Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind

Paul says the wisdom of self consciousness is not wisdom to those who have the Cosmic Sense, and the wisnom of the latter is foolishness to the merely self conscious. Compare Whitman’s poem, “To Rich Givers” [193; 216]: “ What you give me I cheerfully accept, a little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money as 1 rendezvous with my poems, a traveler’s lodging and a breakfast as I journey through the states. Why should I be ashamed to own such gifts ? Why to advertise for them ? For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman, for I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe. This seems to be the experience of all persons who have had the Cosmic Sense either in greater or less degree. So Blake says : “ I have written this poem (‘Jerusalem’) without premeditation and even against my will." So also Behmen “became impressed with the necessity of writing down what he saw,” though writing was far from easy with him. For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of ; for necessity is laid upon me [20 : 9 : 16] .

A splendid exposition of the morality that belongs to the Cosmic Sense. The same spirit may be traced in every case — but see especially [193 : 273] : “ Give me the pay I have served for, give me to sing the song of the great idea, take all the rest, I have loved the earth, sun, animals, 1 have despised riches, 1 have given alms to every one that asked, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others.” Love suffereth long, and is kind ; love en- If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge ; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing, vieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil ; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth ; but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away ;

whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part ; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child ; now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly ; but then face to face ; now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I have been known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; and the greatest of these is love [20: 13: 1-13].

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the first fruits ; then they that are Christ’s, at his coming. Then cometh the end when he shall deliver up A comparison betw'cen the self conscious and the Cosmic Conscious states. Self Consciousness, he says, the Adamic state is a condition of death. With “ Christ ” begins true life, which shall spread and become universal ; that is the end of the old order. After that there shall be no more “rule,” the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power [20 : 15 : 22-25]. Behold, I tell you a mystery : We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, but when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory [20 : 15 : 51-55]-

But though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory ; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal : but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven ; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life [21 ; 4 : 16-18 and 5:1:5]. No expression could be more clear cut, more perfect. The man who enters Cosmic Consciousness is really a new creature, and all his surroundings “become new” — take on a new face and meaning. You get around to the other side of things, as it were ; they are the same, but also entirely different. ‘ ‘ Things are not dismissed from the places they held before. The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before. But the soul is also real ; it too is positive and direct ; no reasoning, no proof, has established it, undeniable growth has established it ” [193 : 180].

“ authority ” or “ power ” ; all shall be free and equal. “The angel borne upon the blast saith net ‘ Ye dead arise,’ he saith ‘Arise, ye living’ ’’ Expresses the sense of immortality which belongs to Cosmic Consciousness. Compare [193 : 77] : “ There is that in me — I do not know what it is — but I know that it is in me. Wrenched and sweaty — calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep, I sleep long. I do not know it — it is without name — it is a word unsaid — it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, to it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines ! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see, O my brothers and sisters ? It is not chaos or death, it is form, union, plan — it is eternal life — it is happiness.” The writer contrasts the self with the Cosmic Conscious life. His consciousness of eternal life is made plain. If any man is in Christ he is a new creature ; the old things are passed away ; behold, they are become new [21 : 5 : 17].

There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh In Cosmic Consciousness there is absolutely no sense of sin nor of death, the person feels that this last is merely an incident in continuous life. The merely self conscious man cannot, by the keeping of the “law” or in any other way, destroy either sin or the sense of sin, but, “ Christ ” — i. e., the Cosmic Sense, can and does accomplish both. and as offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after flesh but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death ; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace ; because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God [19:8; 1—7].

The spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God ; and if children then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs of Christ [19 ; 8 ; 16-17]. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not w'orthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to usward. For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body [19:8: 18-24]. And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good [19 : 8 ; 28]. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God [19:8 ; 38-39]. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself ; save that to him who accounteth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean [19 : 14 : 14].

To sum up : We have in this case : a. The characteristic suddenness that belongs to the oncoming of the New Sense. The new birth takes place at a given place and moment. b. We have the subjective light clearly, very strongly, manifested. c. We have intellectual illumination of the most pronounced character. d. We have very strongly marked moral exaltation. e. We have the conviction, the sense, of immortality, the extinction of the sense of sin and the extinction of the fear of death. All men who have Cosmic Consciousness are on the same spiritual level in the same sense that all who are self conscious are 7)ie7i — belong to the same species. Paul speaks of the glory and joy of the Cosmic Conscious life just dawning upon the world compared with the self conscious state theretofore universal. “ Vistas of glory,” says Whitman, “incessant and branching.” “Joy, always joy,” says Elukhanam. “Joy beginning but without ending,” says E. C. “When you have once,” says Seraphita [that is, Balzac] “ felt the delights of the divine intoxication (illumination) then all is yours ” [7 : 182]. Compare also the following extracts from Behmen, in which he in like manner with Paul contrasts the Self with the Cosmic Conscious life : “The external world or the external life is not a valley of suffering for those who enjoy it, but only for those who know of a higher life. The animal enjoys animal life ; the intellect the intellectual realm ; but he who has entered into regeneration recognises his terrestrial existence as a burden and prison. With this recognition he takes upon himself the cross of Christ ” [97 : 325].

“The holy and heavenly man, hidden in the monstrous (external) man, is as much in heaven as God, and heaven is in him, and the heart or light of God is begotten and born in him. Thus is God in him and he in God. God is nearer to him than his bestial body ” [97 : 326]. An expression of the optimism which belongs to Cosmic Consciousness. Compare Whitman ; “ Omnes ! Omnes ! Let others ignore what they may, 1 make the poem of evil also, 1 commemorate that part also, 1 am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is, and I say there is in fact no evil ” [193 : 22]. Plotinus was born A. D. 204 and died 274. Plotinus held that in order to perfect knowledge the subject and object must be united — that the intelligent agent and the thing understood . . . must not be in separation* [55 : 716]. He held that in order to perfect knowledge the subject and object must be unitedf [85 : 716] . Here follows a letter : * “When to a man who understands, the Self has become all things” [150 : 312].

t “ Objects gross and the unseen soul are one ” [193 : 173]. “The perception seems to be one in which all the senses unite into one sense. In which you become the object ’ ’ [63]. Plotinus to Flaccus [188 : 78-81]. I applaud your devotion to philosophy : I rejoice to hear that your soul has set sail, like the returning Ulysses, for its native land — that glorious, that only real country — the world of unseen truth. To follow philosophy the senator Rogatianus, one of the noblest of my disciples, gave up the other day all but the whole of his patrimony, set free his slaves and surrendered all the honors of his station. Tidings have reached us that Valerian has been defeated, and is now in the hands of Sapor. The threats of Franks and Allemanni, of Goths and Persians, are alike terrible by turns to our degenerate Rome. In days like these, crowded with incessant calamities, the inducements to a life of contemplation are more than ever strong. Even my quiet existence seems now to grow somewhat sensible of the advance of years. Age alone I am unable to debar from my retirement. I am weary alreads of this prison- The sense of continued life. “And as for you, house, the body, and calmly await the day death, and you bitter lung of mortality, it is idle

when the divine nature within me shall be ^ set free from matter. The Egyptian priests used to tell us that a single touch with the wing of their holy bird could charm the crocodile into torpor ; it is not thus speedily, my dear friend, that the pinions of your soul will have power to still the untamed body. The creature will yield only to watchful, strenuous constancy of habit. Purify your soul from all undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify the body, deny self — affections as well as appetites — and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision. You ask me to tell you how we know, and what is our criterion of certainty. To write is always irksome to me. But for the continual solicitations of Porphyry I should not have left a line to survive me. For your own sake and for your father’s my reluctance shall be overcome. External objects present us only with appearances. Concerning them, therefore, we may be said to possess opinion rather than knowledge. The distinctions in the actual world of appearance are of import only to ordinary and practical men. Our question lies with the ideal reality that exists behind appearance. How does the mind perceive these ideas ? Are they without us, and is the reason, like sensation, occupied with objects external to itself? What certainty would we then have — what assurance that our perception was infallible ? The object perceived would be a something different

from the mind perceiving it. We should have then an image instead of reality. It would be monstrous to believe for a moment that the mind was unable to perceive ideal truth e.Kactiy as it is. and that we had not certainty and real knowledge concerning the world of intelligence. It follows, therefore, that this region of truth is not to be investigated as a thing external to us. and so only imperfectly known. It is within us. Here the objects we contemplate and that which contemplates are identical — both are thought. The subject cannot surely know an object difte.'-ent from itself. The world of ideas lies within our intelligence. Truth, therefore, is not the agreement of our apprehension of an external object with the object itself. It is the agreement of the mind with itself. Consciousness, therefore, is the sole basis of certainty. The mind is its own witness. Reason sees in itself that which is above itself as its source ; and again, that which is below itself as still itself once more. Knowledge has three degrees — opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense ; of the second dialectic; of the third intuition. To the last I subordinate reason. It is absolute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind knowing with the object known.

that there is as great an interval between Cosmic tween the latter and Simple Consciousness. “The world of ideas divides itself into three spheres — that of instinct ; that of abstractions ; that of specialism ” [5 : 141]. Compare Bacon : “ The first creature of God in tire work of the days was the light of the sense, the last the light of reason, and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit” [35 : Sa]. Plotinus, Bacon and Balzac all teach (and every one who has had experience will agee with them) onsciousness and Self Consciousness as exists be- There is a raying out of all orders of e.xistence, an external emanation from the ineffable One. There is again a returning impulse, drawing all upwards and inwards towards the centre from whence all came. Love, as Plato in the ” Banquet ” beautifully says, is child of poverty and plenty. In the amorous quest of the soul after the good lies the painful sense of fall and deprivation. But that love is blessing, is salvation, is our guardian genius ; without it the centrifugal law would overpower us, and sweep our souls out far from their source toward the cold extremities of the material and the manifold. The wise man recognizes the idea of the good within him. This he develops by withdrawal into the holy place of his own soul. He who does not understand how the soul contains the beautiful within itself, seeks to realize beauty without by laborious production. His aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and so to expand his being ; instead of going out into the manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so to float upwards towards the divine fount of being whose steam flows within him.

You ask, how can we know the Infinite ? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can onh' apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer — in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy [Cosmic Consciousness] . It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness. Like only can apprehend like ; when you thus cease to be finite, )'ou become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union — this identity. But this sublime condition is not of per- manent duration!. It is only now and then that we can enjoy this elevation (mercifully made possible for us) above the limits of the body and the world. I myself have realized it but three times as yet, and Por- Plotinus (as he tells us) had had three periods of illumination at the time of writing this letter to Flaccus — that is. by the time he was fifty-six years old. We are told by Porphyr)- that between the age of tifty-nine and sixty-four (that is, during the six years of their intercourse) that he had four

phyry hitherto not once. All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assist you in this attainment, and facilitate the approach and the recurrence of these happy intervals. There are, then, different roads by which this end may be reached, that devotion to the One and that ascent of periods, making at least seven altogether. It will be noticed that what Plotinus says as to what aids in the passage to Cosmic Consciousness is precisely what is taught by all those who have attained— by Gautama, Jesus, Paul and the rest. The love of beauty which exalts the poet ; science which makes the ambition of the philosopher, and that love and those prayers by which some devout and ardent soul tends in its moral purity towards perfection. These are the great highways conducting to that height above the actual and the particular, where we stand in the immediate presence of the Infinite, who shines out as from the deeps of the soul. The following passage [83 : 336] may be taken as a fair summing up of Plotinus’ philosophy as this was understood by the Neoplatonists ; The human souls which have descended into corporeality are those which have allowed themselves to be ensnared by sensuality and overpowered by lust. They now seek to cut themselves loose from their true being ; and, striving after independence, they assume a false existence. They must turn back from this ; and, since they have not lost their freedom, a conversion is still possible.

