Astronomical Mysteries and Hypotheses

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(KORESH in FLAMING SWORD, Dec. 12, 1902)

IF HERE is a whole lot of astronomical wisdom (?) being imparted through the Chicago American, written up by Garrett P. Serviss. Mr. Serviss says, referring to a recent astronomical work issued by the West Hendon House Observatory, England, that "The author, Mr. T. W. Backhouse, has devoted his time liberally to the observation of phenomena in the heavens, about which the great majority, even of astronomers, know little or nothing. Yet they are phenomena of surpassing and increasing interest, and when they are fully understood they may revolutionize some of the views now entertained concerning the constitution of the universe."

What an admission for a scientific (?) man to make. A possible revolution in the minds of "scientists," men who know--for science means knowledge! If astronomical knowledge may be revolutionized, then the science of modern astronomy hangs upon a very brittle thread. The revolution, however, is coming because the whole Copernican system is predicated upon the basis of assumption, which every astronomer is willing to confess.

Mr. Serviss declares that few discoveries of modern times "affect the imagination with so deep a sense of mystery as does that of the existence of vast invisible masses in the stellar interspaces. Some of these are demonstrably solid bodies of immense magnitude and gravitational power, intimately and inseparably associated with bright stars.

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"Others still more strange, are enormously expanded nebulous clouds [which means, literally, cloudy clouds], that radiate not light, but energy ["mere mode of motion"], which, like the Roentgen rays, affect photographic plates and thus render the invisible indirectly visible."

Mr. S. also refers, in his notice of this book, to "a third mysterious form of substance contained in the depths of space, whose presence is manifested by such phenomena as the 'coal sacks' and the 'dark lanes' that are principally in the Milky Way."

All of this impresses us with the vast amount of ignorance which is accumulated in the modern star-gazing mind, and which, from mere modesty, is denominated knowledge--astronomical knowledge. The amount of this kind of wisdom stored and taught is almost as vast as the "illimitable" thing which the "finite," limited mind attempts to comprehend.

The astronomer says the universe is illimitable, therefore incomprehensible, and then sets his mind--which he says is "finite"--at work to comprehend what he denominates the "infinite." The remarkable thing is, that he knows enough to plan the universe without boundaries, making it illimitable, then sets measurable boundaries to his own mind, and does not know enough to comprehend the fact that he cannot comprehend the "infinite" with the "finite," yet still persists in conjuring fables for one generation, which the succeeding generation may discard,

The fact is, the universe is within the boundaries of mental possibility to encompass, but the mind must start right. It cannot assume a premise and reach, by processes of reasoning, anything but the logical

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deduction; namely, assumption. The premise must be demonstrated to insure a correct conclusion for a rational consecution of argument. The basis of the Copernican system of astronomy is assumption, according to the testimony of Copernicus himself, as herein quoted:

"Neither let any one, so far as hypotheses are concerned, expect anything certain from astronomy, since that science can afford nothing of the kind. The hypothesis [guess] of the terrestrial motion of the earth was nothing but an hypothesis, valuable only so far as it explained phenomena, and not to be considered with reference to absolute truth."

This is an honest confession of ignorance in the mind of the originator of the present system of astronomy. The modern astronomer has simply added an accumulation of guesses, which he has made to fit into the original guess, and which Mr. S. says is threatened with revolution in the mind, providing it does not call a halt upon the attempt of the finite mind to fathom the mysteries of the "infinite."

Finally, Mr. Serviss says: "There is, perhaps, nothing which gives rise to so keen a desire to have knowledge advanced in that particular direction, as does the part of the book relating to the structure of the sidereal universe." That which has no limitation has no structure, because form is the fundamental factor of structure, and limitation is a fundamental property of form.

The material universe has length, breadth, and thickness, or it does not exist. These properties are ever, one of them limitable. What interests Mr. S. the most, are "the 'gaps,' 'rifts,' and 'wisps' in the

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[paragraph continues] Milky Way, and the 'radiated systems' and 'flower-like structures' visible amid the infinitely varied array of stars."

Now all this is simplified when we start out with a demonstrated premise. Start with the thing you know, not the thing you guess at, (see the CELLULAR COSMOGONY,) then everything comes easy. The universe is within the comprehension of the mind which, as the offspring of the parent mind, can grow into the amplification of the parent.

A star is the result of a defined focalization of convergent rays of spirit within the luminous ether, which is encompassed by the shell of the universe, and within our own atmosphere.

The nebulæ (clouds) are incomplete focalizations. The "energies" do not merge into a complete focus, therefore the combustion is not so absolute as at the complete focal point; all these manifestations in the stellar space are reflections merely from the shell which comprises the circumference.