Tuesday, November 15, 2005
SEEKERS OF THE RAINBOW BRIDGE - ROBERTO ASSAGIOLI
Alice Bailey mentioned "Antahkarana work" in an address she gave October 8, 1943 which is available at the School for Esoteric Studies website. Since the nuns frequently talk about "energy", the passage is interesting:
When you have really grasped that the work of the occultist is primarily the handling of energy, then whether you are young or old there is no inhibition of any kind, provided you have all your mental ability and are able to use force rightly. Thus the task we have is the right direction of energy, to act as unconscious or conscious channels for spiritual energy. ...
Some people deal with spiritual energy before they are ready to deal with Soul energy. Some day we will be able to handle it directly when we know the Soul as One. At present the major effort of students is largely directed to Soul force, but what we are after in the [Antahkarana work] and this group is to bypass Soul force and work with spiritual energy, which comes from the Monad.
Somewhat further into the address she tells her audience:
It will be apparent to you, therefore, that these higher spiritual faculties can only be brought into play when the bridging Antahkarana is beginning to play its part.
In the question and answer session following her talk, she confirms a student's conclusion that the adept "is trying to direct energy and to be a channel."
Lest anyone have any illusion that she was speaking as a Christian, she demonstrates her hostility to Christian doctrine:
Take the New Testament, St. James version, and look for the sentences in italic. All those italics are interpolations, and on some of them the whole doctrine of the Church is built up. These sentences were never uttered by Christ.
She believed Jesus was an incomplete Master who was not the same as the Christ:
...you have these various grades towards which we look and aspire, but none of the Masters is of the same rank as the Christ, because He is pure Monad. Jesus is not of the same rank. That is why Sixth Ray people are so difficult, because their Master is not complete in his consciousness yet. Sixth Ray people can be a disruptive force in a group, isolated by their devotion, their sense of personality. Jesus was a militant person. It was he who took the sword, who took the whip.
She closes this address with an implication that religion is not essential but humanitarianism is.
Some of the greatest spiritual forces in the world are not religious people, but they are great humanitarians.
There is one more noteworthy point which she makes in this address. Speaking of the school of which she is a "senior disciple" she mentions another member:
There are people in the School like Roberto Assagioli and others who are in direct relationship with the Masters.
Since just previous to mentioning Assagioli, she mentions that "We have to direct energy and be channels..." in the school, Bailey has told us that Roberto Assagioli was a channeler.
Assagioli was something else as well--the founder of Psychosynthesis, a division of the field known as Transpersonal Psychology. Assagioli was Bailey's disciple. Joseph D. McNair, a faculty member of Miami-Dade Community College, School of Education, has included a paper on his website titled Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis, and the Esoteric Roots of Transpersonal Psychology." Here, too, is confirmation that Assagioli channeled, and his disembodied spirit contact was the same spirit contacted by Alice Bailey, namely Djwhal Khul:
Assagioli's known work with the Tibetan Master Djwahl Kuhl[sic] began in January 1933, when he was told that by the time he would reach his fiftieth year, he would have achieved "the difficult undertaking of becoming the sannyasin in the western world"....
(Oddly enough, Bro. Wayne Teasdale claimed to be a sannyasi.)
It was from Djwhal Khul (DK) that Assagioli got his methodology:
In his instructions of June 1934, DK states: "I would like you to write an article upon the Power of the dedicated Will"--the first step in a life-long study of Will by Assagioli. With a subtle hint of work to come, DK also triggered the beginnings of what, almost 40 years later, was to become The Meditation Group for the New Age and the beautiful, isolated center known as Meditation Mount, located in Ojai, California. DK wrote, "Your suggestion, secondly, that there should be a center at X of international usefulness is of real value and can be materialized if you work without haste and keep the conditioning of it in your hands and in the hands of no one else." His instructions to Assagioli were to "Meditate much upon it, but take no steps until after...."
A communication hinting at the methodology of the Masters appears in a July 1935 note to Assagioli from The Master DK:
"I am dealing with 'building groups'--those groups which are coming forth along the teaching line and which are constructing thoughtforms which will embody the new techniques and ideas. These--during the next two centuries--will change the face of our civilization and inaugurate a period in human history in which methods will be tried and principles established which remain as yet totally unknown to the majority. This period will lead the race into a civilization and a mutual, cooperative interplay which will bring to an end the present era of selfishness and competition."
