The Radical Re-Visioning of Psychology

by William Bento, PhD

Report of a conference held at Rudolf Steiner College, November 10 – 14, 2010

This conference was a commemorative event celebrating a century since Rudolf Steiner articulated an approach to “soul wisdom” or “psychosophy” based on the foundations of spiritual science. Both in his four lectures given in Berlin, Germany from November 1 – 4, 1910, entitled 'Psychosophy' and in his unfinished document of notes published as 'Anthroposophy: A Fragment', Steiner offered innovative perspectives on the anatomy, physiology and psychological dynamics of the soul.

Among the many professional disciplines within the cultural life that have received an impulse of renewal from anthroposophically oriented research, psychology remains the least embraced. Despite the many obvious objections one may hold about the foundational premises of psychology as found in psychoanalytical thought, there are not sufficient reasons to explain why an anthroposophically oriented psychology has not emerged to meet a cultural landscape rapidly losing sight of the true nature of the human soul.

This concern united the four keynote speakers –Robert Sardello, PhD, William Bento, PhD, James Dyson, MD and Dennis Klocek, MFA – to address the need for developing a “soul wisdom” for our times based on the indications given by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago. There was little citing of texts and previous publications. All four individuals spoke out of their own current research and deep passion for the subject matter. Each presenter gave two lectures during the conference. The golden thread between each lecture was in and of itself quite an extraordinary artistic effort, not merely because the thoughts sculpted fit so well side by side, but because the heartfelt mood generated by each speaker was so palpable and wholesome.

It is certainly a daunting task to attempt to capture the content, process and magical context of the conference. Words may convey some of the objective character of the conference, yet the many subtle and not so subtle nuances that emerged within this gathering may just have to live in the hundred souls of those who participated in this historic event. Nevertheless, I shall try to express the contextual flow of the unfolding of the conference by summarizing the keynote lectures, as one would write a musical score for a symphony. Imagine this symphony in eight movements.

Movement I

Robert Sardello set the tone for the conference with an appeal to the participants to speak from their hearts about what drew them to attend. He then facilitated a brief dialogue among the presenters, asking them to share their interests in the development of psychosophy. In conclusion Sardello sketched a diagram depicting some of the central ideas found in Steiner’s lectures on Psychosophy. Without belaboring the connection between soul and heart, Robert conveyed a very accessible picture of how important the heart is in coming to terms with understanding the concepts presented by Steiner. This brief presentation offered a wonderful introduction to the four morning sessions he co-facilitated with Cheryl Sanders-Sardello under the title, Conversations of the Heart. These sessions were rich with meditative instruction, experiences, and conversations about the heart as an organ of perception.

Movement II

James Dyson spoke of one of the cardinal dilemmas of the soul: its separation from substance and the longing for re-unification with substance. This journey of separation was explored from an esoteric evolutionary point of view. Dyson was able to characterize this movement of the soul as desire and its longing for reunification with substance as part of the dynamic of human relationships. Through his explication the world of desire became more than a polarity of sympathies and antipathies, more than the psychoanalytic notion of sexuality as the basis of human maturation. Instead it became filled with an ontological drive for wholeness, for a sense of completion that souls seek through relationships with one another.

Movement III

In William Bento’s talk the soul’s relationship with time was highlighted. He described observations of how the soul is undergoing a high level of stress due to an actual acceleration of time. Of particular note were his remarks about the stream of time coming from the future as being intensified with images of the Apocalypse, and his sharing the occult fact reported by Steiner that the etheric (protective) sheath of the heart would continue to loosen in this century. Bento inferred that these two phenomena have created a cultural pathology of Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. His diagnostic and interventional formulation of and for this pathology was presented in the following chart:

Bento concluded by stating a pressing need to transform the context of psychotherapy from one of encounter to one of accompaniment — accompaniment as friends on a universal human path of initiation. In this assertion Bento struck a note of the radical re-envisioning of psychology that seemed to pervade and persist throughout the conference.

