In 1948 Sir George Trevelyan, 4th Baronet (1906-1996) became the director of Attingham Park where spiritual teachings were taught and he later became associated with the Findhorn Foundation and became one of the founding figures of the New Age movement and wrote several books including A Vision of the Aquarian Age (1977), Operation Redemption (1981), Summons to a High Crusade (1985) and Exploration into God (1991). At Attingham Park there was also a group studying flying saucers led by his friend Victor Goddard (1897-1987).

George Trevelyan was a founding member of several movements, and together with Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) and Dr Martin Israel (1927-2007) and Geoffrey Leytham (1922-2012), he founded the Psychosynthesis Trust in 1965 where they studied transpersonal psychology with teachings from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and with a spiritual side from Theosophy and New Age. Other teachings also came from Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934) and Maurice Nicoll (1884-1953) who studied under George Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) and P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947). At George Trevelyan’s Attingham Park, lectures and conferences on psychosynthesis were regularly held. One conference was called ‘The Conference on Creative Development’.

“Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Venice, Italy. He received a classical education and learned several languages: Latin, Greek, French, German and English and later in life also Russian and Sanskrit. In 1906 he began to study medicine in Florence. During his studies he wrote articles on, among other things, the effects of laughter, the German mystic J. G. Harmann and the American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Assagioli became interested in psychoanalysis at an early age. In 1910 he was accepted into Jung’s group of nineteen disciples and in the same year he introduced parts of Freud’s ideas in Italy.” (Sökaren 1994, no. 4)

Dr Martin Israel had a penchant for mysticism and studied Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin and Martin Buber and eventually became a clergyman in the Church of England in 1974 where he practiced healing and performed exorcisms and acted as a medium for departed spirits. He was President of the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies between 1983 and 1998 (wiki). Geoffrey Leytham was involved in the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology and was Vice President of the Scientific and Medical Network where we also find David Lorimer. One of the founders of the Scientific and Medical Network in 1973 was George Blaker who was a member of the Theosophical Society.

At the start of the Psychosynthesis Trust and who sat on the Trustee Board was Joseph Albert Lauwerys (1902-1981) who was previously also involved in the founding of UNESCO during 1945 to 1947 and where we find Julian Huxley (1887-1975) as Director-General in 1946 and who was President of the British Eugenics Society from 1959 to 1962. Joseph Lauwerys was also involved in the World Education Fellowship which was founded by Beatrice Ensor (1885-1974) in 1921. She joined the Theosophical Society in 1908 and was influenced by the ideas of Maria Montessori, and she was a co-founder of the Theosophical Fraternity in Education, and was Organising Secretary of the Theosophical Education Trust in 1915. The World Education Fellowship was also an influence on the founding of UNESCO.

Another member of the Psychosynthesis Trust’s Board of Trustees was spiritualist Paul Beard (1904-2002), who was President of the College of Psychic Studies for 16 years. He was interested in life after death and wrote several books on the subject and was a member of the Society for Psychical Research. He wrote the article “How to Guard Against Possession” in the magazine Spiritual Frontiers in the year 1970. (wiki)

Also on the Psychosynthesis Trust’s Advisory Council were Dr Ford Robertson who is also a member of the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies and parapsychologist Anita Gregory (1925-1984) who was also a member of the Society for Psychical Research. We also find the mystic Johan Quanjer (1934-2001) who found an interest in Theosophy during a trip to the USA and was a member of UFO groups later when he returned to England and he visited places such as New Age groups in Findhorn in Scotland. He founded the New Age magazine The New Humanity in 1975, which he worked on until his death in 2001.

The Psychosynthesis Trust is also said to have received financial assistance from Alexis DuPont de Bie, who came from the famous DuPont family and who had an interest in gifted children and who acted as Executive Vice-President of The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, which was founded in 1975. They also had a collaboration with ‘The Association for Gifted and Especially Gifted Children’ and the Meditation Group for the New Age (MGNA), which was part of the Centre for Creative Meditation, which was founded by Roberto Assagioli, Nancy Magor and Michal Eastcott in 1957. Roberto was also involved in the School for Esoteric Studies, which was founded in 1956 in New York by Frank Hilton, Regina Keller, Florence Garrigue, Helen Hillebrecht and Marguerite Schaefer, and which had previously come from Alice and Foster Bailey’s Arcane School. (psychosynthesistrust.org)

Lady Diana Whitmore, a student of Roberto Assagioli, took over the Psychosynthesis & Education Trust after his death. She was a friend of Laura Huxley (1911-2007), who was previously married to Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), author of Brave New World (1932) and The Island (1962), and brother of Julian Huxley (1887-1975). Laura founded Children: Our Ultimate Investment in 1977, and Diana, who was a member of the same organization, founded a branch in England. She also started a Teens and Toddlers programme in the UK, which Laura also founded. Diana is also a Trustee of the Findhorn Foundation and a Patron of Wyse International.

Of particular interest within the Psychosynthesis Trust and in Roberto Assagioli’s teachings in psychosynthesis was a process called ‘Transmutation and Sublimation of Sexual Energies’. This process is often described as a goal within spiritual synthesis and the so-called spiritual Self and is likened to the ancient mystics who sought to reach the higher spiritual through inward meditation. This process has also been described as the “mystical wedding” and shows the alchemical process and transformation that it involved in “transforming” the ego within oneself into the higher spiritual Self. Barbara Somers in her book The Fires of Alchemy: A Transpersonal Viewpoint (2004) describes the therapy process as an alchemical journey as “Solve et Coagula” where the ego is to dissolve and then to regather.

