JACOB'S LADDER IS THE ELECTRIC PATHWAY BETWEEN SUNS AND PLANETS
I contend in my previous books that electricity and not gravity is the
one fundamental form of energy from which all other forms, such as
light, heat, vital force, physical life and so-called gravitation are
derived by transformation. That electric energy is the one evolving
creative force in the physical universe, back of which is the directing,
intelligent, spiritual power of Deity, who has made all visible things
of one matter--the invisible atom, controlled by one invisible power,
electricity, after one unchanging pattern--the electro-magnet.
This necessarily teaches that the sun is not hot, that all heat, light
and vital force is produced by the contact of positive and negative
electricity in the dense atmospheric cushion of suns and planets, where
alone it is needed for vegetable and animal life. All of which is
produced by the positive electric currents of the sun coming in contact
with the negative electricity of the planets, just as two wires
oppositely electrified and brought together produce the arc and
incandescent electric light.
I contend that the suns are the self-luminous, perfected worlds of the
universe; worlds like our world, only larger and more prolific in life
and power than the planetary worlds. That they are the headquarters of
Deity, and the future abode of man. This leads to the reasonable
scientific hypothesis that our all-life-giving sun is where Christ
ascended to, when the Disciples saw "a cloud receive him out of their
sight;" where Elias was translated; where Paul was "snatched up to the
seventh heaven"; where Saint John in the Apochalyptic journey saw "the
new Jerusalem--the City of God." This wonderful city, from scientific
facts and analogy, exists in the sun and could be no where else, and
seems to be so represented in Revelations, and its description is
grander than all the romances of earth. This gives the most reasonable
scientific explanation of Revelations and the eternal beatitudes of the
Christian's life everlasting, while at the same time it recognizes the
law of evolution, and proclaims there is nothing supernatural in the
universe.
I contend that the sun's photosphere is a brilliant, globe-encircling
aurora; that the planets are the hatcheries of human souls, and the suns
the place of their maturity and perfection; that all things are composed
of atoms and electricity, which are as invisible as the soul. That the
soul is an invisible atom of Deity, and, like invisible atoms and
electricity, may pass to and from the sun.
In showing the terraced mountain on which the city in Revelations was
built accorded with the proportions of the sun as compared with the
earth and moon, a simpler illustration would be this: The sun's diameter
is 110 times that of the earth, and as the earth has mountains six miles
high, the sun should have them 110 times higher, which would be about
700 miles in perpendicular height, making about 1,200 miles measuring
the slope from the base to the apex. Or, if the mountains in the sun
are as high in proportion to diameter as those on the moon, the
mountains of the moon being three miles high, and the sun's diameter
being 400 times greater than the moon; the mountains of the sun should
be 1200 miles in perpendicular height.
Up to the last few centuries all standards of measurement were
indefinite. The cubit, fathom, and foot all depended on the size of the
man. A furlong was originally a furrow in an English field, and might be
300 or 800 feet in length. All these measures have been made definite by
law or custom since the Bible was written. But the word translated
_furlong_ was the Greek word _stadium_, which was the length of a Greek
foot race which was 520 feet (except in two instances); while a present
furlong, the eighth of a mile, is 660 feet, making in 12,000 furlongs a
difference of about 320 miles, making John's wonderful city 1,180 miles
square. The ancient furlong was about what I put it--the tenth of a
mile. Critics should inform themselves before displaying their colossal
lack of information.
I contend that over ninety per cent. of the universe is invisible
matter. This invisible matter floats in all space and permeates all
visible matter as water permeates a sponge.
