Keynote speech given at the AAP Psychosynthesis Summit & Festival (NY, July 24-27, 2025) and World Psychosynthesis Day organized by EPA (September 20, 2025)

Assagioli wrote:

“It’s quite likely that humanity has never been so without peace as it is now. We need only to look around to realize how true this is.”[2]

When does this “now” refer to? It would seem that this “now,” is an “eternal now”, right? I wondered when Assagioli had written this reflection on peace. During World War I, when he was serving as a doctor in the hospital in Ancona? During the second, when he was fleeing with his son from Nazi persecution? Or later? During the protests and terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s? In truth, what really matters, is that these words always seem relevant. As much then, as now. As if they belong to a timeless aspiration of the human soul.

In fact, already in the 16th century, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a book entitled “The Complaint of Peace”[3]; and imagine that this complaint had also run constantly through the Greek world and then the Roman world. It therefore seems that we are faced with an archetypal, universal theme that always and forever questions us.

Then Assagioli continues in “his” personal complaint:

“In such a world the cultivation of peace is not much a spiritual luxury as a daily necessity (…) A person who is able to be a living center of peace in today’s world (…) will be in a position to give needy humanity the benefit it lacks the most and is in greatest need of.”

Here, I need to be honest with you. When I read these statements, I feel like the last person who should be here to tell you anything because – except for some moments of grace – I’m rather a “peace less” individual. I often feel lost, vulnerable, deeply indignant about the state of things: about injustice, unawareness, and so on. Sometimes the world seems like chaos, like a madhouse to me. And so do I.

However, this suffering and confusion also moved me to embark on a sincere, deep journey since my adolescence. They pushed me to study and practice a lot, searching for meaning, for light, for knowledge that would bring relief. I also wrote a lot. And so, over time, my search has become useful to others. And this could be a first practical example of alchemical transformation. So, if there is anything that entitles me to share my reflections with you, it’s simply the honesty and determination of my quest.

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[1] R. Assagioli, Transpersonal Development, p. 92

[2] R. Assagioli, Transpersonal Development, p. 270

[3] Erasmus of Rotterdam, The Complaint of Peace, Legare Street Press, 2022