Roberto Assagioli’s teachings in psychosynthesis gained followers in Sweden through the same people who helped to bring the teachings of The Human Potential Movement and lay the foundations for a greater spirituality through the Swedish culture and the corporate world. These were Kerstin Nordin (1942-1925) and Göran Wiklund who in 1989 founded the Swedish Psychosynthesis Academy. Kerstin was a founder of The Circumference (Omkretsen) and gave lectures at ‘Living Companies in a New Era’ and The Life Festival. She also founded ‘The New Thinkers’ (Nytänkarna) in 1982 and Lifelust (Livslust) during the 1990s. Göran Wiklund was behind Pedagogik & Produktion (P&P) which organized ‘Living Companies in a New Era’ and later The Pioneers’ (Banbrytarna) and Nutrition and Life (Näring och Liv). Kerstin says that through her personal journey she came into contact with psychosynthesis and invited Margo Russell to come to Sweden to work with the Psychosynthesis Academy Foundation to spread psychosynthesis in Sweden among professionals and spiritual seekers. Margo became a teacher and supervisor for many Swedish students in psychosynthesis and also created relationships internationally with, among others, L’Istituto di Psicosintesi and SIPT in Florence and The Psychosynthesis Trust in London.

Margo Russell (1939-2001) had a background in the international banking and finance world in banks such as the Bank of New York, Citibank and the World Banking Group in Amsterdam. In the early 80s she trained as a psychosynthesis therapist at the Psychosynthesis & Education Trust in London and further training at The Institute of Family Therapy and The Tavistock Institute Observation Program. (psykosyntesakademin.se)

The Institute of Family Therapy (IFT) was founded in 1977 and had its background in family and child therapy developed at the Tavistock Institute during the 1950s to 1970s and which goes back to, among others, John Bowlby (1907-1990) who was a deputy director of the Tavistock Clinic. Robin Skynner (1922-2000) who was a founder of the IFT was a student of S. H. Foulkes (Siegmund Heinrich Fuchs) (1898-1976) who was a German-British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who developed theories in group behaviour and group analysis and who was also inspired by Gestalt psychology. Foulkes founded The Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) in London in 1971 where Robin Skynner started with a first training course in family therapy in 1973. Some of the people who taught these courses were Gill Gorrell Barnes, Alan Cooklin, John Byng-Hall, Rosemary Whiffin, Stewart Lieberman, Dora Black and Alan Cooklin. A group of therapists including Gill Gorrell Barnes, Arnon Bentovim, Dora Black and Robin Skynner founded the Association for Family Therapy in 1976 which later became The Institute of Family Therapy.

Gill Gorrell Barnes was a Senior Clinical Lecturer and Family Therapist at the Tavistock Clinic and Consultant for Training at the Institute of Family Therapy in London. Arnon Bentovim was also at the Tavistock Clinic and trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and laid the foundation for, among other things, the Child Sexual Abuse Assessment and Treatment Service and wrote the book Trauma-Organized Systems: Physical and Sexual Abuse in Families (1995). Dora Black (1932-2021) was also trained at the Maudsley hospital and wrote the book When Father Kills Mother (2000). John Byng-Hall (1937-2020) was a therapist at the Tavistock Clinic who worked for many years with John Bowlby and Robin Skynner was also at the Maudsley Hospital as an Honorary Associate Consultant.

Maudsley Hospital is known for its connection to eugenics, lobotomy, sterilization and experiments with schizophrenia using drugs such as mescaline. We find names there such as Eliot Slater (1904-1983) who was vice chair of the Eugenics Society from 1963 to 1966 and who was a colleague of William Sargant (1907-1988) who performed treatments in psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy.

Psychosynthesis is seen today as a way to find meaning in life as it offers a spiritual perspective instead of traditional psychology and as a combination of processing the past and searching for a meaningful future. This was told by Margo who was interviewed in 1997.

“Psychosynthesis combines old esoteric thoughts and modern psychology and can be used in several different areas to help people heal spiritual wounds and find meaning in their lives. – Today, psychosynthesis is needed more than ever, says Margo Russell, director of the Psychosynthesis Academy in Stockholm.” (Sökaren 1997 no. 3, interview with Margo Russell)

Roberto Assagioli was inspired in his theories by yoga, Jewish mysticism, theosophy and combined this with “Western psychology’s processing of unresolved conflicts (trauma) and an Eastern view of the inner man as part of the universal consciousness”. Assagioli’s work was not only a method for personal development but can also be used in pedagogy and organizational development and creative professions. Margo Russel says in an interview that we need a psychology that sees the whole, not only within the individual, but also as part of the universal consciousness and that could be used to promote the development of the entire human collective.

“The name psychosynthesis refers to a synthesis between conflicting forces. We all have different roles, which periodically come into more or less conflict with each other. In psychosynthesis, we talk about sub-personalities. But we also have a past. Unresolved traumas lead to us repressing parts of our total personality, especially when it comes to aggression, sexuality and grief.”

“We have sub-personalities in our unconscious, which we cannot “see” but which nevertheless play in our inner orchestra. Since we are not aware of them, we cannot control their participation in the concert, but are taken by surprise by the emotions they bring. In our everyday life, this can manifest itself as problems in our close relationships, at our workplace or in the way we react to life’s problems. We identify with these sub-personalities, without really knowing them.”

“By looking more closely at these sub-personalities in therapy, we can become aware of the unmet needs that make these orchestra members play so falsely. We can see that we have a wounded child or an angry brawler inside, but that we are not just these parts. Instead, psychosynthesis emphasizes the importance of “de-identifying” from the conflicting sub-personalities and identifying with the self, the conductor of the orchestra.”

“Personal psychosynthesis means just that – to see that I have these partial personalities, but also that I am more than them, to strengthen the self so that it becomes the powerful conductor that the personality needs to be able to play harmoniously. – This deeper or higher center coordinates and integrates the partial personalities, thus creating a personal self that is experienced as “greater than the sum of its parts”. This approach stands in stark contrast to the medical model, which analyzes, diagnoses and tries to cure the abnormal or “sick” behaviors of our unintegrated parts, says Margo Russell.”

