290. Fundamentally there is no difference between physical chemistry and "cosmic chemistry". All existing substances in life have the ability to react; that is to say, they express a kind of energy-form. As each particular substance's faculty of reaction differs more or less from that of other substances, then they will all appear correspondingly different, and indeed will only be recognized by the individual characteristics of their reaction.
      That all substances thus possess a faculty of reaction is perhaps one of the most easily recognized facts, since it underlies everything which happens around us. We cannot come into contact with a single thing in daily life that does not react or express energy. It is this energy which causes water to extinguish fire and fire to make water evaporate. It is the reaction of air in our lungs and our lungs' reaction to air which is the main factor in the formation of our blood. Our blood's faculty of reaction is the basis for maintaining physical consciousness and our ability for sensing which in this case means our ability to react to our physical surroundings – provided, of course, that the substances we take in as food or nourishment can be controlled, governed or bound by the faculty of reaction coming from those substances which form our digestive organs. If they did not do so our physical body would perish. This is why there are only certain substances which we can eat as nutrients. If these substances were not in themselves expressions of energy, but on the contrary represented complete quiescence or immutability, then their assimilation into our organisms and their presence in the stomach would be utterly useless; their identity as nutrients would be totally lacking, for it is precisely the particular form of energy they represent which gives them the characteristic of nourishment. Without a release of energy there would be absolutely no characteristics of any kind. So our digestive process constitutes simply the reactions of various substances to each other within our organism. In the same way all phenomena in existence are just specific reactions of substances or matter to each other. This holds true of anything which can in any way be sensed – and even the faculty of sensing itself. Every experience is only the experience of a reaction between various types of energy. Thus seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling and thinking constitute only reactions of energies contacting each other. Likewise every colour – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – is in the same way just an expression for different reactions between energies; and it is the same with every sensation, pleasant or unpleasant. This applies equally to everything coming under the description of art or literature, indeed to any creative achievement produced by Man or by Nature: the beauty of landscapes with mountains and valleys, oceans, rivers and streams as well as buildings, towns, villages and factories, fields and gardens – all these are only reactions between energies; and this also applies equally to the many different organisms of living beings – their appearance, colour and form all express this same identity.
      And is it not so too with the human organism itself? What is its appearance, colouring and shape other than the reaction of various energies contacting each other? Is not an embryo the result of contact between energies from the father and the mother? What is joy, what is sorrow, other than the reaction between different mental forces?
      Indeed, all created things absolutely without exception are reactions of energy or of matter which in themselves are combinations of energies to which anything around must react; in this way new combinations of energy arise which once more create new reactions and so on continuously. The whole of existence – everything we call "life" – is consequently a chemical process. So chemistry as we know it – the science of the reactions of physical substances – is actually the beginning of spiritual science, even though this same chemistry is as yet restricted to dealing only with physical matter.