Luminous body

“ Shadow is the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the luminous rays by an opaque body. Shadow is of the nature of darkness. Light [on an object] is of the nature of a luminous body; one conceals and the other reveals. They are always associated and inseparable from all objects. But shadow is a more powerful agent than light, for it can impede and entirely deprive bodies of their light, while light can never entirely expel shadow from a body, that is from an opaque body. ”

“ A luminous body will appear more brilliant in proportion as it is surrounded by deeper shadow. ”

“ I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it; and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's place in the sky. ”

“ The simplest explanation of these erratic performances is that there are two bodies, one luminous, the other opaque, revolving around their common center of mass. The dimming of brightness occurs when the opaque body gets between the earth and the luminous body. ”

“ No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to prevent, at a long distance, the transmission of the true form of the luminous body causing them. ”

“ They radiate outside, or rather, in rarefying, they are drawn by the currents of light and circulate in the astral body—that interior and luminous body which is dilated by the imagination of ecstatics, so that their blood sometimes colours objects at a distance when these have been penetrated and identified with the astral body. ”

“ When a body is sufficiently hot it becomes luminous, or, to speak in scientific language, the vibrations which are capable of producing a luminous sensation on our retina are increased in intensity as the temperature is raised, until they produce such a sensation. ”

“ In the first place we must realize that every visible object has rays of light going off from every part of its surface in every direction. So-called self-luminous objects, like lamps or the sun, produce the light within themselves; all others merely reflect light that falls on them from some source. Whenever light falls on any object, unless it is a perfect mirror, part is absorbed by the object and the rest is reflected; that which is reflected presently strikes against another object and is again in part absorbed and in part reflected ”

“ The light of this orb is subject to three principal laws requiring notice, viz., transmission, colour, and refraction by transparent media.
1st. The sun or any body in a state of combustion contains independent light; and striking opaque or non-luminous bodies in straight lines or rays, which are intercepted and reflected at the same angle as that of incidence. When these same rays strike the eye of man, the illuminated body becomes visible. ”

“ To the human eye there appears in space a luminous sphere that in its appointed path goes on unceasingly. The wise men are not agreed whether this apparition is merely of gaseous composition or is a solid body supplied extraneously with heat and luminosity, inexhaustibly ”

“ These nerve vibrations are sent over the optic nerve to the brain, where they take on the shape, size and colors of the Sun.
Reflection of Light.—The flame of a match, or a candle, an oil or a gas lamp, or Sun, comet or meteor, produces its own light, and for this reason these bodies are called self-luminous—that is, they are themselves the source of light.
All other objects which do not produce light, such as an apple, a stone, the Earth and other planets and moons are called non-luminous bodies. ”

“ I wish thee to believe that light in the bodies that we call luminous is nothing more than a very brisk and violent motion, which, by means of the air and other transparent media, is conveyed to the eye, exactly as the shock through the walking-stick reaches the hand of a blind man. ”

“ Hence in the parts of the eye adapted to darkness we experience the faint brightness as strongly luminous, even dazzling, whereas in the parts more adapted to light we feel the same degree of brightness to be dark. That the action of the inner light is responsible for the differences becomes clear if, while the negative after-image is still visible, we darken the eye with the hollowed hands. Then at once in the dark field of vision the positive facsimile of the window appears, woven by the activity of the blood which reproduces the outer reality. ”

“ That which before lay buried in the shade of night is itself now a radiator of the luminous fluid. Mark the genial warmth that comes as the sister of light; then stand by the side of the experimentalist and watch the point on which he directs the shining focus, and in an instant see iron melt and stones run like water, under the fervent heat! Now look upward to the heavens, where the falling drops of rain have formed a natural prism in the rainbow, and shown that the beam of pure whiteness, refracted into various rays, glows with all the tints that adorn the garden of nature. ”

“ It is defined as a substance hot to the feel. [Heat, then, and light are identified as one substance.] [3]
"It has the qualities of earth except smell, taste, and gravity. It is eternal, as atoms; not so, as aggregates.
"Organic luminous bodies are beings abiding in the solar realm. The visual ray, which is the organ of sight, is lucid. Unorganic light is reckoned fourfold: earthy, celestial, alvine and mineral. Another distinction concerns sight and feel; as light or heat may be either latent or manifest, in respect of both sight and feel, or differently in regard to either. ”

“ Of course the effect of such abrupt transitions from perfect illumination to total darkness, if it were the plan of Nature, would be most inconvenient and painful, if not destructive to the eyes. We are protected from this by the phenomena of double shadows, and the gradual passage from darkness to light, although each luminous ray moves undeviatingly in its straight line. ”

“ Intensely coloured bodies do make an impression upon perfectly blind men; and those who, being born blind, know no condition of light or colour, will point out a difference between strongly illuminated red and yellow media. When the eyes are closed we are sensible to luminous influence, and even to differences of colour. We must consequently infer that light produces some peculiar action upon the system of nerves in general; this may or may not be independent of the chemical agency of the solar radiations ”

“ And again, when light is suddenly cut off from a patch in a bright field, there occurs a sympathetic insensitive reaction in the red fibres just outside the darkened patch, in virtue of which they cease for a moment to respond to the luminous stimulus; the green and violet fibres, by continuing to respond uninterruptedly, give rise to the sensation of a blue border. ”

