My curiosity has been piqued too. Russell didn't invent it, surely. So just where did the idea come from?
Here are some random, yet interesting, c&ps:
In 1846 Johann von Maedler of the Estonian Dorpat Observatory, an eminent lunar cartographer, had been measuring the motions of the various Pleiades stars. Finding that they showed no relative motion within the cluster, he that they were at the centre of the Galaxy, and Alcyone was the star at the centre of the known universe. For a brief period, until this erroneous argument was exposed, the Pleiades were the subject of intense public debate and much baseless speculation. - http://www.pleiade.org/pleiades_03.html
By examining the proper motions of stars, he came up with his "Central Sun Hypothesis", according to which the center of the galaxy was located in the Pleiades star cluster and that the Sun revolves around it. He got the location wrong. ...
... Notwithstanding several singular scientific errors J. H. von Mädler, without doubt, is one of the great and eminent astronomers of the 19th century. ... The craters Mädler on the Moon and Mädler on Mars are both named in his honor. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_M%C3%A4dler
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For a while during the 1800s, it was thought that the Pleiades were located at the exact center of the universe since measurements seemed to show that all the other stars moved around Pleiades. Today we know that the Pleiades group also moves; it is actually speeding away from the earth at 16,000 miles per hour."
(Astronomy and the Bible, Donald B. DeYoung)
"...there is a cluster of stars known as the Pleiades. This word, which means the congregation of the judge or ruler, comes to us through the Greek Septuagint as the translation of the Hebrew kimah, which means the heap or accumulation...
"It consists of a number of stars (in the neck of Taurus) which appear to be near together. The brightest of them...has come down to us with an Arabic name--Al Cyone, which means the centre, and has given the idea to some astronomers that it is the centre of the whole universe. The Syriac name for the Pleiades is Succoth, which means booths."
(The Witness of the Stars, E. W. Bullinger) - http://philologos.org/bpr/files/s004.htm
Bullinger's book was 1893. His etymologies of names were often screwy, but I guess it was common back then (A. Hislop, anyone?). He tried to find corroboration or patterns between the 'divine plan,' so-to-speak, in the Bible and the stars.
Here's a funny little extract from a preacher's sermon in the 1960s!!! And, looking around on the 'net, the idea still persists in some fringe Christian/new age corners.
Now, as far as God's throne and HIS Kingdom in the heavens is concerned, the center of al the Universe happens to be the throne of the MOST HIGH GOD. The Pleiades with its 7 little planets or suns, that you see when you look into the heavens, is the exact node center of the Universe, with Orion helping to form the elliptic of the orbits of a vast number of the planets, pulling them to one side as it pulls them away from the areas of their own suns. Thus, we have Orion the balancer, and we have the 7 suns of Pleiades which happens to be the 7 centered heavens, the exact node center of the Universe. In Job 38:31, it speaks about the influence of the Pleiades and this center of God's Kingdom. God has set HIS throne in heaven, but HE ruleth over all the Universe. In otherwords, the Father's sidereal systems which are still further out than you and I can ever be able to measure the existence of, or still further out at the farthermost extent of the range of our large telescopes, these sidereal systems are still revolving around the Pleiades, the center of the Universe. God is the absolute power in all of the Universe which was created by HIM, and for HIM. Created in the pattern's of the endless yesterdays of the Everlasting. 'Thou art out God in all generations.' (Psalms 90) - http://www.israelect.com/reference/WesleyASwift/sermons/68-10-20.htm
