2023/04/18

Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin eBook : King, Ursula: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store

Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin eBook : King, Ursula: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store




Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin Kindle Edition
by Ursula King (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 out of 5 stars 121 ratings

Kindle
$30.56Read with Our Free App
Hardcover
$173.86
3 Used from $20.633 New from $173.85

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—renowned French Jesuit theologian, mystic, and scientist—helped bring Christian theology into creative dialogue with modern science and explored profound dimensions of the human condition.

Beautifully written and enhanced with scores of photographs that document his dramatic life—from the trenches of World War I, to paleontological research in China and travels in the Gobi Desert—Spirit of Fire also explores his di fficulties with church authorities, the posthumous publication of his writings, and his ongoing legacy.
==
264 pages
==

About the Author
Ursula King was found of the Teilhard Centre in London. Her many books include Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies Throughout the Ages, Teilhard de Chardin and Easter Religions, and Teilhard de Chardin: Essential Writings. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00ZAA7904
Publisher ‏ : ‎ ORBIS; Revised edition (30 June 2015)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 264 pages

4.5 out of 5 stars 121 ratings


Teilhard's Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution
Kathleen Duffy
4.4 out of 5 stars 76
Kindle Edition
$16.47$16.47

New Spiritual Exercises, The: In the Spirit of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Louis M. Savary
4.7 out of 5 stars 78
Kindle Edition
$22.44$22.44

The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
Richard Rohr
4.7 out of 5 stars 4,616
Kindle Edition
$10.44$10.44

Teilhard de Chardin on the Gospels: The Message of Jesus for an Evolutionary World
Louis M. Savary
4.6 out of 5 stars 27
Kindle Edition
$23.45$23.45

Jesus' Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount
Richard Rohr
4.7 out of 5 stars 315
Kindle Edition
$11.99$11.99
4.5 out of 5 stars

Top reviews from other countries
Translate all reviews to English

U M P Kroll
5.0 out of 5 stars Rediscovering Teilhard's contributions to the spirituality of matter and its unity with its Creator.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 September 2014
Verified Purchase

Excellent. Author tells me a revised edition is under production as picture s were not up to expected standard, but I found this version of Teillhard's life and thought compelling because it is the original seed of thought that has been expanded by later theologians like Barry and E. Johnson and Ursula King, and by the 'conscious evolution' movement initiated by Barbara Marx Hubbard. One can argue with these later authors, and I do, because their spiritual content is not as evident as it is in Teilhard's work and thought, complex though that is particulary in the area of the noosphere. However, upsetting all these studies are to the magisterial hierarchs of the Catholic Church, and I fully understand why they are, they are in wide circulation today, and we need books like this to take us back to sources.

5 people found this helpfulReport



jlddes
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellente biographie.Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 20 September 2018
Verified Purchase

Ĺ'Eglise l'a muselé. Les oeuvres n' ont été publiées qu'après sa mort.
Documentation exemplaire de sources multiples.
Triste choix éntre deux femmes: l'amour ou le confort... et il a préféré le confort matériel ! Trop humain finalement!

****
Report
Translate review to English

Ono.Matopoeia
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating biography. Well written.Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 22 December 2019
Verified Purchase

Found it difficult to put down the book.
The author provided an in-depth view of the philosophy of Teilhard
de Chardin. In addition she linked aspects of his role as Medical staff in World War 1 and his research in Geology to the development of his Philosophy.
Would have liked to have been provided with more explanation of the Catholic Church's opposition to aspects of his philosophy.
Report

Sher
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 5 February 2016
Verified Purchase

A wonderful introduction to the formation of the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin
Report
See all reviews
=====
Profile Image for Sandra.
Sandra
627 reviews · 16 followers
February 21, 2018
King's biography of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is a pretty quick read; it's formatted with very large outside margins, which are full of photographs and quotes. It is one of the few biographies where I felt satisfied with the number of photos; after all, a picture tells all sorts of stories.

