Cosmic Consciousness

March 23, 2003

Hello All,

One can have mystical experiences at any level that one is at. People of no

great virtue have them and very good people may not. Some saints have

spent their lives in states of transport and rapture, others seem to be

bypassed by the more obvious signs of elevated consciousness. The rule is

that there is no rule.

'Cosmic Consciousness' by Richard Maurice Bucke is in many ways an object

lesson in the dangers of fixation on a particular mystical experience and

using it as a template and a confirmation of whatever is rattling about in

your mind at that moment. Let me immediately distinguish between the book

and the other excellent work that he did as a professional psychiatrist in

devising humane treatments for the mentally ill. This was a rarity in the

19th.century. Precise details of this were not available in the little

biographical material I was able to turn up on the web. It is ironic that

this may well have been his crowning achievement and not the book which

remains in print 100 years after its first publication.

It's hard to know where to begin. Read and you will see that on almost any

point he is completely wrong. I do not doubt for a moment that he had this

wonderful transforming experience but his mistake was to imagine that the

banal hotchpotch of 19th.C. racism, sexism, scientism and meliorism was

thereby confirmed. Out of lumber like that you could build a fair dog

kennel but if you're going to use mystical experience to launch forth a new

vision there's nothing like a solid bedrock of ancient wisdom and

tradition.

What's my point? Only this and I am repeating what all the wise masters in

all spiritual traditions have said - 'don't get hung up on experiences,

keep a muster of marbles and a full complement of court cards and ah - say

your prayers'. Thus endeth my homily for today.

Best Wishes, Michael.

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