The history of the association
About the ATA
A Short History of the American Teilhard Association written by Winifred McCulloch
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When Hallel Communications agreed in 1977 to bring out our series of cassette tapes, they did so because the speakers were not only individuals concerned with Teilhard’s thought but also officers of an organization existing at a certain period of time with a stated purpose. This book is a short account of that organization and some of the people who have been part of it. There is, of course, a larger story that is not attempted here: the influence of Teilhard’s thought on secular and religious ideas as well as on private lives in the sixties and seventies of this century. This story remains to be written.
My sources for this history are the correspondence files of the American Teilhard Association, the Minutes of Board Meetings, the Newsletters and archives, the 1964 Fordham conference Proceedings, some notes sent to me by Beatrice Bruteau, Ewert Cousins’ taped recollections of his early years at Fordham, a long talk with Robert Francoeur one morning this past summer when I visited him on Cape Cod, and my own long experience with the Association.
The American Teilhard Association is now in its eleventh year. It believes that Teilhard’s vision will play an important role in shaping the new world-view that is emerging in the last decades of this century, and in its publications and programs it will continue to relate Teilhard’s thought to that evolving world.
Winifred McCulloch
New York City
October, 1978
Winifred McCulloch
Copyright ©1979
American Teilhard Association for the Future of Man, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published for the
American Teilhard Association for the Future of Man, Inc.
by ANIMA Publications
(Division of Conococheague Associates, Inc.)
1053 Wilson Avenue
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
ISBN 0-89012-013-7
On the weekend of April 7th-9th in 2005, the American Teilhard Association joined with the Fondation Teilhard De Chardin and the Association des Amis de P. Teilhard De Chardin of Paris in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in New York City in 1955. The three-day commemoration began with a Symposium on Friday at the United Nations in New York City, attended by 600 persons and entitled Global Spirituality and a Sustainable Future. Cosponsored by the French Mission to the United Nations, UNEP, UNESCO, and the Forum on Religion and Ecology, the symposium was moderated by John Grim, President of the American Teilhard Association. It began with a short film on the Universe Story produced by Neal Rogin, then featured Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, who spoke on the cosmic context of our emerging planetary civilization. Other speakers included Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute; Bertrand Collomb, Chairman of Lafarge Group and Chair of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Steven Rockefeller, Chair of the Rockefellers Brothers Fund and chair of the International Drafting Committee of the Earth Charter. Also featured was a televised welcome to the gathering by Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for 2004.
On Saturday morning, April 8th, a smaller symposium on The Influence of Teilhard’s Thought on Scientific Research was held at the synod hall of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan. The panel discussion included Ludvico Galleni, Professor of Biology, University of Pisa; Mark McMenamin, Professor of Geology, Mount Holyoke College; Kathleen Duffy, Professor of Physics, Chestnut Hill College; Harold Morowitz, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study; and James Skehan, SJ, professor of Geology, Boston University. Saturday afternoon saw a magnificent celebration of Teilhard’s vision in the great sanctuary of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, attended by several thousand persons. The liturgical event featured readings and comments on Teilhard’s vision, dance and choral works, and music by the organist of the Cathedral, along with members of the Paul Winter Consort. Following a welcome by John Grim and Dean James Kowalski, the celebration was composed of four sections, each honoring a dimension of the Teilhardian Vision. Under the general title of The Epic of the Universe, these sections included The Flaring Forth, The Emergence of Life, The Fire of Consciousness and the Fire of the Spirit. Following readings from Teilhard and interspersed with dance and music, homilies were delivered by Brian Swimme, Astrophysics; Miriam Therese McGillis, Founder of Genesis Farm; Ursula King, Professor Emeritus, Bristol University; and Helen Prejean, Author of Dead Man Walking. The impressive celebration touched many, and gloriously expressed the transforming vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
On Sunday morning, a small group including the French delegation traveled on a pilgrimage to the grave of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, located at the Culinary Institute of America, former Jesuit seminary on the Hudson River north of New York City. In the after-noon, a celebration of the Mass on the World, written by Thomas King, SJ, was conducted by him at the St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church in New York City. The events of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Teilhard were coordinated by the Rev. Franklin E. Vilas, D.Min, on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the American Teilhard Association. The events were made possible in part with grants from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the GermeshausenFoundation, the Kendeda Sustainability Fund of the Tides Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation and the Owlsley Brown Charitable Foundation.
During a visit to France in 1951, Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin gave thought to the manuscripts that were his life’s work and to what would happen to them after his death. Seventy years old, in delicate health and about to set out on a field trip to the Transvaal in South Africa, he was torn with inner conflict. Loyalty to the Jesuit Order was the deepest of his commitments, but he knew that if the essays were to become the property of the Society, they would be buried in its archives. They challenged current ideas of God, man, and the universe. A solution presented itself when a canon lawyer advised that they might legitimately be left to a lay person. Mlle. Jeanne Mortier, who had devotedly kept his papers in order for many years, was the obvious choice. In a simple, hastily written note, Teilhard appointed her his literary legatee.
When Teilhard died in New York City, April 10, 1955, Mlle. Mortier, together with a number of Teilhard’s family, friends and former colleagues, set up a committee to arrange publication of his writings. Thus the Association des Amis de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came into being. It was located at 12, rue le l’abbé-Gregoire, Paris, VI.
SEVERAL COMMITTEES WERE SET UP UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN MARIE-JOSE OF FRANCE:
A Directing Committee consisted of Professor Jean Piveteau (the Sorbonne), President; Comte Max-Henri de Begouen, Vice-president; Mlle. Jeanne Mortier, Secretary.
An Administrative Council was composed of Msgr. Bruno de Solages, M. Claude Cuénot, M. Jean de Beer, and M. André Selon.
A Committee to advise on the publication of Teilhard’s work included many distinguished scholars, scientists, and literary figures, among whom were Dr. George Barbour, Abbe Henri Breuil, Prince Louis de Broglie, Dr. Julian Huxley, M. Andre Malraux, M. Leopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal, Dr. Arnold Toynbee, and members of Teilhard’s family.
In 1964 the Fondation Teilhard de Chardin was established with headquarters in the Musée de l’Homme,38, rue Geoffrey-St. Hilaire, Paris, V. Here there was an office, a library, a museum, archives containing all of Teilhard’s writings, and a study room for research. Its stated purpose was to conserve the manuscripts bequeathed by Teilhard, to collect all works emanating from him and concerning him, to make these writings available to authors and students, to publish Teilhard’s work and to defend his thought, to promote the study, diffusion, application and extension of his thought by meetings, lectures, congresses, prizes and publication.
The Foundation also served as a center for a growing number of affiliated associations and study groups not only in France but throughout the world as well. By 1964 there was the Teilhard de Chardin Gesellshaft in Munich and The Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Association of Great Britain and Ireland in London. Also, though unaffiliated with Paris, there was the Centre Belge Teilhard de Chardin in Brussels.
The American edition of The Phenomenon of Man was published by Harper & Row in 1959 (it had appeared in France in 1955 and in England in 1959). The Divine Milieu came out in 1960. By 1961 The Phenomenon of Man had already sold 90,000 copies in France and over 50,000 in the United States.
Early in the 1960s Fordham University became a center for the critical study of Teilhard, the first such center for serious study in this country. Teilhardian studies started slowly with Dr. Louis Marks in Biology and Joseph Donceel, S. J., in Philosophy introducing his thought in their lecture courses. There was also a short-lived Teilhard Circle under a former colleague of Teilhard, J. Franklin Ewing, S. J., whose object was to stimulate critical appraisal chiefly from an anthropological point of view. Ewert Cousins, who went to Fordham in 1960 to teach in the Classics Department and also to study in the Graduate Philosophy Department, remembers discovering a lively interest there.
At Fordham from the summer of 1962 through the summer of 1964 there was a graduate student in biology, Fr. Robert Francoeur, who brought with him an already highly developed interest in Teilhard. He had been introduced to Teilhard’s thought in 1954 while writing a master’s thesis on Lecomte du Noüy at the Seminary of St. Vincent’s in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His mentor had criticized it on the grounds that he had come to too many conclusions based on his own ideas. Shortly afterwards Bob Francoeur had picked up a copy of Cross Currents in which he read an article on Teilhard de Chardin by Msgr. Bruno de Solages the first article (translated from French) to appear in English in an American periodical and he realized not only that Lecomte du Noüy and Teilhard were kindred spirits but also that here were the substantiations his mentor had wanted.
Robert Francoeur wrote to de Solages in Toulouse, and a lively correspondence ensued. This grew to include Claude Tresmontant, a lay biblical scholar living in Paris, who had written a book on Teilhard. Bob translated it into English. Then, in 1959, he saw an advertisement put out by Helican Press in Baltimore for a forthcoming edition by another translator. Pointing out to Helicon’s Dr. McManus that the proposed book would lack a glossary and a bibliography, he was commissioned to supply these items and also to review the translation. This book, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: His Thought, was published in 1959, the first book on Teilhard, albeit a translation, to be published in English in this country.
About this time the Knights of Columbus in Baltimore sponsored a television program on Teilhard in which Gustav Weigel, S.J., Professor of Theology at Woodstock in Baltimore, J. Franklin Ewing, S.J., of Fordham, Dr. John Walsh, a lay professor of history at Pace College in New York City, and Robert Francoeur took part. A transcription was published in Jubilee, the first article written in English on Teilhard to appear in the United States.
In the spring of 1961Robert Francoeur went to Paris where he met Claude Tremontant and was introduced by him to an American woman, Dorothy Poulain, who was married to a Frenchman, with a good reputation as a writer on Catholic topics. Her articles appeared in both French and American periodicals, and she was a member of a liberal Catholic circle that included Jean Danielou, S. J., and Henri de Lubac, S. J. Fr. Francoeur was to have an extensive correspondence with her. She put him in touch with her friend, Mlle. Jeanne Mortier, and became the translator in a correspondence that developed between Mlle. Mortier and Fr. Francoeur.
In 1961-1962 Robert Francoeur was in Baltimore where he became friends with Gustav Weigel, S.J., and John Courtney Murray, S. J., both of them pioneer spirits in the Vatican Council. While there he put together the first anthology of articles written in English in this country, The World of Teilhard de Chardin. Among the contributors were Dr. John Walsh, Gustav Weigel, S.J., John Lafarge, S.J., and Dr. Karl Stern, the noted neurologist and psychiatrist. Mention of its forthcoming publication was made in a footnote to an article that appeared in the American Benedictine Review, a small magazine with a circulation of only 800, and before it was even in print a Monitum was issued by the Apostolic Delegate in Washington prohibiting its reading by American seminarians. After much correspondence with the Apostolic Delegate the book was published in 1961. It was well reviewed, but it never did receive an imprimatur.
