A. What is Genesis purpose of study?
B. Which are the most important issues for humans according to Allan Kardec?
C. Why the study of the spiritual principle was purely speculative and theoretical until the arrival of Spiritism?
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253. Complete ignorance regarding the whole of the universe and the laws of nature that govern it, the composition and destination of the stars, which, after all, looked so small compared to the Earth, necessarily led to the view that the earth was the principal thing, the sole purpose of creation and the stars were merely accessories exclusively created for its inhabitants.
254. It did not take long to perceive the apparent motion of the stars, which moved en mass from the East to the West, emerging at dusk and setting in the morning, and maintaining their respective positions. For a long time this observation had no further consequence except confirming the idea of a solid dome carrying the stars along in its rotational movement.
255. Such early, simplistic ideas were, for many centuries, the foundation of religious beliefs and served as the basis for all ancient cosmogonies.
256. Later, by the direction of movement of the stars and their periodic return in the same order, it was realized that the celestial canopy could not be simple a semi-sphere placed over the earth, but an entire hollow sphere, in whose center was the Earth, always flat – or more or less convex – and inhabited only on its upper surface. This was progress, at least.
257. But upon what was the earth anchored? It would be pointless to mention all the foolish assumptions generated by the imagination, such as that of the Indians, who said that it was supported by four white elephants resting on the wings of a huge vulture. The most sensible confessed that they had no idea.
258. However, one opinion widespread among the pagan theogonies1 located the habitation of the condemned in the lower places, that is, in the depths of the earth, about which not much was known, and which was called hell, which means the inferior places, and the habitation of the blessed in the upper places beyond the region of the stars.
259. The word hell has remained until today, although is has lost their etymological meaning since the Geology has dislodged the place of eternal sorrows from the innards of the earth and because Astronomy has shown that there is no upper or lower in infinite space.
260. Under the pure sky of Chaldea, India and Egypt, the birthplace of the most ancient civilizations, the movement of the stars could be observed so accurately as the lack of special instruments allowed. It was first noted that certain stars moved independently from others, which no longer allowed the assumption that they were attached to the dome. They were called wandering stars or planets to distinguish them from the fixed stars. Their movements and periodic returns were calculated.
261. In the diurnal movement of the starry sphere, the immobility of the North Star was observed, around which the others moved every twenty-four hours and in parallel oblique circles, some larger, some smaller, depending on the distance they were from the central star. This was the first step towards knowledge of the obliquity of the axis of the world.
262. Longer voyages enabled ways to observe the difference of the aspects of the sky, according to the latitudes and seasons. The height of the North Star above the horizon varied with latitude and paved the way for the perception of roundness of the Earth. Thus, gradually, a more exact idea of the world was arrived at.
263. Around 600 B.C., Thales of Miletus (Asia Minor), discovers the spheric shape of the Earth, the tilt of the axis and the cause of eclipses. A century later, Pythagoras of Samos, discovers the diurnal movement of the Earth on its axis and its annual movement around the Sun, and he links the planets and comets to the solar system.
264. Hipparchus of Alexandria (Egypt), 160 B.C., invents the astrolabe, calculates and predicts eclipses, observes sunspots, and determines the tropical year and the duration of the moon’s revolutions. As valuable as these discoveries were for the progress of science, they took nearly 2,000 years to popularize. Since new ideas had no means for their publication except rare manuscripts, they remained the equity of a few philosophers, who taught them to their privileged disciples. The masses, which no one cared to clarify, bothered to enlighten, did not benefit from them at all and continued to hold their old beliefs.
265. Around the 140 A.D., Ptolemy, one of the most distinguished men of the School of Alexandria, combined his own ideas with common beliefs and with a few of the latest astronomical discoveries, composed a theory that could be described as “mixed,” which bore his name, and was the only one adopted in the civilized world for nearly fifteen centuries.
266. According to the Ptolemaic theory, the Earth was a sphere placed at the center of the Universe; composed of four elements: earth, water, air and fire. This is the first region, called elementary. The second region, called ethereal, comprised eleven heavens or concentric spheres rotating around the Earth, namely: heavens of the moon, of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed stars, the first crystalline transparent solid sphere; the second crystalline sphere, and finally, the first mobile sphere, which gave movement to all the lower heavens and caused them to make one revolution in twenty-four hours.
267. Beyond the eleven was the Empyrean heaven, the habitation of the blessed, derived from the Greek pyr or pur, meaning fire, because it was believed that this region blazed with light like fire.
268. The belief in many superimposed heavens prevailed for a long time, by the varied regarding the number. The seventh heaven was generally regarded as the highest, hence the expression: to be caught up into the seventh heaven. St. Paul said that he had been elevated to the third heaven.
269. Aside joint motion, the stars, according to Ptolemy, had their own movements that were more considerable or less so, depending on their distance from the center. The fixed stars made one revolution every 25,816 years. This calculation implies knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes, which actually takes 25,868 years.
