Originating Spirit. Both alike are thoughts of the Divine
Mind, and it is impossible to conceive any greater reality than the Divine
Thought, or to get at any more substantial source of reality than that.
Even if we were to picture the Divine Mind as laughing at its productions
as being mere illusions _relatively to itself_ (which I certainly do not),
still the relation between the individual mind and material existence would
be a reality for the individual, on the simple mathematical ground that
like signs multiplied together invariably produce a positive result, even
though the signs themselves be negative; so that, for us, at every stage of
our existence substance must always be as much a reality as mind. Therefore
the manifestation of Spirit in Form is the eternal principle of the
Creative Process whether in the evolution of a world-system or in that of
an individual.

But when we realize that by the nature of the Creative Process substance
must be an eternal verity we must not suppose that this is true also of
_particular forms_ or of _particular modes_ of matter. Substance is a
necessity for the expression of Spirit, but it does not follow that Spirit
is tied down to any particular mode of expression. If you fold a piece of
paper into the form of a dart it will fly through the air by the law of the
form which you have given it. Again, if you take the same bit of paper and
fold it into the shape of a boat it will float on water by the law of the
new form that you have given it. The thing formed will act in accordance
with the form given it, and the same paper can be folded into different
forms; but if there were no paper you could put it into any shape at all.
The dart and the boat are both real so long as you retain the paper in
either of those shapes; but this does not alter the fact that you can
change the shapes, though your power to do so depends on the existence of
the paper. This is a rough analogy of the relation between ultimate
substance and particular forms, and shows us that neither substance nor
shape is an illusion; both are essential to the manifestation of Spirit,
only by the nature of the Creative Process the Spirit has power to
determine what shape substance shall take at any particular time.

Accordingly we find the great Law that, as Spirit is the Alpha of the
Creative Process, so solid material Form is its Omega; in other words the
Creative Series is incomplete until solid material form is reach