The summer of 1962, then, found Robert Francoeur at Fordham working on his doctorate in biology and building a network of kindred spirits who were also interested in Teilhard. These included Beatrice Bruteau (a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy and Managing Editor of the International Philosophical Quarterly, a publication founded at Fordham in 1960 and produced in collaboration with the Jesuits at Louvain), Dr. Pierre Dansereau (Assistant Director of the New York Botanical Gardens) and others outside the University such as Dr. George Barbour at the University of Cincinnati, Teilhard’s colleague in China.
Through Robert Francoeur, the group at Fordham became aware of an intense power play that had sprung up in Europe between Mlle. Mortier in Paris and a Mme. de Wespin in Belgium. Mme. de Wespin was making an effort to establish branches of the Centre Belge Teilhard de Chardin throughout the world and was pushing Bob to set one up in the United States. Mile.Mortier was opposed to her strong-handed approach, and this problem was discussed at length in her correspondence with Bob. The American group felt their allegiance to be with Mlle. Mortier.
At this point, in the summer of 1962, soon after he had arrived at Fordham, Robert Francoeur consulted a group of eminent scientists Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Dr. Loren Eiseley, Dr. Pierre Dansereau, and Dr. Alexander Wolsky. With their encouragement a group of people, some at Fordham and others outside of the University, formed The American Teilhard de Chardin Association, a very informal group. They had stationery printed, using as a logo the reverse of the Teilhard medal struck by the French government. Through the efforts of Mme. Poulain and Fr. de Lubac they became affiliated with the Association des Amis de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in Paris.
In order to be free from Vatican censorship, it was decided to have a layman as President. Fr. Robert Francoeur was passed over and Dr. John Walsh was elected to that office. Meetings were held every four to six weeks at White’s Inn, a restaurant near Pace College in downtown New York City close to City Hall. Other persons, besides those mentioned above, attended these meetings: Ewert Cousins, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Patrick Melady, Sig. and Sigra. Carducci-Artemisio, Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky and others. At each meeting one of the members read a paper, and discussion followed.
The fall of 1963 saw Teilhard activity at Fordham entering a wider phase, stimulated by the visit of Maurtis Huybens, S.J., the Belgian editor of the International Philosophical Quarterly. Fr. Huybens, a philosopher working on his dissertation on Teilhard, suggested to Beatrice Bruteau that he give some lectures to introduce Teilhard’s thought to American students. She persuaded James Somerville, S. J., Chairman of the Philosophy Department, to offer a series of six public lectures. To everyone’s surprise the audience grew to more than 600 persons, not only students and faculty from Fordham and surrounding institutions but many people from New York City also. At the conclusion of each of the two-hour lectures, members of the audience approached Fr. Huybens and testified with deep feeling to the insight Teilhard had given them into the religion they had all but abandoned because they could not reconcile it with modern scientific views of the world. It was a period of high excitement, of hope that a new world-view synthesizing religion and science would bring a breakthrough of the greatest importance.
During that same autumn some faculty members in various departments, deciding that The Phenomenon of Man might provide a fruitful focus for an interdisciplinary faculty seminar, held discussions every three weeks in the faculty lounge. Each session was introduced by one or several work papers given by representatives of various fields of knowledge. These continued into the spring of 1964, and in the final sessions, devoted largely to Teilhard’s “hyper-physics,” an attempt was made to test the substance of Teilhard’s affirmations. It was realized, however, that only a threshold of Teilhardian study had been reached. As a result of these various expressions of growing interest in Teilhard, Beatrice Bruteau in October of 1963 proposed to Fr. Somerville that an interdisciplinary research institute be founded “to illuminate our experience of an evolving reality in a way that is appropriate to the evolutionary process itself, that is, by structuring our experience not only conceptually but non-conceptually or supra-conceptually as well, and by seeking such structures as will not only represent our present experience but also will promote and advance that experience in the direction of the evolutionary trend so far as we can discern it.” Fr. Somerville asked her to write up her proposal for the Teilhard Research Institute. She did so, and he presented it to Joseph Frese, S.J., then Academic Vice-President of Fordham University.
The proposal stated that the Institute’s purpose was to make a critical study of the work of Teilhard, and then pass on to “new questions, new criteria, and new fields of investigation.” Its commitment was to fundamental research in “the philosophies,” those “new alloys of arts and sciences which we expect to see emerging.” As a first step the Institute would sponsor public lectures and conduct special working seminars. The following summer, for instance, it would arrange a five-week intensive study of Teilhard’s work for a limited number of scholars from a variety of disciplines. This seminar would be followed by a one-week conference open to the public.
These proposals were approved by Fr. Frese before Christmas, and in early 1964 Beatrice Bruteau and Fr. Somerville proceeded to set up the Institute by inviting a representative from each of six disciplines to serve on its Executive Committee: Robert O’Connell, S.J., just returned from his doctoral studies at the Sorbonne (Assistant Professor of Philosophy), Dr. Joseph Budnick (Associate Professor of Physics), Richard Zegers, S.J. (Associate Professor of Psychology), Robert Namara, S.J., (Assistant Professor of Sociology), Dr. Louis Marks (Professor of Biology), and Ewert Cousins (who in 1963 had moved from Classics and was now Assistant Professor of Theology). Robert Francoeur, representing the American Teilhard Association, was an important member of the research team. Fr. O’Connell became Chairman of the Executive Committee and Beatrice Bruteau was Coordinator.
That spring the Teilhard Research Institute sponsored an extra-curricular lecture series in which the thought of Teilhard was examined by specialists in the fields that Teilhard had built into his synthesis-physics and chemistry, biology, anthropology, history, philosophy, religion.
Just as the publicity for these lectures was about to be printed, a difficulty arose. The Jesuit Provincial had forbidden the use of the name Teilhard for the Institute. The Vatican had issued a warning to all Catholic seminaries about the “errors” in Teilhard’s work, and no doubt the religious superiors of the Society wished to pursue a prudent course and avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness. This move forced the Institute’s committee to choose another name very quickly. The obvious one seemed to be Teilhard’s own suggestion “We need and are irresistibly being led to create, by means of and beyond all physics, all biology and all psychology, a science of human energetics.” (The Phenomenon of Man, Harper Torch book, p. 283). Later, the name “Teilhard” was restored, but the Institute began work under the name “The Human Energetics Research Institute.” The American Teilhard Association could be visible because it had a layman, Dr. Walsh, as President, and it had no activities at Fordham.
The momentum of Teilhard studies continued to increase and, in the summer of 1964, the Institute’s intensive Workshop was held, climaxed by a week to which members of the general public were invited. The Workshop, which ran from the second week in July through August 15th, was a team exploration by a body of young scholars and graduate students who met for private critical study and evaluation of Teilhard’s thought. Again, based on the structure of The Phenomenon of Man, there were representatives from the natural sciences (physics and chemistry), biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and theology. Among those who took part in the Workshop were Ewert Cousins, Petro Bilaniuk (from St. Michael’s College in Toronto), Bill Birmingham (publisher of the Omega series of the New American Library), Michael Tanner, S.J. (a very articulate teacher of literature in Jesuit schools), and Fr. Robert Francoeur.
The big event of the summer was the week following the Workshop the 1964 Teilhard Conference (August 17 to 21) which was open to the public. This was financed by contributions, including one from Henry Luce for $1000. Established scholars were invited to address themselves to the familiar topics and Workshop members acted as panelists. Among the speakers were the following: J. Franklin Ewing, S.J., anthropologist, a personal friend of Teilhard and his chief link to Fordham. Robert Johann, S.J., who spoke on “Teilhard’s Personalized Universe.” Fr. Thomas Berry, cultural historian, who talked on “The Threshold of the Modern World.” Barry Ulanov, who spoke to the humanist expression of Teilhard. Petro Bilaniuk, whose topic was “Christology of Teilhard de Chardin.” Robert O’Connell, S. J.,who spoke on “Teilhard’s Synthesis: Some Criteria for Criticism.”
Pierre Dansereau, ecologist, who talked on “Teilhard and the Languages of Science.” Werner Stark, who spoke on “Teilhard and the Problem of Human Autonomy.” Owen Garrigan, who spoke on “Chemical Evolution.” John Page, S.J., who talked on “The Phenomenon of Urbanization and Teilhard.”
The Conference was hugely successful. It was also an important venture, the first sizable conference on Teilhard to be held in the United States. Henry Luce attended, and another member of the public audience was Minna Cassard who was to become the first Secretary of the future American Teilhard de Chardin Association, Inc. A number of papers read at this conference were published by the Human Energetics Research Institute under the title of 1964 Fordham Conference Proceedings, (Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y., $2.80).
At the end of the conference, Fr. O’Connell announced that the Institute for Human Energetics had received a $20,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to continue its work, and it was decided to hold a conference of experts the following summer. It was Fr. O’Connell who initiated the proposal and who received the grant, and it was he who shaped the issue.
At Fordham, during the following year, work revolved around the planning of the 1965 Conference. A closed conference, held in the beautiful surroundings of the Conference Center at Lake Forest (near Tuxedo), New York, had as its purpose the exploration of the possibility of dialogue among the disciplines of science, the humanities, philosophy, literature and theology. Some fifteen high-level experts were invited to have dialogue among themselves, with members of the planning committee in attendance only as auditors. As the week went by, however, the experts urged planning committee members to speak out, and Fr. O’Connell took a very active part and became the discussion leader on many occasions. The conference was stimulating and much enjoyed by the participants, but no conclusions were made because no agreements could be reached on basic concepts. And, though a report was made to the Ford Foundation, no papers were ever published.
The Human Energetics Research Institute sponsored one more Conference, in 1966, based on a newly published book by Harvey Cox, The Secular City, which was considered to have an important bearing on Teilhard’s thought. Ewert Cousins was Chairman, and five public lectures on the topic “Sacred and Secular” were given from February to April.
The years 1966-1967 saw Beatrice Bruteau, the dynamic force behind the Teilhard Research Institute, leaving Fordham to become Executive Director of the Foundation for Integrative Education and Bob Francoeur withdrawing from the Fordham doctoral program and transferring to the University of Delaware. Also, Fr. O’Connell was on sabbatical at Harvard, but, in any event, his interest was moving in directions other than Teilhard. An Italian scholar at Fordham, Enrico Cantori, S.J., a physicist who had been in touch with Werner Heisenberg, suggested a program of dialogue between science, philosophy and general culture, but this idea never got off the ground. With the leaders of the Institute and the Teilhard de Chardin Association dispersed, no one seemed to have the time and energy to carry ideas forward into a new stage of development.
