From the Koreshan Archives: — December 2013
— The monthly publication of the “Flaming Sword” included the column entitled Community Current Events. If you are a regular visitor here, you know that the “Community Current Events” gave a lot of insight into daily Koreshan living. Here is an excerpt from the December 1938 column, which was news for November 1938 — 75 years ago.
MR. JULIAN NALLY of Gotha, Florida, recently called at The American Eagle office when en route to Naples to visit the one-time tropical garden of the late Dr. Henry Nehrling, a great plant breeder and botanist. Mr. Nally, who now owns the old Nehrling homestead at Gotha, returned from Naples the following day and took home with him a number of plants from the Unity Nurseries. Brother Allen Andrews, editor of The American Eagle, is receiving requests to republish a series Dr. Nehrling’s articles, formerly published in The Eagle from 1922-29. Brother Moses Weaver, after several days visit with old friends in the Unity, left for his home in St. Petersburg, Florida: We were glad he could be with us during the Solar Festival. Charles Mealy, of Pineville, Kentucky, Son of Mrs. Alice Mealy Bubbett, and Dick Bubbett called on Unity friends, en route to Miami. Mr. Mealy spent some of his boyhood days in the Unity. Sister Emma Norton enjoyed a trip to Fort Myers with Mrs. L. E. Rugg, dining with Sister Lillian on the return trip. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lewis, of Everglades, spent Sunday, October 30 in Estero with friends and their sister, Mrs. Rose Gilbert. Early Monday morning their car refused to function, and Brother Allen Andrews motored Mr. Lewis home, arriving there shortly before 8 a. m., the time for commencing work. Mr . Lewis holds the responsible position of cashier and telegraph operator in the thriving, modern little city of Everglades.
At the Sunday evening services of November 13th, Sister Etta Silverfriend read, among other articles written by KORESH, a very interesting one entitled “The Great Martian Canal Trust,” which appears elsewhere in this issue of THE FLAMING SWORD. The Koreshan Unity Filling Station was visited by a midnight prowler on November 16th. Brother Samuel Armour, the manager who rooms in the building, was awakened by the noise and stepped out the front door to investigate in time to see a man jump the fence into the highway, dash for a car he had parked near and speed away. He had been trying to enter the building by a side window, tearing off the screening and cracking the window glass. Brother Arthur Moore and Roger Perry went to the woods November 17th, gathering and chopping wood to increase the fuel supply for the winter . The new power mowing machine, being successfully operated by Brother George Hunt, is proving to be worth its weight in gold by saving many hours of hand labor . Through Brother Daniel McNamara’s diligent labor in his gardens, we are now enjoying fresh vegetables, which are highly appreciated. We have also relished the fresh tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and peppers brought to the Kitchen Department by Mr. R. L. McCoy and Albert Jacobs from the nearby large truck farms, these vegetables not being quite up to the shipping standard in size and shape, but delicious in flavor. We appreciated Sister Jennie Campbell’s assistance in the canning of the surplus tomatoes. Sunday, November 20th, Sisters Bertie Boomer, Vesta Newcomb, Bella Armour and Florence Graham were calling upon Mrs. Julia Horne and family who recently purchased proprty in Tice, near Fort Myers, where they may make their future home. We were pleased to have Sister Jennie Campbell, Sister Edith Trebell and Sister Lillian Rugg enjoy their Thanksgiving dinner with us for Sister Emily Bessemer had prepared a delicious repast. Mr. and Mrs. G. N. Boughman and son of Tampa, Florida, visited friends at the Unity November 24th. On November 28th all of our sisters enjoyed the delicious cake sent by parcel post by Sister Ida Fisher’s daughter, Mrs. Mildred Fisher Barager, of Seattle, Washington, to Sister Etta Silverfriend. This delectation was made by Mrs. Barager herself, who spent her younger years in the Unity.
The CCE mentioned that there was a reading of an article by Koresh called “The Great Martian Canal Trust”. It appeared in this 1938 issue of the flaming Sword. Mention was made of the CBS broadcast of “War of the Worlds” which had appeared on radio just about a month before this column. Here is what it said:
THE GREAT MARTIAN CANAL TRUST
“IS MARS INHABITED?”
‘ (From the Writings of KORESH)
[Publication of the following article by Koresh which first appeared in The Flaming Sword of Dec. 24th, 1897, is appropriate at this juncture, following the widespread farce recently created by the Columbia Broadcasting Co., in a sensational radio program in which it was represented that men from Mars in meteor-like airships had launched an attack on N. Y. City and several New Jersey towns, with great destruction of life and property. According to the Koreshan System, neither Mars nor any of the other planets are inhabited.—Editor’s note.]THIS second heading is the title of an article by Camille Flammarion, in the Humanitarian. For thirty years of Swedenborg’s life, he claimed to have been in communication with spirits and angels in the occult world. He visited, in the spirit, the spiritual or spirit inhabitants of all the planets, of the moon, and of five earths. He minutely describes the character of these spirit beings. He did not pretend to see any of these worlds as to their material aspects or phases, but merely their spiritual life. With regard to this claim of Swedenborg, we have only to admit the fact, for he saw precisely w^hat he declared was revealed to him through repeated experiences. Now, Camille Flammarion has been studying Mars for thirty years, and hypothetically ventures to advance some ideas about its inhabitants and their operations. He assures us of one thing, at which he guesses logically, namely, that the canal contractors there have discounted Mr- Boldenweck, who is supervising the drainage canal of Illinois, for some of the canals of Mars are four hundred miles in width, and correspondingly long. It is going to seem very funny to the great professor in the near future, when he comes to know from positive data that the Cellular Cosmogony compels altogether an-other interpretation of Martian phenomena. Mr. Flammarion says: “The observations recently made by Messrs. Fowell, Douglas, and Pickcring, in a lofty observatory expressly built for the study of the planet Mars, on the mountains of Arizona, in the United States, throw a new light on these difficulties. The canals which, since their discovery in 1877 by M. Schiaparelli, had been running from one sea to another and crossing bright continents, have recently been seen by means of more precise methods of observation, crossing also the dark spots called seas. These ‘seas’ arc traversed by dark lines and also by bright bands. Consequently, their nature is changed in our eyes, and they can no longer be regarded as expanses of water.”
Thus the “scientist” passes from one kaleidoscopic assumption to another, with the hazy rapidity of a tramping mental aberration,—and this is called science. Now, what are the facts? Swedenborg entered the spirit through trance conditions. He visited the spirits of Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and others, right here where the spirit world is. Mercury people who die in Hi is the only world, form a group of Mercury spirits, and the same is true of Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and oilier planets. Mars is a disc floating between two of the lamina? that form the shell of this the only world. This disc is a reflector of the ultrapenetrable rays of electromagnetism. The rays arc broken or bent in the heavens, and we merely look at Mars under our feet, through the geologic strata, across the rivers of the earth and the greater rivers which form the great ocean currents. When the astronomer directs his telescope to Mars, he looks through a reflected ray, just as a man looks at himself in a. mirror, and through the ultrapenetrable rays he sees the Martian disc under his feet. The time will come when through the microtelescope Hie inhabitants of the Moon can be observed. When this is done, tlie great scientist will merely be looking at himself through rays reflected in the heavens, and when he realizes the truth, he will exclaim, How wise the prophet who said, God spreadeth out the heavens like a molten looking glass, and how much more he knew7 than we, after all our fuss about nothing. We wait to laugh at their calamity, and hold them in derision.
We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and that you have a very Blessed and Merry Christmas!!