"informed readers today know, for example, that there is no such thing as "the ether," but that we now know that the "electromagnetic spectrum" better describes how energy travels throughout the universe. "
Many authors in that period (like Frank Channing Haddock) also used the "ether" in discussions. While dismissed for a long time, it's coming back.
Echo of Black Holes; December 2005; Scientific American Magazine; by Theodore A. Jacobson and Renaud Parentani;"Sound waves in a fluid behave uncannily like light waves in space. Black holes even have acoustic counterparts. Could spacetime literally be a kind of fluid, like the ether of pre-Einsteinian physics?"
More importantly, the reason these authors were citing the "ether" was that there was a universal force that you "transmitted" your thoughts and intentions throughout the universe. That's still true.
Stephen
Power-Book Library: Free personal development, success, inspiration and motivational classics