It was at this time also that Fordham expressed a lack of sympathy for institutes founded independently of the program of the university. In this climate the work of the Teilhard Research Institute came to a halt. There was no official termination; it simply ceased to operate.
For several years it had been felt that the small, informal American Teilhard de Chardin Association should be established on a wider base. What was envisioned was a national organization such as had been set up in Paris, Munich and London, and so the way was opened to the founding of the American Teilhard de Chardin Association, Inc.
Fr. Robert Francoeur was a leading force in this new phase of Teilhardian activity. Many of the people who had been part of the Teilhard Research Institute either as members of the planning board or as participants in the programs became involved in the new venture: Beatrice Bruteau, Pierre Dansereau, Ewert Cousins, Louis Marks, Thomas Berry, and Henry Elkin. There were also the members of the small American Teilhard de Chardin Association: Ruth Nanda Anshen, William Birmingham, James Budnick, Sig. and Sigra. Carducci-Artenisio, The Rev. Pieter de Jong, Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Jean Houston, Robert Johann, S. J., Dr. and Mrs. Edgar Taschdjian, Dr. Alexander Wolsky, and Dr. John Walsh. (Claire had been Teilhard’s secretary in Peking, and she and Edgar Taschdjian had been married there by Fr. Teilhard.)
Another member of this group should be singled out here, because she was to play an important role in the formation of the national Association and was to become its secretary. This was Minna Cassard who had attended the public lectures of the 1964 Fordham conference. Though not a member of the community of scholars, Minna, a devoted High Church Episcopalian, had been reading Teilhard since 1959, devouring the French editions as they appeared, as she later described it, sitting at the kitchen table with a cold, wet towel pressed to her forehead, a French dictionary and a glossary of scientific terms at her side. Aware of subtle and not so subtle mistranslations into English, she was always to claim that Teilhard could not be truly understood unless read in French. Minna was thorough. Though not a scholar, and with a distaste for lectures and intellectualizing, she had an ardent concern that Teilhard’s thought be understood in all its rigorous development and spiritual implications and not used solely to elucidate other intellectual or theological positions. She was always to urge members, in the words of one of the Prayer Book collects, to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the work of Teilhard. Over and above this concern she was eminently practical and disciplined, and she was to give the Association a working structure without which it could not have survived. She also had a sense of style and of worldly values that attracted people outside the academic community.
On February 24, 1965 a group of about twenty persons came together at the Faculty House of Columbia University for the first of a series of informal discussions under the leadership of Dr. John V. Walsh, Fr. Robert Francoeur, and Dr. Pierre Dansereau.
Fr. Francoeur was now teaching in the Biology Department of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, beginning his work in experimental embryology, a field in which he was to become an authority. He was authorized to use his office as headquarters of the Association. Mrs. Peter Sammartino, wife of the President, was interested in Teilhard and agreed to serve as Chairman of a Benefactions Committee. University officials sought government and foundation grants for Teilhard research and planned to ask the National Endowment for the Humanities to finance summer courses on evolution to introduce high school science teachers to the thought of Teilhard. None of these plans, alas, found fruition, although various lectures were given under the Association’s name.
There was a growing consensus that the Association should be incorporated as a nonprofit organization because it could not survive without some structure and a tax-exempt status, especially if it were to become national in scope. Minna Cassard consulted a corporation lawyer, Edward Maguire, Jr., who was a member of her church. She and Beatrice met with him in November of 1966 and, though still without funds, plans were laid to launch the association, without benefit of any umbrella protection from an established institution. It was a venture of faith. Mr. Maguire of the law firm of Jackson, Nash, Brophy, Barringer & Brooks contributed his services. A draft of Articles of Incorporation was drawn up in December of 1966, and finally on April 4, 1967 the Articles of Incorporation of the American Teilhard de Chardin Association were formally accepted by New York State. Tax-exempt status was granted soon afterwards. The territory of operation was to be principally the United States. Its stated purpose was
To promote, stimulate interest in and assist further development and study of the writings and philosophy of the Jesuit paleontologist and scholar, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; to encourage and sponsor critical research in and exposition of Teilhard’s theories; to serve as a center of information and to make available consultation and advice on such studies; to organize and superintend meetings of those interested in the development and growth of such studies; to promote fellowship and cooperation among those interested in the life, work and thought of Teilhard.
The signers of the certificate were Beatrice Bruteau, Minna Cassard, Ewert Cousins, Pierre Dansereau, Henry Elkin,Robert Francoeur, and Louis Marks.
The Bylaws stipulated that the Association was to be open to memberships of various categories and that an annual meeting was to be held during the months of April or May, at which time the voting members of the Corporation (made up of the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board) should meet to elect Board members, officers, and committee members for the following year, and to fix annual dues for all members. Mlle. Mortier granted affiliation with the Fondation Teilhard de Chardinin Paris.
The first organizational meeting of the Board of Directors (the signers of the certificate plus Theodosius Dobzhansky, Michael Murray and Alexander Wolsky) was held on May 8, 1967.Robert Francoeur was elected President, Pierre Dansereau and Beatrice Bruteau, Vice-Presidents, and Minna Cassard, Secretary and Treasurer. Elected to the Board of Directors were Ewert Cousins, Theodosius Dobzhansky (Professor of Genetics at Rockefeller University), Henry Elkin (Jungian analyst), Louis Marks (Professor of Biology at Fordham University), Michael Murray (Episcopal Minister) and Alexander Wolsky (Professor of Biology at Marymount College). The members of the original American Teilhard de Chardin Association were named charter members and elected to the Advisory Board together with some thirty other persons. (Dr. Loren Eiseley regretfully resigned soon afterwards because of pressure of his own work.) Annual dues were set at $10.00 for regular members (rising through the categories of contributing and sustaining members) and $3.00 for students.
The Board, undaunted by the prospect of high rents, felt that the Association should have its center in New York City, and a happy solution came about through Minna Cassard. For several years she had been a volunteer worker in a small Anglican theological library, The Library of St. Bede’s, founded and administered for some thirty years by a group of non-professional women of the Episcopal Church. It had been housed in a main-floor apartment in a safe, desirable, rent-controlled building on the east side of New York, but it had so outgrown its space and the abilities of its amateur staff that it was moved to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Minna made inquiries. Room Main B of that apartment was available, and a three-year lease was signed to take effect on July 1st. The address was 157 East 72nd Street, about three blocks away from the apartment in which Teilhard had died and in the general neighborhood in which he had spent his last years. The room was small and looked onto an areaway, but there was switchboard service and 24-hour doormen. St. Bede’s Library donated some of its unwanted furniture and library supplies, and gifts from publishers provided the nucleus of a Teilhard library.
Minna arranged that she should be at the Association headquarters on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (other times by appointment) functioning, as she wrote later, as secretary, treasurer, librarian, interior decorator, cleaning woman, and errand boy. She brought with her from St. Bede’s a devoted and admiring friend, Mrs. Alice Leighton, whose excellent typing skills built up the membership records. Two months’ rent was generously contributed by a Board member, and the Association set down its roots at last.
Almost immediately a difficulty arose. During the summer of 1967 Robert Francoeur was married, with the full permission of Rome. He resigned as President because of the vulnerability of the newly-fledged Association and because of the inevitable questions and criticisms, both in this country and in Europe, where understanding of the Dutch and American movements towards optional celibacy were at a minimum. In October Dr. Dansereau, though protesting that the office was rightfully Bob’s, reluctantly took over as President under the persuasion of Ewert and of Bob himself. Dr. Dansereau brought to the office considerable scientific distinction in addition to his long interest in Teilhard. He was a plant geographer of wide renown, former head of the New York Botanical Gardens and now Distinguished Scholar at Cranbook Institute of Science. Michael Murray replaced him as Vice-President.
The Annual Conference of the French Association held in September at Vézelay, France, was attended that year by Michael Murray, who gave one of the addresses (the first American to be invited to do so) and also by an American student, Jerome Perlinski, who had received the first scholarship awarded by the French Association.
The Rev. Michael Murray had been a publisher of UNESCO art books in Paris when he read, by chance, some Teilhard manuscripts being circulated by worker priests. Instantly fired by this new vision, he returned to the United States and entered theological school. He was now an Episcopal minister working at Episcopal Church headquarters in New York City. Such was the effect of Teilhard to change lives. Michael was the author of The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin: an Introduction and had given a series of Teilhard lectures at Trinity Institute, an Episcopal graduate teaching center in the city, and also at the Church of the Holy Trinity. He and his French wife, Eliane, lived across the street from the Association’s headquarters and were unstinting in the help they proffered.
That November a young Franciscan priest and research scholar, The Rev. Romano Almagno, O.F.M., offered his services as Librarian, a post for which, as a student of Teilhard and also a professional librarian, he was eminently qualified. His offer was gratefully accepted, and he was formally appointed Librarian at the next Board meeting. The library already contained 150 books, and plans were made to build the collection. It was agreed that it should include not only the published works of Teilhard in the French, English, and American editions but also books by writers who had influenced him Bergson, Blonde & Breuil, Valensin and copies of Teilhard’s as yet unpublished essays. By April of I968 Fr. Almagno had completed A Basic Teilhard Bibliography for the Association, listing 80 items, and this was to be enlarged and updated in 1970, 1972 and 1974. A definitive Teilhard Bibliography of books and articles in English, French. German, Spanish, and Italian is kept up to date and only awaits funds for publication.
December brought a warm letter from The Rev. Anthony Dyson, editor of The Teilhard Review, published by the British Association. He offered to serve the American Association through the Review as much as possible and welcomed any liaison whereby articles and books from the States might be included. Two volumes of The Teilhard Review had already appeared, and plans were being made to transform it from a “house magazine” into more of a straightforward journal. Tentative plans for distribution of The Teilhard Review to all American members were set forth, and these were later carried out.
December also saw the first of a series of lectures given under the aegis of the new Association. A roster of brilliant scholars presented talks at the Universities of Fairleigh Dickinson, Fordham, Rockefeller, and Seton Hall, and at Marymount-Manhattan College. But, though the lectures were well attended, stipends and travel expenses exceeded income, eating into the Association’s meager funds. This was a problem to be faced many times in the future.
Meanwhile, efforts were being made to build up a membership. The Association made an effort to operate simultaneously on two levels academic and popular. It sought not only to encourage communication between scholars, to answer questions of publishers, writers, and students but also to promote a wider understanding of the complex and subtle body of Teilhard’s thought among those outside the academic communities who came to his work unaided.
