Customer Reviews

The Act of Will

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There are few books that truly rank a 5 Star rating, and there are few books which come close to this one's significance in the history of modern psychological thought. Freud and Jung have been overrated and over-idolized, but as their contemporary RA deserves a much wider following -- and his work as the father of Pschyosynthesis has a much more integrative view of the deeper human psyche's recesses. This is both a treatise of fundamental ideas and a practical book for practioners of psychotherapy and psychiatry, as well as social work, education, and human sciences (sociology, history, anthropology, etc.). RA had none of the fears that many others had of seeming to be a kook - because he wasn't. This was a man whose personal life story (blind, etc.) stands as testimony to what he was capable of, and this book only reinforces the gorwing (buut still largely unheard view) that he will become on the most important dead-but-still-important psychological thinkers/doers in the coming decades.

The Act of Will by Roberto Assagioli, M.D., is a mostly phenomenological approach to the psychological phenomenon of will-power. The author describes many aspects of will including strong will, skillful will, good will, transpersonal will, and joyous will.

Whether or not there is any scientific evidence for these different aspects of will is an open question. However the author has a number of brilliant insights into the psychology of people that he shares along with his analysis and these make the effort of reading the book quite worthwhile. For example, he discusses the principle of "acting as if," the power of images, the value of meditation and affirmations, and brings in insights from Buddhism and Hinduism.

I particularly enjoyed his discussion of how to use the will skillfully by using it to direct our behaviors rather than to force them.

In this book Assagioli takes on the question of how to life an effective and happy life. Drawing on diverse sources from Raja Yoga to Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, he puts together a compelling picture on how to develop one's self and presence in this life, and gain the things one wants. He addresses the idea of what it means to will something, what the will is, and how to develop life strategies for success.

Part one of the book describes Assagioli's view of what the will is. Part 2 provides practical exercises for developing and applying the will, while part three ties these together with some final thoughts. The appendices discuss various meditations believed to be of help.

This book is compatible with religious and magical ritual, NLP, hypnosis, psychotherapy, self-help, and more. Highly recommended.

Robert Assagioli book Act of Will is a transformational book.
The material is easy to understand and apply.
The book has great exercises and Robert gives many ideas on how to be creative in strengthening the will.

Excellent

This book outlines a theory and practical method of instruction in developing true will thoroughly. the strong will, the good will, the skillful will, the transpersonal will, and its various qualities, are covered in detail. to recognize the ego as will itself, is the culmination of this book, through exercise, meditation, disidentification, affirmation, etc. I would like to recommend three other books, and the exercises in particular I believe to be most effective:
1. magical tattwas, jonn mumford
the pre-skrying exercise of exploring one's favorite room, and performing the blackboard writing on the ceiling. note the use of multiple colors. utilize will affirmation for every imaging act.
2. on love and psychological exercises, A.R. Orage
the exercises in here, when done on the blackboard from above, even just the numbers, when using multiple colors and will affirmation, may bring a person to identify with the self as will. the essays might aid in understanding differential psychology.
3. undoing yourself with energized meditation, C. Hyatt
using the methods outlined here, strengthen the will, increase meditative success, integrate and satiate the needs of both the superego and id, potentially tap into the transpersonal will.
Current scientific investigations in the realm of psychology and psychiatry have attempted to debunk the legitimacy of the subjective experience of the will, and its potential, to manifest objective results. a well informed investigation of the claims made in this book, i believe, may increase knowledge of why the techniques work. instead of reiterating an endless debate.

I've not finished this book as it a bit difficult to read, but with excellent sunbject matter!