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This is an instrument that is worrying our friends. I have had people tell me that they thought our whole system of faith and doctrine was absolutely grand, but they trembled because we were bold enough to open fire on a doctrine that is so fixed in the public mind as accepted astronomy. They fear we have not informed ourselves on that subject, and that we will surely be floored in the contest. It would indeed seem strange that any man would pretend to be a Koreshan and an honest seeker after the truth, if he should accept or reject any proposition without due consideration.
If there is one element in my make-up that is more dominant than any other, it is my longing for the absolute truth, and the determination to accept and proclaim it when found, regardless of friend or foe. This is the spirit that animates me in all my work. If it is a wrong spirit, I will be the loser.
If there is anything that I have tried to be certain about, it is the structure and function of a telescope. I will say right here that I reject in toto all the theories of accepted authorities concerning the uses and purposes of the telescope. I shall take their own statements and words, as found in all the books, and with them I shall not fail to absolutely annihilate all that the telescope teaches. Friend and foe hurl at me, like a thunderbolt, the great and marvelous work of the telescope. I receive these thrusts on every side. Many who believe in the Copernican theory assault me with the discoveries made by the telescope with a force that would and does smash into smithereens a less bold and reckless spirit than that which I am compelled to manifest.
When I ask my opponent if he understands the use of the telescope, he says yes. When I ask him if he understands its structure, he usually has to say no. If one has no knowledge of its structure, why will he persist in defending its supposed function? I want all who read this article to read what the books say about the structure and uses of this instrument. Those who know I am stating the facts, yet have not examined what the books say critically, will herein find a clincher that does not fail to nip the bud of glowing promises from the stem of a common fake.
There are two kinds of telescopes. One is the reflecting, and the other is the refracting telescope. What do these two words mean? According to the books, the first one has a glass like a looking glass, which reflects the rays and brings them to a focus at right angles with the main tube of the telescope. The eye piece is a magnifying glass which magnifies this focus or picture of the object.
I want the reader to stop here and think. Do not jump at conclusions hastily. The glass you look through to see the picture of the object that has been formed in the telescope does nothing more than magnify said picture. The tube in which said eye glass is placed points toward the ground. It does not point into the heavens, but toward the earth.
Think a moment, and tell me how far you see. I challenge anyone to show from the books that he sees beyond the focal point of the lens. He is not looking into nor toward the heavens. He is looking at a picture, and is looking toward the ground.
With these plain facts before us the educated man has the gall to come before the illiterate world with the hypothesis that he is penetrating millions of miles farther into space, through this reflecting telescope, than he can see without it, while every fact and element of common sense and reason go to prove that he is not looking into the heavens nor in that direction. If their own explanations of the method of seeing through a telescope be true, I affirm, without fear of successful contradiction, that the vision is all confined to the telescope; that he cannot see beyond the picture in the telescope which is seldom five feet from his eye.
The refracting telescope is a long, straight tube. In its summit end is placed an object lens; in its base an eye glass. The books say that the object lens refracts the rays of light, and forms a real picture of the object toward which the telescope is pointed, at the focal point of the lens; that the eye glass is nothing more than a magnifying glass which magnifies said picture. If this statement is true and all the books say it is, then I affirm that no man ever did or can see beyond the picture in the focal point of the object lens.
What does this mean?
If I turn the great Lick telescope on the moon, do I bring the moon closer to me? No. Do I see the moon at all? No. Do I see more of the moon than I do with my unaided eye? No. What do I see? Nothing but the picture of the moon in the telescope. Is the moon magnified? No, only the picture of it is magnified. Does this reveal any wondrous truth to us? No; no more than it would tell all about your mother to magnify her picture. What is the real use of the telescope, then? If we accept the explanation in the books, its real use is to perpetuate a common fake. If one takes a common magnifying glass and looks at an object he will observe that the object is enlarged. If he accepts the book account of the telescope, it can do no more; not so much, even, for with the magnifying glass we can look at the object, but with the telescope we cannot see anything but the picture of the object.
I hope I have said enough to prove to our friends that the telescope is no mountain over which we cannot see, nor a fright over which we should go into hysterics.
