The record-union., 1897-05-24
SUNS, MOONS and PLANETS.
Their Origin, Their Mission and Their
End Discussed.
DR.. Alien Griffiths, the Theosophist,
Tells What He Knows
of Them.

of Them.
A fair-siZed audience attended Pyth-
ian Castle last night and listened to
discourse on Suns Moons and Plan
ets," by Dr. Allen Griffiths. The sub
ject was illustrated on the blackboard.
The speaker began by saying that
while theosophists recognized scientists
and all students of the problems OF
mind and matter and the phenomena
Of material nature as co-workers, still,
theosophsts do not fully agree with all
current theories and conclusions OF
materialistc scientists. Yet, mas
much as all conscientious students have
a common object in the observations
and analysis of mental and physical
phenomena, to that extent they are al
lies. Furthermore, theoSophists do not
claim to have solved all problems, nor
that the final word upon any of them
has been spoken, but that only relative
knowledge is possessed by the wisest.
Therefore not only liberation for the
beliefs of all should be practiced, but
superficial differences should be rele-
gated to the background and all stand
upon a common platform of a common
search for common truths which all
true servers of the race equally strive
to possess and pass on to their fellows.
Modern scientists are to-day partially
rediscovering that which was well
known to the ancients, but which was
lost to the world for a time because of
the wrong uses to which it was put.
knowledge and power was prostituted
fn 4ln ,F1 it'd
dizement, and the masses were en-
shaved to ignorance that the few might
acquire and enjoy that which is the
common possession of all men under
right rule Priests degenerated into
profiigates and time-servers; kings ca
tered to passion and bartered the lives
and happiness of their subjects for ex-
tended power and territory, while gem
erals, statesmen and leaders became the
puppets of priests and kings. All this
reacted and caused a pail of gloom to
settle once more upon the masses who,
despairing of hope and peaceable means
to right wrongs and restore rights, re-
volted to the overthrow of the then ex-
listing order.
Pandemonium reigned until, in the
process of time, the sun of a better
and higher civilization began to rise,
whose rays are still struggling to dissi-
pate the gloom and restore the ancient
glory. If the leaders of thought and
the rulers of men shall as in the olden
time, that elder antiquity whose sun
rose and shone upon the golden age
if these shall strive not for their own
interests alone, nor for the greatest
good to the greatest number alone, but
for no less high goal than the highest
good for the whole mass of mankind,
then, indeed, shall a racial career be
begun which may ultimate in that full
fruition of progress and happiness
which was prOphesied by every sage
and savior who, like beacons upon the
shores of time, sent piercing beams
which, if but dimly yet no less surely.
revealed a second coming of the golden
age.
To hasten the dawning of that day.
TO lift all men to the nights of purer
aspirations, thought and deeds. and
establish q true brotherhood upon the
earth is the object of the theosophical
movements Of our own and all other
times, which We're inaugurated by the
elder brothers Of the race But to
accomplish this, a higher code OF
ethics. founded upon a truer philoso-
ply, must be practiced. This will lead
from right knowledge OF law, the finer
forces of nature and mans relation to
himself and others, to right-thinking
and acting. A truly scientific basis for
ethics is imperative. Correct con-
ceptions Of right relations existing be-
tween God, man and nature, fixed by
iry1r FOL Il lox
in indissoluble bonds are Indispensable
to the happiness and progress of the
individual and the race.
The speaker proceeded to say: THAT
which is called space is not voice, but
an expanseless ocean of primordial
substance. We cannot see matter
what we see is the phenomena or ap-
pearance of matter. The sea of crude
cosmic substance, called chaos, because
formless, is acted upon by hosts of be-
ings who were once men like ourselves,
but now have eyoluted vastly beyond
the human stage and are called angels
and arch-angels, or planetary spirits.
These beings of power and wisdom
mold cosmic substance into star dust
and world stuff which forms the milky
way. Nebulae are from these formed
as q second stage of building suns,
planets and celestial systems. These
nebulae. guided by planetary beings.
are separated and whirled off through
space as comets and meteors, and after
cons either collide and combine with
Others or become fixed by the law of at
traction and repulsion as centers about
which gather other planeta bodies, and
thus planetary systems come into ex-
istence. and thus our sun and system
was formed.
Our sun is not a solar fire, which
consumes itself by combustion and to
become finally burnt out; nor is it tan
gible. dimentional or molecular as we
understand such conditions. 1t is an
electro magnetic knot OF forces, and
but one of countless others floating In
boundless space. Like man, the sun is
complex and septenary in constitution.
II maintains its physical organization
partly by vampiring its children, which
are our earth and other planets of its
own system, each one which constantly
exudes and eXcretes effete matter
which is magnetically attracted TO and
consumed by the sun. The sun, on his
part while thus maintaining himself