Psycho-spiritual Union: Integrating Spirituality and ...

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Teilhard Studies Number 81

Fall 2020

Psycho-spiritual Union:

Integrating Spirituality

and Psychology in

Teilhard, Jung, and Assagioli

Andrew Del Rossi

TEILHARD STUDIES is a monograph series concerned with the future of the

human in light of the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. Two issues each year

are planned and sent to members of the Teilhard Association.

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TEILHARD STUDIES

Editor Kathleen Duffy, SSJ

Associate Editors Bede Bidlack Joshua Canzona

Anne Marie Dalton Laura Eloe

Daniel Scheid

Andrew Del Rossi, Th.D. received a doctoral degree in theology with a concentration in

Christian Spirituality from La Salle University (2018). His doctoral dissertation is titled “Seeking

Wholeness: Integrating Spirituality and Psychology in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, and

Roberto Assagioli.” Presently, Del Rossi serves as Director of the Spirituality Center at

Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, PA, where in collaboration with the Abbey’s Norbertine community,

he has integrated Teilhard into the Center’s programming. Previous experience includes service

as theology faculty member, director of campus ministry, and member of the Christian Service

Office at Bishop Eustace Preparatory School, Pennsauken, NJ as well as being part of the three-

person team operating the Urban Challenge service-immersion program at Romero Center

Ministries, Camden, NJ. He has also worked in small business and in the field of alternative and

holistic therapies. Del Rossi presents on the life and work of Teilhard de Chardin as well as the

integration of spirituality and psychology and has published book reviews on Teilhard and the

New Cosmology. He is a member of the Board of the American Teilhard Association and editor

of Teilhard Perspective.

© 2020, American Teilhard Association, http://www.teilharddechardin.org

Cover design by John J. Floherty, Jr. Woodcut by Kazumi Amano. Reproduced

with permission of the artist and the Gallery of Graphic Arts, Ltd., 1603 York

Avenue, New York, NY 10028.

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Psycho-spiritual Union:

Integrating Spirituality

and Psychology in

Teilhard, Jung, and Assagioli

Andrew Del Rossi

Introduction

The fields of spirituality and psychology hold the power to connect individual human persons

to the self, to others, and to the world, and thus to wholeness. This paper explores how the

thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, and Roberto Assagioli can advance a spiritual

understanding of the human psyche that affirms its connection to the collective consciousness of

the noosphere and to the transpersonal. Although the thought of Teilhard, Jung, and Assagioli

share many similarities, the most prominent overlap occurs in their consensus that wholeness

emerges from relationship.

Jesuit scientist and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin understands the universe as evolving

toward a point of wholeness and union with the Divine—the Omega Point. Though Teilhard’s

work explores this process of growth, challenge, and transformation on a planetary scale, his

revolutionary thought is rooted in his personal journey of experiencing the Divine within.

Therefore, to fully embrace Teilhard’s vision, it is necessary to see as Teilhard sees.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung pioneered a new understanding of the psyche by proposing

that the unconscious is collective in nature. He saw humanity’s task to bring the unconscious

into consciousness. Influenced by Jung, Italian psychiatrist and neurologist Roberto Assagioli

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founded the area of psychosynthesis, a therapeutic method that views psychological growth as a

spiritual process.

The psycho-spiritual search for wholeness is about relationship; it is about conscious

connection and integration with self, others, the world, and God. Teilhard’s principle of creative

union indicates that relationship is implicit within the evolutionary process, now predominantly

in the human. As human persons grow in wholeness on a personal level, so does the collective of

humanity via the noosphere. Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious resonates deeply with

Teilhard's notion of the noosphere. Both are unconscious psychic substrates that are manifesting

a more conscious reality—the Omega Point and the Self. Meanwhile, Assagioli’s work in

psychosynthesis integrates the spiritual dimension of the human by exploring the Self as

immanent-transcendent, loving, and relational. By entering into a conscious relationship with the

Self, the human person can have an “intuitive, direct experience of communion with the ultimate

Reality.”1 Because psychosynthesis is inclusive of a spiritual reality, it tends to address the

human person as a whole, thus providing a perspective that illuminates the integral relationship

between spirituality and psychology on the journey to wholeness.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

In his 1916 essay “Cosmic Life,” Teilhard describes his cosmic awakening, the mystical

vision that changed the way he viewed the world. The essay is divided into two subsections, La

Vision and La Sensation. La Vision “appeals to the contemporary scientific picture wherein . . .

all things share a common origin and a common growth; all things are seen as elements of the

total development of the cosmos.”2 La Sensation, on the other hand, is an expression of

Teilhard’s recognition that it is not enough "to observe [regarder] from outside the cosmic

currents taking shape . . . we must be able to feel [sentir] them.”3 Thus, while La Vision tells of

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Teilhard’s external vision regarding the journey of the cosmos, La Sensation tells of his internal

vision regarding his inner path and how he might evolve more fully in step with the universe

toward wholeness.

