(Wikipedia and Richard Maurice Bucke)
In Cosmic Consciousness, Bucke stated that he discerned three forms, or degrees, of consciousness:
According to Bucke,
This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive;
it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it;
A great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd;
it is nevertheless undoubtedly true.