Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke

In 1901 a physician named Richard Maurice Bucke published a book that attempts to analyse and classify the mystical experience of connecting to the divine. He refers to this experience as "Cosmic Consciousness" and uses the term as the title of his book. Known as a classic in the study of human consciousness, the book is in some ways quaintly out-of-date (occasionally pure hogwash.) However, it makes a good effort to capture in words an ineffable experience that is far beyond anything that can be understood or expressed with our limited human capabilities.

Bucke looks at 47 cases of what he calls cosmic consciousness, including those of Buddha, Jesus, St. Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, Dante, Blake, Balzac, Moses, Socrates, Pascal, Spinoza, Swedenborg, Emerson, Tennyson, and Thoreau. His favorite seems to be Walt Whitman (whom he knew personally) and he makes many references to "Leaves of Grass." There are also examples of unknown people born in his own era and usually identified only by initials. These cases are told in the words of the person who lived through the experience.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of Moses and the burning bush, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus after his Baptism, and St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. In various ways, lesser known people have tapped into divine consciousness and Bucke seeks out the common denominators among them. He concludes that they are people who are serious and of good moral character.

"...there comes to the person an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Like a flash there is presented to his consciousness a clear conception ... of the meaning and drift of the universe.... he sees and knows that the cosmos, which to the [common] mind seems made up of dead matter, is in fact far otherwise -- is in very truth a living presence."

The person sees that all life is eternal, that the universe is alive and works for the good of everyone, that the universe is God and its essence is love, that the happiness of every individual is in the long run absolutely certain. The distinction between good and evil falls away and the newly enlightened person sees that all is good in some cosmic way that is not yet available to simple human understanding.

Bucke goes further by postulating that people who have experienced this consciousness are the forerunners of an evolutionary change in the human race. Like the author of The Celestine Prophecy, he thinks we are evolving spiritually and future generations will be more easily in touch with the nature of the divine.Maurice Bucke