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Richard Maurice Bucke was born on 18 March 1837 in Methwold, Norfolk, England. He was a son and the 7th of 8 children of Horatio Bucke and Clarissa Andrews, and a great-great-great-grandson of the celebrated Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, and grand-nephew of Charles Bucke, author of works “On the Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature,” and the “Ruins of Ancient Cities”. The first was published anonymously by Charles under the titles "The Philosophy of nature" and "The influence of scenery on the mind" in 1813, the "Beauties" in 1823. Could these have had some influence on Richard?!
He was only a 1 year old infant when he emigrated to London, Ontario, Canada with his family in 1838, where they settled and he grew up on a farm 3 miles from the town. His father gave up his work as a religious minister. Maurice was educated at the London grammar school and helped as a farm boy until he left to go travelling in 1853, aged 16. He joined a group going to California, which was attacked by Shoshone Indians when they crossed their territory, and was the only survivor of a silver mining party, who were frozen to death in the winter of 1857-58 in the Californian mountains, losing a foot and several toes that had to be amputated after frostbite.
He returned via Panama in 1858, and then spent four years in medical and surgical studies at McGill University, Montreal, where he graduated as first prize student in the spring of 1862: his thesis for that prize on “The Correlation of the Vital and Physical Forces”, was so able and so valuable that it was published in pamphlet form and had a wide circulation. He devoted two additional years to his internship in London at University College Hospital, visiting Paris while there.
In 1864, he returned and settled in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, where he spent 10 years practicing his profession.
In 1865, he married Jessie Maria Gurd of Moore, Ontario, Canada, and was to have 8 children with her.
While in Sarnia, Maurice became interested in the American poetry scene, which led to reading Walter Whitman-6's Leaves of Grass in 1869. He was deeply impressed by it, and it may well have been a 'trigger' to eventually elevate Edward Carpenter-16032's self-consciousness to Cosmic Consciousness. Edward also first read it in 1869 and continued to do so for the next 10 years! As the following shows Whitman also influenced Maurice.
"In 1872, while in London, Bucke had the most important experience of his life — a fleeting mystical experience that he said consisted of a few moments of Cosmic Consciousness"[1], which followed a night reading Whitman and Romantic poets. He was fluent in French and German, as well as English, and influenced by the writings of Dante Alighieri-1, Francis Bacon-562 (whom he believed was "Shakespeare"??), William Blake-5076[2], all 3 of whom attained Cosmic Consciousness[3]. Those fleeting moments of illumination of his sole initiation (pp.28-29 of Cosmic-Consciousness-by-Richard-M-Bucke-text.pdf)) are summarised in the Wikipedia article, with his initial experience when 36 [according to Bucke]] yrs old referred to by Steve Taylor (p.49), who devotes a page and 1/2 to Bucke's contribution, the first published, to the subject, and states that the latter's belief that it was more likely to happen to men than to women was false.
He would also study the life of and write about the French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac-3, another who had in his view attained Cosmic Consciousness.
Whether William Shakespeare-1 or Francis Bacon wrote the plays and sonnets is discussed at great length[4], with the 2 Volume work of Alfred Dodd, 1949/1986, 'The personal life story of Francis Bacon' recommended reading, but not mentioned in his wikitree profile!
In January 1876, Bucke became the medical superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1877, he was appointed head of the provincial Asylum for the Insane in London, Ontario, a promotion, and a post he held, as a psychiatrist, for nearly the remainder of his life.
In 1879 he published 'Man's Moral Nature: An Essay', which he dedicated to Walt Whitman, the man of most exalted moral nature[5]. In 1883 he published a book about 'Walt Whitman' under that title.
Only a short time after he published his magnum opus on 'Cosmic Consciousness' in 1901 (ref.3), Bucke slipped on a patch of ice in front of his home and struck his head, on February 19, 1902. He died a few hours later without regaining consciousness (Wikipedia). This work is now also available in pdf format of 320 pages (Cosmic-Consciousness-by-Richard-M-Bucke-text.pdf).
He was deeply mourned by a large circle of friends, who loved him for his sturdy honesty, his warm heart, his intellectual force, but most of all for his noble qualities as a man. His burial site seems to be unknown.
He has written his own life story in Part I, section IV[6]of his magnum opus in far more detail than in this profile, and also the reason for publishing it: to awaken the world to a better life, as part of the evolutionary process. He has also identified characteristics he believes are common to those who have made the transition from the 'self-consciousness' family to the 'Cosmic Consciousness' family, going back to Guatama Buddha (b.c.563 BCE), with the earliest on Wikitree being Dante Alighieri-1 (1265-1321), and up to some of Bucke's contemporaries, . The most recently deceased, added to Wikitree in 2018, is Russell Williams-51339 (1921-2018), who is considered to have made the same transition, aged 29.
