Are you dreading this holiday season? The incessant music. Crowds of anxious consumers. The proliferation of plastic made in China? Unwanted gifts and the duty of buying gifts unwanted? The unreasonable pressure of a perfect Christmas dinner on the table. Forced encounters with others with whom you would rather not? Fake joy…
Rejoice! There is a simple way out. It’s called “Formulating Blessings.” Anyone can play and it’s absolutely free! Continue reading
My garden is quiet now and the nights are long, so it’s a perfect time to sit on my sofa and snuggle down with a good book. Here are a few that have come to my attention that you might like to explore as well (alongside a hot cup of tea or mug of mulled wine!)
by Gloria Masters
To order, go to: https://www.gloriamasters.com/
This autumn, I had a visitor from the psychosynthesis community. We were chatting away while enjoying the beautiful clouds floating overhead when he shared how one of his clients had endured terrible sexual abuse as a child. When he had asked her how she had managed to survive, she said, “I heard the angels all around me. They are always singing the psalms.”
Not a week later, Gloria Masters – whom I had never met or heard of before – sent me an email telling me about her book. She too had endured sexual trauma as a child, and she too had found hope and resilience through her relationship with angels.
For me, this felt like a clear affirmation by the angels, whom I believe are constantly waiting for us to call on them for help and guidance.
On Angels’ Wings is an extraordinary powerful story of how a young girl journeyed from darkness into light and a testimony to the unrelenting power of the human spirit.
by E.M. Forster
Free in the public domain.
Click here for pdf.
Click here for audio book.
I read The Machine Stops during lockdown and found it eerily familiar. Written in 1909, this short story takes place in a future(!) where people live underground in isolated cells, never see one another and communicate only via audio and visual devices. In this world, original thought and direct observation are discouraged—“Beware of first-hand ideas!” people are told. Humanity has been overtaken by “The Machine,” which provides all comforts and meets all needs—except the need for human contact. One young man, Kuno, pleads with his mother via Zoom-like technology, “I want to see you not through the Machine… I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.”
The story is about his attempt to escape The Machine. Riveting, chilling and profoundly insightful of mass human psychology, it captures one person’s attempt to discover and hold onto his authentic inner voice.
by Petra Guggisberg Nocelli
€27.00
To order via Amazon, click here.
Petra has once again brilliantly compiled a book full of valuable psychosynthesis theory, techniques and exercises. This book is the first volume in a two-volume series and provides psychotherapists, counsellors, coaches, trainers, leaders, and educators alike with priceless tools and information.
Of course, I’m partially biased as Petra invited me to contribute a chapter to this important work. Other contributors are: Bonney Gulino Schaub and Richard Schaub, Ann Gila and John Firman, Rozana Bažec, Dorothy Firman, Tan Nguyen, Birgit Haus, Joan Evans, Will Parfitt, Michael Wolde, and Ewa Danuta Bialek.
by Walter Polt
€22.58
To order via Amazon, click here.
We all get annoyed and resentful, even with people whom we love. But how about giving your anger a makeover? This book gently guides you to unwind those feelings of anger and reshape them into relationships that are joyful, warmhearted, and honest.
The Anger-Makeover process helps transform the often-negative aspects of raw anger into a constructive resource for growth and healing. This very practical workbook offers an approach to the ‘management’ of anger, not through denial, repression or acting out – but through looking within to find the power locked underneath one’s emotional response.
Walter shows how to garner the anger energy and redirect it to good use – helping us to bring out our best selves.
€25.00
To order, contact: istituto@psicosintesi.it
Finally for those who read Italian, this collection of conference papers on Psychosynthesis and Literature is a rare gem. Contributors include Piero Ferrucci, who writes about the synthesizing aspects of music, and Lucia Bassignana, who gives us a wonderful tour through the artwork at Casa Assagioli. Other contributors are: Francesco Baroni, Katalin Orosz, Zsuzsanna Tóth-Izsó, Paolo Leoncini, and Gianni Yoav Dattilo.
And then there’s yours truly! I also contributed an article on the spiritual philosophies of Rabindranath Tagore and Roberto Assagioli (in Italian). You can download my article by clicking on:
CALombard «L’eterno straniero chiama» Estratto – Atti Budapest 2021
For English readers, this article has been accepted and will be published in 2022 by the Journal of India Philosophy and Religion. I’ll be sure to let you know more then.
Happy Reading!
Yesterday was the World Day of Psychosynthesis and more than 150 people interested in Roberto Assagioli’s vision of psychosynthesis celebrated in an event hosted by two Swedish groups, Psykosyntesföreningen and Psykosyntesförbundet along with the European Psychosynthesis Association (EPA).
The day is meant to establish a spiritual connection between everyone who is generating and working with psychosynthesis concepts and techniques. Each of us is encouraged to take time during the day to reflect on how psychosynthesis is a living, evolving idea that can be successfully applied through many formats and in various contexts.
