Beyond the Occult by Colin Wilson

mystical experience one thing becomes very clear: that they are all talking about exactly the same thing. What follows are a few typical accounts, taken from Nona Coxhead’s
The Relevance of Bliss
. The first is a description by a medical journalist, Wendy Rose-Neill:
    I had always found gardening a relaxing activity, and on this particular day I felt in a very contemplative frame of mind. I remember that I gradually became intensely aware of my surroundings — the sound of the birds singing, the rustling of leaves, the breeze on my skin and the scent of the grass and flowers.
    I had a sudden impulse to lie face down on the grass and as I did so, an energy seemed to flow through me as if I had become part of the earth underneath me. The boundary between my physical self and my surroundings seemed to dissolve and my feeling of separation vanished. In a strange way I felt blended into a total unity with the earth, as if I were made of it and it of me. I was aware of the blades of grass between my fingers and touching my face, and I was overwhelmed by a force which seemed to penetrate every fibre of my being.
    I felt as if I had suddenly come alive for the first time — as if I were awakening from a long deep sleep into the real world … . I realized that I was surrounded by an incredible loving energy, and that everything, both living and non-living, is bound inextricably with a kind of consciousness which I cannot describe in words.
    Here is an account by an American authoress, Claire Myers Owen:
    One morning I was writing at my desk in the quiet writing room of our house in Connecticut. Suddenly everything within my sight vanished right away. No longer did I see my body, the furniture in the room, the white rain slanting across the windows. No longer was I aware of where I was, the day or hour. Time and space ceased to exist.
    Suddenly the entire room was filled with a great golden light, the whole world was filled with nothing but light… .
    Extraordinary intuitive insights flashed across my mind. I seemed to comprehend the nature of things. I understood that the scheme of the universe was good, not evil as our Western society had taught me as a child; all people were intrinsically good. Neither time nor space existed on this plane … .
    This flood of light is a common feature of mystical experiences. In one of the most famous of all books on mysticism, Richard Maurice Bucke described his own experience as he was driving home in a hansom cab:
    All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration somewhere close by … the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterwards there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things … I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal… . The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone.
    Bucke labelled his glimpse ‘cosmic consciousness’ and gave his book the same title. It consists of fifty studies of mystics who have experienced ‘cosmic consciousness’, beginning with the Buddha and ending with the Victorian Edward Carpenter. Bucke jumped to the conclusion that such an experience is rare — and that since there are an increasing number of modern examples, mankind is probably evolving to a higher level of awareness. In fact modern surveys — such as those taken by Sir Alister Hardy’s Religious Research Unit in Oxford * — show that an incredible 36 per cent of people have had some kind of religious or mystical experience.
    Another basic element in accounts of mystical experience is the feeling that