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Psychosynthesis
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in North Ameriea
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The Story of the Movement,
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by Michael Schuller
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I Psychosynthesis in North Ameriea
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The Story of the Movement, the People, and the Issues
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I by Michael Schuller, Ph.D.

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I Based on a doctoral dissertation Perspectives on
the Development of Psychosynthesis in North America.
Copyright 1988 by Michael Schuller

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I Preface

I This work was originally written in 1988 as my doetoral dissertation for The

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Union Institute. The "story of the movement, the people, and the issues"
emerged from interviews I conducted with twenty-six veteran psychosynthesis
teachers and therapists throughout 1987 and early 1988.

I Because of interest expressed by many people throughout the United States,

Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, I made extra copies and ended
up seIling 130 of them between 1988 and 1992. By 1992 I had run out of the

I third printing and was involved in other matters, so I stopped responding to the
occasional inquiries which were still triekling in. It took the urging of John
Cullen of the Psychosynthesis Discussion List on the Internet to motivate me to

I once again make Psychosynthesis in North Amenea available. Also, I wanted to

have it available in time for the International Conferenee in San Diego in the
summer of 1996.

I I reformatted the entire work, making it-I hope-more visually appealing and
easier to read. I eliminated some of the scholarly features which may have been

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appropriate for a dissertation but were only a distraction to the reader. Also,
each time I had it printed, the quality went up and the price went down!

I have considered, from time to time, writing a major revision consisting of

I additional interviews and generally bringing it up to date. This is not that

revision. Perhaps some day I may yet do it.

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My intention is to make copies available so long as people are interested in
obtaining it. I am eager to hear comments and reactions to this work, or
suggestion for a possiblerevised edition. Please write me at Fresno City

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College, 1101 E. University Avenue, Fresno, CA 93741, or via E-mail on the
Internet at mschuller2@aol.com

I Fresno, California
April, 1996

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CO NTE NTS
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Preface IX

I 1 Introduetion 1

2 Methodology and Procedure 3

I 3 Roberto Assagioli and the Story of Psychosynthesis 7

4 A Brief History of Psychosynthesis in North Ameriea 9

I 5 Preface to the Stories 17

6 Robert Gerard's Story 19

I 7 Frank Haronian's Story 31

8 John Parks' Story 37

I 9 Edith Stauffer's Story 39

10 Martha Crampton's Story 43

I 11 Jim Fadiman's Story 49

12 Doug Russell's Story 59

I 13 Steve Kull's Story 71

14 Mark Horowitz's Story 83

I 15 Tom Yeomans' Story 95

16 Marilyn Kriegel's Story 109

I 17 Lenore Lefer's Story 117

18 Anne Maiden's Story 125

I 19 Philip Brooks' Story 133

20 Rhoda Levin's Story 137

I 21 Molly Brown's Story 143

22 Dan O'Connor's Story 151

I 23 Naomi Emmerling's Story 161

24 Vivian King's Story 167

I 25 Jean Walsh's Story 173

26 Jean Guenther's Story 179

I 27 Judith Abbott's Story 187

28 Dorothy Firman's Story 195

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29 Steven Schatz's Story 203

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David Bach's Story

Will Friedman's Story

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32 Thoughts on Four Controversial Issues:

A) Defining Psychosynthesis
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B) Thoughts about the "Higher Self'

C) Training and Certification in Psychosynthesis

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D) The Degeneration of the Institute in California

33. Of Shadows and Secrets: An Essay

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34. Conclusion

Appendix A: Chronology of Psychosynthesis in North Ameriea

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Appendix B: A Statement by Roberto Assagioli 257
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References 259

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I ntrod uction

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1. Intro d u ctio n
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Psychosynthesis was founded by Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974), an Italian

I psychiatrist who also helped give birth to the psychoanalytic movement in the
early part of this century, and to the humanistic and transpersonal
psychologies in the 1960s (Ferrucci, 1986). Assagioli frrst described

I psychosynthesis in 1910 in his doctoral thesis on psychoanalysis. The frrst

work published in English was an artic1e in 1927 titled "A New Method of
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Healing-Psychosynthesis. " (Assagioli, 1965, p. 280) There exist at least 57

I psychosynthesis centers or institutes in ten countries around the world; 31 are

in the United States and Canada (Emmerling, 1988). At a recent international
conference held in Italy in the summer of 1988, the centennial year of

I Assagioli's birth, participants came from twenty-seven countries in Europe,

Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. And yet
psychosynthesis is hardly a household word, and it is largely unknown among

I academic psychologists.

I have studied psychosynthesis intensively for the last two-and-a-half years

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and have devoted this paper to the examination of psychosynthesis, and yet
still I cannot give a simple, yet adequate defmition of psychosynthesis.
Assagioli would not define it because "definitions are limited and limiting. "

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However, he did say that psychosynthesis can be

indicated primarily as a general attitude of, and striving towards,

integration and synthesis in all fields, but particularly in [psychology,

I therapy, education, interpersonal and social relations and integration. ] It

might be called a 'movement,' a 'trend' and a 'goal. ' There is no orthodoxy in
psychosynthesis and no one, beginning with myself, should be considered

I as its exc1usive representative or leader. Each of its exponents tries to

express and apply it as well as he or she is able to.... (Assagioli, 1981)

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Assagioli freely borrowed from a wide variety of fields and writers. Among
those he acknowledged in his book Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic
Writings (1965) are existential psychotherapy (van Kaam, Allport, Frank!,

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Goldstein, Moustakas), psychosomatic medicine, the psychodynamic movement
(Janet, Freud, Jung, Adler, Rank, Horney), Eastern psychology (particularly
yoga), the psychology of religion and investigations of the superconscious

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(William James, Underhill, Bucke, Ouspensky, Maslow), the psychology of
creativity, social psychology and psychiatry (Sullivan, Lewin, Sorokin, Houser),
and "active techniques" for the treatment and development of the personality,

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inc1uding hypnotism, auto-suggestion, Albert Ellis' rational approach, and
psychodrama.

And yet, psychosynthesis has a special way of viewing human nature and

I of working with people. Its distinctiveness, in part, comes from its emphasis on
the will as an essential function of the self, from its willingness to incorporate
many different ideas and techniques into its own holistic framework, from the

I theoretical and practical significance placed on the self as both a direct,

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Psychosynthes i s i n N orth Ameriea

phenomenological experience and as an organizing principle of the psyche, and

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perhaps most critically of all, the value it places on integration and synthesis.
The psychosynthesis process is one in which distinct functions or parts of the
psyche which formerly related to one another in oppositional tension or
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compartmentalized isolation begin to inter-relate as dynamic aspects of a
creatively emerging unity. Psychosynthesis addresses such common
polarizations as inner ideals and outer behavior, thinking and feeling ("head"
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and "heart"), the world of mundane daily adjustment and that of spiritual and
esthetic experience and meaning, and so on. I
In my attempt to better understand psychosynthesis I interviewed 26 of the
most experienced and historically significant "exponents" in the movement in
North America. I questioned them in detail, not only about their thoughts on I
psychosynthesis, but also about the impact psychosynthesis has made on their
lives. The centerpiece of this paper is the collection of these 26 stories. I edited
the transcripts of the interviews to present what I hope are interesting, frrst I
person accounts of each of these people. My intention is that this "mosaic" of
stories will collectively portray some of the essence of psychosynthesis as well
the story of this movement in North America.
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Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of methodology, and then details the
procedure I followed in my research. Chapter 3 offers a thumbnail sketch of the
story of psychosynthesis and of its founder, Roberto Assagioli, and Chapter 4

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presents an overview of the history of psychosynthesis in North America.
Chapter 5 is a preface to the stories, while Chapters 6-31 are the actual stories.
In Chapter 32 an analyses of four issues currently being debated within the

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psychosynthesis community are presented along with sample quotations from
the interviews which represent various points of view or contribute special
insight to the debate. Chapter 33 is an essay I wrote which reflects some of my

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observations and reflections which resulted from my investigation, and
conclusions of this study can be found in Chapter 34. And fmally, I included a
two-part appendix, consisting of a chronology of events in the development of
psychosynthesis in North America, and a now classic statement from Assagioli
regarding psychosynthesis and the psychosynthesis community. I
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M ethod o l o g y and Proced u re

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2. Metho d o l ogy an d Proced ure
I I have utilized two types of methodological inqui!}' in my search for
answers to the question, "What is psychosynthesis (in North America)?"­

I historie and heuristie. The historie method addresses the factual, behavioral,
and objective dimension of that question, that is, who has been "doing"
psychosynthesis, and how have they been doing it. The heuristic method

I addresses the more philosophical, subjective, and theoretical dimension,

namely, what is the meaning and essenee of psychosynthesis, and what is the
intellectual and cultural context in which it has grown and developed?

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THE H I STO RIC INQUIRY

I When I began this project, I knew that an Italian psychiatrist, Roberto

Assagioli, began creating and shaping psychosynthesis as an identifiable
discipline in 1910. However, I had no knowledge of when or how it came to the
I United States, how it spread, who the past or present leading figures were, or
where and how it was presently functioning. I soon discovered that no detailed

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record of the histo!}' or present condition of psychosynthesis in North Ameriea
existed.1 My original intent had not been to create such a record, but rather to
satisfy my own curiosity about the history as part of a larger inquiry into the

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meaning and essenee of psychosynthesis. As my research progressed, however,
I discovered the extent to which the psychosynthesis community desired and
needed a written historical account. It is my hope that this study will , in part,

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satisfy that desire and need.

I ran into a problem of geographical nomenc1ature which needs to be

addressed. In 1973 Martha Crampton, an important, seminal figure in the

I movement, founded the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal,

which was the primary psychosynthesis training center on the East Coast
during the middle 1970s. She trained a number of people who are currently

I teaching and practicing both in Canada and in the United States. The
movement is commonly referred to as "psychosynthesis in North Ameriea," even
though there exists a psychosynthesis center in Mexico City which has not

I been a part of the "North American" movement.

An overview of the histo!}' of psychosynthesis in North Ameriea wi11 be

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found in Chapter 4. Fascinating and important details of this history will be
found in the collection of first person stories in Chapter 5.

I THE H E U RI STIC I NQUIRY

In Chapter 6 I tell of my ardent curiosity about psychosynthesis. I wanted

I to understand it, to grasp it more fully than the literature and my training had

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, Yeomans ( 1985) presents a very brief account of the history of psychosynthesis
beginning with the development in Europe in 19 10 (pp. 3-5).

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enabled me to. At some point I realized that the best way to do this would be to I
pick the brains of the most knowledgeable and experienced psychosynthesis
teachers and therapists I could find.

I have been fortunate to be able to do this. l have leamed a great deal, only
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a part of which can be found in this paper. This approach to research is called
heuristics, after the Greek word
the familiar eureka.
heuretikos, meaning "l find," and is related to I
Douglass and Moustakas (1985) identify heuristic research as "a search for
the discovery of meaning and essence in significant human experience. It I
requires a subjective process of reflecting, exploring, sifting, and elucidating
the nature of the phenomenon under investigation. lts ultimate purpose is to
cast light on a focused problem, question, or theme (p. 40)." I
According to Collen ( 1984), the heuristic approach "emphasizes discovery
rather than verification and alternatives rather than explanations. Its end
product is a list of possibilities. As a method, it immerses the researcher in a
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generative process, not a confirmatory one (p. 55)."

The heuristic approach to research is not a specific method. "As a I

conceptual framework of human science, heuristics offers an attitude with
which to approach research, but does not prescribe a methodology.. . . Each
heuristic study is a unique, creative challenge aimed at revealing the intimate I
nature of reality and thus [requires] methods that fit the particular
investigation;" (Douglass & Moustakas, 1985, p. 42) although "interviewing
others is a typical procedure (Collen, 1984, p. 57)." I
PROCEDURE I
Tom Yeomans, my psychosynthesis teacher and a consultant on my
doctoral committee, originally gave me the names of nineteen people in the
psychosynthesis community I might want to interview. l interviewed all but
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three of them. By asking the interviewees for their suggestions, I identified nine
additional people who promised to provide valuable information and insight.
Twenty-five of the interviews were in person, and two (Levin, in Minnesota and
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Parks, in Kentucky) were conducted by phone.

A few problems cropped up. Due to technical recording difficulties, the I

interview with John Weiser never got recorded, and the first half of the
interview with Philip Brooks also never got onto the tape. I had scheduled an
interview with both David and Judith Bach, since they usually work together I
as a team, but only David was present when I arrived at their home in Western
Massachusetts, Judith being unable to attend.

The interviews lasted from one-and-a-half to three hours, the average

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lasting two hours. The location and date of each is listed at the beginning of
each story. l varied my manner of interviewing, depending on the style and
personality of the interviewee. l began each interview explaining that l was
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interested in both the interviewee's personal history or "story" with
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M ethodology a nd Proced u re

I psychosynthesis, and also his or her views on a number of related subjects. My

fIrst question was nearly always, "Tell me of your story with psychosynthesis.
I How did you fIrst hear about it, and how did this influence your life and
career?"

I In some cases I did a lot of prodding and guiding to keep the person on
track. At the other extreme I conducted one interview which lasted a full three
hours and during which I barely said one word. In this case the interviewee

I fully understood my purpose, and was able to supply a fascinating monologue

which more than satisfIed my needs and interests.
I got the idea �o present the interview material in the fIrst-person story form
I from Marian Christy, who uses this form regularly in The Boston Globe. I
promised the interviewees total editorial control over the fInal version of their
stories. My procedure was this: First I typed transcripts of the taped interviews;
I then I deleted my questions and comments, material the interviewee specifIed
as confIdential, and then a considerable amount of material I judged to be too
repetitious or not terribly interesting. Because of the need to keep this paper to
I a reasonable length I was forced to also delete a lot of fascinating material.
However, the content of all this deleted material has contributed to my
heuristic inquiry and to the conclusions I have drawn in Chapters 33 and 34
I about the history and dynamics of the psychosynthesis community.
I then edited the remaining material. My intention was to present stories

I which, while not as flowing and coherent as a written account would be, were
nonetheless readable and maintained some of the spontaneity and freshness of
spoken language. I numbered the paragraphs for easy reference. My fInal drafts

I of these "stories" were sent to the interviewees for their fInal editorial approval.
Two people said it was fIne as it was, but most made minor changes in
wording, or added a sentence here and there. A few made major changes and

I deleted whole sections.

In Chapter 32, immediately following the stories, I identifled four timely

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issues diseussed by the interviewees. I classmed the various responses to these
questions, and presented the differing views with representative quotations.
None of these views are my OWll. Chapter 33 consists of an essay in which I tell

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of what I learned during this project that I feel is particularly meaningful. I
presented a lot of this material at the International Psychosynthesis Conference
in !taly in early July, 1988. From the very positive feedback I received, it is

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obvious to me that the results of my personal heuristic search struck a nerve in
a great many people.
My intent is to provide a fairly comprehensive document covering

I psychosynthesis in North America, both past and present. Most of this material
cannot be found anywhere else in print.

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Roberto Assa g i o l i and the Story of Psychosynthes i s

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3. Roberto Assagio li and
I the Story of Psycho synthesis

I Roberto Assagioli was bom in 1888 in Venice.1 His father died when he
was very young and his mother married Alessandro Assagioli, from whom he

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got his surname. He received a typical c1assical European education, and was
fluent in German, English, and French as weU as Italian, and could read
Greek, Latin, Russian, and Sanskrit. His parents were upper-middle-c1ass

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Jews, and his mother was deeply interested in Theosophy.

In 1906 he moved to Florence to study medicine, and lived there much of

the remainder of his life. We know of many of the wide range of writers and

I sources in science, philosophy, and metaphysics he was influenced by, two of

them being William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a central figure
in the introduction of psychoanalysis into Italy, and was mentioned in a letter

I written by Jung to Freud in 1909 as "our first Italian" (McGuire, 1974, p. 151).
Assagioli's doctoral thesis of 1910 was a critical study of psychoanalytic theory,
and already contained some of the basic principles of psychosynthesis.

I The term psychosynthesis had been used before it was adopted by

Assagioli. Freud commented on the use of this term by Bezzola by remarking

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that, "if we try to analyze to find the repressed fragments, it is only in order to
put them together again (McGuire, 1974, pp. 18-9)." However, Assagioli's
psychosynthesis is distinctive in that, far more than any other system of

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therapy, psychosynthesis emphasizes, and has developed multiple strategies
and techniques for putting the repressed fragments together. Yet
psychosynthesis goes beyond a school of psychotherapy; it is actually a

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comprehensive vision of human nature.

In 1926 Assagioli founded the Instituto di Cultura e Teripa Psichica in Rome

(Assagioli, 1965, p. 280), and in 1927 the Institute published an artic1e in

I English called "A New Method of Treatment-Psychosynthesis." Through the

next decade he continued developing and spreading his ideas throughout
Europe. During World War Il he was forced to flee to the countryside, and was

I imprisoned briefly in 1938. He resumed his work after the war, and in 1961
founded the Instituto di Psicosintesi in Florence.

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From 1961 until his death in 1974 many professionals and students from
around the world came to Florence to study with him. Psychosynthesis centers
were started in various countries, and in 1958 the Psychosynthesis Research

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Foundation opened in New York City. International conferences have been held

I 1 The material in this section, unless otherwise noted, comes from the first
chapter, "The History and Development of Psychosynthesis," in Jean Hardy's A
Psychology with a Soul, (1987).

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in Florenee in 1980, in Toronto in 1983, and in Venice in 1988 on the I
centennial of Assagioli's birth.

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A B rief History of Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea

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4. A Brief History of
I Psycho synthesis in North Ameriea

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The details in the following account are derived from the interviews. Most of
the important facts were corroborated by several of the interviewees; however, I
was not able to substantiate all the particulars, especially those occurring in

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the early days.

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ROBERT G E RARD: FI RST EXPO NENT I N NORTH AMERICA

Robert Gerard might very well have been the first advocate of
psychosynthesis in North America. He was attracted to Assagioli for their

I common interest in theosophy as well as for Assagioli's psychosynthesis.

Gerard was bom in 1917 in France but fled before the advancing Nazis. He
had been a student of esoteric philosophy, and of the Alice Bailey books in
I particular, since 1945. After various activities in America, inc1uding earning an
M.B.A. from Harvard and working as a writer and producer in Hollywood, he

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completed doctoral studies in c1inical psychology at U.C.L.A. in the middle
1950s. In 1954 during his graduate studies, he came across an artic1e by
Assagioli about psychosynthesis in an Italian Manual of Psychiatry. He says

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that he immediately recognized it as "simplified, popularized esoteric tradition,"
and that he knew that Assagioli "was a student of Alice Bailey."
Gerard met Assagioli in 1955 at a psychotherapy congress in Paris.

I (Gerard's story contains a dramatic account of this meeting.) As a result of this

meeting he agreed to help establish psychosynthesis in the United States and
elsewhere, and he also promised to honor Assagioli's wish to keep

I psychosynthesis completely separate from esoteric philosophy.

For the next twelve years Gerard dedicated himself to spreading the

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influence of psychosynthesis. He was present at Assagioli's first and only
American visit in 1958 in Delaware in which Assagioli presented a week long
series of lectures on psychosynthesis. In 1959 Gerard spent three months in

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Florence, collaborating daily with Assagioli on the writing of the Manual.l
Gerard used psychosynthesis in his private psychotherapy practice and offered
workshops and lectures on this subject on the West Coast. A number of his

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trainees, inc1uding Edith Stauffer, Doug Russell, and Vivian King, went on to
become important figures in the psychosynthesis movement on the West Coast.
After being ignored and ostracized by several of the early members of the
I psychosynthesis community for various political reasons [details are in
Gerard's and others stories], Gerard pretty much left psychosynthesis in 1967

I 1 The Manual is a term commonly used to refer to Assagioli's first and primary
source, Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques (1965).
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and developed his own school of esoteric psychology which he calls "Integral I
Psychology."

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FRANK H I LTO N AN D THE PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS RES EARCH FO U N DATION.

The idea for the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation (P.R.F.)

originated during Assagioli's 1958 visit to America and was endowed by a
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former client of his who was a member of the DuPont family. The P.R.F. was
run by Frank Hilton, an old friend of Assagioli from esoteric philosophy circ1es.
Hilton agreed to be the director of both the P.R.F. and an esoteric and
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meditation educational organization called "The Esoteric School." For flfteen
years the P.R.F. had an offlce in New York City and published artic1es on
psychosynthesis and related topics by Assagioli and others. It also sponsored
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monthly lectures and annual meetings until it was dissolved in 1972 when
Hilton retired. I
An intriguing story which was repeated by several interviewees
illustrates the separation of psychosynthesis from esoteric philosophy that was
so important to Assagioli. From 1958 to 1972 there was a small offlce in New I
York City which had on its door the words "The Psychosynthesis Research
Foundation.» Next to it was another door labeled "The Esoteric School.» Each
door led into its own separate waiting room, and each of these led into one I
offlce, that of Frank Hilton.

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JIM VARG IU AND THE CALIFORNIA G ROUP

The career of Jim Vargiu is a dramatic and fascinating story of a brilliant

man who became unhinged and almost pulled the entire psychosynthesis
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movement in North America down with him. Arguably, he has had more impact
on psychosynthesis in North America than any other single flgure. I was
regrettably not able to interview him because he has dropped out of sight. No
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one I talked to knows of his present whereabouts.
Jim was bom in the 1930's, educated in physics, mathematics, and I
psychology, and was known as a brilliant mechanical engineer. According to
his statement (Vargiu, 1979, p. 59), he began studying with Assagioli
personally in 1964, traveling to Florence regularly until Assagioli's death in I
1974. In the middle to late sixties Vargiu experimented with LSD and was
interested in all aspects of the consciousness movement in California. During
this time he met his wife, Susan, who became deeply involved in all his I
activities and interests. Vargiu was also a student of the Alice Bailey books,
and believed, as did Gerard, that psychosynthesis was but the outer, public
expression of this esoteric philosophy. I
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When Jim and Susan Vargiu returned from a visit with Assagioli in
1969, they began doing gratis psychosynthesis counseling sessions in their
home in Redwood City, California. They did these sessions, which often lasted

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A Brief Hi story of Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea

I for four to five hours, together and borrowed techniques from Gestalt and LSD
therapy.

I In the early 1970s the Vargius began to offer psychosynthesis

workshops and "training sessions" at Esalen Institute as well as in their home.

I In 1971 they founded The Psychosynthesis Institute (hereafter referred to

simply as "the Institute," as it was called). They attracted a group of highly
intelligent, creative, and idealistic followers, and in 1973 moved to Palo Alto

I and set up a more formal organization with a board of directors, senior

associates, a newsletter, and so on. Jim began a journal, Synthesis: The
Realization of the Self, which published only three issues over the next four

I years. However these issues were of very high quality and were immensely
popular.

In 1974, under the direction of Steven Kull, the first of the Institute's

I professional training programs began. Thirty trainees studied in a program of

seminars, supervision, observed sessions, and so on. Around this time Institute
staff began offering workshops and seminars throughout the country, and in

I 1976 the Institute moved to San Francisco. Its staff grew, and so did it's
influence and power within both the psychosynthesis community and the
larger human potential and transpersonal psychology movements on the West

I Coast.

In 1978 Jim Vargiu invited Martha Crampton, founding director of the

I Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal (see below), and Roger and

Joan Evans, founding directors of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London, to
join him in San Francisco where they would found a graduate school and "The

I Psychosynthesis Network." The graduate school was to be a very complete

masters, and eventually doctoral training program in psychosynthesis and
transpersonal psychology, and The Network was to help establish and

Il eventually enforce standards in the various training programs throughout

North America and eventually the world. However, Crampton and the Evanses
soon withdrew from these ventures when they realized the extent of Vargiu's

I growing personal instability and appetite for power. Vargiu continued on his
own to use the Network to try to consolidate his power over a number of
centers in North America. The San Francisco group also started the Synthesis

I Graduate School for the Study of Man, which lasted from 1978 to 1980 when it
collapsed, along with the Psychosynthesis Institute, the Network, and the
Synthesis journal.

I The California group gradually degenerated into a cult in the worst sense
of the word. Power was abused severely and an immense amount of damage

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was inflicted upon many people. In October of 1980, after nearly all of his
original followers had either left or were expelled, the Institute and Graduate
School fmally collapsed. Jim and Susan Vargiu, and a few remaining loyal

I
followers literally fled in the middle of the night with all the records. Nothing
remained of the Institute or the Graduate School except an empty building,
unpaid bills and broken obligations.

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I 11
Psychosynthes i s i n North Ameriea
I
Vargiu's growing obsession with evil and with the accumulation of power I
helped to create an infection which seriously damaged the lives of most of this
group of idealistic, sincere, and intelligent people. For more details of this
incredible drama, read the stories of the people from the inner circ1e-Steven I
Kull and Tom Yeomans are particularly important, but also see the stories of
Marilyn Kriegel, Rhoda Levin, Lenore Lefer, Anne Maiden, and Mark Horowitz.
For details of the devastation they wreaked on the East Coast, see the stories of I
Judith Abbott and Jean Walsh.
I found repercussions of the rise and fall of the California group in every
single interview. During its golden age, the Institute was unquestionably the
I
I
most powerful, influential, and important center in the movement, and its
pathological degeneration has left a mark which will never be forgotten.
Lessons to be learned and the pitfalls to be avoided have been discussed

I
endlessly within the psychosynthesis movement, and are examined in Chapters
6 and 7.

J I M FADI MAN: FREE LANCER AND ICONOCLAST I

Although Jim Fadiman was never a psychotherapist, a psychosynthesis
trainer, or on the staff of any psychosynthesis center, he nevertheless is an
extremely important figure in the history of the movement. He knew Abraham I
Maslow and Jim Vargiu, and heard of psychosynthesis through them. He read
Assagioli's book and began to present psychosynthesis workshops at Esalen
Institute in the late sixties. He experimented with various group formats, and I
may have been the flrst person anywhere to use psychosynthesis with groups.
Jim and his wife, Dorothy, spent a month studying with Assagioli in
1972. Upon returning to California they had a falling out with Vargiu, as did so
I
many others. Later he also had a run-in with Frank Hilton over philosophical
differences. Fadiman is a strong individual who neither expects nor offers Il
obeisance from others. Although he got along very well with Roberto, both

I
Vargiu and Hilton were displeased with his unwillingness to bow to their
authority. So Fadiman simply dropped out of the movement in a formal sense,
although he continued to have contact with and to influence a number of

I
individuals, and also to teach psychosynthesis in other countries. He has a
profound grasp of not only psychosynthesis, but also transpersonal psychology
and consciousness studies in general.

EDITH STAU FFER AN D THE H I G H PO I NT FOUNDATI O N

I
Edith Stauffer was a forty-nine year old psychotherapist in Southern
California when she flrst met Robert Gerard in 1958. She learned from him I
that some visualization techniques she was using were inc1uded in a
comprehensive approach to psychotherapy called "psychosynthesis. » Curious,
she attended a psychosynthesis workshop from Gerard, and then in 1960 I
began three years of training with him

I
.

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A B r i ef H i story of Psychosynthesis i n North Ameriea

I Stauffer used the principles of psychosynthesis in her work in the

1960s, and in 1966 opened the High Point Foundation, a counseling and
I education center in Pasadena. She visited Assagioli in Florence several times,
and in 1970 the High Point staff began teaching psychosynthesis to
professionals. She helped to open satellite centers of High Point in Fresno and
I Seattle, and in the early eighties helped start psychosynthesis centers in
Australia, New Zealand, and Korea.

I She was the director the High Point Foundation until 1984 when she
resigned and moved to Diamond Springs, a small town near Sacramento. From
her home there she runs Psychosynthesis International, an intensive

I psychosynthesis correspondence course for individuals throughout the world

who do not live near a psychosynthesis center.

I MARTHA C RAM PTO N AN D TH E CANADIAN IN STITUTE

Martha Crampton first learned of psychosynthesis in 1964. She studied

I psychosynthesis with a psychiatrist associated with the Psychosynthesis
Research Foundation, and also with Assagioli during several visits to Florence.
In 1973 she founded the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal,
I and during the period of 1973 to 1978 she trained many people, some of whom
went on to become leaders on the East Coast.

I In 1978 Crampton c10sed the Canadian Institute and moved to San

Francisco at the invitation of Jim Vargiu to help form the Psychosynthesis
Network and Graduate School. She soon recognized Vargiu's pathological

I condition and returned to the East Coast. She is still partly involved in the
psychosynthesis movement, but her interests have expanded to inc1ude other
areas, such as different types of transpersonal psychotherapy, the cutting edge

I of science and the new logic. She presently works and resides in New York City.

I
THE 1970s: A TIME O F RAPID G ROWTH AND DEVELO PMENT

The first half of the 1970s saw a steady stream of colleagues, students,
and pilgrims traveling to Italy to visit and study with Assagioli until his death
I in 1974. Assagioli's idea was that psychosynthesis institutes and centers
should each develop according to its own light, gaining inspiration and
direction according to its own understanding of the principles of
I psychosynthesis. He wrote, "The external pattern of this relationship between
the Foundations, Institutes and Centers of Psychosynthesis should not be that
of a 'solar system,' but that of a constellation" ( 198 1). The decade of the 1970s
I saw the rapid growth of a "constellation" of centers and institutes in North
America. One of them, the Psychosynthesis Institute in California, grew so
powerful that it began to take on some of the characteristics of a central sun
I before it imploded upon itself at the end of the decade.
As mentioned above, Edith Stauffer began training professionals in

I psychosynthesis at the High Point Center in Pasadena in 1970, with branches

I 13
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

in Fresno and Seattle. The Vargius began the Psychosynthesis Institute in

I
Redwood City, California in 1971, and Martha Crampton opened the Canadian
Institute in Montreal in 1973. It is important to remember that, in addition to
the centers, psychosynthesis has also been spread by many individuals who
I
have taught courses and used it in individual and group counseling throughout
North America.
I
A small group of creative educators visited Assagioli in the late sixties

I
and in 1970 opened the Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in Education in
Walpole, New Hampshire. ( See Abbott and Walsh stories.) In 1973, Daniel
O'connor, a Roman Catholic priest from California who had been studying with
the Vargius, began teaching psychosynthesis in several seminaries in the West.
In 1974 John Parks, a psychiatrist, started the Kentucky Center for I
Psychosynthesis in Lexington. 1978 saw four centers open: The Berkshire
Center in Monterey, Massachusetts, the Synthesis Center in Amherst,
Massachusetts, and the Psychosynthesis Institute of Minnesota in Minneapolis, I
and Intermountain Associates for Psychosynthesis in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. Also in 1978 the Synthesis Graduate School for the Study of Man
opened in San Francisco and the Boston Center for Psychosynthesis was I
founded in 1979.

The Psychosynthesis Institute in San Francisco was at this point

undeniably the strongest and most visible force for psychosynthesis in North
I
America. Its staff were teaching workshops across the country and in Europe, it
operated the first and only psychosynthesis graduate school, and it had been
producing the most sophisticated psychosynthesis journal. It also was in the
I
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process of forming the Psychosynthesis Network, an organization through
which it attempted to tighten its control over the other centers.

THE 19805: A TIME O F H EALI NG AN D REBU ILDING I

In 1980 Jim Vargiu's group, with its institute, its graduate school, and
its Synthesis journal, finally collapsed. The dictionary defmes a supernova as
"a rare celestial phenomenon involving the explosion of most of the material in I
a star, resulting in an extremely bright, short-lived object that emits vast
amounts of energy." This is an apt metaphor for what occurred. The damage
this caused to the psychosynthesis cause in America is poignantly related in I
many of the stories. The healing of these very deep wounds is told in detail in
Tom Yeomans' story, who in 1980 dedicated the next six years of his life to re­
establishing psychosynthesis in North America.
I
Thriving centers were established in Hutchinson, Kansas (1980), San
Francisco and New York (1981), Concord, Massachusetts and Burlington,
Vermont (1982), and in 1983 the Second International Conference on
I
Psychosynthesis was held in Toronto.

Since then other centers have been founded throughout the United I
States and Canada. The 1988 edition of the Psychosynthesis International
Directory ( Emmerling, 1988) lists seven centers in Canada and 24 centers in
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14
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A Brief H i story of Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

I sixteen of the United States. The International Association for Managerial and
Organizational Psychosynthesis is headquartered in Thousand Oaks,
I California, and Psychosynthesis Distribution in San Jose has been started to
make existing psychosynthesis publications more available and to publish new

I
material. Psychosynthesis therapists and teachers, offering counseling, c1asses,
and workshops, live and practice in at least 24 states across this country and
in two provinces in Canada. Many of these psychosynthesists represented

I
North America at the Third International Conference on Psychosynthesis in
Venice, commemorating the centennial of Roberto Assagioli's birth. So, in spite
of its ups and downs, psychosynthesis in North America appears to be thriving.

I
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I
Preface to the Sto ries

I
5. Preface to the Stories
I In reading these stories, please remember that they consist of edited
versions of oral speech. This accounts for the fresh and spontaneous, but also

I sometimes unpolished quality of the language. These stories are collections of

either responses to interview questions or fragments in a dialogue with the
interviewer. This accounts for the sometimes abrupt transitions from paragraph

I to paragraph. The paragraph numbers have no significance other than to aid in

referencing.

I
The order in which the stories are presented reflects, by and large, both
chronological and geographical factors. My intention is that by reading them in
this order, a sense of the development of psychosynthesis in North America

I
may gained.
Below is a very brief characterization of a significant feature(s) in the
careers of each interviewee regarding the history of psychosynthesis in North

I America. This list may help the reader to locate particular areas of interest.

I THE "FIRST G E NERATION"

Robert Gerard: First person to bring psychosynthesis to North America;

intimate friend of Roberto Assagioli.
I Frank Haronian: Early member of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation
in New York City.

I John Parks:
Lexington.
Founding director of The Kentucky Center of Psychosynthesis in

I
Edith Stauffer: Founding director of the High Point Center in Pasadena,
California; Founding director of Psychosynthesis International.
Martha Crampton: Founding director of the Canadian Institute of
I Psychosynthesis in Montreal.
Jim Fadiman: Original deve10per of psychosynthesis work with groups.

I Doug Russell: Editor of Psychosynthesis Digest; Co-creator of the

psychosynthesis professional training program at High Point Center with Edith
Stauffer.
I
THE I N STITUTE O F PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS, PALO ALTO AND SAN FRANC ISCO

I Steve Kull:Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California);

Creator and Director of the first psychosynthesis professional training program.

I Mark Horowitz:

Tom Yeomans:
Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California).
Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California);
Co-founding director of the Psychosynthesis Education and Training Program in San
I
I 17
Psychosynthes i s i n N orth Ameriea
I
Francisco; Founding director of Psychosynthesis for the Helping Professional in
I
Concord, Massachusetts; Co-editor (with John Weiser) of Psychosynthesis in the
Helping Professions (1984) and Readings in Psychosynthesis (1985).
I
Marilyn Kriegel: Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California) .
Lenore Lefer:

Anne Maiden:
Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California).
Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California).
I
Philip Brooks: Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute
(California); Co-founding director of the Psychosynthesis Education and I
Training Program in San Francisco.
Rhoda Levin: Trainer and Associate of the Psychosynthesis Institute (California). I
OTHER CALI FORNIA PEO PLE I
Molly Brown: Author of The Emerging Self: Psychosynthesis and Counseling;
Co-founding director of Interrnountain Associates for Psychosynthesis in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. I
Dan O'Connor: Roman Catholic priest teaching psychosynthesis in seminaries;
trainer and director of the Verrnont Center for Psychosynthesis. I
Naomi Emmerling: Founding director of the Sacramento Psychosynthesis
Center; Compiled and Published the Psychosynthesis International Directory.
Vivian King: Director of The High Point Center in Pasadena, California;
I
Founding director of her own professional training program in Pasadena.
I
"SECO N D G EN ERATlO N" EAST COAST PEO PLE

Jean Walsh: Member of the Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in Education in I

Walpole, New Hampshire.
Jean Guenther: Founding director of The Verrnont Center for Psychosynthesis.
I
Judith Abbott: A founding director of the Boston Center for Psychosynthesis.
Dorthy Firman:
Massachusetts.
Co-founding director of The Synthesis Center in Amherst,
I
I
Steven Schatz: Founding director of training program in Music and Imagery
and Psychosynthesis in Winchester, Massachusetts.
David Bach: Co-founding director of the Berkshire Center for Psychosynthesis,
along with his wife, Judy Bach.
Will Friedman: Founding director of the The Psychosynthesis Institute of New
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York.

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18
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Robert Gera rd ' s Story

I
6 . Robert Gerard 's Story
I Date of birth: August 9, 1917
Fonnal education:

I B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Strasbourg, France

M.B.A. in Business Administration from Harvard University
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles

I Current professional activities: Private practice in c1inical psychology in Los

Angeles; President of International Foundation for Integral Psychology;
Trustee of the Philosophical Research Society
I Date of interview: July 7, 1987
Place of interview: Robert's office in Los Angeles

I [When I asked about a striking bronze sculpture of a woman's head in

his office, he began ... ]
I This is Hygeia, the goddess of health. It's a bronze cast from the famous
statue attributed to Praxiteles, the great Greek sculptor (ca. 340 BC). It is very

I
symbolic. It was given to me by my parents when I was sixteen years old when
everybody thought I would be a writer and producer in motion pictures, which I
became after the war. But nobody knew that I would be in the healing arts too,

I
someday.
This cast was hidden underground so the Nazis would not get it. In World
War Two, when I escaped from the Nazis, I went first to North Africa, and then
I to the United States. It was unearthed when I returned and was serving as
Chief of Intelligence for Psychological Warfare on Eisenhower's staff. Everything
else I had was taken-all the books, all my possessions.
I I spent two years in Massachusetts when I went to Harvard Business
School. I have my M.B.A. from Harvard. I wanted to become a motion picture

I
producer, so I thought I must leam from America the best it could give me,
which was business. After working as a writer at Paramount Studios and as a
producer at RKO Studios here in Hollywood, I changed my career and went into

I psychology.
I went to U.C.L.A. to get my doctorate in clinical psychology because I
wanted to present a psychology which would integrate the esoteric with the
I exoteric. I wanted to integrate not onIy Western European psychology, in which
I was trained, with Western American psychology, in which I was also trained,
but also with the Eastern tradition-not just the exoteric Eastern tradition,
I which is pretty much presented, for instance, by Aurobindo in a magnificent
way, but also the esoteric Tibetan tradition-and not onIy the esoteric Tibetan
tradition, but the esoteric tradition itself, which is neither Tibetan, nor
I Christian, nor Hindu, nor anything, because it is planetary. I felt very c1early
that this was my objective.

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I 19
Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea
I
The great occult motto is "To know, to dare, to do, and to keep silent."
I
U. C. L.A. is one of the most scientific, hard programs in dinical psychology in
the United States. My objective was to introduce Integral Psychology. You're not
going to do it unless you do it from the inside, as a psychologist-unless you
I
leam as much as other people can give you. I used to say to myse1f, "These
people have blinders, like horses. They see only that much out of an enormous
spread of possibilities. But I'm going to leam what they have to give me within
I
that limitation. They have something to offer me, and I honor what they have to
offer me." I never fought city hall. I used to take everything I read and, in the
margin, write the esoteric, Integral Psychology interpretation. It was exciting
I
because it gave me such an open world, and at the same time I was learning
what I was supposed to regurgitate.
I
EARLY I NVO LVEM ENT WITH ROBERTO AND PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS
I
I was reading an Italian manual of psychiatry in 1 954 while I was a

I
graduate student at U. C. L.A. I wanted to see how weU I understood technical
language in Italian without a dictionary. I opened the book at random and it
opened at a page which said, "La Psicosintesi di Profassore Dotore Roberto

I
Assagioli. " There was six pages on that. It was everything I was already doing,
and it was obvious to me that we had been inspired by the same source. His
presentation was what I call "watered down Tibetan-a simplified, popularized,

I
version of the esoteric writings of the Tibetan teacher Djwhal Khul, as
presented in the books of Alice Bailey. I knew he was a student of Alice Bailey
when I read that. There was something about it which was unmistakable.
In 1 955 I went to Europe for about three months and decided to meet
Roberto Assagioli. It happened that I was at an international congress of
I
psychotherapy in Paris, and I thought that, weU, rather than going all the way
to Italy, who knows, maybe he was there. I found out from the list of attenders
that he was there and I arranged to meet him . In the first ten seconds I was
I
with him I looked him straight in the eye and said, "You don't need to hide. You
don't need to put up a curtain. You are a student of Alice Bailey, and so am 1 . "
He said, "How did you know?" I said, "It's obvious that your psychosynthesis is
I
watered-down Tibetan." And then we started to discuss what it was all about.
It became dear that his objective was to simplify esoteric knowledge by I
eliminating most of the controversial subjects in order to present a spiritually
oriented psychotherapy-which at that time was fairly daring. This was the
1 950s, just at the beginning of the consciousness revolution. At U. C.L.A. I was I
known as a very solid experimental scientist who later became a life member of
the New York Academy of Sciences-solid, grounded on statistics, research,
facts, and all that. If they had known that I was a mystic also, that I had been I
practicing meditation since I was thirteen years old, that I had been a Raja
Yoga student of Swami Prabhavananda, that I had explored most esoteric
traditions, and so on, and particularly that I had been a student of Alice Bailey I
since 1 945, they would never have given me a doctorate. It's a sign of the times
that as early as 1 973, I was able to give a two hour lecture at a meeting at
I
20
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Robert Gerard ' s Story
,
I U.C.L.A., attended by about six hundred psychologists, psychiatrists, and so
on at a symposium on "The Further Reaches of Human Nature," and openly
I acknowledge esoteric sources. In twenty years it was a revolution.
But back in the 1950s, it was as daring to present a psychospiritual

I therapy as it is now for a psychologist to openly acknowledge Alice Bailey.

When I started in private practice in the 1950s in Los Angeles, and I was
presenting psychosynthesis, they said to me, "It's the kiss of death. You've got

I the psychoanalytic establishment and you 've got the academic behavioristic
establishment, and you think that you're going to survive with a psychology
that acknowledges the spiritual Self? It's just the old soul under a different

I name. You're going to be laughed at."

And I said, "What if it happens to be true?" I feel that the movement of the
times is in that direction. And right now, okay, we're pioneers. We're very few.
I But that will grow and grow and grow. Just like right now there are much fewer
than two hundred individuals in the United States who are trained as
psychologists or psychiatrists and are open to the Alice Bailey and other
I esoteric material. Much less than that. But that doesn't mean that it is not the
way of the future.

I From the start I told Roberto, "I agree one hundred per cent with what you
are trying to do, because yours is going to be a transitional psychology. You are
eliminating references to esoteric tradition in order to focus on a psychology

I which is still interested in the spiritual dimension, but could be introduced in

colleges and universities to a broad base of psychologists, counselors,
psychiatrists, and educators who otherwise may completely rebel against a

I really esoteric presentation." Roberto c1early indicated that this was the major
objective of psychosynthesis-to introduce a spiritually oriented psychology in
such a way that it would be accepted by the maximum number of people.

I I told him I would help to establish psychosynthesis in the United States,

and also in France, Switzerland, and Western Europe. But I also told him that
this was not my ultimate objective. My objective is much more difficuIt.
I Because I'm a generation after him, it is probably an idea whose time will soon
come -to openly acknowledge the esoteric tradition. I promised him that when

I
I do that, I will not use the word psychosynthesis. We both agreed I would have
to [md a different word so as not to interfere with the possibility of
psychosynthesis becoming well known on a broad basis and practiced in many

I
institutional settings.
I also pointed out to him that there was a very grave limitation in
psychosynthesis, that by the very word psychosynthesis, you emphasize the

I synthesis aspect, and you tend to soft-pedal the analytic aspect. You can see
how I moved from psychosynthesis to Integral Psychology, which adds the
esoteric dimension to both psychosynthesis and psychoanalysis. But actually I

I didn't move from one to the other. Without using the word, I was developing
Integral Psychology from the beginning.

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I 21
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r Psyc hosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

CO LLABO RATION WITH ROBERTO

I
I
So I lent my support to introduce psychosynthesis in the United States. I
was in the first training group when Roberto came to this country. When I first
I met him in 1955 I said, "You 've got to come to the United States. Please give
one or two weeks of training. " So he came in 1958. We had a meeting in
Greenville, Delaware, at the estate of Alexia du Pont de Bie, one of the I
DuPonts. There were about a dozen of us, and of that dozen, Swartly is still

I
interested in psychosynthesis, but I don't think any of the others are. Swartly
was the only other fully trained c1inical psychologist at that time. There were no
psychiatrists. They were essentially educators and counselors.

Roberto came for a week and gave a series of lectures on psychosynthesis.

It was at that meeting that I gave him the entire plan of what the book
I
Psychosynthesis should be-that he should present the principles, then the
rationale, then the techniques, then the indications, contraindications,
applications, and so on (Assagioli, 1965). It was not, as Roberto says in the
I
Preface of his book, that it was slowly arrived at through discussion. It was
given to him at that meeting, and I have the transcript of that meeting to prove
it. We pushed him to write his book because he had not yet written it and he
I
was already advanced in age. It was decided in 1959 that I would leave my
practice to spend three months with him to help him write the basic book on
psychosynthesis. I had to farm out all my clients to other therapists, and I lost
I
all my practice. Three months later I started again with one c1ient who had
hung on for that time. I
During that time, I would come about nine o'c1ock in the morning, and
Roberto and I would talk into the tape recorder until about one o'c1ock. Then
he would have his lunch and a long siesta. I would come back about five I
o'c1ock and we would work together until about nine o'c1ock in the evening. We
worked day in and day out for weeks on end. I still have the transcript of our
talks. About forty per cent of the book, word for word, comes from me, and I
sixty per cent from Roberto. Our original understanding was that it would be a
joint authorship, but he obviously changed his mind later. Roberto comes from
the European tradition, and many times in that tradition an older man may use
I
a younger man to write a lot of his stuff, and publish it as being only the old
man's authorship. Apparently, he was operating in that tradition.

There was a real connection between us. At the end of the three months
I
I
that we worked together on the book, Roberto made a beautiful gesture. He
took a picture he had on his desk of his only son, Ilario, who had died of
tuberculosis. He took the picture out of the frame, put his own picture in it,

I
and he gave it to me, saying, "Robert, you are my spiritual son. " He cried, and I
comforted him-because I knew that he had lost his only son. So there was
that very, very c10se connection between the two of us.

One of Roberto's virtues was a quality of love-but often his love was
unwise. Roberto tended to surround himself with former clients and individuals
I
who were not of the highest caliber. He had that over-inc1usiveness of love
without the sharp wisdom which cuts through to the truth behind the
I
22
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 Robert G e ra rd ' s Story

I appearance. Also, while writing the book on psychosynthesis together, I

became aware that his mind was beautifully dear in seeing general principles,
I but very often, on details, he was a little vague. In a sense, I supplied a lot of
the details for him-put a lot of flesh on the bones, so to speak.

I He was, in my opinion, a greater esotericist than a psychotherapist. As a

psychotherapist, his great value was the quality of his being, and the qUality of
his inspiration. During our professional discussions I found that his knowledge

I of the nitty-gritty of clinical psychodynamics was very limited, at times naive.

That is my opinion as a dinical psychologist. But he was very successful as a
psychotherapist because of the quality of energy that flowed through him to the

I dient . With his great love, he had an aura of profound psychologi cal healing.

With his charisma, there is a tendency, now that he is dead, to do to him

what Eric Berne prediets one generally does to leaders of movements. Eric
I Berne, in his book on the psychology of groups, says that when the leader of a
movement dies, there is a tendency for the followers to canonize him. l 've seen
the beginning of that. l 've seen blowup pi ctures of Roberto in offices. I see
I people having spent one week of training with him in a group of thirty people
come back to the United States and daim they have been trained by the great

I
Roberto Assagioli . I see that propensity of people to dothe themselves in the
aura of a figure that they revere. But if you really love a person, you can love
them even though you know all their faults. I had the opportunity of

I
experiencing Roberto's shadow side in my relationship with him. I experienced
the whole man. Even though he has passed away for many years, I still love
him. There's no question, he was in many ways a wonderful human being.

I In 1959 we wrote the book and in 1965 the book came out. I didn't want
the book to be published yet because I thought it was incomplete . I said,
" Roberto, we're supposed to write more dinical examples. The book is too dry.

I It shouldn't come out yet." But it was done against my advice .

In 1967 we gave workshops together in Switzerland and then went to the

I
University of Rome and gave papers for a psychosomatic congress. It was also
in 1967 that I decided it was time for me to focus on establishing Integral
Psychology. I had done the work of introducing psychosynthesis in the United

I
States, and there were now some centers and people doing it . It was time to do
what I was supposed to do. In 1972 I gave a talk at a college on Integral
Psychology for the first time.

I PO LITICS W ITH I N THE EARLY MOVEMENT

I In 1967 there was a lot of polities going on. Roberto was getting very old
and it was obvious that I was the so-called heir apparent, because I was the
one who had helped to introduee psychosynthesis in the United States. I was

I the one who had written the book with him, and we had a deep connection with
one another. However, there was a tremendous amount of pettiness and
jealousy among his followers.

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Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

Because I had called the foundation here in Los Angeles International

I
Foundation for Psychosynthesis, there was a paranoic fear that I would tty to
gobble up every single group or center all over the world, that they would all
come under my dominion. I would tell people , "You have no evidence that I 'm
I
trying to do that. I 've never tried to do that." As a matter of faet, some of my
colleagues have said, "How can you keep such a low proflie? You should tout a
lot of what you 've done. " I said, "No , l 've peace that way." I was in secret
I
intelligenee during World War Il and I know how to keep my mouth shut. It's
simpler. I
At the time of the business with the book, I remember Frank Hilton, the
president of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, saying to me, "lf you
wil1 change the title of your International Foundation for Psychosynthesis, we I
may consider giving you credit for the book. But if you do not change the title
of that foundation, if you do not eliminate the word International, we will
subject you to the rule of si1ence. We will simply not mention you anymore. " I
This has meant that, o f the peop1e now in psychosynthesis, you will find, many,
many don't even know that a substantial proportion of the basic book on
psychosynthesis is the result of my contribution. In many cases even the I
artic1es I wrote on psychosynthesis are passed in silence.
I called him back and said , "Look Frank, I am international. I was bom in
France. I 'm an American citizen. I have worked in France, England,
I
Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Morocco-in various parts of the world.
I 'm international. It's as if you are asking me to eliminate my heart. I want to
indicate that it is not just a nationalistic thing. You have abso1ute1y no evidence
I
that we tried in any way to control anybody. You give me one single person who
c1aims he was controlled by me, about anything. You cannot say that about
Vargiu , because Vargiu would say to the people in training with him: If you see
I
Robert Gerard, even for one session, you cannot take any c1asses from me." So
from that time on, there was in general no mention of Robert Gerard by the
psychosynthesis establishment.
I

M O RE REFLECTIO N S O N ROBERTO
I
There 's another aspect of Roberto that may not be as well known. He wore
three hats. One hat was that of a psychotherapist, the founder of I
psychosynthesis. A second hat was that of the esotericist, the student of Alice
Bailey, the occultist, and so on. And the third hat was that of the liberal Jew,
the person who tried to instill a different consciousness in Jewish youth. I can I
appreciate that because my wife is Jewish. There is a lot in the Jewish tradition
that is great. But there is an aspect of the Jewish tradition that was considered
by Roberto, as well as by my wife and by the Tibetan, to be the shadow of I
Judaism, and that is the separatism-"We are a chosen people ; we are a
special peop1e; we are different. " Sure, that was reinforced by thousands of
years of ostracism and antisemitism, which is reprehensib1e; but it's a I
reciprocal kind of thing. Roberto tried to stop that. He tried to have
international Jewish youth shift from a primary allegiance to their Jewishness
I
24
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Robert Gera rd 's Story

I to a primary allegiance to their humanness, to being a member of humanity

first and a Jew second.

I In that sense, Roberto had the intimations of, and the qualities of, soul
consciousness, transpersonal consciousness-which is planetary. He spoke

I
English fluently, besides Italian. He spoke French just as well as English, and
he spoke pretty good Gennan. He was, in a sense, a planetary being, and he
tried to inculcate that consciousness in Jewish youth. I remember in 1 959, and

I
again, particularly in 1 967, he had tears in his eyes as he told me, "I have
failed. I cannot make a dent with Jewish youth to become planetary. They still
live in the holocaust, in the anger, in the past, in the separateness." I said,

I
"Roberto, you have planted the seed. The seed will take time. A new wave of
youngsters coming in the twenty-fIrst century will have a different
consciousness, and your dream will be achieved."

I Roberto read Fritz Perls ' book on Gestalt Therapy. I sent him the book to
read. And he wrote to me and said, "The problem with Gestalt Therapy is that
there is no will and no love. " It's interesting because the assertion of the will is

I not in Gestalt Therapy at all, and the real inc1usive transpersonal love is not
there. But that doesn't mean it can't be put there . One doesn't have to be
limited by the founder.

I There is no question in my mind that we 're going to see a renaissance in

that the esoteric knowledge will come out in an open way. But in the meantime,

I
I 'm conservative in a sense. I have great respect for the original intent of
Roberto, which was to avoid mixing esoteric references in the presentation of
psychosynthesis. His intent was to present an approach which could be

I
accepted by everyone, yet a psychotherapy which talks about the transpersonal
Self, or spiritual Self, or Higher Self, or whatever you want to call it, and helps
you to connect with it, and to use these energies for transfonnation and so on,

I so that an individual can be very deeply helped. Unfortunately I fmd a lack of

sophistication among many psychosynthesis practitioners-maybe b ecause
they are not fully trained as clinical psychologists or psychiatrists, they are not

I suffIciently trained in what I call "the psychology of the basement"-which is

psychoanalysis.

I OVERUSE OF S U BPERSO NALITY WORK

Let me give one example. Roberto, in passing, mentioned subpersonalities.

I If you look at the book we wrote together, Psychosynthesis, there is no more

than a few lines on it. For him, it was not that important. It was an observation
that sometimes certain parts of the psyche operate with some kind of

I autonomy, as if they were subpersonalities. And William James had talked

about it. Okay, fme. But, on the b asis of that, what I call the San
Francisco/ Palo Alto school of p sychosynthesis, particularly Vargiu-who

I attended some of my workshops back in the early 1 960s, went to see Roberto,
came back and then promoted himself as the big shot of psychosynthesis­
erected subpersonality work as the orthodoxy of psychosynthesis, the sine qua
I
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Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

non, without which you were not doing the true psychosynthesis. He went so
I
far as to say that anyone who would not believe in that, or anyone who was
seeing me, would be "excommunicated." I think he did great damage to the
psychosynthesis movement in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I
When you do that subpersonality work-which, by the way, is now very
prevalent in the whole psychosynthesis movement-is that if you give I
something a name, it will constellate energy in a thought fonn represented by
that name. Roberto knew that because he was an occultist, an esotericist. So if
you talk about the martyr, or the fearful one, or the scared little boy in you, I
you give that tendency-which up until then was rather diffuse-a way of
constellating energy into something powerful. I was often picking up the pieces
of psychosynthesis, of people seeing me after several years of psychosynthesis I
work where they were split, disintegrated into a series of subpersonalities. They
constantly were saying, "Oh, now my martyr is showing up. Now my scared
little boy is showing up." So what? Instead of a unified field, they had all these I
little atoms within themselves which had been given names, and since energy
follows thought, if you constantly think of the martyr in you, you are going to
reinforce the martyr. It's obvious. I
A little of a good thing is okay-to become aware, for instance, like Roberto
and I were, that there are within us, sometimes, certain tendencies that play
certain roles. That's useful because that's psychoanalytic insight. But it is
I
foolish to then go further and constantly reinforce that, constantly repeating
that. Then it becomes extremely difficult to put together what you have
reinforced as separate identities.
I

I MAG ERY WORK

I
The imagery work in psychosynthesis is very superficial. The imagery work
done by the Desoille group in Paris-I'm a training analyst for that group in the I
United States-is of such a sophisticated level that the work with symbolism
done by psychosynthesis people is comparatively elementary. The guided
waking dream of Desoille is an amazing technique. Roberto was never trained I
in it.
When I introduced psychosynthesis in the United States, I said to myself,
"The way to introduce it is to present a technique, a method, an approach that
I
at this time people know very little about because Americans love to do
something that is new." That's one of the positive aspects of the psyche in
America. I'm a Frenchman by birth, but an American by choice. It's amazing to
I
behold this ability to embrace new ideas, and then to be gung ho, sometimes
too gung ho-that's a negative aspect of the personality of America. But the
positive aspect, the idealism to do something brand new, was going to be very
I
I
helpful.
When I presented the techniques of imagery as part of psychosynthesis, I
married the guided waking dream technique of Desoille with psychosynthesis.
Roberto had just mentioned it, but he didn't fully practice it. This gave a
I
26
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Robert Gerard's Story

I powerful way of working with images. Then I explained that this was only one
section of an entire continuum of imagery techniques, from the most focused

I technique of the visualization of geometrical forms all the way to the other end
where you have the complete reverie in which you put somebody on the couch,
like a psychoanalyst, and have them focus on anything that comes, any
I imagery, and so on. And in between, you have the guided waking dream , where
you present an original image, let's say going into a cave of a witch , and how to
deal with that image. I went further by presenting things without, at that time ,
I calling it raja yoga, because it was still psychosynthesis and w e had to be
careful not to mention those words.

I DESOI LLE, PERLS, AND ASSAG IOLI

I
There is a series of books, never translated into English, by the Frenchman
Robert Desoille. He was a real genius. I was very fortunate in my life to have
two individuals who were my therapists and teachers who were geniuses. One

I was Desoille, and the other was Fritz Peris. I was in Perls' original training
group of six psychologists and psychiatrists in Los Angeles before he became
famous on the West Coast. When I introduced him to imagery techniques he

I was floored because he didn't know some of them. He himself admitted that he
was both a genius and a bum. I would not have trusted a woman to see him.
,

But he was a seminal thinker.

I In my opinion Roberto was not a genius in the sense of a truly original

thinker, but he had another quality. Fritz Peris' genius was as a seminal
thinker who develop ed a new way of doing psychotherapy. Desoille was a

I genius who developed a new way of psychotherapy. The strength of Roberto

Assagioli was that he was a great synthesizer. He would take elements from
various schools, from various methods, from various ways , from various
I people, and put them into an integrated whole for the purpose of helping the
integration of the person. In that sense, you could caU him a genius. He was a
genius of integration, but he was not an original genius. There is not one single
I technique of psychosynthesis that I know that he invented. Not one. I could
give you the sources of every single one , inc1uding the most important, like the
Who am :;: technique (Assagioli , 1965 , p. 1 19). It's from Ramana Maharshi and
I it's a technique that's been in existence for two thousand years. Or the
techniques of visualization derived from the esoteric tradition, of using

I
concentrations on symbols and visualizations of symbols , and so on. But that
doesn't detract from his greatness of being able to take all that together and
present it as an integrated way of helping a person to achieve some kind of

I
wholeness.

THE S HADOW S IDE O F DIFFERENT PSYCHOLO G I ES

I In every movement, and I 'm sure it's going to happen to Integral
Psychology, p articularly after I pass away, there is going to be p olitics, there is

I
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Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea

going to be pettiness, there is going to be sniping, and so on. That's p art,

I
unfortunately, of human nature.
As Jung pointed out, when you are focused so much on the light, the I
shadow often is repressed. The shadow comes out in ways that are often

I
destructive. Because of the emphasis on integration and connection with the
Higher Self, and because of overlooking what psychoanalysis has to offer, there
is in the p sychosynthesis movement a tremendous shadow. And that shadow
shows itself in many, many ways.
The reverse shadow in the psychoanalytic movement is the light-in other
I
words, the denial of the spirit, the materialistic way of handling everything, the
reduction of everything to the lowest common denominator. The shadow in
Gestalt therapy is the over-focus on the present and the tendency to overlook
I
that the future and the past have a tremendous impact. It is also the denial of
what psychoanalysis has to offer, although recently there is a serious attempt
to incorporate the insights of psychoanalytic object relations in the practice of
I
Gestalt Therapy. Both in psychoanalysis and psychosynthesis, there is
insufficient awareness of what behavior modification has to offer. In other
words, each movement tends to focus on what their strength is, and the
I
shadow is the over-focus on that strength.
For example , when I presented psychosynthesis in the United States, I I
focused on the strength of integrating psychosynthesis with the techniques of
imagery, the whole spectrum of imagery. Pretty soon ninety-nine per cent of
people thought that psychosynthesis was imagery techniques when that was I
only one approach of psychosynthesis. Eventually a lot of people said they were
doing psychosynthesis when actually they were only practicing imagery
techniques. I
You can expect a certain ossification or rigidity to occur. Like Freud said ,
"I'm not an Freudian. " And I'm sure Assagioli would say, "I'm not an
Assagiolian. " Roberto's greatness was that he was very open. He could
I
incorporate stuff from all kinds of traditions. But again, it was easy for him to
rationalize because he said , "I have to keep the wall of silence. " Sometimes he
would keep the wall of silence not because of protecting an esoteric source that
I
I
would hurt the acceptance of psychosynthesis, but rather in order to avoid
revealing the sources of his ideas.
For instance, the book on the will (Assagioli, 1 973) , appears to be original.
I have an old b ook of French psychology which has a lot of that material. I saw
it in his library. We discussed it and he said, "Oh, yes, marvelous ideas in it. " I
And then h e had another book with specific exercises o n the will. H e said, "I'm
going to incorporate it." But by presenting all this as if he had invented it, he
presents himself to people as having a much greater originality than he I
actually had. I think it would have been more proper, in that case, to indicate
the source. l Now if he didn't want to give the source as Alice Bailey, b ecause he
I
l My edition of The Act of Will inc1udes 262 reference notes, many of them to books in

French published long ago .

I
28
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I
Robert Gera rd 's Story

I didn't want psychosynthesis to be associated with occultism, I don't fault him

on that at all. That's a very legitimate choice. But to fail to indicate that the
I source is a p sychology book published in France in the 1 92 0 's which gave him
those ideas-I think that's not quite fair. But it served to bolster his sense of
being the original author. You have to understand the need of the man to make
I a mark in the world. You have to realize that he was vilified by the Fascist
government, that during the war he was in hiding from the Gestapo, that he
went through a lot of suffering because he was a Jew, that his life was at stake ,
I and that for many years in his own country, Italy, his psychosynthesis was not
accepted by most of his colleagues.

I I'm still of the old school with Roberto , that there is a value for the wall of
silence between the true occult esoteric and psychosynthesis. I know there is a
lot of movement now in psychosynthesis to try to break it. But I'm not so sure

I it's wise because it would tend to restrict the spre ad of psychosynthesis in

established institutions. For often these institutions tend to view the occult and
esoteric with great suspicion.

I Roberto was inspired to present a psychology that would not be that

esoteric, so that it would not create all the se barriers. It would be mediating
between the twentieth and the twenty-frrst centuries. Eventually, when we can
I be completely open, when Integral Psychology is more well-known, and I don't
care what name it will have , then psychosynthesis can be as esoteric as it
wants, and psychoanalysis can be as esoteric as it wants. And Gestalt Therapy
I can be transpersonal and transcendental.
I want to be very dear on pointing out that a psychology that openly admits

I the esoteric should be called by a different name than psychosynthesis. For the
purpose of psychosynthesis is to present ideas which can be accepted by a
great num ber of people in the fields of psychotherapy, education, and many

I other fields.
I toId all the people I have trained , "Do not be limited by Robert Gerard.
Take my ideas and use them as a spring board to go further. Stand on my
I shoulders and go higher than me. That will make me happy."

I T H E I M PO RTANCE O F BOUNDARIES

Where there is no boundary, there is no concentration of energy. If you

I didn't have skin, you would be all over the place. When people tell me there
should be no boundaries, I say, "Are you going to drive in a car with all kind of
hoIes in your gas tank? The gas tank, which is the essence, the spirit, the

I energy in liquid form which will propel your car, must be contained. If it is not
within a container, the tenemos of the Greeks, the alchemical vessel, it's not
going to work. That's the principle of limitation in order to do something.

I
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

THE ESSENCE OF PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS

I
I
No matter how wretched the person is on the outside, there is always that
soul behind, if I can address myse1f to that. It gives me the humility to know
that, in my conscious ego, I don't know as much about what is right for that

I
person, and what could really heal them, as their souls. My job is to evoke
that. That's the essence of psychosynthesis, beyond any technique. It's a
communion with souls, an evocation of souls, and the transformation occurs

I
through the soul. The soul is the magician. We are just midwifes.

I
THE N EW RENAIS SAN CE

My opinion is that we are moving toward the new renaissance, that the
prominent psychology of the twenty-first century, whether we call it Integral
Psychology or any other name, will be truly "integral," for it will . ... the value of
openly integrating esoteric and exoteric knowledge and practice. This
I
psychology will come out as the science of the 2 1st Century, because one of
these days a genius physicist or engineer will discover a way of measuring the
biofield. Then they wiIl discover a way of measuring the emotional fie1d, the
I
mental fie1d, photographing the aura, and all that. Once we have the
instruments, we'll be in a very different ball game. The esoteric world of
invisible psychospiritual energies will become amenable to scientific
I
explanation. Science will gradually penetrate worlds which at this time can
only be contacted through genuine inner experience.
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
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30
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I
F ra n k H a ro n i a n ' s Story

I
7 . Fran k Haro nian 's Story
I
Date of birth: October 11, 1922

I Fonnal education:
B.S. in Psychology from the City College of New York
M.S.Ed. in Psychological Services from the City College of New York

I Ph.D. in Psychology from the New School for Social Research

Current professional activities: Private psychotherapy practice; co-founder and
staff member of Trinity Counseling Services, Princeton, N.J.; co-founder of

I "The Phoenix Group" for psychotherapy and transpersonal counseling.

Date of interview: March 28, 1987
Place of interview: Frank's home in Lawrenceville, New Jersey

I
It was in 1955 or 1956 that I frrst heard about psychosynthesis. I was

I working as a clinical psychologist at a state mental health clinic at Somerville,

New Jersey when I met Florence Widutis, who had been active in the Arcane
School. We got to talking about the relationship between psychology and
I spirituality and she mentioned Assagioli. It was through her that I met Frank
Hilton at the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation [PRF] in New York City.

I
By 1963 I got a copy of Roberto's book (Assagioli, 1965) on
psychosynthesis in mimeographed form, before it had actually been published.
It was about 1965 that the hard back version came out. I was attending the

I
PRF monthly meetings in New York City, and occasionally making
presentations of my OWll .
In 1969 I quit my job at the New Jersey Bureau of Research in Neurology of

I Psychiatry, enlarged my private practice, and also worked part-time as

program director for PRF for a little more than three years. I worked in New
York with Frank Hilton, who was the administrator of PRF. We had monthly
I programs in New York City, at which maybe fifteen to thirty people came. It
disturbed me that we weren't able to attract people who were trained c1inicians
in the orthodox sense. There were very few of them. We attracted the oddballs
I and people in fringe areas, such as art therapists, but not people who were
obviously trained in standard therapeutic procedures. My feeling was that
those were the people we should have been attracting.
I
O N RO SERTO

I him
I've been to ltaly four times to see Roberto. When I frrst went in 1967, I met
and his wife, Nella, his assistant, Ida Palumbi, and several other
assistants. He had me doing different exercises, but most notably writing my
I autobiography. He read each installment as I brought it in and discussed it
with me the next time I came. That strikes me as the most memorable part of

I
the work together.

