The β€œOmega Point”: where Mircea Eliade and Teilhard de Chardin meet

On April 10, 1955, the French theologian, philosopher and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin died. Its 'heretical' and eschatological conceptions they found a point of intersection in those of the Romanian historian of religions in the idea of ​​the Universal Christ, of cosmic religiosity and of the "Omega Point" in which history would have known its extinction.

di Marco Martini

originally published in β€œA future for man”, n. 2 (July / December) 2000, pp. 67-79

In 1856, by Max Muller, appeared what can be considered the first important work in the field of comparative religions: Essays in comparative mythology. At that time, scholars had already understood that the religious heritages of various peoples - including the Bible - were formed in epochs in which man still expressed himself by symbols, according to recurring and common archetypal schemes of a conscience that he had not yet conquered. the sense of history and science. It was necessary to get to work immediately to reconstruct the true succession of man's religious ideas and beliefs.

Starting with the 1865 Edward Burnett Tylor, with a series of articles, lectures and books that ended with the publication of Primitive cultures (1871), published his theories about it. Despite the diversity of the various schools of thought (1), on the whole the History of Religions already showed a slow and gradual rise, through the evolution of beliefs based on the various experiences lived by man and deeply linked to each other. ; in short, a gradual human conquest, and not a darkness of immense duration following an initial fall and then illuminated from above by a single light. In the rereading of the sacred stories transmitted to us, made obligatory by the discovery of their non-historicity, the emphasis no longer had to be placed on presumed truths to be preserved, but on the religious values ​​that man had conferred on the various experiences made during his process of self-construction.


Β Teilhard and the History of Religions

Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose theories were banned by the Catholic Church (and still are) with a provision that is called 'monitum', was lucky enough to carry out his theological studies in England, where the ferment produced by ideas germinated thanks to certain new disciplines were such as to have repercussions even within the walls of a Jesuit seminary. There is evidence that Teilhard's theological studies at Hastings (1908-1912) included the History of Religions and the discussion of theories of Emile Durkheim, a famous scholar of the elementary structures of the sacred. His interest in the subject was such that in September 1912 he participated in the 'Week of religious ethnology' held in Louvain, Belgium. Just in the years when Teilhard was studying in Hastings, Catholics also joined the fray thanks to his father Wilhelm Schmidt, Austrian, who began to publish the first episodes of a colossal work that came to an end only in 1955, Ursprung der Gottesidee.

Using the data of some tribes who channeled their religious experiences mostly on the figure of a Supreme Being, Schmidt elaborated the theory of a primordial monotheism revealed, from which one would later depart; all the other elements found among the primitives were considered a degeneration. This thesis, hinged on a 'fall' with respect to moral laws carved 'ab initio' in the heart of man by God, a reinterpretation of the dogma of Original Sin in the light of historical-religious data, was then proved wrong, above all thanks to the analysis of another indefatigable scholar, Raffaele Pettazzoni, exhibited in several books and essays starting with The celestial Being in the beliefs of primitive peoples, dated 1922. Well, Teilhard, probably without having ever read Pettazzoni but strong in his belief as a scientist and believer that "God does not act in the first person, but makes things happen by themselves through the development of the work of Nature" (2), did not give credit to Schmidt's thesis:

In fact, whatever the school of Father W. Schmidt who resorts to a primordial divine 'revelation' says, for the newly born man to reflected thought, what gesture can be more instinctive than that of animating and anthropomorphizing everything in a great Someone. 'Other whose existence, influence and threats do you discover around yourself? And isn't it precisely at this particular stage of adoration that we still find the socially less developed peoples of the Earth still? " (3)

Teilhard had already read Lucien Levy-Bruhl (4) Bronislaw Malinowski (5), a scholar mainly of the tribes of Melanesia, and known, as we shall see, Mircea eliade. But already before, as you read in his The spiritual phenomenon (1937), Teilhard had shown a perfect understanding of primitive societies and of the way in which ideas had evolved in the first human groupings: Β«In large part, morality arose as an empirical defense of the individual and of society. As soon as intelligent beings came into contact, as there was friction, they felt the need to protect themselves against each other's abuse. And as soon as it revealed, empirically, an organization that guaranteed everyone more or less what they were entitled to, this same system felt the need to guarantee itself against changes that had come to call into question the accepted solutions, and disturb the established social order ". Many scholars did not and do not accept the reality of biological and social determinants in the process of birth and evolution of religious beliefs, of a man who reaches the heights of the Spirit driven by the laws of Matter.

