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 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.