I 31
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

He was very gentle mannered, very pleasant, and he enj oyed strong coffee.
I
He answered a lot of my questions, but nothing very dramatic came out of
the se sessions. I liked him . I was very comfortable with him. He was an easy
person to get along with-unassuming and unpretentious.
I
I
I subsequently found out a little more about him Assagioli was really his
.

step-father's name. His father was named Greco. Roberto was the only child in
the family and his father, who had been an engineer, died when Roberto was

I
quite young. His mother then married a physician named Assagioli. It was at
that time, when Roberto was sixteen I think, that the family moved from
Venice, where he was bom, to Florence , so that he could go to medical school
there.
Being an only child , he described his life as somewhat lonely, but my
I
impression is that he had a very devoted mother who paid a lot of attention to
him. Like so many men who have grown up to be notable in some way or other,
he had a mother who stood behind him and supported him He had one son,
.
I
Ilario, who died young. I remember he showed me a book of poetry that Ilario
had written.
I
M O RE ON THE PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS RES EARCH FO U N DATIO N
I
I was still working for the State of New Jersey when I began to prep are

I
talks for the Friday monthly public meetings of PRF. One of them was The
Repression of the Sublime (Haronian, 1 97 2 ) . I was also editing material to be
published by other authors, translating materials, answering queries, and

I
doing some writing of my own. I worked with Frank Hilton, who had an
adjoining office in his role as head of The School for Esoteric Studies. The two
offices were cheek by j owl and shared a secretary.
In 1 972 Frank Hilton decided to retire. He didn't want to be responsible
anymore for managing the endowment, which amounted to about $400,000. I
I
think the money primarily came from a member of the DuPont family, someone
who had been a client of Roberto. Frank called a meeting with Jim Vargiu,
Martha Crampton, John Parks, and myself. They decided to dose the New York
I
office and divide the money among the other groups: Martha in Montreal, Jim
in Redwood City, California, and John in Lexington , Kentucky. I think that's
where it all went. This also dosed down my j ob with PRF, which was all right
I
with me because I was busy with my private practice in New Jersey.
I
PERSO NAL CAREER

Since 1 973 l've been in full-time private practice. My connection with the I
psychosynthesis movement has been more on the periphery. Mter that fIrst trip

I
in 1 967, I made three more trips to visit Roberto. I went in 1 969 to help
Roberto work on The Act of Will ( 1 973). He mentions me in the Preface. I helped
him go over the fIrst few chapters in detail. It was put aside for awhile , until

I
32
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F ra n k H a ron i a n's Story

I Jim Vargiu and Steven Kull worked on it with him and expanded it, and it
came out to be much more of a book than Roberto had originally planned .

I I also went back in 1970. A conference was held in Paris. Most of the
people who were interested in psychosynthesis were there . I presented a p aper

I which eventually was published in the 1 975 edition of the Journal of

Humanistic Psychology. It was called "A Psychosynthetic Theory of Personality
and It's Implications for Psychotherapy. " I spent some time with Rob erto before

I the conference.
work for PRF.
I went back in 1971 for another visit, and to do some more

Psychosynthesis was a part of my past and is also a part of my present

I insofar as it conditions my perceptions of people and how I deal with them . I

don't call myself a p sychosynthesist. I'm known as a p sychotherapist in this
area, and have been for quite a while . About a year ago , I started a professional

I group which we originally called The Group for Transpersonal Psychotherapy

but subsequently changed the name to The Phoenix Group. This , of course,
inc1udes p sychosynthesis. Another member of the group , Margaret Grace , was

I trained in p sychosynthesis by David and Judy Bach.

Twenty years ago I was co-founder and the frrst clinician of a low cost

I p sychotherapy service in Princeton. I was eager to make this a p sychosynthesis

operation but I couldn't do so because no one else was interested. So it's only
in the last year or two that I found enough trained people in my area who share

I an interest in transpersonal psychotherapy and want to form a group .

I 'm the kind of person who likes to look for relationships and connections
b etween ideas. Some of us are splitters and analyzers and some of us are
I synthesizers and organizers. I 'm very definitely of the synthetic school.

I remember Roberto saying "First psychoanalysis, then p sychosynthesis."

I You don't rush up into the attic of the personality and stay there all the time.
You have to be prepared to deal with the p athological side. Some of the people
who come to me for p sychosynthesis are the most disturbed people I have to

I deal with. They have a lot of trouble in the lower unconscious that needs to be
dealt with. So we don't talk p sychosynthesis for quite a while.

I M O RE M EMORIES OF ROSERTO

Roberto was very much involved in an arcane group , a neo-Theosophist

I study group . This was generally not mentioned public1y when I was actively
involved during the sixties and seventies. There was supposed to be a "wall of
silence" between his p sychological and his metaphysical activities.

I He was one of the leaders of a group which attempted to disseminate

meditative techniques around the world . They're now called Meditation Mount,

I and have an office in Oj ai , California. In a quiet way, they go about spreading

the ideas that were developed in the Alice Bailey works. I never got involved in
that except to meet those people and enj oy their company. I 've read some of the

I
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

introductory things, but it never really gripped me. I had enough to do with the
I
psychological side of things.
Roberto never pushed himself into the limelight. He never had that need to I
be a public figure, like Freud. He wasn't that kind of person. I guess he didn't

I
have the ego. Everybody called him Roberto-he wanted to be known that way.
He was unassuming, unassertive. You never had the feeling of "The Great
Man," unless you projected that onto him. He was a nice guy. I never felt
beneath him, as if he was somebody to idolize and look up to-he never gave
one that feeling. I think that's why very few people recognize his name today. I I
never had the impression he wanted to be famous. He wrote a lot, but not with
a view toward publication or fame. And when he did publish, it wasn't styled to
appeal to the popular mind. He didn't have that drive. There was an I
everydayness about him, an admirable absenee of ego.

I
THOUG HTS ON PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS AN D RELATED TO PICS

What is the true self? Psychosynthesis has given me the best answer that I
know of. I think that psychosynthesis is saying that I'm not my body, I'm not
I
my feelings, I 'm not my opinions, I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my roles in life.
All of these are things I must disidentify from. I must not think of them as my
true self. When I'm in my center of consciousness and wiil, awareness and
I
control-insofar as I can disidentify from those other things, and identify with
my self-then I'm most like other people. That's where the differences between
us become inconsequential.
I
I try to detach myself from the other things and simply use them properly,
recognize and accept their changeability. Since I look at myself that way, I look I
at people that way, and try to get them to focus on that spiritual side of
themselves.
Consciousness is very much a mystery. The degree of consciousness that
I
each of us has available is probably the c10sest thing to soul. I see a connection
between what I do in therapy and my philosophical ideas, although it isn't
explicitly stated. To me psychosynthesis has been a bridge between psychology
I
and psychotherapy on the one hand, and spirituality, religion, and
metaphysical thinking on the other hand. The reason it's important to me is
because I think that eventually all subdivisions of knowledge have to be viewed
I
as heuristie attempts to limit the scope of our vision for a while so that we can
look c10sely at things. But as we get to know more, we'll see the
interconnections between all knowledge. And particularly in this area.
I
The opposite of spirituality is logical positivism or materialism, which is
otherwise known as nothing-but-ism- everything is nothing but the concrete, I
practical, physical, and measurable. Spirituality is the opposite of that. It
c1aims that there's always more. That attitude should inspire a humility which
is impossible with a materialistie point of view. I
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34
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F ra n k H a ro n i a n's Story

I A weakness of psychosynthesis is that it's too vague. Roberto admitted

that. That's why anybody who gets seriously involved in psychosynthesis has to
I make up his own definition of what psychosynthesis is. We all view it
somewhat differently. It's vast, and we're like the blind men with the elephant,

I
to some extent.
I think of psychosynthesis like yeast in bread. It's a critical element, but
once the bread is baked, you'11 never fmd the yeast. The ideas spread and affect

I the way other people think, and their source is forgotten. That's fme! I think
that's the way Roberto wanted it to be. It seemed to me that he was devoid of
the curse of personal ambition and I admired him for that.

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J o h n Pa rks' Story

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8 . J ohn Parks' Story
I Date of birth:. September 2, 1927
Formal education:

I M.D. from Harvard University

Current professional activities: Private practice of psychiatry and c1inical
hypnosis; consultant with Kentucky Christian Counseling, Inc. and

I Possibilities Unlimited, Inc. (teen-age drug program); Director and on the

staff of the Kentucky Center of Psychosynthesis
Date of interview: March 16, 1988
I Interview conducted by telephone.

I I was a physician and a psychiatrist before I heard of psychosynthesis. I

had taken my psychiatric training in Boston and became acquainted with the
Boston Vedanta Center where they studied self-realization and meditation. I
I maintained my relationship with this center from 1 949 to 1959, when I moved
to Charlottsville, Virginia, to teach in the Department of Psychiatry at the
University of Virginia.
I In 1963 I came across a paper by Roberto Assagioli while I was taking
psychoanalytic training at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. It was the

I
flrst chapter of what became the book Psychosynthesis (Assagioli, 1965), an
overview of the theory. I decided to get in touch with the Psychosynthesis
Research Foundation in New York City. I became acquainted with a number of

I
people there, Frank Hilton, Frank Haronian, Jack Cooper, Birtha Roger-those
people. They had annual and monthly meetings, which I generally attended,
and I was eventually on the Board of Directors.

I In 1966 I moved to Lexington, Kentucky to work in the community mental

health centers program. I wanted to do more service and less university work. I
originally was an administrator in a mental health center, and then moved to
I just being the clinical director, which I did for flfteen years. I also started a
private practice part-time and went full-time about 1980.

I THE KENTUC KY C ENTER FOR PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS

I
A number of my friends who frrst learned of psychosynthesis through me
became interested enough to hold regular study groups and conferences. We
invited people from New York and other places. In 1974 a core of about ten or

I
flfteen of these people incorporated, as a non-proflt education corporation, the
Kentucky Center of Psychosynthesis. I had visited Roberto in 1972 and he
encouraged us to start the center in Kentucky.

I I had met Jim Vargiu in New York, and he was involved in the
administration of the Psychosynthesis Institute, training people in San
Francisco. He and his wife had taken a lot of Gestalt training and he modifled
I what Roberto was doing. Roberto was more of an educator, but Vargiu turned it

I 37
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Psychosynthes i s i n N orth Ameriea

more into a c1inical approach. Over the next several years the Psychosynthesis
I
Institute sent out some of their people to work with us, maybe six or eight
times a year. Fifteen of us took their training, which lasted three years. I
In 1979 we rented a building and started giving our own training programs,
and we've been going ever since. We run several basic trainings a year, and a
three year program of continued training. Initially we got a mixture of c1inically I
oriented people and educators, ministers, artists, and so on. Over the last ten
years it's become more and more clinical people. Right now about ninety per
cent of our students are c1inicians. I
We prefer students who already have some type of counseling degree, or
are graduate students. In order to practice in the state, they need the academic
credentials required by the state. Everyone in the training program must have
I
three years of their own intensive psychosynthesis therapy. A lot of the learning
occurs in those individual counseling sessions. I
There are some persons who apply to our training program with good

I
natural skills with people, but they haven't had any formal schooling. We
encourage them to go back to school and get their social work or counseling or
educational psychology degree.
We've been on our own down here in Kentucky. We are isolated from the
West Coast and the Eastern Psychosynthesis centers. However, we try to keep
I
in touch with psychosynthesis persons, and we attend many of the regional,
national, and international conferences. Four or five of us will be going to
Venice this summer.
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Ed ith Sta uffer's Story

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9 . Edith Stauffer's Story
I Date of birth: October 24, 1909
Formal education:

I M.A. in Psychology from Kensington University

Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Kensington University
Current professional activities: Director of Psychosynthesis International, an

I educational, non-profit organization that offers psychosynthesis training to

professionals throughout the world who do not live near an opportunity to
otherwise have training.

I Date of interview: July 14, 1987

Place of interview: Edith's home in Diamond Springs, California.

I In 1958 when I was the director of the El Camino Counseling Service in

Compton, California, I was invited to what I believe was the fIrst holistic health
I center in the United States, which was operated by Dr. Everts Loomis, and
located east of Los Angeles at Hemet, California. He invited a number of us to
come and share a case history of someone we had helped. I shared about a
I young man who had been very disturbed. I had used some visualizations and
other healing techniques with him which had come to me intuitively, and they
had been enormously successful.
I Dr. Robert Gerard was at that meeting. After I presented this case, he said
to me, "Why Edith, you're using psychosynthesis." I said, "What's that?" He told

I
me. He also told me he did training in psychosynthesis. I went to a workshop
he led and he told case histories of how he worked with people. He did work
very much like I did. I had always done innovative things that I had never

I
heard of anyone else doing.
In 1960 I began three years training with Dr. Gerard of working on my own
stuff, my own problems. I worked on some things that had been problems to
I me over a period of time, particularly a trauma I had had when I was sixteen. I
had gone to Jungian analysis three-and-a-half years, and it never dealt with
the depth of it. But I worked it out through the psychosynthesis techniques of
I visualization and active imagination. It changed my whole life.
Later I felt I wanted to teach psychosynthesis. I studied some more, and

I then in 1966 I started a holistic growth center in Pasadena based on the

principles of psychosynthesis called the High Point Foundation. I went to visit
Dr. Assagioli the fIrst time in 1968. In 1972 I went back, taking with me a

I group of fIfteen people from the Los Angeles, Fresno, and Seattle areas. I had
helped to start High Point centers in both the Fresno and Seattle areas. In
1973 l again visited Dr. Assagioli, this time taking with twelve people. The

I whole group would have a session with him, and then he would have individual
sessions with some of us.
In 1970 at High Point I started teaching psychosynthesis to professionals. I
I was the director of High Point Center for eighteen years.

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

In 1 982 it came to me in meditation to establish a correspondence course

I
that could provide training to people in remote areas. I meditated on it and
wrote down every idea I got about it, a whole notebook of ideas about how I
should operate it and so on. In January, 1984 I established Psychosynthesis
I
International, just shortly before I moved up here to Diamond Springs in
Northern California to be out of the smog. I
I just returned from Japan, where I gave three workshops to 1 33 people. I

I
also had conferences with some of my Psychosynthesis International students
there. At present, we have 45 students in Africa, Australia, Canada, Japan,
New Zealand, and the United States. In 1 987 my book Unconditional Love and
Forgiveness was published, and soon will also come out in Danish and
Japanese. It is already out in French. I
EXOTERIC AND ESOTERIC PSYC H O LOGY I
Integral psychology, as I understand it, is Dr. Gerard's current approach in
psychology. I studied a lot of that myself. Dr. Assagioli said to us over and over,
"The greatest service you can render to humanity is to take the esoteric and
I
translate it into exoteric, so people can understand it, take hold of it, and use
it. " And that's what I do.
I
Exoteric is how we all speak, in general. I don't use the term guides,

I
referring to counselors. I use the term counseling, because that's the term
everybody understands. I have no desire to be separate and make people use
certain terms to understand me.

The book l've just written is so simple. Even a young child could read it.
The message is what I'm trying to get across, not how many words I can have
I
people look up in the dietionary. I like it in simple terms. Dr. Assagioli used to
tell us, "Qualify what you're saying. Say the way you're meaning this. It may be
a term you are used to, but say how you're using it. "
I
DIFFERENT EM PHAS ES IN TEAC HING PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS
I
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I feel badly when people start to b e separate regarding psychosynthesis
training programs. We all have our own way of teaching. Some people teach
more the style in which they were taught, because that's the way they were
trained.

I feel that it's essential that we be open, and practice unconditional love.
I
Unconditional love means seeing the good in another and in yourself. It doesn't
mean that we don't see that which isn't good, but we focus on that which is
good, and that is what you bring out.
I
I
One teaeher will stress more will , and another will stress more love, and
another will stress something else. I have a sense-such a strong feeling-that
psychosynthesis has been kept more pure than almost any other psychological

I
approach that I know of. Some stress things others don't stress. But I believe

40
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Ed ith Sta uffe r's Story

I they're keeping the essence of psychosynthesis more pure than I thought was
p ossible. I really do feel good about that.

I I think the reason it is kept pure is that we are all helping people to get in
touch in with their own , inner Self, and it's coming out in that pure form. I

I think we 're all doing that. I am very pleased with what I hear and see.

I I think it would b e good if all psychosynthesis leaders had a good

b ackground in p sychology and understood p sychopathology. They could then
detect serious problems sooner and act on them.

I Isn't it wonderful that we have different parts of us? l 've thought of that so
many times. In myself, for instance , I have problems. It is wonderful I can
appreciate life and beauty, and stress the positive part of my life , in addition to

I having problems and working on them , but not loose sight of greater part of
myself. We have all those various parts. That's the beauty of p sychosynthesis,
to see the whole picture and not focus on the negative and identify with it.

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M a rtha Cra m pton's Story

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Martha Crampto n ' s Story
I Date of birth: July 7 , 1 933
Fonnal education:

I B .A. in Child Studies from Vassar College

M . A. in Psychology from Bryn Mawr College
Ph. D . in Psychology from Columbia Pacific University

I Current professional activities: Private practice of p sychotherapy; trainer in

Psychosynthesisj Integrative Therapy; writer.
Date of interview: March 2 9 , 1 987

I Place of interview: Martha's home in

moved to New York City . ]
Redding, Connecticut. [She has since

I I n 1 964 at a yoga camp someone showed me an artic1e about Roberto

Assagioli and p sychosynthesis. I was thrilled to death to discover that I didn't

I have to invent a new p sychology after all, because Roberto had already done it.
He had put together a framework that seerned very comprehensive. I had been
searching in spiritual paths, as weU as Western p sychotherapy, b ecause I felt

I there was something important missing in each of these approaches alone. The
maj or brand of p sychotherapy available at that time was psychoanalysis. There
wasn't even a Jungian in Montreal where I was living.

I I discovered the existence of the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation in

New York, but there was nobody in the country at that time who was qualified

I
to train other people. There was a pre-publication edition of the Manual
(Assagioli, 1 965) available at that time. A psychiatrist, Jack Cooper, who was
associated with the P.R. F. , helped me go through the Manual and the exercises.

I
I took a bus once a month from Montreal to New York to take part in their
meetings.

Since there was no one in this country to leam from, I went to ltaly to meet

I Roberto . I went four times for a period of several weeks each time. It was hard
to get away as I had young children.

I
The task I carved out for myself was to translate Roberto's teaching into a
form that would be relevant and appropriate to the North American
p sychotherapeutic community. That was the heyday of the human potential

I
movement in the sixties, and people were involved in things with a style very
different from Roberto's book. I thought that some of his suggestions would go
over like a lead balloon-like , for example , the exercise of standing on a chair

I
to b ring out the will. The way p sychosynthesis was practiced in Europe didn't
seem experiential enough. It didn't involve the feelings and the body enough for
the North American audience.

I In 1 973 I founded the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal,

which was the primary East Coast training center for p sychosynthesis. It's
interesting to note that, independently, people working on the West Coast and I

I would come up with very similar methods. Psychosynthesis workers on the two

I 43
Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea
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coasts had little communication initially. When we did communicate, we
I
leamed that we both had discovered the same techniques as though some
invisible force was guiding the evolution ofpsychosynthesis.
I
I was with the Canadian Institute from 1973 to 1978. When I left, there

I
was a split among my trainees over certain philosophical or spiritual b eliefs.
So they went separate ways. I let them be free to follow their own impulses.
Rene Fugere eventually got into doing psychosynthesis in organizations. The

I
last I saw him , he had taken three hundred managers through psychosynthesis
training.

When I left in 1978, I was going to work with the Synthesis Graduate
School in San Francisco. I thought we could make a more significant
contribution through joining forces, and the graduate school sounded like a
I
good idea. When I got out there and observed the pathology of the p erson who
was running it, I decided to leave.
I
I briefly went to Amherst, Massachusetts where several of my former

I
students were running a center. After that in Boston I worked on a proj ect
investigating creativity and intuition in problem solving. In 1980 I moved to my
present home in Connecticut. I currently do a lot of work in New York. I have

I
several proj ects I 'm involved with , both in Connecticut and New York.

I guess leaving Canada was part of my search for a way to have a larger
impact than simply working with individuals or training people. It has not b een
easy to fmd the right way to take that next step , to move the work up to the
next level. I have noticed that yeaming within the hearts of many of us,
I
wanting to expand our horizons and apply the principles more widely; yet not
wanting to jump in and do what everyone else is doing without an adequate
theoretical foundation.
I
C U RRENT I NTERESTS AN D I NVESTIGATI O N S
I
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The notion o f culture i s important t o me. What i s a culture? We 're all
micro-cultures , and we can think of our communication process as one of
inter-cultural communication. If we could understand the principles of how

I
communication happ ens between individuals, we would leam a lot about how
inter-cultural communication needs to happen at m acro leveis. I 'm working in
New York with a group called the Institute of Cultural Affairs, and have invited
some of them to take part in the Integrative Therapy Program. They're
wonderful p eople who do community development work-a lot of it in the third I
world , and also with some of the disenfranchised populations of New York­
empowering the people to take their own destinies in hand. It's really
p sychosynthesis of the community. I 'm excited by that. I
l 've b een looking at the principles of integration in the p syche as related to
scientific concepts, systems concepts; and also how these principles relate to
the macrocosm. That's kind of a growing edge for me. One of the goals of the
I
Integrative Therapy Program I started in New York is to look more deeply, with

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44
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M a rtha Cra m pton's Story

I colleagues from other disciplines, at how this process of integration takes

place. I feel the need for a more adequate understanding of what the psyche is

I and how it functions. And then how this understanding can this be applied to
working with collective psyches, such as a community or an organization, or
even the planet. I 'm looking into areas like conflict resolution, peace making,
I organizational development, and community development-they all fall within
that larger scheme of things. I think it's in the air. 80mething in this direction
is trying to come through to many people today.
I
THE G ROWING EDG E

I We need to go beyond psychosynthesis as it is currently formulated. I think

that psychosynthesis became too ingrown at a certain point. I have been

I attempting to expand my horizons and at the same time to deepen

psychosynthesis through interaction with people in related fields and other
disciplines. Too many of us were very caught up in our own little worlds and

I doing our own work, and not interfacing enough with the culture at large .

If you say that psychosynthesis stopped with Roberto Assagioli, then we're
dearly doing something else already. But then, that's what he wanted , and

I b elieved needed to happen. I think that if he were here , he certainly would not
be in the same place he was back then. 80 much is coming into the culture
that we need to integrate. What you label your work is really a strategic or

I political question. To call it psychosynthesis is a way of helping people who

have he ard about psychosynthesis know what's available to them.

I You can define a system in different ways. The boundaries of any system
are dependent on your obj ective : "How is it useful to set the boundary for a
p articular purpose?" rather than saying, "This is something hard and fast. This

I is the boundary of p sychosynthesis. "

I 've often had this debate within myself: Do I continue to call what I 'm
doing psychosynthesis or not? For a while I think I was reluctant to. I was very

I disenchanted by the whole California experience. Now I 've come back to using
the term again. Maybe someday 1'11 call my work something else. When
something else emerges that goes enough beyond it maybe a new name will be

I appropriate. It will draw on many disciplines as in what Roberto described as

the "Fifth Force . "

I PSYCHOTH E RAPY AN D PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS

I
My psychotherapy work is changing in that I 'm tending to do more short­
term work with people who are tuning into life purpose, trying to fmd their
place within the larger planetary purpose, and less long-time therapy work,

I
although I still do some of that as weU.

My own work, and the work of many coUeagues, has evolved in the
direction of more integration with the body and emotions. I 'm very fond of

I Eugene Gendlin's work in focusing (Gendlin, 1 978) . He uses the kinesthetic

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

channel, a bodily felt sense , to connect to the c1ient's core proeess. Of all the
I
therapeutie techniques I know , although it's not listed as a p sychosynthesis
technique , Gendlin's is the most powerful for getting to the heart of the matter.
l 've developed it quite a bit from where he left off in the book and made it more
I
p sychosynthetic. Mindell's "dreambody" work is also important in this vein.

There was a sort of superconscious identification , I believe, in Roberto's I

own thinking, and in the early work of those of us who studied with him . The
Jungians have a better understanding of the shadow, and my work with the
Jungians has helped me grasp the importanee of integrating shadow material. I
Theirs is a model of wholeness, as opposed to going up .

I talked to Roberto about some of these things, and he was pleased. He did
not at all have that proprietary spirit, as if he owned it. In fact, he said to m e ,
I
"Look, Martha, p sychosynthesis i s not something fIXed . It's not a dogma. It's a
living proeess. The best thing to do for everyone involved is to be in touch with
their own creative proeess, and then let the inspiration come from that. D on 't
I
do as I do, but get your own p sychosynthesis moving, and then do your own
thing. " He was very free that way, very disidentified from his own creation. H e
may have b e e n too much on the non-controlling side of the control/ allowing
I
polarity. Perhaps this contributed to the emergence of the over-controlling
stance in California in the seventies.
I
Psychosynthesis is a perspective or framework more than anything. The
depth comes from the holistic perspective. The power and the great beauty of
this approach is that it has that perspective of wholeness, as it's evolved to this I
day. It's still very special and very unique, and it takes bits and pieces of other
schools of thought.

Even though p sychosynthesis makes use of techniques that have been

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developed by other schools, it is unique in its way of using them . It brings its
own perspective on human nature and the quality of human connection.
Though the notion of presenee is so important in the teaching of
I
p sychosynthesis, it's something totally left out of Roberto's book. The whole
aspect of the energetic context of therapy, and the interpersonal dynamie was
something he didn't really bring in. We've had to flil that in.
I
I do a lot of training with people in being able to listen, to really hear what
the client is saying. It's so difficultl In the hands of a skilled practitioner, the I
art is invisible , and people think there's nothing to it. And then they get out
and try to do it, and they realize that to really hear the most simple
communication is extremely difficult. Straight forward Rogerian reflective I
listening is an important skill to leam. A psychosynthesis practitioner can
build on that technique to facilitate disidentification and support growth in a
variety of ways. Many of the concepts and techniques developed in other fie1ds
I
can b ecome p sychosynthetic with a slightly different twist.

This applies to the Gendlin method. l 've developed some interesting new
ways of working with his technique. Yet we stand on his shoulders. He's given
I
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u s a very valuable tool. The same thing with transference. I work a lot with the

46
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M a rtha Cra m pton ' s Story

I notion of transference. Though my approach is somewhat different than the

analytic one , I feel that we use transference in a way that's more humane and

I respectful of the individual. Psychosynthesis has also added a lot to the Gestalt
"chair work." We brought in the position of the center as a third chair. We also

I
helped bring in an understanding of the complementarity of the opposites, and
the need for their interpretation.

I feel it's very important for students to learn about transference and

I counter-transference. I 'm having a whole course on that taught by a Jungian

next year-the use of one 's own responses to the client, and how that can be
used creatively to move the process. So I don't agree that p sychosynthesis is

I merely a compilation of other therapies. It draws on other therapies and adapts

them to fit its own point of view.

The California School used to have these lectures on where the different

I therapies fit in. l 've never found that particularly useful. What we need is not
so much plugging things into a pigeonhole , but understanding the basic
principles of how the psyche works, and how healing takes place, and how

I growth is facilitated . To me, it smacks of a certain grandiosity, that way of

saying, "We have the framework that shows where everything else fits in. " I
don't think we have that powerful a framework yet. The seeds are there . What I
I love is our emphasis on evolutionary process. And the will as an integrative
function. Beyond that, we don't have much.

I Some people might consider p sychosynthesis a religion, I suppose. It

depends how you define religion. The root meaning of religion is that which
links us to the Ultimate . When psychosynthesis is used as a mode of linking

I oneself to the larger whole, in that sen se you could call it a religion.

I relate to psychosynthesis as principles. Those of us in the work seem to

place a lot of emphasis on presence. I think that was something more
I developed in Montreal. We were kind of known as "the heart school" of
psychosynthesis, or the intuitive school, whereas the West Coast people were

I
more mentally oriented .

At this p oint in my life , I get bored reading the p sychosynthesis literature.

It is too familiar. The challenge at the edge for me is in the interface with other

I disciplines right now. I think the p sychosynthesis publications that have come
out have not been of high quality. It's time to move to the next level with our
work and fmd the synthesis with other disciplines and with general principles.

I The culture is changing, and I think we need to integrate this evolution in

our thinking. Whether we call it p sychosynthesis or something else eventually

I
isn't so important as upgrading and refming our theoretical understanding.
We've never really had a theory in p sychosynthesis. It's been pretty empirical,
very loose. It could use a good deal more rigor. Some of the new disciplines that

I
are emerging have the potential of providing us with the tools to produce that
rigor.

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

M O R E N EW AND STI M U LATING IDEAS

I
It's very interesting to me to see how many different disciplines are
converging on the same insights and principles. Even the new psychoanalysis , I
an d the self p sychology, i s much more like psychosynthesis now. Instead of
seeing defenses as p athological , they're now seen as an attempt of the p syche
to solve a problem. I find living systems theory-autopoesis theory in particular, I
the theory of self-creating systems-very useful. I like the paradigm of
wholeness, of working from wholeness, in terms of the complementary
subsystems in the p syche, and the integration of what the Jungians would call I
the shadow. I 'm also interested in the different leveis, like the multi­
dimensionality of the psyche, that is being discovered in biology. It's so
interesting. In autopoesis, they have found that to understand how any living
I
system functions, you have to posit a non-material dimension outside of space­
time , that we would call the Self and they call the organization of the system .

Autopoesis means self-creation. There i s some very abstruse and difficult

I
literature at the present time available by Francisco Varela and Humberto
Maturana. The family systems people have picked up on their work, and also
the cybemetics people. I went to a cybemetics conference two years ago and it
I
was fascinating to see how there were two camp s. The people in the avant­
garde were trying to move into the new paradigm of living systems theory, away
from the old , more mechanistic models. Yet they kept slipping b ack into the old
I
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habits of thought. Nobody knew quite how to make the transition. I think that's
where we are. We're grop ing for new ways of thinking and understanding. It's
coming. There's a book coming out called The Tree of Knowledge within the

I
next several months (Maturana, 1 98 7 ) . I think that it wi11 go a long way toward
p opularizing this m aterial.

And there 's a lot coming out of modem logic. The new physics is pretty weU
known , but the new logic is even more mind-blowing. There's the logic of
paradox, which is what we see in the p syche, because living systems are
I
paradoxical in their functioning. In former times logicians tried to get rid of
paradox. They supported the either/ or, black and white thinking that is the
cause of so many of our problems.
I
Those are some of the directions I 've b een looking in-the new sciences and
I
societal applications of this thinking. Meanwhile I continue to have an active
practice and training life , which I love. That's a laboratory for learning about
the se principles too .
I
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48
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J i m Fad i ma n ' s Story

I
1 1 . Jim Fadiman ' s Sto ry
I Date of birth: May 27, 1939
Formal education:

I B.A. in Social Relations from Harvard College

M.A. in Psychology from Stanford University
Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University

I Current professional activities: Teaching c1asses ; leading seminars; writing

(book reviews, a play, and the revision of book published last year, Be All
That You Are) ; speaking; and consulting.

I Date of interview: July 15, 1987

Place of interview: Jim's home office in Menlo Park, California

I I originally heard of psychosynthesis through two different sources. One

was when I had a teaching position at Brandeis University, filling in for
I Abraham Maslow in 1 967-68. I heard about Assagioli because Maslow was
helping him get his original book published.

I
The other source was when I was living in California in the mid -sixties. I
was a graduate student in psychology at Stanford University, and did my
dissertation on LSD research. Jim Vargiu was interested in what I was doing,

I
which was working with psychedelic drugs and consciousness in any forms we
could talk about. At that point he was some kind of engineer, building a little
airplane, and doing other mechanical engineering kinds of things. He had been

I
with Roberto in Italy several times. This was before he had met Susan and done
anything formal with psychosynthesis.
Jim and Susan met, dated, married, and continued to visit Assagioli. They
I urged my wife, Dorothy, and I also to spend some time with him. I had read
much of his book and found it very interesting.

I EXPER I M E NTING WITH PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS I N G RO U PS

I
When I had come back to California from my time with Maslow, teaching at
Brandeis, I was looking around for stuff to make a living with out here, in 1 968
and 1969. I had done things at Esalen Institute in prior years, and they asked

I
if I'd come down and do something there. So I took my little Psychosynthesis
Manual (Assagioli, 1965) and developed a workshop. I believe no one else had
worked in groups with psychosynthesis before. Assagioli certainly didn't. And

I
there weren't any psychosynthesis organizations in this country at that point,
other than the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation in New York, which held
monthly educational meetings. I felt that if the material was good, and the

I
human mind was what it was, then it should work with groups.
I did several workshops with small groups at Esalen for a while, and then
developed a large group format. At one point Esalen had a road show, called
I "The Flying Circus." There was Will Shutz doing encounter work, Betty Fuller

I 49
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Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

doing some body stuff , and various other people doing various things . And I did
I
psychosynthesis. I invented things at that point where people could get a great
deal out of three hours in groups of two to five hundred. There I was in a
ballroom with people lying all over, and I was giving them some theory, the
I
disidentification exercise, and then usually something of a more profound
imagery sort, such as "opening the heart ," where I would have people walk into
their own heart and then have an experience. I was experimenting , and I did a
I
num ber of those groups of various kinds. It was a big success.

While that was occurring, the Vargius were beginning to train people , and I
eventually took over that part of the Esalen catalog. They suggested that only
the people who were trained in psychosynthesis should be doing
psychosynthesis. I said , "That's fine with me. Since I have other things I can
I
do, 1'11 be happy to go off and do other things ."

I
V I S ITI NG ASSAG IOLI

Dorothy and I did correspond with Assagioli, and in 1972 we visited him in
Florence for a month. We had written rather extensive autobiographies for him
I
before we came, which was his way of dealing with people. When we got
together for an initial meeting , he said , "What do you want to work on?" We
indicated that we were not particularly interested in therapy, unless there was
I
something in our biographies he felt was important. He said that he was not
particularly interested in therapy either, and therefore we would not do any. I
We then began to explore certain aspects of consciousness. We used a
combination of drawing, recording and analyzing dreams , going through a
series of guided meditations on various topics, and meeting with him now and I
then after we had written up all these internal events. He would go over what
we had written, and we would discuss them as best we could, since we wrote
most of our questions before each meeting because he was deaf. We would I
come in with long pages and he would say, "Please mark the important parts."
He had a very economical way. Dorothy and I did an enormous amount of
work, and he would touch on the relevant moments.
I
I
Most of the time we would end those sessions with a short meditation he
would lead on certain attributes, such as gratitude, love, and so on. Then
Dorothy reported in one of her writings that she always got very high and very

I
elevated after these meditations. So he then said, "Well, we 'll cut them out for a
while." This made us feel that he was not into the California "get-high-on­
anything" point of view. The purpose of these sessions was not to simply get

I
someone high. He was actually trying to do some work with us.

We also offered different services to him He had just completed a

.

manuscript called The Will, which later became his second book (Assagioli,
1973), and he asked us to read it. We read it and it was quite bad. Here was
this old man who we were very fond of, and who was very open, and he was not
I
going to do a lot of rewriting, and what do we tell him, because his m anuscript

I
50
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J i m Fad i ma n ' s Story

I was disjointed, badly written, and incoherent, although the material was quite
good?
I So we told him-and he was hurt, just the way anyone would be hurt. And
we watched him for a moment-he was hurt, reading our comments on how

I poor the manuscript was. And then he stopped, and you could kind of see a
little gear turn, and he looked back at us in total calm and said, "Then I guess
my friends in the United States will need to do a lot of work on this

I manuscript." He was back to his centered, cheerful, kind of ebullient liUle self.
I did a redraft of an outline to restructure the book, and Dorothy tried redoing
a chapter in detail, to give him some idea. Eventually, due to the politics of

I things, we did not help with the actual reconstruction of that book.

I PARTI NG WAYS WITH THE VARG l U S

W e came back from Italy terribly enthused. Roberto had said t o me, "Do
whatever you wish to do. If you wish to call anything you do psychosynthesis,

I that is fme with me. You seem to understand what it's really about. " If you look
at the Manual, the original psychosynthesis book, it contains total
behaviorism, total cognitive stuff, total psychodrama, all kinds of techniques,

I really, that don't have any efficacy other than they work on people for certain
things. So Assagioli was very dear that if you are doing something and have
the right orientation, that's psychosynthesis.

I The other thing I liked was his defmition of psychosynthesis, which I use in
my own talks: "If it works, it's psychosynthesis. " He wasn't running a little

I franchise. He felt that Dorothy understood everything on a deeply intuitive

leve1, and he indicated my mind was pretty well developed, although I could
use a liUle more heart work, and that if we wanted to continue doing work in

I this area, it was fine with him.

Assagioli had specifically said to Dorothy, "You are absolutely qualified to

do what you want with this material. " And she said, "Should I work with the

I Vargius?" And he said that that would be very polite, because they were trying
to form things in this country. So Dorothy called them when we got b ack and

I
said she would like to take some dasses they were offering, to improve her
capacity to do psychosynthesis work. First they said she was too advanced;
then, this and that ; and fmally they said she was too psychic. They didn't want
Dorothy to work with them for some reason. I think they were probably telling
I the truth. Her ability to discern peoples' feelings was very deve1oped. Since the
Vargius were beginning to have a kind of grandiosity at that point, a strong
woman might not have served them, because they were getting people who were
I servile.

But it wasn't dear. They had really pressured us to go see Assagioli. They

I really liked us-we were friends. And then it began to unravel on our return.
My guess is that we had risen too quickly in rank. They had a belief system
that had a very strong hierarchical theory behind it. There was never any real

I confrontation or c1arity about anything between the Vargius and myself.

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

I
I
THE WALL O F S I LENCE

I had a later run-in with Frank Hilton, who ran the Psychosynthesis
Research Institute in New York. He indicated that he was very disturbed that I
was involved with psychism, a 1 93 0 's term for parap sychology. I didn't know
what he was talking about. He said, "WeU, you gave a speech once about the se
I
things . " I said, "I give speeches in many areas. This is an area of interest to
people. " He indicated this was a very bad kind of mix between p sychosynthesis
and psychism. I indicated that it was up to him to have his opinions and I 'd
I
have mine about what I did for a living. And I could understand his concern
because, at that point, he was keeping the biggest secret in psychosynthesis in
his little office .
I
I
Assagioli was one of the people that Alice Bailey was closest to , and he was
totally involved with the Alice Bailey work. I thought that was of no great
importance , one way or another, but it was a big deal to a lot of people. I asked

I
Assagioli about it. He said , "The wall of silence should be maintained. " I said , "I
don't see any purpose in it. Nobody cares about Alice Bai1ey in this country.
And the p eople who do care would be thrilled. It also gives p sychosynthesis
some intellectual underpinning. It doesn 't say it arrived out of thin air. " He
said, "I've got enough troubles. It's enough trouble being accepted by I
p sychology. If it's generally understood that it comes out of the theosophical­
mystical tradition, it will be even less acceptable." That seerned sensible ,
particularly for Europe for those days. And he said , "It's my religion. Until I die , I
I 'd like it maintained . " I said, "Fine. Until you die , I won't mention it."

One could discuss any of the sources of Eastern or Western mysticism,

except the Bailey work. The wall of silence , as it was called , was only about the
I
Bailey work. It was my assumption and understanding that the reason for this
was that it was entirely generated out of the Bailey work. He did say as much,
but when you went to visit him , there was his little office , and there was a
I
waiting room. And in the waiting room, you look up on the wall about ten feet
off the flo or (it had about a fJiteen foot ceiling) , and there's this painting leaning
down on you , which is Madame Blavatsky [founder of the Theosophical
I
I
Society] , looking at you with those eyes . There you are , sitting in the waiting
room , and Madam Blavatsky is looking at you. So we sugge sted to him that if
he really had this wall of silence , he certainly didn't do it very well. And that's

I
when he indicated that it was his religion.

Assagioli had a whole other life where he wrote these little spiritual
meditation booklets for the Alice Bailey study group s , worldwide. We happened
to come when one of his English Bailey people was there , so we were kind of
eyeing each other. We were part of the p sychological p sychosynthesis side, but
I
the other p art was the Alice Bailey work.

So when you visited Frank Hilton in New York, he literally had two doors to
his office. If you entered one door, it was called Psychosynthesis Research
I
I
Institute , and the other door was called The Esoteric School. The two doors led

52
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J i m Fad i ma n ' s Story

I to the same office. So one of the major correspondence schools in the United
States for the Alice Bailey material was run by the same person who was
I running psychosynthesis in the United States before the Vargius. The wall of
silenee had this marvelous, literally, two doors, which is why I couldn't take it

I
all that seriously.
On the East Coast you had Frank Hilton in New York with his two front
doors, and on the West Coast you had the Vargius with this kind of inner

I secret temple where all good psychosynthesists eventually end up. In a sense,
Frank Hilton was very dean about it. He said, "I'm doing two things. Assagioli
asked me to help get psychosynthesis established , and I am, and my life is

I committed to the Bailey work."

There is a book in the Bailey work called Discipleship In the New Age
(Bailey, 1 972), and there are some letters in there to Assagioli, although coded
I initials are used. It was a big deal that you shouldn't say anything. I'd be in a
room with ten advanced psychosynthesis people, and everyone would think he
or she was studying the Bailey work in secret and no one else knew. One night
I at a psychosynthesis meeting in Canada I said, "You know, what do you think
about the writing of this woman, Alice Bailey?" And everyone looked at me like

I
I had just taken my pants off because I had just blown everyone's individual
secret. And I knew that, and I just did it for fun.
So in the early days, that was one of the things that I didn't approve of or

I respect, that the intellectual, spiritual, and philosophical underpinnings, at

least with the Vargius, were this secret. In the Vargius' little empire, once you
had penetrated up to a certain leve1, they said , "Well, here's the really good

I stuff." The Bailey stuff is so cumbersome. It may be good stuff, but boy. Some
Tibetan may have written it through her, but there should have been an editor
somewhere along the line.
I I think the wall of silence, if it's still maintained , is simply a dishonest way
of doing business. It's unfair to students, it's unfair to Assagioli, and it's unfair

I
to psychosynthesis. The fact that Newton knew astrology doesn't invalidate his
formulas. Or the fact that Beethoven didn't make a very good living, or that he
was deaf, doesn't mean his music was poor. I think the wall of silenee is simply

I
an old and inappropriate thing to do. It was one of the things that caused a lot
of trouble in the Psychosynthesis Institute. Not only were you supposed to be
studying Alice Bailey, but you were not supposed to say you were. It created

I
double binds.
I've experimented with what happens if you tell people that
psychosynthesis is derived from Alice Bailey. I've done this in psychology
I graduate school dasses and seminars. I wanted to test my theory that it
doesn't matter. I now know that, in a group of graduate students in psychology,
maybe one in thirty will know who Alice Bailey was, and that person is kind of
I cheered. The other twenty-nine just give you a blank look.

I
I 53
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Psyc hosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

LlFE AS AN O UTS IDER

I
I
So I dropped away from psychosynthesis in a formal or functional sense.
Once I began to see that I was persona non grata in the Vargiu world, and that
the Vargius were accumulating power, I just did other things with my life. In
some sense I just stepped out of the history.
I did some consulting, I did some writing, some speeches; I was the director
I
of the Institute of Noetic Sciences for a while-that kind of thing. My career is
checkered. I also taught in design engineering for ten years. I'm very interested
in consciousness, and how it works. In terms of therapy, which is a very small
I
class of consciousness work, I think psychosynthesis has sensational
techniques and a pretty good point of view. It's a fun and exciting way if one is
going to do therapy. I do not want to do therapy, and have not done therapy.
I
I
We were never part of the Vargiu empire. Ive published a couple of things
in The Psychosynthesis Digest. I did some workshops in Australia and helped
establish psychosynthesis there. I've done things, now and then, called

I
psychosynthesis. I kept informed. When things got really sick and crazy in the
late seventies in San Francisco, when people would eventually run away, I was
one of the people they would contact, say six months after they'd run away. So
Dorothy and I were there at the beginning, and then during the "exciting"
middle years we weren't that involved, and now things are opening again. I
THE STAN DARDIZATIO N AND O S S I FICATI O N PROCESS I
Assagioli said there should never be any formal organization in
psychosynthesis groups-that every group should do what it wished to do
(Assagioli, 1 98 1 ; see Appendix] . They should communicate with each other, but
I
each should be different with its own integrity. The idea that there was a
standard format, the whole Vargiu notion of control, was really deeply,
fundamentally, against Assagioli's point of view.
I
I
Issues of standardization, licensing, 'who are the right people to train
whom, ' happen in all the disciplines I'm familiar with. It never raises
standards. It always increases a kind of middle ground. Eventually the people
who care most about it end up controlling it, and they're usually the least
innovative people. That's the nature of it. I
People who love structure will create structures in whatever they're doing,
and the people who are innovative will become dissatisfied and get out of that
structure. When it gets to the place where the structure people like it, you
I
have j ust created a situation where the innovation people will quit. I think
Assagioli was sugge sting that by making each center be its own, he could delay
that ossification and clarifications. The nice thing about the Manual is that it
I
clearly is a kind of pile of stuff; and there is an anti-systematic bias.
The ossification of psychosynthesis is inevitable. Let me put it this way-I I
don't know of any case in the past that it hasn't happened. And in a sense, the
horrors of the Vargiu era will save it for a number of years because anyone who
I
54
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J i m Fad i man's Story

I now suggests that they should help any other group c1arify their own goals is
immediately asked if they are sugge sting we should move toward a
I Psychosynthesis Institute-which, of course, is immediately disavowed .

The psychoanalytic institutes really don 't agree with each other much. They

I are in a large fie1d , which they call psychoanalysis, and what they agree on is
what to exc1ude. They don't necessarily agree on how to train people , but
they're very c1ear that many things should not be looked at, diseussed, or

I considered. One of the first ways you find a group is regidifying or structuring
is what isn't inside .

For instance , if w e really read the Manual carefuUy, we'd see things that

I are pure b ehaviorism , absolutely undiluted behaviorist models that Assagioli

brilliantly created before Skinner thought it through. My bet is that if you
presented a pure behaviorist thing, and said , "Let's inc1ude this in

I psychosynthesis training," and didn't say where it came from, it would be

thrown out. And if you then said later on after it had been thrown out, "WeU, I
just got it from Assagioli, " they'd say, "WeU, that was an error of his. " I think
I we 're already at that point.

I O BS E RVATIONS ON PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS, PSYCHO LOGY, ETC.

Assagioli originally called it biopsychosynthesis, and everyone said, "It's

I
bad enough you 're calling it psychosynthesis. " He meant to have the physical
body in there , too, but it has not attracted anybody with real body
consciousness. So one theory is that psychosynthesis is a psychology of the

I whole being with a kind of awareness of body, but not much emphasis on it.

Another view of psychosynthesis is that it's a stance, it's a way of

approaching most things. So one could look at literature, one could look at

I psychotherapy, one could look at physical therapy, through that visionary

point, that stance. Assagioli happened to make a living as a psychotherapist,
and he trained as a physician and psychiatrist, but his personal, inner work

I had nothing to do with that stuff-the Alice Bailey work is not a psychology, it's
a full metaphysics of the universe. My guess is that he would like this view of
psychosynthesis.
I However, my feeling is that psychosynthesis has become a subdivision of
transpersonal p sychology-transpersonal b eing a term for spiritual

I psychologies. Assagioli adored the word transpersonal. He thought it was a

great word. He quickly went through one of his later manuscripts and simply
crossed out the word spiritual and put in the word transpersonal. I asked him

I why, and he said , "Because it will offend less people ." He said , "It means about
the same thing, but it won't bother people if you say transpersonal. "

Psychosynthesis has become, I think, predominantly a therapy, under the

I slightly larger rubric of transpersonal. I don't see any major interest in

anything else going on. At the 1 983 conferenee in Toronto , almost everyone
there made a living as a clinician. They were learning the stuff so they could
I
I 55

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Psyc hosynthes is i n N orth Ameriea

heal people. And that's fme . But I don't think that's an accurate representation
I
of the thought form . That's a distillation of the thought fonn into one area.

Psychosynthesis in this country suffers from a predominance of I

practitioners who don't know psychology, and therefore cannot converse in the
realm of generally assumed p sychological knowledge. They say it is a
p sychology, but it has the same problem transpersonal psychology has. It is a I
larger viewpoint, but it is not accepted into the society of people who make the
rules of what counts. The philosophers have no interest in psychosynthesis
because the practitioners have not arisen out of philosophy. I
Psychology arose out of William James, who was pragmatic and tenibly
observational. He was not philosophic. He looked real hard at things, and tried
to make a few things come together, and his textbook is still brilliant because
I
it's fllied with very shrewd observations. He came out of the education milieu,
and was very weU educated. I
Assagioli was very, very weU educated. Psychosynthesis therefore has a lot
of aspects of Sufi and Islamic work; it has aspects of the Alice Bailey stuff; it
has aspects of the Jungian work; it has aspects from a Russian philosopher I
named Kyserling, one of Assagioli's favorite authors; and aspects of many other
sources. But many of the people who are portraying p sychosynthesis have a
rather narrow and limited position, predominantly in psychosynthesis, and are I
therefore at a disadvantage in saying "We are a more inc1usive point of view
than you are." They're right, but the problem is they don't know enough of the
things they're against, or they're disrnissing. I
If psychosynthesis took the high road and said , "We are an inc1usive theory
of the Self, and whatever works, therefore, is part of what we're doing," so that
focusing, this rather specialized technique of paying attention to feelings
I
(Gendlin, 1 978) , is a part of psychosynthesis from the Assagioli position; and
any body work that works, that helps increase personal internal and external
freedom, and alleviate human suffering, would also be inc1uded;
I
I
p sychosynthesis could then take its position as a way of thinking as
humanistic and transpersonal and Freudian tried to do.

Freudian originally was not a therapeutic system, it was a philosophic

position. It then said, WeU, what are us philosophers going to do to earn a
living? WeU, we're going to do this really screwy kind of therapy. And then they
I
said , What should we write about? Let's write to each other about how to make
this therapy better. The larger point of view dropped out. You don't see
p sychoanalysts writing Civilization and lts Discontents. They're writing about
I
what to do with anal compulsive , twenty-four year old women who live in lower
Manhattan, a very small point of view. Psychosynthesis could, and does in
many ways, try to take the high road , where Assagioli was. I don't know
I
whether it wi1l or not.
Assagioli was not a theoretician. He wrote little artic1es about things that I
interested him. His theoretical work is hidden because it's more in all those

I
meditation books. It's p sychosynthetic in its highest form. The levels of

56
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J i m Fad i ma n ' s Story

I psychosynthesis are first, normal therapy; then personal psychosynthesis; then

group ; and a then a kind of social service-world service. The pamphlets are all

I about world service. If you 're capable of saving some part of the world , and
you 're overweight, which is more important? The psychosynthesis philosophical
position is: Get onto the important things. Assagioli had a lovely pragmatic
I thing: "Make a living off your strengths ; and work on your weakness." If you
really know about reforestation of the Amazon jungle , and your fat, then by
God , you should be down there doing something to save the Amazon jungle.
I That's your living in the world . Sure, you should work on your weight problem,
but you shouldn't run groups on being overweight, as too many therapists do.

I In the last few years l've been reading literature. That's what l've come to . lf
I want to understand human beings, Balzac and Shakespeare and Dickens

I were very good observers, and they are very interesting. And it's marvelous that
they were willing to share their insights with me, on my time. I read almost no
psychology because most of it is very badly written in the first place, and its

I fairly shallow.

I One of the reasons I like transpersonal psychology is that it's actually

rather sophisticated where it takes off from . It's base is the first five thousand
years of work on the mind-it doesn't start out of thin air. It says: Let us look

I at what the Buddhists have talked about for a couple of thousand years. The
Buddhists have tried to think about, refine, discuss, and work on it, but it's the
same issue for a couple of thousand years. Maybe they've actuaily made some

I progress. Let's start there , rather than American psychology, which tried to
start out of thin air, out of nonsense syllables, and looking at squares and
dots. Psychosynthesis is part of a very old and sophisticated set of

I psychologies, the way I see it, of which Theosophy is one version. That Assagioli
was a Theosophist was his business, and that he chose to make
p sychosynthesis not directly part of that was his decision.
I
THE H ISTO RY OF PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS IN AMERICA
I Robert Gerard is out of the Theosophical side of Assagioli. The Vargius were
not reaily from that side. They just kind of got into the Bailey stuff because

I Vargiu had this incredibly high I . Q . and could ab sorb the Alice Bailey stuff.
God knows why he got interested . My guess is that if Roberto was interested,
then he would get interested. But he came to it late , in a different generation

I where it didn't make as much sense. Gerard is of the generation that Frank
Hilton was.

When I talked to Hilton at one point, he said , "We were just a holding

I p attem. The next manifestation of the Theosophical position will not be through
the se Bailey books or things like them. That was simply a holding position to
keep that knowledge alive for thirty or forty years, until it could manifest in a

I
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

different form." He was very clear that he was like a rare, old book custodian,
I
so that when mankind rediscovered it, there wou1d be this stuff.
He was very supportive of psychosynthesis and of me, until I became "evil." I
Vargiu got to Martha Crampton as well as Frank Hilton. These were the peop1e
who controlled the literature. A who1e set of pamph1ets came out of New York,
and then Martha was writing a lot of stuff. Martha was one of the real forces, I
and created a circle around her own therapeutic and intellectual brilliance. The
stuff out of New York was really the se Theosophical peop1e sneaking it in and
then attracting other peop1e with Roberto 's work. Vargiu was his own source of I
power. Gerard really didn't do much in terms of getting a following. He just did
his own work.
I
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58
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Doug Russe l l ' s Story

I
Doug Russe l l ' s Sto ry
I Date of birth:. April 1 6 , 1 942
Formal education:

I B.A. in Music
M. S.W. in Social Work
Current professional activities: Private psychotherapy practice; writing;

I consulting.
Date of interview: July 8 , 1 987
Place of interview: Doug's office in Los Angeles

I
I 've lived in Los Angeles all my life. In the middle sixties I had an

I undergraduate degree in music and had been a hippie dropout. During those
times a group of us had been experimenting with LSD. This was my first
contact with altered states of consciousness, mystical experiences, and so on,
I and tied in with Leary, Metzner, and Alpert's book, The Psychedelic Experience.
From there we got into various things like Zen meditation groups. I was in
Subud for a year or two. I went to hatha yoga retreats. I tried all different sorts
I of Eastem approaches.
I reached a point where I didn't want to be a musician any more, so in

I
1 967 or '68 I got a job as a social worker and applied to graduate school. I got
a masters in social work so I could do psychotherapy. I also decided that I
needed my own personal therapy. I was confused-I couldn't quite put the

I
traditional world I grew up in together with all I had experienced, in terms of
the mystical, the spiritual, and the drug culture.
I asked a friend, who had gone to a lot of seminars, who he thought the
I best therapist was. He recommended Robert Gerard , so I went to him I knew
.

that Robert combined the spiritual and the traditional, and I ne eded that
combination. The appeal of psychosynthesis has been the wedding of the
I practical everyday world and the spiritual life. I had been somewhat turned off
by mystics and people who were airy-fairy types. I had been one of those types,
so I knew the danger of not being grounded.
I I deliberately didn't read the book Psychosynthesis for a couple of years so
I could experience the therapy just as a client. In the course of my therapy with

I
Robert I became interested in specializing in psychosynthesis. I was involved in
traditional clinical graduate school training-psychoanalytically oriented-and
I was doing non-traditional therapy with him After graduate school I continued
.

I
under his supervision-I would bring cases to him So in effect, I had a one-to­
.

one didactic p sychosynthesis training with Robert.

I TEAC H I N G W ITH E DITH STAU FFER

In 1 972 I did my first psychosynthesis workshop over at High Point

I Foundation, which Edith Stauffer had founded in Pasadena several years

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before. In 1 974 she and I teamed up and started a professional I
p sychosynthesis training program . That was my beginning as a trainer. Edith
brought to that a lot of organizational and marketing skills, and years and
years as a therapist and group leader, and I brought the academic, intellectual, I
and theoretical sid e , as well as my training as a therapist. She and I were a
good team to co-design a training program .

By the time I left that, it was a full-blown, three year training program for
I
professionals. The students generally had their degrees and were already
practicing therapists who wanted to have this skill in the specialty of
p sychosynthesis. There were also some people who were going for a degree in a
I
non-traditional college , where they could get full credit for undergraduate or
graduate work in psychosynthesis as a part of a degree program they designed
themselves, such as Antioch. And we had a few teachers , a physician or two, a
I
business administration type-but it was mostly therapists.

From 1 974 to 1 978 she and I did the training. During that time the center I
in Seattle , which was tied to High Point, became more active and I presented
workshops up there . Some people started a center in Albuquerque, and I went
there to help them get started . I acted as a kind of consultant, a senior trainer. I
THE ALICE BAI LEY WO RK, PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS, AND "THE WALL O F S I LENCE" I
In 1 978 I left High Point and moved to west L.A. Edith and I went our
separate ways. We had different ideas about styles of teaching, ways of
working. I had taught a couple of courses in west L.A. on Robert Gerard's
I
Integral Psychology, which includes a lot of esoteric , Alice Bailey type material.
Many p sychosynthesists were very set against that being openly tied to
p sychosynthesis in any way. When I first was beginning to teach and train in
I
psychosynthesis, say 1 97 2 , 1 973, and 1 974, many people I met who were
practicing psychosynthesis were heavily involved in Alice Bailey studies. It
appeared to me that p sychosynthesis was kind of an exoteric outgrowth or
I
expression of Alice B ailey's writings. This was to be kept a secret, because if
the whole world knew it was just an expression of Alice Bailey, people wouldn't
respect psychosynthesis. They wanted it to be seen as scientific , as a
I
psychology, and might be perceived as kooky or weird if it was tied to a
metaphysical system like Alice Bailey's. I
Apparently Assagioli, in the earlier part of the century, had b een going
around Europe studying and lecturing about esoteric and mystical matlers,
and he noticed that many p eople wouldn't see him as a real scientist and
I
respect his work in p sychosynthesis. So many years ago he made a policy
decision-he would keep his esoteric interests separate from p sychosynthesis. I
think there was good reason for that. Its no different, in a sense, from
I
separating church and state . My private religious beliefs don't directly come
into my work if I 'm a judge or a businessman , or whatever. So Assagioli was
saying, "I'm a scientist and I 'm doing this type of p sychology. I happen to
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Doug Russe l l ' s Story

I believe in all these mystical, spiritual things, but I don't mix them up with my
work a whole lot."

I When I came on the scene , some psychosynthesists had pledged to

Assagioli that they would keep that division very striet, that there would be no

I openly acknowledged connection between the two . It was called "the wall of
silence"-to keep a wall of silence between psychosynthesis and esoteric things.
There is a concept of walls of silence in Bailey's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. All

I it's saying, in effect, is that as we grow, what is outward and manifest is one
thing, and what we can see and envision of where we 're going in the future is
much greater than that, and there's a kind of silence or gap between those two .

I And it changes over time. So if psychosynthesis is to grow, one would think

that that wall between the esoteric ideas and psychosynthesis would move
back, and psychosynthesis would gradually incorporate more of that.

I ·
But 1 came away with the impression that psychosynthesis is a direct
outgrowth of Alice Bailey material, and we needed to keep that hidden and
secret. Robert Gerard introduced me to the Alice Bailey material when I fIrst

I met him in 1 968. In 1 972 and 1 973 he was saying, "I'm leaving
p sychosynthesis. I 'm going to do Integral Psychology, which openly indudes
esoteric things. "
I I was still a student o f his. I wanted to d o training in his Integral
Psychology. So on this side of town, I did a workshop or two on Integral

I Psychology, openly talking about Alice Bailey. Then I 'd drive twenty miles to the
Psychosynthesis Training Center in Pasadena and go into a room where I was
not allowed to mention I knew of Alice Bailey. I feit nuts. I felt split.

I I have a totally different perspective now. I don't think that psychosynthesis

directly grew out of Alice Bailey. For one thing, all the Alice Bailey works didn't
start to be published until the thirties; Assagioli started in 1910. There is a
I parallelism , but here's what I think it's about. Psychosynthesis, with the
concept of the Higher Self, using the light over the head , and so on-those
techniques appear to come directly from the raja yoga system. Assagioli knew
I Sanskrit, and he must have read and drew inspiration from that.

Alice Bailey also drew major inspiration from the raj a yoga system. So there

I are paralleis. But I would not now say to you that psychosynthesis is an
outward manifestation of Alice Bailey, or is that dosely tied to Alice Bailey.
Assagioli was certainly dose to Alice Bailey's work, Robert Gerard is, and other

I people in psychosynthesis in the early days were dose to her work. But
psychosynthesis had roots from many directions, not just from that. In fact,
now a days, it looks to me like the vast majority of psychosynthesists don't

I study Alice Bailey at all.

I THE PSYCHOSYNTHE S I S DIG EST

When I was doing training on this side of town, I published The

Psychosynthesis Digest, and put some esoteric materials in there. I got some
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flack from the larger community, from Europe particularly, that I was tying this I
to psychosynthesis in any way.
I was doing trainings from 1 978 to 1 98 1 . After 1 980 I got more and more
interested in writing and publishing, and I put more energy into The Digest,
I
and into my own artic1es. I got tired of doing training. I had done it for seven
years. I j ust wanted to write and get back to doing more psychotherapy. I1
I 'm in a phase now where I 'm not sure how interested I am in being fully
identified as a p sychosynthesist. In 1 980 at the Florence conference, Steve Kull
did an exercise for the group that went something like this: "Think of a time I
when you got disillusioned with psychosynthesis, or when you moved away
from it, or when it wasn't high on your list. See how that was, and then, when
you came back in and got reinvolved, what that was like." It was very I
interesting because he was pointing out the cyc1e of relationship one can have
to a specialty, or system, or whatever. I 've felt that with psychosynthesis
myself. I went toward it, than away from it-how much I want to make it the I
centerpiece of my work or not. Now I'm in one of those phases where I'm pulled
back, disidentifying from my role as a psychosynthesist.
I 've had lots of trouble with The Digest, mostly from my own personal
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feelings. The year I began it I had a partner, but she quit after we got the
second issue out. From then on l didn't really take the time and energy to
organize a group and really make a go of it-I tried to run it on my own. A
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publication like that could have lived and slowly grown if I had been able to
keep consistent energy behind it, to be better organized, business-wise. I
It came out once a year from 1 98 1 to 1 984. I owed people an issue for
1 985 and 1 986, which l just completed in July of 1 987. It's way behind
schedule. With all that delay it lost credibility, people lost their motivation and I
enthusiasm , subscribers dwindled, and sa on. I think the content and quality
of the artic1es is really fine. One of the problems was this issue of the esoteric
stufI. Some people in psychosynthesis were not supportive because it had that I
in there. And the other issue was my own ability to keep it steady and coming
out on time, which I didn't do.
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OTH E R I NTERESTS

I'm not going to print any more issues of The Psychosynthesis Digest. I 'm
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now interested in affiliating with other people whose talents and skills can
balance some of mine. I think I'm better off as an editor and writer than as a
publisher, or a director of an organization. I'm not an administrator. l 've
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learned that my best skills ane-ta-ane therapy and writing, training and
consulting. I
I 'm hoping a future publication will anse. Maybe 1'11 be one of the key
members, or maybe I'll be a peripheral member somehow. A Psychosynthesis
Journal-something like that-is very needed to legitimize psychosynthesis I
more in the years ahead. I expect it will come forth. I'm not sure how involved I

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Doug Russe l l 's Story

I want to be in it. I 'm very interested in writing, and not just psychosynthesis,
but broader, transpersonal p sychology generally, and bringing in the esoteric
I ideas more than some p sychosynthesis people might like. Jean Hardy's book
( 1 987) makes it dear that the p sychosynthesis tradition has both a scientific
and esoteric side.
I This last year the Philosophical Research Society published two ninety­
minute tapes of my lectures. One was on developing intuition, and one was on

I developing creativity. Both of them used the symbolism from the holy grail
legend, and bring in a lot of Alice Bailey and esoteric stuff. The tapes have
p sychosynthesis in them, but that isn't the centerpiece. They would be

I unacceptable in the p sychosynthesis community in many places.

John Cullen and I are writing a book on training managers using

p sychosynthesis. He's doing exciting research on psychosynthesis. I 'm also
I interested in networking. I 'm still in touch with my colleagues in the movement,
and I will go to the conference in Venice next year. But I 'm kind of sitting back
and asking, "Is this a maj or vehide in the next twenty year or whatever for our
I culture to get some of the se things?" It may be. On the East Coast it looks like
it's coalescing in that direction. There are other places where I 'm not so sure it is.

I THE DEVELO PM ENT AN D G ROWTH OF PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS

I The difference between the developments of psychosynthesis and

p sychoanalysis is stark. Freud produced many books and artic1es, and trained
people in an authoritarian, fairly rigid structure. He had a bunch of people

I around him, ali learning the orthodoxy of p sychoanalysis according to Freud.

Assagioli trained people a little here and there , and finally turned out two
books nearly fifty years after he started . Some people came and trained for

I three or four months, and went off and started a p sychosynthesis center. What
did they know? So you have one person in Greece doing it one way in the late
fifties. You have someone in southem California doing it her way in the

I seventies. There was not a centralized and complete overview theory that
everyone was plugging into . Everyone was getting a little taste of Assagioli's
ideas as they were coming out, and then going out and doing their own version

I of it. So you get all the se unique, very different styles.

There's no coherent movement exactly. Who's the spokesman? That's the

big problem with what happened in San Francisco around 1 97 6 . They tried
I that. They said , "We '11 decide for the world what p sychosynthesis is." And many
others said , "Oh, my God! That's totally against the spirit of p sychosynthesis.

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They're going to tell us how to think, or the right way to do it. We understand
we can each do it in our own unique way."

One possibility for the future is that a consensus will form out of lots of

I communication. This may be happening on the East Coast with the regional
conferences, where a bunch of centers are meeting periodically. This is a sign
of that networking process starting.

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But when you have people with such tremendously different values
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b etween here and Europe about what is included , it seems many years in the
future b efore any kind of consensus can be arrived at. I think this diversity
enriches the movement, and I intend to contribute to both the scientific and
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esoteric aspects of it.

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REFLECTIO N S O N PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS

One thing that would solidify psychosynthesis i n the scientific community

would be many, many more reports of research on psychosynthesis. If we 're
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going to call it a science, let's get in there and do the research.
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A lot of p eople who come into psychosynthesis have great enthusiasm for it
because it put together a lot of things for them , theoretically and experientially.
Here is a system, so they no longer have to be ec1ectic. Now their spiritual
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investigations and their personal growth and psychotherapy can all be brought
together into a system. I
People make the distinction of using a capital P and a small p in
psychosynthesis. The capital P would be Psychosynthesis as a specialty, like
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Gestalt, and the small p would be the proeess, like it's the Tao , like "the whole
world is p sychosynthesizing all the time." I
If the ideas of psychosynthesis, that were fairly fresh and new in the early
seventies, are now spreading in the culture through all kinds of different
I
means, how important is it that psychosynthesis be a unique beacon of that
particular thing? In Los Angeles there are at least ten different trainings,
workshops, classes or this or that, that all bring in the essential ideas-the
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ideas of subpersonalities, whatever they call it, of centering, whatever word
they call it, and the Higher Self, whatever they call it. I
In the early seventies most people who came to the training were very naive
about the spiritual, so for many of them this was their first contact with
I
centering and meditation and all that. It blew their minds. It b ecame their
spiritual path. In the late seventies, or b eginning in 1 980 or so , my students
were sophisticated in all kinds of spiritual things. They didn't need to b e
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learning the basics o f centering and all that. The training had t o g o i n quite a
different way. Students with interests in the esoteric or theosophical traditions
had a need to integrate this with their work in psychosynthesis.
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Doug Russe l l ' s Story

I THE IMPACT OF THE MOVEM ENT ON THE C U LTURE

I People at the London Institute I talked to last year said that

p sychosynthesis is very respected as a maj or force in p sychology in Europe . I
don't know much about that, but I don't see it happening here in the United

I States , except as a httle fringe thing. In 1 976 the cover of Newsweek Magazine
featured an article called "The American Consciousness Revolution. " The cover
had a picture of a head with about eight different things printed on it, one of

I which was psychosynthesis. It also had Rolfing, or Feldenkrais-several New

Age type of therapies. It was as if psychosynthesis was full tilt then, and now it
appears as if it has waned in this country.