“Here we sense, among other things, the Indian yoga view of man as an individual soul, which is not separate from the great Self but is part of this cosmic consciousness. Within psychosynthesis, the self is seen as an outpost of the Self, a divine spark that is somewhat qualitatively different from all our sub-personalities. Therefore, stillness and meditation are encouraged as a way of learning to be in the inner silence, in the ‘eye of the storm’.” (Sökaren 1997 no. 3, interview with Margo Russell)

Margo was the principal of the Psychosynthesis Academy in Stockholm and after her death in 2001 a foundation was established named after her, ‘The Foundation for Margo Russell’s Memory’, where a scholarship with a sum of money is awarded to those who help spread the teachings of psychosynthesis. Fredrik Lundh, who took over as principal in 2000 after Margo, also created a publishing business and translated Roberto Assagioli’s major works ‘Psychosynthesis’ and ‘On Will’ into Swedish.

Within psychosynthesis, the ego is seen as an outpost of the Self, a divine spark that is somewhat qualitatively different from all our sub-personalities. Kerstin Nordin, who says that her spiritual journey began with a book by P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1950), describes in an interview her encounter with her own higher consciousness.

“One night Kerstin had an experience of great significance: She saw that she herself, her inner self, was a ball of light. She was part of a greater energy, which could be called God, the intelligence that created everything. – I had for some time had a very strong experience of understanding reality in a new way. Then one evening, when I was lying in my bed in the dark, suddenly my head was completely illuminated as if by a bright light, and I gradually felt that it was a ball of light and that it was me.”

“Kerstin saw, in the nocturnal experience, that she was still Kerstin, not something else. Her identity persisted and did not fade away and became like a drop falling into the sea. and becoming one with the sea. She experienced her own identity as enduring at the same time that she had a deeper, stronger and higher identity than the one she normally feels she has. She was still Kerstin, a unique human being, but at the same time part of something bigger, fantastic. – I experienced that whatever happens to Kerstin, I have a kind of higher identity that is me and that is indestructible.”

“- I was sitting in a chair, alone, and was about to start reading a book about Saint Birgitta, when my whole body began to vibrate. This lasted for several hours. I could not move. I was as if paralyzed. But at the same time I was hyper-alert. I knew exactly what was happening around me, heard all the sounds, felt the smells, had strong visual impressions. My consciousness was completely clear. And I saw visions. I saw into my future. I knew that the consciousness I had then was higher than normal consciousness. I knew that I had to believe in what I saw.”

“The night when Kerstin experienced that she was a ball of light, she also heard a voice inside her head. It was as clear as if someone had put on a tape recorder. – It was my voice, but it was the expression of a greater intelligence than my own. I perceived it as coming from the ball of light. It was not the ordinary Kerstin who spoke, but a higher consciousness within me, my higher self.”

“- The voice talked to me all night. I didn’t sleep a wink. I was fully aware of what was around me at the same time as I heard the voice. My husband was lying next to me, I knew where the children were in their rooms, I heard sounds around me. The voice spoke in telegraphically short sentences. It was emotionally nullified, objectively informative. The voice, which was the higher part of myself, treated me, the ordinary Kerstin, much like a parent speaks to a child, that is, with a certain indulgence. – I asked the voice questions. Some of them were answered with “you’ll find out later, it’s too early now”. The answers came at the same time as the questions. Sometimes I felt as if the voice was helping me ask the questions too. It was like two different levels of consciousness talking to each other.”

“Kerstin does not want to say anything more about the answers she received. She says that “this is a bit sacred” to her. But she had her worldview changed, gained a new view of what is about to happen to humanity and the earth. – The following night I woke up to the phone ringing. I woke up with a jolt and was frightened. I lay waiting for the next signal, but none came. Instead the voice began to speak again. It explained that the signal had been a trick to wake me up to listen inwardly. It said that it had tried to make contact with me many times before, but had not succeeded. The higher in me had tried to wake the lower to listen.” (Sökaren 1982, no. 5, interview, Kerstin Nordin, New Age consultant)

Björn Roxendal, who was chairman of ‘The New Age in Sweden’ (Föreningen Nya Tidsåldern) and founder of The Life Festival (Livsfestivalen), was also a supporter of psychosynthesis and worked as a therapist since 1976 and was a founder of The Psychosynthesis House (Psykosynteshuset). Methods used by the therapists there were coaching, cognitive therapy, relaxation and meditation, visualizations, inner journeys, affirmations and emotional clearing. Björn also talked about his therapy and the encounter with the higher self.

“Björn Roxendal had called his speech at the life festival “Therapy and beyond therapy. To help oneself and others along the way”. He is a Swedish New Age personality with many deep thoughts to share. He began by saying that there has been a wave of new forms of therapy and that behind this lies the fact that people have problems. A common illness in the present day is schizophrenia, he said, and he used the word in the sense of splitting of identity. We have been “split from our inner core” and forgotten what it is. We identify with our outer person, with our physical body and our roles, and this is our great and decisive mistake. We do not know who we ourselves are.” (Your center is the center of everything, Björn Roxendal, The Seeker 1982, no. 2)

“Human – know yourself! The purpose is that you will reach and realize your innermost core, your higher self, and learn to express it in action for the good of all. Björn Roxendal gives lectures and courses with instructions from the teachings of the Great White Brotherhood. We will work with, among other things, visualization, meditation, affirmations, breathing exercises and the science of the spoken word.”

“One of the mysteries of the Self is that it is simultaneously one and many different. It is unity in diversity and diversity in unity. The original God-Self has the ability to multiply according to the formula 1 · 1 · 1 · 1 · 1 · 1 . . . = 1 . Perhaps one can see the great God-Self as a diamond and the different “small-Selves” as its different facets.”

