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

In 1872, riding home in a hansom cab after an evening of poetry with friends, the Canadian psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke was suddenly wrapped in what he described as a flame-coloured cloud. For a few seconds he saw, with total certainty, that the universe is a living presence and that the soul is immortal. He spent the next three decades trying to understand what had happened to him.

The result, first published in 1901, is one of the founding works on mystical experience. Bucke argues that human awareness has evolved in stages, from the simple consciousness of animals to the self consciousness of humankind, and that a third form, cosmic consciousness, is now emerging in rare individuals and will one day be common to the species.

To make his case he examines the lives and words of those he believes attained it: Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, Dante, St. John of the Cross, Francis Bacon, Jacob Behmen, William Blake, Balzac, Walt Whitman, and Edward Carpenter. He follows these with dozens of lesser and contemporary cases, from Moses and Socrates to Emerson, Thoreau, and anonymous men and women describing their illumination in their own words.

Part psychology, part comparative religion, part visionary manifesto, Cosmic Consciousness remains a landmark for anyone interested in mysticism, enlightenment, and where the human mind may be heading. This unabridged recording presents the complete text.