Even though centuries have passed, with alternating historical and cultural periods, contended between Spoleto and Terni, Lizori is still a Panic and privileged place, symbolising humanistic conviviality and positive society.
While cruising along the road that leads from Spoleto to Assisi, close to the Clitunno springs, you’ll notice a small village on the mountain. Your curiosity will lead to know more about that place. So, seize the day and walk on the village, along the only road that leads to Lizori, in its medieval ancient walls.
No doubt all places have their own atmosphere and charm, elements of inspiration for artists, but Lizori has something different, intimate and sweet. It has a personality that suddenly shows, and if you are lucky enough to visit it, you will find a surprising candour which rejoices your soul. A group of Italian journalists defined Lizori a place to live and breathe wonderful scents.
Visualizzazione post con etichetta antonio meneghetti. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta antonio meneghetti. Mostra tutti i post
domenica 25 novembre 2012
giovedì 25 ottobre 2012
The school of a Leader
Undoubtely,
being a leader today is one of the main characteristics of individuality, and
that is also a huge goal. The word leader has many meanings, and it often
implies a lack of correspondence between the meaning and the subject who
represents it.
After being a successful therapist for years, at the beginning of the 80s Meneghetti decided to develop the field of leadership according to the ontopsychological school (see the book “The psychology of a leader”).
According to Antonio Meneghetti, “whatever his field of action may be – financial, economical, political, entrepreneurial, medical, etc., a leader is a providence of the spirit in the world, and as such he can help people. He is the one who, through his own successful egoism, achieves social good for everybody. In so doing, he creates wealth and helps thousands of people, being a stimulus for society and helping progress”.
These are the bases on which Professor Antonio Meneghetti created a school for the training of leaders who operate in many social fields (politics, economics, art, etc) through the authentication of the intellectual and creative potential.
The best way of training is the Residence, i.e. a residential stage which lasts a few days, with theoretical and practical lessons, on contact with a clean nature.
Of course, Lizori is the perfect habitat to host people coming from all over the world.
Together with a natural and hospitable landscape, the halls and rooms of Lizori retain an atmosphere of sand and stone, making them ideal venues for hosting post degree courses and other activities.
After being a successful therapist for years, at the beginning of the 80s Meneghetti decided to develop the field of leadership according to the ontopsychological school (see the book “The psychology of a leader”).
According to Antonio Meneghetti, “whatever his field of action may be – financial, economical, political, entrepreneurial, medical, etc., a leader is a providence of the spirit in the world, and as such he can help people. He is the one who, through his own successful egoism, achieves social good for everybody. In so doing, he creates wealth and helps thousands of people, being a stimulus for society and helping progress”.
These are the bases on which Professor Antonio Meneghetti created a school for the training of leaders who operate in many social fields (politics, economics, art, etc) through the authentication of the intellectual and creative potential.
The best way of training is the Residence, i.e. a residential stage which lasts a few days, with theoretical and practical lessons, on contact with a clean nature.
Of course, Lizori is the perfect habitat to host people coming from all over the world.
Together with a natural and hospitable landscape, the halls and rooms of Lizori retain an atmosphere of sand and stone, making them ideal venues for hosting post degree courses and other activities.
The Amphitheatre and the Casale
Due to the “acropolic” structure of the place (which recalls Athens and its classic art), the outdoor spaces are used for many social, cultural and artistic activities that revolve around Professor Antonio Meneghetti. The amphitheatre is surrounded by a wonderful iron sculpture, as if to help flying in the valley below. It hosts many outdoors activities, such as concerts and conferences, in all seasons. The Casale is an old house, totally rebuilt with state – of – the – art techniques. It is usually used when the weather doesn’t allow for any outdoor activity. This structure is equipped to show films and it is also equipped for simultaneous translation, which is necessary for all the international activities attended by people from all over the world (especially Russia, Brazil and China).
Antonio Meneghetti interview
Professor Antonio Meneghetti, why have you chosen Lizori?
“If the architecture of a place is such because it‘s mental order, then it is clear that I found it rewarding to rebuild this wonderful place belonging to the past for the human being of the third millennium. In Lizori, everyone can discover himself as part of life”.
Have you ever been in Lizori?
Lizori is a small village in the Italian region called Umbria, layed on a green hill that faces Spoleto's valley.
Walking by the streets of Lizori, several sculptures can be observed. These handmade objects have been realized by the components of OntoArte, the artistic expression of Ontopsicologia (Ontopsychology). Lizori itself can be considered the main masterpiece of OntoArte of Professor Antonio Meneghetti.
LET’S BUILD CIVILIZATION
“The Ontology of Architecture.” What does this mean? We are at the OntoArte gallery in Trevi, where the seminar is being held, and the immediacy of the artwork on display – the functional aspect of the white panel painted black and red – conceals true poetics: a mental architecture called Ontopsychology. During the conference, the words of Prof. Meneghetti, the leader of the OntoArte movement, expressed another important theme that was revealed by his works. The serene critique of denunciatory art in favour of art that praises beauty is backed by philosophical and sociological explanations. It is a perspective of creative intuition that sees, recognizes and elevates the local criterion of formal beauty. “Consumerism places us in a culturally impossible situation,” he explains. “Banks, local capitalists and politicians try to give work to everyone in order to avoid social tension. Mass democracy has replaced the patronage of the ancients. We are in the throes of serial production and consumerism is ruining consumers.” Lizori comes to mind, a place where, along the streets and alleys, in place of house numbers we find the homeowners’ names painted on ceramic tiles. It is a hamlet in which one can easily see paintings and sculptures, and observe how nature and construction have emerged to nourish the particular presence that is evident in the air, a presence known as genius loci. He notes, “It is a place where nature formalizes its way of being and encountering in order to become the contemporaneity of the universal spirit and the historical function that has been identified.” The seminar brochure notes: “One cannot be a collaborator of civilization without knowing the ontological criterion.” In short, it is a true modus operandi. It will be interesting to use the ontology of architecture as a starting point for building civilization. Along these lines, one of the comments at the conference is inspiring. “Within OntoArte we find the restoration of simplicity, spontaneity and aesthetic sensitivity. If we were to base things on the criterion of beauty rather than that of conformity (right or wrong, good or bad), the world would be a better place.”
THE ONTOLOGY OF ARCHITECTURE
The “Ontology of Architecture” event, promoted by the International OntoArte School Association at the art gallery of Torre Matigge of Trevi and sponsored by the Region of Umbria, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservationists of the Province of Perugia, and the Lizori Civic Committee, ended on 15 July 2007 and was an enormous success. The event was held during two full-immersion weekends, in which a series of educational experiences allowed participants to examine the dynamic architecture of Prof. Antonio Meneghetti, who has been in the international scientific limelight for many years. The event included conferences, live planning sessions assisted by technicians open to dialogue, historic/architectural documentaries of projects ranging from individual design objects to architecture and urban planning, critical reports on the Bauhaus and the issues that the great names in architecture have always investigated, and slides about Antonio Meneghetti’s international production, culminating in the author’s closing conference examining the basic rules on which architecture is based. During the conference, Meneghetti noted, “I would like to form a worldwide group of architects based on the concept of OntoArte,1 i.e. capable of bringing the technique of draughtsmanship and formalization into the heart of truth, life and everything that has to do with health: in other words, a group capable of bringing rationality within man’s ontic In-itself.” He went on to explain that “the ontic In-itself is the genome. It is like the intelligent universe that plans human beings, the being as a person, society and cosmos. One cannot build a civilization for mankind if one is not first aware of the criterion, the element and the basic plan of what man is.” In fact, humans are not born from chaos but from causality and will, and if they form part of this ‘insight design’ of how the eternal nature of things has planned them and loves, protects, maintains and develops them, then – as scholars, technical experts and thus architects – they can become collaborators of civilization, beauty, order, ethics and everything that is encompassed by the human existence. In essence, if one does not know nature’s plan, by the same token one cannot design architectural beauty. Indeed, the term “architecture” refers to the principle that projects form. As a result, it is even more important that architects be made aware of the ontological aspect of their work. “Therefore, anything that is done must always have an ontological connection, in other words a connection with the being that man is according to nature’s plan. A house, a garden, a staircase, a studio or a terrace must be enhanced senses, developed perceptions. In other words, the house must be our second body or even an expansion of the small body of the human being, from which we must be able to achieve the progressive amplitude of an ever-larger space in which to experience our own territorial psychology.” A highly stimulating intellectual atmosphere allowed participants to re-experience the spirit of the creative workshop of the Renaissance encouraged by the Bauhaus and Renzo Piano alike. This powerful meaning, so simple that it seemed impossible to understand because it was forgotten by the great perennial culture, that of Aristotle and Leonardo, became topical once more: manna for those who were willing to accept it. The pedagogy of a Maestro who, with his works, fully demonstrates the underpinnings of the ontopsychological culture and finally recognizes an operating criterion for design, one that has vanished from the media because of rampant consumerism, can still be found in all the geniuses who – on a transhistorical level – bear witness to the value of the human being. It is a shame that these values, which would restore to young people the operative scope of a profession, have vanished from the media due to widespread political indifference. By the same token, it is important that this kind of cultural and scientific testimony be available to attentive minds capable of grasping the vital challenge of responsibly playing a leading role in their eras. “This ontological architecture or, in other words, working according to the ontic project of each individual, must be provided above all when people join together as a society and create monuments, parliaments, churches, gyms, football pitches, theatres and so on.” This event led to a proposal for the critical interpretation of a current work, a monument that is representative of Italy’s architectural heritage: the Ara Pacis in Rome. No one likes the current renovation, particularly Italians, and Antonio Meneghetti’s solution would be a glass pyramid, a symbol that has always testified to the eternal value of human knowledge. Public attendance at the event continued to grow, culminating with 150 paying participants during the last weekend. Despite the fact that the event mainly targeted an Italian audience of students, graduates and professionals working in this field, it was rewarding to note that it was also attended by architects, interior designers, gallery owners and important businesspeople from Brazil, Russia, Latvia, England and other countries. One cannot help but wonder if this foreign turnout was due to the cultural novelty of the event or the publicity it gained as a result of the interest shown by the UN in Geneva in early July of this year regarding the Annual Ministerial Review. The AMR presented the results of two urban settlements created with scientific, artistic and cultural objectives in mind, respectively in Latvia and Brazil, and designed by this great mind ahead of his time. The main interest focused on the innovation that this business angel can create, i.e. economic cooperation between private and public organizations in order to restore or create new urban settlements, above all due to the enormous difficulty involved in establishing an economy that can endure during the time it is carried out, that avoids creating a cathedral in the desert and is capable of guaranteeing complete insertion and the revitalization of the local population involved. Fascinating, innovative and full of operating solutions with a broad range of applications in the social arena, this event marks an important step in Italy’s cultural life.
mercoledì 24 ottobre 2012
ONTOPSYCHOLOGICAL CINELOGY
Antonio Meneghetti, with Ontopsychology, discovered three psycological elements (the ontic In-itself, the semantic field and the deflection monitor) to use with
ONTOPSYCHOLOGICAL PEDAGOGY
The ontopsychological approach to education provides tools to analyze the
basic code of life, the ontic In-itself, which everyone possess innately in order to build own social
and responsible personality.
