,,four-,,dimensional ,,vistas by ,claude ,bragdon ,illustration ,new ,york ,perception has a destiny4 ,emerson4 ,,introduction ,there are two notable emancipations of the mind from the tyranny of mere appearances that have received scant attention save from mathematicians and theoretical physicists4 ,in #ahbc ,bolyai declared with regard to ,euclid's so-called axiom of parallels1 ,i will draw two lines through a given point1 both of which will be parallel to a given line4 ,the drawing of these lines led to the concept of the curvature of space1 and this to the idea of higher space4 ,the recently developed ,theory of ,relativity has compelled the revision of the time concept as used in classical physics4 ,one result of this has been to introduce the notion of curved time4 ,these two ideas1 of curved time and higher space1 by their very nature are bound to profoundly modify human thought4 ,they loosen the bonds within which advancing knowledge has increasingly labored1 they lighten the dark abysses of consciousness1 they reconcile the discoveries of ,western workers with the inspirations of ,eastern dreamers2 but best of all1 they open vistas1 they offer glimpses that may make us less forlorn4 ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,quest ,,of ,,freedom ,the ,undiscovered ,country--,miracles--,the ,failure of ,common ,sense--,the ,function of ,science--,mathematics--,intuition--,our ,sense of ,space--,the ,subjectivity of ,space--,the ,need of an ,enlarged ,space-,concept4 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,dimensional ,,ladder ,learning to ,think in ,terms of ,spaces--,from the ,cosmos to the ,corpuscle--,and ,beyond--,evolution as ,space-,conquest--,dimensional ,sequences--,man the ,geometer--,higher1 and ,highest1 ,space4 ,,iii4 ,,physical ,,phenomena ,looking for the ,greater in the ,less--,symmetry--,other ,allied ,phenomena--,isomerism--,the ,orbital ,motion of ,spheres3 ,cell-,subdivision-- ,the ,electric ,current--,the ,greater ,universe--,a ,hint from ,astronomy-- ,gravitation--,the ,ether of ,space4 ,,iv4 ,,transcendental ,,physics ,zllner--,apparitions--,possession--,cla irvoyance in ,space--,clairvoyance in ,time--,pisgah ,sights of ,life's ,pageant4 ,v4 ,,curved ,,time ,time from the ,standpoint of ,experiment and of ,conscious ,experience-- ,relativity--,the ,spoon-,man--,the ,orbital ,movement of ,time--,materiality the ,mirror of ,consciousness--,periodicity4 ,,vi4 ,,sleep ,,and ,,dreams ,sleep--,dreams--,time in ,dreams--,the ,eastern ,teaching in regard to ,sleep and ,dreams--,space in ,dreams--,the ,phenomenon of ,pause4 ,,vii4 ,,the ,,night ,,side ,,of ,,consciousness ,the ,field of ,psychic ,research--,modifying the ,past--,karma and ,reincarnation--,colonel ,de ,rochas' ,experiments4 ,,viii4 ,,the ,,eastern ,,teaching ,oriental ,physics and ,metaphysics--,the ,self-,recovered ,memory of past ,births--,release4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,mystics ,hermes ,trismegistus--,the ,page and the ,press--,the ,ship and its ,captain--,direct ,vision--,plato's ,shadow-,watchers--,swedenborg--,man1 the ,space-,eater--,the ,within and ,without--,intuition and ,reason--,the ,coil of ,life4 ,x4 ,,genius ,immanence--,timelessness--,beyond ,good and ,evil3 ,beauty--,the ,daemonic-- ,a ,dream and a ,forgetting--,the ,play of ,brahm4 ,,xi4 ,,the ,,gift ,,of ,,freedom ,concept and ,conduct--,selflessness--,humility--,sol idarity--,live ,openly-- ,non-,resistance to ,evil--,the ,immanent ,divine4 ,,four-,,dimensional ,,vistas ,i ,,the ,,quest ,,of ,,freedom ,,the ,,undiscovered ,,country ,expectancy of freedom is the dominant note of to-day4 ,amid the crash of armies and the clash of systems we await some liberating stroke which shall release us from the old dreary thralldoms4 ,as ,nietzsche says1 ,it would seem as though we had before us1 as a reward for all our toils1 a country still undiscovered1 the horizons of which no one has yet seen1 a beyond to every country and every refuge of the ideal that man has ever known1 a world so overflowing with beauty1 strangeness1 doubt1 terror and divinity1 that both our curiosity and our lust of possession are frantic with eagerness4 ,should a name be demanded for this home of freedom1 there are those who would unhesitatingly call it ,the ,fourth ,dimension of ,space4 ,for such readers as may be ignorant of the amazing content of this seemingly meaningless phrase1 any summary attempt at enlightenment will lead only to deeper mystification4 ,to the question1 where and what is the fourth dimension1 the answer must be1 it is here--in us1 and all about us--in a direction toward which we can never point because at right angles to all the directions that we know4 ,our space cannot contain it1 because it contains our space4 ,no walls separate us from this demesne1 not even the walls of our fleshly prison2 yet we may not enter1 even though we are already there4 ,it is the place of dreams1 of living dead men3 it is ,at the ,back of the ,north ,wind and ,behind the ,looking ,glass4 ,so might one go on1 piling figure upon figure and paradox upon paradox1 to little profit4 ,the effective method is the ordered and deliberate one2 therefore the author asks of his reader the endurance of his curiosity pending certain necessary preparations of the mind4 ,,miracles ,could one of our aviators have landed in ancient ,athens1 doubtless he would have been given a place in the ,greek ,pantheon1 for the old idea of a demigod was a man with wings4 ,why1 then1 does a flying man so little amaze us8 ,because we know about engines1 and the smell of gasoline has dulled our sense of the sublime4 ,the living voice of a dead man leaves us unterrified if only we can be sure that it comes from a phonograph2 but let that voice speak to us out of vacancy and we fall a prey to the same order of alarm that is felt by a savage at the report of a gun that he has never seen4 ,this illustration very well defines the nature of a miracle3 it is a manifestation of power new to experience1 and counter to the current thought of the time1 ,miracles are therefore always in order1 they always happen4 ,it is nothing that the sober facts of to-day are more marvellous than the fictions of ,baron ,munchausen1 so long as we understand them3 it is everything that phenomena are multiplying1 that we are unable to understand4 ,this increasing pressure upon consciousness from a new direction has created a need to found belief on something firmer than a bottomless gullibility of mind4 ,this book is aimed to meet that need by giving the mind the freedom of new spaces2 but before it can even begin to do so1 the reader must be brought to see the fallacy of attempting to measure the limits of the possible by that faculty known as common sense4 ,and by common sense is meant1 not the appeal to abstract reason1 but to concrete experience4 ,,the ,,failure ,,of ,,common ,,sense ,common sense had scarce had its laugh at ,bell1 and its shout of ,i told you so6 at poor ,langley1 when lo6 the telephone became the world's nervous system1 and aeroplanes began to multiply like summer flies4 ,to common sense the alchemist's dream of transmuting lead into gold seems preposterous1 yet in a hundred laboratories radium is breaking down into helium1 and the new chemistry bids fair to turn the time-honored jeer at the alchemists completely upside down4 ,a wife whose mind was oriented in the new direction effectually silenced her husband's ridicule of what he called her credulity by reminding him that when wireless telegraphy was first suggested he had exclaimed1 ,ah1 that1 you know1 is one of the things that is not possible6 ,he was betrayed by his common sense4 ,the lessons such things teach us are summed up in the reply of ,arago1 the great savant1 to the wife of ,daguerre4 ,she asked him if he thought her husband was losing his mind because he was trying to make permanent the image in a mirror4 ,arago is said to have answered1 ,he who1 outside of pure mathematics1 says a thing is impossible1 speaks without reason4 ,common sense neither leads nor lags1 but is ever limited to the passing moment3 the common knowledge of to-day was the mystery and enchantment of the day before yesterday1 and will be the mere commonplace of the day after to-morrow4 ,if common sense can so little anticipate the ordinary and orderly advancement of human knowledge1 it is still less able to take that leap into the dark which is demanded of it now4 ,the course of wisdom is therefore to place reliance upon reason and intuition1 leaving to common sense the task of guiding the routine affairs of life1 and guiding these alone4 ,,the ,,function ,,of ,,science ,in enlisting the aid of reason in our quest for freedom1 we shall be following in the footsteps of mathematicians and theoretical physicists4 ,in their arduous and unflinching search after truth they have attained to a conception of the background of phenomena of far greater breadth and grandeur than that of the average religionist of to-day4 ,as a mathematician once remarked to a neo-theosophist1 ,your idea of the ether is a more material one than the materialist's own4 ,science has1 however1 imposed upon itself its own limitations1 and in this connection these should be clearly understood4 ,science is that knowledge which can be gained by exact observation and correct thinking4 ,if science makes use of any methods but these it ceases to be itself4 ,science has therefore nothing to do with morals3 it gives the suicide his pistol1 the surgeon his life-saving lance1 but neither admonishes nor judges them4 ,it has nothing to do with emotion3 it exposes the chemistry of a tear1 the mechanism of laughter2 but of sorrow and happiness it has naught to say4 ,it has nothing to do with beauty3 it traces the movements of the stars1 and tells of their constitution2 but the fact of their singing together1 and that such harmony is in immortal souls1 it leaves to poet and philosopher4 ,the timbre1 loudness1 pitch1 of musical tones1 is a concern of science2 but for this a ,beethoven symphony is no better than the latest ragtime air from the music halls4 ,in brief1 science deals only with phenomena1 and its gift to man is power over his material environment4 ,,mathematics ,the gift of pure mathematics1 on the other hand1 is primarily to the mind and spirit3 the fact that man uses it to get himself out of his physical predicaments is more or less by the way4 ,consider for a moment this paradox4 ,mathematics1 the very thing common sense swears by and dotes on1 contradicts common sense at every turn4 ,common sense balks at the idea of less than nothing2 yet the minus quantity1 which in one sense is less than nothing in that something must be added to it to make it equal to nothing1 is a concept without which algebra would have to come to a full stop4 ,again1 the science of quaternions1 or more generally1 a vector analysis in which the progress of electrical science is essentially involved1 embraces 7explicitly or implicitly7 the extensive use of imaginary or impossible quantities of the earlier algebraists4 ,the very words imaginary and impossible are eloquent of the defeat of common sense in dealing with concepts with which it cannot practically dispense1 for even the negative or imaginary solutions of imaginary quantities almost invariably have some physical significance4 ,a similar statement might also be made with regard to transcendental functions4 ,mathematics1 then1 opens up ever new horizons1 and its achievements during the past one hundred years give to thought the very freedom it seeks4 ,but if science is dispassionate1 mathematics is even more austere and impersonal4 ,it cares not for teeming worlds and hearts insurgent1 so long as in the pure clarity of space1 relationships exist4 ,indeed1 it requires neither time nor space1 number nor quantity4 ,as the mathematician approaches the limits already achieved by study1 the colder and thinner becomes the air and the fewer the contacts with the affairs of every day4 ,the ,promethean fire of pure mathematics is perhaps the greatest of all in man's catalogue of gifts2 but it is not most itself1 but least so1 when1 immersed in the manifoldness of phenomenal life1 it is made to serve purely utilitarian ends4 ,,intuition ,common sense1 immersed in the mere business of living1 knows no more about life than a fish knows about water4 ,the play of reason upon phenomena dissects life1 and translates it in terms of inertia4 ,the pure logic of mathematics ignores life and disdains its limitations1 leading away into cold1 free regions of its own4 ,now our desire for freedom is not to vibrate in a vacuum1 but to live more abundantly4 ,intuition deals with life directly1 and introduces us into life's own domain3 it is related to reason as flame is related to heat4 ,all of the great discoveries in science1 all of the great solutions in mathematics1 have been the result of a flash of intuition1 after long brooding in the mind4 ,intuition illumines4 ,intuition is therefore the light which must guide us into that undiscovered country conceded by mathematics1 questioned by science1 denied by common sense--,the ,fourth ,dimension of ,space4 ,,our ,,sense ,,of ,,space ,space has been defined as room to move about4 ,let us accord to this definition the utmost liberty of interpretation4 ,let us conceive of space not alone as room to move ponderable bodies in1 but as room to think1 to feel1 to strike out in unimaginable directions1 to overtake felicities and knowledges unguessed by experience and preposterous to common sense4 ,space is not measurable3 we attribute dimensionality to space because such is the method of the mind2 and that dimensionality we attribute to space is progressive because progression is a law of the mind4 ,the so-called dimensions of space are to space itself as the steps that a climber cuts in the face of a cliff are to the cliff itself4 ,they are not necessary to the cliff3 they are necessary only to the climber4 ,dimensionality is the mind's method of mounting to the idea of the infinity of space4 ,when we speak of the fourth dimension1 what we mean is the fourth stage in the apprehension of that infinity4 ,we might as legitimately speak of a fifth dimension1 but the profitlessness of any discussion of a fifth and higher stages lies in the fact that they can be intelligently approached only through the fourth1 which is still largely unintelligible4 ,the case is like that of a man promised an increase of wages after he had worked a month1 who asks for his second month's pay before he is entitled to the first4 ,,the ,,subjectivity ,,of ,,space ,without going deep into the doctrine of the ideality--that is1 the purely subjective reality--of space1 it is easy to show that we have arrived at our conception of a space of three dimensions by an intellectual process4 ,the sphere of the senses is two-dimensional3 except for the slight aid afforded by binocular vision1 sight gives us moving pictures on a plane1 and touch contacts surfaces only4 ,what circumstances1 we may ask1 have compelled our intellect to conceive of solid space8 ,this question has been answered as follows3 ,if a child contemplates his hand1 he is conscious of its existence in a double manner--in the first place by its tangibility1 the second by its image on the retina of his eye4 ,by repeated groping about and touching1 the child knows by experience that his hand retains the same form and extension through all the variations of distance and position under which it is observed1 notwithstanding that the form and extension of the image on the retina constantly change with the different position and distance of his hand in respect to his eye4 ,the problem is thus set to the child's understanding3 how to reconcile to his comprehension the apparently contradictory facts of the invariableness of the object together with the variableness of its appearance4 ,this is only possible within a space of three dimensions1 in which1 owing to perspective distortions and changes1 these variations of projection can be reconciled with the constancy of the form of a body4 ,thus we have come to the idea of a three-dimensional space in order to overcome the apparent contradictoriness of facts of sensible experience4 ,should we observe in three-dimensional space contradictory facts our reason would be forced to reconcile these contradictions1 also1 and if they could be reconciled by the idea of a four-dimensional space our reason would accept this idea without cavil4 ,furthermore1 if from our childhood1 phenomena had been of daily occurrence requiring a space of four or more dimensions for an explanation conformable to reason1 we should feel ourselves native to a space of four or more dimensions4 ,poincar1 the great ,french mathematician and physicist1 arrived at these same conclusions by another route4 ,by a process of mathematical reasoning of a sort too technical to be appropriately given here1 he discovers an order in which our categories range themselves naturally1 and which corresponds with the points of space2 and that this order presents itself in the form of what he calls a three circuit distribution board4 ,thus the characteristic property of space1 he says1 that of having three dimensions1 is only a property of our distribution board1 a property residing1 so to speak1 in human intelligence4 ,he concludes that a different association of ideas would result in a different distribution board1 and that might be sufficient to endow space with a fourth dimension4 ,he concedes that there may be thinking beings1 living in our world1 whose distribution board has four dimensions1 and who do consequently think in hyperspace4 ,,the ,,need ,,of ,,an ,,enlarged ,,space-,,concept ,it is the contrariety in phenomena already referred to1 that is forcing advanced minds to entertain the idea of higher space4 ,mathematical physicists have found that experimental contradictions disappear if1 instead of referring phenomena to a set of three space axes and one time axis of reference1 they be referred to a set of four interchangeable axes involving four homogeneous co-ordinates4 ,in other words1 time is made the fourth dimension4 ,psychic phenomena indicate that occasionally1 in some individuals1 the will is capable of producing physical movements for whose geometrico-mathematical definition a four-dimensional system of co-ordinates is necessary4 ,this is only another step along the road which the human mind has always travelled3 our conception of the cosmos grows more complete and more just at the same time that it recedes more and more beneath the surface of appearances4 ,far from the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis complicating thought1 it simplifies by synthesis and co-ordination in a manner analogous to that by which plane geometry is simplified when solid geometry becomes a subject of study4 ,by immersing the mind in the idea of many dimensions1 we emancipate it from the idea of dimensionality4 ,but the mind moves most readily1 as has been said1 in ordered sequence4 ,frankly submitting ourselves to this limitation1 even while recognizing it as such1 let us learn such lessons from it as we can1 serving the illusions that master us until we have made them our slaves4 ,,ii ,,the ,,dimensional ,,ladder ,,learning ,,to ,,think ,,in ,,terms ,,of ,,spaces ,the ,reader who is willing to consider the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis seriously1 who would discover1 by its aid1 new and profound truths closely related to life and conduct1 should first of all endeavor to arouse in himself a new power of perception4 ,this he will best accomplish by learning to discern dimensional sequences1 not alone in geometry1 but in the cosmos and in the natural world4 ,by so doing he may erect for himself a veritable ,jacob's ladder1 ,pitched between ,heaven and ,charing ,cross4 ,he should accustom himself to ascend it1 step by step1 dimension by dimension4 ,then he will learn to trust ,emerson's dictum1 ,nature geometrizes1 even in regions where the senses fail him1 and the mind alone leads on4 ,much profitable amusement is to be gained by such exercises as follow4 ,they are in the nature of a running up and down the scales in order to give strength and flexibility to a new set of mental fingers4 ,learning to think in terms of spaces contributes to our emancipation from the tyranny of space4 ,,from ,,the ,,cosmos ,,to ,,the ,,corpuscle ,by way of a beginning1 proceed1 by successive stages1 from the contemplation of the greatest thing conceivable to the contemplation of the most minute1 and note the space sequences revealed by this shifting of the point of view4 ,the greatest thing we can form any conception of is the starry firmament made familiar to the mind through the study of astronomy4 ,no limit to this vastitude has ever been assigned4 ,since the beginning of recorded time1 the earth1 together with the other planets and the sun1 has been speeding through interstellar space at the rate of #cjj1jjj1jjj miles a year1 without meeting or passing a single star4 ,a ray of light1 travelling with a velocity so great as to be scarcely measurable within the diameter of the earth's orbit1 takes years to reach even the nearest star1 centuries to reach those more distant4 ,viewed in relation to this universe of suns1 our particular sun and all its satellites--of which the earth is one--shrinks to a point 7a physical point1 so to speak--not geometrical one74 ,the mind recoils from these immensities3 let us forsake them1 then1 for more familiar spaces1 and consider the earth in its relation to the sun4 ,our planet appears as a moving point1 tracing out a line--a one-space--its path around the sun4 ,now let us remove ourselves in imagination only far enough from the earth for human beings thereon to appear as minute moving things1 in the semblance1 let us say1 of insects infesting an apple4 ,it is clear that from this point of view these beings have a freedom of movement in their space 7the surface of the earth71 of which the larger unit is not possessed2 for while the earth itself can follow only a line1 its inhabitants are free to move in the two dimensions of the surface of the earth4 ,abandoning our last coign of vantage1 let us descend in imagination and mingle familiarly among men4 ,we now perceive that these creatures which