Vril, or Vital Magnetism

...man, and especially in the sexual lives of people. In his classic novel Elective Affinities original: "Affinites"; a 1809 novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that explores the idea that human relationships are governed by chemical-like laws of attraction., Goethe compared the relationship of a pair of lovers with the scientific phenomenon of the same name found in chemical combinations. The irresistible passion that draws Edward to the well-matched Ottilia, or Paris to Helen famous lovers from Greek mythology whose passion started the Trojan War, and leaps over all bounds of reason and morality, is the same "unconscious" attractive force which impels the living sperm cell to force its way into the egg cell during the fertilization of an animal or plant. It is the same impetuous movement which unites two atoms of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water.

This fundamental unity of attraction throughout all of nature—from the simplest chemical process to the most complicated love story—was recognized by the Greek philosopher Empedocles in the fifth century B.C. in his theory of the love and hate of the elements the ancient belief that the forces of attraction ("Love") and repulsion ("Strife") drive the mixing and separating of the four basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water. It receives scientific proof from the fascinating progress of cellular psychology, the great significance of which we have learned to appreciate over the last thirty years.

Based on these phenomena, we are convinced that even the atom is not without a rudimentary form of sensation and will. More accurately, we can say it possesses feeling original: Greek "aesthesis" and inclination original: Greek "tropesis"; an innate tendency to react to a stimulus—which is to say, it has a universal "soul" of the simplest kind. The same must be said of molecules, which are composed of two or more atoms. Further combinations of different kinds of these molecules give rise to simple and, eventually, complex chemical compounds. In the activity of these compounds, the same phenomena of attraction are repeated in a more complicated form.

Science now admits—and even positively affirms—that the principle of Life is inherent in and expressed through all forms of material things, whether they are inorganic or organic. We are not currently concerned with the idea that "mind" is present in all these forms, except to the extent that mind always accompanies life. Life is generally defined as the quality of sensation and will shown in physical matter. However, science is now proposing a more precise definition. The latest concept is that Life consists in the power of independent action and movement—that is, in the ability to act and move through an inner, inherent power, rather than by a force applied from the outside.