294. This becomes all the more obvious if one understands the fact that cosmic substances or chemicals are actually identical with physical ones. If they appear to be different it is only because we are seeing them in different mixtures and combinations. When we see the substances of our own organism and those outside it we call them "physical". When they emerge in the conscious mind or the psyche they have hitherto remained unrecognized in terrestrial history because they have manifested in mutual combinations which in volume and consistency could best be symbolized as forming gas or vapour which is so weakly concentrated that they evade direct physical sensing. They are, therefore, intangible. This condition has been described as "non-material", a description which is, of course, incorrect. No kind of substance or matter can, in the absolute sense, be "non-material". Everything is "something"; and "something" which is, cannot at the same time be "nothing". That the condition of some substance is such that our physical organs do not react to the nature of it and thus there is no direct visible hindrance to our physical activities, does not justify analyzing that substance as being "non-material". In recent times people have certainly been shown that, to a great extent, we are surrounded by forces, rays and waves which we cannot see at all and so we have not previously thought existed. It is by means of these forces that it is possible to create so-called "radio-waves". By means of these "waves" it has again become a fact that all kinds of theatre, music and song can pass into our rooms unhindered by walls or closed doors and so forth, and that these waves are able to fill the room without our noticing until we turn on the radio. Similarly many kinds of energies are permeating our atmosphere, our surroundings and our physical bodies without our being able to sense or in any way be aware of them. But, naturally, this does not imply that they are without importance; on the contrary, they contribute in the highest degree to the basis of our entire existence. The whole cast of our minds and mental life is made up of these energies or substances.
      In reality these substances appear, as mentioned above, simply as expressions of extensions of physical substances or matter which again, as we shall see in later chapters, simply constitutes concentrated matter of the consciousness or psyche.