Buy the book of Antonio Meneghetti - PEDAGOGIA ONTOPSICOLOGICA - Ontopsychological pedagogy - to learn more.
Petrassi Hall
After 15 years, Maestro Antonio Meneghetti comes back to Rome to play his OntoArte and does it in great style at the Sala Petrassi (Petrassi Hall) of the Auditorium Parco della Musica (Auditorium Music Park). In his expressions, music is a lyrical moment and, through the concert, one lives the evidence of being in a single identity, you and I, the other and I, Being and I. A worldwide highly regarded concert artist, his fund of experience includes all musical educations. In particular, percussion technique, the spirituality of the Gregorian chant, the metaphysics of Indian music, the polyphonic chorale and classical orchestration, with its relative composition and decomposition. Maestro Antonio Meneghetti’s artistic discourse begins from a saturation of the teaching that is still held as valid in the most serious academies. As he himself, states, “But at that point, a choice becomes necessary: if we want to live on far stretching spaces, without destroying the preceding one, or you must create a new universe”. While Bach would maintain that no artist could go beyond the two horizons, Meneghetti proves to be able to create the movement of the third horizon. Those who know the technique of music (or of composition, or of a way of playing) could consider OntoArte music as a kind of improvisation without conscious rationality. In truth, it is the direct reading of a vision, which is familiar to him; there, the evocation of the universal transcendence is cadenced in a dialogue with the human being’s In-itself. Every passage is exactly calculated, the timbres and the tonalities are coloured with multi-sided variables with reference to an exact intuition. There is no room for improvisation, “We just let an order, which is always present, glide behind an apparent chance”. Antonio Meneghetti’s experience shows the capacity of reading the musical pathos in the space of a second. Then, music is not invented. It is found again.
domenica 14 ottobre 2012
Concert of Antonio Meneghetti at the National Opera House in Riga
CONCERT BY MAESTRO ANTONIO MENEGHETTI
Riga – Maestro Antonio Meneghetti performed in Riga for the first time, with a concert for piano and synthesizers held at the prestigious venue of the National Opera House, a treasure of Latvian architecture inaugurated in 1863. The Maestro’s previous performance was held exactly four months ago, on 8 December 2006, in the Sala Petrassi at Rome’s Parco della Musica, the largest auditorium in Europe and recently declared the most important auditorium in the world. The Rome concert was held under the patronage of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, one of the world’s oldest musical institutions (founded in 1585), which thus recognizes the Maestro’s musical and artistic validity on an international level. On the stage of the Main Hall of the Latvian National Opera House, Maestro Meneghetti performed on piano and electronic keyboards, interpreting his profound knowledge of classical music in modern tonalities. Meneghetti has received the Italian government’s Prize for Culture three times and is a member of the academic senate of the International Academy of Modern Art. His artistic approach stems from the consummation of the teachings of the most highly regarded academies. As Meneghetti himself affirms, “In music one must decide whether to live in spaces of advancement, without destroying what came before, or create a new universe.” Indeed, his music, which has made him a famous concert artist who is in demand around the world, rigorously takes all musical backgrounds into account, from percussion techniques to the spirituality of Gregorian music and from the metaphysics of Indian music to polyphonic choral music, without overlooking classical orchestration and its composition and decomposition. Based on these conditions, Meneghetti has developed his own musical art that respects classical academic precepts yet is also connected to seeming improvisation. The latter is a divergence that, according to the artist, is the quintessential “instrument” with which one can go beyond the “two horizons” that Bach considered insurmountable and with which musical pathos can be grasped, moment by moment. According to Meneghetti, “With the movement in the ‘third horizon’ music is not invented but rediscovered with the person who is capable of listening to it. Music is the action of the soul; it is an order of life that lyrically courts our sentiments.” Meneghetti’s concert attracted music lovers from around the world – Italy, Brazil, Russia, Germany, England and the Baltic countries – as well as ministers, politicians and important social figures in Latvia. For all enthusiasts who are constantly in search of innovative musical experiences, this concert in Riga was unquestionably a unique experience not to be missed in order to gain first-hand knowledge of the music of this eclectic artist.
sabato 13 ottobre 2012
European knowledge ...
European knowledge is like the oil in Arabic countries: one has to know how to extract and refine it. However, the issue is the following: does reversibility exist between what is taught at university and what the professional world demands? Can professors really teach the practical meaning of work? The answer offered by the ontopsychological viewpoint: FOIL Management.
The Convention, held at the office of the European Parliament in Italy last May19th, has been Supported by the Office of the European Parliament in Italy, the Ministry of Education, of University and Research, Rome University “La Sapienza”, Faculty of Sociology, the Region of Lazio, the Province of Rome and the local Government of Rome, in addition to the Consent of the Presidency of the Italian Republic. It represents the nth leaf of the profitable collaboration between the European Ontopsychology Association and Rome University “La Sapienza” I Chair of Sociology, as the chairperson of the debate, Prof. Paolo De Nardis, director of the I Chair of Sociology and president CATTID, Rome University “La Sapienza”, pointed out1. It is a very topical and impelling subject for the future of our old continent: the European harmonization of the regulation of professions and respective courses of study. The main theme is the need to have an extremely concrete relationship between instruction and working experience, a stronger need in Italy than in the other European countries. It is an important possibility for comparison and the proposal of the ontopsychological view regarding culture, work, and making the young responsible for their own life2.
“The institutional” interventions have emphasized a series of successes, reforms, innovations (also with some disagreement), but everybody has come to a standstill before the evidence that university, studies and formative courses can give something, but not all. Although several efforts have been made, we have felt the sense of an incomplete, vain answer.
Let us try to understand why.
Although the Italian didactics Reform of the “3+2”, has increased the formative profiles – offering “slimmer” courses which are more easily put into practice in the work market – it has obtained a favourable opinion, but a lot of problems have arisen for which several solutions have been suggested. For example, it has been said that a lot of formative profiles risk being dispersive for young people if not based on a precise cultural design. They have also said that the “3+2” has reduced the distances from the work market and professions, but Italy is still suffering from a University which is not a top priority in the government political programs and that only by investing in education, the real structural heart of the problem, will we be able to define an accurate and European profile of professions. Moreover, several disciplines from the five year bachelor’s degree are in the three year courses, and in this way, the student is “bombarded” with information and has no time to synthesise what he is learning.
Actually, if we look at the problem from the ontopsychological viewpoint we can identify where the difficulty is: the institutions keep on encouraging individual welfarism, which causes the mitigation of responsibility in the young. Nevertheless, today, what are the choices and the opportunities for a young person? It is the development that creates the professions, and not vice versa, i.e. there is no course at the end of which our life can be settled. To nurse the infantile idea that there is a prearranged road made of guaranteed stages in our life, which soon become demands – such as degree, open-end contract, and retirement – for the young is equivalent to digging a grave that, before being professional, is psychological. Therefore, the truth is that institutions are not able to keep pace with what instead the individual by himself is able to produce.
Posing the question correctly, the ontopsychological education gives a suitable answer too. The time of education needs a culture of value, a specific forma mentis that goes beyond learning seen as a deposit of knowledge and technical abilities, these are certainly necessary, but are not sufficient unless the individual also has a foundation of conscience, health and functionality. Without these requirements, the world of work is probably only a pipe dream or a place people reach through cooptation and nepotism. Education is a setting up of personality: there is a similitude between to be able to do and to be able to be. It is therefore essential to include a space dedicated to the study and development of personality in any instruction. It is indispensable to promote knowledge, which is the mainstay of the person’s functional evolution to the elaboration of construction and social responsibility. At this point, the question comes up: What is the personality? In addition, how can we speak of personality without facing the topics of what are the psyche and the unconscious too? Could this gap actually be the determining factor that often causes young people to confuse illusions with motivations? Their own emotional deficiencies with concrete existential prospects?
Besides, we must not forget Europe. Italy has adopted with the 2005 communitarian law (carried out from 25 January 2006) the directive on the professional qualifications. Today, where working in France or Germany is like working near home, we speak about the necessity of harmonization, i.e. to create some legislative systems regulating education and work in a compatible way between one State member and another. In this sense, the establishment of the triennial bachelor in Italy could be in contrast with a few movements of the professions reorganization on a European scale. The institutional architecture of “3+2” has only a superficial homogeneity that, not only in Italy but also in other countries, has actually led to different solutions.3 However, here there is another problem: other foreign university structures, even though prestigious or connected to valid business stages, are looking for answers too. As if it were not enough, the problem related to the professional orders is still open. The comparison between the Mediterranean systems (supporters of orders and colleges) and the Anglo-Saxon one (where associations carry out this role) attests that now the difference is no longer so distinct and consequently it is necessary to rewrite the common rules here too. We go back to the bureaucratic solution.
