In April and May of 1929, on two different occasions, Assagioli experimented training his will. In his first experiment, he contemplated on the word ‘will’. But after the 4th session, it dawned on him that it was “useless to try and understand the nature of will by thinking about it. One must ‘feel’ one’s way to the heart of things.”
So during his next will experiment, Assagioli chose to stand relaxed and raise his arms sideways to the level of his shoulders in decided movements. He did this for 5 minutes while repeating “I will do this.” He did this for 10 days.
At first glance, this exercise of raising one’s arms up and down looks silly. But it actually is an example of what Assagioli refers to as ‘Will Gymnastics.’ Assagioli insists that the idea is simple. Muscles become stronger when we exercise, and so does the will. These will gymnastics work even better when you choose to do something you’d rather not do at all. In this way, ‘useless’ exercises, like raising your arms up and down everyday — with precision, regularity and persistence, become a deliberate act of training the will.
Assagioli’s Methodology and Observations
Assagioli’s brief observations of these two experiments performed on himself are rare insights into, not only his scientific method, but also his character. More than once, he writes about how while meditating on the word ‘will’ thoughts of “the stupidity of the task” would enter his awareness. With humor, he notes how he cannot pretend to have “the slightest enthusiasm” for the five-minute will exercise, but nevertheless, confirms that he is determined “to carry out my resolution whether it leads to any useful result or not.”
Regarding his methodology, first of all, these notes definitively show how Assagioli would practice psychosynthesis techniques on himself, something he stresses that all psychosynthesis guides do.
We can also see that he clearly conducts the experiments as a dis-identified Observer, using the terms “the mind,” “the attention,” “the personality” and “the performance” instead the first-person possessive pronoun of “my mind”, “my attention,” etc. For example, he laments how “the personality will not co-operate” but the next day notes how he “feels quite independent and refuses to be tyrannized by it.”
Lastly, we might wonder why Assagioli chose to have the notes typed (as opposed to handwritten) and in English (instead of Italian, German or French). Was this too part of his scientific methodology?
By the way, I have decided to perform this training of the will experiment of lifting my arms for 5 minutes everyday. Would you like to join me? I will start on Sunday 16 March and go until 26 March. Be sure to jot down your thoughts, feelings, and observations after each session. If you like, send me your comments, and we can share our experience together.
Keep in mind Assagioli’s caveat:
“Much of the value of the exercise is lost, unless the mind is also concentrated on the task. It should be done willingly, with interest, with precision, with style. Try always to improve the quality of the work, the clearness of introspection, the fidelity of the written account, and above all to develop the awareness and the energy of the will.
It’s good to compete with oneself; in other words, to assume, a ‘sporting attitude’ in the best sense of the word.”
Are you ready? Are you set? Well then, let’s raise those arms!
While many of us are feeling overwhelmed by the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza of late, there are actually 127 armed conflicts taking place in the world today. Most of these conflicts do not make the headlines. Some of them started recently, while others have lasted for more than 50 years.
So I thought it might be a good time to share this story about a spiritual experience that Roberto Assagioli had during wartime. He called it a shechinah and declared that it was one of the ‘high water marks’ of his spiritual life. You can read about his experience below in both English and Italian. My hope is that his story reminds us that the Higher Self exists in all of us, everywhere, at all times.
Note from Assagioli’s Archives:
Scehinah (da sciahèn, dimorare) / Scehinah è il “Dio immanente”, lo spirito divino che è nel mondo, “Dio che è in noi”. / Il Talmud, Pref. p. XVIII (Doc #17591, Istituto di Psicosintesi, Florence).
Scehinah (from sciahèn, dwell) / Scehinah is the “immanent God,” the divine spirit that is in the world, “God who is in us.” / The Talmud, Pref. p. XVIII
Today is Roberto Assagioli’s 136th birthday. So I thought this might be a good time to explore what we know about his time in Russia and his relationship with a Ukrainian couple whom he knew in Rome.
