Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: A Critique with James Tunney

[00:00:00]If you want to take it archetypally or literally, the tower of Babel will fall.

[00:00:04]That's that that that's the point. The point is that it when we homogenize and have this uniformity, we create problems. And and you've seen those videos about how AI destroys the world in seven seven movements for example.

[00:00:21]Now, the reason why it does so is because of the technological convergence. It's because everything is joined up together that these problems happen. Um, and convergence is a critical idea for Tedar Desardan.

[00:00:40]>> Keep watching to learn more.

[00:00:42]>> New thinking allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body, and spirit. the topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parasychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu.

[00:01:14][music] Thinking Aloud.

[00:01:19]Conversations [music] on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist [music] Jeffrey Michionlo.

[00:01:29][music] Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Michionlo. We'll be exploring the life and work of the Catholic scientist theologian Pierre Tahar Desarden today.

[00:01:47]In fact, we'll be taking a critical look at his work with my guest James Tunny.

[00:01:54]Probably the most frequent guest on the New Thinking Aloud channel, a Renaissance man who has written two novels, two books of poetry. He is a fine artist whose works have been displayed in many countries and he is a barristister who has lectured on legal matters throughout the world.

[00:02:16]He is the author of many non-fiction books including AI governor vents care and possession in dusttopia the mystical accord sutras to suit our times.

[00:02:33]Tech bondage, slavery of the human spirit, the mystery of the trapped light, mystical thoughts in the dark age of scientism.

[00:02:48]His newest book is Trosky versus Jesus, Battle of the AI Millennium.

[00:02:56]James lives in Goththingberg, Sweden.

[00:02:59]And now I'll switch over to the internet video.

[00:03:04]Welcome, James. It is a pleasure to be with you once again.

[00:03:09]>> It's always a pleasure uh to to speak to you, Jeff, and I'm looking forward to this conversation. Thank you. Well, this will be a very interesting conversation about Tar Desardan when you consider that we've previously done an interview about him with the late Peter Todd who really saw Teard as the the pioneer of a new theology for the as Peter put it for the next millennium.

[00:03:39]>> Yeah, he's not wrong. So, uh for PE I have a different emphasis. So obviously people can listen to Peter, God rest them, uh and and hear his perspective.

[00:03:50]Uh and my my perspective is different and I I I would disagree with his emphasis on some of the things in particular the idea of the persecuted martyr that Taylor desan supposedly is.

[00:04:03]Um so I think we have to look at the evidence in this but certainly his views are attractive to a lot of people and there's various studies of the new age community uh where Taylor de Shardan comes out above Carl Jung and everybody else as one of the most popular theorists. So he's he's very very popular with the kind of new age community. Uh he's he's very popular with a lot of modern Catholics which surprises me.

[00:04:34]on and another way it doesn't surprise me. And he's very popular in a lot of people who are leading the things that I'm against in the transhumanist and posthumanist context and in the context of the singularity. So you can see his influence all over from McKenna to Ben Gul to Wilbur to a lot of Ray Corso a lot of modern people. So in many there are a lot of people who will be very defensive of him and find in him a poetic vision which which I don't find uh in him. So I I understand that but um I have to put forward my my analysis. I suppose if if I were to try and simplify things overly so I would say that was endeavoring to unify the reli religious attitude and in particular Roman Catholicism with the field of science and and in particular his understanding of evolution.

[00:05:42]Yeah, I disagree with that uh in one sense. Of course, one one can make that argument and that's what is claimed for him. But my argument would be that his vision was to displace the existing situation. So he wasn't seeking to harmonize it. And we don't see throughout his work any effort to fit evolutionary theory or or to synchronize or syncretatize it or synthesize it with what's there already. So it's a it's a he he really is engaging in a new theology but it's a displacement theology. So at the end of it, the Catholic Church as it has had stood for 1900 years couldn't uh couldn't continue uh with the view that he has which undermines the totality of its its thinking process and theology. So I think it was a lot more ambitious than that. And I go further and suggest that really his effort to create a new religion or a new theology or a religion of evolution was part of a movement of a technopolitical sense towards global governance etc as we've talked about.

[00:06:55]And and last point, Jeffrey, it was interesting today that the uh AI encyclical came out from Pope Leo, which is which was partly kind of relevant to to all these discussions we've had.

[00:07:08]>> Let's talk about that briefly. First of all, can you define what an encyclical is? it it's a authoritative statement from the the pope that defines the or the contributes towards the the teaching of the Catholic Church and and defines its technology in particular contexts.

[00:07:27]So his his encyclical was a statement which was on the anniversary of a major cyclical called Rarum Novarum by Pope Leo I 13th. And so he's trying to show how the Catholic Church theology applies to artificial intelligence.

[00:07:44]>> And I gather he's arguing for restrictions that that it shouldn't be given free reign.

[00:07:52]Yes, he's arguing for a a a collective endeavor to contain it uh through cooperation. And he uses the uh he uses the idea that I well not I'm not saying directly but he he has a similar idea to I expressed about the tower of babel and he he believes is a choice between the the the tower of babel scenario or rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem as a defensive uh mechanism from you know in biblical context. Yeah. So but it's just an interesting context. I thought I'd mention that in the context of our present discussion. I'm under the impression and correct me if I'm wrong that the idea of a single government or a single language unifying the world and I suppose when it comes to AI the language is the binary computer code that seems to be uh the unifi you you if I understand your thinking you're against this you would prefer a multiplicity of languages and and diversity university, you would be in favor of the destruction of the Tower of Babel.

