--| Crystals > Frozen Flames? |--- 


By: Ernst Lehrs


It has puzzled many an observer that crystals occur in the earth with
directions of their main axes entirely independent of the direction of the
earthly pull of gravity. This riddle is solved by the phenomenon of
snow-formation, provided we allow it to speak to us as an ur-phenomenon.
For it then tells us that matter must be in a state of transition from
lightness into heaviness if it is to appear in crystalline form. 'The
crystals in the earth, therefore, must have originated at a time when the
relation between levity and gravity on the earth was different from what
it is today [as is done during the formation of snow crystals. (ed)].

The same language is spoken by the property of transparency which is so
predominant among crystals. One of the fundamental characteristics of
heavy solid matter is to resist light-in other words, to be opaque.
Exposed to heat, however, physical substance loses this feature to the
extent that at the border of its ponderability all matter becomes pervious
to light. Now, in the transparent crystal, matter retains this kinship to
light even in its solid state.

A corresponding message comes from the peculiar colouring of crystals.
These colours are known to result from quantitatively small metallic
ingredients in the particular mineral. They mostly differ entirely from
those of the corresponding metallic salts, where the same metal is the
basis of the chemical compound; some of these salts are even colourless.
On the other hand, metals are known to give the flame a particular colour
if they are vapourised in such a flame, and in many instances these
colours coincide with those of crystals coloured by the same metal. Read
as a letter in nature's script, this fact tells us that precious stones
with their flame-like colours are characterised by having kept something
of the nature that was theirs before they coalesced into ponderable
existence. In fact, they are 'frozen flames'.

It is this fact, known from ancient intuitive experience, which prompted
man of old to attribute particular spiritual significance to the various
precious stones of the earth and to use them correspondingly in his
rituals. [and which today is given over to airy-fairy new-age fantasy! (ed)]

Crystallisation, seen thus in its cosmic aspect, shows a dynamic
orientation which is polarically opposite to that of the earth's seismic
activities. Just as in the latter we observe levity taking hold of
ponderable matter and moving it in a direction opposite to the pull of
gravity, so in crystallisation we see imponderable matter passing over
from levity into gravity. And just as we found in volcanism and related
processes a field of activity of 'functional sulphur', found in
snow-formation and related processes a field of activity of 'functional
phosphorus'. Both fields are characterised by an interaction between
gravity and levity, this interaction being of opposite nature in each of
them. Here, again, sulpher and phosphorus appear as bearers of a polarity
of the second order which springs from the two polarically opposite ways
of interaction between the poles of the polarity of the first order:
levity-gravity.

As in man there is a third system, mediating between the two polar systems
of his organism, so between sulpher and phosphorus there is a third
element which holds a middle place between them and is the bearer of a
corresponding function. This element is carbon. To see this we need only
take into consideration carbon's relationship to oxidation and reduction
respectively. As it is natural for sulphur to tend towards the reduced
state, and for phosphorus to tend towards the oxidised state, so it is in
the nature of carbon to be related to both states and therefore to
oscillate between them. By its readiness to change over from the oxidised
to the combustible state, it can serve the plant in the assimilation of
light, while by its readiness to make the reverse change it serves man and
animal in the breathing process. We breathe in oxygen from the air; the
oxygen circulates through the blood stream and passes out again in
conjunction with carbon, as carbon dioxide, when we exhale. In the process
whereby the plants reduce the carbon dioxide exhaled by man and animal,
while the latter again absorb with their food the carbon produced in the
form of organic matter by the plant, we see carbon moving to and fro
between the two opposite conditions.

Within the plant itself, too, carbon acts as functionary of the
alternation between oxidation and reduction. During the first half of the
year, when vegetation is unfolding, there is a great reduction process of
oxidised carbon, while in the second half of the year, when the withering
process prevails, a great deal of the previously reduced carbon passes
into the oxidised condition. As this is connected with exhaling and
inhaling of oxygen through carbon, carbon can be regarded as having the
function of the lung-organ of the earth. Logically enough, we find carbon
playing the same role in the middle part of the threefold human organism.

Another indication of the midway position of carbon is its ability to
combine as readily with hydrogen as with oxygen, and, in these polar
combinations, even to combine with itself. In this latter form it provides
the basis of the innumerable organic substances in nature, and serves as
the 'building stones' of the body substances of living organisms. Among
these, the carbohydrates produced by the plants show clearly the double
function of carbon in the way it alternates between the states of starch
and sugar.

When the plant absorbs through its leaves carbonic acid from the air and
condenses it into the multiple grains of starch with their peculiar
structure characteristic for each plant species, we have a biological
event which corresponds to the formation of snow in the meteorological
realm. Here we see carbon at work in a manner functionally akin to that of
phosphorus. Sugar, on the other hand, has its place in the saps of the
plants which rise through the stems and carry up with them the mineral
substances of the earth. Here we find carbon acting in a way akin to the
function of sulphur.

This twofold nature of carbon makes itself noticeable down to the very
mineral sphere of the earth. There we find it in the fact that carbon
occurs both in the form of the diamond, the hardest of all mineral
substances, and in the form of the softest, graphite. In the diamond's
brilliant transparency, and in the dense blackness of graphite, carbon
reveals its twofold relation to light.

In Fig. 12 an attempt has been made to represent diagrammatically the
function of Carbon in a way corresponding to the previous representation
of the functions of Sulphur and Phosphorus.

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References:

  Ernst Lehrs, Man or Matter, pp. 233-236,
  RSP, ISBN: 0-85440-430-9, London, (1958).