“Usually the real Self lies hidden behind a more or less disharmonious and egotistical outer personality. But with purposeful practice and devotion the outer form can be adjusted to serve the real Self so completely that it can take up residence in it. Then the soul unites with the spirit and the individual becomes completely free in that he merges into his infinite overself.” (The fixed point of existence, Sökaren 1982, no. 8)

The therapists at the Psychosynthesis Academy are not only trained in psychosynthesis, but a number of different treatment methods are incorporated into different forms of treatment and many within the academy work, in addition to therapy, also as coaches, consultants and supervisors. Therapy methods that we find among the therapists at the academy are MediYoga, Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), IMAGO, Gestalt therapy, Transpersonal Psychology, bioenergetics and mindfulness. Some have also developed their own therapy methods after long experience.

A teacher at the Psychosynthesis Academy, David Elliot, comes from the USA and has developed his own form he calls Three Pillars methods and Integrative Attachment Therapy (IAT) and has written the book Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair (2016) together with Daniel P. Brown. David Elliot previously worked with Thomas Yeomans who founded the Concord Institute and who also has a background in Psychosynthesis and Spiritual Psychology. He has written the book Holy Fire: The Process of Soul Awakening (2020) and a large number of other texts that we can find at his institute.

MediYoga, also known as Medical Yoga, has its background in the Institute for Medical Yoga (Institutet för Medicinsk Yoga, IMY), which was founded in 1997 by Göran Boll, who taught a form of Yogi Bhajan’s “Kundalini Yoga” and which was aimed at a therapeutic form of yoga for the Swedish healthcare system for problems such as fatigue, mental illness, neuropsychiatry, non-specific back problems and cardiovascular diseases.

Göran came from the Swedish Kundalini Yoga Association (Sveriges Kundalini Yogaförening, SKY) and was a disciple of Tomas Frankell who was the founder of this association and who taught yoga that came from Yogi Bhajan (born Harbhajan Singh Puri) (1929-2004) who founded the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization). Frankell has his background back to The Human Potential Movement and to the Growthhouse movement (Wäxthusrörelsen) which was led by Lena Kristina Tuulse and where Frankell and Marie-Louise von Malmborg founded Cafe Vega in 1981. He was also behind Pan Holenessccenter (Pan Helhetscenter) and later founded Deva Center where A Course in Miracles was taught and he also worked with the spiritual medium Doris Ankarberg.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) was created by the British psychologist Paul Gilbert who also founded The Compassionate Mind Foundation. Methods from there are described as developmental psychology, neuroscience, social psychology and Buddhist psychology with specializations such as psychodynamic therapy. Another founder of the Compassionate Mind Foundation is Dr. Deborah Lee who has written the book The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Recovering from Trauma and PTSD (2013). She also leads workshops for the Swedish Association for CFT.

Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) comes from the couple Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt who founded the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy in 1984. Annika Sibring who is the director of studies at the Psychosynthesis Academy (Psykosyntesakademin) is also the education manager for the Swedish Imago Association where we find more therapists who have training in psychosynthesis. Helen LaKelly Hunt is the sister of Nelson Bunker Hunt (1926-2014) who was a member of the Council of The John Birch Society and a sponsor of the organization Western Goals Foundation which was founded in 1979 by General John K. Singlaub, John Rees and Larry McDonald and who also founded the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Harville and Helen are listed on the World Spirituality Wisdom Council at the Center for World Spirituality which was founded by New Age guru Marc Gafni in 2010.

Lucie Wiberg, who works at the Psychosynthesis Academy (Psykosyntesakademin), introduced Systemic Family Constellations in Sweden in the 1990s with the help of the German Albrecht Mahr, who was a regular guest in Gothenburg and runs the Institut für Systemaufstellung in Würzburg. Systemic Family Constellations have their background in the therapeutic work of Bert Hellinger (1925-2019) and a founder of the Swedish Hellinger Institute is the psychosynthetic therapist Charlotte Palmgren.

“The German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger developed the Systemic Family Constellation. It is a transpersonal therapy methodology, which facilitates the opening and expansion of the individual’s consciousness. By working with the client’s energy field and immediate family relationships, more immediate aspects of life can be explored. These are professional, relational, cognitive, existential issues as well as spiritual matters. The client’s desires and feelings are key to the work performed.” (analydon.com, Systemic Family Constellation terapist)

A person who describes himself as an “expert in psychiatry for the Psykosynthes Academy Foundation” (Stiftelsen Psykosyntesakademin) is psychiatrist Nils Joneborg, who is a former senior physician in psychiatry at Ersta Diakonie and who leads mindfulness groups and works at the Wonsa Clinic with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. He is also a founder of the Guardian of Life Collective, a New Age NGO with international members and contacts and which also has members who come from the Tällberg Foundation and the Ekskäret Foundation in Stockholm, which was founded by financier Tomas Björkman (1958-) who is a member of the think tank Club of Rome (Romklubben). At Ekskäret, we can also find courses led by people from the Psykosynthesis Academy.

Wonsa (World of no sexual abuse) was founded by Gita Rajan in 2014 and conducts therapy activities for survivors of sexual abuse with treatments for both PTSD, CPTSD and DID. Just like at the Psykosynthesis Academy, the therapists at Wonsa have various therapy trainings that lead us back to the Human Potential Movement and the Esalen Institute and the therapies at Wonsa lead us to deeper treatments involving Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and which was previously called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). A main therapy used within Wonsa is Lifespsan Integration (LI) which was developed by the American Peggy Pace and where she visited Sweden and issued certification to the first therapists within Wonsa. We can find a number of different therapy methods among the therapists at Wonsa such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Reprocessing Traumatic Memory Protocol (RTM), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Trauma and Dissociation (Suzette Boon), Enactment Trauma Therapy (Nijenhuis) etc. We can also find the use of psychedelic substances for therapy.

