The Universe a Vast Electric Organism

Heat and cold are produced by electricity, and are sensations resulting from electrical conditions. Heat is not a creator; electricity is the creator and heat is its servant, and only one of its thousand-fold expressions. Electricity creates the activity of the molecules which gives the sensation of heat. A person standing in the sun on a hot day receives currents of electricity which were not hot when they left the sun, but only became so when they came in contact with the earth's opposite electricity near the earth's surface. These currents produce the sensation of heat. The sun is not a burning globe, or blazing world of fire; it is an enormous magnet of measureless power, thirteen hundred thousand times larger than the earth magnet on which we live. It revolves on its enormous axis at the rate of four thousand miles an hour and is thus constituted a working magnet or arc dynamo, drawing electric energy from its vast electric field, embracing the solar system, six billions of miles in diameter. Of this electricity, it uses for its own light, heat, and vital force what it needs, and the balance is thrown off to its luminous corona or photosphere, where it is shot by the law of electric repulsion in the sun and electric attraction in the planets to the earth and plants. The brilliancy of the sun is caused by its surplus electricity creating a luminous aurora which extends from its poles to its equator.

Newton discovered an imaginary force. Newton had an imagination which the scientific plodders who came after him lacked. They have dug in the dirt, while he sailed through azure seas and linked suns and worlds together by the mere sweep of the imagination, without any explanation or conceivable cause, and called it gravity. He might just as well have called it weight or ponderosity, which means the same as gravity. And the scientists followed him and accepted his theory of gravity, which means nothing and explains nothing. It was the best they could do, as he had an imagination and an idea and they had none. Thus the blind led the blind for two centuries, until electricity and its invisible forces were discovered, and a new field for thought and causation was opened up.

Let us suppose that space and the invisible atoms or star dust which permeate it are seized by electric energy, creating a boundless sea of invisible electro-magnetism, which began to vibrate to the law of action and reaction, attraction and repulsion. Under this law every atom became a tiny magnet, and electric centers are formed which are the foundation stones and nuclei of growing suns and worlds; and invisible atoms, nebulæ and finally meteors are drawn by electric energy and woven by magnetic force or induced electric currents into orderly layers of crystalline rock and varied metals, forming a vast thermopile, galvanic battery, working magnet, and electric dynamo all combined. By the law of electric attraction all matter would tend toward a common center, and in that common center would be found the vast central magnet-sun, sphere and dynamo many times larger and more powerful than all the others combined. As each grew in size their electric potentiality would be increased, their electric and magnetic attractions multiplied, and their revolution upon their axis and their orbit motion would be accelerated to a marvelous extent, giving them measureless force and power.

Herbert Spencer affirms that space is eternal and has always existed. We will suppose the same of matter in its elemental form, known as the atom, and we will venture also to assert that force is a substance like matter, but a thousand times more refined and invisible than the atom, and we will call it the electric ion, or electron.

Thus we have three indestructible, invisible entities—space, matter and force—which have existed eternally and which constitute the basic foundation and fallow ground of primeval chaos, which was the beginning of the universe. Then 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 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 that seemingly chaotic universe; nothing but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home of atoms and ions, the star dust and cosmic force, creative Deity had scattered by the breath of His power through the highways of space in the beginning of primeval creation. While these seem as nothing to man, they are the foundation stones of all creation.

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.

Then at the creative behest, "Let There Be Light," the ions of force, like an electric clothing of light and life, leaped into power, permeated all atoms, and wrapped as in swaddling clothes a new-born universe. Then atoms and ions of electric force 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 sun magnet, being larger and more powerful than all the others combined, would hold the others we call planets in the magnetic field of his sovereign power, and become the electric heart and commanding force of his system of world magnets. He would draw his electric life and energy from his vast electric magnetic field embracing his solar system, which with our sun is six billions of miles in diameter.

As these bodies grew in size under the law of electric attraction, which draws all matter toward a common center, they would become more and more compressed, dense and stable, until they attained their natural equilibrium of balanced forces and assumed their permanent form and solidity. Then they would assume their normal velocity of revolution on their axis, and their orbital motion along evenly balanced lines of force, without friction or change, for countless ages. All suns and planets revolve on their axis under the law of electro-magnetism by which electric currents of force pass through their centers at their poles, and magnetic currents of equal force pass one way around them, creating their diurnal motion.

