Geologist, palaeontologist, Jesuit priest, and philosopher, born in Sarcenat, C France. He lectured in pure science at the Jesuit College in Cairo, was ordained in 1911, and in 1918 became professor of geology at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He went on palaeontological expeditions in China and C Asia, but his unorthodox ideas led to a ban on his teaching and publishing. Nevertheless, his work in Cenozoic geology and palaeontology became known, and he was awarded academic distinctions. His major work, Le Phénomène humain (written 193840, The Phenomenon of Humanity) was posthumously published. Based on his scientific thinking, it argues that humanity is in a continuous process of evolution towards a perfect spiritual state. From 1951 he lived in the USA.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (IPA: [pjɛʀ tejaʀ də ʃaʀdɛ̃]; Teilhard conceived such ideas as the Omega Point and the Noosphere.
Teilard's primary book, The Phenomenon of Man, set forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos. Teilhard's position was opposed by his church superiors, and his work was denied publication during his lifetime by the Roman Holy Office.
Biography
Early years
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in Orcines, close to Clermont-Ferrand, in France. He was formally known as "Pierre Teilhard", which is the name on his headstone in the Jesuit cemetery in Poughkeepsie, New York. Teilhard's spirituality was awakened by his mother.
As of the summer 1901, the Waldeck-Rousseau laws, which submitted congregational associations' properties to state control, forced the Jesuits into exile in the United Kingdom. In the meantime, Teilhard earned a licentiate of literature in Caen in 1902.
Jesuit training
From 1905 to 1908, he taught physics and chemistry in Cairo, Egypt, at the Jesuit College of the Holy Family. (Letters from Egypt (1905–1908) — Editions Aubier)
Teilhard studied theology in Hastings, in Sussex (United Kingdom), from 1908 to 1912. Teilhard was ordained a priest on August 24, 1911, aged 30.
Paleontology
From 1912 to 1914, Teilhard worked in the paleontology laboratory of the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, studying the mammals of the middle Tertiary sector.
War service
Mobilised in December 1914, Teilhard served in World War I as a stretcher-bearer in the 8th regiment of Moroccan riflemen.
Throughout these years of war he developed his reflections in his diaries and in letters to his cousin, Marguerite Teillard-Chambon, who later edited them into a book: Genèse d'une pensée (Genesis of a thought). The complete essays written between 1916 and 1919 are published under the following titles:
Ecrits du temps de la Guerre (Written in time of the War) (TXII of complete Works) – Editions du Seuil Genèse d'une pensée (letters of 1914 to 1918) – Editions GrassetTeilhard followed at the Sorbonne three unit degrees of natural science: geology, botany and zoology.
China
In 1923 he traveled to China with Father Emile Licent, who was in charge in Tianjin for a significant laboratory collaborating with the Natural history museum in Paris and the Marcellin Boule laboratory.
Teilhard wrote several essays, including La Messe sur le Monde (the Mass on the World), in the Ordos Desert.
Teilhard travelled again to China in April 1926. From 1926 to 1935, Teilhard made five geological research expeditions in China. Teilhard prepared the first pages of his main work Le Phénomène humain (The Human Phenomenon).
As an Advisor to the Chinese national geological service, he supervised the geology and the paleontology of the excavations of Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian) near Beijing.
After a tour in Manchuria in the area of Great Khingan with Chinese geologists, Teilhard joined the team of American Expedition Center-Asia in the Gobi organised in June and July, by the American Museum of Natural History with Roy Chapman Andrews.
Henri Breuil and Teilhard discovered that the Peking Man, the nearest relative of Pithecanthropus from Java, was a "faber" (worker of stones and controller of fire). Teilhard wrote L'Esprit de la Terre (the Spirit of the Earth).
Teilhard took part as a scientist in the famous "Yellow Cruise" in Central Asia.
Teilhard undertook several explorations in the south of China. the Museum cut its financing on the grounds that Teilhard worked more for the Chinese Geological Service than for the Museum.
