Cosmic Consciousness

Richard Maurice Bucke’s influential study argues that human consciousness can undergo a higher, transpersonal form of awakening beyond ordinary self-awareness. A landmark in modern mystical thought, the book surveys historical figures Bucke believed exhibited this state and offers readers a psychological, philosophical, and comparative account of mystical illumination.

Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a Canadian physician and psychiatrist best known for *Cosmic Consciousness* (1901), a pioneering study of mystical experience and its historical manifestations. His work helped frame visionary and religious experience as a subject for comparative psychological and philosophical inquiry.