Cosmic Consciousness

The phrase "cosmic consciousness" was coined by the English socialist, philosopher, and gay rights activist Edward Carpenter in the 1890s. Carpenter invented the term to paraphrase the teachings of an Indian sage, Ramaswami, who described a universal, all-encompassing consciousness possible for humans, a concept common among Advaita-inspired sages. Later, William James and others repurposed the phrase to argue that the cosmos itself might possess consciousness, an early formulation of cosmopsychism.

Study at a glance

Abstract

AbstractThe phrase “cosmic consciousness” has a surprising and fascinating history. I will show how it first enters into circulation in the writings of the remarkable Englishman Edward Carpenter (1844–1929), a socialist, philosopher, and prescient activist for gay rights and prison reform. Carpenter made a trip to India and Sri Lanka in 1890, where he spent two months sitting at the feet of Ramaswami, an Indian sage and disciple of Tilleinathan Swami. Carpenter invents the phrase in order to paraphrase Ramaswami’s teaching, which was itself a commonplace among the Advaita-inspired sages of the period, that there is in human beings the possibility of an all-encompassing consciousness (the Sanskrit phrase jñāna-ākāśa would later be offered as a translation of Carpenter’s phrase). Later still, in the writings of William James and others, the phrase acquires a new and different meaning in the idea that the cosmos itself exhibits a form of consciousness. James, indeed, uses just this phrase in his early formulation of cosmopsychism.