The conclusions of the studies in the History of Religions were certainly useful to Teilhard in order not to allow himself to be bound already in his early years (1919) by a biblical exegesis that theologians are only surpassing today: "Pagan mythologies make us understand how much the common Christian way of presenting the origins and vicissitudes of the world both artificial and infantile "(6). It should be noted, however, that Teilhard accepted the results of historical-religious studies but, on the strength of his own Universal Christ, not the conclusions (relativistic pluralisms, reductionisms, vague syncretisms, theories of the 'death of God') that many drew: "Due to the development assumed in Science by the comparative study of religions, Christianity, unanimously considered in the West, for almost two millennia, as unique in the history of the world, it might seem, at first sight, to undergo an eclipse at this moment ... Christianity finds and consolidates, instead, its axial place, its driving position, as an arrow of human psychic energies, provided that its extraordinary power of 'panamorization'". And he also specifies the source of this primacy of 'panamorisation', which is its "assimilating power, of an organic order, potentially integrating the totality of mankind into the unity of a single 'body'" (7). For Teilhard de Chardin the history of religions is only the last and most decisive phase of the same operation:

Basically, only one thing is done, always and forever, in Creation: the Body of Christ. (8)

149777
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Eliade's interest in Teilhard

We mentioned earlier the meeting between Teilhard and Mircea Eliade. The two met after the war in Paris, where Eliade had arrived in September 1945 to begin teaching at the Sorbonne; the Romanian quickly acquired great notoriety with the Treatise on the History of Religions (1948) and withΒ The myth of the eternal return (1949)

I saw him two or three times - Eliade di Teilhard tells us - in his room in the Rue Monsieur, in the Jesuit house. We had some long discussions; I was fascinated by hers theory of evolution and the Omega point, it even seemed to me that it was in contradiction with Catholic theology. However he was a man who fascinated me, interested me a lot. And I was happy to read his books later on. Only then did I understand to what extent his thinking was Christian, and how original and courageous he was. (9)

In Eliade's diary, on January 23, 1950, we find:

I had lunch at the headquarters of the magazine 'Etudes', at 15 rue Monsieur, to meet Father Teilhard de Chardin. Then, in his room, two hours of conversation. There were also fathers Fessard, DaniΓ©lou and Bernardt ... I told him, smiling, that his Christocosmic vision is more daring than the most fantastic Mahayanic creations (millions of universes, millions of reincarnations, millions of bodhisattvas, etc.), and he he agreed. It is true - he said - Christian 'Science' and the Logos surpass in depth and audacity everything that has been thought and imagined up to now. Before I left, he offered me several typewritten texts, some in multiple copies, so that I could distribute them to friends. Texts - he specified - that still cannot be published.

Eliade's interest in Teilhard has a specific reason, which emerges from his writings. In his diary, dated March 6, 1965, we read: Β«The considerable success of Teilhard de Chardin is notoriously due to the following fact: he has 'sanctified' the World, Life, Matter". During a lecture given at the University of Chicago in October 1965, Eliade dwells at length on Teilhard, in particular on the cultural significance of the success of the Jesuit father's writings, published posthumously. Teilhard's readers, Eliade explains, referring mainly to non-believers,

they are tired of existentialism and Marxism, tired of the constant talk of history, of commitment and so on. They are interested in Nature and Life… But one cannot simply speak of Teilhard's 'vitalism'. Teilhard is in fact a religious man, for him life is sacred; more: for him cosmic matter as such is capable of being sanctified. Not only did he build a bridge between science and Christianity, he not only proposed an optimistic vision of the cosmic and human evolution of the universe, but he also revealed the supreme sacredness of Nature and Life. (10)

In clear harmony with the Jesuit, Eliade is eager to learn his thought. He also reads an article by Teilhard in the magazine Psyche, and notes in his diary, on May 22, 1963, that he greedily glanced at the then unpublished writings present in the book by Claude CuΓ©not, PierreΒ Teilhard de Chardin - Les grandes Γ©tapes de son Γ©volution. Also in his diary he also reports that he had dined at a certain Marie-Louise with other friends and that the main topic of the conversation was Teilhard, and once again he mentions a meeting in which "what impressed me most in the conversation with Teilhard was his answer to my question: what it meant to him the immortality of the soul"(11). The Romanian's interest in Teilhard is obviously not only professional. Studies for Eliade are in fact, as for the Jesuit, above all a personal interior journey of a believer because, he explains above all in his book HomesicknessΒ of the origins, the History of Religions is a highly spiritual discipline that transforms internally.