Here, then, we enter upon the practical philosophy. Along the same road by which it descended, the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good. It must first of all return to itself This is accomplished by the practice of virtue, which aims at likeness to God, and leads up to God. In the ethics of Plotinus all the older schemes of virtue are taken over, and arranged in a graduated series. The lowest stage is that of the civil virtues, then follow the purifying, and last of all the divine virtues. The civil virtues merely adorn the life, without elevating the soul. That is the office of the purifying virtues, by which the soul is freed from sensuality, and led back to itself, and thence to the ?ioiis. By means of ascetic observances the man becomes once more a spiritual and enduring being, free from all sin. But there is still a higher attainment ; it is not enough to be sinless, one must become “God.” This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One ; or, in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it. Thought cannot attain to this, for thought reaches only to the yious, and is itself a kind of motion. Thought is a mere preliminary to communion with God. It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognize and touch the primeval Being.

Hence in order to this highest attainment the soul must pass through a spiritual curriculum. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But even there it does not find the Highest, the One ; it still hears a voice saying, “ Not we have made ourselves.” The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able as it were to lose itself. Then it may see God, the fountain of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss ; it is as it were swallowed up of divinity, bathed in the light of eternity.

The writer has been able to learn but little of the outer life of Plotinus. Details of his illumination beyond what he tells us in the letter above quoted are equally wanting. But his own mention of the three “ happy intervals,” what he says of “this sublime condition” and the character of his philosophy makes it certain that he was a genuine case of Cosmic Consciousness. Unfortunately his age at the time of first illumination is unknown. Plotinus, however, having been born 204, having commenced the study of philosophy in the year 232, at the age of twenty-eight, and having written the above letter in 260, when fifty-six years of age (it was in that year that Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor), would probably have been between thirty and forty at the time of his first illumination. Born 570 ; died 632. This case, both in detail and ensemble, is marvellously complete. The contempt entertained towards this man by Christians is as creditable to them as is the corresponding contempt entertained towards Jesus by Mussulmen creditable to these. Mohammed was born in the tribe of Koreish, in August, in the year 570. His inheritance was five camels and a slave girl. His father died before his birth and his mother when he was six years old. As a boy and youth he earned his living tending sheep and goats.

Later he was a camel driver. At the age of twenty-five he married Cadijah, who was forty. The union was an eminently happy one. He was an honest, upright man, irreproachable in his domestic relations and universally esteemed by his fellow-citizens, who bestowed upon him the sobriquet of El Amin — “ the trusty.” “ Mohammed was a man of middle height but a commanding presence ; rather thin, but with broad shoulders and a wide chest ; a massive head, a frank, oval face, with a clear complexion, restless black eyes, long, heavy eyelashes, a prominent, aquiline nose, white teeth and a full, thick beard. . . . He was a man of highly nervous organization, thoughtful, restless, inclined to melancholy and possessing an extreme sensibility, being unable to endure the slightest unpleasant odor or the least physical pain. . . . He was simple in his habits, kind and courteous in his demeanor and agreeable in conversation” [152 : 19-20]. It seems that Mohammed had been, as a young and middle-aged man, before his experience on Mount Hara, serious, devout, earnest and deeply religious. It also seems (as already stated) that this mental constitution is an essential prerequisite to the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness. He clearly saw that the religion of his countrymen was far from being in a satisfactory condition, and it appeared to him that the time for reform or a new departure had arrived.

We are told that he gradually absented himself from society and sought the solitude of a cavern on Mount Hara (about three leagues north of Mecca), where, in emulation of the Christian anchorites of the desert, he would remain days and nights together engaged in prayer and meditation. . . . He became subject to visions, ecstasies and trances. ... At length, it is said, what had hitherto been shadowed out in dreams was made apparent and distinct by an angelic apparition and a divine annunciation. It was in the fortieth year of his age when this famous revelation took place. Accounts are given of it by Moslem writers, as if received from his own lips, and it is alluded to in certain passages of the Koran. He was passing, as was his wont, the month of Ramadhan in the cavern of Mount Hara, endeavoring by fasting, prayer and solitary meditation to elevate his thoughts to the contemplation of divine truth. It was on the night called by Arabs A1 Kader, or The Divine Decree ; a night in which, according to the Koran, angels descend to earth and Gabriel brings down the decrees of God. During that night there is peace on earth, and a holy quiet reigns over all nature until the rising of the morn.

As Mohammed, in the silent watches of the night, lay wrapped in his mantle, he heard a voice calling upon him. Uncovering his head, a flood of light broke upon him of such intolerable splendor that he swooned away. On regaining his senses he beheld an angel in a human form, which, approaching from a distance, displayed a silken cloth covered with written characters. “EcaJi!” said the angel. “ I know not how to read!” replied Mohammed. “Ecalj!” repeated the angel, “ tn tl)C name of tbc lorn, tol)n {)a6 trcatcK all tl)tng:s ; tol)o creates man from a clot of blooS. Eeai, tn tl)e name of tl)e Jilofit tol)o taug;l)t man t^c use of tl)e pen ; toI)o obeSs on bte ooul tbe rap of knotolcSge anS teacbeei bim tobat before be kneto not.” Upon this Mohammed instantly felt his understanding illumined with celestial light and read what was written on the cloth, which contained the decree of God, as afterwards promulgated in the Koran. When he had finished the perusal the heavenly messenger announced : “ ©b. iHobammeS, of a Peritp tbou art tbe prophet of ©oS ! iSlnS aw*- bis ^npl ©abrtel ! ” Mohammed, we are told, came trembling and agitated to Cadijah in the morning, not knowing whether what he had heard and seen was indeed true, and that he was a prophet decreed to effect that reform so long the object of his meditations ; or whether it might not be a mere vision, a delusion of the senses, or worse than all, the apparition of an evil spirit [102 : 32-3].

Illumination in Mohammed’s case took place in or about the month of April. It occurred in the Arabic month Ramadhan (82a : 553). Now in the first year after the Hegira this month fell in our December. But the Mohammedan year is ten days shorter than the time actually taken by the revolution of the earth in its orbit. It is plain, therefore, that any given Mohammedan date would recur ten days earlier year by year. Now the Hegira was twelve years after Mohammed’s illumination. That is to say, if the month Ramadhan corresponded with December just after the Hegira it would have corresponded with April at the time of the prophet’s illumination. That illumination, therefore, would have taken place in April. If Mohammed was a case of Cosmic Consciousness this fact ought to appear clearly in the writings which he left to the world. Does it? As a matter of fact these are not easily understood in an English translation and from the modern, western, point of view. Note, for instance, the remarks of one reader who might be supposed competent to appreciate such a work as the Qur’an. Carlyle says of it [59 : 295] : “ It is as toilsome reading as ever I undertook. A wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite, endless iterations, longwindedness, entanglement, insupportable stupidity in short,” and so on at some length.

In spite of all this, however, even if multiplied a thousand times, the greatness, power, spirituality of the book must be considered established by the results it has produced in the world. No effect can be greater than its cause, and the effect in this case (the spiritual elevation of many millions of men for many generations) must be admitted to have been enormous. Moreover, it seems to the writer that, in spite of the undoubled difficulty above referred to, almost any candid reader may perceive for himself, upon its perusal, that the book has great qualities, even though he may not be able to fully grasp them. But there is another reason why we do not find just what we want for our present purpose in the Qur’an. It is written entirely from the point of view of the Cosmic Sense ; as its author would say, it is all dictated by Gabriel. There are no passages in which the self conscious tells us about the cosmic conscious Mohammed — such passages as occur with great frequency in the writings of Yepes, Whitman and others — passages written from the point of view of the “Shakespeare” Sonnets. Nevertheless, there are here and there sentences in the Qur’an that almost certainly refer to the experience in question, as, for instance, the following :

Verily, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, and in the ship that runneth in the sea with that which profits man, and in what water God sends down from heaven and quickens therewith the earth after its death, and spreads abroad therein all kinds of cattle, and in the shifting of the winds, and in the clouds that are pressed into service betwixt heaven and earth, are signs to people who can understand [151 : 22]. Mohammed is seeking to point out the (to him) certainty of an infinitely good God and eternal life. He uses here very much the same language as does Whitman in the same connection : “1 hear you whispering there O stars of heaven, O suns, O grass of graves, O perpetual transfers and promotions, if you do not say anything how can 1 say anything” [193 : 77] ? And when we said to thee, “ Verily, thy “ The vision ” — evidently the cosmic vision. Lord encompasses men !” and we made the vision which we showed thee only a cause of sedition unto men, and the cursed tree as well ; for we will frighten them, but it will only increase them in great rebellion

They will ask thee of the spirit. Say, “The spirit comes at the bidding of my Lord, and ye are given but a little knowledge thereof’’ If we had wished we would have taken away that with which we have inspired thee : then thou wouldst have found no guardian against us, unless by a mercy from thy Lord ; verily, his grace towards thee is great [153 : 10] ! We do not descend save at the bidding of thy Lord : His is what is before us, and what is behind us, and what is bebetween those ; for thy Lord is never forgetful— the Lord of the heavens and the earth, and of what is between the two ; then serve him and persevere in his service [153 : 31-2]- Verily, the hour is coming, I almost make it appear, that every soul may be recompensed for its efforts [153 He speaks of “the spirit” who visits him — “Gabriel,” the Cosmic Sense — and uses almost the same words as Jesus: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the spirit ' '

“We do not descend. ’ ’ Palmer’ s note to these words is: “Among various conjectures the one most usually accepted by the Mohammedan commentators is, that these are the words of the angel Gabriel in answer to Mohammed’s com.- plaint of long intervals elapsing between the periods of revelation. Compare, in chapter on Bacon, infra Sonnet xxxiii, and comment thereon. faculty can bestow it almost at will. ‘ trance to all the gifts of the universe.” are true : (i) The new faculty is becoming universal and (2) these men it upon such others as coming into contact with them are eligible. The words, “ I almost make it appear,” would seem to refer to the feeling almost or quite universal with those having cosmic consciousness that universal endowment with this faculty is near, is imminent, and that an individual having the I bestow,” says Whitman, “ upon any man or woman the enThere is a sense, of course, in which both these propositions having the faculty, do bestow This life of the world is nothing but a sport and a play ; but, verily, the abode of the next world — that is, life. If they did but know ! [ i 5 3 : 1 24.] •

He who wishes for the tilth of the next world, we will increase for him the tilth ; and he who desires the tilth of this world, we will give him thereof ; but in the next he shall have no portion [153 : 207]. The life of this world is but a play and a sport ; but if you believe and fear God, he will give you your hire [153 : 232]. And every soul shall come — with it a driver and a witness ! Thou wert heedless of this, and we withdrew thy veil from thee, and to-day is thine eyesight keen ! [153 . 243]. And paradise shall be brought near to the pious — not far off [153 : 243]. The distincdon between the self and cosmic conscious lives. A rich man, from the mere fact of being such, is unlikely to enter cosmic consciousness. If he does he probably abandons his wealth, as did Gautama and E. C. If, however, a man (not having it) very earnestly desires wealth, or (having it) sets his heart upon it, such shall certainly in Cosmic Consciousness “have no portion.” Insignificance of the self conscious as compared with the cosmic conscious life.

