I hold that the suns are not hot, nor burning gaseous spheres, but are the self-luminous perfected worlds of the universe and the future abode of man. I claim that man is the product of planetary forces, and the planets are the hatcheries of human souls, and the suns the places of their development and growth to perfection. These are questions of paramount importance, profoundly interesting and intensely practical.
They are profoundly interesting because they affect the scope and foundations of human life. They are intensely practical because they create our ideals of present and future existence, and make or mar our realities of character and conduct.
Our ideals mold our character, control our actions, and make us what we are. To believe in this life and this world as our only sphere of being dwarfs our aspirations, our ideals, and our actions, and makes us but a reasoning atom built of dust, soon to sink back to its mother dust in endless silence and oblivion.
But to regard this life and this world as but one of many spheres of destiny is to rouse us to broader realms of thought, nobler conceptions of the universe, and to invest our lives here and all moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, and lift them from the stage of mere human society to the imperishable theater of all life and being.
So important is it for man to have ideals that Ruskin affirms that the man born into the world without an ideal, and without the necessity of labor, is the most unfortunate animal in creation, and is already on the road to hopeless ruin. Realizing this, I desire to fix such ideals in the mind that it may blend with the tragic incidents and personalities of this human life, the anticipations of a future life of loftier possibilities and attainments.
Are all these important questions of man’s future existence and place of abode, merely matters of conjecture? Have we sufficient facts, reasoning from the known to the unknown, to justify positive conclusions from scientific deductions? I am impelled without dogmatic assumption to believe we have. But I do not contend that they are susceptible of absolute demonstration like a problem in geometry or mathematics.
This would be asking too much, since all the foundations of the so-called exact sciences are assumed; and all mathematics have unknown quantities, and are founded on universal assumption.
Most of the accepted truths of science are still unproven, and rest, as the Copernican theory did for centuries, upon mere probability. If so important a truth as the revolution of the earth upon its axis could for centuries find no better proof than mere probability, what may we expect of scientific truths more complex and more difficult of solution?
Copernicus reasoned thus, “Which is more likely to be in motion, the earth or the whole universe outside of it? In whatever proportion the heavens are greater than the earth, in the same proportion must their motion be more rapid to carry them round in twenty-four hours.”
Ptolemy showed that the heavens were so immense that the earth was but a point in comparison, and they might extend into infinity. Then it would require an infinite velocity of revolution. Therefore it is far more likely that it is this comparative point, the earth, that turns, and that the universe is fixed, than the reverse.
Reasoning from this standpoint of probability, may we not reach a reasonable scientific hypothesis as to the immortality and future abode of man, the inhabitability of the sun and its fitness for the soul’s perennial dwelling-place?
As the marvelous advance of science has surpassed all human expectation, may it not continue until ultimate and perfect knowledge is attained? It would not be more marvelous than the progress of the nineteenth century. Conte said there were problems in astronomical science which were beyond the reach of our powers. We might find out, he said, the movements of the heavenly bodies, survey their distances and appraise their weight; but to find out their material composition and chemical elements was impossible.
But this rash assertion was soon disproved, and the spectrum demonstrated that our central luminary, the sun, possessed iron and all the known metals of the earth. The elements comprising the sun, moon, stars, and planets were as absolutely unknown up to that time as aluminum and helium to Aristotle and the ancients; and we knew nothing of the composition or substance of the globes external to the earth.
Then Dr. Huggins showed that the actual spectrum of the object demonstrated that the cause of the color in each star arose from the absorption of its peculiar atmosphere and registered the elements of its composition.
The spectrum also discovered the movements of the approach or rescission in the object from which the light emanates, and measured the speed to within a mile per second.
And soon the elements, motion, and direction of many stars were measured, including suns so remote it took two hundred years for their light to reach the earth.
Humboldt stated a fundamental truth when he said that, “Belief in the discord of the elements gradually vanishes in proportion as science extends her empire, and the most important result of a rational inquiry into nature is to establish the unity and harmony of this stupendous mass of force and matter.”
