c19p15

From what we found in our optical studies concerning the nature of after-images (Chapter XV), it is clear that the acquisition of Imaginative perception rests on a re-awakening in the eye (and thus in the total organism behind the eye) of certain ‘infant’ forces which have grown dormant in the course of the growing up of the human being. It thus represents a fulfilment of Thomas Reid’s philosophic demand. Consequently we find among the descriptions which Traherne gives of the mode of perception peculiar to man when the inner light, brought into this world at birth, is not yet absorbed by the physical eye, many helpful characterizations of the nature of Imaginative perception, some of which may be quoted here.

c19p31

We begin with the warmth-ether as the only modification of ether which combines certain etheric with certain physical properties. Constituting as it does a border-condition between the two worlds, the warmth-ether has, on the one hand, the function of receiving the picture-weaving transmitted to it by the higher ethers, and, on the other, of bringing physical matter into the state where it becomes receptive to the working of the etheric forces. The warmth-ether achieves this by freeing matter from being controlled one-sidedly by the centre-bound forces of the earth. It thus calls forth, when acting physically, the processes of melting of solids and of evaporation of liquids: phenomena which yielded the initial observations for our introduction of the concept of levity. In processes of this kind we now recognize the physical manifestation of a universal function of the warmth-ether, namely, to divest matter of all form and to lead it over from the realm dominated by gravity into that of levity. Provided we attach the right meaning to the word, we may say that the function of the warmth-ether is to bring about chaos at the upper border of physical nature. It is thus that we have already found it working in the plant, when through the union of the pollen with the seed a state of chaos is produced within the seed, which enables the type to impress anew its form-principle into it.

c19p47

The usual explanation of the appearance of the optical image on the back inside wall of such a camera is that light-rays, emanating from every point outside, cross each other in the aperture of the camera and so – again point by point – create the inverted image. No such explanation, clearly, is open to us. For the world of external objects is a whole, and so is its image appearing in the camera. Equally, the light entering the camera is not a sum of single rays. Pure observation leads to the following description of the optical process.

c19p63

In his book, Man the Unknown, Professor Carrel shows very impressively, by an example from the human organism, the difference of quantitative ratio in externally similar processes, one of which occurs within the domain of life, the other, outside it. He compares the quantity of liquid necessary to keep artificially alive a piece of living tissue which has been reduced to pulp, with the quantity of blood doing the same within the living organism. If all the tissues of a human body were treated in this way, it would take 45,000 gallons of circulating fluid to keep them from being poisoned in a few days by their own waste products. Within the living organism the blood achieves the same task with 1J gallons.

c19p79

c19p16

Consider, in this respect, the following passage from Traherne’s poem The Praeparative, quoted earlier. In describing the state of soul at a time when the physical senses are not yet in operation, Traherne says:

c19p32

Another instance of the warmth-ether’s anti-gravitational effect, also discussed earlier, is the earth’s seismic activity. True, it appears at first sight as if little were gained by speaking of warmth-ether, instead, as we did previously, of levity in general. But it must not be forgotten that in the ether-realm as a whole, warmth – that is, the overcoming of earthly gravity – is only one of the four modes of etheric action, albeit the one which enables the other three to work into the physical world. We shall see, later on, that only by taking into account the action of the higher modifications of the ether is it possible to gain insight into the true causes of the apparently so arbitrary occurrences of volcanic and kindred phenomena. Here, too, it is the function of the warmth-ether to produce in the physical sphere the chaos which is necessary to make the physical sphere receptive to the activities going on in higher spheres.

c19p48

By surveying the path which the light takes from the illuminated surface of the outer objects via the pin-hole to the optical image inside the camera, we realize that the light-realm engaged in this process has the shape of a double cone, with its apex in the opening of the camera. Within this cone the light carries the image across the space stretching in front of the light-reflecting objects up to the point where the image becomes visible by being caught on the back wall of the camera.

c19p64

Very many chemical changes within living organisms are effected by the two polar processes of oxidation and reduction. We have discussed them repeatedly as hieroglyphs of much that occurs in nature by way of polarity. In accordance with the principle ruling the physical plane of nature, that differences of level tend to disappear, oxidation can occur by itself, whereas reduction requires the expenditure of energy. Let us from this point of view compare the transformation of oxidized into reduced iron, as it takes place inside and outside the realm of life.

c19p80

We have seen that the warmth-ether has the double function of being at once the lowest ether and the highest physical element, thus acting as a sphere of reflexion for the other kinds of ether and the elements respectively. Each stage in the etheric has its reflexion in the physical, as the above table shows. Thus to the physical air the etheric light is related. (The affinity of light and air is best seen in the plant and its leaf-formation.) To bring about real changes in the material composition of the physical world requires the stronger powers of the chemical ether. Therefore it is also the first ether of which we had to speak as ‘magical’ ether. Its effects reach into the watery element which is already bound up with gravity, but by its own strength it cannot penetrate beyond that. The causation of material changes in the liquid sphere would in fact be all that these three kinds of ether could achieve together.