In the course of this long search - thirty and more years spent among the exotic Gods and Goddesses - I had a purpose: I wanted to reach a 'center'. (12)

Mircea-Eliade
Mircea eliade

The integral Christ of Eliade

All hierophanies (= manifestations of the sacred) are nothing but prefigurations of the miracle of the incarnation;
The coming of Christ marks the last and highest manifestation of the sacredness of the world;
The incarnation represents the last and most perfect hierophany: God has completely incarnated in Jesus Christ. (13)

There can be no doubts, as these expressions indicate, about the identity of that 'center' that the greatest historical religious wants to reach. The countless divine figures to which he dedicates his entire life have given meaning to the days, efforts, expectations, joys and sufferings of billions of human beings, and the coming of Jesus - as he explains in his History of religious beliefs and ideas - confirms them in a definitive way: "The kenosis of Jesus Christ not only constitutes the crowning glory of all the hierophanies that have occurred since the beginning of time, but also justifies them, that is, demonstrates their validity". With the advent of Jesus one era closes and another opens, Β«the conception of mythical time and of the eternal return is definitively overcome. (14)

However, β€œthe 'pure' religious fact does not exist, outside of history, outside of time. When the Son of God incarnated and became Christ, he could not help but behave like a Jew of his time, and not like a yogi, a Taoist or a shaman. His religious message, however universal, was conditioned by the past and contemporary history of the Jewish people. If the Son of God had been born in India, his oral message would have had to conform to the structure of the Indian languages, and to the historical and prehistoric tradition of that group of peoples "(15). Each hierophany is culturally conditioned: Β«The sacred manifests itself. And, consequently, it is limited and thus ceases to be absolute " (16). It is in this perspective that Eliade mobilizes himself, concentrating all his efforts on the recovery of all the religious values ​​that have taken place throughout human history, which neither Jesus nor Christianity, due to the aforementioned limitations, could make their own. Therefore for the Romanian the greatest discovery of modern times is not, as for Teilhard, the law of complexity-consciousness (the ever-increasing complexity of organisms generates states of consciousness / love that are ever closer to the parameters necessary for the final reversal, in which Christ becomes all in all), but the discovery of non-European man and his spiritual universe. And more particularly the archaic man:

My goal is to make those little known or poorly commented religious creations intelligible to the modern world - Western and Eastern - as a first step towards a spiritual awakening. (17)



The convergence of two experiencesΒ 

Teilhard is not interested in identifying common elements between the various traditions in order to feel united in God, an initiative devoid of the strength of spiritual activation (18), unable to increase the spiritual temperature of the planet towards the final Incandescence, but the overcoming of everything that Science has declared no longer valid and the search for all the spiritual energies existing in creation, because they are part of the body of a coextensive Christ with the enormity of an evolving universe: "The spiritual success of the universe is connected with the release of all its possible energies"; "The Incarnation is a restoration of all the Powers of the Universe" (19)

Eliade welcomes this Jesuit perspective with enthusiasm, because it allows a qualitative recovery of all other religious experiences. Immersed in his studies as a historian of religions, Eliade found himself all his life in front of documents that transmitted the experience of men for whom the elements of the world were at the same time themselves and an Other Thing. The study of archaic man for Eliade brings modern man, unable to perceive the spiritual melody coming from Matter, back to union with God through harmony with the Cosmos, the I-You Man-God directly lived in the grasp of contact with the mysterious reality of Life. For this reason, a universe that is activated by converging towards a Pole of Love is a perspective that admirably matches the expectations of the History of Religions. "Teilhard has opened an unexpected perspective to Western man", notes the Romanian, "a perspective in which nature takes on religious values ​​while maintaining its completely 'objective' reality" (20).

Eliade shows that he shares the Teilhardian idea of ​​"a process of selection through qualitative leaps forward, an opus magnum in which a Cosmic Christ", He adheres to his" reassuring "vision and shouts" what a joy! " in reading that Teilhard wants to find Christ in the heart of the most naturalistic and 'pagan' realities (21). For the Romanian, the evolution of the universe, as for Teilhard, is free but directed towards spiritual growth: "I believe that all the technical discoveries have created opportunities for the human spirit to grasp certain structures of being that were previously difficult to grasp" (22).

