553. From this short digression into the area behind the sense faculty we have acquired the preliminary knowledge necessary for understanding "cosmic chemistry", that is, our analysis of thought-climates. Not only has this digression given the sufficiently advanced reader unshakeable proof of the existence of an indestructible, eternal "something" as the "initial cause" of thought-climates and the entire manifestation of movement which we call existence, but it has also proved to us that a "cosmic chemist" exists behind these movements, substances and chemicals. We have thereby laid the foundations or basis for producing further proof or analysis of the fact that all movement, all matter and every appearance of substances constitutes in reality a living, conscious act of will. We have seen that everything which can be experienced or sensed is "cosmic chemistry", meaning that everything we call life or existence, and thereby everything coming under the concept of "fate", is a combination of energies or substances, and that the perfection of the result of this combination is only a question of knowing the substances' faculty of reaction. Had we not discovered precisely the "cosmic chemist" in the form of the "triune principle" behind the area of perception, and discovered that we ourselves are identical with this principle, then a knowledge of the substances would have been without importance. What would be the point of knowing the reactions of matter and substances if these did not constitute consciousness and therefore could not be brought under any kind of voluntary control, i.e. the process of thought? And besides, what would be the point of the thinking process or will power if matter or substances were not materials of life and consciousness? There would be nothing for the thoughts to process, nothing for the will to control and therefore nothing for the living being to experience. But any condition without experience is the same as "death". The stillness of "death", of complete "nothingness" would exist where now the radiant impulses of life are the overall dominant factor.