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This book takes the reader on an adventure quest through Dr. Bucke's amazing life: from his boyhood in London, Ontario, his near-death experience in the U.S. Rockies, his medical studies at McGill University, his marriage and fatherhood, a personal enlightenment experience and his eventual appointment as Superintendent of the London Asylum located a stone's throw from his boyhood home. But the highlight of the journey is the development of his life-changing love of, and devotion to, the great poet Walt Whitman.
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902) grew up and practiced psychiatric medicine in London, Ontario, where he became Superintendent of the London Asylum. Bucke came to international prominence through his unusual friendship with Walt Whitman. Whitman served as an inspiration for Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness. In this work Bucke wrote his prescription for the human millennium, an apocalyptic vision with Whitman's Leaves of Grass as the Bible of Democracy. Peter Rechnitzer unravels the complex threads of Bucke's life: his travel adventures, his denial of his father and his adoration of Whitman who becomes his Messiah. Bucke was convinced that only mankind itself can shape its future into perfection, and that guilt, penitence and absolution are regressive steps reversing the march to happiness.
This classic study in the evolution of the human mind is a pioneering work as valuable today as when it was first published in 1901. At that time, it was enthusiastically acclaimed by both William James and P. D. Ouspensky. It has long been accepted as a landmark in the field of mysticism. In reviewing the mental and spiritual activity of the human race, Dr. Bucke discovers that at intervals certain individuals have appeared who are gifted with the power of transcendent realization—or Illumination. Their experiences constitute a definite advance in man’s relation with the Infinite. Moreover, the author shows from available records that this transfiguring endowment of Illumination is on the increase, and he gives full details of practically all the cases on record up to the time when the book was written.
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Cosmoconsciousness, or cosmic consciousness, is a term used to characterize a transcendence of the limits of self-consciousness. As an ultra-state of illumination of the mind, the roots of the conception are embodied in the quest for a spiritual connection with multi-dimensional cosmos. This quest searches for spiritual development as a pathway to human excellence, and can be associated with the mystics of ancient wisdom, as well as contemporary psycho-spiritual analysts. After its emergence in the late 19th century, cosmic consciousness rapidly became a source of inspiration for transpersonal psychology, moral therapy, and a thoughtful link to mystical quantum physics. By encouraging a spir...