Introduction: Miriam MacGillis is a modern-day prophet who not only holds a broad understanding of cosmology but brilliantly expresses it. She was an early colleague of Thomas Berry, introducing many people to the Story of the Universe. I have had the great honor of transcribing the eight tapes of her lecture series called Education for a Small Planet from 1986. Excerpts from tape 1A can be read here and here.
She was a protégé of Thomas Berry and on these tapes spoke about three principles which have been at the heart of the unfolding of the universe from the beginning. As she says, They are very simple and can’t be separated. I’m just separating them now [to discuss them]. In reality they’re three in one. They are extremely simple. Very often, the simplest things are the hardest things to grasp. But once we really begin to reflect on them and their implications, it’s so logical, so clear, so simple.
The first is the principle of differentiation. I posted Miriam’s discussion of differentiation here.
Below is the long delayed 2nd part, where she discusses the next two principles; interiority and communion. Her words have been lightly edited.
Second principle. The principle of interiority. Or subjectivity. And all that means is that whether we’re speaking about this particular atom or whether this is Harry or Henry or Homer or horse, or hippo, each is its own unique articulation of the universe, its own integrity. It has its own inner spaces, which are unique to itself. Hydrogen is hydrogen, it is not helium. And it is hydrogen because as you probe the inner spaces of that, whatever causes that to be hydrogen in those inner spaces has an integrity that will always unfold hydrogen. And the universe only can be at any moment, the sum total of all of that. And because each is what it is, it’s different.
Continue reading “Miriam MacGillis Discusses Thomas Berry’s View of the Universe, part 2 Transcribed by Janet Rudolph”
