Fascinating! I think it's better to look at Hubble's law then the cosmological constant in this particular regard. Hubble's law was published at the end 20's decade. If you contemplate the law it follows naturally (although counter-intuitively) that very far away galaxy's might speed away from each other faster then the speed of light. How this can be understood with regard to relativistic effects or the uncross-able universal light speeding law is another intriguing topic. So perhaps Stapledon thought of this or someone else thought about this (Lemaitre?) and Stapledon read or heard it. With regard to the cosmological constant, Einstein dropped it but Lemaitre didn't. Lemaitre argued in the early 1930's that the rate of expansion of the universe was accelerating. http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Without-Yesterday-Cosmology/dp...

"Lemaître was then invited to London in order to take part in a meeting of the British Association on the relation between the physical Universe and spirituality. There he proposed that the Universe expanded from an initial point, which he called the "Primeval Atom" and developed in a report published in Nature.[15] Lemaître himself also described his theory as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation"; it became better known as the "Big Bang theory," a pejorative term coined during a BBC radio broadcast by Fred Hoyle who was an obstinate proponent of the steady state universe, even until his death in 2001." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

So some have (mistakenly) attributed intuition of dark energy to Einstein and his cosmological constant or some like you would argue that Stapledon was spectacularly smart or lucky but I think I'd attribute it to Lemaitre and I think indirectly (or directly) Stapledon heard or read about this. Perhaps as an academic he was even present at the "British Association" meetup on science and spirituality.

But if so, why did Lemaitre keep Einstein's cosmological constant in his own work and why did he think the expansion rate of the universe was increasing?

Even so I'd like to believe Stapledon really was traveling among the stars 'in some way', also his description of the out of body experience is oddly similar to credible accounts later in the 20th century and might be autobiographical but if not could be explained by him reading earlier accounts of this psychological effect.

edit: apparently Lemaitre discovered Hubble's law before Hubble did! http://www.universetoday.com/90862/the-expanding-universe-cr...

This kind of comment is what keeps me coming back to Hacker News. I didn't know that Lemaître had proposed that the expansion was accelerating -- actually, I didn't know much about Lemaître at all, truth be told. ( The Day Without Yesterday just went on my reading list -- thanks!). In any case, I guess Stapledon must have been working off of Lemaître's model, rather than cooking up something unique.

Still, like you, I do like to imagine that Stapledon tapped into something that was somehow beyond the ordinary. I don't feel like speculating beyond that, but however he did it, Star Maker is an extraordinary book.

As a humble scientist Lemaître didn't take the credit of the discovery of the expanding universe. Appearently there was a nice presentation by experimental particle astrophysicist Ariel Goobar at "Symposium - Georges Lemaître’s Big Bang In Modern Cosmology: A Celebration" last month: https://fys.kuleuven.be/ster/meetings/lemaitre/programme

At the end it states: "SNIa cosmology provides stunning confirmation of cosmic expansion – as predicted by Lemaitre in 1927! •  Expansion currently accelerating – as proposed early on by Lemaitre to explain the age of the Universe •  Is it Einstein’s CC or some exotic new phenomena? Observers busy trying to find out. Theory badly needed!"

Perhaps the dark energy is the combined weight of all those unproven undiscovered astral dimensions :-) Or perhaps it's something more mundane as unproven strings or quintessence: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/201... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12261-is-dark-energy-l... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintessence_(physics)

fsiekfen & nkoren:

Stapledon's works have inspired me to no end. He is brilliant and visionary. I humbly believe if his works were written now, they would still be ahead of their time. Now, as to the following:

1. fsiekfen: "Even so I'd like to believe Stapledon really was traveling among the stars 'in some way', also his description of the out of body experience is oddly similar to credible accounts later in the 20th century and might be autobiographical but if not could be explained by him reading earlier accounts of this psychological effect."

2. nkoren: "Still, like you, I do like to imagine that Stapledon tapped into something that was somehow beyond the ordinary. I don't feel like speculating beyond that, but however he did it, Star Maker is an extraordinary book."