Such was the young man who wrote the following letter:
I am a 21-year-old medic, serving in the Armed Forces in Viet Nam. Just recently, in our hospital, I stumbled upon the book Building the Earth, by Fr. Teilhard de Chardin. I found it most astounding and such a spiritual uplifting venture that I felt the need to go out and announce to the whole world of the writing of this brilliant and humble Jesuit priest…
I wonder if you might aid me in becoming more aware of his writings. I found many of his works most taxing to follow, but at the same time provoking my enthusiasm. Therefore, I would sincerely appreciate any materials or any references to someone in Cleveland, Ohio area who might further introduce his works to me.
There was now a widespread awareness that Teilhard was a thinker who somehow was altering the general way of looking at things and bringing about a change in our vision of ourselves and the world. But there was confusion and uncertainty as to just what Teilhard was saying and how he was challenging the old ideas and what this meant to one’s beliefs and general assumptions. Articles such as John Kobler’s “The Priest Who Haunts the Catholic World,” in the October 12, 1963 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, stimulated general interest and a desire to establish groups where these new ideas might be discussed.
There was little help to be found among the authorities, for they were still engaged in heated controversy. The Phenomenon of Man was hailed by some distinguished scientists and critics as the most important book of the century, while it was dismissed by others as simply mysticism or poetry. Julian Huxley’s famous introduction to the book had forced the scientific-humanist community to notice it, but on the other hand it had been the victim of a widely publicized excoriating attack by the Nobel Prize winning biologist Sir Peter Medawar who saw no evidence of design in the evolutionary process.
From some quarters within the Church it was attacked as outright heresy. From others it was praised as a masterful vindication of the reality of spirit in the universe. In 1956 the Vatican pavilion at the Brussels World Exhibition displayed Teilhard’s portrait as one of the great men of our time, but in June of 1962 the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a Monitum concerning the “ambiguous and even grave errors in philosophical and theological matters which offend Catholic doctrine.” For this reason it exhorted “all Ordinaries and the Superiors of religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities to defend the souls above all of young people, from dangers inherent in the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and his followers.” This was a new kind of censorship that did not forbid the reading of Teilhard’s books but urged that they be read critically, keeping in mind that it was improper to adapt terms and concepts of evolutionary theory to theology and philosophy. What did all this mean?
The problem was how to reach the many potential members throughout the country without money to launch a large mailing campaign. Help came from the British Association. First, they passed on a valuable suggestion: they had arrangements with the British publisher of Teilhard’s books to insert into every volume a postcard to be mailed to the Association by readers who wished information about its activities; in this way they had built up an extensive membership. Moreover, they turned over to the American Association all the postcards they had received from the United States. Minna made arrangements with Harper & Row (later with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) for postcards to be inserted in all American Teilhard books beginning in 1969 with the publication of Science and Christ. A brochure setting forth our purpose and the benefits of membership was made up, and this was sent to all who responded and to all who wrote from other sources. Thus a nation-wide membership was built up.
To help keep the members in touch with ideas and events, Minna launched a Newsletter in March of 1968. She was to bring it out three times a year for the next five years. It was filled with information about people and events and also some excellent reviews, many by Minna herself, of Teilhard books as they were published in France, England, or the United States. This labor of love was typed by Minna, taken to the least expensive copy service in New York, and then collated, stapled, and mailed from the office.
The first Annual Meeting of the Association took place on April 27, 1968. It was Minna’s happy thought that this should be not only a business meeting of the voting members but also a gala luncheon. Members and their friends might come to meet Officers and Directors and others interested in Teilhard over sherry and luncheon and to hear an address afterwards. The Harvard Club was the locale, and Michael Murray was asked to give the address, entitled “Teilhard and the Nature of the Soul,” that he had delivered at the Vézelay Conference the preceding fall. A custom was established that there should be no head table but that the officers and directors be seated at the various tables throughout the dining room so that they might be accessible for questions and discussion. Sixty people attended, including Teilhard’s old friends from his China years, Dr. and Mrs. George Barbour. They flew in from Cincinnati bringing the Malvina Hoffman bust of Teilhard in a burlap bag and some film of the Yangtse Valley where Teilhard had worked. The officers and committee members of 1967 were all reelected and it might be of interest to record here the members of the Advisory Board:
Ruth Nanda Anshen Philosopher and Editor, New York.
Sr. Margaret Mary Bach Chairman, Philosophy Dept., Marymount College.
George B. Barbour Dean, Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati.
Simone Beaulieu Canadian Mission to the United Nations.
Thomas Berry Assoc. Prof. Asian Religions, Fordham University.
William Birmingham General Editor, Mentor-Omega Books, New York.
Donald Bloom Phenomenon of Man Project, Canoga Park, California.
J. V. Langmead Casserley Theologian, Seabury-Western Seminary, Evanston, Illinois.
The Rev. Pieter de Jong Professor of Theology, Drew University
J. Donceel, S.J. Professor of Philosophy. Fordham University.
Charles A. Goetz Phenomenon of Man Project, Canoga Park California.
Sr. Genevieve Gorman, F.C.S.P. Director, Gately-Ryan Institute, Portland, Oregon.
Jean Houston Director, Foundation for Mind Research, New York.
Robert O. Johann, S.J. Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University.
Horton A. Johnson, M.D. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York.
W. H. Kenney, S.J. Professor of Philosophy, Bellarmine School of Theology, North Aurora, Illinois.
Mildred Mann Leader, Society of Pragmatic Mysticism, New York.
Kirtley F. Mather Professor of Geology, Emeritus, Harvard University.
Thomas Patrick Melady Administrator and author, New York.
Gertrud A. Mellon International Council, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Richard D. Moore Professor of Biophysics, State University College, Plattsburgh, New York.
Hallam L. Movius, Jr. Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University.
F. S. C. Northrop Sterling Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Law, Yale University.
Harry N. Olsen Phenomenon of Man Project, Canoga Park, California.
William G. Pollard Executive Director, Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
Robert D. Pollock Director of Humanistic Studies, Seton Hall University.
Joseph Sittler Professor of Theology, University of Chicago.
Alfred P. Stiernotte Professor of Philosophy, Quinnipiac College.
Frank R. Stong Phenomenon of Man Project Canoga Park, California.
Claire Taschdjian Professor of Biology, St. Joseph’s College, New York City.
Edgar Taschdjian Professor of Physics, St. Joseph’s College, New York City.
Alice Tully New York City.
Charles G. Wilber Chairman of Dept. of Zoology, Colorado State University.
Samuel G. Wylie Dean, General Theological Seminary, New York City.
Newly elected in 1968:
Romano S. Almagno, O.F.M. Professor, Immaculate Conception Seminary, Troy, New York; Librarian of the Teilhard Association.
Donald Hatch Andrews Baker Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, The Johns Hopkins University. Sr. Bohdonna. O.S.B.M. Chairman, Mathematics-Science Division, Manor Junior College, Jenkintown, Pa.
Richard A. Givens Asst. U. S. Attorney, Southern District of New York.
Later that summer Winifred McCulloch, returning to New York after several years’ absence, and having some time free from writing and editing, volunteered her Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to the Association. Besides sharing the addressing of envelopes (seemingly endless), answering letters and welcoming visitors, she undertook the cataloguing of Teilhard’s essays by title and subject matter and, later, the organizing of the evening discussion groups.
In September the Association, jointly with The Center for Christian Ministry, Christ Church, Winnetka, Illinois, and the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary of Evanston, Illinois, sponsored a five-day conference on Teilhard de Chardin and the Future of Man which was held at Seabury-Western Seminary. Organized by Dr. J. V. Langmead Casserley, Professor of Theology, it was an ecumenical conference for clergy and lay people, having on its roster of speakers Dr. Casserley, Robert Francoeur, many distinguished speakers from the mid-west, and also Robert Speaight, biographer of Teilhard, who came from England. Roger Garaudy, the French Communist who was immersed in Christian-Communist dialogue, had also been invited but he was not able to attend because of visa trouble.
In December the Association presented a small but most enjoyable all-day Workshop at Marymount-Manhattan College and, though it was a cold, wet Saturday, and a Hong Kong flu epidemic was beginning to rage, the audience was large and enthusiastic.
Thus, by the end of 1968 the pattern of operation of the new Association (except for the evening seminars and discussion groups that were to begin the following year) was for the most part established.
Perhaps we should point up here what is implicit in the description of the first two years of The American Teilhard de Chardin Association, Inc. Many brilliant academic and theological minds were contributing to the spread of Teilhard’s vision, but it was Minna Cassard’s energy, warmth, humor, and sense of style that gave shape to the Association and unified it.
She gave a lot of time to endless details. Great care went into choosing stationery of good design, providing stemmed glasses rather than plastic ones for the sherry to be offered to visitors, arranging to have the new brochure designed by the Graphics Department of the Museum of Modern Art, furnishing the office with a handsome Parsons table in black marble formica made by a member’s husband, and handsome black and chrome stacking chairs purchased at a discount, answering all letters promptly, and planning every detail of the Annual Meetings. Needless to say, it was all accomplished on the proverbial shoestring. Underneath the efficiency there was a great religious dedication and if, at times, Minna could seem bored or disappointed with the talks and discussions, and a rather severe critic of any book that did not come up to the standard of Teilhard’s own work, it was because she herself had delved deeply into the Christological meaning of his insights and had little or no interest in the wide-ranging probings of the modern intellect. If some scholars felt slighted, it was also true that without Minna the center would not have held. Actually, both strands were necessary to make an effective Association.
All too soon the still-young association had to suffer departures of some of its most active directors. Dr. Dansereau in July of 1968 was appointed Professor of Ecology in the faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Montreal, and he resigned as President. At the Second Annual Meeting, held at Essex House in New York on April 26, 1969, Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, the world famous geneticist of Rockefeller University, replaced him. The annual speaker that year was Fr. George Maloney, S.J., whose topic was “The Cosmic Christ from St. Paul to Teilhard.” Later that year Michael Murray moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to work with Ivan Illich and to become rector of the Episcopal Church there. Beatrice-Bruteau went to North Carolina to continue her writing (she had a contract to do her book on Teilhard and the Hindu Traditions) and to set up her Philosophers’ Exchange. The Rev. Pieter de Jong replaced her as Second Vice-President. Another departure was that of Advisory Board member, Dr. Melady,who went to Africa as American Ambassador to Burundi.
If there were departures there were also arrivals. Bernard Towers, M.D., Chairman of the Executive Committee of the British Association, and one of the editors of The Teilhard Study Library, returning to England after a period of research work at the University of California, stopped off in New York to give a public lecture in March of 1969. This was another link with the Association across the Atlantic (Dr. Dobzhansky had already been elected a Vice-President of their Association) and with Bernard Towers personally, for he was to come onto our Advisory Board a few years later when he moved permanently to California. His talk made evident to all how he had successfully defended Teilhard against Sir Peter Medawar’s attack in the famous B.B.C. debate which had taken place a few years earlier.
