 | This article possibly contains original research .(January 2024) |
 The title page | |
| Author | Richard Maurice Bucke |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Consciousness |
| Published | 1901 |
| Media type | |
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".[ This quote needs a citation ]
In Cosmic Consciousness, Bucke stated that he discerned three forms, or degrees, of consciousness: [1]
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. [3]
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". [4] 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". [4]
Mysticism, then, is the perception of the universe and all of its seemingly disparate entities existing in a unified whole bound together by love. [5]
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". [6] According to Brasas, it was William James who equated Bucke's cosmic consciousness with mystical experience or mystical consciousness. [6] 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. [7]
He regarded Walt Whitman as "the climax of religious evolution and the harbinger of humanity's future". [8]
According to Michael Robertson, Cosmic Consciousness and William James's 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience have much in common: [9]
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. [9]
James popularized the concept of religious experience, [note 1] which he explored in The Varieties of Religious Experience . [11] [12] He saw mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental. [13] He considered the "personal religion" [14] to be "more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism", [14] and states:
In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think, and which bring it about that the mystical classics have, has been said, neither birthday nor native land. [15]
Regarding cosmic consciousness, William James, in his essay "The Confidences of a 'Psychical Researcher'", wrote:
What again, are the relations between the cosmic consciousness and matter? ... So that our ordinary human experience, on its material as well as on its mental side, would appear to be only an extract from the larger psycho-physical world? [16]
James understood "cosmic consciousness" to be a collective consciousness, a "larger reservoir of consciousness", [17] which manifests itself in the minds of men and remains intact after the dissolution of the individual. It may "retain traces of the life history of its individual emanation". [17]
A classification similar to that proposed by Bucke was used by the influential theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), viz.: [18]
In Schleiermacher's theology, higher consciousness "is the part of the human being that is capable of transcending animal instincts". [19] It is the "point of contact with God" and the essence of being human. [19]
When higher consciousness is present, people are not alienated from God by their instincts. [19] The relation between higher and lower consciousness is akin to St. Paul's "struggle of the spirit to overcome the flesh". [19] Higher consciousness establishes a distinction between the natural and the spiritual sides of human beings. [20]
The concept of religious experience was used by Schleiermacher and by Albert Ritschl to defend religion against scientific and secular criticism and to defend the belief that moral and religious experiences justify religious beliefs. [12]
Cosmic consciousness bears similarity to Hegel's Geist: [21] [22]
All this seems to force upon us an interpretation of Hegel that would understand his term "mind" as some kind of cosmic consciousness; not, of course, a traditional conception of God as a being separate from the universe, but rather as something more akin to those eastern philosophies that insist that All is One. [22]
In 1913, Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall authored Cosmic Consciousness: The Man-God Whom We Await. [23]
According to Paul Marshall, a philosopher of religion, cosmic consciousness bears resemblances to some traditional pantheist beliefs. [24]
According to Ervin László, cosmic consciousness corresponds to Jean Gebser's integral consciousness and to Don Edward Beck and Christopher Cowan's turquoise state of cosmic spirituality. [25]
Ken Wilber, integral philosopher and mystic, identifies four state/stages of cosmic consciousness (mystical experience) above both Gebser's integral level and Beck and Cowan's turquoise level. [26]
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, logic and ethics.
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, typically seen to be spearheaded by Karl Barth, was in many ways an attempt to challenge his influence. As a philosopher he was a leader of German Romanticism. Schleiermacher is considered the most important Protestant theologian between John Calvin and Karl Barth.
Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American theorist and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a four-quadrant grid which purports to encompass all human knowledge and experience.
The perennial philosophy, also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.
German idealism is a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. The period of German idealism after Kant is also known as post-Kantian idealism or simply post-Kantianism. One scheme divides German idealists into transcendental idealists, associated with Kant and Fichte, and absolute idealists, associated with Schelling and Hegel.
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks can be summarized according to the classic distinction between the natural-scientific and human-scientific approaches. The first cluster amounts to objective, quantitative, and preferably experimental procedures for testing hypotheses about causal connections among the objects of one's study. In contrast, the human-scientific approach accesses the human world of experience using qualitative, phenomenological, and interpretive methods. This approach aims to discern meaningful, rather than causal, connections among the phenomena one seeks to understand.
Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the mind or spirit, in analogy to biological evolution, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is differentiated from the "lower" or biological evolution.
The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience, attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural states.
Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke, was a Canadian psychiatrist in the late 19th century. An adventurer during his youth, Bucke later studied medicine. Eventually, as a psychiatrist, he headed the provincial Asylum for the Insane in London, Ontario. Bucke was a friend of several noted men of letters in Canada, the United States, and England. Besides publishing professional articles, Bucke wrote three non-fiction books: Man's Moral Nature, Walt Whitman, and Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, which is his best-known work.
The term involution has various meanings. In some instances it refers to a process prior to evolution which gives rise to the cosmos, in others it is an aspect of evolution, and in still others it is a process that follows the completion of evolution in the human form.
A religious experience is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept. In some religions, this may result in unverified personal gnosis.
Integral yoga, sometimes also called supramental yoga, is the yoga-based philosophy and practice of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Central to Integral yoga is the idea that Spirit manifests itself in a process of involution, meanwhile forgetting its origins. The reverse process of evolution is driven toward a complete manifestation of spirit.
Acosmism, held in contrast or equivalent to pantheism, denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory, and only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real. Conceptual versions of Acosmism are found in eastern and western philosophies.
Ervin László is an American philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, originally a classical pianist. He is an advocate of the theory of quantum consciousness.
Scholarly approaches to mysticism include typologies of mysticism and the explanation of mystical states. Since the 19th century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. It is closely related to "mysticism" but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, not just inducing mystical experiences.
Higher consciousness is a term that has been used in various ways to label particular states of consciousness or personal development. It may be used to describe a state of liberation from the limitations of self-concept or ego, as well as a state of mystical experience in which the perceived separation between the isolated self and the world or God is transcended. It may also refer to a state of increased alertness or awakening to a new perspective. While the concept has ancient roots, practices, and techniques, it has been significantly developed as a central notion in contemporary popular spirituality, including the New Age movement.
Walter Terence Stace was a British civil servant, educator, public philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativism. He worked with the Ceylon Civil Service from 1910 to 1932, and from 1932 to 1955 he was employed by Princeton University in the Department of Philosophy. He is most renowned for his work in the philosophy of mysticism, and for books like Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) and Teachings of the Mystics (1960). These works have been influential in the study of mysticism, but they have also been severely criticised for their lack of methodological rigor and their perennialist pre-assumptions.
Integral theory, developed by Ken Wilber, is a synthetic metatheory aiming to unify a broad spectrum of theories and models within a singular conceptual framework. The basis is the concept of a 'spectrum of consciousness' that ranges from archaic consciousness to the highest form of spirit, depicting it as an evolutionary developmental model. This model incorporates stages of development as described in structural developmental stage theories, encompassing a variety of psychic and supernatural experiences, as well as models of spiritual growth.
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.
The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion is a 1998 book by American author Ken Wilber. It reasons that by adopting contemplative disciplines related to Spirit and commissioning them within a context of broad science, that "the spiritual, subjective world of ancient wisdom" could be joined "with the objective, empirical world of modern knowledge". The text further contends that integrating science and religion in this way would in turn, "have political dimensions sewn into its very fabric".
 | This article lacks ISBNs for the books listed.(January 2024) |
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| Conceptions of God |
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| Existence of God |
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| Problem of evil | |||||||||||||
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