from a distance appeared as though flat upon the earth's surface1 are in reality erect at right angles to its plane1 and that they are endowed with the power to move their members in three dimensions4 ,indeed1 man's ability to traverse the surface of the earth is wholly dependent upon his power of three-dimensional movement4 ,observe that with each transfer of our attention from greater units to smaller1 we appear to be dealing with a power of movement in an additional dimension4 ,looking now in thought not at the body of man1 but within it1 we apprehend an ordered universe immensely vast in proportion to that physical ultimate we name the electron1 as is the firmament immensely vast in proportion to a single star4 ,it has been suggested that in the infinitely minute of organic bodies there is a power of movement in a fourth dimension4 ,if so1 such four-dimensional movement may be the proximate cause of the phenomenon of growth--of those chemical changes and renewals whereby an organism is enabled to expand in three-dimensional space1 just as by a three-dimensional power of movement 7the act of walking7 man is able to traverse his two-dimensional space--the surface of the earth4 --,,and ,,beyond ,proceed still further4 ,behind such organic change--assumed to be four-dimensional--there is the determination of some will-to-live1 which manifests itself to consciousness as thought and as desire4 ,into these the idea of space does not enter3 we think of them as in time4 ,but if there are developments of other dimensions of space1 thought and emotion may themselves be discovered to have space relations2 that is1 they may find expression in the forms of higher spaces4 ,thus is opened up one of those rich vistas in which the subject of the fourth dimension abounds1 but into which we can only glance in passing4 ,if there are such higher-dimensional thought-forms1 our normal consciousness1 limited to a world of three dimensions1 can apprehend only their three-dimensional aspects1 and these not simultaneously1 but successively--that is1 in time4 ,according to this view1 any unified series of actions--for example1 the life of an individual1 or of a group--would represent the straining1 so to speak1 of a thought-form through our time1 as the bodies subject to these actions would represent its straining through our space4 ,,evolution ,,as ,,space-,,conquest ,evolution is a struggle for1 and a conquest of1 space2 for evolution1 as the word implies1 is a drawing out of what is inherent from latency into objective reality1 or in other words into spatial--and temporal--extension4 ,this struggle for space1 by means of which the birth and growth of organisms is achieved1 is the very texture of life1 the plot of every drama4 ,cells subdivide2 micro-organisms war on one another2 plants contend for soil1 light1 moisture2 flowers cunningly suborn the bee to bring about their nuptials2 animals wage deadly warfare in their rivalry to bring more hungry animals into a space-hungry world4 ,man is not exempt from this law of the jungle4 ,nations intrigue and fight for land--of which wealth is only the symbol--and a nation's puissance is measured by its power to push forward into the territory of its neighbor4 ,the self-same impulse drives the individual4 ,one measure of the difference between men in the matter of efficiency is the amount of space each can command3 one has a house and grounds in some locality where every square inch has an appreciable value2 another some fractional part of a lodging house in the slums4 ,when this bloodless1 but none the less deadly1 contest for space becomes acute1 as in the congested quarters of great cities1 man's ingenuity is taxed to devise effective ways of augmenting his space-potency1 and he expands in a vertical direction4 ,this third-dimensional extension1 typified in the tunnel and in the skyscraper1 is but the latest phase of a conquest of space which began with the line of the pioneer's trail through an untracked wilderness4 ,,dimensional ,,sequences ,not only does nature everywhere geometrize1 but she does so in a particular way1 in which we discover dimensional sequences4 ,consider the transformation of solid1 liquid1 gas1 from one to another1 under the influence of heat4 ,a solid1 set in free motion1 can follow only a line--as is the case of a thrown ball4 ,a liquid has the added power of lateral extension4 ,its tendency1 when intercepted1 is to spread out in the two dimensions of a plane--as in the case of a griddle cake2 while a gas expands universally in all directions1 as shown by a soap-bubble4 ,it is a reasonable inference that the fourth state of matter1 the corpuscular1 is affiliated to some four-dimensional manner of extension1 and that there may be states beyond this1 involving even higher development of space4 ,next glance at the vegetable kingdom4 ,the seed1 a point1 generates a line system1 in stem1 branches1 twigs1 from which depend planes in the form of leaves and flowers1 and from these come fruit1 solids4 ,the point1 the line1 the surface and the sphere1 ,in seed1 stem1 leaf and fruit appear4 ,a similar sequence may be noted within the body3 the line-network of the nerves conveys the message of sensation from the surface of the body to some center in the solid1 of the brain--and thence to the ,silent ,thinker1 he who is without and within1 or in terms of our hypothesis1 he who dwells in higher space4 ,,man ,,the ,,geometer ,when man essays the rle of creator he cannot do otherwise than follow similar sequences3 it is easy to discern dimensional progression in the products of man's ingenuity and skill4 ,consider1 for example1 the evolution of a building from its inception to its completion4 ,it exists first of all in the mind of the architect1 and there it is indubitably higher-spatial1 for he can interpenetrate and examine every part1 and he can consider it all at once1 viewing it simultaneously from without and from within1 just as one would be able to do in a space of four dimensions4 ,he begins to give his idea physical embodiment by making with a pencil-point1 lines on a plane 7a piece of paper71 the third dimension being represented by means of the other two4 ,next 7if he is careful and wise7 he makes a three-dimensional model4 ,from the architect's drawings the engineer establishes his points1 lays out his angles1 and runs his lines upon the site itself4 ,the mason follows1 and with his footing courses makes ponderable and permanent the lines of the engineer4 ,these lines become in due course walls--vertical planes4 ,floors and roofs--horizontal planes--follow1 until some portion of three-dimensional space has been enclosed4 ,substantially the same sequence holds1 whatever the kind of building or the character of the construction--whether a steel-framed skyscraper or a wooden shanty4 ,a line system1 represented by columns and girders in the one case1 and by studs and rafters in the other1 becomes1 by overlay or interposition1 a system of planes1 so assembled and correlated as to define a solid4 ,with nearly everything of man's creating--be it a bureau or a battleship--the process is as above described4 ,first1 a pattern to scale2 next1 an actual linear framework2 then planes defining a solid4 ,consider almost any of the industries practiced throughout the ages3 they may be conceived of thus in terms of dimensions2 for example1 those ancient ones of weaving and basket making4 ,lines 7threads in the one case1 rushes in the other7 are wrought into planes to clothe a body or to contain a burden4 ,or think1 if you choose1 of the modern industry of book-making1 wherein types are assembled1 impressed upon sheets of paper1 and these bound into volumes-- points1 lines1 planes1 solids4 ,the book in turn becomes the unit of another dimensional order1 in the library whose serried shelves form lines1 which1 combined into planes1 define the lateral limits of the room4 ,,higher--,,and ,,highest--,,space ,these are truisms4 ,what have they to do1 it may be asked1 with the idea of higher spaces8 ,they have everything to do with it1 for in achieving the enclosure of any portion of solid space the limit of known dimensions has been reached without having come to any end4 ,more dimensions--higher spaces--are required to account for higher things4 ,all of the products of man's ingenuity are inanimate except as he himself animates them4 ,they remain as they were made1 machines1 not organisms4 ,they have no inherent life of their own1 no power of growth and renewal4 ,in this they differ from animate creation because the highest achievement of the creative faculty in man in a mechanical way lacks the life principle possessed by the plant4 ,and as the most perfect machine is inferior in this respect to the humblest flower that grows1 so is the highest product of the vegetable kingdom inferior to man himself1 the maker of the machine2 for he can reflect upon his own and the world's becoming1 while the plant can only become4 ,what is the reason for these differences of power and function8 ,according to the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis they are due to varying potencies of movement in the secret causeways and corridors of space4 ,the higher functions of consciousness--volition1 emotion1 intellection--may be in some way correlated with the higher powers of numbers1 and with the corresponding higher developments of space4 ,thus would the difference between physics and metaphysics become a difference of degree and not of kind4 ,evolution is to be conceived of as a continuous pushing back of the boundary between representation and reality1 or as a conquest of space4 ,we may conceive of space as of an infinite number of dimensions1 and of consciousness as a moving--or rather as an expanding--point1 embracing this infinity1 involving worlds1 powers1 knowledges1 felicities1 within itself in everlasting progression4 ,,iii ,,physical ,,phenomena ,,looking ,,for ,,the ,,greater ,,in ,,the ,,less ,after the assured way in which the author has conducted the reader repeatedly up and down the dimensional ladder1 it may be a surprise to learn that physical phenomena offer no irrefragable evidences of hyper-dimensionality4 ,we could not think in higher space if consciousness were limited to three dimensions4 ,the mathematical reality of higher space is never in question3 the higher dimensions are as valid as the lower1 but the hyper-dimensionality of matter is still unproven4 ,man's ant-like efforts to establish this as a truth have thus far been vain4 ,lest this statement discourage the reader at the very outset1 he should understand the reason for such failure4 ,we are embedded in our own space1 and if that space be embedded in higher space1 how are we going to discover it8 ,if space is curved1 how are we going to measure its curvature8 ,our efforts to do so may be compared to measuring the distance between the tips of a bent bow by measuring along the bow instead of along the string4 ,imagine a scientifically-minded threadworm to inhabit a page of ,euclid's solid geometry3 the evidences of three-dimensionality are there1 in the very diagrams underneath his eyes2 but you could not show him a solid--the flat page could not contain it1 any more than our space can contain a form of four dimensions4 ,you could only say to him1 ,these lines represent a solid4 ,he would have to depend on his faith for belief and not on that knowledge gained by exact observation and correct thinking in which alone the scientist finds a sure ground for understanding4 ,it is an axiom of science never to look outside three-space horizons for an understanding of phenomena when these can logically be accounted for within those horizons4 ,now because1 on the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis1 each space is the container of all phenomena of its own order1 the futility1 for practical purposes1 of going outside is at once apparent4 ,the highly intelligent threadworm neither knows nor cares that the point of intersection of two lines in his diagram represents a point in a space to which he is a stranger4 ,the point is there1 on his page3 it is what he calls a fact4 ,why raise 7he says7 these puzzling and merely academic questions8 ,why attempt to turn the universe completely upside down8 ,but though no proofs of hyper-dimensionality have been found in nature1 there are equally no contradictions of it1 and by using a method not inductive1 but deductive1 the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis is plausibly confirmed4 ,nature affords a sufficient number of representations of four-dimensional forms and movements to justify their consideration4 ,,symmetry ,let us first flash the light of our hypothesis upon an all but universal characteristic of living forms1 yet one of the most inexplicable--symmetry4 ,animal life exhibits the phenomenon of the right-and left-handed symmetry of solids4 ,this is exemplified in the human body1 wherein the parts are symmetrical with relation to the axial plane4 ,another more elementary type of symmetry is characteristic of the vegetable kingdom4 ,a leaf in its general contour is symmetrical3 here the symmetry is about a line--the midrib4 ,this type of symmetry is readily comprehensible1 for it involves simply a revolution through #ahj degrees4 ,write a word on a piece of paper and quickly fold it along the line of writing so that the wet ink repeats the pattern1 and you have achieved the kind of symmetry represented in a leaf4 ,with the symmetry of solids1 or symmetry with relation to an axial plane1 no such simple movement as the foregoing suffices to produce or explain it1 because symmetry about a plane implies four-dimensional movement4 ,it is easy to see why this must be so4 ,in order to achieve symmetry in any space--that is1 in any given number of dimensions--there must be revolution in the next higher space3 one more dimension is necessary4 ,to make the 7two-dimensional7 ink figure symmetrical1 it had to be folded over in the third dimension4 ,the revolution took place about the figure's line of symmetry1 and in a higher dimension4 ,in three-dimensional symmetry 7the symmetry of solids7 revolution must occur about the figure's plane of symmetry1 and in a higher--i4e41 the fourth dimension4 ,such a movement we can reason about with mathematical definiteness3 we see the result in the right- and left-handed symmetry of solids1 but we cannot picture the movement ourselves because it involves a space of which our senses fail to give any account4 ,now could it be shown that the two-dimensional symmetry observed in nature is the result of a three-dimensional movement1 the right-and left-handed symmetry of solids would by analogy be the result of a four-dimensional movement4 ,such revolution 7about a plane7 would be easily achieved1 natural and characteristic1 in four space1 just as the analogous movement 7about a line7 is easy1 natural1 and characteristic1 in our space of three dimensions4 ,,other ,,allied ,,phenomena ,in the mirror image of a solid we have a representation of what would result from a four-dimensional revolution1 the surface of the mirror being the plane about which the movement takes place4 ,if such a change of position were effected in the constituent parts of a body as a mirror image of it represents1 the body would have undergone a revolution in the fourth dimension4 ,now two varieties of tartaric acid crystallize in forms bearing the relation to one another of object to mirror image4 ,it would seem more reasonable to explain the existence of these two identical1 but reversed1 varieties of crystal1 by assuming the revolution of a single variety in the fourth dimension1 than by any other method4 ,there are two forms of sugar found in honey1 dextrose and levulose4 ,they are similar in chemical constitution1 but the one is the reverse of the other when examined by polarized light--that is1 they rotate the plane of polarization of a ray of light in opposite ways4 ,if their atoms are conceived to have the power of motion in the fourth dimension1 it would be easy to understand why they differ4 ,certain snails present the same characteristics as these two forms of sugar4 ,some are coiled to the right and others to the left2 and it is remarkable that1 like dextrose and levulose1 their juices are optically the reverse of each other when studied by polarized light4 ,revolution in the fourth dimension would also explain the change in a body from producing a right-handed1 to producing a left-handed1 polarization of light4 ,,isomerism ,in chemistry the molecules of a compound are assumed to consist of the atoms of the elements contained in the compound4 ,these atoms are supposed to be at certain distances from one another4 ,it sometimes happens that two compound substances differ in their chemical or physical properties1 or both1 even though they have like chemical elements in the same proportion4 ,this phenomenon is called isomerism1 and the generally accepted explanation is that the atoms in isomeric molecules are differently arranged1 or grouped1 in space4 ,it is difficult to imagine how atoms1 alike in number1 nature1 and relative proportion1 can be so grouped as somehow to produce compounds with different properties1 particularly as in three-dimensional space four is the greatest number of points whose mutual distances1 six in number1 are all independent of each other4 ,in four-dimensional space1 however1 the ten equal distances between any two of five points are geometrically independent1 thus greatly augmenting the number and variety of possible arrangements of atoms4 ,this just escapes being the kind of proof demanded by science4 ,if the independence of all the possible distances between the atoms of a molecule is absolutely required by theoretical chemical research1 then science is really compelled1 in dealing with molecules of more than four atoms1 to make use of the idea of a space of more than three dimensions4 ,,the ,,orbital ,,motion ,,of ,,spheres3 ,,cell ,,sub-,,division ,there is in nature another representation of hyper-dimensionality which1 though difficult to demonstrate1 is too interesting and significant to be omitted here4 ,imagine a helix1 intersected1 in its vertical dimension1 by a moving plane4 ,if necessary to assist the mind1 suspend a spiral spring above a pail of water1 then raise the pail until the coils1 one after another1 become immersed4 ,the spring would represent the helix1 and the surface of the water the moving plane4 ,concentrating attention upon this surface1 you would see a point--the elliptical cross-section of the wire where it intersected the plane--moving round and round in a circle4 ,next conceive of the wire itself as a lesser helix of many convolutions1 and repeat the experiment4 ,the point of intersection would then continually return upon its own track in a series of minute loops forming those lesser loops1 which1 moving circle-wise1 registered the involvement of the helix in the plane4 ,it is easy to go on imagining complicated structures of the nature of the spiral1 and to suppose also that these structures are distinguishable from each other at every section4 ,if we think of the intersection of these with the rising surface1 as the atoms1 or physical units1 of a plane universe1 we shall have a world of apparent motion1 with bodies moving harmoniously amongst one another1 each a cross-section of some part of an unchanging and unmoving three-dimensional entity4 ,now augment the whole by an additional dimension--raise everything one space4 ,the helix of many helices would become four-dimensional1 and superficial space would change to solid space3 each tiny circle of intersection would become a sphere of the same diameter1 describing1 instead of loops1 helices4 ,here we would be among familiar forms1 describing familiar motions3 the forms1 for example1 of the earth and the moon and of their motion about the sun2 of the atom1 as we imagine it1 the molecule and the cell4 ,for is not the sphere1 or ovoid1 the unit form of nature2 and is not the spiral vortex its characteristic motion1 from that of the nebula in the sky to the electron in the atom8 ,thus1 on the hypothesis that our space is traversing four-dimensional space1 and that the forms of our space are cross-sections of four-dimensional forms1 the unity and harmony of nature would be accounted for in a remarkably simple manner4 ,the above exercise of the imagination is a good preparation for the next demand upon it4 ,conceive a dichotomous tree--one that always divides into two branches--to pass through a plane4 ,we should have1 as a plane section1 a circle of changing size1 which would elongate and divide into two circles1 each of which would do the same4 ,this reminds us of the segmentation of cell life observed under the microscope1 as though a four-dimensional figure were registering its passage through our space4 ,,the ,,electric ,,current ,hinton conceived of an electric current as a four-dimensional vortex4 ,he declared that on the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis the revolution of the ether would yield the phenomenon of the electric current4 ,the reader is referred to ,hinton's book1 ,the ,fourth ,dimension1 for an extended development of this idea4 ,what follows is a brief summary of his argument4 ,first1 he examines the characteristics of a vortex in a three-dimensional fluid4 ,then he conceives of what such a vortex would be in a four-dimensional medium of analogous properties4 ,the whirl would be about a plane1 and the contour of this plane would correspond to the ends of the axis line in the former vortex2 and as before1 the vortex would extend to the boundary4 ,every electric current forms a closed circuit3 this is equivalent to the hyper-vortex having its ends in the boundary of the hyper-fluid4 ,the vortex with a surface as its axis1 therefore1 affords a geometric image of a closed circuit4 ,hinton supposes a conductor to be a body which has the property of serving as a terminal abutment to such a hyper-vortex as has been described4 ,the conception that he forms of a closed current1 therefore1 is of a vortex sheet having its edge along the circuit of the conducting wire4 ,the whole wire would then be like the centers on which a spindle turns in three-dimensional space1 and any interruption of the continuity of the wire would produce a