The ontopsychological viewpoint shows an answer “dramatically” concrete and true on this point too: to teach the young that there is another world beyond the one they see “from the keyhole” of their home which claims them, that there are countries (for example, the Baltic ones) full of practical possibilities, resources, availability for realizing an entrepreneurial project in a few days. The solution is to give the young a universal humanistic culture (in which Europe is immensely rich) which shows them an overview of truth without illusion? and that, in last analysis, makes them responsible as builders of their own existence. So the culture must recover an ontological dimension that enables everyone to control the logical reason of truth, i.e. to know the way of doing, to know the logic. The institutions should help in this sense, putting some instruments at our disposal, giving a general survey of truth. Anyway, the individual has the greatest responsibility regarding his own existence.
We can agree that it is necessary to have a minimum of common European cultural base on which every State may prepare itself as it likes, and that the continuous learning and the adaptation to the various social systems of reference is very important too, since technology advances very fast on all the professional levels and the professional categories. However, we do not agree on the excessive bureaucratization of knowledge and on the fact that people think of waiting for the final solution always coming down (Italy or Europe indifferently). We are all waiting for answers, but what is the question?
The ontopsychological education catches the end of a skein again: does reversibility exist between the contents taught at university and what the professional world demands?
Can professors really teach the practical meaning of work?
Once again, there is a realistic, tangible, and accomplishable answer: FOIL management. There are twelve modules, entrepreneurs from every field and “apprentices leader” together in the same classroom, everyone with his own wealth and problems. Up front, an educator whose role is “to watch over” this circularity of osmosis, in a continuous feedback of people who are already in the world of work, that allows hic et nunc to verify the realistic advantage (what is not useful is modified) and the reversibility of the subjects dealt with. This allows measuring carefully which contents to deal with and to which depth. However, there is a further ingredient: there where one can discover a specific attitude, the entrepreneur himself becomes the object of formation and put himself in the teacher’s shoes. Therefore, not only a continuous adjustment and updating of the programs content, but also a direct transmission from those who are out there every day, risking, investing with responsibility and sacrifice their own time and money. And the effects are evident and speak for themselves: the project not only suits any profession, but it is also “exported”, with a certain flexibility (the program is three-quarters mutual and for a quarter changes in accordance with the country where it occurs), in other countries (Baltic Republics, Brazil, Germany), in a formative process of a really international and interdisciplinary nature. The purpose is to create a sort of European university, maintaining the aspect related to the subject of psychology unchanged. The method used by FOIL is the ontopsychological one, an interdisciplinary methodology suited to any profession, in whichever nation. Once the research is finished, maybe the FOIL Management course will result in a diploma. This didactic experimentation could replace a lot of American MBAs and give a European connotation.4
European knowledge is like the oil in Arabic countries: one has to know how to extract and refine it because the world of work includes some operators that allow for individual accomplishment to a purpose that is greatly social for everybody. The fact that the FOIL Management project, originating from a private initiative, is also able to open the way to the public institutions can depend on everyone who is reading too. In fact, one thing is sure: the answers are there, it is enough to want them and start working on them.
1 An important Convention on ‘Cinelogy: Cinema and the Unconscious’ has held at the Conference Room of the Rome University “La Sapienza”, Faculty of Sciences of Communication on 26th May 2005, in which cinema has been analyzed by the ontopsychological point of view. Cf. New Ontopsychology Review, n.1/2-2005, Psicologica Ed., Rome, pp. 38-45.
2 Next to the exponents of the Italian university world – such as Prof. Renato Guarini, Chancellor of the Rome University “La Sapienza”, Prof. Mario Morcellini and Prof. Luciano Benadusi, Deans respectively of the Faculty of Sciences of Communication and the Faculty of Sociology of the Rome University “La Sapienza” – have also intervened at the debate, after the thanks by the Officer of the European Parliament Dr. Orazio Parisotto, MP Stefano Zappalà, a member of the European Parliament and reporter both of the Directive for the Acknowledgment of Professional Qualifications and the Directive on the Public Contracts, and FOIL, in the persons of Dr. Pamela Bernabei (Consultant Coordinator FOIL and A.I.O. - International Ontopsychology Association) and Dr. Luca Morotti (FOIL Consultant), with the contribution of Andrea Pezzi, a famous television presenter, as an expert in communication and mass media, as well as operator of Ontopsychology.
3 For example, it is enough to say that “3+2” is the Bachelor Master (BM) in Europe, because it is the English model of Bachelor and Master, but in England, the Bachelor is not so professional a level as the triennial degree is seen to be in Italy.
4 Concerning this, the myths of the American universities and the English ones of Oxford and Cambridge ought to be exploded. Some research has underlined that the latter are the universities with the lowest level of knowledge. On the contrary, in the German school, – for example - theory is side by side with practice by work experience in a company, and a young person has to demonstrate having carried it out in order to find a job at the end of his studies. This is interesting, because a young person gets into the habit of a condition of sacrifice and responsibility. Acting, instead, like the French young people with their protest against the Contract of First Employment means not caring for risk and living on the illusion that the enterprise is obliged to give one a job.
The telegram sent to the European Ontopsychology Association
The telegram sent to the European
Ontopsychology Association by the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio
Napolitano
“The Convention entitled ‘University Instruction and Professions: Towards a Europe of Knowledge’', promoted by your Association, is an occasion of reflection and comparison on a topic of cultural and social significance. Innovation, search, and education are determining factors of growth, cohesion, and integration for coping with the challenges of an open and globalized society in continuous evolution. With this awareness the President of the Republic gives the organizers and all the participants in the meeting a cordial salute and wishes everybody good work.”
“The Convention entitled ‘University Instruction and Professions: Towards a Europe of Knowledge’', promoted by your Association, is an occasion of reflection and comparison on a topic of cultural and social significance. Innovation, search, and education are determining factors of growth, cohesion, and integration for coping with the challenges of an open and globalized society in continuous evolution. With this awareness the President of the Republic gives the organizers and all the participants in the meeting a cordial salute and wishes everybody good work.”
mercoledì 15 aprile 2009
ONTOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
“All my scientific work can be viewed as an exploration and demonstration of the capacity to know what is real in a true and reversible manner (from the concept to the object and vice versa). In addition to my philosophical and theological competence, I have tested each of my positions through the clinical experience of individual and group psychotherapy. On the strength of decades of work and consistent results, I feel safe in asserting that I have the authority needed to demonstrate the capacity to know and judge of our intelligence. The error that mires our critical consciousness is not found in the nature of our intellectual faculties or those of our will. The error resides in the process of reflection, in the formulation and determination of the consciousness. Once this has been revised, philosophy and science are rendered authentic points of reference in the evolution of true existence.”
The style and the lines of arguments are not easy. But even Aristotle or Kant might envy the simplicity of the explanation. All of Ontopsychology, from clinical practice to art, is put to use on addressing the critical problem of awareness. The familiarity of the world, between intellect and ontology, allows Meneghetti to manoeuvre his intellectual attitudes in masterful fashion, without ever losing sight of Parmenides’ rule: being is, not being is not. Existence, to the extent that it constitutes awareness, either coincides with the principle or has never existed. Today philosophy no longer exists: all that remains is thought based on fragmentation and failure, and thus approximation and nihilism. Meneghetti opens the argument.
The style and the lines of arguments are not easy. But even Aristotle or Kant might envy the simplicity of the explanation. All of Ontopsychology, from clinical practice to art, is put to use on addressing the critical problem of awareness. The familiarity of the world, between intellect and ontology, allows Meneghetti to manoeuvre his intellectual attitudes in masterful fashion, without ever losing sight of Parmenides’ rule: being is, not being is not. Existence, to the extent that it constitutes awareness, either coincides with the principle or has never existed. Today philosophy no longer exists: all that remains is thought based on fragmentation and failure, and thus approximation and nihilism. Meneghetti opens the argument.
mercoledì 18 marzo 2009
THE INTEGRATION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND ONTOPSYCHOLOGY
By Albert A. Krylov
It is important to underline that the problem of individuality is not underestimated in Ontopsychology, but it is brought to the fore as the most important aspect for contemporary and future psychology.
Academician Professor Albert A. Krylov, born in 1935, is doctor of Psychological Sciences, professor and is medical training. Between 1967 and 1969 he was the Chairman of the Engineering Psychology Department of Leningrad University. Since 1976 he has been Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and holds the Chair of General Psychology. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, and has a very large number of students both in Russia and abroad. He was awarded the honorary title of “Distinguished personality of Russian sciences”.
“One of the fundamental paradigms of our time is the systemic approach in the human being’s knowledge and activity. To understand such principles, we have to refer to Smuts (holism), Bogdanov (tectology), L. Von Bertalanffy (general theory of systems) and other researchers.
The process of integration of scientific knowledge can be considered a concrete phenomenon of the systemic approach. The integration of scientific knowledge is necessary to formulate complex laws and find profound connections in the universe, so as to understand the latter as a unitary system. Of course, such a path also presupposes a permanent passage towards new and higher levels of analysis of the data taken from every single science. From such point of view, psychology has an important characteristic inside the manifold existing sciences: the human being is surveyed both as the subject and the object of knowledge. Together with sociality and work, cognitive capacity is one of the fundamental expressions of the human being’s essence.
Mankind’s development, the comprehension of the world, the comprehension of man’s ego, the creation of sciences as forms of general consciousness and all the socio-cultural and spiritual richness of mankind are connected to this. Starting from what stated above, there are reasons to presuppose that the integrative processes in psychology have a deep specificity.
