Noosphere
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, writes in The Phenomenon Of Man (1955), “We are not human beings on a
spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is possibly the most
inspired Christian writer of the 20th century. Unfortunately many thinkers have not taken his innovative thinking
seriously today. However, his work bridges science and religion, ushering in a new age of creativity and
Christianity itself.Teilhard de Chardin explains that there are three major phases of evolution here on earth. The first phase
he believed started when life was born from the development of the earth biosphere. The second phase began at
the end of the Tertiary period as humanity developed its ability to be a reflective thinker. With thinking comes
communication and then the third phase of evolution occurred. This is where Teilhard de Chardin gets
metaphysical, believing that a “thinking layer” of the biosphere is this third phase of evolution and it is called the
noosphere (from the Greek noo, for mind). Starting small at first, this noosphere continues to grow, and will
continue to grow, in the age of electronics. “Earth crystallization” is how Teilhard de Chardin described the
noosphere around Earth, “A glow rippled outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of
ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever‐widening circles…till finally the whole planet is covered with
incandescence.”
Teilhard de Chardin has described thinking membrane covering the planet, the living earth which we
hear of so much today, Gaia, a biological entity with a brain. H wrote that the noosphere “results from the
combined action of two curvatures-the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of the mind.” This
cosmic mind is the mind of God and all creatures are a part of this God. In a way, the noosphere could be thought
of as “mass consciousness.”
Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary who perhaps saw the Internet coming 50 years before the actual
electronic web encircling the Earth today appeared. The internet itself could be considered a noosphere of sorts.
He visualized a vast thinking membrane coalescing into “the living unity of a single tissue” which envelopes our
collective thoughts, experiences and feelings. In The Phenomenon Of Man, Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Is this not
like some great body which is being born-with its limbs, its nervous system, its perceptive organs, its memory-
the body in fact of that great living Thing which had to come to fulfill the ambitions aroused in the reflective
being by the newly acquired consciousness?” What he saw evolving for the world of the future was a collective
organism of mind. The internet itself may not be a sentient noosphere in the true definition of the word, but it is
at least a collection of experiences and information much like the mass consciousness (noosphere) of the entire
human race, past, present, and future.
In the section “The Illumination” of this work, The Phenomenon of Man (1955), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
informs us, “Certainly in our innermost being we feel the weight, the stock of good or bad obscure powers, the
sort of definite and unalterable quantum handed down to us…from the past. With no less clarity we see that the
further advance of the vital wave beyond us depends on how industriously we use those powers. How could we
doubt this when we see them directly before us through all the channels of tradition, stored up irreversibly [in
the] collective memory and intelligence of the human biota? Even under the influence of our tendency to
disparage the artificial, we are apt to regard these social functions-tradition, education and upbringing-as pale
images, almost parodies, of what takes place in the natural formation of species.”
He continues, “In short, the living being emerges from the anonymous masses through radiation of hisown consciousness. His activity can be stored and transmitted by means of education and imitation. From this
point of view, man represents an extreme case of transformation. Transplanted into the thinking layer of the
earth, heredity, without ceasing to be germinal or (chromosomatic) in the individual, finds itself by its very life
center settled in a reflecting organism, collective and permanent, in which phylogenesis merges with ontogenesis.
From the chain of cells it passes into the circumterrestrial layers of the noosphere. Hence we were not saying
enough when we said that evolution, by becoming conscious of itself in the depths of ourselves, needs only to
look at itself in the mirror to perceive itself in depth, thereby deciphering itself. Free to dispose of itself, it can give
of or refuse itself. If we are God itself, we can hold no outside influence or entity responsible for our success or
failure.”
spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is possibly the most
inspired Christian writer of the 20th century. Unfortunately many thinkers have not taken his innovative thinking
seriously today. However, his work bridges science and religion, ushering in a new age of creativity and
Christianity itself.Teilhard de Chardin explains that there are three major phases of evolution here on earth. The first phase
he believed started when life was born from the development of the earth biosphere. The second phase began at
the end of the Tertiary period as humanity developed its ability to be a reflective thinker. With thinking comes
communication and then the third phase of evolution occurred. This is where Teilhard de Chardin gets
metaphysical, believing that a “thinking layer” of the biosphere is this third phase of evolution and it is called the
noosphere (from the Greek noo, for mind). Starting small at first, this noosphere continues to grow, and will
continue to grow, in the age of electronics. “Earth crystallization” is how Teilhard de Chardin described the
noosphere around Earth, “A glow rippled outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of
ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever‐widening circles…till finally the whole planet is covered with
incandescence.”
Teilhard de Chardin has described thinking membrane covering the planet, the living earth which we
hear of so much today, Gaia, a biological entity with a brain. H wrote that the noosphere “results from the
combined action of two curvatures-the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of the mind.” This
cosmic mind is the mind of God and all creatures are a part of this God. In a way, the noosphere could be thought
of as “mass consciousness.”
Teilhard de Chardin was a visionary who perhaps saw the Internet coming 50 years before the actual
electronic web encircling the Earth today appeared. The internet itself could be considered a noosphere of sorts.
He visualized a vast thinking membrane coalescing into “the living unity of a single tissue” which envelopes our
collective thoughts, experiences and feelings. In The Phenomenon Of Man, Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Is this not
like some great body which is being born-with its limbs, its nervous system, its perceptive organs, its memory-
the body in fact of that great living Thing which had to come to fulfill the ambitions aroused in the reflective
being by the newly acquired consciousness?” What he saw evolving for the world of the future was a collective
organism of mind. The internet itself may not be a sentient noosphere in the true definition of the word, but it is
at least a collection of experiences and information much like the mass consciousness (noosphere) of the entire
human race, past, present, and future.
In the section “The Illumination” of this work, The Phenomenon of Man (1955), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
informs us, “Certainly in our innermost being we feel the weight, the stock of good or bad obscure powers, the
sort of definite and unalterable quantum handed down to us…from the past. With no less clarity we see that the
further advance of the vital wave beyond us depends on how industriously we use those powers. How could we
doubt this when we see them directly before us through all the channels of tradition, stored up irreversibly [in
the] collective memory and intelligence of the human biota? Even under the influence of our tendency to
disparage the artificial, we are apt to regard these social functions-tradition, education and upbringing-as pale
images, almost parodies, of what takes place in the natural formation of species.”
He continues, “In short, the living being emerges from the anonymous masses through radiation of hisown consciousness. His activity can be stored and transmitted by means of education and imitation. From this
point of view, man represents an extreme case of transformation. Transplanted into the thinking layer of the
earth, heredity, without ceasing to be germinal or (chromosomatic) in the individual, finds itself by its very life
center settled in a reflecting organism, collective and permanent, in which phylogenesis merges with ontogenesis.
From the chain of cells it passes into the circumterrestrial layers of the noosphere. Hence we were not saying
enough when we said that evolution, by becoming conscious of itself in the depths of ourselves, needs only to
look at itself in the mirror to perceive itself in depth, thereby deciphering itself. Free to dispose of itself, it can give
of or refuse itself. If we are God itself, we can hold no outside influence or entity responsible for our success or
failure.”