/em>#23493), and \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology\u201d (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n From the Goethean criterion follows a definition of \u201cfact\u201d wide enough to include psychological and spiritual realities. In \u201cPsychology in the Future<\/a>\u201d (1968), Assagioli develops this point at length, drawing again on Bacon and arguing that the definition of fact must be enlarged to include the psychological facts that genuinely shape human reality. A premonition that turns out to be accurate, a religious experience that transforms a life, an act of moral courage \u2014 these are facts. Their reality is not diminished by the absence of a meter or a graduated cylinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most direct application of this principle to the question of the Self appears in a Q&A session preserved in the anthology. A questioner asks whether the transpersonal Self can be proven scientifically. Assagioli's answer is careful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy ordinary science it cannot be proven \u2026 But if you take the scientific attitude and method in the way I have put it, then yes \u2026 primary experiences which are evidences of themselves \u2026 full scientific value, in the broader sense \u2026 It should be the ABC of the scientific method \u2026 let us take a hypothesis and then let us see if the facts corroborate or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Transcribed Q&A in the Assagioli anthology.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The structure of the answer is precise. Ordinary science, restricted to its quantitative techniques, cannot prove the Self. But the scientific method properly understood \u2014 the discipline of advancing a hypothesis and testing it against the facts of experience \u2014 can be applied to inner experience as it is applied to outer. Primary experiences, Assagioli says, are evidences of themselves. The work of science is to take them seriously, frame them as testable hypotheses, and submit them to the discipline of verification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout his writings Assagioli distinguishes the scientific method from the scientific attitude, and treats the latter as the necessary inner condition of the former. The attitude is one of \u201cserene, dispassionate, impartial\u201d observation, equally distinct from credulity and from dogmatic skepticism. It must be cultivated; it is not the natural reaction either of the believer or of the debunker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cTranspersonal Inspiration<\/a>\u201d (June 1974, published 1976), he formulates the attitude in still broader terms. To be scientific, in the sense he defends, is to be \u201cindependent of every doctrine, system and personal authority.\u201d Independence from doctrine includes independence from the doctrines of materialism and reductionism no less than from the doctrines of religion or of any particular philosophical school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The principal obstacle to this attitude is misoneism \u2014 the reflex hostility to novelty. In his earliest essay on the question, published in Psiche in 1913, Assagioli describes misoneism<\/a> as a deep-seated psychological tendency rooted in the biological drive to maintain equilibrium and in mental \u201ceconomy.\u201d When uncounterbalanced by curiosity and theoretical interest, this economy becomes \u201cavarice of thought.\u201d He notes, with characteristic directness, that the progress of modern science has not eliminated misoneism among scientists; the attitude of many of them toward parapsychological phenomena demonstrates this clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMisoneism is a serious obstacle to the progress of science and civilization, and all those who care about such progress should vigorously fight it whenever the opportunity arises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cA Contribution to the Psychology of Misoneism<\/a>,\u201d Psiche II, 5\u20136, 1913. Doc. #23194, 24216, Assagioli Archives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be a misunderstanding of Assagioli's position to suppose that his expanded conception of science marginalises rigour in favour of inspiration. The opposite is the case. He insists that the recognition and use of intuition is itself a feature of the scientific attitude, attested by some of the most rigorous scientists. He puts the point directly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is, furthermore, another aspect of the scientific attitude which some prominent scientists have spontaneously or deliberately utilized. It is the recognition and use in scientific research of certain psychological functions, such as imagination, intuition, and creativity. Many scientists have testified to this, among those having done so in precise terms was the mathematician, Henri Poincar\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe New Dimensions of Psychology<\/a>: The Third, Fourth and Fifth Forces.\u201d Typed at the request of Roberto Assagioli by Molly Young Brown, 1973. First published in the AAP Online Journal, September 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere in the same piece Assagioli observes that the phases of creative problem-solving \u2014 preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration \u2014 \u201creceive ample confirmation in descriptions given by Einstein, the mathematician Poincar\u00e9 and the chemist Kekul\u00e9 of the ways in which they reached solutions of their scientific problems.\u201d Intuition and verification are therefore complementary, not opposed: the moment of discovery is non-discursive, while verification, which comes afterwards, is the discipline that distinguishes a scientific intuition from a private conviction. The proper relation between the two \u2014 hypothesis followed by test \u2014 is what Assagioli calls \u201cthe ABC of the scientific method.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On these foundations Assagioli builds his central methodological claim: the superconscious is no less a proper subject of scientific study than the subconscious. The asymmetry that has prevailed in modern psychology \u2014 the willingness to study the lower while dismissing the higher \u2014 is a methodological prejudice, not a scientific principle. He sets the point in the context of a historical narrative on how psychology, having rightly freed itself from theology and philosophy, then submitted itself to the methods of chemistry and physics and so produced \u201cthat hybrid called \u2018physiological psychology\u2019,\u201d in which only what could be measured was admitted as scientific. The diagnosis ends with a now-famous formulation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur starting point for spiritual psychology, in Psychosynthesis, is different, because we argue that higher manifestations are equally important facts of behavior and sensations and that, when they happen, can also be studied scientifically. Intuition can be the origin of an invention that can change our civilization. The intuition of a poet can ignite a generation. Creative imagination has mechanical effects. The superconscious and its facts are as scientific as those of the subconscious. A conditioned reflex is no more scientific than an inspiration. This is the basis of our attitude, the very solid platform on which we can take a position with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe Position of Psychosynthesis in Contemporary Psychology<\/a>.