Extracted text
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 EDITOR.
Editor Flaming Sword:—If the whole heavens are inside a shell about 8,000 miles in diameter, the stars would have a different appearance in Europe from what they have in America, I would suppose; that is, they could not appear in the same position to the European that they would to the American. For instance, in the constellation Lyra, the double and quadruple stars would not seem to hold the same place in the heavens at the same time, to astronomers on different continents.
Take, for instance, the quadruple star Epsilon Lyrae; when viewed at the same hour by astronomers thousands of miles apart, it presents the same appearance. The four stars comprising it hold the same position to one another wherever viewed at the same time, however far apart the observers may be.
Could this be the case if these stars were possibly less than 2,000 miles from us? It is asserted that the stars in each pair of these four stars are hundreds of years revolving around each other, and that the pairs are thousands of years making a complete circuit about an invisible center. I do not see how anything but immense distance could account for this phenomenon. Viewed from the two ends of a base-line longer than the distance to the stars at the same time, [they] must present a different appearance—at least it seems so to me. Be so kind as to explain how this agrees with the doctrine of Koreshanity.—J. F., Springfield, Mo.
If we were to attempt to explain the phenomena of the Cellular Universe from the basis of mere mechanical motions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, there would be many a missing link between conclusion and fact. Modern physics is not true—hence it is in conflict with Koreshan Astronomy; and when one begins the study of the Koreshan System, the assumptions of the old school must be completely eradicated from the mind.
If light were propagated in straight lines; if our view of the heavens were unobstructed by the sea of hydrogen, so that we might observe stars beyond the surface of the stellar sphere—then the whole heavens would appear very differently from what they now do; every star would have an enormous parallax when viewed from the different continents at the same hour, and the position of each would vary as the distance between observers increased or diminished. The light of the heavenly bodies is propagated in curved lines, and we do not see beyond the upper stratum of our atmosphere. These are two important points to be remembered in the consideration of the phenomena of the hollow globe.
That which forms the images of all that we observe must enter the eye. Suppose that we observe the constellation Lyra, with its so-called double and quadruple stars; our telescope, in the course of years, will show a change in their relation; but if the eye continually receives the impressions of light from these variables, the minute points would be as constant as the stars, and all the movements of the stars in the constellation Lyra would be represented in the eye. If we could observe the implanted map of the constellation throughout a century, we would see these points of light revolve about each other. Are we to suppose that the actual points on the retinal coat are trillions of miles away, and subject to the action of centrifugal and centripetal forces? Why, no; for they are simply points of light in the eye! But their motion is derived from that which makes the points on the retina.
We perceive in actual sight the images made on the retina of the eye. The change of position of some stars in their orbits will manifest corresponding changes in the eye or on the camera plate. That which causes the motion of the star-image we will say is Epsilon Lyrae. Now, what causes the motion of this star—what is back of the star to produce the point in the sky, and its uniform shift in its relation to its companion?
The stars are focal points of light. The causes back of them are the earth and the sun; they are pictures upon the stellar camera plate, the heavens which are stretched out as a molten mirror. The fountain of energies which produces the stars is in the central sun; the stars belong to the solar system, and they change in relation to each other as the sun changes in his relation to the equinoxes in their precession. If the shift of certain stars is regular, there is a regular refraction of energies which produces the star. There are corresponding movements of zones of energies in the earth’s shell, which manifest in apparent revolution of stars of the double and quadruple orders.
If the movement of a given star can be imaged upon the retina of the eye; if it can be traced upon the camera plate; if it can be diagrammed upon a plane surface to show the angular space its orbit covers, its movement in the sky must certainly correspond. If a star may be a minute point of light in the eye, and move in an orbit, it can be a minute point of light in the sky moving in an orbit—without the necessity of supposing that its magnitude is immense or its distance inconceivable!
The stars are located on the star sphere of force, which is as definite as the retinal coat of the eye; and the reason that so few stars have any parallax at all, is because they are nearly all in exactly the same plane or sphere. The stars in the constellations manifest their familiar figures to observers on different continents at the same time, because the convex sphere of the heavens, through specific laws of physics and perspective foreshortening, appears as a concave dome, embracing one hemisphere of the entire star field.
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The source scans remain the record. This page preserves the periodical’s argument without presenting its conclusion as an independently established result.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 15, No. 1 · Nov 1900 · PDF pp. 11–12