During all these years, Teilhard strongly contributed to the constitution of an international network of research in human Paleontology related to the whole Eastern and south Eastern zone of the Asian continent.
From 1927–1928 Teilhard stayed in France, based in Paris.
Answering an invitation from Henry de Monfreid, Teilhard undertook a journey of two months in Obock in Harrar and in Somalia with his colleague Pierre Lamarre, geologist, before embarking in Djibouti to return to Tianjin.
"Monfreid and I, we did not have anything any more European", joked Teilhard. While in China, Teilhard developed a deep and personal friendship with Lucile Swan.
World travels
Integral Thought| Integral thinkers: Haridas Chaudhuri Georg Feuerstein Jean Gebser Aurobindo Ghose Clare Graves Ervin László George Burr Leonard Michael Murphy William Irwin Thompson Ken Wilber |
| Integral themes: Evolution, Involution Integral art, Integral education, Integral psychology, Integral psychotherapy, Integral Transformative Practice Integral yoga |
| Influences on integral thought: James Mark Baldwin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Stanislav Grof Edward Haskell Erich Jantsch Rupert Sheldrake Francisco Varela Arthur M. of Integral Studies |
From 1930–1931 Teilhard stayed in France and in the United States. During a conference in Paris, Teilhard stated: "For the observers of the Future, the greatest event will be the sudden appearance of a collective humane conscience and a human work to make."
From 1932–1933 he began to meet people to clarify issues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, regarding Le Milieu Divin and L'Esprit de la Terre.
Teilhard participated in the 1935 Yale–Cambridge expedition in northern and central India with the geologist Helmut von Terra and Patterson, who verified their assumptions on Indian paleolithic civilisations in Kashmir and the Salt Range Valley.
He then made a short stay in Java, on the invitation of Professor Ralph von Koenigsvald to the site of Java man.
In 1937 Teilhard wrote Le Phénomène spirituel (the spiritual Phenomenon) on board the boat the Empress of Japan, where he met the Rajah of Sarawak). The New York Times dated March 19, 1937 presented Teilhard as the Jesuit who held that the man descended from monkeys.
Death
Teilhard died on April 10, 1955 in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit church of St Ignatius of Loyola, Park Avenue. A few days before his death Teilhard said "If in my life I haven't been wrong, I beg God to allow me to die on Easter Sunday".
Controversy with Church officials
In 1925, Teilhard was ordered by the Jesuit Superior General Vladimir Ledochowski to leave his teaching position in France and to sign a statement withdrawing his controversial statements regarding the doctrine of original sin. Rather than leave the Jesuit order, Teilhard signed the statement and left for China.
This was the first of a series of condemnations by certain church officials that would continue until long after Teilhard's death. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers."
Teilhard's writings, though, continued to circulate — not publicly, as he and the Jesuits observed their commitments to obedience, but in mimeographs that were circulated only privately, within the Jesuits, among theologians and scholars for discussion, debate and criticism.
As time passed, it seemed that the works of Teilhard were gradually returning to favor in the church, but the Holy See in 1981 clarified that recent statements by members of the church, in particular those made on the hundredth anniversary of Teilhard's birth, were not to be interpreted as a revision of previous stands taken by the church officials.
Teachings
In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from the creation to the development of the noosphere in the present, to his vision of the Omega Point in the future. To Teilhard, evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and whole-universe (see Gaia theory).
Controversies about his line of thought centre on the question of whether or not the mission started by Christ was completed with his crucifixion, or whether mankind is meant to advance Christ's mission via the evolutionary process. Holding with the latter, Teilhard proposed that the culmination of human history in the Omega point would represent actual Christogenesis.