This law is briefly stated by a standard work on electricity: "A wire or any conductor having a current of electricity passing through it has lines of magnetic force passing one way around it, and the number is in direct ratio to the quantity of current passing through the wire. This magnetic effect is strongest close to the wire, and decreases inversely as the square of the distance." This is a marvelous combination of the dual forces of electricity, which operates as a wonderful mechanical contrivance to spin the heavenly orbs on their poles, like a top is spun by a string or band around it or like the cylinder of a dynamo is revolved by its leather bands or a water wheel turned by the swift current of a river. By reason of this law, all suns and planets revolve on their electric centers at their poles. The great electric currents from the sun eight thousand miles in diameter and ninety-three million miles in length, like a mighty, inexhaustible river of force and power, cause the earth to turn over, as a water-wheel is turned by the swift current of a river. This vast stream or current of invisible power, when it starts from the photosphere of the sun, is 865,000 miles in diameter and is narrowed to a focus of 8,000 miles at the earth's surface, thus increasing its force and power a thousand-fold. The largest river on the earth is 180 miles wide at its mouth and about 3,000 miles long, but what an insignificant rivulet it is in contrast with this vast, invisible, omnipotent stream of electric life-giving power, constantly passing to and fro from sun to earth and from earth to sun.

Think of its marvelous speed! While the swiftest current of a river or the speed of a railroad train is scarcely fifty miles an hour, this mighty electric tide comes with the speed of light 186,000 miles a second, or almost 12,000,000 of miles an hour; and it turns the earth over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour by its lines of magnetic force, just as the swift tide of a river turns the water-wheel of a mill. And that the earth may turn more surely and steadily, it has vast mountain ranges running north and south from its poles, such as the Andes and the Himalayas on opposite sides of its surface, and other ranges scattered between, to act as extending flanges and paddles, like those on a water-wheel, to enable this vast electric tide to turn it more readily, and, like the brushes on an electric dynamo, to generate and draw electric currents from earth and sky, and moisture from the clouds, to bless and fertilize the earth and make it the theatre of man's life and activities.

Beneath these mountain ranges and in the outer crust of its surface are many cavities or openings we call volcanoes connected by powerful currents of magnetism constantly circulating from the equator to the poles; and when there is an influx of water or other substance sufficient to generate electric resistance and repulsion, a fuse burns out in the circuit at that point, the volcano sparks, blazes, explodes with great force, and shoots its molten lava into the clouds, or, like Mount Pelee, blows its head off.

Another simple illustration of the universe as a vast electric mechanism is the electric street-car system in our cities. The sun represents the great central power house where the electric power is generated.

The planets represent the cars, which revolve on their axis and speed forward by the same force and in almost the same manner as the planets revolve on their poles and continue in their orbital lines of force. The trolley wire and current are the cars' electric line of force and they come and go in their circuit propelled by the electric generator at the central power house, in very much the same way as the planets revolve and come and go on their orbital circuits around the sun by the moving force and electric power of the sun.

The circuit of the electric current on the car line starts from the dynamo at the power house and returns along the rails or through the earth back to the dynamo. In like manner, the vast electric currents of the sun pass to the earth through the ether without wires and do the lighting, heating and cosmic life-work, and return to the sun completing their circuit; and the earth sends its electric currents to the sun and they return to the earth through the ether in the same manner and complete their circuit. Thus there are vast highways and boulevards of electric currents passing from suns to planets and from planets to suns which are pathways to the stars and the great highways of eternity, on which invisible atoms, and perhaps invisible human souls, may pass from earth to suns and central suns. In the future, man will turn the searchlight of investigation upon electricity as the universal operating cause of all physical phenomena. He will solve the riddle of the universe by its subtle invisible forces. He will cease to regard creation as vast constellations of burning spheres whirling through frigid ether. He will look upon it with wonder and inspiration as a vast self-controlling, life-evolving, varied but unchanging unity, a perfect whole—a vast electric organism of omnipotent power and eternal existence. He will regard electricity as the finger touch of Deity that makes the world go round, that marks out the orbits of suns and the pathway of constellations, and guides them in their mysterious courses to their eternal and inscrutable destiny.

CHAPTER II

ELECTRICITY PRODUCES ALL THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE

I contend that electricity produces all the phenomena of nature—that it is the ever active agent in evolving visible forms and substances whose results are known as laws. Man is the most perfect enfoldment of nature's electric laws, and the world and the universe are the universal expression of electric life and energy.

Man and all the visible forms of creation are woven from invisible ether by electric forces, and, as man's will and thoughts are the governing force of his electric organism, so simple and universal are the laws of nature that the will and thoughts of Deity, by electric energy, are the controlling law and force of the universe, and the ultimate cause producing all causes, all creations, and all tangible forms.