All matter in its primary and elementary form is invisible, and, being
invisible, it partakes of the characteristics in this respect of
invisible force and invisible spirit. These three invisible entities
constitute the universe, its center and circumference, its invisible
realities, its eternal foundation and limitless boundaries. Only one of
these--matter--by a vast aggregation of atoms, is converted from the
invisible to the visible. This universe was made from _nothing_--nothing
visible, nothing tangible, nothing the human eye could see or the human
finger could touch. There was a time when the stars and planets, suns
and worlds were transparent ether, as impalpable as the viewless air,
and scattered as star dust in the measureless void of space along the
forgotten highways of the past eternities. Silence reigned profound in
the pulseless regions of the air, where, motionless and dumb, the atoms
hung in dark and lifeless space. There was nothing in all this
universe--nothing but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home
of atoms, the star-dust which Deity had scattered by the breath of his
power through the highways of space in the beginning of primeval
creation. While these were nothing to man, they were the foundation
stones of all created things. This nothingness of space was the fallow
ground of the universe and the formless shadow of suns and worlds. It
was a universe in solution as viewless as ether, and as intangible as
mind. The electric energy of space was yet unstirred by the divine fiat
or shook into vibrating force by the word of Creative Power. Other suns
and worlds and a universe of universes shone forth in the realms of
space when the Creative Word was spoken that lit this newer universe
into being.
"Let there be light," and from His lips that spoke no word but love and
truth and power, the lightning of electric life and glory thrilled every
atom with vibrating cosmic energy, and life-evolving force. Then the
electric clothing of light and life leaped into power and enwrapt as in
swaddling clothes a new born universe. And wherever the breath of Deity
was blown there was the glowing nucleus of a sun, or the revolving
center of a world. Then atoms and electricity met in fond and unending
embrace, substance and energy clasped hands, and matter and persistent
force were woven into each other's arms and saturated with electric,
life-giving energy.
The first starting point of the universe was the intellectual volition
of Deity. The second was the law of nature impressed upon matter by
electricity, the right hand of Deity and the tongue and word of His
power. Spirit cannot act directly upon matter; it must have a medium
controlled by spirit at one end and working on matter at the other. This
medium is electricity. Matter is held together by the electric
attraction of the molecules of which it is composed.
The molecules are composed of invisible magnets called atoms. This
electric attraction acts continuously. Were it to stop its action for a
second, solid bodies would instantly crumble to invisible atoms, our
material forms would vanish into thin air, and the universe disappear in
viewless ether.
The electro-magnetic force holds firmly the molecules of solid bodies
and gives them their strength and solidity. It is more feeble in its
cohesive grasp on liquid bodies and is very feeble in gaseous bodies.
Molecules are in a ceaseless state of activity and motion, forever
vibrating to the touch of electric energy.
The ever-restless and varying motions of the invisible molecules
constituting all matter is like a cluster of bees at their hive, or of
ants at their nests, hurrying and scrambling over and around each other
in constant and curious motions. And if our eyes were powerful enough to
see the molecules of which a block of wood or a human body is composed,
they would witness such a scene of activity as the crowded bees and ants
exhibit, only still more curious and constant. When water is changed
into steam it goes into the air as widely separated and invisible
particles which disappear entirely, but every particle is still in
existence and may be converted again into water. When wood is burned, it
changes into ashes, smoke and vapor. Not a single particle is ever
destroyed. It is so with our bodies, they dissolve into their natural
elements, which pass into tree and shrub and air and water and other
bodies; they never return to their organic form. There is no
resurrection of the physical body. What goes down into the grave never
comes forth again. The spirit-body never enters the grave, but soars to
the celestial cities of the sun in a new and endless life. Nature and
Deity would not do so nugatory a thing as to resurrect three or four
bucketsful of water and a handful of bonedust. Fresher and better
material is at hand in abundance all the time.
There are bodies all around us so small that we cannot see them. They
are in the air we breathe and in the water we drink. Some of them are
alive and some are not. Many of them are so small we need the most
powerful microscope to detect their presence. Yet every one is made up
of parts much smaller than itself. The fine dust which clings to our
fingers when we hold a butterfly or a moth, scarce visible to the naked
eye, is found under the microscope to be made up of a thousand or more
still smaller particles.
There are living creatures so small it would take a million of them to
equal the size of a mustard seed. Millions of them float unseen in the
air around us, and swim in the drops of water we drink. Millions more
float through the blood in our veins, which to them are vast, surging
seas of life. They are so very small, a thousand of them might fly side
by side through the eye of a needle. Yet each little creature must be
made of still smaller parts, else they could not move or devour their
food; they are too infinitesimal for the grasp of our imagination.
