The soul’s language. Fundamentals of ecobiopsychology.
Review by Dr.ssa Lucia Carluccio appearing in Psychofenia — Volume XXI, Issue 37–38 (2018)
A strong and lasting bond links man to nature; and their desire to meet one with another stays precisely in the nostalgia of this twine between them. Until the twentieth century, the indisputable rules of calculation governed the eternal rules of everything. The components of every system were articulated like the mechanisms of a clock. Natural phenomena were reduced to a mathematical language that did not make room for metaphysical conjectures. Then something changed and the solid framework that had imbued everything with an unquestionable regularity started to vacillate. Max Planck’s research gave rise to the era of quantum mechanics. Planck discovered that the quantum — i.e. a basic particle associated to fields of any type — played an essential role in atomic physics. This discovery laid the foundations for Albert Einstein’s studies. Indeed, for the first time, Einstein was able to demonstrate that the electromagnetic waves were formed by light “quanta”. In this way, the subatomic world exhibited its own ambiguity and objects revealed to be both particle and wave. Fixed categories of time and space also collapsed: rather than appearing unconnected, they were seen to depend both on the observers’ movements and on their frame of reference. Determinism was therefore coming to an end while the discoveries regarding the unconscious were outlining a new conception of the world.
It is about this new idea of the world, as well as the common need to solve the man-nature dilemma through the paradigm of the unity of everything that talks about Il linguaggio dell’anima (The soul’s language) by Diego Frigoli, i.e. a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, researcher at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Milan, Director of the Istituto ANEB — a School of Specialization in Psychotherapy — and President of the National Association of Ecobiopsychology.
The book consists of ten chapters, each one marking the stages of an extended and complex path. This is a fascinating path, able to provide just one answer to the numberless questions that men have asked themselves for millennia. Men’s interrogatives regard the religious need that links modern men’s consciousness to life’s archetypes.
Although describing difficult themes in detail, the author never forgets the clear and evocative traits that characterise his simple and yet refined style. The complex and long sentences produce a slow rhythm and enable analytical reflections followed by deep thoughts. Several quotations from physicians and scholars’ works appear in Frigoli’s book and are frequently accompanied by images that illustrate the related topics. Such images thus make the multiple contents more accessible to the reader. In effect, nothing is more complex than the soul. As Frigoli shows brilliantly, men represent the constitutive elements of a higher psychic unity, which is composed by the great Soul of the Land.
Through his book Frigoli approaches the big need to rediscover the archetypical principles that push men towards an alliance with nature. The archetypical principles mentioned by Frigoli are the result of both scientific research and the eternal wisdom that belongs to the sacral value of the world. Moreover, by studying the main scientific discoveries in physics, neurobiology, systems theory and the two Weltanschauung of depth psychology, the author shows that man and nature, mind and body, matter and spirit cannot be conceived as distinct parts any more, but as parts of everything. The most convincing section of the book is certainly the central one. By referring to a discovery by the physician Bell, according to whom an objective universe does not exist, Frigoli demonstrates that an invisible totality links all the cosmic things. Separation without detachment, reality without division, synchronicity without causality thus stand out as key concepts in the central section of the book.
Carl G. Jung borrowed the term Unus Mundus from the alchemist Gerhard Dorn (a student of Paracelsus) and Frigoli provides the reader of his book with a realisation of this model: a state of concise consciousness which summarises in itself the consciousness of both the lower and the transcendent forms. The whole universe is animated by a mental activity that works behind the material calm. Plus, all the things are linked by a “relational matrix” which is generated in a “great dream”, i.e. life. No matter what distance stays between things, because the natural world and man’s consciousness intertwine in a holographic reality. Mind and matter therefore originate from a cosmic womb and subtle connections link men to the Earthly Soul.
Mystics foresaw that, and artists did so as well: not only does the source of creativity come from a field of collective consciousness, but also the limitless power of mind can modify the quantum “matter” that animates everything. One of Frigoli’s most original points explains how interpreting symbols can reveal the unity’s archetype in all the things.
After all, what is symbolism but a cosmic sacralisation?
Readers should not be afraid of the specialised terms that Frigoli extensively employs, because their meaning is explained in a glossary at the end of the volume, before a rich bibliography. Once read the book and so finished the path that Frigoli has enabled us to walk, we will have the feeling of being involved in a cosmic and meaningful dance. By reading Frigoli’s book to the rhythm of its synchronic information, we will also feel that reading “God’s mind” is finally possible.
Review and translation by Dr.ssa Lucia Carluccio — Graduated in “Lettere moderne” (Modern Literatures) and specialised in Italian Linguistics, Lucia Carluccio teaches Italian and is author of several publications, including the novel Il Cigno e la Ballerina, winner of the international literary Prize “Dario Abate Editore” (2nd edition).
Originally published at https://www.aneb.it.
