Extracted text
Editorial transcription, proofed and normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation, column interleaving, and OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
In the Editorial Perspective.
The Editor.
The Star of Bethlehem.
The Star of Bethlehem shone brilliantly over Judea at the beginning of the present dispensation; and now the civilized World celebrates Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Lucifer, the Light-bearer. The Magi of the East viewed the physical heavens and observed the hand of the great dial of the ages as it indicated the time of the divine manifestation. They observed "His Star," located in the constellation which corresponds to the Jewish people. They came to Jerusalem, studied the books of the prophets, and learned the place of His birth. They brought the first Christmas gifts and presented them to the object of their adoration. The shepherds on the hills heard the anthems of the angel choir, as it announced the coming of the mysterious Personality.
Who was He? If we turn in retrospection and view the past, we see the Head of a new dispensation; the Man who made for himself stupendous claims concerning his mission and function. We hear Him proclaim his truth; we see the multitudes follow him; and we observe the closing scenes of his career in martyrdom, resurrection, and mysterious disappearance. We hear His disciples proclaiming the new gospel; and gradually it dawned upon the people that the Almighty, the Majesty of the Heavens, the Creator of the universe, had visited the world of humanity! The Orient was illumined by a new Light from the Sun of divine philosophy.
The Light shone into the souls of the multitude, until it was absorbed and appropriated by the soil; and then darkness came, and the church apostatized. The Star fell into the sea and was extinguished; the Seed fell into the soil and died, that it might bring forth the fruit of the Tree of Life at the end of the dispensation.
No other people in the earth today have greater reasons, more rational grounds for exalting Jesus of Nazareth, than the Koreshans. The periodic manifestations of the Almighty in humanity constitute the foundation of the ages; and Koreshan theology has for its basis, the science of divine involution and evolution in the human world. How do we know that Jesus came nineteen hundred years ago, and was what he claimed to be? Because, independently of the Bible, we read the laws, motions, and precessions in the physical world. We read the truth of His coming in the form and function of the physical universe; in the various domains of life, and in the physiology of the human system. If the Bible did not exist, we could as accurately indicate the character and function of the Man, as well as the time of his appearing.
The church has forgotten God; it fails to realize the stupendous import of the manifestation of Deity in humanity; and the church now despises the truth of the humanity of God. The greatest of all discoveries is the discovery of God; Koresh redeclares the eternal truth of the human God, and demonstrates the Messianic law.
To have seen the Christ nineteen hundred years ago; to have followed him from place to place, and to have heard his voice in the proclamation of truth, is considered by the world as a wonderful privilege! May not that Voice be heard again? The hearts of the disciples of Jesus burned within them as they associated with the God-man in Judea.
The end of the age has come again; there has been a new Christmas, because there is a new Man. The hearts of disciples of truth burn again in realization of the new manifestation. Signs as unmistakable as those read by the Magi of the East are again in the physical heavens, and are read by the Magus of the West; and the Finger of Koreshan Science points to the signs — and to the Scientist!
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A Rejoinder to Prof. Chaney.
Prof. Chaney, of Chicago, undertakes to pass judgment on the Koreshan Cosmogony in an astrological publication, and displays his ignorance of the System in his attempt. He erects a straw man, and then asks the reader to be amused at the manner in which he demolishes it! For instance, he says that we demonstrate the earth's concavity in this way:
"Drive a post perpendicularly into the mud of a shallow pond that is miles in extent all around; then fasten upon it a perfectly straight pole exactly horizontal with the plane of the horizon. Now go to one end of the pole and look along its length and beyond: what do you see? Why, the line projected beyond the pole loses itself in the water. Something is wrong. Either the pole is crooked, or has not been leveled. Go to the other end, and look in the same way — wonder of wonders! The other end loses itself in the water. This proves that the surface of the water is concave, and that it rises up on all sides of us until it meets at the zenith. It seems to me that only an idiot or a lunatic could be convinced that we live on the inside of a hollow globe by such an illustration as this."
Where did he get this illustration? We have never employed such a method of demonstration, and have never used it as an illustration. It is indisputable that a chord of an arc lies within the circle. The radius which is perpendicular to the chord bisects the chord and also the arc which it subtends; the perpendicular at the middle of the chord passes through the center of the circle and through the middle of the arc subtended by the chord. When we refer to the chord of an arc in demonstration of the earth's concavity, we do not mean the visual line. We have surveyed by mechanical means, a line beginning at right angles to the radius, and it terminated at the surface of the water at a distance proportionate to the altitude of the line in its middle.
If we were to paraphrase the language of the obtuse professor, we would say that it seems to us that only an ignoramus or a trickster could misinterpret and misrepresent our fundamental proposition as given in the above quotation. Perhaps he might now give us some idea of how the convexity of the earth may be proven. We challenge him to do so!
Modern science is destined to undergo a number of rapid changes before the final overthrow of the numerous fallacies of the nineteenth century. There are a greater number of men at work on the problems which have puzzled the astronomers so long, than ever before; and each one is striking out on lines of his own. Conflicting conclusions are multiplying, and the mental chaos of the scientific world is increasing. The results of continuous investigations are evincing the fact to the world at large, that modern science has no firm foundation, else the conclusions of scientific men would be harmonious — logical deductions from a given premise.
Conclusions as to the distance to the sun were reached before any attempt was made to ascertain the nature of the media through which the energies of the sun pass to reach the earth. Astronomers finally settled upon the supposition that the earth's atmosphere extends to a height of about 50 miles. Of course, tables of refraction were constructed to fit the sea of atmosphere 50 miles deep, and everything went on smoothly until subsequent observations seemed to indicate that the atmosphere extended at least 100 miles. Lockyer concluded that it extends 500 miles perpendicularly; and now comes Prof. Woodward, of the Columbia University, New York City, with the declaration that the atmosphere is at least 26,000 miles deep at the equator, and 17,000 miles deep at the poles!
Until it is known positively how deep the atmosphere is, and what the index of refraction is for each stratum, the actual position and consequently the distance of a single "heavenly body" cannot be known! Physics, alchemy, and astronomy must be in harmony, on the basis of a known foundation.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 14, No. 5 · Dec 22, 1899 · PDF p. 8