A tabular statement at the end of Part II[7] of those considered as probably genuine cases of Cosmic Consciousness, contains names of 43 individuals but with 17 only having their initials given. They were contemporaries of Richard Bucke. Three of the latter are the only women in the 43 except for Madame Guyon born in 1648, whom he does not have a Chapter on in the body of the work. For a different slant to that in her wikitree profile, for other illuminated women of her time, and many more women, see Timothy Conway's interpretation[8].
Others that Bucke has descriptions of, including their state of Cosmic Consciousness, include but are not on wikitree Guatama the Buddha (Ch.1, pp.87-98/320 of the pdf version); Jesus the Christ (Ch.2, pp.98-110/320); Paul the Apostle (Ch.3, pp.110-118/320), who called Cosmic Consciousness "Christ"; Plotinus (AD 204-274), (Ch.4, pp.118-121/320)[9]; Mohammed (570-632), (Ch.5, pp.122-126) in his 40th year[10]; Dante Alighieri (1265-1321 (Ch.6, ) in his 44th year[11]; Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566), (Ch.7, pp.133-136/320) in his 40th year[12]; John Yepes (St. John of the Cross) (1542-1591), (Ch.8, pp.136-145/320) in his 36th year[13]; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), (Ch. 9) in his 29th or 30th year[14]; and Jacob Behmen (Jakob Bohme) (1575-1624), (Ch.10, pp.169-179/320), the first illumination when he was 25 was not complete, completion came 10 yrs later[15].
Further afield, in China, in Part V, Additional, Ch.5, pp.229-233/320, we have reference to The Case of Li R, commonly called Lao-tsze (the old philosopher), who was born about 604 B.C., in Honan, China, who wrote his book on the Tao or Dao, which expresses the same innocence of children as Jesus did. Like the Hindu and Buddhist faiths it gives the opportunity to develop that state of Cosmic Consciousness through different forms of meditation. In this regard Bucke's solitary mention of Ramakrishna Paramahansa Chattopadhyaya-4 (1836-1886) of the Hindu faith in Ch.24, pp.265-268/320, distorted the statistics, and failed to take into account the scientific, yoga approach to Cosmic Consciousness, although he did mention the subject (p.216 & p.276/320). Ramakrishna's wikitree profile has that "When he was six years old, in 1842, he was filled with ecstasy"! William Wordsworth-20 also did not seem to fit Bucke's view of the age of attainment of Cosmic Consciousness, with the latter using the same poem to suggest that he did not attain it at all, whereas Taylor was certain that he was born with it, as the latter was with John Richard Jefferies-665! Indeed the whole Buddhist tradition going back at least to the 14th Century seems to imply that already enlightened teachers returned to this world to carry on the teachings and traditions of Buddha, and even to the Buddhist kings of the 7th Century[16]!
Since the time of Bucke's writing and publishing his work, much more scholarly research has been carried out in relation to the people listed in paragraph 2 of the section headed Life. With respect to Siddhartha Gautama or Gautama Buddha, how it is possible to say that he was aged 36 yrs when Bucke has a birth year range of 562 to 552BC is unclear?! Brittanica has his birth (born c. 6th–4th century bce)[17]. How much is fact and how much fiction in the Britannica article is equally uncertain, which has virtually no sources compared with the Wikipedia article[18]that has 161, including that of the Britannica. There are some in between ages for events given but how valid are they?
There are suggestions that Jesus was born in Bethleham about 6-4BC, and that he reappeared after an absence of about 18 to 19 years in about 27AD and began preaching in that year (see Sources: Zondervan NIV Study Bible, 2008, pp.1508-1509). Bucke's interpretation of the timing of Jesus' "illumination" would have occurred in that year of 27AD, when he would have been about 32 yrs of age. Bucke has an age range of 33 to 35 years, but does agree that it takes an enlightened person to correctly understand the meanings of Jesus' teachings not one at the level of consciousness of the human mind.
Bucke has that Paul the Apostle was 37 yrs old at the time of his illumination "but could hardly have been much younger"[19]. Again Wikipedia has a profile of Paul with a very large number of sources, and concludes that Saul c.5 - c. 64/65AD, with most likely his birth between 5BC and 5AD, had his conversion between 31AD and 36AD, which give an age range of 26 to 41 years with the median of 33 to 34 yrs.
One of the most notable omissions from Buckes' writings is that of Meister Eckhart (1260-c.1328), let alone the many early women Saints in European countries[20]. Today there is Dr. Timothy Conway's extensive study to be found in his website Enlightened-Spirituality.org on Eckhart.
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