Thus reasoning I have sought through the electric theory of creation, set forth in my book “Invisible Light,” to simplify and unify all scientific truth. Not the truth established by scientific authority, for we must not rely on authority for truth, but on truth for authority. To get at the truth we must unlearn all present scientific theories. We must reverse our conceptions of creation. We must cease to regard matter as dead and inert, or the visible world as all that exists. The universe of invisible matter and electricity far surpasses the visible world. We must look upon the universe as a vast electric organism, where all things vibrate to the touch of electric energy – the cosmic creative force of the universe; the invisible force by which the Creator spoke all things into existence. That all things, from atoms to worlds and suns, are electro-magnets thrilling with intense motion and magnetic power. That Omnipotent Deity impresses His laws upon nature, and controls the universe by this invisible potential agency. That the soul, an atom of Deity, by electric energy controls its mortal body; and when it shall step out of it, can command the electric energy of space to bear it to its future abode of immortality in the sun or central suns. That man’s future heaven must be a place as well as a condition, and must be in the planets or the suns. And conditions seem more favorable for growth and perfection in the suns, since the electric theory shows they are self-luminous perfected worlds, and are not hot. That all heat is produced in but one way, by contact of opposite electrical polarities; electricity being convertible into light, heat, and all vital force, and is only so converted in the atmosphere of suns and planets.
I contend, therefore, that the suns are inhabitable and present the most favorable conditions for the highest development of human life, and the only place in the universe comparable with our ideal of a future perennial residence. Besides their scientific fitness they correspond with the Bible requirements, a place “where there is no need of a sun or moon and where there is no night,” and “where one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” They also give a new meaning to those mysterious words, “When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” They also show that the nations of the past who worshiped the all-dazzling, life-giving sun, obeying the rude instincts of their nature, were wiser than they knew.
If these things seem impossible of proof and too chimerical for belief, remember he who believes nothing without positive proof will have a small stock of knowledge or belief.
And he who believes nothing but what he can understand and explain must deny the existence of light, heat, electricity, and even life; for of all things life is the greatest mystery and least understood.
The whole curriculum of science is a combination of suppositions, most of them impossible of proof; and every theory in science is founded on probability. Butler says, “Probability is the guide of life,” and the learned astronomer Simon Newcomb says, “It is a guide in all practical concerns, and the source of the greatest part of human knowledge, and almost the sole method of discovering the truth.” Again, he says: “There is hardly an astronomical doctrine, even of the most elementary kind, but depends simply on the fact that its truth is in a high degree more probable than its falsehood.”
Like most scientific theories these may be incapable of complete mathematical demonstration. But this weighs nothing against their probability or their truth; for the greatest scientist of the age, Lord Kelvin, says: “Only a small part of human knowledge is exact, the great bulk of its pronouncements are simply speculative, and established by reasonable hypothesis.”
Matter, the foundation of all visible things, life, light, and electricity, are so far unsolvable mysteries, and science only has conjectural hypotheses concerning them, and these have been changing almost every decade for centuries. So it is about as reasonable to conjecture about human souls and the sun as their future abode as about atoms which are the foundation of all physical science. Napoleon, the impersonation of physical energy, said, not force or matter, but “imagination rules the world.”
This imagination or ideality is the highest gift of Deity and intended to enable us to reason from the visible to the invisible, from the known to the unknown, and foresee human destiny and comprehend the wonders of the universe.
I contend that the sun is not hot, that its rays are not hot, and do not directly heat the earth. That the sun furnishes the electric power, and the earth heats itself. Its rays are wireless electricity from the sun’s photosphere or corona, which is convertible into electric light, heat, and all vital force.
This light, heat, and vital force is generated in the dense atmosphere of the earth near its surface, where it is needed for animal and vegetable life. The sun’s electric rays, not heat, come from the sun’s photosphere, which is the surplus of its electricity gathered in a brilliant circle of light many miles above its surface. It is then shot by the laws of electrical repulsion from the sun, and drawn by electrical attraction to the earth, where, coming in contact with the earth’s opposite electrical polarity and the resistance of its atmosphere, these electric sun currents burst into new-found light and heat down near its surface. This it does in exactly the same manner that two wires oppositely electrified and brought together produce the arc and incandescent light. The earth and sun have used wireless telegraphy since creation began.
