Dylan Steffan, my lead / narrating character in my new novel Above All Shadows Rides the Sun, starts out as a Psychosynthesis therapist. I did my best to construct what a therapy session with the founder of Psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974), would have been like.
Near Florence, Italy
August 13, 1969
Today is my first therapy session this year with Dr. Roberto Assagioli. I’m sitting with him here in his office at the Institute of Psychosynthesis, which he established in this villa several years ago. I’ve asked him to conduct me through an imagination exercise aligned with his favorite book, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.
It’s been four and a half years since I read Assagioli’s book Psychosynthesis, as soon as it was published. I called him up— rather bold for a medical student—and now I’m finishing up spending my third summer in a row studying with him near Florence.
When I first met him two summers ago he urged me to read two books I’ve come to love: The Treasure of the Humble by Maurice Maeterlinck and The Sacred by Rudolph Otto. Over these three summers, I’ve learned immensely from him and he’s become for me a guiding light.
A special atmosphere envelops this 81-year-old man. His eyes and smile convey the wisdom, good-heartedness, warmth, joy, and cosmic playfulnesss of his soul.
“How did Dante become important to you, Doctor?”
As he does with all questions of any depth, he enters into a moment of silence before he answers.
“As a young scholar I was deeply impressed with The Divine Comedy. It’s remarkable art, giving expression to mystical intuitions and spiritual enlightenment. It’s the greatest work of literature in the Italian language. It’s a unique performance of human genius, comparable only to Goethe’s Faust. It’s a complete metaphor for the spiritual journey and a wonderful picture of a complete psychosynthesis.”
“So, young Dylan Garth Steffan, are you ready to proceed?”
“Yes.” I sit back and relax my body and my mind. I close my eyes. Dr. Assagioli begins the exercise:
Dylan, as you know, the inner ascent is like the climbing of a mountain. A fine way to affirm who we want to become, who we can become – and then to grow. A path to your deeper self that is a path toward other people.
We are trying to purify our emotions and our imagination – to have nobler emotions and more wholesome imagery. And this enables us to participate in the great work of the purification of humanity.
Today we both want you to discover and rediscover the sense and value of your individual task. To place that task in harmonious relationship with other people., with the human race. So you can better express it.
We want to go where your qualities are less than ideal. And substitute a realistic, attainable model or ideal in your imagination. Along the way, your over-active impulses will become better regulated. Your under-developed functions and latent potential energies will be activated.
We are turning to Dante’s fine book The Divine Comedy. Because it is a guide to the inner life and spiritual development.
All right then, Dylan, let’s join Dante Alighieri on his pilgrimage. We begin in the “great, rough, wild forest” that “reaches the foot of a hill”.
Now, like Dante, you look up and see that the forest, the hill, is lit by the sun. As your soul awakens, Dylan, there is some pain. Yes, you are getting your “first glimpse of blind light of the spirit”. You get an “intense desire to get more of this light”. You “set out to reach the dazzling source of that light”.
But as you do so, you see that wild beasts are blocking your path. The leopard of the senses. The lion of pride. The wolf of appetites.
This is because your lower nature has not disappeared as you’ve begun your spiritual awakening. It has only fallen asleep. It is only immobilized for a moment. It is still rebelling, standing in the way, blocking your way.
And so you have only one choice: To recognize your weakness and powerlessness.
Because guess what, Dylan? Help from above is always at hand.
The only obstacle is inside us. We do not know how to ask for help in the right way. Or we don’t want to. Or we make the help seem distant. That’s what it’s like in our impure, unregenerate stage. Our impure soul cannot deal with the wild beasts.
But there they are. The compassion. The grace. The Light. Without a moment’s hesitation, go ahead and set off resolutely up the mountain.
Like Dante, you are endeavoring to attain wisdom. Like Dante, you are traveling with resolve along the path of the spirit. This is why, like Dante, you receive help from a higher source.
Beyond the veil of matter lies supreme truth. The key is your power of awareness.
You are invited, Dylan, to cross the abyss of darkness and atonement. You are ready now to take on new responsibilities and new duties. This is because your spiritual quest is giving you a purer, stricter, and more conscious view of morality and ethics.
What are you becoming aware of? That motives, thoughts, and emotions are living forces. That they are powerful realities operating in more subtle dimensions. That they are real creations for which you are responsible. Unworthy intentions are a serious problem.
You are becoming more conscious of the use of motives, thoughts, and emotions as forces. Ascend the mount of purification, Dylan.
Keep up with the purification of your will and your mind. Continue your pilgrimage. Your soul is being purified from above and beyond, and so, relying on spirit, you are making an ascent to the glorious peak. Ascend. Ascend to the realms of Light that you seek so eagerly.
Travel along with Dante. Travel up the path Dante trod. Follow Dante through the stages of his pilgrimage. Make it your pilgrimage too, Dylan. Climb up with Dante. Climb up to the sublime realms of Light and Love.
I open my eyes. I place my hand over my heart. As I stand up to leave, I’m fired up. He gives me a smile backed by his special wisdom.
On the desk of Dr. Assagioli sits a small boat. “A janitor moved this while cleaning”, he tells me as he puts it back where he wants it, facing the window.
I raise my eyebrows. “Why do you prefer it in that direction, Doctor?”
“Well, for me this boat represents adventure. I can go off on a voyage at any time, change, and put everything back in order.”
Excellent.