I Part of it was what happened in San Francisco. There were people who
were disillusioned by what happened there , and thought that was the whole
story about p sychosynthesis. People who were far from San Francisco weren't
I very much affected by it unless they were in the movement itself. Part of it, I
think, is that America loves fads, and p sychosynthesis had a fad phase in the
early seventies, and now Americans have jumped onto ten other fads after
I p sychosynthesis.

The question is: Is p sychosynthesis solid enough to keep gradually

I growing? The signs are that it very weU could be. Or is it kind of fading, and all
the ideas that it brought forth are coming out in many other forms, so that it
doesn't matter that psychosynthesis be the maj or vehicle? That's what I 'm not

I sure about. So many people in p sychosynthesis have specialized in it and then

moved on, saying, "I incorporate psychosynthesis along with eight or ten other
things in my work . "

I So I 'm asking myself i f I 'm going to be more effective at this time if I put
myself out to the community saying, "I'm a psychosynthesis specialist." O r

I
should I p u t myself out i n many other ways, even though behind that I 'm doing
p sychosynthesis? I don 't know if I want to keep that narrow foeus. It sounds
weird to call it narrow-it's so broad, how can I call it narrow? If I want to bring

I
in esoteric studies , and my p sychosynthesis coUeagues don't accept that, then
all of a sudden it feels narrow.

I IS PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS S C I E NTIFIC?

In his book The Myth of Psychotherapy, Thomas Szasz gives a critical

I analysis of the Freudian movement. One of his points is that a lot of Freud's
language was not scientific language . It was rhetorical , p ersuasive language.
He wanted to persuade us about the Oedipus complex and the id and so on,

I rather than demonstrate them scientifically to us. Psychosynthesis, I think, has

some of the same mix of scientific logic and rhetoric. One of the myths is that it
is very scientific. The other one is that it's not at all scientific.

I I think psychosynthesis is something attempting to be scientific. It's more

or less scientific. But there has been a terrible lack of research. There are a lot

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of starry-eyed, true believers running around in p sychosynthesis. Then there

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are people out there who have the rhetoric, who are trying to make I
psychosynthesis very special, to delineate it and defme it. And there are other
people saying, "You can't define it. You can't confine it that way. It's the Tao."
SO you 've got this mix going on all at once. It's very complicated. The taboos, I
particularly about the esoteric, make it particularly complicated.

I
THE CERTIFICATIO N I S S U E

There's a huge problem in psychosynthesis in the area of training. Who is

to decide when someone is fully trained? And what does it mean to be a trained
I
psychosynthesist if every psychosynthesis training program around the world
is unique, functioning in its own way? That was the big problem with the San
Francisco group. They decided they had "the right training," and no one else
I
!nad it, and everyone should be doing it their way.
At the Institute in London they're having this problem that many of our I
training programs have had. They have a three year program , I think, beginner,
intermediate, and advanced leveis. When people get in the intermediate leve1,
they're planning on their third year, and then they supposedly are going to be I
psychosynthesists. In the middle of the second year of training, the London
Institute announces, "We 've just decided to add another year to the middle level
of training." I
What happened there has happened in many training programs. After
people get fairly highly trained, the trainers start getting nervous. They say,
"'Oh my God, they're going to go out in the world and say they're doing
I
psychosynthesis, and I 'm going to be the one backing them up , saying that I
consider this person fully trained ." What other backup is there? There's no
international organization, no international standards, so certification is only
I
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as good as the institution that trained you, that stands behind you. But then
the trainers start getting cold feet as the person gets nearer to graduation. They
say, "Let's think of another project for this person. I'm afraid to graduate them

I
because, in ways, they're not ready yet. I'm not ready to turn them loose." So
people would be in training for five years and wouldn't get out. That happened
in San Francisco , and it's starting to happen at the London Institute. It

I
happened here.
Who knows what p sychosynthesis is, so who can turn around and say,
"I've decided that you're qualified. I'm qualified, and now I'm telling you you're
qualified"? By what authority do I do that? There's a lot of people running
around who have a certificate saying they were trained in psychosynthesis, for
I
three years, or whatever. I don't have one , because I was one of the original
psychosynthesis trainers. I guess I was grandfathered in. I'm not certified to be
a psychosynthesis trainer, but I trained a lot of people, some of whom trained
I
people who are now certified. So what does that mean? I don't know.
This issue of certification drives me nuts. What we're trying to certify is I
quality of consciousness, really. How do we do that? Is that scientific? Can I

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have a committee sit down and evaluate when your consciousness is at a good

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Doug Russe l l ' s Story

I enough quality that I tell you that you are now qualified to practice
p sychosynthesis? I didn't want to be in that position of authority. That was the
I dilemma for a lot of p sychosynthesis trainers. When I did training here, I gave a
certificate that said, "So and so had completed X number of hours of training in
p sychosynthesis. " All I could really do is certify the number of hours. It's still a
I maj or issue.

It's a real dilemma because the philosophy of p sychosynthesis doesn 't jibe

I with being a centralized organization. I think Tom Yeomans vision is probably

the best thing l 've seen, which is the networking idea, where gradually more
and more networking happens over the years, and a consensus coalesces. I

I think more pubhcations will come along, and hopefully a regular journal. Part
of the essence of science is communication among experts in a given field.
Dialog is part of the scientific method.

I
AUTO NOMY AN D CO N N ECTION AMO N G PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS CENTERS

I The movement has been at a certain stage of development for a long time ,
one in which individuals an d small groups go out and start centers without
much communication with the p sychosynthesis community. There are httle

I pockets here and there with very httle interaction. So the future may hold a
gradual increase in communication through publications, through more
frequent conferences, and so on.

I There's still a lot of standoffishness. I think this has to do with this

developmental stage , very much as an individual may want to pull back and

I develop themselves without the influence of other people. It's sort of a hermit
phase, or an alone phase, of finding their unique self, of going deep inside , and
then coming back out to interact with the group . A lot of p sychosynthesis

I centers have done that. They've pulled back into their own corner and wanted
to d evelop in their unique way. When they developed a certain level of
confidence and maturity, they felt able or willing to come and relate with the

I others.

When the San Francisco thing was in full bloom, the San Francisco people
were essentially saying, "We 're going to be the hub of the wheel. We're going to
I get everyone to j oin with us in our network." A lot of centers shuddered. Mter
that collapsed, a lot of people were fanatical about not having any official
association or organization in p sychosynthesis. They were terrified of that kind
I of centralized control, and believed everybody ought to stay autonomous.

There has to be a certain level of maturity and self-confidence present to b e

I able t o enter into a networking situation o r a group . I have t o feel I can g o in

there and still maintain my autonomy. Or am I going to lose my identity
because those big guys are going to want to take over my program , or are they

I going to think their ideas are b etter than mine, or whatever?

So there has been a lot of standoffishness which was magnified by the San
Francisco events. It b egan to heal in 1 983 at the Toronto conference. It was the
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first conference in which people who had been in the San Francisco group and I
I got back into some kind of warm relationship .
When the San Francisco Institute fell apart, several people there
individually started doing their own training programs. Something similar
I
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happened in Canada, only not in such a harsh way. Martha Crampton was the
hub of a big wheel there, although I don't believe she ever had such an
authoritarian, controlling scene like they had in San Francisco. But she was

I
the pioneer and held it together for a long time. When she left in the late 70s, a
bunch of centers along the East Coast and Canada started to blossom , each in
its own way. That's part of the growth process, too-people affiliating, then

I
separating, each getting strong in their own way, then new combinations, new
relationships develop-a new synthesis, a new level of organization, a more
sophisticated interactive level. It could very well be a long term , slow growth

I
process that is happening. While relationships among individuals and groups
may be continually shifting, there is still a coherent movement, viewed as a
whole.
Assagioli talked about the relationship between centers being like a
constellation of stars. In a constellation you have bright stars and duller stars, I
and they're all needed to make the overall pattern.
There is talk of an International Psychosynthesis Association which would
be like the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, or of Humanistic
I
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Psychology. I can imagine a day when enough people will have networked and
come together, and out of that will come a meeting in which people from
different centers will say, Let's found an association. The association itself will

I
have some kind of hierarchical structure to make it run, to collect dues, to deal
with mail, to get information and whatever, but it may not have a lot of
authority. However, it would come out of a consensus decision process rather

I
than some group from some center saying, Okay, we're starting a network for
everybody; here's where you sign up. That has a totally different flavor. That
was tried in San Francisco. The San Francisco center used the word Network

I
with a capital N. Since then people have reacted against the word network,
although I think that negative charge is starting to wear off. To me network
means autonomous individuals and groups choosing to affiliate-not a
centralized authoritarian structure.
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NOTI O N S O F THE H IG H ER S E LF

In my writing l've said things like: The Higher Self is not a thing or a place.
It's an experience . Rather than being a point over my head, a location in
relationship to my body, I would think of it more as a central point of identity,
the underlying context in which all of my experience is occurring. It's the
I
innermost guiding principle of those experiences, the container for all those
experiences.
I
When 1 was first introduced to it, the Higher Self to me was kind of like my

I
friend, my guide, my guru, by buddy. So 1 have a fond, personal feeling about

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Doug Russe l l ' s Story

I my Higher Self. lt's like my companion next to me, my personality. lt's like my
guardian angel who walks on this earth with me, arm in arm
I
.

When l use the term Transpersonal Self, which seems like a better scientific
term for professional journals and so on, it just doesn't have a personal

I meaning to me. lt's just how l came across the term. l sometimes use the term
soul, which l equate with my Higher Self, my innermost Self.
lf a peak experience is when a person is identified with their Higher Self,
I which it may be, and there are different sorts of Higher Selves, my peak
experience might be when I 'm doing something perfectly and everything c1icks.
Yours might be at the deepest experience of love imaginable. Someone else's
I might be a great appreciation of beauty. Or realizing the truth of your pain, in
being tied to humanity as a whole , which l also consider part of Higher Self-a
sense of universal humanity.
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Steve Ku l l 's Story

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Steve Ku l l ' s Sto ry
I Date oj birth; May 1 7 , 1 95 1
Fonnal education:
I B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz
M . A. in Psychology from Goddard College
Ph. D . in Psychology from Saybrook Institute

I Current projessional activities: SSRC MacArthur Fellow, Department of Political

Science, Stanford University; Senior Research Associate at Global Outlook
in Palo Alto ; writing; part-time psychotherapy practice ; psychosynthesis

I trainer.
Date of interview: July 1 0 , 1 987
Place of interview: Steven's home in Portola Valley, California
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I met Jim and Susan Vargiu through Teen Mensa when I was sixteen years

I old . I wasn 't actually a member, but some friends of mine were. Susan was
pregnant and Jim was still working as an engineer. We had a series of meetings
in 1 967 to '68 at their house, and they did some psychosynthesis exercises.

I They had studied with Assagioli briefly. In late 1 968 they went to study with
him for an extended period.

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I was very depressed at the time . This was an existential, Sartrean, almost
nihilistic period for me. I was more oriented to philosophy than psychology, but
I was still definitely interested in psychology.

I When Jim and Susan returned from Italy in about January of 1 969, they
began working with some people with the principles they had been learning,
and they asked me if I wanted to do some work as a client. I said yes. That was

I a real turning point in my life . It was very intensive work -we met every five
days for about a four or five hour session, and it was all free. They had been
involved in LSD p sychotherapy , so they had a lot of experience in going

I through people's spaces, but still they were a little green. There was a lot of
trying things out, of groping, but we were all in it together. It was very powerful
and it really turned my life around. This went on for about five or six months.

I It was a little like a miniature LSD session, with the intensity and the depth
imagery. I think the way they were doing psychosynthesis had been quite

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influenced by LSD psychotherapy. That's why the long sessions. You'd start
talking about what had been going on currently; then you'd get more into your
experience of the moment; you'd go deeper; then you go into imagery

I experience ; you'd encounter some block; you go into some unconscious

material; and then ultimately you'd experience some transformation; you'd
move into more of the transpersonal, superconscious dimension; and then

I you 'd ground it.

It was sort of unnatural for p sychosynthesis to have a time limit. The fifty
minute hour had never been the primary modeI. It was more that you had an

I experience, and the experience took as long as it took. This was here in

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California-Assagioli wasn't that way as much. Jim and Susan had had their
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LSD p sychotherapy experiences, and also experiences with encounter group s
where you don't have that constrained time period. It was part of the whole
experiential orientation , where the session was a transforming experience-it
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had a beginning, a middle , and an end.

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F I RST V I S IT WITH AS SAG I O LI

Next I went to Europe as part of a six month trip around Europe. I met with
Assagioli. I wrote an autobiography and had a few sessions with him. We didn't
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have an immediate rapport-that grew later.

He had a very special quality to him , very refmed , very pure. He was an
extremely "with himself' kind of person. He was light and mercurial. Even
though he was deaf, he picked up so much. He was quite sharp . There was a
constant feeling of j oy and a lot of laughter when you were with him . I
He had a quick mind , although h e was sometimes intellectually lazy, like in
trying to develop theoretical models , or trying to work through inconsistencies
in the intellectual structure of p sychosynthesis. I was always the main
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advocate of that. I later spent lots of time with him trying to get him to make
things conceptually dear, developing the theoretical models in
p sychosynthesis.
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When I came back to Palo Alto , I started working with Jim and Susan
again. I attended a group they were leading and did individual work. I dedded I
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wanted to train with them, and also go to the University of California at Santa
Cruz. I was nineteen years old and I made the decision that I was going to work
with people , and that I would focus on gifted adolescents. This was a maj or
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theme-Jim and Susan were doing a lot of work with gifted adolescents. They
agreed to train me, and I spent a lot of time with them .
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Betsy Carter and I , as a couple, started working with elients together. That

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was a dominant pattern at the time , for a couple to work together. Everything
was free at that time-we didn't charge anything. Betsy and I also started
working with a group of gifted adolescents.

M O R E V I S ITS TO ASSAG IO LI, AND STARTING THE I NSTITUTE

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Betsy and I spent the summer of 1 97 1 with Assagioli. That was extremely
intense. We saw him every day. He was deaf, so you wrote something, he read
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it, and then he commented , and then you asked some questions. It wasn't like
therapy in the classical sense , but it was pretty p owerful. He had you meditate
on things, and read things. He said things that went right to the core. But it
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wasn't like a cathartic experience. You didn't talk; you wrote , but was very
p owerful. If you do that for hours every day, a lot happens.
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Steve Ku l l 's Story

I We would tape record what he said and then transcribe it. That's basically
what we did-tape and transcribe and write for the next day, go see him, and
I then do some reading, some meditating, and so on.

When we came back that fall, we did our frrst groups at Esalen. Earlier that

I year, the first groups were going, and Jim and Susan had become a big hit. The
groups were all filled. We started seeing clients and charging a little bit. I was
doing a lot of reading in psychology and attending the University of California

I at Santa Cruz.
The next time Betsy and I went to see Assagioli was the fall of 1 972. At that
time Tom and Ann Yeomans also came and we were there together part of the
I time. That time we saw him every two or three days. After we came back the
Institute came together. In 1 973 we got a house in Palo Alto, the newsletter
came out, we were doing a lot more programs, and we set up the structure of
I senior associates, directors, and all that. There was a point in the summer of
1 973 where John and Heidi Firman, and Tom and Ann Yeomans moved to Palo
Alto , and we ali lived in the same neighborhood, College Terrace. It was a really
I nice experience. There was a lot of intensity, and there were all these problems
and power struggles and things like that. There was also tension between Jim
and me. I was dealing with authority issues, which I eventually worked
I through, and accepted that Jim was the boss.

Throughout this whole time I was working very hard on the theoretical

I structure. I talked to Assagioli as much as I could get him to talk about it, and
also with Jim and others in the group . It was through that whole period that I
developed the subpersonality model. Assagioli originated the basic concept of

I subpersonalities, but I elaborated such ideas as the stages in the process of

integration, the wants, the needs, the qualities as superconscious coherent
manifestations, and the potentially integrative relationship between the

I subpersonalities. I was writing this for my papers in school, and later for my
master's thesis. We also started having regular meetings where we developed
the theoretical structure. Jim was invariably brilliant. And in general the leve1

I of discussion in the meetings was very creative and stimulating. We had an

intellectual comradely that I still miss.

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By May of 1 974 I had worked out my problem with Jim, and he said ,
"Okay, now you're director of training." At that point we changed the
organizational structure, but there was all this ambiguity about whether Jim

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was the boss. Ostensibly, the directors were in charge, but in effect, Jim
controlled everything. This became increasingly problematic.

I BEG IN N I N G THE SYNTHESIS JOURNAL AND THE TRAI N I N G PROG RAM

At this time Jim was moving more into The Synthesis Journal, and it was

I getting a good response. Eventually we had 45,000 subscribers for our first few
issues. The response was really phenomenal. They were great Journals, so it
wasn't surprising. But it totally defied all normal expectations.

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So Jim said, "Go ahead and get a training program going. " I developed a I
design, and in the fall of 1 974 we set up the program with seminars,

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supeIVision, observed sessions, and so on. People really responded. At flrst we
had about thirty trainees with varying educational levels --from people who
were graduate students or had not really had any training to psychiatrists and
p sychologists. Nearly all of them were working with people in some way.

As The Institute began to grow, the training program really took off, and the
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general programs for the public were doing well too. Jim started getting
nervous and felt a need to exert more control over it. For a while he had pulled
back, just working on the Journal with Stuart Miller. But he had lots of control
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issues and there was always the confusion whether he was running things or
the directors as a group were .
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THE BEG I N N I NG O F TRO U BLES
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It's not so pleasant to recall. He was trying to control even little things.

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Every decision had to go through the directors-even the selection of the most
unimportant little thing. As a result,
The Journal didn't come out on time . By
1 976 , fmancial problems started emerging. We began to lose $ 1 0 ,000 a month.
In September of 1 976, we moved to San Francisco . By that time I was
already having some pretty difficult times with Jim. The Institute began dealing
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with people in more and more of a high hand ed way. The San Francisco
Institute was se en as this powerful thing. I have a lot of varied feelings about it,
but it was still remarkable the way those people came together and flowered.
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There were maybe sixteen core people , bright, with a cohesive style, coming up
with interesting material on an on-going basis. Then there were concentric
circles around them, with trainees and so on. It was just one of those really
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special events, and we felt it was, and we had a lot of group narcissism-to say
the least. We were in love with ourselves. As a result, just like with all love , you
don't see the object of your love dearly. And Jim very much fed this feeling that
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we were really special.

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ESOTERICS AND "TH E WALL OF S I LENCE"

Then there was the whole Alice Bailey business. Assagioli was into Alice I
Bailey, but he had a dear distinction between the esoteric and the exoteric.

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With the esoteric, you started with things that are given, and then you tried to
apply them to life. With the exoteric , you start with experience, and you build
models. Y ou can use esoteric models as a way of orienting yourself, as you

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build the models from the exoteric. It all seemed dear to me. I never had any
problem with that, and with Assagioli it was great.

One problem was that this term came along, "wall of silence." That's a term
that people in the Bailey tradition used. It conveyed that you shouldn't publidy
say "I'm an esotericist," or "I'm into Alice Bailey," like it's your religion. This
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somehow got translated into: "We shouldn't tell people that a lot of us in

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Steve Ku l l 's Story

I psychosynthesis are also into Alice Bailey." And that got perverted into:
"Psychosynthesis came from Alice Bailey," which is not true at all. It's just not
I true. Historically, Assagioli started psychosynthesis decades before Alice
Bailey's books came out. There's some relationship between some of the
models, but if you read Aurobindo, there's as much correlation between
I Aurobindo's models as there is with Alice Bailey's. It's really sort of a myth.
As the group became more cohesive , Jim exerted more and more control

I over people's individual lives. The leverage he used was, "It is necessary
because we're a special group-we 're lined up with the hierarchy," and all that.
It increasingly became: "We are esotericists, and the exoteric thing is this sort

I of front we have." That happened more fuUy after I left.

I RELATION S H I P WITH OTH ER CENTERS AN D TH E PSYCHOSYNTHESIS N ETWO RK

People in other psychosynthesis centers had a lot of complaints about how

our Institute was run-and I did too-but they were giving the Institute so
I much power, they were playing into it. They wanted us to approve them.
Our group as a whole felt uncomfortable with some things that were

I happening in other centers. We worked hard, we were thorough, we were

professional, and we didn't feel others were always as professional. It seerned
as if they grew more out of church, and we felt we were growing more out of

I psychology. So there was a tension around that. And there were tensions
around other issues involving a number of centers and individuals.
At that time Jim and I had an agreement that I could say what I wanted ,
I but when it came to acting, I would come o n board. S o I ended up executing
some policies I thought were highhanded. Finally, Jim tried to form the
Psychosynthesis Network. It was a whole political thing that started happening
I with the other institutes. I see more dearly now that Jim was just trying to
exert more control. It was a manipulative thing where we said: Do whatever you
want, but if you want to join the Network with us, we're going to set up a board
I that will exert some control-but it wasn't exactly dear what the control was.
I was responsible for training. I liked the idea of having some standards of

I what psychosynthesis training was: Who is a psychosynthesist? And what does

a training program consist of? And who is qualified to teach? I liked the idea
that there would be some standardized certificate, or something like that. But it

I was a big political problem-everybody was crazy about who was going to set
the standards.
Sometimes people would go to just one workshop and then say, "Oh, I
I understand psychosynthesis. I 've been a psychosynthesist since I was a kid. I
understand the essence of it." And they would just start doing psychosynthesis
workshops. So the Network was the beginning of an attempt to develop some
I professional standards. But it was very sensitive how you negotiated that
between the various institutes.

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I kept thinking: This is impossible ; it will never work. But Jim kept saying:
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There's a way. I was more into the training business and wanted some meaning
to the concept of training. His reasons for wanting the Network were harder to
explain. It was some mysterious control that he wanted. It wasn't even dear
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what he wanted to do with it. Some of it was related to this quality control
issue. The assumption was: If some groups j oin the Network, then from then
on, everybody who is outside will want to j oin , and there will be conditions for
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entry. But we weren't going to try to copyright the word p sychosynthesis or
anything like that-I don't know if we could have. In any case, we were dear
that that wouldn't be right.
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A G ROWI N G C U LT
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People were giving more and more of their time to working for the Institute.
We started checking out exactly how much time people were giving the
Institute, and it was around seventy hours a week. We had very long directors
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meetings. The problem was that Jim had to control everything, but we also had
to maintain the illusion that Jim wasn 't controlling everything. I wasn't the
kind of person who went along with that very weU, and that slowed things
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down.

After I returned from being in Europe in the summer of 1 976 I noticed I

something had changed . People had made this mysterious commitment-senior
associates as weU as directors. I was never asked to make this other
commitment because Jim knew I wouldn't do it. The exact nature of this other
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commitment wasn 't exactly dear, and I would have tried to make it dear.
Basically it was that Jim had control over more than just the work you were
doing in the Institute , but over all of your life .
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Through this time I was having a lot of debates with Jim. I said that he was
having people focus on him rather than on their own Higher Selves. But he had
a conceptual model for this, that this was the way groups need to work, that

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individuals ne ed to sacrifice their personal growth to the growth of the group . A
number of spiritual systems talk about how you need to not be attached to
your p ersonal growth. I think there 's some substance to this idea. However, the

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essence of it in our group became: "Don't listen to your self, listen to me [Jim] .
I 'm the center of gravity in the group . "

The flrst time Jim started talking about evil was in the fall of 1 976. I threw
a flt about that. We even talked about my leaving the Institute. Jim said , "lf
you can't go along with this, I don't know if you can be a part of this group . " He
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was real heavy handed. I said, "I just don't accept that we're going to start
operating on the basis of this good and evil. I just don't." We fmally came to a
compromise-I agreed to not socially see certain friends of mine he said were
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evil , and he agreed to not use this good and evil talk. While I was there , he kind
of kept to that. I would make noises every time he started moving in those
directions. He kind of adhered to it. Though later, he, of course , got back into it
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in a very big way.

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Steve Ku l l ' s Story

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I M ETAPHYS ICAL I S S UES

The idea was that the evil forces were working through [a certain p erson] to
undennine this work we were doing, because the forces of good were working
I through us. That's the first time Jim talked that way. Jim and I would talk
about the whole thing about "the hierarchy." I would say: It's like a myth or an
archetyp e. You go inside, and its there . It's real weird . You do guided imagery
I and people run into the se images of the hierarchy even when they've never
heard of it. When people relate to these images powerful things happen. It's an
archetyp e. Jim would always agree , "Yes, it's a myth . You shouldn't literalize
I it. " And yet there was a fogginess about it. Is it literal or not? Are there really
these guys somewhere? Maybe there's some in-b etween realm . It was myth, but
in a certain way. there is an enactment of myth, too. And individuals play a
I role in that.

We were definitely into reinearnation. We took that quite seriously though

I we were not concerned with whether there was true transmigration of souls.
The unconscious often presents material as if reincarnation was the case. It
just does, whether you believe in it or not. Its curious. Working with this

I material can be quite powerful.

We still had an exoteric foundation. We said: Its probably more

complicated than that, but we know that the unconscious presents material
I that way, so it's a workable model. That was sort of the thing about the
hierarchy too ; it was probably much more complicated than we could

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understand , but that's sort of how our psyche presents it. 80 we worked with
that. But we also recognized that that's not the way it really is. We used to say:
"The map 's not the territory." When I presented diagrams in seminars to

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represent p sychological structures, if people started making it to literal, I 'd
always write on the board , "This is not true!"

Yet it gradually became dear that this myth was more and more believed.

I Jim had a big antenna on his house and there was a j oke about this was how
he communicated with the hierarchy. Gradually Jim was se en as having
something special, a special access. And there was some ambiguity about

I whether I did too, though I didn't make any daims like that.

I BREAKIN G W ITH J I M AND THE I N STITUTE

In the fall of 1 97 6 , Jim and I had this agreement that he wouldn't talk
about good and evil. Nevertheless, though we sorted that out, fairly soon after
I that I resigned as a director, saying "I just don't feel good about the way things
are going. And I don't feel comfortable executing the policies. But I would like
to continue to b e part of the group . " I was assuming that this was a phase we
I were going through, and that I would probably come back and be a director
later, but for the present I would just sort of retreat. "And if you want me to

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leave ," I said , "that's fme. If you think it's better for me to leave , I '11 leave."

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For the next few months, I was quieter, but at a few points I spoke out. One I
of them had to do with Jim trying to create this construct that the Institute
programs were losing money, and the j ournal was not losing any money-real
bizarre , "the sky is green" kind of manipulations. It was real weird. He would I
come into a meeting with the se manipulated figures and bar graphs and stuff
like that. When I would speak out and correct it, nobody responded to the
content of what I said. They would say, "Y our energy is really heavy, Steve. "
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"But what about what I said?" "Its just all your stuff. "

People were now starting to put their life savings in, and things like that.
And I j ust kept saying, "It doesn't have to be this way . " At one point when I was
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still a director, I had an encounter with him . I said , "Jim, this whole issue with
money is bullshit. We don't have a problem with money. If we wanted to make
money to run this place, we can do that. We make plenty of money counseling
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by the hour. The problem is how we spend our time . We spend our time in
the se meetings where Jim tries to get everybody to increase their commitment.
All we have to do is decide to fix it. " And he says, "Yes, that's right. There's no
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real problem . " And I said, "I think you 're using this financial crisis as an
opportunity to get people to up their commitment." And he said , "That's right. " I
And people sai d , "What?" They couldn't believe h e was openly acknowledging

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that. Whenever you create a pattern that contains what he would d o , he would
always make a bigger p attern. He said , "Yes, that's right, and that's good. This
is an opportunity we all have to increase our commitment, and the money issue

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is j u st a thing that has been supplied for this purpose . "

I n March of 1 977, they asked me t o leave. I t happened in a very unpleasant

way. I won 't go into all the details. They wrote the se letters , and there were all
the se lies. It was very up setting to me.
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The lying started coming in a big way. It was there before , but it became

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increasingly flagrant. Jim would say, "Let's say duh-de-duh . " And I 'd say, "That
happens to be true." And he'd say, "Oh? Oh, yeah , "-sort of like, "Well, that's
convenient, although it's irrelevant." So of course sometime it also wasn't true.

The way I d escribe what happened is this: You know the terms assimilation
and accommodation from Piaget? Assimilation is when you assimilate new
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information into the structure you already have ; with accommodation, you
transform the structure as a result of new input. Jim always assimilated , he
never accommodated. That can lead to paranoia, which is pretty much where
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he ended u p .

So I left i n March of 1977, and i t was a very abrupt cut. My whole world I
evaporated . The personal contacts gradually faded out over the next few

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months. They then started getting weirder, and making those cuts more
sharply. I had helped moderate Jim. He did what he wanted to d o , but it had
been moderated . After I left , he just took off in his full, willful mode.

People have asked m e , "Why didn't you succumb like everybody else?" My
mother is German, and she lived under Hitler. She 's a Christian Scientist, and
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Christian Scientists were harassed by the Gestapo . I got this script real early

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I on that there was a malignant social process that can happen in group s. The
name of the game is not succumbing to it. I didn 't know anything else. I

I wouldn't have known how to succumb.

I LlFE S I NCE THE I NSTITUTE

I was kind of quiet for awhile . It was very traumatic for me, and other

I things happened that compounded it. I immediately went to graduate school,

getting my doctorate in p sychology. Then I got involved in a big N . I . M. H . proj ect
for humanizing law school. Eventually I traveled to Holland and started doing

I p sychosynthesis training programs there . I trained people who started centers

in various countries. For a while I went to Europe about twice a year, working
in France , England , and Holland, and also to Brazil. I continued to do that

I until about two years ago.

I liked the role of being a consultant. I would say: "Don't create too strict
structures; minimize the control you exert over things. " I enj oyed working with

I psychosynthesis in Europe because it was away from this whole big trauma
that had happened here.

I Now I 'm working in international relations. I do interviews with p eople in

high levels of government, here and in the Soviet Union. It's sort of like a
therapy session, and then I write about it. I publish artic1es and am just about

I done with a book. I reach a lot more people now than with therapy. I give lots
of talks and appear on television. I still use models that are similar to
p sychosynthesis. If you read my book you 'd see psychosynthesis models

I everywhere. I ask policy makers questions that elicit subpersonalities, and they
make inconsistent statements. Then I reflect that back to them, and see how
they deal with that.

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THOUG HTS ABO UT CERTIFICATION

I Don't give certificates that say anything about qualification. Only give
diplomas for having a certain amount of training. You can, to the extent you
want, discriminate who you let in, but the whole thing about trying to evaluate

I people as to how well they do therapy distorts everything too much. They end
up doing worse therapy as a result. Training doesn't have that extraordinary
influence on people , either. Two-thirds of being a therapist is that people have

I what they have ; you can only diddle with that one-third , as far as training goes.
The notion that through training you 're really going to make someone into
something is bogus. You shouldn't set up a program that implies you 're going

I to do this. It's like a degree you get at school. The school doesn't say you 're an
educated person. It just says you passed so many courses .

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REFLECTI O N S
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I 'm considerab1y more intellectually oriented than peop1e in
p sychosynthesis in general , and I wish peop1e wou1d write more and read more
and think more. 11's a shame that the body of literature is so miniscu1e. The
concepts floating around are a lot more sub stantial than you'd guess from the
literature. But there's no climate that encourages it. For some reason it attracts I
peop1e who are more emotional and intuitive , so I was always sort of an
oddball, and peop1e were uncomfortab1e with that, and I found that frustrating.
Jim was quite intellectual too. Paradoxical1y, everyone was drawn to Jim but I
he was very unlike the bulk of the people drawn to p sychosynthesis.

Each new person was a bit less intellectual, and it drew in peop1e who were
progressive1y less mental. Back in the early seventies psychosynthesis was sort
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of this hot-bed of ideas , models , and concepts. People in the human potential
movement would go to it and fmd it stimulating. All the things that were murky
and vague wou1d have a form , so they cou1d get a handle on it. I don't think it's
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that way now. But at the same time there is a sort of feeling tone, a subtle
character, that was also there that goes very much back to Assagioli and
people resonated to that. That increasing1y became the thing that drew p eop1e,
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and probably the mental thing declined . The loving quality that was so well
embodied in Roberto is still very distinet in p sychosynthesis despite all the
mean things peop1e did to each other.
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The conceptual structure of p sychosynthesis has not grown as much as it
might. I think a lot of that is due to the trauma of what happened. But I also I
think there are economic aspects to it. A book takes a huge amount of time. It
cost money for your secretarial expenses and things like that. There's just no
money for it around . The economics of the thing is that it's very by-the-hour I
stuff, it's very hand to mouth. Nobody gets rich, so there's no excess money in
the system. As an economic phenomenon, it didn't support intellectual
development.
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Then there was the whole graduate school idea, which I played a role in I
original1y conceptualizing. The idea I had was to give masters degrees, but it
was absurd to set up this graduate school that was going to give doctorates
when hardly anybody on the faculty had doctorates. The idea I had was to
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claim our right to be at the center of the culture , to create alternative
institutions that set themselves up to gain power, to grant degrees, to license ,
things like that. I think that was an exciting idea. We were oriented toward
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more thoroughness and excellence than some things that grew out of the
counter culture were.
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The experience with the third chair, when people move into the "l" position;
something happens to people there. That space is unique. You don't see p eople I
in other therapeutic approaches so clear1y targeting that state of consciousness
and using it as a reference point. There's also a certain choice , to orient to the
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Steve Ku l l ' s Story

I needs of the whole, an alignment that you make. So there are those two
aspects, the personal and the transpersonal. Of course , it can happ en

I completely independently of the p sychosynthesis therapy experience , but

there's a way that p sychosynthesis has spot-lighted it and understands what
leads up to that; what goes askew, and all that. Those two things are , in my

I mind, very salient features. In spite of all that happened, I still think it's the
best form of therapy. It's the best system , although best is a weird word . Now I
don't think therapy is going to save the world. There are real limits on what
I therapy can do for an individual and what impact such work can have on the
general culture. I defrnitely use p sychosynthesis models in my work in
international relations. It has had a big influence on me.
I
I don't think it's inherent in p sychosynthesis that the San Francisco

I Institute got screwed up . I really don't. I don't see that happening in Europe . I
think it grew largely from a few things, but the most salient was Jim Vargiu's
personality, and the role that the Alice Bailey system played . There's nothing to

I prevent it from getting on its feet again and really taking off.

I The first thing I did when I left the Institute was to study epistemology, and
then I later studied self-destructiveness, the origins of war, group suicide, and
how abstractions can over-ride survival impulses. I don't feel like the

I p sychosynthesis community has come to terms and redeemed that whole

experience. It tries.

I I think the question, "What is trying to emerge?" is a great question. I came

up with it, so it's a little awkward to say that, but I think that question is so

I fundamental. If a therapist just asks that, it changes so much.

I I think that a lot of what p sychosynthesis originally brought to the human

potential movement and psychology in general in the seventies has been
assimilated into the psychological culture. For example, the use of imagery . . . .

I And that's good.

I I think the most central element in p sychosynthesis is the p erception that

something is trying to emerge and the therapist aligns himself with that. The
therapist doesn't take the person as she presents herself.

I
One key difference with p sychoanalysis is that when the ego dissolves, the

I question is: Is what happens then simply regression, or is there some

intelligence, order, process in the p syche that's beyond the ego? That's a real
fundamental question. Psychoanalysis on the whole has had a negative attitude

I toward that question, though there are some who talk about regression in the

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Psyc hosynthes is i n N orth Ameriea
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service of the ego. But the essence of transpersonal psychology, in general, is I
the attitude that it's not necessarily a bad thing for the ego to weaken its hold
at times, and to try to orient to something emerging.

Its sort of a Jungian approach too, but I don't think Jung had the
I
I
methodology for accessing it, because he didn't go into experience-in-the­
moment, and the analytie style keeps the ego in position. By going into the
experience-in-the-moment that kind of dissolution can happen in the session

I
so that the emerging patterns can come through. I think that's central-maybe
the most central thing.

I certainly see psychosynthesis in the humanistic-phenomenological

tradition , of focusing on experience, the session being a proeess of going
through affective experiences within a supportive environment.
I
I think it would be great if people would write more about what they do, I
and illustrate it. I think it would be good to have more case studies, a lot more
case studies.
I
Psychosynthesis is us. It's a tradition. It's these people who have been
involved. It's not an abstraction up in the sky. It's an organic, biological entity, I
sort of like a family. It's a sociological phenomenon. It's not without identity.

I
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M a rk H o rowitz's Story

I
1 4. Mark Horowitz' s Story
I
Date of birth; Octo ber 2, 1 947
I Formal education:
B.A. in Sodology / Psychology from Brandeis University
M .A. in Clinical Psychology Goddard College

I Current projessional activities: Director of Creative Learning Consultants, a

management consulting company based in London; U . S . Director of The
Resource Group, a foundation giving grants to projects in international

I relations, peace, ecology, alternative technology, etc.

Date oj interview: March 2 4 , 1 987
Place oj interview: Mark 's office in Weston, Massachusetts
II
In 1 967 I was at Brandeis University, planning on taking a course with

I Abraham Maslow. However he was on leave that year, and Jim Fadiman to ok
his place. He taught a course called something like "Optimum Human
Potential, JJ and I had to beg and plead to get in because it was a graduate level

I course. It was probably the first experiential course at Brandeis. It had about
twenty students and he did all kinds of encounter group and human potential
exercises. It was the most exciting learning experience that I ever had .

I I was looking for something like that, for the tools that would open me up . I
felt from my Midwest background that I was very dosed down, out of touch

I with my feelings. I had been reading some Zen, which was totally new to me at
that point. I felt I was getting something in Jim 's course that could open me
up . I had just started re ading Alan Watts ' The Way ojZen, and I said to myself,

I I 'm ready to find a guru. I was twenty years old and very naive at the time. I
thought, This guy could be my guru. I could leam from him.

I went to Jim and said, "I \re been reading this book on Zen and I \re been

I taking your dass, and I 'm ready to have a guru . Would you be it? " He was
smart enough to say, "WeU, I 'm not a guru, but I 'li let you babysit for my
daughter (who was less that a year old) and I 'li give you three books to read:
I The Sujis, by Indries Shah, The Psychosynthesis Manual (which at that point
was a hardback published by a medical textbook publisher) , and a science
fiction book called Eight Keys to Eden.
I I read them all and they totally grab bed me. When I read The
Psychosynthesis Manual, I said, Wow! This is it-something that brings together

I spirituality and psychology! All the other psychology I had read up to that point
didn 't seem to allow for certain spiritual or transpersonal feelings I had had
when I was thirteen or fourteen. None of them even touched those feelings. But

I here was a book that seemed to incorporate all that, and also the problems I
had with my parents when I growing up-all the neurosis I had. I dedded that
this is what I wanted to do. This was in 1 967.

I
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Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea
I
I went through The Manual and did every exercise on myself. I was teaching
I
at a hippie high school at the time, a free school, and I also did the exercises
with the kids. If I liked them and the students liked them, I added them to my
repertoire of p sychological techniques.
I
I
I searched around for training, but no one was doing it at that time . I wrote
to Frank Hilton at the Psychosynthesis Research Foundation in New York. He
sent me some pamphlets and invited me to a workshop with Martha Crampton.

I
I met Frank Haronian. Anytime anybody who called their work p sychosynthesis
came to the East Coast to do a workshop, I took it.

I also studied with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis for the next two years.
Maslow was very interested in Assagioli 's work and wanted me to bridge their
work-to bring him Assagioli 's writings, and pass his work on to Assagioli.
I
When I graduated in 1 969, I went to California and started a book store in
Palo Alto : The Plowshares. I also worked for a teachers training laboratory, and
brought some p sychosynthesis exercises into the program . I met Jim and
I
I
Susan Vargiu, who were working with adolescents at the time; they weren 't
doing p sychosynthesis training yet. I brought them in to the teachers training
laboratory to do some programs there.

V I S ITING RO BERTO
I
At Jim 's suggestion I wrote to Assagioli, asking if I could see him . He wrote
me a two line letter, saying, '1 11 be happy to see you. Send me your I
autobiography. 1) I went there in 1 97 1 . I worked with Roberto for about a month.
I would see him everyday, usually in the evenings, and he gave me things to
read, or homework. Because he was almost deaf, he had me bring my daily
I
writing exercises to his place ahead of time so he could read them. I was living
in a youth hostel about a mile from him. I had an incredible experience
working with him. He had such great compassion, understanding, and
I
especially a j oy in living.

In 1 973, a year before Roberto died, Abby Seixas and I got married and
went to Europe to work with Roberto again. When we returned to this country,
I
I
we decided to visit the different p sychosynthesis centers to see where we would
live and practice. In those days, people were beginning to develop the training. I
did one of Jim and Susan 's introductory trainings just to see how they did it.

I
They invited me to j oin their institute.

EXPERIENCES W ITH THE PSYCHOSYNTHESIS I NSTITUTE IN CALIFO R N IA

We drove to Montreal and spent three months working for Martha I

Crampton, doing trainings and workshops. She was pretty much working alone
at that time . While we were there, the people at The Psychosynthesis Institute
(then in Redwood City, California) called and said, "We 'd like to make you an I
associate of the Institute, » which was a big honor for me at the time. They had

I
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Mark H o rowitz's Story

I many people there doing the work, and se em ed to be deepening it in a way that

I
I didn 't see anywhere else. So we moved to Palo Alto.
The work at the Institute was developing rapidly and deeply, both because
of Jim Vargiu and the incredible richness of talent that had gathered there. We

I set standards for training which were high, but unfortunately became very
exc1usive, and meant primarily that only those trained by us could call
themselves psychosynthesists. We ended up trying to impose those standards

I on other people everywhere in the country.

That was only the beginning. Jim Vargiu was bri1liant, and the heir

I
apparent to Assagioli, I think. But unbeknownst to us at the time, Jim was
paranoid in the c1assic psychological sense of the word. Because of this, and
because many of us gave our power over to him, the organization degenerated

I
to a cult. It was extremely c1osed, isolated and encouraged perception of the
world in terms of good and evil-a fairly c1assic defmition of a cult. This
happened not because of psychosynthesis per se, although there are certain

I
dualisms and esoteric roots in psychosynthesis that can support going in that
direction, but because of the naive hubris of the group, and because of Jim
being such a strong central figure.

I We weren 't a group of sixteen-year-old Moonies. We were older, most of us

were married, and some of us had families. We had Ph.D . 's and M . D . 's. The
Palo Alto/ San Francisco group was the large st training group in this country,

I and probably did more for furthering psychosynthesis at that time than any
other group because we were training and writing and publishing the Synthesis
Journal. We trained many of the people who are now doing training in this
I country, and we trained several people who are now running centers in Europe,
too.

I
There was an attempt in the mid-seventies to bring the institutes in
Montreal, London, and San Francisco together, to form a network. It was our
opinion that those were the places where significant training was going on. In

I
fact, Martha Crampton, from Montreal, and Roger and Joan Evans, from
London, moved to California for a period of time. We were going to be one
graduate school with campuses in London, Montreal, and San Francisco. But

I
that 's when things realiy started deteriorating (around 1 978.) Martha left and
went back East, and Roger and Joan left and went back to London. They
started rebuilding the Institute in London almost from scratch by going back to

I
the roots of psychosynthesis and bringing it forth with their own flavor-in the
same way that Tom Yeomans and Harry Sloan and many others did when the
rest of us left the group in San Francisco.

I The Psychosynthesis Institute skewed psychosynthesis in certain ways. We

were taking a lot of what Jim was saying about things like service, good and
evil, and groups, at face value and accepting it somewhat blindly. When the
I Institute fell apart, we ali needed to get back to the basics of p sychosynthesis,
re-own and relearn it for ourselves, take what was real for us, and move it
forward from there.
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I
There was a distortion about the will, with an emphasis on strong wi1l I
(Assagioli, 1 973), on using the strong will to overcome the shadow. There was
an overemphasis on the shadow side of things, which developed into a wider
emphasis on good and evil inside us as individuals and outside in the world. A
I
lot of personal shadow, and a lot of our group shadow got proj ected out into
the world. And then there was this cosmic battle between good and evil (which
we had to help win)-that was a fairly significant distortion.
I
I
Jim got overly complex with maps and models in trying to describe
everything in an original way. To some extent this had value, but in another
way it cut psychosynthesis off from other psychologies. In San Francisco at

I
that time, we rarely took advantage of other forms of psychology that were
available to us, that we could build on, and add to within the context of the
Self.
For me personally, those maps and models and the complexity of the
theory that was developing were starting to separate me from the reality of the I
experience of psychosynthesis, and of Life. The deeper I got into the maps and
mo dels, the more I experienced them, and the less I experienced Life within
myself. There was always a lens between me and Life, which was the se
I
elaborate maps and models, most of which I do not use to perceive my world
anymore.
I
I left the group in February, 1 980. A few had left before me and many left

I
afterward. In October, 1 980, Jim, Susan, and a few followers snuck out of San
Francisco under the cover of darkness one night, literally, and moved to
Washington, D . C. Then they moved to Georgia. In the process of this whole

I
group experience, families were destroyed, and other fairly negative things that
you often hear associated with other cults occurred. The only thing that was
different was that it wasn 't a proselytizing cult. The issues of money and

I
numbers were not very important to us. The fight for good and evil in the world
was what was important.

CU RRENT CAREE R I
I 'm not in practice anymore. I don 't have elients and I don 't do much
psychosynthesis teaching, either. I don 't consider myself in the mainstream of
p sychosynthesis anymore. I 'm working for a foundation that gives grants to
I
global, social action, grass roots development projects. I also do management
consulting work. I take some of the principles of p sychosynthesis-because
that 's so much a part of where I 've come from -and apply them to management
I
consulting and management training. I focus mostly around people skills, but
without a lot of the p sychological maps and models. I use simple exercises and
techniques-communication skills, team building skills, those simple kinds of
I
things-to help people move doser to themselves and to experience the dignity
in their relationships with each other in a work environment.
I
I 'm also very interested in global social change issues. Since our second

I
child has been bOTIl, I 'm much more interested in family. I 've always been

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M a rk H o rowitz's Story

I interested in family issues since my first child was bom, and even more so

I
now.

DEFINING PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS

I I like to define p sychosynthesis as a psychology that incorporates most of
the aspects of traditional psychology, but also includes the spiritual. It includes

I the concept of the Self, or Being-who I really am-as opposed to being a

compilation of various forces in my p syche, like Freud talked about, the id, the
ego, and the superego. I seem to be a Being who is more than that compilation.

I I sometimes also talk about it as being a p sychology similar to Maslow 's, in

terms of self-actualization. In Maslow 's terms, it 's possible through p sychology
to get to know our deepest and truest self as weU as that which is the context

I for our Self-transcendent self-actualization. The experience of connecting to

who we really are, on one level, can be an experience of total isolation,
aloneness, and separateness, which doesn 't get talked about too much in

I p sychosynthesis; but also that experience can be one of total inter­

connectedness. Both seem to be real and true experiences to me. How both
those experiences occupy the same space at the same time-that is something I

I cannot explain. But in my experience, they se em to .

l have some questions about how the "Higher " Self or "soul " is talked about

I in p sychosynthesis-what it means, how much l really can know about what it

means. l used to teach about it, but l 'm not sure l know anymore what those
concepts mean.

I Psychosynthesis is a form of p sychology that recognizes and perceives the

individual in all his/ her lightness and darkness as essentially a Being of
dignity, whole and complete as we are in the moment, and at the same time

I persistently growing to be all that we can b e . It is the j ob of the

p sychosynthesist to trust and respect that persistence of Life within us and to
help the client create the p sychological space to allow that Life to express itself.

I
A M I S S E D O PPO RTUNITY

I Although others might disagree with me, it 's my personal opinion that
when the San Francisco group went off course, p sychosynthesis missed a wave .

I l believe p sychosynthesis had an opportunity to make a much more significant

impact on p sychology in this country than it did, because of what I consider
the wrong turns we made. It 's been only in the last few years that people have

I regroupe d and started the trainings, the writing and publishing again. The
momentum we had is slowly starting to build again and to have some effect on
p sychology.

I l think we 're building to a new wave, or waiting for a new wave . But there
was a wave in the seventies, and I think we missed it-we missed an
opportunity both to centralize, in a healthy way, but also to deepen the theory,

I to write about the theory as more solidly rooted in p sychology. Tom Yeomans,

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Psyc h osynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

Will Friedman, and Roger and Joan Evans (in Europe) are doing work to evolve
I
the theory now, and doing a lot to get current work into writing. (Incidentally,
when I mention people 's names, they are the people whose work I am most
familiar with, not the only ones who are doing it. )
I
W O R K BEING DO N E AT T H E LO NDON I N STITUTE
I
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Of the work I 've seen, I think some of the most significant furthering of the
theory is being done at the London Institute. The Institute in London is taking
the body of work to some of the next steps, I think, and deepening it, making

I
connections to other work like that of the Jungians and James Hillman and
Ken Wilber. They have over two hundred people in training in London and
Holland. They have a summer school every year that usually has about another

I
two hundred people. And they 've published several Institute of Psychosynthesis
Yearbooks and Forums.
Joan Evans at The London Institute is doing significant and exciting work
in terms of the psychology of groups, and the relationships or interface between
individuals and groups. I
THE DAN G E R OF PSYC H O LO G I CAL THEO RIES I
There is a danger when any psychological theory moves away from the
experience of a person 's life. In the attempt to explain things and delineate how
the psyche works, there is a tendency to think that you know how it works, and
I
that you have the answers. That destroys some of the mystery of how the
p syche works-some of the things that can 't be explained. It also can cut you
off from the experience of your life because you 're living your life through a
I
I
belief system. Psychosynthesis is a belief system. To take it on as the only way
life is, is I think, a problem, even though we can make it be one of the biggest,
broadest belief systems around.
Every belief system cuts us off from what I eaU Life, and what some people
call reality. The direct experience of that energy of Life is what I eaU spirituality. I
The more belief systems I have between myself and that experience, the less I
am alive. Psychosynthesis can take you so far, but then you have to let go of it
to experience life in a more pure form. I 'm more attracted, personaUy, to the I
Taoist tradition, which has fewer maps and models, and talks more directly
about the flow of life.
I
POTENTIAL DISTO RTIONS I N PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS THEORY

For certain people, and also culturaUy, more so in the seventies than now,
I
subpersonalities was a useful theory. Isolating the voices we hear inside us,
and trying to explain some of our inner makeup in terms of conflicting needs
and desires is useful to a certain degree. However, dividing yourself up, and
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Mark H o rowitz's Story

I then trying to step back from all that and experience who you are, can lead to

I
pushing away aspects of your personality.

It 's a very hard thing to describe. My experience was that in talking about
this subpersonality, that subpersonality, in obj ectifying it, I split myself off

I from it, and I didn 't own it in a certain way, both the good stuff and the bad
stuff. There 's a way that that no longer served me. It was no longer appropriate
for me to talk about my 'Judge " subpersonality. I had to start saying how l

I judge myself. I had to start re-owning that-how l beat myself up, not how my
judge beats me up. There was a kind of making me whole as l did that. Up
until that point, it was useful. Then it started being not useful to me.

I There 's also an impression you can get in psychosynthesis if you 're not
careful, that there is an experience of pure Selfness that has no content, and
that state of consciousness is what we 're really trying to achieve. It 's very
I strong in Assagioli 's writings. There 's a level of personality that we don 't talk
about very weU in psychosynthesis, which is just short of that level of
contentless Self, which l think is essential for understanding the Being who l
I am. This "level " of personality has to do with my richness, my cultural roots,
my Hebraie tradition, the fact that I 'm an American, the fact that I grew up in

I
this century, the fact that l 'm a man, and the fact that I have certain
sensibilities that l was bom with that l don 't know where they came from­
certain predispositions.

I These aspects of my being don 't fit very cleanly on the egg diagram. To put
them in the lower unconscious or the higher unconscious doesn 't do them
justice. They 're much doser to my experience of who I really am than that. So

I that 's another distortion. We don 't talk about the richness of Self, the content
of Self, as if it were included in Selfness.

Assagioli talks, and we talk, as li there is a self, an experience of '1-ness, "

I that is totally disconnected from other people and from relationship.
Psychosynthesis doesn 't talk very weU about "who-I-am-including-my­

I
relationship s, " that l am, in part, my relationships. For example, when
somebody that you love dies, you change. Not a part of you, but you. That 's a
good description of this thing l 'm talking about, because "l-who-am-in­

I
relationship -with-this-one-l-Iove " changes when that person dies, and l am
somebody new, from that point on, in a certain way. There 's no neat place to
put that kind of thing. l don 't feel that you can talk about it just as

I
relationships, or the space in between us. It 's more than that.

So there are a lot of things that don 't fit neatly in the theory. And l
personally don 't have much desire anymore to try to make them fit, because

I that 's not where my interests lie right now.

The "Higher Self "is at the top of the egg diagram, and split off from the "l. "

I
Both times I saw Assagioli, l asked him, "What 's the difference between the
Higher Self and the - l ? " He said, "There is no difference between the - l ' and the
Higher Self. " He tried to talk about it as a spark. But li the "l " and the Higher

I
Self are the same thing, "why did you draw it on the diagram that way? " And he

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Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

answered, '1 wanted to point to the place where the Higher Self is both
I
universal and personal, that there is the personal part of the psyche, and then
there 's the transpersonal, the part that 's universal. " I
I agree with that, but if you just look at the diagram, it 's a kind of
distortion because it splits me off from my Higher Self, from my soul. That 's
probably one of the biggest problematie things I see in psychosynthesis I
currently, that there 's the tendency to objectify soul. As soon as I talk about
"the soul, " it 's something separate from me that I 'm trying to get to, or
experience. It 's inherent in our language, and even though we might talk about I
it and try to teach about it as not that, the words we use to talk about it further
that obj ectification of soul, and the splitting me off from my soulness.
We ne ed a language that reinforces my soulness, rather than splits me off
I
from "my " soul. Even talking about "my soul " makes it into an obj ect, and as
soon as it becomes an obj ect, it becomes a thing, it becomes dead. Our
language needs to reinforce soulness. They don 't talk about "the soul " so much
I
anymore in England. They talk about soul, and there 's a difference as you start
talking in that language. I
We could talk about what soul means to us. What 's your experience of soul

I
outside this map and model, or this thing we try to teach about? What 's your
experience of soulness? How do you experience yourself? Not: what is it? That 's
what I 'm interested in fmding out in people.

I
RELATING TO THE PSYC H O LOG ICAL MAI NSTREAM

My purpose is no longer to make psychosynthesis a legitimate form of

psychology. That 's not my personal goal anymore although I think that is sorely
I
needed. It would be very valuable to elucidate psychosynthesis in such a way,
and to have enough writings, so that it can be taken into the mainstream and
respected as a legitimate form of psychology, so that it 's held in the same way
I
as Jungian or Gestalt or Rogerian therapy. I respect the work that Tom
Yeomans is doing in this regard in this country and what Roger and J oan
Evans are doing in England to bridge psychosynthesis to mainstream
I
psychology. I also respect what Will Friedman is doing in this country to bridge
psychosynthesis to obj ect relations and psychoanalytic theory. I don 't think
p sychosynthesis will ever be fully accepted unless we can incorporate what 's
I
already out there, or at least relate to it intelligently.
Only recently are people starting to come to psychosynthesis who have I
previous p sychological training, and some psychological sophistication. In the
past most of the people who came were not trained as psychologists. They
hadn 't gone through a mainstream psychological discipline, so they didn 't I
know what the reality of the fie1d of psychology was. Even most of us who were
d oing the training didn 't have that, or had that only in a very limited way. We
had to go back and pick that up, and leam about it as we went along. The body I
of trainees now are much more professionally oriented than they were in the
past.
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M a r k H o rowitz's Story

I THE EVE R EVOLVING PSYC H E

I I 'm not sure that there ever can be a theory that ties i t all together, that can
explain how the human p syche works . That 's an open question for me. I think
that for several reasons: num ber one is because I think that the p syche works

I in different ways at different times for different people. Number two, I think
that the human p syche is evolving, so that the way it works is evolving, so the
theory that explains it has to evolve with it too. It has to be able to take into

I account shifts in the balanee in the collective p syche, the collective

unconscious, the collective superconscious.

There are common, everyday experiences for us that were not common
I twenty years ago, like the facility with which people nowadays use imagery.
Twenty years ago leading imagery exercises used to be difficult. Today the
facility to image is much more conscious to people and much more in the
I culture. Things have shifted in the collective psyche, and that 's effecting how
the p syche works. Television is effecting how our psyche works. How human
p syches work is constantly evolving, and the theory has to be an evolutionary
I theory too. We can 't think that it 's been pulled together once and for all. As
soon as we think that, things will have changed.

I I 'm not saying that the attempt is not important. I can 't do it because I get
too identified with it, too caught up in it. I get too myopic with the maps and
models, and it cuts me off from reality. Other people can do it and maintain

I their distance, and say, ''fhis is what I experience about life, and this is how
I 'm going to talk about it. " They can keep their distance, and recognize that it 's
only the way they 're talking about reality; it 's not the truth. I have a hard time

I doing that. The effort to try to explain how Life works is really important. The
danger is when we think we know how it works, that p sychosynthesis really
explains this. If any group said that, I 'd be very wary of it.

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MO RE POTENTIAL DISTO RTI O N S

I W e have t o be careful in p sychosynthesis because there i s a certain hubris

that can come from thinking that you are practicing the discipline that
synthesizes all other disciplines. The fact that p sychosynthesis might be able to
I explain that Gestalt fits here, and p sychoanalysis fits here, Jungians fit here,
doesn 't mean that we understand fully the intricacies and the depth to which
you can go with Gestalt or p sychoanalysis or Jungian therapy, much less
I practice it. I don 't think it 's accurate to think that just because
p sychosynthesis has the potential of being broader than Gestalt or Jungian
theory, that somehow I 'm doing therapy better than they are.
I There 's an understanding of life that any therapist can have, separate from
the maps and the models, that can allow a therapist to go with his or her

I elients to great depths or heights. The master of Gestalt or Jungian therapy can
go anywhere we can go in p sychosynthesis. And there are experienced
p sychosynthesists that I would never refer anyone to.

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Psychosynthesis is one of the broadest and the best perspectives that I 've
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found so far, but it has its strengths and its limitations. Identifying with
p sychosynthesis can be just as limiting identifying with a subpersonality.
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PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS AND BO U N DARIES
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To talk about p sychosynthesis, or to write about it, and to have it come into
the mainstream, there will have to be boundaries around it. As a practical
p sychology and as a p sychological theory, it has to be in relationship to other
p sychological theories. It can 't be so bounded that it is exclusive of other
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p erspectives of the human p syche, but it has to defme its particular way of
talking about the psyche, and be open to ways that other people might be I
talking about specific areas of the p syche better than p sychosynthesis has

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done.

Psychosynthesis talks about the superconscious and about archetypes, but

we haven 't developed a very sophisticated body of theory about it. The
Jungians, on the other hand, have developed an incredible body of theory
which we should be able to use to explain that whole area of the psyche.
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I also personally feel that psychosynthesis should not spend a whole lot of
time trying to explain the paranormal and the parapsychological. I 'm not sure I
that that 's the most useful focus of our energy in terms of trying to have

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p sychosynthesis accepted into the mainstream of p sychology. People wi1l relate
to the paranormal, but I think people are often relating to it in ways that take
them away from the spiritual path. It becomes a limitation, or a siddhi. So I

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would put that boundary on it.

I would personally not like to see it bounded only as an individual

p sychology. I 'm coming more and more to think that maybe there isn 't such a
thing as an individual p sychology. We might be limiting ourselves to a system
that doesn 't evolve by seeing it only as an individual p sychology. It 's important
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as an individual p sychology, but I 'd also like to see it talked about as a social
p sychology. Relationship s have to be included as p art of p sychosynthesis.
Relationships ar all ieveis-personal, familial, communal, and global.
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The old social p sychologists, Weber and Goffman and others speak as if we
are only the product of our society. Even Freud goes fairly strongly in that
direction. Other p sychologists speak onlY of our individual experience and what

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we make of it, and how we have the ability to be separate from social
influences. I 'm not sure either of those are totally true. There 's some form or
vision of psychology that needs to incorporate both of those perspectives. We

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haven 't done it yet in p sychosynthesis. At the London Institute they have a
course called "Right Relations, » and another called "Group and Individual
Psychology. » I think they 're moving in a good direction.

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M a rk H o rowitz ' s Story

I Mark wrote the following comments in June, 1 988:

I I have one additional autobiographical note that may help to put some of
my comments in context. When I first came into psychosynthesis I wholly and
naively took it on as truth, identified with it, and committed myself to it. Then,

I because of the San Francisco group experience, I felt betrayed and wounded by
p sychosynthesis. I know that this was largely my own responsibility and I have
learned a great deal about myself from the experience. This wound was also

I partly Jim Vargiu 's responsibility. But I think that part of the responsibility lies
in the inherent distortions of psychosynthesis, mentioned above (i. e. dualism),
which fed already existing distortions in me and in us as a group.

I My experience in the San Francisco group has caused me to look more

carefully, not only at my OW!1 shortcomings, but at those of p sychosynthesis. It
has also caused me to feel strongly that as psychosynthesists, it is important
I that we start airing our doubts, con cerns and realizations of the theoretical
limitations in public. I think that such a communal dialog can he1p us
strengthen psychosynthesis as a psychological discipline. I also think that this
I communal dialog should focus on trying to identify some of the "shadow " side
of the field of psychosynthesis. What are some of the things that we haven 't
se en about psychosynthesis and about ourselves as a group of practitioners
I that might be unconsciously and possibly even negatively shaping how we
evolve the theory and practice of psychosynthesis? To do this I think would be

I
a bold, exciting, and extremely useful undertaking for the psychosynthesis
community.

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Tom Yeomans' Story

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Tom Yeoman s ' Sto ry
I Date of birth: October 2 6 , 1 940
Fonnal education:
I B .A. in CIassics from Harvard College
M . A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley
Ph. D . in Education from the University of California at Santa Barbara

I Current proJessional activities: Director of Psychosynthesis for the Helping

Professional; writer of books j articles on p sychosynthesis, poetry, and
fiction.

I Date of interview: June 2 5 , 1 987

Place ofinterview: Home in Concord, Massachusetts.

I I had gotten a bachelor's degree in classics, in Greek, at Harvard . Then I

went to Oxford for a year and studied philosophy, politics, and economics.

I When I left Oxford in 1 963 I was tired of studying, so I came back and taught
English and social studies in a school in Winnetka, a suburb of Chicago. We
began a school exchange where I was taking kids to the West Side of Chicago to

I black schools, and bringing black kids out. Through that work with the inner
city kids I got fed up with Winnetka, and left that j ob to work in East Harlem
for a year as a gang worker with Puerto Rican kids and their families. I was a

I community organizer.

When that proj ect fell apart I lined up a j ob in California, at a school which

I was just starting in the East Bay. I went out there and also marri ed Anne at
that time. I taught social studies for a year, but then left because it was a very
chaotic first year. I enrolled in graduate school at Berkeley, frrst in

I anthropology, and then I shifted back into comparative literature. Anthropology

seerned hopelessly detailed. I was looking for some way to study the whole
man, I think. I tried all the se different ways and I couldn't fmd anything that

I held the vision I have for what study and concern could b e . They all seerned
p etty, picayune , and partial. I was torn between literature and social concerns
and would go back and forth between these two.

I I spent three years in comp arative literature , reading a lot of English and
modem Greek literature , translating poetry, and having a wonderful time. I got
a master's in comparative literature and was moving toward a Ph.D . The
I professors were all happy with me and preparing me for a position at Berkeley.
But it felt like I was dying on the vine in literature , so in 1 969 I quit. I resigned
my fellowship and went out on my own , which everyone was very upset about.
I But I felt that if I continued in that career of literature, I wouldn't fulfill
something in myself.

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STU DYI N G "CON FLUENT EDUCATIO N "
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I had been t o Esalen a few times and was interested in humanistie
education and p sychology. I had studied some Gestalt, sensory awareness, and
other modalities. I had also studied analytical psychology and was interested in

I
Jung. It was all very exciting to me. I was interested in what was happening at
Esalen, and so was George Brown, a professor at the University of California,
Santa Barbara who also taught at Esalen. He had just gotten a Ford

I
Foundation grant to develop what he ca1led "confluent education," which was to
bring the se human potential techniques into curriculum planning and teacher
training. It would include the affective dimension, so you would develop a

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confluence or integration between cognitive and affective learning.

That fit with my interests. I 'd been teaching writing that way. He offered me
a j ob to help him direct this research project for Ford. I was accepted into the
Ph. D . pr6grarn and George gave me a fellowship and a job, so I went to Santa
Barbara.
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So in 1 970 I was thirty years old and had just moved to Santa Barbara to
do a Ph. D . in education. I was writing a paper for a course on guided imagery,
mostly based on gestalt, and someone told me that psychosynthesis had a lot

I
to do with guided imagery. I read the book (Assagioli, 1 965) and liked it. I liked
Roberto's style of writing and I liked what he was saying, p articularly the
integration of the spiritual and the psychological. It put me somewhat at odds

I
with the human potential movement because there wasn 't any transpersonal in
it yet. There were a lot of heavy duty Gestaltists who thought meditation and
the spiritual life was avoidance. But I found in psychosynthesis a form of
expression of my personal understanding in life , and also it was something I
could do in my professional life . I
So I wrote the paper on guided imagery and sent it to The Psychosynthesis
Research Foundation in New York. The man who was running it, Frank Hilton,
said , "There are the se people in Redwood City, Jim and Susan Vargiu , who've
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just come b ack from studying with Assagioli. Why don't you send your paper to
them. I 'm sure they can be of more help to you than I can." I sent it to the
Vargius and they mailed it back with a lot of helpful comments. That was the
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beginning of my relationship with them.
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STU DYIN G WITH THE VARG l U S AN D W ITH ASSAG I O LI

In June of 1 97 1 Anne and I did a weekend workshop with the Vargius. I

They were doing long guided daydrearns that could go on for an hour and a
half. You'd go very deep into the unconscious. My experience was of meeting
my "wise person" for the first time . But this wise being was not an old person, I
although he was somewhat older than me. He was like Odysseus , but he wore
a Franciscan robe. He was a combination of a monk and an adventurer. It was
a very deep connection for me persona1ly to my Self through the agency of I
psychosynthesis.

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Tom Yeo ma n s ' Story

I We did a basic training with the Vargius, and also we went to Italy in the
fall of 1 972 and worked with Assagioli for a couple of months. George Brown,
I although he didn't think too much of psychosynthesis, did support me in doing
this. He gave me time off and paid me, even though I wasn't at the University. I
was very grateful to him for that.
I So we worked with Roberto. This was a wonderful time. We really got, I
think, the true spirit of p sychosynthesis. It turned out to be quite different from

I what Jim Vargiu came to teach, but we did get a real sense of Roberto. He saw
very deeply into us and gave us advice that's still good.

