yesterday, on april 21st 2013, i went to see “divine milieu: the last confession of teilhard de chardin” at the space theatre in rochester. pierre teilhard de chardin (1881 – 1955) was a french philosopher and jesuit priest, a paleontologist and geologist, who spent most of his life trying to integrate religious experience with natural science, specifically christian theology with theories of evolution. he became enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe is evolving, an “omega point” which will lead to a new state of peace and planetary unity. he saw this unity as being based upon the spirit of the earth: “the age of nations is past. the task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the earth.” in effect, he is talking about the same inter-connectedness that vandana shiva discusses in terms of food activism and the inextricability of the human-to-human and human-to-earth bond.
in his book “the phenomenon of man” teilhard talks about a collective identity which develops as trade and the transmission of ideas increases. knowledge accumulates and is transmitted in increasing levels of depth and complexity. this leads to a further augmentation of consciousness and the emergence of a thinking layer that envelops the earth. he calls the new membrane the “noosphere” (from the greek “nous,” meaning mind). the noosphere is the collective consciousness of humanity, the networks of thought and emotion in which all are immersed. teilhard was reprimanded, censored and condemned by the church for his ideas.
it was sad that one of the panelists who discussed the play gave the example of the multi-media manhunt for the boston bombing suspect as being representative of teilhard’s collective human network. quite the opposite. we are v far still from achieving true mind and spirit human interconnectedness. i agree with teilhard that “we have reached a crossroads in human evolution where the only road which leads forward is towards a common passion… to continue to place our hopes in a social order achieved by external violence would simply amount to our giving up all hope of carrying the spirit of the earth to its limits.”
teilhad was played by l. john cieslinski who also wrote the play. thank u to my friend Sarita for this excellent treat!
here is a wonderful podcast discussing teilhard’s work from many different perspectives.