Teilhard penned this essay while on active duty as a stretcher bearer in the French Army

during World War I. Distressed by the traumas of war, he found it necessary to write down the

vision that was developing within him. Though this essay initially reads as a mystical text, it also

offers insight into his unfolding psychological process of growth. He tells of entering into his

personal depths and finding his perspective challenged:

And I allowed my consciousness to sweep back to the farthest limit of my body, to

ascertain whether I might not extend outside myself. I stepped down into the most hidden

depths of my being, lamp in hand and ears alert, to discover whether, in the deepest

recesses of the blackness within me, I might not see the glint of the waters of the current

that flows on, whether I might not hear the murmur of their mysterious waters that rise

from the uttermost depths and will burst forth, no man knows where. With terror and

intoxicating emotion, I realized that my own poor trifling existence was one with the

immensity of all that is and all that is still in process of becoming.

I can feel it: matter, which I thought was most my own, eludes and escapes me.4

Yet, this challenge tempered his perception of the world. Evolution became for him the ascent of

the cosmos to greater consciousness.

Teilhard experienced feeling as if he were present within the elementary stages of the universe,

long before the evolution of the human person. He found himself surrounded by matter that was

less complex and, therefore, “of primordial consciousness” where he found “the light of life was

dimmed.”5 Initially, this seemed a pleasant reprieve from the horrors of war. Yet, he realized that

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he was moving not only in the direction of decreasing consciousness but also retrograde to

evolution. So, Teilhard stopped descending any further into the primordial universe. Instead, he

reversed direction and coordinated his rise with the ascent of evolution. “Faith in life”6 saved him

from drifting too deeply into a space of non-being. He writes: “We must travel with our backs to

matter and not try to return to it and be absorbed into it . . . Now, like a diver who regains control

and masters his inertia, I must make a vigorous effort, reverse my course and ascend again to the

higher levels.”7

Teilhard’s ascent is not a rejection of matter. Instead, his experience taught him that “one

first must make a descent into matter (the unconscious), and then reverse direction and ascend.”8

By descending into matter (the unconscious), he encountered a perspective of which he was

previously unaware.

According to Jung, the psyche has four basic functions: thinking, feeling, sensing, and

intuiting. Thinking and feeling have to do with arriving at conclusions; sensation and intuition

are for perception, or the gathering of information.9 Generally, people are dominant in some of

these functions, while other functions are neglected. Neglected functions are not of lesser value,

but are of inferior integration and expression and eventually fall into the unconscious. To effect

integration, these nondominant functions must be retrieved and brought into consciousness.

In Jung’s Four and Some Philosophers, Thomas King sheds light on Teilhard’s inner

process, suggesting that it was during his descent that Teilhard was able to access his inferior

function. This made it possible for him, during his ascent, to integrate his inferior function into

his personality and come to psychological wholeness. He understood that “the mystical effort to

see must give way to the effort to feel [sentir] and to surrender.”10

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Yet, Teilhard’s descent was also, if not predominantly, a spiritual activity, seeking God

within matter, including the matter of his own being. Besides integrating his personality,

consciously reclaiming his feeling function allowed Teilhard access to fuller union with God. He

was able to feel God. He tells how, in this integration process, the “Godhead gradually assumes,

in our sentient faculty [notre faculté de sentir] the higher Reality it possesses in the nature of

things.”11

Teilhard’s description of his communion with the Divine in “Cosmic Life” is rather vague.

However, in “The Mystical Milieu,” written a year after “Cosmic Life,” Teilhard again describes

how he descends into his unconscious, experiences his sensing function, once again reverses, and

ascends to greater consciousness. This account of union illustrates how, after this mystical

encounter, he was able to integrate the experience and arrive at a more coherent, refined, and

authentic union with God.

In “The Mystical Milieu,” Teilhard also provides “a detailed account of the final Christ, the

mysterious and very personal Focus that resembles what Jung associates with the Christ of the

mystics and calls the Transcendent Function or the Self.”12 Both essays make clear how the

psychic process achieves wholeness. Beginning with his ego-consciousness, Teilhard is “at one

point, in a person: my own person.” He is then overtaken by sensations of sound, light, and color

and is drawn out of himself “into an even richer and more spiritual rhythm that was

imperceptible and endlessly becoming the measure of all growth and all beauty.”13 Having

moved beyond his ego-consciousness, Teilhard demonstrates the integration of his sensing

function as he is now able to encounter God everywhere in the world: “Under this single tangible