The use of psychedelic substances in psychiatry leads us back to the Esalen Institute and The Human Potential Movement and also to prominent figures in Family Therapy and treatments of, among others, schizophrenia and psychotic conditions. R. D. Laing (1927-1989) was a British psychiatrist who researched mental illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia and who trained from 1956 to 1964 at the Tavistock Clinic in London and had colleagues there such as John Bowlby (1907-1990). Laing was invited by the founders of the Esalen Institute to hold a seminar in 1967 on treatments for schizophrenia and they also invited the psychologist Julian Silverman (1933-2001) during the same year who gave a lecture called “Shamanism, Psychedelics, and the Schizophrenias”. Julian held a series of workshops in 1968 called “The Value of Psychotic Experience” where participants included Stanislav Grof, Alan Watts and Gestalt founder Fritz Perls.

Stanislav Grof is a member of a large number of organizations such as Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), Advisor, Global Vision Project, Chair of Transpersonal Psychotherapy, Wisdom University, Council of Sages, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Patron, Wyse International, Advisory Board, Archai, Distinguished Advisory board, Institute of Noetic Sciences and Advisory Board, Albert Hoffman Foundation.

Rick Doblin had a connection to Esalen and was a protégé of Dr. Stanislav Grof and was a founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 where he researched the medical use of psychedelic substances under Grof and where he was also trained in Holotropic Breathwork. In collaboration with Grof and his wife Brigitte, the Nordic organization ‘Grof Legacy Training’ was later founded which was “based on his research into psychedelic therapy, holotropic breathwork, transpersonal psychology and spiritual emergence” (gltnordic.org). Also through Rick Doblin, a ‘Nordic Psychedelic Training’ was started where we have Swedish therapists who are trained within MAPS and who work at Wonsa where they provide treatments in MDMA to treat PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome). We also have Swedish Retreat Centers that have been started up like ‘Nysnö Retreat’ where treatments of MDMA and “magic mushrooms” are given as a treatment for depression. Other techniques within Wonsa are Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP) which was developed by Saj Razvi.

“During the Cold War, the CIA experimented with MDMA, then as a psychological weapon. During the 1950s, the CIA used MDMA in the MK-Ultra project with the aim of giving participants better “mind control”, however, the tests were not carried out on humans. The US Army also researched the drug during the Cold War.” (wiki)

At the Nordic organisation ‘Grof Legacy Training’ we find the British William Bloom who is a founder of Spiritual Companions Network, co-founded and directed the Alternatives Programme of St. James’s Church, Piccadilly and a faculty member at the Findhorn Foundation. He was also a founder of the Foundation for Holistic Spirituality where we find, as Advisors and Partners, among others Eileen Barker who founded the Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and David Lorimer who is Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, Vice President of the Swedenborg Society, Founding Fellow of the International Futures Forum and Chair of the Wrekin Trust which was founded in 1971 by Sir George Trevelyan. At the Wrekin Trust we find Tony Neate, who channelled a being from Atlantis, and David Furlong who ran the Spirit Release Foundation and Spirit Release Forum. On the Spirit Release Forum we can find articles by David Furlong involving “Releasing a past-life with a ‘dark’ spirit attachment” and “Working with the Multiple Self: New insights in Spirit Release Therapy” and he has written books such as Illuminating the Shadow: Transforming the Dark Side of the Psyche, The Healer Within, Working with Earth Energies and Healing Your Ancestral Patterns.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a therapy method developed by Francine Shapiro (1948-2019) who founded several institutes called The Human Development Institute, MetaVox and Meta Development where “meta” is a concept that takes us back to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) where “meta programs” were developed. NLP was developed by, among others, Richard Bandler and John Grinder which also takes us back to The Human Potential Movement and names like Fritz Perls and teachings like Gestalt therapy and MkUltra researchers like Gregory Bateson.

“While classical hypnosis depends on techniques for putting patients into suggestive trances (even to the point of losing consciousness on command), NLP is much less intrusive. It is a technique of layering subtle meaning into spoken or written language to implant suggestions into a person’s unconscious mind without them being aware of it.” (Chapter on NLP, Bandler, Grinder, Erickson, ordoabchao.ca, David Livingstone)

Reprocessing Traumatic Memory Protocol (RTM) was developed by Dr. Frank Bourke and also leads us back to Richard Bandler (born 1950) and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and also to Steve Andreas (1935-2018) and his wife Connirae. Steve has his background back to the Human Potential Movement and is trained by Abraham Maslow and Fritz Perls and they also developed the therapy method Eye Movement Integration (EMI).

A form of treatment within Wonsa is Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), which was developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan who comes from Scotland, and who also uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and the similar Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM) (Lisa Schwarz) to treat complex PTSD and deep dissociation.

Other techniques are ‘Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction’ which comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn (born 1944) who has a background in Zen Buddhism and who is a member of several New Age NGOs such as the Council of Sages, California Institute of Integral Studies, Director, Mind & Life Institute, Visiting Teacher, Gaia House Advisory Council, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, Advisory Council, Mind Body Awareness Project and Advisor to Mindful magazine.

Somatic Embodiment & Regulating Techniques are techniques that come from trauma therapist Linda Tai who works with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment, yoga, and meditation. Linda has worked with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk who founded the Trauma Research Foundation and where Licia Sky was also a co-founder. Bessel and Licia are Faculty Members at the Esalen Institute.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP) is a therapy that was developed by Pat Ogden to treat trauma and nervous system dysregulation through, among other things, mindfulness and by observing bodily reactions and sensations. Pat founded the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (SPI) after previously co-founding the Hakomi Institute with Ron Kurtz (1934-2011). Ron was a founder of Hakomi Therapy in the 70s and had as its basis systems theory and the branch “living systems”. Hakomi involves teachings from Gestalt, bioenergetics, Ericksonian Hypnosis, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). The Hakomi Institute was founded in Europe in Germany in 1982.

