Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/84

 *ations—addressing first the thought or understanding, and coming thence to the affection indirectly. In all external methods, as well as in internal methods, media of communication become necessary. In speaking to you it becomes necessary that there should be some external media between you and me, and my communication must be through that media. In the present case, my speaking to you is performed through the physical atmosphere. I undulate my organs of speech to produce sound, and the atmosphere connects them with your organs of hearing, so that my mind, through my organs of speech, is connected with your mind. The method of communication is to transmit the actions of my organs of speech to your organs of hearing. Without this external medium I could not communicate with you by an external language.

Were I to address, not the ear, but the eye, there must be between us an external medium which addresses the eye; and that medium is the light which takes up the image of that which I would represent, and transmits it to your consciousness through the eye. So also in respect to the nerve-medium. If I would communicate an impression through the nerve-medium, there must be that medium external to me which corresponds to the action of the nerve-fluid in you and me—there must be a medium between us which takes up my action and transmits it to you, and makes it your action. So with the mental medium. If I am to stand here, and you are to come into rapport with me, and I am to impress my thoughts upon you without external language, there must be a medium corresponding to these thoughts, and that medium must