To the Psychosynthesis Centre of ________

THE POSSIBLE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Will Project and the mission of our time
Dear friends of the Psychosynthesis Centre of ______________________________
Dear Director,
I am writing this letter with emotion, will and devotion. If you are reading, it is because you
received it with, in attachment, a book entitled The possible evolution of man, that Im sending
to you as a gift for the library or space of your Centre or Group of Psychosynthesis.
My passion of Psychosynthesis is based on the fact that its one of the few disciplines of inner
work, which considers man - and its possible evolution - as an open system, and at the same
time one that is open to new contributions. It was Piero Ferrucci, in his important book of
introduction to Psychosynthesis, that remind us that this discipline is "open to new
contributions, while maintaining its specific and unmistakable character."
For the main theme of this letter is the future and its possibilities, the idea of openness, in
particular, is of great interests to me. In fact, the vital joy that comes from a conception of man
as an open being, is the same that leads us to the 'realm of possibilities' that conceive Man as
capable of incorporating and fully assuming the commitment of the mission of our time.
Another point of tremendous value in Psychosynthesis, is in fact the idea of inclusion and
transcendence of some of the dearest issues of existentialism. And despite the declaration of a
'pure consciousness' in man, in this vision we become self-aware, not by our own, but rather in
a constant dialogue with reality. We become ourselves in this situation, right now. Alberto
Alberti, in some of his important writings, has precisely defined man as a "being-there" - the
key word in all of the existential visions of human nature. Which is, "not an abstract observer
nor detached from life, but a being who is a living subject, grounded in a reality, a living and
vital presence that exists in fact, experiencing life and plunges concretely in his experience".
We become fully human in the situations in which we are living.
But when we talk about openness, we can go even further. The openness is as much the essence
of our being than our becoming. In this regard, the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger
wrote that man is a clearing (Lichtung), a space in which things happen. A clearing can be more
or less wide, more or less clear, more or less bright; more or less open to Being. From this point
of view, the path and the promise that we share - to pass from multiplicity to one, is a journey
that promises, through a commitment, to be brighter clearings. Not only for the present; but
also in the important sense of being able to hold within ourselves the future under a new light.
As essential clearings, our task is to decide how things happen and will happen, and in this
sense we are responsible for our future. And if, as many of us have discovered, it is the will that

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allows us to choose, and therefore to be responsible of a fundamental act of will: the choice to
live in a benevolent universe - and to give to the future generations a future that supports and
honours the values of life - or if to live in a malevolent universe. This is what Albert Einstein
called "the fundamental choice of every man." It is an intimate choice that we make only from
the Centre, but it is a choice that not only affects ourselves. In our decision, we choose for the
whole world.
But as I anticipated, Psychosynthesis 'includes and transcends' certain themes of existentialism.
Includes, since it is based on its main themes such as identity, values, decisions, freedom and
future. But at the same time it represents an existentialism that says "Yes" to life, rather than
"No". There is no "condemnation" for being human, since "we do not ask to be born"; on the
contrary, being born is an opportunity to become fully human and to grab those eternal
moments that P. D. Ouspensky called "miraculous." In this sense man is a "subject", because
hes free to establish the meanings of how things 'happen', but hes a "living" subject, which
harbor within himself the principle of life.
And as we cannot not choose, because even a non-choice is a decision, so we, as individuals of
Will, we cannot not want, because even a rejection of the will presupposes it. The "No" to life
is an act of will. The three stonecutters of the famous story, have chosen three stories, but only
the third is an actual "yes" to life. In that sense the third stonecutter is a subject that has chosen
life, and in that story lies his Individual Call.
But we have not only an Individual Call; we also have a Collective Call - the specific mission
of our time. And I think one of the main tasks of our generation with generation I mean all the
living people of a particular historical moment, so we all belong to the same generation - is to
closely embrace our fate and future of our period of time. If, as we know, we become ourselves
in a synthesis with life and with the outside world, in this complex era and changing historical
time there is something deep that Calls us, and we have to answer not only for the world, but
also not to lose ourselves.
We know that we can get closer to the call of our lives through two major forces: desperation
or inspiration. Both forces are essential, both can help us to awaken from the sleep of
consciousness, and to find our road with a heart. But to find it is not enough, if the work
expands beyond ourselves. It must be communicated. And from the moment in which I felt the
intention to communicate these findings to the young people of my generation - especially the
gifted one - I understood from the beginning the need to search for and identify new forms, new
languages more suitable for this specific time.
I believe that the young people of my generation (this time I use this term in the conventional
sense) do not suffer so much from a meaning deficit', as Viktor Frankl thought for his time and
his generation, but of an ontological deficit, a feeling of being empty. Many of them feel an
existential longing, the experience that 'something is missing', something that remains
undefined, since what is lacking is the experience of their own identity, their own specific call
and the understanding of their "place in the scheme." And for this, I think the Psychosynthesis
can provide of fundamental answers, and be a useful guide. To do that, however, I am sure that
it is essential to create a channel between our generations, connecting past and future in a

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choreographed dance that can nourish our essences in a world of impressions that nourishes our
personality, and who can respond to more urgent and important problems of our time. And on
this point, Roberto Assagioli has explicitly left open a particular project for the future
generations: the "Will Project." In the statement of possibilities of this Project, he wrote:
"The following program [the Will Project] wants to be an introduction for further research on the will.
It can be expanded and modified. It is the basis for future work that can yield huge rewards."