stuff, Lord, you make yourself manifest to us and fill us with rapture.”14

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With this new consciousness of the Divine as his boon, Teilhard stops his descent once again

and ascends from the unconscious to consciousness. His rise in this essay describes how his

awareness becomes focused on a higher center: “I recognized that it was all coming to a center

on a single point, on a Person: your Person: Jesus!”15 The “unknown” and the “Godhead” has

now become the Ultra-Personal, Christ Omega.16 Through Teilhard’s psycho-spiritual integration

and growth, he could now see that the amorphous divine that he sought in the universe was so

real that he could have a relationship with God in a way that was most personal. Teilhard found

that we can “worship in ourselves something that is ‘us.’ God with us!”17

Despite the clear evidence that Teilhard’s psychological process led to his healthy integration

of a spiritual component, the field of psychoanalysis did not yet make the connection. Teilhard

describes his understanding of the field of psychoanalysis at the time:

Hitherto, and for excellent reasons, your science has been primarily concerned to make

the individual recognize, deep within himself, certain forgotten impressions, certain

hidden complexities, with the idea (confirmed by experiment) that once these

suppressions and complexes have been brought into the open and accepted, then they will

vanish in the light of day.18

Yet, Teilhard recognizes this approach as wanting. He calls for the need to focus on the

“great aspirations” that take the human person beyond itself:

But once this work of clearing up and liquidation has been done, surely a further task of

clarification—one that is more constructive and therefore more important—still needs to

be done. By this I mean helping the subject to decipher, in the as yet ill-explored and

imperfectly cleared-up areas of himself, the great aspirations . . . the sense of the

irreversible, the sense of the cosmos, the sense of the earth, the sense of man . . . I mean

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psycho-analyzing not in order to bring something out but to put something in: to make

man read what is to be found in himself . . . the most hidden and most comprehensive

forces in the psychic dynamism which animates us.19

Teilhard was critical that psychology had been “primarily interested in treating individual

cases from the medical point of view.” He declares that the time has come for psychoanalysis to

study the human person’s “trans-individual aspirations.”20 From his commentary, two things are

clear. First, it is apparent that Teilhard’s own experiences informed his belief that there is

something “greater” to be focused on within the exploration, understanding, and evolution of the

human psyche. Second, Teilhard firmly believed that psychology held a purpose beyond serving

the individual.

Teilhard came to know God through knowing himself. In knowing himself, he was better

able to know the world. After all, it was through his attempt to trace the cosmic lineage of his

person that he committed himself to the ascent of evolution as he longed to be one with the

universe. He achieved a sense of mystic wholeness through relationship with God by

encountering the Divine in all things. Yet, it was through the felt experience of his own person

that he encountered God most intimately. Teilhard recognized that the Divine Presence filled,

animated, unified, and expressed its personal character through the universe, but most

immediately and intimately through his own being. Teilhard learned that his joy,

accomplishments, challenges, suffering, and hope were all part of the larger network of being.

Most importantly, Teilhard integrated his understandings into his life. His thought evolved from

initial inklings of God’s presence in creation to a sense of how the spiritual power of matter

transforms life.

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Despite his world travels, much of Teilhard’s journey was conducted within his own inner

world. Thus, a psychological perspective is helpful for a fuller understanding of Teilhard’s work,

particularly the mystical elements that can become robust in their imagery and descriptive

capacity. Furthermore, a deeper understanding of one’s own psychology permits access to an

unbounded world of potential for continued spiritual growth and evolution.

Carl Jung

Although Teilhard and the renowned Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung lived in neighboring

countries and shared similar ideas, the circumstances of their lives never facilitated any

correspondence. Teilhard’s familiarity with Jung is “best seen in the way he spells Jung as

‘Young’ or ‘Yung.”21 However, in a personal letter to a friend, Teilhard recommends Jung’s

essay, “Does the World Stand on the Verge of a Spiritual Rebirth?” In the letter, he notes that

Jung’s ideas, in their essence, are “curiously similar to [his].”22 Although a direct dialogue

between the two never manifested during their lifetime, many have noted their shared themes

that call the human person to experience a reality larger than one’s own in order to evolve toward

greater wholeness.

Jung’s knowledge of Teilhard is expressed anecdotally by Jung’s friend, Miguel Serrano.

Serrano visited Jung shortly before Jung’s death in 1961 and tells of walking into Jung’s room,

spying The Human Phenomenon on the table next to Jung’s chair. Serrano asked if he had read

the book. Jung simply replied, “It is a great book.”23

Jung's contributions to the profession of psychoanalysis and modern culture are immense.

