And each animal, including man, is made in the same way.  He has a prakritic body and an etheric body; a visible body and an invisible body; an earthly body and one “not made with hands,” in common touch with the whole universe.

Chapter Four

What a Teacher Should Teach

Let us suppose that a certain wise teacher of physics places a row of Bunsen burners under a long steel bar having a Daniell’s pyrometer at one end, and addresses his class (substantially) as follows: 

“At our last lecture we found that the matter of the universe permeated all space, but in two conditions, which we agreed to call physical and etheric, or tangible and intangible.  It is all the same matter, subject to the same laws, but differing in the rate of vibration, the physical matter vibrating through one great octave or plane, and the etheric vibrating through another great octave or plane one degree higher—­the chording vibration of the matter of the two planes in one note producing what we call energy or force, and with it phenomena.

“This is a bar of steel 36 inches long.  It is composed of physical atoms but no two physical atoms touch.  Each physical atom is as far apart from every other atom as the stars in heaven from one another—­in proportion to their size.  The atoms and the spaces between them are so small to our sight that they seem to touch.  If we had a microscope of sufficient power to reveal the atom, you would see that no two atoms touch, and that the spaces between them are, as Faraday says, very great in proportion to their size.  I showed you last term that what appeared to be a solid stream of water, when magnified and thrown upon a screen, was merely a succession of independent drops that did not touch.  I can not yet give you proof of the bar of iron being composed of independent atoms, but that is the fault of our instruments, and you must take my word for it until the proof is simplified and made easy of application.

“Each one of these physical atoms is a miniature world.  It is the center of an ocean of ether, composed of many atoms; and while no two physical atoms touch, their etheric atmospheres do touch, and any change in the vibration of the etheric atmosphere of one will be imparted to that of the next.  As the vibration of the physical atom must be in harmony with that of its etheric atmosphere, any change coming to one will be imparted to the next, and the next, through the ether surrounding them.

“You can see that the index at the end of the bar has moved, showing that it is now longer.  That means the etheric atoms are now vibrating faster, taking more space, and have necessarily forced each physical atom farther apart.  The bar is not only longer, but softer, and as the vibrations increase in rapidity the time will come when it will bend by its own weight, and even when it will become a liquid and a gas.