270. At the beginning of the 16th century, Copernicus, a famous astronomer, born in Thorn (Prussia) in 1472 and died in 1543, reconsidered the ideas of Pythagoras and devised a theory that confirmed every day by new observations, was favorably received and did not take long to debunk that of Ptolemy. According to the Copernican theory, the Sun is in the center and the planets trace out circular orbits around it; the Moon is a satellite of the Earth.
271. A century later, in 1609, Galileo, a native of Florence, invents the telescope. In 1610, he discovers four moons Jupiter and calculates their revolutions. He recognizes that the planets do not have their own lights like the stars, but they are illuminated by the Sun and are spheres like the Earth. He observes their phases and determines the duration of their rotation on their axis; thus with physical proof he gives a definitive sanction to the Theory of Copernicus.
272. From there the foundation of the superimposed heavens collapsed. The planets were recognized as being worlds similar to Earth, and like it, undoubtedly inhabited; the stars are innumerable suns, probable centers of as many other planetary systems, and the Sun itself was recognized as a star, the center of a vortex of planets subject to it. The stars are no longer confined to a zone of the celestial sphere, but are unevenly scattered across the limitless space, those that seem to touch each other are actually at incommensurable distances from one another; the smallest in appearance are the most distant from us; the large ones, those that are the closest, are still hundreds of thousands of leagues away.
273. The groups to which were given the name of constellations that are only apparent groupings, caused by the distance; their figures are merely effects of perspective, like the shapes of someone standing at a fixed point, observing lights spread over a vast plain or the trees of a forest. In reality, however, such groupings do not exist. If one could be transported to a region of one of these constellations, to the degree that one got closer, its shape would disappear and new groups would take shape.
274. Since these groups exist only in appearance, the meaning that a common superstitious belief attributed to them is illusory and its influence could exist only in the imagination. To distinguish the constellations, from one another, they were given names such as: Scorpio, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn, Cancer, Orion, Hercules, Ursa Major or David’s Chariot, Ursa Minor, the Lyre, etc., and were represented as shapes that those names - mostly from fantasy – brought to mind, but which in most cases have no relation to the apparent shape of the groups of stars. Thus, it is pointless to seek such shapes in the sky.
275. The belief in the influence of the constellations, particularly those that comprise the twelve Zodiac signs, comes from the idea attached to names they bring. If the one called Leo was given the name donkey or sheep, one would certainly have given to it a completely different influence.
276. Beginning with Copernicus and Galileo, the ancient cosmogonies were destroyed forever. Astronomy could only move forward, not backward. History tells of the struggles that these men of genius had to endure against prejudices, and especially against the spirit of sectarianism, interested in keeping errors on which beliefs had been founded and which had been though to firmly set on an unshakable foundation. It took only the invention of an optical instrument to demolish a foundation of many thousands of years. However, nothing could prevail against a truth recognized as such. Thanks to the printing press, the public was initiated into these new ideas; no longer lulled to sleep with illusions, it joined the fray. It was no longer a few individuals that had to be combated but the general opinion, which took up the defense of the truth.
277. From there, the way was opened onto which numerous and illustrious scholars were to enter in order to complete the work that had been sketched out. In Germany, Keppler discovers the famous laws that bear his name, through which it is recognized that the planets do not trace out circular orbits but elliptical ones, of which the sun occupies one of the focal points. In England, Newton discovers the law of universal gravity. Laplace, in France, creates celestial mechanics. Finally, astronomy is no longer a system based on conjecture or probability, but a science established on the strictest bases of calculus and geometry. Thereby, one of the cornerstones of Genesis is laid around 3,300 years after Moses.
1Theogony: “An account of the origin of a god, goddess, or divine pantheon (Webster’s, 1991, op. cit) – Tr.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. What is Genesis purpose of study?
Genesis entails two parts and therefore has a double purpose: the history of the formation of the physical world and that of humankind considered from its two-fold principle: body and spirit. (Genesis, Ch. IV, Item 11)
B. Which are the most important issues for humans according to Allan Kardec?
Who we are, where we came from, where we are going - these are the most important issues that matters to humans, because it involves their origin and the problem of their past and future. (Genesis, chap. IV, items 11 to 14)
C. Why the study of the spiritual principle was purely speculative and theoretical until the arrival of Spiritism?
This happened both in the physical order and in the mental order.
In order to set ideas, humans lacked the essential element: knowledge of the laws on the spiritual principle.
To date, the study of the spiritual principle in Metaphysics was purely speculative and theoretical; in Spiritism, it is entirely experimental. With the help of the faculty of mediumship, more developed nowadays and especially more widespread and thoroughly studied, humans are in possession of a new instrument of observation. Mediumship has been for the spirit world what the telescope has been to the astral world and the microscope to the infinitely small world. Mediumship has enabled humans to explore and study with their own eyes, so to speak, the spirit world’s relations with the corporeal world; to isolate, in the living human, the intelligent being from the physical being, and to see them acting separately. One could finally study the spiritual element. (Genesis, Ch. IV, items 15 and 16)