According to our opinions, it is possible to underline three general movements of psychological integration. Of course, the criteria that we have used to analyse the integrative psychological processes cannot be considered the only possible ones. Nevertheless, the model that we have proposed has a high degree of generalisation.
The first movement is connected with psychology itself, with factors of development of psychological knowledge. If we use Wundt’s conception as the starting point in the process of formation of psychology, we can see that this theory involved a change of conception of the same object of psychology. We can consider what follows: the pure elements of consciousness (structuralism); consciousness as a mechanism of adaptation, internal and external conditions (functionalism); personality and psycho-energetic equilibrium (psychoanalysis); behaviour (behaviourism); psychic reflection and psyche as the propriety of the physiological substratum of the brain (one of the most diffused conceptions to our days).
Cognitive psychology has also been acknowledged as scientific movement of contemporary psychology. So, we can conclude that the first movement of the integrative processes of psychology connected to the immanent properties of psychological knowledge has had, and still has, an important meaning for both a general and an applied knowledge in a concrete sector.
The second movement of integration in psychology is connected to the fact that psychological knowledge is always widely used by other sciences. The process of development of many sciences and their practical applications is directly connected to theoretical and applied psychology. The result given is the change of the social role and the importance of psychology.
The first Russian scientist who clearly showed this phenomenon is G. Ananiev.
In his main work, Man as object of knowledge, B.G. Ananiev has proved that, among all sciences somehow connected to the study of the human being, only psychology can be considered a general methodological and scientific centre. So, psychology acquires the properties of a systemic factor, which underlines the general practical and scientific sector of man’s knowledge (system). Thus, psychology actively assimilates the data belonging to other sciences with the primary aim of their psychological comprehension and the future “psychologisation” of the spheres of practical application.
One of the first successful attempts to apply Ananiev’s ideas (dealt in the book above mentioned) is the foundation of the first laboratory of Engineering Psychology in Russia, in 1959. Created by Ananiev’s student B.F. Lomov, this laboratory has had in Russia the same importance as V. Wundt’s laboratory in the worldly psychological panorama. The activity of the laboratory proved how successful the integration of psychological knowledge can be with the technical sciences in the field of design, as well as the richness of the methodological and scientific arsenal of psychology. All that we have said about engineering psychology can generally be applied to all the branches of psychology (social, legal, political, clinical etc.). We have enough elements to affirm the importance of the psychological integration for the real knowledge of the world and for the human being’s practical activity.
The third branch of the psychological integration can be considered as a unity, with the meaning above mentioned. According to our opinion, this branch of integration has two levels. The first is a compiling level, which we describe in general terms as a certain psychological phenomenon used by some science to construct new theoretical concepts. Going back to psychology, these concepts widen the knowledge of the human being’s substance and nature. Nevertheless they remain independent and do not form another level of integrity in psychological concepts.
That is how, for example, the Russian scientist V.I. Vernadskij elaborated the concept of noosphere as part of the biosphere, organised by the biochemical energy of man’s creative process. Another Russian scientist, the ethnographer L.N. Gumilev, proposed the original idea of ethno-genesis, with the basic concept of the change of the behavioural stereotype in people, as a result of some cosmic (solar) influences. In psychology, such elaborations allow us to draw the conclusion that a person’s development is not caused by nature alone but by biosphere as well. It is not caused solely by society but also by the noosphere. Not only by mankind, but by ethno-sphere as well.
It is natural to presuppose that the integrator can be the psycho-sphere which includes the bound psychic energy (people who live in a given period of time) and free psychic energy, which can originate from some famous people who lived in the past. The psycho-sphere is open to the Cosmos. With such an approach it is unlikely that we would be satisfied with a concept of psychology as a science that studies the function of reflex of the brain. Probably, a conception of psychology as science of the human being’s spiritual essence and variety of forms of psychic reflection is closer to the truth. The basis of such model is Ananiev’s elaboration, published in the book Man as object of knowledge, from which we differ in some points.
The third level of psychological integration can be called constructive or creative. First of all, its result leads to the construction of a unique and new theory, based on the theoretical conceptions of sciences which do not seem to have anything in common. Secondly, it leads to an adequate method and an instrument which guarantee the success of practical activity. All of this undoubtedly allows us to consider the historical and current experience of all the psychological movements in the world.
This means that we are talking of a level of integration which corresponds to a new movement of psychology, a new psychological school. The school that most of all responds to our needs is surely Ontopsychology, founded and developed by the Italian scientist Antonio Meneghetti. In the figure on the side (according to P. and D. Schultz’s chronological model which shows the development of psychological schools in the world) we have a scheme of the integrative process up to the third millennium. It is dearly necessary to give a brief explanation of the positions that we have used in analysing A. Meneghetti’s Ontopsychology. First of all, we start saying that the word “Ontopsychology” was coined a long time ago. In Ananiev’s conception, for example, it is explained like a branch of psychology that studies ontogenesis, i.e., the development of the individual as a totality of organic properties (regarding the organism only). In Meneghetti’s theory, the term “Ontopsychology” has a new meaning: it is the development of individuality as a whole, it is the psychology of the being in the human being.
Ontopsychology is based on some fundamental concepts, like “semantic field” and “In-itself”. As a concept, the semantic field is different from the term used in philology. It is the basic information that life uses within its individualizations (the Ego as agent individual and personality).
The “In-itself” is the haecceity of Being. In its principal form, the ontic In-itself is what regulates the human being in the form specified by the intentionality of Being. Based on the common being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the cosmos, the universe and life. Based on the individual being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the human being as historical haecceity.
The main result of the ontopsychological practice is to individuate the ontic In-itself. In explaining some basic concepts of Ontopsychology, we did not mean to give a complete treatise on the subject. Clearly, we have a new deep knowledge, that allows for the integration of psychological sciences as well as the integration of psychological knowledge with other sciences. In conclusion, there is still one thing to consider. All over the world, Wundt’s laboratory is considered of great importance for the birth of psychology as an independent science. This was surely helped by some external factor connected to the need to develop knowledge of man, a need that neither biology nor physiology could fulfil. We must also say that internal factors played an important role. A new theoretical concept was proposed, together with a method and instruments of research.
The laboratory became an international centre of training for professional psychologists. Specific monographs and an issue have been published; international congresses of psychology are regularly organised. We cannot forget Wundt’s work and personality.
If we look at Prof. Meneghetti’s work at the International Ontopsychology Association, we cannot help finding a substantial resemblance with Wundt’s laboratory, considering that Ontopsychology has a new important element, as it is successfully confirmed in practical activity. With this, we can be sure that Ontopsychology will have an important role in the integration of sciences.”
(Article published in the journal New Ontopsychology, no. 1/2001, Psicologica Ed., Rome)
It is important to underline that the problem of individuality is not underestimated in Ontopsychology, but it is brought to the fore as the most important aspect for contemporary and future psychology.
Academician Professor Albert A. Krylov, born in 1935, is doctor of Psychological Sciences, professor and is medical training. Between 1967 and 1969 he was the Chairman of the Engineering Psychology Department of Leningrad University. Since 1976 he has been Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and holds the Chair of General Psychology. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, and has a very large number of students both in Russia and abroad. He was awarded the honorary title of “Distinguished personality of Russian sciences”.
“One of the fundamental paradigms of our time is the systemic approach in the human being’s knowledge and activity. To understand such principles, we have to refer to Smuts (holism), Bogdanov (tectology), L. Von Bertalanffy (general theory of systems) and other researchers.
The process of integration of scientific knowledge can be considered a concrete phenomenon of the systemic approach. The integration of scientific knowledge is necessary to formulate complex laws and find profound connections in the universe, so as to understand the latter as a unitary system. Of course, such a path also presupposes a permanent passage towards new and higher levels of analysis of the data taken from every single science. From such point of view, psychology has an important characteristic inside the manifold existing sciences: the human being is surveyed both as the subject and the object of knowledge. Together with sociality and work, cognitive capacity is one of the fundamental expressions of the human being’s essence.
Mankind’s development, the comprehension of the world, the comprehension of man’s ego, the creation of sciences as forms of general consciousness and all the socio-cultural and spiritual richness of mankind are connected to this. Starting from what stated above, there are reasons to presuppose that the integrative processes in psychology have a deep specificity.
According to our opinions, it is possible to underline three general movements of psychological integration. Of course, the criteria that we have used to analyse the integrative psychological processes cannot be considered the only possible ones. Nevertheless, the model that we have proposed has a high degree of generalisation.
The first movement is connected with psychology itself, with factors of development of psychological knowledge. If we use Wundt’s conception as the starting point in the process of formation of psychology, we can see that this theory involved a change of conception of the same object of psychology. We can consider what follows: the pure elements of consciousness (structuralism); consciousness as a mechanism of adaptation, internal and external conditions (functionalism); personality and psycho-energetic equilibrium (psychoanalysis); behaviour (behaviourism); psychic reflection and psyche as the propriety of the physiological substratum of the brain (one of the most diffused conceptions to our days).
Cognitive psychology has also been acknowledged as scientific movement of contemporary psychology. So, we can conclude that the first movement of the integrative processes of psychology connected to the immanent properties of psychological knowledge has had, and still has, an important meaning for both a general and an applied knowledge in a concrete sector.
The second movement of integration in psychology is connected to the fact that psychological knowledge is always widely used by other sciences. The process of development of many sciences and their practical applications is directly connected to theoretical and applied psychology. The result given is the change of the social role and the importance of psychology.
The first Russian scientist who clearly showed this phenomenon is G. Ananiev.
