Wilfried Nelles: The World We Live In. Consciousness and the Path of the Soul. Innenweltverlag, Edition Neue Psychologie. Cologne 2020.

Review by Thomas Geßner

First of all: Dr Wilfried Nelles from Marmagen (Eifel) was already an internationally renowned systemic constellation facilitator with a large body of work when, about twelve years ago, through his constellation work, he came across an elementary and at the same time complex model of human consciousness development. This model took shape in his constellation work in the Life Integration Process (LIP according to Nelles). It brings together constellation work, a form of psychology and therapy based on immediate phenomena, life-affirming spirituality and contemporary modern consciousness. There you will find your way beyond the eternal search for meaning, into a new self-evidence of existence, beyond the fixation on the pathological, into the healing effect of our symptoms themselves, beyond the futile attempt to leave childhood and youth behind, into the present moment of adult self-awareness. Adult self-awareness no longer needs to reconcile the apparent contradictions of therapy and spirituality. It simply follows itself.
Now to Wilfried Nelles’ latest book: I have never seen anyone write about youth with so much love and insight as this man, about its desperation, its lust, its search, its absolute uncompromising nature, its futility, its defiance, its courage, its love, and through it all always the child, whose death-defying guardian youth has become. Wilfried Nelles not only describes the phenomenon of ‘youth’ as the central paradigm of modern Western consciousness, he also sees how it loves and how it fails, how its psychology, its neurosis and its healing arise from human consciousness itself, and how the soul guides all those who open themselves to it.
Youth’ as a mode of consciousness, as a clearly recognisable way of being in the world, of experiencing oneself, of wanting to shape and create, and at the same time completely rejecting the natural, given reality of oneself and the world, is in my view the gateway to Wilfried Nelles’ model of the evolution of consciousness and to his way of learning from life itself in constellations and allowing oneself to be shaped by life. Youth’ as a complex of psychological and physical dynamics determines the current modern consciousness. In the light of its paradigm it becomes visible how the current modern consciousness functions, more precisely how we ourselves function within it, what necessities, possibilities and limitations it imposes on us. It also becomes clear how we can grow beyond it inwardly, without wanting anything in particular: simply by recognising that we are no longer young people.
The formal structure of the book follows the current state of knowledge about the life integration process in terms of the seven stages of his model of consciousness and their multiple implications. The time in the womb and during birth is discussed, as well as the symbiotic unity consciousness that prevails there. A detailed side-view of the collective phenomena of each stage of consciousness makes it clearer what this is all about. Then childhood is discussed, and with it the group consciousness that prevails there. The emotional conscience lives in the group consciousness, as Hellinger described it, and from this arise the ‘orders of love’ as seen in family constellations. They apply to the period of emotional symbiosis in childhood and to the group consciousness that corresponds psychologically to our childhood. This is where ‘classic’ family constellations have their place.
It continues with an extremely differentiated journey through adolescence as a transitional state between the dependence of the child and the freedom of the adult. It provides the inner rules of the currently dominant consciousness, including an almost superstitious trust in thought and science, and at the same time an equally superstitious doubt about the physical and psychological conditions of our existence. Youth must leave the house of childhood, of ‘immaturity’. But it can only do this by creating an inner counter-image of that time, made up of ideals and ideas. Youth is not yet able to deal with the immediate reality of life.
This can only be achieved through the collapse of the ideal, in fact of the whole previous ‘person’, and through a courageous leap into one’s own present, just as it is. Then you feel free – and alone. Then you discover what it is like to live in adult self-awareness. Another world opens up, that of perception without identifying with what is perceived. Wilfried Nelles focuses on practical work with the LIP as a constellation format and as an initiation into one’s own uncertain and unfathomable self. This also shows how therapeutic and counselling support for people beyond the need to function, optimise and pursue personal or collective fantasies of success becomes possible. This reveals a paradigm of ‘letting oneself be’ that has always been known in serious spiritual work. However, its capacity for integration, power and precision is new to constellation work and therapy. The LIP is what takes constellation work to the next level,’ a seminar participant once told me.
In the fifth level of consciousness, which corresponds to maturity, our inner image, our purpose in life, or even the infinite creativity of our Self takes over. We become fully who we are. Necessity and freedom meet in such a way that it is no longer possible or necessary to distinguish between them on the outside. You do what you are and vice versa.