Assagioli’s Trip to Russia in 1911
The Kremlin, Moscow early 1900s
We have Assagioli’s own account of his visit to Russia in 1911.[i] At that time, Russia was a constitutional monarchy and in great political turmoil. Assagioli tells how during his time in Moscow, he managed to engage both with the aristocrats associated with the Italian embassy and revolutionary students. He said:
“I saw it was very evident that the whole regime was corrupt and impossible, and on the verge of cracking.”
Learning Russian and Understanding the Russian Psyche
But let’s start at the beginning… In his autobiography, he talks about helping Vera Mitrofanovna Bogrova (c. 1890-?) obtain an illegal Italian passport. She was a social revolutionary (as opposed to a ‘communist’) who had been released from Russian prison and had escaped to Florence. She was chief of the Russian organization of revolutionary medical students.
Needing to finish her medical degree, she enrolled in the university in Florence. That’s where Roberto and Vera met and became good friends. Assagioli and Madame Bogrova would sit together in the back of anatomy classes so he could practice speaking Russian. He also recounts that she introduced him to Slavic psychology. (In a note from his archives, Assagioli suggests reading Edgar Wallace’s novel The Book of All Power in order to understand Russian psychology.)
But Bogrova found Florentine life boring and longed to return to Russia to join her husband and continue her work in the revolution. Assagioli thought she was a bit crazy to return, but then helped her obtain the passport. “You go there,” he said, “and if you’re not caught, I’ll come to Russia.”
The writer Dora Melegari was a friend of Assagioli’s. Her brother was the Italian Ambassador to Russia in 1911.
Bogrova did return to Moscow under the guise of being Italian and managed to evade detection. She was soon able to reunite with her husband, posing as his Italian lover! So that summer, Assagioli traveled to Moscow. He was friends with the Italian writer Dora Melegari (1849-1924) who was the sister of the Italian ambassador
(1854-1935). Hence, his access to the ambassador who was located in St. Petersburg.
Just a brief tangent to say the Dora Melegari played a leading role in the founding of the National Council of Italian Women (CNDI) in 1903 and in its First National Congress in 1908. This is the same organization founded by Contessa Gabriella Spalletti Rasponi (1853-1931) who was the first President of the Institution of Psychosynthesis.
Helping a Damsel in Distress
Russian philosopher Nikolai Lossky. Assagioli attended his lecture while in Moscow.
Okay, now back to Moscow. While there, Assagioli introduced himself as a medical student and attended the first Meeting of the Russian Union of Psychiatrists and Neuropathologists. He also attended a lecture by Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky (1870–1965), a Russian philosopher who promoted evolutionary metaphysics of reincarnation.
One September morning, Bogrova entered her friend’s apartment where Assagioli was staying and said, “Hurry up! Get up! My cousin has murdered the Prime Minister.” The assassin was actually her brother-in-law Dmitrii Bogrov (1887-1911). He had killed Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin (1862-1911) during an opera theatre performance in Kiev in the presence of the tsar and his eldest daughters.
Mystery Murder
No one is certain to this day why Bogrov (above right) killed Stolypin (above left). Assagioli also discusses the possible reasons. Some say Bogrov was influenced by conservative monarchists who were opposed to Stolypin’s reforms and his influence on the tsar. Others say Bogrov was a revolutionary planted inside Stolypin’s circle of secret police in order to kill him. There is the theory that the police wanted Stolypin dead because he was trying to clean up police corruption. Another theory is that Bogrov was being pressured by the revolutionaries to kill Stolypin in order to prove his alliance to them. Still others say that, as a Jew, Bogrov was taking revenge for the recent Russian pogroms. Who knows what combination of reasons he might have had?
Cover of the Neurology Bulletin 1911.
In any case, Assagioli once again came to the rescue of Madame Bogrova. Being a relative of the assassin, she was afraid of being arrested. At one point, Assagioli accompanied her to the Italian Consul in Moscow, telling her not to speak of word of Italian, for her accent would give her true nationality away. By this time it was October, and Assagioli soon took a train back to Florence. Bogrova disappeared. He never saw her again.
More to Investigate!