They include seminal ideas regarding topics such as introversion/extroversion, the psychological

complex, anima/animus, and synchronicity. Yet one of Jung’s most significant contributions was

his recognition of not only the personal unconscious of each individual human, but also a larger

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and more universal aspect of the unconscious that he calls the collective unconscious, “the

Original Mind of humankind, the primal matrix out of which our species has evolved a conscious

mind and then developed it over millennia to the extent and the refinement that it has today.”24

This continual refinement through time evidenced for Jung that the collective unconscious is

ever-evolving toward greater consciousness.

Like Teilhard, Jung understands the world as “a cosmos laboring through timeless aeons to

give birth to this rare quality that we call consciousness.”25 Jung held the belief that as humans

evolved, the “psyche of Nature slowly made itself conscious,” and that “God and all of creation

labored through time to bring conscious awareness into the universe.”26 This evolution of

consciousness is taking place within every human, since the collective unconscious exists within

every individual. Jung writes about the two ways to study the collective unconscious:

The collective unconscious—so far as we can say anything about it at all—appears to

consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all

nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of

projection of the collective unconscious . . . We can therefore study the collective

unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.27

Jung describes the pathway to consciousness on the individual level as individuation, that

lifelong process of becoming the “complete human beings we were born to be,”28 of entering into

deeper relationship with one’s life and world. In this process, we wake up to ourselves as a

totality, “allowing our conscious personalities to develop until they include all the basic elements

inherent in each of us at the preconscious level.”29 It is the journey to becoming one’s authentic

Self.

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Individuation is the work of a lifetime, achieved by the unique way a person integrates the

psychological energy systems present in the total human psyche. The goal of individuation is the

Self. The Self is the quintessence of psychic integration and “the inner guiding factor that is

different from the conscious personality.” The Self, according to Marie-Louise Von Franz is the

“regulating center that brings about a constant extension and maturing of the personality.”30 Just

as Teilhard’s model is centered on the Omega Point, so Jung’s model of psychic growth is

constellated on the Self.

Once unified, the human person naturally seeks myriad ways of connecting to other human

beings. We discover “the values, interests, and essentially human qualities that bind us together

in the human tribe.”31 Jung demonstrates an awareness of the principle that the greater one’s

relationship with the inner world, the greater with the outer.

Letters exchanged between Jung and Victor White, a Catholic priest, shed light on Jung’s

awareness of how well his psychological thought can be integrated with theology. Yet, Jung

refused, as a psychoanalyst, to comment outside his discipline. He recognizes the unshakable

truth of God as a psychological reality, but he never takes the liberty of making any theological

claims. Despite Jung’s choice to comment only within his field of expertise, the seminal

influence of his life and work continues to inspire waves of new therapists who have continued,

and advanced, the Swiss psychoanalyst’s investigations into consciousness and the path to

wholeness.

Roberto Assagioli

Roberto Assagioli (1881-1974), an Italian psychiatrist and neurologist, was influenced by

Carl Jung and is considered one of the primary proponents of transpersonal psychology. He

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founded the process of psychosynthesis, a therapeutic method that approaches the psychological

development of the human person as a spiritual process.

Assagioli uses the term “spiritual” in its broad connotation, “always in reference to

empirically observed human experience.”32 All states of awareness, not only religious or

mystical experiences, are seen as having spiritual value. Some experiences possess more

apparent value than others, especially if they are of ethical, aesthetic, heroic, humanitarian, or

altruistic origin. These experiences, according to Assagioli, are indicative of a more refined,

evolved, and integrated spiritual nature.

Psychosynthesis sees itself as the “conscious attempt to cooperate with the natural process of

growth—the tendency in each of us and in our world to harmonize and synthesize various

aspects at ever higher levels of organization.” Therapists are called to recognize the “drive in

living matter to perfect itself” and then work with this thrust to achieve psycho-spiritual growth

and transformation toward greater wholeness. While each person is unique, the psyche’s drive to

express its true essence is universal. Thus, psychosynthesis “holds that our opportunity in life is

to manifest this essence, or Self, as fully as possible in the world of everyday personal and social

existence.”33 The therapist, while engaged with the personal content of the individual, must also

remain aware of the universal processes that unfold within and direct the growth of the psyche.

The schematic of the psyche used by psychosynthesis is traditionally known as the “egg

model.” At the egg model’s center—what might be considered the “yolk”—is the I, or one’s

point of awareness and field of consciousness. This is also called the ego, or one’s sense of self.

