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Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation, spacing, capitalization, and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
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ACCORDING TO KORESHANITY AN ILLUSION CANNOT PROVE A THEORY
The Absurdities of the Copernican System Are Attended by too Much Guesswork to Be of any Value to the Critical Thinker
(KORESH, in FLAMING SWORD, Oct., 1913)
LET A MAN stand upon the tower of the Auditorium in Chicago and look over Lake Michigan to what is called the horizon, he discovers that the point where the sky and lake seem to meet is on a level with the eye, and that, therefore, the line over which he views the horizon is a horizontal line. The cosine of this line is an extended chord touching the opposite horizon point. A line extended from the point of vision to the ground comprises the radius vector, and the surface of the earth, from horizon to horizon, constitutes an arc describing the bottom of a dish—the concavity of the earth.
The first objection to this definition of the earth's contour is urged from the appearance of a distant object, as for instance a ship at sea as it recedes from or approaches our view. As the ship recedes from view in putting out to sea, the hull of the ship is the first to disappear. It is maintained that this illusion proves the theory of the convexity of the earth,—a theory upon which is founded the entire Copernican fallacy.
The first question to settle in the consideration of the subject, from the basis of argumentation, is the apparent depression of what is called, either truthfully or falsely, the horizontal line. Suspend a plumb-line twenty feet, and from the vertical point describe a horizontal line. This line is at right angles to the plumbline or perpendicular, and its extremity touches the horizon.
The ordinary picture or diagram given in the school-room to impress upon the juvenile mind the fallacy of the convexity of the earth is, first a circle, designated to indicate its rotundity and convex surface; related to this is a horizontal line, at the extremities of which are a man and a ship's mast; the man is at one end of the horizontal; (not at right angles to the horizontal, but oblique to it;) at the other end of the horizontal is the mast, also oblique to it.
The position taken by Koreshanity is as follows:
First, the earth curves eight inches to the mile, concavely, not convexly.
Second, a line of vision extending from the visual point to the horizon is not a straight one, but one curvilineating slightly upward and striking the point called the horizon a little above the exact horizontal direction.
Third, this curvilineation of vision is caused by the deviation of the visual substance, deflected through the resistance of gravic "energy."
Fourth, there are two laws governing the visual deception of convexity; namely, visual curvilineation and geolinear foreshortening. The horizontal line has the appearance of a slight depression in perspective.
Fifth, the depression is apparent, not real. Its cause is the simple one of perspective or geolinear foreshortening.
Suppose a visual line from an altitude of five hundred feet to meet the horizon; we will urge this supposition from the conception of a concave instead of a convex surface, the horizon point being on a level with the altitude of the visual point, or point from which the ascension is taken. The natural apparent construction of the geolinear surface would drop the perspective of horizontal, and give it the appearance of being slightly descending instead of horizontal, which it really is.
The primary element of the premise upon which we predicate the Cellular Cosmogony, or the Koreshan system of astronomic formula, is the relation of the horizontal to the perpendicular, as comprising the trigonometric and mathematical root of its evolution.
A visual line extended from the vertical point of a perpendicular to the vanishing point of the earth's surface exhibits two lines at right angles—the perpendicular, or plumbline, and the horizontal. The cosine of the horizontal visual line completes the chord, the two extremities of which are the two horizon points or two points of vanishing distance. The perpendicular is the radius vector, and the arc of the chord is the concavity of the earth.
If the earth were convex, any point on the surface would be the highest point, and a line drawn from an elevated position to the vanishing point or horizon would not be horizontal; the point at which it touched the earth would not be the horizon, and the line called the horizontal would sustain an obliquity to the perpendicular.
A horizontal line is one drawn at right angles to the perpendicular. If one stands on an elevation above the sea level and looks over the water surface to the horizon, or to that point where the sky and water seem to meet, the vision is over a horizontal line; and no matter at what altitude the observation is made, the horizon is on a level with the eye.
This statement is denied by the physicist and so called critical objector, on the ground that the theodolite or transit instrument indicates to the contrary; for an observation taken through the transit instrument pictures the horizontal hair-line, placed across the focus of the instrument, on the sky, a little above the water-line at the horizon.
