Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 19 September 1906

25. Power and Substance

The primordial beginning of all things, the primordial force itself, is an undifferentiated unity. It is at the same time infinitely large and infinitely small. It is center and periphery and the fullness of infinite life that flows through everything, that connects center and periphery. It is the greatest rest and the greatest activity at the same time. It is the unceasingly acting power, which knows no interruption of the effect. It is light without shadow as well as darkness without light; it is everything as well as nothing. We cannot understand the action of the One, but we can form pictures from the revealed laws of the laws according to which the elemental force expresses itself in the world.

We observe the following: The coarser a substance, the less own power to express itself it contains. The finer a substance, the stronger effects it exerts on the environment. A piece of ice exerts less effect on the environment than the same substance, when refined by heat, as water. The water has like all liquid the aspiration of the effect in the environment. When water is further expanded and refined by higher degrees of heat, it has an even greater effect in the environment as a vapor.

Now we can conclude according to this observation: The finer the substance, the greater is its force in the environment; the substances in finer states are the forces which act in the substances in coarser states, which penetrate into the interstices between the atoms of the remaining substances, stretch the atoms, refine them, draw them closer together, so that the refinement of the substance also causes it to become more continuous than before. In the solid there are no substances really touching each other. All physical atoms are stored in such a way that they oscillate in a free field and do not touch each other in any point. How divisible the solid substances are, we all see in every process, whereby we detach parts from solid substances by mechanical interventions or detach them from solid things. In the same way we cannot detach parts from liquid or gaseous substances. If I take out a part from a quantum of water by scooping it out, the gap is immediately supplemented by influx of the remaining water and fills it. The liquid does not tolerate a separation in the way like the solid, it has also the strength to supplement a gap; the solid cannot do that in the way from own strength. If I take away something solid and bring it to another place, the solid, which surrounds the resulting gap, does not strive to fill the gap. But from the water we know that it has this aspiration. And it is known that all water on earth is in constant motion, by flowing or evaporation on the one hand and by compression on the other. If there is a gap somewhere in the liquid, all liquid in the environment has the ambition to fill this gap. All work with water power is based on this.

We can conclude according to the observations that everything liquid of the earth always strives where gaps arise in the liquid to fill these gaps. Which power the liquid shows thereby, we recognize by the fact that it soaks solid, dissolves, washes away, paths through it.

The same laws as with the liquid we observe with the air-shaped; also that does not tolerate gaps. Gaps in air-shaped substances are immediately filled by the surrounding substances of the environment. The aeriform has even greater force than the liquid. The individual particles of the aeriform are even smaller than the individual particles of the liquid. They are also not as far apart as the particles of the liquid and have greater tension.

The aeriform is permeated by still finer substances, the ether in its various degrees of density; and this ether again has greater forces than the aeriform and has even more of a tendency to fill in all the gaps. It is even more continuous than the aeriform and in even greater tension.

If we penetrate further in this way into the properties of substances, we find: The most solid substances are the least powerful and possess the coarsest composition, and the individual particles are the farthest apart and possess the least tension. The finer the substance, the smaller the individual particles, the closer they are to each other, the greater the tension the substance possesses and the greater the force. The force by which a coarser substance is held in tension, that is the finer substance. In comparison with a coarser substance, a finer substance is the force, and in comparison with a still finer substance, which manifests itself in it as force, the same thing that acts as force in the coarser substance is the substance for the finer force. The finer substance is therefore always the force which gives certain forms to the coarser substance. The coarser substance is built into the finer substance. All the interstices between the atoms of the coarser substance are filled by the finer substances.

Just as the solid substances are filled and permeated by the liquid, so the liquid is permeated by the aeriform, the aeriform by the ethereal, and so on. Thus finer and finer substances penetrate the coarser ones. If we pursue this further, into the ever finer substances, we must one day come to a substance which is the finest, which is quite continuous, so that the individual particles touch each other completely, merge into each other, which is at the same time the finest, but also the most continuous, which possesses the greatest tension and at the same time the greatest force, which carries all others within itself and penetrates all others. And this is the one primordial force and primordial substance, which carries and unites all substances and forces in itself, which keeps everything that is in tension and thereby gives strength and life to everything that exists. It is at the same time the smallest, according to the individual particle, but also the greatest, because all individual parts form a uniform whole, because its substance is continuous. Its reflection

is the physical atom, because there also all forces have penetrated up to the primeval force, because it contains all forces in the germ.

While this primal force and primal substance has caused all substances and forces to come forth from itself, it also lives, on the other hand, in all that is, and it descends to the physical plan, where it is concentrated in the individual atoms. The physical plan is thus saturated by all higher forces just as the elemental force contains all lower forces in itself. The primordial force, which embraces everything, has divided everything else out of itself by condensing the individual particles, by diminishing the tension, by decreasing the continuity, until at last it reached the point on the physical plan where the tension had almost disappeared, where the individual particles were the coarsest, where they were farthest apart, where they had the least force of their own. But that is precisely why the physical plan is the one on which the forces can all, up to the primordial force, be expressed in objective forms. The less own force a substance possesses, the more dependent it is on other forces, the easier other forces can work in it. The physical plane - and especially the mineral kingdom - was the one where the higher forces could work and express themselves most easily, because there they found the least force of their own, the least resistance. The solid substances of the physical plane possess only very little tension. But a stronger tension force expresses itself also in the physical in the magnetism, in the electricity and in the radioactivity. Radioactivity is a greater tension force, which tears apart the physical atoms, refines them and thereby gives them themselves greater tension force, the effort to fill their environment, and therefore the continued radiation of such fine particles takes place that a decrease in the volume of the radioactive body is hardly noticeable. The radioactive body is put into a tension which exceeds the tension of the liquid and the aeriform. Thus, very fine ether currents must cause this tension.