The ego is surrounded by an unconscious field, forming the egg’s “shell,” which Assagioli

separates horizontally into three sections. The bottom third is the lower unconscious, containing

one’s fundamental drives, impulses, repressions, traumas, and basic psychological functions. The

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middle unconscious contains patterns of skills, behaviors, feelings, attitudes, and abilities that are

outside of but easily accessible by our waking consciousness. The top portion of the psyche is

the higher unconscious, the transpersonal realms that extend beyond the ego and allow a sense of

connection with one’s authentic self, others, the universe, and the realm of spirit. The higher

unconscious, or superconscious, is the “higher counterpart of the lower unconscious.” The egg is

surrounded infinitely by the collective unconscious. At the top of the egg, straddling the border

of the higher unconscious and the collective unconscious, is the Higher Self. The Higher Self, or

Transpersonal Self, is one’s most authentic point of integrated awareness, in touch with a larger

reality and open to fully experience the self, others, and the Divine. The Higher Self can be

considered an analog to Jung’s Self as the total personality.34

Assagioli’s focus on the higher unconscious is grounded in the notion that in order to

experience authenticity and wholeness, the human person must be in relationship with itself as a

whole. Thus, it is essential to feel a sense of spiritual connection, because in the superconscious

reside one’s more “highly evolved impulses: altruistic love and will, humanitarian action, artistic

and scientific inspiration, philosophic and spiritual insight, and the drive for purpose and

meaning.”35 The Higher Self is the focal point of the superconscious realm, where the “lower

self,” that is the “personal self,” or ego, finds a higher point of awareness. The Higher Self is not

only an archetype representing the psyche as a whole, but a profound spiritual reality. Having

entered into relationship with the Higher Self, the personality can “express the will of the Higher

Self . . . achieved through wisdom and love—the two fundamental qualities of the consciousness

of the Higher Self.”36 The journey to the Higher Self is an arduous one and, like Jung’s process

of individuation, is the work of a lifetime.

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The growth experienced by working through the process of psycho-spiritual development

yields the “drastic transmutation of ‘normal’ elements of the personality.”37 Once the integration

of the Higher Self begins, the personality starts “functioning along a new inner dimension.”38

The personality becomes integrated so as to recognize its place in a larger reality. Pathways to

relationship and connection are found in all facets of life. The simple act of being is, in itself, a

connection to a cosmic history and a transcendent future. Lofty concepts such as Christ

Consciousness, Buddha Awareness, and Non-dual Awareness begin to seem more natural as

ways of being in the world.

This movement from the personal to the transpersonal demonstrates how psychosynthesis

operates in two primary stages. First, in personal psychosynthesis, one develops an awareness of

the personal self and integrates the personality. At this level of integration, the person “attains a

level of functioning in terms of work and relationships that would be considered optimally

healthy by current standards.”39 Second, transpersonal psychosynthesis occurs when the person

learns how to balance and express the energies of the Transpersonal Self. Through the

Transpersonal Self, the human “manifests such qualities as a broad sense of responsibility, a

spirit of cooperation, altruistic love, a global perspective, and transpersonal purpose.”40 If

personal synthesis is seen as the integration of the content of the lower unconscious,

transpersonal synthesis is the means for integrating the higher unconscious. One stage cannot

occur without the other. Typically, there is overlap between the two stages. While persons grow

more aware of their relation to transcendent realms, keeping their “feet on the ground” in the

world of the real to survive and contribute to a fruitful direction for evolution is essential.

Assagioli understood the importance of staying grounded while encountering the

Transpersonal. He, like Teilhard, lived a life filled with immense personal challenges:

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imprisonment for protesting against a Fascist government, the destruction of his home in World

War II, exile, and the death of a child, all while he was developing the field of psychosynthesis.

The continued expansion of the practice and study of psychosynthesis stands as a testament to

both the universality of the method as well as the shared spiritual drive within nature toward

healing and wholeness.

Teilhard and Relationship

The centrality of relationship in Teilhard’s thought is surely influenced by his spiritual life,

namely his religious upbringing and Ignatian formation. Yet, as a geologist, Teilhard possessed a

palpable sense of the material. To separate his love of the world from his deep faith in God

would be to deny the relationship he felt between the two. Throughout his life, Teilhard wove

together his personal faith and his empirical understanding of reality. For Teilhard the human

person is created in God’s image and likeness and is complete or whole only in union with God.

Rather than interpreting perfection in a moral sense, it is better defined as wholeness, that is,

relationship that is consciously integrating the self, others, the world, and the Divine.

Teilhard notices that “to be” is to be in relationship41 and theorizes about how this happens

by defining a process he calls Creative Union, a process whereby disparate elements, empowered

by the Cosmic Christ, come into union with one another. He goes on to assert that in the present

evolutionary phase of the cosmos, “(the only phase known to us), everything happens as though

the One is formed by successive unifications of the Multiple—and as though the more perfectly

it centralized under itself a larger Multiple, the more perfect it becomes.”42 As higher levels of

complexity and consciousness are achieved as a result of union, they contribute to a growing

wholeness present in God’s unfolding cosmic plan. Christ, the Omega at the end of history, can

bring creation to wholeness only through relationship.

