Eureka Video 4

Eureka - Text w/ annotations

https://www.belladeflor.com/s/Eureka-Video-4-Annotations-Bella-DeFlor.pdf

EUREKA Video Script

The Divine Law Behind Gravity

This is Video 4 of my breakdown of Eureka, Edgar Allan Poe’s final and most misunderstood work. If you’ve been following along, you know that Eureka is the bridge between literature, spirituality, science, and metaphysics.

If you’re new here, my name is Bella DeFlor, and I’m breaking down Eureka section by section to uncover what Edgar Allan Poe understood about the creation of the universe. You can watch previous videos on my channel @IsabelEthereal. If you want to read this section of Eureka with my annotations, the link is in the comments. You can also follow me on all platforms to stay connected for more content like this.

The Foundation: Original Unity

In the first video, we began with Poe’s idea of Original Unity.
In the beginning, everything was one—no stars, no atoms, no light—just a single, indivisible whole.
That One diffused itself into many: suns, worlds, particles, consciousness.
Creation, for Poe, is the act of Unity becoming multiplicity.

The Finite and the Infinite

In the second video, we explored the finite and the infinite.
Poe tells us infinity isn’t endless distance but endless possibility.
The finite universe can expand, but not without limit.
Everything that expands must eventually return.
The universe, he says, is not falling apart because it’s held in a perfect rhythm of expansion and reunion.

The Soul of the Universe

Then, in the third video, we entered the scientific world of Newton—where Poe was already speaking about ideas that anticipate Einstein’s theory of relativity.
In that video, we explored gravity not as a simple physical force, but as the universe’s soul.
For Poe, gravity is the yearning of all things to return to their source.
It’s not just attraction—it’s memory.
It’s a cosmic remembrance of the One.

The Divine Law Behind Gravity

Now, in this fourth video, we go deeper into that mystery.
We enter the section I call The Divine Law Behind Gravity.

Here, Poe explains how matter was diffused from Unity, how it spreads geometrically, and how gravity itself becomes the instrument of return—the reaction to the first act of creation.

Poe begins this section by imagining the original act of diffusion.
Every atom, he says, was once gathered in perfect unity.
Then, through divine volition—through will—those atoms were sent outward in every direction.
Not randomly, but equally, geometrically, and intentionally.

This is what he calls irradiation.
It’s the pulse that sends creation outward, like light from a center.
The atoms move away, filling space, but they never escape the sphere created by that first motion.
Each pulse weakens as it expands, until it reaches the outer edge of the sphere—and then the return begins.

The universe breathes out through irradiation and breathes in through gravity.
Two movements, one law.

If the outward pulse is the exhale of God, then gravity is the inhale—the return to source.
And that’s the rhythm Poe says we’re all living within.

Geometry, Order, and Infinity

He explains that as these atoms move outward, they move with order, not chaos.
Each particle holds a relationship with every other particle.
Their diffusion follows exact geometric proportion—the same inverse-square law that defines light, gravity, and sound.

So creation isn’t random.
It’s geometric.
And because geometry repeats according to divine law, creation gives the appearance of infinity in design.

For Poe, the universe itself is finite, because it has an end—and that end is its return to the One—but the pattern that moves through the universe is endless.
Infinity, he says, isn’t something beyond us; it’s the repetition of divine order within us.

If you could see the whole structure—the way atoms expand and return—you’d realize the universe is built like a living equation.
And that equation is the expression of divine will.

The Return: Gravity as the Reaction

Once those atoms reach the edge of expansion and can go no farther, they begin to pull back.
That is gravity.
That’s the moment where irradiation reverses itself.
Every atom begins its journey back home.

In Poe’s system, gravity isn’t a mystery but a pull back to origin.
It’s the same law acting in reverse—the same geometry that scattered matter now gathers it.

Because everything expands and returns equally, Poe says the entire cosmos is one continuous act, not two.
Creation and return are not opposites; they are phases of the same divine motion.