Arising from different interests, Eliade's experience goes to marry that of the Jesuit, and the Romanian makes no secret of it: "If someone will one day study my theory on the hierophany and on the progressive hierophanization of the world, of life and of history, he will be able to compare me to Teilhard de Chardin "(23). In his thought there is the same sense of evolution that leads him to conceive the history of humanity's religious journey as a penetration into ever deeper areas of a Christ who is completed in his becoming, but Eliade himself emphasizes that in order to grasp it, he does not it is enough to read one of his books, you have to 'study with intelligence' and not a single text: Β«If you want to judge what I have written, you have to consider my books in their entirety. If there is some value in them, some meaning, they will result from the totality "(24).

the-nostalgia-of-the-origins

The future

Although he speaks of "the inanity of the concepts, symbols and rituals of the Christian Churches" (25), Eliade does not preclude a certain role for the Church in the future of religion: "As regards the Catholic Church, it is clear that there is no it deals only with a crisis of authority, but rather with a crisis of the ancient liturgical and theological structures. I don't think it is the end of the Church, but perhaps that of a certain Christian Church. After trials and controversies, certain things, more interesting, more significant, may come to light "(26). Here he relates decisively to Teilhard: "I remember what he said to me about the need for a renewal of dogmas: the Church - he said - is like a crustacean; it must periodically discard its carapace in order to grow(27).

On the other hand, he is more severe with the materialist theses: "The more precarious existence becomes due to history, the more the positions of historicism will lose credit" (28), however, assigns a pre-eminent role in the future of religion to the laity, or rather to the lay attitude, which contains more elements of the true experience of the sacred than religious systems that are too rationalized and now devoid of vital lymph, and to the "ability to to found a new type of religious experience based on the awareness of the radically profane character of the world and of human existence "(29). The Romanian recognizes in Christianity, in the concluding pages of his The myth of the eternal return, the most modern note in the entire history of religions, "the religion of modern man, who has emerged from the horizon of cyclical time, integrated into history and progress, of those who have discovered personal freedom", but is peremptory on its possibilities of spiritual activation:

Christianity in general, and 'Christian philosophy' in particular, are susceptible of renewal (only) if they develop cosmic Christianity. (30)

Regarding the future, however, Eliade is not unbalanced, because "the freedom of the spirit is such that one cannot anticipate the future of religion". However, he shows that he shares other points with Teilhard in addition to those mentioned above. "We will know other religious forms that will be conditioned by the new language and the society of the future. Up to now man has not yet been spiritually enriched by the latest technical discoveries as he was by the discoveries of metallurgy or alchemy "(31). And here too Eliade refers to the Jesuit, to Β«his great confidence in him in the progress of science; for Teilhard de Chardin scientific progress also had a religious function "(32).

For the Romanian, the point that will never change in the religious experience is "the encounter with what saves us by giving meaning to our existence", but for the rest in the future the page will be completely turned: "Of one thing I am certain: future forms of religious experience will be completely different from those we know in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, which are fossilized, in disuse, emptied of meaning "(33). This novelty will unite us in a changed collective consciousness: "Today, for the first time, history is becoming truly universal, and so culture is on the way to becoming planetary. The history of man from Paleolithic times up to the present times is destined to occupy the center of humanistic education, whatever the local or national interpretations. The History of Religions can play an essential role in this function of 'planΓ©tisation' of culture and can contribute to the elaboration of a universal type of culture. All this will certainly not happen within a short period of time "(34).

Teilhard, who believes that humanity is now ready for wider and more 'centered' achievements, predicts a new religion based on the common awareness of building a single body, and on this path gives Christianity a primacy, comparing it to a river that opens a breach into which all the others then plunge (35). The Romanian likewise states in the first part of his The nostalgia of the origins, that Western consciousness now recognizes only one history, universal history, and that the ethnocentric position is outdated because it is considered provincial. He also adds that the Asian peoples have also recently entered history, that the so-called primitives are preparing to do so, and that consequently more grandiose spiritual creations on a planetary level are looming on the horizon.

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Conclusions

So, as we have seen, theΒ Worldview of the two thinkers is strikingly similar. In both we find:

  • directed evolution, guided by a spiritual Energy
  • collapse of traditional religious microcosms;
  • Christianity renewed as the driving force behind the spiritual train of the future;
  • religious function of the progress of science;
  • change in the state of consciousness;
  • co-reflection for common vision;
  • absolute novelty at the basis of the religion of the future.

Of course the two deal with different sciences, and propose different paths: "Teilhard came to this theory through the discovery of Cosmogenesis, while I, on the other hand, through the deciphering of cosmic religions" (36). But with the same confident hope in the future of man: "(To make) understand the ignored or despised dimensions of the history of the spirit does not only mean enriching science, but contributing to the generation and development of the creativity of the spirit, in our world and in our age "(37).

