eaction is equal
to action; obstacles on the way may delay its return or break up its
energy, but the time comes when the fractions return to the centre
that generates the disturbance, which thus receives from the Law a
perfectly just retribution.

The principal element in actions is thought. Every thought is a form
in a state of vibration--a ray of intelligence which unites itself
with subtle matter[29] and forms a being, of which this matter is the
body, and thought, the soul. This being, often called a
"thought-form," possesses form, duration, and strength that bear a
strict relation to the energy of the thought that created it; if it
embodies a soul of hatred, it will react on the man who harbours this
thought, and on all who come into contact with him, as a leaven of
destruction, but if it is guided by love it will be, as it were, the
incarnation of some beneficent power.

In certain cases its action is expressed visibly and rapidly; for
instance, a venomous thought may[30] cause the death of the person
against whom it is directed--this is one aspect of the "evil eye"--as
also it may[31] return to its starting-point and kill the one who
generated it, by the recoil. Every mental projection of a criminal
nature, however, by no means necessarily reaches the object aimed at;
a sorcerer, for instance, could no more injure one who was positive,
consciously and willingly good, than he could cause a grain of corn to
sprout on a block of granite; favourable soil is needed to enable the
seed of evil to take root in a man's heart; otherwise, the evil
recoils with its full force upon the one who sent it forth and who is
an irresistible magnet, for he is its very "life-centre."

Thoughts cling to their creator and attract towards this latter those
of a similar nature floating about in the invisible world, for they
instinctively come to vitalise and invigorate themselves by contact
with him; they radiate around him a contagious atmosphere of good or
evil, and when they have left him, hover about, at the caprice of the
various currents, impelling those they touch towards the goal to which
they are making. They even recoil on the visible form of their
generator; it is for this reason that physical is closely connected
with moral well-being, and most of our diseases are nothing else than
the outer expression of the hidden leaven of passion. When the action
of this latter is sudden and powerful, diseases may be the immediate
con