Eureka - Video One
Eureka - Text w/ commentary
https://www.belladeflor.com/s/Eureka-Video-One-Commentary-by-Bella-DeFlor.pdf
EUREKA Video Script
What if I told you Edgar Allan Poe wasn’t just a master of psychological horror and Gothic literature? What if I told you he wrote the universe into being? In 1848, just a year before his death, Poe delivered a lecture in New York City titled “On the Universe.” But this wasn’t a scientific lecture in the traditional sense. It wasn’t about stars and galaxies the way astronomers spoke of them.
It was about reality.
Spirit.
Time.
And consciousness.
He then expanded the lecture into a full written work called Eureka: A Prose Poem. Poe didn’t call Eureka a scientific paper or even a theory. He called it a poem—because to him, creation wasn’t just mechanical. It was mythic.
This mirrors ancient traditions where the universe is spoken—or sung—into being:
· In Ancient Egypt, Ptah speaks the world into existence.
· In Hermeticism, the Logos is the divine word that generates all things.
· In Pythagoreanism, the music of the spheres reflects cosmic harmony.
· In Hinduism, the syllable Om is the vibration of creation.
· In Kabbalah, the Book of Creation speaks of forming the world through Hebrew letters and sound.
· In Gnostic texts, reality emanates through harmonic resonance.
· In Sufism, “Kun fayakūn” translates to “Be, and it is.”
It expresses divine creation through sound.
· In the Bible, in Genesis, God says: “Let there be light.”
He speaks life into existence.
Poe even writes in Eureka the phrase: “In the beginning…” As he is about to enter these cosmic, metaphysical viewpoints. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Because those exact words are also written in Genesis. Poe taps into this lineage. And in Eureka, he suggests that the universe itself is composed—like a poem— through vibration, harmony, and meaning.
In this video, I’ll introduce Poe’s Eureka, exploring key concepts on its opening pages. This video is part of a series. And I’ll be going through Eureka in chronological order within the poem. I will have a direct link in the comments so you can read the section of Eureka that I’m discussing—which will also include my own commentary. Feel free to drop your thoughts and questions in the comments.
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· Literature
· Consciousness
· Spirituality
· Esoteric knowledge
· Metaphysics
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I live in Los Angeles. I’m currently working on my first mythical fantasy series. And I’m dedicating my life to researching and sharing this kind of wisdom that I wish was taught in schools.
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Let’s begin with the Preface to Eureka, where Poe lays the groundwork for everything to come. And it reads as:
“To the few who love me and whom I love, To those who feel rather than think, To the dreamers and those who put their faith in dreams as in the only realities, I offer this book of truths, not in its character of truth-teller, But for the beauty that abounds in its truth, constituting it true.
To these I present the composition as an art product alone— Let us say as a romance— Or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a poem. What I here propound is true, therefore it cannot die; Or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, It will rise again to the life everlasting. Nevertheless, it is as a poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.”
– Edgar Allan Poe
I absolutely love this. Let’s break it down.
Poe dedicates Eureka:
· To the few who love him and whom he loves.
· To those who feel rather than think—people who lead with intuition over intellect.
· And to those who believe in dreams as reality.
This is important. Poe frames this work not for scientists but for intuitives, mystics, and dreamers. He’s telling us: To understand Eureka, we have to feel it. He offers it as a book of truths, but not because he wants to be seen as a prophet. He says it’s not the act of truth-telling that makes something true— It’s the beauty within the truth that reveals it as true.
Then he calls the universe a romance.
A poem.
A piece of art.
And finally, he says: If I’m to be judged after death… let it be by this work— Not by my stories. Not by public opinion. But by this. And that’s what I want to do here. Not dissect Poe’s life through rumor and myth but through what he believed was his most important creation: Eureka.
On the very first page, Poe writes:
“I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical— Of the Material and Spiritual Universe: Of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition, and its Destiny.”
That’s a lot. But what he’s really saying is: I’m going to speak about existence itself—across every layer. From math and matter to spirit and soul.
Today, we explain most of the universe through science and math. But there are still things that can’t be measured— Things that lie in the spiritual realm. And if you ask me— Maybe we just don’t have the consciousness yet to access certain truths. But we will. Just like people in Poe’s day…couldn’t have imagined the internet.
