THE CREATION OF THE EARTH EXPLAINED BY ALFRED SINNETT

(The following text is the second part of chapter ten of the book "The Growth of the Soul" by Alfred Sinnett.)

Each new physical planet so called into being may be created as new solar systems themselves are created in the first instance — according to different methods; but our earth appears to have been engendered on a plan closely resembling that by which our whole system was developed.

Within the appropriate area of space, a planetary nebula was evolved, the matter of which it was composed being drawn in from surrounding space, itself no doubt the disintegrated material of former planets that had been broken up, or to some extent no doubt meteoric matter belonging to the system at large that may not have been previously utilised in that way.

The new earth nebula was developed round a centre bearing pretty much the same relation to the dying planet that the centres of the earth and moon bear to one another at present. But in the nebulous condition this aggregation of matter occupied an enormously greater volume than the solid matter of the earth now occupies.

It stretched out in all directions so as to include the old planet in its fiery embrace. The temperature of a new nebula appears to be considerably higher than any temperatures we are acquainted with, and by this means the old planet was superficially heated afresh in such a manner that all atmosphere, water, and volatilisable matter upon it was brought into the gaseous condition, and so became amenable to the new centre of attraction, set up at the centre of the new nebula.

In this way the air and seas of the old planet were drawn over into the constitution of the new one, and thus it is that the moon in its present state is an arid, glaring mass, dry and cloudless, no longer habitable, and no longer required for the habitation of any physical beings.

When the present Manvantara is nearly over, during the seventh round, its disintegration will be completed, and the matter which it still holds together will resolve into meteoric dust, to be made use of, mixed with the ocean of all such matter, in the formation of new planetary nebulas hereafter.

But without attempting to forecast in detail the processes associated with that far distant event, we may expand the statement with reference to the remote past when our own planet was in process of construction, by the addition of a great deal more detail, not merely interesting on its own account, but conducive, when fully understood, to a better comprehension than is obtainable in any other way of many physical phenomena in progress on the earth at the present time.

The condensation of what I have described above as the vast planetary nebula out of which the earth was composed, was not in fact a process accomplished at one coup. In harmony with the analogies which nature suggests around us in every direction, the growth of the planet itself was a gradual process, and the first condensation gave rise to a globe very much smaller in magnitude than this on which we now stand, but which in the progress of ages was destined to be the nucleus around which the complete planet would be constructed.

It is just worth while before passing on to an account of the successive stages, to take note of the fact that in a work put together from the point of view of ordinary astronomy, "The Nebular Theory," by Mr. William Ford Stanley, that author recognises the possibility as suggested by purely physical considerations, that the planets were not formed by one single operation but by a series of successive condensations.

And another representative of exoteric science on wholly different grounds has come to the conclusion that the interior of the earth in its present state exhibits a condition of things which would be in harmony with the idea of successive condensations.

The actual fact I understand to be that the planet on which we are at present living was the result of several condensations of nebulous matter, and the constitution of the Earth at this mature period of its existence is only to be understood by reference to this method of development.

The nucleus having been formed in the first instance in the way already described, a considerable time was allowed to elapse before the second deposition of matter took place. In this interval the surface of the nucleus had time to solidify and cool down to temperatures in which all but its more volatile ingredients assumed, on the surface, the solid state.

Then another clash of meteoric streams surrounded the young Earth with a huge envelope of fresh nebulous matter. I say "nebulous" because the heat engendered by the collision of the meteor streams would resolve the meteoric matter back again into its primitive state.

It is necessary, indeed, that such a return should be included in the process in order to provide the growing Earth with the varied materials required in its composition. Meteoric matter for the most part is simple in its composition, and very largely made up of certain metals of which iron is the most abundant. But a planet consisting almost entirely of iron would not be a suitable home for the evolutions it might be destined to bear.

Occult teaching in reference to the constitution of matter comes in here to relieve us of the embarrassment this thought suggests. Thrown back into the nebulous condition by the intense heat of the meteoric collision, the matter of the meteor streams, even if it had all been iron to begin with, would be once more in the etheric state — in that state in which Sir William Crookes has called it "protyle" in connection with his extremely admirable and occultly justified theory of "the Genesis of the Elements." From that state it would be capable of rearranging its atoms in the varied forms of the many chemical elements required for the service of a life-bearing planet.

The new envelope of nebulous matter is destined to condense into a complete solid shell surrounding the original nucleus, and here it is for the first time in the course of this explanation necessary to interpolate an idea for which we are not fully prepared by any ordinary habits of scientific thought. When the outer shell has been completely solidified, the condition of things we find to exist is this:

The volatile ingredients in the composition of the original nucleus have not been, as expectation might have led us to expect, squeezed through the newly deposited shell of solid matter, but have been confined within that at an enormous pressure and at a corresponding temperature.

