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COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: A PAPER READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN MEDICO-PSY- CHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION IN PHILA- DELPHIA, 18 MAY, 1894, BY DR. R. M. BUCKE
‘Light rare, untellable, lighting the very light.’’
PHILADELPHIA THE CONSERVATOR
1894
inalausieig de a,
WAbLT WHITMAN PUBLICATIONS
Leaves of Grass. Comprises all the author's Poetical Works down to date, 1892. 1 vol., crown 8vo, gilt top, uncut edges, } . $2.00 Complete Prose Works. Containing ‘ Specimen Daye cand Collect ”’ complete, and all the later prose from “ November Boughs’’ and ‘‘ Good-by My Fancy.”’ 1 vol., crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, uncut edges, c . $2.00 Above volumes, being Whitman's Complete Works,are bound uniform; set, 2 vols. ,f4 Specimen Days and Collect. 1 vol., r2mo., cloth, 4 . $1.50 November Boughs. Containing Poems under the title of ** Sands at Sev- enty ;”’ also in Prose, ‘A Backward Glance o’er Traveled Roads,” and a Col- lection of Essays on Shakspere, Burns, Tennyson, etc. 1 vol., crown 8vo, gilt top, uncut edges, ; . 1.25 Good-by, My Fancy. Conteitning all Podind Vater than: i Sands at Seventy,” anda number of Essays in Prose. Crown 8vo, gilt tops, uniform with ‘ Novem- ber Boughs,” . {1.00 After all Not to C reate only. Only a small balatice of the original edition, Boston, 1871. 12mo cloth, . ; . 50c,
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DAVID McKAY, Publisher, Philadelphia
(34914
COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
All original work done by me within the last twenty years has dealt, directly or indirectly (but generally directly) with one subject—namely—with mental evolu- tion. In papers read in ’77 and ’78, and more ex- haustively in a volume published in ’79, I considered the evolution of the moral nature. In ’81 I read a paper‘on the evolution of the intellect and some of the sense functions, and in ’92 I dealt siill further with these latter. I venture to draw your a‘tention to these labors of mine because they have a direct bearing upon what I am to say to-day. Twenty years’ study has shown me clearly that the human mind has_ been slowly evolved by a species of unfolding or growth, ex- tending over millions of years. Not that the haman mind has existed as long as that, but that the mind which we possess to-day, in its human and its ante-human forms, extends back for unknown ages and eons into the geologic past of the planet, sending its roots and draw- ing its sap to-day from the lives of tens of thousands of generations of our prehuman as well as human ancestors. And, it may be said in passing, it is apparently this al- most infinite experience, treasured up and handed down the ages in the form of instincts, monitions of con- science and delicate phases of emotion, that gives tc the human mind of the present time many of its most profound and subtle qualities.
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Be this as it may, the thought and reading of twenty years have convinced me that the human mind, as we know it to-day, is a lineal descendent of certain prehuman mind which could not have been very different from the mind of the higher animals of the present time, and that this animal mind grew into the human mind by means of two closely related but distinct processes—first, by the unfolding and expansion of its various faculties, and, sec- ond, by the springing up within it from time to time of entirely new functions, which, in their turn, unfolded and expanded as the generations and the centuries succeeded one another. My volume on ‘Man's Moral Nature ’’ was intended to make clear whence proceeded and how from lower to higher planes advanced this important part of the human mind, and a paper read by me in ’81 was intended as an exposition of the manner of growth of the intellect. That, and another two years ago, set forth reasons to believe in the addition from time to time of new faculties to the immense aggregate.
The process is, in short, as I have before pointed out, precisely similar to that of evolution in all other depart- ments. A tree, for instance, both sends out new branches and all its branches, both new and old, increase in size ; a language (like the original Aryan or the Latin) puts out as its branches dialects which grow into languages and put forth others in their turn; a species, either ani- mal or plant, puts forth as its branches varieties which
grow into species and in their turn put forth other vari- eties which later also become species.