The Sun as a Living Example

At this point, Poe adds something that still feels revolutionary today.
He says that even the Sun is one condensation point in that universal return.
The Sun wasn’t separately created—it’s a gathering of atoms that were once diffused, now drawn together by the same universal law of gravity.

He describes the Sun as having once been an enormous sphere—billions of miles wide—that slowly condensed into its current form.
And even now, he says, that condensation isn’t finished.
The same law that created the Sun continues to act within it.
Creation never stops.

From the Sun’s mass, other smaller condensations—the planets—were formed, each holding the same balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces: between outward and inward motion, between the urge to expand and the will to return.

The Harmony of Divinity

Poe then shifts from the physical to the divine again.
He says the more we study these motions—gravity, orbit, light—the clearer it becomes that they are not random.
They’re too harmonious.
Too ordered.

He calls this harmony the evidence of divinity itself.
The law of beauty is the law of truth.

Even if there are inconsistencies in the details—even if one planet behaves differently than another—the larger pattern holds.
The beauty of the whole system is proof of its divine origin.

For Poe, science and spirituality are not opposites.
They are reflections of one another.
Science shows us how God acts.
Spirituality shows us why.

The First Cause

Here, Poe begins to challenge his readers directly.
He says modern science is too focused on what he calls “secondary causes.”
We describe how things move—gravity, momentum, velocity—but we ignore why motion exists at all.

He argues that there must be a First Cause.
Something before gravity, before light, before even the first atom.
He names that First Cause Divine Volition—the will of God.

He calls it not a finger reaching down to move the planets, but a living law that sustains itself—what he calls continuous volition.
God doesn’t interfere in nature; God is nature.
The divine will never stops expressing itself through the balance of all things.

Poe calls it cowardly to separate science from divinity.
He says the fear of merging them is the fear of thinking freely.
And that fear keeps us from seeing the truth—that nature and God are one and the same.

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then every atom, every orbit, every force must already be part of divine design.
There can be no chaos, no accident, no contradiction.
Even what looks like randomness is order we don’t yet understand.

Anyone willing to see clearly will recognize that every natural law is just one expression of the same divine principle.
And that principle is Unity—the One expressing itself as the many, then gathering itself again.

The Principle of the Cosmogony

This is what Poe calls the Principle of the Cosmogony, the foundation of his entire theory.
All things, all forces, all laws are consequences of a single act:
the diffusion of Unity into multiplicity, and its destined return.

In one sentence, Poe fuses physics, philosophy, and spirituality into a single truth:
The universe is God, in motion.

The Mode of Return

Poe closes this section with his final correction to science.
He rejects the image of a divine hand physically setting the planets in motion.
He calls that idea childish.
The true cause, he says, lies in the natural return of atoms toward their source.
Rotation and motion are not imposed from outside; they arise naturally from the inward pull of divine law.

Gravity itself, he says, is the mode of return.
It’s the proof that everything longs to reunite with the One.

When he calls gravity “the reaction to the first act,” he means the universe is still reacting to the original creation—still returning from the moment it first expanded.
Everything that exists is part of that single breath—the outward and inward motion of God.

And in his final line, he brings it all together:
While all things were thus constituted a portion of God.

Everything that exists is divine in nature.
Every atom, every law, every thought, every form—all are fragments of God in motion.
The universe isn’t separate from its source.
It is the source, still expressing itself.

Why This Matters

In this fourth section of Eureka, Poe shows us how gravity, geometry, and divinity converge.
Diffusion becomes creation.
Irradiation becomes motion.
Gravity becomes return.
And divine volition becomes the will behind it all.

This is why Edgar Allan Poe matters—because he dared to merge science and spirit.
He saw that the laws of nature were not mechanical, but intentional.
That what we call gravity, light, and motion are the visible faces of a living intelligence.

The universe is not a machine—it’s a memory.
A continuous remembering of the One that created it.

Thank you for reading this fourth installment of my Eureka series.
If you haven’t seen the previous videos, you can find them linked below.
To read this section with my full annotations, visit www.BellaDeFlor.com.

If this work resonates with you, please like, share, or comment to help this message reach others.

— Bella DeFlor