Cosmic Consciousness Annotated: As Edited, Updated and Interpreted by Jeff Carreira

by Richard Maurice Bucke, Jeff Carreira (Editor)

A fresh look at a modern spiritual classic. This is an edited, updated and interpreted edition of Richard Maurice Bucke's spiritual classic Cosmic A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. Bucke originally published his magnificent treatise in 1901 and it has been read, admired and even revered ever since. In this edition you will find the same insights and inspirations of the original text written in modern language and edited with modern sensibilities. The purpose here is not to improve upon the original, but to make its great wisdom more accessible to readers and spiritual seekers of today. When Jeff Carreira first encountered the book Cosmic Consciousness, he found a vision of conscious evolution that rang deeply resonant with his own spiritual experiences while contextualizing them within a vast narrative of universal history. Of course, the language and ideas of even a work as great as this can become dated with time. Languages change, new ideas develop, and many readers find the original text difficult to approach. Often the wisdom of spiritual classics is simply incorporated into the books and insights of present-day authors with minimal reference to the original source. This edition offers a different possibility. It attempts to preserve the wisdom and logical flow of the original book in a creatively edited and interpreted text that can be freshly appreciated by a new audience. This edition of Cosmic Consciousness is offered to honor the spirit and brilliance of the original.

145 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 10, 2021

About the author

Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, M.D. (McGill University, 1862) was a psychiatrist, adventurer, and mystic, whose work on what he called "cosmic consciousness" (borrowing from the poet Edward Carpenter) came to form part of the underpinning of transpersonal psychology. He was among the founders of the Medical School of the University of Western Ontario, and was elected to the English Literature Section of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882.

Reviews

[Peter Hoopman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading this book together with three other books from the same author: No Place Like Home, “The Battle of Science and Spirituality” and “The path of a Spiritual Breakthrough”.

Somehow so great to read these four books more or less at the same time. They are mutual contributing to each other, opening up, sometimes questioning myself about: How do I see this? But the most important is that opens up more clearly, something that has always have been there, evolving but it's bases has been there for ever and will be there after we are gone.

The four books are capable to restore the curious unknowing child in us, breaking itself free from the cultural conditioning inviting to look anew to the same reality that has always been there and always will be there. A reality we do not have to fight but somehow just accepting being a part of its evolution.
In Cosmic Consciousness I loved to read about the bringing in evolution of colour as a recent feature in our human development. Which showed me so clearly, we are stumbling up a ladder of unknowing within a reality that is/was/always be there and is sleeping awake in all of us in an accountable variety of openings, possibilities and undividable unity. Simple Consciousness, Self-Consciousness as necessary steps towards Cosmic Consciousness of which we all (un)knowingly fragments of its existence.

All these little books of Jeff Carreira have the potentiality to travel within our little cosmos and at the same time is part of the Cosmos, life our inner freedom a never-ending journey into the mystery of who we are.

If you want to travel, discover new territory I joyfully recommend these little books od Jeff not knowing where to it leads, losing the control bit by bit and it can unfold within ….

My ratings for the other books:

No place but Home: 5 stars (the best meditation instruction, the practice of No Problem)

The battle of Science and spirituality: 5 stars (interessting personal view of Jeff Carreira)

The path of a spiritual breaktrhough: 5 stars (Bringing it more down to earth)