Studies
Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind is the title of a 1901 book by Richard Maurice Bucke. In it, Bucke developed a theory involving three stages in the development of consciousness: the simple consciousness of animals; the self-consciousness of the mass of humanity (encompassing reason, imagination, etc.); and cosmic consciousness — an emerging faculty and the next stage of human development.
Alexander Zelitchenko in his "Svet Zhizni" (Light of Life, History of Humankind in Psychosphere of Earth) continues this line, joined the directions of thought of Oswald Spengler, Lev Vygotsky, Lev Gumilev, Carl Jung tracing the transformations of human consciousness in course of history.
According to P. D. Ouspensky, as man evolves into higher states of consciousness, e. g. cosmic consciousness, he needs the tools of a higher form of logic, Ouspensky calls Tertium organum given to the title of his 1912 book.
Bucke’s conclusion one hundred years ago was that these individuals were gifted in the direction of cosmic consciousness but then developed this awareness through self-discipline. It now seems that the gift at birth is not as necessary as the self-discipline and the art of loving. Many of today’s psychologist and theologians make specific reference to Bucke’s work. The list includes Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, Robert de Ropp, Abraham Maslow, and Kenneth Wilbur, to name only a few. The numbers of people who make use of the concept of cosmic consciousness introduced by Bucke in 1901 is even lengthier. This list includes Albert Einstein, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Alan Watts.
Read more about this topic: Cosmic Consciousness
Famous quotes containing the word studies:
“Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if he had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material ...”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“You must train the children to their studies in a playful manner, and without any air of constraint, with the further object of discerning more readily the natural bent of their respective characters.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling in himself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm’d with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)