“ Withdrew the veil ” — reference to the illumination of Mohammed. He “saw the heavens rent asunder ” [15 : i : 10]. “ The kingdom of God is nigh at hand ” [16 : 21 : 31]. “The kingdom of God is within you" [16 : 17 : 21]. Illumination — the Cosmic Sense — the Brahmic bliss — the kingdom of God — is rightly called here “the day of eternity," since the entrance to it is the entrance to immortality — eternity. This is what ye are promised, to every one who turns frequently (to God) and keeps his commandments, who fears the merciful in secret and brings a repentant heart. Enter into it in peace ; this is the day of etenrty ! [i53 : 244]. And listen for the day when the crier The suddenness and unexpectedness of the onshall cry from a near place — the day when coming of Cosmic Consciousness is noted in the they shall hear the shout in truth— that is, nearly all of those who have experi- , , r ■ r 1 r T enced illumination. “ That day — the day of de- the day of coming lorth [153 • ^44} ■ liverance — shall come to you in what place you

know not ; it shall come, but you know not the time. In the pulpit while you are preaching the sermon, behold ! suddenly the ties and the bands shall drop off; in the prison One shall come, and you shall go free forever. In the field, with the plough and chain-harrow ; by the side of your horse in the stall ; in the midst of fashionable life ; in making and receiving morning calls; in your drawing-room — even there, who knows ? It shall duly, at the appointed hour, come [61 : 231]. Know that the life of this world is but Insignificance of the merely sell conscious life. a sport, and a play, and an adornment, and something to boast of amongst yourselves ; and the multiplying of children is like a rain-growth, its vegetation pleases the misbelievers ; then they wither away, and thou mayest see them become yellow ; then they Verily, we set it down on the Night of Power ! And what shall make thee know what the Night of Power is ? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months ! The angels and the spirits descend therein, by the permission of their Lord with every bidding [153 : 337].

become but grit [153 : 268]. “It," the Qur’an, “the Night of Power” (the night of Mohammed’s illumination), “is better than a thousand months !’’ So Bohme, referring to his illumination, says [40 ; 15] : “The gate was opened to me that in one-quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at an university.” In this case we have authentically reported (as it seems) all the fundamental elements required to constitute a case of Cosmic Consciousness : a. The subjective light. b. The moral elevation. c. The intellectual illumination. d. The sense of immortality. e. The definiteness, suddenness and unexpectedness of the oncoming of the new state. /. The previous mental and physical character of the man. g. The age of illumination, in his fortieth year, later than the average, but while he was still in his prime. h. The added charm to his personality, so that he was able to gain and hold devoted followers. Born 1265; Died 1321. Balzac [9 : 241 and 263] clearly intimates his conviction that Dante was a “Specialist,” which is his name fora man who has Cosmic Consciousness. Balzac probably knew Dante very thoroughly, and could not be mistaken on this point, he being himself a “Specialist ; ” for as a musician knows of another man whether or not he is a musician, as a poet knows of another man whether or

not he is a poet, as a painter knows of another man whether or not he is a painter, as a man with the sense of sight living in a country inhabited with men nearly all of whom are blind must know who among his acquaintances can see and who cannot, so to-day, and all days, a man who has the Cosmic Sense will know of any given man with whom he is acquainted, either personally or by his works, whether or not he also has it. We could therefore accept with confidence Balzac’s word that Dante had the Cosmic Sense, but let us not do so — let us try to see for ourselves.

Dante’s outward life and personality are as good as lost to us of the nineteenth century. It seems clear, however, and the character of his writings would indicate the same thing, that, as Boccacchio says [81 : 809], even as a young man he was : Taken by the sweetness of knowing the truth of the things concealed in heaven, and finding no other pleasure dearer to him in life, he left all other worldly care and gave himself to this alone, and, that no part of philosophy might remain unseen by him, he plunged with acute intellect into the deepest recesses of theology, and so far succeeded in his design that, caring nothing for heat or cold, or watchings, or fastings, or any other bodily discomforts, by assiduous study he came to know of the divine essence and of the other separate intelligences all that the human intellect can comprehend. And Leonardo Bruni says of him that : By study of philosophy, of theology, astrology, arithmetic and geometry, by reading of history, by the turning over many curious books, watching and sweating in his studies, he acquired the science which he was to adorn and explain in his verses.

All which means that Dante was of a thoughtful, studious, earnest nature, and we may interpret this fact to mean either that in his case such a life led up to a high poetic genius within the limits of self consciousness, or that it led up (as claimed here) to Cosmic Consciousness. In any case, Dante’s youth seems to have been such as we often find in men who attain illumination. Now, as to the outward man, Boccaccio says [iii : 200]: Our poet was of middle height, and after reaching mature years he went somewhat stooping ; his gait was grave and sedate ; always clothed in the most becoming garments, his dress was suited to the ripeness of his years ; his face was long, his nose aquiline, his eyes rather large than small, his jaw heavy and his under lip prominent ; his complexion was dark, and his hair and beard thick, black and crisp, and his countenance was always sad and thoughtful. . . . His manners, whether in public or at home, were wonderfully composed and restrained, and in all his ways he was more courteous and civil than any one else. Again Charles E. Norton [iii : 204] says of an undoubtedly authentic death-mask of the poet :

The face is one of the most pathetic upon which human eyes ever looked, for it exhibits in its expression the conflict between the strong nature of the man and the hard dealings of fortune — between the idea of his life and its practical experience. Strength is the most striking attribute of the countenance, displayed alike in the bro.ad forehead, the masculine nose, the firm lips, the heavy jaw and wide chin ; and this strength, resulting from the main forms of the features, is enforced by the strength of the lines of expression. The look is grave and stern almost to grimness ; there is a scornful lift to the eyebrows, and a contraction of the forehead as from painful thought ; but obscured under this look, yet not lost, are the marks of tenderness, refinement and self-mastery, which, in combination with more obvious characteristics, give to the countenance of the dead poet an ineffable dignity and melancholy. There is neither weakness nor failure here. It is the image of the strong fortress, of a strong soul “buttressed on conscience and impregnable will,” battered by the blows of enemies without and within, bearing upon its walls the dints of many a siege, but standing firm and unshaken against all attacks until the warfare was at end.

As to the quality of Dante’s mind and of his work, it will be well to quote here, briefly, perhaps as high an authority as has lived in recent times. He says ; The Dantesque account of Hell, Pur- *This is of course necessarily true of every gatory and Paradise is not an arbitrary or fantastic dream, but the vivid and substantial embodiment of a profound philosophy* Meanwhile, leaving antiquarians to elucidate the pedigree of Dante’s ideas, we may observe that from his earliest boyhood he was familiar with dreams and visions, and that he hints himself, at the end of the “ Vita Nuova,” that the vision of the “Comedy” came to him as a revelation, while he was pondering on the thought of death and upon the memory of Beatrice* [179 : 109]. The object of the whole work (he writes to Can Grande) is to make those who live in this life leave their state of misery and to lead them to a state of happiness t [179 : 1 10]. * The writer, while knowing nothing about Cosmic Consciousness, adopts, as it were perforce, the same theory of Dante and his work as that propounded here.

f The main object in life in the case of every (?) man having the Cosmic Sense is to bestow it upon the race, and each feels in himself some power to so bestow it. In the “ Divine Comedy ” (a book strictly parallel to the “ Comedie Humaine,” or the “ Leaves of Grass,” in the sense that it is a picture of the world from the point of view of the writer), Dante tells, first, in the “ Inferno,” of human life as seen among ill-doers, the “sinful,” the “wicked.” Then, in the “ Purgatorio,” — “that second realm where the human spirit is purified and becomes worthy to ascend to heaven ” [71 : i] — he speaks of human life as seen in those who are struggling towards the light — who are trying to lead good lives but are so far overburdened by hereditary flaws, faults committed, bad habits formed, unfortunate surroundings and other adverse circumstances. These are the better people — short of illumination. But in the “ Paradiso” Dante treats of the new world of the Cosmic Sense — of the kingdom of God — Nirvana. Beatrice — “ Making Happy ” — is the Cosmic Sense (which, in fact, alone, makes happy). The name may have been suggested by a beautiful girl (so named). If so, the coincidence is curious.

That the meaning is as here said, seems clear from a hundred passages. Take one. Virgil says to Dante : “So much as reason seeth here can I tell thee ; beyond that [beyond reason, the self conscious mind] awaits still for Beatrice” [71 : 114]. What zk beyond reason — the self conscious mind — but Cosmic Consciousness ? Dante wanders through the self conscious world (“ Inferno ” and “ Purgatorio”) guided by Virgil (chosen as a splendid example and type of the self conscious mind, and also probably because he had really been one of Dante’s principal guides before his illumination). But Virgil was not a case of Cosmic Consciousness, and of course he cannot enter into Paradise. Beatrice (the Cosmic Sense) leads Dante into that realm and is his guide there. Dante’s “Vita Nuova,” written at the end of the thirteenth century, was first published in 1309, when he was forty-four years of age. At the very end of it he seems to speak of the oncoming of Cosmic Consciousness. The “Divine Comedy” was finished in 1321, the time of the action being strictly confined to the end of March and the beginning of April, 1300 [81 : 815] at which time Dante was thirty-five years old. It seems almost certain that this was the date of his illumination. It would be at the typical age and in the typical season, and there seems nothing against the supposition. It is a reasonable presumption that the earlier book, “Vita Nuova,” was being written up to the early spring of 1300; that when illumination took place it was closed to give place to a greater work then to be begun ; that the latter book, the “ Divine Comedy,” was actually begun at that date.

The “Vita Nuova” [68] closes as follows: After this sonnet a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one (Beatrice) until I could more worthily treat of her. And, to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please Him through whom all things live, that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to say of her what was never said of any woman. We will now follow Dante’s experience as closely as possible in his own words, using always, as we have done above, the translation of Charles Elliot Norton. And we take first from the “Purgatorio” passages descriptive of Dante’s approach to the divine land. When Dante is about to enter Cosmic Consciousness Virgil says of him : There are two points here well worthy of being noted : (i) When the Cosmic Sense comes the rules and standards belonging to self consciousness are suspended. “ Confronted, turned back, laid away” [193 : 153], is Whitman’s expression. No man with the Cosmic Sense will take direction (in the affairs of the soul) from any other man or any so-called God. In his own heart he holds the highest accessible standard, and to that he will and must adhere ; that only can he obey. (2) The other is the duplication of the individual : “ Thee over thyself.” Compare with these words “The other I am,” of Whitman ; “ 'Tis thee (myself) that for myself 1 praise,” of “ Seakespeare ” [176 : 62] ; “If any man is in Christ he is a new creature,” of Paul ; “ Except a man be born anew,” of Jesus. A new individual must be born within the old one, and, being so born, will live its own distinct life.

Expect no more or word or sign from me. Free, upright and sane in thine own free will, and it would be wrong not to act according to its pleasure ; wherefore thee over thyself I crown and mitre [71 : 176] . Virgil withdraws. The self conscious mind abdicates its sovereignty in presence of the greater authority. Dante comes into immediate relation with Beatrice — Cosmic Consciousness. A lady appeared to me robed with the color of living flame. I turned me to the left with the confidence with which the little child runs to his mother when he is frightened, or when he is troubled, to say to Virgil : “ Less than a drachm of blood remains in me that does not tremble, I recognize the signals of the ancient flame but Virgil had left us deprived of himself [71 : 191]. And as my face stretched upward my eyes saw Beatrice. Beneath her veil and beyond the stream she seemed to me more to surpass her ancient self than she surpassed the others here when she was here [71 : 198]. When I was near the blessed shore the beautiful lady [nature ?] opened her arms, clasped my head and plunged me in where it behooved that I should swallow the water [71 : 199].

