{"id":22603,"date":"2025-01-22T15:13:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T14:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=22603"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T12:17:33","slug":"notes-from-a-conversation-with-dr-assagioli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/notes-from-a-conversation-with-dr-assagioli\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes From A Conversation With Dr. Assagioli"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A 1955 conversation on consciousness beyond the body: Assagioli on telepathy, survival after death, and the inner attitude of listening for the spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
A typed transcript dated February 23, 1955
Assagioli Archives, Florence, Doc. #17888
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm<\/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 conversation, Roberto Assagioli moves through the territory where psychology, parapsychology, and spiritual life meet. He argues that the metapsychic faculties of the living being should be studied first, before turning to esoteric realms, so that what is properly human is not mistaken for what is attributed to other entities. Drawing on telepathic and yogic phenomena, the experiences of leaving the body, levitation, and bilocation, he contends that consciousness can persist beyond the body and that the loss of the body does not annul life. He distinguishes survival from immortality and grounds spiritual liberation in the realisation of an immortal Self, the permanent “I” that lies beneath the moods and shifts of the ordinary self. The latter half of the conversation turns inward to the practice that supports this realisation: the constant attitude of listening for the presence of God within, the long patience of latent elaboration in prayer, and the discipline of giving oneself in order to receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Asked about the relationship between our telepathic experiments, etc., and spiritualism (trance, etc.), Dr. Assagioli states that the field of investigation is the same; however, it is necessary, first, to know and investigate what the metapsychic faculties of the living being are or may be, and then to move on to the esoteric field. Only in this way can one avoid the danger of attributing to entities what is due simply to often ignored faculties or potentials of the human being.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there are possibilities for communication with other forces or entities, one should not be averse to studying phenomena and things which, instead of lowering, can only elevate the field of human possibilities so much that man is seen to be truly made in the \u201cspiritual image\u201d of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one can, for example, prove that the living being can be conscious outside the body, one can come to show that survival can persist even when the living being has laid down its body, or no longer has a body. Thus, for example, Eastern yogis have shown that they can leave their bodies and then re-enter them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The loss of the body does not mean the annulment of life. The independence of the psyche from the body can be deduced from a great many yogic and non-yogic exercises and telepathic relationships with those who no longer have a physical body, as evidenced by many lofty religious experiences made by Christians and people of other religions. The experiences of levitation, bilocation, of making oneself invisible, and of apparitions show, moreover, that the psyche is unitary and personal, because the unity of the personality is in the entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n