Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The Open Court of Inquiry.
#### Questions Concerning the Sun.
EDITOR FLAMING SWORD:—Will you please answer the following questions? (1) Do you consider that the physical sun is hot or cold? (2) How do energies from the sun get into the growing vegetable? (3) Please explain how the sun will produce universal day during the Golden Age. Will the central sun then contain an annulus of light instead of a light hemisphere? The sun lights up only one half of the earth at the present time; will the equator be illumined in the future? (4) Please give the signs of the Zodiac according to the Koreshan System.—J. F. D., Denver, Colo.
(1) The most commonly accepted theory of the sun is, that it is a great ball of fire radiating light and heat into space, which is supposed to be filled with ether. This theory requires that light and heat as such, should be transmitted from the sun to the earth; but physicists have reached the conclusion that the earth's atmosphere is necessary to the phenomena of illumination—that the light of the sun does not become light as we know it until the rays of solar energy enter our air. At the present time "the electric theory" of the sun is being advocated; according to this theory the sun is cold—a mere battery that generates electricity, which upon entering the atmosphere of the planets produces light and heat. We maintain that both of these conceptions are true to a certain extent, as we will show.
Both the central and projected suns are intensely hot points of combustion; but the limbus of the central sun contains the poles of light, darkness, heat, and cold. Strictly speaking, the energies radiating from these points are not of the qualities which characterize light, darkness, heat, and cold in our atmosphere. These four poles of the central sun have corresponding projections in the outer atmosphere; that is, there are four poles on the ecliptic of the heavens. The visible sun is the light pole; the hot pole is 90° east of the sun; the dark pole, 180° east, while the cold pole is 270° east, or 90° west of the sun. Alternate day and night are produced by the revolution of the poles of light and darkness. In a general way, the change of seasons is due to the position of the visible sun on the ecliptic; but the heated term of July and August is partly due to the hot pole being near the tropic of Cancer, and the cold of February and March is partly due to the cold pole being north of the equator, while the sun is farther north than in December.
Heat, as such, is not radiated from the sun to the earth; that is, the rays of the sun are not warm throughout the intervening space. Neither is heat communicated by induction from sun to earth; if it were so, the higher the altitude above sea-level, the warmer the atmosphere. The contrary is true; intense cold exists a few miles above the earth's surface. A ray of the sun contains light and heat in unison. Light is electric; heat is magnetic; the earth's heat is generated by the actinic effect of sunshine upon the earth. This is in accordance with the facts used by the advocates of "the electric theory," as the basis of their arguments that the sun is cold; at the same time, the Koreshan conception is in harmony with the very obvious fact that heat is present where light is generated.
(2) There are several ways in which solar energies enter into conjunction with the growing plant: First, by direct interception of sun's rays by foliage and stalk; second, through warmth of the atmosphere; third, through electricity, magnetism, and other energies in the earth produced by action of the sun's energies; and fourth, by feeding upon the substances of the soil. The life of the plant is the result of the union or interaction of matter and energy. The energy of a solar ray is made the plant's own by absorption, which is the result of combustion at points where the solar rays are intercepted.
(3) Universal day will be produced during the Golden Age, not by an annulus of light on the central sun instead of a light hemisphere, but by an annulus in the physical heavens in the region of the zenith of the earth's equator. The central sun will enlarge, as it were, and extend to the outer atmosphere in a way corresponding to the multiplication of the one Son of God into 144,000 Sons of God in the external world. The annulus will be a great ring of light; at one point of the annulus there will be a bright circular glow, corresponding to the projected sun of the present time; the glow will rise and set, and time will be measured by the hour angles of the brilliant point. A sun will also appear at each pole of the heavens. Thus there will be no night during the Golden Age, and extremes of temperature will be unknown.
(4) On March 21 the sun is at the initial point of celestial longitude, the vernal equinox; that point is now between the constellations Pisces and Aquarius. Extending eastward from the vernal equinox, in the order of the Zodiac of the physical heavens, are the constellations Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Aquarius; these twelve divisions make a belt of 360°, making each constellation occupy about 30°. The constellations are astronomical; the signs of the Zodiac are in the earth—they are geographical. The sign Aries begins at the meridian of Greenwich, and extends 30° eastward on the ecliptic; then, running eastward, there are the other signs, whose names are the same as the names of the constellations. The vernal equinox in the heavens corresponds to the meridian of Greenwich in the earth. Nineteen hundred years ago the vernal equinox was between Aries and Pisces, and the constellations agreed with the signs; that is, the constellations occupied celestial longitude which corresponded to the geographical longitude. Owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the zero point of right ascension, or the initial point of astronomical longitude, has shifted westward 50" of a degree every year, covering the space of about 30° or the length of the constellation Pisces, in the present dispensation. The dial of the Zodiac now indicates the end of the present order of things, and the beginning of a new age.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical's claims without presenting its conclusions as independently established results.
Source: The Flaming Sword · Vol. 16, No. 13 · February 14, 1902 · Physical PDF p. 12
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 16, No. 13 · Feb 14, 1902 · PDF p. 12