“Following graduate training in experimental psychology, Ron first taught at San Francisco State College, also leading encounter groups, and studying Gestalt. He became a client of John Pierrakos, founder of Bioenergetics, began to read the work of Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen, and was inspired by the work of Albert Pesso. He describes these experiences as “the beginnings of the Hakomi Method”. A practitioner of yoga since 1959, he was also strongly influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. He studied with Moshe Feldenkrais and received Rolfing sessions. He says, “All of this found its way into my thinking, my work and my writing… These threads: eastern philosophy, psychotherapeutic technique, and systems theory are the foundations of Hakomi.”” (hakomiinstitute.com)

Among the therapists at Wonsa we also find various bodily movement therapies such as Authentic Movement as a therapy to reach our inner so-called “authentic self” and comes through the therapist Linda Hartley who was a student of Janet Adler (1941-2023) who founded the Discipline of Authentic Movement. Linda was a trained Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator in the 80s and trained in teachings such as Transpersonal Psychotherapy, Authentic Movement and Body-Mind Centering.

“Memories, hidden feelings, lost parts of the self, unknown and unexpressed energies may all be accessed when we move with conscious attention to the details of the movement, sensations, emotions and imagery evoked.” (lindahartley.co.uk)

Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow were taught by Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911-1979), a founder of the Authentic Movement, and their teachings took slightly different directions, with Janet’s teachings being more inspired by Buddhist psychology, mindfulness, and mysticism, and Joan’s teachings being more closely linked to Jungian symbolic drama through Active Imagination in Movement. According to Jung, Active Imagination is also associated with the Alchemical process.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy method developed by Richard Schwartz (1949-) and he is behind the founding of The Center for Self Leadership in 2000, which later became the Internal Family Systems Institute. Richard describes his method as “de-pathologizing the multi-part personality” and says that he is influenced by people like Salvador Minuchin’s structural family therapy and Murray Bowen’s multigenerational family systems theory. He has written several books and also co-authored them with Regina A. Goulding and Robert R. Falconer, among others. We find Richard Schwartz as a teacher also at the Omega Institute which was founded on the teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Robert R. Falconer co-authored with Richard Schwartz the book Many Minds, One Self: Evidence for a Radical Shift in Paradigm (2017) and later The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession (2023), When You’re Going Through Hell …Keep Going: Trauma, Healing, Spirit, and Internal Family Systems (2024) and Spirit (2025). He has co-authored Opening the Inner World: Spiritual Healing, Internal Family Systems, And Emanuel Swedenborg (2025) with Chelsea Rose Odhner and Jonathan S. Rose of the US based Swedenborg Foundation. Robert brings us into the spiritual side of therapy and has a background in neo-shamanism and has briefly studied with Michael Harner (1929-2018) and Sandra Ingerman. He also comes from a background as a survivor of extreme sadistic child abuse; sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual, and has been an activist in what he calls the survivor movement. He has run the Institute for Trauma Oriented Psychotherapy for over ten years. Robert also seems to have been nicknamed “Bob”.

“For all of his therapeutic work, both professional and personal, Bob now uses IFS almost exclusively. Before this Bob used and explored many forms of therapy, starting with Ericksonian hypnotherapy which he studied with Carol Erickson. He received his master’s degree and hypnotherapist certificate under her tutelage. Then he met and began studying with Jack and Helen Watkins, the creators of Ego State Therapy.” (robertfalconer.us)

“Before beginning his graduate work, starting in 1971, Bob was a regular at with the Esalen Institute where he has attended more than 120 events and workshops. At Esalen Bob met and worked with many of the leaders of the human potential movement and focused on Gestalt Therapy mainly with Mariah Fenton Gladys and Christine Price. In the 80s and 90s Bob also studied codependency and addictions with Pia Mellody.” (robertfalconer.us)

Ego State Therapy, which is also a form of therapy within Wonsa, was developed by John G. Watkins (1913-2012) and his wife Helen Watkins (1921-2002) who worked in the areas of hypnosis, dissociation, and multiple personalities. John was a president of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) and a founder of the International Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (ISCEH) together with Bernard B. Raginsky (1902-1974) in 1959. ISCEH changed its name in 1973 to The International Society of Hypnosis (ISH) and in 1976 the European Society of Hypnosis (ESH) was founded where we find the Swede Per-Olof Wikström as a co-founder. At The International Society of Hypnosis (ISH) we find some names like Ernest Hilgard, Ainsley Meares, Josephine Hilgard, Kay Thompson, Herbert Spiegel, John Hartland, Per-Olof Wikström, P. Brugnoli, Erika Fromm and also Martin Orne who was a member of The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) and who worked with Project MKUltra in Subproject 84 and just like John Watkins researched multiple personality disorder. Helen Watkins was also a founding member of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD).

“We behave on the basis of our perceptions. If our perceptions of a situation can be altered so as to cause us to misconstrue it, or to develop a false belief, then our behavior in relation to it will be drastically altered. It is precisely in the area of changing perceptions that the hypnotic modality demonstrates its most powerful effects. Hallucinations both under hypnosis, and posthypnotic, can easily be induced in the suggestible subject. He can be made to ignore painful stimuli, be apparently unable to hear loud sounds, and “see” individuals who are not present. Moreover, attitudes and beliefs can be initiated in him which are quite abnormal and often contrary to those which he previously held” (John G. Watkins, “Antisocial behavior under hypnosis: Possible or impossible?”, International Journal For Clinical And Experimental Hypnosis, 1972, Vol. 20, 95-100.)