tension in place of a continuous revolution4 ,the phenomena of electricity--polarity1 induction1 and the like--are of the nature of the stress and strain of a medium1 but one possessing properties unlike those of ordinary matter4 ,the phenomena can be explained in terms of higher space4 ,if ,hinton's hypothesis be the true explanation1 the universality of electro-magnetic action would again point to the conclusion that our three-dimensional world is superficial--the surface1 that is1 of a four-dimensional universe4 ,,the ,,greater ,,universe ,this practically exhausts the list of accepted and accredited indications of hyper-dimensionality in our physical environment4 ,but if the collective human consciousness is moving into the fourth dimension1 such indications are bound to multiply out of all measure4 ,it should be remembered that in ,franklin's day electricity was manifest only in the friction of surfaces and in the thunderbolt4 ,to-day all physical phenomena1 in their last analysis1 are considered to be electrical4 ,the world is not different1 but perception has evolved1 and is evolving4 ,there is another field1 in which some of our ablest minds are searching for evidences of the curvature of space1 the field of astronomy and astro-physics4 ,but into this the layman hesitates to enter because the experts themselves have found no common ground of understanding4 ,the ether of space is a battlefield strewn with dead and dying hypotheses2 gravitation1 like multiplication1 is vexation2 the very nature of time1 form and movement is under vivid discussion1 in connection with what is known as the ,theory of ,relativity4 ,notwithstanding these counter-currents of speculation1 which should make the wise man speak smilingly of his wisdom1 this summary remains incomplete without a reference to the pressure of higher space upon those adventurous minds that essay to deal with the profound problems of the greater universe1 and a statement of the reasons for their feeling this pressure4 ,these reasons are well suggested by ,professor ,b4,g4 ,harrison1 in his ,popular ,astronomy4 ,he says3 ,with the idea of a universe of finite dimensions there is the obvious difficulty of the beyond4 ,the truth is that a universe of finite proportions is equally difficult to realize as one of infinite extent4 ,perhaps the nearest analogy to infinity that we can understand lies in our conception of a closed curve4 ,it seems easier to imagine the endless movement of a sphere in a circular path than the case of one travelling in a straight line4 ,possibly this analogy may apply in some way to fourth-dimensional space1 but the manner of its application is certainly not easy to understand4 ,if we would imagine that all co-ordinates of time and space were curved1 and eventually return to the same point1 it might bring the ultimate comprehension one degree nearer4 ,a ,,hint ,,from ,,astronomy ,the physical evidence that our space is thus curved in higher space1 some have considered astronomy to furnish in what is called the negative parallax of certain distant stars4 ,this cannot be passed by1 though it is too deeply involved with the probable error of the observers themselves to be considered more than an interesting fact in this connection4 ,every one knows that the difference of angle under which an object is seen from two standpoints is called its parallax4 ,the parallax of the stars--and the consequent knowledge of their distance--is obtained by observing them from opposite points of the earth's orbit around the sun4 ,when a star is within measurable distance1 these angles are acute1 and the lines from the star to the earth at opposite sides of its orbit converge1 therefore4 ,but when these lines1 as sometimes happens1 appear to be divergent1 the result is called a negative parallax1 and is explainable by higher space relationships4 ,obviously1 the divergence of the lines would indicate that the object lies behind the observer instead of in front of him4 ,this anomaly can be explained by the curvature of space in the fourth dimension4 ,if space is so curved1 the path of light itself is curved also1 and a man--were his vision immeasurably keen1 not to say telescopic--could see the back of his own head6 ,it is not worth while to give this question of negative parallax too much importance1 by reason of the probability of error1 but in this connection it should be stated that there appears to be an undue number of negative parallaxes recorded4 ,,gravitation ,gravitation remains a puzzle to science4 ,the tendency of modern physics is to explain all material phenomena in terms of electrons and the ether1 but the attempt to account for gravitation in this way is attended with difficulties4 ,in order to cope with these1 it seems necessary to assume that our universe is only a portion of a greater universe4 ,this assumption readily lends itself to the conception of our universe as a three-dimensional meeting place of two portions of a universe of four dimensions--that is1 its conception as a higher surface4 ,this is a fundamental postulate of higher space speculation4 ,one hypothesis advanced to explain gravitation assumes the existence of a constant hydrostatic pressure transmitted through the ether4 ,a steady flow of ether into every electron in a gravitating system of bodies would give rise to forces of attraction between them1 varying inversely as the square of the distance1 according to ,newton's law4 ,but in order to avoid the conception of the continual destruction and creation of ether1 it is necessary to assume a steady flow through every electron between our universe and the greater universe of which it is assumed to form a part ,now because the electrons1 in order to receive this flow1 must lie on the boundary of this greater universe1 the latter must be four-dimensional4 ,every electron1 in other words1 must be the starting point of a pathway into--and a terminal point out of--four-dimensional space4 ,here we have another familiar higher space concept4 ,,the ,,ether ,,of ,,space ,the ether of space1 because it has at last found entrance1 must be given a grudging hospitality in these pages1 even though the mysterious stranger prove but a ghost4 ,the ,relativists would have it that with the acceptance of their point of view the ether may be eliminated2 but if they take away the ether1 they must give us something in its stead4 ,in whatever way the science of the future disposes of this problem1 it must take into account the fact of light transmission4 ,on the theory that the ether is an elastic solid of amazing properties1 in which the light waves vibrate transversely to their direction1 it assists the mind to think of the ether as four-dimensional1 because then a light wave would be a superficial disturbance of the medium--superficial1 but three-dimensional1 as must needs be the case with the surface of a four-dimensional solid4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this search for evidences of hyper-dimensionality in the universe accessible to our senses is like looking1 not for a needle in a haystack1 but for a haystack in a needle--for the greater in the less4 ,from the purely physical evidences1 all that can with certainty be said is that the hypothesis is not inconsistent with the facts of science or its laws2 that it is being verified and rendered more probable by the investigations of science2 that it is applicable to the description or explanation of all the observed phenomena1 and assigns a cause fully adequate to have produced them4 ,now there is an order of phenomena that we call psychic4 ,because they are phenomenal they cannot occur outside of time and space altogether2 because they are psychic they defy explanation in terms of the space and time of every-day life4 ,let us next examine these in the light of our hypothesis4 ,,iv ,,transcendental ,,physics ,z,,llner ,in the year #ahgg1 ,johann ,friedrich ,zllner1 professor of physics and astronomy at the ,university of ,leipsic1 undertook to prove that certain 7so-called7 psychic phenomena were susceptible of explanation on the hypothesis of a four-dimensional space4 ,he used as illustrations the phenomena induced by the medium ,henry ,slade4 ,by the irony of events1 ,slade was afterward arrested and imprisoned for fraud1 in ,england4 ,this fact so prejudiced the public mind against ,zllner that his name became a word of scorn1 and the fourth dimension a synonym for what is fatuous and false4 ,zllner died of it1 but since his death public opinion has undergone a change4 ,there is a great and growing interest in everything pertaining to the fourth dimension1 and belief in that order of phenomena upon which ,zllner based his deductions is supported by evidence at once voluminous and impressive4 ,it is unnecessary to go into the question of the genuineness of the particular phenomena which ,zllner witnessed4 ,his conclusions are alone important1 since they apply equally to other manifestations1 whose authenticity has never been successfully impeached4 ,zllner's reasoning with regard to certain psychic phenomena is somewhat along the following lines4 ,,apparitions ,the intrusion 7as an apparition7 of a person or thing into a completely enclosed portion of three-space2 or contrariwise1 the exit 7as an evanishment7 out of such a space4 ,because we lack the sense of four-dimensional space1 we must here have recourse to analogy1 and assume three-dimensional space to be the unsensed higher region encompassing a world of two dimensions1 ,to a hypothetical flat-man of a two-space1 any portion of his plane surrounded by an unbroken line would constitute an enclosure4 ,were he confined within it1 escape would be impossible by any means known to him4 ,had he the ability to move in the third dimension1 however1 he could rise1 pass over the enclosing line without disturbing it1 and descend on the other side4 ,the moment he forsook the plane he would disappear from two-dimensional space4 ,such a disappearance would constitute an occult phenomenon in a world of two dimensions4 ,correspondingly1 an evanishment from any three-dimensional enclosure--such as a room with locked doors and windows--might be effected by means of a movement in the fourth dimension4 ,because a body would disappear from our perception the moment it forsook our space1 such a disappearance would be a mystery2 it would constitute an occult phenomenon4 ,the thing would be no more mysterious1 however1 to a consciousness embracing four dimensions within its ken1 than the transfer of an object from the inside to the outside of a plane figure without crossing its linear boundary is mysterious to us4 ,,possession ,the temporary possession of a person's body1 or some member of that body1 by an alien will1 as exemplified in automatic writing and obsession4 ,it would doubtless amaze the scientifically orthodox to know how many people habitually and successfully practice the dubious art of automatic writing--not mediums1 so-called1 but people of refinement and intelligence4 ,although the messages received in this way may emanate from the subconscious mind of the performer1 there is evidence to indicate that they come sometimes from an intelligence discarnate1 or from a person remote from the recipient in space4 ,if such is indeed the case1 if the will is extraneous1 how does it possess itself of the nerves and muscles of the hand of the writer8 ,the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis is of assistance here4 ,it is only necessary to remember that from the fourth dimension the interior of a solid is as much exposed as the interior of a plane figure is exposed from the region of the third dimension4 ,a four-dimensional being would experience no difficulty1 under suitable conditions1 in possessing itself of any part of the bodily mechanism of another4 ,the same would hold true in cases of possession and obsession2 for if the bastion of the hand can thus be captured1 so also may the citadel of the brain4 ,certain familiar forms of hypnotism are not different from obsession1 the hypnotizer using the brain and body of his subject as though they were his own4 ,all unconsciously to himself1 he has called into play four-dimensional mechanics4 ,many cases of so-called dual personality are more easily explicable as possession by an alien will than on the less credible hypothesis that the character1 habits1 and language of a person can change utterly in a moment of time4 ,,clairvoyance ,,in ,,space ,vision at a distance and the exercise of a superior power of sight4 ,clairvoyance in space is of various kinds and degrees4 ,sometimes it consists in the perception of super-physical phenomena--the unfurling of a strange and wonderful land2 and again it appears to be a higher power of ordinary vision1 a kind of seeing to which the opacity of solids offers no impediment1 or one involving spatial distances too great and too impeded for normal physical vision to be effective4 ,that clairvoyance which consists in the ability to perceive not alone the superficies of things as ordinary vision perceives them1 but their interiors as well1 is analogous to the power given by the ,x-ray1 by means of which1 on a fluorescent screen1 a man may behold the beating of his own heart4 ,but1 if the reports of trained clairvoyants are to be believed1 there is this difference3 everything appears to them without the distortions due to perspective1 objects being seen as though they were inside and not outside of the perceiving organ1 or as though the observer were in the object perceived2 or in all places at the same time4 ,our analogy makes all this intelligible4 ,to the flat-man1 clairvoyance in space would consist in that power of perception which we exercise in reference to his plane4 ,from the third dimension the boundaries of plane figures offer no impediment to the view of their interiors1 and they themselves in no way impede our vision of surrounding objects4 ,if we assume that clairvoyance in space is the perception of the things of our world from the region of the fourth dimension1 the phenomena exactly conform to the demands of our analogy4 ,it is no more difficult for a four-dimensional intelligence to understand the appearance or disappearance of a body in a completely closed room1 or the withdrawal of an orange from its skin1 without cutting or breaking that skin1 than it is for us to see the possibility of taking up a pencil point from the center of a circle and putting it down outside4 ,we are under no compulsion to draw a line across the circumference of the circle in order to enter or leave it4 ,moreover1 the volume of our sensible universe embraced in the clairvoyant's field of view will increase in the same way that a balloonist's view increases in area as he rises above the surface of the earth4 ,to account for clairvoyant vision at a distance1 it is of course necessary to posit some perceptive organ other than the eye1 but the fact that in trance the eyes are closed1 itself demands this assumption4 ,,clairvoyance ,,in ,,time ,the perception of a past event as in process of occurring1 or the prevision of something which comes to pass later4 ,no mechanistic explanation will serve to account for this order of clairvoyance since it is inextricably involved in the mystery of consciousness itself4 ,yet our already overworked analogy can perhaps cast a little light even here4 ,to the flat-man1 the third dimension of objects passing through his plane translates itself to his experience into time4 ,were he capable of rising in the positive direction of the third dimension1 he would have pre-vision1 because he would be cognizant of that which had not yet intersected his plane3 by sinking in the negative direction1 he would have post-vision1 because he could re-cognize that which had already passed4 ,now there are excellent reasons1 other than those based on analogy1 that the fourth-dimensional aspect of things may manifest itself to our ordinary experience1 not as spatial extension1 but as temporal change4 ,then1 if we conceive of clairvoyance as a transcending by consciousness of our three-dimensional space1 prevision and post-vision would be logically possible as corresponding to the positive and negative of the fourth dimension4 ,this may be made clearer by the aid of a homely illustration4 ,,pisgah ,,sights ,,of ,,life',s ,,pageant ,suppose you are standing on a street corner1 watching a procession pass4 ,you see the pageant as a sequence of objects and individuals appearing into view near by and suddenly1 and disappearing in the same manner4 ,this would represent our ordinary waking consciousness of what goes on in the world round about4 ,now imagine that you walk up the street in a direction opposite to that in which the procession is moving4 ,you then rapidly pass in review a portion of the procession which had not yet arrived at the point you were a few moments before4 ,this would correspond to the seeing of something before it happened1 and would represent the positive aspect of clairvoyance in time--prevision4 ,were you to start from your original position1 and moving in the direction in which the procession was passing1 overtake it at some lower street corner1 you could witness the thing you had already seen4 ,this would represent post-vision--clairvoyance of the past4 ,a higher type of clairvoyance would be represented by the sweep of vision possible from a balloon4 ,from that place of vantage the procession would be seen1 not as a sequence1 but simultaneously1 and could be traced from its formation to its dispersal4 ,past1 present and future would be merged in one4 ,it is true that this explanation raises more questions than it answers3 to account in this way for a marvel1 a greater marvel must be imagined--that of transport out of one's own space4 ,the whole subject bristles with difficulties1 not the least of which is that even to conceive of such a thing as prevision all our old ideas about time must be recast4 ,this is being done in the ,principle of ,relativity1 a subject which may appropriately engage our attention next4 ,v ,,curved ,,time ,,time ,,from ,,the ,,standpoint ,,of ,,experiment ,,and ,,of ,,conscious ,,experience ,in some moment of sudden light what one of us has not been able to say1 with ,rossetti1 ,i have been here before1 ,but when or how ,i cannot tell4 ,are such strange hauntings of our ,house of ,life due to the cyclic return of time8 ,perhaps1--but what is time8 ,suppose some one should ask you1 ,what is an hour8 ,your answer might be1 ,it is the interval marked off by the clock-hand between #a and #b4 ,but what if your clock is running down or speeding up8 ,to this you would probably reply1 ,the clock is set and corrected by the earth1 the sun and the stars1 which are constant in their movements4 ,but they are not4 ,the earth is known to be running slow1 by reason of tide friction1 and this is likely to continue until it will revolve on its axis1 not once a day1 but once a year1 presenting always the same face to the sun4 ,we can only measure time by uniform motion4 ,observe the vicious circle4 ,uniform motion means the covering of equal spaces in equal times4 ,but how are we to determine our equal times8 ,ultimately we have no other criterion save the uniform motion of the clock-hand or the star dial4 ,the very expressions1 uniform motion1 equal times1 beg the whole question of the nature of time4 ,let us then1 in this predicament1 consider time not from the standpoint of experiment1 but of conscious experience--what ,bergson calls real duration4 ,every point along the line of memory1 of conscious experience1 has been traced out by that unresting stylus we call the present moment4 ,the question of its rate of motion we will not raise1 as it is one with which we have found ourselves impotent to deal4 ,we believe on the best of evidence that the conscious experience of others is conditioned like our own4 ,for better understanding let us have recourse to a homely analogy3 let us think of these more or less parallel lines of individual experience in the semblance of the strands of a skein of flax4 ,now if1 at the present moment1 this skein were cut with a straight knife at right angles to its length1 the cut end would represent the time plane--that is1 the present moment of all--and it would be the same for all providing that the time plane were flat ,but is it really flat8 ,isn't the straightness of the knife a mere poverty of human imagination8 ,existence is always richer and more dramatic than any diagram4 ,line in nature is not found2 ,unit and universe are round4 ,in vain produced1 all rays return2 ,evil will bless and ice will burn4 ,undoubtedly the flat time-plane represents with fair accuracy the temporal conditions that obtain in the human aggregate in this world under normal conditions of consciousness1 but if we consider our relation to intelligent beings upon distant worlds of the visible universe the conditions might be widely different ,the time section corresponding to what our straight knife made flat in the case of the flax may be--nay1 probably is--strongly curved4 ,,relativity ,this crude analogy haltingly conveys what is meant by curved time4 ,it is an idea which is implicit in the ,theory of ,relativity4 ,this theory has profoundly modified many of our basic conceptions about the universe in which we are immersed4 ,it is outside the province of this book and beyond the power of its author even so much as to sketch the main outlines of this theory1 but certain of its conclusions are indispensable1 since they baldly set forth our dilemma in regard to the measurement of space and time4 ,we can measure neither except relatively1 because they must be measured one by the other1 and no matter how they vary1 these variations always compensate one another1 leaving us in the same state of ignorance that we were in before4 ,suppose that two intelligent beings1 one on ,mars1 let us say1 and the other on the earth1 should attempt to establish the same moment of time1 by the interchange of light signals1 or by any other method which the most rigorous science could devise4 ,assume that they have for this purpose two identically similar and mechanically perfect chronometers1 and that every difficulty of manipulation were successfully overcome4 ,their experiment could end only in failure1 and the measure of this failure neither