In the 1977 episode, 'The Brain Machine' of the TV animation, 'Super-Friends', viewers were introduced to Dr. Cranum from Gotham City. He had developed a brain machine that could advance man's mental evolution a million years. Strange beings from the future would possess superior intellect. Believing the future of the world's greatest problems could be solved today, Dr Cranum would beam his brain power which included mental telepathy using an antenna dish across Metropolis. "You have no right to impose your will on others," his laboratory assistant, Dr. Scott chided. "No man has the right to force his will on others no matter how good his intention be," Wonder Woman added.
The central concept of the book, 'The Phenomenon of Man' (1960) by French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, was the evolution of mankind to "Omega" (God). To the English-speaking world, Father Teilhard who died on Easter Sunday 1955, played a leading part in 1929 in China in the discovery of Peking Man (Sinanthropus), one of man's evolutionary ancestors.
Father Teilhard had worked in China and Mongolia on digging expeditions. During the war years, communication from China with the outside world was difficult. After four months in Mongolia on a geological and paleontological expedition in 1923, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote from China to his cousin in France, "I am a pilgrim of the future on my way back from a journey made entirely in the past … But isn't the past, viewed from a certain angle, transformable into future? Isn't a wider awareness of what is and what has been the essential basis of spiritual progress? Isn't my whole life as a paleontologist sustained by the single hope of co-operating in a forward march."
In his review of 'The Phenomenon of Man' in 1968, critic Larry Denton recounted, "Omega is that point in human evolution where mankind becomes one on a mental level and eventually becomes a god. This is Father Teilhard's view of the Alpha and Omega of Revelation in the New Testament. Omega is also his conception of the point in scientific evolution where imperfect homosapiens evolve into a single Earth-covering mental being.
"His philosophy sees the ecumenical movement of the churches as the emergence of a strong, natural, universal sympathy only as a natural and powerful manifestation of human evolution. He sees an increase in sympathetic telepathy and other psychic powers and an increasing collectivization of societies but in freedom and without the coercion of the communists systems.
"He sees a spontaneous sharing and more equitable distribution of the world’s material wealth and heightened efforts of persons of all races to reach equality and integration. Father Teilhard, in this evolutionary movement sees the strengthening of the individual in an organic whole: one with the whole yet remaining as a part of the whole. As an illustration, he sees a single cell animal able to do little more than swim, eat, rest and reproduce by division.
"Through mutation a great variety of simple cells are created but it is only through the evolutionary action of cells merging and folding back upon themselves as organic tissues that the higher forms of life expression come about, including animals and man. Omega is the new development in the evolution of the planet Earth: the merging and folding upon itself of human thought over the whole globe, forming a 'noosphere' (from nous, Greek for mind) or mental skin.
"The ultimate stage of the evolution of this new earth encircling being is a cosmic god independent of the planet. Father Teilhard believed the Omega force had its highest exponent in Jesus of Nazareth. Towards the end of his life, Father Teilhard was writing about the 'Christique' of messianic force, operating within individuals, bringing about a true brotherhood of man. The Roman Catholic Church as the central exponent of the power and teachings of Jesus is, seen as the hub of the Omega evolutionary movement."
In his review of 'The Phenomenon of Man' in 1960 which featured an introduction by Sir Julian Huxley, Arnold Toynbee remarked, "This is a great book ... Teilhard sees, and presents, the universe in evolution, but at the same time as a unity … In Teilhard's vision, matter and consciousness are the outward-facing and inward-facing facets of one and the same reality.
"He believes that the inwardness of reality has been asserting its independence of the outwardness … The belief of Teilhard's that spirit will survive matter, though it may have emerged from it, is illustrated poignantly in Teilhard's personal history. His synoptic vision of the objects of science and religion was a stumbling block for both the scientific and the religious authorities.
"Though they may disagree about almost everything else, they concur – at any rate, at the present moment (in 1960) – in liking to keep the universe divided up in watertight compartments. Teilhard's ecclesiastical superiors forbade him to publish his scientific and philosophical works, and finally forbade him even to go on writing on philosophical subjects, and Teilhard was faithful to his vow of obedience.
"But the ban could not be extended to posthumous publication. So Teilhard knew that he must wait till he was out of the body to communicate his vision to other minds, and he also knew that, at that stage, he would be able to speak. He is speaking now (in 1960), and this excellent English translation of what is his most important single work ('The Phenomenon of Man') – at any rate for non-technical readers – is doubling the range of his voice. A book that is in both French and English is accessible to nearly all the educated public in nearly the whole of the world."
In his review of 'The Phenomenon of Man' in 1968, critic Larry Denton recounted, "Omega is that point in human evolution where mankind becomes one on a mental level and eventually becomes a god. This is Father Teilhard's view of the Alpha and Omega of Revelation in the New Testament. Omega is also his conception of the point in scientific evolution where imperfect homosapiens evolve into a single Earth-covering mental being.
"His philosophy sees the ecumenical movement of the churches as the emergence of a strong, natural, universal sympathy only as a natural and powerful manifestation of human evolution. He sees an increase in sympathetic telepathy and other psychic powers and an increasing collectivization of societies but in freedom and without the coercion of the communists systems.
"He sees a spontaneous sharing and more equitable distribution of the world’s material wealth and heightened efforts of persons of all races to reach equality and integration. Father Teilhard, in this evolutionary movement sees the strengthening of the individual in an organic whole: one with the whole yet remaining as a part of the whole. As an illustration, he sees a single cell animal able to do little more than swim, eat, rest and reproduce by division.
"Through mutation a great variety of simple cells are created but it is only through the evolutionary action of cells merging and folding back upon themselves as organic tissues that the higher forms of life expression come about, including animals and man. Omega is the new development in the evolution of the planet Earth: the merging and folding upon itself of human thought over the whole globe, forming a 'noosphere' (from nous, Greek for mind) or mental skin.
"The ultimate stage of the evolution of this new earth encircling being is a cosmic god independent of the planet. Father Teilhard believed the Omega force had its highest exponent in Jesus of Nazareth. Towards the end of his life, Father Teilhard was writing about the 'Christique' of messianic force, operating within individuals, bringing about a true brotherhood of man. The Roman Catholic Church as the central exponent of the power and teachings of Jesus is, seen as the hub of the Omega evolutionary movement."
In his review of 'The Phenomenon of Man' in 1960 which featured an introduction by Sir Julian Huxley, Arnold Toynbee remarked, "This is a great book ... Teilhard sees, and presents, the universe in evolution, but at the same time as a unity … In Teilhard's vision, matter and consciousness are the outward-facing and inward-facing facets of one and the same reality.
"He believes that the inwardness of reality has been asserting its independence of the outwardness … The belief of Teilhard's that spirit will survive matter, though it may have emerged from it, is illustrated poignantly in Teilhard's personal history. His synoptic vision of the objects of science and religion was a stumbling block for both the scientific and the religious authorities.
"Though they may disagree about almost everything else, they concur – at any rate, at the present moment (in 1960) – in liking to keep the universe divided up in watertight compartments. Teilhard's ecclesiastical superiors forbade him to publish his scientific and philosophical works, and finally forbade him even to go on writing on philosophical subjects, and Teilhard was faithful to his vow of obedience.
"But the ban could not be extended to posthumous publication. So Teilhard knew that he must wait till he was out of the body to communicate his vision to other minds, and he also knew that, at that stage, he would be able to speak. He is speaking now (in 1960), and this excellent English translation of what is his most important single work ('The Phenomenon of Man') – at any rate for non-technical readers – is doubling the range of his voice. A book that is in both French and English is accessible to nearly all the educated public in nearly the whole of the world."