At the stage of the Earth's growth we have reached in imagination, we have an interior globe of solid matter, the central portions of which are still at an enormously High temperature while the outer crust is relatively cool. But on the surface of that crust there exists a stratum of compressed gaseous matter, largely consisting of water in its gaseous form, at the temperature, or even exceeding through contraction, the temperature of the nebula which condensed upon it.

We cannot expect at this stage of our knowledge to understand precisely how the condensation is so effected as to keep the gaseous matter within the new shell, but no extravagant amount of intellectual modesty is required to induce us to recognise that there may be laws of nature which come into play when new planets are being constructed, the full details of which are missing as yet from our present catalogue of such laws.

The outer shell having in its turn had time to cool down so that its least volatile ingredients are solid, and its more volatile ingredients in the atmospheric state around it, a third process sets in.

Again there is a clash of meteor streams, another vast nebulous sheath is condensed around the growing globe, and in time this forms, a second shell with a stratum of confined gaseous matter between it and the interior shell.

Further operations of a similar character are carried on at later stages of the planet's growth until it arrives at maturity, and consists as at present of six concentric spheres or shells surrounding a central nucleus, with strata of hot gaseous matter intervening between each sphere and its neighbours.

The outer shells are of considerably greater thickness than those immediately surrounding the nucleus, and the outermost of all, with which we are concerned, is much the thickest of all. Within this, however, there is a shallow stratum of heated matter at a depth of about twenty-five or thirty miles below the surface.

It is of a wholly different character from the interstitial spaces of hot condensed gases. It is simply a portion of the Earth's solid shell which is hot by reason of the fact that it was an extra nebulous condensation superimposed upon the otherwise completely finished planet, with an end in view, no doubt, which I do not as yet exactly understand, but which I believe to have related in some way to the ultimate development of the vegetable kingdom.

The surface layer of hot matter (as it may be called by comparison with the interstitial layers far down in the depths of the globe) was a kind of "top dressing," to use an agricultural expression, which seems to have been provided for as regards the actual material used up, by the disintegration of the two outer shells of the Moon.

Some forecast of this condition of things has been already embodied in theosophic writings as mentioned above, but the present explanations will advance our comprehension of the matter to some extent.

Leaving over for the moment the fuller interpretation of the statement just made about the two outer shells of the Moon, let us keep to the Earth's history till that is further developed.

The final "top dressing" was not designed to form a new shell separate in any way from the great crust already formed. It did not operate to confine between itself and the established surface any atmospheric gases. It was simply a hot layer of physical matter, the more volatile portions of which remained in the atmosphere of the globe already formed, while the solid portions settled down and beginning to cool from the outside, eventually established the conditions now prevailing.

Of course at first the whole new layer of physical matter twenty-five miles thick was incandescent, but the cooling and solidification of the surface prepared the way for the establishment thereon of the geological deposits with which we are familiar, and, eventually, for the development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms.

I have been interested in finding since I have been at work upon this interpretation of the Earth's constitution, that in other schools of oriental occultism besides that with which my own opportunities have chiefly brought me into contact, the Earth is described as resembling in its constitution "the skins of an onion."

The subject has not hitherto been treated in any western exposition of theosophic teaching, but the main ideas of the present explanation are vaguely in circulation already among the pupils of some eastern occultists, even though the onion with its skins would not constitute a satisfactory analogy for the western scientific mind once directed to the problems of the Earth's constitution.

In some earlier theosophic writings vague reference has been made to "the Spirit of the Earth." There is such a Spirit, belonging to an evolution quite apart from our own, who is in the first instance an emanation from the stupendous life of the Sun. And such an emanation is the first step taken in connection with the creation of any planet of the system.

It is by his power that the meteor streams are guided in the paths of those tremendous collisions which give rise to the successive nebulous clouds required for the construction of the successive concentric spheres. The nucleus-globe remains to the end of the planet's life his great workshop — if the phrase may be allowed — and storehouse of those incomprehensible energies which maintain the physical health of the planet.

The heat of the interior of the central globe far exceeds any temperature maintained in the interstitial spaces, and a vast army of Elemental Agencies is employed there, under the direction of the Spirit of the Earth, on tasks the nature of which is utterly beyond the range of our present comprehension. But our world somehow depends for its continued life on the activities carried on in the central globe, and they are never relaxed until the planet concerned has fulfilled its destiny and the time has come for its decease or disintegration.

OBSERVATIONS

The original Theosophical instructors (Kuthumi, Morya, Blavatsky and William Judge) did not detail how the Earth formed; they only stated that it was initially an incandescent globe of cosmic dust that gradually densified.

These explanations given by Alfred Sinnett are a mixture of what he read, the answers he received from elementals in the séances he conducted, and his own speculations.

Furthermore, I dislike his use of the word "nebula" to refer to the cloud of dust and gas from which the Earth formed, because although nebulae are also clouds of dust and gas, their size is far more immense.