This day was inspired by a note that Assagioli wrote. What is special about this particular note is that it is dated, something relatively rare to find on his thousands of archived notes. A copy of the Assagioli’s original note appears below along with its transcription. Continue reading
As an expression of beauty, awe, and awakening, art has always played a great part along our journey to our Higher Self. Throughout the world, holy places have been built to hold the polar tensions of spirit and matter, inner and outer space and light, as well as the community that shares the transcendent experience within the architectural space.
Assagioli noted that:
“Matter is the highest form of Spirit and Spirit is the lowest form of Matter.”
In this way, spirit seeks matter to express the full beauty of the transcendent. Assagioli also noted that Plato, Plotinus, and Christian mystics have recognized and proclaimed that “beauty is the essential attribute of the Supreme.” Continue reading
Is free will an illusion? According to an recent article in the Guardian, about 12% of philosophers believe this to be the case. They argue that our choices are determined by forces beyond our control – perhaps even predetermined all the way back to the beginning of the universe – and that nobody is responsible for his or her actions.
From their perspective, we act only when prompted by physiological reasons. For example, we choose between eating a banana and apple due to a pattern of neurons firing in our brain that can be linked all the way back to our birth, our parents’ meeting, their births, and eventually, the birth of the cosmos. As evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, says:
“Free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics.”
The spiritual philosophies of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the Bengali poet and Nobel Prize winner of Literature in 1913, and Roberto Assagioli are remarkably similar in their fundamental understanding of the relationship between the Infinite Self and the personal self.
While deriving from diverse cultural and linguistic inheritances, the spiritual philosophies of each man underwent a similar evolutionary process. To begin with, both men grounded their philosophy in the moments when they were able to touch the Infinite, becoming intensely conscious of it through the illumination of joy.
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Let’s take a closer look at the word ‘synthesis’. The word psychosynthesis was first used in 1889 by Pierre Janet in his book L’automatisme psychologique. Freud spoke of the synthesizing function of the ego, but he used this word only in the sense of re-establishing the condition existing before a split or dissociation due to a traumatic experience or to strong conflicts.
Others, such as Jung and Maeder used the words synthesis and psychosynthesis in a deeper and wider sense as the development of the integrated and harmonious personality, including both its conscious and unconscious parts.
The word ‘synthesis’ comes from the Greek word syntithenai, in turn deriving from syn meaning “together” and thtehnai meaning “to put, place.”
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In the Umbrian countryside, it is time to burn old growth.
We are now at the end of Lent – a time before Easter when Christians seek purification through fasting, prayer, and charitable acts. The forty days of Lent are, in many ways, similar to the Islamic time of Ramadan, which I was fortunate enough to experience while living in Egypt. During Ramadan, Moslems are expected to fast as well as give alms and read the Qur’an.
Assagioli wrote extensively on what he called “the science of applied purification”, insisting that this work must be undertaken in order to transform the lower characteristics of our personality and bring unity to our soul. He described purification of the personality as a process of re-orientation and elevation of the higher mind. Using our will, we burn the dross of our affective and instinctual energies, habits, tendencies and passions. Once clear of the obstacles that prevent us from receiving our higher intuitions, we are free to receive wisdom from the Higher Self. In other words, purification is a necessary process that we all must endure along the journey towards personal psychosynthesis before we are adequately equipped to seek spiritual psychosynthesis. Continue reading
In 1913, Mina Loy (1882-1966) was living in a rented villa in Florence when she found herself in a torpor and depressed. Her photographer husband had just set sail for Australia, abandoning her with their two children. A painter herself, she was artistically stalled and still mourning over the death of her first child who had died in infancy six years earlier.
Enter Dr. Roberto Assagioli!
Yes, Mina Loy – feminist, bohemian, poet, and playwright – was one of Roberto Assagioli’s first clients.
Over the course of her lifetime, Loy acted, wrote feminist and utopian tracts, created lampshades, and painted – including a lost portrait of Assagioli. Loy was born in London. Her mother was British and Christian while her father was a Hungarian Jewish tailor who had escaped Budapest’s antisemitism. Loy would end up having two husbands, four children, and several complicated love affairs. (More on two of these later…)
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Jarena Lee and Julia Foote
They were two women preachers during a time when only men preached. They were black preachers who preached to both slaves and slave-holders. They were black women preachers who inspired men and women, believers and ‘backsliders,’ Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyterians, lawyers, doctors and magistrates.
Their names were Jarena Lee (1783–1855?) and Julia Foote (1823-1901), two of the first African American women to achieve the right to preach in the newly formed nation. Overcoming both gender and racial barriers, both women preached widely over great distances. A widow and mother of two children, Lee traveled 2325 miles, walking many of them, to preach 178 sermons. Defying her husband and parents, Foote was a deacon and minister for five decades, traveling to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic region, California, the Midwest, and eventually Canada.
Continue reading“I had nothing to do but open my mouth and the Lord filled it.”
Jarena Lee
Love and Will 