Cosmic cycle

“ Like the nebulous body, its periodic time is commensurable with that of the earth, so as to perform a certain whole number of revolutions while the earth performs one, and thus to complete the cycle in one year, at the end of which the zodiacal light and the earth return to the same relative position in space. ”

“ In the biblical cosmogenesis we are not concerned with ordinary divisions of time called “day” and “night,” periods of twelve hours each, more or less, but with vast periods known as pralayas and manvantaras, or periods of manifestation and obscuration, taking place alternately. These great periods answer to the systole and diastole motion of the Great Breath, the out-breathing and in-breathing of the Cosmic Life-force. In each of these great out-breathings the seven stages of evolution are realized: the Igneous, Gaseous, Fluidic, Mineral, Vegetable, Animal and Human. ”

“ But about one-half million light-years beyond the periphery of the present grand universe we observe the beginnings of a zone of an unbelievable energy action which increases in volume and intensity for over twenty-five million light-years. These tremendous wheels of energizing forces are situated in the first outer space level, a continuous belt of cosmic activity encircling the whole of the known, organized, and inhabited creation. ”

“ A Cycle is a perpetual round, or circulation of the same parts of time of any sort. The Cycle of the Sun is a revolution of 28 years, in which time, the days of the months return again to the same days of the week; the Sun’s Place to the same Signs and Degrees of the Ecliptic on the same months and days, so as not to differ one degree in 100 years; and the leap-years begin the same course over again with respect to the days of the week on which the days of the months fall. The Cycle of the Moon, commonly called the Golden Number, is a revolution of 19 years ”

“ But when the complete system of stars showing this motion is considered, we get a cyclic period so enormous, that not only the life of man, but the life of the human race, the existence of our earth, nay, even the existence of the solar system, must be regarded as a mere day in comparison with that tremendous cycle.
Then there are other instances of star-drift where, though two directions of motion are not intermixed, the drifting nature of the motion is not at once recognized, because of the various distances at which the associated stars lie from the eye. ”

“ Thousands of vast rings of solid particles circulate around the sun, and when our earth crosses any of these rings, and their particles enter our atmosphere with planetary velocity, the friction ignites them and we see falling stars. Comets' tails, the sun's corona, and the zodiacal light are three strange phenomena, which, [ 114] though wholly insoluble on any theory of gaseous formation, receive their intelligible explanation by means of excessively minute solid particles—microscopic cosmic dust—driven outward by the tremendous electrical repulsions that emanate from the sun. ”

“ Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and its dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate and slowly undergone by inanimate masses, remains to be undergone at an indefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar mass, which, since an indefinitely distant period in the past, has been slowly evolving: the cycle of its trans­for­ma­tions being thus completed. ”

“ The earth's molten bulk was part of a mass which was still more vast, and which included portions which have since condensed to form the other bodies of the solar system,—Mars and Jupiter and Venus and the rest,—while the sun remains as the still fiery central core of the former nebulous materials, which have undergone a natural history of change to become the solar system. The whole sweep of events included in this long history is called cosmic evolution ”

“ Universes are created; reach their extreme low point of materiality; and then begin in their upward swing. Suns spring into being, and then their height of power being reached, the process of retrogression begins, and after aeons they become dead masses of matter, awaiting another impulse which starts again their inner energies into activity and a new solar life cycle is begun. ”

“ These two bodies, however, always appear to be moving directly on in their courses, each completing a revolution around the earth in a definite time, the sun in a year, the moon in 291⁄2 days. What we see in the case of the planets, on the other hand, is a complex motion compounded of the effects of the earth’s daily rotation, its yearly revolution around the sun, and the planets’ own revolutions in different periods of time in elliptical orbits around the sun. These complex planetary motions are characterized by the peculiar oscillations known as ‘direct’ and ‘retrograde’ movements. ”

“ In neither instance is the change of position of the relevant cosmic body - in our examples that of the sun or moon in relation to the earth - the 'cause' of the corresponding rhythmic events on the earth. Together with all other rhythmic events of equal periodicity, it is itself the effect of the activity of a force-sphere constituting the cosmic realm to which the relevant planetary body belongs. ”

“ With this limitation the process of evolution and decay of sun through a cycle of increasing and decreasing temperature, as suggested by Sir Norman Lockyer, is clear and suggestive. During the ascending series the star is growing both in mass and heat, by the continual accretion of meteoritic matter either drawn to it by gravitation or falling towards it through the proper motions of independent masses. This goes on till all the matter for some distance around the star has been utilised, and a maximum of size, heat, and brilliancy attained. ”

“ In such a model, time is observed to be a measure of the change which occurs as energy evolves into new, more complex forms as it progresses along the distance from the white hole side of the nucleus, around the shell of this "cosmic egg" until it enters the black hole. ”

“ While all adolescent suns do not pass through a pulsating stage, at least not visibly, when looking out into space you may observe many of these younger stars whose gigantic respiratory heaves require from two to seven days to complete a cycle. Your own sun still carries a diminishing legacy of the mighty upswellings of its younger days, but the period has lengthened from the former three and one-half day pulsations to the present eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles. ”

“ Then, in rapid sequence, a whole coterie of hitherto unsuspected minor planets is discovered, stellar distances are measured, some members of the starry galaxy are timed in their flight, the direction of movement of the solar system itself is investigated, the spectroscope reveals the chemical composition even of suns that are unthinkably distant, and a tangible theory is grasped of the universal cycle which includes the birth and death of worlds. ”

