Alchemy Rediscovered and Restored: Part II: Theoretical: The Quintessence. (II)

'"There is the ether," replied the Brahmin, "which we must regard as the element of which the gods are made; for just as all mortal creatures inhale the air, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether."'

And:

'What you choose to call this unifying "Something" is of no consequence. The Ancients sometimes spoke of the "Ether," possibly as an addition to the usual four elements, and Sir Isaac Newton adopted this term for the connecting medium. The optical medium connects the particles together in a solid or a liquid, and the same medium connects the heavenly bodies together into systems and clusters and constellations and nebulae and Milky Way.

'All pieces of matter and all particles are connected together by the Ether and by nothing else. In it they move freely, and of it they may be composed. We must study the kind of connexion between matter and Ether.

'The particles embedded in the Ether are not independent of it, they are closely connected with it, it is probable that they are formed out of it: they are not like grains of sand suspended in water, they seem more like minute crystals formed in a mother liquor. . .'

Again:

'Speculatively and intuitively we feel to be more in direct touch with the ether than with matter. How we can act on matter is a mystery. How