Are You Bullshitting Me??

It’s fantastic that New Discourses has started a deep dive on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

https://newdiscourses.com/2024/08/teilhard-de-chardin-and-the-religion-of-progress/

I read his work a number of years ago. Listening to James Lindsay note the obvious scientific inconsistencies in Chardin’s writing reminded me of what Olavo Carvalho points out about the work of Descartes and several other philosophers. Namely, that they don’t always mean what they say and that this is sometimes intentional, for a variety of reasons.

I don’t want to pre empt or steal James’ thunder on the machinations of Chardin but I will just say three words; ‘Piltdown Man’ hoax. Chardin had a strategic mission and when you listen to his text & the evocative impact upon you of his descriptive palaeontology processes, they consistently frame accretions over long historical and geological periods in a negative way. Not unlike the way Paulo Freire references Tradition and stability as necrophiliac. So if we’re generalists and not informed about geology or particularly science minded, if like I was when I first read Chardin, you’re just an Artsy slightly idealistically inclined literary type, you’re susceptible to not noticing what the actual subject of Chardin’s writing is because it’s You - changing your attitudes, perceptions and beliefs.

The entire schtick is marketing, but you assume you’re learning about ‘Science’. What is it marketing for? The ‘life of the World to come’. Specifically your desire (and ultimately demand) for it which is being invoked by the words you’re reading or listening to. You’re being groomed under the guise of Science. This is The Way of Theosophy. Trust ‘The’ Science™️. It’s prudent at all times when encountering New Thought Leaders, philosophers past and present and gurus of all sorts, to have that little question running at the back of your mind - “are you bullshitting me??”