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The Overlords
The Overmind is Clarke’s vision of a possible transcendent future for humanity, and in the story, functions symbolically as a higher power and a final destination, an alternative for God and his authority and a vision of heaven as an eternal state of consciousness.
The Overmind is a universal cosmic consciousness that will come to Earth and absorb a portion of humanity into itself, allowing humanity to live on through the ages in a higher form of existence. The Overmind is the future home of humanity once it learns to transcend the material world, without its physical laws and bodily confines. Although the Overlords, who bear a symbolic parallel to both devils and angels, seem at first to be god-like to humanity, the Overmind is in fact the master and the Overlords are its servants. This, combined with its transcendent, non-corporeal state of being, puts the Overmind in the function of an ultimate higher power akin to God.
Pointedly, only those who have maintained a mystical capacity—those who have an openness to believing in things beyond the natural world—are able to join the Overmind; “God” will only accept those who “believe,” at which point they will shed their physical form, relinquish their individual selves, and enter “heaven” (that is, the Overmind’s cosmic consciousness). Although the Overlords abolish religion in the midst of their building a utopian world, the Overmind rekindles that lost spirituality, though not in the same format. As the children, in preparation for its coming, develop their latent psychic abilities, the evidence of a non-rational plane of existence is plain for all to see. Ultimately, the God-like Overmind ushers in the apocalypse, absorbing its children into itself and laying waste to the rest of the world, alluding to the Christian prophecy of the Rapture.
Although it is certainly not the Christian God, the Overmind thus functions as a parallel alternative, based not in divinity but in a belief in the mystical, paranormal potential of the universe.
The Overmind Quotes in Childhood’s End
The Childhood’s End quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Overmind. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
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He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had labored to take man to the stars, and now the stars—the aloof, indifferent stars—had come to him.
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Chapter 16
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The universe was vast, but that fact terrified him less than its mystery. George was not a person who thought deeply on such matters, yet it sometimes seemed to him that men were like children amusing themselves in some secluded playground, protected from the fierce realities of the outer world.
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Chapter 19
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In the space of a few days, humanity had lost its future, for the heart of any race is destroyed, and its will to survive is utterly broken, when its children are taken from it.
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Chapter 23
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“And do you not resent being used as a tool by the Overmind?”
“The arrangement has some advantages: besides, no one of intelligence resists the inevitable.”
That proposition, Jan reflected wryly, had never been fully accepted by mankind.
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Chapter 24
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For all their achievements, thought Karellen, for all their mastery of the physical universe, his people were no better than a tribe that has passed its whole existence upon some flat and dusty plain. Far off were the mountains, where power and beauty dwelt […] And they could only watch and wonder; they could never scale those heights.
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Get the entire Childhood’s End LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Overmind Symbol Timeline in Childhood’s End
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Overmind appears in Childhood’s End. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 20
...of humanity, and they do this work in service another entity that Karellen calls the Overmind, a non-physical consciousness that he believes is continuing to grow and absorb other races into...
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...mean the end of Homo Sapiens as they exist now. In the coming years, the Overmind will draw all children into itself, and humanity will become two different races. The humans...
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Chapter 23
...(powerfully intelligent and independent, yet powerless to move on to something greater), or join the Overmind (infinite, undying, every individual absorbed like cells into a single entity, tragic in one sense...
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Jan had once asked why the Overmind should need the Overlords’ help. Rashaverak explained that, vast as it is, the Overmind has...
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Chapter 24
...so that he can tell them what he sees as the children unite with the Overmind. Jan enters the base and readies himself. Through the great window in front of him...
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The atmosphere seems to be pulling Earth away from itself, drawing its matter into the Overmind. The pillar of fire re-forms into a funnel. Jan, still narrating for Karellen, can see...
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...home. He is sorrowful for the Overlord race, for they will never unite with the Overmind, never transcend what they already are. Despite their powerful intelligence, they feel like a tribe...
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