Oh, splendor of living light eternal ! who hath become so pallid under the shadow of Parnassus, or hath so drunk at its cistern that he would not seem to have his mind encumbered, trying to represent thee as thou didst appear there, where in harmony the heaven overshadows thee when in the open air thou didst thyself disclose [71 : 201] ? The Cosmic Sense robed with the subjective light. At the threshold of the new sense Virgil (the type here of human faculty short of it) leaves Dante. Not that simple and self consciousness leave us when we enter Cosmic Consciousness, but they do cease to guide us — “the eyesight has another eyesight, the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice” [193 : 342]. The new world is still veiled and far off, but even so its glory far transcends anything in the old world of mere self consciousness. “The drinking of the waters of Lethe, which obliterate the memory of sin.” — Norton’s note. There is no sense of sin in Cosmic Consciousness. The best prepared poet (on the level of self consciousness) by study and practice could not portray the new world, when it freely (in the open air) discloses itself. “No shuttered room or school can commune with me,” says the Cosmic Sense by the tongue of Whitman [193 : 75].

Beatrice (the Cosmic Sense) says to Dante : Thou shalt be with me without end a citizen of that Rome whereof Christ is a Roman [71 : 206]. Again Beatrice says to him : From fear and from shame I wish that thou henceforth divest thyself [71 ; 21 1]. Dante enters into equality with Jesus. Compare Whitman’s “To him who was crucified” [193 : 298]. Compare Balzac’s “Jesus was a Specialist,” and Paul’s “Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Neither fear nor shame can exist along with the Cosmic Sense. So much lor the approach to the Cosmic Sense. Let us see next what Dante says of it after having entered into it. The glory of him who moves every- So Paul heard “unspeakable words,” and thing penetrates through the universe and Whitman when he “ tried to tell the best ’ ’ of that , . ° ° which he had seen became dumb, shines m one part more and m another less. In the heaven that receives most of its light I have been, and have seen things which he who descends from there above neither knows how nor is able to recount [72 : i].

On a sudden day seemed to be added to da\' as if he who is able had adorned the “As in a swoon, one instant, another sun, in1 -.i .1 -\ effable, full dazzles me ” [102 : 207I. heaven with another sun [72 : 4J . l y /j- This is, of course, the subjective light seen by Mohammed, Paul and others at the moment of entrance into the Cosmic Sense. Beatrice was standing with her eyes wholly fixed on the eternal wheels, and on her I fixed my eyes from there above removed. Looking at her, I inwardly became such as Glaucus* became on tasting of the herb which made him consort in the sea of the other gods. Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words ; therefore, let the examplef suffice for him to whom grace reserves experience. If I was only what of me thou didst last create, j; O love that governest the heavens, thou knowest, who with thy light didst lift me. When the revolution which thou, being desired, makest eternal § made me attent unto itself with the harmony which thou attunest and modulatest, so much of the heaven then seemed to me enkindled by the flame of the sun, that rain or river never made so broad a lake [72 14].

* Glaucus — the steersman of the ship Argo, who was changed into a god. J If I continued to be a mere man. g The desire for God leads a man from self to Cosmic Consciousness, and that revolution, when effected, is eternal. When Dante awoke into the Cosmic Sense, into the new Cosmos, the first thing to strike him (as it is and must be the first thing to strike every one who so awakes) was the vision of the ‘ ‘ Eternal Wheels” — the “Chain of Causation” — the universal order — a vision infinitely beyond expression by human words. His new self — Beatrice— had its eyes fixed on this, the Cosmic unfolding. Gazing thereupon the Cosmic vision and the Cosmic rapture transhumanized him into a god. It is this vision of the universal order coming instantaneously, lighting the world as lightning illumines the landscape, but, unlike lightning, remaining, that has led the present writer to adopt the name “Cosmic Consciousness" — a Consciousness of the Cosmos. Compare with Dante's Gautama’s experience as given in the Maha Vegga [163 : 208] : “ During the first watch of the night he fixed his mind upon the chain of causation ; during the second watch he did the same ; during the third he did the same.” And, as already shown, this is among the very earliest and most reliable accounts of the illumination of the Buddha.

After illumination Dante wrote the “ Divine Comedy.” In it (as a whole) must be sought the expression, such as Dante could give, of the Cosmic vision. It is, therefore, a parallel statement with the Qur’an, the Upanishads, Suttas, the Pauline Epistles, the words of Jesus, the “ Comedie Humaine,” the “Leaves of Grass,” the “Shakespeare” drama and “Sonnets,” the works of Behmen, and “Towards Democracy.” To sum up, we have in this case: a. The characteristic suddenness that belongs to the oncoming of the Cosmic Sense. b. Illumination occurs at the typical age and time of year. c. The subjective light is a strongly marked feature. f. The sense of immortality. S'. The extinction of the sense of sin and of shame and of fear of death. Chapter 7. Bartolome Las Casas. Born 1474 ; died 1566. “One of the most remarkable men of the sixteenth century” [128 : 206]. “ Las Casas was the brightest star of this small constellation [the early Spanish- Americans] . With the eye of a seer he saw, and, in the words of a prophet, he foretold the judgment that w^ould fall on Spain for the horrors perpetrated on the wretched aborigines” [119 ; 706].

“ Bartolome de las Casas was born in Seville in 1474. His family, one of the noblest in Spain, was of French origin, dscended from the Viscounts of Limoges. They were already in Spain before the thirteenth century, and played a distinguished part in the conquest of Seville from the Moors by Ferdinand III of Castile, in 1252. From that time forward members of the family were to be found in positions of trust, and among their marked traits of character were invincible courage and spotless integrity. By birth and training Bartolome was an aristocrat to the very tips of his fingers ” [89 : 4371- Las Casas went to Hispanolia and settled on an estate in that island in 1502. Little is known of his first occupation there, except that he seems to have been more or less concerned in money-making, like all the other settlers. About 1510 he was ordained as a priest. He fulfilled three or four vocations, being an eager man of business, a laborious and accurate historian, a great reformer, a great philanthropist and a vigorous ecclesiastic [98 : 2] . He was eloquent, acute, truthful, bold, self-sacrificing, pious [98 : 3] . His was one of the lives that are beyond biography, and require a history to be written in order to illustrate them. His career affords, perhaps, a solitary instance of a man who, being neither a conqueror, a discoverer nor an inventor, has, by the pure force of benevolence, become so notable a figure that large portions of history cannot be written, or at least cannot be understood, without the narrative of his deeds and efforts being made one of the principal threads upon which the history is strung. In early American history Las Casas is, undoubtedly, the principal figure. He has been justly called “the Great Apostle of the Indies” [98 : 289].

He was a person of such immense ability and strength of character that in whatever age of the world he had lived he would undoubtedly have been one of its foremost men. As a man of business he had rare executive power. He was a great diplomatist and an eloquent preacher, a man of titanic energy, ardent but self-controlled, of unconquerable tenacity, warm-hearted and tender, calm in his judgments, shrewdly humorous, absolutely fearless and absolutely true. He made many and bitter enemies, and some of them were unscrupulous enough ; but I believe no one has ever accused him of any worse sin than extreme fervor of temperament. His wrath would rise to a white heat and indeed there was occasion enough for it. He was also very apt to call a spade a spade, and to proclaim unpleasant truths with pungent emphasis [89 : 439] . By the year 1510 the slavery of the Indians, under the names repartimentos and encomiendas, had become deplorably cruel. An Indian’s life was counted of no value. It was cheaper to work an Indian to death and get another than to take care of him, and accordingly the slaves were worked to death without mercy. From time to time they rose in rebellion, then they were “slaughtered by the hundreds, burned alive, impaled on sharp stakes, torn to pieces by bloodhounds ’’ [89 : 443].

Las Casas was by natural endowment a many-sided man, who looked at human affairs from various points of view. Under other circumstances he need not necessarily have developed into a philanthropist, though any career into which he might have been drawn could not have failed to be hohorable and noble. At first he seems to have been what one might call worldly-minded. But the most interesting thing about him we shall find to be his steady intellectual and spiritual development ; from year to year he rose to higher and higher planes of thought and feeling. He was at first a slave-owner, like the rest, and had seen no harm in it. But from the first his kindly, sympathetic nature asserted itself, and his treatment of his slaves was such that they loved him. He was a man of striking and easily distinguishable aspect, and the Indians in general, who fled from the sight of a white man, came soon to recognize him as a friend who could always be trusted [89 : 448]. About 15 1 2-13 Velasquez conquered Cuba, reducing the natives to slavery. Las Casas presently followed him into the island, and received from him a half interest in a large village of Indians. He entered into possession as a mere matter of course, and settled down in the island.

We come now to the definite fact which, if it can be relied upon as having happened as told, proves (along with the facts of his life) that Las Casas was a case of Cosmic Consciousness. Not only so, but it would seem — from his supreme physical and mental vigor, prolonged to a great age, from his splendid moral nature, from his intellect, said to be proved by his writings to be first-class, from his personal magnetism and from his high spiritual endowments— that this man stands among the supreme examples of those who have been endowed with this splendid faculty. It was the duty of Las Casas to say mass, and now and then to preach, and in thinking of his sermon for Pentecost, 1514, he opened his Bible, and his eyes alighted upon these verses, in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus : “ The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked ; neither is he pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. “ The bread of the needy is their life ; he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. Las Casas 1 1 7 “ He that taketh away his neighbor’s living slayeth him ; and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a shedder of blood.”

As he read these words a light from heaven seemed to shine upon Las Casas. The scales fell from his eyes. He saw that the system of slavery was wrong in principle [89 : 450]. At this time Las Casas was forty years of age. Fiske goes on to tell how for fifty-two more years he lived one of the most active, beautiful and beneficent of lives, dying at last “in Madrid, after a few days’ illness, at the age of ninety-two. In all this long and arduous life — except for a moment, perhaps, on the crushing news of the destruction of his colony upon the Pearl Coast — we find no record of work interrupted by sickness, and to the very last his sight was not dim nor his natural force abated” [89 ; 481]. In contemplating such a life as that of Las Casas all words of eulogy seem weak and frivolous. The historian can only bow in reverent awe before a figure which is in some respects the most beautiful and sublime in the annals of Christianity since the apostolic age. When now and then in the course of the centuries God’s providence brings such a life into this world, the memory of it must be cherished by mankind as one of its most precious and sacred possessions. For the thoughts, the words, the deeds of such a man, there is no death. The sphere of their influence goes on widening forever. They bud, they blossom, they bear fruit, from age to age [89 : 482].

As Las Casas wrote, evidence more or less decisive on the point here raised should be found under his own hand. But most of his compositions were short and were occupied with special and current topics ; the work in which (if at all) he may have touched upon the supposed event in his personal history is his “ Historia General de las Indias,” and this, unfortunately, has never been printed. At his death he left it to .the convent of San Gregorio, at Valladolid, with directions that it should not be printed for forty years, nor be seen during that time by any layman or member of the fraternity. . . . The Royal Academy of History revised the first volume some years since with a view to the publication of the whole work ; but the indiscreet and imaginative style of the composition, according to Navarrete, and the consideration that its most important facts were already known through other channels, induced that body to abandon the design. With deference to their judgment, it seems to me a mistake. Las Casas, with every deduction, is one of the great writers of the nation — great from the important truths which he discerned when none else could see them, and with the courage with which he proclaimed them to the world. They are scattered over his history as well as his other writings. They are not, however, the passages transcribed by Herrara [128 : 212].

