If one learns to view a thunderstorm in this way, its spiritual connexion with the earth's volcanic processes becomes manifest; there is in fact a polar relationship between them. For just as in volcanic activity heavy matter is suddenly and swiftly driven heavenwards under the influence of levity, so in a storm does light matter stream earthwards under the influence of gravity. It is this combination of kinship and polar opposition which led people of old to regard both lightning in the heights and seismic disturbances in the depths as signs of direct intervention by higher powers in the affairs of men. A trace of this old feeling lingers in the Greek word θειον (theion), divine, which was used to denote both lightning and sulphur. Influenced by the same conception, the Romans regarded as holy a spot where lightning had struck the earth; they even fenced it off to protect it from human contact. Note in this respect also the biblical report of the event on Mount Sinai, mentioned before, telling of an interplay of volcanic and meteorological phenomena as a sign of the direct intervention of the Godhead. 1 See Chapter IV. The other title of the paper, 'Radiant Matter', will gain significance for us in a later context. 2 Since the above was written, certain conclusions drawn from modern subatomic research have led some astro-physicists to the idea that hydrogen is continuously created in the cosmos 'out of nothing'. This does not affect the considerations of the present chapter. 3 Note the expression! 4 For a vivid description of the interplay of both types of force in nature, see E. Carpenter's account of his experience of a tree in his Pagan and Christian Creeds. 5 Note how this picture of thermal expansion fits in with the one obtained for the Solfatara phenomenon when we took into account all that is implicit in the latter, 6 This throws light also on the problem of the use of chemicals as artificial fertilizers. 7 See L. Kolisko: Wirksamkeit kleinster Entitäten ('Effects of Smallest Entities'), Stuttgart, 1922, an account of a series of experiments undertaken by the author at the Biological Institute of the Goetheanum following suggestions by Rudolf Steiner. Her aim was to examine the behaviour of matter on the way to and beyond the boundary of its ponderable existence. 8 Instead of using the trace-elements in mineral form, it is still better to use parts of certain plants with a strong 'functional tendency', specially prepared. This is done in the so-called Bio-Dynamic method of farming and gardening, according to Rudolf Steiner's indications. 9 Note, in this respect, the close of Goethe's poem dedicated to the cirrus-formation and the poem inspired by his sight of a waterfall in the Bernese Alps as indications of the fact that he was himself aware of the water-rejuvenating process in the higher reaches of the atmosphere. CHAPTER XI Matter as Part of Nature's Alphabet