[00:09:05]>> If you want to take it archetypally or literally, the Tower of Babel will fall.

[00:09:10]That's that that that's the point. The point is that it when we homogenize and have this uniformity, we create problems. And and you've seen those videos about how AI destroys the world in seven seven movements, for example.

[00:09:27]Now the reason why it does so is because of the technological convergence. It's because everything is joined up together that these problems happen. Um and convergence is a critical idea for Taylor de Shardan. So Taylor desardan goes further and claims that this is an inherent scientific principle uh in how the world works. And that's a that's a principle which is rejected by most scientists that they don't see by most evolutionary theorists. So on scientific grounds a lot of the theorists who I don't generally you know cite my in my case I agree with them on this and I respect their learning in evolutionary terms. We don't have a principle of convergence which is manifest in the environment. We don't have a principle of complexification which Taylor desardan believes explains this progressive movement to higher consciousness. Uh it doesn't exist. So and in that sense he he disagrees with people like Bergson uh before him who who inspired him. So um so what I'm suggesting that he does and bearing in mind the label technopolitics he's describing a world which is desired by people who want to construct a world that fits that that theory.

[00:11:01]>> You can now download all nine copies of the New Thinking Aloud magazine for free or order printed copies. Go to newthinkingaloud.org.

[00:11:14]Book four in the new thinking aloud dialogue series is Charles T. Tart 70 years of exploring consciousness and parasychology now available on Amazon.

[00:11:29]>> I think it would be useful for some of our viewers who are unfamiliar with Teard and I that could be as high as 50% I imagine if if we just provide a little biographical background.

[00:11:42]>> Yes. So he he's born in Oan in in south central uh France in 1881 uh to a family of 11. He's the fourth uh child. Uh his family are Catholic and uh his his father is very interested in the natural world. The o area is mountainous and hilly and so it's a a natural place for someone who became a geologist uh to grow up up in. um he becomes interested in rocks and stones. He becomes interested as a boy. We he tells us in the perishability of the world and of humans. And this is a theme that's very relevant to him. So he seeks to he seems to be seeking something imperishable uh in the world uh from this kind of boyhood perception. He goes to Jesuit school. He decides to become a Catholic priest. He's educated uh in France in Achen Province and a few other places.

[00:12:43]Um and he attends university. He goes for his education, part of his education to the Channel Islands. There was problems with the Jesuits in France. Um he it's a long time, it takes a long time to become a Jesuit priest. Part of his education involved him teaching in Cairo uh for for three years from 1905 to 198. And after that he's studying theology in the south of England in Hastings which is the place where Alistister Crowley died as a kind of strange coincidence. But um and in Hastings he he develops his interest in geology and paleontology because the south coast of England is very very important in relation to paleontology.

[00:13:29]And there's one incident there which will come back to haunt him. season. He he comes across an amateur paleontologist, a geologist who was associated with a Pilltown discovery, a Pilltown man, which was believed to be one of these missing links. And years later, it turns out to be a hoax. And uh Pierre Taylor Pierre Taylor de Shardam was was involved in that and found a a a a tooth and and and uh made a little contribution and this this as as kind of dogs his reputation for a bit. Some scientists like Steven J. Ghoul Gould suggest he was involved in in in in a hoax which I I don't think he was but anyway he he he develops his interest in um paleontology in parallel to his interest in uh the or is the necessity to study theology and there's a very important if we visualize him there in on the south coast of England between 198 and 1912 this is a crucial period a crucial contextualization of his whole world view in my in my perspective. So he's there and he's witnessing the growth of a transatlantic corridor of telecommunications at that period developing on from maronei and coast to coast communication. A lot had been developed in Ireland. We had the various transatlantic cables from the mid- 19th centuries coming in and out of Ireland and connected to the south coast of England and the south coast the channel had been the area where they experimented first with laying undersea cables. So he's in a millu which is defined by the growth of telecommunications and I argue that his interest in telecommunications his subsequent development of theories associated with the nuosphere for example is a description of what he sees going on around him. So by the time he's leaving there, we have the Titanic which goes from the south of England uh to Ireland and then sinks with all this wireless communication and the maronei communication which was on all the front pages. So any any intellectual would be able to see that we were moving into a world of global communications where what happens on the other side of the planet is available to us and can be communicated. So in many senses he saw that this was the development and he saw it he would have seen the navy ships in the channel. So that that was an important element in parallel and in a in a book the shoes of the fisherman written in the 60s they have a character who plays this martyr version of Taylor de Shardan and his his name in the book is telond which is is an interesting connection of telly far and mond for world so and I think that's his role in many senses his role was as a prophet of the telecommunications era the internet and in any senses his descriptions of what was going to happen there are accurate in a technical context a technoscientific infrastructural context but not in a scientific context he goes after that he goes back to Paris um he's teaching um he he uh the the war interrupts his his studies he starts off doing a PhD but from 1914 to 19 the war happened and he's called up and he works as a medical assistant, a stretcher bearer and distinguishes himself during the war. Uh was seen to be brave and courageous and compassionate uh and also not too troubled in in some strange sense uh by what was going on around them. And in fact he took that time to develop his ideas and we by the end of the war by 1919 he has a very strong view of his own personal vision of the world. And this is a very materialist view, a very a very esoteric idea of what the material world is and a great love of the material world. So he begins to think in terms of a hymn to matter or a mass to the earth. And this is very very appealing to people who who are very drawn to the earth in many sense but but it is a very materialist idea. In 1919, he writes he he writes a an essay which which describes the thing coming into him which suggests a kind of force coming into him, material thing that changes him in some sense, some type of presence or psychic presence or or idea or conception, whatever way. But but this is a this is a thing that comes through all his work. He talks about that thing and the thing which will emerge in the future which which unsettles uh some some people. Um he he then studies at the Serbon. um he he gets his his PhD and immediately after his PhD he gets into a bit of trouble with the uh church because he he he gave an answer when asked this was afterwards just afterwards um which of his interpretation of original sin and basically he ignored all the doctrines and gave his idea he he wrote off that that concept and that got caused troubles. So what the what the what what his superiors realized they were a bit concerned about him uh even at the time when they were deciding whether he should take his final vow v vows the problem was they didn't really understand what he was saying it's not that they didn't understand science or they didn't understand theology they didn't understand what he's talking about because in many senses he's a master of ambiguity and he has a mythopoetic style which jumps in a in a kind of very French philosophical away from idea to idea whereby you can't follow the causal chain very very easily and you wonder well did he say that or is he saying this so there's a lot of ambiguity but he he was allowed become a priest but they realized that his theology was for some heretical and I think that's an accurate description that it's a heresy in terms of the Catholic church what the things he was saying and even Muslims for example uh Tad Hussein Nasser uh the Muslim scholar he has written about Shardan and he says he's heretical because it's quite plain to him what the Shardan is saying he's saying heretical in Catholic terms I think that's right so this is where the problem began where they said listen you we don't want you talking about theology you can go on and do your science we're not going to interfere with that we'll help you doing your science but you're not you shouldn't be talking about theology because it wasn't theology as as we know it. I can't believe it's Catholicism. I can't believe it's not Catholicism. Whatever. Um, so he they knew that the views were clearly radical. So this is where the the myth of the persecuted scientists comes from.

