The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX Whence one may deduce these corollaries : Regularity and variety in movement result from the different combinations of equilibrium. A point equilibrated on all sides remains at rest, for the very reason that it is endowed with motion. Fluid consists of rapidly moving matter, always stirred by the variation of the balancing forces. A solid is the same matter in slow movement, or at apparent rest because it is more or less solidly balanced. There is no solid body which would not immediately be pulverized, vanish in smoke, and become invisible if the equilibrium of its molecules were to cease suddenly. There is no fluid which would not instantly become harder than the diamond, if one could equilibrate its constituent molecules. To direct the magnetic forces is then to destroy or create forms; to produce to all appearance, or to destroy bodies; it is to exercise the almighty power of Nature. Our plastic medium is a magnet which attracts or repels the astral light under the pressure of the will. It is a luminous body which reproduces with the greatest ease forms corresponding to ideas. It is the mirror of the imagination. This body is nourished by astral light just as the organic body is nourished by the products of the earth. During slumber, it absorbs the astral light by immersion, and during waking, by a kind of somewhat slow respiration. When the phenomena of natural somnambulism are produced, the plastic medium is surcharged with ill-digested nourishment. The will, although bound by the torpor of slumber, repels instinctively the medium 112