Therapists at Wonsa also have training that comes from Suzette A. Boon (1949-) from the Netherlands who has studied dissociative disorders since the 1980s and received a PhD for her thesis on Multiple Personality Disorder in 1993. We can trace Suzette’s early education to anthropology where she worked in a regional hospital in Tanzania, East Africa, and researched the local witchcraft movement (1974-1976). (suzetteboon.com)

Suzette was also involved in the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) and a co-founder with Eli Somer in 2006 of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD) and was its first president. Eli Somer was also a former president of the ISSTD between 2005-2006 and another president of ISSTD between 2008–2009 was Kathy Steele who, together with Suzette Boon, Onno van der Hart and Ellert Nijenhuis, wrote the books The haunted self: Structural dissociation and treatment of chronic traumatization (2006), Coping with trauma-related dissociation: Skills training for patients and their therapists (2011) and Treating Trauma-related dissociation: A practical, integrative approach (2017).

Involved in Roberto Assagioli psychosynthesis and transpersonal psychotherapy we also find at the Delphi Institutet which is located in Stockholm and which is described as a psychotherapy school at undergraduate level. They also offer therapy in Ego State Therapy, EMDR, Hypnopsychotherapy, Lifespan Integration and Mindfulness. The Delphi Institutet is said to have been founded in 1995 as the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology and one of the founders Bo Wikström has been a Vice President of EUROTAS, the European Transpersonal Association between 1999-2002. Bo describes his “training as a “Group Facilitator” with Carl Rogers with team at his “Crosscultural Communications” workshops in El Escorial (Spain) and Rome (Italy) in the late seventies” and “trained in the “Utilization Technique” by Milton Erickson in 1978″. (delphiinstitutet.se)

EUROTAS traces its history back to Davos (Switzerland) in 1983 where it was founded by Marie-Francoise Louche, André Patsalides and Steven de Batselier and a first European Transpersonal Conference took place in 1984 and the EUROTAS foundation was founded in 1985 in France. One of the Presidents of EUROTAS was Ian Gordon-Brown who also founded a center in England.

The Center for Transpersonal Psychology was founded in 1973 by Ian Gordon-Brown (1925-1996) and Barbara Somers (1929-2013) after working with Roberto Assagioli in Italy and then returning to England. Joan and Roger Evans also founded another center in psychosynthesis in England in 1973 after studying with Roberto Assagioli in Italy called the Institute of Psychosynthesis.

“The term ‘transpersonal psychology’ was first defined in 1968 in the USA by Anthony Sutich. The birth of the transpersonal as a distinct and fourth force in psychology was marked by the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (1969) and the establishment of the American Association for Transpersonal Psychology (1971). Among the original board members and editorial staff of the new Journal of Transpersonal Psychology were some other familiar names: James Fadiman, Stanislav Grof, Arthur Koestler, Michael Murphy, Ira Progoff, Anthony Sutich (editor), Miles Vich, Alan Watts.” (Ian Gordon-Brown, in memory of a person of influence, laetusinpraesens.org)

Ian worked for the Lucis Trust for 14 years and was an executive director of World Goodwill from 1959 to 1969. World Goodwill is recognized at the United Nations as an Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). He is also involved in a journal called World Union-Goodwill which is a collaboration between Auroville/Shri Aurobindo Ashram and World Goodville. Auroville located in India was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa (1878-1973) who practiced occultism under Max Théon (1848-1927) who founded the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the 1870s. The Order’s teachings are said to have been inspired by the Rosicrucian Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875). The Lucis Trust published the newspaper ‘The Beacon’ from 1922 and Ian contributed several articles between 1951 and 1975.

“Before founding the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology, both Ian and Barbara had been particularly interested in the many ways of expanding human consciousness; and also in the synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. Barbara loved Zen, and the work of Jung, Maslow and Assagioli. She was developing work with dreams, meditation and imagery. Ian was keenly aware that from time immemorial there have been mystery schools and centres of spiritual training (ashrams, religious orders, fraternities) offering seekers a progressive initiation into new, expanded states of consciousness. He saw his transpersonal work as being in preparation for the mystery schools of the twenty-first century. Ian emphasised that each phase of the individual journey is paralleled by similar processes in the collective psyche.” (Ian Gordon-Brown, in memory of a person of influence, laetusinpraesens.org)

Ian was also involved in setting up an education centre with Sir George Trevelyan which came to be called the Wrekin Trust where we find Tony Neate as Chairman and David Furlong (Spirit Release Forum) as Co-Director.

“To return to 1971. I now entered a new phase, with burgeoning possibilities! ‘Retirement’ meant (as so many have found) a release into a new field of activity. We now had 1,500 names on the mailing list for the spiritual conferences. I could not let them down. So with advice from Major Bruce MacManaway, Ian Gordon-Brown and Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, we conceived the idea of an “Educational Trust concerned with the spiritual nature of man and the universe”, to mount conferences all over the country. What was it to be called? I looked out of the window at Attingham and saw our local mountain, the Wrekin and thought: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” I will call it the Wrekin Trust after this central hill in England.” (Exploration into God, 1991)

The therapy method Lifespan Integration (LI) was founded by Peggy Pace and is described as a method of “integrating neural structures and firing patterns” and is used to treat PTSD, among other things and she also uses EMDR. Peggy began in the 80s with therapies such as Jungian Active Imagination and “inner child work” where the client’s adult self was allowed to talk to the “inner child” but discovered that this was not sufficient as a therapy method.

“The child self within them could not hold on to it. Whereas the adult self knew very well that he or she was an adult and capable and competent; inside each of these adults there were often one or more child selves of different ages who felt stuck in in their age frame and in their traumatic powerless state. So I became very curious about how these states were held within people. I realized that they had to be held in separated neural networks, and that somehow there must be a way of integrating these split-off self-states who felt powerless, so that the adult could understand that the trauma really was over.” (Intervju, Peggy Pace, Youtube)

A therapist who uses a spiritual (New Age-oriented) therapy is Tom Zinser and where he mixes between different systems such as John and Helen Watkins Ego-State Therapy and Dr. William Baldwin’s Spirit Release Therapy and where he uses channeled information to help his clients become free from dissociative disorders which also includes multiple personality disorder. He calls his method Soul-Centered Healing and uses hypnosis to contact a sub-personality or sub-personalities through a method called Ideomotor Response Hypnotic Technique.