In his main work, Man as object of knowledge, B.G. Ananiev has proved that, among all sciences somehow connected to the study of the human being, only psychology can be considered a general methodological and scientific centre. So, psychology acquires the properties of a systemic factor, which underlines the general practical and scientific sector of man’s knowledge (system). Thus, psychology actively assimilates the data belonging to other sciences with the primary aim of their psychological comprehension and the future “psychologisation” of the spheres of practical application.
One of the first successful attempts to apply Ananiev’s ideas (dealt in the book above mentioned) is the foundation of the first laboratory of Engineering Psychology in Russia, in 1959. Created by Ananiev’s student B.F. Lomov, this laboratory has had in Russia the same importance as V. Wundt’s laboratory in the worldly psychological panorama. The activity of the laboratory proved how successful the integration of psychological knowledge can be with the technical sciences in the field of design, as well as the richness of the methodological and scientific arsenal of psychology. All that we have said about engineering psychology can generally be applied to all the branches of psychology (social, legal, political, clinical etc.). We have enough elements to affirm the importance of the psychological integration for the real knowledge of the world and for the human being’s practical activity.
The third branch of the psychological integration can be considered as a unity, with the meaning above mentioned. According to our opinion, this branch of integration has two levels. The first is a compiling level, which we describe in general terms as a certain psychological phenomenon used by some science to construct new theoretical concepts. Going back to psychology, these concepts widen the knowledge of the human being’s substance and nature. Nevertheless they remain independent and do not form another level of integrity in psychological concepts.
That is how, for example, the Russian scientist V.I. Vernadskij elaborated the concept of noosphere as part of the biosphere, organised by the biochemical energy of man’s creative process. Another Russian scientist, the ethnographer L.N. Gumilev, proposed the original idea of ethno-genesis, with the basic concept of the change of the behavioural stereotype in people, as a result of some cosmic (solar) influences. In psychology, such elaborations allow us to draw the conclusion that a person’s development is not caused by nature alone but by biosphere as well. It is not caused solely by society but also by the noosphere. Not only by mankind, but by ethno-sphere as well.
It is natural to presuppose that the integrator can be the psycho-sphere which includes the bound psychic energy (people who live in a given period of time) and free psychic energy, which can originate from some famous people who lived in the past. The psycho-sphere is open to the Cosmos. With such an approach it is unlikely that we would be satisfied with a concept of psychology as a science that studies the function of reflex of the brain. Probably, a conception of psychology as science of the human being’s spiritual essence and variety of forms of psychic reflection is closer to the truth. The basis of such model is Ananiev’s elaboration, published in the book Man as object of knowledge, from which we differ in some points.
The third level of psychological integration can be called constructive or creative. First of all, its result leads to the construction of a unique and new theory, based on the theoretical conceptions of sciences which do not seem to have anything in common. Secondly, it leads to an adequate method and an instrument which guarantee the success of practical activity. All of this undoubtedly allows us to consider the historical and current experience of all the psychological movements in the world.
This means that we are talking of a level of integration which corresponds to a new movement of psychology, a new psychological school. The school that most of all responds to our needs is surely Ontopsychology, founded and developed by the Italian scientist Antonio Meneghetti. In the figure on the side (according to P. and D. Schultz’s chronological model which shows the development of psychological schools in the world) we have a scheme of the integrative process up to the third millennium. It is dearly necessary to give a brief explanation of the positions that we have used in analysing A. Meneghetti’s Ontopsychology. First of all, we start saying that the word “Ontopsychology” was coined a long time ago. In Ananiev’s conception, for example, it is explained like a branch of psychology that studies ontogenesis, i.e., the development of the individual as a totality of organic properties (regarding the organism only). In Meneghetti’s theory, the term “Ontopsychology” has a new meaning: it is the development of individuality as a whole, it is the psychology of the being in the human being.
Ontopsychology is based on some fundamental concepts, like “semantic field” and “In-itself”. As a concept, the semantic field is different from the term used in philology. It is the basic information that life uses within its individualizations (the Ego as agent individual and personality).
The “In-itself” is the haecceity of Being. In its principal form, the ontic In-itself is what regulates the human being in the form specified by the intentionality of Being. Based on the common being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the cosmos, the universe and life. Based on the individual being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the human being as historical haecceity.
The main result of the ontopsychological practice is to individuate the ontic In-itself. In explaining some basic concepts of Ontopsychology, we did not mean to give a complete treatise on the subject. Clearly, we have a new deep knowledge, that allows for the integration of psychological sciences as well as the integration of psychological knowledge with other sciences. In conclusion, there is still one thing to consider. All over the world, Wundt’s laboratory is considered of great importance for the birth of psychology as an independent science. This was surely helped by some external factor connected to the need to develop knowledge of man, a need that neither biology nor physiology could fulfil. We must also say that internal factors played an important role. A new theoretical concept was proposed, together with a method and instruments of research.
The laboratory became an international centre of training for professional psychologists. Specific monographs and an issue have been published; international congresses of psychology are regularly organised. We cannot forget Wundt’s work and personality.
If we look at Prof. Meneghetti’s work at the International Ontopsychology Association, we cannot help finding a substantial resemblance with Wundt’s laboratory, considering that Ontopsychology has a new important element, as it is successfully confirmed in practical activity. With this, we can be sure that Ontopsychology will have an important role in the integration of sciences.”
(Article published in the journal New Ontopsychology, no. 1/2001, Psicologica Ed., Rome)
lunedì 16 febbraio 2009
The telegram sent to the European Ontopsychology Association by the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano
“The Convention entitled ‘University Instruction and Professions: Towards a Europe of Knowledge’', promoted by your Association, is an occasion of reflection and comparison on a topic of cultural and social significance. Innovation, search, and education are determining factors of growth, cohesion, and integration for coping with the challenges of an open and globalized society in continuous evolution. With this awareness the President of the Republic gives the organizers and all the participants in the meeting a cordial salute and wishes everybody good work.”
Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano
lunedì 19 gennaio 2009
PARIS 31 MAY 2006
The day after the conference at the UNESCO, the Italian, Brazilian and Russian OntoArte Associations organized an event on art, in which some works of the Louvre were commented on.
“Conference” means being together, bringing something together. It is educational to meet in those places, which as far as a higher humanistic civility is concerned are the most important on the planet.
To meet Paris’s intimacy – as it is a lady of centuries of good taste – can help us to better enter some meanings that create a higher life.
When observing all the classical works, the first aspect to be considered is that they communicate a form of super-Ego to us. In fact, these works were chosen by the system of that time, which wished to exalt itself for itself and for posterity. Therefore, through education to art, the super-Ego is introduced with all its facets. Although the artist’s inner truth is not guaranteed, there are some works in which the artist communicates his/her rebellion towards the system. For example, in some works by Veronese, by the Perugia school and by Masaccio, the artist was free to express him/herself.
When we observe the Russian icons – which continue the Byzantine iconography school and, then, the schools of the Italian, Germanic and French Middle Ages – we should remember that, in the 8th century A.D., there were profound wars and controversies between the Ottoman and Christian civilizations. This led to the political intervention of the Emperor of Constantinople and to the outbreak of the Iconoclast war.
It was forbidden to create images concerning the sacred; only images lacking in carnality connected with the earthly sense would be accepted. It was only the great empress Irene that succeeded in bringing some calm in the 8th century A.D. The Western world is still arranged according to her laws.
Therefore, behind images that we consider innocent, a lot of wars, struggles and conflicts occurred, and a great deal of blood was shed.
The International OntoArte School Association’s logo is a face, which arises from a signature, which aims to show the passage from the animal principle to the spiritual evolution. The Brazilian OntoArte Association’s logo is made of a circle protected by a pyramidal hut, which Being’s eye observes. These are free symbols, which do not create any form of super-Ego, but rather are pleasant or indifferent.
We should be careful with art, because through it we are psychologically marked – even as people. Any kind of sacralization, restoration, conservation or fixity to the past is always castrating our present reality. A thousand years ago, the spirit of life used to phenomenalize itself in a certain way; today, it does it in a different way. We are the active expression of it: the more each one of us reaches a perfect realization, the more she writes the spirit of life’s intention.
Ontopsychology
Editrice psicologica
Antonio Meneghetti
News from the Association
“Conference” means being together, bringing something together. It is educational to meet in those places, which as far as a higher humanistic civility is concerned are the most important on the planet.
To meet Paris’s intimacy – as it is a lady of centuries of good taste – can help us to better enter some meanings that create a higher life.
When observing all the classical works, the first aspect to be considered is that they communicate a form of super-Ego to us. In fact, these works were chosen by the system of that time, which wished to exalt itself for itself and for posterity. Therefore, through education to art, the super-Ego is introduced with all its facets. Although the artist’s inner truth is not guaranteed, there are some works in which the artist communicates his/her rebellion towards the system. For example, in some works by Veronese, by the Perugia school and by Masaccio, the artist was free to express him/herself.
When we observe the Russian icons – which continue the Byzantine iconography school and, then, the schools of the Italian, Germanic and French Middle Ages – we should remember that, in the 8th century A.D., there were profound wars and controversies between the Ottoman and Christian civilizations. This led to the political intervention of the Emperor of Constantinople and to the outbreak of the Iconoclast war.
It was forbidden to create images concerning the sacred; only images lacking in carnality connected with the earthly sense would be accepted. It was only the great empress Irene that succeeded in bringing some calm in the 8th century A.D. The Western world is still arranged according to her laws.
Therefore, behind images that we consider innocent, a lot of wars, struggles and conflicts occurred, and a great deal of blood was shed.
The International OntoArte School Association’s logo is a face, which arises from a signature, which aims to show the passage from the animal principle to the spiritual evolution. The Brazilian OntoArte Association’s logo is made of a circle protected by a pyramidal hut, which Being’s eye observes. These are free symbols, which do not create any form of super-Ego, but rather are pleasant or indifferent.