Teilhard in popular culture
The work of Teilhard de Chardin, among others, has been controversially cited as the inspiration for James Redfield's 1993 novel The Celestine Prophecy. Teilhard de Chardin has been cited as the inspiration for Father Lankester Merrin, the character played by Max Von Sydow in the motion picture The Exorcist. Novelist Morris West clearly based the character Jean Telemond in The Shoes of the Fisherman on Teilhard. In Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos, Teilhard de Chardin has been canonized a saint in the far future. Novelist Julian May references Teilhard's work in the novels in her Galactic Milieu Series where it is the basis for the galactic consciousness that serves as the political and ethical background for the novels. Jean Houston, past president of the Association of Humanistic Psychology and former spiritual director to Hillary Clinton, culminates her book Life-Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self (1980: 218-20) by recounting her extended encounter with Teilhard when she was 13 years old, which she further elaborates in her autobiography A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story (1996: 142-48). 8 by Edmund Rubbra is titled Hommage a Teilhard de Chardin, in honor of his spiritual and philosophical writings which inspired the composer. The French painter Alfred Manessier painted 'L'Offrande de la terre ou Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin', 1961-1962. The American sculptor Frederick Hart was greatly inspired by Teilhard de Chardin, with one of his more renowned acrylic sculptures titled The Divine Milieu: Homage to Teilhard de Chardin. (1912–2003), the American cultural historian and spiritual writer, was one of the first to call Teilhard's thought regarding the noosphere to the attention of his fellow American Catholics, and Ong never tired of referring to Teilhard's evolutionary thought. Teilhard de Chardin has been alleged by some commentators to have been a participant in the Piltdown Man hoax. He did work at the site in 1913 on the dig at which the fraudulent items were "discovered," but the allegation of Teilhard's participation in this has been discredited by a number of historians. Teilhard de Chardin's statement that "Everything That Rises Must Converge" was used as the title for a short story (as well as the title of the book in which it appeared) by Southern writer (and Catholic thinker) Flannery O'Connor. The teachings of Teilhard de Chardin influenced many of the engineers that were the creators of "Silicon Valley" in California. A residence dorm at Gonzaga University is named after Teilhard de Chardin. A building in the Allen Hall of residence at the University of Manchester is named after Teilhard. Teilhard de Chardin and the concept of the noosphere are referred to in the 1992 ambient-house album UFOrb, by The Orb. Dick quotes from Teilhard de Chardin whilst doing mechanical work on a car. Teilhard is a very large part of Annie Dillard's For the Time Being The protagonist in Joyce Carol Oates short story "The Going-Away Party" quotes Teilhard in her graduation speech. Most of these works were written years earlier, but Teilhard's eclesiastical order forbade him to publish them because of their controversial nature.Le Phénomène Humain (1955), written 1938–40, scientific exposition of Teilhard's theory of evolution The Phenomenon of Man (1959), Harper Perennial 1976: ISBN 0-06-090495-X The Human Phenomenon (1999) Letters From a Traveler (1956; English translation 1962), written 1923–55 Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (1956), written 1949, more detailed presentation of Teilhard's theories Man's Place in Nature (1973) Le Milieu Divin (1957), spiritual book written 1926–27 The Divine Milieu (1960) Harper Perennial 2001: ISBN 0-06-093725-4 L'Avenir de l'Homme (1959) essays written 1920–52, on the evolution of consciousness (noosphere) The Future of Man (1964) Image 2004: ISBN 0-385-51072-1 Hymn of the Universe (1961; English translation 1965) Harper and Row: ISBN 0-06-131910-4, mystical/spiritual essays and thoughts written 1916–55 L'Energie Humaine (1962), essays written 1931–39, on morality and love Human Energy (1969) Harcort Brace Jovanovich ISBN 0-15-642300-6 Je M'Explique (1966) Jean-Pierre Demoulin, editor ISBN 0-685-36593-X, "The Essential Teilhard" — selected passages from his works Let Me Explain (1970) Harper and Row ISBN 0-06-061800-0, Collins/Fontana 1973: ISBN 0-00-623379-1 Christianity and Evolution, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602818-2 The Heart of the Matter, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602758-5 Toward the Future, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602819-0 Activation of Energy, Harvest/HBJ 2002: ISBN 0-15-602817-4, essays written 1939–55, on the universality and irreversability of human action
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