Two new members came to the Board that year: Gertrud Mellon (a Trustee of the Museum of Primitive Art and member of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art) who had become interested in Teilhard while studying with Ewert Cousins at Fordham (indeed, she returned to the Catholic Church as a result of reading Teilhard), and Lauren Surget (of the Technical Staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories). Bob Francoeur was Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Anna Francoeur was Treasurer. Some new names appeared on the Advisory Board of persons who would later become officers and Board Members: Alice Knight and R. Wayne Kraft, whose book The Relevance of Teilhard had been published in 1968.
In November the Association presented a two-day conference on Process Thought: From Cosmogenesis to Christogenesis at Drew University Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, with Pieter de Jong, Clarence Decker, Robert Francoeur, and Ewert Cousins among the speakers.
That fall was to see, also, the first of the series of evening discussions and seminars that the Association would henceforth offer at its headquarters. Though it is not possible to record here all the evening programs that were given throughout the years, some of them will be listed so as to indicate the range of subjects and the approach to Teilhard. This first program consisted of the following: “Exploring Teilhard,” led by Sr. Anne Martin, “Applying Teilhard’s Insights to Contemporary Challenges,” led by Larry Surget, and “Church, Eucharist, Grace, Sin in the Thought of Teilhard,” led by Fr. Almagno. The Association at that time owned only fifteen fragile, old folding chairs, and we were pleased that they were all taken and that none collapsed.
A project dear to Minna’s heart was teaching Teilhard’s ideas to young people. Alice Knight, who had been giving a course on Teilhard to a group of ninth-grade students in the Sunday School of Christ Church, Greenwich, Connecticut, and also an adult class in the parish, convened a group of interested members. Dora Chaplin, Professor of Christian Education at The General Theological Seminary in New York, Sister Élise, C.H.S., of St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School in New York; Bradford Hastings, Rector of Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut; Sister Anne Martin, who was now studying for a doctorate at Union Theological but had formerly taught Teilhard to children in a depressed area of Detroit; Sister Mary Thérèse McVicar,Instructor in Education at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York. These and others compiled a set of Teaching Outlines which the Association offered for sale for one dollar. Sales were good, and it was felt that another and important facet had been added to the Association’s program.
The great problem of the Annual Meetings was to find a place that would not be so ruinously expensive that we would have to charge too much for the luncheon tickets and thus defeat our purpose. Minna found a solution that served for a number of years, the Parish House of the Church of the Holy Trinity on East 88th Street in New York. It had a spacious library, a suite of bare but sunny Sunday school rooms, and a large auditorium. It also had an excellent cook and adequate kitchen facilities. A Hospitality Committee arranged the 1970 luncheon, setting up the tables the day before, arranging for buying of the food, filling the wine glasses, arranging flowers. It was a lot of work but worth all the effort. Ninety people came from as far afield as Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, and Schenectady; old friends were greeted and new ones made. Renée-Marie Parry, Honorary Secretary of the British Association, was guest of honor. Dr. Dobzhansky consented to serve another term as President, Ewert Cousins joined Pieter de Jong as Vice-President, and the Secretary and Treasurer were reelected. Romano Almagno and Alice Knight became Directors, and Donald Gray, a future officer, was among those elected to the Advisory Board. About 150 persons were in the afternoon audience to hear the talks given by Mrs. Parry on “Teilhard and the Contemporary World Scene” and by Dr. Dobzhansky on “Evolution and Man’s Conception of Himself.”
That fall Donald Gray gave a seminar on The Phenomenon of Man (a wonderfully clear exposition of that difficult book) and Larry Surget brought his technical knowledge of remote sensing devices to his popular discussions of “Building Mankind” and “Human Energy.” In Connecticut Professor Alfred Stiernotte conducted a scholarly workshop at Quinmpiac College on “The Thought and Mysticism of Teilhard de Chardin,” an inquiry into Process Philosophy, Teilhard’s Christology, and the Mysticism of Process.
About this time Minna made a study of the geographical distribution of the members and reported as follows: *Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, *Iowa, *Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, *Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, *Nevada, *New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, *North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, *Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, *Vermont, Virginia, *Washington, *West Virginia, Wisconsin, Canada, *Burundi, France, *Italy, *Korea, *Mexico, *Peru, and *Yugoslavia. Ages spanned from that of a 17-year-old student to a New York lady of 92. (The asterisks signify only one member.)
In October 1970 Minna wrote of a problem that has always been at the core of the Association’s existence:
I am gravely concerned about the Teilhard Association. Money is tight all over the country as you know and our membership renewals are not coming in too well. We are getting a few new members but just about enough to make up for losses, if that… . We need money for rent, postage, printing, everything… . The wear and tear on me is really too much. It has gone on for four years now and is very debilitating.
Later that year Jean Houston and Alexander Wolsky came onto the Board. But there were still more departures: Fr. Romano Almagno was transferred to a Franciscan study center in Italy, for six years, as librarian at the Collegio International S. Bonaventura. Happily for the Association he not only continued to compile his scholarly bibliography on Teilhard (as yet unpublished for lack of funds) but he returned each summer to teach a course on bibliography at the University of Pittsburgh and stopped off in New York long enough to give a series of weekly lectures during the month of June. Some friends and admirers were always on hand to listen.
Late in the fall Larry Surget and his new wife set off on a pilgrimage to India. And then, early in 1971, Dr. Dobzhansky himself retired from Rockefeller University and moved out to the University of California at Davis.
But, if the Association seemed to be at a low ebb it was not for long, for 1971 was to see a resurgence of energy and interest, culminating in the very successful conference held in New York City on “Hope and the Future of Man.”
At the 1971 Annual Meeting Ewert Cousins was elected to succeed Dr. Dobzhansky, who became the first Honorary Vice-President. That year’s meeting was held in one of the buildings of the St. Ignatius Loyola Community where Fr. Teilhard had lived during the latter part of his life. Jean Houston gave the address, “More Being and Being More – Teilhard and the Future of Consciousness,” and in the evening there was an open-ended discussion led by Ewert Cousins, Robert Francoeur, and Jean Houston on “The Transformation of Man, Towards the Year 2000.” Alice Knight and R. Wayne Kraft came to the Board. Anna Francoeur resigned as Treasurer, and that office devolved again to Minna. Bernard Towers, who was now permanently in California, became a member of the Advisory Board. For some years after their publication in French, volumes 6 and 7 of the Oeuvreshad not been available in this country because Harper & Row had allowed the publication of the Teilhard books to lapse. Now Harcourt Brace Jovanovich took over the publication rights of the remaining books with the intention of bringing them out simultaneously with their appearance in England. Helen Wolff who was responsible for this move was a director of the Helen and Kurt Wolff division of the company and also a member of our Advisory Board. Volumes 6 and 7, Human Energy and Activation of Human Energy appeared in February of 1971. What Robert Francoeur described as “the best conference I ever attended” – Teilhard de Chardin:in Quest of the Perfection of Man – took place in the splendid Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in May under the co-chairmanship of Mayor Joseph Alioto and Seymour Farber, Dean of Continuing Education in Health Sciences, University of California in San Francisco. Mayor Alioto had been impressed by the influence that the Franciscan Fr. N. Max Wildiers, the great Dutch Teilhardian scholar, had had on his son and other students while he was lecturing at the University in San Francisco. Here was a voice speaking out to a generation in revolt against the Viet Nam War, “copping-out” of society, escaping to Haight-Ashbury. He offered them Teilhard’s challenge of the “grand option”: to face their problems and to “build the earth.” Fr. Wildiers inspired the American students much as Teilhard had inspired the worker priests and the students of Paris in earlier decades. Fr. Wildiers, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Robert Francoeur, Christopher Mooney, S.J. and Bernard Towers were among the international roster of speakers that included, among many others, Dr. L. S. B. Leakey,and Connor Cruise O’Brien. The papers of that conference were published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press in 1973 (288 pages, $13.50),and the title of the book was that of the conference itself. Back in New York, it was fitting that a theologian should be in the President’s chair because for over a year plans had been in process for the Association to sponsor a conference on “Hope and the Future of Man.” It was a theme appropriate to a Teilhardian Conference, for he had believed that hope was “the essential impetus without which nothing will be done” and also that there was nothing more important than creation of the future. The conference was conceived as a convergence of innovative thinkers who were having a far-reaching influence on contemporary theology, centering around three important Hope Theologians from Germany: Johannes Metz, Jürgen Moltman, and Wolfhart Pannenburg. The idea for the conference had been Gertrud Mellon’s, and for a number of years, during summer visits to her native Freiburg and through Goethe House in New York City, she had sought financial help from the German government to make it possible. Philip Hefner of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, on sabbatical in Hamburg, had been in touch with the German theologians. Now plans had matured and travel expenses for the three scholars were to be underwritten by the German government. The dates of the Conference were set for October 8 to 10.Institutions that were to co-sponsor the Conference with the American Teilhard de Chardin Association were the Cardinal Bea Institute of Woodstock College, Union Theological Seminary, Trinity Institute where the scholars were to stay as guests, and Goethe House in New York City. Cooperation was also promised from Riverside Church where the public sessions of the Conference would be held. The Conference was to be financed through the operational budgets of the sponsoring institutions and the sum of $3,250.00 was made available to cover the stipends for the major speakers and travel expenses for the American speakers. Among the American scholars were Carl Braaten (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), who represented the eschatological approach; John B. Cobb, Jr. (School of Theology of Claremont, California); Lewis Ogden, (The Divinity School, The University of Chicago); and Daniel Day Williams (Union Theological Seminary), all of whom represented Process Theology; Donald Gray (Manhattan College); Philip Hefner (The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago); Christopher Mooney, S.J. (President of Woodstock College, New York City); and Joseph Sittler (The Divinity School, The University of Chicago), representing the Teilhard theologians. A number of other scholars were invited to take part in the working sessions of the conference. There were to be five public lectures and, in addition, private discussions between the specialists, some of which were to be open to students. Until a week before the Conference it had been planned to hold the public sessions in the Assembly Hall of Riverside Church which seats 400. Increasingly the Association had been inundated with letters and postcards from many parts of the United States and Canada – a party of four was flying in from California, or a group of eight were driving from Illinois – asking for suggestions of places to stay. Now aware of the unexpectedly large response to the Conference, the Association took the precaution of asking the church to transfer the public sessions to the huge nave which seats 1500. It was a wise move for though there was no formal registration it was estimated that over 2500 people attended. This large audience was a point singled out by an article in the New York Timeson October 9th. The three German theologians were themselves impressed. “Who are all those people?” queried Johannes Metz at the first session as he adjusted his glasses to peer at the vast sea of faces. “How is it possible to assemble so many people for a Conference on Theology? And at 9:30in the morning!” No précis can do justice to the Conference, but briefly (borrowing from a report by Ewert Cousins) it began with a public