Teilhard
Anniversary Year
1975
The year 1975 was the
Twentieth Anniversary of Teilhard's death, and it was one in
which we took stock of the growth of the Association and also
of the changes in direction that would have to be made.
It was agreed that the
first wave of enthusiasm of the early 1960s had run its course,
but that Teilhard's dynamic influence was still germinating within
the minds of both religious and non-religious persons and that
it had a role to play not only in shaping the basis of individual
beliefs but also in the general intellectual and religious reappraisal
of the total world view.
At a Board Meeting held
on November 9, 1974 it was concluded that the Association had
"a most important mission at this stage in human history
and we must be willing to extend ourselves as far as we are able
to do so. Our new direction, evidenced in our change of name,
can be communicated more creatively in the Newsletter,
programs, participation in conferences. We should engage contemporary
thinkers in many disciplines, as Teilhard did, on their own terms.
Although Teilhard's thinking is Christian, it is best expressed
not in simple Christological terms. The Phenomenon of Man
provides a unique dynamism that can integrate the past and the
future with the human process. Teilhard is at one and the same
time a classicist in his thinking and more venturesome than most
of the future thinkers. We should be able to offer a unifying
and stabilizing core to the imaginative projections of the futurologists
as well as to other thinkers and ordinary people and their beliefs."
We decided that we should,
for that year, address the overall subject of "Activation
of Human Energy," having in mind in that year of the energy
crisis that Teilhard considered the greatest source of energy
to be human energy.
As to specific projects
for the Anniversary Year: Fr. McGuire spoke with the editor of
the Jesuit magazine America, and the full issue of April
12, 1975 was one of commemoration of Teilhard. Theological
Studies commissioned a leading article by Donald Gray on
"The Phenomenon of Teilhard," and this appeared in
the March issue. The March-April issue of The Critic had
an article by John Deedy on "The Last Days of Teilhard de
Chardin" covering the years spent in New York from 19511955.
Our Annual Meeting was
held on April 19, 1975 at the Parish House of historic old Trinity
Church down on Wall Street (the Church of the Holy Trinity could
no longer accommodate us due to changes in their own programs.)
Ewert Cousins resigned as President so that he might give all
his time to coordinating the big Summit Conference of the Temple
of Understanding that was to be held at the United Nations in
October. Thomas Berry was elected to succeed him. Our new President,
a member of the Passionist Order, is a cultural historian who
has established his own institute, The Riverdale Center of Religious
Research in Riverdale, New York. Donald Gray and Jean Houston
were elected Vice-Presidents, Theodosius Dobzhansky remained
as Honorary Vice-President, and the Secretary and Treasurer were
reelected.
Because Margaret Lynch
was tied down to a young family - two children under four years
of age - editing of the Newsletter now fell to Winifred
McCulloch.Two new members of the Board of Directors were Fanny
Brett de Bary, who brought knowledge and a keen judgment of how
the organization functioned, and the Rev. Franklin Vilas, Jr.,
Priest-in-Charge at Trinity Church and member of the Board of
Directors of the C. G. Jung Foundation. The Rt. Rev. G. P. Belshaw,
Suffragan Bishop (Episcopal) of New Jersey, was invited to become
a member of the Advisory Board.
The Teilhard Review had had to increase its subscription
rates, and since we could not absorb the extra cost we voted
to have two categories of membership: one with and one without
The Teilhard Review. This further increased the record
keeping in the office, but we could see no alternative.
For this Annual Meeting,
having in mind the overall subject to be addressed, "Activation
of Human Energy," we asked three speakers to talk on the
general topic of "Creating the Future." Beatrice Bruteau
spoke on "The Whole World - a Convergence Perspective";
Gerald Feinberg, Professor of Physics at Columbia University,
chose to speak on "The Future of Consciousness"; and
Roger Wescott spoke on "Paleontology and Futuristics: Explorations
of Time."
That spring our evening
programs continued with Thomas Berry's "Creating the Future:
the New Transcendentalism" and Alice Knight's study group
based on "Prayer of the Universe." In Fr. McGuire's
absence, Margaret Forgione, a member of the Advisory Board, led
a group that explored personal dimensions of spiritual experience.
Our Anniversary Year's
activities were climaxed by a two-day Conference, sponsored jointly
by the American Teilhard Association and the C. G. Jung Foundation,
entitled "Human Energy and the Formation of the Future."
This was held November 14 and 15 at International House in New
York City and was attended by over 500 people.
Both Jung and Teilhard
had recognized that mankind is a phenomenon to be investigated
in its totality. Both men saw the moving force behind evolution
as psychic energy. Both were deeply religious, seeking to lead
twentieth century persons to their spiritual roots and to help
them towards a highly individuated wholeness that could carry
the thrust of evolution toward the future.
The Symposium speakers
included: John Perry, M.D. of San Francisco and Edward Whitmont,
M.D. of New York City, Jungian analysts, and Jean Houston and
Thomas Berry representing the Teilhardian view.
In opening the Conference,
Thomas Berry suggested the symbol of the Cosmic Person as a motivating
force in all of history, citing its appearance as the Mahapurusha
in India, the Sage in China, Anthropos in the Classic West, the
Cosmic Christ of St. Paul. He suggested that this image, breaking
forth in our century in Teilhard's experience of the Cosmic Christ,
as well as in Jung's vital expression of the archetype of the
Self, was still a vital reality, energizing human beings to build
the earth anew.
Dr. Perry described his
own personal experience of cosmic consciousness as a young man
which led him to the study of psychology and religion. In his
theme, "Eros and History," he called for a deepening
of awareness of the creative aspects of human energy as it manifests
itself in collective religious symbols.
Dr. Whitmont, in his
"Masculine and Feminine in Cultural Evolution," described
the emergence of the masculine archetype out of the earlier matriarchial
modes of agricultural life, leading to intellect, ego, the power
principle, the urgan and technological modes of being. With the
current reconstellation of the feminine archetype, new forms
of emotional and ethical experience must arise.
The final speaker, Jean
Houston, dealt with "Ecology of Inner Space" - a different
style of being human and of building the earth, a new image of
human beings and the earth which finds resonance in the works
of both Jung and Teilhard.
The Symposium had been
planned by Ewert Cousins and Franklin Vilas, Jr. It was a very
successful coming together of minds and it marked an important
new direction for both organizations. Also, it added $2,000.00
to our exchequer.
These, then, were the
ways in which we commemorated the memory of Teilhard on the Twentieth
Anniversary year of his death.
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