Solar Biology, by Hiram E. Butler, [1887], at sacred-texts.com
Solar Biology, by Hiram E. Butler, [1887], at sacred-texts.com
It is the opinion of many that the material comprising the planetoids (or, as they are usually though incorrectly called, the asteroids) is the fragments of a planet which from some internal or other cause has been destroyed. The idea has still further been advanced that this planet was the seat of a fallen race, and that "the powers and principalities of the air," against which the people of this earth have to contend, are in reality the lost souls of the planet in question. Be that as it may, there are numerous collateral reasons why a brief consideration of this subject may prove highly profitable to lovers of occult thought.
Many supposed mythological traditions of ancient Greece have been demonstrated to have had a foundation in fact and history; and we may assume that such is possibly the case to a far greater extent than has yet been proven, and that this applies to the traditions of other localities and people as well; and when we take into account the intuitive knowledge of the ancient people, by virtue of their being more fully in the breath of the solar fluid, we can understand how the history of other planets might in a measure become incorporated into the traditions of our own.
By the principles of Solar Biology we are enabled to trace the influence which the destruction of the planet in question would have upon the earth. Knowing as we do that the function of our earth in its relations to the other planets of the solar system is that of the heart, and that the planet whose probable destruction we are considering must have been in the function or department of the lungs, we inferentially see that the relation between these two planets must have been electrically and vitally intimate; and while this event would have a marked effect on all the planets of our system, its influence on the dwellers of this earth would be most direct and disastrous, because of the intimate reciprocal relation of the functions of the heart and lungs.
Isaiah makes reference to Lucifer as having fallen from his shining position in the heavens, and intimates that its people were not allowed to rest even in their graves. This would be literally true if the planet had been destroyed.
We have to confront numerous traditions regarding a fallen race,—tempters of Adam and Eve, etc. The Talmud speaks of the ancient people of earth as having faces that shone like the sun, and natures that reached into the heavens.
There is something in life that we call evil, the nature and origin of which is shrouded in mystery. The Bible is full of prophecies pointing to a restoration of a lost state. Christ characterized the great mass of the people as being possessed of their father the devil, whose works they would do. His incarnation, life, and death were prefigured, and are to-day accepted by millions
as having to do with the re-establishment of a heavenly order.
It is by no means improbable that the traditions of a lost planet should be incorporated into the intuitive knowledge of this. And there are logical and highly probable reasons why the origin of evil, or divergence from the order of the heavens, first originated in the planet under consideration, whose function was that of the lungs, of the Grand Solar Man, or nature. The traditions of early ages, which are furthermore supported by the principles of this science, go to prove that the goodness and harmony of the ancient people was of an intuitive kind, and that divergence from that vernal or innocent state came about through intellectual self-assertion, through a vivid realization of conscious material life, with the apparently independent and sovereign power of the intellectuals, inclining to self-established centres and methods of action, or personal experiments, so to speak, "in the knowledge of good and evil." See Genesis, chap. iii., wherein is allegorically pictured the temptation, fall, and expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. The serpent, or that part of the intellectuals which is expressive of the sensuous and generative principle, is specially implicated in the introduction of an order of life at variance with that of the heavens as previously experienced through the intuitive nature.
From our physiological knowledge of the relations existing between the lungs and heart, aided by the light this science throws upon the functions of the different planets, we are led to the conclusion that there may once have existed a planet that we shall
designate as Lucifer, which occupied the position of the planetoids.
The nature of the lungs is individualizing in their function, producing positive and apparently independent and self-conscious mentality and god-like feeling; therefore in this function or vital principle of the solar system would we naturally look for the origin of individual action at variance with the intuitive perceptions and observance of the law of the heavens as expressed in the solar fluid; and, owing to the close interplanetary relations existing throughout the system, a gradual alienation and severance from the intuitive life of it would be wrought, in degree, throughout all the earths of our solar system, which consequently came to stand as the "bruised heel" of the universe. Christ's advent to earth symbolized the restoration of the heavenly order. He stood as the new MAN of the starry universe. The crucifixion of his natural body was the material expression of the antagonism of earth polarities to the order of the heavens; his resurrection, the assurance of the final triumph of the principles of life, order, and immortality.
The idea of a special incarnation on this earth is often scouted, and it is asked, If on this earth, why not on all others? and to those even approximately realizing the countless millions of worlds of the universe, the idea brings confusion and doubt. In regard to this, we should bear in mind that neither this earth nor yet the solar system is complete within itself, but are merely parts of one perfect whole, and that a work of such vast import on one earth would undoubtedly have its relation and uses to all.
We might designate the life of the entire material universe up to the period in question as being that of intuition or childhood. There is a period when the law of individualization of intellectual self-assertion comes to be operative, and children often make serious mistakes. Lucifer may have been the over-venturesome planet of the spheres, and for its lesson to the "ninety and nine" may have been permitted to work his own self-will, even to the destruction of the planet itself.
We find in Isaiah xiv. 12, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations (planets)." Again Isaiah says of his offence, verses 13 and 14, "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Isaiah further tells us that he is to "be brought down to hell," and people are to say, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? "
The "morning star" has vanished, and where once was unity, light, and power, we now have but a confused mass of planetoids moving in eccentric orbits. The extremity of individualism stands exemplified, and the mind and nature of humanity is broken and divided in a corresponding manner; for this was not merely the experience of a planet, but a tragedy of the solar system, the effect of which is spread over thousands of years, though it is probable that we are now well advanced in the stages of the restoration of order.