Suppose, then, we admit, as I think we must, that far back in geologic time what we call mind had its origin in some very low organization in the form of mere excita-
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bility ; that later on, from this initial excitability, was born sensation ; from that again, after many ages and generations and much experience, simple consciousness ; and again, from that, ‘‘when the time was ripe,’’ self consciousness. Supposing’ we admit this to be a rough description of the trunk of our mental tree, then we have as its branches all the senses, each with its diverse and wide-spreading congeries of functions, we have also, as another vast trunk, the moral nature, and, as another still, volition, without stopping to mention many | another limb and twig of less consequence.
The center of all is, of course, the trunk, and upon this I want to keep your minds fixed for the moment. That trunk, resting upon and rooted in inorganic nature, may be divided from the ground up, as before said, into
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vitality, excitability, sensation, simple consciousness, self consciousness—these being supposed to be superim- posed, the one upon the other, in the order in which they are named. The line between simple consciousness and self consciousness is, of course, the line between the brute and the man, since self consciousness is the basis of language, of human faculty in general, and of the methods and arts that constitute objective human life. As vitality, excitability, sensation, simple conscious- ness and self consciousness each one arose, in its turn, from anterior conditions which prepared the way for it and made it possible, so every other faculty and function existing to-day had its own date of birth. For instance : The general sense of sight dates back many millions of ' years into geological times—the color sense only dates | back about a thousand generations. The sense of hearing
is very old—the musical sense is just coming into being.
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The animal instincts which are the basis of it go back far behind the carboniferous era, but anything we would to- day call a human moral nature is probably less than a hundred thousand years old. How do we know how long any given faculty has existed in any given race? Chiefly by three indications :
ist, the average age at which the faculty appears in the individual ;
2d, the more or less universality of the faculty in the members of the race as we see it at present ;
3d, the readiness (or the reverse) with which the fac- ulty is lost (as in sickness).
For the sake of illustrating the position taken let us briefly compare almost any two faculties. Let us take for this purpose simple and self consciousness.
1. Simple consciousness appears within a few hours or days of birth. Self consciousness appears at about the age of three years.
2. Simple consciousness is absolutely universal in the human race. Self consciousness is congenitally absent in all true idiots—z. ¢., in about one or two in every thousand individuals of the race.
3. Simple consciousness is only lost in the most pro- found disturbances, as in epilepsy and coma, and only for short periods—a few minutes, hours or days. Self consciousness is always lost when simple consciousness is lost, and over and above it is frequently lost as in the delirium of fever and in insanity (simple consciousness remaining present), and it often remains absent for days, weeks, even months.
These three facts clearly show that simple conscious-
ness is a much older faculty than is self consciousness.
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But why is it that the older a faculty is in a race the
earlier it shall be acquired by the members of the race ?
The answer is not far to seek, and has a most important
bearing upon the subject immediately under discussion—
7. é., the existence or not in the race of the new faculty
which [ have named Cosmic Consciousness ; it is,
briefly, as follows: Suppose that a race is coming into
possession of a new faculty—say, self consciousness, the
human moral nature, or color sense—it must be that the
( new faculty or sense will be first acquired by the foremost
| members of the race and at that time of life when these
are at their best. The new faculty having been acquired
by the foremost member of the race (foremost at least in
that direction), is later acquired by any other member
of the race who has in that particular line attained the
position occupied by the member who first acquired it.
As the race moves forward a larger and larger number
of its members acquire the new faculty, until it becomes,
let us say, fairly universal. Then another process sets
in: the race gains, as it were, upon the new faculty, or
upon the level upon which the new faculty rests; and
whereas no member at first acquired it under full matu-
rity, say thirty years of age, later, certain members
acquire it at twenty-five, then at twenty years, and,
after thousands of generations, at three years of age, as in the case of self consciousness.
In the light of this short reseme of a large subject I will now briefly set forth what I have to say on the real subject of this paper. And, in the first place, does it ) not seem pretty certain that a race which has been en- abled by its own inherent growth to advance from excit- ability to sensation, from that to simple consciousness,
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from that to self consciousness ; that has been able to take on the human moral nature, color sense and a hundred other faculties—does it not seem pretty certain, I say, that this race, still as full of vitality as ever, will take on, as time passes, still other faculties? Have we any reason to think that a process which has been in full operation certainly for many millions of years, and prob- ably from all eternity, will now cease? No rational being with the facts in his mind can suppose anything of the kind. To start with, then, we have the probability, if not certainty, that the human mind will advance be- yond its present status, and that the next step made will be comparable to those made in the past, as from sensation to simple consciousness, or from that to self conscious- ness. Further, if the next step made in direct ascent is in the nature of a new consciousness it is reasonable to suppose that it will come fer saltum, as does self con- sciousness, and not by infinite, almost imperceptible, de- grees, as came, or is coming, for instance, the color sense.