one1 in his own place1 could possibly know4 ,if1 after the experiment1 the ,martian1 chronometer in hand1 could be instantly and miraculously transported to the earth1 and the two settings compared1 they would be found to be different3 how different1 we do not know4 ,the reason for the failure of any such experiment anywhere conducted can best be made plain by a crude paraphrase of a classic proposition from ,relativity4 ,suppose it is required to determine the same moment of time at two different places on the earth's surface1 as must be attempted in finding their difference in longitude4 ,take the ,observatory at ,greenwich for one place1 and the observatory at ,washington for the other4 ,at the moment the sun is on the meridian of ,greenwich1 the exact time of crossing is noted and cabled to ,washington4 ,the chronometer at ,washington is set accordingly1 and the time checked back to ,greenwich4 ,this message arrives two seconds1 say1 after the original message was sent4 ,washington is at once notified of this double transmission interval4 ,on the assumption that ,,half of it represents the time the message took to travel from east to west1 and the other half the time from west to east again1 the ,washington chronometer is set one second ahead of the signalled time1 to compensate for its part of the loss4 ,when the sun has reached the meridian of ,washington1 the whole process is repeated1 and again as before1 half of the time the message has taken to cross and recross the ,atlantic is added to the ,greenwich record of noon at ,washington4 ,the number of hours1 minutes1 seconds1 and fractions of a second between these two corrected records represents the difference in solar time between the two places1 and incidentally the same moment of time has been established for both--at least1 so it would appear4 ,but is it established8 ,that each message took an equal time to travel each way is pure assumption1 and happens to be a false one4 ,the accuracy of the result is vitiated by a condition of things to which the ,relativists have called attention4 ,our determination might be defended if ,washington and ,greenwich could be assumed to remain at rest during the experiments1 and some argument might even be made in its favor if we could secure any cosmic assurance that the resultant motion of the earth should be the same when ,greenwich signalled its noon to ,washington and ,washington its noon to ,greenwich4 ,our present discussion is merely illustrative1 or diagrammatic2 so we will neglect the velocity of the earth in its orbit round the sun1 some forty times greater than that of a cannon ball1 and the more uncertain and more vertiginous speed of the whole solar system towards its unknown goal4 ,let us consider only the rotation of the earth on its axis1 the tide-speed of day and night4 ,to fix our idea1 this may be taken1 in our latitudes1 at eighteen thousand miles per day1 or perhaps half the speed of a ,mauser rifle bullet4 ,so fast1 then1 will ,washington have been moving to meet the message from ,greenwich4 ,so fast will ,greenwich have been retreating from ,washington's message4 ,now the ultimate effect of motion on the time-determination cannot be calculated along any such simple lines as these4 ,indeed1 it cannot be exactly calculated at all1 for we have not all the data4 ,but there is certainly some effect4 ,suppose one rows four miles up a river against a current of two miles per hour1 at a rowing speed of four miles per hour4 ,this will take two hours1 plainly4 ,the return trip with the river's gift of two miles per hour will evidently require but forty minutes4 ,two hours and forty minutes for the round trip1 then1 of eight miles4 ,now then1 to row eight miles in still water1 according to our supposition1 would have required but two hours4 ,but1 some one objects1 the current must help the return trip as much as it hindered the outgoing6 ,ah1 here is the snare that catches rough-and-ready common sense6 ,how long would the double journey have taken if the river current had been faster than our rowing speed8 ,how shall we schedule our trip if we cannot learn the correct speed1 or if it varies from minute to minute8 ,these explanations are necessarily symbolistic rather than demonstrative1 but any one who will seriously follow out these lines of thought1 or1 still better1 study the attitude of the hard-headed modern physicist towards our classical geometry and mechanics1 cannot fail to realize how conventional1 artificial--even phantasmal--are the limitations set by the primitive idea of flat space and straight time4 ,the inferences which we may draw from our hypothetical experiment are plain4 ,the settings of the two chronometers would be defective1 they would not show the same time1 but each of them would mark the local time1 proper to its own place4 ,there would be no means of detecting the amount of error1 since the messages were transmitted by a medium involved with them in their transportation4 ,if only local time can be established1 the possibility of a warped time-plane--the curvature of time--is directly opened up4 ,doubtless it is true that on so relatively minute a scale as is offered by the earth1 any deviation from perfect flatness of the time-plane would be so inconsiderable and imperceptible as to make it scientifically negligible2 but this by no means follows when we consider our relation to other worlds and other systems4 ,a similar condition holds with regard to space-distortion4 ,the ,theory of ,relativity enforces the conclusion that from the standpoint of our conventions in regard to these matters1 all bodies involved in transportation undergo a contraction in the direction of that transportation1 while their dimensions perpendicular to the transportation remain invariable4 ,this contraction is the same for all bodies4 ,for bodies of low velocity1 like the earth1 this distortion would be almost immeasurably slight2 but great or little1 no measuring instruments on the body transporting would ever disclose it1 for a measure would undergo the same contraction as the thing measured4 ,,the ,,spoon-,,man ,these concepts that space and time are not as immutable as they appear3 that our universe may suffer distortion1 that time may lag or hasten without our being in the least aware1 may be made interestingly clear by an illustration first suggested by ,helmholtz1 of which the following is in the nature of a paraphrase4 ,if you look at your own image in the shining surface of a teapot1 or the back of a silver spoon1 all things therein appear grotesquely distorted1 and all distances strangely altered4 ,but if you choose to make the bizarre supposition that this spoon-world is real1 and your image--the spoon-man--a thinking and speaking being1 certain interesting facts could be developed by a discussion between yourself and him4 ,you say1 ,your world is a distorted transcript of the one in which ,i live4 ,prove it to me1 says the spoon-man4 ,with a foot-rule you proceed to make measurements to show the rectangularity of the room in which you are standing4 ,simultaneously he makes measurements giving the same numerical results2 for his foot-rule shrinks and curves in the exact proportion to give the true number of feet when he measures his shrunken and distorted rear wall4 ,no measurement you can apply will prove you in the right1 nor him in the wrong4 ,indeed he is likely to retort upon you that it is your room which is distorted1 for he can show that in spite of all its nightmare aspects his world is governed by the same orderly geometry that governs yours4 ,the above illustration deals purely with space relations1 for such relations are easily grasped2 but certain distortions in time relations are no less absolutely imperceptible and unprovable4 ,so far from having any advantage over the spoon-man1 our plight is his4 ,the ,principle of ,relativity discovers us in the predicament of the ,mikado's prisoner pent1 condemned to play with crooked cues and elliptical billiard balls1 and of the opium victim1 for whom space swells and time moves sometimes swift and sometimes slow4 ,,the ,,orbital ,,movement ,,of ,,time ,now if our space is curved in higher space1 since such curvature is at present undetectable by us1 we must assume1 as ,hinton chose to assume1 that it curves in the minute1 or1 as some astronomers assume1 that its curve is vast4 ,these assumptions are not mutually exclusive3 they are quite in analogy with the general curvature of the earth's surface which is in no wise interfered with by the lesser curvatures represented by mountains and valleys4 ,it is easiest to think of our space as completely curved in higher space in analogy with the surface of a sphere4 ,similarly1 if time is curved1 the idea of the cyclic return of time naturally 7though not inevitably7 follows1 and the division of the greater cycles into lesser loops2 for it is easier to assign this elliptical movement to time than any other1 by reason of the orbital movements of the planets and their satellites4 ,what results from conceptions of this order8 ,amazing things6 ,if our space is curved in higher space1 you may be looking toward the back of your own head4 ,if time flows in cycles1 in travelling toward to-morrow you may be facing yesterday4 ,this eternal return1 so far from being a new idea1 is so old that it has been forgotten4 ,its reappearance in novel guise1 along with so many other recrudescences1 itself beautifully illustrates time curvature in consciousness4 ,yugas1 time cycles1 are an integral and inexpugnable part of ,oriental metaphysics4 ,since the soul perpetually runs1 says ,zoroaster1 in a certain space of time it passes through all things1 which circulation being accomplished1 it is compelled to run back again through all things1 and unfold the same web of generation in the world4 ,time curvature is implicit in the ,greek idea of the iron1 bronze1 silver1 and golden ages1 succeeding each other in the same order3 the winter1 seed-time1 summer and harvest of the larger year4 ,astrology1 seership1 prophecy1 become plausible on the higher-time hypothesis4 ,from this point of view history becomes less puzzling and paradoxical4 ,what were the ,middle ,ages but a forgetting of ,greek and ,roman civilization1 and what was the ,renaissance but a remembering of them--a striving to re-create the ruined stage-settings and to re-enact the urbane play of ,pagan life4 ,the spirit of the ,crusades is now again animate throughout ,europe4 ,nations are uniting in a ,holy ,war against the ,infidel de nos jours4 ,but it is in the individual consciousness that time curvature receives its most striking confirmation--those lesser returns and rhythms to which we give the name of periodicity4 ,before considering these1 however1 a fundamental fallacy of the modern mind must be exposed4 ,,materiality ,,the ,,mirror ,,of ,,consciousness ,our vicious habit of seeking the explanation of everything--even thought and emotion--in materiality1 has betrayed us into the error of attributing to organic and environic changes the very power by which they are produced4 ,we are wont to think of feeling1 the form in which ,being manifests to consciousness1 as an effect instead of as a cause4 ,when ,sweet ,sixteen becomes suddenly and mysteriously interesting to the growing boy1 it is not because sex has awakened in his body1 but because the dread time has come for him to contemplate the ,idea of ,woman in his soul4 ,if you are sleepy1 it is not because the blood has begun to flow away from your brain1 but because your body has begun to bore you4 ,night has brought back the ,idea of ,freedom1 and consciousness chloroforms the thing that clutches it4 ,if you are ill1 you grow cold or your temperature rises3 it is the signal by which you know that your consciousness is turning toward the ,idea of ,pain4 ,just as a savage looks for a man behind a mirror1 we foolishly seek in materiality for that which is not there4 ,the soul determines circumstance3 the soul contains the event which shall befall4 ,the organic and environic rearrangements incident to obscure rotations in higher space are like the changes a mirror-image undergoes as an object draws near and then recedes from its plane4 ,this is only a figure of speech1 but it is susceptible of almost literal application4 ,ideas1 emerging from the subconscious1 appproach1 intersect1 recede from1 and re-approach the stream of conscious experience2 taking the forms of aversions and desires1 they register themselves in action1 and by reason of time curvature1 everything that occurs1 recurs4 ,,periodicity ,we recognize and accept this cyclic return of time in such familiar manifestations of it as ,nature affords in periodicity4 ,we recognize it also in our mental and emotional life1 when the periods can be co-ordinated with known physical phenomena1 as in the case of the wanderlust which comes in the mild melancholy of autumn1 the moods that go with waning day1 and winter night4 ,it is only when these recurrences do not submit themselves to our puny powers of analysis and measurement that we are incredulous of a larger aspect of the law of time-return4 ,sleep for example1 is not less mysterious than death which1 too1 may be but a sleep and a forgetting4 ,the reason that sleep fails to terrify us as death does is because experience has taught that memory leafs the chasm4 ,why should death bedreaded any more than bedtime8 ,because we fear that we shall forget4 ,but do we really forget8 ,as ,pierre ,janet so tersely puts it1 ,whatever has gone into the mind may come out of the mind1 and in a subsequent chapter this aphorism will be shown to have extension in a direction of which the author of it appears not to have been aware4 ,memory links night to night and winter to winter1 but such things as the night-time of the spirit and the winter of our discontent are not recognized as having either cause or consequence4 ,now though the well-springs of these states of consciousness remain obscure1 there is nothing unreasonable in believing that they are recrudescences of far-off1 forgotten moods and moments2 neither is it absurd to suppose that they may be related to the movements and positions of the planets1 as night and winter are related to the axial and orbital movements of the earth4 ,but there are other1 and even more interesting1 evidences of time curvature in consciousness4 ,these lead away into new regions which it is our pleasure now to explore4 ,,vi ,,sleep ,,and ,,dreams ,,sleep ,our space is called three-dimensional because it takes three numbers--measurement in three mutually perpendicular directions--to determine and mark out any particular point from the totality of points4 ,time1 as the individual experiences it1 is called one-dimensional for an analogous reason3 one number is all that is required to determine and mark out any particular event of a series from all the rest4 ,now in order to establish a position in a space of four dimensions it would be necessary to measure in four mutually perpendicular directions4 ,time curvature opens up the possibility of a corresponding higher development in time3 one whereby time would be more fittingly symbolized by a plane than by a linear figure4 ,indeed1 the familiar mystery of memory calls for such a conception4 ,memory is a carrying forward of the past into the present1 and the fact that we can recall a past event without mentally rehearsing all the intermediate happenings in inverse order1 shows that in the time aspect of memory there is simultaneity as well as sequence--time ceases to be linear and becomes plane4 ,more remarkable illustrations of the sublimation of the time-sense are to be found in the phenomena of sleep and dreams4 ,oh1 thou that sleepest1 what is sleep8 asks the curious ,leonardo4 ,modern psychological science has little to offer of a positive nature in answer to this world-old question1 but it has at least effectively disposed of the absurd theories of the materialists who would have us believe that sleep is a mere matter of blood circulation or of intoxication by accumulation of waste products in the system4 ,sleep states are not abnormal1 but part and parcel of the life existence of the individual4 ,when a person is asleep he has only become unresponsive to the mass of stimuli of the external world which constitutes his environment4 ,as ,sidis says1 ,when our interest in external existence fags and fades away1 we go to sleep4 ,when our interests in the external world cease1 we draw up the bridges1 so to say1 interrupt all external communication as far as possible1 and become isolated in our own fortress and repair to our own world of organic activity and inner dream life4 ,sleep is the interruption of our intercourse with the external world3 it is the laying down of our arms in the struggle of life4 ,sleep is a truce with the world4 ,the twin concepts of higher space and curved time sanction a view of sleep even bolder4 ,sleep is more than a longing of the body to be free of the flame which consumes it3 the flame itself aspires to be free--that is to say1 consciousness1 tiring of its tool1 the brain1 and of the world1 its workshop1 takes a turn into the plaisance of the fourth dimension1 where time and space are less rigid to resist the fulfillment of desire4 ,,dreams ,we find a confirmation of this view in dream phenomena4 ,but however good the evidence1 we shall fail to make out a case unless dream experiences are conceded to be as real as any other4 ,the reluctance we may have to make this concession comes first from the purely subjective character of dreams1 and secondly from their triviality and irrationality--it is as though the muddy sediment of daytime thought and feeling and that alone were there cast forth4 ,in answer to the first objection1 advanced psychology affirms that the subconscious mind1 from which dreams arise1 approaches more nearly to the omniscience of true being than the rational mind of waking experience4 ,the triviality and irrationality of dreams are sufficiently accounted for if the dream state is thought of as the meeting place of two conditions of consciousness3 the foam and flotsam of perilous seas in fary lands forlorn1 whose vastitude1 whose hidden life1 and rich argosies of experience1 can only be inferred from the fret of the tide on their nether shore--the tired brain in sleep4 ,for it is the remembered dream alone that is incoherent--the dream that comes clothed in the rags and trappings of this work-a-day world1 and so leaves some recoverable record on the brain4 ,we all feel that the dreams we cannot remember are the most wonderful4 ,who has not wakened with the sense of some incommunicable experience of terror or felicity1 too strange and poignant to submit itself to concrete symbolization1 and so is groped for by the memory in vain8 ,we know that dreams grow more ordered and significant as they recede from the surface of consciousness to its depths4 ,deep sleep dreams are in the true sense clairvoyant1 though for the most part irrecoverable-- ,canst thou draw out ,leviathan with an hook8 ,du,prel and others have shown that the difference between ordinary dreaming1 somnambulance1 trance and ecstasy1 is only a matter of redistribution of thresholds--that they are all related states and merge into one another4 ,we have1 therefore1 every right to believe that for a certain number of hours out of the twenty-four we are all sybils and seers1 however little most of us are able to profit by it4 ,infrequently1 in moments of peculiar susceptibility1 the veil is lifted1 but the art of dreaming true remains for the most part unmastered--one of the precious gifts which the future holds in store for the sons and daughters of men4 ,the partial waking state is the soil in which remembered dreams develop most luxuriously4 ,paradoxical as it may sound1 they are the product1 not of our sleep1 but of our waking4 ,such dreams belong to both worlds1 partly to the three-dimensional and partly to the four-dimensional4 ,while dreams are often only a hodge-podge of daytime experiences1 their incredible rapidity1 alien to that experience1 gives us our first faint practicable intimation of a higher development of time4 ,,time ,,in ,,dreams ,the unthinkable velocity of time in dreams may be inferred from the fact that between the moment of impact of an impression at the sense-periphery and its reception at the center of consciousness--moments so closely compacted that we think of them as simultaneous--a coherent series of representations may take place1 involving what seem to be protracted periods for their unfoldment4 ,every reader will easily call to mind dream experiences of this character1 in which the long-delayed dnouement was suggested and prepared for by some extraneous sense-impression1 showing that the entire dream drama unfolded within the time it took that impression to travel from the skin to the brain4 ,hasheesh dreams1 because they so often occur during some momentary lapse from normal consciousness and are therefore measurable by its time scale1 are particularly rich in the evidence of the looping of time4 ,fitzhugh ,ludlow narrates1 in ,the ,hasheesh ,eater1 the dreams that visited him in the brief interval between two of twenty or more awakenings1 on his walk homeward after his first experience with the drug4 ,he says1 ,i existed by turns in different places and various states of being4 ,now ,i swept my gondola through the moonlit lagoons of ,venice4 ,now ,alp on ,alp towered above my view1 and the glory of the coming sun flashed purple light upon the topmost icy pinnacle4 ,now in the primeval silence of some unexplored tropical forest ,i spread my feathery leaves1 a giant fern1 and swayed and nodded in the spice-gales over a river whose waves at once sent up clouds of music and perfume4 ,my soul changes to a vegetable essence1 thrilled with a strange and unimagined ecstasy4 ,earlier in the same evening1 when he was forced to keep awake in order not to betray his condition1 the dream time-scale appears to have imposed itself upon his waking consciousness with the following curious effect4 ,a lady asked him some question connected with a previous conversation4 ,he says1 ,as mechanically as an automaton ,i began to reply4 ,as ,i heard once more the alien and unreal tones of my own voice1 ,i became convinced that it was some one else who