Cosmic Consciousness

Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind

The title page
Author	Richard Maurice Bucke
Language	English
Subject	Consciousness
Published	1901
Publisher	Citadel Press
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	358
ISBN

Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind is a 1901 book by the psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke, in which the author explores the concept of cosmic consciousness, which he defines as "a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man".

Synopsis

In Cosmic Consciousness, Bucke stated that he discerned three forms, or degrees, of consciousness: simple consciousness, possessed by both animals and mankind; Self-consciousness, possessed by mankind, encompassing thought, reason, and imagination, and Cosmic consciousness, which is "a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man" According to Bucke, "This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive; it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it; a great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd; it is nevertheless undoubtedly true."

Reception

Moores said that Bucke's cosmic consciousness is an interconnected way of seeing things "which is more of an intuitive knowing than it is a factual understanding". Moores pointed out that, for scholars of the purist camp, the experience of cosmic consciousness is incomplete without the element of love, "which is the foundation of mystical consciousness". Juan A. Herrero Brasas said that Bucke's cosmic consciousness refers to the evolution of the intellect, and not to "the ineffable revelation of hidden truths". According to Brasas, it was William James who equated Bucke's cosmic consciousness with mystical experience or mystical consciousness. Gary Lachman notes that today Bucke's experience would most likely be explained by the "God spot", or more generally as a case of temporal lobe epilepsy, but he is skeptical of these and other organic explanations.

Similar concepts

According to Michael Robertson, Cosmic Consciousness and William James's 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience have much in common: "Both Bucke and James argue that all religions, no matter how seemingly different, have a common core; both believe that it is possible to identify this core by stripping away institutional accretions of dogma and ritual and focusing on individual experience; and both identify mystical illumination as the foundation of all religious experience." James popularized the concept of religious experience, which he explored in his 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience. He saw mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental. He considered the "personal religion" to be "more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism".

Editions

• Bucke, Richard Maurice (1901), Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (First ed.), New York: E. P. Dutton and Company – via Internet Archive

See also

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References

Works cited

• Brasas, Juan A. Hererro (2010), Walt Whitman's Mystical Ethics of Comradeship: Homosexuality and the Marginality of Friendship at the Crossroads of Modernity, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-1438430126.
• Bucke, Richard Maurice (2009). Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-47190-7.
• Harmless, William (2007), Mystics, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198041108.
• Hori, Victor Sogen (1999), "Translating the Zen Phrase Book" (PDF), Nanzan Bulletin, 23.
• James, William (1982) [1902], The Varieties of Religious Experience, Penguin classics, ISBN 9780140390346.
• Lachman, Gary (2003), A Secret History of Consciousness, SteinerBooks, ISBN 9781584200116.
• Moores, D. J. (2006), Mystical Discourse in Wordsworth and Whitman: A Transatlantic Bridge, Peeters Publishers, ISBN 978-9042918092.
• Robertson, Michael (2010), Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691146317.
• Samy, Ama (1998), Waarom kwam Bodhidharma naar het Westen? De ontmoeting van Zen met het Westen, Asoka: Asoka, ISBN 9789056700249.
• Sharf, Robert H. (2000), "The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion" (PDF), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7 (11–12): 267–87, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-13, retrieved 2014-03-22.

Further reading

• Bridgers, Lynn (2005), Contemporary Varieties of Religious Experience: James's Classic Study in Light of Resiliency, Temperament, and Trauma, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 978-0742544321.
• James, William (1987), William James: Writings 1902 – 1910, New York: The Library of America, ISBN 978-0-940450-38-7.
• Marshall, Paul (2005), Mystical Encounters with the Natural World: Experiences and Explanations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199279432.
• Paglia, Camille (Winter 2003), "Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 1960s" (PDF), Arion, 10 (3): 57–111.