{"id":22585,"date":"2025-01-22T15:20:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T14:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=22585"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:08:10","slug":"religions-new-times-and-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/religions-new-times-and-young-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Religions, New Times And Young People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Assagioli’s 1948 paper on religious renewal, the irruption of the new spirit, and the call to young people to build a new world<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
Paper given at the First Congress for Religious Reform, Rome, October 13\u201315, 1948
Republished with slight modifications in 1965 and 1970
Assagioli Archives, Florence, Doc. #23692 [i]<\/span><\/span><\/a>
Original title: Le Religioni, I Nuovi Tempi e I Giovani<\/em>
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm [ii]<\/span><\/span><\/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 Sorensen, 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 lecture, Roberto Assagioli addresses the perennial tension between past and future in the religious field at a moment of acute planetary crisis, articulating the question of religious renewal in four parts. He begins with the necessity of liberation from outdated forms, drawing on Martin Buber’s distinction between religion as preservation and religiosity as renewal. He then turns to the rediscovery of essential truths and to a “spiritual polyglotism” that recognises the same truth across different traditions. The third and central part examines what is truly new: the modalities, clues, and characteristics of a new revelation that may be discerned in the psychology of the younger generation, and the synthesis of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and affirmation that culminates in a total act of invocation. He closes by asking whether the regeneration of churches is possible, concluding that with or without their cooperation the spirit of the New Age will assert itself, and calling on young people to take up the great task of building a new world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This paper was given at the First Congress for Religious Reform, held in Rome October 13-15, 1948.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I call readers’ attention to the plural of the first words of the title:<\/span><\/span><\/em> Religions <\/span><\/span>. In fact, what has been expounded \u2014 in a necessarily concise and schematic manner given the vastness of the theme, indeed of the themes, and the limitations of time \u2014 is not addressed to any particular religion or church, but concerns each and every one of them. It is up to each institution and each believer to take it into account and to make any particular applications of it.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The treatment has been kept, as far as, possible, in a universal, objective and one might perhaps say scientific plane. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, much of what has been expounded, however bold and revolutionary it may seem to those accustomed to traditional frameworks, actually consists of a series of findings which I do not feel can be easily opposed.    <\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Author’s Preliminary Notes in the First Edition (1948)<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the grand, unceasing progression of the life of humanity along the dimension of time, there is a perennial tension, a continuous struggle between past and future, between form and spirit, between stillness and dynamism.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such tension and struggle are renewed with each generation. As I have said on another occasion, “The conflict between old and young is very old but always young. There are, however, young old ones and old young ones.” <\/span><\/span>[iii]<\/span><\/span><\/a> A French author then said in a more. . . radical way, \u201cHe who is not a revolutionary at twenty is an imbecile at thirty!\u201d <\/span><\/span>[iv]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is more: that conflict becomes more intense and dramatic in certain periods of collective crisis, when one civilization with all its external structures and cultural formations declines or disintegrates, while another is rising. This has happened repeatedly throughout history; recall for example what happened at the beginning of the Christian Era.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n