The Library of Consciousness
The Library
of Consciousness
of Consciousness
The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out—maybe ankle-deep—and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
Hominization, as interpreted by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, refers not just to the biological emergence of the human species but to a profound evolutionary threshold where matter becomes conscious of itself. Teilhard, a French Jesuit priest and paleontologist, saw the rise of humanity as a pivotal stage in the unfolding story of the cosmos. For him, hominization was less about anatomical change than about the birth of reflective thought—the moment when life no longer merely evolved, but began to recognize, question, and shape its own evolution. Humanity, in this view, marks the transition from biological complexity to inner awareness.
Teilhard placed hominization within a broader, almost cosmic framework of evolution, which he envisioned as a process moving toward greater unity and consciousness. In his model, human self-awareness is not a random accident but the first clear step toward what he called the noösphere, a sphere of collective thought enveloping the planet. Hominization thus becomes the bridge between the biological and the spiritual, the material and the transcendent. It is the point where evolution ceases to be merely physical and takes on a new trajectory, aiming toward higher forms of consciousness and, ultimately, convergence in what Teilhard described as the Omega Point—a culmination of unity, purpose, and divine fulfillment.
A Great Event Foreshadowed
The Planetization of Mankind
Teilhard explores the rise of the masses and the socialization of humanity. He predicts a future Earth where human consciousness evolves to its peak, achieving a maximum of complexity and unity through a process of “planetization,” and argues that collective unity is not a threat but a path to personalization and humanization. As we head towards an interconnected world, he challenges us to embrace a sense of evolution and celebrate our shared destiny.
A Major Problem for Anthropology
Teilhard envisions humanity not as evolution’s finale, but as its awakening. As our minds and societies knit into a single global consciousness—the noösphere—evolution becomes self-aware, guiding itself through thought and collaboration. In this new phase, life chooses its own becoming and reaches out toward the ultra-human.
Alchemical Youth on the Edge of the World
Can magic mushrooms save the world? Terence McKenna makes the case that today's global youth culture is reviving ancient shamanic techniques to dissolve ego boundaries and empower imagination. Tracing this impulse back to prehistoric mushroom use, McKenna sees history fast approaching a transcendental tipping point. To end the modern era's disequilibrium, he argues we must reconnect with the mystical power of psychedelic plants. McKenna paints a mind-bending vision of how neo-shamanic youth, guided by plant teachers, can lift humanity into a new golden age of ecological harmony and psychic unity.
Alien Love
Terence explores “alien love” and humanity’s evolving relationship with the Other. He posits that psychedelic experiences, particularly those induced by psilocybin mushrooms, may be a form of extraterrestrial contact, and argues that as we venture into space and deepen our understanding of consciousness, we are collectively yearning for connection with something beyond ourselves. This cosmic eros could reshape our cultural and spiritual landscape, potentially leading to a transformative “marriage” with the alien Other that propels humanity into a new phase of evolution and understanding.
Evolution of the Idea of Evolution
Teilhard reveals that evolution has outgrown its origins as a mere biological theory to become the universe’s own heartbeat—a vast, unfolding process shaping matter, mind, and meaning alike. Once we thought ourselves its observers; now we awaken as its apex and instrument, the conscious spearpoint of creation’s long ascent.
Fossil Man
Reflections on a Recent Book
This essay by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin discusses the evolution of views on the antiquity of man over the last century. It highlights Marcellin Boule's book, Les Hommes Fossiles, which presents the author's research on human origins, particularly Neanderthal man. The essay explores the complexity and antiquity of human evolution and emphasizes the need for reconciling scientific findings with religious beliefs. It suggests that humanity's material origins can be understood as a prolonged effort of the Earth as a whole, and it calls for embracing all rays of light from science and faith to find a unified understanding of human origins.
Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics
Behind closed eyelids, an inward odyssey unfolds to the ancestral logos, beckoning with alien glossolalia. In the self-revealing chaosmos, we are the culture-jammers, launching meme-madness, art-bombs heralding the Archaic Revival. The great mother calls us home through the green, organic internet. Dance the cosmic giggle or perish amidst the ruins of history.
Hominization
Introduction to a Scientific Study of the Phenomenon of Man
In one of his earliest writings on the topic, Teilhard de Chardin explores humanity’s unique place in evolution. He argues that humans represent an entirely new phase of life on Earth—the noosphere, or sphere of conscious thought. While physically similar to other primates, humans are revolutionary in their ability to use tools, form global connections, and reflect on their own existence. This self-awareness comes with both great power and great risk, as humans can choose to either advance or resist evolution’s push toward greater consciousness and unity.
Intentionality of Meaning
McKenna takes us on a mind-bending ride about language, questioning if words unveil reality or cloak it. He suggests peering behind the linguistic curtain with nature and psychedelics, helping reveal life's magical depths where fairies and elves await to make deals that unleash self-transforming possibilities. But he cautions, the storytelling mushrooms can dupe you with their wit. Tread lightly.