Movement IV

From an entirely different orientation than William Bento, Dennis Klocek was also able to point out another alarming pathology of our time. Dennis explored a neuropsychological map of the brain that cast light upon the rapidly increasing autistic spectrum. If one did not have a certain respect or reverence for science prior to listening to Dennis’s cogent and incisive illustrations of how the soul is at play in utilizing the instrument of the brain, one would surely have been given reason to do so. Dennis explained that in the autistic spectrum issues of sensory integration, spatial perspective, and contextual meaning (key factors in the limbic region of the brain) become fragmented, impaired and dysfunctional agents of processing stimuli. Due to an underlying lack of neural stability and agility this phenomena tends to lock one into a set pattern of idiosyncratic behaviors. Yet Dennis also reported recent research that states one can stimulate and grow more neurons, thereby giving hope to the autistic person, whom so many have accepted as souls entrapped by deficient neurological apparatus.

Movement V

Dr. Dyson returned to his theme concerning the soul and substance. Referring to Dennis’s neurological map of the brain James cited the interplay in the two hemispheres of the brain as possibly depicting how the soul lives in space and time. This time he probed the mystery of the will and its role in psychological development. Some of this content was further developed in his workshop on the seven life processes, as it can be understood in the domain of the soul. His thesis led us through the esoteric physiology of body and soul into Wilford Bion’s radical psychoanalytic ideas about the foundation for mental

development and truth as being all about emotional experience. Dyson made the link between the willful drive to reunite soul and substance with Bion’s epistemological theory of thinking. This theory rests on a claim that thinking must find the will to be free of memory and desire. In this formulation Dyson pointed out how human karma lives in the memory and desire for developing through relationship. A radical new psychology must therefore advocate for a deeper understanding of how human relationships can be freed from repetitive self-indulgent egoistic patterns so that they may serve the development, each of the other. Dr. Dyson ended his talk with a verse found in one of Rudolf Steiner’s notebooks, entitled In Times To Come:

In times to come

Human beings will have to exist

The one for the other

And not the one through the other

Thus is reached the world's ultimate aim

That each one is with themselves

And each would give to the other what none would demand.

Movement VI

Robert Sardello delivered a mighty, breathtaking imagination of key aspects of Holy Wisdom in the most humble and intimate manner. He spoke of the source of Holy Wisdom as a realm of Light elevated beyond the conceptual realm of spiritual hierarchies. This gnostic view of Sophia in her majesty evoked a deep sense of wonder and awe. Sardello then masterfully described a descent of Holy Wisdom into Mother Mary. By penetrating the significant stages in the life of Mother Mary – Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Pentecost and Assumption, he was able to highlight soul processes and soul capacities which are essential for every human being to be aware of and to practice. To find peace in surrender to the Divine in our life, to give birth to the miracles of our becoming, to articulate the truths that liberate and inspire, and to overcome the gravity and weight of the body and its ultimate end – death – these were accounted as four stages on the path of spiritual development by Sardello. His own heart-centered delivery of these processes was as moving as the insights he shared.

Sardello concluded with a third level of the descent of Holy Wisdom by referring to the mysteries of the Black Madonna. In this segment of his talk he illuminated the common gesture of the Black Madonna images throughout the ages, i.e., mother holding son in the space of her heart and he gazing into the future with the courage to bear all that is to come. Robert stated the vital task streaming out of a psychosophy is to be able to carry the suffering of the Soul of the World and to find the strength to transform it into the Anthroposophia — the wisdom of becoming fully human.

Movement VII

Dennis Klocek gave repeated demonstrations of the threefold dynamic of the triune brain (brain stem, limbic and neo-cortex). This is vital for understanding the dysfunctions found in the autistic spectrum, and he emphasized that an anthroposophical approach to psychology must stay abreast of the most recent developments in neuroscience. Reviewing the neuroscience of the brain and its capacity to shed light on the autistic spectrum, Dennis moved to a pithy and serious analysis of how our contemporary culture is creating demons through its unbridled proliferation of technological stimulation. He referred to Steiner’s warnings that in future, which is now, the human being will be attacked by his own creations. Dennis addressed the deeper significance of creation as a matter not of utility but of nobility and beauty. He then moved from a diagnostic frame of reference to seeking for the solutions and antidotes to the problem: an ever-widening variety of autistic spectrum type behaviors reinforced by a culture that spawns demons. He drew from spiritual scientific insight about the nature of consciousness itself and asserted the need for a particular type of attention. Citing Frank Wilson’s phenomenal book, The Hand, Dennis emphasized the importance of eye/hand coordination in early development. The training of the eye (window of the soul) with the hand (the embodied instrument of creativity) can be raised to the level of an enlivening activity for stimulating neuronal development. In addition to this central area for intervention, Dennis spoke of the critical need to exercise the artistic faculties that give rise to imaginations, imaginations as leading orientations to rediscovering and creating reality.