session at which three presentations were made on the meaning of the future, from a process, a Teilhardian, and an eschatological perspective. John Cobb, Jr. maintained that process theology provides a mediating position in the tension of present and future. Process does not guarantee progress. Although God’s activity in the world makes for progress as well as change, “there is no guarantee of progress in the short run, and in the long run it is inevitable that life on this planet will become extinct.” For Whitehead “the penultimate value and meaning of history becomes ultimate in God.” Dr. Cobb gave his own speculations on a post-personal future in which there would be “a rich interpenetration of each into the other to the intensification and harmonization of the experiences of all. This will constitute a new kind of community, transcending both collectivities and voluntary associations of autonomous persons.” Process theology gives Cobb hope that man can find his way through the now-threatening catastrophes, but it gives him no assurance that man will do so. Speaking from Teilhard’s perspective, Philip Hefner developed six statements about the future: it is one of convergence and unification; of progressive personalization; it is open, not closed; it implies the worth and reliability of creation; it activates human energy; finally, love is the action which fulfills the world’s destiny. He concluded that “the activation of man’s energy is the crucial question of the future, because if that energy is not activated in the proper direction, we will be only moments away from the abyss.” The eschatological approach was presented by Carl Braaten. He said, “The symbolism of the future comes to us in two forms of consciousness: the utopian and the eschatological. The utopian future is projected as another time inhistory; the eschatological future deals with the final fulfillment end of history.” He described the power of the eschatological future to provide hope thus: “The future gives rise to hope that a great reversal in the present can come about.” It can have an impact in the present, reversing trends and starting new ones. “The Christian view involves an axiomatic reversal in which the new reality is the starting point.” “Ultimately, what we mean by the future is what we mean by God. For God is our Future, the fulfilling power of the future in all things.” The three theologians from Germany gave responses to the opening presentations by the Americans, and on each evening a public lecture was delivered by one of them, followed by responses given by representatives of the Teilhardian and Process points of view. On the first evening Wolfhart Pannenberg of the University of Munich spoke on “Future and Unity,” and in a remarkably wide-ranging paper explored the relation of God to the future, the interaction of the divine and the human, the problems of the individual and society, the significance of resurrection and the role of religion in society, and the meaning of the eschatological future as the future of God’s kingdom in his eternal life and power. Throughout, Pannenberg discussed issues in the light of the thought of Teilhard and Whitehead. Donald Gray responded from a Teilhardian view, and Daniel Day Williams from a process perspective. On the second evening Jürgen Moltmann of the University of Tübingen spoke on “Hope and the Biomedical Future of Man”. “For the first time,” he said, “human life in fact has become a moral task,” and he called for a new assessment of illness, aging and dying. He concluded that because biomedical progress elicits hopes, yet does not guarantee happiness, it must be guided by a humane ethics. Christopher Mooney responded from a Teilhardian perspective and Schubert Ogden of the University of Chicago from the Process approach. The final evening lecture was given by Johannes Metz of the State University of Münster,and was entitled “The Future ex Memoria Passionais,” in which he contended that the future of our technological civilization is primarily a political and social problem and proposed the memory of suffering as a source for political and social action. The Christian memory of the crucifixion prevents us from ever becoming reconciled to the so-called “facts” and “tendencies” of our society. This memory should become “the ferment for that new political life we are now seeking on behalf of our human future.” Joseph Sittler of the University of Chicago and Lewis Ford of the Pennsylvania State University responded. The complete papers of the conference may be read in the book Hope and the Future of Man, edited by Ewert Cousins and published by the Fortress Press in 1972. A modest royalty check that arrives every year attests to its continuing influence. Ewert Cousins reported that “Evaluation of the conference has been positive both from the audience and the participants. Many claimed that important communication had occurred and that a significant exchange had taken place between European and American theologians. The conference involved a fruitful combination of communication, tension, opposition and technical clarification.” Successful as the conference was, it had been conceived as only the first of a two-stage project. The second stage would bring the same group of theologians together with future planners: technologists, scientists, sociologists and political scientists, sociologists and political scientists. A budget of $25,000.00 was projected. This amount, far larger than that spent on the Hope Conference, was deemed necessary because an auditorium would be a more appropriate setting than a church and would have to be rented at a substantial fee. Also, speakers in the field of future planning were accustomed to larger fees than theologians! This second conference never materialized. In November of that year Minna reported more cheerfully on the Association’s financial position: for the first time there were more than 500 members, brought about no doubt by the interest engendered by the successful Hope Conference.
The 1972 Annual Meeting was held on April 23rd back at the Church of the Holy Trinity (the kitchen facilities were more convenient than those at St. Ignatius). Ewert Cousins was reelected President. Robert McGuire, S.J., a teacher at Regis High School, where he was involved with the school curriculum oriented toward an Omega training program, became a new Board members. The Nobel prize biologist from Australia, Sir John Eccles, who was sympathetic to Teilhard’s views, gave the address on “Brain, Speech and Consciousness.”
In May, Minna with her husband Capt. Paul Cassard, USN, ret., made a week’s trip to England and her first visit to the British Association. In June there was another departure, though only for a sabbatical year, when Ewert Cousins left for the newly founded Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Pieter de Jong became Acting President.
But, the fact that 1972 was a pivotal year in the Association’s development was due to Minna’s illness which manifested itself soon after her return from London. For some time her self-discipline had hidden her ill health, but her courageous struggle with cancer ended with her death on October 27th. Her vivid presence would no longer animate the Association. Ewert Cousins, in the memorial he wrote for the December Newsletter, expressed the deep sense of loss felt by all who had known her and, for the Association, the hope that its future would be energized by her spirit, furthering the goals to which she had so generously devoted her energies.
Gertrud Mellon and Alice Knight plunged into the work of running the Association during the long summer months when Minna was in the hospital, helped enormously by the ever faithful Alice Leighton. They were elected Acting Secretary and Treasurer following Minna’s death. Alice Leighton resigned at that time, but Winifred McCulloch, returning to the city in late December after about a year’s absence, pitched in to help. Soon afterwards Fanny Brett de Bary, a friend of Thomas Berry, became a volunteer despite other heavy commitments, driving in from Rockland County one afternoon a week.
Change was in the air. It was felt that the Association faced a crisis, not caused by Minna’s death but precipitated by it. Goals had to be redefined (should it be an elitist association or open to a large number of people), and sources of funds had to be discovered. To discuss these problems, Alice Knight organized a Conference of Board members and invited guests which was held at Wainwright House, Milton Point, Rye, New York, on December 15-17, 1972. Pieter de Jong, Jean Houston, Gertrud Mellon, Alice Knight, Thomas Berry, Robert McGuire, and Wayne Kraft were present from the Board, and Anne Brennan, Margaret Bach Lynch, Arthur Ceppos from the Advisory Board. Guests were Alfred Sunderwirth, John Ballard, and Phoebe Ballard from the Board of Wainwright House with Robert Knight, Oscar Lynch, Joseph Pearce, Lathrop Douglass, William Brennan, Jr., Judith Hollister, and Betty Reardon.
The stated purpose of the Conference was:
1) To explore new dimensions of expressing the thought of Teilhard through prayer, liturgy, communal attitudes, teaching, music, dance, art and other media;
2) To propose new directions and growth to the American Teilhard de Chardin Association.
The consensus from the first evening’s session was that none of the present board members had enough time to devote to the Association, there was the perennial problem of lack of money, and there was indecision about the goal.
There was agreement that the Association should be Christ centered, and the general feeling was that though Teilhard’s vision illuminates all areas of life – religion. science, philosophy – more attention should be given to individual human growth. Lecture and conference teams, dance, and the arts should be used, films and television programs and more aid to students were needed. Thus, this conference emphasized experiential growth of individuals and the Association’s work was seen primarily as an outreach of Christian ministry.
Wainwright House presented a tentative offer to permit the Association to merge with them. It was agreed that this could take place only after the Association had established its identity and goals and had acquired a source of financial support. Margaret Bach Lynch volunteered to act as permanent coordinator of the Association at a minimum salary. It was also decided that the name of the Association should be changed to give an indication of its goals.
These problems were discussed at the 1973 Annual Meeting, again held at the Church of the Holy Trinity. (Astronaut and para-psychologist Edgar Mitchell was the speaker.) The still-absent Ewert Cousins was reelected President. Margaret Lynch was elected Editor of the Newsletter – she had already brought out an attractive enlarged issue enlivened with photographs and decorative details. A committee was nominated to propose a change of name and it was noted that the British Association had already changed theirs to The Teilhard Association for the Future of Man.
A pressing problem that faced the Association was the need to find a new home. The apartment building at 157 East 72nd Street had changed ownership; switchboard service had been discontinued, and a rent increase would come with renewal of the lease. The consensus was that a move to Wainwright House was not desirable; it was too far out of the city, it would mean a certain loss of identity, and the financial problems had not been solved. One tantalizingly attractive offer loomed as a possibility in New York City. In June of 1971 some parishioners of St. James’ Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue, had purchased the large building adjoining it on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street, both for protection and in order to house the church’s community outreach programs. This was a five-story elevator structure, originally built in 1898 by Rhinelander Waldo, a Police Commissioner, for his bride. It was considered one of the finest examples of French Renaissance style in the city and later was to be designated a city landmark. There were some fine shops on the street level, Christie’s of London (the Fine Arts auctioneers) was on the second, and the rooms on the third and fourth floors were to be completely made over as to accommodate non-profit organizations. As soon as purchase of the building had been made public, the Association made a formal request to become a tenant. The Rector, Dr. James Coburn, was a member of our Association and though our stated purpose did not fall squarely within the church’s community programs we had hopes that his awareness of our work might be persuasive.
A year later, word came that our application had been accepted, and a large, beautifully proportioned room on the fourth floor was chosen. The rent was lower than for the 72nd Street quarters, the large former ballroom was available for our evening lectures, our library-office could easily accommodate discussion groups of up to 20, and a modern kitchen made it possible to hold luncheon or supper meetings of the Board. We felt blessed. The move was accomplished in September of 1973, not without the traumas that usually attend such perigrinations. Additional furniture required to fill the large room was made available from the storehouse of the Church and a little paint brought everything into harmony. A balcony muffled the sounds of Madison Avenue traffic and three long windows looked out to a large vista of open sky. The character of our new center was both serene and warm, and its welcoming attractiveness was felt by all who visited it. The address was 867 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10021. It was even closer than our old center to all the buildings in which Teilhard had lived, worked, and worshipped in those last years of his life.
