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Department: Open Court of Inquiry — THE EDITOR
Sunrise and Sunset in the Concavity.
“I should suppose according to your view, that the sun is 4,000 miles from us; but I cannot understand its rising and setting in the hollow globe. Please explain.”
The above question is asked by one who is not at all familiar with the Koreshan Cosmogony; and we answer for the benefit of those who have not had opportunity to study the system to any extent. Many questions suggest themselves to new readers—questions which may seem simple to advanced students; but it should be borne in mind that truly scientific answers to such inquiries are of more importance than hypothetical treatments of profound subjects from the standpoint of the modern scientist. A very little truth known is of vastly more value to the progressive mind than all the fallacy promulgated in the world.
The mind of the student of the Koreshan Cosmogony must learn to distinguish between the central sun of the physical cosmos, and the projected sun visible in our atmosphere. The central sun is about 4,000 miles from the surface of the earth; it involves the nucleus of the cosmic cell. The central sun is invisible; the depth of three atmospheres intervenes between us and the center, and visual penetration of the three atmospheric seas is impossible. It is not the central sun 4,000 miles from the surface of the earth, that rises and sets.
The visible sun is the projection of the light side of the interior and central sun. The projection has an orbit of about 18,000 miles circumference, and completes its diurnal movement in just twenty-four hours. The light of the projection produces what we call day, the average length of which is twelve hours. The projection passes over a given meridian every twenty-four hours. Noon divides the day period in two—morning and afternoon. In the early morning the projection advances from the east, upward apparently, towards the south, and then goes down apparently all afternoon.
Now, at noon time, the sun is passing overhead, having a motion towards the west. Its motion seems to be horizontal near noon time; indeed its orbit is always parallel with the earth’s surface; and that surface being concave, makes the orbit of the sun convex to us. As the sun appears to rise it is coming toward us and above us from over the expanse of the earth in the east; and as it “goes down” it goes out over the earth toward the west. It appears to rise and go down in accordance with the laws of perspective.
In complete explanation of the phenomena of sunrise and sunset we consider the combined effects of perspective and the curvation of the rays of light from the sun. The rays so curve downward and outward from the sun that when sufficiently distant from us—that is, at about 90° to the east or west, the sun’s light enters the eye horizontally, causing the sun to appear to be in a horizontal direction from the eye, at or near the horizon of the earth, the apparent meeting point of the earth and sky.
The sun does not rise and set by merely standing still and allowing the earth to turn. We should not call that rising and setting of the sun. The words used in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures for sunrise and sunset are very significant and scientific. The terms do not convey the idea of an actual rising of the sun, nor a going down of the sun; but rather a bursting-forth in the morning, and a going-out over the earth in the evening. The words and their meaning are all fully set forth in the Cellular Cosmogony, showing that the ancients had the true conception of those common phenomena of the natural cosmos, which are so utterly perverted in modern astronomy.
In rising, the sun simply comes into our sphere of vision, our field view, not from below the edge of the earth, but from beyond our perspective plane; and in setting it passes from our field of view, our sphere of vision, the vanishing-point or line of which is the horizon. Thus the sun rises and sets on a level with the eye, or nearly so, no matter what may be the altitude of the observer.
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[End of “Sunrise and Sunset in the Concavity” as printed in The Flaming Sword, Volume 19, Number 28, December 19, 1905. Page 12 of the periodical (PDF p.12). The article appears under the “Open Court of Inquiry” department. Page 12 bears the printed heading; the article text occupies the left and middle columns of page 12. The right column of page 12 begins a separate Q&A, “Koreshan Cosmogony and Physics,” which continues onto page 13 and includes discussion of the dark side of the earth. Page 14 is advertising.]
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical's argument without presenting its conclusions as independently established results.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 19, No. 28 · Dec 19, 1905 · PDF p. 12