I believe that this project can really and deeply answer, to the mission of our time. This is
because the historical time mission is a complex phenomenon, which is interconnected to a set
of other facts; and certainly it is interconnected to the greatest paradox that every historical
time possesses. And I think one of the greatest paradoxes of the world in which I was born and in particular right now - is that we are not in crisis because we have no external
technologies to solve our problems. We are in crisis because we dont have sufficient inner
powers to manage them. And more specifically, we dont have the will to apply them in a
better, wiser and more profound way than we have done so far. In other words, what is lacking
to be link to our inner powers is the will, and above all the good will.
This book arises from an open confrontation with hundreds of young people of my generation,
and after a lot of thought on how to respond to the emergency and the spiritual "ontological
deficit" of the latter. This essay is designed as a concrete recovery of the Will Project, and in
particular in order to offer a 'context' within which the development of the inner powers - and
in particular the development of an integral will and his research - can be naturally perceived
simultaneously as an important and a valuable work.
The ideas that in-form this context are very simple: 1) "You can make a difference"; 2) "Choose
to live in a world you and me - rather than you or me; 3) "Find and accept your noble purpose
(or your Call)." These ideas just want to highlight the three fundamental aspects of an integral,
strong, good and wise will. It constitutes an attempt to tell another story, another mythology
able - this time - to support Life and a will capable to say Yes - Yes twice.
Joseph Campbell, a student of Jung and creator of the Hero's Journey, at the end of his life said
that the greatest challenge of our time is to offer a new "cosmology", able to give man a new
vision of himself and of his "place in the scheme." A new mythology of Life, that can make us
step out of the dual mind square and let us enter the circle - the experience of life (this is the
meaning of the book cover). Basically, the same Joseph Campbell said that the deeper purpose
of the myths is not - as many believe - to give a "meaning" to man, but rather to help him
access to the "feeling of being alive":
"People say that we're just trying to give meaning to our lives. I dont think this is really what we seek.
What we seek is rather the experience of being alive. So that our physical lives have interior resonance, and
causes us to experience the rapture of being alive. " - Joseph Campbell

The book youre holding in your hands is born from this effort, from a series of lives that have
met, and a series of acts of will that met as well. The copy you are holding was financed by a
fundraise in a series of free lectures given by myself in a number of Associations in the Naples
area that are involved in the evolution of consciousness. Another interesting fact is that one of

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the conditions of this publication is that the entire profits of this essay will be devoted to the
establishment of a Fund for the publishing house that published it, Iemme editions, that intend
to finance future research on issues about the development of consciousness, giving space
primarily to young people.
In conclusion, I have to leave my greeting, but I want to go back to one of the initial ideas:
somehow Psychosynthesis is a set of ideas, principles and impressions, which leads us to say
"Yes to life" - in a world of impressions designed to say "No". The more our world becomes
complex, the more it is easy to become disoriented and therefore to choose to say "No", but - at
the same time - it is there that this becomes even more important. And the Yes to life, as
explained to me recently by the senior university professor of existentialist philosophy - which
made his own contribution to the will project, by being interviewed - should be a particular
Yes:
"Yes, yes to Life. - said literally this professor - Yes twice. Because we couldnt say Yes to life
only once. Because then life, you know, it will surprise you: in the sense that it repeats itself,
and by doing so it shows its negative aspects. So, to life you must know how to say yes twice.
Even when the worst returns. Because that is where you can make a rupture, select it, and
make sure that it returns in a different way. "
And maybe the professor implicitly referred to the dis-identification (the "rupture"), the choice
("select"), but above all the idea that the first act of will of a fully human being is "the will to
will." "The first act of the will is the Will to Will," Assagioli wrote in one of his last lectures on
the will toward a universe (benevolent) and life ("Yes to life"); its the beginning and the end of
this project. So in this case our responsibility is truly great, because it means waking up
incorporating an attitude, values, but above all it means to "take a stand" toward life, which is
really contrary to most people. And in this sense our task is extremely large; It is immense. Its
a task that shakes the majority of us, and in this sense it requires an immense trust and the
existential courage mentioned by Rilke in his remarkable poem:
Again and again in history
some special people wake up.
They have no ground in the crowd
and move to broader deeper laws.
They carry strange customs with them
and demand room for bold and audacious action.
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
They save the world.
RAINER MARIA RILKE

It is here that the will Project and in general the notion of the will makes the difference. We
must remember that we cannot not want, that "even if we were completely silent and quiet as
rocks, our passivity would be equally an action." If everything matters, if everything has a
place in the end our acts of will cannot not make a difference, one way or another; because
"every word has echoes, every silence also."
MAURO VENTOLA,

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Napoli, Spring 2016.

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