erstanding, which is a spiritual quality, words themselves are meaningless. When the mind becomes Illumined the spirit of the word is clear and where before the

ntals, we will find that such extreme intensity of effort as that which

this country to present a specific classification of what he termed the "new" consciousness

ical Association in Montreal, Canada, in September of the year 1897. Dr. Bucke described this stat

t 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 to-day, 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 milleniums there should

ther consideration and having collected data corro

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 occu

re is a future life,-that would be a small matter-but a pronounced consciousness that the life now

and higher plane. * * * The cosmic conscious race will not be the race that exists to-day, any more than the present is the same race that exis

lumination of his friend Walt Whitman, and supplemented with an account of his

nd, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions flow of themselves, as it we

expected. Physical maturity can have nothing whatever to do with the matter, since the acquisition of supra-consciousness is a matter of the maturity of the soul. This completement of the cycle of the soul's pilgr

years who showed every symptom of senility or old age, which coul

ries have reached and passed middle age. It is coming more and more to be admitted that age is relative, and that wha

herefore, not subject to what we know as

always be. Our relation to it changes, as we develop from the sense conscious to the self-conscious state and finally to what we term the "cosmic" conscious sta

well-known woman writer in America thus describes a succession of experiences in what were evidently conditions

ly intoning his own name, this lady acquired the habit of repeating in wonder and awe the name by which she was cal

sehold would call me from study or play-even at the early age of five or six years-I would instantly be seized with a fe

t name, and often when alone would repeat the name over and

o such an extent that I felt I must see t

to me not to belong to that 'other self' hidden behind those eyes. On one occasion I became quite entranced and fell from the chair, after which I refrained from looking into the mirror, although I did not for many years get over the feeling of wonderment

ren of my age, in my school studies, I was frequently admonished for being 'stupid,' owing to

would be transported to some unknown, yet immanent region, utterly losing consciousness of my surroundings. I would sometimes awake to find myself stand

bbreviation of her name, and assumed her full baptismal name. Whether this latter fact had anything to do with the cessation of the experience is doubtful.

ion which the physicians pronounced "catalepsy." This young man was at the time a medical student, and had always exhibited a tendency to entrancement, or

ere. I was everybody and everybody was I. I knew I was I, and yet I knew that I was much more than myself. Indeed, it seemed to me that there was no div

e very obvious reason that there are no words in which to express what is wordless, and inexpressible. This authentic account of a young man under twenty yea

is most unlikely that he had seen the article. Certainly the young man had never heard of the experience which Dr. Bucke later reco

ony and union with everything in the universe. "I was everything and everything was I," said this young man, and again "I was here, there and eve

iousness, we find the experience of an illiterate negro woman, a celebrat

of age in 1817, when she was given her freedom under a law which free

ion consisted almost entirely of that presentation of religiou

ul degree of spiritual consciousness could account for her marvelous

owe wrote of her, in an

nthly, as e

silent and subtle power which we call personal presence, than this woman. In the mo

ience of Illumination, when not already present, as in the case of Whitman, for e

long those lines which made up the sum and substance of her life. Judging her from the broader concept of philosophy, Isa

reminded me of Clarence's dream in Shakespeare, and equalled it. The anecdotes of her ready wit and quick striking replies are numberless. But the whole together g

tartling experience in which she met God face to face, and in which she said to Him: "Oh, God, I didn't know as you was so big." In the New England Magazine for March,

omebody stood between her and this brilliant presence; and after a while she knew that this somebody loved her. A

soon perceived that their images looked vile and black and could not be the beautiful presence that shielded her from the fires of God. She began to experiment with h

orld grew bright, her troubled thoughts were banished, and her heart was filled with praise

it must be remembered that the mind is the medium through which the spiritual realization must be expressed and, as has been stated previously, the desc

rsity, in his exhaustive book The Varieties of Religious Exp

religious and theological matters, he probably absorbs his narrowness from his generation. Moreover, we must not confound the essentials of saintliness with its accidents, w

h her, as Jesus was the motive power of her every thought and act. And although at the moment of her Illumination, she realized the "bigness" of God, later, in arranging a

nversion in human experience: and this tendenc

rm diverse internal groups, and systems, relatively independent of one another. Each 'aim' which he follows awakens a certain s

rable from religious devotion, or at least contemplative mysticism. This view is held almost exclusivel

mportant from the fact that the person detailing his experience, was a man of mental

s what Orthodox Christians generally

appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jes

d I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to him. I wept aloud l

istinct impression that I touched him, that I recollect. As I turned and

ng for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned, by any person in t

es of liquid love. For I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect disti

e after the other, until I recollect that I cried out, 'I shall die if the

r. Finney could have lived in an age and a community which was essentially strict in its Orthodoxy, without having heard of the phrase "baptism of the Holy Spirit," even though the words had escaped his im

n, is something which, we believe, may be accounted for, as Pro

s impossible save in connection with religious sys

oted for his simplicity and child-like trust. Following his Illumination we learn that he beca

ted by Theodore F. Seward, the well-known American ph

d from whose lips I received the account. It is a lady in middle life, who has for year

tes, and at the same time, she felt a great spiritual uplifting and an enlargement of her mental powers, as if the limitations of the body were transcended, and her soul's capacities were in a measure set free for the moment. The experience was unique, above and b

the creeds of the world, as founded by "saviours" and incarnations of God, there is a unity among all races, as to the fact of a one supreme universal power, which is Aum, the Absolute, a

"sacrifice to God," as it is not infrequently called, with the experience of those who have recorded the phenomenon, apparently arriving

this fact has given rise to the many paths or methods of attainment which have been taught by various Illumined

ndia in comparatively modern times, or at least during the last two