Disclaimer: I didn't read the last 14 pages or so. I brought it with me to India because I wanted to donate it to the library at the Shantivanam Ashram I visited (along with Cynthia Bourgeault's Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's The Face Before I Was Born: A Spiritual Autobiography (I had hoped to re-read Cynthia's book for the fourth time, but didn't get as far through it as planned, and I also thought I'd keep the Vaughan-Lee book, but I realized I wanted to get some new books that won't be found in the U.S.).

King's quotes are half the interest of this book; she seems to be excellent at picking passages that managed to pique my interest (and, therefore, I would presume, the interest of others). Teilhard isn't the easiest theologian to read, and these tasty appetizers definitely make it worth pulling out their sources.
Profile Image for A.K. Frailey.
A.K. Frailey 
24 books · 70 followers
February 5, 2022
Spirit of Fire by Ursula King is certainly a powerful review of the life and times of Teilhard de Chardin. I came to understand him more completely, and I have great sympathies for his views, though I was disturbed by some of his life choices. His optimism is obvious, though I wondered why he needed to invent new words to explain his vision. I have more mixed feelings about his work than ever before. But I suspect that is how it should be. The human journey—our past as well as our future—has never been simple and clear-cut.
Profile Image for Cheryl.
Cheryl
933 reviews · 93 followers
November 17, 2014
Read immediately after The Jesuit ad the Skull by Amir Aczel, this one took more time and energy. Teilhard had a beautiful vision of how to blend religion and science, and was one of the most original thinkers I have ever encountered. He struggled with worship of religion, or God, and worship of nature as he experienced it with his senses and as he explored its language and scriptures, or science. I can see his struggle, and I disagree with his ultimate acquiescence to Rome and willingness to compromise, well, everything he was to be obedient. But I understand, and am so sad for the loss, the world’s loss really, because if he had been allowed to publish and speak about his worldview, he could have changed the world. I am glad he is still accessible to those of us who seek him out, but he is still very obscure and lost to most of the world.

Teilhard was innovative when it came to religion, and so accomplished as a scientist, but some of his writing is like wading through heavy, opaque waters. “The truth is that even at the peak of my spiritual trajectory I was never to feel at home unless immersed in an Ocean of Matter.” I imagine the ocean of matter is the actual physical earth, the tangible presence of us on the planet versus the mystical and spiritual realm, so I think he is saying he was only at home there, and never during prayer or nature, but that isn’t true. I think he had to change much of what he wrote to make it more palatable to Rome and the Church, and it lost its meaning. Also there is such meaning and lyricism that is lost in translation. One of my favorite quotes is his, and they translated it slightly differently, and I think it loses some of its power. Original (to me that is): "Throughout my whole life, during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within." Now: “The World gradually caught fire for me, burst into flames;…this happened all during my life, and as a result of my whole life, until it formed a great luminous mass, lit from within, that surrounded me.”

Another potentially awkward translation: “Lord Jesus, who are as a gentle as the human heart, as fiery as the forces of nature, as intimate as life itself, you in whom I can melt away and with whom I must have mastery and freedom; I love you as a world, as this world which has captivated my heart; and it is you, I now realize, than my brother-men, even those who do not believe, sense and seek through the magic immensities of the cosmos.” I begin to think Teilhard is fine, it is his translators that are terrible! My take, a great exercise in imagery and words: Lord Jesus, you are tender like a human heart yet powerful like natural forces that underlie the universe and life, and within whom my being can dissolve and know mastery and freedom, I love you as a world, as this world which has captivated my heart, and I now realize it is you that my fellow travelers, even those who do not believe in religion, sense and seek throughout the mysteries of the cosmos. I don’t know if that is what he meant, but it feels right.

He was a priest, he worked on the front lines of WWI, he was a scientist, a writer, a friend, and a world traveler. “As far as my strength will allow me, because I am a priest, I would henceforth be the first to become aware of what the world loves, pursues, suffers. I would be the first to seek, to sympathize, to toil: the first in self-fulfillment, the first in self-denial- I would be more widely human and more nobly terrestrial in my ambitions than any of the world’s servants.” For me, I want to be more nobly human and widely terrestrial.

