For the people living near the Solfatara it is indeed common knowledge that there are times when this lability is so great that the slightest local disturbance of the kind we have described can provoke destructive eruptions of great masses of subterranean mud. (At such times access to the Solfatara is prohibited.) We shall understand such an eruption rightly if we picture it as the counter-pole of an avalanche. The latter may be brought about by a fragment of matter on a snow-covered mountain, perhaps a little stone, breaking loose and in its descent bringing ever-accumulating masses of snow down with it. The levity-process polar to this demonstration of gravity is the production of a mightily growing 'negative avalanche' by comparatively weak local suction, caused by a small flame.

Anyone who watches attentively the sensation produced by the rising arm in the above experiment will be duly impressed by the experience of the alertness prevailing in the arm as a result of the will's magical intervention.

How strictly these two realms were distinguished can be seen by the occurrence of the concept 'vapour'. When with the increasing interest in the realm of created things - characteristic of the spectator-consciousness which, in view of our earlier description of it, we recognize as being itself a 'created thing' - the need arose for progressive differentiation within this realm, the simple division of it into 'earth' and 'water' was no longer felt to be satisfactory. After all, above the liquid state of matter there was another state, less dense than water and yet presenting itself through more or less clearly distinguishable space-bound objects, such as the mists arising from and spreading over ponds and meadows, and the clouds hovering in the sky. For this state of matter the term 'vapour' had become customary, and it was used by van Helmont in this sense. By its very properties, Vapour belonged to the realm of the created things, whereas Air did not. It was the intermediary position of the newly discovered state of matter between Vapour and Air, that is, between the created and the uncreated world, which caused van Helmont to call it a paradox; and it was its strange resemblance, despite its ponderable nature, to Chaos, which prompted him to name it - Gas.

The conception behind such a ritual of fire-kindling will become clear if we compare with it certain other fire-rites which were practised in the northern parts of Europe, especially in the British Isles, until far on in the Christian era. For example, if sickness broke out among the cattle, a widespread practice was to extinguish all the hearth-fires in the district and then to kindle with certain rites a new fire, from which all the local people lit their own fires once more. Heavy penalties were prescribed for anyone who failed to extinguish his own fire - a failure usually indicated by the non-manifestation of the expected healing influence. In Anglo-Saxon speaking countries, fires of this kind were known as 'needfires'.

The field of the inner life of man allows us, as nothing else does, to penetrate it with our own intuitive experience. For we ourselves are always in some sense the cause of the events that take place there. In order to make observations in this region, however, we need to bring about a certain awakening in a part of our being which - so long as we rely on the purely natural forces of our body - remains sunk in more or less profound unconsciousness.

Earlier in this chapter (page 150) we said that if we want to understand how spirit moves, forms and transforms matter, we must recognize the existence of non-mechanical (magical) causes of physical effects. We have now found that the appearance of such effects in nature is due to the operations of a particular force, levity, polar to gravity. Observation of a number of natural happenings has helped us to become familiar in a preliminary way with the character of this force. Although these happenings were all physical in appearance, they showed certain definitely non-physical features, particularly through their peculiar relationship to three-dimensional space. More characteristics of this kind will appear in the following pages.