If there was no substance or substantiality in the atmosphere, it could not affect and destroy substance, for, without tangibility, it would pass through substances, creating no visible disturbance. Vague nothingness never yet compelled obedience from solid matter. That which disturbs and moves is much more powerful than that which is disturbed and moved.
Thought, upon whatever plane of action we consider life, is the creator and controller of all conditions. There is not, never was, nor ever will be, a type of life so low in the evolutionary scale, as to be devoid of some kind or specie of thought. In the humblest and simplest types, this thought can vent itself in no higher form than a desire for the presence of kinds similar to itself.
Thought is subject to evolution and progression as much as any form of Infinite Life. From this one thought of desire, springs, in diversified and innumerable channels, all kinds and manners of thought. One and all having their primary origin in this humble beginning, the same as all the high achievements and possibilities man can hope to accomplish in the Infinite Ages, lie dormant in the embryo babe.
The babe, while in the state of embryo development, can express very few and limited powers; but its soul, or spirit, must contain all the latent essential powers the man will manifest throughout Eternity. Otherwise, circumstances, however potent and powerful, could not materialize the effects which are observable.
There is no power, be it ever so strong, that can evoke and bring forth from a life, qualities and characteristics foreign to it. Those same characteristics may be magnified, enlarged or intensified, until their true proportions are lost sight of, but is there a new factor infused into the soul? No.
A hypnotist, or psychologist, when we view them in a scientific light, is nothing but a magnet, which, consciously or unconsciously, influences and controls many, who possess similar innate traits of spirit upon different planes or stages of development.
To the minds of many, a hypnotist or psychologist is one who, by a firm and determined exercise of will, acquires the power, when they choose to assert it, to influence less self-centered minds. It is, of course, to be understood that many men who call themselves wise, believe not at all in the efficacy of one man's mind to control another man's consciousness, but all students of life know it is not what one, many, or indeed, all men believe to be true, that is the motive power of progression, but what the Infinite Law directs.
Those men who deny the creative power of thought, attributing all favorable results to the fiat dictation of a Supreme Personal Intelligence, are to be pitied rather than censured.
One might as well deny a rose seed will bring forth a rose, if it brings forth any result at all, as to say "thought is not the motive cause of every expressed result." Without a foregoing cause, there would be no motion or action of any kind. Man never moves his limbs without a thought "I want to go to such a place"; he would not have food in his stomach, if there was not the thought of hunger, which causes him to carry food from his hands to his mouth, and so on. There might be the most bountiful of feasts spread before him, and if his desire could not inspire activity and motion in his arms and hands, he might starve with plenty of edibles in sight, unless some person were inspired to feed him. His arms, hands and limbs will not operate until there has been a foregoing thought.
If his thought or desire is strong, the physical members are but humble instruments that obey his will as operator.