In the same instruction, DK tells Assagioli,
"You could write a book (The Act of Will) which would be a synthesis of these new psychological ideas, subordinated to a central theme which would dominate them as the head dominates the activities of the body...opportunity will come to you to reach the world with ideas that are relatively new...you must work for a year at the organization of your thought and material so that you can reach the thinkers of the world with the new ideas in the field of that oncoming major science, that newer field of service--the field of psychology."
Here, then, was the spark that lit the flame of Psychosynthesis and Transpersonal Psychology.
The Director of the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis, Martha Crampton, is quoted as saying:
"Assagioli had the vision and the courage to put forward in psychiatry an approach that did justice to all the dimensions of man--physical, emotioal, mental and spiritual, even though the view ran counter to the prevailing mechanistic conceptions of the time."
The paper continues:
While Assagioli's public work is well-established and a matter of historical record, his association with the Tibetan Master, Djwahl Kuhl [sic], is shrouded in the mists of time. Except for a diminishing circle of people who were close to Assagioli and were aware of the connection, and who studied with him and still alive [sic] today, nothing would be known of the esoteric background of his work.
The paper explains that Assagioli kept his channeling activities secret.
In the 1960s, Assagioli assembled a group of devoted friends who could be called his own "disciples" from several European countries and from the United States. He called this group "the committee." They met with him in Italy and began drafting a series of leaflets defining the Laws and the Principles together with appropriate meditative techniques. These were in turn refined and fleshed out by Assagioli himself. When the core group of disciples returned to their home lands, the booklets were published under the name of the Meditation Group for the New Age. Each booklet carried Assagioli's byline.
In the United States, the booklets evolved into a three year basic study now known as The Meditation Group for the New Age, and a ten-year continuation study of the Laws and Principles, known as The Group for Creative Meditation. The studies are distributed world-wide at no cost to participants by a non-profit corporation known as Meditation Groups, Inc. The group distributes Assagioli's materials to more than 7500 workers in 85 countries around the world, thus fulfilling the Tibetan Master's instructions to Roberto Assagioli. This world-wide group meditates every day on the Laws and Principles, as one.
Because the practice of meditation during the early years was looked upon as an Eastern aberration and because Assagioli's pioneering work with professional therapists was highly sensitive in it [sic] earliest years, no hint of the esoteric underpinnings could be made public. Had this happened at the time, Assagioli and his breakthrough ideas would have been subject to ridicule by his academic colleagues and he would have been denounced and ostracized from the exclusive fraternity of psychologists and psychotherapists. The work, of course, would have failed or at been [sic] been severely diminished.
Well aware of this threat, Assagioli wisely instituted what became known to his disciples as "The Wall of Silence."
Today Psychosynthesis is well established. The website for The Institute of Psychosynthesis indicates the Institute is accredited by Middlesex University as of June 1996. An MA in Applied Psychosynthes is also accredited. The Institue is also accredited as a full member of the United Kingdom Association for Therapeutic Counsellors. The Institute is also a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the European Transpersonal Association.
The Institute of Psychosynthesis initiated the founding of the Association for Psychospiritual Practitioners. There are centers for psychosynthesis in the US, in Holland, in Britain, Sweden, France and New Zealand.
Assagioli's channeled knowledge has been taken quite seriously. Another page in their website indicates they explore "the processes of self-awakening and self-expression."
Wikipedia places Assagioli among those who are considered to be leaders and inspirers of Humanistic Psychology. Leading theorists of this school of thought include Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Rollo May.
A list of publications in Psychosynthesis can be found here.
In the website of the School for Esoteric Studies, Ashville, N.C., an article by Jan van der Linden titled "The Way of Meditation" mentions "the father of Psychosynthesis" Roberto Assagioli, M.D. The website also offers Alice Bailey's talks.
The website of the Theosophical Society in America mentions Assagioli and Transpersonal Psychology.
The inclination for a Christian is simply to dismiss these theosophists and meditation groups as something on the fringe. Douglas Russell, M.S.W. is somewhat more difficult to dismiss. You can read his article titled "Psychosynthesis in Western Psychology" from the Fall/Winter 1981 issue of "Psychosynthesis Digest" online here.
The website of "Psychology Today" offers the bio. of a practitioner of psychosynthesis on their website.
In psychosynthesis the science of psychology and the channeled theosophical religion of Alice Bailey combine. Next time you or someone you love thinks about seeking counseling, it would be good to keep this in mind.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