The natural world is the product of matter, and force and all matter is one matter represented by the invisible atom, and all physical force is one force, being the varied manifestations of electric energy. For the natural world is the spiritual unfoldment made manifest by electric power.

Therefore all the varied phenomena of nature, the revolution of the earth on its axis and in its orbit around the sun, the brilliant light and governing power of the sun, the circling stars, the blazing comet, the shooting meteor, the gorgeous rainbow, the luminous aurora, and the dazzling corona are all expressions of electric power. The lightning in the cloud, the reverberations of thunder, the ebb and flow of the tides, the wind currents in the air, the swaying of the forest, the variations of heat and cold, the falling of snow, the rain drop and the dew are all electric manifestations.

You cannot raise your arm, lift your foot, or move your body except by electric energy. You cannot see or hear or feel or taste or smell or exercise any of the functions of the body without bringing to your aid the electric force which permeates all forms and substance. Electricity creates the mystery of physical life and provides the food and sustenance necessary to its growth and development. Electricity works the miracle of digestion and assimilation and converts inert matter into blood and bone, tissue and muscle, and organizes man's body into an electric machine, and runs it as truly and perfectly by electric energy as the electric motor or generator is run by electricity. Man draws his electric life currents from the air into the lungs as a great electric reservoir, there it purifies and energizes the blood and sends it as an electric fluid and circulating magnetic current through every part of the body, causing the heart valves to pulsate with measureless force and the human machine to throb with intense life and power.

The heart throbs and pulse beats of man's body are but the rythmic whir and vibrations of the human electric machine. Man makes electrical machines of wood and glass and metal, but nature makes them of flesh and blood and of all matter and substance. Nature, the all-wise and mysterious necromancer, makes nothing but electric machines from the infinitesimal atom to the self-luminous perfected dynamos—the suns and stars. All things that exist are electric generators or electric creations of marvelous construction, power and utility; and all expressions of form and power, all visible objects, and all the varied phenomena of nature are produced by electric-magnetic energy.

Franklin and Faraday, Harvey, Morse and Edison, by their discoveries have taught us that as the potter and the clay must come together to form the rudest vessels, so creative electric force must touch every sensitive atom in organic being; and keep the wellsprings of life constantly flowing through all life forms. There is no unfolding of bud and blossom, tree and shrub, without the coming and going of electric life-giving sunlight and earth light. They pervade all bodies of matter, whether world spheres or seed germs, and hold communion with all atomic centers of sensation in all living organisms. Atoms seek their electric affinities, life-forces and life-forms touch each other by the grasp of magnetic attraction and repulsion, and these give personal sensations and vital forms of being.

Through the medium of electricity, material and mental forces meet together upon the plane of human consciousness. This is nature's method of communication between the material and mental within the human brain, which has been a puzzling and difficult problem of physical science. The language of the senses is a universal language that has its foundation in invisible forces.

There is a unity between the light and the eye that indicates their origin in the same lines of force that now give sight to the brain life. In the ear, there is evidence that the electric vibratory currents of force producing sound had a companionship with the electric life-germ in which the ear had its beginning. So all organs of sense possess unmistakable evidence of having proceeded out of those electric forces that are unseen and imponderable. The knowledge of these is the story of the Garden of Eden, incorporated into the life of every intellectual being. All the evidence of the senses comes from electric telegrams from without or within man's physical organism. Seeing and hearing are wireless telegrams from the ether without, and feeling, smelling, tasting, are wired telegrams running along the nerves of man's body and communicating with the brain—the seat of intelligence—and the reasoning soul.

Man must have a connecting link between his mind and body and the things about him; and, as that connecting link and medium in man is electricity, so plain and simple are the laws of nature that God has no other medium between him and all material creations. Electricity therefore is both the creative governing energy of Deity over the universe, and the governing energy of man over all material things. God controls the universe as man controls his body—by electricity.

Man has five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. These are all communicated to the soul or spiritual body by electricity. Man feels by the electric flashes that come from every part of his body, that tingle on his nerves, and beat upon the brain, and touch the garments of the living soul. He sees through the medium of the electric etheric waves of light that come from the vibrations of the air around him. By these swift electric flashes the infinitesimal rays of electric light enter the retina of the eye and touch the quick vision of the soul. He hears by the atmospheric waves of electricity that beat upon his ear drums. He tastes and smells by the same electric process; and his five senses are but the inward communication of outer surrounding conditions and substances to his spiritual perception by means of electricity. Thus the Creative Deity hears and knows, and by the same forces directs and sustains all things.