Man's Place in the Universe
Reflexions on Complexity
In this unusually personal essay, Teilhard speaks almost across the table, inviting us to rethink our cosmic standing. He shows how humanity, once dwarfed by vast space and tiny particles, regains significance through a third dimension of reality: complexity. As matter organizes itself into ever-deeper centers, consciousness rises—and in us, becomes self-aware. Humanity is not a cosmic accident, he suggests, but the universe awakening to itself and preparing its next leap.
Megatripolis Opening Night
Terence McKenna discusses the discovery of a new legal psychedelic compound from the salvia divinorum plant. He argues that humanity is on the brink of a cultural transformation driven by the accelerating production of novelty in the universe, enabled by psychedelics and technology. He envisions a transcendental future where boundaries dissolve and consciousness evolves.
Metaphysics of Psychedelics
Terence McKenna delves into the enigmatic realm of ayahuasca, unveiling its technological complexity and potential to unlock hidden dimensions of consciousness. His captivating discourse explores the interplay of mind, matter, and the imagination, hinting at the possibility of accessing realms beyond our ordinary perception.
Note on the Biological Structure of Mankind
Humanity isn’t raw clay, but a living, evolving organism shaped by deep cosmic laws. As consciousness and complexity entwine, the human mass tightens, organizes, and spiritualizes itself. Diversity must be honored, unity embraced. Any blueprint for the future that ignores these biological forces is doomed from the start.
Note on the Present Reality and Evolutionary Significance of a Human Orthogenesis
Has evolution stalled at humanity? No, says Teilhard—it has shifted. As biology grows more complex, humans fuse into a collective mind, revealing that evolution is becoming self-directed. In us, life stops merely unfolding and begins consciously arranging the world and itself.
On Looking at a Cyclotron
Reflections on the Folding-Back upon Itself of Human Energy
Visiting Berkeley’s cyclotrons, Teilhard de Chardin sees more than machines—he perceives symbols of humanity’s own acceleration. Our vast networks of research, energy, and invention, converging like particles in a magnetic field, are drawing humankind into a single reflective consciousness—an evolutionary spiral toward the ultra-human, where science and spirit finally unite.
On The Probable Existence Ahead Of Us Of An ‘Ultra-Human’
Teilhard talks about a vast realm of the Ultra-Human which lies ahead of us: a realm in which we shall not be able to survive, or super-live, except by developing and embracing on earth, to the utmost extent, all the powers of common vision and unanimazation that are available to us.
On the Nature of the Phenomenon of Human Society, and its Hidden Relationship with Gravity
We stand at the dawn of a new era for humanity. As Teilhard de Chardin observed, cosmic forces are propelling our social evolution. Though born of gravitational forces, our consciousness now rises with its own creative power to bring forth previously unimagined realms of thought and social organization. Our future lies in our hands.
Reflections on the Scientific Probability and the Religious Consequences of an Ultra-Human
Evolution as a cosmic drama: matter rising through life into reflective humanity, converging toward a planetary mind. Teilhard says this “ultra-human” destiny fuses science and spirit, where God is not above but ahead—emerging as love at the core of creation, and igniting the world into a conscious fire.
Rise of the Robots
By 2050 robot "brains" based on computers that execute 100 trillion instructions per second will start rivaling human intelligence.
Speaking Metaphorically
Terence McKenna explores how psychedelics can alter language and consciousness, unlocking a transformative phenomenon at the heart of human evolution. He envisions a shift towards a visible, gestalt-like language of meaning that will profoundly reshape culture, enabling our species to transcend earthly confines and venture into the cosmos. Proposing psychedelics as a pheromonal regulator for collective consciousness, McKenna suggests this archaic linguistic revolution holds the keys to our future, bridging the gap between nature and technology in ways that could determine the very destiny of humanity.
Super-Humanity, Super-Christ, Super-Charity
Some New Dimensions for the Future
Humanity, Teilhard argues, is awakening in an evolutionary storm—one pulling us toward a larger, more unified “Super-Humanity.” In this widening scale of mind and world, Christ emerges not as a distant memory but as the universe’s glowing center, the Omega drawing all things together. From this cosmic magnetism arises a “Super-Charity”: love powerful enough to drive evolution itself.
Survival
Teilhard de Chardin's book, The Phenomenon of Man, reinterpreted in a visual format to illustrate the complex topics covered therein.
The Activation of Human Energy
Teilhard sees human energy not as brute force but as consciousness folding back on itself, organizing matter into ever greater complexity. Our survival rests less on fuel than on vision and will. This energy converges toward a final peak—an irreversible surge of awareness—suggesting that spirit, not physics, is the true engine of the cosmos.
The End of the World
Teilhard explores a cosmic vision of humanity's future, envisioning a collective consciousness facing a final choice about God. He describes the end of the world not as a disaster, but as a spiritual transformation, and imagines a dramatic unification of all beings with the divine, culminating in a mystical fusion of God and the universe.