“ Such aggregations of matter have never been hot and, except for density, are in composition very similar to Urantia.
8. Burned-out Suns. Some of the dark islands of space are burned-out isolated suns, all available space-energy having been emitted. The organized units of matter approximate full condensation, virtual complete consolidation; and it requires ages upon ages for such enormous masses of highly condensed matter to be recharged in the circuits of space and thus to be prepared for new cycles of universe function following a collision or some equally revivifying cosmic happening. ”

“ It is the period in which the moon goes through all her changes—a period known to the ancients as the lunar cycle, or Metonic cycle, and used by them to predict eclipses. It is still used for the first rough approximation to the prediction of eclipses, and to calculate Easter. The "Golden Number" of the Prayer-book is the number of the year in this cycle.
The cause of the second inequality, or apparent periodic motion of the stars, Bradley made out to be a nodding motion of the earth's axis. ”

“ It seems to me that these modern discoveries as to the periodic decay and re-birth of cosmic bodies, which we owe to the most recent advance of physics and astronomy, associated with the law of substance, are especially important in giving us a clear insight into the universal cosmic process of evolution. In their light our earth shrinks into the slender proportions of a “mote in the sunbeam,” of which unnumbered [Pg 244] millions chase each other through the vast depths of space. ”

“ Since the positions of planets in their orbits change rapidly, the former part of the disturbing force changes rapidly, and produces in general, at short intervals of time, effects in opposite directions, first, for example, accelerating and then retarding the motion of311 the disturbed planet; and the corresponding inequalities of motion are the periodic inequalities, which for the most part go through a complete cycle of changes in the course of a few revolutions of the planets, or even more rapidly. ”

“ Now it is evident, unless a collision should take place, the universe would remain in this condition for ever: without a collision there could be no change, no work performed, and absolutely no loss or gain of energy, and therefore no process of evolution. The first collision would be the absolute commencement of evolution—the beginning of the process of the development of the universe. Evolution would, in this case, have its absolute beginning in time, and consequently was not eternal. ”

“ The form and position of the planetary orbits, and the motion of the bodies in the same direction, together with the periodicity of the terms in which the inequalities are expressed, assure us that the variations of the system are confined within very narrow limits, and that, although we do not know the extent of the limits, nor the period of that grand cycle which probably embraces millions of years, yet they never will exceed what is requisite for the stability and harmony of the whole ”

“ When this day opens, cosmic evolution, so far as relates to this solar system, begins and occupies between one and two billions of years in evolving the very ethereal first matter before the astral kingdoms of mineral, vegetable, animal and men are possible. This second step takes some three hundred millions of years, and then still more material processes go forward for the production of the tangible kingdoms of nature, including man. This covers over one and one-half billions of years. And the number of solar years included in the present “human” period is over eighteen millions of years. ”

“ It is permissible, therefore, to neglect the trifling irregularities and agglomerations in the distribution of star-matter, and to assimilate the entire stellar universe to a vast cloud of cosmic dust at relative rest, everywhere of the same density. It is then found that for this cloud of dust to maintain a permanent, stable configuration, the time direction of the universe as a whole, for an observer who is non-rotating with respect to the stars, must be straight. ”

“ Perhaps, however, we may discover that these changes are themselves periodic and increase in cycles to a maximum, and then diminish, as is the case with magnetic, planetary, and stellar variations, and other similar changes, when sufficiently long observed; for while such changes may very well accompany a theory under which our system and all other systems are slowly running down to decay and death, it is entirely incompatible with the primal forces under which they must have been originally formed. ”

“ All the variations of the solar system, as well secular as periodic, are expressed analytically by the sines and cosines of circular arcs, which increase with the time; and as a sine or cosine never can exceed the radius, but must oscillate between zero and unity, however much the time may increase, it follows, that when the variations have by slow changes accumulated in however long a time to a maximum, they decrease by the same slow degrees, till they arrive at their smallest value, and then begin a new course, thus for ever oscillating about a mean value. ”

“ It is now generally believed that the present condition of our earth, and also that of the entire solar system, has been the result of a cosmical process of development by which its matter, unchanged in quantity, has been slowly condensed from a diffused nebulous state, occupying enormously increased space—a condition analogous to, if not identical with, that which is now presented by a large number of irresolvable nebulæ whose spectra show them to be composed of gaseous matter in an incandescent state. ”

“ The idea of making the sun a centre of motion having once been accepted, it was an obvious simplification to make the centre of the epicycle not merely lie in the direction of the sun, but actually be the sun. In fact, if the planet in question revolved round the sun at the proper distance and at the proper rate, the same appearances would be produced as by Ptolemy’s epicycle and deferent, the path of the planet round the sun replacing the epicycle, and the apparent path of the sun round the earth (or the path of the earth round the sun) replacing the deferent. ”

“ The Earth Chain of seven globes as thus defined is the direct reïncarnation of a former chain of seven globes, and that former family of seven was the moon chain, the moon itself being the visible representative of the fourth globe of the old chain. When that former vast entity composed of the Moon and six others, all united in one mass, reached its limit of life it died just as any being dies. Each one of the seven sent its energies into space and gave similar life or vibration to cosmic dust—matter,—and the25 total cohesive force of the whole kept the seven energies together. ”