Cosmic Consciousness: The Man-God Whom We Await

by Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall

"But of infinitely more importance than telepathy, and so-called spiritualism—no matter what explanation we give of these, or what their future is destined to be—is the final act here touched upon. This is, that superimposed upon self-consciousness as is that faculty upon simple consciousness, a third and higher form of consciousness is at present making its appearance in our race. This higher form of consciousness, when it appears, occurs as it must, at the full maturity of the individual, at or about the age of thirty-five, but almost always between the ages of thirty and forty. There have been occasional cases of it for the last two thousand years, and it is becoming more and more common. In fact, in all appearances, as far as observed, it obeys the laws to which every nascent faculty is subject. Many more or less perfect examples of this new faculty exist in the world to-day, and it has been my privilege to know personally and to have had the opportunity of studying, several men and women who have possessed it. In the course of a few more milleniums there should be born from the present human race, a higher type of man, possessing this higher type of consciousness. This new race, as it may well be called, would occupy toward us, a position such as that occupied by us toward the simple conscious 'alulus homo.' The advent of this higher, better and happier race, would simply justify the long agony of its birth through countless ages of our past. And it is the first article of my belief, some of the grounds for which I have endeavored to lay before you, that a new race is in course of evolution."

At a subsequent date, having given the subject further consideration and having collected data corroborative of his former observations, Dr. Bucke said:

"I have, in the last three years, collected twenty-three cases of this so-called cosmic consciousness. In each case the onset or incoming of the new faculty is always sudden, instantaneous. Among the unusual feelings the mind experiences, is a sudden sense of being immersed in flame or in a brilliant light. This occurs entirely without worrying or outward cause, and may happen at noonday or in the middle of the night, and the person at first feels that he is becoming insane.

"Along with these feelings comes a sense of immortality; not merely a feeling of certainty that there is a future life,—that would be a small matter—but a pronounced consciousness that the life now being lived is eternal, death being seen as a trivial incident which does not affect its continuity.

"Further, there is annihilation of the sense of sin, and an intellectual competency, not simply surpassing the old plane, but on an entirely new and higher plane. * * * The cosmic conscious race will not be the race that exists to-day, any more than the present is the same race that existed prior to the evolution of self-consciousness. A new race is being born from us, and this new race will in the near future, possess the earth."

Dr. Bucke later published an article in a current magazine, illustrating the illumination of his friend Walt Whitman, and supplemented with an account of his own experience. We quote briefly from Dr. Bucke's account of his own experience:

"I had spent the evening in a great city with some friends reading and discussing poetry and philosophy. We had occupied ourselves with Wordsworth, Shelley, Browning, and especially Whitman. We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom to my lodgings. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions flow of themselves, as it were, through my mind. All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city. The next moment I knew that the fire was within myself."

While Dr. Bucke is unquestionably right in his estimate of the fact that "a new race is being born," as he expresses it, there can scarcely be any question of individual age, in which the new consciousness may be expected. Physical maturity can have nothing whatever to do with the matter, since the acquisition of supra-consciousness is a matter of the maturity of the soul. This completement of the cycle of the soul's pilgrimage and service, may come at any age, as far as the physical body is concerned. Indeed, science records no definite age at which even physical maturity is invariably reached, although there is an approximate age.

A case recently widely commented upon was that of a child of six years who showed every symptom of senility or old age, which could hardly be possible without having passed what we call "maturity."

Again, we find that some persons retain every indication of youth, both of mind and body, long after their contemporaries have reached and passed middle age. It is coming more and more to be admitted that age is relative, and that what we know as the relative is the effect of mental operations. Mental operations are subject to change—to enlargement.