Heat is not from the sun or from space, as is proven by the flight of meteors; for when the meteors strike our atmosphere they have an opposite polarity to the earth, and they create friction and generate heat and soon blaze into white light and heat.
Most of them are consumed before they reach the earth, and the remainder are fused into stone and obdurate metals. The electric currents of the sun generate heat in the same way, by contact of opposite polarities, which produces friction and heat.
Heat cannot come to the earth through the intense cold of the upper atmosphere of the earth, which increases with its altitude; nor through the ninety-three million miles of frigid ether, four hundred and sixty degrees colder than ice. No heat could penetrate such cold. It is impossible to force an atom of heat from the sun to the earth, or from one sun or planet to another. All heat must come in the form of electricity which is convertible into heat. The sun’s photosphere, that beautiful circle of rainbow light which shoots forth the electric currents which give light and life to our planet, is like our aurora borealis, which is the earth’s surplus of electricity thrown off to our north and south poles. The earth’s aurora borealis is the earth’s imperfect attempt to form a photosphere like the sun.
But the earth, lacking a sufficient surplus of electricity to extend its beautiful gorgeous rainbow-tinted aurora from the poles to the equator, must content itself with its rich halos and gorgeous streamers of electric splendors at its frigid poles; occasionally extending them halfway to the equator.
The sun’s luminous corona and our brilliant aurora are the same except in degree. All descriptions of them are so similar one might be taken for the other. Our earth is an inferior world, a child of the sun. The sun, which is our mother world, has its family of worlds, consisting of planets and satellites. These are its children and grandchildren. This prolific progenitor is self-supporting and self-luminous, while the planets are not. The earth and planets are dependent on the bounty of our creator and benefactor, the sun, and must accept such electric power as he may bestow. This gives us no sufficient surplus to form a photosphere. The sun draws from his electric field of ether, embracing the solar system of over five billion miles in diameter, the invisible virgin atoms and electricity amply to supply himself with self-luminous light and life, and also a sufficient surplus for his dependent planets and satellites; while these, his children and grandchildren, having no family to support, have less light and heat power. [Ed: The sun may in turn draw its energy from the central sun of the galaxy, the galaxy drawing in turn energy from the central sun of the universe and so on.]
Now by all the laws of reason and logic, if our earth is a world and the product of the sun, which none can dispute, then the sun is our ancestor and a greater world. In nature hybrids do not generate and cannot produce offsprings, and the father must be like the son, and the son like the father, though different in size and age. And I hold the sun is like the earth, only larger in size, greater in age, and more perfect in all things.
The sun is a self-luminous world because he is the central magnet and electrical dynamo or generator of the solar system, and draws his atoms and electric supplies from the whole of this vast electric field or organism. Thus he draws electric light and warmth from all sides of him. This makes his whole vast circumference luminous.
While the world and planets are lesser magnets, and by reason of their swift motion are also electric generators, drawing their electric supplies of atoms and electricity from the sun and the intervening space of their smaller orbits. But they receive their chief supply of opposite electricity from the sun, which furnishes it only to one side of the earth at a time, leaving the other side in darkness.
I contend that the Creator, in the simplicity of infinite wisdom, has created all things after but one type – the electro-magnet; controlled by but one force – electricity; and made of but one matter or substance – the invisible atom. That all space or ether is composed of invisible atoms and electricity, or matter in solution. That all atmosphere is compressed ether, and all suns and worlds, man and all animal and vegetable organisms, are partially solidified ether. That there is nothing really solid in the universe; the visible being only the outer shell or scaffolding of the invisible forces that have supreme sovereignty over all matter, motion, and life.
Thus all things are electro-magnets from atoms to suns and worlds, from a molecule to man; and all in a state of intense vibration and magnetic attraction – forever in ceaseless activity and commotion under the laws of electric action and reaction, attraction and repulsion.