It is a fair inference, from the above remarks, that the writings of Las Casas have the qualities usually found in those which proceed from Cosmic Consciousness, such as boldness, originality, unconventionality, keen insight. sympathy, courage. And over and above these it is quite possible that were they examined they would be found to contain proof, by direct statement, that their author possessed the Cosmic Sense. To sum up : Las Casas was presumably possessed of Cosmic Conscious- a. Of his unusual health and strength ; for this great faculty commonly occurs in exceptional physical organizations. b. Of his “striking aspect” and of the affection felt for him by the Indians and others. c. Of his mental growth after the age at which the intellectual and moral stature is usually complete. d. Of the sudden and immense change that took place in him at the age of forty, when he was past the period of moral evolution within the compass of the ordinary, self conscious man. e. Because of the intellectual, but especially of the moral, stature attained by him — higher (it may be safely said) than is ever attained within the limits of mere self consciousness. /. And because of (if it can be depended upon, and it seems so likely that it is easy to believe it) the subjective light said to have been experienced by him about Pentecost, 1514. If this could be shown to be of the same character as the light that shone within Paul, Mohammed and others, then it would be certain that Las Casas possessed the Cosmic Sense. Even as the case stands there is little doubt of it. It must not be forgotten that the (supposed) subjective light was the immediate forerunner of Las Casas’ spiritual new birth, nor that this latter occurred at the characteristic time of year — while he was thinking of his sermon for Pentecost — therefore towards the end of May or early in June.

John Yepes {^Called St. John of the Cross). Born 1542 ; died 1591. John Yepes was born at Fontibere, near Avila, in old Castile, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1542. His father died when he was a child, and his mother was left poor. He studied at the College of Jesuits. At twenty-one years of age he took the religious habit among the Carmelite Friars at Medina. His religious zeal continually increased. When he arrived at Salamanca, in order to commence his higher studies, the austerities which he practiced were excessive. At twenty-five years of age he was promoted to the priesthood. At the age of about thirty, or perhaps between that age and thirty-three, he passed through a period of “interior trouble of mind, scruples and a disrelish of spiritual exercises ; . . . the devils assaulted him with violent temptations ; . . . the most terrible of all these pains was that of scrupulosity and interior desolation, in which he seemed to see hell open, ready to swallow him up” [31 : 552]. After some time certain rays of light, comfort and divine sweetness scattered these mists and translated the soul of the servant of God into a paradise of interior delights and heavenly sweetness [31 : 552],

He had another period of depression, followed by still more perfect illumination and happiness. A certain brightness darted from his countenance on many occasions — especially when he came from the altar or from prayer. It is said that a heavenly light at times shone from his countenance [31 : 554]. He enjoyed the happiness characteristic of the Cosmic Conscious state. Butler quotes him as saying : “ The soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, is always in her palace of jubilation, ever singing with fresh ardor and fresh pleasure a new song of joy and love” [31 : 557]. Two hours before he died he repeated aloud the Miserere psalm with his brethren ; then he desired one to read him part of the book of Canticles, appearing himself in transports of joy. He at length cried out : “ Glory be to God !” pressed the crucifix on his breast, and, after some time, said : Lord, into thy Jia7ids I commetid my sold,” with which words he calmly died, fourteenth of December, 1591, at the age of forty-nine For originating, or adhering to, some monastic forms he was, in 1578, imprisoned for some months, and it was during this time, at the age of thirty-six, that he entered Cosmic Consciousness.

On the fifteenth of August, 1578, he had been eight months in prison. On the twenty-fourth of June the same year he was thirty-six years of age. Illumination occurred when he was in prison and apparently (but the record is not clear on this point) a very few months before the fifteenth of August. All available evidence considered, it seems about certain that illumination took place in spring or early summer, and that Yepes was within a month or two (before or after) of his thirty-sixth birthday at the time [112 : 108]. It was in the same year, after illumination [112 : 141], that he began to write. The phenomenon of the subjective light seems to have manifested itself with unusual intensity in this case. Others are said to have seen it. Also it is said to have lighted him about the monastery. These latter statements doubtless rest upon exaggeration or confusion such as is found in the description of the same phenomenon in Paul’s case. It is curious, too, that in the case of John Yepes, partial blindness, lasting some days, followed, and was evidently in some way connected with the subjective light. In the case of Paul the blindness was more marked and lasted longer. It would seem that the centric disturbance which must coexist with the subjective light may be so great as to leave the optic centre, for a time, incapable of reacting under its ordinary stimulus. It seems clear that both in the case of Paul and in that of Yepes the change that gave rise to the blindness was centric. One of Yepes’ biographers describes the phenomenon of the light itself and its effects upon his eyes in the following words:

His cell became filled with light seen by the bodily eye. One night the friar who kept him went as usual to see that his prisoner was safe, and witnessed the heavenly light with which the cell was flooded. He did not stop to consider it, but hurried to the prior, thinking that some one in the house had keys to open the doors of the prison. The prior, with two religious went at once to the prison, but on his entering the room through which the prison was approached the light vanished. The prior, however, entered the cell, and, finding it dark, opened the lantern with which he had provided himself, and asked the prisoner who had given him light. St. John answered him, and said that no one in the house had done so, that no one could do it and that there was neither candle nor lamp in the cell. The prior made no reply and went away, thinking that the gaoler had made a mistake. St. John, at a later time, told one of his brethren that the heavenly light, which God so mercifully sent him, lasted the night through, and that it filled his soul with joy and made the night pass away as if it were but a moment. When his imprisonment was drawing to its close he heard our Lord say to him, as it were out of the soft light that was around him, ^ am I)cre; be not afraiU; S toill set tl)ec free” [112 : 108].

A few moments later, while making his escape from the prison of the monastery, it is said that he had a repetition of the experience as follows : He saw a wonderful light, out of which came a voice, “ jFoIloto me.” He followed, and the light moved before him towards the wall which was on the bank, and then, he knew not how, he found himself on the summit of it without effort or fatigue. He descended into the street, and then the light vanished. So brilliant was it, that for two or three days afterwards, so he confessed at a later time, his eyes were weak, as if he had been looking at the sun in its strength [112 : 116]. After illumination, and upon the solicitation of persons about him who saw that he had, as Emerson says, “a new experience,” he wrote several books, the object of which was to convey to others a knowledge of the new life that had come to him, and, if possible, to convey something of that new life itself. The following extracts are chosen because they exhibit with some clearness the mental status and attitude of the man John Yepes after illumination, and so contribute toward a picture of Cosmic Consciousness :

It is clearly necessary for the soul, aiming at its own supernatural transformation, to be in darkness and far removed from all that relates to its natural condition, the sensual and rational parts. The supernatural is that which transcends nature, and, therefore, that which is natural remains below. Inasmuch as this union and transformation are not cognizable by sense or any human power, the soul must be completely and voluntarily empty of all that can enter into it, of every affection and inclination, so far as it concerns itself [203 : 71]. On this road, therefore, to abandon one’s own way is to enter on the true way, or. This is the doctrine of the suppression and effacement of thought, and the subjection of desire taught by Hindu illuminati from the time of Buddha until to-day — a doctrine undoubtedly resting on actual experience [154 : 68 and 56 : 164 et seq.]. N. B. — The author of the Bhagavatgita is not given in this volume as a case of Cosmic Consciousness for the reason that nothing is known of his personality. The Divine Lay, itself, however, carries on its face the proof that he was so — in it Krishna is the Cosmic Sense, and the speeches of Krishna the utterances of Cosmic Consciousness.

Method of attainment of Cosmic Consciousness and general description of it. to speak more correctly, to pass onwards to the goal ; and to forsake one’s own way is to enter on that which has none, namely, God. For the soul that attains to this state has no ways or methods of its own, neither does it nor can it lean upon anything of the kind. I mean ways of understanding, perceiving, or feeling, thought it has all ways at the same time, as one who possesssing nothing, yet possesseth everything. For the soul courageously resolved on passing, interiorly and exteriorly, beyond the limits of its own nature, enters inimitably within the supernatural, which has no measure, but contains all measure imminently within itself To arrive there is to depart hence, going away, out of oneself, as far as possible from this vile state to that which is the highest of all. Therefore, rising above all that may be known and understood, temporally and spiritually, the soul must earnestly desire to reach that which in this life cannot be known, and which the heart cannot conceive ; and, leaving behind all actual and possible taste and feeling of sense and spirit, must desire earnestly to arrive at that which transcends all sense and all feeling. In order that the soul may be free and unembarrassed for this end it must in no wise attach itself — as I shall presently explain when I treat of this point — to anything it may receive in the sense or spirit, but esteem such as of much less importance. For the more importance the soul attributes to what it understands, feels and imagines, and the greater the estimation it holds it in, whether it be spiritual

All ways at the same time : Carpenter tries to express this experience as follows : " What is the exact nature of this mood — of this illuminant splendor ? All I can say is, there seems to be a vision possible to man as from some more universal standpoint, free from the obscurity and localism which especially connect themselves with the passing clouds of desire, fear and all ordinary thought and emotion — in that sense another and separate faculty ; and as vision always means a sense of light, so here is a sense of inward light, unconnected of course with the mortal eye, but bringing to the eye of the mind the impression that it sees and by means of a medium which washes, as it were, the interior surfaces of all objects and things and persons — how can I express it ? — and yet this is most defective, for the sense is a sense that one is those objects and things and persons that one perceives (and the whole universe)— a sense in which sight and touch and hearing are all fused in identity ” [62] . or not, the more it detracts from the supreme good, and the greater will be its delay in attaining to it. On the other hand, the less that it esteems all that it may have in comparison with the supreme good, the more does it magnify and esteem the supreme good, and consequently the greater the progress towards it.

In this way the soul draws nearer and nearer to the divine union, in darkness, by the way of faith, which, though it be also obscure, yet sends forth a marvellous light. Certainly, if the soul will [if it persists in wishing and striving to] see, it thereby becomes instantly more blind as to God, than he who should attempt to gaze upon the sun shining in its strength. On this road, therefore, to have our own faculties in darkness is to see the light [203 : 74-5]-

So Balzac says that self consciousness, while glorious for what it has done, is at the same time baneful, because it precludes man from entering the Cosmic Conscious life, which leads to the infinite— which alone can explain God [5 : 142]. The more the soul strives to become blind and annihilated as to all interior and exterior things, the more it will be filled with faith and love and hope. But this love at times is neither comprehended nor felt, because it does not establish itself in the senses with tenderness, but in the soul with fortitude, with greater courage and resolution than before ; though it sometimes overflows into the senses, and shows itself tender and gentle. In order, then, to attain to this love, joy and delight which visions effect, it is necessary that the soul should have fortitude and be fortified, so as to abide willingly in emptiness and darkness, and to lay the foundation of its love and delight on what it neither sees nor feels, on what it cannot see nor feel — namely, on God incomprehensible and supreme. Our way to him is therefore, of necessity, in self denial [203 : 202]. Though it be true, as I have said, that

. ^ . ’ 11- The distinction between the self conscious life God IS always in every soul, bestowing even at its best and the life of Cosmic Consciousupon it and preserving to it, by his pres- ness, ence, its natural being, yet for all this he does not always communicate the supernatural life. For this is given only by love and grace, to which all souls do not attain, and those who do, do not in the same degree, for some rise to higher degrees of love than others. That soul, therefore, has greater communion with God which is most advanced in love — that is, whose will is most conformable to the will of God. And that soul which has reached perfect conformity and resemblance is perfectly united with, and supernaturally transformed in, God. For which cause, therefore, as I have already explained, the more the soul cleaves to created things, relying on its own strength, by habit and inclination, the less is it disposed for this union, because it does not completely resign itself into the hands of God, that he may transform it supernaturally [203 : 78], At other times, also, the divine light strikes the soul with such force that the darkness is unfelt and the light unheeded ; the soul seems unconscious of all it knows, and is therefore lost, as it were, in forgetfulness, knowing not where it is nor what has happened to it, unaware of the lapse of time.