We took our children. That was a very important decision in terms of our
I feelings about family. It was like a pilgrimage , the four of us going. Ben was
j ust nine months old .

I I worked for George Brown for three years, and finally got a Ph. D . I wrote a
the sis called Toward a Conjluent Theory of the Teaching of English. I was still
talking about how to teach literature and poetry, but now from a more

I p sychological perspective. I used Gestalt and psychosynthesis as the

theoretical bases for that dissertation.

I THE EARLY YEARS OF THE PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS I N STITUTE: 1973-1976

In August of 1 973 we moved to Palo Alto to begin work with the Vargius

I and a small group of people-to begin to develop The Psychosynthesis Institute.

They had started it in their living room. I think there were six or eight of us who
came to work with them . Jim had been the maj or person who did the teaching,

I but Susan did small pieces. She did the exercises. She supported him, but she
also brought in a definite presence of her own. She was a warm and outgoing
person, and I think she helped him deal with a lot of his shyness. She was

I extroverted , charming and nice . He wouldn't have done nearly as well without
her. I saw him talk once without her. He came to Council Groves in the early
seventies, and he was very nervous and disconnected. I think Susan sustained

I him in those early years, which I don't think he was aware of. There was a kind
of European relationship between them . She very much waited on him, but she
was a very smart person in her own right.
I We were also interested in doing this work as a couple. Psychosynthesis
has attracted quite a few couples. There was a strong family feeling in the early

I years. As this group developed along the lines it did, this was destroyed­
families became more and more the enerny. But in the beginning, there was a
wonderful sense of family, and children and married couples. That typifies

I p sychosynthesis, whereas other modalities of the human potential movement

liked the single, cool person. The Vargius set that tone by doing all their work
together. They even did sessions together, where they would co-guide a person.

I It was very p owerful.

As things got worse and he became more authoritarian, he separated from

her. I think he abused and terrified her in a number of ways. She became very
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neurotic. So they didn't stay connected, although they're still married as far as I
I know. I have no idea of what the situation is now.

I was soon teaching workshops in p sychosynthesis. And I was teaching it

at Esalen. Because it was so little developed in this country, I got some training
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and almost immediately became one the trainers, and learned by doing. By the
middle seventies, we were traveling all over the country doing workshops­
Florida, the Northwest, Canada. I was sort of propelled into it. There wasn 't any
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generation above me that could teach me, the way there is now.

EDUCATIONAL VS. CLiN ICAL PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS

I was a n educator and a literary person. When I went t o work with Roberto, I
I went to talk to him about setting up an educational proj ect with adolescents
that would help them develop body, feelings, mind , a spiritual life , and also a
sense of identity, and a fuller self-expression. I had an idea of a school I would I
set up for gifted adolescents, and he was very excited about that.

And for a while I did work with teachers who came into the program . I had
an education study group . I was very excited about p sychosynthetic education.
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Then, as the needs of The Institute grew, there was more need for straight
c1inical, p sychological work than there was for education. Most of the people
who wanted training were clinicians or therapists.
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I was interested in development from a healthy perspective , not in terms of
pathology. As the years have gone by, l 've learned more ahout pathology, hut I I
was never formally trained in that. In order for p sychosynthesis to develop ,
there needed to be people who could teach it and also practice . I had no
intention of being a therapist. It would have been the last thing in my mind. I I
was originally thinking about working with teachers. But as I got involved , it
was c1ear that there was a need to know how to do individual work, and work
with people who were in training. So I did it.
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THE M I DDLE YEARS O F THE I NSTITUTE: 1 97 6- 1 978 I
Up until 1 976 The Institute was quite successful and run tolerably weU.
There were difficulties among the directors. I was a director. I never felt
comfortable with the kind of in-group manipulations going on. There were a
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number of younger people who were also directors, and Jim made alliances
with them. I often found myself on the outside. I was useful enough to them for
me to stay, but I kept my own freedom, so I was on the outside . There was
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defmitely a power struggle during that time between me and some of the other
directors and Jim. It was not a big power struggle, but it was there. I
I was the only one who was married and had children , except for Jim. I
wanted to spend time with my family, go on vacation, spend time with my
friends, and so on. These things were increasingly looked down upon as I
somehow not "serving. " There was always this tension around time . There were
very long directors ' meetings because the other directors had no where else to
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Tom Yeomans' Story

I go . Their social life was really in being directors. But I had my family waiting
for me at home. There was lots of un ease about that, of not feeling supported

I about having a family.

Jim , Steve Kull, and some others were more on the mentally identified sid e ,

I and worked with a larger degree o f mental control in the sessions. I was more
on the process, Gestalt sid e , which worked more with allowing, supporting the
process, and listening. So there was a theoretical strain too . The women who

I were attracted to The Institute were often intuitive , spiritual types who didn't
have highly developed minds, or they had strong minds but weren't used to
using them. They would tend to get intimidated by the mental identification of

I Jim and the others, and that made me angry. I rernember feeling that I was
trying to be a champion for the intuitive-emotional , which is more the way I
worked .

I Most o f the leaders o f the humanistic and transpersonal psychology

movements were personal friends of mine. That gave me power and
connections, but Jim wasn't part of that at all . Looking at this in retrospect, I

I think it was threatening to him. But I was so naive , and I loved

psychosynthesis so much, that I was gradually talked out of those connections,
and talked out of that way of working, and eventually talked out of even my

I family. Not just talked , but forced out, because I became intimidated by the
whole thing.

I In those middle years, there was tension, but there was also success. We
were doing weU. The group of people who'd been attracted to The
Psychosynthesis Institute were good people. We had fun. We taught. We

I planned . We were going all over the country, to Canada, New York, Boston,
Florida, all over. We even went to Europe to teach. So during the middle
seventies it was a very rich period for psychosynthesis. The interest was

I growing. Jim started The Synthesis Journal,

put a tremendous amount of energy into it.
which was very high quality. He

I J I M VARG I U'S BRI LLIANCE AND PATHO LOGY

Now I can look back at those middle years from two perspectives. One is

I the naive one , and the other is, "This guy was unbalanced from the beginning,
and he was j ust tightening his hold on the particular group of people he had

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chosen to express his pathology through. " I can look back at that middle period
of the seventies, when things were looking successful on the outside , and see
things that were already wrong, that were manipulative , that were controlling,

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that were devious, that were dishonest.

From the beginning, Jim used to change dates on letters. These were j ust
little things , but his basic attitud e , which I didn't like from the b eginning, was

I dishonest. We would turn a blind eye to these things because p sychosynthesis

was so valuable. And we really were doing wonderful work. It was great. Lots of
people were benefiting. The Institute was running well enough. We were young.

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We were happy. We were having fun. We had Thanksgiving feasts together. We
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sang. We worked hard .

Jim was the unquestioned leader because he had an incredible , powerful, I

vision and a strong mind. His mental vision of the spiritual unfoldment was

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very atlractive . He also re ad the Tibetan through and through, and got a lot of
the vision from that. And also from some LSD trip s he did in the early
seventies. He was very compelling. And I think he tapped a latent yearning in

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all of us to b e involved with something that had vision , because we were all in
work that didn't.

Jim defmitely had a tremendous amount of talent. I think it goes too far to
say he was a genius , but he was certainly very smart and visionary, as weU as
emotionally unbalanced , emotionally very wounded , and full of pride.
I
MOVING THE I NSTITUTE TO SAN FRANCISCO I
In the fall of 1 976 the directors decided to move The Institute to San
Francisco. It disrupted the lives of many of us, like Anne , me and our children.
We tried commuting for a year, but it got crazy so that we moved up there in
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the fall of 1 977.
I was i n this uneasy relationship with Jim u p until 1 977, when w e moved
to San Francisco. In the summer of 1 976, I did a big presentation at the
Association for Humanistic Psychology Annual Meeting. It was held in the
Princeton gym, with fifteen hundred people p articipating. I proj ected stars on
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the ceiling, played music, and led them in a long guided daydream with a
deathj rebirth therne. It was called "The Mystery." I date that as the beginning
of Jim 's making me a scapegoat goat at The Institute. It didn't happen all at
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once, but progressively I became more and more isolated and the subj ect of the
projection of those elements that weren't being owned in the group . I was seen
as the power hungry person.
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The next year I was on the committee to run the annual conference for The
Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and I presented "The Mystery" there
also. l got into an impossible squeeze between Jim and that committee . Jim

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wanted me to report everything that happened directly to him , and I wouldn't
do it. I said to him , "l am in a p ower struggle with you. l don't trust you. " But
he got everyone else to lean on me so much that I fmaUy gave up , which is

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where I think my mistake began.

Everyone was overworked , and Synthesis was loosing money. There was a
lot of money mismanagement in Palo Alto. We b egan to realize we were earrring
money that Jim was using for other purposes without asking us.
very far in debt, sending out mailings all over the place but not delivering.
Synthesis was
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Some time after the move, the directors decided to split The Institute from the
j ournal. Some of the directors left to work on Synthesis in Redwood City, and I
and some others ran The Institute in San Francisco. For six months we ran The
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Institute without Jim. Everything ran smoothly and we were in the black.

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THE FI NAL YEARS OF THE I NSTITUTE: 1 97 8- 1 980

Jim then had the two groups of directors become one again, so that he
regained control over us. He established a relationship between us and the

I institutes in Canada and England to set up what was called "The

Psychosynthesis Network." This was dearly to control the other centers and the
quality of p sychosynthesis, and there was a lot of bitter fe eling about that. The

I Network didn't work too well. I think it was even dear at that time that Jim
wanted to have power over the overall direction of p sychosynthesis.

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They made a big blitz in the fall of 1 978 to start a graduate school, called
the Synthesis Graduate School for the Study of Man. It was to involve the
London, Canadian , and San Francisco Institutes. Jim was even fed up with

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p sychosynthesis by then. When he called it Synthesis Graduate School, he was
trying to move beyond p sychosynthesis. He thought the psychosynthesis
community, the other institutes, were doing terrible work. He believed all those

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people were flaky, and since he wanted to do something in depth, he might
have to leave p sychosynthesis. At one point he even disowned Roberto.

Everything became complicated and obscure. Jim became more and more

I "brilliant, " and more and more unglued. He created all kinds of abstract mental
constructs which had nothing to do with experience , and moved away from the
beauty of p sychosynthesis, which is it's inherent simplicity. Roberto was

I always very dear about this. For example, Jim took subpersonalities, and
talked about chains of subpersonalities, and he had all the se complicated
drawings of chains and little cirdes, sort of like engineering diagrams. They

I were very hard to verify in your own experience, and almost impossible to
understand.

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Jim was drawing on his understanding of the Tibetan for all this stuff. He
also thought that he and the group were getting nearer and nearer to the
Christ, a whole sort of Christian thing. Some of the directors converted to

I Catholicism. It became an almost medieval good and evil thing. A lot of very
strange things happened. There was one exorcism that I know of. It became a
cult-religious in the worst sen se of the word. The last two years, seventy-eight

I to eighty, the whole thing went nuts.

In terms of relationships with the other professionals-transpersonal ,

humanistic, Gestalt, and all those people-we totally alienated them by that

I time . The Graduate School became this isolated thing in San Francisco that
looked down on everybody else. Everybody else became the enemy. All
connections were cut.

I There was an in-group , and I was never a part of that. I was the subj e ct of
abuse by them. Many of the people I had been dose to were tumed against me.

I Basically, the p attem was that everyone got isolated from everyone else. No one
dared talk about any of this because there was always the danger that you'd b e
tumed in. That isolation grew more and more extreme. At flrst people were

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isolated from the outside world , then friends, and fmally from husbands, wives,
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and children.

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I S O LATED AND D I S E M POWERED

They had this supposedly esoteric idea that you had to give up your
individuality to work in a group , because a group can accomplish so much
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more than an individual. I disagreed with that. But I was fmally talked out of it
with a lot of peer and p sychic pressure. I basically gave up my power, as I
understand it now. I decided I would try to go along with the group , to align my
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will with the larger group , because I had been so intimidated and because it
was so painful to be at odds with my friends. I
Even when I gave up, I was still used as the scapegoat. I steadily lost
power. I was thrown out of the directors meetings. I was demoted. I was given
the shit work to do, like Xeroxing. I wasn't allowed to teach. But I wasn't the I
only one . Everyone came under this at different points as the whole thing
became more paranoid . I was so intimidated that I began to believe some of
the se things about myself. "Well maybe I 'm not so smart. Maybe I am selfish, I
and all that." It was brain washing.

I ask myself why I didn't leave, or why I didn't blow up . But the whole thing
was so gradual. I had been under this kind of p sychic attack without knowing
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it-even the stress of the early years was undermining. It played on all my
insecurities. Finally the result was that the group as a whole became so
involuted that nobody could trust anybody else and there were constant in­

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group / out-group games. The last year Jim took LSD with some of the directors.
There was just a lot of weirdness. It was all caving in on itself.

I was separated from my family for a while. I lived alone in a room in a

boarding house in San Francisco. I was totally disempowered and I let it
happen. I don't blame them. I don't blame Jim. I had a big blind spot around
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p ower, and I also had no expectations that this could every happen to m e , I
who had grown up in a "good world." And I couldn't believe this could happen
to psychosynthesis, that endorsed in every way the beauty of the human soul.
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So I was blind as a bat in that way.

To make a long story short, in that room by myself, amid all the agony I I
was going through, I did connect with my soul, my Self, in a way that I had

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never before . In this time of desperation, I turned inward for he1p , and the help
was there , in my soul, in God, however you want to say it. Over a period of time
I b egan to understand what had happened . My mind began to come back and I

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b egan to examine and study what was going on, and to face facts. This thing I
had loved so much and had thought would do so much good was really
screwed up , and was destroying love, which I see at the center of

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p sychosynthesis. Whatever this group organism had become, with Jim Vargiu
at its head, it was sowing hatred and darkness. The spirit of p sychosynthesis
had gone totally sour.

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Tom Yeo mans' Story

I E N D OF THE SAN FRANC IS CO G RO U P

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I decided I would d o everything I could to not only get myself out o f it, but
also to see if I could turn things around . Very few people know this , but I and
one or two others were behind the closing of the Graduate School. Working

I from the inside with the help of some friends, I was able to do certain things
that stopped it, and made Jim so paranoid he and his group left San Francisco .
In the end , once I got my head right and my eyes right to see what was really

I going on-that there was darkness right under my liberal, middle-class,

advantaged nose-I got my power back, and I used it. This happened during
the second year of the graduate school.

I This is a whole story in itself. For a month or so I worked behind the scenes
and wc had a kind of "freedom train. " We brought people out and helped them
sort it out. Finally, in October of 1 98 0 , the whole thing disbande d , the students

I went away, and Jim and his gang of about twelve people left for Washington,
D . C. He wasn 't interested in running The Graduate School anymore. He was
becoming so paranoid that he couldn't trust his closest associates. They

I packed up everything one night and left.

The Graduate School stopped . The students got wind of what was going on

I
and didn't come back. Jim and his gang took all the flles, the transcripts, and
so on, and loaded them into a truck and left. All that remained was an empty
building. They left lots of loose ends, commitments, and a lot of very negative

I feelings toward p sychosynthesis from everybody.

Everyone in the group had perpetrated crimes. It was a very negative group
of people . Some of us were spared that because we were playing out the other

I sid e , but the ones who were the oppressors were doing a lot of destructive
things to colleagues, to each other. It was pretty much of a mess.

I H EALI NG AN D REBU I LDING

I
The fact that this group failed sent shock waves through the whole
movement. It effected everybody. In a sense , psychosynthesis as a whole came
to a halt in 1 980. This was the central group , both by design-by Jim wanting

I
to take over-and by effectiveness, in that we were really doing more. We were
effective. We were charismatic. We had a good thing going. One of the painful
things about it is that if those people who gathered around The

I
Psychosynthesis Institute had been able to keep their b alance , and had Jim
been able to keep his balance , or had we been able to confront Jim , or thrown
him out and gotten another leader, we would have been a wonderful group of

I people , and p sychosynthesis would have been much more visible and central,
in a giving way, than it is now. It's very sad. It's a big loss.

After Jim left I contemplated this tremendous loss, and said to myself, " I 'm

I going to do everything within my power to restore this way of thinking." I felt a

personal responsibility to Roberto. So I got right back on the horse again. It
probably served me, in terms of pushing away some of the trauma that I felt, to

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start teaching again. There was a fair amount of negativity from my own I
p sychosynthesis colleagues, as well as from other people, such as my
transpersonal psychology friends. They welcomed me back, but they didn't
want to see me teach psychosynthesis.
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I started a training program in San Francisco in the fall of 1 98 1 . Philip
Brooks helped me with it. We called it The Psychosynthesis Education Training
Program. I had done some teaching before in my house, and then Philip and I

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did a nine month program, and it was successful. Then I turned the program
over to him , and he's still running it. So right in the bomb crater, there was a
program , and it's still going. He and his wife, Toni, run it.
Then we moved to Concord and in the fall of 1 982 I started
Psychosynthesis for the Helping Professional. I also worked with John Weiser
I
on the Toronto conference , which was in June , 1 983. I conceived of that
conference with him , and particularly worked on making all the connections in
the psychosynthesis world that had been severed in order to get people to I
attend. My idea was that if I could get them all in the same room, if I could
persuade them to come and be there, they would see each other and start
connecting, and the love would flow again.
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I worked my tail off that first year. I wrote some people five or six letters
before they would even answer me. I was on the phone. And I got most of them
there , from all over the country. A lot of people from Europe also attended. The

I
Toronto conferenee was a watershed. It was a major healing event. It allowed
people to touch each other, and there were new people who came. People began
to feel that maybe this was worth it. The two books that came out of the

I
conference were to do the same thing (Weiser and Yeomans, 1 984 and 1 985) .
Until recently, one of the major things I 've been doing-although I didn't
say this to anybody, except for a very few-was to work as hard as I could to
try to help restore this field in North America, because it was such a wreck. I 've
done this without becoming a pre dominant figure. I've done it very quietly, with
I
a lot of love, care, and inc1usiveness, in order to try to heal the shattering
caused by the San Francisco group .
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I would say I 've been largely successful. The field's back on its feet. There

I
are people studying it. People are in a talking relationship with each other.
There's more of a sense of community. People are beginning to write. Any field
has its ups and downs, its animosities, and so forth. But psychosynthesis is
back to normal. There have been regional conferences. And there's the
international conferenee this year [in Venice in 1 988]. I
LEITING GO I
Within the last year I deliberately chose to stop doing that. I said, "Okay,
I 've done my job. If I go on doing it, first of all , that's going to limit me, because
I really want to go on and do other things. I want to be a contributor, but to do
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more creative work and less administrative work, which I had been doing
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Tom Yeo mans' Story

I nationwide. And secondly, there is some danger that now that things are
healthy and back to normal, 1'11 begin to draw that projection of a leader, in a

I negative way.

l don't want the negative projected onto me, or the adoring. Either one of

I
those would limit me, and I think it would limit the development of
p sychosynthesis. I discussed this in my artic1e "The Politics of the Spirit"
(Yeomans, 1 984). I sent it to all the centers all over the world. In it I articulate

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the politics l 've been working on. I wrote about what Roberto had talked about,
in terms of p sychosynthesis being a constellation, not a solar system. I c1arified
that, and then gave specific ideas as to how people could strengthen the light

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within the constellation.

So that's it. lt's done . And if I go any longer, it'11 begin to have diminishing
returns. I did a lot of letting go , and it's worked. Everything's going forward

I without me. Every once in a while someone turns to me for advice of some sort,
but there isn't any sense that I 'm the person they have to turn to. And as far as
I can see, they're turning to each other, and relationship s are growing in all

I sorts of ways that I have nothing to do with. Which is great.

I 'm also free to be part of this community and to make my contribution,

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which I see in my writing, teaching and so forth, but not to be the central
figure . I will, on occasion, exert my influence, particularly if I see something
developing along the lines of the old way. And then you can bet your boots 1'11

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be there , very powerfully. There have been a few times l 've already done that.
I 'm still ready to confront anything I think is going to take it in a more
authoritarian direction.

I But I don't see too much of that now. I see more that we need to do things
with more quality. It will all happen in time. It's all normal now. The other
problem Jim got into was that he tried to force feed the whole thing and make
I it go much faster than it could. He was very impatient and visionary. lf he'd
been more patient, we might have been okay.

I
l still love p sychosynthesis. I feel very deeply connected to it. But I 'm also
doing other things, like my novel. I don't know what other things 1 '11 do, but
they won't necessarily be strictly psychosynthesis. I feel less identification with

I
the movement and the school now than I did earlier. I 'm trying to think, work,
and teach from a spiritual perspective. The rubric I approach that under is
p sychosynthesis, but I feel less and less attached to it.

I For myself, I think I 'm on the verge of something quite new. l think it will
still inc1ude p sychosynthesis, but it may also inc1ude many other things. I feel
this j ourney with p sychosynthesis, this period of time we've been talking about

I is c10sing now, and something new is beginning. I feel satisfied with what l 've
done. I 'm sure I could have done it better, but if I hadn't done it, it wouldn't
have happened. I 'm quite sure of that. And yet, l was just doing what I thought

I was best. It wasn't my work. l just didn't want to see p sychosynthesis go down
the drain. It's too valuable. And l felt this personal connection to Roberto. So I
said, "1'11 do everything l can to see if I can try to get it going again." And it is.

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LEARNING ABO UT EVI L
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From this experience I leamed, first hand , about the dark side, about evil. I
leamed it through psychosynthesis, and maybe if I hadn't been involved in I
psychosynthesis, I would have leamed it some other way. But I certainly did

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leam it. That experience , painful as it was, is a touchstone for what I 'm trying
to do now-the way I teach, the way I work, the way I live my relationships with
people. It's allowed me to love more deeply. I know more about love than l ever

I
knew before. So in a sense, it's been a gift to me, one of those wounds that's a
spiritual gift.
Evil must be opposed in yourself. I leamed about it frrst on the outside,
and from that, I leamed about it within myself. We must keep a keen eye for it
out there, and also it takes a keen eye to see that within yourself, and how you
I
rationalize certain things-how the means justify the ends.
The shadow, the darkness is definitely there. It's in psychosynthesis. The
people who have let themselves leam from it are wiser from the experience. But
I
there are other people in psychosynthesis who still haven't leamed about the
dark side. And there are also people who haven't encountered it yet, either in
themselves or outside. There's a whole range. And there 'll be some versions of
I
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what happened in San Francisco that will be wiser than others. There will be
some that will be biased in one way or the other, because there will also be
over preoccupation with the dark side, even in psychosynthesis. I think that's

I
as unbalanced as being preoccupied with transcendence. There's such beauty
and depth in p sychosynthesis, and one of it's powers is that it affrrms the
beauty of people. You don't want to just turn around and say, "Beauty is only a

I
cover for the darkness." That's not true either.

THE FUTURE DI RECTIO N O F PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS

Psychosynthesis needs clarity and direction now. The question is how it I

can be given to the field without either stirring up the old memories, or actually
having some version of this thing happen again. There's the question of how to
formalize psychosynthesis. Another question is quality control, so to speak, in
I
terms of training people. When is a person trained? There are all sorts of
different programs, two year programs, three year programs, some give
certificates, some don't. Different curricula. What is it to be trained in
I
p sychosynthesis? And are we going to standardize this in any way?
It's going to go slowly because of this experience in San Francisco, and also I
because p sychosynthesis is more of a networking, decentralized way of working

I
anyway, so it doesn't submit itself to easy codification and hierarchical, formal
relationships. Probably formality is going to grow out of a number of years of
feeling out what's appropriate.
But yes, there has to be more direction. There has to be marketing. There
has to be interface with other schools and professions. There has to be more
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1 06
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To m Yeo mans' Story

I publications. Those things need to happen to make it an established field of

spiritual p sychology.

I It has to stay dose enough to the culture to touch it, and yet far enough
ahead to draw people forward . Jim , and psychosynthesis in a way, shot way

I too far ahead and then went into a tail spin. And that's fine, because it was
also a fad , it was a quick fix , it was a number of things people had all sorts of
dreams for. Now all that's over, and the question is: How does this discipline

I grow in such a way that it not exactly fits the culture , but it draws the culture
with it? In other words: How can it both stay connected and approachable,
and also draw our culture towards a spiritual awakening, which is what we 're

I in the midst of, and what we need so badly?

We're talking about a long time frame , because cultural change is very
slow. A danger would be if psychosynthesis were to be seen again , for whatever

I reason, as a quick fix . It would then lose that capacity, because the quick fix is
always undermined by reality. It's best if it grows slowly and we11 enough that it
always keeps that relationship of tension to the culture-that it just keeps

I growing, integrating, induding, and connecting in such a way that it allows

people to connect to it, in a very low key but powerful way. And not connect to
it, but to ideas that it holds, that are trying to come into the culture.

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M a r i lyn Krieg el's Story

I
Marilyn Kriege l 's Story
I Date of Birth: April 1 6 , 1 938
Formal education:

I B.A. in Education from Arizona State University

M . S . in Education from Dominican College
Ph. D . in Clinical Psychology from Columbia Pacific University

I Current Professional Activities: Writing.

Place of interview: Marilyn 's home and office in Muir Beach, California
Date of interview: July 1 3 , 1 98 7

I
I first h eard o f p sychosynthesis i n the fall o f 1 9 7 0 while I was living i n New

I York. My husband, Bob, and I went the airport to pick up Mike Murphy and
Suki and Stuart Miller from Esalen. They had gone to Russia to talk with
Lozanov and leam about the whole "psychic discoveries behind the iron

I curtain " sort of thing. We were very excited to hear about all the paranormal
research that was being done in Russia. We had all been good friends for a
number of years.

I My b ackground was in education and Bob 's was in business. I had taught
everything between kindergarten and j unior high school in the public schools,

I
and then trained high school teachers to teach reading. I left education because I
felt the impact I could make in education was nil. I couldn 't grow enough within
the restrictions in public education. I had done a lot of reading, like in Aurobindo,

I
Krishnamurti, and Gurdjieff, but I wasn 't attached to any particular point of view.
I was a good, humanistic, all around p sychologist from the mid- sixties.

I had met Bob at Esalen. I moved back to New York in 1 97 0 to be with him.

I We were group leaders working with encounter, Gestalt, and bioenergetics. We

were interested in the paranormal, in the use of drugs in therapy, or anything
else that was new. Bob eventually went on to develop the Esalin Sports Center,

I which was one of the frrst institutes of sports p sychology in the country. But at
that time, he ran Anthos, one of the frrst growth centers in New York.

I
So we kept asking Mike, Suki, and Stuart about Lozanov and the Russians,
but they kept telling us about this little ltalian Jew they had run into . Mter
they left Russia they went "guru hopping, " as they called it, and heard about

I
Assagioli and went to visit him . They were much more excited about him than
anything else they had se en on the trip . These being people we knew and loved
and trusted, and they were talking about Assagioli and this thing called

I
psychosynthesis, we decided we would fmd out who or what there was to
psychosynthesis in the United States.

We found Frank Haronian and invited him to give a course at Anthos. We

I gathered a group of people that we thought might be interested in what was

supposed to be the latest thing. We bought Roberto 's book (Assagioli, 1 96 5) . I
thought the book was ridiculous. It was hard to read and seerned very

I academic. I read it, but I just didn 't get what it was about. And I didn 't get it

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from Frank Haronian 's course either. I fell asleep in it. Yet what bothered me
I
was that the se three p eople that I knew and trusted thought it was so good.
Bob 's reaction was the same as mine.

I remember some exercises Frank did, and some stories he told. To me it

I
I
sounded like the worst kind of positive thinking. Bob and I talk about positive
thinking as being like putting on a dean shirt when you need a shower. It felt
to me that p sychosynthesis was Polyanna-ish. It was positive thinking. It

I
doesn 't really deal with issues in people 's lives.

Esalen Institute was running benefits in New York around that time, and
we were helping run them. A man who was part of the psychosynthesis group
in New York, Malamud, did a presentation there, and he did a lovely exercise . I
still had no idea what p sychosynthesis was about, but the exercise was sweet.
I
And that was it until we moved back to California in the summer of 1 97 1 .

I
BEG I N N I NG THE CALI FORNIA EXPERIENCE

When we got back here the Millers told us they had found someone in
California, Jim and Susan Vargiu, who did p sychosynthesis. In fact, we could
I
be part of their training program if we wanted . We did it. We were involved in
the whole growth m ovement in the late sixties and early seventies when it was
crazy. We 'd end up in these twenty-four hour marathons, fasting for six days.
I
We did everything. There were no rules or structures then. We j ust kept
experimenting. I
We went to the basic training with the Vargius, and the first evening we
walked out saying, this was something special. We were deeply m oved by the
training program they had put together. It was one evening a week plus two or
I
three weekends . Also there were individual sessions with them. We were quite
thrilled with it. It was exciting and deepening.

We decided to continue training with the Vargius. After about a year and a
I
half of it, Bob dropped out. It was becoming very esoteric at that time , and he
said that when the lowest thing on the map was the Higher Self, it was time for
him to pass, because it didn 't relate at all to his experience. He felt he had
I
I
learned everything they had to give that was of value to him , and what they
were teaching at that time was not. They relied heavily on the Bailey b ooks. We
were taking a course on the Higher Self which was esoteric theory-spiritual

I
triads and monads and the like . It was totally unrelated to life . I was taking
notes very carefully, but Bob just wasn 't interested.

I felt p sychosynthesis organized and explained almost all of my experience

and I was delighted. And where Bob would j ust say, "this doesn 't relate to my
experience, " I felt that it would at some point. The Vargius were saying that
I
Assagioli was one of the Tibetan 's disciples, that p sychosynthesis was really an
exoteric expression of this more e soteric world.

There were j okes about how in New York, at the Psychosynthesis Research
I
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Foundation, there was a door that said Psychosynthesis Institute and next to it

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M a ri lyn Krieg el's Story

I was a door that said The School for Esoteric Studies. You would walk into these
separate offices, but in the back was Frank Hilton 's office with a door into each

I of these, linking the two . That was our model of the esoteric and the exoteric. It
seerned very important to keep them separate, in terms of the public, but if you
were really inside p sychosynthesis and studied it deeply, you 'd end up into the

I Bailey material. That was made very explicit at some point in the training.

In 1 975 Lenore Lefer and I told the Vargius that we wanted to start a

I p sychosynthesis institute in San Francisco. At the end of the meeting we had

instead become associates of the Palo Alto Institute. At that point there was
very little difference between psychosynthesis as a psychology and

I p sychosynthesis as a spiritual life that organized almost everything we did . In

fact, p sychosynthesis as p sychology was the work I did , but what was most
meaningful to me was this inner life . It was very exciting. It felt like I had the

I opportunity in this group to penetrate the mysteries, to know things I would

never know as an individual.

I credit p sychosynthesis with having enabled me to access wisdom a lot sooner

I than the culture would have made possible, if it would have happened at all. The
tools were just terrific. I don 't know of anything that impacted me as much.

I THE TRO UBLES BEG I N

I
I t was acknowledged by the group that Jim was "the Source . " I t was made
quite explicit that he was the contact with this. In the beginning he marketed
himself as a student of Assagioli. Later on he started talking about Assagioli 's

I
limitations.

The seeds of craziness were planted in Palo Alto, but it became more
obvious in San Francisco. Bob was onto something when he said it didn 't have

I anything to do with his life. He was invited to j oin the Institute, but he was told
he would have to give up his own work as director of the Esalin Sports Center.
They were doing the first sports psychology consultation in the country. He

I dec1ined, of course.

Before I became an associate at the Institute, I had been doing educational

I consulting and also helped start a program in humanistic law. The Vargius
tried to get me to bring the program for the Study of Humanistic Law into the
Institute. That created an enormous ruckus between the people I 'd been

I working with at the law project and the Psychosynthesis Institute.

Eventually the Vargius had me resign from a couple of the things I was
doing. By 1 977, I wasn 't doing anything but psychosynthesis teaching at the

I Institute. When we divided

production manager for
The Synthesis Journal from the Institute, I became
The Journal. I was doing that until I left the Institute in
January, 1 979.
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I M PACT O N FAM I LY LlFE
I
Bob and I were living in Muir Beach. In I was told there was too much
I
1 977
astral energy in Muir Beach and I needed to move. I told Bob we needed to
move, and he said, "Forget it. We 're not moving. JJ I then said, "WeU, I 'm moving

I
so we just need to decide what 's best for Otis (our son) . JJ Bob was furious with
me. That was one day. On the next day he said, ''I think you are legitimately
crazy at this point, a certifiable nut. But I love you, and I 'm not going to let this

I
break up our relationship and our family. So if you want to move, move the
family. 1 '11 go wherever you say. You rmd the place. You move us. But I think
you 're crazy. JJ

So I moved us down the peninsula where the Journal offices were, and we
lived there for eight months. Then the Journal moved to San Francisco, and we
I
bought a house in San Francisco and moved in November. Bob was doing ski
programs in Aspen, so he was gone for four months. At Christmas time he took
Otis, so I was alone from mid-December through the end of January.
I
FI NAL DAYS AT THE I N STITUTE
I
In November of 1 978, about the same time we moved to San Francisco, I
started to get a lot of shit at The Institute. The fickle fmger of fate started to
point to me. All of a sudden my work wasn 't acceptable. The elemental was the
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term used for the evil in each individual. Y ou had to be ''handling your
elemental. JJ Each person was responsible for their own elemental, the part of
you that would like to sabotage good and life and evolution. So I was suddenly
I
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told that I wasn 't handling my elemental' Between November and January,
when I left, I was on the hot seat all the time . Anything I did was wrong. I got
calls in the middle of the night about what was wrong, j obs being taken away

I
from me, being stripped of my duties. In fact, I was told it was my fault more
Journals hadn 't come out.

It was getting more and more intense. Everything I did was wrong. I kept
thinking about leaving ,and I couldn 't think of who to talk to. If you talked to
someone in the group , they talked you out of it, saying it was your elemental
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that wanted you to 1eave. If you talked to someone out of the group, it made it
impossible to remain in the group . You 'd get thrown out. It was a delicious
double bind.
I
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I was frred from The Journal in January, and I was supposed to explain to
the group at a meeting why I was frred. Of course all I had were the reasons I 'd
been told. I had no experience to relate to . I attempted to do this, but everyone

I
said I was j ust mouthing the words, which of course I was. They kept asking
me what my experience was, and to go deeper and deeper. In that meeting I
catharted a lot of stuff. It was interesting. I catharted down to that very quiet,

I
still place, and I looked around the room and my experience was, "I 'm crazy to
be here. » It was that insight and c1arity that said, "fhis is insane. JJ

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112
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M a r i lyn Krieg e l ' s Story

I So Jim demoted me from senior associate. He said, "I think you might as
well go home now and think about this. There 's no reason for you to stay at

I this meeting. " I remember having this giggle welling up inside of me, and I was
going to start laughing because it seerned absurd. He was very serious, telling
me I 'm not a senior associate anymore. And I realized, 'This man is crazy. "

I I looked around the room, because I knew I was not coming back, and that
some of my oldest and dearest friends, whom I loved very dearly, were sitting in

I the room with me. I left, got into the car, and started to laugh. I drove home,
called up Bob in Aspen and told him I had left the group . He encouraged me to
think about it, that it was my decision, and if I was sure, I should come to

I Aspen. The next day I called the Institute and told them I wasn 't coming back. I
left for Aspen the same day.

I had waves of doubt. Had I disconnected from my soul, which was what

I the Vargius said? Had I given up my connection to God? I needed to think

about that. I also had to decide what I was going to do in my life. I left the way
you leave a building when it 's burning. I was forty-one that spring. I had had a

I terrific career up to the point I had entered the Institute. I had to decide what I
would do with my life. I had no idea.

I RES UMING HER CAREER

I
Some students in a holistic psychology program at Antioch College came to
me in June, and asked me to teach a course on psychosynthesis. They had
gone to the Institute first but couldn 't arrange it with them because the

I Institute had so many rules and regulations. It made me wrestle with the
question: Is what happened psychosynthesis or was it the Vargius and what
they generated? I reread all the material, sorting out what works from what

I wouldn 't work. In August I taught the course in psychosynthesis. Then Will
Schutz, who was running the program, asked me to help run the program. So I
became co-chair of the Department of Holistic Psychology.

I It was wonderful. I taught a number of courses and designed the

counseling track around psychosynthesis. I had to constantly sift out what I
believed for myself, what I thought Assagioli 's intentions were, and what was

I off the wall. It got me back to the sweetness psychosynthesis had had for me.

I quit teaching after two years to devote myself to my private practice and

I to writing, and two years later I c10sed my practice altogether to write full time .
Bob and I wrote a book together called The C-Zone: Peak Perfonnanee Under
Pressure. It 's very psychosynthetic in its world view. Bob and I are working on

I a book of that nature for business, and I \re fmished the first draft of another
one based on my experiences at the Institute. I 'm working on a book on
couples right now. I \re been writing children 's poems, and I got my first fiction

I story published . I 'm making a new career for myself as a writer, and I love it.

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Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

U S I N G TH E PRI NCIPLES AT H O M E
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We u s e the principles o f psychosynthesis i n our family. For example, my
son Otis started high school this year and there was a lot of conflict about my
expectations for him as an academician, Bob 's expectations for him, and what

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Otis wanted for himself and what he felt he was capable of doing. We got into
all the c1assic stuff-do your homework, don 't do this, don 't do that-until we
were all screaming at each other all the time.

We fmally sat down and each decided to say everything we felt to

everybody, j ust to get everything out on the table-no holds barred, no rules,
I
j ust everything we were feeling about everyone. And you couldn 't defend ; you
had to just listen. All the different parts got their say. Then each of us sat
quietly and went inside to talk to our own wise person, to ask for help, for what
I
we needed as individuals and what the family needed to support each other. 80
we all came away from there feeling that we each were going to get what we
needed, to be supported, and each knowing what we wanted to do for ourselves
I
as a next step, and how the other two p eople were going to support us to do
that. That 's from psychosynthesis.
I
Before we eat we hold hands. Lots of people attune in different ways. We

I
honor the soul, the ever present light in each of us.

I
THOUG HTS ON DOING PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS THERAPY

l think there 's an affect that comes with the brand of psychology. Gestalt
therapists, for instance, seem to have a particular p ersonality. l kept thinking
about p sychosynthesis. Psychosynthesis was sweet, like honey. It was non­
invasive . It seerned to be based on a great amount of trust in the individual and
I
in humanity. The techniques were really tools for the individual to use on their
own behalf. Over the years I have conceived of it more as a form of remedial
education, that it speaks so much to the natural unfolding of each human
I
being. As a p sychosynthesis therapist, l think you are facilitating that. lf that 's
what you 're doing, it 's like being an educator, which is to draw out of each
individual. lf what you 're doing is drawing out of that person, of trusting that
I
person 's innate wisdom, you end up being se en as sweet, tru sting, and
benevolent.
I
80 I found it very challenging to sit with someone, not with the eyes of a

I
p athologist, or a doctor using the medical model, but as a detective-someone
who 's curious about other p eople, to know this person so that they will also
know themselves b etter, and to come with as little judgment and expectations

I
as p ossible. It 's very challenging b ecause it forces me to keep examining what
my own judgments are, my own expectations, and it helps me to live my own
life more spontaneously and with more curiosity about who I am.

All of this led me to think about the will. We were taught at the Institute as
if there were a right way and a wrong way to be in the world. l 've tried to
I
divorce myself from that and see what is willing to happen in each person-as

I
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M a ri lyn Kri e g e l ' s Story

I opposed to what they should be doing. This means, I think, that my clients
have to be braver and more courageous, and I do too, because we 're not

I problem solving so much as telling the truth and then trying to live on whatever
edge that telling the truth brings us to. It 's almost always an edge.

I I do therapy differently than I did at the Institute. It 's much less

controlling. At the Institute we used to talk about what we saw as the next step
for someone. I don 't think in those terms anymore. I think more of what 's going

I to emerge. I frame more questions than answers. And I 'm much more
interested in what turns people on, what 's exciting for them, what experiences
people have that give them j oy than to develop what people should be doing

I with their lives.

I see pain differently. I used to see pain as the bad guy and you had to get
rid of it. The pain was bad, the suffering was bad . It meant that you were off

I the path. I feel very differently now. I think that some of life is p ainful, and it 's
not because you ve been doing it wrong. It 's not necessarily that you ve been
making mistakes or you 're unconscious. It 's part of living.

I I like breaking rules. I like thinking about psychosynthesis in relationship

to more classical forms of p sychotherapy and feeling like a renegade. I like

I taking bigger risks in my practice, having more intimate relationships with my

clients, talking about myself as a way of helping somebody, sharing experience,
breaking all the transference rules.

I By the very nature of being human beings, we ne ed each other to grow. We

serve each other enormously. We 're a social species, and we grow from our
relationships with one another. Relationship is real important. And we 're also

I individuals. When I do p sychosynthesis, one of my intentions is to give away the

tools as quickly as I can, to use either by themselves or with their families or
whatever. I think they 're easy to use. I think they can easily be part of one 's life .

I I used to tell my counseling students that the best perk in being a therapist
is that you j ust change. You can 't do this work without changing. You don 't

I even have to work at it. It just happens. When I saw somebody make a step , it
would happen in me. Every time someone would express more of themselves,
more of me would be available . If I 'm sitting in the presence of people day after

I day, I 'm more present to myself. It just happens. It 's natural. That 's why I
think psychosynthesis is so amazing. It doesn 't feel like any kind of artificial
p atiern or template on top of a person.

I For me, there is an implication that, if you ve come to see me, as you sit
here, you 're less than who you could b e . And for me, it pushed the butions of
what Assagioli called "an apparent duality, " not a real duality. It appears that

I there 's a duality, but I think that there 's not. I don 't think of my elients as
struggling to express more of themselves . I think they 're expressing themselves
fully in every minute, that they are being themselves. You are a soul right here,
I as full as can b e . And how you do it in that moment, and whether I see that in
you, or whether you experience that in yourself, is different than whether you

I
are that.

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I t 's very different from what the Vargius taught me. If I get into assuming
I
you 're not connected, and I need to help you to get connected, inherent in that
is a value system of one being better than the other---c onnected is better than
not being connected . I think inherent in that judgment is a real can of worms.
I
THOUG HTS ON MO DERN PSYCH O LO GY
I
I think psychology is a crock of shit. I really do. I imagine five hundred
years from now, or a hundred years from now, that early p sychology (which is
now) will be a j oke. These are the awkward first step s in connecting to God, to
I
I
connecting to the whole or the universe or whatever it '11 be called at that time .

Where the hell is the mystery? In p sychology, where is the mystery? There
is more that is mysterious about our lives than is non-mysterious. There 's no
mystery in almost anything in Western culture, and I find most of what goes on
absolutely mysterious. I
I did a talk at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Association for Humanistic
Psychology about the unknown and psychology. One of the things I said was that
in every other field there 's a way to discuss what you don t know�xcept in
I
psychology. Ornithologists have an 1bb and an 19b, a 1itt1e brown bird and a 1itt1e
gray bird for the millions of birds that can 't be identified. Geologists have
something they call frgok which is funny rock God only knows. I said we need to
I
have frgoks in p sychology. We ne ed to have that in the session with our clients.
They need to know that we don 't know what we 're doing. I
Is there anything new in psychosynthesis? I always figured that-besides
what he was able to bring because he was familiar with so much other stuff­
Assagioli simply noticed how things are in the individual, probably himself, and
I
gave some form to that, some structure to that. It 's as dose to describing it as
anyone 's gotten for me. And it 's natura! to do it. It 's just a word for turning
ourselves back to what is most natura! for each of us to do. And it 's different
I
for each person. As Assagioli said, '1'here are no wholesale solutions. " It 's so
hard to relate this to p sychology because there 's so much about psychology
that 's unnatural.
I
I
I fmd that in couple 's counseling, what 's missing ninety percent of the time
is the attitude of: Tell me what it 's like to be you. People have no idea what the
other p erson 's experience is like, and they 're trying to solve incredible problems

I
without that information. Often that 's all they need to know. Solutions often
present themselves as soon as they know what each other 's experience is like .
Then they can do it for themselves, once they catch on. I think it 's remedial

I
education, I really do. I think if you we 're brought up to be this way, it 's a very
natural way to leam.

Anyone who ever went to see Assagioli came back talking about his inner
beauty, gentleness, acceptance, and b enevolence . There was much less about
the techniques and much more about what it was like to be with this person.
I
He was an extraordinary person.

I
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Lenore Lefe r's Story

I
Len ore Lefer' s Story
I Date of birth: March 1 8 , 1 938
Formal education:

I B . S . in Psychology from the City College of New York

M . S . in Clinical Psychology from San Francisco State University
Current professional activities: Private practice with individuals and couples;

I teacherj trainer at the Psychosynthesis Training Program of San Francisco;

consultant to San Francisco AIDS Foundation ; supervisor of graduate
students.

I Date of interview: July 1 7 , 1 987

Place of interview: Lenore's home in San Francisco

I The first time I heard of p sychosynthesis was the day I arrived at Esalen. I
had come to Esalen with my family for the residence program in 1 97 1 .

I Someone had left the book Psychosynthesis behind, and it was the only thing
in this empty room. I thumbed through it and it seerned very intellectual. I was
coming from a world where I was very much wanting to let go of that. I was

I happy to have a free book, but I put it aside .

That was a time i n my life o f maj or transformation. I had finished graduate

school in school p sychology, worked as a teacher and a school psychologist
I sub stitute for a while, and then got married and had three children. I had been
living in Connecticut, raising my family and working part-time in the field of

I
mental health.

I was basically unhappy living what I thought was the good life. I didn't
recognize until many years later that I was in a deep spiritual crisis. While my

I external life se emed to be quite wonderful , my inner life was problematic.

Several friends had b een to Esalen and had talked about California and the
interesting emotional work that was happening at Esalen. It seerned intriguing

I to me in the middle of a life that was much too materialistic.

So I came out here with my husband and three children. He had been

I
involved in his family business for many years and was not happy doing that,
but felt it was a family obligation. We both wanted to leave our material,
prescribed life that didn't fully suit either of us. Our friends had come back

I
from California with wonderful tales of being in groups , talking about their
feelings, being at the baths, taking their clothes off-which were amazing
adventures that we were very turned on to. Out of our dissatisfaction with

I
suburban, materialistic, middle-class living, we decided we wanted to have this
adventure. So we packed up our three kids and came out here to start a new
life for ourselves, which was very courageous or very foolish-probably both.

I
We decided to take a year off to come to Esalen to do the residence program.

The program , run by Betty Fuller, was a four month program for people
who had some degree of success in their lives , but were looking for something.

I We were in search of something, the name of which was not totally clear. It was

I 1 17
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I
a time about emotional opening. It was a time where we did drugs. It was a I
time of mind expansion and of very deep spiritual awakening. And of coming
undone-I was forced to let go of lots of roles and identifications. It was a
wonderful, fresh time and a time of newness. I
BEG I N N I NG TO WORK WITH THE VARG l U S I
When w e left, w e decided to live i n San Francisco. I realized that my life
had fallen apart. I had come undone and had no sense of how to reconstruct it.
One of the women I met through Esalen sugge sted I do some work with Jim
I
Vargiu , who was then working as a therapist. Mel, my husband , and I did some
sessions with Susan and Jim Vargiu , who worked as a couple. I still had not
read the book, although I still had it in my suitcase. I didn't even make the
I
connection.

The sessions were important openings for me. Somebody actually I

understood what was happening to me-it made sense, and there was a

I
context in which my experience could be understood in a positive and healthy
way. Jim and Susan were skilled and warm guides, and I felt very wonderful,
so I continued.

I did a training in 1 972 in Jim's house in Redwood City, and fmally read
the b ook. I was beginning to understand what I had been on the edge of in my
I
own experience but didn't have words for. It opened me up to a way of thinking
about myself and the world that I had never experienced before that seemed
very right to me. I felt at home with the information, with the ideas. Since I first
I
got involved , I have never left the p sychosynthesis world. It became my way of
understanding things. I did more training and ultimately became an associate ,
then a senior associate , then a director of The Institute, and then part of the
I
graduate school.

My husband's involvement was at a different level. He found the work I

useful and interesting. It was important to our relationship , but it wasn't
something he was interested in pursuing beyond that. His experience as a
businessman was called upon because neither of us was working or earning I
any money, and we had spent our savings to have this adventure of being at
Esalen. We were broke, so he went back to work. He took a j ob in business and
I went on to study p sychosynthesis. When Jim started the Synthesis Journal, I
he hired Mel as the business manager. He asked Mel for six months to help
him organize it. Mel worked for him for about a year. He was also the manager
of The Institute for a while. Then he decided that it was not his place to be
I
there any further and he went off to develop his own business. He began to
open restaurants, which was his fantasy. So he's had an acquaintance with
p sychosynthesis, and sort of marched along side of it, but my involvement has
I
always been more central to my life.

I
I
11 8
I
I
Le nore Lefer's Story

I ESTRANG EM ENT FRO M FAM I LY

I Initially my family was accepted by the Vargius and their people. The
evolution of how things got weird was gradual over a long period of time . In the
mid-seventies the demand for our time and commitment to The Institute was

I considerably increased. My relationship to The Institute had been central to my

life , but there was a great deal of freedom about other activities. At some p oint,
I started committing more and more time and energy to The Institute and less

I to my family. It happened voluntarily over a period of time, and I don't think I

was conscious of the breach. Prior to that, my family had been my fIrst priority
and my work and education and development was secondary. But that shifted .

I This was felt by my family. M y husband and I became distant and then we
separated. The pressure was to stay committed to The Institute-it wasn't to
disconnect from families, but that was, in effect, what was beginning to

I happen: Eventually Mel and I did get divorced. That was defmitely encouraged
by the key people at The Institute. It was all couched in the rightness of the
work we were doing. We were a group of people who had a shared vision. There
I was a sen se of community, of love, and of commitment to the work. It was a
very important time for all of us. And a hard time-we all made sacriflces.

I ESTRAN G E M E NT FROM THE I N STITUTE

I My difficulties with The Institute came after I had been back east, leading
an advanced training. I was a director and in charge of lots of pieces. I was
working seven days a week, twelve , fIfteen, often eighteen hours a day, teaching

I and supervising people , being on the telephone with Jim, and doing political
meetings with the various centers on the East Coast. It was a very busy and
exciting time for me. I seemed bigger there than I did when I came back to the

I group in California. I had question about that, and my questions were p ointing
to something in the group not being right-which was not an acceptable thing
to do. So it got thrown back to me that I was not doing certain things, and it

I was the beginning of my demise.

At some point I was put in quarantine. Quarantine was a punishment, an

alienation, a statement that you were dealing with some kind of negativity that

I influenced the group in a harmful way and you literally needed to be

quarantined, to work it out on your own and not influence the group in so
doing. It happened to lots of people over the years. People were continually
I being quarantined. As I think back upon it, it makes me laugh. But it usually
happened when somebody had had a taste of something that seemed b etter or

I
different from what was happening at The Institute.

My relationship with The Institute ended in 1 979 when I was asked to take
a leave of absence. I came back home and b egan to re-examine my life and

I what I had done and what I needed to do. At some point, when I felt ready, I
went back out into the world and began again. I started working as a
consultant, and I started developing my private practice again.

I
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I
At some point, I wrote to Jim saying that I was choosing not to come back, I
that my work there was done , and that I was choosing to continue my own
work in the outer world. I sent the letter to Jim and the other directors and
associates and I know Jim received it, but I 'm not sure any of the other people
I
ever saw it. Everything was being censored at that time . So that was my official
end with the San Francisco Institute. About a year later they left the city and
went off to various places.
I
lIFE AN D WORK AFTER THE I NSTITUTE I
It took me quite a long time to heal and re-examine and try to understand
that experience. During that time my middle son died. That was a very painful
event in my life. It took me away from my concern about p sychosynthesis and
I
brought me into the heart of grieving. About a year later I was invited to teach
at the Psychosynthesis Institute of London. I did trainings in London and
Holland for a year.
I
When I came back from England in 1 982 , I started up my private practice
again, and l began teaching at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I
Around the same time my ex-husband and I decided to resurne living together.
We haven't remarried-that's sort of a missing piece. We were separated and
divorce d , and we 've come back together. My family has come back together. I
Since 1 985 I 've been a consultant with the education department of the
San Francisco AIDS Foundation. I 've also been supervising beginning
therapists and l 've been affiliated with the Psychosynthesis Training Program in
I
the city for about four years. I 've taught at Esalen and gone back to the London
Institute to teach, and I 've taught in Montreal. So I teach in various places
p eriodically.
I
When I left The Institute I wanted to get my M . F. C. C. license , so I did an
internship working with p sychotic patients, and I experienced the limits of I
psychosynthesis. That didn't mean I gave up my perspective , but it forced me
to acknowledge that there were people who could be se en as souls, but would
never really manifest that except through some very debilitating and I
dysfunctional illness. All of the techniques of expansion and connection to
depth and spirituality were not part of my internship in working with severely
p sychotic individuals who are not in touch with a sense of self. This puts a lot
I
of the psychosynthesis material into question as a practical, useful system for
certain p opulations.

My work now is mostly with gifted people-self-motivated and self-directed

I
I
p eople who come to see me b ecause they want to grow, deepen and really go
b eyond themselves , and enhance their lives. They're very high functioning
people, creative and bright, and the work is very nourishing to me. They take

I
the work and apply it to their own lives, and I see myself as seeding that. But
when I spent the year working with p sychotic individuals, I felt that the
principles are not best applied in that arena, and that's part of human nature. I

I
120
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 I
Lenore Lefer's Story

I
don't know if it's human nature or p sychosynthesis that's limited , but there

I
was certainly a limitation in what was possible.

I now put out the principles of psychosynthesis as an opportunity to

examine something in yourself. It's much less tight theoretically. The emphasis

I had not been on theoretical construets or furthering the ideas, except as what's
true for me.

I DEFI N I NG PSYCHOSYNTH ES I S

I
The way I hold psychosynthesis i s that it's a comprehensive modality or
p sychology. In it I have put Gestalt work, Jungian work, dreamwork, all my
group experience , and everything that I know. It all fits into this way of
thinking about the individual or about human nature. I also see it as a

I transpersonal psychology in working with deve10ping the spiritual nature, so

that the personality or manifestation is a reflection of that essential,

I
transpersonal Self. I also see it as a way of holding the individual or the planet
or any system , so that there is an inherent soul or Self manifesting beyond
what's external and visible, and the need to explore or plumb the depths of

I
that. It's sort of the way the guide holds the c1ient, that there's something more ,
something unfolding.

I don't think there are any places where p sychosynthesis is taught without

I the experiential component. It seems essential to me. The theoretical material

helps in the teaching, although I do psychosynthesis with elients who have no
idea that I 'm doing psychosynthesis, or don't know about the ideas of

I psychosynthesis, and yet benefit from the experience of my holding them in

this way.

I C U LTURAL I N FLUENCES O N PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS

Psychosynthesis is a p sychology and a method that works with a particular

I kind of population, where there's enough time and room and space to consider
inner life. There are third world countries and populations that don't have that

I
privilege. Not that the model doesn't work; it's just that that focus of people's
interest isn't there .

When I went to England to work, they are culturally a repressed people.

I Feelings are not an acceptable part of the cultural facade . To come in and
encourage people to open up to their feelings creates a lot of ambivalence. The
English don't b elieve in change , that things need to be different. And yet they

I were very drawn to this repressed part of themselves , dealing with their feelings
as a way of integrating that.

There's a leve1 of privilege and sophistication and development that needs

I to be there in order for p sychosynthesis to work as weU as it does. The people I

work with are in that place. They are highly functional and successful people ,

I
who already have a coherent sense of themselves. The work is to refme that,

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and to create a kind of sensitivity whieh is part of a privileged, elite experienee,
I
I think. Sometime s I forget that, but it's important that I don't.

I
TRAI N I NG AND CERTIFICATION DISCU S S I O N

I have stood o n the whole continuum o f the issue o f standards. When I was
at The Institute , I strongly believed in the need to have the requirements for
I
p syehosynthesists be rigid and preeise. I was holding it as a special
eertification or title or whatever, and the way I held it was mled with my love of
it, and my eommitment to make it wonderful and important. My training lasted
I
years and years. I was in the frrst group of people where there was no end to
the training. We hadn't deeided when we were done until one day, after about
five years , I said, " I 've had enough training, Jim. Now I 'm going to go and do
I
this work." And he said , "Great, come and j oin us." I decided I had this many
degrees and this mueh training and this mueh experience, and I felt capable of
doing the work.
I
Then I beeame part of formulating who gets to be approved. Not just to be a
p syehosynthesists, but to be a good therapist or guide-a person responsible
I
for doing the kind of work that I do with people-I believe that a great deal of
training is required. The training at The Institute wasn't even adequately rigid. I
was one of the more severe people who felt that people should have more
I
c1inieal experience, that the work at The Institute was abstract,
supereonscious, very spiritual, very refmed , and that people did not have
adequate experienee with c1assically neurotie and p syehotic people. I was
I
speaking for more training rather than less training.

I have deep appreciation for the sensitive and powerful nature of the work, I
and that if you don't have a skilled therapist, you can get into trouble. It's very

I
delieate work, and you need to know what the parameters are , the guidelines,
and how to manage suicides , and p sychosis, and the whole range of human
behavior. When I was teaehing in London, I attempted to make them aware

I
that there needs to be more traditional elinical experience to balanee the
transpersonal work.

However, I also now appreeiate that people will self-seleet, that people have
a kind of judgment where they won't do what they're not eapable of doing, and
that c1ientele will realize that at some point. If I come to you and you're not
I
experieneed, l 'll reeognize that and leave .

The training program I 'm involved in with Philip and Toni Brooks offers I
people a diploma that just says you have fmished a year of training. lt's not

I
even a diploma. I don't know what to call it. lt's an aeknowledgment that you
have eompleted this year. It doesn't qualify you to do anything.

I 'm not sure how p syehosynthesis needs to happen in a global way. l've
partieipated in the traditional California rules of sehooling and edueation and
lieensing, and I see the limits of that. I have the right degrees and eredentials
I
and lieenses, but that's not what qualifies me to be a therapist. Just like what I

I
I
1 22
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Lenore Lefe r's Story

I learned in studying psychosynthesis wasn't all that I needed. I 'm not certain
about how that should happen.
I We talked about state certification at The Institute years ago , and we made
a very dear statement that that was not a good idea. We , as an Institute and as

I a psychology, would be safer not to be involved with that main stream

certification process because of its limitations. Once you get involved in that,
someone else gets to say that you need six hours of this and twenty-three

I hours of that. And the exams are multiple-choice-I 'd like to see someone try to
make up a multiple-choice exam for psychosynthesis!

The standards that developed in California have to do with consumer

I protection. There's a whole industry around the certification process, about
getting people ready. It's very questionable . The intention of the state is to
protect the consumers from crazy therapists. There's a whole group of people
I who have their licenses who decide that they want to keep the licensing field
alive and to maintain the quality. So the people who have their M . F. C . C. 's keep
refining it, either as a way to keep other people out-which is one way of seeing
I it-or they are really saying that the training that got us this piece of paper is
very limiting, and we need to continue to develop and grow. This is serious stuff

I
we are doing.

I know people who have M . F. C. C . 's who I don't consider worthy of this kind
of work, although they may have the concrete information they need at a

I particular leveI organizationally, administratively. They know how to manage a

suicide assessment. They know what to do about some of the various legal
complications, information about child abuse. They have information about the

I current contemporary issues in the field. But that doesn't speak to their quality
as therapists. I think that's a different, subj ective leveI of qualification that's
difficult to address.

I Psychosynthesis is something good to add on to your skills which have

already been developed as a therapist. If someone comes in who's already had

I
counseling, who understands various theoretical notions of psychology, and is
beginning to question human nature more deeply, psychosynthesis can enhance
that. But it depends on the nature of the work, on the nature of the individual.

I Roberto was a believer that people would know when they were ready to go
and teach and do and sort of disseminate the information. He never was too
concerned about these issues of certification, who gets to do what. It doesn't

I answer the question.

The Jungian analysts seemed to have figured out a way to certify people.

I
You go to their institute, take a number of courses, do this and that, have a
didactic analysis, and then you 're certified as an analyst. There's no problem. It
has nothing to do with competence. It has to do with some coherent means of

I
certification that sister and brother fields have b een able to successfully allow
themselves. What is our difficulty?

I
I 1 23
Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea
I
We have stayed out of the mainstream for several reasons. One is that I
we're very limited in terms of the writing. Roberto wrote two books, and he
needed help to get those out. Assagioli was not a writer. There isn't a written
b ody of knowledge that we can stand behind . And there is this esoteric I
tradition that we have been hiding and masking and pretending doesn 't exist.
So how could we possibly become public, or part of the mainstream , when
we've got this stuff to keep secret? It's not the foundation of p sychosynthesis at I
all, but it certainly influenced Roberto's thinking, and it influenced Jim , and it
influenced a lot of the theoretical material.

So in some ways we 're coming out of the c1oset, and we have the se two little
I
books, and a hundred pamphlets, and it's not enough. It's not enough to have
us be p art of an integral notion of psychology, but we have a great deal to
contribute.
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Anne M a i d e n ' s Sto ry

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An n e Mai d e n ' s Sto ry
I Date of birth: September 5 , 1 93 1
Formal education:

I B .A. in Sociology and Philosophy from A11egheny College

M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan
Ph. D . in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan

I Current professional activities: Director of The Marina Counseling Center in San

Francisco , and also of its Transpersonal Psychotherapy Training Program ;
Co-Director of Friends of Children and Parents; Co-Director of Proj ect for

I Holistic Governance; Co-chair of International Congress on Pre and

Perinatal Psychology; author; trainer; and private practice of p sychotherapy.
Date of interview: July 1 7 , 1 987

I Place ofinterview: Anne's home in Muir Beach, California

I I fIrst heard of p sychosynthesis in 1 969 at a Jungian training seminar on

working with active imagination. One of the leaders of that seminar told us to
get our hands on anything we could by Assagioli. Psychosynthesis ( 1 965) was

I the only thing available at that time and I got it right away. It sat on the table
beside my bed as the next thing I was going to read for nine months.

I
At that time, I was a psychotherapist at the counseling center of the
University of California at Santa Barbara. I had originally trained at the
University of Michigan when only p sychoanalysis was being taught in the

I'
1 9 50s. At eight in the morning for three years I had my p sychoanalytic hour.
Then I was chair of a graduate program in family development at the University
of Iowa, and moved farther west to the University of California, Santa Barbara

I
when my children were two and four.

Students there told me about Fritz Perls at Esalen and I studied with him.
But I always felt that a therapy should work for its practitioners, and I realized

I that Fritz was not happy or integrated. So I knew there must be something
beyond Gestalt, even though it was a very powerful approach, and it worked
very weU for me at that point in my own development. I had also trained in art

I therapy, studied jinshinjitsu, had Rolfmg and other kinds of body therapies,
and was working with authentic movement.

I
So I began Jungian training, and the same person who had mentioned
Assagioli told me I ought to get in touch with Tom Yeomans, a poet in Santa
B arbara. A little later Tom and I turned up in the same food co-op. A bit later I

I got a note from Tom inviting me to a workshop he and Anne were presenting on
p sychosynthesis (their fIrst) and I decided to go.

I had not yet started the Assagioli book when I began Tom and Anne's

I workshop . The fIrst evening I felt immediate1y at home . In fact, all the exercises
we did were things I was already using in my therapeutic work. I had modilled
things I had come across in reading, in explorations of other therapies, and in

I my experience as a Quaker. I had missed the explicit acknowledgment of the

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spiritual in other therapeutie approaches. Even with Jung at that time, the I
spiritual was under wraps, and there was an attempt to be more scientific.
Although I had been doing all the se things anyway, and had been working from
the assumption that there was an Inner Light in each p erson, basic to Quaker I
b elief, I was always a bit concerned that the University might fmd out what I
was doing. So it was wonderful to discover that psychosynthesis legitimized
what I was doing. And I sen sed there was a larger framework than what we I
were being given that flrst evening.

As I read the psychosynthesis book, I realized I needed to read for what

was between the lines, as well as what was explicit. I just read it now and then.
I
I had been working with it for three or four years before I decided to read it
cover to cover. I
Following Tom and Anne's workshop I took a workshop led by Anne
Yeomans on "Women and Psychosynthesis. " After that Anne and I decided to do
a workshop together , which we called "Being a Woman: Liberation From I
Within. " We continued to do that work for about three years, co-Ieading it in
different places around the country.

During that time a man and a woman would often work together, being the
I
co-therapists for one person. I worked with Tom and Anne in that way myself.
Then they worked a bit with my whole family. The next time the
p sychosynthesis training was offered in Redwood City, I went. This training, led
I
by Jim and Susan Vargiu , consisted of about twenty-two people in a small
room. I would fly every week to Redwood City for the training, and fly back the
next day to the University Counseling Center in Santa Barbara. I got a lot from
I
the training, but my interaction with the other people in the group was very
limited . It was all quite focused on Jim. I
I got to know another woman fairly well though, and she told me about the
B ailey books. She and I both applied for the advanced training. I had feelings
about Jim's power, something about him from the very b eginning. At any rate , I
she was not admitted to the training, and I decided this was not for m e , either.
The thing I had quested after, that there be someone who put into practice
what the theory was, was not right with Jim.
I
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I continued to work with Tom and Anne. I felt very good about them as
people who were living what they were teaching. In all my explorations,
psychosynthesis was the flrst approach to heaIing and therapy I had been

I
involved in that put trust in the Self. My p ersonal relationship to Quakerism
was in accord . It felt good to me. It meant that, while I was getting an
enormous amount from the work I was doing in my sessions with Tom and

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Anne , the responsibility was primarily mine, within me, and I wasn't being
dependent on someone else. I saw that as part of the genius of
p sychosynthesis, that it not only took into account the spiritual, but it

I
eliminated a lot of unnecessary transference issues, and went right to the
source .

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Anne M a i d e n ' s Story

I Anne and I continued our workshops together, and my own work became

I
more clearly psychosynthesis. It allowed inclusion of everything I had ever
studied or invented, and I understood that that is what Assagioli would have
delighted in. I also began to make plans to visit Assagioli.

I I went to the First International Psychosynthesis Conference in Montreal,

organized by Martha Crampton. Jim and Susan weren 't there . I can't remember
anybody from the Palo Alto group being there . I experienced how Martha

I worked , how a lot of different people from different parts of the world were
working.

I J O I N I NG THE VARG l US

Then Jim and Susan invited me to visit them. We talked about

I psychosynthesis and psychology. They were particularly interested in my views
because I was the only trained psychologist involved at that time. We talked
about why I had not entered the advanced training. I explained my point of
I view; they shared theirs and they invited me to do the advanced training. After
some thought, I decided that the training would be useful, and I shared their

I
ultimate goals, even though I still had questions about the politics and power
issues-something was off. I also wanted to experience psychosynthesis as
developed by other people.

I I began working with Steven Kull as my guide. That work was very good,
very deep . I then decided to leave the university so I could devote more of my
time to my private practice , and also to do some research. In 1 975 I began

I studying distortions in group life. I started by looking at four specific

organizations and at how they used their spiritual teachings. I intended to
extract from that what it was that did work and what didn't work, and what

I could be carried into hospitals, schools, factories, or any other kinds of

organizations. The four groups were The Psychosynthesis Institute, Planetary
Citizens, Meditation Groups for the New Age , and Findhorn Foundation and

I Lorian Association.

Later I moved to San Francisco so I could be more involved with The

I
Institute , which had also moved there . I led a lot of workshop s, did a lot of
teaching, and carried a heavy load at the counseling center. I also attended all
the public programs. When Jim decided to split the j ournal from The Institute ,

I
I j oined the faculty and became an Associate of The Institute. There were seven
of us, and it felt as if things were moving in a clear direction now. Also, we were
making all our decisions by consensus, which was important to me.

