What Is Cosmic Consciousness?

Some background information on Cosmic Consciousness comes from two experts in their time: Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke (1894) and Dr. Stanley R. Dean (1973).

In 1894, Dr. Bucke, former president of the American Medico-Psychological Association presented a paper called “Cosmic Consciousness”. Four years later, he published a book under the same title. His theory of cosmic consciousness was that:

a seemingly miraculous higher consciousness, appearing sporadically throughout the ages, was a natural rather than an occult phenomenon, that it was latent in all of us, and was, in fact, an evolutionary process that would eventually raise all mankind to a higher level of existence.

Cosmic consciousness refers to a supra-sensory, supra-rational level of mentation that transcends all other human experiences and creates a sense of Oneness with the universe. Its existence has been known since antiquity under a variety of regional and ritual terms – Nirvana, Samadhi, Kairos, Unio Mystica, to name but a few.

Seventy-nine years later, in 1973, Dr. Stanley R. Dean stated that the ultra-conscious manifests in the following ways:

1.) The onset is ushered in by an awareness of light that floods the brain and fills the mind…

2.) The individual is bathed in emotions of super-charged joy, rapture, triumph, grandeur, reverential awe and wonder…

3.) A noetic illumination occurs that is quite impossible to describe. In an intuitive flash one has an awareness of the meaning and drift of the universe, an identification and merging with Creation, infinity and immortality, a depth beyond depth of revealed meaning – in short, a conception of the Over-Self, so omnipotent that religion has interpreted it as God.

4.) There is feeling of transcendental love and compassion for all living things.

5.) Fear of death falls off like a mantle; physical and mental suffering vanish…

6.) There is a reappraisal of the material things in light, an enhanced appreciation of beauty.

7.) There is an extraordinary quickening of the intellect, an uncovering of latent genius and leadership.

8.) There is a sense of mission. The revelation is so moving and profound that the individual is moved to share it with all fellow men.

9.) A charismatic change occurs in personality – an inner and outer radiance, as though charged with some divinely inspired power, a magnetic force that attracts and inspires others.

10.) There is a sudden or gradual development of extraordinary psychic gifts such as clairvoyance, extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, healing, etc. Though generally regarded as occult, such phenomena may have a more rational explanation. They may be due to an awakening of trans-human powers of perception latent in all of us.

– This information was published in the U.S. Congressional Record in Washington DC on September 25, 1973.

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This background information on Cosmic Consciousness was painstakingly gathered by Ruth-Inge Heinze, a professor and lecturer, and became the first chapter of her book: The Light In the Dark: The Search for Visions. This book was published in 2014, several years after her death.

I am privileged to have known Ruth-Inge for ten years before her passing, and seen how she brought the light to so many other people and cultures around the world. She had a Samadhi experience very early in her life, which is vividly described in her book.

Justin Stone came to the same conclusions about cosmic consciousness, and he did it through the vehicle of intense meditation, study and inner work, and T’ai Chi Chih. As teachers of this form of meditation, we can take advantage of this gift through our dedication to the practice… and we too may gain access to this higher state of being.