spoke1 and in another world4 ,i sat and listened3 still the voice kept speaking4 ,now for the first time ,i experienced that vast change which hasheesh makes in all measurements of time4 ,the first word of the reply occupied a period sufficient for the action of a drama2 the last left me in complete ignorance of any point far enough back in the past to date the commencement of the sentence4 ,its enunciation might have occupied years4 ,i was not in the same life which had held me when ,i heard it begun4 ,this well-known fact1 that we cannot measure dreams by our time scale1 proves that subjective time does not correspond with objective1 and that the dream organ of consciousness has a time scale of its own4 ,if in our waking state we experience one kind of time1 and in dreams quite another1 the solution of the mystery should be sought in the vehicle of consciousness1 for clearly the limit of impressionability or power of response of the vehicle establishes the time scale1 just as the size of the body with relation to objects establishes the space scale4 ,time must be different for the ant and the elephant1 for example1 as space is different4 ,our sense of time is wholly dependent upon the rapidity with which impressions succeed one another4 ,were we capable of receiving only one impression an hour1 like a bell struck every hour with a hammer1 the ordinary term of life would seem very short4 ,on the other hand1 if our time sense were always as acute as it is in dreams1 uncounted aeons would seem to be lived through in the interval between childhood and old age4 ,imagine a music machine so cunningly constructed and adjusted as not only to sound each note and chord in its proper sequence and relation1 but to regulate also the duration of the sound vibration4 ,if this machine were operated in such a manner as to play1 in a single second of time1 the entire overture of an opera which would normally occupy half an hour1 we should hear only an unintelligible noise a second long4 ,this would be due to no defect in the sound-producing mechanism1 but to the limitations of the sound-receiving mechanism1 our auditory apparatus4 ,could this be altered to conform to the unusual conditions--could it capture and convey to consciousness every note of the overture in a second of time--that second would seem to last half an hour1 provided that every other criterion for the measurement of duration were denied for the time being4 ,now dreams seem long3 we only discover afterwards and by accident their almost incredible brevity4 ,may we not--must we not--infer from this that the body is an organ of many stops and more than one keyboard1 and that in sleep it gives forth this richer music4 ,the theory of a higher-dimensional existence during sleep accounts in part for the great longing for sleep4 ,what is it that is much desired by man1 but which they know not while possessing8 again asks ,leonardo4 ,it is sleep1 is his answer4 ,this longing for sleep is more than a physical longing1 and the refreshment it brings is less of the flesh than of the spirit4 ,it is possible to withstand the deprivation of food and water longer and better than the deprivation of sleep4 ,its recuperative power is correspondingly greater4 ,experiments have been made with mature ,university students by which they have been kept awake ninety-six hours4 ,when the experiments were finished1 the young men were allowed to sleep themselves out1 until they felt they were thoroughly rested4 ,all awoke from a long sleep completely refreshed1 but the one who took longest to restore himself from his protracted vigil slept only one-third more time than was regular with him4 ,and this has been the experience over and over again of men in active life who have been obliged to keep awake for long periods by the absolute necessities of the situation in which they have been placed4 ,in this fact there is surely another hint of the sublimation of the time sense during sleep4 ,while it would be an unwarrantable assumption to suppose that the period of recuperation by sleep must be as long1 or nearly as long1 as the period of deprivation1 the ratio between the two presents a discrepancy so great that it would seem as though this might be due to an acceleration of the time element of consciousness4 ,,the ,,eastern ,,teaching ,,in ,,regard ,,to ,,sleep ,,and ,,dreams ,in this matter of the wonder1 the mystery1 the enchantment1 of sleep and dreams1 the most modern psychology and the most ancient wisdom meet on common ground4 ,eastern wisdom casts such a light upon the problems of subjectivity that it should not be lightly dismissed4 ,for uncounted centuries ,hindu-,aryan spiritual science has recognized1 not one plane or condition of consciousness1 but three2 waking1 dreaming1 and deep sleep--the gross1 the subtle and the pure4 ,in the waking state--that is1 with the vehicle attuned to vibrate to materiality--the individual self is as a captive in a citadel of flesh1 aware of only so much of the universal life as chances to enact itself before the windows of his prison4 ,in the dream state1 when the more violent vibrations of the body are stilled in sleep1 consciousness becomes active in its subtle 7four-dimensional7 vehicle1 and ranges free throughout the ampler spaces of this subtler world4 ,in deep sleep1 consciousness reverts to its pure condition--the individual self becomes the ,all-,self3 the rainbow1 no longer prismatic by reason of its refraction in materiality1 becomes the pure white light2 the melody of life resolves itself into the primordial harmony2 sequence becomes simultaneity1 and ,time1 no longer besprent with seven-hued circumstance1 is swallowed up in duration4 ,there are two paths for him1 within and without1 and they both turn back in a day and a night4444 ,after having subdued by sleep all that belongs to the body1 he1 not asleep himself1 looks down upon the sleeping4 ,having assumed light1 he goes again to his place1 the golden person1 the lonely bird ,,upanishads4 ,,space ,,in ,,dreams ,however preposterous may appear to us this notion that the waking state1 in which we feel ourselves most potent and alive1 is really one of inhibition--that the world is only a shoal of time--it is curiously borne out by the baffling phenomena of dreams and is in perfect accord with the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis4 ,the possibility of shaking off the grip of sleep under appropriate circumstances1 the fact that we can watch in our sleep1 and awake at the right moment1 that we can sleep and still watch and keep awake in regard to special objects and particular persons--these things form insuperable difficulties for all those plausible1 and apparently scientific1 theories of sleep current in the ,west2 but they fit perfectly with the ,eastern idea that he1 not asleep himself1 looks down upon the sleeping4 ,and to the questions1 ,how1 and from whence8 in the light of our hypothesis we may answer1 ,by the curvature of time1 consciousness escapes into the fourth dimension4 ,myers shows that he was in need of just this clue in order to account for some of the dream experiences recorded in ,human ,personality1 since he asks for an intermediate conception of space--something between space as we know it in the material world and space as we imagine it to disappear in the ideal world4 ,he suggests that in dreams and trance there may be a clearer and more complete perception of space than is at present possible to us4 ,a corresponding sublimation of the time sense is no less necessary to account for time in dreams4 ,although we seem to triumph over space and time to such a tune as to eliminate them1 dream experiences have both form and sequence4 ,now because form presupposes space1 and time is implicit in sequence1 there arises the necessity for that intermediate conception of both space and time provided by our hypothesis4 ,,the ,,phenomenon ,,of ,,pause ,let us conceive of sleep less narrowly than we are accustomed to3 think of it only as one phase of the phenomenon of pause1 of arrested physical activity1 universal throughout nature4 ,the cell itself experiences fatigue and goes to sleep--perchance to dream1 ,modern experimental science in the domain of physiology and psychology proves that we see and do not see1 hear and do not hear1 feel and do not feel1 in successive instants4 ,we are asleep1 in other words1 not merely hour by hour1 but moment by moment--and perhaps age by age as well4 ,where is consciousness during these intervals1 long or short1 when the senses fail to respond to the stimuli of the external world8 ,it is somewhere else1 awake to some other environment4 ,though we may not be able to verify this from our own experience1 there are methods whereby it can be verified4 ,clairvoyance is one of these1 hypnotism is another--that kind of hypnotism whereby an entranced person is made to give a report of his excursions and adventures in the mysterious ,house of ,sleep4 ,it is a well-known fact that these experiences increase in intensity1 coherence and in a certain sort of omniscience1 directly in proportion to the depth of the trance4 ,the revelations obtained in this way are sometimes amazing4 ,the inherent defect of this method of obtaining information is the possibility of deception1 and for that reason science still looks askance at all evidence drawn from this source4 ,but in essaying to write a book about the fourth dimension from any aspect but the mathematical1 the author has put himself outside the pale of orthodox science1 so he is under no compulsion to ignore a field so rich merely because it appears to be tainted by a certain amount of fallibility and is even under suspicion of fraud4 ,diseased oysters1 though not edible1 produce pearls1 and a pearl of great price is the object of this quest4 ,let us glance1 therefore1 at the findings of hypnotism and kindred phenomena4 ,,vii ,,the ,,night ,,side ,,of ,,consciousness ,,the ,,field ,,of ,,psychic ,,research ,it is difficult to divest the words hypnotism and clairvoyance of certain sordid and sinister associations4 ,we are apt to think of them only as urban flora of the dust and dark1 cultivated for profit by itinerant professors and untidy sibyls4 ,larger knowledge of the night side of human nature1 however1 profoundly modifies this view4 ,the invoked image is then of some hushed and studious chamber where a little group of people sit attentive to the voice of one entranced--listeners at the keyhole of the door to another world4 ,this news from nowhere1 garnered under so-called test conditions and faithfully recorded1 has grown by now to a considerable literature1 accessible to all--one with which every well-informed person is assumed to have at least a passing acquaintance4 ,a marked and constant characteristic of trance phenomena consists of an apparent confusion between past1 present and future4 ,as in the game of three-card monte1 it appears impossible to tell in what order the three will turn up--was1 is and will be1 lose their special significance4 ,clairvoyance1 in its time aspect1 whether spontaneous1 hypnotically induced1 or self-induced1 is susceptible of classification as post-vision1 present vision1 and prevision4 ,post-vision is that in which past events are not recollected merely1 but seen or experienced4 ,it is the past become present4 ,present vision is clairvoyance of things transpiring elsewhere2 the present1 remote in space1 but not in time4 ,prevision is the future in the present4 ,these various orders of clear-seeing transcend the limits of the actual knowledge and experience of the seer4 ,this classification and these definitions are important only to us1 to whom past1 present1 and future stand sharply differentiated in thought and in experience2 not to the clairvoyant1 who1 though bound in body to our space and time1 is consciously free in a world where these discriminations vanish4 ,why do they vanish8 ,this question can best be answered by means of a homely analogy4 ,for a symbol of the flow of time in waking consciousness1 imagine yourself in a railway carriage which jogs along a main-travelled line at a rate predetermined by the time-table4 ,you approach1 reach and pass such stations as are intersected by that particular railway1 and you get a view of the landscape which every other traveler shares4 ,having once left a station1 you cannot go back to it1 nor can you arrive at places further along the line before the train itself takes you there4 ,compare this with the freedom to do either of these things1 and any number of others1 if you suddenly change from the train to an automobile4 ,then1 in effect1 you have the freedom of a new dimension4 ,in the one case1 you must travel along a single line at a uniform rate2 in the other1 you are able to strike out in any direction and regulate your speed at will4 ,you can go back to a place after the train has left it2 you can go forward to some place ahead1 before the train arrives1 or you can strike out into1 and traverse1 new country4 ,in short1 your freedom1 temporal and spatial1 will be related to that of the train-bound traveler1 somewhat as is trance consciousness to everyday waking life4 ,,modifying ,,the ,,past ,modern psychology has demonstrated the existence of a great undercurrent of mental and emotional life1 transcending the individual's conscious experience1 in which the most complex processes are carried on without the individual's conscious participation4 ,the clearest symbol by which this fact may be figured to the imagination is the one already presented3 the comparison of the subjective field to a plane1 in which the conscious experience of the individual is represented by a single line4 ,in sleep and trance we have an augmented freedom of movement and so are able to travel here and there1 backward and forward1 not only among our own disassociated memories but in that greater and more mysterious demesne which comprehends what we call the future1 as well as the present and the past4 ,the profound significance of the disassociation and sublimation of memory by hypnotism1 or by whatever other means the train of personal experience and recollection can be thrown off the track1 appears to have been ignored on its theoretical side--that is1 as establishing the return of time4 ,it has cleverly been turned to practical account1 however1 in the treatment of disease4 ,by a series of painstaking and brilliant experiments1 the demonstration of the role played by disassociated memories in causing certain functional nervous and mental troubles has been achieved4 ,it has been shown that severe emotional shocks1 frights1 griefs1 worries1 may be--and frequently are--completely effaced from conscious recollection1 while continuing to be vividly remembered in the depths of the subconscious4 ,it has been shown that thence they may1 and frequently do1 exercise a baleful effect upon the whole organism1 giving rise to disease symptoms1 the particular type of which were determined by the victim's self-suggestion4 ,as a preliminary to effecting a permanent cure to such disorders1 it is necessary to get at these disassociated memories and drag them back into the full light of conscious recollection4 ,to get at them1 medical psychologists make use of hypnotism1 automatic writing1 crystal-gazing--in short1 of any method which will force an entrance into that higher time-world1 whereby the forgotten past may become the present4 ,this accomplished1 and the crucial moment recovered and transfixed1 the victim of the aborted opportunity is led to deal with it as one may deal with the fluid1 and may not deal with the fixed4 ,again his past is plastic to the operation of his intelligence and his will4 ,here is glad news for mortals3 the past recoverable and in a manner revocable6 ,buddha taught that all sin is ignorance1 and this teaching has escaped oblivion because its truth has echoed in so many human hearts4 ,we find that it is possible to deal with our old ignorances in the light of later knowledge4 ,what is this but the self-forgiveness of sins8 ,subconsciously we may be always at work1 mending the past4 ,repentance is the conscious recognition of some culmination of this obscure process1 when the heart is suffused with the inner gladness of liberation from the payment of old karmic debts4 ,christ's words1 ,thy sins are forgiven1 spoken to the woman who washed his feet with her tears1 sanctions this idea--that the past is remediable by knowledge and by love4 ,conceding this much1 we must equally admit the possibility of moulding the future1 of adjusting the will to the event which shall befall4 ,if the present moment can again intersect the stream of past conscious experience1 it may equally do so with regard to the future4 ,this brings up the tremendous questions of free-will and fore-ordination4 ,upon these the ,oriental doctrines of karma and reincarnation cast the only light by which the reason consents to be guided4 ,as these doctrines are intimately related both to higher time and to trance revelations1 some consideration of karma and reincarnation may appropriately find place here4 ,,karma ,,and ,,reincarnation ,karma is that self-adjusting force in human affairs which restores harmony disturbed by action4 ,it is the moral law of compensation1 and by its operation produces all conditions of life1 misery and happiness1 birth1 death1 and re-birth2 itself being both the cause and the effect of action4 ,its operation is indicated in the phrase1 ,whatsoever a man soweth1 that shall he also reap4 ,the essential idea of reincarnation is indicated in the following quotation from the ,upanishads3 ,and as a goldsmith1 taking a piece of gold1 turns it into another1 newer1 and more beautiful shape1 so does this ,self1 having thrown off this body and dispelled all ignorance1 make unto himself another and more beautiful shape4 ,reincarnation is the periodic dip of an immortal individual into materiality for the working out of karma1 after an interval1 long or short1 spent under other conditions of existence4 ,these alternations constitute the broader and deeper diapason of human life1 of which the change from waking to sleeping represents the lesser1 and the momentary awareness and unawareness of the sense mechanism to stimulation1 the least4 ,thus a physical incarnation1 in the broadest sense of the term1 is the interval1 long or short1 of the immersion of consciousness in materiality4 ,under fatigue1 the cell life withdraws2 that is1 it ceases to respond to physical stimuli1 and so passes out of incarnation4 ,when this occurs en masse there transpires that hiatus of the personal consciousness called sleep1 and while sleep lasts the personality is out of incarnation4 ,after death--in the interval between one life and the next--the specific memories of the personality fade out as in sleep1 or rather1 become latent1 leaving the soul1 the permanent life-center1 clear and colorless1 a mysterious focus of spiritual forces and affinities 7the seeds of karma7 ready for another sowing in the world of men4 ,this center of consciousness is thereupon drawn to the newly forming body1 the life environment of which will rightly and justly--perhaps retributively--bring the tendencies and characteristics of the conscious center into objectivity again4 ,character is destiny1 and character is self-created4 ,all that we are is the result of what we have thought4 ,but in the vast complexity and volume of human life there is a constant production of forms1 with all the varieties of characteristics and capacities requisite to meet the needs of every soul1 thirsty for the destiny that awaits it2 and here heredity plays its part4 ,beyond the individual soul is the world-soul1 which periodically incarnates in the humanity of a planet1 and beyond the worlds of a single system1 suns and congeries of suns4 ,the profound and pregnant doctrines of karma and reincarnation1 here so sketchily outlined1 are but expansions of one of the fundamental propositions of all ,eastern philosophical systems1 that the effect is the unfolding of the cause in time4 ,to omit a consideration of karma and reincarnation in connection with higher time would be to force a passage and then not follow where it leads4 ,the idea of time curvature is implicit in the ideas of karma and reincarnation4 ,for what is karma but the return of time1 the flowering in the present of some seed sown elsewhere and long ago8 ,and what is reincarnation but the major cycle of that sweep into objective existence and out again1 of which the alternation between waking and sleeping is the lesser counterpart8 ,,colonel ,,de ,,rochas' ,,experiments ,during the past few years evidence has been accumulating that we never really forget anything4 ,we have rediscovered the memory of the subconscious mind4 ,it is generally known that in the mesmeric or somnambulistic sleep things hopelessly beyond recall for the habitual mind come to the surface1 in fragments1 or in whole series1 as the case may be4 ,it is perhaps news to some readers1 however1 that the memory of past lives has been recovered in this way4 ,this but confirms the ,eastern secret teaching that could we remember our dream experiences we should recover the knowledge of our past incarnations4 ,among the achievements of ,eastern hypnotism is the recovery of the memory of past births4 ,colonel de ,rochas appears to have paralleled this achievement in the ,west4 ,certain of his experiments have been admirably reported by ,maurice ,maeterlinck in the eighth chapter of ,our ,eternity4 ,maeterlinck's account1 somewhat condensed1 is given here1 because it so well illustrates the liberation of consciousness from the tyranny of time as we conceive it4 ,he says3 ,first of all1 it is only right to say that ,colonel de ,rochas is a savant who seeks nothing but objective truth and does so with a scientific strictness and integrity that have never been questioned4 ,he puts certain exceptional subjects into a hypnotic sleep and1 by means of downward passes1 makes them trace back the whole course of their existence4 ,he thus takes them successively to their youth1 their adolescence and down to the extreme limits of their childhood4 ,at each of these hypnotic stages1 the subject reassumes the consciousness1 the character and the state of mind which he possessed at the corresponding stage in his life4 ,he goes