Extracted text
By Koresh — Part VII.
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.
THE FUNDAMENTAL statement of Koreshan Cosmogony is, that the world is a concave sphere, and that its inhabitants dwell on its concave surface. This is directly opposite to the system universally, or almost universally, promulgated and believed.
We do not make this bold statement without a full conviction of what it entails for us. Our experience for years has taught us that all the boasted toleration of the nineteenth century is a sham or fictitious toleration, and exists only in the imagination of the ignorant and thoughtless. The modern mind is no more open to a revolutionary thought now, than in the days of Galileo; and any innovation of public sentiment, though a truthful discovery, will be as rigidly opposed, whether of a religious or secular character, as when he was impelled to recant his statement.
There are various means of demonstrating the concavity of the earth, as opposed to the usual conception of its convexity. It is claimed that the earth is a globe or sphere like a ball, and that its convex surface is its habitable portion. It is supposed that this convexity amounts to about eight inches to the mile, and that there is a natural curvilineation of vision in consequence of the refractive power of the atmosphere, of about three inches to the mile.
I desire to call the reader's attention to that extra five inches, and make a scientific application of its bearing upon Koreshan Cosmogony. We will make use of this said five inches in connection with the theodolite, an instrument constructed for the use of trigonometrical surveying, for the accurate measurement of horizontal and vertical angles.
The theodolite is a small telescope with cross-wires in its focus, and mounted upon the tripod. It is arranged so as to be adjusted to a horizontal plane by the application of a delicate level, which constitutes one factor in its construction.
In the adjustment of the telescope to the observation of the horizontal in its relation to the surface of the earth, there are some special facts to be considered; first, the theodolite must indicate a perfect level; second, the earth, whether convex or concave, cannot exactly conform to the indication of the level plane of the theodolite; third, in the relation of the earth's surface to the theodolitic plane, or the line indicated by the theodolite, there is a perceptible deviation of five inches to the mile.
To state it more plainly, the supposed curve of the earth being eight inches to the mile, and the natural, visual curvilineation downward, being three inches to the mile, would leave five inches for the departure of the earth's supposed curve from the plane of the horizontal, as indicated by the theodolite.
The question to be answered is this; namely, "Is the apparent departure of the earth's surface from the plane of the horizontal, as indicated by the theodolite, due to curvilineation, or to perspective foreshortening?"
If it be due to convex curvilineation, then there is no such thing as perspective foreshortening. If telegraph poles, fifty feet high, are placed in a row, and a wire is strung along the top of them for a few miles, and I stand at the foot of one of these and look along the course of the wire, it will seem to come nearer the ground as the distance is extended, until the final pole seen appears to have been shortened to the least possible height. This is at the point called the horizon, where the pole in its entire length may be seen, though apparently very short. This wire, though on a level, or at least conforming to the contour of the earth's surface, appears to descend to the horizontal verge.
Now if I take the theodolite, which may stand five feet high, and adjust it to its horizontal plane, the horizontal hair-line at its focus will seem to be a mark across the sky some distance above the top of the extreme pole, or the objective end of the wire strung along the top of the poles. The final pole, or the one standing on the horizon, has apparently contracted fifty feet, hence the contraction from the top downward is as great as the contraction from the bottom upward.
I maintain that this apparent contraction of the pole to an absolute annihilation of that fifty feet, is not due to the convex rotundity of the earth, but to perspective foreshortening. The apparent line across the sky in the distance, is but a line drawn through the focus of the instrument; while apparently in the perspective, it is really at or near the eye, and therefore it does not conform to the law of perspective, which governs the apparent descent of the wire five inches to the mile, for which the surveyor allows in his measurements.
The Structure of the Universal Shell
The basis or foundation of astronomy, or more properly astro-anthropology — astro, of the stars, and anthropology, discourse upon man — is that groundwork or periphery of the universal sphere, comprising the complexion of circumference which we denominate the basilar firmament of reflection, and therefore emplacement of the planetary and stellar systems.
The universe in its most material and physical aspect is a great shell, the circumference or periphery being composed of a number of strata or laminæ, related in definite order to one another, according to their specific gravity; the law of specific gravity constituting the virtue and indication of their emplacement.
The center of the shell is the astral or star center, the limbus of which is the luminous sphere called the solar confine or circumambia. This circumambient limbus or sun is the first shell around the star nucleus, which comprises the very heart and center of the universe.
The solar sphere (sun) is composed of essences radiating from the astral nucleus, meeting influent spirit-substances flowing toward the nucleus, from the peripherical strata, or from the basilar firmament comprising the general solid circumference, the shell of the entire system.