Man as an electric engine is far more efficient than any known engine in which there is a consumption of fuel. In general the amount of work a man does bears a certain proportion to the fuel he puts into his boiler. Plants also constitute forms of electric engines to embalm the sun's rays and use the products rejected by men and animals.

By the radiant energy of the sun, plants are able to decompose carbonic acid. They form storage cells in which a current of electricity decomposes the liquid into oxygen and hydrogen and form materials which again give electricity, motion and heat. The sun enables the plant engine to work. It also enables the man engine and animal engine, and world engine to work by furnishing them all with the electric energy and working power of the universe, that they may do their part in the ever living forces of cosmic life. The cells of protoplasm are infinitesimal magnets or electrical machines, all vegetables are but larger magnets, all animals still larger, till we get to worlds and suns, the greatest of them all.

All the radiant garments of creation in their varied colors of light and beauty that now appear to human vision are woven from the same garments of immortality that wrap themselves around the initial centres of magnetic attraction.

As the worlds were created by invisible electric forces under the guidance of the Omnipotent creative spirit, so the same electric forces are still carrying forward the work of their unfinished structures, and perfecting the unity and completing the harmony of creation. What we now call gravity is electric attraction and accretion that was commenced at the beginning of nature's work of creation, and which continues to be the occult force that secures the growth of a blade of grass, the unfolding of the tiniest seed with its inwrapt life-germ and the development of a world, and which brings us face to face with the creative force that was the starting point of "the beginning" and will be the culminating center of all ultimate perfected creation. This electric life energy touches each growing seed center as at the beginning it touched each growing world center and reveals the power and wisdom of creation in every evolving form of life.

The same electric radiate lines that give the parental image in the mirror by an instantaneous flash of light, give also the parental image in the germ-life that evolves a new paternity. While we cannot trace the lines of electrical union that are mingled in this new life, we are justified in affirming that electric and radiant matter must have bridged the chasm between the old lives and the new, between parental duality and the dual forces of electricity that produced a new germinal individuality. And the new life cannot be possible without the separate unfolding of two distinct organisms meeting in generative embrace, imparting a new seed-life. All germ-life has its beginning where positive and negative magnetic currents blend into unity.

The germinal life and the food supply of plant and animal fix the boundaries of its being. There can be no evolution of plant life into animal life. It is not scientific or rational; vegetable, plant and tree have no independent existence separate from the soil of the earth except as latent in seed form.

As all material organisms take on their organic form around electric or magnetic centers drawing their atoms from electrical currents, so all life-germs take their growth from the magnetic centers of their growing forms. Here in the field of electric forces is to be found the generative forces of organic matter—the mysterious births from all parental life. And the constantly revolving circle of periodic changes of growth and decay, of life and death, of seed beginning and seed producing—like sunshine and shadow, light and darkness—are opposite points in the circle of electric force and physical life. The growing and dying life-forms intervene between these two points of rest and renewal, of attraction and repulsion, of positive organism and negative diffusion of matter.

They are the results of the great electric system of attracting and repelling currents of magnetism that are as fixed in their lines of force and order of work as the rocks at the foundations of the mountains. In fact, all that is strong and abiding in matter rests upon these currents of energy, and all of life is dependent upon the constancy and perpetually pulsating flow of the unseen electrical potencies of creation. Life is a universal unity, as light, heat, electricity and polarization, which evolve it, are unities. The order of ascending life organism is from the simple to the complex; from the lowest plane of rock formation the series is upward; from the lowest form of vegetable life it is up to the highest, and in the animal life upward till the crowning work is reached in the thinking animal we call man, who is more than a thinking animal.

To each ascending form there is an endowment of self-perpetuation by parentage and seed fruitage, which involve the electro-magnetic condition of germ life. Thus by electrical forces plants build within each other and form others by elementary atoms, with power of self-propagation, bridging the life-gulf between silent atom and living organism as if they were the material work of some spiritual builder.

Thus by electrical forces nature builds all human and animal life-forms and organisms. The primary atoms of matter have their home in the electro-magnetic forces and are evolved from them into the material organisms of creation. When the electro-magnetic origin of light, heat, physical life and so-called gravitation is fully accepted and their dynamic energy traced to its potential body, we have reached the strength of primary forces and the unending circle of electrical potencies.

This brings us to the border land of creative work, to the mysterious sea of all life-giving forces, and the universal basis of all existing creations.