over the same events1 with their joys and their sorrows4 ,if he has been ill1 he once more passes through his illness1 his convalescence and his recovery4 ,let us1 to come to details1 take one of the simplest cases4 ,the subject is a girl of eighteen1 called ,josphine4 ,she lives at ,voiron1 in the department of ,isre4 ,by means of downward passes she is brought back to the condition of a baby at its mother's breast ,the passes continue and the wonder-tale runs its course4 ,josphine can no longer speak2 and we have the great silence of infancy1 which seems to be followed by a silence more mysterious still4 ,josphine no longer answers except by signs3 she is not yet born4 ',she is floating in darkness4' ,they persist2 the sleep becomes heavier2 and suddenly1 from the depths of that sleep1 rises the voice of another being1 a voice unexpected and unknown1 the voice of a churlish1 distrustful and discontented old man4 ,they question him4 ,at first he refuses to answer1 saying that 'of course he's there1 and he's speaking2' that 'he sees nothing2' and 'he's in the dark4' ,they increase the number of passes and gradually gain his confidence4 ,his name is ,jean ,claude ,bourdon2 he is an old man2 he has long been ailing and bedridden4 ,he tells the story of his life4 ,he was born at ,champvent1 in the parish of ,polliat1 in #ahab4 ,he went to school until he was eighteen and served his time in the army with the ,seventh ,artillery at ,besanon2 and he describes his gay time there1 while the sleeping girl makes gestures of twirling an imaginary moustache4 ,when he goes back to his native place1 he does not marry1 but he has a mistress4 ,he leads a solitary life 7,i omit all but the essential facts71 and dies at the age of seventy1 after a long illness4 ,we now hear the dead man speak2 and his posthumous revelations are not sensational1 which1 however1 is not an adequate reason for doubting their genuineness4 ,he feels himself growing out of his body2 but he remains attached to it for a fairly long time4 ,his fluidic body1 which is at first diffused1 takes a more concentrated form4 ,he lives in darkness1 which he finds disagreeable2 but he does not suffer4 ,at last1 the night in which he is plunged is streaked with a few flashes of light4 ,the idea comes to reincarnate himself and he draws near to her who is to be his mother 7that is1 the mother of ,josphine74 ,he encircles her until the child is born1 whereupon he gradually enters the child's body4 ,until about the seventh year1 his body is surrounded by a sort of floating mist1 in which he used to see many things which he has not seen since4 ,the next thing to be done is to go back beyond ,jean ,claude4 ,a mesmerization lasting nearly three-quarters of an hour1 without lingering at any intermediate stage1 brings the old man back to babyhood4 ,a fresh silence1 a new limbo2 and then1 suddenly1 another voice and an unexpected individual4 ,this time it is an old woman who has been very wicked2 and so she is in great torment 7she is dead1 at the actual instant2 for1 in this inverted world1 lives go backward and of course begin at the end74 ,she is in deep darkness1 surrounded by evil spirits4 ,she speaks at first in a faint voice1 but always gives definite replies to the questions put to her1 instead of cavilling at every moment1 as ,jean ,claude did4 ,her name is ,philomne ,carteron4 ',by intensifying the sleep1' adds ,colonel de ,rochas1 whom ,i will now quote1 ',i induce the manifestations of a living ,philomne4 ,she no longer suffers1 seems very calm and always answers coldly and distinctly4 ,she knows that she is unpopular in the neighborhood1 but no one is a penny the worse and she will be even with them yet4 ,she was born in #agjb2 her maiden name was ,philomne ,cherpigny2 her grandfather on the mother's side was called ,pierre ,machon and lived in ,ozan4 ,in #agcb she married1 at ,chevroux1 a man named ,carterton1 by whom she had two children1 both of whom she lost4' ,before her incarnation1 ,philomne had been a little girl who died in infancy4 ,previous to that1 she was a man who committed murder1 and it was to expiate this crime that she endured such suffering in the darkness1 and after her life as a little girl1 when she had no time to do wrong4 ,colonel de ,rochas did not think it wise to carry the hypnosis further1 because the subject appeared exhausted and her paroxysms were painful to watch4 ,he obtained analogous and even more surprising results with other subjects4 ,maeterlinck's comments upon all this are of negligible value4 ,he pays a fine tribute to the theory of reincarnation4 ,there was never a more beautiful1 a juster1 a purer1 a more moral1 fruitful and probable creed1 he says3 yet for all that1 it is clear that he has not been at pains fully to inform himself of the ,eastern teaching4 ,colonel de ,rochas' success1 and that of all other experimenters along these lines1 is due to their unconscious following of the ,eastern method4 ,he himself says that he avoided everything that should put the subject on a definite tack1--that is1 he refrained from voluntary suggestion4 ,having referred so frequently and so familiarly to the ,eastern belief in reincarnation1 and hinted at a more solid foundation for that belief than the single series of experiments above referred to1 it would be unfair to the reader not to gratify his curiosity more fully in regard to these matters4 ,in the light of our hypothesis they take on an importance which justifies their further consideration here4 ,,viii ,,the ,,eastern ,,teaching ,,oriental ,,physics ,,and ,,metaphysics ,western physical science1 pursued with ardor and devotion for the past hundred years1 has attained to a control over physical phenomena little short of magical1 but in our understanding and mastery of subjective phenomena we are far behind those ,eastern peoples who have made these matters the subject of study and experiment for thousands of years4 ,the informed ,hindu1 rightly or wrongly1 regards the ,western practice of hypnotism1 both in its methods and in its results1 with mingled horror and contempt4 ,to him it is not different from ,black ,magic1 pernicious to operator and subject alike1 since it involves an unwarrantable tyranny of the will on the part of the operator1 and a dangerous submission to the obsession of an invading will on the part of the subject4 ,eastern hypnotism--at its highest and best--is profoundly different from ,western1 in that the sanctity of the individual is respected4 ,its aim is not to enslave the will1 but temporarily to emancipate consciousness1 under favorable circumstances1 from its physical limitation4 ,eastern practical psychology and metaphysics can be understood only through a knowledge of ,eastern physics4 ,these we would call transcendental1 since they recognize not one theatre of consciousness1 but three3 the gross1 the subtle1 and the pure4 ,these correspond to the material1 the etherial1 and the empyreal worlds of ,greek philosophy1 and to the physical1 astral1 and mental planes of modern ,theosophy4 ,they may be thought of as universal substance in three different octaves of vibration4 ,upon this1 the trained will of man is able to act directly1 for the reason that--as claimed by ,balzac--it is a living force4 ,in ,eastern hypnotism the gross vibrations of the physical vehicle are inhibited by the will of the operator1 putting the body of the subject to sleep1 whereat the consciousness1 free in its subtle body1 awakens to a dimensionally higher world4 ,the operator1 by means of questions1 reaps such profit as he may by following the true dreams of the entranced subject1 scrupulously refraining from imposing his own will further than is necessary to obtain the information which he seeks4 ,the higher power of ,eastern hypnotism1 totally unknown in the ,west1 consists of inhibiting the subtle vibrations of the astral vehicle also1 permitting the consciousness to revert to its pure condition4 ,in these deep states of trance the subject is able to communicate knowledges shut away from the generality of men--among them the knowledge of past births4 ,,the ,,self-,,recovered ,,memory ,,of ,,past ,,births ,the strength of will necessary to accomplish this higher power of hypnotism is achieved by arduous and long-continued exercises in concentration1 by the practice of a strict morality1 and by submission to a physical regimen which few ,occidentals would care to undergo4 ,severe as is this training1 it is less so than that which the true ,yogi imposes upon himself1 and its fruits are less4 ,the achievement to which he addresses himself is far beyond that of the most accomplished hypnotist4 ,the ,yogi scorns all supernormal powers1 even while possessing them4 ,the ,yogi1 as the word implies--it means literally union--seeks to unite himself with his own higher self1 the eternal and immortal part of his own nature1 and the achievement of this brings with it the freedom of the three worlds at all times1 and in full consciousness4 ,as this involves an inward turning of the mind and will1 and the withdrawal from the ordinary active life of average humanity1 he alone is witness of his own success4 ,the rest is silence4 ,the knowledge of past births which may be obtained by the questionable and cumbersome method of hypnotism is one of the wayside flowers which the ,yogi may pluck1 if he will1 on his path towards perfection4 ,there are definite rules for the attainment of this knowledge1 and they conform so closely to ,colonel de ,rochas' method--save for the fact that operator and subject are one and not twain--that it will be interesting to give them here4 ,the ensuing passage is from the ,vishuddhi ,marga1 or ,path of ,purity1 a work written some sixteen hundred years ago by the famous sage1 ,buddhaghosha1 whose name signifies the ,voice of ,buddha1 the revealer of ,buddha's teachings4 ,it is quoted in ,charles ,johnston's ,the ,memory of ,past ,births4 ,the devotee1 then1 who tries for the first time to call to mind former states of existence1 should choose a time after breakfast1 when he has returned from collecting alms1 and is alone and plunged in meditation1 and has been absorbed in the four trances in succession4 ,on rising from the fourth trance1 which leads to the higher powers1 he should consider the event which last took place1 namely1 his sitting down2 next1 the spreading of the mat2 the entering of the room2 the putting away of bowl and robe2 his eating2 his leaving the village2 his going the rounds of the village for alms2 his entering the village for alms2 his departure from the monastery2 his offering adoration in the courts of the shrine and of the ,bodhi tree2 his washing the bowl2 what he did between taking the bowl and rinsing his mouth2 what he did at dawn2 what he did in the middle watch of the night2 what he did in the first watch of the night4 ,thus he must consider what he did for a whole day and night1 going backwards over it in reverse order4 ,in the same reverse order he must consider what he did the day before1 the day before that1 up to the fifth day1 the tenth day1 a fortnight ago1 a month ago1 a year ago2 and having in the same manner considered the previous ten and twenty years1 and so on up to the time of his conception in this birth1 he must then consider the name and form which he had at the moment of death in his last birth4 ,but since the name and form of the last birth came quite to an end1 and were replaced by others1 this point of time is like thick darkness1 and difficult to be made out by the mind of any person still deluded4 ,but even such a one should not despair nor say3 ',i shall never be able to penetrate beyond conception1 or take as the object of my thought the name and form which ,i had in my last birth1 at the moment of death1' but he should again and again enter the trance which leads to the higher powers1 and each time he rises from the trance1 he should again intend his mind upon that point of time4 ,just as a strong man in cutting down a mighty tree to be used as the peaked roof of a pagoda1 if the edge of his axe be turned in lopping off the branches and twigs1 will not despair of cutting down the tree1 but will go to an iron-worker's shop1 have his axe sharpened1 return1 and go on with his cutting2 and if the edge of his axe be turned a second time1 he will a second time have it sharpened1 and return1 and go on with his cutting2 and since nothing that he chopped once needs to be chopped again1 he will in no long time1 when there is nothing left to chop1 fell that mighty tree4 ,in the same way the devotee rising from the trance which leads to the higher powers1 without considering what he has considered once1 and considering only the moment of conception1 in no long time will penetrate beyond the moment of conception1 and take as his object the name and form which he had at the moment of death1 in his last birth4 ,his alert attention having become possessed of this knowledge1 he can call to mind many former states of existence1 as1 one birth1 two births1 three births1 four births1 five births1 and so on1 in the words of the text4 ,this quotation casts an interesting light upon ,eastern monasticism4 ,the ,buddhist monasteries are here revealed as schools of practical psychology1 the life of the monk a life of arduous and unceasing labor1 but labor of a sort which seems but idleness4 ,the successive initiations which are the milestones on the ,path of ,perfection upon which the devotee has set his feet represent successive emancipations of consciousness gained through work and knowledge4 ,their nature may best be understood by means of a fanciful analogy4 ,,release ,if we assume that all life is conscious life1 as much aware of its environment as the freedom of movement of its life vehicle in that environment permits1 a corpuscle vibrating in a solid would have a certain sense of space and of movement in space gained from its own experience4 ,now imagine the solid1 which is its world1 to be subjected to the influence of heat4 ,when the temperature reached a certain point the solid would transform itself into a liquid4 ,to the corpuscle all the old barriers would seem to be broken down2 space would be different1 time would be different1 and its world a different place4 ,again1 at another increase of temperature1 when the liquid became a gas1 the corpuscle would experience a further emancipation3 it would possess a further freedom1 with all the facts of its universe to learn anew4 ,each of these successive crises would constitute for it an initiation1 and since the heat has acted upon it from within1 causing an expansion of its life vehicle1 it would seem to itself to have attained to these new freedoms through self-development4 ,the parallel is now plain to the reader3 the corpuscle is the ,yogi1 bent on liberation3 the heat which warms him is the ,divine ,love1 centered in his heart1 his initiations are the successive emancipations into higher and higher spaces1 till he attains ,nirvana--inherits the kingdom prepared for him from the foundation of the world4 ,as latent heat resides in the corpuscle1 so is ,release hidden in the heart--release from time and space4 ,the perception of this prompted the exultant apostrophe of ,buddha1 ,looking for the maker of this tabernacle1 ,i have run through a course of many births1 not finding him2 and painful is birth again and again4 ,but now1 maker of the tabernacle1 thou hast been seen2 thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again4 ,all thy rafters are broken1 thy ridge-pole is sundered2 the mind1 approaching the ,eternal1 has attained the extinction of all desires4 ,upon the mystery of ,nirvana the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis casts not a little light4 ,to approach the ,eternal can only be to approach a condition where time is not4 ,because there is an escape from time in proportion as space dimensions are added to1 and assimilated by1 consciousness1 any development involving this element of space conquest 7and evolution is itself such a development7 involves time annihilation also4 ,to be in a state of desire is to be conditioned by a limitation1 because one can desire only that which one has not or is not4 ,the extinction of a desire is only another name for the transcending of a limitation--of all desires1 of all limitations4 ,if these limitations are of space they are of time also2 therefore is the approach to the ,eternal through the extinction of all desire4 ,christ said1 ,him that overcometh will ,i make a pillar of the temple of my ,god1 and he shall go no more out--go out1 that is1 into incarnation--into time1 besprent with seven-hued circumstance4 ,such are the testimonies of the world-saviors regarding the means and end of liberation4 ,below them on the evolutionary ladder stand the mystics1 earth-bound1 but soul-free2 below them1 in turn1 yet far above common humanity1 stand the men of genius1 caught still in the net of passion1 but able1 in their work1 to reflect something of the glory of the supernal world4 ,let us consider1 in the next two chapters1 each of these in turn4 ,,ix ,,the ,,mystics ,,hermes ,,trismegistus ,the mystic1 however far removed he may be from ,nietzsche's ideal of the ,superman1 nevertheless represents superhumanity in the domain of consciousness4 ,by means of quotations1 taken almost at random from the rich literature of mysticism1 the author will attempt to show that the consciousness of the mystic involves the awareness of dimensionally higher worlds4 ,the first group of quotations is culled from certain of the ,sacred ,books of ,hermes ,trismegistus4 ,comprehend clearly 7says ,hermes to ,asclepios7 that this sensible world is enfolded1 as in a garment1 by the supernal world4 ,we think of our three dimensional space1 the sensible world1 as immersed in higher space2 enfolded as in a garment1 therefore4 ,and we think of the objects of our world as having extension in a dimensionally higher region1 that supernal world in which the phenomena of this sensible world arise4 ,for3 ,celestial order reigns over terrestrial order3 all that is done and said upon earth has its origin in the heights1 from which all essences are dispensed with measure and equilibrium3 nor is there anything which does not emanate from one above and return thither ,,the ,,page ,,and ,,the ,,press ,the idea of an all-embracing unity within and behind the seeming manifoldness of life forms the ground rhythm of all inspired literature1 sacred and profane alike4 ,for clarity and conciseness it would be difficult to improve upon the formulation of this idea contained in the following fragment3 ,in the manifold unity of universal life the innumerable individualities distinguished by their variations are1 nevertheless1 united in such a manner that the whole is one1 and that everything proceeds from unity4 ,for all things depend upon unity1 or develop from it1 and because they appear distant from one another it is believed that they are many1 whereas in their collectivity they form but one4 ,now nothing so successfully resolves this paradox of the one and the many as the concept that the things of this world are embraced and united in a dimensionally higher world in a manner analogous to that in which all conic sections are embraced and united within the cone4 ,a more elaborate and fanciful figure may serve to make this clearer to the mind4 ,conceive of this printed page as a plane world in which every letter is a person2 every word a family2 phrases and sentences1 larger communities and groups4 ,these innumerable individualities1 distinguished by their variations must needs seem to themselves as distant from one another1 their very differences of form and arrangement a barrier to any superior unity4 ,yet all the while1 solely by reason of this diversity1 they are co-operating towards an end of which they cannot be aware4 ,the mind of the reader unites and interprets the letters into continuous thought1 though they be voiceless as stones to one another4 ,even so may our sad and stony identities spell out a world's word which we know not of1 by reason of our singularity and isolation4 ,moreover1 in the electrotype block1 the solid of which the printed page constitutes a plane presentment1 all the letters are actually united in such a manner that the whole is one4 ,the metal that has moulded each into its significant form amalgamates them into a higher unity4 ,so also the power that makes us separate is the same power that makes us one4 ,,the ,,ship ,,and ,,its ,,captain ,here follows the lament of the souls awaiting incarnation3 ,behold the sad future in store for us--to minister to the wants of a fluctuating and dissoluble body6 ,no more may our eyes distinguish the souls divine6 ,hardly through these watery spheres shall we perceive1 with sighs1 our ancestral heaven3 at intervals even we shall cease altogether to behold it4 ,by this disastrous sentence direct vision is denied to us2 we can see only by the aid of the outer light2 these are but windows that we possess--not eyes4 ,nor will our pain be less when we hear in the fraternal breathing of the winds with which no longer can we mingle our own1 since ours will have for its dwelling1 instead of the sublime and open world1 the narrow prison of the breast6 ,that the soul--the so-called subliminal self--draws from a broader1 deeper experience than the purely rational consciousness is a commonplace of modern psychology4 ,hinton conceives of the soul as higher-dimensional with relation to the body1 but so concerned with the management and direction of its lower-dimensional vehicle as to have lost1 for the time being1 its orientation1 thinking and moving only in those ways of which the body is capable4 ,the analogy he uses1 of a ship and its captain1 is so happy1 and the whole passage has so direct a bearing upon the ,hermetic fragment quoted1 that it is given here entire4 ,i adopt the hypothesis that that which thinks in us has an ample experience1 of which the intuitions we use in dealing with the world of real objects are a part2 of which experience1 the intuition of four-dimensional forms and motions is also a part4 ,the process we are engaged in intellectually is the reading of the obscure signals of our nerves into a world of reality1 by means of intuitions derived from the inner experience4 ,the image ,i form is as