If anyone lives near Columbia University, you might consider making an appointment to visit the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. There you can view the Vera Mitrofanovna Bogrova Papers. Included are her manuscript memoirs (in Russian), which deal with such topics as her childhood, the Bogrov family, the Russian revolutionary movement, and the “Jewish Question” in Russia (she was Jewish). There are also three documents relating to Grigoii Girgor’evich Bogrov, Bogrova’s father-in-law and the father of the assassin Dimitrii Bogrov.
Who knows if she mentions Assagioli and can collaborate his story?
Assagioli’s Stay with Nina Onatsky, Ukrainian Nationalist
Now let’s jump ahead thirty years to 1940. Once released from Regina Coeli prison, Assagioli wrote in Freedom in Jail that he gave up his apartment in Rome and found a “friendly refuge: N.O.’s pension”. We now know that N.O. was Nina Onatsky. But who was she? I spent a day on the internet trying to find out, and I virtually ended up in the Elmer L. Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota.
Ukrainian delegation at the International Women’s Congress in Rome in 1923. Nina Onatsky is on the right.
Nina was the wife of Evhen Onatsky (1984-1979), an Ukrainian, who at the time of Assagioli’s release was teaching Ukrainian language at the University of Rome. Nina was “a very noble and refined lady,” university graduate and ran the pensione in order to raise money for her husband’s publications.[2]
Who was Evhen Onatsky?
In 1943, E. Onatsky was also thrown into Regina Coeli prison! And so the plot thickens…
Evhen Onatsky
Political activist, historian, journalist and diplomat, Onatsky played a major role during the Russian Revolution in 1917, which earned him a high ranking post in Ukrainian politics. He came to Italy in 1920 as chief of the Ukrainian Press Bureau. Only 26 years old, he was fluent in Italian when he arrived. But then in 1923, the government of Ukraine was overthrown by the Russian communist regime. At that point, Onatzky became a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), an international political organization that believed in violently overthrowing Soviet Russia for Ukrainian independence.
At the start of WWII, Onatsky and the OUN was pro-German, hoping that the Germans would help the Ukrainians defeat Russian rule. About the time he must have known Assagioli, Onatsky was writing pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic material (under a pseudonym) for the Germans. He was also secretly acting as a political advisor for the head of the OUN, who the Germans persecuted. Onatsky then secretly became the new OUN leader.
La Parole ukrainienne (Ukrainian Word), a weekly newspaper closely allied with the OUN. It serves as an unofficial organ of the Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists. As a prominent figure, Evhen Onatsky often wrote for this newspaper.
Once Onatsky realized that the Germans had no intention of returning Ukraine to the Ukrainians, he switched sides and that’s when the Germans jailed him, later sending him off to Berlin and Oranienburg prison camps.
In 1945, Onatsky was freed from jail and returned to Rome. Supported by the Americans of Ukrainian descent, he took charge of the Ukrainian-American Relief Committee in Italy. After two years, he and Nina migrated to Argentina where they lived out their years in Buenos Aires. Among the Ukrainian community, Onatsky become a well-known Ukrainian scholar and folklorist.
But the story doesn’t end there! It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet… While in Argentina, he was investigated by the CIA for his anti-communist activities. You can read his declassified CIA file here.
Meanwhile, if you live near the University of Minnesota, you might like to visit the Elmer L. Andersen Library and look through its Evhen Onatsky collection. They have 46 boxes of material including correspondence with Benito Mussolini.
So we can see from both stories, that in war, there are often no clear cut sides. People have all kinds of agendas, alliances, and wills of their own. (Tolstoy writes about this brilliantly in War and Peace.) Life is complex and the people and their desires even more so.
Happy Birthday Roberto!
[i] See Roberto Assagioli, Roberto Assagioli in his own words, Fragments of an autobiography (recorded by E. Smith – edited by G. Dattilo, P. Ferrucci, V. Reid Ferrucci), Firenze 2019, Istituto di Psicosintesi, pp. 38-44.
[ii]. Autobiography of Anthony Hlynka (trans.), printed in Oleh W. Gerus and Denis Hlynka, ed., The Honourable Member for Vegreville: The Memoirs and Diary of Anthony Hlynka, MP, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005, pp. 127-128.
Love and Will 