A curious book, found at a thrift shop and purchased despite the title and cover.
First published in 1901, the author argues that man is in his "Self Conscious" stage of existence, in which he is aware of himself (differentiated from the animals, that have an awareness of others but presumably not themselves. We now know that for certain species this is untrue). But - from time to time, certain men have achieved a sort of illumination, or enlightenment, and he argues that this is a trend forward for humanity in consciousness - that eventually we'll all transcend our self-conscious selves and become at one with the universe as we can perceive it (or, as we don't).
Of Canadian descent (reassuring in that most saviours seem to come from Galilee or Tibet) he describes his childhood in backwoods Canada, his growing up, travels, love of Walt Whitman (who, coincidentally is definitely one of the enlightened ones) before proceeding towards his theories of consciousness. Himself a psychiatrist the author proves very well informed on any number of issues and rather out of date on others (as is to be expected.)
It reminds me vaguely of Hegel's "The Philosophy of History" in that the author argues conscious awakening is, in a way, an inevitable part of being human. A little ray of sunshine to distract one from the news cycle...
But his Thesis is not the point, it's the questions he raises (in my mind, at least - along the way).
First of all, his views on Women and enlightenment and Savage/"Lower Races" on enlightenment - well, .... that isn't cutting it today. Even if he were right, which I strongly suspect he isn't. Culture is far more definitive than race. But he's not working from a place of ignorance or hate, merely a lack of information and through the lens of his time.
Some of his (so far) enlightened persons include Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, Shakespeare (Francis Bacon), Dante, and so on and so forth. He finds no shortage of exemplary lives and attributed quotes to support his arguments. Of interest were his references to Colour Theory - that man has only recently developed a nuanced colour sense (and there is abundant evidence and other theories to support this, which I have referenced before), and extends this same theory to fragrance and taste (again, these things lacked a vocabulary until relatively modern times), he argues that colour blindness is simply atavism, that insanity is caused by the hyper-attenuation of modern senses, that as we "evolve" those higher up are more prone to mental illness, the foundation not yet secured, and so forth and so on.
Not everything is to be agreed upon, but he does force you to consider things from a different perspective.
Points of disagreement: that self awareness is not present in dreams (it can be, as in lucid dreams), that a effect can never be greater than it's cause (clearly and almost always untrue), that the Aryan Race is the most highly developed/evolved, that women have disproportionally fewer representatives of Cosmic Consciousness (possible - if you consider that women conform more to the mean than men do, and so men are overrepresented in things like mental health struggles - and, by extension, "Peak Experiences" that tear off the veil...)
anyways, a curious read but non-essential. Now probably I should attempt to elevate myself through some meditation, but I think instead it's time for lunch...
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Maurice_Bucke
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness
Link: https://archive.org/details/cosmicconsciousn01buck/page/n7/mode/2up