[00:20:59]He wasn't persecuted for his scientific views and he wasn't persecuted. They said, "We don't want you talking about this because what you're talking about basically is nonsense." in theological terms and this runs through all his work. So they said you can do your scientific papers but this stuff we can't let you do it. Now it was clear that he had problems with it with belief which kind of stopped him embracing the traditional doctrines and this fits him into a movement that was happening there the modernist movement the which was a critique within the Catholic Church. Now modernism in terms of the Catholic Church and its the arguments of the church against modernism was not merely about being modern or living in the modern world. It was about the very doctrines of the church because modernism from the 19th century onwards through people like George Tier was an attack on the fundamental doctrines. They said these doctrines have to change and they have to fit the modern world and they were willing to abandon the fundamental principles. So there's very there's a great specificity in the idea of modernism and Taylor de Shardan was in many senses a a a great modernist and he he rad he had a radical influence on the church in the 20th century right up to to Vatican 2. Just to finish off briefly so I won't go on too long. Um he goes to he travels the world in many senses.

[00:22:26]They send him off to China. He's not exiled and banished. He's working on things that he loves out there because the Jesuits helped with a museum uh in China. He gets involved. He's involved in in the discovery of a tooth associated with or another small piece of the ping man. Another major development in paleontology which also interestingly subsequently disappeared.

[00:22:52]So there are no remains of the actual thing. All the crates went went missing.

[00:22:56]Um but he he he gains stature. He's there till 1946. He goes back to France.

[00:23:02]He gets more involved in the international uh the internationalist scene with a lot of the contacts he'd made and he ends up in in New York 1951 to 1955 and he dies there on on Easter Sunday having become a very very significant. the books that the books that weren't published in his lifetime were published uh afterwards.

[00:23:22]>> I think it's also the case it would be fair to say that several popes, not just one or two, but three or four have spoken out positively about his efforts to unify science and religion. Even though they still hold that his theology is untenable, they they seem to express admiration for the man and some sense at least according to many people that he his reputation is being rehabilitated by the church.

[00:24:02]>> That's absolutely correct. the um there were positive statements from uh Pope Benedict, a general statement. There had been a monotum in 1962 which now he was never excommunicated like like say people that were fighting for independence in Ireland were so he was never uh what they said after he died they issued a a monom and said that his beliefs meaning in the text books that were published the main books that were published after his his death which he had given the uh the rights to his secretary and and horror and the and published uh books. A lot of them had been published in Sammy stat versions during his lifetime. So so they were well known. Um but um they were published and that caused the the reaction um and that caused the church to intervene and say there's a problem here and some people believe that that had been lifted but they reaffirmed it in in the 80s. But by then his influence was was very very strong and definitely Pope Francis seemed to be very sympathetic towards his view. But again it's very very difficult to know what he's been sympathetic towards. But if you took it from a traditional Catholic perspective you would immediately say look at this is the the theology here is something which doesn't fit the traditional theology in any way. At the same time there are many people like there is uh Ilia Delio is a a great supporter of Taylor Desardan and she's been involved in the church and very accomplished in in in a range of context uh and she would be one of the contemporary advocates of Taylor de Shardan's view which seems to have a lot of purchase in certain in certain context particularly in in the American church. Um I uh it's very very difficult for me to understand how they can be united. It's not merely about evolution because the church has expressed its views on evolution. We're talking about his version of evolution.