follows3 ,imagine the captain of a modern battleship directing its course4 ,he has his charts before him2 he is in communication with his associates and subordinates2 can convey his messages and commands to every part of the ship1 and receive information from the conning tower and the engine room4 ,now suppose the captain1 immersed in the problem of the navigation of his ship over the ocean1 to have so absorbed himself in the problem of the direction of the craft over the plane surface of the sea that he forgets himself4 ,all that occupies his attention is the kind of movement that his ship makes4 ,the operations by which that movement is produced have sunk below the threshold of his consciousness2 his own actions1 by which he pushes the buttons1 gives the orders1 are so familiar as to be automatic2 his mind is on the motion of the ship as a whole4 ,in such a case we can imagine that he identifies himself with the ship2 all that enters his conscious thought is the direction of its movement over the plane surface of the ocean4 ,such is the relation1 as ,i imagine it1 of the soul to the body4 ,a relation which we can imagine as existing momentarily in the case of the captain is the normal one in the case of the soul with its craft4 ,as the captain is capable of a kind of movement1 an amplitude of motion1 which does not enter into his thoughts with regard to the directing of the ship over the plane surface of the ocean1 so the soul is capable of a kind of movement1 has an amplitude of motion1 which is not used in its task of directing the body in the three-dimensional region in which the body's activity lies4 ,if for any reason it becomes necessary for the captain to consider three-dimensional motions with regard to his ship1 it would not be difficult for him to gain the materials for thinking about such motions2 all he has to do is to call experience into play4 ,as far as the navigation of the ship is concerned1 however1 he is not obliged to call on such experience4 ,the ship as a whole simply moves on a surface4 ,the problem of three-dimensional movement does not ordinarily concern its steering4 ,and thus with regard to ourselves all those movements and activities which characterize our bodily organs are three-dimensional2 we never need to consider the ampler movements4 ,but we do more than use these movements of our body to effect our aims by direct means2 we have now come to the pass when we act indirectly on nature1 when we call processes into play which lie beyond the reach of any explanation we can give by the kind of thought which has been sufficient for the steering of our craft as a whole4 ,when we come to the problem of what goes on in the minute and apply ourselves to the mechanism of the minute1 we find our habitual conceptions inadequate4 ,the captain in us must wake up to his own intimate nature1 realize those functions of movement which are his own1 and in the virtue of his knowledge of them apprehend how to deal with the problems he has come to4 ,the ,fourth ,dimension4 ,how more accurately and eloquently could the captain in us1 momentarily aroused1 give voice to his predicament1 than in the words1 ,instead of the sublime and open world1 the narrow prison of the breast4 ,,direct ,,vision ,the watery spheres in the ,hermetic fragment are of course the eyes1 a mechanism inferior in many ways to the camera of man's own devising4 ,the phenomena of clairvoyance make known a mode of vision which is confined to no specific sense organ1 approximating much more closely to true perception than does physical sight4 ,mr4 ,c4,w4 ,leadbeater in ,clairvoyance specifically affirms that this higher power of sight is four-dimensional4 ,he says3 ,the idea of the fourth dimension as expounded by ,mr4 ,hinton is the only one which gives any kind of explanation down here of astral vision 444 which lays every point in the interior of a solid body absolutely open to the gaze of the seer1 just as every point of the interior of a circle lies open to the gaze of a man looking down upon it4 ,i can see all around and every way1 exclaims one of the psychometers reported in ,william ,denton's ,the ,soul of ,things4 ,the outer light by which the physical eye is able to see objects is sunlight4 ,upon this clairvoyant vision in no wise depends1 involving1 as it does1 other octaves of vibration4 ,we should be able to receive ideas of this order without incredulity since the advent of dark photography and the ultra-violet microscope4 ,by aid of the latter1 photographs are taken in absolute darkness1 the lenses used being transparent to light rays invisible to the eye1 but active photographically4 ,the foregoing passages from ,the ,virgin of the ,world show a remarkable resemblance between the ,hermetic philosophy and modern higher-space thought4 ,the parallelism is not less striking in the case of certain other mystic philosophers of the ,east4 ,,plato',s ,,shadow-,,watchers ,parmenides1 says ,hinton1 and the ,asiatic thinkers with whom he is in close affinity1 propound a theory of existence which is in close accord with a conception of a possible relation between a higher and a lower-dimensional space4 ,he concludes1 ,either one of two things must be true1 that four-dimensional conceptions give a wonderful power of representing the thought of the ,east1 or that the thinkers of the ,east must have been looking at and regarding four-dimensional existence4 ,it would not be difficult to re-state1 in terms of our hypothesis1 ,plato's doctrine of an enduring archetypal world of ideas reflected in a world of transitory images and appearances4 ,fortunately1 ,plato has relieved the author of that necessity by doing it himself in his wonderful allegory of the shadow-watchers in ,the ,republic4 ,the trend of his argument is clear2 as its shadow is to a solid object1 so is the object itself to its archetypal idea4 ,this is the manner in which he presents this thought3 ,imagine a number of men living in an underground cavernous chamber1 with an entrance open to the light1 extending along the entire length of the cavern1 in which they have been confined1 from their childhood1 with their legs and neck so shackled1 that they are obliged to sit still and look straight forwards1 because their chains render it impossible for them to turn their heads round3 and imagine a bright fire burning some way off1 above and behind them1 and an elevated roadway passing between the fire and the prisoners1 with a low wall built along it1 like the screens which conjurors put up in front of their audience1 and above which they exhibit their wonders4 ,i have it1 he replied4 ,also1 figure to yourself a number of persons walking behind this wall1 and carrying with them statues of men1 and images of other animals1 wrought in wood1 stone1 and all kinds of materials1 together with various other articles1 which overtop the wall2 and1 as you might expect1 let some of the passers-by be talking1 and others silent ,you are describing a strange scene1 and strange prisoners4 ,they resemble us1 ,i replied4 ,for let me ask you1 in the first place1 whether persons so confined could have seen anything of themselves or of each other1 beyond the shadows thrown by the fire upon the part of the cavern facing them4 ,certainly not1 if you suppose them to have been compelled all their lifetime to keep their heads unmoved4 ,and is not their knowledge of the things carried past them equally limited8 ,unquestionably it is4 ,and if they were able to converse with one another1 do you not think that they would be in the habit of giving names to the objects which they saw before them8 ,doubtless they would4 ,again3 if their prison house returned an echo from the part facing them1 whenever one of the passers-by opened his lips1 to what1 let me ask you1 could they refer the voice1 if not to the shadow which was passing8 ,unquestionably they would refer it to that4 ,then surely such persons would hold the shadows of the manufactured articles to be the only realities4 ,without a doubt they would4 ,plato 7in the person of ,socrates7 then considers what would happen if the course of nature brought to the prisoners a release from their fetters and a remedy for their foolishness1 and concludes as follows3 ,now this imaginary case1 my dear ,glaucon1 you must apply in all its parts to our former statements1 by comparing the region which the eye reveals1 to the prison-house1 and the light of the fire therein to the power of the sun2 and if1 by the upward ascent and the contemplation of the upper world1 you understand the mounting of the soul in the intellectual region1 you will hit the tendency of my own surmises 444 the view which ,i take of the subject is to the following effect4 ,briefly1 the view taken is that the ,form of ,good perceived by the mind is the source of everything that is perceived by the senses4 ,this is equivalent to saying that the objects of our three-space world are projections of higher-dimensional realities--that there is a supernal world related to this world as a body is related to the shadow which it casts4 ,,swedenborg ,emerson1 in his ,representative ,men1 chose ,swedenborg as the representative mystic4 ,he accepted ,swedenborg's way of looking at the world as universally characteristic of the mystical temperament4 ,the ,higher ,space ,theory was unheard of in ,swedenborg's day1 nevertheless in his religious writings--thick clouds shot with lightning--the idea is implicit and sometimes even expressed1 though in a terminology all his own4 ,to ,swedenborg's vision1 as to ,plato's1 this physical world is a world of ultimates1 in all things correspondent to the casual world1 which he names heaven4 ,it is to be observed1 he says1 that the natural world exists and subsists from the spiritual world1 just as an effect exists from its efficient cause4 ,according to ,swedenborg1 conditions in heaven are different from those in the world3 space is different3 distance is different ,he says1 ,space in heaven is not like space in the world1 for space in the world is fixed1 and therefore measurable3 but in heaven it is not fixed and therefore cannot be measured4 ,herein is suggested a fluidic condition1 singularly in accord with certain modern conceptions in theoretical physics4 ,commenting upon the significance of ,lobatchewsky's and ,bolyai's work along the lines of non-,euclidian geometry1 ,hinton says1 ,by immersing the conception of distance in matter1 to which it properly belongs1 it promises to be of the greatest aid in analysis1 for the effective distance of any two particles is the result of complex material conditions1 and cannot be measured by hard and fast rules4 ,the higher correlative of physical distance is a difference of state or condition1 according to the ,norwegian seer4 ,those are far apart who differ much1 he says and those are near who differ little4 ,distance in the spiritual world1 he declares1 originates solely in the difference in the state of their minds1 and in the heavenly world1 from the difference in the state of their loves4 ,this immediately suggests the ,oriental teaching that the place and human environment into which a man is born have been determined by his own thoughts1 desires1 and affections in anterior existences1 and that instant by instant all are determining their future births4 ,the reader to whom the idea of reincarnation is repellent or unfamiliar may not be prepared to go this length1 but he must at least grant that in the span of a single lifetime thought and desire determine action1 and consequently1 position in space4 ,the ambitious man goes from the village to the city2 the lover of nature seeks the wilds2 the misanthrope avoids his fellowmen1 the gregarious man gravitates to crowds4 ,we seek out those whom we love1 we avoid those whom we dislike2 everywhere the forces of attraction and repulsion play their part in determining the tangled orbits of our every-day lives4 ,in other words1 the subjective1 and 7hypothetically7 higher activity in every man records itself in a world of three dimensions as action upon an environment4 ,thought expresses itself in action1 and so flows outward into space4 ,observe how perfectly this fits in with ,swedenborg's contention that physical remoteness has for its higher correspondence a difference of love and of interest2 and physical juxtaposition1 a similarity of these4 ,in heaven1 he says1 ,angels of similar character are as it were spontaneously drawn together4 ,so would it be on earth1 but for impediments inherent in our terrestrial space4 ,swedenborg's angels are men freed from these limitations4 ,we suffer because the free thing in us is hampered by the restrictions of a space to which it is not native4 ,reason sufficient for such restriction is apparent in the success that crowns every effort at the annihilation of space1 and the augmentation of power and knowledge that such effort brings4 ,it would appear that a narrowing of interest and endeavor is always the price of efficiency4 ,the angel is confined to the narrow prison of the breast that it may react upon matter just as an axe is narrowed to an edge that it may cleave4 ,,man ,,the ,,space-,,eater ,man has been called the thinking animal4 ,space-eater would be a more appropriate title1 since he so dauntlessly and persistently addresses himself to overcoming the limitations of his space4 ,to realize his success in this1 compare1 for example1 the voyage of ,columbus' caravels with that of an ocean liner2 or traveling by stage coach with train de luxe4 ,consider the telephone1 the phonograph1 the cinematograph1 from the standpoint of space-conquest--and wireless telegraphy which sends forth messages in every direction1 over sea and land4 ,most impressive of all are the achievements in the domain of astronomy4 ,one by one the sky has yielded its amazing secrets1 till the mind roams free among the stars4 ,the reason why there are to-day so many men braving death in the air is because the conquest of the third dimension is the task to which the ,zeit-,geist has for the moment addressed itself1 and these intrepid aviators are its chosen instruments--sacrificial pawns in the dimension-gaining game4 ,all these things are only the outward and visible signs of the angel1 incarnate in a world of three dimensions1 striving to realize higher spatial1 or heavenly1 conditions4 ,this spectacle1 for example1 of a millionaire hurled across a continent in a special train to be present at the bedside of a stricken dear one1 may be interpreted as the endeavor of an incarnate soul to achieve1 with the aid of human ingenuity applied to space annihilation1 that which1 discarnate1 it could compass without delay or effort4 ,,the ,,within ,,and ,,without ,in ,swedenborg's heaven all communicate by the extension of the sphere which goes forth from the life of every one4 ,the sphere of their life is the sphere of their affections of love and hate4 ,this is as fair a description of thought transference and its necessary condition as could well be devised1 for as in wireless telegraphy1 its mechanical counterpart1 it depends upon synchronism of vibration in a sphere which goes forth from the life of every one4 ,thought transference and kindred phenomena in which all categories of space and time lose their significance baffle our understanding because they appear to involve the idea of being in two places--in many places--at once1 a thing manifestly at variance with our own conscious experience4 ,it is as though the pen point should suddenly become the sheet of paper4 ,but strange as are these matters and mysterious as are their method1 no other hypothesis so well explains them as that they are higher-dimensional experiences of the self4 ,we have the universal testimony of all mystics that the attainment of mystical consciousness is by inward contemplation--turning the mind back upon itself4 ,swedenborg says1 ,it can in no case be said that heaven is outside of any one1 but it is within him for every angel participates in the heaven around him by virtue of the heaven which is within him4 ,christ said1 ,the ,kingdom of ,heaven is within you1 and there is a saying attributed to ,him to the effect that ,when the outside becomes the inside1 then the ,kingdom of ,heaven is come4 ,these and such arcane sayings as ,know ,thyself engraved upon the lintels of ancient temples of initiation1 powerfully suggest the possibility that by penetrating to the center of our individual consciousness we expand outwardly into the cosmic consciousness as though in and out were the positive and negative of a new dimension4 ,by exerting a force in the negative direction upon a slender column of water in a hydraulic press1 it is possible to raise in the positive direction a vast bulk of water with which that column1 through the mechanism of the press1 is connected4 ,this is because both columns1 the little and the big1 enclose one body of fluid4 ,the attainment of higher states of consciousness is potential in every one1 for the reason that the consciousness of a greater being flows through each individual4 ,,intuition ,,and ,,reason ,there is the utmost unanimity in the testimony of the mystics that the world without and the world within are but different aspects of the same reality--,the eye with which ,i see ,god is the same eye with which ,he sees me4 ,they never weary of the telling of the solidarity and invisible continuity of life1 the inclusion not only of the minute in the vast1 but of the vast in the minute4 ,we may accept this form of perception as characteristic of consciousness in its free state4 ,its instrument is the intuition1 which divines relations between diverse things through a perception of unity4 ,the instrument of the purely mundane consciousness1 on the other hand1 is the reason1 which dissevers and dissects phenomena1 divining unity through correlation4 ,now if physical phenomena1 in all their manifoldness1 are lower-dimensional projections1 upon a lower-dimensional space1 of a higher unity1 then reason and intuition are seen to be two modes of one intelligence1 engaged in apprehending life from below 7by means of the reason7 through its diversity1 and from above 7by means of intuition7 through its unity4 ,those who recognize in the intuition a valid organ of knowledge1 are disposed to exalt it above the reason1 but at our present state of evolution1 and given our environment1 it would seem that the reason is the more generally useful faculty of the two4 ,in that unfolding1 that manifesting of the higher in the lower--which is the idea the four-dimensionalist has of the world--the painstaking1 minute1 methodical action of the reasoning mind applied to phenomena achieves results impossible to ,pisgah-sighted intuition4 ,the power1 peculiar to the reason1 of isolating part after part from the whole to which it belongs1 and considering them thus isolated1 makes possible in the end a synthesis in which the whole is not merely glimpsed1 but known to the last detail4 ,the method of the reason is symbolized in so trifling a thing as the dealing out one by one of a pack of cards and their reassembling4 ,the pack has been made to show forth its content by a process of disruption--of slicing4 ,similarly1 if a scientist wants to gain a thorough comprehension of a complicated organism1 he dissects it1 or submits it to a process of slicing1 studying each slice separately under the microscope while keeping constantly in mind the relation of one slice to another4 ,this amounts to nothing less than reducing a thing from three dimensions to two1 in order to know it thoroughly4 ,now the flux of things corresponds to the four-dimensional aspect of the world1 and with this the reason finds it impossible to deal4 ,as ,bergson has so well shown1 the reason cuts life into countless cross-sections3 a thing must be dead before it can be dissected4 ,this is why the higher-dimensional aspect of life1 divined by the intuition1 escapes rational analysis4 ,,the ,,coil ,,of ,,life ,swedenborg's description of the ascent and descent of forms and the forces and powers which flow therefrom1 suggests1 by reason of the increasing amplitude and variety of form and motion1 a progression from space to space4 ,this description is too long and involved to find place here1 but its conclusion is as follows3 ,such now is the ascent and descent of forms or substances in the greatest1 and in our least universe3 similar also is the descent of all forces and powers which flow from them4 ,but all their perfection consists in the possibility and virtue of varying themselves1 or of changing states1 which possibility increases with their elevations1 so that in number it exceeds all the series of calculations unfolded by human minds1 and still inwardly involved by them3 which infinities finally become what is finite in the ,supreme4 ,our ideas are merely progressions by variations of form1 and thus by actual changes of state4 ,his sense of the beauty and orderliness of the whole process1 and his despair of communicating it1 find characteristic utterance in the following passage3 ,if thou could'st discern1 my beloved1 how distinctly and ordinately these forms are arranged and connected with each other1 from the mere aspect and infinity of so many wonderful things connected with each other1 from the mere aspect and infinity of so many wonderful things conspiring into one1 thou would'st fall down1 from an inmost impulse1 with sacred astonishment1 and at the same time pious joy1 to perform an act of worship and of love before such an architect4 ,in his description of the manner in which these forms cohere and successively unfold1 he introduces one of the basic concepts of higher space thought2 namely1 that in the descent of forms from space to space1 that which in the higher exists all together--that is1 simultaneously--can only manifest itself in the lower piecemeal--that is1 successively4 ,he says3 ,nothing is together in any texture or effect which was not successively introduced2 and everything is therein1 according as order itself introduces it3 wherefore simultaneous order derives its birth1 nature and perfection from successive orders1 and the former is only rendered perspicuous and plain by the latter4444 ,what is supreme in things successive takes the inmost place in things simultaneous3 thus things superior in order super-involve things inferior and wrap them