ABSTRACT
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin dedicated his life work to fostering an active realization by humans of their evolutionary roles in relation to emergent matter-spirit. This he framed as the challenges of seeing. To assist this seeing he articulated a phenomenology of the involution of matter, metaphysics of union with spirit, and a mysticism of centration of person. This chapter investigates this challenge of 'seeing' by means of brief reflections on Teilhard's phenomenology, metaphysics, and mysticism. It highlights some of the contributions and the limitations of his thought. From his perspective all of matter was evolving toward higher forms of complexity-consciousness. The challenge for Teilhard of integrating his religious and scientific commitments placed him in a personal crucible that forged a creative, unitive vision. His particular legacy for the twenty-first century includes a vastly deepened sense of an evolutionary universe that can be understood as not simply a cosmos but a cosmogenesis.