It may and does occur that many hours pass while it is in this state of forgetfulness ; all seems but a moment when it again returns to itself [203 : 127]. “ Louis had a well-defined attack of catalepsy^. He remained standing for fifty-nine hours motionless, his eyes fixed, without speaking or eating, etc.” [5 ; 127]. This experience of Lambert’s (Balzac’s) belongs to the period of illumination as in the case of Yepes. It is probable that a similar experience in the same circumstances is common though not universal. Yepes’ thought is that God is always existent in the human soul, but (in general) in a passive or sleeping state, or at least outside consciousness, The soul that knows that God is in it is blessed, but the soul in which God wakes is that which is supremely blessed. This waking of God in the soul is what is called in the present volume “ Cosmic Consciousness.” O how blessed is that soul which is ever conscious of God reposing and resting within it. . . . He is there, as it were, asleep in the embraces of the soul and the soul is in general conscious of his presence and in general delights exceedingly in it. If he were always awake in the soul

the communications of knowledge and love would be unceasing, and that would be a state of glory. If he awakes but once, merely opening his eyes, and affects the soul so profoundly, what would become of it if he were continually awake within it [206 : 506] ? Yepes says ; God is always in man, and very commonly the soul is aware of his (passive) presence. It is as if he slept in the soul. If he wakes up only once in a man’s whole life the experience of that instant affects the whole of life. If the experience of that instant should be indefinitely prolonged what soul could bear it ? One of the characteristics of the Cosmic Sense many times touched, and to be touched, upon is the identification of the person with the universe and everything in the universe. When Gautama or Plotinus expresses this fact it is called “Mysticism.” When Whitman gives it voice it is “Yankee bluster.” What shall we call it when a simple, humble-minded Spanish monk of the sixteenth century says of it in such plain language as the following ? The heavens are mine, the earth is mine, and the nations are mine ; mine are the just, and the sinners are mine; mine are the angels and the Mother of God ; all things are mine, God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What dost thou then ask for, what dost thou seek for, O my soul ? All is thine — all is for thee. Do’ not take less r

So 'Whitman tells us : “As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all and incorporate them into himself or herself ” [193 : 214]. And again; “What do you suppose j would intimate to you in a hundred ways but that man or woman is as good as God ? And that there is no God any more divine than yourself” [193 : 299]. r rest with the crumbs which fall from the table of thy father. Go forth and exult in thy glory, hide thyself in it, and rejoice, and thou shalt obtain all the desires of thy heart [206 : 607] . Visions of incorporeal substances, as of The Cosmic vision compared in a few commonsense words with more ordinary “visions” of, for instance, angels and spirits, in which Yepes seems to have little faith. angels and of souls, are neither frequent nor natural in this earthly life, and still less so is the vision of the divine essence, which is peculiar to the blessed, unless it be communicated transiently by a dispensation of God, or by conservation of our natural life and condition, and the abstraction of the spirit ; as was perhaps the case of

St. Paul when he heard the unutterable secrets in the third heaven. ” Whether in the body,” saith he, “I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth.” It is clear from the words of the apostle that he was carried out of himself, by the act of God, as to his natural existence [203 : 198—9] . Knowledge of pure truth requires, for “Beyond all words.” This is the universal its proper explanation, that God should experience. hold the hand and wield the pen of the writer. Keep in mind, my dear reader, that these matters are beyond all words. But as my purpose is not to discuss them but to teach and direct the soul through them to the divine union, it will be enough if I speak of them concisely within certain lim- its, so far as my subject requires it. This kind of vision is not the same with the intellectual visions of bodily things. It consists in comprehending or seeing with the understanding the truths of God, or of things or concerning things which are, have been, or will be. It is most like to the spirit of prophecy, as I shall perhaps hereafter e.xplain. This kind of knowledge is twofold : one relates to the Creator, the

An attempt to indicate the radical difference between the knowledge which belongs to the self conscious mind and the consciousness of truth proper to the Cosmic Conscious mind. To indicate also the joy of Cosmic Consciousness and the impossibility of expressing in the only language we have (the language of self consciousness) either what is seen or what is felt in the Cosmic Conscious state. “When I undertake,” says Whitman, “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” [193 : 179]. other to creatures. And though both kinds are most full of sweetness, the delight produced by that which relates to God is not to be compared with aught beside ; and there are neither words nor language to describe it, for it is the knowledge of God himself and his delights [203 : 205]. In so far as this becomes pure contemplation, the soul sees clearly that it cannot describe it otherwise than in general terms which the abundance of delight and happiness forces from it. And though at times, when this knowledge is vouchsafed to the soul, words are uttered, yet the soul knows full well that it has in nowise expressed what it felt, because it is conscious that there are no words of adequate signification [203 : 206]. This divine knowledge concerning God

Compare Bebmen : “ Spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated from one intellect to another, but must be sought for in the spirit of God ” [97 : 56]. And Whitman’s dicta; “Wisdom is of the soul ; cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it ” [193 : 123]. never relates to particular things, because it is conversant with the Highest, and therefore cannot be explained unless when it is extended to some truth less than God, which is capable of being described ; but this general knowledge is ineffable. It is only a soul in union with God that is capable of this profound loving knowledge, for it is itself that union. This knowledge consists in a certain contact of the soul with the Divinity, and it is God Himself who is then felt and tasted, though not manifestly and distinctly, as it will be in glory. But this touch of knowledge and sweetness is so strong and so profound that it penetrates into the inmost substance of the soul, and the devil cannot interfere with it, nor produce anything like it — because there is nothing else comparable with it — nor infuse any sweetness or delight which shall at all resemble it. This knowledge savors, in some measure, of the divine essence and of everlasting life, and the devil has no power to

simulate anything so great [203 : 207]. Such is the sweetness of deep delight of these touches of God, that one of them is more than a recompense for all the sufferings of this life, however great their number [203 : 208]. These images, thus imprinted on the soul, produce whenever they are adverted to, the divine effects of love, sweetness, and light, sometimes more, sometimes less. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to usward ” [19 : 8 : 18]. Whenever they are adverted to : Compare “So am I as the rich, whose blessed key Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, He tells of the passage from self consciousness to Cosmic Consciousness and what it is like to be in the latter condition. for that is the end for which they are The which he will not every hour survey, impressed. He with whom God thus deals blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure, receives a great gift, for he has a mine of blessings within himself. The images which produce such effects as these are vividly grounded in the spiritual memory [203 : 275].

The way of proficients, which is also called the illuminative way, or the way of infused contemplation, wherein God himself teaches and refreshes the soul without meditation or any active efforts that itself may deliberately make [203 : 55-6]. I went forth out of myself, out of my low conceptions and lukewarm love, out of my scanty and poor sense of God, without being hindered by the flesh or the devil. I went forth out of the scanty works and ways of my own to those of God ; that is, my understanding went forth out of itself, and from human became divine. My will went forth out of itself, becoming divine ; for now united with the divine love, it loves no more with its former scanty powers and circumscribed capacity, but with the energy and pureness of the divine spirit [203 : 67] . Now this is nothing else but the supernatural light giving light to the understanding, so that the human understanding becomes divine, made one with the divine. As Dante says, this is being into a God ” [72 : 4]. In the same way divine love inflames the will so that it becomes nothing less than divine, loving in a divine way, united and made one with the divine will and the divine love. The memory is affected in like manner ; all the desires and affections also are changed divinely according to God. Thus the soul will be of heaven, heavenly, divine rather than human [204 ; ill].

It was a happy lot for the soul when Further allusions to the necessary subjugation or even obliteration of the old self conscious mind before the cosmic conscious mind can emerge. God in this night put all its household to sleep — that is, all the powers, passions, affections, and desires of the sensual and spiritual soul, that it may attain to the spiritual union of the perfect love of God “ unobserved ” — that is, unhindered, by them, because they were all asleep and mortified in that night. O how happy must the soul then be when it can escape from the house of its sensuality ! None can understand it, I think, except that soul which has experienced it [204 : 113]. It is, therefore, plain that no distinct object whatever that pleases the will can be God ; and for that reason, if it is to be united with Him, it must empty itself, cast away every disorderly affection of the desire, every satisfaction it may distinctly have, high and low, temporal and spiritual, so that, purified and cleansed from all unruly satisfactions, joys and desires, it may be wholly occupied, with all its affections, in loving God [204 ; 534].

This abyss of wisdom now so exalts and elevates the soul — orderly disposing it for the science of love — that it makes it not only understand how mean are all created things in relation to the supreme wisdom and divine knowledge, but also how low, defective, and, in a certain sense, improper, are all the words and phrases by which in this life we discuss divine things and how utterly impossible by any natural means, however profoundly and learnedly we may speak, to understand and see them as they are, except in the light of mystical theology. And so the soul in the light thereof, discerning this truth, namely, that it cannot reach it, and still less explain it by the terms of ordinary speech, justly calls it secret [204 : 126]. The spirit is now so strong, and has so subdued the flesh, and makes so little of it. Yepes resembles Buddha and Paul in despising and contemning the old self conscious life. Jesus and Whitman reached a higher level — they saw that all life is good, all divine. that it is as regardless of it as a tree is of one of its leaves. It seeks not for consolation or sweetness either in God or elsewhere, neither does it pray for God’s gifts through any motive of self interest, or its own satisfaction. For all it cares for now is how it shall please God and serve him in some measure in return for his goodness and for the graces it has received, and this at any and every cost [204 : 134].

But if we speak of that light of glory which in this, the soul’s embrace, God sometimes produces within it, and which is a certain spiritual communion wherein He causes it to behold and enjoy at the same time the abyss of delight and riches which he has laid up within it, there is no language to express any degree of it. As the sun when it shines upon the sea illumes its great depths and reveals the pearls and gold and precious stones therein, so the divine sun of the bridegroom, turning towards the bride, reveals in a way the riches of her soul, so that even the angels behold her with amazement [205 ; 292] . "What do you suppose,” says Whitman, “I would intimate to you in a hundred ways but that man or woman is as good as God and that there is no God any more divine than yourself” [193 : 299]. I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love. He has need of nothing, and so if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul ; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is he pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with him [205 : 333].

Before the soul succeeded in effecting this gift and a surrender of itself, and of all that belongs to it, to the Beloved, it was entangled in many unprofitable occupations, by which it sought to please itself and others, and it may be said that its occupations at this time were as many as its habits of imperfection [205 : 236]. doing, or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events ; these come to me days and nights and go from me again, but they are not the Me myself” [193 ; 31-2]. Antecedent self conscious state. Compare Whitman : " Trippers and askers surround me, people 1 meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation, the latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, my dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, the real or fancied indifference of some man or woman 1 love, the sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill Expressions by which he tries to suggest mental states that cannot be represented by language.

It is not without some unwillingness that I enter at the request of others upon the explanation of the four stanzas, because they relate to matters so interior and spiritual as to baffle the powers of language [206 : 407]. All I say falls far short of that which passes in this intimate union of the soul with God. That love still more perfect and complete in the same state of transformation [206 ; 408] . I entered, but I knew not where, and there I stood not knowing, all science transcending. I knew not where I entered, for when I stood within, not knowing where I was, I heard great things. What I heard I will not tell ; I was there as one who knew not, all science transcending. In this short poem John Yepes has tried to state the essential facts of the entrance into the Cosmic Conscious state. He says he entered it, but (having so done) he did not know where he was. He heard great things, but will not (cannot ?) relate what. He found (in that state) perfect peace and knowledge. Of peace and devotion the knowledge was perfect, in solitude profound ; the right way was clear, but so secret was it, that I stood babbling, all science transcending.

