542. The great question is this: how can "something No. 1" appear in "visible" form as masses in solid, liquid and gaseous matter, and in this way manifest itself as elements, beings and objects, creating sorrow and joy, torment and well-being, curses and blessings, creating immense ability and knowledge at the same time as creating extremely pronounced primitivity, and spheres of radiant experience as well as other spheres filled with disease, poverty and misery etc?
      And indeed, the answer must be that it can only do so because these details are merely illusions. They are expressing only how they are relative to other illusions. We call this relationship "relativity". "Relativity" is thus the same as the relationship of one thing to another thing and the resulting reaction upon sensory perception and the ability to experience. When we see the distant horizon as hazy-blue, this view is "relative", for if we proceed to the area which currently seems to be "hazy-blue", then we will see that, from our new position, it will not normally seem any more blue than the area we left – indeed, it might even be completely covered with green grass, yellow cornfields, brown heather and other colourful things which are anything but blue. The "blueishness" has simply vanished. The "blueishness" we saw from our first position is thus only the colour analysis of the horizon seen from our first position or first viewpoint. When we left this viewpoint and approached what then appeared to be the distant horizon, the "blueishness" gradually disappeared until at last it became quite invisible. The reason for this disappearance of the "blueishness" lies simply in the fact that the distant horizon is seen through a denser atmospheric layer of air than the near horizon. As the "blue" colour of the air is so faint that it only becomes visible when we look through an atmospheric layer one kilometre thick, one can understand why it decreases as one approaches the distant horizon. As we approach it, kilometre by kilometre, the distance through the expanse of air between our eyes and the details on the horizon will likewise be so many kilometres shorter, which means that the atmospheric layer between our eyes and these details becomes so many kilometres thinner, so that these details must irrevocably become correspondingly clear or more easily accessible to the sight. It is a matter of course that this results in the disappearance of the "blue" colour, because the "blue" colour of the distant horizon is due only to the fact that the horizon was seen through such a dense expanse of air that its blue colour became dominant, and our view of the distant horizon was the same as if looking through "blue-tinted spectacles".
      That the distant horizon appears to be "blueish" is thus an illusion. As we saw, in reality it is not "blue" at all, but can have many other colours when seen at close quarters. So the "blueish" horizon is a "relative" view. The "blueishness" has nothing to do with the details on the distant horizon. On the contrary, it constitutes merely a reaction in our own experience or sensing of that horizon. It is a matter between the observer and the conditions for observing, and can never in any case be an analysis of the object itself. But this applies not only to the blueness of the distant horizon, but also to all its other details, or indeed everything that we sense in daily life, with the exception of cosmic experiences. In exactly the same way as with the "blueish" colour of the horizon, those experiences and analyses we arrive at here, are a matter between ourselves and the conditions for our experiences, and all physical analyses we arrive at are simply expressions for these. These conditions are, in one way or another, the "coloured spectacles" we look through. The analysis we make of something is not, in reality, the true analysis of that thing itself, but only the "colour" of the "spectacles" (sensing conditions) we have at our disposal.
      That this is indeed the case is more than fully confirmed by a number of very ordinary phenomena. If we stand on a wide, straight road, we see that the road becomes narrower and narrower, finally ending as just a point on the distant horizon. We all know quite well that this picture is not a true analysis of the road, which would normally be just as wide on the distant horizon as it is nearby. So it is different from what it seems to be. Its decreasing breadth is simply an illusion. It has nothing to do with reality. So our "view" of the road is not its true analysis; we are seeing it through our "coloured spectacles", in other words, our physical sensory conditions. Thus, the decrease in width is in a way hiding the true physical analysis of the road. But, even as the road seems to become narrower in the distance, so too do all the details appear on this same distant horizon to be on quite a different scale than is actually the case. Houses, farms, trees, people and animals become "microscopic" in relation to details of the foreground. And if one moves away from this foreground then its details, too, appear to be more and more microscopic, according to how far distant they become. Thus, as we have seen, all details on the physical sensory horizon appear with a colour and on a scale which is not a true analysis of those details, but on the contrary, is only an analysis relative to details in the foreground. The colour and size of things on the horizon of our physical sensing is in actual fact only a matter of distance, that is to say the current space between the observer's position and a given object. This distance is the deciding factor in the reaction of those details on our sensory organs, while the position of the observer constitutes the determining yardstick for the physical analysis of the experience. This position is the central point in our visible horizon, and so every form of physical experience is thus, in reality, simply an experience of the relationship of things to this centre, or to our position. All experience is assessed and analysed in relation to this centre. It also applies to our experience of everything coming under the term "movement". As all speed is calculated in relation to this, our centre, then it may be defined as our physical "fixed point". But as this "fixed point" is made up, among other things, of the terrestrial globe which moves through space at a colossal speed, then our experience of this "fixed point" is similarly illusory. Our "fixed point" only constitutes the relationship of one movement to another movement. Of what use is it if we move westwards in an aeroplane at a speed of two hundred kilometres per hour, when the Earth moves us eastwards at a far greater speed? We will not be travelling westwards at all; we will actually be carried swiftly eastwards. And as the Earth constitutes but a fragment of yet larger systems, each of which carry the Earth along in so many different directions that all the points of the compass would be involved, then our movement in the aeroplane is a total illusion. The many directions of movement we are carried in completely cancel each other out. Cosmically seen, we have not moved a single millimetre through space.