We should be careful with art, because through it we are psychologically marked – even as people. Any kind of sacralization, restoration, conservation or fixity to the past is always castrating our present reality. A thousand years ago, the spirit of life used to phenomenalize itself in a certain way; today, it does it in a different way. We are the active expression of it: the more each one of us reaches a perfect realization, the more she writes the spirit of life’s intention.
Ontopsychology
Editrice psicologica
Antonio Meneghetti
News from the Association
giovedì 15 gennaio 2009
TWENTY YEARS IN BRAZIL
9 February 2008 was a holiday in Brazil. On the beaches and in the hot summer streets the Carnival was celebrated. But it was a day when we celebrated something which has a very different value to Carnival. On this day twenty years ago the great humanistic project at Recanto Maestro began. Twenty years ago Prof. Antonio Meneghetti held a conference where he illustrated projects and concepts that have all been realized and that are still considered modern today. That was the day that Meneghetti chose the place where his project would take shape.
Three years earlier in 1985 the A.B.O. (Brazilian Ontopsychology Association) was founded, which autonomously held congresses and conferences under the direction of Dr. Alécio Vidor, who graduated at the beginning of the seventies together with Prof. Meneghetti at the PUST in Italy.
The Professor arrived in Brazil in 1988 as an honorary member of the A.B.O. He appreciated the progress the association had made and found fertile ground for the first seeds of this great humanistic thought in Brazil. As a scientist the 9 February, Meneghetti held his first conference in Brazil called “The scientific structure of Ontopsychology” at Santa Maria in the Rio Grande do Sul, before an audience of scholars and scientists and members of the A.B.O. As an artist Meneghetti held his first OntoArte exhibition in Brazil. As an entrepreneur he chose the most suitable place to host his activities, and as a maestro he began to manage all these factors with his Brazilian collaborators. After the conference Meneghetti identified a virtual and positive presence in a place thirty kilometres from Santa Maria, and at the time it was impossible to imagine what it would become. That was the day Recanto Maestro was born.
9 February 1988: that abandoned place dominated by the wilderness of nature had taken on a whole new image in the Professor’s mind. An image that took concrete form in twenty years of hard work, love and the geniality of a man who was able to bring the implicit project of the place to light.
9 February 2008: that inhospitable place is now an International Centre for Humanist Art and Culture, admired by people and institutes all over the world, a training centre for intelligent minds that continue the ontopsychological culture based on the principle that realizing one’s own individual project guarantees social development. [See the article in the journal attached to the dossier].
Recanto Maestro which is still based on its core business, the training and forming of human intelligence, is in constant growth, year after year, becoming a centre for business, residence, ecology, art and architecture, which inserted in society becomes the practical and actual exposition of the model of civilization proposed by Ontopsychology: a model centred on man who is a responsible protagonist based on a virtuality capable of self-fulfilment in the Being.
As it is the heart of the scientific, artistic and business activity in Brazil, Recanto Maestro has found its growth strengthened through the expansion of Ontopsychology over the national territory, above all in Sao Paulo, Santo Angelo and Bombinhas.
F.O.I.L. (Fostering Ontopsychological Interdisciplinary Leadership skills) is based in Sao Paulo, the economic and financial centre of Brazil, and offers congresses, conferences and seminars, publications, business consultation and higher training courses. The new FOIL offices in Sao Paulo, opened in 2007, are in one of the busiest commercial streets in the city and this has given structure and new strength to the business.
In reality business and political training based on Ontopsychological knowledge began long before FOIL was established, with Residence for businesspeople and politicians, conferences at the F.I.E.R.G.S. (Federation of Industries in the State of Rio Grande do Sul), meetings in 1995 with the President of the republic Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and with the Vice-president, Marco Maciel, besides those with senators, deputies, and governors. The twenty years of Ontopsychology in Brazil have always been characterized by the contributions that this science can give to public and private initiatives, and as a consequence to the development of the country.
Sao Paulo also hosts the most important OntoArte gallery in Brazil. It is situated in one of the most privileged areas, where the most important art galleries in the city can be found, and it hosts every artistic expression of OntoArte: paintings, drawings, design objects, carpets, crystals, ceramics, fashion, all with Antonio Meneghetti’s music playing in the background. On entering the gallery you leave daily life to enter the pure aesthetics of life. The OntoArte Association, which represents and promotes the OntoArte artistic current, besides Recanto Maestro also has offices in Santo Angelo, immersed in Gaucho territory, which host days of pleasure, relaxation and study surrounded by the strong red earth, the countryside and a lake of over six hectares.
The OntoArte artistic movement began through art exhibitions in the principle cities of the country – Brasilia, Salvador, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. The exhibition at MASP (Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo), the biggest museum in Latin America deserves a special mention. Concerts in important theatres have also been held, as well as those realized in the natural amphitheatre “Genius Loci” in Recanto Maestro and on the lake at Santo Angelo. And again, fashion shows and the inauguration of architectural works. In 1993, as President of the International school for OntoArte, Antonio Meneghetti personally conferred the honorary diploma of OntoArte on Oscar Niemeyer.
Another example of OntoArte in architecture is in Bombinhas, on Quatro Ilhas beach, called Calipso, this splendid building realized by the Professor was publicly exhibited as a work of international value at the World congress for Architecture in Istanbul, Turkey in 2005.
These twenty years in Brazil have also seen the establishment of companies and organizations that represent and perform their activities in accordance with the principles of Ontopsychology. Beside FOIL, the A.B.O. and the OntoArte Association, the institutional and entrepreneurial picture is completed by the E.L.O. (Escola Latino-americana de Ontopsicologia), which promotes the study of Ontopsychological science, Ontopsicologia Editrice which deals with the publishing of books of Ontopsychological thought, AM Style which deals with fashion and unites Brazilian production with Italian skill in haute couture and the Capo Zorial hotel which hosts the events held at Recanto Maestro.
The recently opened Antonio Meneghetti Faculty is the new pearl of higher education in Brazil, where youths and adults are trained in the idea of social and existential responsibility, using Ontopsychology together with modern business and administration theories integrated with practical application.
Besides the creation of the Management Faculty, it is worth highlighting the collaboration between the Russian academic world, represented by the St. Petersburg State University which hosts the Ontopsychology Chair in the Psychology Faculty, and the Brazilian students. It is an important and prestigious collaboration, especially considering that for the love of science the Russian professors travel thousands of miles to give lessons on Brazilian territory.
This article summarizes twenty years of history and unfortunately there was not sufficient space to include many of the initiatives. The point of this summary of the last twenty years is to show that no great project happens by chance. The seeds conceived by a far-reaching mind, were thrown on fertile soil by a knowing hand, and with the willpower and the loving care of many they became history, giving life to new branches which continue towards the development of a world humanism, available to all those who wish to enjoy it in the fullness of their life. In 2008 the A.B.O. will publish the book “20 years of Ontopsychology in Brazil”, over 100 pages that gather the history of this science in Brazil.
Three years earlier in 1985 the A.B.O. (Brazilian Ontopsychology Association) was founded, which autonomously held congresses and conferences under the direction of Dr. Alécio Vidor, who graduated at the beginning of the seventies together with Prof. Meneghetti at the PUST in Italy.
The Professor arrived in Brazil in 1988 as an honorary member of the A.B.O. He appreciated the progress the association had made and found fertile ground for the first seeds of this great humanistic thought in Brazil. As a scientist the 9 February, Meneghetti held his first conference in Brazil called “The scientific structure of Ontopsychology” at Santa Maria in the Rio Grande do Sul, before an audience of scholars and scientists and members of the A.B.O. As an artist Meneghetti held his first OntoArte exhibition in Brazil. As an entrepreneur he chose the most suitable place to host his activities, and as a maestro he began to manage all these factors with his Brazilian collaborators. After the conference Meneghetti identified a virtual and positive presence in a place thirty kilometres from Santa Maria, and at the time it was impossible to imagine what it would become. That was the day Recanto Maestro was born.
9 February 1988: that abandoned place dominated by the wilderness of nature had taken on a whole new image in the Professor’s mind. An image that took concrete form in twenty years of hard work, love and the geniality of a man who was able to bring the implicit project of the place to light.
9 February 2008: that inhospitable place is now an International Centre for Humanist Art and Culture, admired by people and institutes all over the world, a training centre for intelligent minds that continue the ontopsychological culture based on the principle that realizing one’s own individual project guarantees social development. [See the article in the journal attached to the dossier].
Recanto Maestro which is still based on its core business, the training and forming of human intelligence, is in constant growth, year after year, becoming a centre for business, residence, ecology, art and architecture, which inserted in society becomes the practical and actual exposition of the model of civilization proposed by Ontopsychology: a model centred on man who is a responsible protagonist based on a virtuality capable of self-fulfilment in the Being.
As it is the heart of the scientific, artistic and business activity in Brazil, Recanto Maestro has found its growth strengthened through the expansion of Ontopsychology over the national territory, above all in Sao Paulo, Santo Angelo and Bombinhas.
F.O.I.L. (Fostering Ontopsychological Interdisciplinary Leadership skills) is based in Sao Paulo, the economic and financial centre of Brazil, and offers congresses, conferences and seminars, publications, business consultation and higher training courses. The new FOIL offices in Sao Paulo, opened in 2007, are in one of the busiest commercial streets in the city and this has given structure and new strength to the business.
In reality business and political training based on Ontopsychological knowledge began long before FOIL was established, with Residence for businesspeople and politicians, conferences at the F.I.E.R.G.S. (Federation of Industries in the State of Rio Grande do Sul), meetings in 1995 with the President of the republic Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and with the Vice-president, Marco Maciel, besides those with senators, deputies, and governors. The twenty years of Ontopsychology in Brazil have always been characterized by the contributions that this science can give to public and private initiatives, and as a consequence to the development of the country.