In magnetism we also observe increase of the tension force in such a way that solid iron particles and the like are attracted by the magnet iron in such tension. The tension force of one magnet stimulates the tension force in related substances and thus overcomes gravity. Heaviness is the lack of its own tension force. Air is less heavy than water and the solid because it itself has greater tension. If greater tension force occurs anywhere in the solid, gravity is overcome, as in the attraction of the otherwise heavy iron by the magnet.

Electricity is also the expression of a force in greater tension, of a substance whose individual particles are much closer to each other than the particles even of the aeriform. It is an expression of the tension force and the continuity of a much finer substance, which permeates everything physical. Because this substance has so much greater tension, it has so much more power and is also continuous in such a way that no other connection is needed. The time must come when one can make use of this greater power, which lies in the finer, more continuous substance, in such a way that all solid substances are considered superfluous for its mediation. If we now still conduct electricity through wires, it is because we do not yet know how to influence the finer substance directly, and do not yet know how to evoke the greater force, but only indirectly through other substances in which it is most easily awakened. Keely must have known how to seek out this finer substance and greater force in its own house, so to speak, that is, to get in touch with this force directly, while the others reach it only in a roundabout way and through mediation, and excite it to action. The use of wireless telegraphy is an approach to the real one, without the mediating media of other substances.

In order for man to operate with the finer forces, he must refine himself. He must adapt the coarser forces more and more to the finer ones. By refining the physical body, the human soul could be expressed more and more in it. Through refinement of the soul, the spirit could connect more and more with the soul. This refinement of the substances transforms the substance itself into the power that works in it. The descent of the cosmic evolution was the transformation of the force into more and more dense substances, through decrease of force, decrease of tension and continuity. The ascent of man, who is a seed of the cosmic forces, consists in the transformation of substances into forces, by refinement of substances, by increase of tension, by increase of continuity. As the physical substance is now, it is not continuous; so also the soul of man is not yet continuous, nor is his consciousness.

When man refines his physical substance, he transforms this substance into force; when he refines his soul substance, this is also transformed into force; it approaches more and more the spiritual substance, which acts in it as force. The refinement of the soul substance is brought about by purification and transformation of the passion, the kamic fire in man. The passion must be spiritualized, as the fire is transformed into light by transformation into finer substances. By the still higher substance, the divine spirit, working as a force in the soul, the soul-substance is transformed, raised a step higher; its power of tension is strengthened; it becomes more continuous, and therefore its expressions as forces also become more continuous. The life of the soul runs in larger lines; it becomes more rhythmic, and therefore also the consciousness can run more rhythmically, become more continuous. Because the soul substance has become more similar to the spirit substance, the higher force, which expresses itself as consciousness in the various substances of man, can also pass uninterruptedly from one substance to another, whereas this is not possible as long as there are such great differences between the soul of man and the divine spirit in him that consciousness can only descend from a higher sphere to the lower or, conversely, ascend with interruption and unrhythmically. Thus the refined, transformed substance of one sphere of existence forms the bridge, the bond to the next higher substance. Our whole ascent to higher worlds is given into our hands; we reach it by purification, which transforms substance into force, just as our descent has been effected by transformation of force into substance. The power which we gain for ourselves, through this transformation of substance, then enables us to enter into connection with all the related parts of this power. If we transform our soul-substance into higher power, we are enabled to find access to all soul-forces of the world by means of the attained soul-power. If we transform our lower thoughts into higher thought life, the world thoughts will flow to us. If we transform our life force into a higher, purer, selfless life, we enter into connection with the higher world life. We can do this because all forces and all substances have flowed together in us to build us up. We live and rest in the elemental force and elemental substance and in all the substances and forces that it has given rise to. And in every atom of our physical body there is a confluence of all cosmic forces. And every atom of our physical body is surrounded and flowed through by all cosmic substances. Therefore, there is nothing for man that he cannot even achieve. The means for everything are given to him in the building up of his whole being; the power is sunk into him by the elemental power itself. For the first time this comes to man's consciousness when his ego awakens, after the first contact of the elemental force, with the most powerless solid substance formed out of it. From then on the elemental force could begin to work through the individual human egos into the solid matter. Through the human individualities the outer transformation of the cosmos has then begun. They work around the solid form of the earth through the inspirations of the divine spiritual power in them. In nature around us we are to recognize the laws according to which everything comes into being and develops, and according to these laws man too is to cooperate consciously in the whole. The substances for development he has all in himself in every atom, the power is sunk into him and he is eternally connected with the elemental power; the laws according to which this power is to work in him with his substances bestowed upon him, he recognizes in the realms of nature around him. He is called to rule in these realms of nature; but in order to be able to work in them with all his powers, he must first become the ruler of his powers. After he has arranged everything that is in him and inserted it into the rhythm of the elemental force, he can also help to transform the whole environment and pass it over into ever greater harmony.