Poe then writes:
“In the Original Unity of the First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, With the Germ of their Inevitable Annihilation.”
He’s saying that everything comes from a unified Source—
What ancient philosophies might call:
· The One
· The Monad
· The Absolute
· The All
· The Logos
· The Divine Mind
· The Ground of Being
From this Original Unity, everything else comes into existence. Even something as simple as numbers follows this idea.
First there is 1.
Then 2, 3, 4, and so on…
But what comes before 1?
Zero.
Or even better—The Void.
Poe is asking the same thing: What comes before God? What comes before creation? And if there is a Source then all things must return to it.
Which brings us to the second half of that sentence:
“The germ of their inevitable annihilation.”
Everything that exists carries the seed of its own return. Its own destruction—not in a negative way, but as a cosmic cycle. Everything that is create must also dissolve— so it can return to unity.
Poe clarifies how he uses the word “Universe” in Eureka, and he writes:
“I mean to designate the utmost conceivable expanse of space, With all things, spiritual and material, That can be imagined to exist within the compass of that expanse.”
He wants us to understand: He’s not just talking about stars and planets. He’s talking about everything— The physical and non-physical. Matter and spirit. Thought and dream.
When he says “the universe of stars,” he’s just referring to the material layer. But the true Universe, in Eureka, includes: All of existence. Everything that ever was and everything that could be.
Let’s take a break right here. And I want you to reflect: How has Edgar Allan Poe been portrayed?
As an indecent madman?
A drunk?
A depressive who wrote about death?
Now compare that to everything I’ve just barely touched on within Eureka.
If you ask me— Edgar Allan Poe is highly advanced for his time. And I know these can be hard concepts to understand—especially when you’re first diving in.
If you’d like me to create more videos on topics like:
· Zeroes and Ones
· Or on how religion has used ancient texts
Let me know in the comments.
Okay.
So in order to understand Eureka, you must use your intuition. And you must understand that when Poe says “Universe” He means everything in it— Not just the cosmos.
Before Poe dives into the universe and how it was created, he takes a moment to challenge the way people were taught to think. He includes a fictional letter, in Eureka, supposedly written in the year 2848, found floating in a bottle in the Sea of Darkness. It’s clearly a playful, imaginative way for Poe to express his frustration with the rigid thinking of philosophers—in both his time and honestly… ours.
In this letter, Poe makes fun of the two main approaches to finding truth that have ruled for centuries:
First—Deductive reasoning: You start with a truth—or what you believe is a truth— and build from it logically. This method came from Aristotle, whom Poe jokingly calls “Aries Tottle.”
Second—Inductive reasoning: You observe the world, collect facts, and draw conclusions. This came from Francis Bacon, who Poe renames “Hog.”
What Poe is saying is: These two methods were treated as if they were the only valid ways to understand anything. If you couldn’t prove something through logic, or measure it through scientific observation, it was thrown out. No matter how true or profound it might be. That meant anyone who used intuition, imagination, or inner knowing, was considered a fool. A “theorist.” Their insights weren’t taken seriously.
Poe then writes: “No man dared utter a truth for which he felt himself indebted to his soul alone.”
Let that sink in. If your truth came from within—it didn’t count. And Poe is calling out the arrogance of that mindset. Then he goes even deeper— and challenges one of the most sacred beliefs in classical philosophy:
The axiom. Which is supposed to be a self-evident, undeniable truth.
He says:
“No such things as axioms ever existed,
Or can possibly exist at all.”
That’s a huge statement. He’s saying these so-called unshakable truths—the very foundation of logic—aren’t actually solid. He gives examples of past “axioms” that were once believed without question—but were later proven false:
“Nothing can come from nothing.”
“Darkness cannot come from light.”
All of these were once considered absolute truths. And yet… they were false. So why keep building our knowledge on systems that have already been proven… to shift? Poe even calls out philosopher John Stuart Mill. Mill had argued that contradictions couldn’t exist in nature— That a tree couldn’t be both a tree… and not a tree. That seems logical, right? But Poe flips it. He points out:Mill also said we can’t judge truth based on what we’re able—or unable—to imagine.