[00:26:10]So his version of evolution doesn't satisfy traditional the theologians. It doesn't fit into the category, but it doesn't satisfy evolutionary theories from from Dawkins to Dennett to uh to Steven J. Gould. um it it doesn't it doesn't satisfy them. And even for people who are supporters of evolution theory but not scientists like Christopher Hitchens, they say it's mystical gibberish to to quote uh his his idea and and from a a Christian perspective, CS Lewis said that TS Orteller Desardan's views were horrifying. So there's a whole litany of views. A more representative view would be Dietrich von Hilda brand who was a theologian who was who was there with Huser and around that area era that we talked about with Edith Stein and would have would have known her and he wrote a devastating critique of Taylor the Shardan from the Catholic perspective. So what we have to say is that the view that is or the supporters of Taylor the Shardan [clears throat] in in my analysis uh are involved in a project of modernization and some of them do say that this is about a revolutionary religion. they they do talk in terms of if you want to call it intellectual revolution it is revolutionary and I've I've tried to describe what I see as a singular revolution uh leading to the singularity and Taylor desardan is a champion a figurehead of that a lot of people modern Catholics seem to be sympathetic towards it so so that's right but it doesn't go much deeper uh than that we don't have an authorative statement which says in any way that teran's view are represent identative or consistent with theology and if they did it would it would it would be a final reformation to the church it would it couldn't exist I if they did that and Maliki Martin was a great critic of the shardan and he believed that he had lost his faith because there wasn't any meaningful connection uh with what what he believed in so yes there's there there are some there are some positive statements I find it difficult to understand and And I certainly don't support the the promulgation of teran as some great innovation to Catholicism. I think it it misses the point in many sense.

[00:28:34]>> I think it might be helpful to to step back and look at the history of Catholicism itself in the last 100 years or so. It it's been a continual struggle with modernization. It would seem in in particular because of Vatican 2, it seemed as if the you the church consciously said we we have to make some changes in the light of scientific and cultural developments of the 19th and 20th century.

[00:29:08]>> A lot of the the movements associated with Vatican 2 were not about objective areas of science. They were about a socopolitical view of the world. Now the de Shardan was very influential on the on the Jesuits. He was very influential in other ways. The idea of cosmic consciousness and the idea of evolution and moving away from the uh the idea of the person in particular the person personhood becomes different. They become more interested in in general ideas. So this this was a a problem associate with modernism. And again George Tier, one of the leaders who who was who converted in Ireland who would have been an inspiration for James Joyce for example. Um these people had a major influence on Catholicism such that it was difficult for people who took that path to believe in the very thing itself. So it wasn't really about about the relationship between science and religion in that sense that that's a bit of a that would be a bit of a misdirection. I think remember that the Jesuits had been involved for hundreds of years in studying astronomy. There were leaders there were world leaders in it. Uh they had Maliki Martin talked about UFOs and knowledge of this for going back for 600 years. They were very very interested in science. They were leaders in in science. uh Capernicus of course was uh was a cannon in the church. We we know all that that that's been rewritten again to to show that the church wasn't this anti-science um anti-science princip. In fact, if [snorts] as I would argue, Tedar de Shardan is engaging in scientism and bad science in the context of evolution uh which is established by many of the great evolutionary scientists. Uh why would the church engage in it? That's this is this is the problem. Now when people in the church seem to be embracing Tedar des Shardan as a as a type of science paradoxically they're losing the intellectual rigor that they had beforehand uh in both context they're both their understanding of science and their understanding of theology. Uh again, modernism going back to the uh 1860s, going back to the attacks on the church from from people like um from uh people like Thomas Hooksley was a a full socopolitical attack on the church. And the modernism was that it was opposing was a series of doctrines which denied the dignity of the individual, which denied the vertical aspect. it it was it was a defense of those rather than uh an unwillingness to engage in the modern world. That's not what it was. So by the time we come to 1960s, there was very strong movements within the church. uh no doubt facilitated by you hippies in California which were were wanting to change the world and the countercultural movement which which led to an idea that there has to be change and and um this was a very vague movement in in in in s in many senses and a very unsuccessful one in many senses as well because far from the great opening that was promised there was a lot of movement away from from the church because a lot of people recognized it as something else, something performative that had lost the benefit of the tradition and traditionalists outside the church uh in other disciplines understood it. But it wasn't about science and religion that that's not what it was about. There's very few fundamental um fundamental uh category problems there. Certainly there was about technology and that would have that was a big influence in relation to socio political decisions associate with technological changes associated with reproductive rights, abortion, contraception etc. and the technology had enabled those debates but not really about the what what science is or what it means and uh and that it's an ongoing issue and in in many senses uh the appeasement we had this in in some of the Marian apparitions the the [snorts] the going back a while that the the Virgin Mary warns against compromise and trying to compromise to accommodate the world in many senses. And I think that happened in the church. And to to to finish off, Bishop Baron as well in America, I think, is is has said things quite sympathetic to Ted Ar Shardan. And he's a popular he's a popular intelligent and well-informed theological uh example. So it's it's not we can't I can't oversimplify. At the same time, >> I appreciate you giving me a more complex picture of of Vatican 2 and its causes and its implications. Let's talk uh for a little bit about probably the word most people associate with Teard's philosophy, the newest sphere. Uh it's a vague term I think but how how would you define it or how do you think teard meant to define it?