Thus the universe is a vast electric organism creating its own cosmic force, lighting and heating itself from its own electric fires, and bound together by invisible electric bands pulling and guiding with the swiftness of lightning and the power and wisdom of Omnipotence.
Let us see what the astronomers say as to the inhabitability of the sun. Sir Robert Ball, of Cambridge, England, in his recent standard work says: “I do not think it at all probable that a man could exist even for five minutes on any other planet or any other body in the universe. There seem to be innumerable difficulties in supposing there can be a residence for man elsewhere than on this earth.”
“We need not give many reasons to show that man could not live in the sun. We cannot conceive any organized being which could find a congenial residence in a temperature vastly hotter than the most powerful furnace that has ever been known. Assuredly there can be no life on the sun.”
Assuredly not if the sun is hot, which he assumes and I deny. I hold it is only as hot as the heat generated by the contact of its opposite electrical polarities and the density of its atmosphere. This would give it a tropical climate and moderate temperature, which upon its mountain sides, according to their altitudes, would change to a mildly cool temperature.
By assuming with all scientists that the sun is a burning gaseous body, hotter than any known furnace, he and all our astronomers naturally and inevitably make the sun uninhabitable.
But these, I contend, are false premises, and from them they necessarily arrive at false conclusions.
According to Ball, Norton, Young, Herschel, Newton, Proctor, Newcomb, and all our astronomers, the sun is a great gaseous blazing ball of fire eighteen thousand degrees hot, burning up at the rate of about three hundred feet of its vast circumference annually. I do not believe it.
They hold that while the planets are guided and held in their ever-circling orbits by the attraction of the sun, those near to him get too much of his heat, while those like Uranus and Neptune (which lie on the outer skirts of his system) get too little. They claim the human body would have to be considerably modified to find a congenial residence so near the sun as Mercury or so far from him as Neptune. They affirm that Jupiter is swollen by enormous masses of black clouds and vapors, that make him unfit for habitation; that Mercury and Venus are too hot, and Saturn, Neptune, and the others are either too cold or too unfinished and incomplete for habitation; and that the divine Architect is a great failure, and could only make a little world like our almost insignificant planet suitable for human and organic life. So that eighteen millions of suns and thirty millions of planets belonging to our universe are desert wastes of silence and death.
This is the concrete wisdom of modern astronomy, the shibboleth of presumptive, infallible science. Let who will accept this slander on infinite wisdom, I will repudiate and deny it.
It is not reasonable that the rest of the universe outside of this little earth is a barren waste, tenant-less and lifeless.
It is not reasonable that the Creator made millions of vast spheres simply to sparkle as points of light in the starry vault of space to cheer the midnight vigils of a few aspiring souls on this little earth.
Nature is economic of space and power, and there are no waste places in the universe. There are no dead worlds nor dead atoms in nature.
Thus our greatest astronomers give no hope of human or organic life on any of the eighteen millions of suns and thirty millions of planets, except the earth and perhaps Mars; and then for only a brief period. Is this reasonable or consistent with creative wisdom and perfection to construct this vast system of suns and worlds, including our great central sun, almost a million and a half times larger than our earth, to give life to only these two little worlds?
I do not believe it. I cannot accept their premises or conclusions. They say the earth and all the planets will become dead worlds by losing their atmosphere, and the suns are burning spheres of fire to be finally consumed. Then where can man, or human souls, or angels, or even Deity Himself exist? They leave nothing undestroyed; even the great Creator, like Noah’s dove, is left without a spot on which to rest in all the universe. They say our sun is consuming three trillion cubic feet of its surface annually, and eighteen millions of suns are doing the same, making the material of a world consumed every day and a sun burned up every decade. This is appalling!
