Chapter 3 What compactness of matter gives to your ideals

Your ideas are always changing and you are ever changing your attitude regarding them. Why? They have no form, no body of spiritual substance; being without body, they are notions and very changeable notions at that. But you are loyal to your ideals; you are steadfast in your allegiance to them. Why? Because there is something fixed and real about them; they are made of spiritual substance; they are the actual bodies of your desires; of your highest ideals, you say that they are fixed as the stars, by which you mean that they are made of substance that is eternal.

You hold steadfastly to your ideals; but, since ideals are of the spiritual and etheric substance, can you easily change them into material actualities, -make them manifest in a world of matter which appears so compact and dense? This idea that matter is compact and hence dense is one of the stones in the path of faith; as an idea, it prevents you from making sufficient effort to make your ideals come true. When you study matter as it is -as the great physical scientists now know it -and when you find that that which is called density is but the compactness of materially empty space -etheric substance -spiritual substance, does it not open up new visions?

Already you perceive that, if so-called density of matter is but compactness of etheric substance, that which makes density possible is similar to and co-existent with the very substance in which ideals exist and of which they are made. All of which suggests that that which appears to us as density is of aid in giving substance to ideals -in giving them bodies so that they can come true.

What is density of matter? If matter is dense, it must be compact, -for the idea of density depends upon the idea of compactness. Is matter a compact substance? Read carefully and think; for this, to you, is vital. It means either that you can and will make your ideals come true or that you will slip through life forever wishing that you might have done so.

Matter, we say -employing terms in general use -is made up of masses, masses of minute particles, each particle of millions of molecules, each molecule of atoms, and each atom of from hundreds of thousands to millions of electrons. There is but one form of structure in the universe; the universe is the uni-verse -the creation of one law.

The moon is 2 thousand miles in diameter, but it is 240 thousand miles away from the earth; 2 units of matter, 240 units of etheric space. Our earth is 8 thousand miles in diameter, but it is 93,000 thousand miles from the sun; 8 units of matter, 93,000 units of etheric space. The sun's diameter is less than 1 million miles, but its nearest star-neighbor is more than 25,000 million miles away; 1 unit of matter, 25,000 units of etheric space. The materially empty etheric space -distance between any two heavenly bodies is infinitely greater than the size of either. Thus it is throughout the universe. Thus it is throughout matter. The material emptiness of the universe is a true indication of the so-called density of matter.

What is the density of the molecule? A molecule is composed of atoms infinitely smaller than itself. Its atoms, however, are not close together; it is no more compact nor dense than the space of the heavens.

What is a molecule? Image the sun; image the Earth, Mars, Mercury, the other planets and their moons, all whirling and circling around the sun center to form our solar system. The system is a gigantic sphere. Of what? Of nothing but etheric space. There is no shell to this sphere; it is just ether -conceived as a globe -within which whirl a few comparatively small specks of dust -the earth and the sun, for instance.

Look up in the air above you. Imagine the outline of a toy balloon without any material except a few specks of invisible dust in the space you image as a globe. That is the density of the universe; it is also as dense as the molecule that is merely an etheric globular space in which atoms -far, far apart -whirl around an etheric center.

Is not the density of matter already evaporating so that in it you see no hindrance to making your ideals into realities? If not the molecule, is the atom dense? The atom, like the molecule, has no shell or body. It is merely a spherical system of ether space in which electrons whirl around an etheric center. So far nothing but infinite space and infinite energy in space! In such, what hindrance is there to your ideals and desires coming true?

Is it, then, the electron that gives matter its appearance of density? Of course, if the electron were itself of good size and if its own substance were compact, it could give to matter some semblance of material density.

What is the size of the electron? Out of paper cut a square inch surface. Then imagine a tiny paper bag the size of a cubic inch. If this cubic inch box were filled with any one of several different gases, the space would contain approximately 441,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules. They are very far apart; hence there is plenty of room in this cubic inch for a million times the number already given. Since each of these molecules is composed of atoms, each atom must be definitely smaller than the molecule. Since in an atom there are millions of electrons with comparatively great intervening spaces capable of holding millions more, how small, then, is the electron! You cannot conceive its infinite minuteness for, although each atom is but one-hundredth of one-millionth of one inch in diameter, the electron is fifty thousand times smaller than the atom!

Of course, you cannot imagine this; it is infinitely small -a part of the infinity of God! And what is the electron? Of what substance is it? All scientists agree that it is an infinitely small etheric whirl of energy -a whirling hole in space!

What then is density? Density is the spirit of matter -the infinite etheric energy-space of God. It is that in which all things live and move and have their being. It exists between the infinitely small whirling electrons but a billionth of an inch from one another; it exists between whirling stars and infinitely large suns thousands of millions of millions of miles apart.

There is no density of matter to hinder the manifestation of your ideals and desires. Since you, your ideals and desires are of God, and since the cells of your body and also the substance of all other material actualities are but the infinite energy-space of God, certainly your ideals composed of this substance -the only substance that exists -can and will and do come true. In fact, this etheric energy-space substance, which makes matter seem to be dense, is the very substance that gives bodies to your ideals and thus makes them manifest in material actuality.