George Warder - The Universe a Vast Electric Organism

Think of its marvelous speed! While the swiftest current of a river or the speed of a railroad train is scarcely fifty miles an hour, this mighty electric tide comes with the speed of light 186,000 miles a second, or almost 12,000,000 of miles an hour; and it turns the earth over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour by its lines of magnetic force, just as the swift tide of a river turns the water-wheel of a mill. And that the earth may turn more surely and steadily, it has vast mountain ranges running north and south from its poles, such as the Andes and the Himalayas on opposite sides of its surface, and other ranges scattered between, to act as extending flanges and paddles, like those on a water-wheel, to enable this vast electric tide to turn it more readily, and, like the brushes on an electric dynamo, to generate and draw electric currents from earth and sky, and moisture from the clouds, to bless and fertilize the earth and make it the theatre of man's life and activities.

Beneath these mountain ranges and in the outer crust of its surface are many cavities or openings we call volcanoes connected by powerful currents of magnetism constantly circulating from the equator to the poles; and when there is an influx of water or other substance sufficient to generate electric resistance and repulsion, a fuse burns out in the circuit at that point, the volcano sparks, blazes, explodes with great force, and shoots its molten lava into the clouds, or, like Mount Pelee, blows its head off.

Another simple illustration of the universe as a vast electric mechanism is the electric street-car system in our cities. The sun represents the great central power house where the electric power is generated.

The planets represent the cars, which revolve on their axis and speed forward by the same force and in almost the same manner as the planets revolve on their poles and continue in their orbital lines of force. The trolley wire and current are the cars' electric line of force and they come and go in their circuit propelled by the electric generator at the central power house, in very much the same way as the planets revolve and come and go on their orbital circuits around the sun by the moving force and electric power of the sun.

The circuit of the electric current on the car line starts from the dynamo at the power house and returns along the rails or through the earth back to the dynamo. In like manner, the vast electric currents of the sun pass to the earth through the ether without wires and do the lighting, heating and cosmic life-work, and return to the sun completing their circuit; and the earth sends its electric currents to the sun and they return to the earth through the ether in the same manner and complete their circuit. Thus there are vast highways and boulevards of electric currents passing from suns to planets and from planets to suns which are pathways to the stars and the great highways of eternity, on which invisible atoms, and perhaps invisible human souls, may pass from earth to suns and central suns. In the future, man will turn the searchlight of investigation upon electricity as the universal operating cause of all physical phenomena. He will solve the riddle of the universe by its subtle invisible forces. He will cease to regard creation as vast constellations of burning spheres whirling through frigid ether. He will look upon it with wonder and inspiration as a vast self-controlling, life-evolving, varied but unchanging unity, a perfect whole—a vast electric organism of omnipotent power and eternal existence. He will regard electricity as the finger touch of Deity that makes the world go round, that marks out the orbits of suns and the pathway of constellations, and guides them in their mysterious courses to their eternal and inscrutable destiny.

I contend that electricity produces all the phenomena of nature—that it is the ever active agent in evolving visible forms and substances whose results are known as laws. Man is the most perfect enfoldment of nature's electric laws, and the world and the universe are the universal expression of electric life and energy.

Man and all the visible forms of creation are woven from invisible ether by electric forces, and, as man's will and thoughts are the governing force of his electric organism, so simple and universal are the laws of nature that the will and thoughts of Deity, by electric energy, are the controlling law and force of the universe, and the ultimate cause producing all causes, all creations, and all tangible forms.

The natural world is the product of matter, and force and all matter is one matter represented by the invisible atom, and all physical force is one force, being the varied manifestations of electric energy. For the natural world is the spiritual unfoldment made manifest by electric power.

Therefore all the varied phenomena of nature, the revolution of the earth on its axis and in its orbit around the sun, the brilliant light and governing power of the sun, the circling stars, the blazing comet, the shooting meteor, the gorgeous rainbow, the luminous aurora, and the dazzling corona are all expressions of electric power. The lightning in the cloud, the reverberations of thunder, the ebb and flow of the tides, the wind currents in the air, the swaying of the forest, the variations of heat and cold, the falling of snow, the rain drop and the dew are all electric manifestations.

You cannot raise your arm, lift your foot, or move your body except by electric energy. You cannot see or hear or feel or taste or smell or exercise any of the functions of the body without bringing to your aid the electric force which permeates all forms and substance. Electricity creates the mystery of physical life and provides the food and sustenance necessary to its growth and development. Electricity works the miracle of digestion and assimilation and converts inert matter into blood and bone, tissue and muscle, and organizes man's body into an electric machine, and runs it as truly and perfectly by electric energy as the electric motor or generator is run by electricity. Man draws his electric life currents from the air into the lungs as a great electric reservoir, there it purifies and energizes the blood and sends it as an electric fluid and circulating magnetic current through every part of the body, causing the heart valves to pulsate with measureless force and the human machine to throb with intense life and power.

The heart throbs and pulse beats of man's body are but the rythmic whir and vibrations of the human electric machine. Man makes electrical machines of wood and glass and metal, but nature makes them of flesh and blood and of all matter and substance. Nature, the all-wise and mysterious necromancer, makes nothing but electric machines from the infinitesimal atom to the self-luminous perfected dynamos—the suns and stars. All things that exist are electric generators or electric creations of marvelous construction, power and utility; and all expressions of form and power, all visible objects, and all the varied phenomena of nature are produced by electric-magnetic energy.

Franklin and Faraday, Harvey, Morse and Edison, by their discoveries have taught us that as the potter and the clay must come together to form the rudest vessels, so creative electric force must touch every sensitive atom in organic being; and keep the wellsprings of life constantly flowing through all life forms. There is no unfolding of bud and blossom, tree and shrub, without the coming and going of electric life-giving sunlight and earth light. They pervade all bodies of matter, whether world spheres or seed germs, and hold communion with all atomic centers of sensation in all living organisms. Atoms seek their electric affinities, life-forces and life-forms touch each other by the grasp of magnetic attraction and repulsion, and these give personal sensations and vital forms of being.