I
TH I N G S G ET STRANG ER

I The following year things began to get stranger. Jim came b ack in charge of
The Institute, and planning was underway to start the graduate school and
other proj ects. We were told we had to give 1 00% of our time to The Institute.

I We had to keep time sheets that accounted for every flfteen minutes of our

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tim e , putting down everything we did, assessing how effective it was, and what I
qualities were needed. The entire faculty had meetings which typically lasted
until three in the morning. I was doing a lot of teaching and research.

I knew from my time sheets that I was working far more than a hundred
I
hours a week. Only the hours of three to six or seven in the morning were for
sleep . When I look back on it, it set up all the conditions for brain washing.
Because l had come there to study distortions in group life , I initially took
I
notes in meetings. But early on l was told not to take any more notes. Jim
seerned very suspicious of what I was doing.
I
At one meeting of the faculty l was asked by Jim , "lf you had a
disagreement with m e , what would you do?" l said, "l would tell you. And if you
wouldn't listen, I would tell my associates." Then Jim and another person I
worked with me for a long time. The lesson I was supposed to leam was that if
I had a disagreement with Jim , I would leave the group and not say anything
about it to anyone else. I
There was an emphasis on the hierarchical way things should be, in which
those people who were considered to be less "evolved" should be obedient to
those who were considered more evolved. This was quite different from the
I
understanding I had grown up with , that among persons linked with the Higher
Self, all would be able to be in touch, and that consensus was a more
appropriate way to do things.
I
By 1 97 8 , the circle had grown smaller and smaller, and it became dearer
and dearer that we weren't supposed to have any other friends. For years I had I
been a part of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and I was invited
to be on their planning committee . But I was told, no, we wouldn't do anything
with outside groups. But when I look at it in retrospect, l see how the group I
field was so strong that I went along with it.

I
"CUTTI N G " AN D G ETTING "C UT"

At one particular meeting, when we were to "cut" with some people, they
brought up the nine-year-old daughter of the se folks. I had never met her,
I
knew nothing about her, and I was supposed to "cut" from her because she
was supposed to be the incamation of evil. At that point I said this was total
nonsense and I refused.
I
About twelve days after my refusal to cut with this nine-year-old
"incamation of evil," I was invited to come to a meeting. I thought p erhaps they I
were going to ask me to take on more responsibility, and I was wondering if I
wanted to do that. However, Jim said , "We 're telling you that you are no longer
a part of The Institute ." I asked what that meant, if that meant I was no longer I
a part of the faculty. I did get, right away, that I couldn't come to the courses I
had worked on so hard. And gradually it became dear that I would be cut, like
all those other people. I
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Anne M a i d en's Story

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When I fully realized what was happening, it became uppermost in my

I
mind that I wanted to leave The Institute without fe eling bittemess toward
p sychosynthesis. I knew that the experience of psychosynthesis and the inner
learning and Assagioli's were appropriate . So I took the time to say to each

I
person how I appreciated what they contributed to my life, and the qualities I
saw in them. I remember shaking and crying, and at one point, laughing and
saying, "This is the funniest damn graduation I 've ever been to !" It was a very

I
strong experience.

I was told that all my clients were The Institute's clients, and that I was not
to have any contact with them, that someone else would give an explanation of

I why I wouldn't see them again. I was told that I needed to give "back" all my
research papers and all of the work I had done , although there were already
extra copies. I was enough shaken that I didn't protest about my c1ients, but I

I was like a tiger with the research. I was going to make a stand somewhere.

We had loaned furniture to various people there , and our shelves were

I
what all the books at The Institute were sitting on. So I said, "Keep the
bookshelves." But everybody was putting all the other furniture on the sidewalk
outside our apartment to make the cut. It was a weird situation.

I LlFE AND WO RK AFTER TH E INSTITUTE

I After this I went to Santa Barbara and did continuing work with
psychosynthesis. I have ever since , in a variety of contexts. It's my life-it's
what I do. I 've continuously had a practice in psychosynthesis. A year later we

I moved back to the San Francisco area, and I was asked to be co-director of The
Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution. I was also asked by some
graduate students to begin a counseling center. I said I would only consider

I doing that if the group were governed by consensus. And as soon as it's not
operating creatively, for me or for anybody else I see , I would no longer be
involved in the group endeavor. I felt pretty concemed about what could

I happen in groups.

I worked with that institute for three years, but eventually left because

I
other staff members were not committed to work with consensus. This time I
spoke up for what I believed , and was determined not to get caught up in a
group field. By that time, the study of distortions in group life , and what did

I
work in group life , had become the Project for Holistic Govemance. I studied a
lot of different groups that made decisions by consensus, looked at when it did
work and when it didn't work, and so on. The counseling center did work

I
effectively, and our consensus was to leave and found the Marina Counseling
Center, which has been thriving for five years now. The Proj ect for Holistic
Govemance has also continued and contributes strongly to the way the Marina

I
is run.

Friends of Children and Parents was another inspiration down the line. It
has a number of ongoing thrusts. Most c10sely related to p sychosynthesis now

I is the development of my work with the psychosynthesis of preconception,

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conception, gestation, birth, and family development. We j ust had an
I
international conference on Pre- and Perinatal Psychology. I 've been doing
research on birth options in cultures around the world, which is another way of
coming to a synthesis, of looking at what can come from all different kinds of
I
cultures.

, I changed the egg diagram a long time ago . In addition to the star at the
top , l 've put an Earth Star at the bottom. l 've given a stronger emphasis to the
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'

I
connection between the things that happen in the lower unconscious and the
higher unconscious, and how opening up one can open up the other.

In the work that I do as director of the Marina Counseling Center and

running a transpersonal training program , people come from many different
backgrounds, all sharing a transpersonal orientation. Some of them have
I
psychosynthesis training. I see the synthesis, and what each person develops
from within themselves , as being the p sychosynthesis that happens as they
become practitioners. They may not go out saying they are practicing
I
psychosynthesis-they may have a Jungian orientation or whatever-but that,
for me, is listening to their Higher Selves.

In my supervision with them or in my work with my clients, I make as c1ear

I
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a connection with my own Higher Self as I am able to in the moment, and
through that connect to their Higher Self. The guide for the session, and for the
entire p sychosynthesis, is in the connection between our Higher Selves. I don't

I
see it as something ineffable or unable to be described. It's a very real presenee
and listening and experience , and guiding the client to their own experience of
their Higher Self.

They may not have come with any intention of doing that, or any awareness
that was a p ossibility, and I may never speak of it. I only speak of it if, at some
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p oint, they tell me about their own experience of it.

I rernember thinking, when I was still in Santa Barbara, "Thank goodness I

p sychosynthesis has a built-in arrangement of inc1usion, so it doesn't have to

I
break up into schools the way so much of psychology has fractured, and it has
the capacity to unite and bring things to the quality of synthesis." Yet c1early,
that wasn't enough. The person's own connection is core. There were enough

I
p eople all around Jim who presumably had been trained so that they might
have been able to use their understanding of psychosynthesis to see and alter
the group distortion. Yet what happened was that Jim had been able , in most

I
cases, to insert himself in their alignment with Self as if he were their Higher
Self. That is a distortion we have seen in other groups. In order to increase our
own alertness and self-commitment in our ongoing group work, Hank Maiden

I
and I created a set of questions for members of groups to ask themselves
individually, and also as a group . We've b een using them since 1979, when we
presented them at a conference of the Association for Transpersonal
Psychology. Here they are:
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Anne M a i d en's Story

I QUERIES FOR A WORKING TRANSPERSONAL GROUpl

I Love

Do we accept the beauty and fuUness-dark as weU as light-of our whole

selves?
I Do we love, listen, and attend to the parts within us so that our unique
expressions are nurtured within the group?

I Do we so center our lives in the presence of universal love that we are enabled
to move outwardly with confidence and balance?

I Truth

Is an attitude of experimentation and healthy inquiry encouraged?

I Are we open to truth from wherever it may come? Do we benefit from the easy
spontaneity and perspective of humor?

I
Are we free to express tentative questions, visions and ideals, and our deepest
knowing?

Do we exercise discrimination that sees what is right action in each time and

I place?

Are group decisions dearly stated and openly agreed up on? Are changes

I
shared immediately?

Are records of allocations of time, money and other resources readily

accessible?

I When we see error and confusion in our group , do we speak up with darity in
the interest of forwarding group purpose and intention?

I Are mistakes welcomed as opportunities for opening to greater light?

Cycle of Energy Flow

I Do we contribute a right share of our resources of energy, time , and money to

the work of the group?

I Are differences in individual rhythm and timing and the wholeness of

individual lives honored when group commitments are asked for?

Are group rhythms supported by timely arrival at meetings and completion of

I group tasks and responsibilities?

Are we mindful of our links and the potential for cooperation with other groups

I
sharing related purposes?

Do we receive and give with equal j oy?

I lFrom "An Initial Approach: Evoking Spiritual Discernment in Group Life" (July 14,
1979) by Anne Hubbell Maiden and Hank Maiden, The Marina Counseling

I
Centerj Proj ect for Holistic Governance, 2 1 37 Lombard Street, San Francisco, CA
94 1 23

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Anchoring I
Do we hesitate beyond necessity or rush ahead beyond wisdom and readiness
to express the group purpose in the world? I
Are we sensitive to right place and timing?

Are we receptive to the value of learning unfamiliar tasks? I

D o our lives magnetize energy through daily practice of what we know?

Does our b ehavior c1early embody our purpose?

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Are we compassionate witnesses to our own growth as a group?

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Ph i l i p S rooks' Story

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Philip Broo ks' Story
I Date of birth: April 2 5 , 1 946
Fonnal education:
I B.A. in Psychology
M.A. in Humanistic Psychological Education from the University of
Massachusetts

I Ph. D . in Humanistic Psychological Education from the University of

Massachusetts
Current professional activities: Director and teacher at the Psychosynthesis
I Education /Training Program in San Francisco; teacher at John F. Kennedy
University; private counseling practice ; President of the Board of Directors,
Community Hospice Foundation.

I Date of interview: July 1 3 , 1 987

Place of interview: Philip 's office in San Francisco.

I Unfortunately, there was a snafu in the recording of Philip Brooks '

interview-the entire section in which he told of his career with psychosynthesis
wasn 't recorded. So below is a brief account which he supplied in writing at a
I later date. Some of his views on various subjects did get recorded, andfollow this
chronology.

I
1 972: I frrst heard about psychosynthesis while I was in a doctoral program at
the University of Massachusetts. I did a paper on it which later in the year led
to my working with Don Mastriano, who had just returned from being with

I
Roberto.

1 972-75: I studied with Don and others at the University of Massachusetts, led
a workshop in p sychosynthesis, and integrated it into my own dissertation

I Who Am I : Another Answer, a self-instructional, modularized learning

program which was mostly psychosynthesis. I also did individual work with
Hob Hoblitzella.

I 1 97 5 (summer) : I attended a three week intensive in Massachusetts with Tom

Yeomans, Martha Crampton, and Mark Horowitz.

I 1 975 (fall) : I went to Palo Alto , California to begin a three year program of study
at the Psychosynthesis Institute.

I
1 977: I co-taught my frrst maj or workshop , and opened my private
psychotherapy practice.

1 978: I j oined the teaching faculty of the Synthesis Graduate School in San
I Francisco.

1 980: I left the Synthesis Graduate School and began teaching psychosynthesis

I
in my home.

1 98 1 : I co-founded the Psychosynthesis Education /Training Program with Tom

Yeomans.

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1 98 1 : I b egan teaching and became an administrator at John F. Kennedy
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University in Orinda, California.

1 982 -present: I continue to teach and direct my own program , and work with I
individual clients.

LEARNING THRO U G H THE WRITTEN WO RD VERSUS LEARNING THRO U G H EXPERI ENCES

I
I may be a member of a relatively small subculture , but maybe it's one
that's growing. A lot of my education comes through being with other I
therapists, being at workshops , supervision groups , and peer groups , and less
through reading. I sometimes wonder how much gets transmitted by writing.
There are so many wonderful b ooks out there , and I don't know if additional I
books are going to do much more.

However, for bridging psychosynthesis to traditional psychology, we have to

write. That's the inroad . Maybe we have to do research too , although I 'm not
I
sure about that. But at least to write and to articulate the ideas, to present
ideas at the traditional conferences, and all that. I
But on the cutting edge of transpersonal or psychosynthesis counseling,
I 'm not sure how much of the written material is influencing people. That's j ust
my own hunch. It's a question. There are some things we'll read, like Jim I
Bugental's late st book. We'1l go into it in depth, chapter by chapter, digging it
out.
I
DISCUSSION OF H I S TRAI N I NG PRO G RAM

Our training program runs nine months. A lot of people in various graduate
I
programs take it because it gives them enough of a foundation so that they can
use it. In that sense, psychosynthesis is useful as a specific approach. But I
think it's greater strength is in its comprehensiveness.
I
Another asset is its simplicity. The basic ideas are straightforward. I think
Assagioli wanted it that way-easy to grasp so that people could understand I
themselves , and thus take over their own psychosynthesis and cooperate more
easily with their own growth. It's not a particularly difficult system to grasp .

We offer what we call a "certificate of completion of nine months." I haven't

I
got involved in any political controversies about it. I only teach what I think I
can teach. I have notebooks and notebooks filled with materials about courses
and course planning from my days at the San Francisco Institute and Graduate
I
School. And yet a lot of that is not grounded in my experience. I j u st teach
what is grounded in my experience. I leave the advanced , more theoretical
m aterial to someone like Tom Yeomans, who really enj oys using his mind in
I
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grappling with new ideas, and synthesizing and integrating and that type of
stuff.

Some of my students are already therapists. Some are in transition from

other areas in education. We have physicians, nurses, artists, and doctoral
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Phi l i p B rooks' Story

I students in different disciplines who are interested in personal growth,

I
counseling and p sychosynthesis. We have people who have completed masters
programs and now want to get a grounding in p sychosynthesis. This year we '11
have several physicians, a lawyer, a person who had been a Zen priest for

I
twenty years, a person from a doctoral program at Stanford in English, a
middle-aged massage therapist-just a whole range .

I do more of the counseling and training teaching. I do quite a few

I demonstrations, because I think that's how my students leam. I don't

encourage a lot of p ersonal processing in my classes. That's a whole way of
teaching counseling, j ust by working on the student's personal stuff. This year,

I I 'd say 85% of the people are also in individual counseling with myself, Toni,
Lenore, or somebody else. But in terms of the guiding skills courses, there's a
certain amount of information that I have , and exercises and things like that,

I that I ve found have worked. People say that they're not here just for p ersonal
growth, although that happens. The group gets tighter and tighter as the year
goes by. People working one on one with each other every night in class will of

I course deepen bonds. But I don't make it a process thing. Lenore Lefer, who
teaches the training seminars , does do more personal processing. Toni , my
wife , does a little more of it too.

I Living here in the Bay Area, you're exposed to so many different

approaches and techniques that to see anything as pure doesn't work. There

I
are many things that have an experiential and personal validity for growth.
There's so much cross fertilization that you can't even say, "This is
p sychosynthesis. "

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Rhoda Lev i n ' s Story

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Rho d a Levin 's Sto ry
I Date of birth:. November 8 , 1 938
Formal education:
I B . S . in English Education from the University of Minnesota
M. S.W. in Clinical Social Work from the University of Minnesota
Current professional activities: Psychotherapistj family therapistj clinical social
I worker specializing in grief and loss issues, mid-life women's issues, and
families coping with life threatening illness; author; trainer.
Date of intermew: March 1 6 , 1 988
I Interviewed by telephone

I The flrst time I heard of psychosynthesis was at Esalen where I went to

attend a bioenergetics workshop in 1 972. I had originally been an English
teaeher, then I was in the Peace Corps with my husband, and then I graduated

I with an M. S.W. in 1 97 1 , and had been working as a therapist with a

psychiatrist in private practice in Minneapolis. I went to Esalen with my
husband and another couple, the men coming along as a vacation.

I The flrst weekend I chose a workshop for everyone which I thought

wouldn't be threatening since they had never been there before . It was Harry

I Sloan doing "You Don't Have to Suffer to Feel Good." I was very impressed with
the work Harry, who happened to be a psychosynthesis person, did. I then
took his flve-day workshop and was even more impressed, although he barely

I mentioned the word psychosynthesis. I was drawn to him personally, and

stayed in touch with him for several years. I brought him to Minneapolis twice
to do workshops. Finally, in 1 975, he suggested I take the basic training in
psychosynthesis in California.

So in the summer of 1 975, I took the training at Palo Alto. It was a very
important ten days for me. I had my flrst psychosynthesis sessions as a elient,

I and it was extremely intense. I didn't fully understand at the time, but it had a
powerful impact on me. It started a spiritual transformation in my life even
though I didn't see it in those terms back then.
I My b ackground is Jewish, but the Judaism I had seen practiced around
me was worthless to me. I didn't practice Judaism at all, and I didn't relate

I consciously to anything spiritual, although I was devoted to social idealism,

such as that of the Peace Corp. I was very much a sodal worker and a
p sychotherapist. If I had heard somebody say the word soul at that training, I

I probably would have gotten on the flrst plane and gone back to Minneapolis.

I learned a terriflc amount that summer, but it was all still in a range that
kept me on the earth. I went b ack to several "continued trainings" in

I California, and I encouraged someone I worked with in Minneapolis, Bruce

McBeath, to also attend a basic training. When I came b ack from a training
over the Christmas of 1977, I told my husband that I wanted to move to
I California to be more a part of it. He was also in transition, having been an

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architect but leaving that to become a Rolfer. So we sold our house and took I
our two kids to California the summer of 1 977.
We lived in Muir Beach, I went into advanced training, and m y husband began
a Rolfmg practice . In June I learned they were starting a Graduate School. I
I
applied for a teaching position, and was made an associate of the Psychosynthesis
Institute. Even at that time , I still did not understand that any of this had to do
with spirituality. I simply would not seriously look at any of that.
I
I taught at The Graduate School, was the registrar, and worked at the
counseling center, and did supervision of student's work. In 1 979 I spent a lot I
of time traveling around the country, supervising people. I made about five
ten-day circuits , from Kentucky to New York to Boston to the Berkshires. I was
not a part of any of the esoteric work at the Institute, and was not involved in I
any of the politics. I just kept doing my thing. I'm still surprised that I could
stay so naive as long as I did.
I
THE FI NAL DAYS OF THE CALI FORNIA I N STITUTE

By 1 98 0 , The Graduate School was falling apart. I was the only one left in
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the summer of 1 980 to do the advanced training in the Berkshires. When I
returned to California, nearly everybody was gone. I had known there was secret,
"esoteric" stuff going on that I didn't know anything about. They kept telling me
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that there was no need for me to know, and not to bother myself with it.

I had been trying to hold The Graduate School together. I was aIways I
furious with the directors because they couldn't get their act together to draw
up the schedule for the next term . Students were calling me saying they
needed to know their schedule. When I got back from the Berkshires, Tom and I
Anne Yeomans were gone, Mark Horowitz was gone, Phil Brooks was gone.
Nearly everybody I had been attracted to , and had felt were these loving,
competent people trying to make the world a better place , were gone.
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It was down to maybe a dozen of us. Around that time, in October of 1 98 0 ,
m y husband , Marsh, who had been a student at The Graduate School, became
a member of the "inner group , " and something very strange began to happen.

I
As long I could keep my family separate from the politics, there was some kind
of safety for me. Before he became part of the group , I wasn't supposed to be
talking to him , but I would tell him things that were going on, and he never

I
said to me that it was crazy, or that we have to get out of there , or that it wasn't
going to work.

"MATTHEW 1 0" I
But about three weeks before we left, Marsh was made an associate of the
Institute, which meant he became part of the inner group . About a week later it
was decided the group was 1eaving California. We were going to leave
I
p sychosynthesis to whomever it was that was trying to "ruin it" for us in San
Francisco , and we were going to go to the East. Marsh's task for the group was to
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R hoda Levi n ' s Story

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make sure that people's personal stuff and all the stuff from the Institute and The

I
Graduate School got into trucks, and that drivers were hired to cart this stuff
across the country. Meanwhile , everybody who was stili left in the Institute would
fly East. All of this was to be kept secret to protect us from those people who were

I
against us. The code name for the trek to the East was "Matthew 10."
Marsh and I had no money left. We had bought a house in San Francisco
about a year after we came to California, and we didn't even know how we were

I going to make the next house p ayment. We were told that our two children
could not go to school anymore, because they might leak that we were p acking
up our house and planning to 1eave . So my kids stayed home, and I was doing

I all my work, and we were packing up our house, getting ready to go . We

couldn't put our house up for sale because that would let people know we were
going somewhere .

I The night everybody who was left in the group departed for the East Coast,
Jim Vargiu said this really bizarre thing to me: that Marsh couldn't be trusted

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to take care of the trucks and things and that I would have to take care of it.
Something very strange happened to me then. It was like there was a black
bowling ball in the pit of my stomach. There was something very wrong about

I
this. I had always thought that as long as Marsh was not a part of the group ,
we would be able to hold our marriage together. All the couples in the group
had gotten separated, divorced , etc. Now it seemed like Jim was trying to say

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that Marsh was incompetent. You don't know Marsh, but as an architect, he
had been in charge of the construction of the large st sky scraper in
Minneapolis, so when Jim said to me that he didn't think Marsh could be

I trusted to take care of putting things in seven trucks, I couldn't comprehend it.

Marsh had been busy all night getting the trucks packed. Everybody had
flown off to the East Coast, and Marsh walked in with all the se keys and

I money, and said, "For two cents I'd go back to Minneapolis. " And I said , "Let's
talk about this." He said , "No, no , I know how you feel about it. I was only
kidding. " I sai d , "Let's talk about it. " The kids got up and asked, "Are we

I moving today?" We said, "Not today. Watch television. " We went up to the
bedroom and talked . Within an hour we called the kids up stairs and said ,
'We're not going East. We're going back to Minneapolis. "

I The phone rang about an hour later. I t was a guy calling about the ad for
drivers. He asked if we still needed drivers to go to Baltimore. We told him n o ,

I b u t asked if he was interested i n driving t o Minneapolis. It turns out he was a

young kid from Minneapolis who had run out of money and wanted to go back.
So the next day we took off for Minneapolis and this kid drove a truck with all

I our belongings. We signed over the right to sen our house to a former Rolfmg
client of Marsh's, and within three days he had sold the house. We were able
to get out of debt and start all over in Minneapolis.

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AFTERMATH O F THE C U LT EXPERIENCE

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I wrote a letter of resignation to Jim that I drafted as we drove from San I
Francisco to Minneapolis. I was so numbed, I don't think I knew what I was
doing. At the time I believed the reason I was leaving the group was because I
was incapable of giving up my personality to serve in the way that was required. I I
was the person who was inadequate , incapable of taking this spiritual step , and
what the group was doing was fme and right. It wasn't until months later that I
b egan to feel any kind of anger, or see that I was used and abused, or to realize
I
that I had been part of a cult that I had given up my p ower to .

We had been home less than two months when I got a call from Trish
Friedman in California, with whom I had b een very dose prior to becoming a
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group member. She had been in advanced training with me, but had not gone
on to the Graduate School. Without even fmding out what she wanted, I told
her that I didn't want to be in contact with her, because I was still feeling like I
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was this bad person. I asked her not to call me again and hung up the phone.
About an hour later I got a telegram from her telling me that Lenore Lefer's son
had drowned , and that's what she was trying to tell me. Thank God she was as
I
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p ersistent as she was because it was important that I knew that. That was the
first time I made contact with Lenore , who had left the group earlier, although
only by writing.

When we were in the group , those p eople who left were defmed as people
who wanted to destroy us. In 1eaving the group , I didn't want to harm the
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group because I believed the group was doing spiritual work and I was
incapable of participating in it. It took a long time for me to see what was
really going on in California. As slow as I originally was to get that there was
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something spiritual going on, I was also very slow in figuring out what had
really happened to me.
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We were supposedly saving the beauty of the work, and if the name

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p sychosynthesis had to stay with those in San Francisco who were trying to
steal it, that was okay, because we knew what the real work was, and we would
go do it. We were leaving in secret in order to protect the work. It was bizarre.

I
The plan was that nobody was to know where we were going.

Originally when Jim talked about leaving, he believed that The Graduate
School students would come with us. Somehow The Graduate School would
continue . He also believed that people like Judith Bach in the Berkshires, the
p eople in Kentucky, Jean Guenther in Vermont, would all drop their lives and
I
come wherever we were if we invited them , because supposedly they always
wanted to b e a part of us. Even I knew that that wasn't so.
I
The people in the group who flew left from Oakland in the early morning,

I
and flew to Washington. They stayed in a motel for a while , I've been told , and
then eventually went to Georgia. They were in Macon up to about three years
ago [ 1 985] , but now nobody knows where they are. They've gone and left no

I
forwarding address. There are still at least a half a dozen people that we know
of still with them .

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Rhoda Lev i n ' s Story

I
BACK IN M I N N ESOTA

I Back in the 1 970s, I had encouraged Bruce McBeath to go to basic

training. In 1 978 Dennis Wynne and Lois Becker, also from Minneapolis, took
the basic training in Pasadena that Harry Slo an and I led. All of them

I continued to take trainings, and in late 1 97 8 , they started The Psychosynthesis

Center of Minnesota. When I came back to Minneapolis in 1 9 8 0 , I j oined them,
and we changed the name to The Psychosynthesis Institute of Minnesota

I because we became more a training site than a workshop place. I stayed in

that until 1 98 5 . The Institute still exists. There are about ten or so people
involved , doing training and counseling.

I A year after we returned home Marsh, who was forty-four, had a heart
attack. He had a second one nine weeks later, and then two years later had

I
quadruple by-pass surgery. I realized then that I was done with the
p sychosjnthesis crises and into the crises of being the spouse of a person with
heart disease. It affected my sense of mortality. I had to live with uncertainty,

I
with the possibility of raising my children alone.

I became interested in working with other spouses of heart patients. I just

published a book called Heartmates: A Surmval Guide for the Cardiae Spouse
I (Levin, 1 98 7 ) . I'm very involved in trying to help the families of cardiae patients
deal with the ongoing crises that they face.

I LOO KI N G BAC K

I
I now believe that the spirit had connected me with my own sense of myself
as a spiritual being. I would never have gotten that without my experiences
with psychosynthesis from 1 9 72 on. But I believe that my path of spirituality

I
is a sodal idealism path. I remember being back in Minneapolis in 1 984 or
1 98 5 and being invited to an evening with a Tibetan lama. I walked into this
room and found everyone sitting in the lotus position and chanting stuff, with

I
their shoes off, and smelling incense. I remember thinking to myself, 'This is
not for me. This is not how I be a spiritual person. How I be a spiritual p erson
has to do with the way I work with people , and the way I live with my family,

I
and the contribution I'm making in the cardiae world. That's my spiritual
path . " My way of doing what's right for me doesn't fit all that other kind of
stuff. In a way, I'm back to who I was before l ever came to p sychosynthesis,

I
except now I know deeply that I am a spiritual being, and that I have a p ath
that I'm doing my best to follow. 1

I 1 When Rhoda told me this, I was struck by the similarity of that with a
verse by T. S . Eliot:

I We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

I
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time .

I 141
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M o l ly B rown's Story

I
Mo l ly Brown ' s Story
I Date of birth: March 2 2 , 1 942
Fonnal education:
I B .A. in English from San Francisco State University
M . A. in Psychology from Johnston College / University of Redlands.
Current professional activities: Counselor in private practice with individuals,
I couples, groups ; facilitate p sychosynthesis workshops; writing artic1es on
peace p sychology and p sychosynthesis; and working with Interhelp , A. H . P. ,
and other organizations on various peace education proj ects.

I Place of interview: Molly's home in Fairfax, California

Date of interview: July 1 5 , 1 987

I Esalen Institute had a branch in San Francisco sometime in 1 968 or 1 969,

while I was living in Berkeley. They were doing workshops and group s and so
I on. One of the offerings was a course by Jim Fadiman called "A Psychology of
Personal Growth," or something like that. I took it. Several times he referred to

I
this book called Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli. I decided I would get the
book and give it to my husband, Jim, a p sychologist. I gave it to him for
Christmas and he liked it.

I I was teaching at that time. I had done some c1assroom teaching, and then,
when I had kids, I did home instruction, teaching kids who were not able to
attend school for various reasons.

I We then moved to New Mexico, where we had both grown up . We were

involved with encounter groups at that time-Jim led the groups and I assisted
him . We were also involved in Gestalt groups. Then we went to Santa Barbara
I where Jim was enrolled in a Ph. D . program. While there he decided to do an
independent study which involved taking a workshop in p sychosynthesis from

I
Robert Gerard , and also a course on the mandala by Jose Arguelles. Both were
held in the San Francisco area. Jim took Robert Gerard 's course and got really
excited about p sychosynthesis. He asked Robert to come and do a course at
Santa Barbara. Jim was head of the University extension program called "The
I New Consciousness Program" in 1 970-7 1 , the height of the human p otential
movement. Robert couldn't do it, but he recommended the Vargiu 's.

I So Jim and Susan Vargiu came to Santa Barbara and gave a weekend
workshop . I remember having trouble with their style of teaching, although I
was fascinated with p sychosynthesis. There was a rigidity, a way they kind of

I held themselves apart from the group . Jim, in particular, seemed somewhat
patronizing.

I
Nevertheless, I really liked the material. I remember subpersonalities being
a significant part. I remember he did an exercise of p eeling back the onion, of
going through layers of the personality, and getting down to an essence.

I
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Both my husban d , Jim , and I had been interested in spiritual studies for
I
as long as we'd been together. In the early days of our relationship , I was a
traditional Christian and he was not. I was having some trouble b ecause he
was into Zen Buddhism, which I thought was pretty suspect. At college I
I
attended a Quaker meeting, and it helped a lot. It was a good bridge from a
more traditional approach. We both then studied Zen Buddhism, in an
intellectual way.
I
So when we found p sychosynthesis, we were very excited because it
seemed like it provided the bridge b etween psychology and spirituality that we I
had been looking for. We really had a sen se that we had been searching, and

I
that this was what we had been searching for.

I wasn't formally into psychology at that time , but I certainly was interested
in growth. That's why I was involved in education. I was far more interested in
mentoring with the kids I taught then in whether they leamed correct
grammar. I was interested in self-awareness, self-expression-that sort of
I
thing.

After the Vargius did that workshop , we decided to go to Redwood City to

do the training with them. Jim took a 1eave of absence from his doctoral
I
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program , which he was not happy with anyway. We moved up to Palo Alto and
took the training in the fall of 1 97 1 . It was very exciting. In addition to taking
the course , we were also doing individual sessions with Jim and Susan.

After that we went back to New Mexico to improve our fmances. Jim got a
j ob in a drug abuse program and we began teaching psychosynthesis groups.
I
We were very much in touch with the Vargius at that time-we would talk to
them on the phone , write back and forth, and send them tapes of our c1asses
which they would critique .
I
TI M E W ITH RO BERTO
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In the summer of 1 973 we went to see Roberto Assagioli. I wanted to see
him because it was our opportunity to see a great man. We stayed for five
weeks. Assagioli had arranged for us to stay with a family in Cappilona, which

I
was where his summer home was, and that's where we were most of the time.
The sole focus of our time was studying with this incredible man.

He had an elfm quality. He was small, kind of shriveled up , like old people
often are , and he was very light, simple, sweet, and rather adorable. The
adorable quality about him in no way detracted from the keenness of his mind.
I
It's just that he was lovable as well as wise and brilliant. There was just
something about him that was very, very lovable. I think it was his total
humility. I mean, he was nobody special, as far as he was concerned. At the
I
same time he knew that he was. It was that paradox of humility he embodied,
where you know you are a Self, and also nobody special.

He was stone deaf at this time so we communicated with him in writing. He

I
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spoke with a strong accent. We would ask him general philosophical questions

1 44
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M o l ly B rown' s Story

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but his answers often brought it back to our own experience and our own

I
work. He had us write a letter to our Selves each day, and do a daily drawing.
We were supposed to tune in and draw spontaneously whatever came, and
then write what our reactions and feelings to it were. He would then make

I comments about our work.

He was extremely perceptive . He gave us feedback about ourselves but

somehow it didn't feel like an oracle or anything. I 'm very suspicious about

I p eople that tell me about myself. I don't like going to psychics and having them
tell me about myself because I don't think anybody can do that. But I felt okay
about his p erceptions and feedback.

I He did a lot of work with us as a couple. He taught theoretically, and also

working with our own stuff around his notions of the synthesis of the couple.

I
It's based on the triangle, two points being the man and the woman. Just being
connected to one another on the horizontal plane is not sufficient. They need to
have a higher, unifying point, which is a common goal , a common work, a

I
common sense of purpose. In many cases that could j ust be children, although
he had that as an inverted triangle. And that's fine, except once the kids grow
up, it's not enough.

I When I was doing some work for him in his library, I found a monograph
about psychosynthesis for women he had written. When I told him I 'd found it
and read it, he asked, "And you're not mad at me?" It wasn't very advanced in

I terms of feminist thinking. "No," I said , "I'm not mad at you. " He said, "Well, I
really need to revise it. " But he was so cute, like a little puppy, when he said
"You 're not mad at me?"

I He gave us a lot of instruction on meditation. He had us reading those little

books of his on meditation from Meditation Mount, which is down in Ojai,

I
California. He also had us reading a few select things from Alice Bailey.

I
THE LAST TEN YEARS

In the summer of 1 977 I did three weeks of continued training at the San
Francisco Institute. Then Jim and I came back in December of the same year

I and I did the Advanced Training at the Institute and worked in a master's
program in counseling. Jim was doing work in biofeedback. We were still
having financial problems, so in the summer of 1 978 we went back to live in
I New Mexico. I 'm grateful we did go b ack b ecause that was when the Institute
starting getting very messy. I think I would have probably ended up in "the
group" had I stayed around. I don't know what would have happened, but I 'm

I glad I didn't have to fmd out.

I wrote The Art of Guiding for my master's thesis, and then decided to write

I
a book based on that. It seerned like it needed to be written. Assagioli's original
book is not accessible to very many people , and there was a lot of stuff that
came out of my training that wasn't in the original work. Psychosynthesis was

I
growing and expanding, and there was a lot of good stuff in there. I thought

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someone else should write the book who was more knowledgeable , but nobody
I
else was writing it. And l wanted to .

l worked on it for three years, from 1 979 to 1 9 8 2 , and another year to get it
published. l got fourteen rejection notices from publishers, each very
I
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encouraging, telling me it was good stuff, but that it j ust didn't meet their
needs. So I decided to self-publish. It's now in the second printing and seiling
steadily. (Brown , 1 983)

In 1 978 I met Walter Polt, who had studied with Edith Stauffer and was
then d oing p sychosynthesis in Albuquerque, and we became partners. We did I
trainings together and had a wonderful relationship working at lntermountain
Associates. Then last year Jim and l moved back to California.
I
WHAT IS PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS?

Because we 're human and fallible , w e tend to identify p sychosynthesis

I
tangibly, with guided imagery and subpersonality work, or something like that.
And to the extent we do that, we do in fact create this little frnite piece, which is
useful, but is only useful for some people in some situations. People sometimes
I
say to me, "Psychosynthesis is only useful for some people. " Yes, as it is
commonly practiced, that's true. But I think psychosynthesis is more than that.
l think it is, in the fIrst place , a comprehensive p sychology which acknowledges
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that people are at different places in their development, and have different
need s , and that you don't apply the same techniques to everybody. If you 're
working with a b orderline personality disorder, you don't do the same kind s of
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things you would with somebody who was going through a spiritual crises.

Psychosynthesis, with a small p, is something Assagioli was describing. He

observed that this process occurred naturally in a human being's growth, and
he d escribed it. It's not defmed by, or limited by anything people in the
p sychosynthesis community say. It's a phenomenon out there .
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We therapists get caught in wanting to flx people. Psychotherapy is such a
powerful paradigm . In a way, p sychosynthesis offers antidotes to that, perhaps
more than other p sychologies do. Psychosynthesis has models, methods, and

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concepts that help us to not fall into the tendency to try to flx it. It's one thing
to say, "Just trust your client. " But if you don't have any basis to do that, it's
hard to do. But when you can think about the se concepts, you can hang onto

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it. It helps to let go of flxing it. To me, it's a constant struggle to not flx.

On the other side of that coin, it's important to not go limp either, and say
"The Self will do the he aling, " and not see how powerful the shadow can b e ,
how powerful the repressed subpersonalities can b e , how d estructive they can
b e . There's a b alance there.
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M o l ly B rown ' s Story

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THOUG HTS ABOUT THE S ELF

I The notion of the Self is just a way of expressing it, of framing it. You can
also have "no self' as in much Buddhist teachings, and still "no self' is still
Self, in a funny kind of way.

I Robert Bly makes a distinction between spirit and soul. The soul is the
earth aspect, and the spirit is the heavenly aspect, and they are both

I
dimensions, as far as I 'm concerned , of the Self. I don't like to call it the Higher
Self. I don't like that hierarchical quality. And yet I want to distinguish between
the Self with a capital S and the personal self, which I also think is a legitimate

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concept.

In discussing the phenomenon of the Self, some p eople give up , saying,

"WeU, it's something we can't describe." I get suspicious of that, because that

I can be dangerous, too. We have to know the limitations of our language , and
then keep trying, even though we know we 're working with a limited medium.
It's like not taking it so seriously. It's like saying, "1'11 describe it this way today,

I and 1'11 describe it another way tomorrow. And it's okay. I don't have to be
consistent because I 'm not writing a mathematical equation here. It's poetic. I
don't have to take it so seriously."

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PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS AN D THE FE M I N I N E

I I think psychosynthesis needs to become more feminized. Going down deep

to get in touch with Soul or Self or whatever is a feminine thing. We have the

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whole thing of Mother Earth and Father Sky. It seems to be an archetype that's
found in many cultures. It's the yin, the dark, the mysterious. Culturally
speaking, for the last five thousand years or so, Western culture has been

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heavily masculine. Therefore the emphasis has been hierarchical, spirit being
up there somewhere . God is a male figure , sitting up there on a throne in the
sky. That polarity has been emphasized , and psychosynthesis has not escaped

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that, b ecause it comes out of that Western tradition. Even the Eastern
traditions, to some extent, have that, although they are a little more balanced, I
think The
. I Ching, certainly, represents a lot of male-female balance.

I Assagioli was a Westerner. Although he was really open to the East, the
faet that he had written that artic1e on the p sychosynthesis of women and was
embarrassed about it later on was indicative of where he was coming from

I culturally. It was hard for him to overcome those kinds of biases. 1 think that
way, too. I'm a woman, but l was raised in a culture where a certain kind of
thinking existed. 1 think in terms of spirit being up there somewhere . 1 fmd it

I doesn't work for me very weU anymore , and I 'm working on changing that. So l
think psychosynthesis needs to be feminized, in that yang-yin balance , not in
the sense of women's politics, or anything like that, but on the deep , archetypal

I level. It needs to have the earth brought in more. It needs to have that
fecundity, those qualities of the dark and the mysterious. One thing we tried
doing was calling the lower unconscious the b asic unconscious, to try to get

I away from that hierarchical thing, that the lower unconscious is inferior.

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D IALO G U E ON MAS C U LI N ITY, FEM I N I N ITY, CLARITY, PAI N , ETC .
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Molly: It's as if there are two intersecting polarities: one may be the masculine­
feminine archetypes, and the other is mental-emotional . And it's not that I
men are mental and women are emotional at all. It seems perfectly

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compatible to me to b e talking about "Earth stuff' and also talking about
this darity of mind. They don't seem incompatible to me at all. A lot of
people who are vague and superficial are not going to the depths-they're on

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the surface.

Michael: That's what being spacey is. Spacey is not being dear, but b eing up
there-not in your feelings, but being mental and yet undear.

Molly: And this kind of depth, mental stuff that I want, is also very passionate ,
very connected , not mental theory that is spacey.
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Michael: The opposite of spacey is dear and grounded, the opposite of what
spirituality has been for several thousands of years (laughter) . I
Molly: To m e , spirituality means being willing to suffer. A lot of the spacey
people are trying to get away from pain. But this is a feminine thing. I feel
women are more willing to suffer. It's part of that connectedness to life. You
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suffer in childbirth. It's part of what you do as a women, if you are allowing
yourself to experience that. And there are plenty of women who don't. I
Michael: The opposite side of that, of spacey, is getting caught in obsessive
identifications.

Molly: Yet, there is a way in which by being willing to suffer, you don't get caught.
I
The cue is, you are willing to suffer-choosing it not in a masochistic way, but
accepting it as part of life . And being with that experience. Anytime you choose
anything, you're not going to b e caught by it.
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The problem with the so-called scientific method , which is supposed to b e

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empirical, i s that it's s o limited in the way it's practiced. A lot o f scientists use
it as a way of avoiding experience rather than paying dose attention to
experience. It's like , "Yes, we 're going to study experience , but only if
I
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experience happens to fall within this very narrow defmition.»

IS PSYCH O SYNTH E S I S A S PI RITUAL PATH?

For m e , my spiritual path has no label. I wouldn't say my spiritual p ath is I

Buddhism , or Christianity, or Vippasana, or p sychosynthesis, or anything else.
I don't know what my spiritual path is-I couldn't put a name on it. Certainly
p sychosynthesis has contributed and has pointed the way and has given me I
methods and skills and perspectives. It has given me thoughts and concepts
that are very important to me, and have b een very u seful. And my own, inner,
p sychological work, through p sychosynthesis, has been an important part of I
my spiritual work, because to me, the two are the same. I can't say, "This is
p sychological, and that is spiritual. » Anytime that I release something within
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myself that is confining me or constricting me in some way, to me that's a

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spiritual experience. If I have a p sychological hang-up , and I work it through,
that frees me to continue on my spiritual path. I don't make that distinction. In
that sense, p sychosynthesis is very important to my spiritual path, but it does

I not comprise my spiritual path.

I
I want to be a part of a more intimate community. I feel like we 're starting
to create that in the p sychosynthesis community here in the San Francisco
area. We have meetings every two or three months of what we call the

I
Psychosynthesis Network. There's about twenty or thirty people on the mailing
list, and usuallY there will be ten to twenty or twenty-five people at the
gatherings. We do different t..lllngs, talk about different issues. It's kind of a

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support group .

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Daniel O ' Co n nor's Story

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Danie l Q'Co n n or's Story
I Date of birth: March 1 2 , 1 933
Formal education:
I B.A. in Philosophy from St. Patrick's College
M .A. in Theology from the University of San Francisco
Current professional activities: Private p sychotherapy practice; trainer at the

I Vermont Center for Psychosynthesis; Owner/ Director of Bridge Building Icons.

Date of interview: October 3 0 , 1 987
Place of interview: Vermont Center for Psychosynthesis

I
In 1 97 1 , when I fIrst came in contact with p sychosynthesis, I had just

I opened an offIce for adult religious education in the Archdiocese of San

Francisco. I had taught high school for a number of years, and felt the need to
have contact with adults around religious education. There had been a lot of

I focus in the Church up to that time on the education of kids and adolescent
and university students, but very little help for average adults was available to
them to understand what was going on in their lives or in the Church itself.

I This was in the late sixties and early seventies, when there was immense
turmoil and change in the Church and society.

I I opened a center in December of 1 970 , and somebody mentioned

p sychosynthesis. At that point The Psychosynthesis Institute met in Jim
Vargiu's home in Redwood City. I wrote and got some information from them .

I One of the trainers came and talked to me about what the program was about
and showed me some diagrams. I was really intrigued because I was one of
those folks who wanted to be able to articulate my own religious experience. It

I was getting confusing trying to understand what was happening, with new
theologies coming up.

I found p sychosynthesis very appealing, so in the fall of 1 97 1 I requested a

I leader to come and do a short course for a small group of p eople I had
gathered. Then I did the basic training in Redwood City in the home of Jim and
Susan Vargiu . They did it all themselves in their front room. It was a large
I group of very diverse people. Many of those people have gone on to become
leaders in the fIeld.

I Although I found p sychosynthesis very appealing, I was puzzled about how

to use it. I found it personally u seful, but I was very much involved in setting
up my own center and was not quite sure how to incorporate this new thing I

I had discovered. I wanted to go on with the training, so I did it again. The

second time I did it, also in Redwood City, it had been taken over by the staff,
about four or fIve leaders who shared the teaching, so it was a very different

I experience.

Almost immediately after this they moved to Palo Alto . The continued
training was to be a nine month program and I started that. However, it soon
I b ecame more extensive and complicated . This was disconcerting for me

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because I didn't have a lot of money, being a Roman Catholic priest at that
I
tim e . I didn't know how to finance it.

I
TEAC H I NG PSYC HOSYNTH ES I S TO PASTO RS

Just about that time I was invited by a former professor of mine in the
seminary to put together a one week course related to religion and p sychology
I
for a doctor of ministry program he had created for people in the ministry. His
idea was to have education happen in the field , so this new program ,
sponsored by the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, was to gather Christian
I
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ministers together and go through this two year study. They knew they wanted
something about religion and p sychology b ecause they interviewed all the
people who were in this doctoral program and they said they needed some
p sychological b ackground. They were doing counseling and didn't understand
what they were doing. I
I invited a UCC minister who was in the p sychosynthesis training with me
at that time to help put together the course. Since we were going to get paid for
it, I thought it might help me fmance my training. We put together a real
I
mishmash of religion and p sychology-a little p sychosynthesis, a little
transactional analysis, a little of this and that. I was fearful of teaching
psychosynthesis to people who were my peers professionally. I didn't know how
I
they would react. A significant percentage of the group consisted of Roman
Catholic priests, some of whom I had been in seminary with , and some who
were old pastors.
I
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We did the course, and the p sychosynthesis component was the most well
received . So we decided to can the rest of the stuff and teach what we know
b est-we put together a thirty hour training course in p sychosynthesis. The

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focus was to use it in religious contexts. I was intrigued with why this
discipline was so useful for people in a religious context. My assumptions were
that it helped them to bridge the gap between their daily experience and their

I
spiritual experience, and that it gave them some tools to take seriously their
spiritual experience in a way that had not been done for them. It helped not
onIy to get in touch with their own spiritual experience , but also what to do
with it, how to live it out, how to then make the bridge back to daily life . I felt
that p sychosynthesis was a unique tool to facilitate this process. I
We got rave reviews the second time we did the course. We were invited to
teach it to every group they did . So I did that teaching for about six years, in
m o st of the states on the West Coast, some in the Midwest, and a number on
I
the East Coast. Universally, the p sychosynthesis component of the program
was the one that was most popular and useful.
I
I did a couple of those in San Francisco, and I could see what happened to
parishes and their staffs after they had gone through this nine week course. I
was invited back to several to continue doing some evening reflections with I
p e ople in the parish. I was even more convinced as it went on that this was
something useful for religious people.
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D a n i e l O ' Co n nor's Story

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While that was going on and I was receiving my own training, it became

I
dear to me what was happening in me and my religious tradition.
Psychosynthesis reinforced my sense that my own set of inner images was
deeply connected and rooted in my religious tradition. I found that very useful.

I
I found it encouraging, both to validate my own personal set of images, and to
say that they were deeply rooted in scriptural and liturgical contexts. I always
felt a deep connection between my psychosynthesis training and the religious

I
tradition I grew out of, the spiritual tradition I was in. I didn't feel any conflict
b etween them-I felt this was always going to be useful.

I ENDING H I S RELATI O N S H I P WITH THE I N STITUTE

I was really surprised when the "wali of silence" was broken at a particular

I p oint in my training and I was shown the books of this esoteric tradition. I
said , "That's fine, but I don't want to know anything about it. I 've got enough
mystical tradition in my own religious tradition that I don't know enough

I about. Jf I can't find the basis for it there , then at this point in my life I 'm not
going to begin involving myself in another spiritual tradition that appeared to
be quite different. " I saw no need to do that. I found a lot of connection between

I my own experience , p sychosynthesis, and the spiritual tradition I grew up in.

The Institute had moved to San Francisco and I fmished my training there

I
in about 1 97 7 , the year that the Synthesis Graduate School began. The people
who were then in training were not allowed to sign up for the Synthesis
Graduate School. This was the first real wounding that occurred amongst the

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people I knew there . Because I was in my own community and had my own
work, I never did a lot of teaching for The Institute, so I never depended very
much on the them.

I M I D-L1FE CRISIS

I I continued teaching i n the doctorate program , and I also began t o teach

courses in p sychosynthesis in a couple of seminaries. They were always very
p opular. I took a year's leave of absenee in 1 978-9 and came to New England

I where I had some friends. It was one of my several mid-life crises, trying to
figure out how I would continue in this field of religious education for adults. I
had been largely self-supporting in San Francisco-the Diocese had said , "lf

I you can be self-supporting, go ahead. "

I had kept tentative connections with the archdiocese of San Francisco. I

I
was in good standing. A number of the priests who had been in the
p sychosynthesis workshops I had done became part of the power structure of
the diocese, and became advocates for me personally. I took a year off j ust to

I
figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

It was dear to me that I didn't want to leave the priesthoo d , but I did want
to focus more c1early on working with people who were having difficulties with

I religious institutions. When I had had the small office in San Meteo I came

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across many p eople who simply couldn't go to parishes-who identified

I
themselves as Roman Catholic, but were having disciplinary or ritual
difficulties-trying to feel comfortable within the Catholic community. Some
had gone away from the church didn't want any more to do with it, and yet still
I
identified themselves as Catholic. Some had been away and wanted to come
back because they were excited about what was going on in the church.
I
I told the Archdiocese that I wanted to focus my attention on people who
were experiencing issues of alienation. I was given permission to set up a
ministry in San Francisco , which I called "Bridge Building," to try to deal with I
the se issues. I did receive a salary from the Diocese, but that was all the
funding I got.

I did a lot of individual counseling, some small group work, and some
I
p sychosynthesis teaching, which was always very successful. It always helped
meet the needs of people who were trying to affrrm their own spiritual authority
without denying a connection with their tradition or church structure. I felt
I
good when that could happen. I continued to do university teaching in the
summertime at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, at Graduate
Theological Union, and at Illif School of Theology in Denver. I still do that every
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summer.

I did the Bridge Building work for about six years, from 1 979 to 1 98 5 , but I
finally decided it was too difficult to support financially, to run it, and to devise
the programs. I 'm not good at developing an organization. I liked doing the one­
to-one work. I had originally wanted to do it as a kind of retreat center, to I
establish a quiet space in the city where people could come and just sort of
shift gears. As the years went on, so many people came and so many things
were happening that the place became kind of chaotic. I
T H E MOVE TO VERMONT I
All the while I had been telling myself for years that "when I died, I was
going to Vermont instead of heaven." Then I 'd say that when I retired I 'd go to
Vermont. I had friends here , and I 'd been coming here off and on since the
I
early seventies. I spent the year's leave of absence here. I was just charmed by
the area. I was getting fed up with California. I told the archbishop I was
leaving and going to Vermont.
I
I knew Jean Guenther had wanted some help in directing her training here
in Burlington for some years. I had done some teaching for her several times in I
the past. I called her, and she asked if I could come in a few months and take
over the program whlle she took her maternity 1eave. So I came here in
September of 1 985. In July of 1 987 , the four of us who are now on the staff set I
up the Vermont Center for Psychosynthesis. We put this office together, so I 'm
functioning here both in my own private practice, and helping Jean with the
training. I
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I DOING A N EW THING

I I 'm i n the process of defming who an d what I am. I 'm not functioning a s a
Roman Catholic priest, but l haven 't gone through any formal declaration that
I 'm not. Within the Church there isn't a process for leaving anymore. There was

I a process of laitization, where you could make an application and say, "l no
longer want to be a priest," but you can't do that anymore. You sort of leave
and then you 're gone , and if you get married, it's clear that you 're no longer in

I good standing with the Church . Well, I haven't gotten married, and I haven't
done anything that has made me not be in good standing. Nor have I made any
proclamation to the church anywhere that l 've begun a different kind of life .

I So what is this new thing that I 'm doing? It looks, externally, and it feels
inside , quite like what l was doing before-working with people and with

I
group s, still a bridge building. l have a connection with a Presbyterian parish,
where I 'm doing some scripture work using lmages of Jesus, a book l wrote
while l was in training in San Francisco.

I My dream is to defme myself as a kind of spiritual director, to be a

re source to people who are in a religious con text , who want to deal with their
religious as well as p sychological issues. l do value keeping that religious

I connection. l understand a lot about people's religious experience, particular in

Roman Catholic drcles, and feel well equipped for the kind of crises that people
are going through in religion today. Probably a third of the clients I have

I specific religious preoccupations.

People ask me if I 'm a Roman Catholic priest, and in some ways I 'm not.

I
And yet, my theology of what a priest is-I 'm doing that. There's a priestly
quality to Christians that I feel l can relate to . But l don't defme myself as one
who's serving the Church clerically or liturgically. It doesn't fit the sense of who

I
l am .

I 'm very happy doing what I 'm doing. It makes sense to me. This is what
I 'm going to be doing for my life. l don't see any maj or changes. l like living

I here. I would like to do some writing. I also have a small business that l
operate that l call "Bridge Building Icons. " It grew out of my work in San
Francisco. I produce and distribute a line of religious greeting cards and

I images. That takes up a lot of time. Between here and that, I haven't had a lot
of time to write.

I C U RRENT I NTERESTS

I
I 'm drawn to structure. When I was in one of my moves away from the
Diocese , I thought maybe I should become a monk, or j oin a religious order,
because I 'm a diocesan priest. Maybe that would satisfy me. But I went to a

I
monastery and found, "No, I can't do this. I don't fit. " I feel a lot of kinship with
people who don't fit. I feel a lot of sympathy, a lot of exdtement about the kind
of challenge they present to structures . I believe that the people or ideas or

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images that institutions exclude are predsely those which the institution needs

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

in order to grow. So lo ok at what is exc1uded and you can read what the future
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can be.

Psychosynthesis has given me a grounding to be able to trust that in a way I

that my religious tradition can do, but not so explicitly. It's helped me to fmd it

I
within my religious tradition. My reading tends to be pretty evenly divided
b etween things psychological and things religious. My religious readings now
are largely mystical and political. The p eople that I read are not totally

I
Catholics, by any means, although I try to keep abreast of certain trends within
Roman Catholic theology.

Most of what's happening today that captures imagination is Liberation

Theology that's largely come out of Third World movements. It's a theology that
comes out of articulated experience of people , of reflection on experience, and
I
how to receive the revelation of God happening as we live our lives. And how
this revelation is freeing us, so it has a lot of political connotation. It has grown
out of small group discussions of people saying, "How are we going to take
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charge of ourselves? How does the Gospel encourage us to stand on our own
two feet? What are the structures that would depress us, and how can we c1aim
our freedom from them?" There's a lot of political analysis and theology
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combined. I do some reading in that. I 'm attracted to it. I spent a little bit of
time in Central America in the past co up le of years, to see some of that frrst
hand.
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I 'm also drawn to mystical traditions. I do a lot of reading in the mysties
and in the religiously based psychological stuff-people who are trying to I
combine those mythic approaches to religious writing. I 'm most attracted to
James Hillman right now. I like what he's saying, so I'm going through his
books.
I
TRYING TO DEFINE THE RELIG I O U S PRO BLEM OF TO DAY I
It's difficult today for people to become autonomous and to experience
community, because I don't think structures have yet been created to offer
p eople a validation of that autonomy, and to say, "Yes, you can keep and retain
I
and grow within it, and also belong to something." When people are asked to
belong to something, they have to give up too much. They have to give up their
own sen se of destiny, of fate, of grace , of connection with God.
I
I was deeply moved by a talk Thomas Merton gave when he was preaching
to a group of contemplatives in Asia on the day that he died. The topic was I
monasticism and Marxism , and he defmed a monk as someone who takes a
stand against society's structures, that the monk is a prophetic figure. The
monk is saying, "Your structures are diseased-they're not healthy." He felt I
that a monastery ought to be a place where p eople become healthy, b ecome
whole. The early stages of monastie living ought to help them to b ecome whole.

In speaking to the Dalai Lama, he asked how it was for him , since he had
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been exiled from Tibet when the Chinese Communists came in-what his sense
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Daniel O ' (o n nor's Story

I of being uprooted from his environment was like. He quoted the Dalai Lama
something like this, saying, "lt's simply time, Thomas, for everybody to stand

I on his own two feet. We can 't depend on the structures to support us."

My sense is that that is really true. People I speak with who are in a

I religious context don't know how to belong. They don't know a parish, a small
group to go to , or a church that will support their individual j ourney. They
don't want to make a j ourney by themselves. They know they aren't on a

I j ourney by themselves , but how do you define a common j ourney today? What
is it that draws us together?

In the Catholic tradition, I find it repugnant that the thing that would

I defme us is that we all pay common loyalty to the Pope. I 'm not anti-Papal, but
that's what defines me. There's lots of things I don't like about what he does.
But what it is that's common today is really difficult to defme. My sense for

I myself is that I feel very much committed to being faithful to the truth that l 've
developed, that I 've been given-God knows where it comes from. I feel a

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kinship in other people who are doing that, but there's not a lot of structure to
support it. And I don't have the energy to create a structure that wiIl support it.
That feeling of kinship happens intermittently. It happens sometimes very

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intensely, for very brief moments.

When I find myself giving advice, which sometimes happens, I frequently

say to people who are dealing with religious belonging, "This is simply not the

I time. Part of our present pain is wanting it and not being able to really rest in
it. It may come, but it's not yet. "

I
Part of my difficulty with the Roman Catholic structure is that it's simply
not inelusive enough. It's sti1l largely male, largely elerically base d , and I just
can't operate like that anymore. My principal difficulty with the priesthood was

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that simply I 'm not a eleric anymore. I do not have a elerical identification. I 'm
not sure what that means-it means not wearing a black suit. It means that I 'm
less concerned about being faithful to the party line, or a traditional line. I feel

I
free to share the tradition as I see it, but I 'm not dedicated to proselytizing. I 'm
not an evangelist of Roman Catholic things.

The thing that upset me about ritual was that it just is missing the boat in

I some way. There are such rich images within the tradition and liturgy, and still
we don't know how to help people to relate to them in a powerful way. I was
dissatisfied with that. It's a considerable amount of pain to me that that's the

I way things are , but that's the way things are. It's our historical moment that
within the Church, something is happening, and I don't quite understand what
it is, but it's going somewhere , and we 're stuck in the middle. We 're moving it

I ahead, I think. Somebody out there can probably see where I fit b etter than I
can, or in twenty-five or thirty years, if I 'm still around , I can say, "Hey, that's
how I belonged." I don't have a elear sense of belonging today. It doesn't feel

I like I belong to "it," whatever "it" is.

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A M O RE AUTH ENTIC EXPERIENCE

I
I meet with a small group a couple of times a month. We're sort of a group
of folks who don't b elong. But I don't call myself an outsider-I don't even I
believe in the outside anymore. We 're going through a revolution of language.
Psychosynthesis has helped to deal with that. It helped people to trust their
own language. It's the language of the image that unites, not so much the I
language of logic. That's a healthy connection with they way Christianity began,
that it was less teaching and more stories. These are fascinating but unsettling
times. I
I think the wisest kind of Christianity that l 've experienced has been
oftentimes with the uneducated or with the p sychotic. In a Bible group I had
been doing for a number of years in San Francisco , the most profound things
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will come from very simple, uneducated people-people who are profoundly
dedicated to service to one another. It's the least esoteric connection l 've ever
experienced with religion , and yet, according to my sense of Christianity , it's
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pretty dose to what the Gospel is about.
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M O RE RE FLECTIO NS ON C H RI STIANITY AN D CATHO LOC I S M

I look at Catholicism a s a being a combination o f the mystical an d the very I

practical , and sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between the two .
Maybe the one who's living on the street can understand the mystic best. Back
in the Old Testament in the Jewish tradition, there's the prophetic, the legal, I
and the wisdom traditions. I think a mistake was made to force the division
between the J ewish roots and Christianity, to say this religion is separate from
it's J ewish connection. What the wisdom teachings and the prophets did in the I
Old Testament is necessary in order to live and understand Christianity. I do as
much reading in the Old Testament as in the New.

Within the Christian tradition, it's very hard to reconcile the prophetic and
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the mystical. They're quite different. As in the p sychosynthesis tradition, inner
mystics and inner prophets have a hell of a time with each other. How does an
integrated p ersonality live with both of those, with part that wants to sit on a

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mountain top and contemplate the douds, and part that's ranting against
society? How does one do that? I [md the process of integrating that personally
to be quite similar to what needs to be done structurally. There must be a

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necessary place for both. Do we have the p atience and tolerance to create a
structure that validates both? We tend to be exdusive rather than indusive .

I think it's very much in the future to have a religiou s spirit that not only
tolerates but nourishes deep diversity, rather that putting a surface kind of
"Let's all be brothers and sisters together and resolve our differences." We don't
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even know what our differences are yet, so how can we resolve them? Who
wants to resolve them?
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I THOUG HTS AN D REFLECTIO N S

I It's curious that I'm focusing s o much o n religion [in the interview] because
most of my work is not very religious. The therapy I do is largely just therapy,
but religion certainly is a big part of who I am.

I
I s p sychosynthesis a spiritual path? Yeah, I think it is. I think it lacks a

I historical root-it lacks a connection with a spiritual tradition. I value the

sense of texture that time gives to things. Some ideas sort of float to the surface
over time. You know that this idea, or this person's thinking, or this person's

I witness, wi11 last-that they've been tested by the ages. I think the craziness
that went on in San Francisco would have been helped if they had read some
church history. In some sense, it became very Gnostic, very Manachean-it

I became anti-sex, anti-relationship-all those things. It happened in the year

two hundred. The same kind of things follow.

I I love forms and I love tearing forms apart. I find that when I get together
with my friends to teach in the summer, if we don't do something radically

I different from what we did before , or redefine the "I" or the Self, I 'm not
comfortable.

I There are a thousand different ways to talk about the Self. It very much
depends on the context that I 'm in when I think about it. Sometimes I can

I think of it in a Jungian frame , sometimes in the Christian sort of sense of soul.

It's a combination of that. Inside , outside, Atman. I 'm very much attracted to
Ken Wilber's articulation of Self, although I fmd same of his images, like in the

I Atman Projeet, hard to get. Sometimes I think of it as an inner kingdom. Each

time I sit down and write or think about it, I come up with something different.
I like it poetic rather than philosophical. I get a flash here and a flash there-it

I comes and goes.

I I fmd the consequences of theoretical consistency, of establishing

orthodoxies within the religious tradition, to be destructive. I 'm not very
orthodox. In some ways I 'm conservative , in some ways not, but settling into an

I orthodoxy is not a high priority for me. Yet I like dear articulations. Somebody
will be talking and 1 '11 say, "That's it! That particular way of describing it was
very real, very dear." But it was real for that moment, and along will come

I another one that will he1p me lo ok at it in a different kind of way.

I I 'm now reading Berdyaev, a Russian philosopher. He comes out of the

Christian context. I 'm fmding his way of articulation, of talking about truth, to b e
very appealing. I fmd myself thinking o f Self in terms o f choosing. I guess I 've

I reduced my theology to two maxims-I tell my clients there are two things that

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are important. One thing is that the secret to life is to know what you want and go
I
for it. And the other part of that is to know your truth and to really choose it.

In therapy, a lot of times people will say something, and I II say, "Is that the I
truth?" It's really a helpful intervention. Often they'll say, "No, it's not." "Well then,
what is true? What is really true for you?" And once theyve stated their truth, then
what are they going to do about it? A sUI-prising number of people know what's I
true. They can separate the truth from the bullshit real easy. This is my sense of
coming doser to the sense of Self: "Yes, I know the truth, and I 'm choosing to
speak it, and I 'm choosing to direct my life knowing that this is really true." I
I like the freedom of psychosynthesis. I 've always found it refreshing and I
freeing to j ust keep redefming, relooking. What's this? You know, I ve got the se
subpersonalities, so okay, what's it doing today? Where is it today? What's it
saying today? How is it present today? Different from it was yesterday? My way I
of looking at them is different, my way of experiencing them is different. I never
felt an orthodoxy around that.
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Naomi E m m e rl i ng ' s Story

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N aomi Emmerling's Story
I
Date of birth: April 9, 1 94 1
I Formal education:
B.A. in Elementary and Special Education from San Jose State University
M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Goddard College

I Current professional activities: Founder / Director of the Psychosynthesis Center

of Sacramento ; private practice of psychotherapy; teaeher; consultant;
speaker; writer; workshop leader and trainer; and editor of The International

I Psychosynthesis Directory.
Date of interview: July 1 4 , 1 987
Place of interview: Naomi's home in Sacramento , California.

I As a special education teaeher I fIrst heard about psychosynthesis in 1 968.

At that time my uncle had been going through an existential crisis and was

I making many changes in his life in terms of letting go of his long term
maniage , letting go of his home in Lake Tahoe , his boat, his accumulations,
saying: "Well, I guess that wasn't it. What is it? Is there any meaning?" He was

I very much an agnostie. I knew he'd been going through this kind of suffering
for a while.

I
One evening he called me from back East. His voice sounded very different,
and he said , "Naomi, something has happened. I met a man by the name of
Frank Haronian. I had a session with him and everything has changed for me.

I
My whole perception has changed. 1'11 never be the sam e . "

He described i t a s a sens e o f a greater reality, a fe eling that there was a

spiritual nature within , as if a light turned on inside him . Ever since that tim e ,

I for the last eighteen years, he's been meditating daily, and the quality o f his life
has been very different. He is connected with a higher sense of values.

I
In any case , just hearing the tone in his voice, I felt something had
happened although I couldn't put my fmger on what it was.

Then in 1 970 I noticed my parents were changing. They were relating to

I each other more effectively. I felt they were really listening to each other. They
were somehow not so caught in the pettiness that I 'd observed previously. I felt
that a more harmonious presenee was being expressed by each of them

I individually and as a couple.

I fmally asked them , "Is there something new that you are doing?" They

I
started talking about an art course they were taking that Tom Allen was
teaching at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz. This course encouraged them to
draw, expressing what was going on within themselves. It was a self­

I
exploration through art. Registering that something very special was happening
to my parents, they told me Tom Allen was doing p sychosynthesis-j ust as
Frank H aronian had done with my uncle. That was the second inner note I

I
made regarding p sychosynthesis influencing the quality of lives in my family.

