Planet

“ It is full of progressive action everywhere, and, to quote from another author, “our planet and our solar system are but as the small dust of the balance in the colossal scale of the worlds that are.” ”

“ With the second, on the contrary, we may detach ourselves from the earth, may mount afar into space, may plant ourselves on some aërial height, whence we may embrace, at a single glance, all the illuminated hemisphere of our globe: we shall have but a single shadow on the prospect,—that which our brightened planet casts behind it, and which, in four-and-twenty hours, traverses the entire surface of the globe, producing light wherever it passes. ”

“ Our favored planet, not like the airless moon, is folded in the kindly bosom of an atmosphere which, while ministering nourishment to man and accommodating itself to all his movements and vicissitudes, interposes as his shield against the fiery influences of the solar system, even to arresting and consuming those countless meteoric stones, showered upon us from stellar space, before they can penetrate to the lower aerial strata. ”

“ Revolving upon its own axis, and describing an ample circuit through the boundless fields of space, is a planet of the solar system bearing upon its surface a population of nearly a thousand millions subject to sin, disease and death. This orb of the starry heavens shines with a glory similar to that of its kindred spheres. ”

“ The worlds of light that nightly illume the firmament of earth are not mere spheres of uninhabitable matter, nor are they simply appendages to earth,—glittering ornaments to attract the eye of man,—but vast systems of suns and tributary planets, with worlds whose products and inhabitants far exceed in organized development those of this little planet Earth, whose astronomers are just beginning to realize the capacities of the worlds revealed through their telescopes. ”

“ It commands a stupendous prospect, bounded only by the spherical form of the earth. And standing there, with the earth beneath and the heavens all around, one fully realizes that we live upon a great planet rolling in its orbit through immense space. ”

“ Up to the formation of the solar system or of the planet, the character of creation is analytic. The three primary ideas emerged from each other as gravity, light and heat, and appeared as fire. These three united actions emerged again from each other and became air, water and earth, which together make up the planet. ”

“ The starry heavens do not exist merely for us or for our earth. Among the splendid orbs which roll in space, earth is but one, and it shines with pale and borrowed light. [Pg 2] Unnumbered systems moved upon their courses before our globe was lighted by the sun. But, for us who live upon the earth the history of the Universe opens with this small planet, a part of which we see and know. ”

“ Although we all of us now perfectly understand that the Earth is a planet moving round the Sun as a centre, it is, comparatively speaking, but recently that this fact has become generally recognised and understood. ”

“ To spirits less exalted as we are, the planets of our solar system afford free fields of observation, and in some far distant time you and we, dear reader, through loving service for Humanity, may find ourselves so purified, through earnest investigation and lofty aspiration, so learned, so exalted, that together we may journey beyond suns and worlds of which your photographers catch imprints, as faint as smiles on the white faces of your dear dead. ”

“ THE PLANET MARS THE inhabitants of the Earth are at last beginning to take some interest in the sky. Tired of living as blind strangers to their own country, they are beginning to know that the world on which they move about is a planet gravitating round the Sun, and that other sister-planets swing round at the same time in the harmony of the solar system. ”

“ There being no difficulty in admitting, then, the mobility of the earth, let us proceed to see whether it has one or a number of movements, and whether, therefore, our earth is a simple planet like the other planets. ”

“ The older planets were no doubt discovered by someone, but we can say little more about these discoveries than we can about the discovery of the sun or of the moon; all are alike prehistoric. Here was the first recorded instance of the discovery of a planet which, like the earth, revolves around the sun, and, like our earth, may conceivably be an inhabited globe. ”

“ Let us ask the reader to imagine what would take place if the earth were to come into collision with another planet. Some of our readers, at any rate, will know that the Sun and all its planets—the earth among them—is moving swiftly to some unknown destination among the stars. ”

“ We do not profess to construct planets. But a scientific friend of mine, who has made several balloon-voyages, assures me he has visited a planet so small that he could walk right round it in twenty minutes! ”

“ Its atmosphere contains compounds with which we are not familiar, and the body of the planet itself is rarer and lighter, and less condensed, and in a much earlier stage of evolution than the earth and the small planets so comparatively near us. ”

“ An endeavor is made also to so simplify and direct the observation that any one, after a little practice, will know almost without hesitation, on seeing a planet in the sky, that it is a planet, and not a fixed star, and exactly what planet it is. The situation and aspect of it will then as quickly and clearly pronounce it to be the individual planet that it is as the sight of a person of one’s acquaintance proclaims him to be that person, and no other. ”

“ Now that I have had a cursory view of the natural divisions of your planet, of its scenery, its peoples and the expressions of their spiritual and intellectual growth, I perceive that in their characteristics the Entoans and Earthians are very much alike. Upon visiting planets other than their own, spirits of a scientific turn experience great surprise at the striking resemblances existing between all planets approaching a like degree of evolvement. Really, bulk, density and atmospheric conditions constitute the most noticeable differences. ”

“ I am not concerned to know what eighth planet is wandering in space up there, or when Venus or Orion rises, but if in any cot east or west, and set behind the woods, there is any planetary character illuminating the earth. ”

“ The sun, viewed in this light, appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the first, or, in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system; all others being truly secondary to it. ”

“ In the first place, he showed that as the planet describes equal areas in equal times about the sun, the attractive force which the sun exerts upon it must necessarily be directed in a straight line towards the sun itself. ”