[00:34:38]>> One followup from the last question of course a major fault line manifested in relation to the changes in the mass and the traditional Latin mass of people don't know about that the trident mass and that's still ongoing. is still it's still a big problem and that was that was uh seen by traditionalists to be a rupture with the tradition and with the liturgy.

[00:35:01]>> [snorts] >> uh and already uh Tar De Shardan had saw the world in terms of liturgy and he was he was talking about a new liturgy which was a materialist liturgy as well which is an interesting point and to come to the newest sphere I believe in simple terms that the newest sphere was his description of what he saw happening technologically around him but it referred to an idea of an increased consciousness through interconnection and that obviously was facilitated by technology. So the words and similar words come up in Vernadski in in the Russian context and although it's not made out in the in in in the books that I've read uh there's an obvious connection between Russian cosmism and a lot of the ideas of Taylor de Shardan and they seem to rhyme in many senses.

[00:35:53]uh and I see cosmism I think is a word that Ben god Girtzil uses in a modern context in the context of AI and he also sees AI making a god in a way that saw god evolving as well but the new sphere refers to a a sphere of intercommunication around the earth which builds on the uh biosphere and is characterized by the inputs of consciousnesses into it and is assoc associated with the development of of u humankind which was a process for teran of hommonization of becoming more human leading to a ultramonization in the future which parallels ideas of the superman etc. He he was also from Nietze. Um he's also a bit similar to Sri Orurabindo although Orabindo's version of evolution is much more defensible in my view because it it recalls ancient Indian philosophy and religion and uh leads to a different result. So, so, so a question in this is whereas Tar De Shardan sees consciousness as as evolving, how does he fit in with the more modern conceptions or ancient conceptions that consciousness is fundamental? I can't see it in his work that idea that consciousness is fundamental in the universe if consciousness is something which is evolving and becoming more complex. So the newest sphere is this is this infrastructure of consciousness that grows on at a certain point from human the expansion of human consciousness.

[00:37:40]>> It seems like an obvious contradiction.

[00:37:43]If if consciousness in in the sense of the divine is already perfect then why would it evolve?

[00:37:52]And yet at the same time when we talk about things that are essentially related to God or or the divine, I think contradictions of this sort are common. And as a result, many mystics say that, you know, ultimate reality is ineffable. You can't put it into words.

[00:38:14]It's it's like particles and fields shouldn't be identical either. But it turns out they they seem to be >> I can understand that. Um and in many senses therefore the idea of [snorts] God as a pre-existing force as we see also luranic cabala the the idea of of God as a force which is there which is beyond the world is is a very very strong uh is a very strong one. uh but in so far as there is an effort to create a new religion to displace in particular Catholicism, Protestantism and that they're not so worried about but in particular they wanted to displace uh Catholicism. Uh evolution seemed to provide a a convincing uh a convincing theory which could be utilized to support that. But it it doesn't help when we look at the his ideas of how consciousness and spirit in some way comes from matter. It becomes very very in unconvincing. And also that the idea of individuality and personality disappears although he says it gets better. I I I I can't see it because what we have is through his ideas of convergence and uh complexification is we have this collectivization of consciousness uh and in a deep sense whereas we're talking about real interconnection it seems and this was where uh the French ecologist and technological critic Bernard Charbano responded in 1961 and he he wrote a book which translated means uh or or Taylor the Shardan a prophet of totalitarianism because in his reading of the Shardan which I think is correct that he he suggests the Shardan suggests or Taylor suggests a an everinccreasing movement whereby God emerges in a process of crystation uh and everything comes together and what Sharbanol a friend of Jacquel Lul correctly saw was that this was the ideal uh philosophical descriptor or myth for a converging technological network world which ousted the person and ousted nature. Now this movement had happened from the time of the growth of the international telecommunications unit union in in the mid uh 19th century with the telegraph etc. And these these communications networks grew up and people weren't bothered they didn't they didn't pay too much attention or negative attention to these networks.

[00:41:04]They saw them as kind of functional ordinary but actually they were very very significant uh in in in the infrastructure of power. So the the problem is that the desardan probably uh was facilitating the development of this power structure presenting it as a mixture of science and um religion of a very enlightened kind whereas really it was neither existing religion or existing science.

[00:41:38]It was a descriptor of a an evolving technoscientific infrastructural uh context in my view.

[00:41:48]>> Things like telephone systems. I'm not quite sure what you're referring to.

[00:41:54]Well, the the the telecommunications uh revolution that was very very important for people like RC Clark, for people that wanted a one world uh involve uh the telegram, the cables across the Atlantic that were laid down on the roots of the British Empire, uh radio communication, later television, but the all of that constellation that enabled the modern economy, uh the movement of goods and services, development of financial markets, all all of that network, the infrastructure um became very very important for for the especially the empires as they were moving into a new world. That's why they were so intent on uh building rail networks in Africa and we have figures emerging from there like Jan Smutz who was the uh prime minister of South Africa was another colleague uh or come across he crossed the path with Taylor de Shardan and it was Jan Smutz in 1925 although he's educated as a lawyer he's not a scientist who defined the term holism and wrote about holism and evolution uh strangely So uh Taylor de Shardan is in this emerging infrastructural context and that's why he's popular also um with Julian Huxley again from the Huxley line who's director general of UNESCO who's the promoter of transhumanism who's the promoter of international relations and and a lot of Ted the Shardan's uh expeditions were funded by big the Rockefeller Foundation and in particular uh Axel Vener Gran the the head of Electrolux who is very very interested in global networks of communication. So the telecommunications uh network grew from the mid-9th century and it determined war, it determined empires, it determined business, it determined entertainment, communication, a lot of what we accept uh as normal.

