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Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the cited scan. The claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
Lucie Page Borden
It would seem that a consideration of the salient features of the various departments of the Koreshan System ought to establish its claims to investigation, at the hands of the intelligent and fair-minded. Its reasonable and convincing solution of one problem alone, —that of the source of the sun's heat, certainly ought to procure it a hearing from present day scientists. As every one knows, this is a question that has heretofore baffled the human intellect, no doubt because being one of the central truths of existence, the scientific region of the brain had not hitherto developed sufficiently to reach such a conception. Conjectures are rife, and new theories on the subject are constantly propounded. The general tendency has been to vibrate from one extreme to the other, one theory predicting such an increase of temperature as would produce a general conflagration in the solar system, the other affirming that the loss of heat arising from so rapid a radiation of the solar energies must eventually render this earth a frozen planet, void of light and warmth where all life has perished.
Now Koreshan Science, as it would seem, very reasonably, declares that the cosmos is self-perpetuating, since waste and supply in it are equal; that there is a reciprocal interchange of energies between the sun and the earth, as between centre and circumference, by which an equilibrium is maintained so that just as the earth receives light and heat from the sun, so the latter is supplied with fuel for the solar fires from the magnetic and electric energies sent up by the earth.
In Koreshan Science, the physical cosmos is not considered as a thing apart, complete in itself, but rather as furnishing by correspondences the key to the anthropostic or mental world. It is a system of types; and whereas it has been shown that the physical universe is governed by absolute, unvarying law, Koreshanity further declares that every law is the exponent of a principle inhering in mind.
General ignorance in regard to the source of the sun's heat and the relation of centre to circumference, would naturally imply a corresponding ignorance concerning the nature of the Divine man, or the anthropostic center, and the relations existing between God and man as centre and circumference of the anthropostic world. Is it not a fact that this age is avowedly agnostic, confessing its lack of knowledge in just this direction? Dean Worcester in his book on the all-important islands whose destiny is just now a subject of national interest, relates that certain devout Filipinos caught sight of a caricature of Ex-president Cleveland in a copy of Judge that some one had sent him. Cleveland, then in office, was represented as a saint in an ill-fitting nimbus, weeping over the sins of his fellow countrymen; the innocent natives begged this caricature, hung it up and worshiped it.
It seems that there are many persons today, worshiping as absurd caricatures of the Divine Being as this distorted image of one whom his warmest admirers never qualified as Godlike. The need of the age is a scientific idea of God and a religious system that, as the logical outcome of science, is strictly reasonable. According to the Koreshan concept of Deity, the divine man is perfected out of the common humanity, through processes of involution and evolution extending over ages of experience. His manifestation is periodical, recurring at intervals ordained by law, and he renews the spiritual life of humanity by imparting his own to the race,—spiritual force which he previously draws up from the race and returns in higher and purer form. Hence there is a reciprocal relation between God and man, precisely analogous to that existing between the sun and the earth.
The Cellular Cosmogony, which to some minds appears so startling as to border upon absurdity, is in reality in strict conformity with that dictum of modern research which asserts that all life develops ab ovo. And it rests also upon a definite mathematical premise demonstrable by any one with sufficient courage and interest to undertake the experiment of running an air line.
No student of sociology who scans intelligently the signs of the times, can fail to apprehend a deep and widespread dissatisfaction with existing conditions. The statistics from German schools for the ten years from 1887 to 1897, show that 407 school children under fifteen years of age committed suicide. Now while it is cowardly, suicide on the part of those who have advanced in life far enough to see their fondest hopes wither and the blight of disappointment spread over every joy, may not be altogether without excuse; but when the very young shrink back on the threshold of existence and refuse to carry the burden of life, the phenomenon is felt to be both unnatural and appalling. Child-suicide is one of the saddest and most startling symptoms of modern social life.
What manner of civilization have we been fostering, that even the children find its conditions impossible at the outset? The remedy proposed by Koreshanity, is a return to the communistic relations of the early Christians. The figure of Jesus Christ stands as the exemplar of a Christian world that professes to see in him the Divine man. If it be possible to establish orderly and harmonious relations among men, and to inaugurate a social system calculated to provide the best possible opportunity for the advancement of humanity to a higher plane of moral and intellectual activity, it is reasonable to suppose that Jesus would supply the model for this form of government. Clergymen and students of church history are beginning of late to emphasize the fact, attested by secular records as well as by the Bible narrative, that the early church was communistic in its aims and methods.
The Koreshan Unity is a practical attempt in modern times to return to early communistic and co-operative ideals, but it meets with persistent hostility and opposition from the competitive world. The lives of the great reformers furnish pathetic reading, and the homage of succeeding generations cannot recall the calumny that wounded the sensitive spirit, or the insults that sank deep into the noble heart. No unprejudiced observer can study this socialistic experiment ab intra, mingling with its exponents in their home life, listening to their daily conversation and watching their efforts, without discovering that in devotion to principle, in self-sacrifice and in patient endeavor, that little community in Chicago offers an example of practical, every-day heroism unequaled since the days of the primitive church.
Let those who tire themselves unwilling to put off the shackles of self-interest that bind men to the competitive world, at least do honor to those who bravely take the initiative in a movement designed for the comfort and relief of suffering humanity.
It is a mistaken idea that the object of Koreshanity is to detach men from the human brotherhood by shutting them up in communities according to the old monastic scheme of life. Its aim and scope are broad enough to embrace the whole world, and its avowed purpose is to inaugurate a system that shall overspread the earth,—a system founded in love to the neighbor. Community life in the restricted sense is a necessary phase pertaining to the development of a new socialism, only so long as its ideas are shared by the few.
"Food and drink, roof and clothes," writes that master of delicate prose, the author of "The Story of My Heart," "are the inalienable right of every child born into the light. If the world does not provide it fully—not as a grudging gift but as a right, as a son of the house sits down to breakfast—then is the world mad.
But the world is not mad, only in ignorance—self-interested ignorance, kept up by strenuous exertions, from which infernal darkness it will, in course of time, emerge, marveling at the past as a man wonders at and glories in the light, who has escaped from blindness." He goes on to express the hope that future generations may have leisure to enjoy their days and the earth and the beauty of this beautiful world; that they may rest by the sea, and dream. "I will work toward that end with all my heart," he adds fervently.
This is oneof theends that Koreshanity has in view, toward which its advocates are toiling ardently, ennobled by the power of a great aim, whether the meed of their efforts be praise or blame from the world at large.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 13, No. 14 · February 1899 · PDF pp. 7–8