Questions 29 to 34 - The Properties of Matter
Spirits's replies to Allan Kardec
"Of matter as you understand it, yes, but not of matter considered as the universal fluid. The ethereal and subtle matter that forms this fluid is imponderable to you, and yet it is the very principle of your ponderable matter."
"One single primitive element. The bodies you regard as simple are not true elements, but rather transformations of the one primitive matter."
"From the modifications that the elementary molecules undergo as a result of their combining under certain conditions."
"Yes, of course; and they only exist due to the disposition of the organs that are meant to perceive them."
Allan Kardec's remarks:
This principle is proven by the fact that not all people perceive the qualities of objects in the same way: what one person finds tasty, another might find disgusting; what appears blue to one person may appear as red to another; something that is poisonous for some might be harmless or even healthy for others.
"Yes, and this is what you should understand when we say that ‘everything is in everything.’" (1)
Allan Kardec's remarks:
Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and all the other elements we consider to be simple are only modifications of the one primitive substance. As it is yet impossible for us to go back to this substance except by thinking about it, the elements truly are elements to us, and without further ado we can consider them as such until further notice.
(1) This principle explains the phenomenon known by all magnetizers, which consists in using willpower to confer very different properties upon any given substance – water, for instance – a specific flavor or even the active qualities of other substances. Since there is but one primitive element, and since the properties of different bodies are but modifications of this one element, it follows that the most innocuous substance has the same underlying principle as the most harmful substance. Thus, water is made up of one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen but becomes corrosive if the proportion of oxygen is doubled. An analogous transformation may be produced through magnetic action directed by the human will.
"This opinion is correct, but it should also add: according to the arrangement of the molecules; this may be seen, for example, in an opaque body that becomes transparent and vice versa."
"Certainly, molecules have a form, but you are incapable of discerning it."
"Constant for the primitive elementary molecules but variable for the secondary ones, which are only aggregations of the former. However, what you term a molecule is still very far from being the elementary molecule."
KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits’ Book. 3.ed. International Spiritist Council, 2011.
Allan Kardec's remarks:
Ponderability is a relative property. Outside the gravitational pull of the globes, there is no weight – just as there is no up or down.