[00:44:02]And in many senses, what Taylor de Shardan was envisaging was utterly consistent with the one world vision of HG Wells. Although HD Wells didn't, you know, didn't particularly like his religious views or the the world the transhumanist views of Julian Huxley who didn't like his the religious part as well. But in many sense they didn't have to worry because what Taylor de Chardan was merely taking the flavor of it and putting a dressing up uh on theories that they they believed in from evolution. For example, he talks about this process of everything converging and a process of crystation and cristic energy. It's nothing got to do with Jesus Christ. It's nothing got to do with the historical figure. And in that he loses both human personality and the personality of of Christ which is critical as we've talked about in relation to incarnation. He defines incarnation um totally differently. And in the book, an interesting little, if you want fictional context, some people say it's not fictional, but in the book Hostage to the Devil by uh Maliki Martin, he has a priest going through a crisis where he's exercising a demon from another priest or a former priest.

[00:45:20]And the former priest's spirit or the entity in him says you says to the priest you can't you don't have the power to um to get rid of me because you don't believe in Christ and he knew that the priest who was doing the exercise was a follower of Tedar de Shardan. So what Maliki Martin was doing was suggesting that the the centrality of Jesus Christ as a historical figure that's the center of all the subsequent practices uh cannot cannot be the same figure as an invented Christ figure and of course the Christ and cosmic consciousness doesn't fulfill the role and that's manifest for him in the actual ontology of exorcisms and that that that was an interesting aspect. Again, uh Maliki Martin uh was no fan of of of Taylor Desardan, although he may have been at some stage early on a little more sympathetic before he changed. Well, I gather that Pope Francis actually has said made favorable comments with regard to the notion of a cosmic Christ of of elevating the idea of Christ beyond simply [snorts] the the human being on planet earth.

[00:46:44]>> Yeah, there are various statements uh I would regard them as unfortunate. uh they're not spoken when a a you have to follow the pope in very limited circumstances when they're making uh authorative statements in particular domains and so you don't have to agree with the pope in all contexts especially if they're speaking in an informal uh context and some of the things that are associated with him are are not considered statements in many senses.

[00:47:14]Um, I don't see the I don't see the benefit of of this uh cosmic Christ. I don't don't understand what it is. I know it's very very popular. It's very very popular from people who can't accept the teaching of the Catholic Church. Um, in particular ex-Catholics and there is a a a typology associated with people who say, "Well, I can't accept that. I believe in the cosmic Christ and the church didn't understand me." But unfortunately, it can't work like that. I there are some people I know that have great respect for in in their views on mysticism and and and the world and whatever former priest who do think desan is fantastic and I I I could never agree with them on that. I I just cannot understand that. And it's also he's he's also seen to be a classic kind of mystic but his mysticism is doesn't fit in in any in any real uh tradition easily in in in in the context of the of the Catholic Church and people who are I think a quantum physicist like Wolf Gang Smith and who became a Catholic again they they say the Shardan Taylor the Shardan doesn't work as either a scientist or from a scientist perspective but particularly From a theological perspective, um the the whole point in my view and the benefit of the traditional view of the incarnation of God in the human was a vindication of the human form which is important and maybe something we don't actually understand. And also therefore the immediate antidote to transhumanism and posthumanism which thankfully the present Pope Leo did mention in his encyclical today. He did address transhumanism and posthumanism which I was in the context of AI which I was glad to see in in in the context of having written a book called AI posthumanism but anyway so so um I I disagree with this um the cosmic consciousness uh idea um associate with Christ. Cosmic consciousness is well established as we know and I understand that and I understand also that if you look at Jerry Manny Hopkins for example he could see Christ in everything but that was that was not at the expense of Jesus Christ the historical figure which was maintained through the mass and through the eukarist and through the sacraments which is which are the methodologies if you like to commune uh with Jesus Christ that were seen to be authenticated in the tradition uh and and in the lineage.

[00:49:58]So we can have different state theological statements about God and the creator and that but um when it when it becomes a substitute for people who are not willing to buy it just leave the church I would say to them you know for their own sake and and and if I had have been Tar Shardan's uh superior I would have said Taylor this is not for you you know you could probably do great in the world if you it's not for you son slinger hook you shouldn't be in it and and he he conscious that he was a a machisard as you call it like a rebel hiding in in the bush within the church.

