To astral vision ether is a visible thing, and is seen permeating all substances and encircling every particle. A "solid" body is a body composed of a vast number of particles suspended in ether, each vibrating backwards and forwards in a particular field at a high rate of velocity; the particles are attracted towards each other more strongly than they are attracted by external influences, and they "cohere," or maintain towards each other a definite relation in space. Closer examination shows that the ether is not homogeneous but consists of particles of numerous kinds, differing in the aggregations of the minute bodies composing them; and a careful and more detailed method of analysis reveals that it has four distinct degrees, giving us, with the solid, liquid and gaseous, seven instead of four substates of matter in the physical world. These four etheric substates will be best understood if the method be explained by which they were studied. This method consisted of taking what is called an atom of gas, and breaking it up time after time, until what proved to be the ultimate physical atom was reached, the breaking up of this last resulting in the production of astral, and no longer physical matter. [Illustration] It is, of course, impossible to convey by words the clear conceptions that are gained by direct vision of the objects of study, and the accompanying diagram--cleverly drawn from the description given by the investigators--is offered as a substitute, however poor, for the lacking vision of the readers. The horizontal lines separate from each other the seven substates of matter; solid, liquid, gas, ether 4, ether 3, ether 2, ether 1. On the gas level are represented three chemical atoms, one of hydrogen (H), one of oxygen (O), one of nitrogen (N). The successive changes undergone by each chemical atom are shown in the compartments vertically above it, the left-hand column showing the breaking up of the hydrogen atom, the middle column that of the oxygen atom, the right-hand column, that of the nitrogen atom. The ultimate physical atom is marked _a_, and is drawn only once, although it is the same throughout. The numbers 18, 290 and 261 are the numbers of the ultimate physical atoms found to exist in a chemical atom. The dots indicate the lines along which force is observed to be playing, and the arrowheads show the direction of the force. No attempt has been made to show this below E 2 except in the case of the hydrogen. The letters given are intended to help the reader to trace upwards any special body; thus _d_ in the oxygen chemical atom on the gas level may be found again on E 4, E 3, and E 2. It must be remembered that the bodies shown diagrammatically in no way indicate relative size; as a body is raised from one substate to the one immediately above it, it is enormously magnified for the purpose of investigation, and the ultimate atom on E 1 is represented by the dot _a_ on the gaseous level.