A. When was it discovered that the sun is the center of our system?
B. What are constellations formed by?
C. When did the ancient cosmogonies ceased to exist?
Text for reading
292. There is an ethereal fluid that fills the space and penetrates bodies. This fluid is ether or primitive cosmic matter, the generator of the universe and beings. Inherent to this ether are the forces that preside over the metamorphosis of matter, the necessary and immutable laws that govern the universe.
293. These multiple forces indefinitely varied according to the combinations of matter, localized according to masses and diversified in their modes of action, depending on the circumstances and conditions, are known on Earth under the names of gravity, cohesion, affinity, attraction, magnetism and electricity. The vibratory movements of this agent are known as sound, light, heat, etc.
294 In other worlds, they appear in other aspects and reveal other characteristics unknown on earth, and in the vast expanse of the heavens, indefinite number forces have been developed on an unimaginable scale, which greatness we are unable to assess, just as the crustacean in the ocean floor in unable to grasp the universality of terrestrial phenomena.
295. Thus, in the same way that there is only a single substance, primitive generator of all bodies but diverse in its combinations, all such forces depend on a universal law which is diversified in its effects, and which by eternal decree was sovereignly imposed on creation to impress it with harmony and stability.
296. Nature has never contracted itself. The emblem of the universe has just one motto: UNITY/DIVERSITY. Ascending the scale of worlds, unity in harmony and creation is found at the same time that an infinite variety is found in the immense garden of stars. Going through the steps of life from the least of beings up to God, the great law of continuity is recognized. Considering the forces per se, one can form a series, whose result mingling with the generatrix, is the universal law.
297. You cannot appreciate this law in all its extent, since the forces that represent the field of our observations are restricted and limited. However, gravity and electricity can be considered as a broad application of the primordial law that prevails beyond the heavens. All these forces are eternal. Being inherent to the cosmic fluid, they necessarily act in everything and everywhere, modifying their actions through their concurrency or successiveness; they predominate here, they wane there, they are powerful and active at certain points; latent or hidden at others; but, after all, they prepare, drive, maintain and destroy their worlds in different periods of life, and they govern the wonderful works of Nature wherever they happen, and ensuring forever the eternal splendor of creation.
298. The first creation - After having considered the Universe under the general views of its composition, its laws and its properties, we extend our studies to the mode of formation that has given birth to the worlds and beings. Let us go back at this time to the creation of the earth, in particular and its current state in the universality of things, and from there taking it as a starting point, we will proceed to our planetary and sidereal studies.
299. If we rightly understand the relationship [or rather the opposition] between eternity and time; if we have acquainted ourselves with the idea that time is only a relative measure of the succession of transitory things, while eternity is essentially one, immoveable, permanent and unsusceptible to any measurement in terms of duration, we realize that for eternity there is neither beginning nor end.
300. On the other hand, if we get an exact idea - although necessarily very weak – of the infinitude of divine power, we will understand how it is possible that the universe always existed and always will exist. Even since God has existed, his eternal perfections have also existed and have been articulated. Before time was born, incommensurable eternity received the divine word and impregnated space, eternal as the divine word itself.
301. God, by its nature having existed from all eternity, has created from all eternity and it could not be otherwise. If such were not the case, no matter how far back in time we go through our imagination to the supposed limits of creation, there would always be beyond this limit, an eternity which during which the divine hypostases, the infinite volitions would have remained buried in inactive changes and infertile mute lethargy, an eternity of seemingly death for the eternal Father who gives life to beings; of an indifferent muteness for the Word that governs them; and of a cold and selfish sterility for the Spirit of love and vivification.
302. The absolute beginning of things thus goes back to God. Their successive appearances in the field of existence are the order of ongoing creation.
303. The world, at birth, was not yet established in its virility and fullness of life. No. The creator can never contradict itself, and like all things, the universe was born as an infant. Endowed with the abovementioned laws and the initial impulse inherent to its formation, the primitive cosmic matter gives birth to successively vortices, clusters of that diffuse fluid, and nebulous piles of matter that spun off by themselves and have changed to infinity to generate several centers of simultaneous or successive creations in the regions incommensurable regions of the expanse.
304. Due to the forces that prevailed over one or another, and due to the ulterior circumstances that presided over their development, these primitive centers became the focal points of a special life: some points, less disseminated in space and richer in principles and active energies, began their particular astral life; others, occupying unlimited extension, grew very slowly, or again divided into other secondary centers.