The two of you and others I assume, might be curious to know about "The Opening of The Eyes" (there used to be an online version here (http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/openingoftheeyes_index....) but it's down now. If you like, I could make the .mobi file I created available somewhere from the various parts.

Not commonly known, as far as I can tell, even among Stapledon fans. It was published posthumously by his wife and is written in the first person. Essentially, it's an essay by him to his "creator". I won't comment on what that entails; hopefully his work speaks for itself. But within that story he mentions this - the exact quote:

"Long ago (it was while I was scrambling on a rugged coast, where great waves broke in blossom on the rocks) I had a sudden fantasy of man's whole future, aeon upon aeon of strange vicissitudes and gallant endeavours in world after world, seeking a glory never clearly conceived, often betrayed, but little by little revealed."

It says... something. I'm not sure what. Either way, the piece is a powerful expose on the author. You get to see a lot into his mindset, and even into the challenges he faced in relation to his proposed philosophies. Some interesting commentary on Christianity as well, among others.

But in the end, I guess you get the feeling there's more to him than simple imaginative power. The concept of "fiction as cover for non-fiction (so people will read your stuff without calling you a lunatic) tends to crop up in some of his works too. Either way, his works are nothing short of incredible.

Cheers

hi cosmicadvocate, thanks so much for your comment! I've been wondering years about his worldview as I recognized much of it from my own questions and answers. If only he'd be alive!

The link is fortunately still present in the internet archive, but if you have a mobi version handy that would be nice for offline reading on my ipad kindle app. You can sent it to fsieFKen at gmail.

There is more to him then simple creativity, he was an academic philosopher and romantic, yearning for the spiritual and his mystic side really shows in this book. There is some similarity with other writers like the dutch Frederik van Eeden (psychiatrist) and his book "The Deeps of Deliverance", Herman Hesse, Kahlil Gibran and Dostojevski.

"Olaf Stapledon married Agnes Zena Miller, a first cousin from Australia, on July 16, 1919, at Friends Meeting House, a Quaker establishment at Reigate, Surrey. Agnes, the oldest of four children, was born in New Zealand on May 25, 1894, the daughter of Frank Edward and Margaret Barnard Miller. Frank was a brother of Olaf's mother, Margaret the daughter of Charles Barnard, headmaster of a Quaker school in Yorkshire..." Stapledon spent four years in the Friends Quaker Ambulance Corps. "Although he was involved with socialist groups and contributed some articles to leftist journals, Stapledon's earliest literary aspirations were poetic. His first book was Latter-Day Psalms, published in 1914 by Henry Young and Sons, Ltd., of Liverpool." Stapledon's writing reflected intense wrestling with concepts of God and faith. Also: Olaf's agnosticism also derived from his parents. His father apparently subscribed to no sect at all, so any direct religious influence would therefore have had to come from his mother. She was a Unitarian... In his mature years Stapledon denied that he was a Christian, although the increasing strain of mysticism in his work from the 1940's on indicated a deep-rooted sense of religiosity. [Source: Olaf Stapledon: The Man Behind the Works, by Sam Moskowitz.] http://www.adherents.com/people/ps/Olaf_Stapledon.html

Sure thing. I'll send it on shortly.

There is more to him then simple creativity, he was an academic philosopher and romantic, yearning for the spiritual and his mystic side really shows in this book.

I know! I rushed a bit there, but one of things I cherish about Stapledon is his devotion to the nuance of the intangible, the senses, the "spirit" to which he so often refers. Perhaps one of his crowning contributions is that he melds embracing reality as it is and the essence of worship; it's so rare to find the two in the same place, I've found. Maybe I haven't search enough, and will take a trip through some of your suggestions, so thank you. And that link - an interesting site! Thank you for that as well.

For me, for what it's worth, I had spent years searching for something I couldn't quite place, and once I found him, realized it was this tremendous sense of scope, our littleness and such sensitivity to thought and creativity. At time he's so rich in descriptiveness a break helps, sure, and then you pick up again where you left off.