Thales (Electricity), sculpture from "The Progress of Railroading" (1908), main facade of Union Station (Washington, DC)

According to Aristotle, Thales thought "all things are full of gods",[8][92] i. e. lodestones had souls, because iron is attracted to them (by the force of magnetism).[93] The same applied to amber for its capacity to generate static electricity. The reasoning for such hylozoism or organicism seems to be if something moved, then it was alive, and if it was alive, then it must have a soul.[94][95]

As well as gods seen in the movement caused by what came to be known as magnetism and electricity, it seems Thales also had a supreme God which structured the universe:

"Thales", says Cicero,[96] "assures that water is the principle of all things; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things from water."

According to Henry Fielding (1775), Diogenes Laërtius (1.35) affirmed that Thales posed "the independent pre-existence of God from all eternity, stating "that God was the oldest of all beings, for he existed without a previous cause even in the way of generation; that the world was the most beautiful of all things; for it was created by God."[97]

Nicholas Molinari has recently argued that Thales was influenced by the archaic water deity Acheloios, who was equated with water and worshipped in Miletus during Thales's life. For evidence, he points to the fact that hydor meant specifically "fresh water," and also that Acheloios was seen as a shape-shifter in myth and art, so able to become anything. He also points out that the rivers of the world were seen as the "sinews of Acheloios" in antiquity, and this multiplicity of deities is reflected in Thales's idea that "all things are full of gods."