Between the stellar nucleus and hence, heart of the shells, and its universal circumference, occupying the first spacial field or dimension, are three contiguous atmospheres. The first or upper one is that which begins at the stellar limbus, or the sun, and terminates at a second limbus, the atmospheric generation of which consists of hydrogen gas. This is the middle atmosphere. Its outermost border or circumference rests upon and lies contiguous to our own atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen; the third and last one, numbering from within toward the circumference, of the general sphere or shell.
The universe (so called) is nothing more nor less than a great egg, in which all the phases and forms of life are in perpetual and constant recreation of its spiritual domains, from its material and consonant structure. It successively ripens its fruit, which upon reaching maturity is instantly appropriated by the spiritual domains for which it serves its end.
The inner surface of the shell or rind of the universe, is the land and water surface of the earth. There are five mineral strata, and seven metallic laminæ or planes, which aggregatively combine to form the crust of the system.
The Metallic Strata and the Voltaic Pile
The seven metallic surfaces lying contiguous to one another form, as it were, a great voltaic pile, in which, by their relations to the astral center, solar sphere, and contiguous and underlying atmospheres, generate the essences which interflow from center to circumference, and from circumference to center.
These interflowing essences created or engendered by the relation of the two extremes of the great magneto-electric battery — the physical universe — meet at regular intervals of space, and by their impact heap up or aggregate spheres or strata of spirit-substance. These strata are called planets, because they are aggregations of spirit-substance derived from the metallic planes or surfaces of the periphery or shell (rind) of the entire system.
The first step in the order and application of the rational function, in determining the structured contour of universal form as herein portrayed, is the knowledge and use of the great law of analogy — the basic factor of all rational process.
All our observations go to determine our conception of the principles of development, toward and into the confirmation of the conviction that all life develops from and through cellular growth. The gestative law performs its functions of incubation within the egg or cell, and the higher we progress in the scale of evolution, toward the culminating degree of perfection in organic form, the more nearly spherical does the cell or shell of gestation or incubation become.
The law of analogy compels us to conclude that the earth, the rind of the universe, is contoured upon the universal principle of the egg, and that in this egg, shell or womb of creation, the functional potencies of creation ply their activities. The law of analogy is the basic or foundation principle of all reasoning, from generals to particulars, or that a posteriori process which man is compelled first to employ, because he himself dwells in effects until causes are discovered. Vegetable, animal, human, and finally divine life, is in process of gestation in the great universal egg, of which the crust, upon the concave surface of which we dwell, is composed of a complexity of layers of mineral and metallic planes as before stated.
The Dimensions of Space and the Planetary Spheres
The first dimension is made up of, first, the shell or rind, complex in its form, and constituting the magneto-voltaic pile, its inner surface being land and water. Resting upon this is the lowermost atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen; immediately above this is an atmosphere of hydrogen, and upon this an atmosphere of aboron. These three atmospheres, with an earth and water surface, and metallic strata to bind and environ them, together with the sun and astral center and intermediate stellar realm, comprise the first dimension of space.
The second dimension of space holds the seven planetary spheres, lying between the circumference and the star nucleus, or astral center of the system.
The first or circumferential plane of generation has a superficial structure of platinum, lying next to which is the gold lamina or plate. The contiguity of these creates the potency which in the inter-planetary realm gives us Saturn. During the esoteric passage of the sign on the ecliptic, in the progression of the cycle called the Zodiac, (this is in opposition to the movement called the precession of the equinoxes,) while the pole of the planet Saturn is in the three constellations, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, a period of six thousand years, we have the Golden Age of the world. It has been over eighteen thousand years since the Golden Age terminated.
The third metallic stratum, lying contiguous to the gold lamina, is mercury. Between the gold and mercury strata is generated the potency which gives us Venus.
Between every pair of strata or laminæ are the laboratories constantly generating metallic potencies which when generated flow toward the sun and astral nucleus. The interflow of potencies created by the disintegration of the metallic substances at the circumference of the shell, (material atoms being destroyed as atoms of matter and converted to spirit of the same, whether gold, silver, mercury, etc.,) with a recurrent generation and flow at the center toward the circumference, so unite and blend in their impact as to assume at, or near the center of the sphere or shell, the form of a tabernacle, covered with tents, folding with loops, and in every particular creating a form, after which Moses fashioned the tabernacle in the wilderness. Around this are the courts, corresponding to the courts created by Moses under divine illumination and direction, in the midst of which the Tabernacle was placed.
The Fourth Dimension and the Gyre
It is an easy matter to understand and apply the mind, in the common realization of length, breadth, and thickness, to the forms and modifications of matter as tangible and appreciable properties and realities. It is easy enough to observe the universal law of limitation as belonging to every shape assumed by matter, both in its natural and artificial modulations. It is impossible to observe any of the forms of matter as limited by the definite extremity of their outlines, and not appreciate the law or principle of limitation as being a property of dimension.