In this connection it may be interesting to state that
[paragraph continues] Swedenborg, in his description of the people of Jupiter, while according them high spirituality and intelligence, states that they all have a bent or stooping attitude in walking. It would not be unreasonable to infer that Jupiter, being in the function of the shoulders, and the adjacent and lost planet being in the function of the lungs, similar physical effects might naturally follow, as the shoulders for their upright position are closely related to the lungs, and probably the people of Jupiter suffer in this particular more than in their mental and spiritual nature, which is strongly supported by the intellectual and spiritual forces of Saturn, which was disturbed far less by the fall than the inferior planets. In conversation with A. J. Davis, the "seer of Poughkeepsie," and the author of Divine Revelations and numerous other occult works, he stated that he likewise noticed in his clairvoyant investigations of Jupiter the stooping attitude of body above referred to. The effect would undoubtedly vary on different planets, according to their nearness and function.
Will this lost star be relit in the material heavens? We judge not. The solar system has established a new equilibrium, but it leaves us impoverished in the vitalizing solar lung function, the distributor of the purifying and unitizing solar fluid.
We have a partial analogy in the human heart, which still beats on for a time after the breath has left the body; but in the case of the earth, the lungs losing their measure of the solar fluid, expanded more fully into the natural atmosphere. Man came to realize "that he was naked"; he was no longer clothed upon by the heavens; the light and glory of life had
departed, and his career from that time forward has been little less than a living death; the solar system, and especially the earth, has been a charnel house. Man did not wholly die, but he died to that which made life pure and noble and worth the living.
Was this calamity unforeseen? Was the plan of redemption an after-thought? We judge not. The catastrophe was at least permitted, and man's adversity is said to be God's opportunity; and from that period dates a new cycle of this solar system. Measures were inaugurated in the inner circles and higher atmospheres of the system, which in due process of time became operative on the material earth, and stand recorded in the career of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve tribes of Israel, and finally in the advent of Christ, in whom the nature of the race became interiorly opened and conjoined again to the order of the heavens. Christ stood in the place of the fallen son of the morning. He was to be lifted up, that he might draw all men unto him; the solar atmosphere was to be introduced and restored to the lungs of humanity by an interior process. The "new heaven" was to stand in the place of the fallen star. The order of Melchisedec, "without beginning of days or end of time," was to be transfused not only to our earth and solar system, but presumably through that as a centre of new creative energies, to all the material worlds of the universe; for this planet and system would stand interiorly opened to the heavens. It would be spiritually conjoined in a manner differing from all others, as the heavens are present in the externals of other worlds and systems after a natural order, whereas this earth
and solar system, being, so to speak, the last and least of the earths and systems of the universe, being spiritually opened to the heavens, becomes the first of a new order, thus giving additional significance to the saying "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first."
If "the hairs of our head are numbered," and "not a sparrow falls to the ground without notice," it is presumable that the permitted fall of Lucifer is not without an ultimate of good to this earth and solar system and as a necessary consequence to the countless worlds of the starry heavens. From this point of view we might comprehend how and why this earth should become the theatre of a special incarnation.
It is the nature of love to desire reciprocal beings who are receptive of and responsive to its benign impulses; countless millions on millions of such natures have been evolved throughout the immensity of space, and into their midst it is alleged descends the luminous and omnipotent One of the heavens and universe to be unto these love recipient beings what a central sun is to the planets of its system.
There is a law of involution as well as of evolution, and there must be some point where forces meet and balance, or find equilibrium. Humanity ascends and unfolds into spirit; spirit descends and finds embodiment in humanity. Thoughts of this kind do not degrade or belittle God; they merely exalt and ennoble man.
Swedenborg in his converse with the angels was advised regarding the transcendent possibilities of the spirits from this earth. While comparative or apparently less than all others, they had capacities when unfolded
of surpassing those of any of the various and many earths he visited. Therefore we might well recall the utterance, "Be still, and know that I am God."
Opinions may differ as to whether or no the innermost of Christ's nature was the very God. According to his own testimony, "He and his Father were one," and "all power was given into his hands," both in the heavens and on the earth. This is a vast saying, yet what if it be true? It is not inconsistent with the mysteries and wonders of the heavens. The picture and symbol of the material universe is that of a man from its least to its greatest; and as the centre controls the circumference, as the cause must be adequate to the effect, and as principles are nowhere operative without form, what more natural than that we should find where spirit and matter meet a wonderfully luminous personality, the very perfection and omnipotence of form, but infinitely above human comprehension, yet ever tempered to the aspirations and needs of both intellect and affection.
Intellect may be satisfied with light, truth, principle, and declare these sufficient; but the affections realize that the fulness and perfection of love is not possible without personality. What means the declaration of Genesis, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"? and do we not find in the interior altitudes of our being that a luminous personality is being evolved? for creation is a progressive series, and the relatively void and formless abyss of man and nature is perpetually taking on the image and likeness of the Creative Mind, behind which, as a logical sequence, is omnipotent
personality as the opposite of chaos,—the adequate and inspiring magnet,—filling the grand nature of the heavens and the exalted societies of the angelic world with an ever-present and sufficient sun of light and life from which proceeds perfection of being and form. How, then, can we predicate form and personality of the effect if it does not exist in the Cause? Nor ought we to deem it inconsistent with the mysteries of the luminous and mighty One of the heavens, that He should once have walked this earth. thus gathering to Himself the ultimates of earthly being, thereby conjoining the least to the greatest, and carrying aloft to the innermost altitudes of the heavens the chords of this human nature, thereby rendering mortal access easy and the kingdom of heaven on earth not only possible but certain.
J. L.
279:1 See page 41; also Editor's Preface.
