Alfred Adler & Soulagogy

Source: What Life Should mean to You/ Alfred Adler /publ. Unwin Books, 1932. Chapter 2: Mind and Body.

The province of learning is to explore the meaning involved in all the expressions of an individual, to find the key to his goal, and to compare it with the goals of others. Soulagogy confronts that learning is based on interactions of mind and body. "We see that both mind and body are expressions of life: they are parts of the whole of life. And we begin to understand their reciprocal relations in that whole. The life of man is the life of a moving being, and it would not be sufficient for him to develop body alone."  

Soulagogy means to lead the soul to its moral decisions. It is all about directions: "This foreseeing the direction of movement is the central principle of the mind. As soon as we have recognized it we are in a position to understand how the mind governs the body it sets the goal for movements."

Soulagogy is a new term by Nir Golan. "Education is that process, by which thought is opened out of the soul, and, associated with outward… things, is reflected back upon itself, and thus made conscious of its reality and shape."/ Amos Bronson Alcott.

"All moving beings, however, can foresee and reckon up the direction in which to move; and this fact makes it necessary to postulate that they have minds or souls."

Sense, sure, you have,
Else you could not have motion.
[Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4]

Soul or psyche (Greek: "psyühē", of "psychein", "to breathe") are the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. Agogy (Greek: ἄγω ágō), "I lead", to lead. Soulagogy: to lead the soul, means: Educating the soul. “It is Self-Realization. As a means, therefore, of educating the soul out of itself, and mirroring forth its ideas, the external world offers the materials." / Amos Bronson Alcott.

Dobeing is based on the originally term introduced by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realize one's full potential: self-actualization. Self-realization is to know oneself. The term can be traced to Advaita Vedanta which means to realize the truth of one's existence. Nir Golan, Educational & Leadership expert, suggests using Dobeing instead of these two terms. "We should expect, therefore, that the ability to foresee would be most highly developed in the human mind, and that men would give the clearest evidence of a purposive striving to improve their whole position with respect to their whole situation."

Dobeing defines the goals of learning based on: Passion, Capabilities and Uniqueness. "Since it is the mind's function to decide a point towards which movement is to be made, it occupies the governing position in life. At the same time, the body influences the mind; it is the body which must be moved. The mind can move the body only in accordance with the possibilities which the body possesses and those which it can be trained to develop." Self-realization is identifying Passion, Capabilities and Uniqueness.

·        Passion: The things I like to do most and excite me.

·        Capabilities: Skills I'm good at and I do the best.

·        Uniqueness: My significant behavior and added value to those around me.

Soulagogy is to lead the soul to its moral decisions, educating the soul. "A language is to be instituted between [the child’s] spirit and the surrounding scene of things in which he dwells. . .  He who is seeking to know himself, should be ever seeking himself in external things, and by so doing will he be best able to find, and explore his inmost light.” / Amos Bronson Alcott. 

Dobeing according to Soulagogy is realizing one's full potential according to these three cycles. Dobeing is a combination between Self-realization and self-actualization. "Here, of course, the chance of a mistake occurs; but without a quite definite goal and direction-setting there could be no movement at all. If I lift my hand, there must be a goal for the movement already in my mind. The direction which the mind chooses may be, in reality, disastrous; but it is chosen because the mind conceives it mistakenly as the most advantageous."

In Goldstein's view, it is the organism's master motive, the only real motive: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive... the drive of self-actualization." The only way to "actualize itself" is by using the passion that you have to do what you do best, and spread your uniqueness all around. Carl Rogers similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy - man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities... to express and activate all the capacities of the organism."

Soulagogy is to lead the soul with Dobeing. "From the first days of life, uninterruptedly till the end, this partnership of growth and development continues. Body and mind are co-operating as indivisible parts of one whole. The mind is like a motor, dragging with it all the potentialities which it can discover in the body, helping to bring the body into a position of safety and superiority to all difficulties. In every movement of the body, in every expression and symptom, we can see the impress of the mind's purpose. A man moves. There is meaning in his movement." Golan assumes that Education is all about helping the soul to Dobeing its self. Education is that process, by which thought is opened out of the soul and Dobeing is to express and activate all the passion, Capabilities and Uniqueness of the organism.  "The changes which the human race has made in its environment we call our culture; and our culture is the result of all the movements which the minds of men have initiated for their bodies. Our work is inspired by our minds. The development of our bodies is directed and aided by our minds. In the end we shall not be able to find a single human expression which is not filled with the purposiveness of the mind."