Consciousness

July 29, 2025, 4:12 AM

From page 98:

We can all have access to visionary realms at times of deep intuition, during powerful dreams, and in expanded states of consciousness, when the bouNDary between waking and dreaming becomes fluid and tenuous. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, author William James describes this potential as follows:

(O)ur normal waking conscious, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness…”

(from: William James, 1902, New York, New American Library, 1958, p298.)