Cosmic Conssciousness

This book is a classic in the field of the mystical experience. The author begins by introducing the concept of cosmic consciousness. He presents a theory of the levels of consciousness by invoking evolutioary arguments as well as by observing the ages at which traits first appear in humans. His arguments are quite strongly coloured by his societal values and world view and I found most of this section of the book to be fairly questionable. A lot of points with which I disagree are not supported by argument, or are supported by further questionable assertions prefaced by phrases such as "it scarcely needs to be questioned that..."

What does come out of this section of the book is an assertion most people would more or less agree with : that there is a state of consciousness ("cosmic consciousness" or the mystical experience) which is far removed from everyday experience ("self-consciousness"), where the person perceives a new kind of reality where the boundary between subject and object does not exist and is meaningless.

The main body of the book then consists of a series of studies of various historical figures who, claims the author, possessed the Cosmic Sense, that is, had experienced cosmic consciousness. Through extensive quoting of the biographers of the figures, and of the writings of the figures themselves, the author exhibits many common features of the mystical experience, and displays some very striking parallels in quite specific assertions independently made by the figures having cosmic consciousness. For instance, Bucke claims that there are three major "levels" of consciousness, "simple-" ('I know'), "self-" ('I know that I know') and "cosmic-" ('All is one'). He claims that the three cantos of Dante's Divine Comedy : Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradisio were meant by Dante to represent these three planes of reality. Also, says Bucke, Plotinus divided the world of ideas into three, "instinct, abstractions, and specialism", as did Fracis Bacon ("The first creature of God in the work of the days was the light of the sense, the last the light of reason, and His Sabbath work ever since is the Illumination of His Spirit"), and as did Honore De Balzac and various other people mentioned in the text.

Also of interest in this book is the light it sheds on the origins of organized religion. Bucke devotes chapters to Buddha, Jesus, Paul and Mohammed, all of whom fairly certainly had the Cosmic Sense and preached their moral philosophies as a result of insights gained in cosmic consciousness. In the case of the latter three, all involved with religions proclaiming some kind of sentient omnipotent yet man-like godhead, upon reading Bucke's quotes in the light the knowledge that they were meant to impart some of the wisdom derived from the mystical experience, one can see that the major visionaries of Christianity and Islam didn't mean for the couching of their explanations in anthropic terms to be taken literally.

Note: my copy of the book was published in 1969. I imagine, if it is still in print, that it may have a different ISBN these days, since mine just has an "SBN".