Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 16, 2022: The American philosopher and spiritual writer Dr. Beatrice Bruteau (1930-2014; Ph.D. in philosophy, Fordham University, 1954, the year in which she turned 24) converted to Catholicism during her years at Fordham (from being a Baptist). Subsequently, she married the ex-Jesuit priest James M. Somerville III (1915-2016) on January 31, 1971 (her first husband Fred L. Burkel had died in 1970). Her second husband James Somerville taught philosophy at Fordham University and then at Xavier University in Cincinnati, until he retired from there in 1984.
By all accounts, Dr. Bruteau received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University in 1954. However, a search of the library database WorldCat shows that her dissertation The Reality and Value of the World in the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo was not reported by the Fordham Research Commons until 1969. The 1954 date of her dissertation is important to note here because it is before any of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's posthumously published publications began to appear in French in 1955 - and because it is also before Marshall McLuhan's 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man and his 1964 book Understanding Media: Extensions of Man had been published. McLuhan turned 53 in 1964.
In 1954, when Dr. Bruteau received her Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham University, the Jesuit university in the Bronx, New York, Thomistic philosophy dominated in the Roman Catholic Church. Marshall McLuhan, for example, considered himself to be a Thomist. But Walter Ong did not. No doubt Dr. Bruteau learned Thomistic philosophy at Fordham University. But she most likely was also exposed to other currents of philosophic thought there.1
Now, the medieval synthesis of thought in Thomistic theistic philosophy was conceived of as countercultural way of contending not just with modern philosophy (exemplified by the Enlightenment; also known as the Age of Reason - see Ong's Art of Reason in his subtitle of his 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason), but also, more expansively, with modernity itself -- modern culture, which emerged in Western culture after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s (see McLuhan's 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man).
Set off against the pronounced countercultural spirit of contending with modernity previously in the twentieth century, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) ushered in a new spirit of encounter and dialogue with modern culture, including dialogue with other religious traditions which would be a big theme of Dr. Bruteau's publications.
In any event, Dr. Bruteau's 1979 book The Psychic Grid: How We Create the World We Know is important because of her perceptive appropriation of Marshall McLuhan's thought (see pp. 78-80, 108, 122, and 192). Seventy libraries that participate in the WorldCat library database still hold a copy of her 1979 book - if you have access to one of them or to inter-library loan. The copies of her book available from used-book sellers on the Internet are expensive.
According to the American Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault's essay "Beatrice Bruteau: A Personal Memoir" in the 2016 book Personal Transformation and a New Creation: The Spiritual Revolution of Beatrice Bruteau, edited by Ilia Delio (pp. 9-15), Dr. Beatrice Bruteau's book "The Psychic Grid [was] by her own estimation her 'breakthrough book' and personal favorite" (p. 12). (But I am not aware of any other secondary literature about Dr. Bruteau in which her 1979 book The Psychic Grid is discussed.)
Bourgeault's essay in the 2016 book is a revised and expanded version of her article "Interspiritual Pioneer Beatrice Bruteau Loomed Large in Contemplative Universe" in the National Catholic Reporter (December 5-18, 2014). (I used the search feature at the NCR website and turned up a number of other references to her in other NCR articles.)
According to Bourgeault's 2016 essay (p. 10), Dr. Bruteau's 1954 doctoral dissertation in philosophy at Fordham University was about the work of Aurobindo Ghose (Sri Aurobindo; 1872-1950), "an Indian philosopher, yoga guru, maharishi, poet and Indian nationalist," according to the Wikipedia entry about him.
Bourgeault also says, "Together with [her second husband James] Somerville, she founded the American Philosophical Quarterly in 1954 (by 1961, it had 'morphed' into the distinguished International Philosophical Quarterly). She was a founding member of the Teilhard Society of America and founding director of the Teilhard Research Institute at Fordham" (pp. 10-11; for specific references to Dr. Bruteau and Teilhard, see the "Index" [pp. 234 and 243]). Another source indicates that Dr. Bruteau served as the managing editor of the International Philosophical Quarterly.
In the academic year 1967-1968 academic year, Marshall McLuhan was a visiting professor at Fordham University. McLuhan turned 57 in 1968. If Dr. Bruteau was still at Fordham at that time, she may have met him. In any event, her admirably lucid account of McLuhan's thought in her 1979 book is subtle and nuanced.2
In the academic year 1967-1968, the anti-war movement against the Vietnam War was strong.
In 1968, the pacificist Marshall McLuhan and the American graphic designer Quentin Fiore (1920-2019) published the book War and Peace in the Global Village.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election.
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