Let the critical observer and honest student define a track on a level surface, to the earth's vanishing point of the horizon, and, at the subjective terminus or plane of observation, elevate a pole fifty feet, from the top of which a line is extended (as a telegraph wire) for some miles. Let the point of observation, or the visual point, be located twenty-five feet above the earth, or half-way between the earth and the top of the pole. The line on the earth will appear to converge upward toward the wire, and the wire to converge downward toward the track, and at the vanishing point the two lines will appear to meet.
Hang the transit instrument to the line leveled to it, as the instrument would be leveled to the surface of the earth in surveying, with the longitudinal axis of the instrument sustaining the same relation to the line that it would, in surveying, to the surface of the earth, and look through it; the hair-line in the focus of the instrument would cross the horizon below instead of above the horizontal line.
Look through the instrument, along the parallel of the line from which it is suspended, the distance of ten rods, to the end of a line suspended, perpendicularly, far enough to level with the horizontal hair-line in the focus of the instrument. We may suppose the instrument to hang ten inches from the horizontal line, and the suspended perpendicular line to suspend far enough for the lower end to meet the visual line at the level of the hair-line. At ten rods farther distant a suspended line, to hang pendant enough to appear on a level with the first suspended line, would necessarily be longer than the line at the distance of ten rods. Now, would this prove that the extended wire or line curved upward?
Let us take another relation of the same illustration. Extend two railroad tracks perfectly straight for a long distance, and perfectly parallel. Stand half-way between the two, and they will appear to converge equally toward a point. This does not prove that the two tracks diverge from each other beyond the point at which they appear to meet.
Place a transit instrument ten inches from one of the tracks, in a parallel attitude to the track, or so that the longitudinal axis of the instrument sustains the same relation to the track that it would to the surface of the earth in surveying. Two rods from this, a projection from the track must be more than ten inches long to be seen on a parallel with the hair-line across the focus of the instrument, and a projection double the distance from the instrument, or twenty rods away, would have to be longer than the first, and the third at three times the distance must be longer than the second. Would this prove that the track curved away from the other one because it appeared to do so, as observed through the instrument?
Men jump at conclusions from appearances, and upon these conclusions predicate fallacious theories, call them scientific, and teach them as facts. Succeeding generations drop them, and present new hypotheses to their contemporaries and their children. The theories of modern, so called science are too preposterous for scarcely a notice, but that the masses have been taught them from childhood and believe them.
We do not deny the fact that there is an apparent depression of the horizontal line, and that the transit instrument seems to indicate a real depression. The apparent depression is due to foreshortening and not to convexity.
The visual point, or the point from which the visual impression is determined, is at the focus projection, as far in front of the lens of the eye as the convexity of the lens locates it. It is not the same in every eye, because the lenses of different eyes vary. The visual point when a telescope is employed, is a projection of the focus beyond the objective end of the instrument, and the focal axis is necessarily slightly oblique to the apparent horizontal line.
Look over a prairie, to the horizon, from an elevation of ten or fifteen feet. The first mile of the landscape makes a long picture upon the retina of the eye; the second mile, a shorter one, the third, still shorter, and the fourth would make no picture. This is the vanishing point. The landscape appears to drop out of sight.
A line drawn from the subjective visual point to the vanishing point will appear to be depressed in proportion to the foreshortening of the geolinear surface. This foreshortening is about five inches to the mile, and allowance is made by civil engineers as if it were convexity instead of foreshortening.
The surface of the earth is concave. We have reached this conclusion from downright geometrical and mechanical hard work. The absurdities of the old or Copernican system are too many, too apparent, and attended by too much guesswork to be of any value to the critical and analytical thinker. The modern, so called astronomer is a Liliputian, and the time is not far distant when there will be an awakening.
From the common theological point of view, the great question of the age is the salvation of the soul, the processes of which are so simple that the most simple-minded man may find the way and walk therein. This is a great mistake. The way is scientific; and when we consider that even the most "scientific" men are trying to discover the sources of human existence—the origin and destiny of man; that the most astute are ignorant of the simplest laws of common physiology; and that all men at the present time are the subjects of imperfect health, and are not able to apply the laws of restoration because of ignorance of their own being, can we assert that the way is an easy one?
The soul will be saved when the body is redeemed. When this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then, and not until then, will man have conquered death—the arch-enemy. The time has come in which the Apostle's injunction serves well; namely, "add to your faith, knowledge." Faith without works is dead; and the works of the law upon which life depends must be the result of the science of life. The science of life is therefore necessarily the science of man; in perfection, the science of God, because man is the image, form, likeness, and function of Deity.—Koresh.
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