[00:50:36]So this this this goes against the idea that that he was totally where he he was quite clear on that and that doesn't appeal to me. that that doesn't appeal to me because if you're going to be dishonest uh or or less than forthright about your fundamental beliefs in the organization that you're attached to even if you appear to uh engage in in all the rituals and that well why should I trust you in relation to your description of the future the present as an accurate representation of the world of the world I I don't like this this thing where people not that they have doubts about their beliefs but they say well I don't believe in this organization that I you know that that I've given my life. So I think it's better for everybody if if they go and and and and sell their their new theories uh outside. I I really do and also for them and then they don't have to engage in this uh sense of martyrdom although his martyrdom as well he's living the fine life although he's doing all his ex expeditions like Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones films and he's mixing the international classes and he's mixing with the higher levels and uh funded and traveling uh through Africa uh bur Indonesia China all around to America uh and uh been invited to think tanks and the cat skills to discuss the future of the world when industrialist and friends with industrialist friends with the uh the wife of um the the the publisher the owner of life magazine and time magazine etc. So it it's no surprise that I was when the space race began uh just after his his well as he was coming to the end of his life uh and they wanted a new vision that they could make this this martyr for science uh and present it as a vision of the cosmos uh which was which suitably paralleled the cosmic vision or the cosmist uh vision. which had driven the Russian space race. And that's where it came from. Of course, >> it sounds like you have basically two points of contention. One, that he should have left the church rather than try to operate within it. And second of all, that other people decided to use him as as a martyr figure in order to promote their own views.

[00:53:10]>> Yes. I mean apart from the substance of his views and in particular his idea that evolution is teological uh as a substitute for God which most evolutionary theories say they reject that apart from the substantive issues which make it very very weak. Uh it was very nice for for the very powerful people from the Rockefellers who who who were involved in all these ex excavations in China to the the newspaper editors to Huxley and the people that come from the British Empire as it's changing in international organizations to have this priest and scientist who is saying exactly what they wanted to say that there was going to be this coming together this conveyor urgence of peoples in a in a governance system through technology and through science and that it was inevitable. And some of his supporters now they they're saying things although they're they're Catholics, they're saying things like that we are already posthuman and transhuman and uh cyborgs and hybrids. And so that's where it leads to. This is utterly consistent. So what he does for that argument is he undermines the church, the Catholic church, which in my view has the greatest protection of the dignity of the individual worked out from the middle ages which he rejects. He rejects for a vague cosmic quasi scientific pseudocientific or scientistic view of consciousness. Uh and at the same time he provides an apparent justification, inevitable justification for this evolving control system from people that are very very powerful uh very very rich uh who are committed to a globalist techno scientific regime without without religion and even even if another if he's a machisard in the French context, a gorilla if you like, which a lot of the Jesuits became in different contexts in South America with liberation theology. He's a a spiritual gorilla in the Catholic Church who's out looking for gorillas or apes as the missing link to prove that the garden of Eden didn't exist and it was all uh you know all of Genesis etc. can't be relied on. there's an undermining effect associated with all all his work and actually if you take the Pilttown hoax or the P king man we're relying on or even recent studies of Dennisovian man etc. We're relying on very small pieces of evidence. We're relying on a tooth here in a cave and a jawbone here for a whole theory of how we came to be. Whereas really science doesn't know all the steps yet. I'm not denying that uh this process of evolution happens. But we don't know the story. But the presentation of the story assumes a totally worked out lineage that dispels and requires us to disregard the different theological analysis with its own different genius and its own different truths that ground a lot of of civilization in in our context. So certainly yeah I I find his proximity uh to these nodes of power um and his ideas of convergence which became the critical idea behind you know and not from him but the critical description of what powerful networks wanted to do which is explained by uh people like Castell is that networks run the world that the the ownership of networks is what determines the future in economics.

[00:57:08]So he's contributing towards giving a quasi mystical varnish uh to this while undermining the personhood while undermining the personhood of Christ and while arguing that God is something who really evolves in the future. So who wasn't there it seems uh at the start and he goes back into something which is like an atomistic idea you know everything growing up from the little cells which reflects epicurian ideas and it's utterly consistent and that's why he appeals also to some Marxists he spoke he spokes uh well sometimes about Marxism and and he and he thought that the future in one statement the future would be a kind of parallel Marxist god and Christian God. But I mean there's there's no God in Marxism. So it's but but it does appeal in that sense. So um I I I'm uh yeah there's substantive issues about uh about what he says doesn't make sense theologically doesn't make sense in scientific terms. And then there's also this contribution towards the things I've been arguing about about the construction of the ma matrix, this super stratum of technology. And and that's a word that's relevant to him. I I describe him as a a matricist. He's interested in in the medium which which explains the neuosphere. When when you're when you're doing all your digging up, the context in which you find fossils is described as the matrix.

[00:58:43]So there's another connection. and he's he's contributing towards this idea of the evolution and the future of humanity as if we're not born yet, as if we're not finished. The same view that Trosky had of the world. We're unfinished business biological creatures that needed to be perfected. So he he he has a very very particular view and they are the views that that I'm against. I'm against the denial of the dignity of the individual. I'm against the denial of the individual personhood. I'm against the idea of subsuming people in a collectivist movement. I'm against the idea of elite corporate control of technological networks that uh force people into these things. So you don't have a choice whether you have uh actually you're forced into it. And then I'm against describing that as some natural process when it's not natural process. It's run by big business. When the boleviks got in in power in Russia, they engaged in the same electrical electrification process with the help of American companies. China does the same thing. Left and right leads towards technocracy and agreeing with Charbano um desan teran moves towards that. And I don't like that. That doesn't appeal to me. I I I' I've been against all those things as you know in many of and that's where my critique of him would be. No matter how much of a genius he was a lot of people said that no matter how convivial um convivial he was no matter how well read or apparently intelligent. Now I know as well uh Jean Houston your great friend uh met him and she sadly passed away. you you told me, God bless her soul, and she told that interesting story uh of when she met Taylor the Shardan in of course he's living he must have been living in in Park Avenue as he was you know uh when he was in New York New York most of the time and she bumps into him and he talking to her and he's talking interestingly about transformation and she did a very a very uh nice imit ation of him in in that interview uh with you. Um and but even then he was talking about transformation. So I of of course he was a very engaging, very brave, very courageous, very adventurous man, very interesting ideas in a poetic or mythopoetic sense. But uh I I I I come from that tradition like William James and what are the consequences of these ideas and pragmatically that's what pragmatism is about for me in its purest sense and I don't like the consequences of the ideas or the context they came from and there's too many the fact that they come up again and again the context of singularity and they came up in the again and again the context of transhumanism uh the people that were interested in this global transhumanism this project.