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I
I took a trip to Europe during the year of 1 969 to 1 970. While on that trip I
I
became disillusioned with what appeared to be biased and limited information
the general public received in America. I got a different perspective on things,
and I didn't know what to believe. I became disappointed with the role America
I
seerned to have played in events that were explained to me quite differently in
Europe. I became familiar with so many varied cultures and met so many
different kinds of people that my world broadened tremendously.
I
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had a sense of culture shock when I returned to the U.S. I needed
I
something, but I didn't know what. My new perceptions were not making me
happy. I was experiencing a need for a shift in my perception and attitude.
I took an anthropology course called "The Future of Man" from Bob
Bainbridge. One of the guest speakers was Jim Vargiu, who spoke about
I
psychosynthesis. This was the third time I eame aeross this concept that had
so affected my family. I went up to Jim after the dass and asked where I eould
fmd out more about it. He suggested I contact Steve Kull and Betsy Carter. I
I
ealled them and signed up for a six week psychosynthesis course with them.
During that course we did some work with imagery in whieh I diseovered I
my "Wise Old Man." I had no idea prior to this experienee that there was sueh

I
a wealth of wisdom within me. I had always known that I eould go to books
and learn things, or go to teachers-but to find such a profound inner re source
within myself was remarkable. The combination of Bob Bainbridge's dass and

I
Steve and Betsy's gave me a glimpse of my own potentiality as well as for
humanity. I was lifted out of my doldrums and mled with a hope that there is
an evolutionary process, and that I could become a more eonscious partieipant

I
in humanity's unfoldment.
I had always been involved in some kind of spiritual pursuit. Before I was
bom my father was a praeticing Baptist minister, but his view of religion was
one I didn't feel eomfortable with. The maj or foeus seerned to be the "hell, fire
and brimstone" of a punishing God. I felt that there must be more , and
I
searehed for a religion by reading and attending a variety of different churches.
After a fruitless and frustrating seareh, I fmally became an agnostic in college,
seeing religion as an emotional weakness.
I
However, after my experience with psychosynthesis I began to open to my
own form of spirituality. During the summer of 1 972 I went to a yoga ashram I
in Canada where I met Laura Huxley [the widow of Aldous Huxley and a writer
on psychological and spiritual subjects] and Swami Radha. During my time
there I had a powerful meditation which inspired and moved me to share my I
glimpses of reality with others. I had a sense of wanting to connect with, and
give to humanity. I felt a tremendous opening of my heart-a love for all of
humanity, whieh eulminated in a sacred and j oyous experience of an inner I
marriage between my personality and my Higher SeIf.
When I returned to California and re-entered the dassroom I felt that there
was something more I wanted to do that couldn't be contained within the work
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I was doing-that I had something larger that wanted to be expressed. At the
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Naomi E m me rl i ng ' s . Story

I
end of the school year in the summer of 1 973, I went to visit Laura Huxley and

I she introduced me to her nephew, Piero Fenucci, who had been Roberto
Assagioli's assistant for five years.

On the veranda of Laura's home, the three of us had some fruit and

I performed a meditation. During the visit I was invited by both of them to go

and study in Italy for the year. I had just received a year's leave of absenee
from teaching and was planning on fulfilling a fantasy I had had since I was

I fourteen years old , of going to the Himalayas. When Laura and Piero invited me
to go to ltaly I said, "WeU, possibly I can do that on my way to the Himalayas. I
can come in the fall and stay until December (to avoid the Monsoon season) .

I Afterwards 1 '11 go on to the Himalayas. "

When I got t o Italy, I climbed my inner Himalayas and didn't have any

I
reason to travel further. I knew I was in the right place and that I was doing the
work I was supposed to be doing. I was catapulted into a maj or shift in my life
as a result of this experience in Italy.

I
IN ITALY W ITH ROBERTO

I During my year with Roberto I experienced his gentle humor and wisdom,
his child-like playfulness, his curiosity, keen intelligence and highly developed
intuition. I marveled at his capacity to synthesize the higher qualities of each of

I the previous stages of his life , thus expressing a range from childlike curiosity
to the wise elder. Sometimes I would go in to see him feeling very serious and
heavy and I 'd be steeped in some kind of pain. He would bring humor in and

I somehow fmd the most ingenious way of shifting my perspective.

I especially admired the way he was able to consciously work with himself

I
on a daily basis. He used the evocative word card technique (Assagioli, 1970).
Sometimes i n psychosynthesis w e think we 're s o far beyond such things as
daily techniques, but he used them himself, so he respected his own approach

I
very much.

Each day he would get up and ask himself, "What qualities do I want to
bring into my life today?" One day it might be humor, another day patience,

I and another day serenity. It wouldn't take long before that quality would b e
drawn through his p ersonality and b e expressed.

I
I experienced a strong sense of purpose in being there in ltaly. I felt that I
was treated as an equal, integral part of the group there-that we were working
together as a team-that there wasn't any hierarchy, in terms of anyone being

I
superior to anyone else. Each of our ideas was highly respected, and we simply
shared with one another. It gave me a glimpse of what was possible, in terms of
people being able to work together in a healthy, empowering way.

I I noticed that some of the people who came to visit Roberto were unusually
radiant and balanced elders. I wondered what it was about the se people that
made them so different from what I knew of the general elderly population.

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That question brought me into the field of the application of p sychosynthesis to I
the older adult.

I didn't go to Italy with the intention of b ecoming a p sychosynthesis

practitioner. I thought maybe I would be applying it in my teaching. Actually I
I
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didn't really know what I would be doing-I was simply drawn to it. There came
a point when I began to ask myself: What was it I wanted to do with my life ,
what is my life direction? So I held that question as I went through my own

I
self-exploration.

APPLYING PSYCHOSYNTHESIS

When I returned to San Mateo I created programs in several nursing I

homes. l applied much of what I leamed in Italy. I observed a spiritual
awakenihg and transformation in the group that I worked with. Ultimately my
work was acknowledged by the Department of Adult Education of the State of I
California. This led, step by step , toward other work I 've been doing in the area
of p sychosynthesis.

I 'm presently working on a book I began in Italy on conscious aging and

I
p sychosynthesis. I interviewed Roberto for this work, and have also interviewed
Virginia Satir, Lama Govinda, Dane Rudhyer, and a number of other p eople .
l 've gleaned from this experience a transpersonal developmental model of later
I
life that we can all apply to our personal lives.

My most recent interest focuses on healing the wounds of the Holocaust, I

and working with this unfmished business in the collective unconscious. I 'm
working with a group of therapists, Germans and Jews who were p ersonally
impacted by the Holocaust of the Second World War. In some cases some of
I
these people lost all of their family. I created a dialogue b etween these two
groups and recently wrote a paper on what transpired within this group . I 'm
fmding that there has never been an opportunity for many of these people to
I
talk about their inner experiences, or what their feelings have been. I 've created
the context in which they can open up communication with one another about
their own experiences.
I
THOUG HTS ABO UT PSYCHO SYNTHES I S , THE S ELF, AND SO ON I
I
I see p sychosynthesis as an approach which respects and honors one 's
individual uniqueness and direction. If something within the p syche is blocking
one's growth, p sychosynthesis can help c1ear the way toward allowing the

I
emergence of our next evolutionary step . Thus we more fully and dynamically
express who we essentially are in a way that feels valid , real, and true. Each
one of us can b ecome more a reflection of the Self that has previously lain

I
d ormant. We can fmd ways to express our beingness in life through
transpersonal qualities, and by engaging in conscious action.

Some p eople can go through their lifetime and not connect with their
essential self, living their life unconsciously. Psychosynthesis is a process that
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Naomi E m merl i n g ' s Story

I
assists one in becoming more and more conscious. For myself, it's a proeess of

I strengthening the sense of who I am, of learning to trust what I experience, and
to have the courage to express it.

There's a natural creative proeess from within that wants to emerge and be

I expressed. Transcendent isn't quite the word. It's more than transcendent.
Transcendent gives me the impression of not inc1uding what is below, of rising
above it. But this proeess is bringing what's above down into life , and

I experiencing all the realms and dimensions within ourselves and within our
environment.

I Within us there is the personal self (the "I" or ego) , and the Higher Self, and
then there is something broader that we might cal1 the Universal Self. As a

I conscious, observing self which is expressing the personality, we are also

expressing a reflection of the Higher Self. The Universal Self is the larger
context which expresses the evolutionary imprint and plan for humanity. Even

I saying the imprint of creation is not enough, because it's hard to defme in
words , but there is something larger than the individual that we can align with
and express as the highest direction for humanity and for this planet. There is

I some kind of mobilizing force, which we might call the Universal Will , that can
guide our Higher Will and our personal will.

I
I feel that one thing that's quite unique about psychosynthesis work is the
focus on the will. It's something that is missing in other p sychological
approaches. I feel the only way we can really understand the will is to

I experience it working within ourselves .

I
ARCH ETYPES O F THE WISE PERSON

Within our psyches, a s Jung discovered , w e have archetypal images that

can be accessed , as Jung discovered , such as the archetype of the wise old

I p erson. I fmd over and over again with elients that when exploring the inner
realm there appears this archetyp al image , such as an old man with a long
beard and long robe carrying a crook, often appearing Oriental. This is a

I universal image that keeps recurring over and over again. It can be pulled from
the collective unconscious and utilized to access wisdom. As I do the work, I
wouldn't want to impose an image on a elient. I say, "Allow a symbol of wisdom

I to emerge ," and see what comes for them, and sometimes it is the wise old
man.

I
During the time I was in ltaly, what emerged for me was the "Wise Old
Woman . " People there were surprised by that, because it was thought at the
time that there was only supposed to be the wise old man. But my wise old

I
woman defmitely had certain qualities that the wise old man didn't have. So
they fmally acknowledged that maybe there was an archetypal wise old woman
too . Then elsewhere p eople began to talk about having a wise old women

I
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appear also. Perhaps the increased status of women has allowed that archetype I
to come forth in the collective.
I
TH E PRO BLEM OF CERTIFICATI O N

When is a person qualified as a psychosynthesis practitioner? I think it's

too early to solidify that. It's difficult to estimate. It's so subj ective in terms of
I
the level of integration a person has achieved. How much is a person able to
not only experience this, but also express it in themselves and in their work?
It's a hard thing to defme , and yet we ne ed some kind of concrete criteria. In
I
the training I do I ask people to go through three years of training with ongoing
supervision, and at the end of this time they will get a certificate that says they I
have completed three years of training. But it cannot possibly say how much
ability they have. All of this is quite a question.
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Vivian Ki n g ' s Story

I
Vivian King's Sto ry
I Date of birth: February 18, 1 946
Formal education:
I B . S . in Nursing from Goshen College, Indiana
M .A. in Counseling from Goddard College
Ph. D . in Psychology from Sierra University
I Current projessional activities: Director of and trainer in p sychosynthesis
program ; private p sychotherapy practice; writing.

I
Date of interview: July 1 0 , 1 987
Place of interview: Val10mbrosa Conference Center, Menlo Park, California

I I was interested in the integration of the psychological and spiritual for

quite some time. I was a p sychiatric nurse for about ten years, and also

I
married to a minister. We moved to California in 1975 so my husband could go
to a graduate school of theology and get his Ph. D . I really wanted to do
something that integrated theology and psychology but didn 't know what. My

I
husband had seen a copy of Synthesis magazine. Since there was a
p sychosynthesis center in Pasadena, he sugge sted that I check it out.

I went to an introductory meeting there and knew that was exactly what I

I wanted to do. I remember driving home, saying, 'This is it! It 's what I 'm looking
for. " So I took two yearS of training with Edith Stauffer at the High Point Center
in Pasadena, and then studied Integral Psychology with Robert Gerard . It was a

I natural progression. I took his dasses, and since that time I \re been a member
of the meditation group on Integral Psychology.

I
At the same time I was getting my training in psychosynthesis, I went back
to graduate school and got my master 's degree in p sychology. I was very
disheartened with traditional p sychiatric nursing. I knew I couldn 't stay in it

I
b ecause it was no longer working for me. I saw that the big problem was that
we addressed people 's symptoms, and tried to do something with medication,
or perhaps group therapy, or something like that. We never, ever, really got to

I
the heart of things. The more I studied psychosynthesis, the more I understood
how to get to the heart of things and how to move people doser to the
experience of the SeIf.

I I got my Marriage and Family Therapist 's license here in California in

and started teaching dasses and workshops and seeing clients. I divorced in
1 978

1 978 and remarried in 1 980. My husband and I moved to Hutchinson, Kansas

I where I started a synthesis center. By the second year I was occupied full-time,
doing teaching and counseling. I had as much work as I could handle, doing
p sychosynthesis right in the middle of Kansas.

I My second marriage lasted only two years. In 1 983 I moved b ack to

Pasadena. Edith Stauffer was leaving the center there and invited me to b ecome

I
the director. I left the work in Kansas with Ruth Eichler who had fmished two
years training with me. She had counseling and teaching experience before

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I
that, so I had confidence in her. After I moved to Pasadena, I continued going
I
back to Kansas every other month to teach at weekend workshop s. In that way
I was able to finish the group I had started training. Now there are thirty-some
people in the training program in Kansas. So just within three years I had
I
established that center and it is still growing.

I spent two years with the center in Pasadena. We were too small to hire I
someone for public relations and administrative work, and yet too big for the

I
few of us on the staff to handle everything. The board decided to hire an
administrator, knowing we would either sink or swim. The new administrator
helped us with a feasibility study on the center. Considering the results, we

I
decided it would be more feasible for each of the teachers to teach on their
own. This would cut down on all the overhead, each person could develop his
or her organization and own way of doing things, and each could set his or her

I
own pace. People would continue to get the training, but it just wouldn 't be at a
center.

Rent, secretarial work, regular advertising, mailings, and commitments an

organization gets into-when I look at it now and try to see where all the money
went, it 's hard to do that. Trying to orchestrate fmances, administrative duties,
I
teaching, counseling, etc. was exhausting. I was doing a good j ob , I think, but I
was being wom out and I was losing my happiness. Besides that, what I really
wanted to do was to develop and write a curriculum, but I wasn 't having any
I
time to do that. I didn 't fe el I was giving the best of myself because it was just
too much work. I was relieved when we closed the center in the spring of 1 985. I
I was surprised that, when I began teaching i n my home, p eople didn t
drop out of the class. I was feeling that I was in charge again, that I wasn 't just
being pulled along by a program that had existed before I even got there. I
Teaching was much easier for me when I could do it more from my own
integrity, when I created my own program. It 's something I 'm real curious
about in terms of the centers and why they go or don t go, b ecause I know that I
when Edith was there and in charge, she had the program go in the way she
wanted it to go, mostly, and it went because it was her thing, it had her energy.

Since then I ve been teaching p sychosynthesis in my house, doing private

I
I
counseling, and working on a Ph. D . in p sychosynthesis. [Vivian received her
Ph. D . in May, 1 988.] I 'm also writing a textbook for the fIrst year of training, as
I do it. It could be for students or for teachers. If someone is going to b e

I
teaching p sychosynthesis and doesn 't want t o start from scratch, they will have
somewhere to begin. The fun thing about teaching p sychosynthesis is that you
create and create and create and create . That 's what really keeps it alive, so I

I
don 't want my book to deaden people 's creativity. I want it to be a stimulus . It 's
taken me ten years to develop the material I 'm teaching now. I don 't know who
might want the book, but I know I would have loved it if somebody had done it

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for me way b ack then.

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Vivian Ki n g ' s Story

I
D I S C U S S I O N ON RU N N I NG A PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS TRAI NING PRO G RAM

I I don 't certify. I just give a certificate of completion-that they ve completed

the year, how many hours they ve been there, how many hours of therapy
they ve done. Each person is different. One person with 50 hours of training

I may b e real1y good because of his or her experience and prior training, and
could start using p sychosynthesis right now. Another person with 500 hours
may still not be capable of going out and teaching it. So I decided to

I acknow1edge the time and effort each person put into it. A person who has
really got it, in the sense they 're using it uniquely, is going to make it.

I
I made a decision within this past year not to have a "center. I just teach
p sychosynthesis in my home, and this is the program . Theoretically, we could
use p sychosynthesis in organizations. In p sychosynthesis, we teach about Self

I
and independence and authenticity and people 's creativity-its like you have
your owri system built-in to go beyond yourself. You 're teaching students to
b ecome their own authority. For this reason, it may be difficult to have them

I
come back and teach within a structure that you ve created. They come back
and say, '1'hat 's not the way I want to teach. I want to teach this way. "

I don 't really know what an organizational center is. Some people teach

I classes and call it a center. When I think about a center, it 's where there 's a
group of people teaching and having co-power.

I
I like co-creating dasses and workshops with another person. I find that
very exciting. But there is still one person taking the responsibility. I keep
bringing in p eople who I think are going to be good for the students, with

I
different perspectives that will broaden their experience. I indude other
teachers in my program . I always have the students exp osed to three, four, or
five new peop1e in the year, so they can see how other peop1e use

I
p sychosynthesis. Everyone is different.

Another issue is the who1e thing between education and therapy. When
you 're teaching about the Self, you can teach an aspect, so it 's education.

I Some one may have a lot of wounds around that aspect, and he has to go back
and heal that. That 's therapy. I eaU p sychosynthesis training a therapeutie
education. A lot of what we are doing is teaching healing techniques, and also

I pointing the way of what 's possib1e for us, and teaching new ways of being.

I 'm always having to set structures and b oundaries for maintaining a dear

I
distinetion b etween therapy and teaching-for continuing with the material
we ve agreed to cover in the year-because peop1e are always going to have
emotions, beliefs, subpersonalities, and so on, that need to be worked on and

I
integrated . The commitment is that when things come up in the group that
aren 't fmished, those are things that need to be taken to smaUer group therapy,
or individual therapy. I 'm starting to make that dearer at the beginning of the

I
year-to say, "My commitment is to teach the princip1es and techniques of
p sychosynthesis and healing. Your commitment is to do your integrative work.
Some of it you '11 do in the dass, in our exercises, but it may only uncover some

I
things, and your commitment is to follow it up, and get it done . "

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I
I do screen people, and I 'm trying to get b etter at screening. I don 't want
I
p eople who are just there to work on their own stuff. I want people who are
interested in applying p sychosynthesis to their field of service.
I
I intend for people to do their own integration as they leam the principle in

I
the first year. The second year is much more geared toward using the tools and
techniques in our work, guiding each other, how to use it in organizations, and
different things like that. That 's my intention, but it hasn 't worked very weU

I
because people in the second year have wanted to j ust go deeper into their own
p ersonal integration, and I haven 't been able to push it through faster. Its
almost like there is a certain kind of group resistance; its like they have to do
more of that ground work before they can go on to do the other.

In my training program I teach about the Self, how to experience more and
I
more of the Self, how to discern what 's Self and what 's not Self, how to work
with subpersonalities, how to develop the will , how to bring in love and
forgiveness, and how to work on creativity and intuition. And then, with all
I
those tools, I teach them how to b e with a person in a counseling situation.
They might not have ever been trained in counseling, but they 're going to leam
the principles of counseling that I teach them. I 'm not going to teach about
I
leaming, behavior, memory, dreams, things that you would get in a regular
p sychology course. As time goes on, I 'm going to give a general b ackground on
the stages and p athology of the Self. I think we need to do more with
I
recognizing pathology and how to deal with it, like with a borderline
personality. I teach some about family systems, from a p sychosynthesis
perspective. But if they want to leam more about family systems, they 're going
I
to have to go out and take some courses in family systems. People who are now
in family systems and p sychosynthesis are writing books, and that 's good. All
those b ooks are helpful, but I can 't teach all those things .
I
There is one thing that I include that isn 't specifically stated, b u t it 's
central in my training program. There 's the Self, the subpersonalities, and so I
on; and then I give equal attention to the will , to unconditional love, and to
creative intelligence. I teach that each of these three needs to be balanced, and
are aspects of the higher Self. All of our subpersonalities are distortions, are an
I
imbalance of these three energies. So I 'm creating a cohesive model that has
been very workable for me, and I 'm bringing it into my manual.
I
T H E PRI N C IPLES O F PSYCHOSYNTHESIS AND THE C U LTURE

Jf you 're in places like Marin County, there 's a general population that 's
I
pretty sophisticated, pretty weU read . A lot of people there take meditation
classes, take yoga, are vegetarian, are working in groups with themselves, and
things like that. They 're getting the principles of p sychosynthesis from here and
I
there, and they 're integrating themselves . They 're using those techniques,
although they 're not called p sychosynthesis. I
I think that sometime in the future we won 't use the term p sychosynthesis
because there will be a general understanding in the population of the
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Vivian Ki ng 's Story

I p rinciples that Assagioli pointed out. For example, when Christ was here, he

I
came with a very radical message, and so he stood out a lot. If he came today
when a lot of people are preaching love and forgiveness, the message is not so
unusual and he wouldn "t: stand out so much. His ideas are blended into our

I
society. I think that 's the way it will be with p sychosynthesis. At a certain
point, it stands out. When you see it, you say, "Aha! Yes, yes ! JJ And you go for
it, because you recognize it as something important. But after a certain time

I
goes by, and we ve done a lot of our work with integrating people, and schools
are using it, and organizations are using it-the se general principles of
synthesis, and understanding Self, and integrating it, and meditating-the

I
knowledge of the principles will be assimilated into the culture .

Take Thomas Gordon 's book on Parent EffeGtiveness Training. That came
out when I was a mother. I read that and said, "Oh, wonderful! JJ because it gave

I me some structure, something I could hang my hat on. It consists of general,

u seful, guidelines that parents can remember. It 's a model that works. But
someday, hopefully, more and more parents will be just using them. I think it 's

I important for us in p sychosynthesis to make the principles dear and specific

for people so they can use them and not have to struggle. I think
p sychosynthesis will be around for quite a while because it 's so profound . I

I can "t: imagine doing therapy anymore without using psychosynthesis. I would
feel completely handeuffed.

I
I think that p sychosynthesis is a way of looking at things, of being aware or
conscious . It 's a way of establishing resonanee and of taking active
responsibility for our life . It has the potential for being tremendously creative .

I
LEVELS O F IDENTI FICATION AN D FU NCTIO N

I If, as a nurse, I come to a patient, and I 'm identified with a

subpersonality-either one that wants to take charge and do it for you (which
makes you more dependent and weakens you) or one that is judgmental, or

I whatever-if I come to you identified with that subpersonality, then I wi11 make
you more distressed, I will increase your dis-ease. However, if I come to you
just as a good person with my act basically together, and want to be of service ,

I t o d o m y j ob and m y d uty, then I create a space for you i n which your own
inner healing can take place.

I
If I come to you with the quality of being of the Higher Self, with a real love,
with a sense of my own empowerment, my own intuition, my own creativeness,
then I can actually be a healing person to you, because I 'm radiating a healing

I
energy of love which enables you, consciously or unconsciously, to respond to
that healing energy. It has to do with quality of energy I 'm holding when I 'm
with you. I can be either a distressful person or a healing person. It 's a

I
conscious proeess in p sychosynthesis. We have tools to know. We have the
discemment, the discrimination of knowing what quality of energy we 're using,
and where we are and who we are.

I
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So I can come to you and offer something that a traditional therapist can 't
I
offer you because his mode of operation may be as a subpersonality of a
therapist-of sitting back, determining what your problem is, and how he can
be the one to help you. That doesn 't evoke the Self in you. Psychosynthesis is
I
different because there 's a quality of Se1f that 's significantly different, and it
has to do with awareness, with choosing-a being quality. It becomes a way of
life, of b eing.
I
PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS AS PRINCI PLES
I
I
The principles are brought together in this particular understanding or
p ackage or form for this time because its a form that can be understood by
more and more p eople . But I 'm hoping the form doesn 't crystalize too much,

I
because I 'd like to see it keep on changing and adapting. The principles aren 't
the form-the principles are the essence-and hopefully we 'li always know the
principles and adapt them to where we 're at. The principles are put together in

I
this p articular configuration to create a form for now that can be understood.
Another group might take several of the se principles and use them, but that
doesn 't mean they 're taking half of p sychosynthesis and using it. It means that
they 're using some of the principles in the configuration that p sychosynthesis
has put together. It 's not that p sychosynthesis owns those principles. I
I think we 'li a1ways need some principles to guide us on our next steps. I
don 't live in a void. Sometimes, for moments, I can sit and be silent. But as
soon as my brain begins to start working, I 'm working out of some context or
I
some principle or something like that. I need guide posts. I need guiding
principles to pull myself along my evolution, to continue . I have to see some
direction. I have to have some desire, some goal. I have some vague idea that
I
there 's more spirituality than what I have right now, so I look to principles that
help me e stablish what that more is. Then I try to experience that. I
I
I
I
I
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J e a n Wa l s h ' s Story

I
J ean Wal sh's Sto ry
I Date of birth: September 2 1 , 1 944
Formal education:

I B . S . in Education from Wheelock College

M .A. in Confluent Education from the University of California at Santa
Barbara

I M . S.W. in Individual Counseling and Group Work from the University of

Connecticut
Current professional activities: Counselor in private practice ; educational

I consultant; teaching a variety of courses related to p sychosynthesis and

spiritual issues.
Date ofinterview: October 3 1 , 1 987

I Place of interview: Jean's office in Norwich, Vermont.

I I frrst heard about p sychosynthesis in 1 970. That summer I was leaving my

work in Jacksonville , Florida to go to graduate school at the University of
California at Santa Barbara, to study with George Brown and Janet Lederman.

I I had been a head teacher in an extensive Title One program for disadvantaged
students, kids that had learning and emotional problems. I was always
interested in both education and psychology.

I At that time the human potential movement was just beginning to take off.
I was learning about Gestalt therapy, sensitivity training, those kinds of things.

I
It was a very exciting time in my life . I had a spiritual yearning and I didn't
know what name to put on it. I knew there was more within the p erson than
just the traditional cognitive and affective dimensions.

I I became involved in a spiritual search. I met people who were interested in

Zen, Eastern religions, and various forms of yoga. I began to study aspects of
this work, yet I was at a loss as to how to integrate that into my teaching and

I counseling. Also at this time I had to gone to a Virginia Satir workshop and
was inspired by how she worked. It seerned that she was dealing with all levels
all at once. I thought: That's what I should do. I should get more training and

I incorporate what Virginia Satir is doing in family therapy, although it didn't

really address the spiritual component of the individual.

I
During that summer when I was in the midst of a tremendous transition, a
number of people mentioned p sychosynthesis to me. They described it as an
integration of Western p sychology and Eastern philosophy. I kept hearing

I
about it. I read the book, became introduced to the technique of visualization,
and began to use some of the ideas on myself as well as in my work.

I CALI FORN IA, TOM YEOMANS AN D THE VARG l U S

So that summer I dropped everything-I left my marriage , I left Florida, my

I j ob which meant so much to m e , and I went to California to go to graduate

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Psychosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea

school at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I hoped I could become

I
involved with what was going on at Esalen. At that time , going to Esalen was
like going to Mecca for me.
I
At UCSB I was George Brown 's research assistant and I shared an office

I
with Tom Yeomans. Jim and Susan Vargiu came to Santa Barbara, and I did
some workshops and individual work with them. I wrote my Masters thesis on
the daimonic, listening to one 's inner daimon, one 's guide utilizing

I
p sychosynthesis theory and practice. At UCSB most of my work was in the
human potential movement in general , and Gestalt in particular;
p sychosynthesis became a major interest.

When I fmished my studies at Santa Barbara, I moved to San Francisco

and taught a dass of kids who had severe emotional and learning problems. I
I
also became involved in the Ford/ Esalen Research Proj ect, which was an
attempt to put those aspects of wom: being done at Esalen into mainstream
settings. As a group we worked with the Vargius in psychosynthesis as well as
I
other approaches used at Esalen. I worked with teachers, with the writing of
curriculum , and continued doing individual work with the Vargius. I didn't do
their formal training program because it was primarily geared for
I
p sychotherapists, and I was interested in psychosynthesis in education. I was
also interested in esoteric study, and was reading the Alice Bailey books.
I
In 1 972 I went to India for about three months. I stayed in an ashram and

I
devoted myself to the spiritual quest, still feeling that psychosynthesis was key
to integrate this aspect of life into my work.

BAC K EAST: PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS, EDUCATIO N , AND THE H I LL CENTER I

After another year in San Francisco I got married again. I moved to
Connecticut in 1 974 and began teaching at the University of Hartford in a
teacher training program and community colleges teaching sources related to
I
p ersonal and spiritual growth using the principles of p sychosynthesis. I also
started a practice as an educational consultant. I wanted to get back into
studying p sychosynthesis in a more formal way, so I j oined Martha Crampton's
I
training, which she called "The Boston Group . " Martha would come once a
month to work with us. I also took some summer trainings in Deerfield with
Martha, Tom , and Mark Horowitz.
I
Psychosynthesis has always been the base of my work, but I felt that
within the establishment, it would not be appropriate to talk about I
transpersonal / spiritual work, especially in public institutions. Teaching was
more my path, but I also did counseling with p eople from my dasses to work
on material that was coming up for them. Much of the work I did in community I
college courses had a transpersonal component.

In 1 975 I met the p eople from The Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in
Education, in Walpole, New Hampshire. I felt very drawn to work with them not
I
only for who they were, and for their many gifts, but also because their

I
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J e a n Wa l s h ' s Story

I emphasis was on using p sychosynthesis in education. In addition, there was a

I
deep spirituality to their work. At last I had found a group that was really on
my wavelength.

We moved to Hanover, New Hampshire and I began working with The Hill

I Center. At this time I was also teaching at a community college , worked at an

administrator for Title One programs, and was a part-time learning specialist in
the public schools. I always used p sychosynthesis as the base of whatever I

I was doing, but I had to be discrete about it. I feel that it's taken a long time for
people here to be ready for these kind of things. It's been very frustrating at
times.

I Mter I completed the training program at The Hill Center in 1 977, I became
an associate there . It was a real gift to work with the Hill people . They are very,
very talented , and I don't think their contributions have been recognized by the
I p sychosynthesis community. I learned a great deal from them. They have been
important teachers for me. l again took up my interest in the esoteric work in a

I
more focused manner.

THE MALIG NANT I N FLUENCE OF THE CALI FO RNIA G RO U P

I In 1 979 activities started happening in California that were extremely
unpleasant. They were trying to develop a network of psychosynthesis cen ters

I of which they would be in charge . We did not want to j oin. We didn't feel it was
right for them to control what other centers were doing. The California people
had no real knowledge what was being done at The Hill Center. Our center was

I very different from other centers mainly because of our emphasis on education,
rather than p sychotherapy. We utilized a variety of approaches and applied
p sychosynthesis to new forms. Alta Lu Townes integrated p sychosynthesis with

I dance. Anne Janeway did fine work using cross-cultural training and
p sychosynthesis. In fact, everyone else at the Hill , Tara Stuart, Jan Gaston,
and Carol Blanchard, worked with cross-cultural training because they had all

I worked at the Experiment in International Living. It seems to me that only in

recent years has the p sychosynthesis community encouraged new applications
of the basic principles. In the past one would think of p sychosynthesis as a

I therapeutic approach. There are some other aspects which made the Hill
unique. We were a center of only women, using a very feminine-intuitive mode.
Our work was done as a group , not just in group format. We each were

I involved as a group in the total process. We developed our own piece of the
work together. I b elieve this approach made our work both unique and a
successful experiment in group endeavor.

I The culmination of this network business was that there was a meeting in
Boston with Jim Vargiu and some people he had gathered around him from the

I
Boston Center and the New England area. There were only three of us from the
center-Tara, Anne, and myself. The p erson Jim really wanted to talk to was
Tara. They had known each other from back when they had been working in

I
ltaly with Assagioli. I think there was an issue between them that was going on

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long before we got to the meeting in Boston. It was terrible. It was really, really
I
unpleasant.

Jim Vargiu hurt a lot of people in California. He also hurt a lot of p eop1e in I
the Hill group . He said, "Unless you do what we say, you can't j oin our

I
organization. " What really was so p ainful was that many people who went along
with him were people we thought were our colleagues. They said nothing in our
defense at the meeting in Boston. I think that's one reason I felt like I had to

I
step back from the p sychosynthesis community as a whole. I just didn't want
to be a part of that.

THE LAST DAYS O F THE H I LL CENTER I

In 1 980 , we went to Italy and gave a presentation at the International
Conference. I was unable to p articipate as much then because I needed more
time to care for my two year old daughter. Associates were beginning to leave
I
The Hill Center. Carol Blanchard moved to Boston. Jan Gaston went to
California to go the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. It was beginning to
wind down.
I
I
And then something happened b etween Tara Stuart and this work, where
she officially closed the center. In late 1 98 1 she cut all ties with the center and
dissolved it. I don't know what happened to Tara. No one knows what

I
happened to Tara. She just didn't want to be involved anymore. The center was
in her home. She was the focal point-she always said she wasn't, but she was.
Something happened to her; I don't know what. I wish I knew. She's been an

I
incredible teacher for me and it is a great loss to the work.

I think this difficulty with California was the beginning of the end.
Everybody felt they had to retreat into themselves. It was very, very p ainful. It
wasn't just Jim Vargiu. It was the p sychosynthesis community. It was Tom , it
was Mark. It was the people in that Boston meeting. They were the in-group.
I
We were the out-group . It was really, really unp1easant.

I
H EALI N G THE WO U N DS

After The Hill Center closed, I felt a void in my life-cut off and isolated I
from the larger community of p sychosynthesis. I missed my co-workers and felt

I
that I had no "place" to do the work of p sychosynthesis: personal, professional,
and spiritual . At that time I co-created (and I really do believe it was co­
creation l ) an opportunity to spend a few months in Rom e , partly to meet again

I
with Sergio Bartoli, the director of the Rome Center with whom I had
experienced a powerful sense of the essence of myself during an experiential
exercise at the Florence Conference in 1 980 . There I renewed my commitment

I
to the work of Assagioli. I was given strong encouragement to continue my work
both by Bartoli and Maria Lisa Girelli. My highest was recognized and afiirm e d.
They strongly suggested I go to the Toronto Conference [in 1 983] and b egin to
work more explicitly with p sychosynthesis again. I have returned to Italy
I
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Jean Wa l s h ' s Story

I several times to work with them which has been a significant aspect of the
healing process for me. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say, I believe that all of my
I co-workers have not completed the healing of their wounds.

I went to Tom Yeomans' Summer Institute in 1 986 to reconnect with

I p sychosynthesis, and since that time have been working much more actively
with the principles of p sychosynthesis in my own life and in my work. Last year
I became a focalizer of a group at the Sirius Community, an intentional

I community in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, developing a program using the

principles of the ageless wisdom , which inc1udes the Bailey material and other
esoteric traditions. I realized that I ab solutely had to deal more openly using a

I spiritual perspective in my work. At that time I was working at D artmouth

College, counseling students on eating disorders, boy friends, parents , and so
on as the field service requirement for my M . S.W.

I In November of 1 98 6 I switched my placement to the Tucker Foundation at

Dartmouth College , which is a center for the study of issues of spirituality,
conscience, and service. It was a tremendous success.
I I 'm just now establishing a private psychosynthesis practice . I 'm also
teaching a course called "Women and Spirituality" at the community college ,

I and also a course at the Sirius Community on the Ageless Wisdom, utilizing
principles of p sychosynthesis.

I ESOTERICS AN D H I E RARCHY

There's been a lot of distortion about the Alice Bailey work. People get

I bogged down in some details that aren 't representative of that body of
knowledge. I don 't think they really understand it. I don't think they've really
spent any time with it.

I It is hierarchical in that it presents a view of humanity as part of an

evolving universe, that everything is in the process of evolution. Indeed there

I are those who have more wisdom than we do. There are those who have
mastered the lessons of schoolhouse Earth, and they're working on another
plane.

I It was interesting for me to read an interview of Ken Wilber in Yoga Journal,

(Ingram , 1 987) where he was talking about working in terms of larger and
larger wholes, that there is a hierarchy. Not like the old power hierarchy in a

I corporation; it's not like that. He says he's tried to put this in a way that people
will fmd easier to accept. He calls it a "nested hierarchy. " He said each leve!
encompasses the levels below, and you keep moving higher and higher and

I higher and higher. In that regard , I defmitely believe that we are in a

hierarchical process. It's true. Some have more wisdom than others. It doesn't
negate the person. It just means that that's where they happen to b e . I think

I that everyone's experience is defmitely valid . But perhaps they don't have the
same degree of wisdom.

I
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T H E CERTIFICATION I S S U E
I
I
There's probably going t o come another turn o f the spiral in
psychosynthesis where people will again want to accredit people. I can feel it
starting up again. Didn't we leam anything? I would be very wary about some

I
people setting themselves up as really knowing the truth , and saying that
someone else is not doing p sychosynthesis. It distresses me that, on the one
extreme, you have people that go to a weekend workshop where they go on a

I
trip to the top of the mountain and to see the "wise old man , " and all of a
sudden say, "Hey, this is psychosynthesis. I can do thi s . " I 've heard people say
that.

On the other hand, you could again have a situation like California. And
frankly, I don't think you can contrai it. You can do what you want in terms of
I
saying, "Somebody has to provide a standard , a degree or a certificate granting
body." Yet there has to be a balance. I think the good people will be known for
b eing good, and those that aren't so good, weU, some c1ients will get burned.
I
Unfortunately, that's just the way it goes. I don't think we can control it and
stop someone from practicing what they consider to be p sychosynthesis.
I
The same is true with the M . S . W . process I just went through. I think there

I
were some students who were lacking in skills as therapists who completed the
program . They stuck it out. They got as much help as they could . At the end of
the process they got their little piece of paper.

A standardized curriculum for p sychosynthesis training? That's against

everything psychosynthesis is about. It's a process. I think it's the process of
I
living, of developing one 's consciousness and awareness as weU as theory and
practice. Yes, I believe we should provide the best training we can and we have
to leave room for individual difference .
I
U S I N G PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS WITH DISTiURBED C H ILDREN
I
I
Psychosynthesis can very defmitely b e used with disturbed children. For
example, I used to put evocative words (Assagioli, 1 970) on the desk, such as "I
am leaming to read , " or whatever was needed-a positive thought. I worked
with subpersonalities, the ideal model, and other techniques. I would use other
mediums for expression, like c1ay, paints, blocks, puppets, costume s , things to I
get kids in touch with feelings , attitudes, ways of learningf knowing. The
purpose of this was such that they would know more of who they were , their
gifts , their uniqueness, their universality, how they were life every one else , and I
how they could reach for their highest. More than this, however,
p sychosynthesis gives the teacher or therapist the vision to see their work as a
process of catalyzing the unfolding potential. I b elieve the psychosynthesist is I
most effective in the creation of a space where energies of healing and
transformation can come through. The theory and techniques help u s to get
ourselves to a place where we can allow that to happen. I
I
17 8
I
I
J e a n G ue nther's Story

I
J ean G u enther's Story
I Date of birth:. August 8 , 1 9 5 1
Fonnal education: no degrees
I Current professional activities: Director, trainer, and psychotherapist at the
Vermont Center for Psychosynthesis; consultant; lecturer.
Date of interview: October 3 1 , 1 987
I Place of interview: Jeans office in Burlington, Vermont

I When I was living in Cambridge , Massachusetts in 1 97 1 , a friend

introduced me to Mark Horowitz. The following year, while I was spending the
summer working in a small museum outside Portland, Maine , I got a phone

I call from Mark. He was doing a proj ect with adolescents as part of his thesis
for Goddard College on psychology and adolescence , and he needed a female
staff person to assist him in a month-long residential j ourneying community

I that he was creating. It was a trip in a converted school bus through the
Maritime Provinces of Canada. He was taking nine adolescents from the Lowell,
Massachusetts inner city area to a beautiful environment and offering them

I group building proj ects as they took on responsibilities for their daily living. He
asked me if I would be willing to assist him I had had a little bit of formal work
.

with adolescents, but not much, and I wasn't feeling too confident about it. He

I assured me he thought I would do just fine, so l agreed.

Before we left I made a quick trip to Burlington, Vermont because I wanted

I to see this area. I had a yen in my heart for the Lake Champlain area, and
loved it as I thought I would. When I returned to Maine , Mark and this group of
adolescents and the school bus were there , looking like a very motley crew. The

I trip however was a very fme experience. We did a lot of intensive counseling,
guided imagery exercises, inner work in the evenings and group building
meetings every morning. At the end of the month I said to Mark, "Whatever this

I is, its the best representation of my world view, and much more articulated,
that l 've ever encountered . Id like to know more . " He said, "What l 've been
doing is applying the principles and practices of psychosynthesis to

I adolescents by changing the language and stepping it down from p sychological

jargon to adolescent j argon. "

He invited me t o a weekend workshop Martha Crampton was doing at The

I New England Growth Center in Amherst, Massachusetts run by Jack Canfie1d.

I went to that weekend and after that to every other bit of training I knew of
and could get myself to , either in Amherst, Montreal, or San Francisco.
I Then I took a j ob for a year in the Lowell area with the agency which had
sponsored Marks trip . In 1 973 I was hired by a similar agency in Burlington to

I set up and run a N.I.M.H. fund ed family and adolescent counseling center,
focusing on drug abuse prevention and education. So I was where I wanted to
live, doing what I wanted to be doing, and much doser to Martha Crampton in

I
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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea
I
Montreal. At that time there was no formal training program-there were just
I
workshop s , and p eople worked out their own plans.

In the summer of 1 97 4 l drove to California with Mark and his wife , Abbey. I
They had b een to visit Roberto a couple of times and decided to move to Palo

I
Alto for additional training. There l met Anne and Tom Yeomans, Susan and
Jim Vargiu , John Firman, Daniel O 'Connor, and other people who have
continued to be very important to me. My next trip to California was in

I
December and January for continued training there. I was still going up to
Montreal, maybe twice a month, for training with Martha. l also attended
weekends at The Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in Education in New

I
Hampshire. In 1 976 I spent four months training in California and finished my
formal training at that time .

THE VERMONT CENTER FO R PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS I

In 1 977 I started offering a whole series of workshops and programs in
Burlington that were the antecedents of the two year training program I now
offer. I did some teaching at the Canadian center and also through the
I
University of Vennont Continuing Education Dep artm ent here in Burlington.
Since 1 973 l 've had a busy private practice. l graduated the first group from
the two year Professional Training Program of The Vermont Center for
I
Psychosynthesis in 1 982.
l always tried to bring i n guest teachers for my students because l think its I
important for them to know the difference between my expression of

I
psychosynthesis, my personality, and other peoples expression of it, and
hopefully, p sychosynthesis as an entity apart from anyone's particular
p ersonality. l was looking for staff to come here and teach with me, but people
told me I would need to develop my own staff. Every other successful center
also had more need for staff than they could meet themselves. I
I also trained with Franco Cicchin in family systems theory as developed in
The Milano Institute in Italy. I would pick up other p sychological training
whenever l could. Family Systems Theory made a very important contribution
I
to my understanding of psychosynthesis, and helped me see some of the
distortions that were coming out of the later years of Jim Vargius' work. For
example , they had a technique of holding clients up against a choice where
I
they were forced to make the choice when the guide thought it was necessary,
even though it may not have been appropriate for that persons process. It was
a distortion of the will (to put it mildlyl) and later was sarcastically called the
I
"choose or die" technique.

I was ecstatic to have Dan O 'Connor j oin me as staff in July of 1 98 5 . Four I

students fmished the advanced training program here, and two of them now
work on our staff. So l've fulfilled a long term dream to have a p sychosynthesis
center here in Vermont, and not have it just be me. If Id have known in the I
beginning how long it was going to take, I might have, at times, been too
discouraged to start.
I
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J e a n G u e nther's Story

I I have no academic degrees. I tried two different times to go back to school,

but always found working full time and doing the training and schoolwork was
I too much to handle. I continued to take 1eave and think I would get back to it. I
still hope that III do some academic work at the graduate level, when my
children are both in school. I love to leam, although academia has not been my
I strong point. I 'm much more of a hands on, practical worker. I'm a doer.
There are many forms of therapy and growth centers available in the

I Burlington area. Psychosynthesis is known around here through my reputation

and work, because it hasn't really been here in any other way. People I 've
brought here have helped , and now there are a number of people who are

I trained and are using psychosynthesis in different organizations. So

psychosynthesis is alive and well in this community. I 'm deeply gratified that
this center is in operation and doing so well.

I When my children are a little older, I want to write and to travel more
regularly, teaching in other centers and helping them develop their training. I
want to offer a means for increased communication among different training
I cen ters. I took responsibility for hosting the trainers gathering that preceded
the last Northeast Regional Conference (fall, 1 987) with Tom Yeomans. We are
committed to meeting yearly, hopefully to have our meetings scheduled just
I prior to the regional conferences.

I THOUG HTS ABO UT RUNNING A CENTER AND DO ING THERAPY

"There's no money in education." I remember my mother saying that, so I

I didn't expect the training program to make any money. In fact, my private
practice funds the educational work. The expenses are high and the
preparation time involved in designing and implementing a training program is

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extensive. For me, it was essential to be thinking about the ideas of
psychosynthesis while I was practicing as a guide, and the best way for me to
do that was to teach.

I Leading groups is a tricky business. It consistently challenged me to

continue to do my own personal work and be as dear as I can be. It was
advantageous to be involved in that education process-it improved my therapy
I skills tremendously, and it helped the clients when they could engage their
mind through the training. Their personal proeess is expedited 500%.

I My practical nature indudes not creating dependency. When people come

for therapy, in the fIrst meeting we talk about the policies and how the center
works. That means developing a mutual agreement we call a verbal contract of

I what the terms of therapy are to be-how many sessions, how frequently, for
what purpose and at what rate. That contraet helps people stay on task,
especially initially. It involves using their will to address the issues they've

I come with. I tell them that I 'm available beyond that point, but having this
verbal contract builds in an assessment date. People might choose as few as
four or six sessions, or maybe twelve sessions, to address an issue. While we

I are free to discuss how the work is going at any point, the contract insures that

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Psychosynthesis i n N o rt h Ameriea

we set aside about twenty minutes of the last contracted session to discuss
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how the work is going, whether or not its meeting their needs, what each of us
could do to improve the efficiency of the work, if they want to proceed from
there , and what form that's going to take. At that point, if they want to go into
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long term work, we usually work on the academic calendar, for a semester or a
season at a time , and assess at those times. As soon as people feel able to
sustain the work themselves through their j ournal work and through the
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wonderful tools and gifts psychosynthesis offers, then theyll come in less
frequently, perhaps every two weeks or once a month. People sometimes come
back into therapy. I 've worked with a few people intermittently for flfteen years.
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Our psychotherapy sessions are getting shorter all the time. We now work
between sixty and seventy-five minutes, with an occasional hour-and-a-half I
session. I used to usualiy schedule an hour-and-a-half. People pay for the
amount of time they use, so their fee is prorated. This puts a lot of
responsibility on the c1ient for the use of their time , which I think is useful. I
I 'm a more active guide than I used to be. I 'm more efficient. With the
exception of the initial visit, people are able to do even depth work, to do the
imagery or catharsis work, come through it, and be grounded and ready to
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leave within an ho ur or an hour and flfteen minutes. I can get the depth
proeess started sooner. I
Almost ali of the c1ients do session write-up s. They'll write what they're
learning was from the session, maybe inc1ude a page or two from their j ournal,
and they'll also make a few notes about what they want to focus on in the next I
session. They get that to the guide forty-eight hours before the session. We read
it, and that realiy makes the time together much more efficient because they
don't have to tell the whole story of what's happened since the last session.
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THOUG HTS O N THE PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS COMM U N ITY I
One way I think of p sychosynthesis is as a living entity. I 'm not sure how
old it is! The trainers of new people entering the field of p sychosynthesis are the
custodians or foster parents of the ideas in the way in which they train new
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people. I 'm not sure if were raising the child , or its raising us! A goal for me is
just to increase the contact and communication among the trainers in the
Northeast region, to increase that reciprocal mental stimulation and spiritual

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nurturing that comes from being together with people who have the same kind
of commitments and visions. I want to offer some of my experience and love of
order-the practical side-to people who envision training programs but aren't

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sure how to b egin or how to progress.

When we talked at the trainers gathering about whether or not having a

national association would be advantageous, there was good discussion which
inc1uded the pros and cons. The pros are some kind of national referral system,
an updated directory, p erhaps a literature distribution function-j ust some of
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the administrative, coordinating functions that an association like that could
serve. The limitations are that it would be very difficult to do; and who's going
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J ea n G ue nther's Story

I to do it? Where do we fmd the people who, by everyone's consensus, are the
right p eople to take on that responsibility? How would that get fund ed? And
I how would it not have a function of setting and evaluating standards? One of
the benefits that came out of the decentralization after the San Francisco

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experience was the sen se of individual responsibility to p sychosynthesis that so
many people re-owned , having perhaps gotten somewhat dependent on , or
proj ecting that onto The Synthesis Graduate School group .

I One of the metaphors we came up with at the trainers meeting was that
p sychosynthesis is an adolescent at a good school with lots of interesting
teachers , and they're not talking to each other. There isn't a guidance counselor

I that's coordinating the program or looking at how p sychosynthesis is

developing as a whole through the way its being taught.

Questions of "Is it viable to certify?" and "Is the fact that anybody can use
I the word p sychosynthesis a problem that we want to do anything about?" were
discussed at the trainers meeting. No action was decided at this point, other

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than to keep our eyes on these issues and continue to discuss them.

For the last seven years in the p sychosynthesis community, there's been a
focus on respecting our uniqueness and individuality as weU as a lot of fear

I and separateness. The benefits have been that many people have been owning
p sychosynthesis themselves in a way that wouldn't have happened if there had
been a headquarters which was assuming responsibility for setting standards

I and ascribing who's in and who's out as trainers. Now I think we've been slowly
entering a new phase where there 's more interest in cooperation and contact,
and yet a cautiousness to not repeat the same mistakes that happened in

I California.

I don't have a prescription for what should happ en in the future, and yet I

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do have a lot of motivation to nurture the contact, relationship s and
cooperation, and to see what is or isn't going to come out of that. One specific
idea for trainer cooperation I have is videoing sessions and distributing them

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among ourselves. It would be so practical because having staff from other
centers come, if they can fmd time , is very expensive. Its a vast improvement to
be able to observe a variety of guides because then the trainees leam to

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appreciate their own uniqueness.

THOUG HTS ON THE SOCIOLO GY OF PSYCHO SYNTHESIS

I People who come t o p sychosynthesis workshop s o r therapy self-select
through their own readiness and attraction to p sychosynthesis. Its not yet part

I of a required curriculum. They need to be living in a context that inc1udes the

contacts that could inform them that p sychosynthesis exists. They also need to
be able to p ay for services. At our center so far, we've found that the self­

I selection has resulted in offering us a fairly balanced case load, economically.

We don't have a big ne ed at the bottom of the scale that has to be turned away.
This is not Federally funded or fund ed in any other way. Its self-sustaining, so

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Psyc hosynthes is i n N o rth Ameriea

we need to work with a p opulation that can pay us, even though we have a
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sliding fee scale.

I find it more valuable to work with people who are working with other I
people, because the effects of our work together is more far reaching. That's

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more rewarding for me. If that person has gotten himself into a situation where
he's being hired by an organization to , say, run some human service program ,
he is going to have a certain amount of skill and capacity in the world, a

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groundedness, that's going to enable him to further express what he learns. So
it just seems more efficient to work with p eople who are going to be able to
affect more people than to work with people who are bare1y going to be able to
cope , and may affect fewer people, relative1y speaking.
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TH E RELATIO N S H I P BETWEEN O U R H IG H E R AND LOWER NATURES

Maybe we could roll the egg diagram over on its side, and j ust say Self
capital "S" and se1f small "s" . We say, "Move to our deepest Self, or highest
Self. " I often say "deepest" or "most essential , " or "place of greatest wisdom and
serenity." If I were to put a value judgment on it, I have found that experiences
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with my self and my Self as more positive , useful , emotionally gratifying,
creative , and intellectually stimulating than I have in my experiences with my
deepest, most difficult patterns and painful, historical experiences and the
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struggle that's come with those. I value them equally, even though one is more
pleasant than the other. I have a systemic view of the inter-relatedness of the
Self and the personality, that while we are here in life and incarnated , they are
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equally important and interdependent, the personality and the level of
experience at the Se1f.
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Just as we have technologically misused the earth , so p sychologically we
have misused our bodies by not appreciating the importance of embodying life .
Even if we think we can make a separation between our bodies and our minds, I
we canto We certainly can disidentify, but we cant take the process out of our
body-except in our imaginations where we might think that we do that. But
we are embodied. I
We are not just our instincts, but our instincts are an important part of us.
In p sychoanalysis we were libidinally controlled, and in p sychosynthesis,
maybe the goal was to be Higher Self controlled. And now, mayb e , were moving
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towards a synthesis that's inc1usive of b oth ends of that continuum in a
systemic way that accepts inter-relatedness, and doesn't have the value
j udgment that either the body or the spirit is what's b est and ultimately in
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contro!.
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TH E EXPERI ENCE O F S ELF

I think we know our Self through experience . I don't think its a separate I
entity. I think its a part of us, and its a part that we have, more or less, an
active relationship with. There are times that I 'm not in relationship with my
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J e a n G u e nther's Story

I soul, and there are other times when I re-connect and am in relationship with
that element of myself that I 'm refernng as soul. Sometimes I may be in a
I relationship with it, and yet it may be unconscious but compatible. Other times
I 'm in discord with that element of myself, and I get off track and need
something to help me choose to re-orient, to inc1ude that element of myself.
I Images of transcendence are extremely helpful because they foster the
proeess of disidentification-those images of going up the mountain, of

I psychological mountain climbing, the journey to the sun, all of that, up and
out. I think the se images are very useful in helping people to disidentify and
begin to know themselves, inc1uding themselves as Souls, and that proeess

I becomes more and more imminent over time. It becomes less of an infrequent
or fleeting moment, but over time more and more available in an everyday state
of consciousness.

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J u d ith Ab bott's Story

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J u dith Abbott's Sto ry
I Date of birth: April 2 8 , 1 935
Formal education:

I B .A. in Education from Goddard College

M . Ed . in Counseling from Boston University
Current professional activities: Private p sychotherapy practice with individuals,

I couples, and groups

Date ofinterview: October 2 8 , 1 987
Place ofinterview: Judith's office in Newton, Massachusetts

I
It was basically through my brother, Tom Yeomans, that I flrst heard about

I p sychosynthesis in 1 972. Both he and I were interested in education. He had

just begun working with Jim Vargiu on the West Coast and was very excited.
He told me about it and suggested I learn more by going to The Hill Center for

I Psychosynthesis in Education in Walpole , New Hampshire . Five or six women

were running The Hill Center at that time .

I
I went t o a couple of workshop s and also got excited. I was i n my mid­
thirties and heading right into a mid-life crises. I had some critical personal
issues and was at a maj or turning point in my life. I was very open to

I
something new. I was an associate dean at Tufts University from 1 970 to 1 974,
doing counseling, administrative work, and running a program in continuing
education. It was during that time that I began training in p sychosynthesis at

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The Hill Center.

In 1 973 the people at The Hill Center received an invitation to go to Italy to

work as a group with Roberto. I was very fortunate to be able to go with them. I

I was a neophyte-I didn't know much about anything. I sort of got plopped
down in the middle of this very esoteric group . It was an extraordinary ten
days.

I We worked as a group with Piero Ferrucci in the morning, and Roberto in

the afternoon. They worked with us around group p sychosynthesis, focusing on

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group evolution and spiritual development. Roberto was talking about how we
would evolve into groups that would work with the same level of sensitivity that
now exists in the b ody. There would be that kind of differentiation of parts, yet

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with a delicate capacity to be tuned in to all the other parts. This was the next
stage of evolution.

He was a wonderful , wonderful man. He was so loving, and funny. This was

I j u st the year before he died. My understanding is that we were the last group to
work with him .

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The group of women at The Hill Center was very esoteric. I generally have
difficulty with people who are highly spiritual and not very grounde d , and this
group was highly spiritual and not very grounded. However, they were very

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open and loving. In fact I still have friendships that originated at that time .

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Psyc hosynthes i s I n North America
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They were a wonderful group of women, very collaborative and non­
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hierarchical. There was a lot of focus on international and intercultural
education, so there was a lot of interesting thinking going on. But they were a
"heart-centered" center, which is what got them into trouble after Roberto died .
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They were oriented toward the feeling and intuitive functions. When the split
came with Jim Vargiu and everyone he controlled, it seerned to be between wil1
and mental functioning on the one hand, and heart and intuitive functioning
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on the other.

I was a p art of The Hill Center group for several years. The year after our
trip to !taly, I went to Palo Alto for the flrst basic training the California
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Institute was offering. I took additional basic trainings the following two
summers, one in California and one they offered in New Hampshire. A group I
formed in the Boston area that went for trainings in California every summer,
and another group from the New York area went up to Montreal to be trained
by Martha Crampton. California and Montreal were the two maj or training I
centers at that time.

From 1 974 to 1 97 6 I worked at the University of Massachusetts at Boston

doing curriculum development. I was also raising four kids as a single parent,
I
and continuing my p sychosynthesis training on the side. It was a very full time .
When m y j ob ended i n 1 976 and I tried t o pursue another position in
education, I kept hitting a wall. An inner voice kept saying to me that it was
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time to open a private counseling practice, and I kept thinking that that was an
insane idea. I had four kids to support and everyone knew it takes at least two
years to establish a practice in Boston.
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After a couple of months of being blocked, I threw up my hands and said,
"Okay, 1 '11 do it," and immediately everything fell into place. I started some
small groups , and within six months I had a full practice. I think it had a lot to

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do with a strong interest in psychosynthesis that was beginning to happen in
Boston at that time. It was sort of the new wave p sychology or whatever.

The p sychosynthesis training I had received was good. However, what was
missing, and the reason everything came apart in 1 98 0 , I think , was that no
one in California or elsewhere had any clinical training. There was no one doing
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any kind of reality testing around the clinical piece . I think that is one of the
reasons it all came apart.
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At that time there was this strong wall of silence b etween the spiritual and

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the practical, which made everyone feel elitist, like you were special and knew
something special. The early years in p sychosynthesis had that quality.
Somehow you were special or different or better than the real world. The

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California group was heavily into the esoteric practices that are p art of Alice
Bailey's work. One of her books , called A Treatise on White Magic, (Bailey,
1 95 1 ) talks about the use of visualization and light. The California people were

I
doing what they called " subj ective work," which was b asically mind contro!. It
was used in a p ositive sense in the b eginning, but at the end it got distorted
into controlling p eople, into black m agic.

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J u d ith Ab bott's Sto ry

I The group that formed was very bonded and had a strong group
connection. It attracted some wonderful, gifted people-people with high ideals
I and a strong spiritual need to selVe. They were people who were sensitive and
felt the pam of the world and the ne ed to respond to that. In the beginning, it

I
was very much based on the Bailey material, on group development and other
practices. That gave it a lot of power, although in the end, that's what got
distorted. But originally they created an environment where a lot of deep

I
healing could happen. There was an environment of love and acceptance and
great care.
I think they m �de a mistake when they had the same person doing both

I personal, therapeutic work and also dinical supelVision with the same student.
There wasn't any dear distinction between the two functions. That's where it
began to get mucky. Eventually information that came up in the personal

I session would be used against you in your supervision. I think they did that
because they were unsophisticated in their understanding of the group
process. They weren't dinicians, tramed in group process; at least Jim Vargiu

I wasn't. He was an engineer-very bright, very intense-but not trained in

process at all.

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In the fall of 1 978 , the California group decided to start a graduate school.
My understanding is that Martha Crampton dosed her institute in Montreal
and joined them in California, but it didn't work. Then Martha suddenly left

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California and was coming back to be on the East Coast again. It was dear
they had a big falling out.
Following Roberto's death, the California group had taken upon themselves

I the task of carrying on the "pure" teachings. They already had begun to
alienate other centers about the right way and the wrong way to do it. It was
becoming dear that Jim was quite crazy. He was not about to allow anybody to

I move in-he was in control, and he would not share his power with Martha.

I THE RISE AN D FALL OF THE BOSTO N CENTER AN D THE DEMISE OF THE H I LL CENTER

The Boston group I was in, which the California people had been training
for four or five years, was precipitately graduated. In November of 1 978 we
I were suddenly told we had fmished our training and could now start a center
in Boston. They said we would be independent, but it was c1early a move to

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keep Martha Crampton from having any power on the East Coast.
We started the center in January of 1 979 , offering some teaching of
fundamentals. One other person and I were doing almost all the teaching and

I administrative work. At that time my mother was dying of cancer, and I made a
decision to be with her. So in addition to all the work I was doing for the new
center, I was also with my mother in her dying process.

I I was concerned about what was going on in California early on. I could
never articulate it, but I always felt that something wasn't right. When I look

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Psyc hosynthesis I n N o rth Ame rica
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back on it, I can see that they weren't grounded. They weren't meeting people
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where they were in their lives.

The California group came out in February, 1 979 for a meeting. The people I
from The Hill Center also came. This awful process happened which totally

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blew me away. Jim challenged Tara Stewart, who ran The Hill Center, and she
was castigated and shoved out of the group . At that point I got very distressed.
I didn't know what was going on, but I knew this was not something Roberto

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would have ever tolerated . It wasn 't loving, it wasn't kind-it was crue1. 1

The California group had been doing what they called "subj ective work."
They were trying to control the process through meditation and visualization.
For example, I had a friend who was a lawyer and who was in the training
program early on in California. He was the kind of guy you couldn't shut up .
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He was continually argumentative , challenging, and curious. He was a pain in
the ass, but he was wonderlul. He reported that the summer he went to his
training, he sat in the seminars mute. He wouldn't say a word and he didn't
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know why. He found out later that whenever he was in a dass, they had two or
three people at the same time meditating, working on him .
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When everything fell apart, I know they were doing it to me, too . I could feel

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it. It was the most awful thing I ever felt. Some very bizarre things happened. I
think they were tapping into levels that I don't know if people know a whole lot
about, but they're dangerous. The p sychic field that we're all connected to is

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really delicate.

My colleagu e , Alex, was also concerned , but the other three from The
Boston Center weren't as concerned. In July of 1 979 the California people
came out again for a meeting. I went to the meeting with the idea of standing
back and watching the process. I saw the rest of them get totally caught up in
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this belief system of Jim Vargiu and his people , that the highest good is
service, and that you put family and loved ones second or third to that. You
sacrificed everything to this higher good.
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At one point Jim was working with someone who had originally been
connected to Martha Crampton. There was a moment when he asked this
person to image Martha and to see her burning. At that p oint I said to myself,
"Oh my God! This is black magic." But the problem was that the minute I knew
it, Jim immediately knew I knew it. The next day we were all supposed to go to I
a training session, and they called me up and disinvited me. They said I
obviously wasn't invested in the group enough because I was helping my
mother die . And they also severed Alex. I
This type of thing had been going on in California for six or eight months,
people getting kicked out. If you didn't agree , you got cut off without any
discussion and were se en as the devil, basically. You were shunned-no one
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1 See Jean Walsh's story for more on The Hill Center

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J u d ith Abbott's Story

I talked to you. It was very difficult because the se were people who had long
term, deep , loving relationships with each other.
I So they kicked Alex and me out of The Boston Center in California style.
They sent me a telegram saying, "You are no longer part of the center. We will

I never talk to you again. Move your furniture out in two days. " These were
friends of minel The severing was brutal, and that wound still remains. It's still
not totally healed. It's part of the history of psychosynthesis that people are

I still trying to heal it. The people who were involved in California and here and
in England and everywhere-this process went all the way through the centers.
Jim went after anything that was loving. He methodically split up couples,
I and parents from children. If anything is demonic, that is an example. How
people couldn't see it, I still don't understand. These were intelligent,
sophisticated people.
I In early October, 1 979, two more of The Boston Center people woke up and
realized what had happened, and they pulled out. That left just one person

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running the center. Everything sort of collapsed. Over that winter all of us from
The Boston Center met with a negotiator to try to bring the pieces back
together. It was painful and hard , but we did it. Then the California group

I began to really com� apart. By the summer of 1 980 my brother left them.
The healing process really started around March of 1 980, and has been
continuing quietly. People have gone on into other things, but the wound is still
I there. My belief is that this wound is effecting the whole body of
psychosynthesis, and until it's completely healed it will effect the capacity of
the next generation to really take it fully. It has to get integrated. It's still at a
I leve1 that it's not getting integrated.2
People are trying, because it's like a death in the family. It's certainly

I affecting Boston. For some reason, no group of people are coming together to
form a new center. The Boston Center is still officially alive on paper. We have
not legally disbanded it, and it wi11 not die. It's sort of sitting there. It needs to

I be ended or picked up again . . . . I don't know.

I PSYCHOSYNTH E S I S AN D FAM l lY SYSTEMS TH E O RY

In 1 980 my mother died , and then I spent a year with my sister, who also
died of cancer. There was more tragedy in my family, and I subsequently
I became interested in family systems theory, particularly the ideas of Murry
Bowen. I received training in this area, and put this and psychosynthesis
together in my work now.
I Bowen talks about the person within a psychic field of the family, which
reaches back at least to three to four generations. I found in my

2 FoUT months after this interview took place, a large meeting was heId in which
Judith, Tom Yeomans, and Claire Boskins diseussed with a large group of people in
I Boston the difficulties that occurred, and the lessons to be learned from it.

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Psychosynthes is I n North America
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p sychosynthesis training that there was a lot of inward growth, but I had a
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feeling of a sort of invisible wall that I couldn't move beyond. I realized that it
had to do with the p sychic positioning within the family system . Like in any
system , every individual is very delicately placed, and if one element starts
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moving, everyone else has to move c:J.so , because the balance is upset. There's a
lot of pressure to remain in the position in which you originally got placed in
the family.
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I believe that in order to be free , people have to do some family of origin
work, which is basically going back and redoing or detoxifying the relationships
with their family, of moving out of a reactive place. Until that is done , p eople

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will keep repeating the se patterns in relationship s with others.

I think the trouble in p sychosynthesis occurred b ecause people who were

involved who hadn't done much differentiation of family and separation and
that stuff, and that's how the distortions got there. The spiritual energies
picked that up and created a p seudo-family that didn't allow for differences. It
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was a c10sed system-everyone had to do it one way. It was a family that was
strongly hierarchical. It wasn't a group form that supported or wanted variety
or autonomy.
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I 'm just now beginning to feel reconnected with the p sychosynthesis
community. I think it's important to talk about what happened, because the
more we can understand it, the less chance it will happen again. It's sort of like

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Nazi Germany.

So I do a combination of family systems therapy and p sychosynthesis. The

framework of p sychosynthesis is so much a part of me that I couldn't even say
what I do that is specifically psychosynthesis. I 've been developing groups and
individual work around the theme of purp ose. I 'm trying to develop a workbook
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and tapes. I really want to help people articulate and implant their vision. I 'm
interested in the developmental issues of the adult life cyc1e. I 'm trying to put
that together with spiritual growth. X 'd like to again be connected with the
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p sychosynthesis community. I think I 'm getting ready for that. I never thought
I 'd say that. I miss being with people who are thinking the same way. WeU
see . . . .
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PSYCH O SYNTH E S I S AS AUTO N O MY AN D CONNECTEDNESS
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Psychosynthesis is an idea that arose , and the forms to support it are j ust
now emerging. They're forming in the process of working with real life . To m e ,
p sychosynthesis has t o do with autonomy and connectedness. None o f u s i s

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socialized, o r certainly educated, in a way that supports our autonomy. When
p sychosynthesis talks about the development of the Self, it is really talking
about each person coming into thru own experience and having the skills to
test their own experience, and be able to think and leam and create m eaning.
This is all part of the autonomous learning process. It's challenging inner b elief I
systems, of looking at belief systems that you 're carrying from your own family
of origin. It's a highly discriminating process of looking at meanings and beliefs
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J u d ith Abbott's Story

I and sorting all that out-and being willing to make mistakes and leam from
them.

I Certainly my generation didn't grow up in a world that believed you could

be autonomous and connected . Either you were autonomous and disconnected,

I or you were connected and enmeshed within the system . What is coming out of
systems theory now, which wi11 support psychosynthesis in a most wonderful
way, is this idea of being both autonomous and connected.

I 1 think of p sychosynthesis as the soul waking up . It's a process of people

realizing that they're more than themselves , more than their little selves .

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Dorothy F i rman's Story

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Dorothy Firman 's Story
I Date of birth: October 8 , 1 949
Formal education:
I B.A. in Psychology from Goddard College
M.A. in Psychology from Beacon College
Current professional activities: Co-director of The Synthesis Center, its

I Counseling Service, and director of its Psychosynthesis Counselor Training

Program; psychotherapist ; workshop leader ; consultant ; author
Date of interview: March 1 8 , 1 988
I Place of interview: Dorothy's home in Amherst , Massachusetts

I It must have been fIfteen years ago that I fIrst heard of psychosynthesis
from my cousin, John Firman, who was one of the original California group
and had studied with Assagioli. He came here to Amherst to do a workshop in

I 1 973 or 1 974 and did a guided imagery session with me on a series of dreams I
had. That was a fascinating proeess and brought a deeper understanding of
those dreams to me.

