There was a Canadian psychiatrist, Richard Maurice Buck (1837-1902) who first wrote about "Cosmic Consciousness" over a hundred years ago (free PDF file of Bucke's book: http://djm.cc/library/Cosmic_Consciousness_edited02.pdf). This book titled Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, is a classic in the study of mystical experience. Read the 318 pages if you can. He talks about Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, Dante, Francis Bacon and William Blake, for example, in Part 1V of Instances of Cosmic Consciousness.
Buck developed a theory that there is three stages in the development of consciousness. There is the simple consciousness of animals; the self-consciousness of the mass of humanity (encompassing reason, imagination etc. and cosmic consciousness which is the next stage of human development. It is the higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man or woman.
I have chosen an excerpt from Part 1 (First Words) which is important as it pertains to the current state of affairs on this planet. "The immediate future of our race, the writer thinks, is indescribably hopeful. There are at the pressent moment impending over us three revolutions the least of which would dwarf the ordinary historic upheaval called by that name into absolute insignificance. They are: (1) The material, economic and social revolution which will depend upon and result from the establishment of aerial navigation. (2) The economic and social revolution which will abolish individual ownership and rid the earth at once of two immense evils - riches and poverty. And (3) The psychical revolution of which there is here question. Either of the first two would (and will) radically change the conditions of, and greatly uplift, human life; but the third will do more for humanity than both of the former, were their importance multiplied by hundreds or even thousands. The three operating (as they will) together will literally create a new heaven and a new earth. Old things will be done away and all will become new."
There is a shift in consciousness happening as we speak.
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