“ It is amazing, that a ray of light, after traversing a distance of 91,000,000 miles, can, by falling upon the retina, and acting as a stimulus, not only produce a contraction of the pupil, but excite thoughts which analyze that ray, instantly spanning the infinitude of trackless space! The same penetrative faculties, with equal facility, can quickly and surely discern the morbid symptoms of body and mind, become familiar with the indications of disease, and classify them scientifically among the phenomena of nature. ”

“ Light is produced by the excitement of the optic nerve, and it shines only in our brain; as to the excitement itself, there is nothing to prove that it is luminous; outside of us is profound darkness, or even worse, since darkness is the correlation of light. ”

“ A corresponding effect occurs when one suddenly exposes to darkness the eye adapted to light. One can easily observe what goes on then, if, after looking for a time at an undifferentiated light surface such as the evenly luminous sky, one covers the opened eyes with the hollowed hands. ”

“ In the case of light, we are in the presence of rays that are not luminous in sunlight, or at least are not seen by us, which are energetically absorbed by most transparent media and especially by the humors of the eye, for which we give ourselves no concern whatever in current life, and which nevertheless act upon the retina. ”

“ According to our new theory, then, there are in the retina of the eye, where the pictures of external objects fall, three sets of nerves, adapted for the production of three separate, distinct sensations, which we call red, green, and violet. When, owing to any cause whatever, one of these sets of nerves is excited into action, the result is the corresponding sensation; if, for example, we act upon the last set by electricity, pressure, or by the luminous waves, the result will be the sensation of seeing violet light, even though not a ray of light of any kind has actually reached the eye. ”

“ The twinkling of a bright star, or of a distant candle in the night, is perhaps owing to the same cause. While we continue to look upon these luminous objects, their central parts gradually appear paler, owing to the decreasing sensibility of the part of the retina exposed to their light; whilst, at the same time, by the unsteadiness of the eye, the edges of them are perpetually falling on parts of the retina that were just before exposed to the darkness of the night, and therefore tenfold more sensible to light than the part on which the star or candle had been for some time delineated. ”

“ Among all these bodies which glitter in the heavens there are some which shine by their own light, like the lamps. There are others only brilliant by reflected light, like the faces. It seems impossible for us to confuse the brightness of a pleasant face with the beam from a pretty lamp, but it is often not very easy to distinguish in the heavens between a body which shines by its own light and a body which merely shines by some other light reflected from it. ”

“ The colours of the various objects which we see around us are not due (with the exception of self-luminous and fluorescent bodies) to any power possessed by these objects of creating the colours which they exhibit, but merely to the exercise of a selective action on the light of the sun, some of the constituent rays of the white light with which they are illuminated being absorbed, while the rest are reflected or scattered in all directions, or, in the case of transparent bodies, transmitted. ”

“ Somehow, in their mysterious nature, the luminous rays from all sources, distant and remote, effect a change in the nerve-structure of the eye by which impressions are transmitted to the brain. Into that mode of action we cannot now enter, but will confine our attention at present to the property of light by which luminous images are produced. For it is, after all, the images of things we have to deal with. We know the external world in its distances, forms, and colors, because its visible objects are all duplicated in the eye. ”

“ And indeed this Sphere of light it self, it not inhering in any Subject in the space it occupies, looks far more like a Substance then any Accident. And what we fancie unadvisedly to befal Light and Colours, that any point of them will thus ray orbicularly, is more rationally to be admitted in Spiritual substances, whose central essence spreads out into a Secondary substance, as the luminous rays are conceiv'd to shoot out from a lucid Point. ”

“ Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness. 11:35 Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn't darkness. 11:36 If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light. ”

“ These bodies are all self-luminous, and it may no doubt happen that there are dark bodies in the vicinity of some of the bright stars to which these stars act as illuminants, just in the same way as the sun dispenses light to the planets. ”

“ Two bright lights may be made to produce darkness.—If two pencils of light radiate from two spots very close to each other in such a manner that they cross each other at a given point, any object placed at that line of interference will be illuminated with the sum of the two luminous pencils. If we suppose those rays to move in waves, and the elevation of the wave to represent the maximum of luminous effect, then the two waves meeting, when they are both at the height of their undulation, will necessarily produce a spot of greater intensity. ”

“ But when certain other substances, such as sulphate of quinine, or a thin slip of uranium glass, are placed in the path of the rays, this rapid motion is arrested and modified, and these rays, which in themselves are not luminous, are reflected back to our eyes as luminous rays. The rapidity of the vibrations being moderated, our retinas become sensible to them as rays of blue light. ”

“ Without going into any scientific exposition we must admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon the human body. But this is not all. Who has not observed the purifying effect of light, and especially of direct sunlight, upon the air of a room? ”

“ In all probability, as already stated, it is permanently retained within their substances; and many of the experiments of exciting light in bodies when in perfect darkness, by the electric spark and other means, appear to support the idea of light becoming latent or hidden.
No body is absolutely transparent; some light is lost in passing even through ethereal space, and still more in traversing our atmosphere. ”

“ It is now found that the chemical rays are more refrangible than the luminous, and that, while the darkening takes place in the colored spectrum, it it strongest in the violet of all the colors, and extends also through the dark space up to B, as shown in the figure. ”

“ My task in life, I had known from the start, was in connection with the human aura, that radiation which entirely surrounds the human body, and by its fluctuating color shows the Adept if a person is honorable or otherwise. The sick person could have his or her illness seen by the colors of the aura. ”