Now I contend that the universe is a perfectly balanced and adjusted electric organism, self-sustaining and indestructible; that it creates its own light, heat, and force; that its rolling suns and planets shoot with inconceivable velocity along evenly balanced lines of force without friction or resistance; that their nearness to or distance from the sun has nothing to do with their supply of heat; that the sun furnishes each and all with the electric power it needs; which is measured by its attracting force; and every sun and planet creates its own heat, light, and vital force in its own atmospheric cushion. This is in accordance with the law of electric action and reaction, attraction and repulsion; which is the perpetual motion and cosmic life force of the universe. And when Deity said, “Let there be light,” He sent forth electro-magnetism to possess invisible matter, and space, and evolve them into a universe.
But the great astronomers who are groping after truth are frank enough to admit they know nothing positively, and all is but hypothesis and conjecture.
Professor Langley, a distinguished authority, says “No theory of the solar constitution which is free from some objection has yet been proposed. The most important statement we can make with reference to the sun is a negative.”
Professor Newcomb says: “Any one skeptical of the sufficiency of science to account for the present state of things, science can furnish no evidence strong enough to overthrow his doubts.” He says again: “Until the sun shall be found growing smaller by actual measurement, or the nebula be actually seen to condense into stars and systems, our present solar theories can have no sufficient proof.”
As to life in other worlds, he says: “The scientists know no more than any one else, and have no data to reason from. The attainment of any direct evidence of that life seems entirely hopeless. We see moving around our sun eight large planets, on one of which we live. Our telescope shows us other millions of suns and planets, many larger than our own. Are these suns, like our own, centers of planetary systems, and are their planets inhabited like our earth? Observation can afford us no information on the subject. We can only reason cosmologically.”
Thus reasoning he contends, like all the others, that only the earth and possibly Mars are inhabited. While I contend, reasoning cosmologically, that all or most all of the suns and planets are peopled, and many of them with beings much higher than ourselves in the intellectual scale; and that the sun contains a thousandfold more of the elements of life and growth than the earth and planets, and should be man’s perennial abode. This accords with the universal dreams of humanity, and with the cosmology of our earth and its organic intelligent creations.
By reasoning cosmologically I claim we must take the earth on which we live and its characteristics, and inhabitants, as a sample and pattern of all suns and worlds, globes and spheres of this universe.
This the ancient scientists, philosophers, and poets of all the past did. Only since the modern scientists went into the subtleties of the elements of the air and earth and what kind of atmosphere we could breathe were doubts raised; as if nature could not easily modify our forms and breathing apparatus to correspond to changed conditions. This she has been doing on this earth through all the ages.
Aristotle argued that: “As one heavenly body is spherical, so also must all the others be spherical.” He also contended that: “A spherical form is appropriate to bodies moving through space as the heavenly bodies appear to do.” This was the only argument that could be deduced for centuries to prove the earth was round, and yet it was rejected by the scientists of that day, who held the earth to be flat. And it was held to be flat until in very recent times, when it was disproved by modern discoveries, and the earth was shown to be round or spherical, like all suns and planets.
Now all suns and planets have similar forms and similar atmospheric and external conditions. Why should they not have similar forms and conditions of organic life? The same laws, elements, and forces are at work there as here, and only scientific quibbles or theories prevent this reasonable conclusion.
Why have all bodies in space a spherical form, from suns and worlds to hail and rain and dewdrops? The answer is simple. It is the result of universal electric attraction. All atoms and molecules are tiny electric batteries and form electric centers which draw all atoms around their magnetic core at equal distances from their center, thus forming circular lines and globular forms. There are no exceptions to this universal law. All magnets draw atoms to their magnetic center forming a perfect circle, and suns and worlds do the same.
It is imponderable, invisible magnetism and electricity that hold the grand sovereignty of motion, and evolve all creative work. Matter ceases to be “brute matter,” and space ceases to be “a vacuum,” when it is pervaded with this electric clothing of light, which leaps into power from the throne of invisible Omnipotence. Its birth is in the eternities and its home is in universal space. Yet with all its measureless power and grand velocities it has neither hand, nor brain, nor form, nor weight. It is the invisible word of power from the invisible Source of all power.
Excerpt from The Cities Of The Sun
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