Carl Jung and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Teilhard de Charin and Carl Jung never met. Dr. Jung did finish reading The Phenomenon of Man less than a month before his death.
The book had both a great and visible impact upon Dr. Jung according to Michael Serrano.
It must have been satisfying for Dr. Jung to see Teilhard de Chardin from the perspective of a paleontologist and Jesuit Priest for each the same empirical conclusions about the evolution of consciousness that Dr. Jung found in his empirical research in Depth Psychology.
It is a peculiar oddity that both Teilhard de Chardin and Dr.Jung stressed the empirical nature of their work yet often find their books categorized under “Philosophy” and “New Age.”
This in itself justifies the importance of this great book as the recognition of consciousness and the reality of the inner world of the soul is far from recognized even at the dawn of the 21st century”
Carl Jung was reading Teilhard de Chardin during the last few days of his life. According to Miguel Serrano, when he visited Jung on May 10, 1961, “On the small table beside the chair where Jung was sitting, was a book called The Human Phenomenon by Teilhard de Chardin.
I asked Jung whether he had read it. ’It is a great book,’ he said. His face was pale, but seemed strangely illuminated by an inner light.”
(Miguel Serrano, C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships [New York: Schocken Books, 1968] pp.100-101)
Jung died on June 6, 1961