But then… Mill uses imagination to prove his point! He says contradictions can’t exist because we can’t imagine them.That’s a contradiction in itself.
So Poe asks: If imagination can’t prove truth then how can it disprove it? You can’t have it both ways.
Even our most trusted thinkers… contradict themselves. Here’s the thing:
Poe isn’t trying to destroy logic. He’s trying to free us from depending on it exclusively. He’s reminding us: Truth doesn’t always arrive through equations.
Sometimes, it arrives through:
Intuition
Vision
Resonance
And that truth… can be just as real. He closes this section by saying: Instead of following narrow paths of logic, the soul longs to freely explore— To think in ways that don’t follow one method or rulebook. To access truth not just through data, but by feeling for the pattern, the meaning, the deeper harmony.
This part of Eureka is Poe clearing the road.
He’s telling us: Before I show you how the universe was created… Let me show you why the ways we’ve been taught to think are broken. Only then can we begin to understand the real beauty of existence.
So here’s where it all starts to come together. What Poe is really doing here is breaking down the way we think we know anything at all. He looks at these systems:
Deductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning
And the way philosophers like Mill talk about logic—
And he says: It’s not that they’re wrong. It’s that they’re too thin. They’re missing the layers. Just like axioms are treated as self-evident truths— unchanging, reliable, a foundation— But Poe says no. Truth isn’t that simple. Real truth is layered. It’s not just a surface statement. It’s made of depth, time, and contradiction. So when you treat something as an absolute truth, and then new layers get revealed, you find out that “truth” wasn’t the whole picture. It wasn’t wrong. It was just partial.
Then you have deductive reasoning, which builds ideas from axioms. It turns truth into a formula: “If this, then that.” But Poe sees the danger in that. Because once you make truth a mechanical process, you lose its mystery. You lose the parts of it that can’t be measured. You lose its ability to evolve. Deductive reasoning is too committed to being “right” even when it’s built on incomplete assumptions.
And what about inductive reasoning—starting from observation? That sounds better, right? But Poe points out something profound: What if we’ve already missed the real starting point. Inductive reasoning depends on what we can see, touch, measure… But what if there were ten other starting points before the one we’re measuring? What if the truth began… before it took form? It’s like starting a story in the middle and thinking that’s where it began.
And then we get to John Stuart Mill, who Poe directly critiques. Mill says we shouldn’t base truth on what we can or can’t imagine. That’s fair. But then he turns arounSand uses imagination to prove something. Saying, for example, that a tree has to be either a tree or not a tree, because we can’t imagine it being both. That’s where Poe steps in and says: You can’t have it both ways. If imagination doesn’t prove truth, then it can’t disprove it either.
And here’s where Poe gets really deep. He says: Truth can exist without being directly experienced. Just because you haven’t touched it, or seen it, or logically proved it… Doesn’t mean it’s not real. Experience can make a truth visible, yes. But it doesn’t create the truth. It just reveals what was already there. And even then. What we see is only a piece. A single layer of something far deeper.
So what Poe is doing here is creating space for a different kind of knowing. Not just logic. Not just observation. But intuition. Imagination. Resonance. The kind of truth you feel in your body before you can explain it with words. The kind of truth that existed long before we had a name for it.
So after dismantling all the old ways of thinking. After showing us how axioms crumble, and logic contradicts itself. Poe doesn’t leave us with nothing. He offers us something else. He gives us…
Eureka.
And in Eureka, Poe begins to re-center our attention:
Not on formulas - But on feeling
Not on dogma - But on intuition
Not on intellect - But on soul
He starts speaking not as a scientist but as a poet. A mystic. A soul in search of origin.
This is why he dedicates Eureka:
“To those who feel, rather than to those who think.”
Because Poe knew: Thinking has limits. But feeling… Feeling doesn’t need to be infinite— Only deep enough to remember. Feeling is what allows us to reach past the fragmented world of matter… And return to the Original Unity behind it all.
I’m stopping here for now. I’ll continue with Eureka in my next video. You’ll find this section available on my website and linked in the comments. Thank you for watching.
Follow me @IsabelEthereal across all platforms.
Always think critically.
Question loudly.
And remember:
Echoes are not evidence.
There is more to unveil.
And I’ll be back soon.