Space is from the Latin spatium, or Greek, span. According to Webster, it is "that which makes extended objects conceivable and possible;" "a quantity or portion of extension; an interval between any two or more objects." To say that space is illimitable would be to contradict every conception and definition of space. If the mind could conceive of such a property as illimitable extension, it would be compelled to apply to it a nomenclature from which the idea of space, both as to quality and name, were expunged. The Greek word span, equivalent of space, means to reach to extremes; that is, to limitations.
Illimitability is inconceivable, and that which cannot be conceived has no existence. The three conceived properties of space or dimension, as acknowledged by the mathematician, namely, length, breadth, and thickness, are necessary properties of form, and therefore of space, and enter as three cardinal factors into the determination and purpose of knowledges.
In the estimate of the three essential and already universally recognized properties of dimension, we discover the first element of triangulation, and in the score of such triangulation, the primary element of trigonometry, its mensuration or definition. The determination of these three points of the qualitative triangle of matter, by that score or circle of consciousness circumscribing it, does not complete the mathematical problem of equation.
Mathematicians very well know that there must of necessity exist a fourth dimension; and though some have gone so far as to conceive the possibility that the spiral may somehow enter as a factor into the proposition, they cannot yet apply it because they have not discovered the law of the spiral.
Men have entertained the conception of centripetal and centrifugal substances as determined by attraction and repulsion. Also the common law of rotation as the modulation of these coordinate motions in conjunction. Just how these three motions combine to establish the fourth, that is, the gyral, they have not defined to us; yet the gyre is a fourth motion, and is as much a correlative of matter as the other three; and as it is the product of the combination of the three, it must complete their equation.
As motion cannot exist independent of matter, and as space can only apply to matter, and is one of its properties, the fourth motion must apply to a fourth property of space in extension. The gyre is therefore the fourth limitation of dimension. The laws involved in the helix furnish the only possible clue to the solution of this final great and last factor to the problem of life. Insulated counter currents, resulting in the destruction of one kind of substance and its conversion to another kind, (terminal transformation,) supply us with that correspondential analogy with which the law can easily be determined.
If the hypothesis of the correlation of the [so-called] forces is an actual truth, the limitation of a [so-called] energy as a mode of motion, must be defined by the destruction of that quality of motion in its terminal transformation to another kind. If "a mode of motion" can be defined by its action upon matter, its quality determined by that which we call phenomenon, the limit of that action as defined by its phenomena must terminate where, and only where, the specific quality of motion ceases to exist. This certainly must be one of its limitations.
As motion is a correlative of matter, and there must be as many correlates between motion, as activities, and matter, with which it acts to manifest its phenomena, so matter must possess a corresponding termination; namely, a point or quality of terminal transformation. By this we mean property of convertibility from one kind of matter to another kind. We call this transmutation of matter, and the science which governs it, the science of alchemy. The substance of transmutation is gyral or helical. The general term by which it may be designated as applicable to every domain of procedure, is revulsory revolution.
Helical substance is the substance of transformation, through insulation, and involves atomic dissipation, or that subtle procedure by which an atom of matter is whittled down, by friction or agitation, to its geometric point, a point beyond which it no longer remains or exists as matter, but beyond which it becomes spirit-substance. The quality of mind [called] materialistic cannot embrace this special confine or limit of matter, and cannot therefore comprehend the environment of the fourth dimension. When the mind reaches the comprehension of the confine of the fourth dimension, it ceases to be agnostic or materialistic. It comes into or is born into the science of spiritual phenomena.
Economy in the Construction of the World
By degrees the world is coming to apply rational processes to the things they have so long accepted as the scientific dictum of the age. Some one thinks there is a bare possibility that there has not been so much waste of material in the building of the world as hitherto supposed. A little mathematical calculation founded upon the known laws of specific gravity, will soon convince the most sceptical who, with unbiased judgment, will apply reason, or common sense even, to the consideration of construction.
The great and wise Builder of the world, in the construction of a habitation for man, does not ignore the simplest principles of economy, strength, beauty, and durability. Of course the world is a shell composed, first, (so far as first applies to man's habitable relation to its surface) of earth (and water), with its five geologic strata, underlying which are seven metallic planes or layers beaten out into their specific laminæ, and comprising the foundation both for the integument of the structure, and the pile for the generation of the electric and magnetic substances which are the essences of momentum to the physical universe.
(To be continued.)
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the installment's argument on theodolite measurement, the concave shell structure, metallic strata, planetary generation, and the fourth dimension without presenting them as independently established results. The claims remain attributed to The Flaming Sword.
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The Flaming Sword · Vol. 27, No. 7 · Jul 1913 · PDF pp. 4-7