Saturday, November 21, 2009

(1) The Attractor

Chapter Six. The Attractor

Somewhere along the line I picked-up a small historical
booklet that featured the world travels of Teilhard. Incredible,
but this good Jesuit seemed to go just about everywhere.
And much to my surprise, I noted that in his last years that
he even visited the Lawrence Laboratories here at Berkeley.
He was given a tour of the old Cyclotron, though nowadays
accelerators have expanded into ever new territories beyond
high-energy physics.

I have to give Teilhard credit, in that he kept in touch with
the scientific developments of his day! For a few years I
had dropped my interest in Teilhard, but this little booklet
ended my hiatus. Discovering the fact that this great
Jesuit actually stepped on the same ground where I work
seemed to fire my interest once again.

I latched onto another element of Teilhard's thought. He
believed that God or the Omega was an *Attractor.* He
spoke of this consideration in terms such as the "Ahead"
or implied that the Future beckoned us forward. Like a
magnet? Goodness, I began to realize that the cyclotron
works within a magnetic field. Curious, this coincidence,
if you will.

So this coincidence over Teilhard's visit to Berkeley started
me to wonder over his ideas in a new way. It was easy to
figure that Omega was the *magnet* drawing us forward
towards ever greater consciousness. Teilhard's "Center"
was the magnet, drawing forth all of Creation to a grand
Completion.

In turn, this led me to meander into my own theological
speculation.