Sao Paulo also hosts the most important OntoArte gallery in Brazil. It is situated in one of the most privileged areas, where the most important art galleries in the city can be found, and it hosts every artistic expression of OntoArte: paintings, drawings, design objects, carpets, crystals, ceramics, fashion, all with Antonio Meneghetti’s music playing in the background. On entering the gallery you leave daily life to enter the pure aesthetics of life. The OntoArte Association, which represents and promotes the OntoArte artistic current, besides Recanto Maestro also has offices in Santo Angelo, immersed in Gaucho territory, which host days of pleasure, relaxation and study surrounded by the strong red earth, the countryside and a lake of over six hectares.
The OntoArte artistic movement began through art exhibitions in the principle cities of the country – Brasilia, Salvador, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. The exhibition at MASP (Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo), the biggest museum in Latin America deserves a special mention. Concerts in important theatres have also been held, as well as those realized in the natural amphitheatre “Genius Loci” in Recanto Maestro and on the lake at Santo Angelo. And again, fashion shows and the inauguration of architectural works. In 1993, as President of the International school for OntoArte, Antonio Meneghetti personally conferred the honorary diploma of OntoArte on Oscar Niemeyer.
Another example of OntoArte in architecture is in Bombinhas, on Quatro Ilhas beach, called Calipso, this splendid building realized by the Professor was publicly exhibited as a work of international value at the World congress for Architecture in Istanbul, Turkey in 2005.
These twenty years in Brazil have also seen the establishment of companies and organizations that represent and perform their activities in accordance with the principles of Ontopsychology. Beside FOIL, the A.B.O. and the OntoArte Association, the institutional and entrepreneurial picture is completed by the E.L.O. (Escola Latino-americana de Ontopsicologia), which promotes the study of Ontopsychological science, Ontopsicologia Editrice which deals with the publishing of books of Ontopsychological thought, AM Style which deals with fashion and unites Brazilian production with Italian skill in haute couture and the Capo Zorial hotel which hosts the events held at Recanto Maestro.
The recently opened Antonio Meneghetti Faculty is the new pearl of higher education in Brazil, where youths and adults are trained in the idea of social and existential responsibility, using Ontopsychology together with modern business and administration theories integrated with practical application.
Besides the creation of the Management Faculty, it is worth highlighting the collaboration between the Russian academic world, represented by the St. Petersburg State University which hosts the Ontopsychology Chair in the Psychology Faculty, and the Brazilian students. It is an important and prestigious collaboration, especially considering that for the love of science the Russian professors travel thousands of miles to give lessons on Brazilian territory.
This article summarizes twenty years of history and unfortunately there was not sufficient space to include many of the initiatives. The point of this summary of the last twenty years is to show that no great project happens by chance. The seeds conceived by a far-reaching mind, were thrown on fertile soil by a knowing hand, and with the willpower and the loving care of many they became history, giving life to new branches which continue towards the development of a world humanism, available to all those who wish to enjoy it in the fullness of their life. In 2008 the A.B.O. will publish the book “20 years of Ontopsychology in Brazil”, over 100 pages that gather the history of this science in Brazil.
The nineties: Institutional recognition
The world enters the nineties and discovers globalisation. In Russia Prof. Meneghetti sees what others can only imagine. Russia in the early nineties was portrayed as a country on the edge of the abyss. But while others saw a real or presumed coup d’état, queues outside shops and people dying of hunger, the Professor saw a great future for that proud people, who had always been capable of overcoming the most difficult privations. In 1992 Gorbachev had just resisted a state coup organized by the old communist hierarchy. Shootings occurred in the streets of Moscow, but the door to communism had closed once and for all.
Having organized authentication residences in Uzbekistan and Ukraine, some seminars held in Russia inspired two of Meneghetti’s fundamental books. Image and the unconsciousness came from a five-day seminar held in Moscow in March 1994. In the meantime, after years of scientific collaboration, on 20 December 1994 the International Informatization Academy, a scientific body formed by the Russian Parliament and recognized by the UN, conferred the title of “Academician” on Meneghetti for his “original and unceasing activities in the research and development of Science” and in particular for the “discovery of the semantic field”.
In February 1995 he received his honorary degree in psychology from the Psychology Institute of the Academy of Science in Moscow. In June 1997, Ivan Yuzvishin, founder of Informatiology and candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics, met with Meneghetti in Rome and said: “In 1973 Prof. Meneghetti founded his science and discovered the truth by using his abilities in psychology, sociology, philosophy and art. Due to my preparation I mainly used other sciences like mathematics, astronomy, physics and biology. But we came to the same conclusion, that there is information within every thing: in the depths of human nature there is information, it doesn’t matter which road you take to get there. I am happy to have read and understood that Antonio Meneghetti is a great scientist and above all to have understood that I have taken the right road. I can therefore confirm Antonio Meneghetti’s discoveries with my scientific research: the principles of Informatiology are in accordance with the principles of Ontopsychology”.
In October 1997 the first Ontopsychology Congress in Russia was organized: it was the first world congress, and was held in Moscow at the Russian Academy of Sciences building. It was defined a world congress to acknowledge the globalization in progress, which means that problems and solutions should be dealt with on a world level. The numerous speakers at the congress gave over 150 speeches after the opening messages sent by Kofi Annan and Boris Yeltsin. In 1998 the Professor received the title of Grand Doctor Nauk in psychological science from the government of the Russian Federation.
OntoArte also entered the Russian scene in this period. After an exhibition dedicated to his works at the Artists Palace in St. Petersburg in 1995, in the spring of 1998 Antonio Meneghetti exhibited at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile Russian academics continued to study Ontopsychology and participated in the summer programmes in increasing numbers. Year after year the didactic methodology of Ontopsychology seemed to have an increasingly coherent design with the programmes of university study. These were signs that something important was about to happen, and it did. Russia’s great merit in the story of Ontopsychology is that it was the first country to institutionalize Ontopsychology. After two decades of increasingly close talks, at the end of the nineties Russia symbolically reciprocated the Professor’s efforts during the cold war and it was Russia that proffered its hand by taking his science into a prestigious University. In 1999, after a long gestation period the collaboration was made formal: they agreed to organize courses of study aimed at the training of professional Ontopsychologists in the Psychology Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Two courses of study were organized: A four-year degree course and a two-year post graduate specialization. In 2001 at the Protomoteca in Rome’s Campidoglio (Capitol) the first eight diplomas for the Two year post graduate specialization were awarded. “History” – affirmed Meneghetti – “has always produced solutions from men who unexpectedly appear and offer their creativity to make an impact”. On 27 May 2004 in the Public Hall of the “Twelve colleges building” at the St. Petersburg State University, the official opening of the Ontopsychology Chair was celebrated. The University Rector, Ac. Prof. Ludmila Verbitskaja, made an opening speech of great impact: “In opening the Ontopsychology Chair a new scientific school is created. The most important thing for me is that the head of the world Ontopsychology movement is an extraordinary man. Who is Professor Meneghetti?” – Asked the Rector, affirming that it is a difficult question to answer – “because he is an incredible artist, an exceptional composer, an incredible philosopher, a man who is extremely competent in all themes that concern the politics and economics of our time. But today Prof. Meneghetti’s greatest talent is celebrated: he is a psychologist and the founder of Ontopsychology and I believe that Ontopsychology will become an exceptional part of the training that St. Petersburg University offers, because within the university we try to represent the best sciences and above all to insert those that provide the opportunity to study the most complex object: man. I am sure that Ontopsychology is very important because in studying man in the different moments of his life it gives the possibility to enter in the depths of man’s inner self, in what could be defined in simple terms as the soul of man. Russia believes that the soul is man’s most important reality”.
Having organized authentication residences in Uzbekistan and Ukraine, some seminars held in Russia inspired two of Meneghetti’s fundamental books. Image and the unconsciousness came from a five-day seminar held in Moscow in March 1994. In the meantime, after years of scientific collaboration, on 20 December 1994 the International Informatization Academy, a scientific body formed by the Russian Parliament and recognized by the UN, conferred the title of “Academician” on Meneghetti for his “original and unceasing activities in the research and development of Science” and in particular for the “discovery of the semantic field”.
In February 1995 he received his honorary degree in psychology from the Psychology Institute of the Academy of Science in Moscow. In June 1997, Ivan Yuzvishin, founder of Informatiology and candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics, met with Meneghetti in Rome and said: “In 1973 Prof. Meneghetti founded his science and discovered the truth by using his abilities in psychology, sociology, philosophy and art. Due to my preparation I mainly used other sciences like mathematics, astronomy, physics and biology. But we came to the same conclusion, that there is information within every thing: in the depths of human nature there is information, it doesn’t matter which road you take to get there. I am happy to have read and understood that Antonio Meneghetti is a great scientist and above all to have understood that I have taken the right road. I can therefore confirm Antonio Meneghetti’s discoveries with my scientific research: the principles of Informatiology are in accordance with the principles of Ontopsychology”.
In October 1997 the first Ontopsychology Congress in Russia was organized: it was the first world congress, and was held in Moscow at the Russian Academy of Sciences building. It was defined a world congress to acknowledge the globalization in progress, which means that problems and solutions should be dealt with on a world level. The numerous speakers at the congress gave over 150 speeches after the opening messages sent by Kofi Annan and Boris Yeltsin. In 1998 the Professor received the title of Grand Doctor Nauk in psychological science from the government of the Russian Federation.