305. Transporting ourselves back only a few million centuries, before the present epoch, we see that our Earth did not yet exist, nor had our solar system yet begun the evolutions of planetary life. Nevertheless, splendid suns already illuminate the ether; inhabited planets already gave life and existence to a multitude of beings that preceded us in the human course, under the gaze of other eyes, opulent productions of an unknown nature and the wonderful phenomena of heavens comprised the scenes of immense creation. What am I saying! Already, splendors that used to make the hearts of other mortals beat under the thought of infinite power were no more! And we, poor tiny beings, who have come after an eternity of life, believe to be ourselves the contemporaneous with creation!
306. Once more: let us better understand Nature. Let’s us realize that eternity lies before as well as after us, that space is a theater of unimaginable succession and simultaneity of creations. Those nebulae, which we can barely notice in the farthest reaches of space, are clusters of suns in the process of formation; those others are galaxies of inhabited worlds; and still others that are sites of disasters or decline. Let us be aware that just as we are placed in the middle of an infinity of worlds, we are also in the midst of a two-fold infinity of previous and subsequent duration; that the universal creation is not restricted to us, and that we cannot apply that word (restricted) to the isolated formation of our tiny globe.
307. The universal creation - After having gone back - as far as human limitations allowed – form the hidden source whence emanate worlds, let us consider the progression of successive creations and their serial developments.
308. The primitive cosmic matter contained the material, fluidic and vital elements for all universes that unroll their magnificence before eternity. It is the fertile mother of all things, the first grandmother, and especially, the eternal generatrix. This substance from which all sidereal globes have come has not disappeared; this power is not dead because it still incessantly gives birth to new creations and constantly renewed, replenished, from the worlds that are effaced from the book of eternity.
309. The ethereal substance, rarified to various degrees, and which is diffused throughout interplanetary space; that cosmic fluid that fills the universe, more or less rarefied in the huge regions rich in clusters of stars; more or less condensed where the astral sky does not yet shines; more or less modified by various degrees, according to their locations in the expanse, is nothing more than the primitive substance in which reside the universal forces, from which nature has taken all things.
310. This fluid penetrates bodies, like a vast ocean. In it resides the vital principle, which gives rise to living beings and perpetuates in each globe according to this condition, a principle that in its latent state lies dormant as long as no voice calls upon it. By virtue of this vital principle, every creature, mineral, vegetable, animal or any other (because there are many other kingdom of nature whose existence you do not even suspect), knows how to appropriate the conditions for its existence and its lifespan.
311. Mineral molecules have their portion of this life too, just as a seed and the embryo, and as in the body they group together in symmetrical figures forming individuals. It is very important to be aware the idea that the primitive cosmic matter is endowed not only with the laws that ensure the stability of the worlds, but also with the universal vital principle that forms spontaneous generations on each world to the extend that conditions manifest for the successive existence of beings, and when the time sounds for the onset of children of life during the creation period.
312. This is how the universal creation has been accomplished. Hence, it is correct to say that the operations of nature are the expression of divine will, God has always created, continues to create, and will create forever.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. When was it discovered that the sun is the center of our system?
At the beginning of the 16th century, Copernicus [the famous astronomer], born in Thorn (Prussia), reconsidered the ideas of Pythagoras and published a theory which, confirmed every day by new observations, was favorably received and it didn’t take too long to debunk that of Ptolemy. According to the Copernican theory, the sun is the center and he planets describe circular orbits around it, the Moon is a satellite of the Earth. A century later, in 1609, Galileo invented the telescope, and in the following year, he discovers that the planets have no light themselves as the stars, but they are illuminated by the Sun and are spheres similar to Earth, thus providing evidence material for final sanction to the Copernican theory. It was recognized then that the planets are Earth-like worlds and undoubtedly inhabited, like this; that the stars are innumerable suns, probable centers of many other planetary systems, and the Sun itself recognized as a star, the center of a vortex of of planets subject to it. (Genesis, Ch. V, item 12)
B. What are constellations formed by?
The constellations are apparent grouping formed by stars. Their shapes are merely effects of perspective, like the shapes forming for someone standing at a fixed point observing lights spread over a vast plain or the trees of a forest. In reality, however, such groups 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 break and new groups would draw in sight. 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. (Genesis, Ch. V, item 12)
C. When did the ancient cosmogonies ceased to exist?
Beginning with Copernicus and Galileo, the ancient cosmogonies were destroyed forever. Astronomy could only move forward, not backward. It took only the invention of an optical instrument to overthrow a foundation of many thousands of years. (Genesis, Ch. V, items 13 to 14)