There is little to say about the sixth level of consciousness, which corresponds to old age, and the seventh, which corresponds to death or universal consciousness, because one can only recognise consciousness when one has left it behind. Wilfried Nelles adheres to this, but shows what is outwardly significant and what can be revealed in constellations about these last ways of being in the world.
In addition to the well-founded and almost casually recurring stream of insights from practical constellation and counselling work, there are many other themes to be discovered in this book. They seem to me to be individual, interwoven books that reveal themselves at their own pace as you read.
One, for example, deals with all the sacred cows that modern consciousness uses to protect itself from reality and the many natural circumstances of life. Those who prefer politically correct literature may find themselves constantly annoyed as one sacred cow after another is casually slain. Not as an end in itself, but because in the face of our inner and outer realities they prove to be mere illusions, be it the omnipresent desire to save the earth, to transform one’s gender according to one’s inner image, to design life itself in its physical and psychological form, or even to manufacture it technically, to determine its beginning, its course and its end: they all burst when one leaves behind modern consciousness by becoming spiritually mature. They only become visible as illusions when they are no longer needed, when they can be integrated.
Another deals with psychology as the art of recognising the workings of the soul in our lives, or in other words, to understand human life and our perception of it from its own conditions, as these conditions are given in the different phases of life. This means a leap away from descriptions of all our ‘faults’ and towards an appreciation of all our achievements in survival and adaptation. The ‘human flaw’ becomes a resource when it is seen in its totality and appreciated without reservation as an achievement in survival.
In addition, in the many case studies from Wilfried Nelles’ practice, I find a book about genuine, loving and naturally effective therapy. It grows out of the phenomenological approach in constellation work: you open up to what the client brings, accompany him or her to the next step and then let ‘the soul do its work’. The more unconditionally you can engage with the present moment and its manifestations, the more clearly you can perceive the past stages of consciousness and their respective survival patterns within yourself, and the more unconditionally you open yourself to what lives in your counterpart and wants to reveal itself, the easier and therefore more powerful this process becomes. Therapy in this way goes beyond all juvenile efforts at optimisation and adaptation; it is actually post-therapeutic in itself. It helps people to find themselves.
It has also become a book about the art of constellation work, which is practised as a way of dealing with living mirrors. They show everyone involved exactly what they want to reveal about themselves at that moment. Understood in this way, constellation work becomes a never-ending source of insight into life, strength and ease. If one exposes oneself to it, as Wilfried Nelles has done for many years, it becomes not only a precise psychological tool, but also a powerful opportunity to see for oneself the inner images that constantly determine our feelings, emotions, thoughts, perceptions and actions, to allow them to exist in our physicality and thus to integrate them.
In all this I see a biography, the biography of Wilfried Nelles. Not as a factual account, but as an illustration of how biography comes into being at all, how our consciousness manages to tell us a very specific story about our life and to give it to us as our identity, and how it repeatedly reaches its limits, fails and thus grows. Wilfried Nelles’ biography shows that we are not our story, but rather those who perceive our story. Basically, we are always just the currently successful outcome. A child tells a completely different story about his life than an adult. Even sixty years later they can still tell their biography from the perspective of their childhood or that of an unborn child or a teenager. In the mirror of constellation work we recognise who we were and what still lives within us, perhaps trying to save us or simply bring us home. We also recognise who we are without being able to say exactly what that is. We realise that ‘life is always a step into the unknown’, even towards ourselves. Wilfried Nelles shows how a person’s entire ‘biography’ takes place in the present moment, concentrated and at the same time constantly recreating itself according to what the moment demands. Ultimately, it is nothing more than an appearance that we observe, suffer or celebrate with the incomprehensible light of our inner perception.
If, while reading this book, you discover other books in it, such as one about life-affirming spirituality in everyday life, or one about the encounter between the internalised ‘Christian West’ and the Eastern perspective of the Indian sage Osho, or one about Nietzsche’s philosophy, or one about politics in the transformation of consciousness, then enjoy! Last but not least, every reader will find in it a book about themselves, one that will draw them in and leave them touched and changed. A living life’s work.

Berlin, July 2020