\u201d Original Italian title: La Posizione della Psicosintesi nella Psicologia Contemporanea. Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most explicit programmatic statement comes in \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life,\u201d where Assagioli names the scientific study of the higher manifestations of the human soul as the defining task of psychosynthesis as a science:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPsychosynthesis as a science aims to investigate with a sound and rigorous scientific method the superior manifestations of the human soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life<\/a>\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale), translated by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He then poses the question that puts the asymmetry plainly: \u201cWhy should an intuition, a telepathic perception, a premonition be less worthy and acceptable for study than the scientific study of an instinct, an impulse, or a tropism?\u201d The question has no good answer; the asymmetry has no methodological justification. It is sustained only by the prejudices of materialism and the inertia of academic convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assagioli does not present his position as an innovation but as a return \u2014 a recovery of what science is when it is not unduly narrowed. He cites a roll-call of scientists who, on his view, have approached the higher and supernormal phenomena scientifically rather than apologetically, and who therefore exemplify the method as he defends it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n William James is the figure most frequently invoked. Assagioli describes The Varieties of Religious Experience as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026 a model of impartial and scientific examination of this subject [\u2026] [where James] has vigorously demonstrated the reality and value of the transcendental realm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cThe Awakening and Development of Spiritual Consciousness<\/a>\u201d (Il Risveglio E Lo Sviluppo Della Coscienza Spirituale). Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n C. G. Jung is invoked, in similar terms, for what Assagioli calls his \u201ctrue scientific spirit\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis understanding of the relativity of our knowledge and the recognition of the unavoidable subjective element in every researcher made him shun all systematic formulations and categorical statements. He took up a firm position on the ground of psychological experience and the empirical method, thus demonstrating a true scientific spirit \u2026 Jung \u2026 assumes an agnostic attitude \u2026; he admits the subjective, \u2018psychological\u2019 reality of the experience, but maintains that its essential, transcendental reality cannot be regarded as demonstrated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cC. G. Jung and Psychosynthesis,<\/a>\u201d 1967. Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Issue No. 19.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The agnosticism, on Assagioli's reading, is methodological: a discipline of staying with what can be observed while leaving the larger questions open. Assagioli adopts a similar discipline in psychosynthesis, while extending the field of observation to include inner experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abraham Maslow and Michael Polanyi are credited, in a 1972 interview, with having broadened the working definition of science in a direction compatible with Assagioli's own:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaslow and Michael Polanyi, among others, have enlarged the notion of what is science and the scientific method, and I applaud this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Stuart Miller interview, \u201cThe Will.<\/a>\u201d Intellectual Digest, October 1972.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the field of parapsychology, Assagioli names a long list of scientists who have, on his view, applied the method properly understood to the study of the supernormal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy way of honor I quote first of all W. James, who in his classic book Varieties \u2026 subjected the study of the various aspects of spiritual consciousness to a dispassionate, respectful and rigorous process, that is a model of scientific probity and dignity \u2026 After him there was a valiant and not so small group of scientists who investigated the dark and arduous regions of the supernormal: the best of them are Crookes and Lodges, Geley and Osty, Driesch, Ribot and under certain respects Jung, and from us, Morselli, Bottazzi, Mackenzie and currently Cazzamalli. Also Rhine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychosynthesis and Spiritual Life\u201d (Psicosintesi E Vita Spirituale). Assagioli Archive, Florence. Translated from Italian by Gordon Symons.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two further parapsychologists \u2014 W. H. C. Tenhaeff (Professor of Parapsychology at the State University of Utrecht) and Hans Bender (founder of the Institut f\u00fcr Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg) \u2014 are named in \u201cPsychology and Human Existence\u201d as exemplars of academic parapsychology, holding university chairs in the Netherlands and Germany respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cPsychology and Human Existence<\/a>,\u201d translator's notes [10] and [11]. Available on kennethsorensen.dk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nDefinition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. The scientific method as sound reasoning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
2. The three stages of science<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3. The error of identifying \u201cscientific\u201d with \u201cquantitative\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. The proper definition of a fact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. The scientific attitude<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
6. The place of intuition in scientific work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. The superconscious as a scientific subject<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
8. Exemplars of the enlarged scientific spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
9. Semantics as refinement of the method<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10. The institutional form: the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Principal Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Science, The Scientific Method, and Scientific Knowledge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Definition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. The scientific method as sound reasoning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
2. The three stages of science<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3. The error of identifying \u201cscientific\u201d with \u201cquantitative\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4. The proper definition of a fact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. The scientific attitude<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
6. The place of intuition in scientific work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. The superconscious as a scientific subject<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
8. Exemplars of the enlarged scientific spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
9. Semantics as refinement of the method<\/h2>\n\n\n\n