Winifred McCulloch took over the running of the Center. On the evening of November 5th an Open House was held, and some 150 guests from the Metropolitan area enjoyed a collation, some conversation, and welcoming remarks by Ewert Cousins.
We inaugurated the ballroom that November with a fall and winter seminar given by Thomas Berry on “Contemporary Spirituality,” a course he had given at Fordham and Columbia Universities, reflecting on the spiritual situation of contemporary society and the manner in which the interior journey of man to his authentic self can be successfully carried out. The audience of some 60-70 persons could never have been accommodated in our old quarters.
The problems raised at the Wainwright House Conference had still not been answered, but one step had been taken – the American Teilhard Association would remain in New York City and there try to solve the questions still confronting us. What were our new goals to be? Should we change our name? How were we to finance our work?
The 1974 Annual Meeting was again held at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Ewert Cousins was reelected President, Pieter de John and Jean Houston became Vice-Presidents, Theodosius Dobzhansky was the Honorary Vice-President, Winifred McCulloch was elected Secretary, and Pemala Alderson became Treasurer. The Board of Directors had now grown to include Thomas Berry, Anne Martin Brennan, Beatrice Bruteau, Elizabeth Fish, Robert Francoeur, Richard Givens, Donald Gray, Alice Knight, R. Wayne Kraft, Margaret Bach Lynch, Robert McGuire, S.J., Gertrud Mellon, and Roger Wescott. Elizabeth Fish, a member from the first 1968 meeting, was our liaison with St. James’ Church. Roger Wescott, Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Drew University, was also a linguist, futurologist, and poet.
The Secretary reported that there were 482 members. She reported also that there were now 550 books in the library and that most of the French books and paperbacks had been handsomely bound by one of our members, Liliane Zemla. (She and her husband, Joseph, were familiar figures at the evening seminars where they were in charge of the admissions desk.) The library was enriched by another member whom we never saw at the Center for he was a house-bound invalid. Edward Quinn was an inspired teacher of Teilhard’s thought to a small circle of his friends, and on his death, at his request, his friends, instead of sending him flowers, made a small gift to the Association’s library. We used this special bequest to purchase volumes of the Oeuvres and letters published in France.
The most important matter of business was the report of the Committee on the change of the name. There were two proposals: The Teilhard Center for an Evolving World and The American Teilhard Association for the Future of Man. After much discussion the latter was chosen. It overcame the difficulties of the old name which gave the impression of an Association dedicated merely to the study of the life and thought of an individual and indicated an active goal to be worked for in society. Foundations are not likely to give financial support for the perpetuation of one man’s ideas, and as we intended to seek some funding for our work we hoped that our new name more accurately expressed the purpose of the Association. Later, during the luncheon, a round of applause greeted announcement of our choice.
Thomas Berry was the afternoon speaker that year: his subject, “The Dynamics of the Future.”
Mr. Edward Mcguire, Jr., the lawyer who had helped so generously in the incorporation of the Association back in 1967, was approached once more. When the Secretary asked him to give an estimate of his fee he replied laconically, “You can’t afford me” and then proceeded to generously donate his services as a tribute to Minna. We here record our deep appreciation of the time he devoted to our cause that long, hot summer. Upon a vote of 51 members of the two Boards, with 4 against the motion, our new name became effective in September of 1974.
Alice Knight’s book, Teilhard de Chardin: a Primer, had been published late in the spring, eliciting most favorable reviews, and that autumn she led a well-attended discussion group in which she introduced Teilhard’s enormous vision from the “big bang” to Omega, all enlivened by her artist’s gift for improvising illustrations. Thomas Berry, with his concern for the spiritual traditions of mankind, offered the first of his seminars on “Spirituality of the American Indian,” and Fr. McGuire continued his Friday evening sessions using Teilhardian themes in a charismatic program to help individuals in search of spiritual growth.
Some thought was now given to the fact that 1975 would be the Twentieth Anniversary of Teilhard’s death. Fr. Almagno had made over to the Association all rights to his definitive bibliography – it already contained some 3,000 items and was about 250 pages in length – and we hoped to publish it. It would find its place in university libraries throughout the English speaking world and also those in French, German, Spanish and Italian speaking countries. The Secretary’s visit to a Trust Officer at the Chase Bank headquarters (surprisingly he had attended Fordham and already knew about Teilhard and did attend one of our Executive Committee meetings) was fruitless because their funds had to be committed to more socially active programs. And her visit to The National Foundation for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. elicited the information that money was not available for publication but only for research (which had already been done). Likewise, attempts by Gertrud Mellon and Ewert Cousin to interest the Rockefeller Committee for Critical Choices were equally unsuccessful.
Whatever we were to accomplish would have to be done with the same inadequate funding on which we had existed for the past eight years.
The year 1975 was the Twentieth Anniversary of Teilhard’s death, and it was one in which we took stock of the growth of the Association and also of the changes in direction that would have to be made.
It was agreed that the first wave of enthusiasm of the early 1960s had run its course, but that Teilhard’s dynamic influence was still germinating within the minds of both religious and non-religious persons and that it had a role to play not only in shaping the basis of individual beliefs but also in the general intellectual and religious reappraisal of the total world view.
At a Board Meeting held on November 9, 1974 it was concluded that the Association had “a most important mission at this stage in human history and we must be willing to extend ourselves as far as we are able to do so. Our new direction, evidenced in our change of name, can be communicated more creatively in the Newsletter, programs, participation in conferences. We should engage contemporary thinkers in many disciplines, as Teilhard did, on their own terms. Although Teilhard’s thinking is Christian, it is best expressed not in simple Christological terms. The Phenomenon of Man provides a unique dynamism that can integrate the past and the future with the human process. Teilhard is at one and the same time a classicist in his thinking and more venturesome than most of the future thinkers. We should be able to offer a unifying and stabilizing core to the imaginative projections of the futurologists as well as to other thinkers and ordinary people and their beliefs.”
We decided that we should, for that year, address the overall subject of “Activation of Human Energy,” having in mind in that year of the energy crisis that Teilhard considered the greatest source of energy to be human energy.
As to specific projects for the Anniversary Year: Fr. McGuire spoke with the editor of the Jesuit magazine America, and the full issue of April 12, 1975 was one of commemoration of Teilhard. Theological Studies commissioned a leading article by Donald Gray on “The Phenomenon of Teilhard,” and this appeared in the March issue. The March-April issue of The Critic had an article by John Deedy on “The Last Days of Teilhard de Chardin” covering the years spent in New York from 1951-1955.
Our Annual Meeting was held on April 19, 1975 at the Parish House of historic old Trinity Church down on Wall Street (the Church of the Holy Trinity could no longer accommodate us due to changes in their own programs.) Ewert Cousins resigned as President so that he might give all his time to coordinating the big Summit Conference of the Temple of Understanding that was to be held at the United Nations in October. Thomas Berry was elected to succeed him. Our new President, a member of the Passionist Order, is a cultural historian who has established his own institute, The Riverdale Center of Religious Research in Riverdale, New York. Donald Gray and Jean Houston were elected Vice-Presidents, Theodosius Dobzhansky remained as Honorary Vice-President, and the Secretary and Treasurer were reelected.
Because Margaret Lynch was tied down to a young family – two children under four years of age – editing of the Newsletter now fell to Winifred McCulloch.Two new members of the Board of Directors were Fanny Brett de Bary, who brought knowledge and a keen judgment of how the organization functioned, and the Rev. Franklin Vilas, Jr., Priest-in-Charge at Trinity Church and member of the Board of Directors of the C. G. Jung Foundation. The Rt. Rev. G. P. Belshaw, Suffragan Bishop (Episcopal) of New Jersey, was invited to become a member of the Advisory Board.
The Teilhard Review had had to increase its subscription rates, and since we could not absorb the extra cost we voted to have two categories of membership: one with and one without The Teilhard Review. This further increased the record keeping in the office, but we could see no alternative.
For this Annual Meeting, having in mind the overall subject to be addressed, “Activation of Human Energy,” we asked three speakers to talk on the general topic of “Creating the Future.” Beatrice Bruteau spoke on “The Whole World – a Convergence Perspective”; Gerald Feinberg, Professor of Physics at Columbia University, chose to speak on “The Future of Consciousness”; and Roger Wescott spoke on “Paleontology and Futuristics: Explorations of Time.”
That spring our evening programs continued with Thomas Berry’s “Creating the Future: the New Transcendentalism” and Alice Knight’s study group based on “Prayer of the Universe.” In Fr. McGuire’s absence, Margaret Forgione, a member of the Advisory Board, led a group that explored personal dimensions of spiritual experience.
Our Anniversary Year’s activities were climaxed by a two-day Conference, sponsored jointly by the American Teilhard Association and the C. G. Jung Foundation, entitled “Human Energy and the Formation of the Future.” This was held November 14 and 15 at International House in New York City and was attended by over 500 people.
Both Jung and Teilhard had recognized that mankind is a phenomenon to be investigated in its totality. Both men saw the moving force behind evolution as psychic energy. Both were deeply religious, seeking to lead twentieth century persons to their spiritual roots and to help them towards a highly individuated wholeness that could carry the thrust of evolution toward the future.
The Symposium speakers included: John Perry, M.D. of San Francisco and Edward Whitmont, M.D. of New York City, Jungian analysts, and Jean Houston and Thomas Berry representing the Teilhardian view.
In opening the Conference, Thomas Berry suggested the symbol of the Cosmic Person as a motivating force in all of history, citing its appearance as the Mahapurusha in India, the Sage in China, Anthropos in the Classic West, the Cosmic Christ of St. Paul. He suggested that this image, breaking forth in our century in Teilhard’s experience of the Cosmic Christ, as well as in Jung’s vital expression of the archetype of the Self, was still a vital reality, energizing human beings to build the earth anew.
Dr. Perry described his own personal experience of cosmic consciousness as a young man which led him to the study of psychology and religion. In his theme, “Eros and History,” he called for a deepening of awareness of the creative aspects of human energy as it manifests itself in collective religious symbols.
Dr. Whitmont, in his “Masculine and Feminine in Cultural Evolution,” described the emergence of the masculine archetype out of the earlier matriarchial modes of agricultural life, leading to intellect, ego, the power principle, the urgan and technological modes of being. With the current reconstellation of the feminine archetype, new forms of emotional and ethical experience must arise.
The final speaker, Jean Houston, dealt with “Ecology of Inner Space” – a different style of being human and of building the earth, a new image of human beings and the earth which finds resonance in the works of both Jung and Teilhard.
The Symposium had been planned by Ewert Cousins and Franklin Vilas, Jr. It was a very successful coming together of minds and it marked an important new direction for both organizations. Also, it added $2,000.00 to our exchequer.