If we keep on dividing a body into smaller and smaller pieces, we at
last get a piece so very small it cannot be divided again without
changing into some other kind of matter. These smaller pieces are called
molecules, which are particles of matter which cannot be divided without
changing their nature. All bodies are porous and have spaces between
their molecules. This was proven of gold a long time ago at Florence,
where a hollow globe of gold was filled with water and shut up tight,
then put under immense pressure. The water was forced by the pressure
through the pores of the gold as a fine dewy moisture or perspiration.
The same result would have occurred had it been iron, copper or any
other metal, as there is a space between all molecules in all bodies.
All molecules in all bodies revolve around each other without touching.
You can stand a man before the Crookes tube or Roentgen rays and look
through him and take pictures of his bones, and look through his bones
and take pictures of objects on the other side of them, and also look
through four-foot walls. And photographs are now taken through six-inch
brick walls.
All spaces between the molecules of all visible substances, all pores
and cavities in all organic bodies and inorganic matter, including the
earth, and all animal and vegetable life is, I contend, permeated and
occupied by invisible electro-magnetic ether. This ether is the
life-giving and life-preservative force and essence of the universe and
that from which all things have been evolved. All suns and worlds and
all their complex creations and everything that exists floats in this
boundless, vibrating sea of magnetic ether. And there are vast and
mighty currents of electric force and power reaching from every sun and
planet to every other sun and planet in the universe. These are enduring
bands of strength, invisible ligaments of magnetic power that bind the
universe together as one complete, harmonious electric organism. They
constitute the unity and strength of all creation and promulgate and
enforce the laws of nature.
They are vast highways of space, the boulevards of the universe. We
cannot see them, neither can we see elemental matter, or electricity, or
life, but we know they exist, and are the foundations of the universe.
Human spirits, at death, when they drop their visible vesture of atoms,
can step onto this electric tide, this current of swift-speeding light
and power, and in eight minutes or less time enter the heaven of their
dreams in the celestial cities of the sun.
They have but to step on this flowing tide of electric power, as they
step on a moving stairway or platform in our cities here on earth, to be
borne with scarcely a sense of motion to their bright and heavenly
abode. It is a swift and continuous band, an endless chain, a mighty
ligament of light and life and power constantly passing between heaven
and earth, and earth and heaven, between sun and planet and planet and
sun. These are the countless pathways between suns and stars, the mighty
and everlasting highways of eternity which God hath built to span the
silent ether of space between suns and worlds, and bind the universe in
one harmonious whole.
On these mighty currents, as on a moving bridge of golden light, angels
and men and ministering spirits may pass and repass to the gateway of
eternal life.
Moses and Elias, Christ and John, and all the departed saints of earth
have trod this Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend
between heaven and earth, and all the departed denizens of earth have
trod its golden stairs to their celestial, sun-bright home.
Dr. Minot J. Savage, the eminent New York divine, says he objects to my
putting eight minutes of time between the earth and the spiritual world.
He thinks Christ taught that they were in immediate connection with each
other. And so they are, by the coming and going tides of spirits between
the two worlds. But now that the speed of light seems to be discovered
to be instantaneous, it may be the communication between them is
instantaneous.
When the deathless spirit has dropped its "mortal coil," and visited
with electric wing the luminous, life-giving sun and the mighty cities
on its spacious bosom, and graduated in the universities of heaven, it
will discover that eternity is scarcely long enough to study and enjoy
the marvelous creations of the universe. It will find our world is but a
floating island in the great solar sea of electro-magnetism, and the
solar sea or empire of our sun is but a small province in the boundless
ocean of space, hid in the infinite abyss of starry depths; that
measureless immensity and countless variety reigns in the universe.
