pervade all space, the interior of solid bodies not excepted”; and, “to be the medium of transmission of light and heat” (Dictionary). Others, whom we will name “the will-o’-the-wisps” of science — her pseudo-sons — examined it also, and even went to the trouble of scrutinizing it “through powerful glasses,” they tell us. But perceiving neither spirits nor ghosts in it, and failing equally to discover in its treacherous waves anything of a more scientific character, they turned round and called all believers in immortality in general, and spiritualists in particular, “insane fools” and “visionary lunatics”; the whole, in doleful accents, perfectly appropriate to the circumstance of such a sad failure.
Say the authors of the Unseen Universe:
“We have driven the operation of that mystery called Life out of the objective universe. The mistake made, lies in imagining that by this process they completely get rid of a thing so driven before them, and that it disappears from the universe altogether. It does no such thing. It only disappears from that small circle of light which we may call the universe of scientific perception. Call it the trinity of mystery: mystery of matter, the mystery of life and — the mystery of God — and these three are One.”
Taking the ground that “the visible universe must certainly, in transformable energy, and probably in matter, come to an end,” and “the principle of continuity . . . still demanding a continuance of the universe. . .” the authors of this remarkable work find themselves forced to believe “that there is something beyond that which is visible . . . and that the visible system is not the whole universe but only, it may be, a very small part of it.” Furthermore, looking back as well as forward to the origin of this visible universe, the authors urge that “if the visible universe is all that exists then the first abrupt manifestation of it is as truly a break of continuity as its final overthrow” (Art. 85). Therefore, as such a break is against the accepted law of continuity, the authors come to the following conclusion: “Now, is it not natural to imagine, that a universe of this nature, which we have reason to think exists, and is connected by bonds of energy with the visible universe, is also capable of receiving energy from it? . . . May we not regard Ether, or the medium, as not merely a bridge between
Page 188
one order of things and another, forming as it were a species of cement, in virtue of which the various orders of the universe are welded together and made into one? In fine, what we generally called Ether, may be not a mere medium, but a medium plus the invisible order of things, so that when the motions of the visible universe are transferred into Ether, part of them are conveyed as by a bridge into the invisible universe, and are there made use of and stored up. Nay, is it even necessary to retain the conception of a bridge? May we not at once say that when energy is carried from matter into Ether, it is carried from the visible into the invisible; and that when it is carried from Ether to matter it is carried from the invisible into the visible?” — (Art. 198, Unseen Universe.)
Precisely; and were Science to take a few more steps in that direction and fathom more seriously the “hypothetical medium” who knows but Tyndall’s impassable chasm between the physical processes of the brain and consciousness, might be — at least intellectually — passed with surprising ease and safety.
So far back as 1856, a man considered a savant in his days — Dr. Jobard of Paris, — had certainly the same ideas as the authors of the Unseen Universe, on ether, when he startled the press and the world of science by the following declaration: “I hold a discovery which frightens me. There are two kinds of electricity; one, brute and blind, is produced by the contact of metals and acids”; (the gross purgation) . . . “the other is intelligent and CLAIRVOYANT! . . . Electricity has bifurcated itself in the hands of Galvani, Nobili, and Matteuci. The brute force of the current has followed Jacobi, Bonelli, and Moncal, while the intellectual one was following Bois-Robert, Thilorier, and the Chevalier Duplanty. The electric ball or globular electricity contains a thought which disobeys Newton and Mariotte to follow its own freaks. . . . We have, in the annals of the Academy, thousands of proofs of the INTELLIGENCE of the electric bolt . . . But I remark that I am permitting myself to become indiscreet. A little more and I should have disclosed to you the key which is about to discover to us the universal spirit.”
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