Jacchus Madonna, by Dennis Klocek.

Movement VIII

The concluding talk was given by William Bento, who picked up the themes of Sophia as Holy Wisdom and the emergence of psychosophy as a path of transforming the individual soul and the culture in which it lives. He sketched a diagrammatic picture of a Holy Trinosophia comprised of astrosophy, psychosophy, and anthroposophy. From his references to a realm of ineffable light he emphasized the human soul’s longing for mysticism, for a communion with the stars. And he inferred that the study of the stars in its relationship to how the soul lives in the stream of time requires both a “new star wisdom” and a new form of gnosis — a gnosis of the anatomy and physiology of the soul as found in the indications given by Steiner in 1910.

He then articulated aspects of the sentient body, sentient soul, comprehension-seeking soul, consciousness soul and spirit self. References to the Pistis Sophia were utilized to expand upon the nature of these mysteries of the embodied human soul. Bento then asserted that putting the wisdom from a soul-gnosis into practice is the call of those who wish to take up psychosophy. In his view it was nothing less than being willing to practice a magic that would lead to the Royal Art of creating a new culture. This latter remark opened up an exploration into the hermetic methods implicit to the spiritual science of anthroposophy, a path Sardello had already made clear as the way of the Black Madonna.

As a call to the awakening of these mysteries Bento spoke of the individuality of Mani and the explicit task in Manichaeism to transform evil. He pointed to the occultation of Venus by the Sun in the Bull in June 2012 as a sign of the time for all aspiring souls to take hold of the transformation of our culture, to align our souls with the Venus sphere – realm of the Spirits of the Age and region of the human soul’s relation one to another. This led to a closing reading of Steiner’s closing words to his Psychosophy lectures in Berlin, November 5, 1910:

“…[T]hrough your own interests, you have joined a movement whose goal is to comprehend the mission of our time. Understand also that your confidence, insight and faith can grow if you comprehend this as manifested karma. Tell yourself that karma has led you to be present and active at the crossroads of a stream of time and that you must become courageous, strong and confident. This insight should be a source of strength to cooperate energetically in this sphere. And this effort must bear fruit, because the human progress demands it.”

William Bento, Ph.D., is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California, and works as a transpersonal clinical psychologist. He is a recognized pioneer and a published author in psychosophy (soul wisdom) and astrosophy (star wisdom) and travels extensively as a speaker, teacher, and consultant. He is the author of Lifting the Veil of Mental Illness: An Approach to Anthroposophical Psychology, as well as Holy Nights Journal and Meditation Cards & Booklet on the Eightfold Path.

Dr. James Dyson qualified as a physician in 1975 in London and continued his post-graduate training in anthroposophical medicine. He worked in a number of hospitals in continental Europe and founded Park Atwood Clinic in the U.K., the first residential Anthroposophical medical facility in the English-speaking world, where he worked for 25 years, five years as Medical Director. During the last 20 years, he has lectured extensively on both sides of the Atlantic, mainly on medically and psychologically related sub-themes.

Dennis Klocek is an artist, scientist, teacher, researcher, gardener, and alchemist. He received an MFA in 1975 from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art with a thesis on Goethe’s color theory, and in 1982 he joined the faculty of Rudolf Steiner College where he has been the director of the Consciousness Studies Program (“Goethean Studies”) since 1992. Dennis is author of five books including, Drawing from the Book of Nature,Weather and Cosmos, Seeking Spirit Vision, and The Seer.

Robert Sardello, PhD, co-founded The School of Spiritual Psychology in 1992. He is author of Facing the World with Soul, Love and the Soul, Freeing the Soul from Fear, The Power of Soul: Living the Twelve Virtues, Silence, and Steps on the Stone Path: Working with Crystals and Minerals as Spiritual Practice. He is also co-founder and faculty member of The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, author of over 200 articles in scholarly journals and cultural publications, and was on the faculty of The Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, MT.

William Bento, James Dyson, Dennis Klocek, and Robert Sardello.