Header Image
    Cover of The Planet Mars and Its Inhabitants
    Science Fiction

    The Planet Mars and Its Inhabitants

    by

    CHAPTER XVI — The Risen Christ con­trasts the spir­i­tu­al prac­tices of Mars with those of Earth, par­tic­u­lar­ly in how the Mar­tians approach Christ’s teach­ings and the obser­vance of sig­nif­i­cant events like East­er. While Earth cel­e­brates the Res­ur­rec­tion on April 4, 1920, through rit­u­als that often focus on super­fi­cial aspects of the faith, the Mar­tians, hav­ing nev­er reject­ed Christ’s teach­ings, live in a con­stant state of spir­i­tu­al align­ment with His mes­sage. Rather than com­mem­o­rat­ing Christ’s cru­ci­fix­ion with sor­row or reflec­tion on past events, Mars lives in the per­pet­u­al pres­ence of Christ’s teach­ings, which is inte­grat­ed into their dai­ly lives. This view empha­sizes that the Mar­tians do not sim­ply com­mem­o­rate Christ’s death, but active­ly embody His lessons of love, humil­i­ty, and ser­vice, which allows them to live with a lev­el of grace and pow­er that mir­rors the mir­a­cles Christ and His dis­ci­ples per­formed.

    This reflec­tion on the spir­i­tu­al state of Earth reveals the dis­par­i­ty between the two worlds. For the Mar­tians, Earth’s spir­i­tu­al con­di­tion is cloud­ed by dark­ness, mis­un­der­stand­ing, and a super­fi­cial rela­tion­ship with Christ’s teach­ings. Earth has rel­e­gat­ed Christ to an ide­o­log­i­cal fig­ure rather than a liv­ing pres­ence in the hearts of its peo­ple. The Mar­tians observe Earth’s rit­u­als, such as Lent, with dis­may, not­ing how these prac­tices often focus on appear­ances rather than gen­uine spir­i­tu­al growth. While the peo­ple of Earth may out­ward­ly par­tic­i­pate in these reli­gious obser­vances, their hearts are not aligned with the true mes­sage of Christ. This serves as a pro­found cri­tique of the spir­i­tu­al mate­ri­al­ism that has over­tak­en many Earth­ly tra­di­tions, where rit­u­als are fol­lowed for the sake of tra­di­tion rather than deep­en­ing one’s con­nec­tion to the divine.

    The chap­ter sug­gests that the spir­i­tu­al growth of Mars offers an impor­tant les­son for Earth, propos­ing that Mar­tians live their lives accord­ing to Christ’s teach­ings in a way that Earth has yet to under­stand. The Mar­tians have reached a lev­el of spir­i­tu­al matu­ri­ty where they no longer need to focus on the exter­nal­i­ties of reli­gious obser­vance. Their lives are cen­tered around Christ’s mes­sage of love, and they per­form mir­a­cles through their unwa­ver­ing faith, which is not seen as a mark of per­son­al achieve­ment but as a nat­ur­al out­pour­ing of their con­nec­tion to the divine. In con­trast, Earth’s per­sis­tent denial of Christ’s teachings—through mate­ri­al­ism, self­ish desires, and the dis­tor­tion of His words—leads to a cycle of spir­i­tu­al stag­na­tion. This ongo­ing metaphor­i­cal cru­ci­fix­ion of Christ on Earth, where His lessons are mis­used or ignored for self­ish gain, serves as a reminder of the spir­i­tu­al work still required to align human­i­ty with Christ’s true teach­ings.

    Despite Earth’s spir­i­tu­al strug­gles, the Mar­tians hold out hope for human­i­ty, fore­see­ing a future where Earth will under­go a spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing. Through medi­ums and com­mu­nica­tive efforts, the Mar­tians believe that Earth can be guid­ed toward enlight­en­ment, ele­vat­ing human­i­ty to a high­er spir­i­tu­al plane. The hope is that one day, Earth will join the broad­er cos­mic com­mu­ni­ty, and in doing so, align itself with the divine prin­ci­ples that guide the uni­verse. Mars, hav­ing expe­ri­enced this pro­gres­sion, serves as a bea­con of pos­si­bil­i­ty, show­ing that spir­i­tu­al growth is not only achiev­able but inevitable when one is will­ing to embrace Christ’s teach­ings whole­heart­ed­ly. The Mar­tians, how­ev­er, cau­tion against com­pla­cen­cy, empha­siz­ing that the jour­ney to spir­i­tu­al enlight­en­ment is con­tin­u­ous and requires a con­stant align­ment with high­er prin­ci­ples.

    This chap­ter urges Earth to look inward, reflect­ing on its spir­i­tu­al fail­ings while con­sid­er­ing the poten­tial for trans­for­ma­tion. It chal­lenges human­i­ty to move beyond the mate­ri­al­is­tic dis­trac­tions that dom­i­nate mod­ern life and focus instead on spir­i­tu­al truths that tran­scend the phys­i­cal world. The Mar­tians, with their deep under­stand­ing of spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion, offer a vision of what Earth could become if it embraces the core teach­ings of Christ: a peace­ful, lov­ing, and spir­i­tu­al­ly aligned soci­ety that tran­scends the lim­i­ta­tions of phys­i­cal exis­tence. In this vision, Earth would not only join the Mar­tians in spir­i­tu­al har­mo­ny but also help to shape a uni­ver­sal com­mu­ni­ty based on mutu­al under­stand­ing, com­pas­sion, and divine love. Through this invi­ta­tion to reflect on and realign with Christ’s true mes­sage, the chap­ter empha­sizes the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of faith and the poten­tial for human­i­ty to over­come its cur­rent spir­i­tu­al chal­lenges. By doing so, Earth can real­ize its poten­tial and ful­fill its role in the grand cos­mic plan.

    Quotes

    FAQs

    Note