Exploding monasteries that shoot out clouds of monks into cyclonic
formations with stormy nuns similarly dispossessed—or collapsing
monasteries—sometimes slowly crumbling confines of the cloistered—by
which we typify all things: that all developments pass through a process
of walling-away within shells that will break. Once upon a time there
was a shell around the United States. The shell broke. Some other things
were smashed.
The doctrines of great distances among heavenly bodies, and of a moving
earth are the strongest elements of Exclusionism: the mere idea of
separations by millions of miles discourages thoughts of communication
with other worlds; and only to think that this earth shoots through
space at a velocity of 19 miles a second puts an end to speculation upon
how to leave it and how to return. But, if these two conventions be
features of a walling-away like that of a chick within its shell, or
that of the United States within its boundaries, and if some day all
such confinements of the embryonic break, our own prophecy, in the vague
terms of all successful prophecies, is that a matured view of astronomic
phenomena will be from a litter of broken demonstrations.
Our expression now is upon the function of Isolation in Development.
Specially it is not ours, because I think we learned it from the
biologists, but we are applying it generally. If the general expression
be accepted, we conceive that functionally have the astronomers taught
that planets are millions of miles away, and that this earth moves at
such terrific velocity that it is encysted with speed. Whether
isolations function or not, that exclusions that break down are typical
of all developments is signified by data upon all growing things,
beginning with the aristocratic seeds, which, however, liberalize to
intercourse with mean materials or die. All animal-organisms are at
first walled away. In human circumstances conditions are the same. The
development of every science has been a series of temporary exclusions,
and the story of every industry tells of inventions that were resisted,
but that were finally admitted. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, Hegel published his demonstration that there could be only
seven planets: too late to recall the work, he learned that Ceres had
been discovered. It is our expression that the mental state of Hegel
partook of a general spirit of his time, and that it was necessary, or
that it functioned, because early astronomers could scarcely have
systematized their doctrine had they been bewildered by seven or eight
hundred planetary bodies; and that, besides the functions of the
astronomers, according to our expressions, there was also their
usefulness in breaking down the walls of the older, and outlived,
orthodoxy. We conceive that it is well that a great deal of experience
should be withheld from children, and that, any way, in their early
years, they are sexually isolated, for instance, and our idea is that
our data have been held back by no outspoken conspiracy, but by an
inhibition similar to that by which a great deal of biology, for
instance, is not taught to children. But, if we think of something of
this kind, equally acceptable is it that even in the face of orthodox
principles, these data have been preserved in orthodox publications, and
that, in the face of supposed principles of Darwinism, as applied
generally they have survived, though not in harmony with their
environment.
Tons of paper have been consumed by calculations upon the remoteness of
stars and planets. But I can find nothing that has been calculated, or
said, that is sounder than Mr. Shaw’s determination that the moon is 37
miles away. It is that the Vogels and the Struves and the Newcombs have
been functionally hypnotized and have usefully spread the embryonic
delusion that there is a vast, untraversible expanse of space around
this earth, or that they have had some basis that it has been my
misfortune to be unable to find, or that there is no pleasant and
unaccusatory way of explaining them.
April 10, 1874—a luminous object that exploded in the sky of Kuttenberg,
Bohemia. It is said that the glare was like sunlight, and that the
“terrifying flash” was followed by a detonation that rumbled about a
minute. April 9, 1876—an explosion that is said to have been violent,
over the town of Rosenau, Hungary. See _Rept. B. A._, 1877-147.
These two objects which appeared in virtually the same local sky of this
earth—points of explosion 250 miles apart—came from virtually the same
point in the sky: constellation of Cassiopeia; different by two degrees
in right ascension, and with no difference in declination. About the
same time in the evening: one at 8.9 P. M., and the other at 8.20 P. M.
Same night in the year, according to extra-terrestrial calendars: the
year 1876 was a leap year.
If they had been ordinary meteors, by coincidence two ordinary meteors
of the same stream might, exactly two years apart, come from almost the
same point in the heavens and strike almost the same point over this
earth. But they were two of the most extraordinary occurrences in the
records of explosions in the sky. Coincidences multiply, or these
objects did come from the not far-distant constellation Cassiopeia, and
their striking so closely together indicates that this earth is
stationary; and something of the purposeful may be thought of. Serially
related to these events, or representing some more coincidence, there
had been, upon June 9, 1866, a tremendous explosion in the sky of
Knysahinya, Hungary, and about a thousand stones had fallen from the sky
(_Rept. B. A._, 1867-430). Rosenau and Knysahinya are about 75 miles
apart. Of course one can very much extend our own circumscribed little
notions, and think of the firing of projectiles from beyond the stars,
just as one can think of our unknown lands as being not in the immediate
sky of Servia or Birmingham or Comrie, but as being beyond the nearby
stars, reducing everything more than we have reduced—but the firing of
stones to this earth seems crude to me. Of course, objects, or fragments
of objects made of steel, like the manufactured steel of this earth,
have fallen to this earth, and are now in collections of “meteorites.”