OntoArte also entered the Russian scene in this period. After an exhibition dedicated to his works at the Artists Palace in St. Petersburg in 1995, in the spring of 1998 Antonio Meneghetti exhibited at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile Russian academics continued to study Ontopsychology and participated in the summer programmes in increasing numbers. Year after year the didactic methodology of Ontopsychology seemed to have an increasingly coherent design with the programmes of university study. These were signs that something important was about to happen, and it did. Russia’s great merit in the story of Ontopsychology is that it was the first country to institutionalize Ontopsychology. After two decades of increasingly close talks, at the end of the nineties Russia symbolically reciprocated the Professor’s efforts during the cold war and it was Russia that proffered its hand by taking his science into a prestigious University. In 1999, after a long gestation period the collaboration was made formal: they agreed to organize courses of study aimed at the training of professional Ontopsychologists in the Psychology Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Two courses of study were organized: A four-year degree course and a two-year post graduate specialization. In 2001 at the Protomoteca in Rome’s Campidoglio (Capitol) the first eight diplomas for the Two year post graduate specialization were awarded. “History” – affirmed Meneghetti – “has always produced solutions from men who unexpectedly appear and offer their creativity to make an impact”. On 27 May 2004 in the Public Hall of the “Twelve colleges building” at the St. Petersburg State University, the official opening of the Ontopsychology Chair was celebrated. The University Rector, Ac. Prof. Ludmila Verbitskaja, made an opening speech of great impact: “In opening the Ontopsychology Chair a new scientific school is created. The most important thing for me is that the head of the world Ontopsychology movement is an extraordinary man. Who is Professor Meneghetti?” – Asked the Rector, affirming that it is a difficult question to answer – “because he is an incredible artist, an exceptional composer, an incredible philosopher, a man who is extremely competent in all themes that concern the politics and economics of our time. But today Prof. Meneghetti’s greatest talent is celebrated: he is a psychologist and the founder of Ontopsychology and I believe that Ontopsychology will become an exceptional part of the training that St. Petersburg University offers, because within the university we try to represent the best sciences and above all to insert those that provide the opportunity to study the most complex object: man. I am sure that Ontopsychology is very important because in studying man in the different moments of his life it gives the possibility to enter in the depths of man’s inner self, in what could be defined in simple terms as the soul of man. Russia believes that the soul is man’s most important reality”.
DIALOGUE WITH THE RUSSIAN SOUL
The origins of the dialogue
The world was divided in blocks that regarded one another with hostility. Two blocks that interrupted every form of dialogue and even boycotted each other’s Olympic Games. Where others saw the “evil empire” one man saw a land rich with culture and interest in scientific development, a man who had studied Russian psychoanalysis with great passion and appreciated Russia’s independence from the Anglo-American currents, which were in vogue in the western world from the post war period onwards. In the early 1980’s Prof. Meneghetti proffered his hand beyond the iron curtain.
The Professor’s dialogue with the Russian world began at the end of 1983. His words and his books made an immediate impression in a culture avid for novelty. His book Clinical Ontopsychology was presented at the IV Book Fair in Moscow in September 1983, and caught the interest of Prof. Lomov, a scientist who studies the relationship between images and dynamics and the first Dean of the Psychology Faculty in Leningrad University (now St. Petersburg State University). The intuition that a new road had been touched upon in understanding man led Lomov to a personal meeting with the author of the book in Amsterdam in 1989. Meanwhile Meneghetti’s journey in Russia continued with a science meeting organized at the Psychology Institute of the Science Academy in Moscow, where some Russian scientists, including Yuri Zabrodin (Vice-director of the institute) and the researcher Alexandr Kharitonov, showed particular interest in the discovery of the semantic field.
Viktor Malinin, Vice-president of the Philosophy Association of the Soviet Union, participated in the tenth international Ontopsychology congress, “pedagogy and politics”, which took place in Rome in May 1984. Prof. Malinin then wrote an article for the journal Ontopsychology, where he noted how this new science could constitute a useful integration to the theory of man as a “social animal”, in the Marxist tradition in use in his country.
In the middle of the eighties a new young leader came on the scene in the Soviet Union, whom the entire world watched with close attention and a pinch of hope. The beginning was not encouraging, after the drama of Chernobyl which sank the world into terror of a nuclear catastrophe, Reagan’s America flexed its muscles, with the Star Wars project, which heightened the fears of a new world war. But Gorbachev answered this display of power with dialogue and opened the era of improved relations between East and West. Prof. Meneghetti’s relationships with the Soviet scientific world were also increasingly warm. In particular with Alexei Matiushkin, Director of the Soviet Academy of Science and President of the Psychology Association of the USSR, who introduced the humanistic vision of psychology and pedagogy in his country. Matiushkin participated in a meeting in Lizori, where he confirmed: “In Ontopsychology I find concrete steps for creating an alternative psychology for the development of global intelligence”.
The following year Matiushkin participated in the twelfth International Ontopsychology Congress, which took place at the Ergife Hotel in Rome, from 4 to 8 August 1988. On that occasion the Russian scientist highlighted that “in ontopsychology, a constructive relationship has been achieved between psychologists, doctors, psychotherapists, architects, pedagogues, writers and other creative figures”, he particularly appreciated its multidisciplinary character, which increasingly developed over the following decade. Matiushkin promoted a series of conferences which Antonio Meneghetti held in Russia in October 1989. In the same days that the Berlin wall began to fall, Meneghetti was already on the other side, having a series of meetings which were paramount for the diffusion of his thought in Russia. During that trip the Professor also met other prominent members of the Soviet scientific world, including Luria, Tsarov and Pankin. With these scientists and others that he had previously met, like Zabrodin, Lomov and Matiushkin, the Professor dealt with the theme of the development of psychology throughout the world, to provide a practical solution to human problems. In the following days Meneghetti held a conference in Moscow at the Psychopedagogy Institute of Psychological sciences and in Leningrad he met the director of the Academy for Pedagogic sciences, Viktor Onuskin, with whom he discussed the possibility of increasing the use of ontopsychological psychotherapy.
At the human Neurophysiology Institute in Leningrad, Meneghetti clarified to the public how he managed to cure schizophrenia by entering the patient’s mental images. On 26 October 1989, seven hundred people attended a seminar held in Leningrad University. Finally, at the same time he also met Prof. Albert Krylov, Dean of the Psychology Faculty at Leningrad University.
The world was divided in blocks that regarded one another with hostility. Two blocks that interrupted every form of dialogue and even boycotted each other’s Olympic Games. Where others saw the “evil empire” one man saw a land rich with culture and interest in scientific development, a man who had studied Russian psychoanalysis with great passion and appreciated Russia’s independence from the Anglo-American currents, which were in vogue in the western world from the post war period onwards. In the early 1980’s Prof. Meneghetti proffered his hand beyond the iron curtain.
The Professor’s dialogue with the Russian world began at the end of 1983. His words and his books made an immediate impression in a culture avid for novelty. His book Clinical Ontopsychology was presented at the IV Book Fair in Moscow in September 1983, and caught the interest of Prof. Lomov, a scientist who studies the relationship between images and dynamics and the first Dean of the Psychology Faculty in Leningrad University (now St. Petersburg State University). The intuition that a new road had been touched upon in understanding man led Lomov to a personal meeting with the author of the book in Amsterdam in 1989. Meanwhile Meneghetti’s journey in Russia continued with a science meeting organized at the Psychology Institute of the Science Academy in Moscow, where some Russian scientists, including Yuri Zabrodin (Vice-director of the institute) and the researcher Alexandr Kharitonov, showed particular interest in the discovery of the semantic field.
Viktor Malinin, Vice-president of the Philosophy Association of the Soviet Union, participated in the tenth international Ontopsychology congress, “pedagogy and politics”, which took place in Rome in May 1984. Prof. Malinin then wrote an article for the journal Ontopsychology, where he noted how this new science could constitute a useful integration to the theory of man as a “social animal”, in the Marxist tradition in use in his country.
In the middle of the eighties a new young leader came on the scene in the Soviet Union, whom the entire world watched with close attention and a pinch of hope. The beginning was not encouraging, after the drama of Chernobyl which sank the world into terror of a nuclear catastrophe, Reagan’s America flexed its muscles, with the Star Wars project, which heightened the fears of a new world war. But Gorbachev answered this display of power with dialogue and opened the era of improved relations between East and West. Prof. Meneghetti’s relationships with the Soviet scientific world were also increasingly warm. In particular with Alexei Matiushkin, Director of the Soviet Academy of Science and President of the Psychology Association of the USSR, who introduced the humanistic vision of psychology and pedagogy in his country. Matiushkin participated in a meeting in Lizori, where he confirmed: “In Ontopsychology I find concrete steps for creating an alternative psychology for the development of global intelligence”.
The following year Matiushkin participated in the twelfth International Ontopsychology Congress, which took place at the Ergife Hotel in Rome, from 4 to 8 August 1988. On that occasion the Russian scientist highlighted that “in ontopsychology, a constructive relationship has been achieved between psychologists, doctors, psychotherapists, architects, pedagogues, writers and other creative figures”, he particularly appreciated its multidisciplinary character, which increasingly developed over the following decade. Matiushkin promoted a series of conferences which Antonio Meneghetti held in Russia in October 1989. In the same days that the Berlin wall began to fall, Meneghetti was already on the other side, having a series of meetings which were paramount for the diffusion of his thought in Russia. During that trip the Professor also met other prominent members of the Soviet scientific world, including Luria, Tsarov and Pankin. With these scientists and others that he had previously met, like Zabrodin, Lomov and Matiushkin, the Professor dealt with the theme of the development of psychology throughout the world, to provide a practical solution to human problems. In the following days Meneghetti held a conference in Moscow at the Psychopedagogy Institute of Psychological sciences and in Leningrad he met the director of the Academy for Pedagogic sciences, Viktor Onuskin, with whom he discussed the possibility of increasing the use of ontopsychological psychotherapy.
At the human Neurophysiology Institute in Leningrad, Meneghetti clarified to the public how he managed to cure schizophrenia by entering the patient’s mental images. On 26 October 1989, seven hundred people attended a seminar held in Leningrad University. Finally, at the same time he also met Prof. Albert Krylov, Dean of the Psychology Faculty at Leningrad University.
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