The Earth
THE NATURAL EARTH
- Chapter 6 -
The centers of gravity and the fluids of the Earth
If you had the ability to see through a tree trunk from the heart to the outer bark, and from the lowest rootlet to the outermost buds, you would discover, apart from the ascending tubes with countless pumps, shutters that close and valves that open, together with a number of smaller, transverse organs that extend from the heart of the tree to the outermost bark in the most varied winding turns; where they go through, in an ascending conduit, they are equipped with shutters or valves that open and close. All of these pumps, shutters, and valves are particular centers of gravity, through which the principle of life is distributed throughout the whole tree. And all of these primary and secondary tubes, that is, the entire three parts, are connected by cross-tubes which extend from the marrow to the bark. Through these, the heart, the main principle of life, affects all parts. As we have already mentioned, there are, besides the main center of gravity, many smaller centers of gravity present in matter. We already know that the center of gravity in organic matter is the enlivening central point of activity. Smaller secondary centers of gravity, or points of activity, are located where the above-mentioned transverse organs, the ascending organs, virtually pierce through and, at the point of transition, bring forth a particular effect.
This effect is illustrated as follows: take two pieces of wood and place them crosswise, one upon the other; then, at the point where they touch each other, a perceivable effect will arise. The lower cross-piece of wood will, at the moment of contact with the upper piece, unite its weight with the upper. Now, if someone tries to lift the lower cross-piece, he not only lifts the weight of the lower piece, but also that of the upper piece as well.
Let us now explore another example: imagine a reservoir, from which water must be conducted to two different points through two water pipes; if they cross, one jet of water must break through the other. At the point where the two pipes intersect, one jet of water will impede the other, but beyond this point the water will continue on its way. What phenomena will present themselves at this point of impedance? The water of both pipes will first mix in a whirl, and out of this whirl the combined water will enter into the two continuing pipes. This example proves the important effect which is produced through such a point of transition, which is therefore a secondary center of gravity. Something similar is produced by the small cross-tubes in a tree at these points, as they intersect with the ascending small tubes.
Let us proceed from this example to the third: imagine again a water conduit to one point, of which ten tubes, arranged radially, intersect. The water at this junction of the tubes mixes with a very strong whirling motion, and surges from there, mixed through the draining tubes, so that at the end of each draining tube a variety of mixed waters pours out.
Our tree has many such water conduits. The closer you get to the bark, the more of those conduits there are, and also the more radial at one point. That is why the bark of a tree is usually more of a depository for liquid mixtures. You will find in the bark the sponginess of the heart, the stringiness of the wood, and a great variety of other components mixed in, which ascend separately on the inside of the tree in the different tubes and then reach their particular purpose in the formation of either one or the other part of the tree. Here we have a much clearer secondary center of gravity before us, through which the former condition of the vital fluids of a body pass over into another and achieve things entirely new; and this may easily be seen when you examine a tree that has been cut directly across.
The different rings are also known as annular rings; the softer, white alburnum which is in between those rings, and the rays emanating from the center to the bark, attest to the effect of the secondary centers of gravity. These are indeed after-effects of a main stimulus; their approximate location in the tree is where the nuclei of all roots and branches join the main nucleus of the trunk. That is also where the seat of the main center of gravity, or heart of the tree, is located. An injury to the heart would irrecoverably cause death to the tree.
In such a manner as this the different effects are caused; the same applies to the Earth, only on a much greater scale. As in a tree from whose heart countless canals ascend, and as from the nucleus of a tree a multitude of even smaller cross-tubes run off and continually break through countless ascending canals, so it is in the body of the Earth. The closer the organs are to the heart, the larger they are. The farther they are from the heart, the smaller they become, and they are also considerably more branched out. By this description you will understand how the three parts of the Earth are connected with one another, and how the main center of gravity of the Earth works through the countless canals and their numerous intersections right to the surface, and how multiform the secondary centers of gravity are structured and equipped.
Now, from whence does the heart of the Earth receive the various fluids (that is, those which it initially moves through the progressively larger canals)? Not until they reach the intersections of the canals are they mixed into a second kind of mixed liquid. The closer they travel to the surface, the more mixed they become.
The following may be said in answer to this: a tree does not absorb anything other than the raindrops and the dew through its rootlets, but I have assigned chemists to its heart and stomach who understand how to filter and process the absorbed liquids thoroughly. Even if fluids arrive in the heart of the Earth as very simple substances, there the local chief chemists will carefully process them in the proper proportions. From there they are directed and carried through the appropriate canals, so that not one drop too much or too little of one or the other substance reaches its destination.
How this is accomplished cannot be explained in physical terms, but it can be explained spiritually, and we shall come back to this later. That is why no one should ask of what matter these prime substances are made in respect to Nature and then presume them to be carbon or oxygen, because in prime substances (It is to be understood that the term "Prime Substance" is a philosophical one; accordingly "the soul" is primarily an existing substance. -ED.) there is very little material matter. The soul of an animal as well as that of a human being is substantial, and beyond that there is very little carbon and oxygen in the body.