[01:01:48]I I I can't support him. I can't I can't turn away. And I I was careful not to uh to make a judgment of him until I had considered over a long time and looked at his work and looked what people were saying. And I agree with the critics.

[01:02:04]>> Well, James, I think you've made your position very clear and it's definitely food for thought. there there's a a series of figures who are actually in this domain um that that when I criticize them as a Terrence McKenna who was also a who like Taylor de Shardan or or Robert Anon Wilson or Tim Liry or a number of these figures uh who people just love and they don't like criticizing and Taylor de Shardan is in that area and people say will say oh you don't understand them my interpretation is different and that's fair enough I I accept that and and I accept that there can be different readings uh of him. I just want to explain where I believe there is a a coherent reading based on his commitment to global technopolitics and and that's where he fits in and that's that's where um I have difficulty difficulty with >> you're always welcome to express your opinions on the new thinking alloud channel. I cannot say that I endorse them or don't endorse them, but I'm always willing to listen and and I think I benefit from that and I presume that our viewers do as well.

[01:03:17]>> Yeah. in in the context of of of the the discussions that we've had, I think it's important to try and locate certain areas of thinking so people can know where you where I stand on the thing or what the implications of my views are or where I see there is a co coherent uh argument. um that and and you know if people if people are able to convince me otherwise that's grand I I learn uh more in in that process but he's he's a that haven't been said he's a hugely significant figure in the 20th century probably underestimated because of his role on the influence in that twilight zone between the two areas uh for better or for worse he cannot be ignored for his influence in the Jesuits and modernism on this discourse about communication technology about evolution and and that so so he is a very significant figure so whether you like him or don't like him or approve or don't approve or criticize or support him uh he he's he's definitely a figure that has to be examined and people may come to different conclusions but it's always a great pleasure to to to have these discussions with you Jeff >> they're important because they involve not just the theological or philosophical ideas but we're really talking about shaping the world that we live in and the world that our children will live in.

[01:04:52]>> That's right. And also you have you've discussed all these issues. you you you've discussed you know from he's often described as pantheistic or pantheistic and you've discussed about cosmopysicism or or psychism cosmos psychism and such ideas. Um, and it's important to understand what it is we're talking about and where the nuances are between and where the points of of of difference are because a lot of things can sound the same. And I I think it's important to distinguish them in order to have sensible discussions and in order to to work out as as the pope was trying to do in his view of artificial intelligence uh what do these ideas mean for the future and in that context you know everyone has a a point to say and if they believe for example that you know the time for humans is over if they present a misanthropic or a dishanthropic view or whatever well present that and and and let people understand. So so intellectual honesty is very very important. Um and I admire that. I admire people when they put their view forward or they try and be consistent or or correct themselves if if they if they need to. But we have to know where the views are and we can't all be hiding in the bushes waiting to overthrow the king the context. we have to um advocate for our perspective and it's only when we when when they're they're brought into daylight that we can work out the nuances or try and work out what the implications of a particular view is and as you said uh for the next generation um and and also for for humanity and my argument is definitely in favor of humanity and I I I believe that the other problems are attitude towards nature or attit attitude towards animals which is which is very very important. All those other issues depend on getting right our spiritual evolution and uh uh I'm I'm I've always emphasized spiritual evolution and that's a that's a phenomenon which tardan couldn't approach because he left out this supernatural domain that was he was against the supernatural. He criticized Augustine for for being too supernatural. he couldn't handle this.

[01:07:16]He believed that the God dimension was a natural phenomenon and that that's a category error in in my view. I believe in the supernatural uh and that those those realms that we can't understand precisely those ineffable domains that are beyond our comprehension as well that we can only point to often. Um but uh Taylor didn't really he he he he he rejected a a lot of those contexts and and as you said all of these are important in relation to how we understand ourselves going forward and how we can have a sensible debate and have a convivial and constructive dialogue and discourse about where the different emphasis are. James Tunny, once again, thank you for delightful and informative and even at times troubling but in a good way conversation.

[01:08:13]It's always a pleasure to share these thoughts with the new thinking aloud audience and once again of course I'm looking forward to many more.

[01:08:23]>> Thanks very much Jeff. I hope I not not too troubling troubling. [laughter] you can take you can take the all these debates in your stride. I know you've um but uh it's always a pleasure to talk to you and it's it's it's nice to reflect on that body of work that you have and the people that have died and and gone on and whose views are still there that we can listen uh back to like Peter as you mentioned and those views are there so people can consult those uh and make their own mind up and and bring their perspective to bear on the on the issue.

[01:09:00]So, uh, great pleasure to talk to you, Jeff. Thank you.

[01:09:04]>> My pleasure, James. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us because you are the reason that we are here.

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