{"id":22490,"date":"2025-01-20T17:14:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=22490"},"modified":"2026-05-19T13:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:57:14","slug":"the-awakening-and-development-of-spiritual-consciousness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/the-awakening-and-development-of-spiritual-consciousness-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Awakening and Development of Spiritual Consciousness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dismissing spiritual experience as illusion is not scepticism, it is prejudice. Assagioli maps spiritual consciousness from William James to the young seekers religion has lost.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
Doc. #24085, Assagioli Archive in Florence
Original title: Il Risveglio e lo Sviluppo della Coscienza Spirituale<\/em>
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm [i]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editorial Note<\/strong>
The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this essay, Roberto Assagioli argues for a scientific approach to spiritual consciousness, one grounded in observed experience rather than religious doctrine. He begins with the “cloud of witnesses” \u2014 individuals across every age and culture who report contact with a Reality beyond ordinary perception \u2014 and draws extensively on William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience<\/em> to establish the intellectual credibility of the inquiry. He argues that dismissing such experiences as illusion is unscientific, distinguishes spiritual consciousness from religious belief, and addresses the growing number of seekers who have left organised religion but hunger for something real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The basic fact with which we are concerned is the fact of spiritual experience <\/em>and spiritual consciousness<\/em>, and it may be expressed as follows: from the earliest times to the present there have been human beings who have claimed to have experienced states of consciousness that differed greatly in quality, intensity and affect from those that normally cast their lights or shadows on the screens of human awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they make another and more far-reaching assertion: they claim that the states of consciousness they have experienced are the result of becoming or involuntarily being brought into contact with a plane or sphere of Reality that is \u201cabove,\u201d or \u201cbeyond,\u201d those generally regarded as \u201creal.\u201d This Reality has often been called transcendental, but we will not use this term to mean anything abstract or remote. Those who have had even fleeting perceptions of it attest that it is perceived as something more real, lasting and substantial than the everyday world. It is indeed felt as the true root and essence of being, as \u201cmore abundant life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grandeur of the \u201ccloud of witnesses\u201d to such experiences and contacts with a higher, higher and fuller Reality can take one\u2019s breath away. We find such beings in all times and in every country, and among their ranks is the flowering of humanity. [ii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the attempts that have been made to deny such experiences, the assertions that they are mere illusions, or at best sublimations of sexual instincts are entirely arbitrary and demonstrate a lack of true scientific spirit. William James, whose book The Varieties of Religious Experience <\/em>is a model of impartial and scientific examination of this subject, vigorously demonstrated the reality and value of the transcendental realm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely \u201cunderstandable\u201d world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose. So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region (and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in a way for which we cannot articulately account), we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong. Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The importance of this higher realm of experience and reality cannot be overestimated, and the mere possibility of its existence should stimulate scientists to devote to its investigation (inquiry) a degree of energy, time and zeal commensurate with its human value.[iii]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

James\u2019 statement is such as to make it possible for any open-minded individual to accept it and encourage him to adopt it as a trustworthy basis for further research. That being the case, what should be our attitude toward this higher realm? Common sense tells us that it should be regarded with the same seriousness with which one is ready to consider the claim of a group of explorers that they have discovered, say, a previously unknown territory rich in oil or precious metals. To ignore such a claim would be folly, because we would run the risk of depriving ourselves of the opportunity to acquire immense new sources of wealth. But a disorganized rush into the new region, without proper equipment, adequate weapons or paraphernalia, would surely expose those who venture there to the dangers of local climate conditions and even vicious beasts. At best, such ill-advised attempts would have some chance of success only after overcoming great difficulties and would be compensated only by a superficial amount of the treasures awaiting the more skilled and better prepared and more circumspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason and experience advise, of course, that the reasonable approach to the problem should be: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Carefully study all possible reports about the territory.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n