Human souls will then be free as air and untrammeled as ether, and may
explore the vast highways of eternity with wonder-seeking minds, and
visit Jupiter with his enormous moons, Saturn with his gigantic rings,
and traverse the out-lying orbs of distant Uranus and Neptune. They may
then pass to other solar realms, and wander over the varied bosom of
Andromeda's triple suns of blue and green and sapphire tints that whirl
like globes of rainbow beauty in the azure sky, and see the double stars
and multiple suns, and fiery comets with their glowing spooms, and
blood-red meteors, all following harmonious orbits through the pulsing
voids of space, vibrating to the rythmic cadence of electric law. All
moving with tranquil majesty in the trackless seas of immensity obedient
to the Omnipotent Will.
Here blooms infinite, varied life and ever-changing beauty to thrill and
bless the wonder-loving soul and make melodious harmony with every
pulsing vibration of their imperishable life. The universe of myriads of
suns is separated by trillions of miles and scattered like lighthouses
along the realms of space, as dynamos of heat and light and life,
shooting with measureless speed and bound together by mutual ties as
delicate and invisible as the ties of love that bind two souls together
at the hymeneal altar. Such is God's universe. She is as a bride to her
lover in every floating atom of space, in every circling world and
glowing sphere, in every human soul and angel spirit.
As light is the great painter of the skies, and photographs all things
that occur in the atmosphere of suns and planets, the aspect of the
earth and the sun and the events that occurred on their surface
thousands of years ago are now winging their flight through space
millions of millions of miles distant. To the eye of Deity or an
observer on some distant orb these events of centuries past would seem
to be actually occurring or in progress. With powers commensurate with
the photographic powers of light, a human soul could stand upon a
distant star and follow this wonderful vision and gaze on a succession
of events from the beginning of time to the present moment, and read the
history of every sun and planet in the rays of light from its own
atmosphere. And with poised wing in limitless space or on some far-off
sun, read the mighty events transpiring on this little earth in the
distant rays of light from its own atmosphere. And in the cities of the
sun, the denizens of heaven may, by some marvelous appliance, so magnify
the picture in each ray of light from earth and sun and planet that they
may view with microscopic eye and telescopic vision all the historic
scenes of every sphere, and learn the life and history of every rolling
orb.
They need not visit them to see and know the panoramic history of their
glowing life. And thus they may view the varied scenes of earth. Could
we transport ourselves to Alpha Lyra, Sirius or some more distant sun
and could see, like them, the photographic pictures in the rays of light
from earth we could view scenes that transpired on the earth thousands
of years ago. Thus human souls may see and thus Deity sees the end from
the beginning at all times in all spheres. And a ray of light, a drop of
dew, a grain of sand or a blade of grass conveys to him a history of the
world of which it is a part.
Thus God preserves in every ray of light a constant picture of the
changing panorama of the universe; and in man's mind, through man's
imperishable memory, He keeps a perfect record of man's thoughts and
deeds, which He can unravel as a written scroll at any moment.
The future is ever present in its germs, precisely as the past is
present in its fruits. And God's knowledge of the past and future is as
much the subject of His consciousness as the present action of His
creatures, or the primary laws He has established. He has assigned to
the universe certain material and spiritual laws, and the whole scheme
of the universe is so perfect it needs no direct intervention. His
perfect control of matter under electric law produces the evolutions of
nature that accord with His divine purpose, and His spiritual impulse
directs the spiritual development of the human soul to the ultimate goal
of truth and perfection to be attained in His self-luminous, perfected
worlds. Thus we perceive that to the Omnipotent Ruler of the universe
the infinite past and the infinite future would at all times be present,
that each atom and event would exhibit to Him at each instant the
limitless past and future, giving him perfect and omnipotent
consciousness and control of his spiritual and electric universe.
And even on this earth, the time may come when we can so magnify the
picture in a ray of light that we may see the cities in the sun, and
read the inscriptions on their walls and temples, and view the gates of
pearl and the sapphire dome and diamond coronet above the Acropolis of
the terraced city of the sun described in Revelations.
The soul is an invisible atom of Deity and, like invisible atoms and
electricity, may pass to and from the sun in eight minutes and perhaps
only a few seconds.