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The more the human person grows in psycho-spiritual wellness, the more the noosphere

becomes self-aware and whole. The noosphere is the sphere of mind and spirit which is a

“thinking layer” distinct from the biosphere. As noetic ramification increases on the personal

level, creative union draws a collective of human persons into an increasing unity as a collective

human organism. The human person evolves beyond the personal level toward the hyper-

personal and emerges as a collective awareness in the noosphere that, once “complete”—

insomuch that it is whole and psycho-spiritually integrated—will emerge in the Christosphere,

that collective consciousness of God in all things.

Jung also affirms that “each person is the microcosm through which the universal process of

consciousness actualizes itself.”43 Like the noosphere, the collective unconscious is evolving to

eventually transcend itself by becoming conscious. This “creative source of all that evolves into

the conscious mind and in the total personality of each individual”44 is the raw material from

which our conscious minds develop, mature, and expand. The human person is a phenomenon

because it is the universe becoming aware of itself. Just as every aspect of nature has its place

within a larger system or state of equilibrium, the development of the human person through the

expression of its consciousness is integral to the health of the noosphere. Therefore, it is

necessary to be in relationship with the unconscious in order to bring its contents into the light.

From a psycho-spiritual perspective, the collective unconscious reflects God, who becomes more

“conscious” through a greater expression within the human, within humanity, and ultimately

within the world.

Omega and the Self

For Jung, symbols hold power to stimulate psychic growth. The unconscious generates them

to help bring its contents into consciousness. Jung warned against confusing symbol for sign

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since symbols do not hold concrete meaning, but rather are portals into a different frame of

awareness. Symbols may emerge while a therapist works with a client, yet symbols are certainly

not exclusive to psychology.

The imagery of the Omega Point is pregnant with Jungian tones that correlate with the idea

of the Self. As a mystic, Teilhard entered into a relationship with his unconscious through his

journey to God. It was his sense of Divine union that allowed him to see a Divine purpose in the

grandiosity of evolution and to sense the responsibility of the human family for its fulfillment.

He came to see how every human life is interconnected with cosmic life as a whole and that all

life is converging in the noosphere to reveal an even greater identity within the universe. His

vision is ultimately expressed in the symbol of the Cosmic Christ, or Point Omega.

According to Jung, developing an awareness of one’s Self is the result of having worked

through the contents of the unconscious to retrieve (via a psychic function or other psychic

energies and archetypes) content that was not previously part of one’s awareness. This includes

content that seems totally other, or what Jung might call the numinous. As King notes, Jung

understands the Self as “a mysterious Other, as ourselves, and more than ourselves.”45

Jung sees this process toward wholeness as a matter of “three-becoming-four,” where one’s

retrieval of the rejected function yields the missing cornerstone of consciousness. He recognized

the number four as one of the foremost universal motifs representing balance and stability. Thus,

it would not have surprised Jung that Teilhard assigned the Omega Point four attributes:

autonomy, actuality, irreversibility, and transcendence. King notes that for Teilhard “Omega

could be said to be three parts evolutionary process (transience) and one part transcendent God,

3-becomes-4.”46 The first three attributes—autonomy, actuality, and irreversibility—come by

way of cosmic evolution. The fourth, transcendence, is distinguished from the other three in a

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way that reconciles the three in their convergence with the fourth to form a whole and can be

considered the Mystical Body of Christ. The reality that emerges from the convergence with the

fourth is the Self, the Cosmic Christ Omega.

King notes the resemblance between Teilhard’s Omega and Jung’s Self, especially since both

unite four qualities.47 For Teilhard, Omega is the “higher pole of evolution” where “radii

meet.”48 The evolutionary process is very much transient, and therefore lacks stability. Yet when

God enters into evolution, the transient process is stabilized by the transcendent God who brings

the process to term by adding what it does not have, stability.49 The stability provided by the

fourth is present within the psyche but it is not actualized until, like Teilhard, one descends into

the unconscious to become conscious of the missing function.

Although King and Teilhard reference “Omega” and “God” in the actual sense, Jung’s use of

“Self” does not hold the same connotation. For Jung, God is a psychological reality. While this

fact does not take away from the importance of the connection between Omega and Self, it does

still acknowledge a gap in the integration of spirituality and psychology, especially regarding

how such integration is applied and lived, personally.

Psychosynthesis and the Self

Psychosynthesis creates a bridge that helps to close the psycho-spiritual gap by highlighting

the relationship between the two fields. Assagioli believes that the “self is not only in me but in

all beings, like the Atman, like Tao.”50 Psychologists John Firman and Ann Gila note that

Assagioli's Self is “transcendent and so Self may be immanent in love anywhere, anytime, within

the entire personality and beyond.”51 Along with being transcendent and immanent, the Self is

encountered as “ever-present and actively-loving” and possesses a relational quality as “a source

of dialogue, support, and guidance no matter what our experience, no matter what our stage of

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development, no matter what our life situation.”52 Thus, the Self is more than a state of mind and

more than a psychic location; the Self is, in some way, an attractor of conscious relationship.

