* * * * * * * * * * "When I try to tell the best I find, I cannot; My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man." Tennyson, according to his friends had glimpses and flashes of Cosmic Consciousness, and in many of his poems he has given expression to the thoughts and feelings which had come to him at that time. The following is a good illustration of the latter: "For knowledge is the swallow on the lake That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there, But never yet hath dippt into the abysm, The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth, And in a million-millionth of a grain Which cleft and cleft again for evermore And ever vanishing, never vanishes * * * And more, my son, for more than once when I Sat all alone, revolving in myself That word which is the symbol of myself, The mortal symbol of Self was loosed, And passed into the Nameless, as a cloud Melts into Heaven. I touched my limbs, the limbs Were strange, not mine—and yet no shadow of doubt, But utter clearness, and through loss of Self The gain of such large life as matched with ours Were Sun to spark, unshadowable in words, Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world." Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, of Toronto, Canada, a number of years ago published a book entitled "Cosmic Consciousness," in which he grouped together a number of very interesting experiences along these lines which had been related by those experiencing them; Dr. Bucke himself, as well as his friend Walt Whitman, and several other close friends, had experienced flashes of this same stage of consciousness. He deduces the following general idea from the consideration of these experiences: "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 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 today, 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 millenniums 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." In another part of his book, Dr. Bucke gives the following general characteristics of the special type of experiences recorded by him in the book: "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 occur at noonday or in the middle of the night, and the person at first may feel 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 an 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 today, and 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." Emerson is his wonderful essay on "The Over-Soul" clearly indicates his knowledge of the experiences mentioned herein in connection with what has been called "Cosmic Consciousness." The following quotations therefrom will serve to disclose his general thought on the subject: "Always, I believe, by the necessity of our constitution, a certain enthusiasm attends the individual's consciousness of that divine presence. The character and duration of this enthusiasm varies with the state of the individual, from an ecstasy and trance and prophetic inspiration—which is its rarer appearance—to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion, in which form it warms, like our household fires, all the families and associations of men, and makes society possible. A certain tendency to insanity has always attended the opening of the religious sense in men, as if 'blasted with excess of light.' The trances of Socrates; the 'Union' of Plotinus; the vision of Porphyry; the conversion of Paul; the aurora of Behmen; the convulsions of George Fox and his Quakers; the illumination of Swedenborg are of this kind. What was in the case of these remarkable persons a ravishment has in innumerable instances in common life been exhibited in a less striking manner. Everywhere the history of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm. The rapture of the Moravian and Quietist; the opening of the internal sense of the Word, in the language of the New Jerusalem Church; the revival of the Calvinistic Churches; the experiences of the Methodists, are varying forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always mingles with the universal soul. The nature of these revelations is always the same; they are perceptions of the absolute law. They are solutions of the soul's own questions. The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after. * * * We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing, and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are One. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun and moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. It is only by the vision of that Wisdom that the horoscope of the ages can be read, and it is only by falling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophesy which is innate in every man that we can know what it saith. Every man's words, who speaks from that life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare not speak for it. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, and behold, their speech shall be lyrical and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if sacred I may not use, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to report what hints I have collected of the transcendent simplicity and energy of the Highest Law." So such are the general reports of the nature and character of these glimpses of this Universal Consciousness which men here and there have experienced in all times. Let us now consider the powers kindled in those to whom glimpses (or more) of this consciousness has come. For an increase in "knowing" always brings with it an increase in power, according to the law of cause and effect.

Whenever by delight or else by pain, That seizes any faculty of ours, Wholly to that the soul collects itself, It seemeth that no other power it...

Broke the deep lethargy within my head A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted, Like to a person who by force is wakened; And round about I moved my...

When the perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the colour of what it rests...

The eternal Mind is in the great unsearchable Depth, and from Eternity is the indissoluble Band, and the Spirit in the and therein in the Center of...

Having already all power, He stooped down and peeped through the seven Harmonies and, breaking through the strength of the circles, made Himself manif...

And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will...

My mind in this wise wholly in suspense, Steadfast, immovable, attentive gazed, And evermore with gazing grew enkindled. In presence of that light...

Remember, Reader, if e'er in the Alps A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see Not otherwise than through its membrane mole, How, when...

For neither without sensing can one think, nor without thinking sense. But it is possible [they say] to think a thing apart from sense, as those who f...

Ordinary people may see them in dreams, But I see them clearly, though wide awake. I conceal myself a while from this world, Know, O wife, outward...

For whatsoever thing the Sun doth shine upon, it is anon, by interjection of the Earth or Moon, or by the intervention of the night, robbed of its lig...

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! how hard a thing it is...

After the truth against the present life Of miserable mortals was unfolded By her who doth imparadise my mind, As in a looking-glass a taper's flame...

But when this had given me many a hard blow and repulse, doubtless from the [holy] spirit, which had a great longing yearning towards me, at last I fe...

Now in our case the intellect doth differ from the sense in this,—that by the mind’s extension intellect can reach to the intelligence and the...

Now the rational soul in man abounds in marvels, both of knowledge and power. By means of it he masters arts and sciences, can pass in a flash from...

My thought, which was in my body, snatched me away from my race. It took me up to the top of the world, which is close to the light that shone upon...

I mean the daimones, who, I believe, have their abode with us, and heroes, who abide between the purest part of air above us and the earth,—where it i...

While I was listening to these things as as those there spoke them, there was within me a stillness of silence, and I heard the Blessedness whereby I...

No: if we turn, this turns by the same act. And the Soul of the All- are we to think that when it turns from this sphere its lower phase similarly wit...