I reason scientifically that if invisible matter and electricity go
everywhere and pass to and from the sun continually and exert their
power and do not lose their natural properties or identity, it is clear
and overwhelming proof that man's soul, when it steps out of the body,
maintains its power and identity, and can fly with the speed of light to
the throne of light and life in the luminous bosom of the
all-life-giving sun.
Is it not right, by the eternal law of cause and sequence and
unanswerable logic, that life should return to the fountain of life?
That life, soul life and material life, which the sun nurtures, builds
and vitalizes here, when its usefulness here is ended that it should
return to the luminous bosom of its great mother--the source of all
life, light and power; and that there it should find the great Spiritual
Father, who planned and constructed this mighty machinery of worlds, or
his immaculate Son and representative.
Then, by all the laws of reason, intelligence, and "the eternal fitness
of things," God, the eternal, creative Spirit, should have his abode and
center of life and light and power at the central abode of all life and
light and power in the physical universe,--the all-sustaining, creative
sun. Such accords with the eternal laws of nature and the one unchanging
mode and pattern of the universe. For by the universal law of all
created things, the center of physical and electric power and life is
also the center of spiritual and intellectual power, and there should be
the home of Deity and the promised heaven of the human soul.
The question may often arise, Does God perfect humanity and then destroy
it? Does He make men of us with all the trouble and care that comes
inside of seventy years, and then throw us away? I do not believe he
does anything so wasteful and unjust. He has prepared a pathway to the
skies and takes us to Himself. This is more rational.
Jacob saw the heavenly ladder and angels ascending and descending
between heaven and earth, and Stephen saw the heavens open and Christ
sitting on the right hand of God. These were not miracles in the
supernatural sense; they were simply a larger vision, an expansion of
electric and spiritual power under the rapid evolution of natural law.
All great seers and prophets have had the same clairvoyant power.
At the birth of our planet, the stars sang together and all the Sons of
God shouted for joy. At the birth of Christ the angels sang for the
shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, and they visited Abraham and Lot,
and Joseph and Mary, and ministered to Christ when he was weary and
famished in the wilderness. They carried John in the spirit to the great
and high mountain in the sun which was to him a new heaven and a new
earth and showed him the great city of God, and they have borne millions
of bright human spirits along the electric highways of the skies to the
celestial mansions of the blest. So will they wait and guide us through
the dusky borders of mortality, along the shining pathway to the sun,
and welcome us to the delights of its celestial cities. And we shall see
in the hour of dissolution the ladder Jacob saw reaching from earth to
heaven on which the angels ascend and descend, and we shall see the
vision martyred Stephen saw when the heavens opened, and the vision St.
John saw when he gazed on the New Jerusalem.
And this electric stairway between heaven and earth is so real, sure and
strong, that the weakest spirit cannot lose its way or stumble or fall.
It has the lightness of air and the strength of adamant and is as
eternal as the stars. Millions of millions have trod its pathway of
viewless power that no steel or adamant could brake, and none have
failed to reach the heaven that it links to earth.
The creature whose intelligence measures the pulsations of molecules and
unravels the secret of the whirling nebulæ is no creature of a day, but
the child of the universe, the heir of all the ages, in whose making and
perfection is found the consummation of God's creative work.
God is a spirit and man is a spirit, and spirit power is the supreme
sovereignty of the universe. And the soul of man can command electric
energy to bear it with swift wings and tireless feet along the electric
pathway to the luminous bosom of the sun, to the celestial cities of his
future heaven.
And the angels will be our guides and direct our faltering spirits along
the electric pathways to the stars, and light the shining boulevards of
eternity, and lead us to the golden streets and crystal palaces of
heaven. And they will escort us into the diamond banqueting hall of the
King of Kings, and we shall feast on angels' food, and sip nectar and
ambrosia from the table of the God of Gods.
And the angel choir shall take down their celestial harps from their
panels of amethyst, and with deft fingers and entrancing voices sing us
the old, loved melodies of heaven, and put a new song in our mouths, and
we shall join the heavenly jubilee of eternal life and glory.
"When the daylight trembles into shade,
When falls the silence of mortality,
And all is done, we shall not be afraid
But pass from light to light; from what doth seem
Into the heart and heaven of our dream."