Psychosynthesis identifies self-realization as the actual relationship of the personal will of

“I” or ego with the transpersonal will of Self.53 Assagioli describes the relational, the even

dialogical nature of transpersonal experience: “Accounts of religious experience often speak of a

‘call’ from God, or a ‘pull’ from some Higher Power; this sometimes starts a ‘dialogue’ between

the man and this ‘Higher Source,’ in which each alternately invokes and evokes the other.”54 As

an example, we saw that Teilhard first experienced a call from the unconscious and then

descended into its depths where he encountered God-immanent through whom he ascended to

encounter God-transcendent throughout the world, spilling beyond the self.

Firman and Gila call the I-Self relationship “transcendent-immanent”55 and suggest that a

way to understand self-realization is as a “spiritual marriage” to Self for “better or worse.”56

Thus, the language of psychosynthesis alone demonstrates how for Assagioli, spirituality is

paramount to the development of the human person.

While acknowledging the concept of an anima mundi or world soul, both Assagioli and Jung

focus on the psyche at a personal level. On the other hand, the bulk of Teilhard’s thought focuses

on the collective emergence of humanity even as he emphasizes the importance of personal

development. Therefore, while Teilhard accounts for the connection of the human person to

evolution and its transcendent endpoint in Christ Omega, Assagioli’s psychosynthesis focuses on

the relationship of the human person with the Self, the psyche’s own teleological attractor. Thus,

it might be said that the Self is a “little Omega” or the “God within.” Though concepts like

psyche and Self might be labeled as purely “psychological,” psychosynthesis allows for a more

integrated sense of psyche and spirit. Furthermore, in making an honest inquiry into one’s own

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psyche, seeking meaning and direction within the endless expanses within oneself, there is

perhaps no delineation between the personal and the cosmic. This is quite true when a person—

or a people—discovers that all is one in the Cosmic Christ.

Teilhard’s journey into himself exemplifies this point. In accessing his sensing function and

encountering the Divine in a way that is so personal, Teilhard came to the tangible awareness of

a cosmic purpose and a personal meaning in relationship with the Divine. He writes of how the

human person constitutes a “knot whose strands have been for all time converging from the four

corners of space.”57 The final Omega, according to Teilhard, is evolution’s “supreme pole of

interiorization,” a “transcendent focus” that is “born of involution.”58 The Divine he found in

himself was no different from the Divine he encountered in the world. By accessing the Divine

in himself (“born of involution”), Teilhard expanded his consciousness so that his being became

hyper-centered on Omega, the cosmic nexus of relationship with the Divine (“transcendent

focus”).

Toward the Future

As Teilhard’s awareness of the Divine, present within matter, extended beyond his initial

perception, the world around him grew increasingly alive with Divine Presence. However, he

never detached himself from the world in order to encounter God. Instead, he dove into the

depths of the Earth so that he might find God at its most fundamental of levels—as the ultimate

element that holds all of creation together. He was aware of the limitations of science in

revealing the whole of nature, but he also knew that a mysticism that negated or ignored science

could never truly lead one to God in wholeness. Kathleen Duffy writes that it is for this reason

that “Teilhard’s approach to mysticism [is] holistic.”59

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Thus, the integration of spirituality and psychology also serves to support and nurture a

worldview that considers the whole. This exploration of the work of Teilhard, Jung, and

Assagioli demonstrates the integral relationship between spirituality and psychology, while also

preserving professional nuances that distinguish the two fields. Spirituality and psychology can

inform each other, making bi-lateral contributions on the respective methods of journeying to

wholeness, authenticity, and healing. The findings presented by spirituality, science, and

psychology are revealing a common truth: The cosmos is evolving toward greater consciousness.

As evolution ascends to greater consciousness, valuing human experience, particularly one’s

transpersonal experiences, is critical. The creation of new social norms and paradigms can

empower authentic experience that allows for a deeper understanding of the psyche. Today, as

interdisciplinary fields attempt to tackle the mental health crisis, there is a rise in interest about

improving brain function, healing trauma, treating addiction by promoting the growth of new

neural pathways through prayer, meditation, visualization, breathwork, and the burgeoning

science of psychedelic therapy. These methods all require encountering the world within to heal,

grow, and evolve toward greater wholeness. As humanity accesses a deeper understanding of the

psyche, having a map of the inner landscape is essential.