I I had been studying early childhood development, and Jung, but I hadn't
made any career decisions at that time. I had been a hippie in the woods of

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Maine and had begun to feel that it wasn't enough to organic garden. I did my
fIrst intensive training in psychosynthesis in Deemeld, and it became dear that
that's what I would do. I just made that decision, and in fact, I came home and

I did it. I started running groups after that three weeks of training in Deemeld.
In retrospect, that seems like a bold stance on my part. It fIt for me very
intensely, like I'd always known all of what was being said. I felt it to be very

I real and powerful, and got a lot of positive feedback in the training on how I
was doing it. This is pretty typical of me in my life-I take what I want to hear
and I use it, to take me where I want to go.

I After my frrst experience with my cousin, I went on to study

psychosynthesis in my undergraduate program and I took trainings in it in a
v ariety of places. I read everything that had been written about it at that time,

I mostly artides and monographs. My training was a hodgepodge, some here,

some there. Martha Crampton was already training in Canada, and the
California people were doing training before the graduate school.
I The group I'm with now, The Synthesis Center here in Amherst, used to be
called The New England Center and was run by Jack CanfIeld and Paula

I Klimak. They were studying on the edge of holistic education and holistic
thinking. In 1 97 5 I joined the organization, along with another woman, Georgia
Noble. The name was changed to the Institute for Holistic Education and we

I started slanting the organization more and more toward psychosynthesis. We

had all found each other in psychosynthesis, and then we came back and
changed that organization. It was basically a workshop broker and brought in

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Ed Turner, Edith Stauffer, Harry Sloan, and people like that to do
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p sychosynthesis workshop s.

After a year or so, Georgia and I founded the counseling branch of the I
organization and we started p sychosynthesis training groups , although not yet

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a full training program. Jack and Paula were doing con sulting work in
education, and Jack had written a book called A Hundred Ways to Enhance
Self-Concept in the Classroom.
When I first got involved with p sychosynthesis, I had never been involved in
spirituality in any formal way. Drugs was the dosest thing to a spiritual path I
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had experienced. I didn't have any interest in Eastern religions, and I didn't
have a meditation practice. In fact, it wasn't until many years after I was in
p sychosynthesis that I had any interest in pursuing the se kinds of truths from
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a spiritual rather than a p sychological perspective.

I found , and still fmd , that the essential principles and many of the
techniques of p sychosynthesis point to the same truths that every spiritual
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practice is doing, and maybe as effectively. I have yet to see a spiritual practice
that is more powerful than the disidentification exercise , for instance. I am now
more or less of a Zen Buddhist. But the koan work that's done in Zen is not

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any different, really, than the disidentification exercise. Assagioli said that
p sychosynthesis can take you to the doors of the great mystery, but it won't get
you through. I believe that he's probably right about that now, at the present

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time . I don't think there are any p sychosynthesists who have gone through that
door and could help others to go through. I 'm not so sure that there are any
spiritual leaders that have , except a very, very few, and the spiritual paths that
exist in this country today are so fraught with problems that I 'm not sure it's
not more effective . I
So I got my training, in large part, by bringing people to me rather than
going to them, except for my training in Montreal with Martha. I was never
involved in a complete , formal training program . In 1 978 when I was
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contemplating doing that, the California-Montreal split occurred, and it became
dear that there was no way to do that. In faet, Georgia and I were disinvited to
have anything to do with the California p eople because we took a strong stand
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that we wouldn't choose exdusively b etween them.

Then Martha called from California and asked if we would mind if she I
moved to Amherst. We said we wouldn't obj ect, so I continued training with her
and Jane D ermon. They moved here and did most of their work through our
center for about two years. After the cult in California fell apart in 1 98 0 , Mark I
Horowitz and Marilyn Kriegel also used to come here, and I got training from
them. So I have come at it sidewise, never having graduated from anybody's
training program, never having been certified. I
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Dorothy F i rm a n ' s Story

I C ERTI FICATI O N I S S U ES

I We have a three year training program which leads to so-called

certification. It is more a certificate of completion than a statement of
evaluation or a qualitative stance, or a definition of what a p sychosynthesist is.

I The less the certificate says, the happier I am, because I don't want to be in
that position. I don't think I 'm anybody to make that decision. It's a lot of
pressure on trainees-the increase in transference and countertransference

I when that kind of power is vested in me is great. One of the things I love most
about the third year of training is that we begin to get through the places where
people are working out their authority issues with me, and people start moving

I into collegial relations, which is a real relief to me. I have no obj ection to other
people doing that, although I think it's hard er for them because they're always
asking big questions of what it meanS to put someone out in the world as a

I p sychosynthesist.

The reason we give out a certificate, more than anything else, is that

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employers tend to be more responsive to people who want time off or money for
continued training if there 's something at the end of it. A lot of our trainees
who work in social service agencies have an easier time of it if there 's a

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certificate of completion.

It's also, in some symbolic way, a notation of "doneness." It marks a

transitional passage. If p sychosynthesis were heading for a centralized ,

I hierarchical, universal organization, something like Transactional Analysis has,

for instance , then certification becomes a mark of entry into that. I think it
covertly is that in p sychosynthesis. On the one hand there is a ne ed to protect

I the public from that which is not psychosynthesis but is called

p sychosynthesis. On the other hand , what is p sychosynthesis, and who can
say? l 've had reactions to people who have taken one of my basic trainings

I going out and calling themselves p sychosynthesists. So far I 'd prefer to live
with those kinds of reactions and my inability to do anything about that than
to go to the other end and start tightening down on those who can call

I themselves p sychosynthesists. It's c1early a dilemma, or a polarity that doesn't

yet have a resolution.

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A standardized training used in all the centers would never work. I couldn't
do a standardized training. My training is different every year. I don't think I
could do it if it weren't, because I aIways have to be on the cutting edge of my

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interests and excitement. The principles are the same. The principles of
p sychosynthesis, when you get down to it, are very few. It's what we do with
them that's the game of training. You could do a million different things.

I The ideas of p sychosynthesis, the truths p sychosynthesis attempts to point

to , are taking hold more and more in people 's minds. The kinds of things that
would wow people years aga don't wow people anymore. For example, take the

I concept of synthesis, of discrete entities coming together into a higher order.

Years ago , if you said that, people would go "Wowl" Now, people coming in
know that. I think that the good news is that there's less pazaaz in

I psychosynthesis now. It was much easier to run a workshop ten years aga and

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have p eople bouncing off the walls with new insights. That was both exciting
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and dangerous. Certainly we weren't very grounded in those early years. I think
now it's becoming more what Assagioli always hoped it would b e , more of a
mainstream way of looking at p sychology.
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We use p sychosynthesis here at The Synthesis Center in two ways-in our
training program and in our community-based counseling organization. It's our
effort at being a counseling organization that really puts p sychosynthesis into

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the world because we don 't necessarily call it p sychosynthesis. Our late st
counseling brochure doesn 't say p sychosynthesis anywhere on the cover. We
direct ourselves to the needs of people who want counseling or p sychotherapy,

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and then we do p sychosynthesis. As a result we now have a very good
reputation as a counseling organization. We get referrals from everywhere­
from other professionals, from doctors, from the mental health world. We have

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presented ourselves as professionals doing p sychotherapy and counseling, and
doing it well enough to build a reputation. Therefore psychosynthesis goes out
that way, unlike ten or fifteen years aga when the primary people who were

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attracted to p sychosynthesis were New Age spiritual types. We have a pretty
broad-based range of people who are attracted to us.

l ve been working on a book called Mothers and Daughters: The Joumey

Towards Independence and Reunion. lt's going to be published in early 1 989 by
Crossroad/ Ungari Continuum. It's based on ten years of work with my mother,
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Julie Firman, a Transactional Analysis therapist. It's aimed towards supporting
individual autonomy and the reconnection to love , and employs many
p sychosynthesis principles as weU as some T.A.
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THOUG HTS ABO UT PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS
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I n m y mind p sychosynthesis doesn't defme a body o f techniques-it defrnes
a principle. It's different from traditional therapy, in the very least, in the way
the therapist sees the client. The therapist always has bifocal vision, always

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sees the I or the Self or the soul of the elient. While I may use techniques that
lo ok like those the p sychoanalyst down the road might use, I see my client
differently and hold that differently. I don't see him or her as their problem-l

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don't p athologize them. I see them as a soul in search of realization. It does
make a difference in the kinds of interventions you use , though the bulk of
your work may b e very similar.

Our center is more likely to attract elients over a wider range of

developmental stages because of our c10se connection with the mental health
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field here. We recently added to our staff someone who has a specialty in
working with disabilities and with incest perpetrators. One of my hopes for
p sychosynthesis is that it gets to be another counseling m odality, that it's not
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something big and special. The more it gets into the mainstream , the more it
wi11 have an impact. I fear for the tendency to make p sychosynthesis special.
1t's one of our distortions that we make ourselves special. But I 'm a bit of a
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cynic.

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I It's true that its not just another approach. It is larger than other
approaches. Psychosynthesis also has a developmental frame . lt's not j u st a

I body of techniques. lt's a philosophy, a world view, a way of seeing the world.
It's a finger pointing to the moon , to use a Zen term .

I In it's distortion, it becomes a transpersonal p sychology and just addresses

that level. But Assagioli made it all inclusive. He talks about a personal ievel
and spiritual ievel of p sychosynthesis. Therefore p sychosynthesis can "treat"

I p sychological needs at every level of the spectrum, up to the doors of the great
mystery. If it had only it's esoteric nature , it would not be available to the
common person, and that would be a problem. It may speak a higher truth

I than Gestalt therapy does, but if it impacts only on the twelve people who can
play at that level of esotericism , what's the point?

I don't want p sychosynthesis to be elitist or special in a way that excludes

I people who don't play with the language that way. That's why I want it to be for
everyone who needs counseling and p sychotherapy, not just for people who can
talk about spiritual concepts. I recently had a client who terminated after four

I months of p sychotherapy ask me in the last session if I knew anything about

p sychosynthesis. I realized that she never heard that term in our therapy. She
didn't come to me because she knew I was a p sychosynthesist. She came to me

I because she heard of me as a therapist. I said, "Yes, that's what l 've been
doing." Something I learned long ago in p sychosynthesis is that you have to
speak the clients language .

I I have a hard time finding fault with anything Assagioli said, at the level of
principles, although much of his practical stuff is outmoded. His article on

I women and psychosynthesis had serious problems. But at the level of

principles of the nature of the psyche , and of human development, I still go
back to him more than anyplace else.

I At The Trainers Forum ! a discussion was held about creating an organizing

body, and if we had one, who could we let in and who couldn't we let in. This
discussion even comes up in terms of The Trainers Forum-who gets to attend

I the meeting and who doesn't? And who decides, and how do we decide who
decides? While these are all valid questions, my hope is that we err on the side

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of being too open, too likely to be floppy at our edges, too likely to have
untrained people representing p sychosynthesis than the other end of that
spectrum . That comes from my own personal experience of what happens when

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specialness gets a hold.

The cult phenomenon is very, very big in this country now. The tendeneies
toward cult-like b ehavior are all pervasive in groups with a spiritual origin , and

I I don't want p sychosynthesis to do that again , or to do it covertly. The

hierarchical structure in training organizations, the tendeneies to disseminate
information from the top down, and the tendency towards centralization

I frightens me.

I 1 See Jean Guenther

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I want psychosynthesis to have an impact. I want psychosynthesis to have
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a punch. Someone I know mentioned that he wished the book that was written
was not titled
Balls."
A Psychology with a Soul (Hardy, 1 987) , but "A Psychology with
I think it's true that p sychosynthesis doesn't have much of a punch. I
Gestalt has much more of a punch. As a therapist I hold a psychosynthesis
philosophy, and l use psychosynthesis techniques, but I act more like a Gestalt
therapist. I 'm more there for what is, not just for what could b e , not for the
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subtitles, but eyeball to eyeball, aware of the cues the client is putting out,
more presence , more aliveness.
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Psychosynthesis can sometimes be too ethereal, too ephemeral, too

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imagination-directed, too intuition-directed, too spirituality-directed , and not
enough life-directed , body-directed . It has no answer to the body. It hasn't
much confronted the lower chakras. When I went through my training we never

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ever talked about sex until we hired someone to come in and do a workshop
about sex. Gestalt therapists don 't beat around the bush. They don't play into
the mystery of life. That's what I like about them. Jungians play into the

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mystery of life even more than psychosynthesists.

In terms of immanence and transcendent, I think it is only by being

immanent that we can transcend. We cannot disidentify from that with which
we have never identified . Personalities are good things. Egos are good things.
It's important in psychosynthesis that we keep weU aware that we work with
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egos, not as if we didn't have them .

Please keep in mind that I don't have a very current relationship with most I
practitioners of psychosynthesis. A fair share of what I 'm saying refers to my

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own experience of being trained , and being with trainers ten years ago . Now a
days we come together at trainers conferences and I get their brochures and
they get mine, but I don't really know what they're teaching or what they're

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doing. I haven't seen Tom Yeomans do a session since he did one with me
many years ago , so I don't know what his therapy is like. I assume it's different
because I assume everybody changes.

In the swing against the distoruon of transpersonalizing, I think

p sychosynthesis has moved to a distoruon of prepersonalizing. l think we have
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leapt with great fury into the lower unconscious and have corrected our
imbalance, and over corrected it. What l see in some of my trainees, and l
assurne they have learned this distoruon at my hands, is that they have a hard
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time letting somebody be without lower unconscious dilemmas. lf somebody
comes in and speaks from a fairly centered place , my students are like
detectives looking for the hole in the ego that wi11 leak into the prepersonal.
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That is a distoruon l have swung to , and am now trying to balance .

One of the things l like about psychosynthesis is that it doesn't answer I

questions about an afterlife. Assagioli had the gre at discipline to not allow his
own spiritual work to contaminate his p sychological theory. Everything is
centered around this lifetime. A wonderful thing about our training program I
has been that we've worked with Sufis, Mormons, nuns, priests, a rabbi, and
so on. l think that is p sychosynthesis' greatest gift. A question which is often
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Do rothy F i r m a n ' s Story

I asked is: "Does psychosynthesis believe in reincarnation?" The answer has to

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b e , no, psychosynthesis doesn't, anywhere in its literature , posit something
about that. And it doesn't have to in order to work. As long as we keep it a
p sychology, it's going to be very profound because it won't exc1ude anybody.

I We need to be conscious of elitist tendencies that operate in every

organization. We need to be aware that we are white. We are mostly
heterosexual. We are far more women than we are men. These things should be

I known. We have to ask ourselves , "Why are we white?" We don't know the
answer now, but we should be con cern ed with the question.

Psychosynthesis is unique in the field of transpersonal p sychology in that

I it's the most comprehensive , articulated system. Within humanistic psychology
there is transactional analysis, Gestalt, and a number of other c1early

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articulated , named theories. But can you name another transpersonal
p sychology? In that regard psychosynthesis is different, at least so far, because
its an articulated , comprehensive system , and the rest is just theory about the

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field of transpersonal psychology.

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Steven Schatz's Story

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Steve n Schatz's Sto ry
I Date of birth May 1 4 , 1 952
Formal education:
I B .A. in Music Composition, and in Early Childhood Education from the
University of Maryland
Current professional activities: Full-time private practice in

I psychosynthesis/ Music and Imagery; Founder and Director of Synthesis

Education Foundation: conducts seminars , workshops and trainings for
professionals and aspiring professionals in Music and Imagery and

I p sychosynthesis.
Date of interview: June 1 1 , 1 987.
Place of interview: Steven's home i n Winchester, Massachusetts

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I 've always had an interest in working with elements of the human p syche,

I attempting to bring them into some kind of harmony. This interest correlates
with an attraction toward things of a spiritual nature. When I was young, I
deeply questioned the realities of God and human life on planet Earth and

I attempted to find some kind of pattem, in the human realms in particular.

I was also interested in music. I started to play piano when I was about ten

I or eleven. I mainly improvised and composed. As a young adult I made my

living as a musician and composer.

I also studied a variety of forms of meditation with different teachers and

I teachings. My intensive work in meditation began when I was eighteen. Prior to

that I had studied yoga. I still meditate .

I As I got older I began to seek ways of working more directly with the
human psyche. I studied Gestalt therapy in the Washington, D . C. area. There
were some fine people there doing Gestalt in a revolutionary way. I gained a lot

I from that experience , but still desired something that would touch on the
spiritual re alm more directly. Many of the Gestalt people were open to the
spiritual in the sense of being here now, but it didn't go much further for a lot

I of them .

I had an astrology reading from someone in Baltimore when I was nineteen,

and he said, "You should read Roberto Assagioli's book Psychosynthesis. You'd

I really get tumed on by that." Within the year I did read it, and it seemed
interesting to me but it was somewhat boring. I didn't go "Wowl" But then
about a year after that, in 1 97 2 , when I was in college at the University of

I Maryland, I continues working to fmd a way to combine my work in music, my

interest in meditation , and my interest in p sychology into one whole. I was
maj oring in music composition, as well as early childhood education.

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STU DYI N G M U S IC AND I MAG ERY

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One of my c1assmates said, "You should meet Helen Bonny who works at
The Maryland Psychiatric Research Center." I met her and found out that she
was working with a number of people , like Stan Grof and John Lilly and others,
who were into things that totally turned me on. And she was working with
music in a way that I liked. I
I studied with her at her then-forming Institute for Consciousness and
Music. She had a copy of Synthesis, the flrst psychosynthesis journal that
came out. It deepened my understanding of psychosynthesis. I continued
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working with guided imagery and music. This was a very seminal event
b ecause it was a way of bringing together the three main interests in my life.
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Yet I wasn't fulfilled because the way I was being taught to work with

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people's consciousness was basica1ly passive . We were taught to help a person
to relax and begin with an image , like walking down some stairs or watching a
river. Then we put on pre-recorded music-usually Western classical-and let
the person's imagery unfold. The person would report what they were
experiencing, and sometimes we would intervene, but we weren't really taught I
what kinds of interventions were appropriate . The sessions were valuable. The
intention was to elicit feelings and sensations and images from the
unconscious, and allow them to move toward their natural place. Looking back I
now, I see defmite interventions we could have taken to move the p syche along
faster and more efflciently.
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STU DYI NG AND PRACTIC I NG PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS

My partner, who became my wife , and I moved to Boston because we had

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some friends here and were ready to settle. One of the flrst people I met was
studying psychosynthesis in Montreal with Martha Crampton. I knew that was
my next step. In 1 975 I began studying there , which at the time was the c10sest
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place to study p sychosynthesis. There were people from the California Institute
who came out to help with the training.
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I learned how to work with the psyche in a way that was very profound,
simple and effective. I began to incorporate it in my work with music and
imagery. Eventua1ly I fmished my training in Montreal, and then studied with I
Judith and David Bach at The Berkshire Institute. Meanwhile, I continued my
practice and giving trainings and workshops , and that's basically where I am
right now. For a while I traveled around giving workshops, but I stopped that I
b ecause it was taking too much time away from my family.

In 1 977 and the flrst half of 1 978 I considered going to San Francisco to
j oin that crew. As I got c1oser, I began to get a whiff of all this dark energy, an
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incredible control thing. And I b egan to go, "Wait a second!" As I sensed it
getting worse and worse I b egan considering, "Maybe I should take
p sychosynthesis off of my business card. It's not worth it." I was seriously
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considering it, and one day I looked up at the picture of Assagioli I keep on the
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Steven Schatz's Story

I wall of my office , and he was just smiling and laughing: "People! You all are

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playing a game." He was just seeing beyond it, and there was so much j oy. I
saw that this is something we need to go through-and we'll go through it and
we'll come out the other sid e , and all the things that I was always committed to

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in p sychosynthesis, are still what psychosynthesis is, and that's my
psychosynthesis. In faet, it happened that way. The bubble burst. People came
to their senses, people who I now consider good friends. And I think we 're more

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whole because of it.

I would charaeterize my clients as fairly high functioning people , who can

function well in everyday life , and who are looking for personal growth, for a

I higher and a deeper contact with Self. They are looking for more meaning, to
be aware or in with touch with a particular issue, with a relationship , or with a
career decision. Generally speaking my clients are adults. People I work with

I are not in crisis in the usual sense. They may be in a spiritual crisis, but
they're not in crisis in a sense that they're going to commit suicide. I generally
don't work with people who are highly dysfunctional.

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U S I NG M U S I C IN THERAPY

I A lot of people in p sychosynthesis have chosen their own sp ecialty , their

own area of interest. My specialty and interest has always been music. I 've
concentrated on incorporating music into my work. Music adds another level to
I the imagery experience. It helps to move the imagery along, and can be a very
effective tool. Music tends to act like a secondary, and even at times a primary

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guide in that it provides structure for the p syche to express itself. It acts like a
contact point for the psyche, a basis for the imagery to relate to .

The p sychosynthesis training I had allowed me to work with imagery in a

I way that I could help move the dynamics of the p syche along at a much faster
rate than I had been trained previously. With the tools and understandings
that I gained in my p sychosynthesis training, with subpersonalities, with

I working with polarities, with working with synthesis, and attempting to bring
about a dynamic of harmony between the various, often warring parts of the
p syche, it gave me a context in which to work, and some really p owerful tools

I to work with. I 'm much more able to touch the living dynamic of the p syche
than I was previous to my training with p sychosynthesis.

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Music is a tool, an adjunct to the process. Sometimes travelers can't relate
to music, or they relate to it too much, and it gets in the way. They listen too
much to the music and it interferes with the process, and it may be necessary

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to shut it off. Or if someone isn't relating to the music in another way that is
helpful, I won't b e shy to change it. A lot of the music I 've been using lately can
be classified as "New Age" or meditation type music, but l use both Western

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and Eastern classical music as well. I doIi't work much with vocal, at least
English language vocal, lyric music because oftentimes it's very performance
oriente d , and it's too easy for the individual to get into the music , and either

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get nostalgic, or get thinking about it. More often non-vocal music,

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instrumental music, allows that pure experience. Vocal music in a language

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the client doesn't understand can be helpful, because it can provide a sen se of
human feeling that no instrument can.
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To some degree, music is plastic. We can hear it so many different ways.

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That's one of the beauties of music. It's like a Zen mirror, where the teacher
looks at you and you only see yourself. It will reflect back to you what it is you
need to experience.

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REFLECTIO N S ON PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS

In psychosynthesis, our work with the spiritual is meant to be an

outgrowth of a weU defmed and balanced personality. It's not meant to be
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anything else other than that, as least as I can grok it. I think one of the
reasons we got so far off base in the late 1 97 0 's is because we started over­
emphasizing the spiritual. Most of us aren't ready for that. We need to first
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work on our personalities and create good strong vehicles that can contain the
spiritual element of our higher unconscious.
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If you had a vacuum cleaner which was ready for 1 1 0 volts, and you

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plugged it into a 220 volt socket that's meant for the stove, you're going to blow
the circuits to bits. That's kind of like trying to open up a person spiritually
before they have developed to a high level personally. It's very easy to go a little

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crazy with the higher elements coming m. It's going to illuminate everything,
including all the darkness, all the unresolved aspects of the psyche, and the
will has to be ready to deal with that.

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Psychosynthesis is a comprehensive approach to human development. It's

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not eclectic in the usual sense. In other words, psychosynthesis is not a
mishmash. The difference is that we're borrowing from many sources for
techniques and orientation within a very definite framework, and that

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framework is what makes psychosynthesis . It distinguishes it from any other
school of p sychology or human development.
Specifically, we recognize that the human being has a body, feelings, mind,
and a soul or a spirit, and that those four elements comprise what a human
being is. We don't concentrate on any one of these to the exc1usion of the
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others. Maybe eight or ten years ago people would lo ok at us as the people who
were into the spiritual end of things, primarily because that's one of the things
that we bring in that is fresh and different in the world of p sychology. But it's
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not by any means the only aspect that makes us different.
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The word p sychology is a combination of two Greek words. Psyche means
life, breath, or soul. And logos means word, speech, or expression. So if you
think about it, the original word p sychology means "the speech or expression of
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the soul. " Hidden right in front of our noses, there it is. And synthesis comes
from two Latin words meaning to bring together. So p sychosynthesis means "to I
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Steve n Schatz's Story

I bring together the life , the soul." And psychosynthesis, I think, is an attempt to

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bring it together. That's what the "I" is; it's the part of us that has already
brought it together, and is bringing it further together.

I We start with where the person is at, and we go all the way with it. We're
not afraid that we'11 come up with light. l 've met therapists, people who are real

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heavy into abreaction therapy, and they're really afraid of light. They don't
know what to do with it. They don't know what to do if a person comes up with
light in resolution. I think that's sad. On the other hand, l 've met people in

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psychosynthesis, and other orientations as weU, who don't know what to do
with the pain.

I OF PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS MAPS AN D M O DELS

I don't like the term Higher Self. I call it the Essential Self, and when I draw

I my egg diagram , I like to put it right in the center of the "I" because my
conception of the Higher Self is that if there's a Higher Self, there's a lower self.
It gets too much into the old religious way of looking at God-it's too much out

I there. I like to call it the Essential Self because it is what we ultimately are , in
our deepest center of identity. It's ultimately indefinable because it's so much
bigger than we are. Yet at the same time, as a construet, the Essential Self is

I who we are at a very high and deep inner level, and the person, the personality
is one manifestation of the Essential Self. The Essential Self is such a deep and
essential level of identity, it's being is so huge, that I and you and all human

I beings are only manifestations of the Essential Self. I am willing to say that I
am a manifestation of a deep leve1 of identity which I choose to call the
Essential Self. There's the place where our identities meet.

I The Essential Self is not the "I" , even though l 've put it in the center of the
diagram. It's as if the "I" is the clearest manifestation of the Essential Self

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within the personality. But it doesn't comprise the wholeness or entirety of the
Essential Self. In fact, if I could diagram in three dimensions, I would like the
diagram to indicate that the Essential Self covers the entire egg, and more. It's

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at the center, and it's bigger than the whole thing. And the "I" ultimately is not
as big as the Essential Self, but covers the whole diagram.
And I don't like to refer to the unconscious. I like to call it the not-yet­

I conscious. And I don't like to call it the higher unconscious; I like to refer to the
higher part of the not-yet-conscious mind. And honestly, I prefer not even to
call it the higher, lower, and middle. I just haven't thought of new names yet.

I Because again, lower implies, to many people , bad, and higher good. And that's
simply not true. The lower is where we store our past and our pain from the
past. But it's also where we store everything that we've lecuned in the past,

I particularly instinctual energies. So I would not say that the lower self is just a
reservoir of our heebie-jeebies, our trunk of things that go bump in the night.
It's not just that. Rather, it comprises our biological wisdom, a simple and
I profound knowing.

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When we go into the lower not-yet-conscious, what we usually fmd is a
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child who's feeling real out of touch because his or her Mommy and Daddy
aren't responding to the child the way that he or she needs them to . Now is that
child not "spiritual?" Of course he or she is spiritual. And the numinous
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energies of the higher not-yet-conscious mind need that nesting place. They are
numinous but they do not stand alon.e. I have worked with people over the
years and have found that creating a healthy relationship with that child is
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absolutely essential to a grounding of the "higher" energies. So it's one whole
thing. How can we separate it?
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Maybe what we've defmed as the higher not-yet-conscious mind is the more

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resolved aspects of the psyche. When I talk about the egg in my c1asses, I
always say that it's past, present, and future . What we hold onto from our past
is what we're still working on. What's aJtready resolved we don't make a big deal

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of. It's already resolved . Maybe , because we tend to be optimists , the future is
always grand and glorious. We look out in the future and, wow, there's this
vista, and it's excitingl If we look at the future through the eyes of the

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unresolved child , however, it's scary. If we look at the future from the "I" , from
the center, it's neutral to positive . I guess it all depends on where we 're looking
at it from.

I feel very strongly that we must not equate the "I" , the center, with the
higher not-yet-conscious mind. The "I" can manifest in ali levels of the p syche ,
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and ultimately is, in fact, all ievels of the psyche. When I draw the egg, I never
draw solid lines between the three parts. I always draw dotted lines because I
feel that it's all one fluid thing. It's not like we have three boxes. We have those
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dotted lines because we need a certain demarcation for purposes of functioning
in the world. If our past was constantly bubbling up into the present in a very
inappropriate way, we'd be p sychotic. In many ways that's one defmition of
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p sychotic-not able to distinguish. We need to have a certain demarcation, but
it's very fluid. As a person gets more healthy, or more and more at a level of
synthesis, then those demarcations can get less and less solid, and more and
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more and more fluid .

Ultimately I 'd like to think of the egg as a greenhouse. The b ottom part, the I
lower unconscious mind , is where all this lovely compost has been dumpe d ,
and it's now just beautiful, rich, dirL It's harboring these wonderful nutrients
that are being used by the roots of this great plant. The stem and leaves are the I
middle unconscious , and the flowers the higher unconscious. The p syche is
thus like a hot house.

I don't think we need to help our clients be high. We need to help out
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clients b e free. In that freedom there can be high and there can be low. But
they're free. And in that freedom, there is c1arity, purpose , and power, b eyond
high and low.
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Steven Schatz's Story

I LOO KI N G AHEAD IN PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS

I I b elieve that p sychosynthesis is at the stage of maturation of a young

adult. I 'd like to see us continue to develop solid expressions of what our work
is-specifically, to publish more written material, as well as tapes, that are

I documents of what psychosynthesis is. I 'd like to see it become more grounded.

I 'd like to see us come together in a new way, and I think that's already
starting to happen. I think the meeting in Italy in 1 988 will be an important

I grounding point for that. I feel that we 're going to meet in a new way-not like
in the Jim Vargiu days of, "We 're great together and everybody else stinks, and
we got the whole message ;" and not in the way of "We 've been through this
I terrible experience together and let's huddle against the cold;"-but rather in a
way of coming together as individuals who have something to contribute to the
whole.

I I 'd also like to see p sychosynthesis get more into other fields more fully. We
can see it moving into education. Some people are moving into organizational

I development. I 'd like to see a continued expansion into other areas , inc1uding
the political. But frrst we have to get our own house in order.

I 've had people come into my training program who are not trained

I therapists, who are interested in working with people, or are already working
with people in other ways. I think that is a good thing. But I don 't want to see it
get too popularized, too diluted. It can become too pat, too much of a formula. I
I think it's important that we have some general standards for training. At the
same time I think it's important we let in people from all walks of life who are
interested in working with people from a whole perspective.
I I wouldn't want to make up rules regarding who should be e1igible for
p sychosynthesis training. Some people will come into the training with

I thousands of things under their arms-Gestalt, behavioral, primal , who knows

what else. Other people will come in with nothing. Out of those two people,
who's going to make the better therapist? We don't know. What comprises a

I real therapist? I know people who have been through the whole training to be a
p sychiatrist, and they aren't real therapists. I let people into my training who,
as Hypocrites says, will do no harm , because I sense it, I see it in their lives.

I That's a prerequisite. But I wouldn't want to set any other kinds of

prerequisites. I think too many prerequisites would be a step b ackward for
p sychosynthesis.

I Somebody may come around, as Vargiu tried to do, and say, "l am
p sychosynthesis. No one cometh unto p sychosynthesis but through me."

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Maybe someone will try to do that again. I 'd be interested to see what we do
with that. But maybe we 've already been through our dark night of the soul, as
least for the frrst hundred years. We truly have only begun.

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David Bach's Story

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David Bach' s Sto ry
I Date of birth: February 2 6, 1 923
Formal education: M . S . from the Universidad Mayor de San Andres
I Current professional activities: Teaching psychosynthesis in Gennan
countries and at The Psychosynthesis Institute of New York; private
speaking

practice.

I Place of interview: David's home in

Date of interview: June 1 9 , 1 987
Monterey, Massachusetts.

I Originally I was in Reichian training analysis and then I started my

practice as a Reichian and specialized in dream work. However, Reichian

I therapy left something to be desired for me. It was very effective in manY ways,
but there was something missing. I wasn't dear about what that was until I
read Assagioli's book. It was, of course, the transpersonal element which I had

I been searching for. Something clicked. Psychosynthesis fllled a void for me,
both personally and professionally.

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My wife , Judy, was planning to be a Jungian analyst. We received a letter
from the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis, from Martha Crampton,
inviting us for a program. So we went up to Montreal, starting in 1 974, and

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had three years training with Martha.

In 1 978 Judy and I founded The Berkshire Center for Psychosynthesis. We

started a training program here in Monterey, Massachusetts with the idea of

I eventually opening a center in New York. We always had the idea that we would
get enough people from New York to fonn a core to start a center there . Will
Friedman, Judy's son, who had been trained at The Kentucky Center for

I Psychosynthesis with John Parks, was also on our staff here in Monterey.

In 1 98 1 we had enough people to start the New York group . It began very

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slowly. l In 1 984 Judy and I dedded to stop all training here and just keep our
involvement in the New York Institute. We each still have our private practices
here, and occasionally will do a workshop here for the New York Institute.

I Right now I do quite a bit of training in Europe . I go to Switzerland ,

Gennany, an d Austria, an d train people. There are n o p sychosynthesis centers
as yet in those countries , but there are groups of interested people. I go there

I about three or four times a year and stay in each place from ten days to two
weeks.

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Judith and I each have our own styles. Basically she's more heart centered ,
and I 'm more head centered. The heart i s there, but I 'm more head centered .
And with her, the head is there, b u t she's more heart centered. She has a more

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female approach, and I a male approach.

1 See Will Friedman's Story for details about the Psychosynthesis Institute of New

I York.

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KARM I C PSYCH O LOGY

My particular interest is in the field of karmic psychology, although I don't I

talk much about it. I approach it as an extension of psychosynthesis will work.
Once you recognize what you 're about, where you come from , you know where
you have to go . You can handle your destiny in two ways. Either you can find I
out what it is and do it, or you can get kicked in the behind by it, as most of us
do. The concept of dharma fits in here. When you begin to do your dharma, you
know it. There's a sense of deep serenity and j oy that goes with that. But until I
people connect with that, they are , in a sense, moving along their life path,
automatically resolving or increasing their karmic debt. So resolution of karmic
pattems happens when you do what you 're supposed to do, which presupposes
I
that there is something prior to your birth that holds some knowledge. Past life
therapy is part of this.

The basic law of karmic resolution-that is, if people want to resolve their
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karma-there's a very simple thing they can do: Give to others what you didn't
get. If you didn't get security as a child , give security. If you didn't get love as a
child , give love .
I

THE U N IQ U E N ES S O F PSYCHOSYNTH ESIS

I
A beauty o f psychosynthesis i s that i t has a defmitive framework. Some
people talk about it as if it's a mishmash of techniques or something. It is not I
that at all . It has a very definitive framework within which a great many
techniques are possible. There's a real structural c1arity which I don't think
m any people outside of psychosynthesis understand. It's both very well I
structured and at the same time flexible , which is totally unique.

The other thing which is so incredible about Assagioli himself is that he left
b ehind a open b ody of ideas that allows other things to come in and b e
I
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incorporated, a s long a s they correspond t o the basic assumptions of the
existence of a Self. A good part of contemporary ego psychology fits right in.
And Wilber, of course.

One advantage of psychosynthesis is that because of its acceptance of the

Higher Self, it can make available higher energies in the process of therapy that
I
help the healing of personality issues. In Reichian work, after deep catharsis ,
you have what i s referred t o a s "streamings" i n the body accompanied b y b ody
sensations and feelings of a powerful, joyous nature. These are c1early of a I
higher vibratory nature and would correspond to energies of the
superconscious. Reich didn't talk about this; he just described the streamings.
And Reich did not approach the superconscious.
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David Bach's Story

I THE N EED FO R PSYCHOANALYS IS

I All major psychologists that have created schools in this century came from
Freud. That's Adler or Jung or Reich or Fromm or Fritz Perls or Frankl. As
somebody once said, "It's easy to look further when you stand on the shoulders

I of a giant.» And Freud was that. This is something Assagioli never forgot in his
respect for Freud . In this country psychosynthesis has lost contact with the
original work of Freud, and with ego psychology nowadays. In the training

I program in New York we have tried to add this dimension.

Psychosynthesis attracts people who are drawn to higher spiritual
endeavors. Frequently it's that attraction, that pulling into the higher spiritual
I sphere , which covers up unresolved personality issues. The escape from the
resolution on the personality level frequently brings people to psychosynthesis
because they're interested in the spiritual aspect of their lives.
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Wi l l Fried man's Story

I
Wil l Friedman ' s Sto ry
I Date of birth:. March 1 8 , 1 955
Formal education:
I B.A. in Psychology from the University of Kentucky
M .A. in Counseling and Human Development from Goddard College
Doctoral Candidate in Political Psychology from the City University of New York

I Current professional activities: Director and trainer of the Psychosynthesis

Institute of New York; private practice of psychotherapy.
Date of interview: March 2 8, 1 987
I Place of interview: Wi1I's office in New York City

I I first heard of psychosynthesis in the mid -seventies from a number of

friends and associates, among them my mother and stepfather, Judith and
David Bach, who were just starting to leam about it. They had been

I professionally involved in psychology, studying Jung and dreamwork, and also

Reich.

I For a number of years I had, through my own meandering and however

the se things occur, begun to get interested in spiritual philosophy, meditation
and so forth. I was in my early twenties and was in a very philosophical frame

I of mind and period of my life , thinking profound young adult thoughts about
the development of humanity, sp irituality, and so forth. When I heard about
p sychosynthesis , it sounded very relevant to a lot of the themes I was thinking

I and reading about, and grappling with in my own mind . It sounded interesting.

I had gone to a junior college and was ready to transfer to a university. I had
been out of school for a few years, dabbling in various things. I wanted to study

I special education at the time , and had worked with emotionally disturbed and
mentally retarded children. This was my first human service experience and I
found it meaningful, creatively exciting, and personally moving. After a couple of

I years of this I decided to go back to school to study special education and get
some credentials so I could make a decent living at it.

I For my last two years of undergraduate study I went to the University of

Kentucky for a number of reasons, some personal and some professional, and
also because there was a psychosynthesis center in Lexington. I was interested

I in checking it out a little bit more, so

center. I took the workshop in 1 977
I took a basic workshop at the Kentucky
and found it very exciting. It was taught by
Lenore Lefer and Forest Tate from the California Institute. I got a lot out of it­

I it was my first intensive therapeutic experience and the experiential exercises

opened up a lot of material for me. I enj oyed the people , the ideas, and the
spirit in which it was presented . I found it to be meaningful, practical, and

I creatively stimulating.

I started the professional training program in Lexington in January, 1 978.

I
People associated with the old California Institute came i n o n a monthly b asis
to teach it, and it continued to feel very natural, useful, and meaningful. The

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

following summer I worked as a kind of general manager for the summer

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program of Martha Crampton's Montreal Institute and was able to attend all
the trainings. Then I went back to Kentucky and fmished my undergraduate
work, where I had shifted to the psychology department, and I continued my
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p sychosynthesis training.
At that point The Berkshire Center, which had been started by Judith and I
David, had been going for a year. I moved back to the Berkshires and began

I
assisting there, helping to develop the program. I did that for a couple of years
while I continued to train with the California Institute's East Coast Trainings.
They'd come in and do intensive summer trainings, monthly supervision, and
so forth. Mter two years I wanted to move, mostly for personal reasons. I
wanted to live in a city and I had a romantic interest which drew me to New I
York, which later culminated in marriage. And professional1y, there was the

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possibility of developing something. Psychosynthesists from -various places had
been trying to establish something in New York for a long time. Earlier, there
had been The Psychosynthesis Research Foundation which Assagioli had
started, but it never was a training center and it had stopp ed operating in the
mid -seventies. I
THE PSYC HOSYNTHESIS I N STITUTE O F N EW YO RK I
So I was ready to move some place, and New York was one of my options.
The Berkshire Center had a number of graduates in New York and all the
pieces came together for starting an institute. In late 1 980 I moved to the city,
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and a group of us began to organize the opening of the Psychosynthesis
Institute of New York. It was a feel-your-way process since we had never done
such a thing before. Judith and David were part of the founding group , coming
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periodically to do the training, but were not part of the day to day operation.
We're now completing our sixth year of operation, moving toward our third I
graduating dass, and se em to have stabilized our enrollment at a good level.
We have about thirty-five total trainees over three years and we're beginning to
train graduates as new staff. New York is a competitive environment-there's a I
lot going on so it's hard to stand out and get known. We're trying to target in on
specific professional or dient areas that might be interested in what we have to
offer, fmd ways of reaching them, and do short training pieces for them-for I
pastoral counselors, for p eople involved in Alcoholic Anonymous groups , and
for other specific populations.
I would like to see more of a relationship with other professional
I
therapeutic disciplines. The professional psychoanalytic community in New
York is a strong boundaried community that's hard to break into. Some of my
personal interests and writings are meant not only to be useful to the
I
p sychosynthesis community, but also to provide bridges to those in the
p sychoanalytic community who might be interested in what we're doing. I've
gotten a little bit of feedback that it's starting to happen here and there. We
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have quite a few students with psychoanalytic training in their backgrounds-
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21 6
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Wi l l Fried m a n ' s Story

I therapists, sodal workers , P sychologists , and so forth-but it's an ongoing

challenge to create more of a dialogue with the psychoanalytic community. I 've

I also been trying to develop more theory which would bridge psychosynthesis
with contemporary psychoanalytic ego psychology, obj ect relations, and so
forth.
I It was my experience that just being intuitive wasn 't helping with all my
c1ients. I got into binds with some of them in which I needed more c1arity.

I That's how I got interested in the literature concerned with working with
borderline and narcissistic personality structures, and how we need to modify
our technique to work with such c1ients , just as psychoanalysts do.

I
PSYC HOSYNTH ESIS AN D THE TRANS PERSO NAL

I A short definition of psychosynthesis might be: A school of psychology

based on the work of Roberto Assagioli that integrates Western analytic depth
psychology and Eastern meditative or psycho-spiritual "height" psychology into

I a relatively comprehensive approach to human growth and development. To

expand, I would say that Assagioli was building a bridge between mainstream
Western psychological schools, p articularly psychoanalysis and psychiatry­

I which he felt were valuable and insightful within their domain, but limited as
to the entire range of human experience and non-inc1usive of the spiritual
dimension of human existence-and the spiritual traditions in as practical a

I way as he could.

He took the notion of repression, which psychoanalysis developed, and

I said , "Yes , that's absolutely true . We do repress basic needs, drives , and
impulses of a sexual and aggressive nature, and that creates problems. But
similarly, we also repress spiritual needs, drives , and impulses , " and he

I developed the "repression of the sublime" concept (Haronian, 1 972).

He took p sychological terminology and models and enlarged the map to
inc1ude existential and spiritual concerns. I think he developed one of the

I simplest, most elegant, and most practical integrative systems spanning the
personality and the transpersonal psychologies. There are a number of others­
Jung is a prime example , with whom Assagioli felt a great kinship . There are
I some theoretical differences which, although significant, I wouldn't call maj or. I
find psychosynthesis techniques and maps a bit more practical and easier to
apply, either to myself or to clients. But the general thrust is similar.
I More recently there is the development of transpersonal p sychology as a
movement, with a journal and so forth, with Maslow and other people getting it

I going. Now people like Stan Grof and Ken Wilber are leading the way,
developing this fie1d further. I 've heard that Assagioli did distinguish
psychosynthesis from transpersonal p sychology early on in the transpersonal

I p sychology movement (this is a second hand story) . He did this b ecause he felt
that the whole point of psychosynthesis is that it isn't exc1usively
transpersonally oriented-that it also deals directly with the p ersonality. He

I didn't want the label of transpersonal psychology, so I 've heard, because he

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didn't want to de-emphasize the importanee of working with the personality
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level.

One of the things l fmd most valuable about p sychosynthesis is that it goes I
out of its way not to deny either the personality work that needs to be done , or

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the spiritual exploration that needs to be done. It tries to fmd out where the
individual is. Thus Assagioli has the concepts of the personal and the
transpersonal-or personal and spiritual-phases of psychosynthesis. His

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notion was that personal psychosynthesis should either precede or be
concurrent with transpersonal p sychosynthesis, that strong involvement in
spiritual pursuits is safe st, most meaningful, and least distorted when it rests
upon the foundation of a relatively well-integrated personality-where a person
knows himself in a personal sense, knows somewhat how to deal with their I
emotional life, and so forth.

The direction transpersonal p sychology is taking lately, particularly with

the work of Ken Wilber, a theoretician who is working on a developmental
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model which bridges from p ersonality development to spiritual development, is
quite simpatico with the general approach of p sychosynthesis. Why
transpersonal p sychology doesn't refer more to p sychosynthesis may be a
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p olitical issue as much as anything else. They also don't refer a whole lot to
Jung, for example in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. l 've heard one
explanation from those people is that they don 't like to focus on any approach
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that is based on the work of a speciflc individual. However, I can't quite relate
to that. I
Because a lot of the transpersonal p sychology-as a movement, the j ournal
and so forth-is centered in San Francisco area, and because of the negative
experience some of them had with the San Francisco Psychosynthesis I
lnstitute's problems in the late seventies and 1 980, there may be left over bad
feelings still hanging on. Wilber, probably the pre-eminent theorist in
transpersonal p sychology, does refer very positively to psychosynthesis in I
places in his work, but there's a lot of other p eople who are not citing Assagioli,
sometimes in places where l think it's incorrect not to . They're drawing on
things that se em so dose and so related to his work that it seems dose to
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improper to not site him , at least as an influence or a parallel source. I would
like to see more p sychosynthesists publishing
Psychology.
in The Journal oj Transpersonal
I'm pleased to see that we 're coming out with more literature of our
I
own in the last few years.

I
H I E RARCHY AND LEVELS OF THE PSYCHE

Another dispute is whether it's appropriate o r correct t o delineate levels

within the psyche, for example to talk about the lower unconscious and the
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superconscious as we do in p sychosynthesis. Some p eople disagree with that;
for example, Jungians tend to be a little uncomfortable with that. Many people
feel that that's moralistic-if the lower unconscious is lower, therefore we're
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saying it's bad, and if the higher unconscious is higher, therefore we're saying

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Wi l l Fried m a n ' s Story

I it's good. People say it's hierarchical, and hierarchy is out of fashion right now

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in those cireIes.
My own fe eling is that many people are picking up on distortions of such a
model, but not whether it's a fairly good approximation of reality. It's one thing

I to say that it can be used in a distorted , moralistic manner-which I think is

true, and there are loads of examples of spiritual top-dogging, and making the
lower unconscious bad, and things like that. That doesn't mean that it's meant

I that way, or that it's incorrect to distinguish those leveIs. Certainly it's just a
model and not reality. Make those levels too distinct and impermeable would go
against human experience, eIinical experience, and so forth. But whether or not
I there are distinguishable levels of consciousness within the psyche is an
important theoretical question. I tend to think there are, and that it's important
to distinguish phenomena of certain levels versus other leveis, so we
I understand what's going on where. If you do it in a spirit of synthesis, as part
of the whole picture, then all the levels are valid, they're all important, and it
all needs to be integrated and accepted.

I Another kind of distortion consists of people playing out their lower

unconscious-their emotional, sexual, narcissistic, unintegrated material­

I
under the guise of something transpersonal. Ken Wilber's artieIe "The
Pre/Trans Fallacy" (Wilber, 1 983, pp. 24 1 -246) is a seminal study of that kind
of confusion, and is consistent with Assagioli's model. There's no question in

I
my mind that there's a lot of confusion that goes on. People will call
transpersonal phenomena "regressive, P sychotic , pre-egoic material." And
other people will call regressive, impulsive, acting out "transpersonal

I
expression" simply because they're not being restricted by their egos; they're
"expressing themselves."

I THE DEVELOPM ENT O F MORE PSYC HOSYNTHESIS THEORY

Regarding my own attempts to develop more conceptual theol}', the

I community as a whole has been fairly receptive to my work. On the basis of an

artieIe I wrote, l and a lecture I gave at the international conference in Toronto
in 1 983, l've gotten a lot of jobs teaching this material all over-London,
I Montreal, Boston, California, New Mexico, Kentucky, Toronto. It's presented in
a practical, but fairly strong conceptual manner. I think there is a hunger in
the community for more solid , practical, theoretical material to augment the
I wonderful attitude, spirit, and quality that psychosynthesis tends to engender.
People are receptive to this particular integration with the psychoanalytic
material l've been working on, and in general with being more conceptually
I eIear. It's useful for those times when the intuitive flow doesn't carry us
through. I j ust tried to add some theoretical distinctions and principles, some
modifications of technique to the p sychosynthesis framework and attitude.
I
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1 "Psychosynthesis, Psychoanalysis, and the Emerging Deve10pmental Perspective in

Psychotherapy," in Weiser, 1984.

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As one of the people that's b een working on bridging with contemporary
I
p sychoanalytic theory and practice-people like Kernberg, Kohut, Masterson,
Mahler, and so forth, that strand of clinical practice-I see that work very
much in the tradition of Assagioli, who I believe inc1uded the best that
I
p sychoanalysis had to offer in his day. He inc1uded , with a little modification,
Freud 's concept of the unconscious , and a lot of his other concepts and
techniques. I see that some of the work I 've been doing as bringing that up to
I
date.

The intermingling with other clinical areas is something that's been done I
som e , and could certainly be done more. There's more to do with the

I
psychoanalysis material that I 've been working on. There are some people who
are marrying psychosynthesis with couples therapy and family systems work,
and so forth. There have been intentions of integrating into it some of the body

I
therapies, movement therapy, dance therapy.

One of the beauties of the psychosynthesis framework is that it's large ,

flexible and inc1usive enough to easily weave in lots of other techniques and
principles-and not in a chaotic sense , but coherently, within a cohesive
framework that distinguishes different levels of work and tries to fme tune to
I
the client.

I
TRAI N I N G

W e have a prerequisite that our students at the Institute have a master's I

degree in a counselingj therapy field, that they have some grounding in the

I
field, or else are in a master's program . We 're not presuming to teach them
from scratch everything about counseling. But nevertheless we still have a very
broad range of students. We have p eople with years and years of clinical

I
experience, and people with pretty much nothing. Even though they may have
an MSW, they may not have really done any therapy.

Since our students have a broad range of backgrounds, we do things to

accommodate that. We have a section during the first year where we separate
the experienced clinicians from the inexperienced people . We teach basic
I
counseling skills to the inexperienced people and we do more case discussions
and sophisticated analyses with the experienced people . It's an educational
challenge.
I
I wouldn't say that psychosynthesis is the big picture , but it's a big picture.
I
There are other large models that are related , but not the sam e . We have to
leave a lot of room for that, and for our model to change , but I think
p sychosynthesis is a good integrative model. I think the question of how to
I
define it is an important one that Teflects b oth the strength and the weakness
of p sychosynthesis. This is stated in the Assagioli interview with Sam Keen
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Wi l l Fried man's Story

I from Psychology Today 2 Keen asks him what the maj or weakness is, and he
replied that it's too indusive. l think it is indusive-it has a spirit of synthesis.
I It's a large model. But lf we make it all indusive , it's going to hecome a non­
model. lf we don't set houndaries around it somehow, and tty to defme it,

I
there's no creative tension within it to develop. lf it's that hroad, why not just
call it the history of human thought? There is a dialectic hetween having some
boundaries and defmition, and yet having an open system that continues to

I
develop.

I think it's dangerous to say that p sychosynthesis is plugged in to a

universal principle more than other p sychologies, and if the other things work,

I they're really doing p sychosynthesis. That seems too grand , or too much in
danger of h ecoming grandiose. If p sychosynthesis is everything, then
everything is everything. From the perspective of enlightenment, perhaps that's

I true , that everything is one. But from the point of view of hecoming, of where
we seem to be, there seem to he some distinctions between things.

On the other han d , if we 're trying to capture , descrihe , and work with
I something that's alive , creative , and evolving when we 're working with
p sychosynthesis, if we're ttying to work with human nature , human evolution,

I
spiritual growth, and so forth, there's a1ways the danger of crystalizing,
concretizing, and deadening the system . You see this happen in many systems
over time . They hecame so limited hy certain conceptual haggage that they stop

I
growing and they lose some kind of creative development. There is a sense of
not wanting that to happen in p sychosynthesis. As a counter action we tend to
not limit it in any way, which may he an over-reaction, hut it's an important

I
concern.

I
O RGANIZI NG THE PSYCHO SYNTH ESIS CO M M U N ITY

I think there's room for some kind of a networking association or

organization that would facilitate conferencing, puhlications , sharing of

I resources, j ournals, sharing of ideas, and so forth, hut not an organization with
any kind of political dout, any kind of sanctioning power. First of all , the
community would never stand for that after what happened in California.

I Secondly, it was not Assagioli's wish or intention. The metaphor he laid out for
the p sychosynthesis movement is that it should not he like a solar system
revolving around a sun, hut rather like a constellation of stars all moving

I through the universe together (Assagioli, 1 98 1 ) . So he thought there should not

he a central, organizing power.

I
It would take a very dedicated individual with a lot of diplomatic and
organizational skills to create something like that. I don't think that it's
essential that this happen, hut it would he helpful. The conferences are

I
occurring, hut in a haphazard way. They're hased on the initiative of a

I
2"The Synthetie Vision: A Conversation with Roberto Assagioli," reprinted in Keen,
1974, pp. 199-2 18.

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particular institute or individual, and there can be too long a time between I
conferences. We don't need an international conference every year, perhaps,
but it's been five years since the last one, 3 and that's a little long for the state
of maturity of the community. And anything that will facilitate more literature
I
com ing out would be a useful contribution.
In terms of psychosynthesis gaining more access to , acceptance by, and
having more impact on the professional c1inical community, I think the theory
I
has to be developed with more rigor and defmition. The experiential part has
been weU developed and is attractive to many people. I would like to see more I
rigorous theoretical, practical, and applied literature. I think that's important

I
for us as a community, and also important in order for us to communicate with
other professionals. I 'd like to see more case studies in the literature because
they communicate and demonstrate the unique value of psychosynthesis better
than maily other things. People love to read them, and they show the value in a
concrete way, but there's very little case material published. I
I
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3 1983 in Toronto
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Thoug hts on Four Controvers i a l Iss ues

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3 2. Tho ughts o n Four Controversial l ss u es
I Four issues were uppermost in my mind when I conducted the interviews.
These are perhaps the most hotly debated areas within the psychosynthesis

I community. I culled through the interviews, gathering relevant quotations on

each issue and organizing them into categories. The following pages are an
attempt to bring some organization to the discussions on the se four topics.

I However, the following pages in no way reflect the complexity or depth of

thought found in the stories.
A) Trying to define or delineate the nature of psychosynthesis.
I B) Thoughts about the "Higher Self' .
C) Thinking about establishing standards of training and certification in
I psychosynthesis.
D) Reflections on the causes of the degeneration of The Psychosynthesis

I
Institute in California.

A) TRYI N G TO D E F I N E OR D E LI N EATE TH E NATU R E OF PSYC H O SYN TH E S I S

Roberto Assagioli (1 982) wrote:

Psychosynthesis is not a doctrine or a 'school' of psychology; it is not a
special or single method of self-realization, therapy, education,
interpersonal and social (group) relations and integration.
I It can be indicated (I do not use the word 'define, ' because all definitions
are limited and limiting) primarily as a general attitude of, and striving
towards, integration and synthesis in all fields, but particularly in those just
I mentioned. It might be called a 'movement', a 'trend' and a 'goal . ' There is
no orthodoxy in psychosynthesis and no one , beginning with myself, should
be considered as its exclusive representative or leader. Each of its
I exponents tries to express and apply it as well as he or she is able to, and
all who read or listen to the message, or receive the benefit of the use of the
methods of psychosynthesis can decide how successful any exponent has
I been or will be in expressing its 'spirit. ' (Assagioli, 1 98 1 ) .

Two difficulties anse i n trying to define or "indicate" the nature of

I psychosynthesis. First is that there are actually a number of different conceptions
ofpsychosynthesis, most of them being quite acceptable to most members of the
psychosynthesis community. The other problem is that psychosynthesis is

I continually evolving, incorporating new theones and methods. Assagioli

specifically intended it to be this way.
The diffenng notions ofpsychosynthesis found in the interviews are nch and
I vaned. I have med to duster them into a few definitions. Be advised that this in
no way does justice to the nchness and depth which are expressed in the
actually interviews.
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Below are five definitions ofpsychosynthesis, with relevant edited quotations I
following:

• Psych osynthesis is a holisti c perslpective or fra mework for un dersta n d i n g I

h u m a n nature.

Psychosynthesis is a perspective or framework more than anything. The

depth comes from the holistic perspective. The power and the great beauty
I
of this approach is that it has that perspective of wholeness, as it's evolved
to this day. - Crampton I
Psychosynthesis is a way of looking at things, of being aware or
conscious. It's a way of establishing resonance and of taking active
responsibility for our life . It has the potential for behig tremendously I
creative. - King

• Psych osynthesis is a com preh ensive psychology wh ich i ntegrates the best of I
modern Western psychology a n d the psychologies of va rious spi ritua l a n d
p h i losophical tra ditions o f both East and West.

A short definition of p sychosynthesis might b e : a school of p sychology

I
based on the work of Roberto Assagioli that integrates Western analytic
depth p sychology and Eastern meditative or p sycho-spiritual "higher"
p sychology into a relatively comprehensive approach to human growth and
I
development. To expand, I would say that Assagioli was building a bridge
b etween mainstream Western p sychological schools, particularly
p sychoanalysis and p sychiatry-which he felt were valuable and insightful
I
I
within their domain, but limited as to the entire range of human experience
and non-exc1usive of the spiritual dimension of human existence- and the
spiritual traditions in as practical a way as he could. - Friedman

I like to defme p sychosynthesis as a p sychology that incorporates most of

the aspects of traditional p sychology, but also indudes the spiritual. It
I
inc1udes the concept of the Self, or Being- who I really am- as opposed to
being a compilation of various forces in my psyche, like Freud talked about,
the id , the ego , and the superego. I se em to be a Being who is more than
I
that compilation. - Horowitz

The way I hold p sychosynthesis is that it's a comprehensive m odality or I

psychology. In it I have put Gestalt work, Jungian work, dreamw.ork, all my

I
group experience , and everything that I know. It all fits into this way of
thinking about the individual or about human nature. - Lefer

I
• Psych osynthesis is a set of pri ncipl es for workin g with the personality to
fac i l itate i ts g rowth a n d development toward greater m aturity, self­
expression, a n d transcen dence.

I think that sometime in the future we won't use the term p sychosynthesis
because there will b e a general understanding in the population of the
I
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Thoug hts on Four Controvers i a l Iss ues

I principles that Assagioli pointed out-the se general principles of synthesis,

and understanding Self and integrating it, and meditating.

I Take Thomas Gordon's book on Parent Effectiveness Training. That came

out when I was a mother. I read that and said, 'Oh, wonderfull ' because it
gave me some structure , something I could hang my hat on. It consists of

I general useful guidelines that parents can remember. It's a model that
works. But someday, hopefully, more and more parents will be j ust using
them. I think it's important for us in p sychosynthesis to make the principles

I dear and specific for people so they can use them and not have to struggle.
- King

I I now put out the principles of psychosynthesis as an opportunity to

examine something in yourself. It's much less tight theoretically. The
emphasis had not been on theoretical constructs or furthering the ideas,

I except as what's true for me. - Lefer

I relate to p sychosynthesis as principles. - Crampton

I • Psychosynthesis is a way of relati ng to a person wh ich hon ors h i s or h er

personal experi ence a n d sense of self, and thus allowing a deeper a n d more
authentie rea l i zation of the self.
I I see p sychosynthesis as an approach which respects and honors one 's
individual uniqueness and direction. lf something within the p syche is

I blocking one's growth, psychosynthesis can help dear the way toward
allowing the emergence of our next evolutionary step . Thus we more fully
and dynamically express who we essentially are in a way that feels valid,

I real, and true. Each one of us can become more a reflection of the Self that
has previously lain dormant. We can find ways to express our beingness in
life through transpersonal qualities, and by engaging in conscious action.

I - Emmerling

I think the most central element in psychosynthesis is the perception that

something is trying to emerge and the therapist aligns himself with that.

I The therapist doesn't take the person as he present himself as the whole
person.

I
One key difference with p sychoanalysis is that when the ego dissolves ,
the question i s : Is what happens then simply regression, or is there some
intelligence, order, process in the p syche that's b eyond the ego? That's a

I
real fundamental question. Psychoanalysis on the whole has had a negative
attitude toward that question, though there are some who talk about
regression in the service of the ego. But the essence of transpersonal

I
psychology, in general, is the attitude that it's not necessarily a bad thing
for the ego to weaken its hold at times, and to try to orient to something
emerging.

I
Its sort of a Jungian approach too, but I don't think Jung had the
methodology for accessing it, because he didn't go into experience-in-the­
moment, and the analytic style keeps the ego in that position. Its only

I
through going into the experience-in-the-moment that that kind of

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dissolution can happen in the session so that the emerging patterns can I
come through. l think that's central-maybe the most central thing.
l certainly see psychosynthesis in the humanistic-phenomenological
tradition, of focusing on experience , the session being a proeess of going I
through affective experiences within a supportive environment. - Kull

l also see it as a way of holding the individual or the planet or any system ,
s o that there i s an inherent soul o r Self manifesting beyond what's external
I
and visible, and the need to explore or plumb the depths of that. It's sort of
the way the guide holds the c1ient, that there's something more , something
unfolding. - Lefer
I
I feel that one thing that's quite unique about p sychosynthesis work is the
focus on the will . It's something missing in other psychologieal approaehes. I
l feel the only way we can really understanding the wil1 is to experience it
within ourselves. - Emmerling

I think of psyehosynthesis as the soul waking up . It's a proeess of people

I
realizing that they're more than themselves , more than their little selves. - Abbott

• Psych osynthesis is a tra nspersonal psychology a n d psychotherapy.

I
My feeling is that psychosynthesis has become a subdivision of
transpersonal psychology-transpersonal being a term for spiritual I
p sychologies, . . . [and] predominantly a therapy. . . . l don 't see any m aj or
interest in anything else going on. At the 1 983 conferenee in Toronto almost
everyone there made a living as a clinician. They were learning the stuff so
I
they could heal people. And that's fine. But l don't think that's an accurate
representation of the thought form . That's a distillation of the thought form
into one area . . . .
I
lf psychosynthesis took the high road and said, "We are an inc1usive
theory of the Self, and whatever works, therefore , is p art of what we 're
doing," so that [method] that works, that helps increase personal internal
I
and external freedom , and alleviate human suffering, would also b e
inc1uded ; p sychosynthesis could then take its position a s a way of thinking
as humanistie and transpersonal and Freudian tried to do. - Fadiman
I
I
Because we 're human and fallible, we do tend to identify p syehosynthesis
tangibly, with guided imagery and subpersonality work, or something like
that. And to the extent we do that, we do in faet create this little , fmite piece

I
which is u seful, but is only useful for some people in some situations.
People sometime s say to me, " Psychosynthesis is only u seful for some
people. " Yes, as it is commonly practieed, that's true . But I think

I
p sychosynthesis is more than that. l think it is, in the first place , a
comprehensive p sychology which acknowledges that people are at different
places in their development, and have different needs, and that you don't

I
apply the same technique to everybody. lf you 're working with a b orderline
personality disorder, you don't do the same kinds of things you would with
somebody who was going through a spiritual crises. - Brown

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Thoug hts on Four Controve rs i a l Issues

I [Psychosynthesis isj a p sychotherapy which talks about the transpersonal

Self, or spiritual Self, or higher Self, or whatever you want to call it, and

I helps you to connect with it, and to use these energies for transfoITIlation
and so on, so that an individual can be very deeply helped. - Gerard

I To me p sychosynthesis has to do with autonomy and connectedness. None of

us is socialized , or certainly educated, in a way that supports our autonomy. I
think that when p sychosynthesis talks about the development of the self, it is

I really taIking about each person coming into their own experience and having
the skills to test their own experience , and being able to think and leaTIl and
create meaning. This is all p art of the autonomous learning process. lts

I challenging the belief systems, of looking at the belief systems that you 're
carrying from your own family of origin. It's a highly discriminating process of
looking at meanings and beliefs and sorting all that out- and being willing to

I make mistakes and leaTIl from mistakes . . . . - Abbott

I also see it as a transpersonal psychology in working with developing the

spiritual nature, so that the personality or manifestation is a reflection of

I that essential, transpersonal Self. - Lefer

I B . TH D U G H TS ABDUT TH E " H I G H E R S E LF"

The most controversial and intangible concept in psychosynthesis is that of

I
the Higher Self. Other names it goes by are soul, transpersonal Selj, Essential
Selj, Deepest Selj, Atman , and so on. Unless a particular name is used by the
interviewee, I generally refer to it simply as the Self (with a capital S), as

I
distinguishedfrom the self (with a small s), the personal self or ego. Below are
five areas of thought on this subject shared by a number of the interviewees,
followed by relevant quotations from the interviews.

I • The S elf is not a "th i n g ; " rather, it refers to an experience.

Over and over, the interviewees stressed that "we know our Self through

I Thus, all talk of "the Self' is

experience . . . . It's not a separate entity (Guenther) . "
inherently inaccurate. Mark Horowitz emphatically makes tros point:

I
We need a language that reinforces my soulness , rather than splits me off
from my soul. Even talking about "my soul" makes it into an obj ect, and as
soon as it becomes an obj ect, it becomes a thing, it becomes dead. Our

I
language needs to reinforce soulness. . . .
W e could talk about what soul means to us. What's your experience of
soul outside this map and model, or this thing we try to teach about?