Both Teilhard (who also used the results of the discipline known as the History of Religions), and Eliade (historian of religions who identifies his experience with that of Teilhard), stressed that religions did not appear simultaneously separated on a horizontal plane. There is a single history of religious ideas and beliefs, with its own evolutionary dynamism which has by now revealed itself to be convergent, through mutual qualitative integration between the various perspectives, towards a single Center. A discovery that is, for those who experience it, above all an encounter:

In a Universe that was revealed to me in a state of convergence, You had taken, by right of Resurrection, the key position of the total Center in which everything is gathered. (38)


Note:

(1) On all these theories and on the interest and repercussions aroused by this debate at the time, see for example: E. EVANS PRITCHARD, Theories on primitive religion, Sansoni, Florence 1971; M. ELIADE, The nostalgia of the origins, Morcelliana, Brescia 1972, pp. 25/69; U. BIANCHI, History of ethnology, Abete Editions, Rome 1964.

(2) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Note on the modalities of divine action in the universe (1920), in: My faith, Queriniana, Brescia 1993, p. 33.

(3) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The Christian phenomenon, in: My faith, cit., P. 194. In reality, anthropomorphisms are a late phenomenon in the History of Religions but Teilhard, who uses an improper word because he is not a historian of religions, has nevertheless understood the crux of the matter: the dialogue with the Hereafter has always started and only from life lived.

(4) In one of his writings of 1932 (The way of the West towards a new mysticism) he cites the theory of the primitive mind as pre-logic, expounded by LΓ©vy-Bruhl above all in The primitive mentality (1922). The hypothesis of a pre-logical mentality met with some consensus then, but then it fell and was retracted by LΓ©vy-Bruhl himself.

(5) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The place of man in nature, Il Saggiatore, Milan 1970, p. 144.

(6) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Note pour servir Γ  l'Γ©vangΓ©lisation des temps nouveaux, in: Ecrits du temps de la guerre, Γ©d. du Seuil, Paris 1965, p. 410. The confirmation of Teilhard's familiarity with the mythologies of various peoples also comes to us from one of his writings of 1933, Christology and Evolution (see: My faith, cit., P. 87 note 5).

(7) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Il Cristico, in: The Heart of Matter, Queriniana, Brescia 1993, pp. 75/76.

(8) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Pantheism and Christianity, in: My faith, cit. p. 76.

(9) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, Jaca Book, Milan 1980, p. 87.

(10) M. ELIADE, Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions, Sansoni, Florence 1982, pp. 14/15.

(11) M. ELIADE, Journal, Boringhieri, Turin 1976, p. 251.

(12) Ibid, pp. 230/231.

(13) M. ELIADE, Treatise on the History of Religions, Boringhieri, Turin 1976, p. 36; Myths, dreams and mysteries, Rusconi, Milan 1976, p. 177; History of religious beliefs and ideas, Sansoni, Florence 1982, vol. 2, p. 406.

(14) M. ELIADE, Myths, dreams and mysteries, cit., P. 175.

(15) M. ELIADE, Images and symbols, Jaca Book, Milan 1981, p. 33.

(16) M. ELIADE, Myths, dreams and mysteries, cit., P. 147.

(17) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., Pp. 135 and 60.

(18) See letter from Teilhard de Chardin to Jeanne Mortier quoted in: E. BONNETTE, Ecumenism in the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in: The future of man, no. 2/1997, p. 105.

(19) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Travel letters, Feltrinelli, Milan 1962, p. 104; The cosmic life, Il Saggiatore, Milan 1970, p. 86.

(20) M. ELIADE, Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions, cit., P. 16.

(21) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., Pp. 320/321.

(22) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., P. 123.

(23) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., P. 321.

(24) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., P. 170.

(25) M. ELIADE, The sacred and the profane, Boringhieri, Turin 1984, p. 9.

(26) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., P. 106.

(27) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., P. 250.

(28) M. ELIADE, The myth of the eternal return, Borla, Rome 1982, p. 193.

(29) M. ELIADE, The sacred and the profane, cit., P. 9.

(30) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., P. 377.

(31) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., Pp. 107 and 104.

(32) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., P. 251.

(33) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., Pp. 147 and 109.

(34) M. ELIADE, Nostalgia for the origins, cit. p. 84.

(35) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The spiritual contribution of the Far East. Some personal reflections, in: The directions of the future, SEI, Turin 1996, p. 180.

(36) M. ELIADE, Journal, cit., P. 321.

(37) M. ELIADE, The test of the labyrinth, cit., Pp. 146/147.

(38) P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, The Heart of Matter, cit., P. 46.

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