Another such phenomenon is the so-called earthquake-sky, which the present writer has had several occasions to witness. It consists of a peculiar, almost terrifying, intense discoloration of the sky, and, to those acquainted with it, is a sure sign of an imminent or actual earthquake somewhere in the corresponding region of the earth. This phenomenon teaches us that the change in the earth's condition which results in a violent movement of her crust, involves a region of her organism far greater than the subterranean layers where the cause of the purely mechanical events is usually believed to reside.⁶

The movement of any part of our body is always effected in some way by the movement of the corresponding part of the skeleton. This in turn is set in motion by certain lengthenings and contractions of the appropriate part of the muscular system. Now the way in which the muscles cause the bones to move falls clearly under the category of mechanical causation. Certain portions of matter are caused to move by the movement of adjacent portions of matter. The picture changes when we look for the cause to which the muscles owe their movements. For the motion of the muscles is not the effect of any cause external to them, but is effected by the purely spiritual energy of our volition working directly into the physical substance of the muscles. What scientific measuring instruments have been able to register in the form of physical, chemical, electrical, etc., changes of the muscular substance is itself an effect of this interaction.

By comparing in this way the older and newer conceptions of 'air', we come to realize that ancient man must have had a conception of gravity essentially different from ours. If we take gravity in the modern scientist's sense, as a 'descriptive law of behaviour', then this behaviour is designated in the older doctrine by the quality 'cold'. If, however, we look within the system of modern science for a law of behaviour that would correspond to the quality 'warm', we do so in vain. Polarity concepts are certainly not foreign to the scientific mind, as the physics of electricity and magnetism show. Yet there is no opposite pole to gravity, as there is negative opposite to positive electricity, etc.⁴

What, then, does van Helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter tell us, if we regard it in the light of our newly acquired insight into the trend of evolution both within and without man? When, in the course of its growing older, mankind had reached the stage which is expressed by the emergence of the spectator-consciousness-consciousness, that is, based on a nervous system which has grown more or less independent of the life forces of the organism - the outer elements had, in their way, arrived at such a state that man began to inhale an air whose spiritual-physical constitution corresponded exactly to that of his nervous system: on either side, Spirit and Matter, in accordance with the necessities of cosmic evolution had lost their primeval union.

Another witness to this fact is Ruskin, through a remark which bears in more than one sense on our present subject. It occurs in his essay, The Storm-Cloud of the Ninteenth Century. In its context it is meant to warn the reader against treating science, which Ruskin praises as a fact-finding instrument, as an interpreter of natural facts. Ruskin takes Newton's conception of gravity as the all-moving cause of the universe, and turns against it in the following words:

That man himself is not excluded from experiencing directly the super-spatial nature of seismic disturbances is shown by an event in Goethe's life, reported by his secretary Eckermann, who himself learnt the story from an old man who had been Goethe's valet at the time.⁷

To mark the fact that this type of causation is clearly distinguished from the type called mechanical, it will be well to give it a name of its own. If we look for a suitable term, the word 'magical' suggests itself. The fact that this word has gathered all sorts of doubtful associations must not hinder us from adopting it into the terminology of a science which aspires to understand the working of the supersensible in the world of the senses. The falling into disrepute of this word is characteristic of the onlooker-age. The way in which we suggest it should be used is in accord with its true and original meaning, the syllable 'mag' signifying power or might (Sanskrit maha, Greek megas, Latin magnus, English might, much, also master). Henceforth we shall distinguish between 'mechanical' and 'magical' causation, the latter being a characteristic of the majority of happenings in the human, animal and plant organisms.¹

In the older conception, however, the gravitational behaviour 'cold' was seen to be counteracted by an autonomous anti-gravitational behaviour 'warm'. Experience still supported the conviction that as a polar opposite to the world subject to gravity, there was another world subject to levity.

Our extension of the concept of evolution to the very elements of nature, whether these are of material or non-material kind, and our recognition of this evolution as leading in general from a more alert to a more inert condition, at once open the possibility of including in our scientific world-picture certain facts which have hitherto resisted any inclusion. We mean those manifold events of 'miraculous' nature, of which the scriptures and the oral traditions of old are full. What is modern man to make of them?

'Take the very top and centre of scientific interpretation by the greatest of its masters: Newton explained to you - or at least was once supposed to explain, why an apple fell; but he never thought of explaining the exact correlative but infinitely more difficult question, how the apple got up there.'