I
What's your experience of soulness? How do you experience it? - Horowitz

In discussing the phenomenon of the Self, some people give up , saying,

"Well, it's something we can't describe . " I get suspicious of that, b ecause

I that can be dangerous, too. We have to know the limitations of our

language , and then keep trying, even though we know we 're working with a
limited medium. It's like not taking it so seriously. It's like saying, " 1 '11
describe it this way today, and 1'11 describe it another way tomOITOw. And

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it's okay. I don't have to be consistent because I 'm not writing a

I
mathematical equation here. It's poetic. I don't have to take it so
seriously."- Brown
I
The notion of the Self is j ust a way of expressing it, of framing it. You can

I
also have "no self' as in much Buddhist teachings, and still "no self' is still
Self, in a funny kind of way. - Brown

There are a thousand different ways to talk about the Self. It very much
depends on the context that I 'm in when I think about it. Sometimes I can
think of it in a Jungian frame , sometimes in the Christian sort of sense of
I
soul. It's a combination of that. Inside , outside, Atman. I 'm very much
attracted to Ken Wilber's articulation of Self, although I find some of his
images , like in the Atman Proj ect, hard to get. Sometimes I think of it as an
I
inner kingdom. Each time I sit down and write or think about it, I come up
with something different. I like it poetic rather than philosophical . I get a
flash here and a flash there ; it sort of comes and goes. - O 'Connor
I
I
If a peak experience is when a person is identified with their Higher Se1f,
which it may b e , and there are different sorts of Higher Selves , my p eak
experience might be when I 'm doing something perfectly and everything

I
clicks. Yours might be at the deepest experience of love imaginable.
Someone else's might be a great appreciation of beauty. Or realizing the
truth of your pain, in being tied to humanity as a whole, which I also
consider part of Higher Self-a sense of universal humanity. - Russell

Consciousness is very much a mystery. The degree of consciousness that

I
each of us has available is probably the closest thing to soul. - Haronian

I don't think there are any places where p sychosynthesis is taught without I
the experiential component. It seems essential to me. - Lefer

• The devel opmental view of the Self, or S elf-rea l izati o n . I

I also talk about [psychosynthesis] a s being a p sychology similar to
Maslow's, in terms of self-actualization. In Maslow's terms, it's possible
through p sychology to get to know our deepest and truest self­
I
transcendent self-actualization. - Horowitz

When p sychosynthesis talks about the development of the Self, it is really I

talking about each p erson coming into their own experience and having the
skills to test their own experience, and be able to think and leam and create
meaning. - Abbott I
Some people can go through their lifetime and not connect with their
essential Self, living their life unconsciously. Psychosynthesis is a process
that assists one in becoming more and more conscious. For myself, it's a
I
process of strengthening the sense of who I am , of learning to trust what I
experience, and to have the courage to express it. - Emmerllng
I
I

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Thoug hts o n Fo u r Controve rs i a l l s s ues

I • The spi rit-soul polarity.1

I Some of the interviewees struggled with the notion that there seems to be
two , more or less distinet types of Self experiences; one is more universal,
"heavenly," "high ," of the spirit; the other is more personal, "earthly," "deep ,"

I of the soul.
Robert Bly makes a distinetion between spirit and soul. The soul is the
earth aspect, and the spirit is the heavenly aspect, and they are both

I dimensions, as far as I 'm concemed, of the Self. - Brown

l 've changed the egg diagram a long time ago. In addition to the star at the
top , l 've put an Earth Star at the bottom . l 've given a stronger emphasis to the
I connection between the things that happ en in the lower unconscious and the
higher unconscious, how opening up one can open up the other. - Maiden

I We say, "Move to our deepest Self, or highest Self." I often say "deepest" or
"most essential," or "place of greatest wisdom and serenity." - Guenther

There's also an impression you can get in psychosynthesis if you 're not

I careful, that there 's an experience of pure Selfness that has no content, and
that that's what we 're really shooting for. It's very strong in Assagioli's
writings. There's a level of personality that we don't talk about very weU in

I psychosynthesis, which is just short of that level of contentless Se1f, which I

personally include as the Being who I am , which has to do with my
richness, my cultural roots, my Hebraie tradition, the fact that I 'm an
I American , the fact that I grew up in this century, the fact that I 'm a man,
the fact that I have certain sensibilities that I came in with that I don't know
where they came from , certain predispositions.
I It doesn't fit very cleanly on the egg diagram . To put it in the lower
unconscious or the higher unconscious doesn't do it justice. It's much

I
closer to my experience of who I really am than that. So that's another
distortion. We don't talk about the richness of the Self, the content of the
Self, as if it were the Self. - Horowitz

I I don't think we need to help our elients be high. We need to help out
elients be free . In that freedom there can be high and there can be low. But
they're free. And in that freedom, there is clarity, purpose , and power,

I beyond high and low. - Schatz

• Relationsh i p between the Self and the personal self.

I I don't like to call it the Higher Self. I don't like that hierarchical quality.
And yet I want to distinguish between the Se1f with a capita! S and the
personal self, which I also think is a legitimate concept. - Brown
I
I 1 By using the term "polarity" I do not wish to imply that the se two must necessarily
exist in opposition to each another; they also may be in a dynamic, creative

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relationship with one another.

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There are times that I 'm not in relationship with my soul, and there are
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other times when I re-connect and am in relationship with that element of
myself that I 'm referring as soul. Sometimes l may be in a relationship with
it, and yet it may be unconscious but compatible. Other times I 'm in discord
I
with that element of myself, and l get off track and need something to help
me choose to re-orient, to inc1ude that element of myself. - Guenther I
When I was first introduced to it, the Higher Self to me was kind of like
my friend , my guide , my guru , by buddy. So I have a fond, personal feeling
about my Higher Self. It's like my companion next to me-my personality I
and my Higher Self. It's like my guardian angel who walks on this earth
with me, arm and arm . - Russel1
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• The Self is a part of, or connected to someth i n g l arger than j u st our
i ndivi d u a l i dentity.

I asked [Assagioli] , "What's the difference between the Higher Self and the
I
'1 7" He said , "There is no difference between the I and the Higher Self. " I
tried to talk about it as a spark, that if the 'I ' and the Higher Self are the
same thing, "why did you draw it on the diagram that way?" And he
I
answered, "l wanted to p oint to the place where the Higher Self is both
universal and personal, that there is the p ersonal p art of the p syche, and
then there's the transpersonal, the part that's universal. " - Horowitz
I
When I 'm in my center of consciousness and will , awareness and control­
insofar as I can disidentify from those other things, and identify with my
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self-then I 'm most like other people. That's where the differences b etween
us b ecome inconsequential. - Haronian

The experience of connecting to our deepest and most real self is an

I
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experience of total isolation , aloneness, and separateness . . . ; but also that
experience can be one of total inner connectedness. How b oth those
experiences occupy the same space --that's something else. But in my

I
experience, they seem to . - Horowitz

Within us there is the personal self (the "l" or ego) , and the Higher Self, and
then there is something broader that we might ca11 the Universal Self. As a
conscious, observing self which is expressing the personality, we are also
expressing a reflection of the higher Self. The Universal Self is the larger
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context which expresses the evolutionary imprint and p lan for humanity. Even
saying the imprint of creation is not enough, because it's hard to defme in
words, but there is something larger than the individual that we can align with
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and express as the highest direction for humanity and for this planet. There is
some kind of mobilizing force , which we might ca11 the Universal Will, that can
guide our Higher Will and our personal will . - Emmerling
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I am willing to say that I am a manifestation of a deep level of identity
which l choose to ca11 the Essential Self. There's the place where our
identities meet. - Schatz

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Thoug hts on Four Controvers i a l lss ues

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(C) TH I N KI N G ABOUT E STAB LI S H I N G STAN DARDS OF TRAI N I N G AN D

I C E RTI F I CATI O N I N PSYC H O SYN TH E S I S

Perhaps in no other issue do as many theoretical and practical problems

in p sychosynthesis manifest than around the issue of certification. This is

I not only a problem for psychosynthesis , but for all programs which train
counselors and p sychotherapists, whether they be p sychiatrists, c1inical or
counseling p sychologists , clinical sodal workers, or pastoral counselors.

I However, p sychosynthesis has an additional level of complexity because it

seeks to also addresses the spiritual dimension.
Issues of standardization, licensing, "who are the right people to train

I whom," happ en in all the disciplines I 'm familiar with. It never raises
standards. It always increases a kind of middle ground. Eventually the
people who care most about it end up controlling it, and they're usually the

I least innovative people . That's the nature of it.

People who love structure will create structures in whatever they're doing,
and the people who are innovative will become dissatisfied and get out of that

I structure . When it gets to the place where the structure people like it, you
have just created a situation where the innovation people will quit.2 - Fadiman

I • The certificati on issue in th e psychosynthesis com m u n ity

What comprises a real therapist? I know people who have been through the

I whole training to be a p sychiatrist, and they aren't real therapists. - Schatz

Training doesn't have that extraordinary influence on people , either. Two­

thirds of being a therapist is that people have what they have ; you can only

I diddle with that one-third , as far as training goes. The notion that through
training you 're really going to make someone into something is bogus. You
shouldn't set up a program that implies you 're going to do this. It's like a

I degree you get at school. The school doesn't say you're an educated person.
It just says you passed so many courses. - Kull

I Who is to decide when someone is fully trained? And what does it really
mean to be a trained psychosynthesist if every p sychosynthesis training
program around the world is uniqu e , functioning in its own way?

I . . . What we're trying to certify is quality of consciousness, really. How do

we do that? Is that scientific? Can I have a committee sit down and evaluate

I 2In his book Of Foxes and Hen Houses: Licensing and the Health Professions ( 1984) ,
Stanley Gross, after examining virtually all of the available licensing and certification
research, conc1udes that:

I The consensus of research reviewed in this book is that licensing fails to assure its
legitimate purpose of furthering competence and honesty in service. There is no
convincing evidence from the research on occupational licensure of a tie between

I licensure and the quality of service. Instead, the evidence, which is commonplace
in the literatures of economics and sociology, indicates the purposes realized by
such regulation have been to maintain and increase the incomes of those who are
licensed and to provide them with career security (p. 3).

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when your consciousness is at a good enough quality that I tell you that you
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are now qualified to practice p sychosynthesis? I didn't want to be in that
position of authority. - Russell
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I would be very wary about some people setting themselves up as really
knowing the truth, and saying that someone else is not doing
p sychosynthesis. - Walsh I
I have stood on the whole continuum of the issue of standards. - Lefer

Most of the interviewees expressed mixed feelings about certification. Many I

stated that they know ofpeople who attended only one weekend seminar and

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thought they understood psychosynthesis well enough to teach it. A signijicant
reason for this phenomenon is that psychosynthesis emphasizes intuition as well
as intellect. A student may realize that he had previously grasped some
psychosynthesis pnnciples intuitively, and then erroneously conclude that he
has a fu.ll mastery of the discipline. Since the term psychosynthesis is not
copynghted, and since there is no professional organization or accrediting body,
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anyone can legally use it to desCTibe the work they do.
However, there is considerable resistance within the community to the I
establishment of such an accrediting body. First, there is Assagioli's view:
There is no orthodoxy in p sychosynthesis and no one, beginning with
myself, should be considered as its exc1usive representative or leader. Each
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of its exponents tries to express and apply it as well as he or she is able to ,
and all who read or listen to the message , or receive the benefit of the use of
the methods of p sychosynthesis can decide how successful anY exponent
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has b een or will be in expressing its 'spirit. ' - Assagioli ( 1 98 1 )

Second, there is still great wanness and suspicion because of the events that I
occurred at The Psychosynthesis Institute in California in the late 1 970s. The

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Institute created what they called aThe Psychosynthesis Network" in order to
establish national, and eventually international standards for training. This
attempt failed and left intense suspicion about any fu.ture attempts.

• G ranti n g d i p l omas rather than certification I

Nearly all of the interviewees agreed with this advice offered by Steven Kull:
Don't give certificates that say anything about qualification. Qnly give
diplom as for having a certain amount of training. You can, to the extent you
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want, discriminate who you let in, but the whole thing about trying to
evaluate people as to how well they do therapy distorts everything too
much. They end up doing worse therapy as a result. - Kull
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My dictionary defines certify as ato guarantee as meeting a standard, " and
diploma as aany certificate indicating that a particular course of study has been
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successfully completed. " (MoTTis, 1 970) Although the term certify is loosely used,
all the trainers I interviewed do not literally certify. They offer what should
properly be called diplomas. This means that no psychosynthesis practitioner
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trained by any of these teachers can legitimately claim to be certified. They can
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I only claim to be trained in such and such a program, and present a diploma as
documentation.
I Psychosynthesis is something good to add on to your skills which have
already been developed as a therapist. If someone comes in who's already

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had counseling, who understands various theoretical notions of p sychology,
and is beginning to question human nature more deeply, psychosynthesis
can enhance that. But it depends on the nature of the work, on the nature

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of the individual. - Lefer

All of the interviewees who spoke on this subject emphatically agreed that a
counselor or psychotherapist should possess a broad range of knowledge and

I skills far beyond that which they could getfrom a psychosynthesis professional
training program alone. The Synthesis Graduate School for the Study of Man in
San Francisco in 1 9 78 to 1 980 was trying to offer such a total, comprehensive

I training and education in psychology. They were planning on offering a total of

forty-six courses ranging from "Cognitive and Creative Process" to "Abnormal
Psychology" to "Psychoenergetics. " The London Institute of Psychosynthesis also

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seems to be heading in a similar direction. But all the other training programs
teach, in addition to the usual psychosynthesis philosophy, principles, strategies,
and techniques, some basic counseling skills training for those who are weak in

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this area.
The type of training offered in psychosynthesis professional training programs
is intended only as a supplement, an enhancement to prior clinical training. It is

I not meant to stand alone. All the interviewees wamed that training only in
psychosynthesis is not enough to become a therapist, even though some people
may try to do just that.

I The policy of The New York Institute of Psychosynthesis is fairly

representative. As the director of The Institute, Will Friedman, explains:

I We have a prerequisite that our students at The Institute have a m aster's

degree in a counselingf therapy fie1d, that they have some grounding in the
field, or else are in a master's program. We 're not presuming to teach them

I from scratch everything about counseling. But nevertheless we still have a

very broad range of students. We have p eople with years and years of
clinical experience, and people with pretty much nothing. Even though they

I may have an M . S.W, they may not have really done any therapy.
. . . Since our students have a broad range of b ackgrounds , we do things to
accommodate that. - Friedman

I Assagioli's thoughts are most appropriate here:

Psychosynthesis is not a doctrine or a 'school' of p sychology; it is not a

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special or single method of self-realization, therapy, education, interpersonal
and social (group) relations and integration. It can b e indicated . . . primarily as
a general attitude of, and striving towards, integration and synthesis in all

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fields, but p articularly in those just mentioned. - Assagioli ( 1 98 1 )
Psychosynthesis training can be seen as an enhancement to psychotherapy,
or education, or management, and so on. It is not, at least at the present time, a
I complete psychology or school ofpsychotherapy in and of itself.

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O) R E F L E CTI O N S ON TH E CAU S E S OF TH E D E G E N E RATI O N O F TH E
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PSYC H O SYNTH E S I S I N STITUTE I N CALI FORN I A

Those who suroived the rise andfall of Jim Vargiu and The Psychosynthesis I
Institute and Graduate School in Northern California have since struggled to find
answers as to why a group of idealistic and intelligent people degenerated into a
paranoid cult. They try to better understand what happened for both intellectual I
and personal reasons. Below is a list offactors which are sometimes considered to

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have directly and indirectly caused the degeneration of The Psychosynthesis
Institute. My own thinking on this subject can be found in the essay in Chapter 33.
• Psyc hosynth esis per se was not the cause. However, some beli eve that there
exist certai n d i stortions i n psychosynthesis wh ich fed the grou p's d i storti ons.
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I don't think it's inherent in p sychosynthesis that the San Francisco

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Institute got screwed up . I really don't. I don't see that happening in
Europe . There's nothing to prevent it from getting on its feet again and really
taking off. - Kull

This happened not because of p sychosynthesis per se, although there are
certain dualisms and e soteric roots in p sychosynthesis that can support
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going in that direction . . . .
My experience in the San Francisco group has caused me to lo ok more
carefully, not only at my own shortcomings , but at those of
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p sycho synthe sis. It has also caused me to feel strongly that as
p sychosynthesists, it is important that we start airing our doubts, concerns
and realizations of the theoretical limitations in public. I think that such a
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communal dialog can help us strengthen p sychosynthesis as a
p sychoIogical discipline. I also think that this communal dialog should
focus on trying to identify some of the " shadow" side of the field of
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p sychosynthesis. What are some of the things that we haven't se en about
p sychosynthesis and about ourselves as a group of practitioners that might
be unconsciously and possibly even negatively shaping how we evolve the
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theory and practice of p sychosynthesis? - Horowitz

There was a sort of superconscious identification, I believe , in Roberto's own I

thinking, and in the early work of those of us who studied with him . The
Jungians have a better understanding of the shadow, and my work with the
Jungians has helped me grasp the importance of integrating shadow m aterial. I
Theirs is a model of wholeness, as opposed to going up . - Crampton

• Mem bers becam e increasingly i sol ated from one a n other a n d from outsiders. I
It was extremely c1ose d , isolated and encouraged perception of the world
in terms of good and evil-a fairly c1assic defmition of a cult. . . .
Jim (Vargiu] got overly complex with maps and models in trying to
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describe everything in an original way. To some extent this had value, but in
another way it cut p sychosynthesis off from other p sychologies. In San
Francisco at that time, we rarely took advantage of other forms of
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I p sychology that were available to us, that we could build on, and add to
within the context of the Self. - Horowitz

I By 1 978 the circle had grown smaller and smalier, and it became clearer
and clearer that we weren't supposed to have any other friends. For yearS I

I had been a part of The Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and I was
invited to be on their planning committee. I was told, no, we wouldn't do
anything with outside groups. - Maiden

I In terms of relationship s with the other professionals-transpersonal,

humanistic, Gestalt, and all those people-we totally alienated them by that
time . The Graduate School became this isolated thing in San Francisco that

I looked down on everybody else. Everybody else became the enemy.

connections were cut .
All

. . . . Basically, the p attern was that everyone got isolated from everyone else.

I No one dared talk about any of this because there was always the danger
that you'd be turned in. That isolation grew more and more extreme . At flrst
people were isolated from the outside world , then friends, and then from

I husbands, wives , and children. - Yeomans

• J i m Varg i u was unstable, alth ough bri l l i ant, and was given too m u ch power

I by the mem bers .

But unbeknownst to us at the time , Jim was p aranoid in the classic sense

I of the word. Because of this, and because many of us gave our p ower over
to him , the organization degenerated to a cult. - Horowitz

He became more and more "brilliant," and more and more unglued. - Yeomans

I I think it grew largely from a few things, but the most salient was Jim
Vargiu's p ersonality . . . .

I The problem was that Jim had to control everything, but we also had to
maintain the illusion that Jim wasn't controlling everything . . . . People had
made this mysterious commitment. . . . Basically it was that Jim had control

I over more than just your service energy, more than just the work you were
doing; sort of over the rest of your life. - Kull

. . . Yet what happened was that Jim had been able, in most cases, to insert

I himself in their alignment with Self as if he were their Higher Self. - Maiden

I basically gave up my p ower, as I understand it now. I dedded I would try

I
to go along with the group , to align my will with the larger group , because I
had been so intimidated and because it was so p ainful to be at odds with
my friends. - Yeomans

I • The structure of the grou p was too auth oritari an a n d h i erarch ical .

There was an emphasis on the hierarchical way things should b e , in which

I those people who were considered to be less " evolved" should b e obedient to
those who were considered more evolved. This was quite different from the
understanding I had grown up with, that among persons linked with the

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Higher Self, all would be able to be in touch, and that consensus was a
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more appropriate way to do things. - Maiden

The hierarchical structure in training organizations, the tendencies to I

disseminate information from the top down, and the tendency towards
centralization frightens me. - Firman
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• Disputi n g the g roup's a n d vargi u 's notions beca me i n creasingly ta boo.

If you didn't agre e , you got cut off without any discussion and were seen
as the devil, basically. You were shunned-no one talked to you. - Abbott
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At one m eeting of the faculty I was asked by Jim , "If you had a
disagreement with m e , what would you do?" l said , "l would tell you. And if I
you wouldn't listen, I would tell my associates." Then Jim and another

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person worked with me for a long time. The lesson I was supposed to leam
was that if I had a disagreement with Jim , I would leave the group and not
say anything about it to anyone else. - Maiden

I remember thinking, when I was still in Santa Barbara, "Thank goodness

p sychosynthesis has a built-in arrangement of indusion, so it doesn 't have
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to break up into schools the way so much of p sychology has been fractured,
and it has the capacity to unite and bring things to the quality of synthesis. "
Yet clearly, that wasn't enough. - Maiden
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• An atm osphere of el itism a n d specialness was fostered . I
At that time there was this strong wall of silence between the spiritual and
the practical, which made everyone feel elitist, like you were special and
knew something special. The early years in psychosynthesis had that I
quality. Somehow you were special or different or better than the real world.
The California group was heavily into the esoteric practices that are part of
Alice Bailey's work. - Ab bott I
It was just one of those really special events , and we felt it was, and we
had a lot of group narcissism-to say the least. We were in love with
ourselves. As a result, just like with all love , you don't see the obj ect of your
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love clearly. And Jim very much fed this feeling that we were really special.

As the group became more cohesive, Jim exerted more and more control I
over it. The leverage he used was, "We 're a special group-we're lined up
with the hierarchy," and all that. It increasingly becam e , "We are
esotericists , and the exoteric thing is this sort of front we have ," which was I
the wall of silence thing, and all that junk . . . .

The role that the Alice Bailey system played [was one of the two m aj or
factors. ] - Kull
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I • Th e members were psychologica l l y and clin ically na ive.

I The reason everything came apart in 1 980 , I think , was that no one in
California or elsewhere had any clinical training. There was no one doing
any kind of reality testing around the dinical piece.

I I think [the staff of The Institute] made a mistake when they had the same
person doing both personal, therapeutic work and also clinical supervision
with the same student. There wasn't any dear distinction between the two

I functions. That's where it began to get mucky. Eventually infonnation that

came up in the personal session would be used against you in your
supervision. I think they did that because they were unsophisticated in their

I understanding of the group process. They weren't clinicians, trained in group

process; at least Jim Vargiu wasn't. He was an engineer-very bright, very
intense-but not trained in process at all. - Abbott

I I think the trouble in p sychosynthesis occurred because people who were

involved who hadn't done much differentiation of family and separation and
that stuff, and that's how the distortions got there . The spiritual energies

I picked that up and created a pseudo-family that didn't allow for differences.
It was a dosed system-everyone had to do it one way. It was a family that
was strongly hierarchical. It wasn 't a group fonn that supported or wanted

I variety or autonomy. - Abbott

I don't blame Jim. I had a big blind spot around power, and I also had no

I expectations that this could every happen to me, I who had grown up in a
"good world. " And I couldn't believe this could happen to p sychosynthesis,
that endorsed in every way the beauty of the human soul. So I was blind as

I a bat in that way. - Yeomans

• A va l u e system of extreme sacrifice and service to the group was promoted .

I We were a group of people who had a shared vision. There was a sense of
community, of love , and of commitment to the work. It was a very important
time for all of us. And a hard time-we all made sacrifices. - Lefer
I People were giving more and more of their time to working for The
Institute. We started checking out exactly how much time people were

I giving The Institute , and it was around seventy hours a week. . . .

. . . I said that h e was having people focus on him rather than o n their own
Higher Selves . But he had a conceptual model for this , that this was the

I way groups need to work, that individuals ne ed to sacrifice their personal

growth to the growth of the group . A number of spiritual systems talk about
how you need to not be attached to your personal growth. I think there's

I some substance to this idea. However, the essence of it in our group

became: "Don't listen to your self, listen to me [Jim ] . I 'm the center of
gravity in the group . " - Kull

I They had this supposedly esoteric idea that you had to give up your
individuality to work in a group , because a group can accomplish so much

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more than an individual. - Yeomans

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I saw the rest of them get totally caught up in this belief system of Jim
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Vargiu and his people , that the highest good is service , and that you put
family and loved ones second or third to that. Y ou sacrificed everything to
this higher good. - Abbott
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• Distorted i deas a bout wi l l , good a n d evi l, subpersonal ities, a n d so on
prom oted g ro u p path ol ogy.
I
There was a distortion about the will, with a fairly strong emphasis on
strong will, on using your strong will to overcome the shadow. There was an I
overemphasis on the shadow side of things, which developed into a wider
emphasis on good and evil inside us as individuals and outside in the
world. A lot of personal shadow, and a lot of our group shadow got I
proj ected out into the world. And then there was this cosmic battle between
good and evil (which we had to help win)-that was a fairly significant
distortion. I
The only thing that was different was that it wasn't a proselytizing cult.
The issues of money and numbers were not very important to us. The fight
for good and evil in the world was what was important. - Horowitz I
I think the craziness that went on in San Francisco would have b een
helped if they had read some church history. In some sense , it became very
Gnostic, very Manachean- it became anti-sex, anti-relationship-aU those
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things. It happened in the year two hundred. The same kind of things
follow. - O 'Connor I
. . . What I caU the San Francisco-Palo Alto school of psychosynthesis,
particularly Vargiu . . . erected subpersonality work as the orthodoxy of
p sychosynthesis, the sine qua non, without which you were not doing the I
true p sychosynthesis . . . . I think he did great damage to the psychosynthesis
movement in the San Francisco Bay Area.
When you do that subpersonality work-which, by the way, is now very
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prevalent in the whole psychosynthesis movement-is that if you give
something a nam e , it wi11 constellate energy in a thought form represented
by that name. Roberto knew that because he was an occultist, an
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esotericist. So if you talk about the martyr, or the fearful one , or the scared
little boy in you , you give that tendency - -which up until then was rather
diffuse- a way of constellating energy into something p owerful. I was often
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picking up the pieces of p sychosynthesis, of people seeing me after several
years of p sychosynthesis work where they were split, disintegrated into a
series of subpersonalities. They constantly were saying, "Oh, now my martyr
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is showing up . Now my scared little boy is showing up ." So what? Instead of
a unified fie1d, they had aU the se little atoms within themselves which had
b een given names, and since energy follows thought, if you constantly think
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of the martyr in you , you are going to reinforce the martyr. It's obvious.
A little of a good thing is okay-to b ecome aware , for instance, like
Roberto and I were, that there are within us, sometimes, certain tendencies
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that play certain roles. That's useful b ecause that's p sychoanalytic insight.
But it is foolish to then go further and constantly reinforce that, constantly
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I repeating that. Then it becomes extremely difficult to put together what you
have reinforced as separate identities. - Gerard
I Everything became complicated and obscure. [Jim Vargiu] created all
kinds of abstract mental constructs which had nothing to do with

I experience , and moved away from the beauty of psychosynthesis, which is

it's inherent simplicity. Roberto was aIways very dear about this. For
example, he took subpersonalities , and talked about chains of

I subpersonalities, and he had all these complicated drawings of chains and

little circles, sort of like engineering diagrams. They were very hard to verify
in your own experience, and almost impossible to understand.

I The other problem Jim got into was that he tried to force feed the whole
thing and make it go much faster than it could. He was very impatient and
visionary. If he'd been more patient, we might have been okay. - Yeomans

I S O M E F I NAL THOUG HTS

Evil must be opposed in yourself. I learned about it first on the outside,

I and from that, I learned about it within myself. We must keep a keen eye for
it out there , and also it takes a keen eye to see that within yourself, and
how you rationalize certain things-how the means justify the ends.
I The shadow, the darkness is defmitely there. It's in psychosynthesis. The
people who have let themselves learn from it are wiser from the experience.

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But there are other people in psychosynthesis who still haven't learned what
we 're talking about. And there are also people who haven't encountered it
yet, either in themselves or outside. There 's a whole range. And there 'll be

I
some versions of what happened that wiIl be wiser than others. There will
be some that will be biased in one way or the other, because there wiIl also
be preoccupations with the dark side, even in psychosynthesis. I think

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that's as off as being prematurely transcendent. There's such beauty and
depth in psychosynthesis, and one of it's powers is that it affrrms the
beauty of people. You don't want to just turn around and say, "Beauty is

I
only a cover for the darkness." That's not true either. - Yeomans

Somebody may come around, as Vargiu tried to do, and say, "I am
psychosynthesis. No one cometh unto psychosynthesis but through me."

I Maybe someone will try to do that again. I 'd be interested to see what we do
with that. But maybe we've already been through our dark night of the soul,
as least for the first hundred years. We truly have only b egun. - Schatz

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Of Shadows a n d Secrets : An Essay
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3 3 . Of Shad ows a n d S ecrets: An Essay
I The p sychosynthesis training I received was excellent for p sychotherapists
like myself, and for other professionals working with people. Yet it was not
I complete for me. I was curious about the history of p sychosynthesis, and I
wanted to know who was now using p sychosynthesis, and in what ways. I

I
wanted to know how the understanding of psychosynthesis of other teachers
may have differed from what I had leanled. And I felt that something else was
missing-something I could not name .

I The interviews I conducted with notables i n the p sychosynthesis world

helped to satisfy my curiosity. A more or less complete picture emerged.
However, this picture contained not only light, but also shadows. And it

I contained secrets. In July, 1 988 I presented an overview of the picture I saw,

including the shadows and secrets, to an International Conferenee of
Psychosynthesis in ltaly. Several people from various countries came up to me

I afterward to tell me of similar shadows and secrets in their local

p sychosynthesis groups, and how they were grateful that I had spoken out on
these marters.

I Although I still have many unanswered questions, this essay is a report of

the picture that emerged to me. I will fIrst briefly discuss the two secrets, and
then introduee two p sychological models which might be helpful in
I understanding why and how the se events occurred. Then each secret and
related issues will examined in detail.

I THE TWO S ECRETS

I I leanled that the p sychosynthesis community in general has been keeping

two secrets. One secret concerns Assagioli 's connections with theosophy, or
"the Esoteric School . " ! The second is about the paranoid cult that grew within

I
1 Theosophy (with a lower case 't1 is defined as "religious speculation dealing with the

I mystical apprehension of God, associated with various occult systems," or (with an

upper case '[1 "the doctrines and beliefs of a modem religious sect, the Theosophical
Society, incorporating aspects of Buddhism and Brahmanism." (Morris, 1970)

I While it is known that Assagioli's mother and wife were members of the Theosophical
Society, we have no evidence that he also was (Hardy, 1987) . We do know that he was
closely associated with "The Arcane School," and a later ofIshoot called "The School of

I
Esoteric Studies." The teachings of the Arcane School were based on a series of books
penned in the 1930's by Alice Bailey, a friend and asso ciate of Assagioli. Alice Bailey
claimed to be writing down dictation she was telepathically receiving from a living
adept known as Djwahl Kuhl, or "the Tibetan" (Sinclair, 1984) . The teachings of the

I Theosophical Society were also said to have come from Djwahl Kuhl in the 1 870s and
1 880s, although at that time they were wrirten down by Madame H.P. Blavatsky, a
Russian mystic. I have no doubt that the distinctions between the ideas of these two

I groups are significant to their followers. However, dare I say that to outsiders these
esoteric distinctions may seem rather arcane?

I 241

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Psyc hosynthes i s i n N.orth Ameriea

The Psychosynthesis Institute and Graduate School in San Francisco in the late
I
I
1 970s. Detailed accounts of these secrets is contained in a number of the
interviews.2
I believe that the significance of these two secrets is profound. The esoteric
connection raises serious epistemological questions and points to some
possible distortions in psychosynthesis. And the tragedy of the Psychosynthesis
I
Institute raises serious, and sometimes disturbing questions about other
psychosynthesis groups, and about the dynamics of groups in general.
I
TWO M O DELS

I would like to present two psychological models which I believe can be

I
quite helpful in trying to understand why and how such things happ en. One
model inc1udes Carl Jung's concepts of the shadow and the persona, and the
other model concerns family secrets from family systems theory.
I
Two defmitions of Jung's shadow that I particularly like (Sanford, 1 986, p. 49)
are: "the dark, feared, unwanted side of our personality;" and "that which is I
repressed for the sake of our ego-ideal." The ego-ideal consists of the ideals or
standards that shape the development of the ego or conscious personality. In order
for us to strive toward this ideal, we repress certain aspects of ourselves, which in I
turn become our shadow.
Jung uses the term persona (originally referring to the masks worn in
c1assical Greek theater) to refer to that part of the personality which we present
I
to others. The persona has a double function-it facilitates the expression of
certain parts of our psyche while, at the same time , it conceals other parts. The
problem comes when we identify too strongly with our persona, when we come
I
I
to believe that our persona is actually who we are. When this happens we lose
contact with our shadow, and thus a part of who we really are. We then often
project our own shadow qualities we have denied unto others. Energy in our

I
personality system becomes locked up in the maintenance of the denial and
projection, and our creativity is diminished since the creative process,
somehow, involves the integration of the shadow.
Another model which is helpful in understanding some of the dynamics
under consideration is from family systems theory. 3 According to this clinically I
My usage will be as follows. The "Alice Bailey works" refers specifically to the
philosophy in those hooks, and "esoteric" refers to all manner of Western occult and
I
theosophical writings.

2For example, an interesting account of Assagioli's esoteric connections can be found

I
in James Fadiman's Story, and a fairly detailed account of the trajectory of The
Psychosynthesis Institute in California is contained in Tom Yeomans' Story.
I
3Most of this material came from a private conversation at the International

I
Psychosynthesis Conferenee with Dr. Sheldon Kramer, a family systems teaeher and
therapist, and a psychosynthesist.

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Of S ha d ows a n d Secrets : An Essay

I
based view, there are two kinds of family secrets-those that parents keep from

I
their children, and those that are known within the family but are not to be
shared with outsiders. The primary function of a family secret is to maintain
the harmony of the status quo. The fear is that the telling of the secret will

I
further family dissolution. Also, parents experience shame, embarrassment,
and humiliation about the secret and do not want to "soil" the young by
involving them with it.

I When secrets are maintained with the family, the secret often "splinters,"
and different children know (perhaps unconsciously) different pieces of it, and
consequently manifest differing symptoms. The children cannot understand

I any of this because they do not have access to the entire secret.

Family myths are created in order to maintain the secret. Rules get

I
established to perpetuate the myths, and the se rules are often handed down
from generation to generation, and can be very destructive to the mental health
of the family and its members.

I When the secret is revealed (often within a family therapy session) , the
p arents experience shame, embarrassment, and humiliation, and fmd the
experience very painful. The children usually empathize with their parents, but

I also become free to leam and grow by knowing the truth. Without exception
(according to Dr. Kramer) , everyone in the family feels liberated. One of the
primary goals of family therapy is to get family secrets out in the open.

I
S ECRET O N E : THE ESOTERIC CONNECTION

I This secret has two components, one consisting of facts and the other of a
highly questionable assumption. It is a fact that Roberto Assagioli had a deep
and enduring interest in the Alice Bailey brand of theosophy. He was a
I personal associate of hers, he belonged to an esoteric study group (or "lodge")
for years, and he frequently recommended her books to his students.

I It is also a fact that Assagioli was very particular about keeping

psychosynthesis and his professional work separate from his more personal
interest in the esoteric tradition. He apparently had had some unpleasant

I experiences early on in which his scientific credibility had been called into
question because of his association with esoteric matlers. Although he asked
his students and associates to promise they would maintain a "wall of silence"

I so long as Assagioli was alive , he himself wasn't very good at keeping the
secret. Fadiman and others tell of two offices in New York City, side by side , of
The Psychosynthesis Research Foundation and The School for Esoteric Studies,

I both leading into the same director's office. And Fadiman tells of a portrait of
Madame Blavatsky, the founder of The Theosophical Society, hanging on the
wall of Assagioli's waiting room. These are uncontested facts.

I The highly questionable assumption that many in the p sychosynthesis

movement have made is that psychosynthesis came from the Bailey material.

I
This assumption holds that p sychosynthesis is but a watered down, public,

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Psyc hosynthes is i n N o rth America

exoteric version of the Bailey material, which is the "real stuff, " the inner,
I
esoteric core. It was (and still is in some psychosynthesis centers and
institutes) common to take certain students who had proven themselves
"worthy" aside and reveal the hidden truth to them, that they were ready to
I
study the secret source of psychosynthesis, the Alice Bailey books. This secret
would divide the group into two levels, those who knew and those who didn't. I
The only person l interviewed that still held to this assumption was Robert
Gerard, and he has not been actively involved in psychosynthesis since the
early 1 970s. All the others who spoke on this subject insisted that I
psychosynthesis does not in any way rest on esotericism.4
The situation today in North America and elsewhere is that many
psychosynthesists, especially newer ones, haven't even heard of Alice Bailey.
I
Many others have heard of her works and looked at them, but are not
particularly interested in studying them , or have studied them but have not
found them useful. And then some make no secret that they still study her
I
books while others do so only in private , loyally maintaining "the wali of
silence." I
It i s my conviction that this secrecy i s detrimental to psychosynthesis. For
one thing, Assagioli acknowledged (e.g. 1965, pp . 14- 16) that he used many
sources of inspiration for his ideas on psychosynthesis.5 Also, it is important to I
remember that Assagioli formulated psychosynthesis in 1 9 1 0 , but did not meet
Alice Bailey until the 1 930's.
To perpetuate this myth demeans both psychosynthesis and Assagioli's
I
own creative gifts. lf psychosynthesis is to develop into a "science of the Self,"
as Assagioli hoped ( 1 965) , then it simply cannot have secrets, for the essence
of science is public scrutiny and discussion.
I

D I FFICULTIES W ITH ESOTERICISM

I
l believe the influence of the theosophical type of esotericism may have
produced some distortions in psychosynthesis. As Robert Gerard points out, ali I
systems of thought have a shadow side, and this causes the most trouble when
it is not openly examined. I have listed below what I believe may be problems of
the shadow side of theosophy, or occultism. These thoughts are based on my I
own observations, and also on what has been told to me by some members of
the psychosynthesis community in Europe and in North America.
( 1 ) Perhaps the most difficult problem involves epistemology, the nature of
I
knowledge. At the core of psychosynthesis lies the conviction that a person can
realize the most profound truths not by blindly following external authority, but
rather by listening to and appreciating the experiences of the Self. This is not
I
always easy, and psychosynthesis has a variety of techniques to assist in this
I
4 For example, see Kull and Russell
5 See Hardy, 1987, for a detailed examination of the sources of psychosynthesis. I
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Of S hadows a nd Secrets : An Essay

I
endeavor. The esoteric writings, however, contain a double message. At the

I beginning of all twenty-five Bailey books is this "Extract from a Statement by

the Tibetan:"
. . .The books that I have written are sent out with no claim for their
I acceptance. They may, or may not, be correct, true and useful. It is for you
to ascertain their truth by right practice and by the exercise of the intuition.
Neither I nor [Alice Bailey] is the least interested in having them acclaimed
I as inspired writings, or in having anyone speak of them (with bated breath)
as being the work of one of the Masters . . . .

I And yet each book is mled with voluminous, often highly technical
dec1arations of "the Masters of Wisdom" about the inner workings of the
universe and of humanity, written in an assured, authoritative voice. This sets
I up an epistemological double-bind for the reader. This same issue is present in
all "channeled," inspired, or revealed communication, and can (and often has)
lead to serious abuse.
I (2) Esoteric writings usually have a patriarchal, hierarchical, and an
authoritarian bias. These qualities have unfortunately influenced a number of

I
psychosynthesis groups, and probably contributed to the corruption of The
Psychosynthesis Institute in Califontia.
(3) Esotericism all too often appeals to the need for certainty, the ego's
I desire to believe that it understands what's going on, or at the very least,
someone somewhere understands, and that world events are being guided by a
hidden group of Adept Masters. This belief can stille creativity, which is often
I bom out of mystery, awe, and even confusion.
(4) Esotericism is often highly intellectual, emphasizing mental

I understanding and control while largely ignoring feelings. It can be used as a

defense against feelings of confusion, fear, helplessness, and so on, and it often
seems to stille j oy, humor, sp ontaneity , and enthusiasm for life. I have found

I esotericists to generally be a very serious lot, although by everyone's account

Assagioli was the exception to this rule.
(5) Esotericism has a tendency to be elitist. It rests on the belief that there
I exists only a small number of Enlightened Masters who really know what is
going on. By studying the teachings of these Masters, one can become an
initiate and thus join an exclusive club . In its worst distortion, esotericists all
I too frequently use perceived membership in this exc1usive club as the sole
basis for holding some people in esteem while dismissing others as
unimportant. Even at psychosynthesis gatherings, I have been told, some
I esotericists play a game of deciding who among those present are "in the
know," and who are of lesser significance.

I (6) Esotericism holds out the hope that one can, by diligent study, self­
discipline, and moral purification attain a singular state of absolute certainty,
beyond all fear, conflict, doubt, and confusion. In short, one can transcend the

I
I 245

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Psychosynthes i s i n N o rth Ame riea

I
human condition. This is really a religious belief, based on faith, and as such

I
has no place in psychosynthesis. Assagioli's ( 1 965) wrote:
. . . Psychosynthesis does not attempt in any way to appropriate to itself the
fields of religion and of philosophy. It is a scientific conception, and as such it
is neutral towards the various religious forms and the various philosophical
doctrines, excepting only those which are materialistic and therefore deny the
I
existence of spiritual realities. Psychosynthesis does not aim nor attempt to
give a metaphysical nor theological explanation of the great Mystery-it leads to
the door, but stops there (p. 6-7).
I
S ECRET TW O : T H E DETERIORATI O N O F T H E PSYCHOSYNTHESIS I NSTITUTE I NTO A I
PARANO I D C U LT

A synopsis of the story of Jim Vargiu and the California group is told in
Chapter 4, and details can be found in many of the stories. However,
I
psychosynthesis trainees have generally not been told that anything like this
ever happened. Sometimes oblique references might have been made, but the
extent of the pathology and the crippling effects it had on the entire movement
I
were avoided.
The model of family secrets applied to this phenomenon is revealing. The I
people who were centrally involved in the pathology of the cult suffered deep
emotional wounds. Many of these people have still not fully worked through
and integrated their experiences. They had behaved in ways that often appear I
heartless, foolish, and incomprehensible. They have experienced varying
mixtures of guilt, rage, shame , confusion, and embarrassment about their
participation in those events. They have felt, probably correctly, that few who I
have not experienced what they experienced could accurately comprehend
what it was like, and they feared being unfairly judged. Many of them have had
difficulty discussing those events with one another, and very few of them I
wanted to discuss the matter with "outsiders. " In other words, they implicitly
colluded to keep the secret.
They perpetuated the secret not only as a way of dealing with their own
I
I
discomfort, but also because they believed that psychosynthesis in North
America had suffered a nearly lethal trauma and needed to mend. They
belleved that dwelling on the California disaster would ill serve the health and

I
growth of the movement.
It is my bellef that they were probably correct on this last point, at least for
a while. Once the initial shock of a traumatie and painful wounding wears off,
often our natural impulse is to avoid discussing it, to conceal it from others.
We wish to bury it and get on with our lives, and this is often a healthy
I
impulse. However, there comes a time when it is therapeutic to re-examine the
wound, to re-experience the trauma from a more distant perspective, and to
integrate the experience into our larger sense of who we are. This re­
I
examination is painful and embarrassing, and typically resisted. It frequently is

I
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Of Shadows and Secrets : An Essay

I
an outsider who instigates the revealing of a family secret. In this case it was a

I book.

Spiritual Choices: The Problem of Recognizing Authentie Paths to Inner

Transformation was published in 1 98 7 . Edited by Dick Anthony, Bruce Ecker,
I and Ken Wilber, it contains a number of artic1es by various authors "on the
topic of spiritual tyranny versus legitimate spiritual authority." The
Introduction has a section on "The Spiritual Search in Post- 1 960s America (pp .

I 7 -25) in which a number of often lurid accounts of abuses of spiritual authority

are related . Two pages are devoted to the story of the Psychosynthesis Institute
in San Francisco. It is interesting to note that Jim Vargiu 's name in not used ;

I instead they use "Smith" with this note: "The pseudonym is used here because,
while we question the wisdom of protecting this individual in this manner,
there is a consensus among transpersonal p sychologists c10se to the situation

I not to stigmatize 'Smith ' permanently (p . 3 1 ) . "

At any rate , the secret was out. This led to a series o f large public

I
discussions (one in Palo Alto in the summer of 1 987 and two in Massachusetts,
in the fall of 1 987 and the winter of 1 988) within the p sychosynthesis
community about the events in California, and also about the secret esoteric

I connection. Many new p sychosynthesists learned of the "family secret," and

older members public1y told of their pain and sometimes guilt. Although a
sincere attempt is being made to understand what happened, still many, if not

I most, new p sychosynthesis students know little or nothing of the secrets. It is

my wish that this paper wil1 help with the disc1osure , understanding, and
eventual integration of this "family secret. "

I
WHAT IS T O B E LEARN ED?

I In Chapter 32 , Section D (pp . 234-240) I discuss some of the causes of the

decline of The Psychosynthesis Institute in California that were mentioned in
the interviews. In addition to the idiosyncratic personality of Jim Vargiu ,

I without whom events would unquestionably have taken a very different turn,
two other factors de serve a long and hard look: Are there any distortions in
p sychosynthesis itself that somehow encouraged the growth of the cult? And,

I how universal are the group dynamics that resulted in the California disaster?

Concerning possible distortions within p sychosynthesis itself, five have

I
been mentioned in the interviews. They are:

( l ) The myth, discussed above , that psychosynthesis comes from, and is

but a watered down version of e soteric philosophy; and that this must be kept

I secret from the public and from beginning p sychosynthesis students for fear of
damaging the shaky respectability of p sychosynthesis. As Jim Fadiman so
eloquently stated in his interview:

I I think the wall of silence , if it's still maintained , is simply a dishonest way
of doing business. It's unfair to students, it's unfair to Assagioli, and it's

I
unfair to psychosynthesis. The fact that Newton knew astrology doesn't

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Psychosynthes is i n N orth Ame riea

invalidate his formulas. Or the fact that Beethoven didn't make a very good
I
living, or that he was deaf, doesn't mean his music was poor. I think the
wall of silenee is simply an old and inappropriate thing to do. It was one of
the things that caused a lot of trouble in the Psychosynthesis Institute. Not
I
only were you supposed to be studying Alice Bailey, but you were not
supposed to say you were. It created double binds. I
(2) Psychosynthesis is often overly identified with the superconscious, with
the transpersonal , with the spiritual. When this happens, it is c1early a I
distortion of the psychosynthesis of Assagioli and the majority of experienced

I
psychosynthesists. An important question, related to the fourth point below, is
this: Is the goal of psychosynthesis counseling and education to raise the
p erson to a higher spiritual ievel of being, or is it to synthesize all aspects of

I
the person, the lower and middle as well as the higher? A characteristically
p sychosy-nthetic answer might be: "Not either-or, but both-and . " However, the
synthesis of these two goals is not always easy. Often the latter goal is eclipsed

I
by the former. Another way of framing this issue is: Is psychosynthesis a
sp iritual p sychology, or is it a truly holistic psychology which includes the
spiritual dimension?6

(3) Several people I inteIViewed ob served that Assagioli was perhaps too
trusting a person, and that he generally disliked making discriminations,
I
whether with people or ideas. It was sugge sted by one person that his shadow
sid e , in part consisting of judgmental , discriminating qualities, was enacted by
Jim Vargiu-that Vargiu felt compelled to manifest that which was repressed or
I
avoided by Assagioli. Whether or not this is true , I believe that an examination
of the healthy, appropriate function of making discriminations and of
appreciating differences has been generally avoided and often devalued in
I
psychosynthesis. This is an area that needs more recognition and study within
p sychosynthesis.
I
(4) This fourth distortion is both subtle and complex and could be

I
described as p atriarchal. A number of people have said that p sychosynthesis
needs a good feminist critique , and I agree with this , but it has not yet been
done. Since I am not about to do it, I will refer to this distortion as a

I
hierarchical bias.7 This bias in part comes from the influences of esotericism
and elitism as diseussed above .

Ken Wilber tries to deal with the issue of hierarchy in an interview

published in Yoga Journal (Ingram , 1 987) . He describes a hierarchy that is "in
simplest terms, matter, body, mind , soul, and spirit [and] is the backbone of
I
the p erennial philosophy. . . . [It] has been subscribed to by every major religion

I
6Of particular relevanee is Assagioli's paper on "Self-Realization and Psychological
Disturbances," published as Chapter 2 in his book Psychosynthesis ( 1965) .
I
7This is directly related to the question asked in (2) above, and also to the discussion

I
of "Thoughts about the Higher Self' in Chapter 32.

248
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Of Shadows a nd Secrets : An Essay

I
in the world, inc1uding Taoism , . . . [and] most certainly existed during the

I matriarchy. " He goes on to discuss hierarchy in the developmental sequence

where "the simpler components appear fIrst and are built up on and inc1uded as
the more complex structures emerge and develop . " Yet he admits that the

I notion of hierarchy is resisted, "probably because it has some bad political and
military associations." 8

Hierarchy can be seen as one side of a polarity, emphasizing the linear

I vertical dimension. The other side would emphasize notions of network, of web ,
of non-linear, interconnected modes of relationship . Our patriarchal culture
most defmitely has a hierarchical bias. However, a synthetic view would

I maintain "not either-or, but both-and." SuffIce it to say that within both
p sychosynthesis theory and the organization of p sychosynthesis groups , a
hierarchical bias used to exist, and may in some places still exist. But it is my

I belief that this bias is present to a lesser degree in psychosynthesis than it is in

most other p sychotherapeutic theories and groups-psychoanalysis, for
example.

I
G RO U P PSYCHOSYNTHESIS

I And now let u s turn to th e most signifIcant question o f all: How universal
are the dynamics that led to the transformation of a group of bright, idealistic,

I
and successful people into a destructive , paranoid cu1t? I have no doubts
whatsoever that similar dynamics are present in all groups, be they churches,
businesses, c1ubs, academic departments , social cliques, or p sychosynthesis

I
centers anywhere in the world.9 I also believe that little is understood about
group dynamics, and that not much is known about how to have a really
healthy group , one that can pursue its purposes or goals while at the same

I time respecting and supporting the integrity and creative individuality of each
of its members.

I believe that the same dynamics that apply to the individual, apply, more

I or less to a group . A group has an ego-ideal, that is, an image of itself that it
would ideally like to realize . A group has a persona, an image it tries to present

I 8The problem with the term "hierarchy" is illustrated by Wilber with this account:
"Rupert Sheldrake and I spent an entire afternoon trying to think up another word for
hierarchy-it's central to his philosophy-but we couldn't. The best we could do was
I say 'nested hierarchy,' which at least sounds nice and feminine." (p. 44)

9 I have heard of numerous examples of this happening in psychotherapy training

I
centers and institutes, including Freudian and Adlerian. Most recently I came across
an article in the July 25, 1988 issue of People Weekly (pp. 46-8) about the Sullivan
Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis in New York City. According to the article, this
"psychotherapy cult" is a "group of well educated, successful adults who live in three

I Institute-controlled apartment buildings and follow the orders of a charismatic and

tyrannical 82-year-old psychoanalyst named Saul Newton. . . . Newton directs, through a
cadre of nine loyal therapists, the living arrangements, professional lives, finances,

I
marriages and sexual practices of about 200 patients."

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Psyc hosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

to outsiders. A group has a shadow, those qualities and characteristics which it

I
generally disavows, ignores, or represses. A group has a Self, that is a unifying
principle and center which is generally not consciously acknowledged or
perceived. A group has subpersonalities, that is factions, cliques, andf or
I
individuals which operate as more or less independent sub-systems in
harmony or in opposition with each other and with the group as a whole. And a
group has a superconscious, that is, a reservoir of transpersonal energy and
I
I
vision which is seeking expression. And so on.
Group life typically consists of aggregates of persons submerging their
individual identities in exchange for group membership , group acceptance, and
power. The need for membership , for community, for belonging is very great in
human beings. I believe that today we are in a unique period of the historical­ I
cultural evolution of humanity. Increasingly, the creative worth of the
individual and the inherent value of individual experience is being recognized. l O
This is creating great strains on traditional institutions and forms. Spouses I
assert their own individuality and often get divorced. Members of organized
religion seek their own unique religious expression and belief, and the
authority and power of institutional religion wanes. People conform less and
I
less to the ways of their neighbors, and the closeness of communities is
becoming a nostalgic memory.
We hunger for community, all of us. And we know that a group of people
united in purpose can accomplish so much more than can individuals. Yet we
cherish our individuality and do not know how to have both. The tensions that
led to the destruction of the California group involved issues of

I
inclusionf exclusion, personal versus group life , and hierarchically-structured
power distribution versus egalitarianism. These issues and tensions are
dynamically or latently present in every group ; and the more deeply committed

I
the members are to a group , the greater the potential for collective pathology.
This is just as prevalent in the private corporate world as it is in religious and
psychotherapy groups, and as it is in governments.
I am convinced that the surest way a group can avoid being overwhelmed
by the group 's shadow is to focus on this shadow. A group should acknowledge
I
that it has certain topics which are avoided, that certain behaviors are
implicitly or explicitly punished without ever being looked at or discussed, that
new members must show personal and ritualized obeisance before they are
I
included into the higher levels of privilege and power, and so on. I believe that
we are at the brink of beginning to leam about group psychosynthesis, and
that this understanding how group psychosynthesis works can make a
I
significant contribution to the peaceful cultural evolution of humankind.
I
10 I believe this is a global phenomenon, although it is much easier to perceive in our I
own culture. Conflict with the forces of reaction is what usually makes the news, and

I
this dominates what we know of other distant cultures.

250
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Co n c l u s i o n

I
34. Co n c l u s i o n
I
I have studied psychosynthesis at an institute with one of the fmest

I psychosynthesis teachers anywhere for two years. I have read most of what has
been published about psychosynthesis at least once. I have interviewed twenty­
seven of the most experienced psychosynthesists in North Ameriea. I have

I attended three psychosynthesis conferences; one of the se was " Rebirth of the
Soul ," an International Psychosynthesis Conference in Italy to which participants
came from twenty-seven countries around the worldl where psychosynthesis

I centers or therapists can be found. In spite of all of this exposure, my grasp of

psychosynthesis feels incomplete. I am still struggling with it.

I In my study of psychosynthesis I have met other psychologists, social

workers, physicians, marriage and family counselors, artists, educators,
psychotherapists, dancers, business managers and consultants, body

I therapists, priests, and alcohol and substance abuse counselors. Each was
studying psychosynthesis for both professional and personal reasons.

Assagioli refused to defme psychosynthesis "because all defmitions are

I limited and limiting" ( 1 98 1 ) . However, he did "indicate" that psychosynthesis is

"a general attitude of, and striving towards, integration and synthesis in all
fields, but particularly in psychology, therapy, interpersonal and group
I relations." He said it might be called a "movement," a "trend" and a "goal," and
that "there is no orthodoxy in psychosynthesis and no one, beginning with

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myself, should be considered as its exc1usive representative or leader."

There are no national or international psychosynthesis professional

organizations at this time. There are no generally accepted standards of

I training. Each institute trains students in its own way. There are not many
books in the literature, although the list is growing, and several j ournals have
come and gone over the years. There exists little published psychosynthesis
clinical or counseling material even though the primary application of
psychosynthesis principles has been in the se areas. Yet more and more people
worldwide are studying psychosynthesis and becoming transformed by it.

I Psychosynthesis acknowledges the spiritual dimension of human nature.

Can it also be a science? Assagioli intended that it would be:

I We accept the idea that spiritual drives or spiritual urges are as real,
basic and fundamental as sexual and aggressive drives; they should not b e
reduced t o sublimation o r pathological distortions o f the sexual and

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I 1 Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Ireland, England, Scotland, Greece, Austria,
Switzerland, Germany, Italy, NOIWay, Denmark, Spain, Israel, Nigeria, South Africa,
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Mexico , Brazil and

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Argentina

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aggressive components of the personality-although in many neurotic cases

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such elements are , of course, present.

What we hope to see developed over a period of years-and certainly do I

not c1aim has yet been achieved-is a science of the Self, of its energies, its
m anifestations, of how the se energies can be released , how they can be
contacted , how they can be utilized for constructive and therapeutie work" I
( 1 96 5 , p . 1 94 ) .

Assagioli was very c1ear that p sychosynthesis i s "neutral towards religion I

and philosophy." In order to explain this neutrality, he fIrst differentiated
between two stages of religion:

1. The "existential religious or spiritual experience" ; that is, the direct

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experience of spiritual realities. This has been realized by the founders of
religions, the mysties, some philosophers and , in varying degrees, by many
people.
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2. The theological or metaphysical formulations of such experiences and
the institutions which have been founded, in various historie periods and I
"cultural spaees," in order to communicate to the masses of men who did
not have that direct experience, its fruits and outcomes. Further, the
methods, forms and rites through which the masses of men may be helped I
to participate-indirectly-in the "revelation."

. . . Psychosynthesis definitely affmns the reality of spiritual experience , the

existence of the higher values and of the "noetic" or "noological"
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dimension . . . . Its neutrality refers only to the second phase: that of the
formulations and the institutions. It appreciates, respects and even
recognizes the necessity of such formulations and institutions; but its

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purpose is to help to attain the direct experience (pp . 1 94-5).

My own conc1usion about psychosynthesis at this time is as follows. Western

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culture has been in an age of analysis for the last three centuries. This p articular
mode of consciousness has produced many fruits, p articular in the are as of the
understanding and manipulation of the physical environment, which has in turn

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led to a t:remendous overall increase in material wealth and power. Nearly all the
cultures of the world are now eager to share in the se fruits.

This three-hundred-year-old analytical enterprise has also produced a

fragmentation in our world view and an alienation from and growing
d evastation of our environment. Our understanding of our own p sychological,
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social, economic and political nature is at an infantile level compared to our
ability to manipulate physical matter. This has led to a crisis in which we are in
danger of destroying ourselves, and perhaps also the entire web of ille on this
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planet. In some ways we are like a small child who has been handed a flame
thrower to play with.
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The antidote for this predicament, I b elieve, is a more synthesis-oriented

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consciousness. Analysis can take things apart, but it takes synthesis to put

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Co nc l us i o n

I them back together again. The problems that beset us now are primarily
questions of synthesis: How can humankind and nature exist together in

I harmony? And how can different peoples, with all their cultural , economic, and
political differences, co-exist together for the common good of all? I believe that
the age of synthesis is now at hand and that psychosynthesis is an idea whose
I time has come. As Assagioli wrote ( 1 98 1 ) :

If we, and those who will gradually take our places in the future , are and
I will remain faithful to the se principles . . . , we may hope to make a valuable
contribution to the spiritual , psychological and external integration of
humanity. Such integration is its urgent need, and alone can counteract the
I dangers at present menacing it, and help to usher in a new and truly
human civilization and culture , a new way of living.

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A p pe nd ix A: Chronology of Psychosynthesis i n N o rth Ameriea

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I Ap pend ix A:
A C H RO N O LOGY O F EVE NTS IN TH E D EVELOPM ENT
I O F PSYC HO SYNTH ESIS IN N O RTH AM E RICA: 1 9 5 5 - 1 9 8 5

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1 955 Robert Gerard seeks out and meets Assagioli at an international
congress of psychotherapy in Paris. Gerard offers to help Assagioli
establish psychosynthesis in the United States and elsewhere.

I 1 9 58 Roberto Assagioli presents a week long series of lectures on

psychosynthesis at the estate of Alexa DuPont Dubie in Greenwood,
Delaware, to about one dozen people.

I 1 9 58 The Psychosynthesis Research Foundation is established in New York

City, with Frank Hilton as the Director. The P.R.F. holds monthly

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education meetings and publishes pamphlets of Assagioli and others.
1 9 59 Robert Gerard spends three months with Assagioli in Florence to help
him organize his ideas and write The Manual.

I 1 965 Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques, by Roberto

Assagioli is published in the United States.

I 1 968 Jim Fadiman begins teaching workshops in psychosynthesis at the

Esalen Institute in California.
Edith Stauffer begins teaching psychosynthesis at The High Point
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1 970
Foundation in Pasadena, California.
1 970 The Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in Education is founded in

I 1 97 1
Walpole, New Hampshire.
Jim and Susan Vargiu found the Psychosynthesis Institute in Redwood
City, California.
I 1 972 Frank Hilton retires, dissolving the Psychosynthesis Research
Foundation.

I 1 973 The Act of Will, by Roberto Assagioli is published in the United States.
1 973 Martha Crampton founds The Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in

I 1 973
Montreal, the primary training center on the East Coast.
The Psychosynthesis Institute moves to Palo Alto, California and
begins a professional training program.
I 1 97 4 Roberto Assagioli dies.
1 974 The Kentucky Center of Psychosynthesis in Lexington is started by
I John Parks.

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Psyc hosynthes i s i n N o rth Ameriea

1 975 The Psychosynthesis Center Northwest, in Seattle , is started by Edith

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Stauffer as an extension of The High Point Center. It becomes an
independent center in 1 98 0 . I
1 97 6 The Psychosynthesis Institute moves to San Francisco.
1 978 Martha Crampton doses the Canadian Institute and moves to
California to help the San Francisco center start a psychosynthesis
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graduate school. She returns to the East Coast after the collaboration
brakes down. I
1 978 The Berkshire Center for Psychosynthesis is founded by Judith and

1 978
David Bach.
The Synthesis Center is started in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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1 978 The Psychosynthesis Institute of Minnesota is started in Minneapolis.
1 978 Intermountain Associates for Psychosynthesis is started in
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1 978 The Synthesis Graduate School for the Study of Man opens in San I
Francisco.
1 979 The Boston Center for Psychosynthesis is founded.
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1 980 The Psychosynthesis Institute and the Synthesis Graduate School in
San Francisco collapse.
1 980 The Synthesis Center, in Hutchinson, Kansas is started by Vivian King.
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1 98 1 The Psychosynthesis Education and Training Program is started in San
Francisco by Tom Yeomans and Phillip Brooks. I
1 98 1 The Psychosynthesis Institute of New York opens.
1981 The Hill Center for Psychosynthesis in Education in New Hampshire is
dosed.
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1 982 Psychosynthesis for the Helping Professions, a training program run
by Tom Yeomans, opens in Concord, Massachusetts. I
1 982 The Vermont Center for Psychosynthesis opens.
1 983 International Conference on Psychosynthesis is held in Toronto. I
1 983 The Boston Center for Psychosynthesis ceases operating.
1 984 Edith Stauffer establishes Psychosynthesis International, a I
correspondence training course.
1 984 The Berkshire Center for Psychosynthesis doses. I
1 985 The High Point Center in Pasadena, California doses. Vivian King, who

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had been running it for two years, begins her own professional training
program.

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Append ix B : Statement by Roberto Assag i o l i

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Ap pen d ix B: Statement by Ro berto Assa g i o l i
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RELATI O N S H I PS BETWEEN THE VARI O U S

I F O U N DATI O N S , I N STITUTI O N S AN D CENTERS 1

l have been asked to issue a definite statement, concerning the relationships

I b etween various Foundations, lnstitutes and Centers of Psychosynthesis which

exist, or are to be founded, in various countries and parts of the world . 1 am
willingly complying with this request, as it gives me an opportunity to

I emphasize once more the true nature and spirit of p sychosynthesis.

Psychosynthesis is not a doctrine or a "school" of p sychology; it is not a

special or single method of self-realization, therapy, education, interpersonal

I and social (group) relations and integration.

It can be indicated (1 do not use the word "defme , " because all definitions are

I limited and limiting) primarily as a general attitude of, and striving towards ,
integration and synthesis in all fields, but particularly i n those just mentioned.
It might be called a "movement" , a "trend" and a "goal. " There is no orthodoxy

I in p sychosynthesis and no one, beginning with myself, should be considered as

its exc1usive representative or leader. Each of its exponents tries to express and
apply it as well as he or she is able to , and all who read or listen to the

I message , or receive the benefit of the use of the methods of p sychosynthesis

can decide how successful any exponent has been or will be in expressing its
" spirit. "

I The external pattern o f this relationship between the Foundations, Institutes

and Centers of Psychosynthesis should not be that of a "solar system , " but that
of a " constellation."

I If we , and those who wi11 gradually take our places in the future , are and wi11
remain faithful to the se principles and policies, we may hope to make a

I valuable contribution to the spiritual, p sychological and external integration of

humanity. Such integration is its urgent need, and alone can counteract the
dangers at present menacing it, and help to usher in a new and truly human

I civilization and culture , a new way of living.

I Professor Roberto Assagioli,

Founder
M.D . ,

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I 1 (From Psychosynthesis Digest Vol. I, No. 1 . Fall, 198 1 ; reprinted in Psychosynthesis
International Directory, Spring, 1988.)
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References

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REFERENCES
I Anthony, Dick, Bruce Ecker, and Ken Wilbur (eds.) ( 1 987). Spiritual Choices:
The Problem of Recognizing Authentie Paths to Inner Transformation, New
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Assagioli, Roberto , ( 1 965). Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Pri ncip les and

I Techniques, New York: The Viking Press.

Assagioli, Roberto, ( 1 970) . 'The Technique of Evocative Words," P.R.F. Issue No.
I 2 5 (pamphlet) , New York: Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Inc.

Assagioli, Roberto, ( 1 973) . The Act of Will, Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc.
I Assagioli, Roberto ( 1 98 1 ) . "Relationships Between the Various Foundations,
Institutions and Centers," Psychosynthesis Digest, Vol. I, No. I, Fall. [This
I brief "memo" is reproduced in full in Appendix B.]

Bailey, Alice ( 1 9 5 1 ) . A Treatise on White Magic, New York: Lucis Publishing Co.
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Co.
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Angeles: Psychosynthesis Press.
I Bugental, James ( 1 987). The Art of the Psychotherapist, New York: Norton &
Co.
I Christ, Carol ( 1 980) . Diving Deep and Surfacing, Boston: Beacon Press.

I Collen, Arne ( 1 984) . Overview of Methods for Disciplined Inquiry: A Course

Manual, San Francisco: Saybrook Institute.

Douglass, Bruce, and Clark Moustakas ( 1 985) . "Heuristie Inquiry: The Internal
Search to Know," Journal of Humanistie Psychology, Vol. 2 5 , No. 3 , pp. 39-
55.

Emmerling, Naomi (Ed.) ( 1 988) . Psychosynthesis International Directory,

Sacremento: Published by Naomi Emmerling.
I Ferruci, Piero ( 1 987). From his "Foreward" to Jean Hardy's A Psychology with a

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Soul, New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gendlin, Eugene ( 1 978). Focusing, New York: Bantam.

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Gross, Stanley ( 1 984) . Of Foxes and Hen Houses: Licensing and the Health
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Professions, Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books.

Hardy, Jean ( 1 987). A Psychology with a Soul: Psychosynthesis in Evolutionary

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Context, New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Haronian, Frank ( 1 972). ''The Repression of the Sublime," P. R.F. Issue No. 30
I
(pamphlet) , New York: Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Inc. ; also
reprinted in Synthesis, Vo. I , No. 1 , 1 975, pp. 2 5-36.
I
Ingram, Catherine ( 1 987). "Ken Wilber: The Pundit of Transpersonal
Psychology," Yoga Journal, Issue 76, Sept. j Oct. I
Keen, Sam ( 1 974) . Voices and Visions, New York: Harper & Row.

Levin, Rhoda ( 1 987). Heartmates: A Survival Guide for the Cardiac Spouse, New
I
York: Simon & Schuster.

Maturana, Humberto, and Francisco Varela ( 1 987). The Tree of Knowledge: The
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Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.

McGuire , William (ed.) ( 1 974) . The Frued-Jung Letters, New York: Routledge &
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Kegan Paul.

Morris, William (ed.) ( 1 970). The Amencan Hentage Dictionary of the English
I
Language, New York: The American Heritage Publishing Company.

Ornstein, Robert ( 1 986) . Multimind, Boston: Haughton Mifflin.

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Sanford, John ( 1 986). Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality, New York: Crossroad. I
Sinelair, Sir John ( 1 984) . The Alice Bailey Inhentance, Wellingborough,
Northamptonshire, Great Britain: Turnstone Press Limited. I
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Vargiu, James ( 1 979). 1 9 79- 1 980 Catalogue, Synthesis Graduate School for the
Study of Man, San Francisco.

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Washburn, Michael ( 1 988) . The Ego and the Dynamic Ground: A Transpersonal
Theory of Human Development, Albany: The State University of New York
Press.

Weiser, John, and Thomas Yeomans (eds. ) ( 1 984). Psychosynthesis in the I

Helping Professions: Now and For the Future, Toronto: Department of Applied

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Psychology jThe Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

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References

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Weiser, John, and Thomas Yeomans (eds.) ( 1 985). Readings in

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Psychosynthesis: Theory, Proeess, and Practice, Toronto: Department of
Applied Psychology/The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

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Wilber, Ken ( 1 983). Eye to Eye: The Questjor the New Paradigm, Garden City,
N.Y. : Anchor Press.

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Yeomans, Thomas ( 1 985). "Psychosynthesis: An Introduetion for the '80s," in J .
Weiser & T. Yeomans Readings in Psychosynthesis.

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Yeomans, Thomas ( 1 984) . "Polities of the Spirit, " Psychosynthesis Digest, Vol.
2 , No. 2 , pp . 1 -6 .

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