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Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

V INSTANCES OF ILLUMINATION AND ITS EFFECTS

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Like Lord Alfred Tennyson, who tells of inducing in himself a state of spiritual ecstasy or liberation, by repeatedly intoning his own name, this lady acquired the habit of repeating in wonder and awe the name by which she was called in the household, which was an abbreviation of her baptismal name. The effect is best described in her own words:

"It seems to me that I never could quite become accustomed to hear myself addressed by name. When some member of the household would call me from study or play--even at the early age of five or six years--I would instantly be seized with a feeling of great and almost overwhelming awe and amazement, at the sound, which I knew was in some way associated with me.

"I found it extremely difficult to identity myself with that name, and often when alone would repeat the name over and over, trying to find a solution of the 'why and wherefore.'

"At length this wonderment grew upon me to such an extent that I felt I must see this self of me that was called by a name.

"I acquired the habit of standing on a chair to gaze into the mirror above the chest of drawers in my mother's bed-room, and putting my face close to the mirror, I would gaze and gaze into the eyes I saw there, and repeat over and over the name which seemed to me not to belong to that 'other self' hidden behind those eyes. On one occasion I became quite entranced and fell from the chair, after which I refrained from looking into the mirror, although I did not for many years get over the feeling of wonderment at the sound of my own name, and many times, on repeating the name aloud, I would feel myself being lifted up into what seemed to me the clouds above my head, until I felt myself being 'melted,' as I termed it, into the moving cloud of soft transparent light.

"At this time I was between seven and eight years of age, and although I was far beyond children of my age, in my school studies, I was frequently admonished for being 'stupid,' owing to the fact that I could not remember the names of objects, nor could I be trusted on an errand.

"While walking from our house to the grocer's, scarcely a block away, I would feel that sudden wonderment and awe of my name steal over me, and again I would be transported to some unknown, yet immanent region, utterly losing consciousness of my surroundings. I would sometimes awake to find myself standing before the counter of the grocery store, struggling to remember who and where I was, and what it was that I had been sent to that strange place for."

This lady relates that she never dared to tell of her strange experiences, although she did not "outgrow" them until early womanhood, when she dropped the abbreviation of her name, and assumed her full baptismal name. Whether this latter fact had anything to do with the cessation of the experience is doubtful. At the same time, she declares that she can even now induce the same sensations, and transport herself into childhood again by repeating her childhood name.

The following extract from a paper published in London, England, in 1890, gives a description of an experience of a young man who had fallen into a condition which the physicians pronounced "catalepsy." This young man was at the time a medical student, and had always exhibited a tendency to entrancement, or catalepsy. On recovering from one of these cataleptic attacks, and being asked to give a description of his sensations or experiences, the young man said:

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