From the author: “the turmoil of the war clarified his inner vision. It made him realize in a new way that matter was charged with life and with spirit. He felt so deeply, so vividly a love of matter, of life, that in later years…it was his deep-felt conviction ‘that life is never mistaken, either about its road or its destination.’” He coined the term “noosphere” as metaphysical layer encircling the earth comprised of thoughts and energies. It was part of an idea of soul evolution towards increased complexity. My own spiritual beliefs tend to be pantheistic, of nature, of God in everything, and I wholeheartedly believe that we just don’t have the words to describe what the soul is and where it goes and from whence it came, and religions are ways we love god or soul or holiness. And perhaps we don’t have the words yet, because our brains need to evolve a bit more. “One might say that a hitherto unknown form of religion-one that no one could as yet have imagined or described, for a lack of a universe large enough to contain it-is burgeoning in the heart of modern man, from a seed sown by the idea of evolution…far from being shaken in my faith by such as revolution, it with irrepressible hope that I welcome the inevitable rise of this new mysticism…”
Profile Image for Maria Lancaster.
Maria Lancaster
37 reviews · 7 followers
Read
November 7, 2009
A wonderful introduction to the world of Teilhard de Chardin. He was way before his time. Even now, we have not caught up with him!
Pamela Ann
74 reviews
September 12, 2016
An outstanding introduction to Teilhard de Chardin. I wish I had read this book before reading his own works. Ursula King deserves much respect for her writings on his work. Very good indeed.
Theresa
711 reviews
February 5, 2018
Very good introduction to the life and work of Teilhard de Chardin. It outlines his childhood in a large and loving family in Auvergne; his Jesuit Seminary training; his service as stretcher bearer in the French Army in WWI; his life-long pursuit of sciences; his special interest in the origin of man, and the evolution of all creation. His scientific work informed his theology. The end point of evolution, he reasoned, will be a union of all that is. The dissolution of our dualisms--between spirit and matter, body and soul, races, and religions, will be "like fog before the rising sun".

One of the features of Teilhard's personal development is his disregard of dividing friendships into male and female. He had very close women friends as well as men. Because of the trajectory of his career, his friends were Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, agnostics, etc. He served in the army with men from the French colonies. And his scientific colleagues were an international group of scholars. Living in far-flung places, diversity enhanced his work, his life, and his vision.

Teilhard was considered a persona non grata by his religious superiors in Rome. His vision was too vast, inclusive, and future-oriented. He believed that Christianity "was reaching the end of one of the natural cycles of its existence" and that "we need a Christianity that could be understood and lived in the contemporary world". Given the defensive, conservative 1930's Vatican, his ideas were too forward-looking to be allowed. And so, Teilhard, like so many visionaries before and since, was rejected by his own. His friends managed to hold on to most of his essays and manuscripts, which had an enthusiastic reception by many, both in science and in religion. But none of his writings were allowed to be published during his lifetime.

He died suddenly at age 75, in NYC, Easter Day, 1955.
Bill Samuel
23 reviews · 2 followers
May 4, 2018
This is review of the life and work of Teilhard. It is primarily chronological in its approach. The author is a promoter of Teilhard's work, so it is somewhat hagiographic. The extensive accounts of his personal life, including his close personal relationships with women, shed a lot of light on the man and tie him as a person to the ideas he wrote about. The book covers both his scientific and his spiritual work, but the latter is the central focus of interest. The book includes a number of useful resources, such as a list of his published works, in the back. This book is extremely valuable to anyone interested in learning about Teilhard's work.
Diana
31 reviews · 1 follower
December 19, 2020
Although the review below is erudite and factually accurate on this biography, I find the cynicism frustrating. This man's deep, personal battles with physical love, rejection and keeping God with him into his life at the front amidst the horror and again in China, alongside more horror, was awe inspiring to me. Although he felt for one moment towards the end of his life that for all his struggles, he hadn't changed, his profound love for life, people and the extraordinary world he felt so privileged to work in - was palpable in this biography.
Certainly I was inspired by the never ending search for God he lived so acutely and so whole heartedly. He was a man to be admired.







Posted by at