The other question that is a twin sister to the supposed uses of the telescope, and one that has a much more impregnable base, is the mathematical calculations of eclipses, etc. I have been abused by friend and foe because I faced these supposable demonstrations, and denied the truthfulness of the theories built on these mathematical facts. I do not question the ability of well-informed men to calculate eclipses.
My opponent says, if the Copernican theory will foretell eclipses to a second, most certainly the theory must be true. If our readers will hesitate a moment they will not jump so wildly; they will not fail to see that all our previous indestructible facts are positive in their teachings; that human observations with the unaided eye are limited to the limitations of the atmosphere; and that the eye, aided by the telescope, is not able to see beyond the focal point of the lens in the telescope. These pulverizing facts destroy the last ray of hope that one may have in the truthfulness of the old theory, notwithstanding they calculate eclipses to a second. We must stop, therefore, and ask the question: How can this mathematical fact be explained away?
I believe our readers will not be confounded with my explanation. It is simple.
Our astronomers have been obliged to depend on the telescope and vision to secure the so-called parallax of sun, moon, planets, and stars, in all cases where a parallax is possible. They seldom agree on any of these, but they approximate them. They have to assume that the sun, moon, planet, and star are visible. They have to assume that light comes in straight lines from these so-called distant orbs to the atmosphere of the earth. They are compelled to deny their own explanations of the uses of telescopes, from all of which the reader must see that the whole question of parallax depends on faith and not on fact.
After finding the supposed parallax of the sun and moon, and after giving these angles specific valuation by another method of calculation, our astronomers compute the supposable distance to the sun and moon. If the moon is 240,000 miles distant, and the sun some ninety-three million miles away, to return to a fixed point in their orbits the moon and the earth have to travel just so fast.
The reader must have learned ere this that our astronomers have not agreed, within from one to two million miles, as to the distance to the sun. Yet this disagreement makes no difference in the calculation of eclipses. In fact, it makes no difference whether the sun and moon are one, or one hundred million miles distant, eclipses could be calculated to a second. If the calculation of eclipses depended on distance, our astronomers would have to know the distance to a foot, in order to be absolutely accurate to a second. But eclipses can be calculated to a second regardless of the distances to the sun and moon.
Well, if they assume the sun to be ninety-three million miles, and the moon 240,000 miles away, they know that the earth has a certain orbit to travel, and that she has to travel with a certain speed to make said orbit in a definite time. So with the moon. My readers can see, therefore, that if the mathematician makes his distances and speeds correspond, regardless of what his assumptions may be, he will reach correct conclusions. Suppose we divide the distance and speed of both earth and moon by one million, no one disputes the fact that we would reach the same conclusions as our present astronomers do now. Two mistakes make a fact that solves the problem.
But I want to demonstrate here that the calculation of eclipses has no bearing upon the falsity or truth of any system of astronomy. When we are looking for absolute proof, we cannot in reason refer to the calculation of eclipses. When I have presented this argument to my opponents, they have looked at me in pity; but when I ask them if they think I am in error in the position, and they say yes, I ask them if they dare to hold to the position as a good one? When they say yes, I proceed to put them in the following most ridiculous dilemma. If calculating eclipses proves anything, it proves too much. Let us see.
If we take the old Saros of the Ptolemaic system and are very exact in our observations and figures, we can calculate eclipses to a second. The same can be done in the Zetetic theory. We can calculate eclipses to a second by the Koreshan theory. Here then, are four theories which are absolutely antagonistic and opposite, which we demonstrate to be absolutely true because we can calculate eclipses by each method. No; the calculation of eclipses, or what is now known as exact mathematical astronomy, is all a myth so far as containing proof of the truth of any system of astronomy is concerned.
If I had the space I could enter a series of calculations here that would be most interesting to some, but which would be cheerless to the average reader. I believe our friends are prepared now to see why we, as Koreshans, are not ready to accept the tenets of “false science.” I believe I have proven, so far, that the true structure of the universe cannot be established on any of the observations we have thus far made. I will open the Koreshan cannons on the vital question on which the whole subject hinges.—R. O. Spear.
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The Flaming Sword · Vol. 1, No. 40 · · PDF p. 4