“ To the former belong the solar systems, including the earth considered as a planet. The idea of terrestrial bodies comprehends all the different single objects perceptible by the senses in and on the earth. ”

“ And thus, all these phenomena concur in making it appear probable, that the Earth is placed in that region of the solar system in which the planet-forming powers are most vigorous and potent;—between the region of permanent nebulous vapor, and the region of mere shreds and specks of planetary matter, such as are the satellites and the planetoidal group. ”

“ Our sun together with all its planets fills only the 31,419,460,000,000,000th part of the whole space between itself and the next solar body. Gracious Heavens! thought I,—in what an unfathomable abyss of emptiness were this universe swallowed up and lost, if all were void and utter vacuity except the few shining points of dust which we call a planetary system! ”

“ Then there is the time a planet takes, starting when it is in a straight line with the earth and the sun in space, to return to the place where the three bodies will be again in the same relative position. ”

“ The constitution of beings stands in close relation with the substances of which they are composed, the medium in which they live, the temperature, the light, the density, gravitation, length of day and night, seasons, etc.—in a word, all the cosmographic elements of the planet.
If, for example, we compare two such worlds as the Earth and Neptune, which differ very much as regards distance from the Sun, we cannot imagine for a single instant that the organic forms should have had the same development. ”

“ Quoth the astronomer, ‘Thou hast said well, and by Allah, I thought but to try thee.’ ‘Know,’ rejoined she, ‘that the almanack-makers have certain signs and tokens, referring to the planets, relative to the coming in of the year, and in which are tribulations for the folk.’ (Q.) ‘What are they?’ (A.) ‘Each day hath a planet that rules it. ”

“ The new astronomy makes much of the three cosmic laws. Our earth, by a form of self-love called molecular attraction, ceases to be scattered dust, and takes on the shape of a rich and beautiful planet. ”

“ As soon as astronomy revealed the fact, that the planets are, in point of dimensions and density, worlds like our own, and that they, in like manner, share the influence of the sun,—the source and centre of the light and heat so essential to the existence of life,—the surmise was almost necessarily forced on the mind, that they might also be inhabited. ”

“ Each visible planet is the embodiment of a great and exalted spiritual intelligence Who is the minister of God in that department of His Kingdom, endeavoring to carry out His Will, the latter having in view the ultimate highest good, regardless of temporary ill. ”

“ Each sun is a centre of energy for its planetary system. Our sun is the greater radiator of energy for our planetary system, which is composed of several planets known to science, and several still unknown to astronomers—our own planet, the Earth, being but one of a large family. ”

“ Here, said I to myself, is the planet of greatest interest to ourselves, the one we know best. It gravitates round the sun along an orbit traced at a mean distance of 143 million miles from the central luminary. Our Earth passes through its annual revolution at a distance of 92 million miles. ”

“ Every one of these planets is an original, unique, and exclusive creation; each planet is a matchless, superb, and perfect production. And this diversity of individuality extends to all features of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of planetary existence. Each of these billion perfection spheres has been developed and embellished in accordance with the plans of the resident Eternal of Days. ”

“ The general conditions which are absolutely essential for life thus manifested on our planet are then discussed, such as, solar light and heat; water universally distributed on the planet's surface and in the atmosphere; an atmosphere of sufficient density, and composed of the several gases from which alone protoplasm can be formed ”

“ Naturally, as cooling of the Planet has proceeded, the primitive stratum has deepened, and as we perceive within its compass is a vast volume of highly heated matter, which, to a degree, corresponds with the interior of the World upon which you so serenely dwell. ”

“ This planet may be drawn off into space by the attraction of some wandering world that has not yet come within observation. But one thing we know: No power on or of the earth can possibly derange its relation to the other celestial bodies. ”

“ Cu Su.: ’Tis but stupidity, there is no heaven; each planet is surrounded by its atmosphere, and rolls in space around its sun. Each sun is the centre of several planets which travel continually around it. ”

“ Being thus of the same origin with the planets, having the same life history, being bound to them in space by a tie that is perhaps eternal, how can we fail to have the most intimate interest in their nature and all that concerns them? ”

“ Concerning the future evolution of planets; the Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception teaches, on page 256, that “when the beings upon a planet have evolved to a sufficient degree, the planet becomes a Sun, the fixed center of a Solar System. ”

“ The great planet, being in fact himself a "semi-sun," may be regarded as an originator, no less than a recipient, of agitating influences, the combined effects of which may well appear insubordinate to any obvious law. ”

“ The result would be that the earth would be carried around the sun in a circular or an elliptical orbit. Every other planet in the solar system would be under the operation of the same compound forces governed by the same laws ”

“ The planets exercised the same influence as their houses, and all elementary things subordinated to a planet were considered to be, during auspicious aspects, excellent remedies for affections in the limbs presided over by that planet. ”

“ The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. ”

“ The planets of the universe, watching, would learn in centuries to come that a monstrous Science had transformed our World into another Moon, void of life and air, around which swim still-born satellites that were once the blasted continents of the Old World or the Americas. ”

“ I wish to reiterate that advanced Spirits of Planets of our, and of other Solar Systems, unite in declaring that everywhere life expressions are alike or very similar. That dissimilarities through environments pertain more to bulk and density than to form. ”

“ Also the motion of the planet in its orbit was such that equal areas were described about the Sun by the radius vector of the planet in equal times.—Kepler, Astronomia Nova αἰτολογητός (Prague) , 1609. ”