This lecture discusses the nature of spiritual growth, the importance of genuine thinking, and the relationship between humanity and the divine. It explores various topics, including the role of Padre Pio, the limitations of science, and the concept of the Grail. The speaker emphasizes the need for individuals to develop their own spiritual understanding and to move beyond mere belief to true knowledge.
Massimo Scaligero — 2 recordings in the archive.
Related reading: Trattato del pensiero vivente by Massimo Scaligero.
Next: La vita del pensiero, Parte II
I would like you to tell us about Padre Pio. Why not? He was an extremely likeable person, a man of genuine religious feeling, profoundly devoted to Christ, and therefore also capable of giving great help and even of setting in motion the workings of wonders, of miracles, because he was a man of great faith who also inspired the forces of faith. He could be rather abrupt, sometimes even severe. It often happened that he would kick someone, because what irritated him most was pretence—religious pretence— which, unfortunately, is inevitable precisely as something unconscious. He greatly loved sincerity, however; he could sense it, because he possessed a certain [unclear in the Italian captions]. Nevertheless, he represents a figure from a sphere that is passing away; that is, it can no longer continue, because the age of believing is over. This is the age of knowing. So Padre Pio was a great helper to a number of people who still needed the help of Christianity through feeling. Now, however, this is a form of help that can be said to have run its course, because, within the sphere of feeling, it is no longer possible to have a relationship with Christ without a profoundly [unclear] activity that stimulates and awakens. Then it is no longer merely feeling: it is a deep will, a will truly directed towards Christianity. But such feeling needs knowledge; it needs to know how to draw upon the deepest forces of the will. So we can understand how Padre Pio’s role has run its course. He left disciples, and there are very devout priests who continue in that direction. Yet they do not possess the power he had. They are necessary, however, just as for some time there will still be a need for honest priests—priests who speak of Christ and actually act in accordance with Christ. These are certainly people worthy of respect. So we can only speak very well of Padre Pio. Certainly. At this moment I recall, for example, that a certain Guido De Giorgio, who belonged to a group that cultivated magic as a science of [the I/God: unclear in captions], with a kind of boldness, contributed powerful articles in which one seemed to see a being conquering the higher worlds through a magical act of self-assertion, and who then failed, because all this rested on a kind of tension, went to…