I stood enraptured in ecstasy, beside myself, and in my every sense no sense remained. My spirit was endowed with understanding, understanding nought, all science transcending. The higher I ascended the less I understood. It is the dark cloud illumining the night. Therefore he who understands knows nothing, ever all science transcending. ‘ ‘ Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the arguments of the earth” [193 ; 32]. The right way (the right course of action), too, was clear (Whitman says the new sense ‘‘ held his feet”) [193 : 32]. Yepes, like Whitman and all the rest, became filled with joy. He then goes on to describe Nirvana, even to the use of the word “annihilation.” Finally he pronounces the word which all the Illuminati utter each in his own way. He says this profound wisdom consists in a sense of the essence of God. It is the Cosmic Sense — a sense, intuition, or consciousness of the Cosmos. The birth of the faculty which alone can comprehend God. It is that new birth through which only can a man see the kingdom of God. He who really ascends so high annihilates himself, and all his previous knowledge seems ever less and less ; his knowledge so increases that he knoweth nothing, all science transcending.

This knowing that knows nothing is so potent in its might that the prudent in their reasoning never can defeat it ; for their wisdom never reaches to the understanding that understandeth nothing, all science transcending. This sovereign wisdom is of an excellence so high that no faculty nor science can ever unto it attain. He who shall overcome himself by the knowledge which knows nothing will always rise, all science transcending. And if you would listen, this sovereign wisdom doth consist in a sense profound of the essence of God : it is an act of His compassion, to leave us, nought understanding, all science transcending [208 : 624-5]. a. In the case of John Yepes the subjective light seems to have been present and even unusually intense, although there may be some confusion in the report of it. b. Moral elevation was strongly marked. c. Intellectual illumination well but not perhaps as strikingly as in some other cases. d. His sense of immortality is so perfect that it does not occur to him to discuss it as a separate question or as a question at all. He has simply become God, a God, or a part of God, and he would no more think of discussing his immortality than he would think of discussing that of God.

e. Of course he lost (if he ever had it) all fear of death. Death is simply nothing to him. It is a matter that does not concern him in the least. f. The instantaneousness of the change from self consciousness to Cosmic Consciousness in his prison in the spring or early summer of the year 1578, when he was thirty-six years old, seems to be clear from Lewis’ narrative. g. The change in the appearance of the person illumined — called in the gospels “transfiguration” — seems to have been well marked. Born 1561; died 1626. Nothing approaching to an exhaustive study of this case can be attempted here. The mere flanges of the subject have filled a moderate-sized library, while the core of the matter has hardly been touched upon. Without more ado or any beating about the bush it may as well be frankly stated at once that the view of the present editor is : a. That Francis Bacon wrote the “Shakespeare” plays and poems. b. That he entered into Cosmic Consciousness at about the age of thirty, or perhaps a year earlier, as his intellectual and moral development was very precocious. c. That he began writing the “Sonnets” immediately after his illumination. The “Sonnets,” as considered here, are the first one hundred and twenty-six, which distinctly constitute a poem in and by themselves and deal with the subject here considered.

d. That the earlier of these one hundred and twenty-six “Sonnets” are addressed to the Cosmic Sense, and the later to it and its offspring, the plays. e. That in the “Sonnets” the following individualities may be recognized : (a) the Cosmic Sense ; (b) the Bacon of the Cosmic Sense, and of the plays and “ Sonnets ; ” (c) the special offspring of the Cosmic Sense — the plays; {d) the ostensible Bacon of the court, politics, prose writings, business, etc., and possibly others. It is not absolutely denied that the first one hundred and twenty-six “Sonnets” can be read as if addressed to a young male friend (although in the case of several this might be, it seems to the writer, successfully disputed), but it is clear that so read they lack meaning and dignity — that, in fact, looked at from this point of view, they are entirely unworthy of the man (whoever he was) who wrote “Lear” and “Macbeth.” And it may be claimed that an almost (or quite) constant characteristic of the writings of the class of men dealt with in this volume is exactly this double meaning corresponding with the duplex personality of the writer. Of this double, often triple, meaning the works of Dante and Whitman supply perhaps the best examples.

T. S. Baynes [86 : 764] says that these speculations “cannot be regarded as successful ; ” but let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that there really was such a young man, such a dark woman [Mary Fitton, 167 : 30 et seq. or another], that would prove absolutely nothing. These people might have had a real existence and might have been spoken to and spoken of as the superficial meaning of the “Sonnets,” just as the ocean is spoken to and of in the superficial meaning of “With Husky Haughty Lips” [193 : 392]. Or take for another example the “ Prayer of Columbus ” [193 : 323]. Columbus might have made just such a prayer, and there is no reason why Whitman should not have put such a prayer into his mouth ; but nothing is more certain than that the words in question are addressed to the All Powerful by Whitman himself. But why select instances ? There is perhaps not a line in the “ Leaves ” which has one meaning only. Then who to-day does not understand that in the “ Divine Comedy ” Dante used the theological terms current in his day to veil and express far deeper and loftier thoughts than had theretofore ever been annexed to them? Attach the current signification to the terms used and his verses had one meaning, but ascribe to these terms his intention and they have another vastly wider and deeper. So his last and best translator, who undoubtedly knew him profoundly, says that “ a far deeper-lying and more-prevailing source of imperfect comprehension of the poem than any verbal difficulty exists in the double or triple meaning that runs through it ” [70 : 16]. Or is “Seraphita” a sort of fairy tale having for central figure an idealized hysterico-maniacal Norwegian girl?

That a man having Cosmic Consciousness is, in fact, at least a dual person is abundantly shown and illustrated in the present volume, and “ Shakepeare,” the author of the plays and “Sonnets,” is really another (while the same) self of the Bacon who wrote the prose works, spoke in Parliament, lived before the world as jurist, courtier and citizen. Just as “ Seraphita ” (Seraphitus), while being Balzac, is totally distinct from the ostensible Balzac who was seen in Parisian drawing rooms. Just as the Whitman of the “ Leaves ” is wholly distinct (yet the same) from the Whitman who rode on omnibusses and ferries, “lived the same life with the rest,” and died in Cam- den, March 26, 1892, Just as “ Gabriel,” while being Mohammed, is at the same time another and distinct personality. This identity (at the same time) and disparateness is the true solution (it is believed) of the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. It is perhaps impossible for the merely self conscious man to form any conception of what this oncoming of Cosmic Consciousness must be to those who experience it. The man is lifted out of his old self and lives rather in heaven than upon the old earth — more correctly the old earth becomes heaven. One of the prime necessities of this period is solitude. Why ? Probably because the person is so occupied with, so enraptured by, his new world (his new self), that he simply cannot bear to be called back to the old world (the old self).

So Balac would (at this period of his life) shut himself up — hide himself — for weeks and months at a stretch. So Paul conferred not with flesh and blood, “neither went up to Jerusalem” [22 : 1-17], but “away into Arabia,” and seems to have lived very much to himself for some time. Solitude (although naturally he was so eminently sociable) became, under the same circumstances, a necessity to Whitman, and in the early part of his Cosmic Conscious life he would frequently spend days, weeks and even months at a stretch in the sparsely peopled or uninhabited districts of Long Island — especially along the seashore.

Immediately upon the illumination of Jesus (if we can depend upon the account given in Matthew and Mark) he was “led up of the spirit into the wilderness,” and remained in solitude for a certain time. And it is probable that sufficient research would reveal action of this kind as universal in pronounced cases. Be this as it may, Spedding [174 : 49] says that: “From April, 1590, until the latter part of 1591 [nearly two years] I find no other composition of Bacon’s [than a letter of five pages !] nor any important piece of news concerning him.” While (referring to the very same period in his life) Bacon says, writing to Burghley late in 1591 or early in 1592, when he was thirty-one years old, and, according to the hypothesis, one to two years after his illumination : “ I do not fear that action shall impair it [his health], because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful [more laborious] than most parts of action are” [174 : 56]. Then again it seems that, especially during these two years, 1590 and 1591, Bacon frequently, to use his own words, “fled into the shade” at

Twickenham and “ enjoyed the blessings of contemplation in that sweet solitariness which collecteth the mind as shutting the eyes doth the sight” [129 : 71]. So “there are times noted by Mr. Spedding when Bacon wrote with closed doors, and when the subject of his studies is doubtful ; and there is one long vacation of which the same careful biographer remarks that he cannot tell what work the indefatigable student produced during those months, for that he knows of none whose date corresponds with the period ” [129 : 71-2]. And doubtless Mrs. Pott is in the right when she suggests that it was during such periods and probably during 1590-91 that many of the early plays were written [129 : 71]. Thus we have the frame into which to set the picture : Bacon’s mind is exceedingly precocious and he enters Cosmic Consciousness, let us suppose, early in 1590, at or shortly after the age of twenty-nine; he had probably written several plays before that, a few of which may have been thought worthy of inclusion in the 1623 folio. In the spring of 1590 (in his thirtieth year) he aequires the Cosmic Sense. For the next two years (1590-91) he is much secluded and produces a number of plays, while, as a sort of running commentary upon his mental experiences and his work, he wrote the earlier “ Sonnets,” the rest being written one or two at a time as occasion called them forth, between this period and the date of their publication — 1609.

It would be proper in this place to give some account of Bacon’s personality were it not that the subject is too large for the limits of this volume. The question which concerns us here is, of course : were his intellect and moral nature (epecially the latter) such as belong to persons having Cosmic Consciousness? Upon the answers to the last half of this question a doubt (fostered chiefly by Pope and Macaulay) has arisen. The point cannot be argued here. All that can be said is that the present writer believes that Bacon was as great morally as he was intellectually ; and he believes that whoever will take the pains to seriously consider the standard works on the subject written by able and impartial men (such as Dixon’s “ Personal History” [75], Spedding’s “Life and Times” [174], Spedding’s “ Evenings with a Reviewer” [177], and especially the “Life,” by Rawley, who knew Bacon well) will inevitably come to the same conclusion. Rawley says of him: “He was free from malice; he was no revenger of injuries; he was no defamer of any man ; but would always say the best that could be said of any person, even an enemy” [141 : 52]. And after many years study of the subject Spedding sums up as follows:

The evidence which everybody had to judge from led me to suppose him a very different person from what he was commonly taken for. That idea led me to seek for further evidence, and all the further evidence which I discovered confirmed the impression. I do not find fault with people for not knowing what advice Bacon gave the king about calling a parliament and dealing with it ; but I say that the tenor of the advice, being now produced, shows that they were very bad guessers ; that the inference they drew as to Bacon’s character from the very abundant evidence which they had before them was strangely inaccurate ; as far from the truth as if one should hold up Flavius as an example of a bad steward, because the economy was bad of the house in which he served. I take these newly discovered pieces as tests. If I had been wrong, they would have convicted me ; if Macaulay had been right, they would have confirmed him [178 : 189]. And then, at the end of his book, after all the facts of Bacon’s life that have come down to us had been reviewed and considered he goes on :

For myself at least, much as one must grieve over such a fall of such a man, and so forlorn a close of such a life, I have always felt that had he not fallen, or had he fallen upon a fortune less desolate in its outward conditions, I should never have known how good and how great a man he really was — hardly, perhaps, how great and how invincible a thing intrinsic goodness is. Turning from the world without to the world which was within him, I know nothing more inspiring, more affecting, more sublime, than the undaunted energy, the hopefulness, trustfulness, clearness, patience, and composure, with which his spirit sustained itself under that most depressing fortune. The heart of Job himself was not so sorely tried, nor did it pass the trial better. Through the many volumes which he produced during these five years, I find no idle repining, no vain complaint of others, no weak justification of himself; no trace of a disgusted, a despairing or a faltering mind [178 : 407]. Compare with this estimate of Bacon’s mental attitude under the depressing circumstances of his last years the undying and inexhaustible cheer of Walt Whitman, Jacob Behmen, and William Blake in like case.

