I do not say that thought actually passes into substance, or mind into matter, by way of action—I do not know what thought is—but every thought involves bodily change, i.e. action, and every action involves thought, conscious or unconscious. The action is the point of juncture between bodily change, visible and otherwise sensible, and mental change which is invisible except as revealed through action. So that action is the material symbol of certain states of mind. It translates the thought into a corresponding bodily change.
ii
When the universal substance is at rest, that is, not vibrating at all, it is absolutely imperceptible whether by itself or anything else. It is to all intents and purposes fast asleep or, rather, so completely non-existent that you can walk through it, or it through you, and it knows neither time nor space but presents all the appearance of perfect vacuum. It is in an absolutely statical state. But when it is not at rest, it becomes perceptible both to itself and others; that is to say, it assumes material guise such as makes it imperceptible both to itself and others. It is then tending towards rest, i.e. in a dynamical state. The not being at rest is the being in a vibratory condition. It is the disturbance of the repose of the universal, invisible and altogether imperceptible substance by way of vibration which constitutes matter at all; it is the character of the vibrations which constitutes the particular kind of matter. (May we imagine that some vibrations vibrate with a rhythm which has a tendency to recur like the figures in a recurring decimal, and that here we have the origin of the reproductive system?)
We should realise that all space is at all times full of a stuff endowed with a mind and that both stuff and mind are immaterial and imperceptible so long as they are undisturbed, but the moment they are disturbed the stuff becomes material and the mind perceptible. It is not easy to disturb them, for the atmosphere protects them. So long as they are undisturbed they transmit light, etc., just as though they were a rigid substance, for, not being disturbed, they detract nothing from any vibration which enters them.
What will cause a row will be the hitting upon some plan for waking up the ether. It is here that we must look for the extension of the world when it has become over-peopled or when, through its gradual cooling down, it becomes less suitable for a habitation. By and by we shall make new worlds.
Mental and Physical
A strong hope of £20,000 in the heart of a poor but capable man may effect a considerable redistribution of the forces of nature—may even remove mountains. The little, unseen impalpable hope sets up a vibrating movement in a messy substance shut in a dark warm place inside the man’s skull. The vibrating substance undergoes a change that none can note, whereupon rings of rhythm circle outwards from it as from a stone thrown into a pond, so that the Alps are pierced in consequence.
Vibrations, Memory and Chemical Properties
The quality of every substance depends upon its vibrations, but so does the quality of all thought and action. Quality is only one mode of action; the action of developing, the desire to make this or that, and do this or that, and the stuff we make are alike due to the nature and characteristics of vibrations.
I want to connect the actual manufacture of the things a chicken makes inside an egg with the desire and memory of the chickens, so as to show that one and the same set of vibrations at once change the universal substratum into the particular phase of it required and awaken a consciousness of, and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular phase on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it. So, for example, that a set of vibrations shall at once turn plain white and yolk of egg into the feathers, blood and bones of a chicken and, at the same time, make the mind of the embryo to be such or such as it is.