e possible
without having passed what we call "maturity."

Again, we find that some persons retain every indication of youth, both of
mind and body, long after their contemporaries have reached and passed
middle age. It is coming more and more to be admitted that age is relative,
and that what we know as the relative is the effect of mental operations.
Mental operations are subject to change--to enlargement.

The advent of cosmic consciousness is, therefore, not subject to what we
know as time, as applied to physical development.

Nor should we speak of cosmic consciousness as an acquisition, but rather
as a _realization_, since the consciousness _is_, at all times. It always
has been, it will always be. Our relation to it changes, as we develop from
the sense conscious to the self-conscious state and finally to what we term
the "cosmic" conscious state. This latter must of necessity have been as
yet only imperfectly realized, even by those of the Illuminati, who are
known to the world as avatars and saviours.

Several instances of the possession of cosmic consciousness by children,
are personally known to the writer. A well-known woman writer in America
thus describes a succession of experiences in what were evidently
conditions of cosmic consciousness, although as she said, she did not
until many years later realize what had taken place.

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