I have next to say that the human mind is now in the very act of making this supposed step—is now in the very act of stepping from the plane of self consciousness to a higher plane, which I call Cosmic Consciousness.
I have in the last three years collected twenty-three cases of this so-called Cosmic Consciousness, and what little further I have time to say at present will be based on the actual facts belonging to them. But you will kindly remember that anything I may say in the brief time at present at my disposal will bear an exceedingly small proportion to the mass of facts collected by me on this subject.
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First, as to the age at which, if at all, Cosmic Con- sciousness is attained, In twenty-one of the twenty- three cases | have been able to fix this with considerable certainty and accuracy, and | find that illumination took place: In two cases at the age of thirty, in one case at the age of thirty-one, in three cases at the age of thirty- two, in three cases at the age of thirty-three, in two cases at the age of thirty-four, in five cases at the age of thirty-five, in one case at the age of thirty-seven, in
) two cases at the age of thirty-eight, in one case at the
| age of thirty-nine, and in one case at the age of forty.
| Thus, then, the new consciousness obeys the first sup- posed necessary condition and appears when the organ-
4 ism is at its highest point of efficiency and excellence.
You will please keep steadily in mind that I claim that what I call Cosmic Consciousness is not simply an ex- pansion or extension of the self conscious mind with which we are all familiar, but the superaddition of a function as distinct from any possessed by the average man as self consciousness is distinct from any function pos- sessed by one of the higher animals. It is my purpose now to attempt to give you some idea of what this new function is, and to show you (or at least to give you some hints) how the Cosmic Conscious, differs from
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the merely self conscious, mind. But I warn you that with the best intentions in the world I shall not be able to make this at all clear to you, and that if you desire enlightenment on this point you will have to seek it in the books that contain the explanations of these men \ themselves—in, for instance, the Upanishads and Sutras, which give us the experience of one of the earliest cases, | | g
that, namely, of Gautama the Buddha; in the Epistles
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of Paul; in the ‘‘Shakspere’’ sonnets ; in Dante's ‘‘Divine Comedy ’’ (especi:lly in the ‘‘Paradise’’); in the works of Honoré de Balzac (especially in ‘‘ Louis Lambert”’ and ‘‘Seraphita’’); in Behmey’s ‘‘ Aurora’’ and ‘‘Three Principles ;’’ in the works of William Blake and those of Edward Carpenter; and, lastly, in the ‘‘ Leaves of Grass’’ and other works of Walt Whitman. But the great difficulty has always been and is still that the Cos- mic Conscious and self conscious minds are so far apart that words coming from the former are often strange and meaningless to the latter. They contain, as Paul ex- presses it, ‘a wisdom not of this world’’—a_ wisdom, consequently, which is very apt not to be understood, and for that reason to be accounted no wisdom at all, but foolishness. I ought to say further, in the way of intro- duction, that though Cosmic Consciousness has certain fixed elements which give to it a clear individuality, yet that the range and variety of mind upon the plane of Cosmic Consciousness appears to be still greater than the range and_ variety of mind on the plane of self con- sciousness—just as the range and variety of mind on the self conscious plane is far greater than are these in any given species on the plane of simple consciousness. So that, in all ways, the men possessed of the new faculty are liable to differ and do differ enormously and in all directions one from the other; some of them being, for instance, supreme poets, others religious founders, prophets and apostles, others great artists, and so on. Also, I ought to say that, while some of them are so obviously great that they are counted superhuman, others are not to outward seeming strikingly different from their merely self conscious contemporaries. Even
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a casual study, however, of the characters and lives of these great men will reveal the plain fact that both by the intellect and by the moral nature they are enor- mously in advance of their self conscious contemporaries.
What, now, are these fixed elements belonging to Cosmic Consciousness, to which I have referred ?
First, there are certain phenomena connected with the onset, or oncoming, of the new faculty—which is usually, perhaps always, sudden, instantaneous. Among these