These, then, were the ways in which we commemorated the memory of Teilhard on the Twentieth Anniversary year of his death.
In 1976 we found in International House on Riverside Drive a most satisfactory locale for our Annual Meeting and Luncheon. That year we were saddened by the death of Dr. Dobzhansky and subsequently elected to invite Mlle. Mortier to fill the role of Honorary Vice-President. (In her reply, Mile.Mortier wrote, “Father Teilhard did not very much like honours and during the years of our acquaintance he taught me to retire behind the task to be accomplished.” Happily, though, she accepted.) The officers were all reelected and Bishop Belshaw and Dr. Mary Schmitt (biologist) were asked to come on the Board of Directors.
Dr. Margaret Mead, the renowned anthropologist, long a member of our Advisory Board, was our speaker and her topic was, “An Anthropologist Looks at the Converging of the Peoples of the World Today.”
In September, Michael Murray, who had been a speaker at the 1967 Conference of the French Fondation at Vezelay, again attended their Conference, held this year at the Grand Seminairede Char-u-es,taking the greetings of the American Association to Mile.Mortier. Although an Episcopal minister, he was asked to concelebrate the daily Eucharist in the superb cathedral. He reported that more than a dozen distinguished speakers from almost as many countries, including Hungary and Poland, spoke on a wide variety of subjects, showing how the thought of Teilhard touches and inspires every aspect of human endeavor from politics and science to psychology and devotional life.
Back in New York, the expenses of running the Association were proving to be larger than our income – this despite the fact that the Temple of Understanding now gave us a monthly contribution in order to use our office as their New York headquarters. We were going through a cycle of dropping membership while the cost of services – insurance, postage, xeroxing, even rent – continued to rise. Because the Secretary now worked almost alone, with generously-given but only sporadic volunteer help, she had to have the Newsletter professionally printed, using the Martin Printing Company recommended by St. James’ Church.
To add to our growing concern, a letter from the Vestry of St. James’ Church gave notice of a reappraisal of all the tenants in the building we occupied. There was a feeling that our work did not fall within the guidelines laid down by the Committee on the use of the building. Dr. Coburn was no longer Rector, so we did not have strong support within the church, but the three Episcopal ministers on our Boards did write the vestry of St. James’ in support of our work. Several months of uncertainty faced us.
Early in the spring of 1977 the Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas biography, Teilhard, was published by Doubleday, giving evidence of continuing interest in Fr. Pierre.
At the Annual Meeting of 1977, again held at International House, all the officers were reelected except the Treasurer. Pemala Alderson became a member of a Fund Raising Committee headed by Gertrud Mellon. Dolores Knorr, Comptroller of the Museum of Primitive Art, was elected Treasurer.
Two former Board members, who had resigned when they were out of the country, returned and were reinstated: Fr. Almagno from his six years in Italy and Dr. Wolsky from his year in Saudi Arabia.
Robert Muller, Director and Deputy to the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Inter-Agency Affairs and Coordination, was elected to the Advisory Board as was Gregory Abels and George Torok, of Hallel Communications, and James McPartlin, who is active in Teilhard affairs on Long Island.
It had long been a concern of the Secretary that the substance of the discussion groups and seminars held in the New York Center was not available to members who lived outside the city. The possibility of offering cassette tapes was investigated but they proved too expensive. An answer came through Gregory Abels who had joined the Association a few years earlier while studying Teilhard’s thought under Donald Gray’s direction. He was now Vice-President of Hallel Communications, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization of professional communicators who used the media in the service of society, specializing in the areas of public service, human values, social justice, culture, education and spiritual concerns. They undertook to underwrite the production of three tapes, the Association to share in any profit that might accrue after the expenses had been met. The three tapes were:
I. The Religious Experience of Teilhard by Donald Gray. This tape explores Teilhard’s personal spirituality and calls on us to respond to Teilhard’s invitation to “come and see and to expand our horizons.
II. The Spirituality of the Earth by Thomas Berry. This tape is concerned with the need for a new spirituality, a spiritual perception of the earth and the creative process.
III. The Crisis of the Future by Ewert Cousins. This tape emphasizes that in awakening to the crisis of the future we might be inspired by Teilhard’s attention to the mystical dimension of consciousness and by his call for an increase in global awareness that is future oriented. Humanity must take responsibility for evolution; the challenge is one of survival. These were offered to members at a cost of $23.00 for the three tapes, and to the general public at $26.00. Hallel was later to say that they were pleased at the response from this country, Canada, and Great Britain.
That fall saw, at long last, the fruition of a plan that had been long in the making: the publication of the first issue of Teilhard Studies. This was made possible by a gift of $500.00 specially designated for this purpose. The New Story by Thomas Berry attracted very favorable response from many sources. One letter came from a former member in New London, Connecticut, who wrote:
Dear Friends: I enclose a check for $15 with which I wish to reestablish my membership… . The immediate reason for this action, which I felt I could not afford, is the statement offered by Thomas Berry in The New Story. Nowhere have I seen a more clear and helpful record of the Phenomenon of Man. I felt that I could not afford to lose contact with the development of Teilhardian directions…”
The cover is from the work of a well-known Japanese artist, Kazumi Amano. Upon reading The Phenomenon of Man he was fired by Teilhard’s concept of the spiritual evolution of humanity, moved to this country and now devotes his time and talent to the abstract presentation of this vision.
That same autumn found the Association facing the reality of declining membership (now down to about 390),lower attendance at our evening programs and the perennial problem of our inadequate bank balance. Our financial plight was both short term and long term. A plea for help to members of our two Boards brought in about $3000.00 for which we herewith record our grateful thanks. But this was the answer to only the short-range problem. The long-range problem remained. We have from the beginning existed almost solely upon membership income – an uncertain and inadequate source. In fact, it is a completely unrealistic financial base.
Though the vestry of St. James’ Church agreed to continue to allow us to occupy the building for the present, it reserved the privilege of rescinding its agreement if a request came from an organization whose work fell more within their guidelines.
Change seemed to be forcing itself upon us.
After much deliberation the Executive Committee came to some conclusions that it presented to the Annual Board Meeting which was held on April 29th at International House.
But, first, at that meeting the following officers were reelected: Thomas Berry, President; Mlle. Mortier, Honorary Vice-President; Donald Gray, Vice-President; Winifred McCulloch,Secretary; Dolores Knorr, Treasurer. Emily Binns, formerly of the Advisory Board and a Professor of Theology, was elected to the Board of Directors and to the Second Vice-Presidency to head the Committee on Fund Raising. The Board accepted with much regret the resignations, for personal reasons, of Pieter de Jong and Gertrud Mellon. There were two elections to the Advisory Board: Faith James and Mary Lukas.
The Executive Committee’s proposals were unanimously accepted and as a result the following changes were made:
On May 20th the library of 670 books and the archives were moved to Donald Gray’s office at Manhattan College, 4513 Manhattan College Parkway, Bronx, New York 10471.
On the same day the files and records were moved to the Riverdale Center of Religious Research, 5801 Palisade Avenue, Bronx, New York 10471. There Thomas Berry has made available both office space and a conference room for seminars and meetings.
Mrs. Faith James, one of the new Advisory Board members, is taking charge of the membership records from her house in White Plains. The general mailing address of the Association now becomes: Box 67, White Plains, New York 10604.
Winifred McCulloch continues to edit the Newsletter.
It was voted not to offer subscriptions to The Teilhard Review any longer; members may subscribe directly from London. And, it was voted to raise the basic annual membership rate to $20.00.
Ninety-five people came to our Annual Luncheon on April 29th and some sixty others came to the afternoon talks, attesting to the popularity of these annual occasions. The speakers were Robert Muller and Thomas Berry who addressed the general topic “New Experiences of the Sacred.” Robert Muller spoke on “The Sacred as Perceived by the International Community” and Thomas Berry, on “The Sacred as Perceived by the Ecological Community.”
As this account of the American Teilhard Association is brought to a close in October of 1978 it finds the Association in a period of change but also with plans for the future. Thomas Berry, in an editorial written for the October 1978 Newsletter, ’emphasizes the importance of the Association’s publications to keep in touch with our widespread membership and to communicate Teilhard’s thought more effectively to them and to society at large. It is planned that ideas formulated in lectures and discussion groups taking place at the Riverdale Center, and those set forth at the Annual Meetings, will be made available in some written form.
But, the editorial goes on to say, there is another dimension to Teilhard’s vision. It is not only something intellectual to be made available in books and lectures and publications, it is also “a vital movement of human beings caught up in a personal, living process that will shape the human community of the future. Teilhard was not thinking of some limited group of persons who would be affected by his writings but of the human community in its full breadth across the earth and the full dimensions of human historical development. Yet his vision has from the beginning been received, sustained, communicated and activated by both formal and informal associations throughout the world. The number of these associations is constantly increasing just as the number of writings about Teilhard is mounting each year. Associations now exist on the European continent, in England, Canada, South America, Australia, and the United States. The spontaneity whence these associations have arisen witnesses to the efficacy of Teilhard’s vision.
“Our own future is bound up with this larger movement which in turn we might well consider to be bound up with the emerging earth process itself. We can believe that the earth process is groping toward its future in and through our own efforts at clarifying our vision of the future and activating those energies that are needed to bring the future into being in a desirable form.
“The challenge is surely great; but we cannot deny that the sources human and spiritual that are available for substantial human achievement in the future are also great… .
“We today, helped by Teilhard to see the challenge that faces humanity and the earth, must have the energy and the courage to carry on the process. Our own most glorious life task must be in sustaining this expansion in a difficult period, in enabling a damaged earth to recover and renew itself until the inner communion of all its living and non-living systems is achieved.”
The year 1981 will be the Hundredth Anniversary of Teilhard’s birth, and the Association hopes to mark the occasion in a significant way. This is one of our goals for the near future.
Robert Francoeur 1967
Pierre Dansereau 1967-1969
Theodosius Dobzhansky 1969-1971
Ewert Cousins 1971-1975
Thomas Berry 1975-1987
John Grim 1987-2020
Kathleen Duffy, SSJ 2020-present
Pierre Dansereau 1967
Michael Murray 1967-1969
Beatrice Bruteau 1967-1969
Peter de Jong 1969-1977
Ewert Cousins 1970-1971
Jean Houston 1974-1975
Donald Gray 1975-1978
Theodore Dobzhansky (Honorary) 1971-1976
Mlle. Jeanne Mortier (Honorary) 1976-1978
Emily Binns 1977-1978
Mary Evelyn Tucker 1979-2020
Jennifer Morgan 2020-202
Joshua Canzona 2023-present