“The process begins when the therapist engages and works directly with a person’s higher self to identify the source of symptoms or distress. Whether it is a sub-personality whose past trauma is being triggered in the present, or outside spirits or entities trying to access the self, or intense panic set off by past-life memories breaking through into the present, different protocols are used depending on the particular phenomena presenting.” (soulcenteredhealing.net)

“In August of that year, I met Katharine, a woman who channeled a spirit entity named Gerod. She offered me a session with Gerod and I accepted. I was so impressed with the information Gerod gave me that I asked Katherine for another session, and then another. The information Gerod gave me pointed to a greatly expanded view of the mind and soul and what can go on at inner levels to cause a person pain or distress. Gerod also gave information about specific clients and suggestions for treatment. Within six months, Gerod and I established a collaboration that continued for fifteen years.” (soulcenteredhealing.net)

Dr. William Baldwin (1939-2004) takes us back to the UFO movement and wrote the books Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual (1995), Healing Lost Souls: Releasing Unwanted Spirits from Your Energy Body (2003) and CE-VI: Close Encounters of the Possession Kind -A Different Kind of Interference of Otherworldly Beings (1998). William, who became a doctor of psychology, wrote a thesis in 1988 called ‘Diagnosis and Treatment of the Spirit Possession Syndrome’.

William was involved in the Human Potential Foundation which was founded in 1989 and which is part of the disclosure movement in the UFO movement. Conferences held by the Human Potential Foundation were sponsored by Laurance Rockefeller and some of the members were James J. Hurtak, Charles T. Tart, Zecharia Sitchin, Dave Hunt, Paula Underwood, Ruth Montgomery and C. B. Scott Jones was a past president.

William’s wife was Rev. Judith A. Baldwin (1942-2013) who was a minister in the Interfaith movement and describes herself as “clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentient, and uses these spiritual gifts of discernment in the healing process during private sessions with clients”. She was also a teacher in A Course in Miracles and wrote the book Let the Inner Knower Lead the Way (1998).

Dr. Alan Sanderson (1931-2022) from England went to the USA and was trained by William Baldwin in Florida and later started the Spirit Release Foundation in the 90s. We find Tony Neate as Chair of the Spirit Release Foundation and who was previously involved in channeling a “spirit” called “Helio-Arcanophus” and who described herself as the “high priestess of Atlantis”. In 1957 Tony founded The Atlantean Society in London together with Murry Hope who wrote the books Practical Atlantean Magic: A Study of the Science, Mysticism and Theurgy of Ancient Atlantis (1992), The Gaia Dialogues (1995) and Cosmic Connections (1996).

Another person who was interested in hypnosis was the Finnish psychiatrist Reima Kampman, who conducted hypnosis experiments with multiple personality at the University of Oulu during the 1960s and who wrote his doctoral thesis called “Hypnotically induced multiple personality. An experimental study”, University of Oulo, 1973, and he wrote the book You are not alone (1974). He talks about side personalities and a rearrangement of repressed memories and where secondary personalities appear spontaneously as a result of strong physical or mental stress. He also talks about how multiple personality is related to mysticism and the occult and also regressions that take the client back to a past time before their birth, until they are someone else, and that bring thoughts of previous lives (reincarnation). Reima was also interviewed by the magazine Sökaren in 1976.

“Related to multiple personality are such states as mediumistic trance, automatisms (automatic writing, the Ouija board, etc.), hypnotic trance, somnambulism, and further exaltation at religious revival meetings, traumatic neuroses, daydreaming and dreams during sleep.”

“Spontaneously occurring sub-personalities are an exceptionally rare psychopathological condition. However, in deep hypnosis a kind of sub- or side-personalities can be induced in quite a few people. Different manifestations of the ego can be distinguished from each other and certain parts of the ego can, for example, be made to manifest themselves on a symbolic, unconscious level, including through automatic writing.”

“Different researchers have different opinions about how phenomena of this type arise. Some have explained them as the reintegration of material repressed during hypnosis, so that a new personality is formed. Others have considered that the phenomena support the theory of reincarnation.” (Sökaren 1976, no. 1)

“If we follow the development of psychiatry, bridging the gap between the conscious and the unconscious has often been associated with mysticism and occultism. The deeper something is found in the subconscious, the further away it is generally placed towards a beyond. In different cultures, different bearers of the trance have acted as a kind of mediator between the two regions: the Pythi of Egypt, the fakirs of India, seers, fortune tellers, healers and others. According to prevailing beliefs, these have had the ability to detach themselves from the plane of knowledge and consciousness and transcend the throat of the subconscious in order to retrieve hidden knowledge or power from the other side. It has been believed that humans have a spirit that can detach itself from the body during sleep and go out into the world, where feelings and events take on surreal expression and form. It was believed that seers and mediums had the ability to enter a beyond and there obtain knowledge that helped the patient as needed.” (You are not alone (1974), p 251)

“The first drawing, where the alchemist is sitting in the crack, the abyss between two land-masses, is a very important one. He’s sitting in the pit of the split, he’s in the flask, he can’t get out. The death raven of the underworld is beside him, the stars are overhead, the wind is blowing – the pneuma, wind of the spirit. There are ‘wet’ depressions and ‘dry’ depressions, and this is the dry kind. It’s the melancholia of the alchemists and it’s the pits. We talk about loss of soul, withdrawal of libido – our interest in things that used to interest us and runs out. In the Eastern tradition, it’s ‘dying to the thousend-and-one things. This is the true alchemist at work.” (Barbara Somers, The Fires of Alchemy: A Transpersonal Viewpoint (2004), p52, The Alchemist in the Split)