Addressing God, Teilhard prays, “No, you do not ask anything false or unattainable of me.

You merely, through your revelation and your grace, force what is most human in me to become

conscious of itself at last.”60 Certainly, many of the things that are “most human” in one’s life are

often not appealing at first. However, when seen with the proper perspective, these incredibly

humbling qualities might be recognized as elements that are in a state of becoming in the journey

to wholeness.

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Like the many cells that function in harmony to maintain homeostasis in the larger organisms

they form, the human can become conscious of its relationship to the universal pulse, the

incendiary heartbeat at the center of the universe. The elements of the universe are allured by the

love of Omega, the love that the poet Dante describes as “L'amor che move il sole e l’altre

stelle,” the love so great that it moves the sun and other stars. Through the gift of self-reflection,

the human person has access to this cosmic love that radiates from within. Accessing this love

allows a person to become whole and to share in even greater wholeness by uniting with others:

The greater man becomes, the more humanity becomes united, with consciousness of,

and master of, its potentialities, the more beautiful creation will be, the more perfect

adoration will become, and the more Christ will find, for mystical extensions, a body

worthy of resurrection.61

The community in touch with its inner life is a powerful agent of transformation, far stronger

than any individual. It is from this sort of convergent community that we experience the

emergence of Christ Omega—a fuller, collective expression of the Divine within a world defined

by love, connection, authenticity, and wholeness. As humanity evolves toward greater union, we

do not lose our individual identities. Instead, Teilhard affirms that “union differentiates.” In the

act of uniting, we discover our truest and most authentic selves and open ourselves to be filled

with the incendiary Spirit who moves our evolving world to greater love and wholeness.

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Notes:

1 Roberto Assagioli, The Act of Will (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1973), 124. 2 Thomas M. King, Jung’s Four and Some Philosophers: A Paradigm for Philosophy (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame

Press, 1999), 268-69. 3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Writings in Time of War, trans. René Hague (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1968),

25. The brackets with the Latin sentir are an addition by Thomas King in Jung’s Four. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 30.5 6 Ibid., 31. 7 Ibid., 32. 8 King, Jung’s Four, 271. 9 John A. Sanford, The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Sayings (New York, NY: Harper Collins

Publishers, 1987), 17. 10 Teilhard de Chardin, Writings, 125. 11 Ibid., 127. 12 King, Jung’s Four, 274-75. 13 Teilhard de Chardin, Writings, 145, 117. 14 Ibid., 121-22. 15 Ibid., 146. 16 King, Jung’s Four, 274. 17 Teilhard de Chardin, Writings, 187. 18 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), 176-77. 19 Ibid., 177. 20 Ibid. 21 King, Jung’s Four, 292. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Inner Growth (New York, NY:

HarperCollins, 1986), 6. 25 Ibid. 26 Anthony Stevens, Jung: A Brief Insight (New York, NY: Sterling, 2011), 190. 27 Carl G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 8 (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1970), 325. 28 Johnson, Inner Work, 11. 29 Ibid. 30 Marie-Louise Von Franz, “The Process of Individuation,” in Man and His Symbols, eds. Carl Jung and Marie-

Louise Von Franz (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 163. 31 Johnson, Inner Work, 11. 32 John Firman and James Vargiu, “What is Psychosynthesis?” Synthesis 3-4 (1974): 144. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 149. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 147. 37 Roberto Assagioli, “Self-Realization and Psychological Disturbances,” Synthesis 3-4 (1974): 148. 38 Ibid. 39 Firman and Vargiu, “What is Psychosynthesis?” 146. 40 Ibid., 147. 41 Kathleen Duffy, Teilhard’s Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014),

46. 42 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Science and Christ, trans. René Hague (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1968), 45. 43 Johnson, Inner Work, 7. 44 Ibid., 6. 45 King, Jung’s Four, 275.

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46 Ibid., 288. 47 Ibid. 48 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (New York, NY: First Harper Perennial

Modern Thought, 2008), 259. 49 King, Jung’s Four, 288. 50 Carl G. Jung, Civilization in Transition, ed. H. Read, M. Fordham, and G. Adler, Vol. 10 Bollingen Series XX

(New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1964), 463. 51 John Firman and Ann Gila, Assagioli’s Seven Core Concepts for Psychosynthesis Training (Palo Alto, CA:

Psychosynthesis Palo Alto, 2007), 29. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Assagioli, The Act of Will, 114. 55 Firman and Gila, Assagioli’s Seven Core Concepts, 20. 56 Ibid., 30. 57 Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 170. 58 Ibid., 307, 309. 59 Duffy, Teilhard’s Mysticism, 124. 60 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, trans. Bernard Wall (New York : Harper and Rose, 1960), 146. 61 Ibid.153-54.