The Essence of the Democratic Idea
“A biological approach to the problem.” Written in response to a questionnaire from UNESCO and later published in The Future of Man.
The Moment of Choice
A Possible Interpretation of War
War, Teilhard tells us, is not humanity’s death rattle but its birth cry—the agony of a species pressed toward unity. The tyrant’s dream of domination is a counterfeit evolution; the real ascent is convergence, where nations complete rather than consume one another. Our future will not be forged by violence, but by the one force stronger than force: love, binding us into a single soul of Earth.
The New Psychedelics
Held at the Ego-Soft event, Terence presented his philosophy and eschatology rap in accompaniment with a rhythmic didgeridoo and bell performance.
The Phenomenon of Man
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect, and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile religion with the scientific theory of evolution. In this timeless book (whose original French title better translates to “The Human Phenomenon”), Teilhard argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an “omega point”—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
The Phyletic Structure of the Human Group
Teilhard de Chardin explores the arc of human evolution, tracing humankind's progression from primordial divergence to modern convergence. He argues that we now stand at an equator where further global compression will compel our species to attain unimaginable new heights of consciousness. An eloquent exploration of our place in the cosmos and destiny as thinking beings.
The Psychological Conditions of the Unification of Man
Teilhard discusses the objective and subjective conditions necessary for humankind to maintain its passion for unification and progress. Objectively, the universe must be perceived as open and centered towards the future. Subjectively, humanity must develop a heightened sense of the irreversible, the cosmic, and a faith that serves as a driving force for the world's advancement, which he suggests can be found in a properly understood Christianity.
The Religious Value of Research
Teilhard casts scientific research as humanity’s next evolutionary pulse—our collective mind awakening to shape its own future. He argues that the modern hunger to know and create is nothing less than evolution reflecting on itself, a divine power working through human inquiry. For him, research becomes sacred: the meeting point where faith in God and faith in human potential fuse into a single, world-transforming spiritual force.
The Self-Organizing Universe
Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution
The evolution of the universe—ranging from cosmic and biological to sociocultural evolution—is viewed in terms of the unifying paradigm of self-organization. The contours of this paradigm emerge from the synthesis of a number of important concepts, and provide a scientific foundation to a new world-view which emphasizes process over structure, nonequilibrium over equilibrium, evolution over permanency, and individual creativity over collective stabilization. The book, with its emphasis on the interaction of microstructures with the entire biosphere, ecosystems etc., and on how micro- and macrocosmos mutually create the conditions for their further evolution, provides a comprehensive framework for a deeper understanding of human creativity in a time of transition.
The Sense of Man
Humanity is not a scatter of individuals, but the birth of a single mind—the noosphere. Just as life once ignited from matter, thought now ignites from life. Teilhard says our task is no longer survival alone, but conscious evolution to forge a unified destiny where the universe awakens to itself through us.
The Spirit of the Earth
Teilhard depicts humanity as the Earth awakening to itself, evolution rising toward ever-greater unity. Love and consciousness converge into a planetary spirit, but this ascent, he insists, cannot endure without religion—our innate need for an absolute that calls us forward. In the universe’s unfolding, God emerges as evolution’s necessary summit and sustaining fire.
The Stuff of the Universe
Gazing upon the island of Saint Helena during his voyage from New York City to the Cape Peninsula, Teilhard de Chardin articulates his vision of human evolution culminating in cosmic unity with the Christ—the ultimate center of consciousness and complexity in the universe.
The Vision of the Past
What it Brings to and Takes Away from Science
Teilhard argues that as science deepens its gaze into both space and time, the cosmos reveals itself not as static, but as becoming—a living genesis. By “thickening” our view of time, we see vast slow waves of change—continents shifting, species evolving, consciousness rising—yet origins blur, reminding us that creation is ongoing, happening now, and ahead.
The Zest for Living
Teilhard de Chardin’s Zest for Living reveals life’s deepest impulse—the will not just to survive, but to “super-live.” This inner drive fuels cosmic evolution toward greater consciousness. To sustain humanity’s future, he urges a renewal of faith and wonder—a universal spirituality that rekindles our passion for being and becoming.
Touched by the Tremendum
Terence McKenna suggests ancient African societies used psychedelic mushrooms in communal rituals, leading to reduced ego and increased cooperation. When climate change disrupted this harmony, it pushed humans into the “nightmare of history” dominated by ego and competition. McKenna advocates for reconnecting with psychedelics, particularly psilocybin and DMT, as tools for dissolving ego-boundaries and potentially saving our planet from ecological crisis. The talk concludes with a lively debate about the practicality of his vision.
Zoological Evolution and Invention
Humanity’s growing interconnection isn’t a social accident, says Teilhard, but evolution becoming self-aware. If life is now reflecting on—and reinventing—itself, then watching human creativity may reveal how new biological forms once emerged. He asks whether “invention,” not just chance and selection, has always nudged life toward greater complexity. In a universe drifting toward the improbable, he wonders: when did consciousness begin steering evolution?
