Cosmic Consciousness

Fülszöveg

3.95
cosMrc
CONSCIOUSNESS
BY RICHAKU MAURICE BUCKE, M.D.
Ever since it was first published in 1901 this inspiring book has been one of the great classics of mystical experience, read in every generation by those awakened to the spiritual side of man. But in recentyears this book has reached ever wider audiences of the kind of people who hitherto never read mystical books: scientists, physicians, students and graduate students preparing for scientific and professional careers.
Why these new audiences? Part of the answer is that the author himself was a physician and scientist and a bold pioneer in the then new field of psychiatry. Dr. Bucke was at home In the language of science and nothing in his book is at odds with a true understanding of science. Hence a profoundly mystic message from him is understandable and even acceptable to Westerners who feel alien to Eastern ways of thought. Dr. Bucke was, in fact, the first Western scientist to show the compatibility of mystic... Tovább

Fülszöveg

3.95
cosMrc
CONSCIOUSNESS
BY RICHAKU MAURICE BUCKE, M.D.
Ever since it was first published in 1901 this inspiring book has been one of the great classics of mystical experience, read in every generation by those awakened to the spiritual side of man. But in recentyears this book has reached ever wider audiences of the kind of people who hitherto never read mystical books: scientists, physicians, students and graduate students preparing for scientific and professional careers.
Why these new audiences? Part of the answer is that the author himself was a physician and scientist and a bold pioneer in the then new field of psychiatry. Dr. Bucke was at home In the language of science and nothing in his book is at odds with a true understanding of science. Hence a profoundly mystic message from him is understandable and even acceptable to Westerners who feel alien to Eastern ways of thought. Dr. Bucke was, in fact, the first Western scientist to show the compatibility of mystic experience with the scientific outlook.
Even more important, Dr. Bucke speaks to the present moment. He is the prophetic forerunner who foresaw that spiritual concerns would reappear simultaneously with our growing disillusionment with the satisfactions of an over-materialist culture. He speaks to the dilemmas of our time. Unlimited and unguided technological and economic growth—and energy consumption —has to end; yet continued growth is still felt to be necessary to the essential stability of the economic system. More equitable sharing of the earth's resources with less developed nations seems both incredibly costly and absolutely necessary. That few people in our society have satisfying work roles is an intolerable admission of the society's inability to provide such roles.
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continued from front flap
At first it may seem a startling idea that the way out of these dilemmas is through a mysticism which recognizes man's two-sidedness and makes him whole. Yet this is our road out of today's wasteland. We must recognize the end of the unique era in which man has been living off a legacy of virtually un-replenishable minerals and fossil fuels, and that this must be followed by an epoch in which the limitations of the storehouse are recognized, a new epoch in which human activity fits into a new set of ecological relationships including modified natural cycles with man as a conscious participant. This new vision is a motive force for such social transformation, as well as being a guide to its accomplishment.
"Just as long ago self consciousness appeared in our ancestral race," says Dr. Bucke, "so will Cosmic Consciousness become more and more universal until the race at large will possess this faculty." For thousands of years among ordinary men there were the first faint beginnings of another race, a new race walking another earth and breathing another air of which we know little or nothing, but which is all the same our spiritual life. "This new race in the near future will occupy and possess the earth."
The introduction to this Causeway Edition of Cosmic Consciousness is by a distinguished scientist and engineer. Dr. Willis W. Harman, Director of the Center for Social Policy of Stanford Research Institute. He explains to the new audiences for this classic its urgent message for our time.
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