Here (while speaking of the personal traits of this man) will be as good an opportunity as any to quote a few passages which seem to glance at some certain quality in Bacon’s mind such as this master faculty of which there is question in this book. For instance, Rawley [141 : 47], as a result of personal observation, says of him : “ I have been induced to think that if there were a beam of knowledge derived from God upon any man in these modern times, it was upon him. For though he was a great reader of books, yet he had not his knowledge from books, but from some grounds and notions from within himself ; which, notwithstanding, he vented with great caution and circumspection.” In other words, Rawley thinks that Bacon was inspired, and says that he was exceedingly careful in publishing the truths or ideas derived from that source. And this is exactly what is claimed by the present editor and one reason for the concealed authorship of the plays and sonnets. Note again these words of Bacon’s, taken from his essay “Of Truth” [35 : 82] : “ The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the

light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit.” In other words ; In the evolution of the human mind simple consciousness was first produced ; then self consciousness; and lastly, there is being produced to-day Cosmic Consciousness. Bacon proceeds : “ First he breathed light upon the face of the matter of chaos [and produced life, simple consciousness] ; then he breathed light into the face of man [and produced self consciousness] ; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen ” [endowing them with Cosmic Consciousness]. Compare: “It has been said, great are the senses, greater than the senses is the mind [simple consciousness], greater than the mind is the understanding [self consciousness] . What is greater than the understanding is that [Cosmic Consciousness] . Thus knowing that which is higher than the understanding and restraining yourself by yourself [note the inevitable reduplication of the individual], destroy the unmanageable enemy in the shape of desire ” [154 : 57]. And again : “ It is not by reasoning that the law is to be found, it is beyond the pale of reasoning” [164:39].

It is worthy of notice that Bacon seems to have recognized an interval between the light of reason and the illumination of the spirit as great as the interval between the light of sense and that of reason. That is, he recognized as great an interval between Cosmic and Self Consciousness as exists between the latter and simple consciousness — just as is claimed by the present writer. But within the field of self consciousness where could he find such an interval as this between reason and anything above reason? Again in his great prayer [175 : 469] Bacon says: I am a debtor to Thee for the gracious talent of Thy gifts and graces, which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it (as I ought) to exchangers, where it might have made best profit ; but misspent it in things for which I was least fit ; so as I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. The talent in question is the Cosmic Sense. He did not let it lie idle, but he did not make as much use of it as he might and ought to have done. He should have lived his life for it (as Gautama, Jesus and Paul did) whereas he tried to live (did live) two lives and misspent a large part of his life “ in things for which he was least fit” — law, politics, etc. ; so it may be truly said his soul (the Bacon of the Cosmic Sense) was a stranger in the life of the ostensible (the self conscious) Bacon.

The Cosmic Sense produced the plays. If Bacon had openly lived his whole life for the Cosmic Sense what other perhaps greater works might he not have produced ? And instead of his almost hidden, misunderstood life, we might have had another of those open, exalted lives, each one of which is a source of endless inspiration to the race which is slowly toiling up from what we see around us to that divine goal. To close this part of the subject, glance at two other short extracts. The first from the “Plan of the Work,” the second from the “Novum Organum.” Bacon says : If we labor in thy works with the This passage seems to plainly allude to a higher sweat of our brows thou wilt make us par- spiritual life which may be attained to in this life, . I r ..u • • j 4.1 c uu of which it may be supposed the writer had takers of thy vision and thy Sabbath, had experience. Humbly we pray that this mind may be steadfast in us, and that through these our hands, and the hands of others to whom thou shalt give the same spirit, thou wilt vouchsafe to endow the human family with new mercies [34 : 54].

I may say then of myself that which one If the “ liquor strained from countless grapes” said in jest (since it marks the distinction Cosmic Sense it does not seem very so truly) : “ It cannot be that we should think alike, when one drinks water and the other drinks wine.” Now, other Tnen, as well in ancient as in modern times, have in the matter of sciences drunk a crude liquor like water, either flowing spontaneously from the understanding, or drawn up by logic, as by wheels from a well. Whereas I pledge mankind in a liquor strained from countless grapes, from grapes ripe and fully seasoned, collected in clusters, and gathered, and then squeezed in the press, and finally purified and clarified in the vat. And therefore it is no wonder if they and I do not think alike This, of course, is not the place for a discussion of the authorship of the plays, but since it is here taken as certain that they are to be credited to Bacon, it will be right to give a few of the principal reasons for the adoption of that view. The testimony of the writer himself on the point will be produced when certain of the “Sonnets” fall under consideration. Exclusive of these passages in the “Sonnets” the “reasons” in question may be summed up as follows :

a. The large number of new words in the plays, estimated at five hundred, mostly from the Latin, and the much larger number of old words used in a new sense, estimated at five thousand, make it clear that these were written not merely by a genius but by a learned man — a man who read Latin so continuously as that he came almost to think in that language. Then the similarity of Bacon’s style to that of the plays, and above all the striking identity of the vocabulary in the prose works and plays, so marvellous that 98.5 per cent, of “Shakespeare’s” words are also Bacon’s [37: T33], the use of the same metaphors and similes, of the same antitheta, etc. [37 : 136], makes it nearly certain (especially when it is borne in mind that that vocabulary, those metaphors, similes and antitheta are largely new) that the same mind produced both sets of books — the “Shakespearean” and Baconian. b. Not only are there great numbers of new words and old words with new meanings, metaphors, similes, etc., common to the “ Shakespeare ” plays and to the Baconian prose, but the large number of phrases and turns of expression which are also found in both cannot possibly be attributed to accident. See these given by the hundred by Donnelly [74], by Wigston [197], by Holmes [99] and others.

c. Bacon and “Shakespeare” read the same books, and not only so, but the favorite books of the one were the favorite books of the other. d. They write on the same subjects. The philosophy of the “ De Augmentis,” the “Novum Organum” and other prose works is constantly being reproduced in the plays ; while Bacon’s essays and the plays treat throughout the same subjects (human life and human passions) and always from the same point of view [197 : 25 et seq.] e. On all sorts of subjects, large and small, their point of view is the same — they never express irreconcilable opinions. f. They were (if two) the two greatest men living in the world at that time. For thirty years they lived in what we to-day should consider a small city of one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants [82 : 820]. And it does not appear that they ever met, and there is no evidence that either of them ever knew of the existence of the other. The lesser man of the (supposed) two — Bacon — left behind him abundant evidence of the literary activity of his life in the form of manuscripts, letters to and from friends, etc. The greater — “Shakespeare” — left none ; not a manuscript, not a letter.

g. The localities of the plays are all such as are known to have been known to Bacon either by residence, visiting or reading — largely the two former. With these localities the writer frequently evinces an intimate familiarity. The one especial locality which must have been minutely known to William Shakespeare — Stratford and its neighborhood — is not introduced. h. There exists a distinct parallelism between the successive plays (their incidents, scenes, etc.) and the occurrences of Bacon’s life (his position, cir- cumstances, residences, etc.), while there seems none between them and “Shakespeare’s ’’ life, so far as this is known to us [130]. i. The relation existing between “Shakespeare’s” “Richard III” and his “ Henry the VIII ” on the one hand and Bacon’s prose history of Henry the VII on the other makes it about certain that the same man wrote the three works [197: 1-24]. j. It is sometimes said that Bacon was a scientist, a philosopher, a courtier, a lawyer, a man of affairs, but not a great wit or poet, such as might have written the plays. But, in the first place, and putting aside the plays. Bacon was both a wit and a poet. Macauley does not exaggerate when he writes that, as shown in his prose works : “ The poetical faculty was power-

ful in Bacon’s mind, but not, like his wit, so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason and to tyrannize over the whole man.” “ No imagination,” he adds, “was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated” [120 : 487]. k. The “Promus” argument would alone seem, to an impartial mind, pretty conclusive of the Baconian authorship of the plays. If this collection [129] was not made to aid in the production of these, will some one kindly tell us with what end Bacon undertook and prosecuted the labor of its compilation ? Those who have still doubts upon the subject would do well to read Bacon’s openly acknowledged writings. Then, in the second place, it is claimed here that Bacon was really two men (the self conscious Bacon and the Cosmic Conscious Bacon); that the man seen by Bacon’s contemporaries and in the prose works was the former, while the concealed man who produced the plays and “Sonnets” was the latter. The Cosmic Conscious Bacon had (of course) the use of all the learning and of all the faculties of the self conscious Bacon, and along with these the vast spiritual insight and powers which go with possession of Cosmic Consciousness.

/. About April i8th, 1621, after his fall. Bacon composed a prayer which Addison quoted as resembling the devotions of an angel rather than those of a man [175 : 467]. No truer or higher poetry is found in the plays or “Sonnets” than is found in it. No man with a soul in his body can read it and doubt its absolute candor and honesty. In it he says: “I have (though in a despised weed) procured the good of all men.” No one has ever explained what this “ good of all men,” which Bacon had procured and which went about in a despised dress, might be. Is there anything else it could be except the plays “The good of all men ” is such an immense phrase that the object referred to must necessarily be enormous. What other such object could there have been in Bacon’s mind at the time? Well, his philo- sophical works — the “De Augmentis” and the “Novum Organum” and the rest? Yes, it would doubtless be true of them. But the object spoken of was in a despised dress. Were they? Quite the contrary. They were in a genuine, high-class, philosophic garb as to form and style — more, they were in the best Latin that could, for love or money, he procured for them.

m. Bornmann [28] and Ruggles [145], in two fascinating volumes and from somewhat different points of view, have ably pointed out (as indeed had been done several times before but not so systematically) how persistently the thought of Bacon and that of “Shakespeare” run in the same channel; how the science and philosophy of the first are constantly worked into the poetry of the second, becoming its very life blood and soul, and how the method laid down and followed by the one is never lost sight of by the other. Indeed, if nothing had ever been written on the subject except these two books (and they do not touch the main, stock arguments) they would go far along to a demonstration of the proposition that the man who wrote the “Tempest,” “Lear” and “Merchant of Venice” wrote also the “De Augmentis” and the “ Silva Silvarium.” n. Finally, consider the anagram discovered by Dr. Platt, at that time of New Jersey, in “ Love’s Labor’s Lost” [51 : 376]: “Beginning at the com- mencement of the fifth act, we meet one after another the following : Satis quod sufficit (that which suffices is enough). Novi hominen tanquam te (I know the man as well as I know you). Ne intelligis domine (do you understand me, sir) ? Laus Deo, bene, intelligo (praise God, I understand well). Videsne quis venit (do you see who comes) ? Video et Gaudeo (I see and rejoice).

Quare (wherefore) ? Then, a few lines further on, the word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is (as it were) flung into the text. Immediately afterwards one says: ‘Are you not lettered?’ The answer is; ‘Yes, he teaches boys the hornbook.’ ‘What is a b spelt backward, with the horn on his head?’ The answer to that, of course, is ‘Ba, with a horn added.’ Now, ‘Ba’ with a horn added is Bacornu, which is not, but suggests, and was probably meant to suggest, Bacon. But whence is derived the a b which is to be spelt backward ? In the middle of the long word we find these letters in that order — a b. Begin, now, at the b and spell backward as you are told. You get bacifironoh. From these letters it is not hard to pick out Fr. Bacon. Now take the other half of the word spelt forward — ilitudinitatibus. It is not hard to pick out from it ludi (the plays), tuiti (protected or guarded), nati (produced). These words, with those we had before, give us : Ludi tuiti Fr. Bacono nati. The remaining letters are hiiibs, which are easily read as hi sibi. Now put the words together in grammatical order and you