Life In The Stars - An Exposition of the View That on Some Planets of Some Star Exist Beings Higher Than Ourselves, and on One a World-Leader, the Supreme Embodiment of the Eternal Spirit Which Animates the Whole

by Francis Younghusband

This later work by Francis Younghusband was originally published in 1927 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Life in the Stars' is a work on spiritualism that promotes the view that a higher spirit being resides somewhere in the cosmos. Francis Younghusband was born in 1863 at Munree, British India, the son of Major-General John W. Younghusband and Clara Jane Shaw. Younghusband travelled extensively throughout Asia, exploring the Changbai Mountains and areas of Manchuria. He also navigated an uncharted route from Kashgar to India through the Mustagh Pass, which earned him the honour of being elected as the youngest member of the Royal Geographical Society. He wrote widely on the subject of his travels, producing works such as: 'The Heart of a Continent' (1896), 'South Africa of To-day' (1899), 'India and Tibet' (1910), and 'Kashmir' (1911). He also wrote several works of a mystical nature.

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Sir Francis Edward Younghusband was born on 31 May 1863 in Muree on the North-West Frontier of British India (now in Pakistan), the son of Major-General John W. Younghusband and Clara Jane Shaw. Younghusband married Helen Augusta Magniac, with whom he had two children, a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Eileen Younghusband. Their daughter went on to become a prominent social worker. He died on 31 July 1942 in Dorset, England.

Younghusband attended Clifton College, Bristol, before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1881. After his time at the Academy he was commissioned as a Subaltern in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards where he began his military career. He rose through the ranks and in 1902, due to fears of Russian expansion, the now Major Younghusband, was promoted to the position of British Commisioner to Tibet, a post he held until 1904. He was an explorer of the Gobi Desert and Manchuria. In 1906, he became British Resident in Kashmir.

He returned to Britain in 1909 and became involved and interested in religious/spiritual matters. He was a member of the India Society and became friends with many Indians in Britain.

Younghusband was elected President of the Royal Geographic Society in 1919, and two years later became Chairman of the Mount Everest Committee which was set up in 1921 to co-ordinate the reconnaissance of Mount Everest. He actively encouraged climbers, including George Mallory, to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and they followed the same initial route as the earlier Tibet Mission.

In 1933 he attended the Second Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He then became involved in the organization and leadership of the World Fellowship of Faith's congress in London, to be held in 1936. Subsequent congresses were held in places such as Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, Paris in 1939, in which Younghusband continued to take a leading role.

Younghusband wrote twenty-six books between 1895 and 1942 on topics ranging from exploration and mountaineering to philosophy and politics.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM: I READ THIS SO NO ONE ELSE HAS TO - YOU'RE WELCOME!

Well, this is some crazy, hippy-dippy shit here. Which in a weird way, only makes me like Francis Younghusband all the more - not content to rest on his already-considerable accomplishments, he still threw himself into the deep end of the pool here, despite (I'm sure) a lot of those folks closest to him asking "just what the #@$! are you going for here??" If you don't already know who Younghusband was, you probably aren't reading this anyway - but quick summary, he was a late 19th century explorer and player of the Great Game against early Russian expansion, and led the 1904 British Invasion of Tibet…you can learn more from a quick Google or Wiki search, although my favorite brief introduction - if only for the title - is right here: https://www.adventure-journal.com/201...


In later life, Younghusband became a bit of a "mystic" - and with his much later life promotion of such ideals as free love, he has even been called "the first hippie." So yes, a strangely complex individual indeed.

But as to this book: Younghusband starts out on fairly solid and even ahead-of-his-time ground. He makes a reasonably compelling argument for the near certainty of life on other planets, based on then-current advances in astronomy. This certainly isn't "Drake equation"-level analysis, (for that I would direct you to the excellent and similarly long-titled Exoplanets: Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar Planets, and the New Search for Life beyond Our Solar System), but not bad for it's time.

However, no sooner does he provide a semi-scientific rationale for the possibility of extra-terrestrial life than he pivots to the below:

From science we gathered that among the thousand million stars, five thousand might be attended by bodies which would form possible abodes for life. From philosophy we gathered that the universe in its essential nature is spiritual, and is driven in creative activity under the direction of the Genius of the Whole. And now we infer that, impelled by this activity, living beings must exist on those five thousand bodies, and that some of those beings must be of a higher order than ourselves. And if only one in a hundred carried beings on the same level as ourselves there would be fifty such bodies. And if only one in a thousand had beings higher than ourselves, there would still be five such bodies.

So we can now proceed on the assumption that there are five planets attendant on five stars - five out of five thousand million stars - which carry beings higher than ourselves. And to learn more about the higher characteristics of the universe, and therefore about its real nature, and from this be able to infer something of the character of these higher beings, we will turn from Science and Philosophy to Poetry and Religion….

…and THEN things get weird. What follows from there reads like the transcript of a pot-filled Berkeley dorm room all-nighter in the mid-60s. The following are just miscellaneous hits from opening the book at random:

Possessed of delicate sense-organs, enabling them to respond to a much wider range than we can of vibrations in the ether, they would be able to discriminate finer shades of colour, and to hear fuller and sweeter sounds…they would be able to find and create more beauty and a richer and fairer music. And therefore we may confidently assume that dance and song occupy much of the lives of the higher beings.

They are more than human-beings. They are world-beings. They feel their membership of the World as a Whole; and are filled with a World-love and a World-loyalty.

Of this Eternal Spirit the same yesterday, today, and for ever, in one star as in every other, the World-Leader would for the time being be the most perfect embodiment.



Still...all said and done, and looking back from the near-apocalyptic COVID-19/Donald Trump world in which we currently find ourselves, I have to admit that I was charmed by his Victorian innocence and optimism. As we're finding out with Dr. Fauci, maybe we should leave science to the scientists. But there's nothing wrong with believing that it eventually gets better; the world and people will get better; that the trend in spiritual development is towards a higher, more-selfless level of awareness and (gasp!) behavior.

But in the meantime - man, is this one weird book. Thank you, you strange, complex, historical badass!