But I soon found that I was seeing the aura of the flowers. A wonderful light shone out from every little petal and flower, and the whole was a blaze of splendor.

Cosmic Consciousness (1901)

Portrait of Richard Maurice Bucke

Richard Maurice Bucke

Psychiatrist and Philosopher
March 18, 1837 – February 19, 1902

Richard Maurice Bucke was a Canadian psychiatrist and philosopher, best known for his work in the field of mental health and his influential ideas on human consciousness. Born in Ontario, Bucke trained in medicine and became the medical superintendent at the Ontario Asylum for the Insane in Hamilton. His clinical experiences with patients inspired his landmark book, Cosmic Consciousness, where he explored the evolution of human consciousness, suggesting that higher states of awareness had emerged in select individuals throughout history. Bucke’s theory proposed that this “cosmic consciousness” was a new stage in human development, leading to a greater understanding of life and the universe. An advocate for progressive mental health treatment, he was a close friend of Walt Whitman and wrote extensively on philosophy, mysticism, and spirituality. Bucke’s ideas, although considered radical at the time, later gained recognition for their influence on psychology and the study of consciousness.

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Alan Watts

The Joyous Cosmology

The Joyous Cosmology is Alan Watts’ exploration of the insight that the consciousness-changing drugs LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin can facilitate when accompanied with sustained philosophical reflection by a person who is in search, not of kicks, but of understanding. More than an artifact, it is both a riveting memoir of Alan’s personal experiments and a profound meditation on our perennial questions about the nature of existence and the existence of the sacred.

Alan Watts

The Natural Environment and Religion

Watts, ever the sage provocateur, meanders through the labyrinth of comparative religion, psychology, and cosmic consciousness. He critiques our scholastic obsessions and urges an experiential approach, blending the spiritual and material like a Zen gardener planting mysteries among truths. He laments our sterile materialism and bureaucratic rigidity, championing a dance with risk, creativity, and nonverbal wisdom. With tales of mystics, scientists, and madmen, he celebrates the spice of oddballs, the necessity of nonsense, and the ineffable richness of being alive.

Alan Watts

This Is It

Six revolutionary essays exploring the relationship between spiritual experience and ordinary life—and the need for them to coexist within each of us. With essays on “cosmic consciousness” (including Alan Watts’ account of his own ventures into this inward realm); the paradoxes of self-consciousness; LSD and consciousness; and the false opposition of spirit and matter, This Is It and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience is a truly mind-opening collection.