There is a story in a book that is not very accessible to us, because it
can’t be found along with _C. R._, or _Eng. Mec._, or _L’Astro._, of
tablets of stone that were once upon a time fired to this earth. It may
be that inhabitants of this earth have been receiving instructions ever
since, engravings arriving very badly damaged, however.
I have data upon repeating appearances, said to have been “auroral,” in
a local sky. If they were auroral, repetitions at regular intervals and
so localized are challengers to the most resolute of explainers. If they
were of extra-mundane origin, they indicate that this earth is
stationary. The regularity is suggestive of signalling. For instance—a
light in the sky of Lyons, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1891, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, Feb. 29,
March 27, April 23, 1892. In the _Scientific American_, May 7, 1892, Dr.
M. A. Veeder writes that, from Dec. 9, 1891, to April 23, 1892, there
had been a bright light that he calls “auroral,” in the sky of Lyons,
every 27th night. He associates the lights with the sun’s synodic
period, and says that upon each of the days preceding a nocturnal
display, there had been a disturbance in the sun. How a disturbance in
the sun could, at night, sun somewhere near the antipodes of Lyons, N.
Y., so localize its effects, one can’t clear up. In _Nature_, 46-29, Dr.
Veeder associates the phenomena with the synodic period of the sun, but
he says that this period is of 27 days, 6 hours, and 47 minutes, noting
that this period is inconsistent with the phenomena at Lyons, making
more than a day’s difference in the time of his records. This precise
determination is more of the “exact science” that is driving some of us
away from refinements into hoping for caves. Different parts of the sun
move at different rates: I have read of sun spots that moved diagonally
across the sun.
In _Nature_, 15-451, a correspondent writes that, at 8.55 P. M., he saw
a large red star in Serpens, where he had never seen such an appearance
before—Gunnersbury, March 17, 1877. Ten minutes later, the object
increased and decreased several times, flashing like the revolving light
of a lighthouse, then disappearing. This correspondent writes that,
about 10 P. M., he saw a great meteor. He suggests no relation between
the two appearances, but there may have been relation, and there may be
indication of something that was stationary at least one hour over
Gunnersbury, because the object said to have been a “meteor” was first
seen at Gunnersbury. In the _Observatory_, 1-20, Capt. Tupman writes
that, at 9.57 o’clock, a great meteor was seen first at Frome, Tetbury,
and Gunnersbury. The red object might not have been in the local sky of
Gunnersbury; might have been in the constellation Serpens, unseen in all
the rest of the world.
There is a great field of records of “meteors” that, with no parallax,
or with little parallax, or with little parallax that may be accounted
for by supposing that observations were not quite simultaneous, have
been seen to come as if from a star or from a planet, and that may have
come from such points, indicating that they are not far away. For
instance, _Rept. B. A._, 1879-77—the great meteor of Sept. 5, 1868. It
was seen, at Zurich, Switzerland, to come from a point near Jupiter; at
Tremont, France, origin was so close to Jupiter that this object and the
planet were seen in the same telescopic field; at Bergamo, Italy, it was
seen five or six degrees from Jupiter. Zurich is about 140 miles from
Bergamo, and Tremont is farther from Zurich and Bergamo than that.
So there are data that indicate that objects have come to this earth
from planets or from stars, enforcing our idea that the remotest planet
is not so far from this earth as the moon is said, conventionally, to
be; and that the stars, all equi-distant from this earth might be
reached by travelling from this earth. One notices that I always
conclude that, if phenomena repeatedly occur in one local sky of this
earth, their origin is traceable to a fixed place over a stationary
earth. The fixed place over this earth is indicated, but that fixed
place—island of space, foreign coast, whatever it may be—may be
conceived of as accompanying this earth in its rotations and revolutions
around the sun. Accepting that nothing much is known of gravitation;
that gravitational astronomy is a myth; that attraction may extend but a
few miles around this earth, if I can think of something hanging
unsupported in space, I always think of an island, say, over Birmingham,
or Irkutsk, or Comrie, as soon flying off by the centrifugal force of a
rotating earth, or as being soon left behind in a rush around the sun.
Nevertheless there is good room for discussion here. But when it comes
to other orders of data, I find one convergence toward the explanation
that this earth is stationary. But the subject is supposed to be sacred.
One must not think that this earth is stationary. One must not
investigate. To think upon this subject, except as one is told to think,
is, or seems to be considered, impious.
But how can one account for an earth that moves?
By thinking that something started it and that nothing ever stopped it.
Earth that doesn’t move?
That nothing ever started it.
Some more sacrilege.