Bucke experienced a great sense of exultation, of joyousness, "immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe." It seemed as if there streamed into his brain "one momentary lightning-flash of the Brahmic Splendor" which would henceforth forever lighten his life. He saw and knew that the cosmos is not dead matter but a living presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of this world is what we call love and that the happiness of everyone is in the long run absolutely certain. Bucke would ever after insist that he learned more within the few seconds during which the illumination experience lasted than in previous years of study— and "he learned much that no study could ever have taught."
 
A Witches