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“A friend sometime since asked me a question, which I was unable to answer satisfactorily—namely, Where is the center of gravity? Will you kindly answer the same through The Flaming Sword?”’
Since the time of Newton the scientific world has had a great deal to say concerning “gravitation” and the center of gravitation. But if we critically examine the Copernican or Newtonian system of astronomy we discover, from the basis of the so called Newtonian laws of gravitation and motion, that there could be in reality, no such thing as a universal center of gravity. The very principles of the Copernican solar system make impossible the conclusion that the universe itself has either center or circumference.
The moon is supposed to revolve about the earth. It is held that in order for the moon to maintain its place in space and its relation to the earth as a center of gravity, it must be constantly in motion at a given velocity and a given distance from the earth. In turn, the earth is supposed to revolve about the sun; and again, the sun revolves about another and a larger sun; and the larger sun around still another, and so on ad infinitum.
Hence, we maintain that in the Copernican system there can be no consistent conclusion that that which is called gravitation has any ultimate and absolute center. But there are supposed to be centers of gravitation, pulling in diverse and contrary directions, which would make as impossible the maintenance of motion in the universe, as the construction of a mechanical perpetual motion. Without center and circumference for the transmutation, exchange, and rebound of the active substances of the universe, there could be no such a thing as the conservation of energy. The mathematics of motion demands a central pivot of all momentum, a primary source of all impulse.
In the Koreshan System, there is no center toward which the lines of gravity tend, because the direction of gravity is downward, and downward is outward from the universal center. But there is a center in which the energies of gravity are generated, and from which the energies of gravity proceed in the processes of their radiation. That center is the center of the cosmic cell in which we live. It is at the same time the center of levity—that is, the center toward which the lines of ascending energies tend—energies that rebound through use and metamorphosis, from the universal circumference or the material shell of the earth. The constant exchange of the forces of levity and gravity maintain supplies of substance for both the center and the circumference of the cosmos. The origin of motion is not in mechanics, but in the interaction of spirit and matter, the relations of which are alchemical and vital.
Editorial transcription checked against the cited scans; historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 18, No. 37 · Feb 21, 1905 · PDF p. 12