together1 that these latter may become exterior in the same order3 by this method first principles1 which are also called simple1 unfold themselves1 and involve themselves in things posterior or compound3 wherefore every perfection of what is outermost flows forth from inmost principles by their series3 hence thy beauty1 my daughter1 the only parent of which is order itself4 ,this passage1 like a proffered dish full of rare fruit1 tempts the metaphysical appetite by the wealth and variety of its appeal2 but not to weary the reader1 the author will content himself by the abstraction of a single plum4 ,the plum in question is simply this 7and the reader is asked to read the quotation carefully again73 may not every act1 incident1 circumstance in a human life be the uncoiling of a karmic aggregate8 ,this coil of life may be thought of most conveniently in this connection as the character of the person1 a character built up1 or successively introduced in antecedent lives4 ,the sequence of events resultant on its unwinding would be the destiny of the person--a destiny determined1 necessarily1 by past action4 ,this concept gives a new and more eloquent meaning to the phrase ,character is destiny4 ,if we carry our thought no further1 we are plunged into the slough of determinism--sheer fatality4 ,but in each reincarnation1 however predetermined every act and event1 their reaction upon consciousness remains a matter of determination--is therefore self-determined4 ,we may not control the event1 but our acceptance of it we may control4 ,moreover1 each unwinding of the karmic coil takes place in a new environment1 in a world more highly organized by reason of the play upon it of the collective consciousness of mankind4 ,though the same individual again and again intersects the stream of mundane experience1 it is an evolving ego and an augmenting stream4 ,therefore each life of a given series forms a different1 a more intricate1 and a more amazing pattern3 in each the thread is drawn from nearer the central energy1 which is divine1 and so shows forth more of the coiled power within the soul4 ,x ,,genius ,,immanence ,the greatest largess to the mind which higher thought brings is the conviction of a transcendent existence4 ,though we do not know the nature of this existence1 except obscurely1 we are assured of its reality and of its immanence1 through a growing sense that all that happens to us is simply our relation to it4 ,in our ant-like efforts to attain to some idea of the nature of this transcendent reality1 let us next avail ourselves of the help afforded by the artist and the man of genius1 too troubled by the flesh for perfect clarity of vision1 too troubled by the spirit not to attempt to render or record the ,pisgah-glimpses of the world-order now and then vouchsafed4 ,for the genius stands midway between man and ,beyond-man3 in ,nietzsche's phrase1 ,man is a bridge and not a goal4 ,of all the writers on the subject of genius1 ,schopenhauer is the most illuminating1 perhaps because he suffered from it so4 ,according to him1 the essence of genius lies in the perfection and energy of its perceptions4 ,schopenhauer says1 ,he who is endowed with talent thinks more quickly and more correctly than others2 but the genius beholds another world from them all1 although only because he has a more profound perception of the world which lies before them also1 in that it presents itself in his mind more objectively1 and consequently in greater purity and distinctness4 ,this profounder perception arises from his detachment3 his intellect has to a certain extent freed itself from the service of his will1 and leads an independent life4 ,so long as the intellect is in the service of the will1 that which has no relation to the will does not exist for the intellect2 but along with this partial severance of the two there comes a new power of perception1 synthetic in its nature1 a complex of relationships not reproducible in linear thought1 for the mind is oriented simultaneously in many different directions4 ,of this order of perception the well-known case of ,mozart is a classic example4 ,he is reported to have said of his manner of composing1 ,i can see the whole of it in my mind at a single glance 444 in which way ,i do not hear it in my imagination at all as succession--the way it comes later--but all at once1 as it were4 ,it is a rare feast6 all the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream4 ,,timelessness ,the inspirations of genius come from a failure of attention to life1 which1 all paradoxically1 brings vision--the power to see life clearly and see it whole4 ,consciousness1 unconditioned by time1 in a beautiful strong dream1 awakens to the perception of a world that is timeless4 ,it brings thence some immortelle whose power of survival establishes the authenticity of the inspiration4 ,however local and personal any masterpiece may be1 it escapes by some potent magic all geographical and temporal categories1 and appears always new-born from a sphere in which such categories do not exist4 ,no writer was more of his period than ,shakespeare1 yet how contemporary he seems to each succeeding generation4 ,leonardo1 in a perfect portrait1 showed forth the face of a subtle1 sensuous1 and mocking spirit1 against a background of wild rocks4 ,it represents not alone the soul-phase of the later ,renaissance1 but of every individual and of every civilization which on life's dangerous and orgiastic substratum has reared a mere garden of delight4 ,living hearts throb to the music penned by the dead hand of ,mozart and of ,beethoven2 the clownings of ,aristophanes arouse laughter in our music halls2 ,euripides is as subtle and world-weary as any modern2 the philosophies of ,parminides and ,heraclitus are recrudescent in that of ,bergson2 and ,plato discusses higher space under a different name4 ,,beyond ,,good ,,and ,,evil3 ,,beauty ,the second characteristic of works of genius is their indifference to all man-made moral standards4 ,they are beyond all that goes by the name of good and evil1 in that the two are used indifferently for the furtherance of a purely aesthetic end4 ,the ,beyond-man discovers beauty in the abyss1 and ugliness in mere worldly rectitude4 ,leonardo painted the ,medusa head1 with its charnel pallor and its crown of writhing snakes1 no less lovingly than the sweet-tender face of the ,christ of the ,cenacolo1 and the beauty is not less1 though of an opposite sort4 ,shakespeare's most profound sayings and most magical poetry are as often as not put in the mouths of his villains and his clowns4 ,to genius1 pain is purgation2 ugliness1 beauty in disturbance4 ,it injects the acid of irony into success1 and distils the attar of felicity from failure4 ,it teaches that the blows of fate are aimed1 not at us1 but at our fetters2 that death is swallowed up in victory1 that the ,hound of ,heaven is none other than the ,love of ,god4 ,though genius rebels at our moralities1 it always submits itself to beauty4 ,emerson says1 ,goethe and ,carlyle1 and perhaps ,novalis1 have an undisguised dislike or contempt for common virtue standing on common principles4 ,meantime they are dear lovers1 steadfast maintainers of the pure1 ideal morality4 ,but they worship it as the highest beauty1 their love is artistic4 ,and so it is throughout the whole hierarchy of men of genius4 ,beauty is ,truth3 ,truth1 ,beauty1 is the motto which guides their far-faring feet1 as they lead us wheresoever they will4 ,with ,victor ,hugo1 we follow1 undisgusted1 through the sewers of old ,paris3 his sense of beauty disinfects them for us4 ,with ,balzac and ,tolstoy we gaze unrevolted upon the nethermost depths of human depravity1 discerning moral beauty even there2 while with ,virgil1 ,dante and ,milton1 we walk unscathed in ,hell itself4 ,the terribilita of ,michaelangelo1 the chaos and anarchy of ,shakespeare at his greatest1 as in ,lear--these find expression in perfect rhythms1 so potent that we recognize them as proceeding from a supernal beauty1 the beauty of that soul from which also cometh the life of man and of beast1 and of the birds of the air and of the fishes of the sea4 ,,the ,,daemonic ,unknown1--albeit lying near1-- ,to men the path to the ,daemon sphere4 ,but to men of genius--,minions of the ,morning ,star--the path is not unknown1 and for this reason the daemonic element constantly shows itself in their works and in their lives4 ,dante1 ,cellini1 ,goethe1 three men as unlike in the nature of their several gifts and in their temperaments as could easily be named together1 are drawn to a common likeness through the daemonic gleam which plays and hovers over them at times4 ,with ,william ,blake it was a flame that wrapped him round4 ,today no one knows how ,brunelleschi was able to construct his great dome without centering1 nor how ,michaelangelo could limn his terrible figures on the wet plaster of the ,sistine vault with such extraordinary swiftness and skill2 but we have their testimony that they invoked and received divine aid4 ,shakespeare1 the master-magician1 is silent on this point of supernatural assistance--as on all points--except as his plays speak for him2 but how eloquently they speak6 ,the ,tempest is made up of the daemonic2 the murky tragedy of ,macbeth unfolds under the guidance of incarnate forces of evil which drive the hero to his doom and final deliverance in death3 ,hamlet sees and communes with the ghost of his father2 in short1 the supernatural is as much a part of these plays as salt is part of the ocean4 ,if from any masterpiece we could abstract everything not strictly rational--every element of wonder1 mystery1 and enchantment--it would be like taking all of the unknown quantities out of an equation3 there would be nothing left to solve4 ,the mind of genius is a wireless station attuned to the vibrations from the daemonic sphere2 the works of genius fascinate and delight us largely for this reason3 we1 too1 respond to these vibrations and are demonologists in our secret hearts4 ,for the interest which we take in genius has its root in the interest which we take in ourselves4 ,genius but utters experiences common to us all1 records perceptions of a world-order which we too have glimpsed4 ,love1 hope1 pain1 sorrow1 disappointment1 often effect that momentary purgation which enables consciousness to function independently of the tyrant will4 ,these hours have for us a noetic value--some veil did fall--revealing visions remembered even unto the hour of death4 ,,death ,that failure of attention to life which begets inspiration in the man of genius comes1 indeed1 daily to every one1 but without his being able to profit by it4 ,for what is sleep but a failure of attention to life--so complete a failure that memory brings back nothing save that little caught in the net of dreams--yet even this little is so charged with creative energy as to give rise to the saying that every man is a genius in his dreams4 ,death also is a failure of attention to life1 the greatest that we know1 and poorest therefore in plunder from supernatural realms4 ,nevertheless reports of persons who have narrowly escaped death give evidence at least that to those emancipated by death1 life1 viewed from some higher region of space1 is perceived as a unity4 ,when a man is brought face to face with death1 the events of life pass before the mind's eye in an instant1 and he comes from such an experience not only with deeper insight into himself1 but into the meaning and purpose of life also4 ,the faces of the dead1 those parchments where are written the last testament of the departed spirit1 bear an expression of solemn peace1 sometimes of joy1 sometimes of wonder3 terror and agony are seldom written there1 save when the fatal change comes in some painful or unnatural way4 ,,the ,,play ,,of ,,brahm ,inspiration1 dreams1 visions at the moment of death--these things we say are irrational1 and so in a sense they are4 ,bergson has compared the play of reason upon phenomena to the action of a cinematograph machine which reproduces the effect of motion by flashing upon the screen a correlated series of fixed images4 ,in like manner the reason dissects the flux of life and presents it to consciousness part by part1 but never as a whole4 ,in supernormal states however we may assume that with the breakdown of some barrier life flows in like a tidal wave1 paralyzing the reason1 and therefore presenting itself in an irrational manner to consciousness4 ,were reason equal to the strain put upon it under these circumstances1 in what light might the phantasmagoria of human life appear8 ,might it not be perceived as a representation1 merely1 of a supernal world1 higher-dimensional in relation to our own8 ,just as a moving picture shows us the round and living bodies of men and women as flat images on a plane1 enacting there some mimic drama1 so on the three-dimensional screen of the world men and women engaged in unfolding the drama of personal life may be but the images of souls enacting1 on higher planes of being1 the drama of their own salvation4 ,the reluctance of the ,american aborigine to be photographed is said to have been due to his belief that something of his personality1 his human potency1 went into the image1 leaving him by so much the poorer from that time forth4 ,suppose such indeed to be the case3 that the flat-man on the moving picture screen leads his little life of thought and emotion1 related to the mental and emotional life of the living original as the body is related to its photographic counterpart4 ,in similar manner the potencies of the higher self1 the dweller in higher spaces1 may flow into and express themselves in and through us4 ,we may be images in a world of images2 our thoughts shadows of archetypal ideas1 our acts a shadow-play upon the luminous screen of material existence1 revealing there1 however imperfectly1 the moods and movements of a higher self in a higher space4 ,the saying1 ,all the world's a stage1 may be true in a sense ,shakespeare never intended4 ,it formulates1 in effect1 the oldest of all philosophical doctrines1 that contained in the ,upanishads of ,brahma1 the ,enjoyer1 who takes the form of a mechanically perfect universe in order to read his own law with eyes of his own creation4 ,he thought3 ',shall ,i send forth worlds8' ,he sent forth these worlds4 ,to the question1 ,what worlds8 the ,higher ,space ,hypothesis makes answer1 ,dimensional systems1 from lowest to highest1 each one a representation of the one next above1 where it stands dramatized1 as it were4 ,this is the play of ,brahm2 endlessly to dissever1 in time and space1 and to unite in consciousness1 like the geometrician who discovers every ellipse1 parabola1 and hyperbola1 in the cone where all inhere4 ,the particular act of the drama of unfolding consciousness upon which the curtain is now upfurled is that wherein we discover the world to be indeed a stage1 a playground for forces masquerading as forms3 they have their exits and their entrances1 or1 as expressed in the ,upanishads1 ,all that goes hence 7dies on earth7 heaven consumes it all2 and all that goes thence 7returns from heaven to a new life7 the earth consumes it all4 ,,xi ,,the ,,gift ,,of ,,freedom ,,concept ,,and ,,conduct ,a surgeon once remarked to the author that among his professional associates he had noticed an increasing awareness of the invisible4 ,this he claimed was manifest in the fact that the young men educated since the rise of bacteriological science were more punctilious in the matter of extreme personal cleanliness and the sterilization of their instruments than the older and often more accomplished surgeons whose habits in these matters had been formed before the general sense of an invisible menace had become acute4 ,this anecdote well illustrates the unconscious reaction of new concepts upon conduct4 ,preoccupation with the problems of space hyper-dimensionality cannot fail to produce profound changes in our ethical outlook upon life and in our attitude towards our fellow beings4 ,the nature of these changes it is not difficult to forecast4 ,although higher-space thought makes painfully clear our limitations1 it nevertheless leads to the perception that these very limitations are inhibited powers4 ,in this way it supplies us with a workable method whereby we may enter that transcendental world of which we glimpse so many vistas4 ,this method consists in first becoming aware of a limitation1 and then in forcing ourselves to dramatize the experience that would be ours if the limitation did not affect us4 ,we then discover in ourselves a power for transcending the limitation1 and presently we come to live in the new mode as easily as in the old4 ,thought1 conscious of its own limitations1 leads to the ,new ,freedom4 ,become what thou art6 is the maxim engraved upon the lintel of this new ,temple of ,initiation4 ,,selflessness ,higher-space speculation is an education in selflessness1 for it demands the elimination of what ,hinton calls self-elements of observation4 ,the diurnal motion of the sun is an example of a self-element3 it has nothing to do with the sun but everything to do with the observer4 ,the ,ptolemaic system founded on this illusion tyrannized over the human mind for centuries1 but who knows of how many other illusions we continue to be victims--for the worst of a self-element is that its presence is never dreamed of until it is done away with4 ,the ,theory of ,relativity presents us with an effort to get rid of the self-element in regard to space and time4 ,a self-centered man cannot do full justice to this theory3 it requires of the mind a certain detachment1 and the idea becomes clear in proportion as this detachment1 this selflessness1 is attained4 ,so while it would be too much to claim that higher thought makes men unselfish1 it at least cracks the hard shell in which their selfishness abides4 ,if a man disciplines himself to abdicate his personal point of view in thinking about the world he lives in1 it makes easier a similar attitude in relation to his fellow men4 ,,humility ,one of the earliest effects of selfless thought is the exorcism of all arrogance4 ,the effort to dramatize the relation of an earthworm to its environment makes us recognize that its predicament is our own1 different only in degree4 ,we are exercising ourselves in humility and meekness1 but of a sort leading to a mastery that may well make the meek the inheritors of the earth4 ,hinton was himself so meek a man that his desire did not rise to the height of expecting or looking for the beautiful or the good3 he simply asked for something to know4 ,he despaired of knowing anything definitely and certainly except arrangements in space4 ,we have his testimony as to how abundantly this hunger and thirst after that right knowledge which is righteousness was gratified4 ,all ,i want to do1 he says1 is to make this humble beginning of knowledge and show how inevitably1 by devotion to it1 it leads to marvellous and far-distant truths1 and how1 by strange paths1 it leads directly into the presence of some of the highest conceptions which great minds have given us4 ,here speaks the blessed man referred to by the psalmist1 ,whose delight is in the law of the ,lord1 and in ,his law doth he meditate day and night4 ,abandoning a vain search after abstractions1 and applying his simple formula to life1 ,hinton found that it enabled him to express the faith in his heart in terms conformable to reason2 that it led back to1 and illumined the teachings of every spiritual instructor and inspirer of mankind4 ,,solidarity ,that we are all members of one body1 branches of one vine1 is a matter of faith and of feeling2 but with the first use of the weapon of higher thought the paradox of the one and the many is capable of so clear and simple a resolution that the sublime idea of human solidarity is brought down from the nebulous heaven of the mystic to the earth of every day life4 ,to our ordinary space-thought1 men are isolated1 distinct1 each an infinitely repellent particle1 but we conceive of space too narrowly4 ,the broader view admits the idea that men are related by reason of a superior union1 that their isolation is but an affair of limited consciousness4 ,applying this concept to conduct1 we come to discern a literal truth in the words of the ,master1 ,he who hath done it unto the least of these my children1 hath done it unto me1 and ,where two or three are gathered together in my name4 ,if we conceive of each individual as a slice or cross-section of a higher being1 each fragment isolated by an inhibition of consciousness which it is moment by moment engaged in transcending1 the sacrifice of the ,logos takes on a new meaning4 ,this disseverance into millions of human beings is that each may realize ,god in himself4 ,conceiving of humanity as ,god's broken body1 we are driven to make peace among its members1 and by realization we become the ,children of ,god4 ,,live ,,openly ,blessed are the meek1 ,blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness4 ,blessed are the peacemakers4 ,it would not be impossible to trace a relation between higher space thought and the other beatitudes also1 but it will suffice simply to note the fact that the central and essential teaching of the ,sermon on the ,mount1 ,let your light shine before men is implicit in the conviction of every one who thinks on higher space3 he must live openly4 ,by continual dwelling upon the predicament of the flat-man1 naked1 as it were1 to observation from an eye which looks down upon his plane1 we come to realize our own exposure4 ,in that large world all that we think1 or do1 or imagine1 lies open1 palpable2 there is no such thing as secrecy4 ,imbued with this idea1 we begin to live openly because we must2 but soon we come to do so because we desire it4 ,in making toward one another our limited lives open and manifest1 we treat each other in the service of truth as though we were all members of that higher world4 ,we imitate1 in our world1 our true existence in a higher world1 and so help to establish heavenly conditions upon earth4 ,,non-,,resistance ,,to ,,evil ,the problem of ugliness and evil would seem at first thought to be totally unrelated to the subject of space hyperdimensionality1 but there is at least a symbolical relation4 ,this was suggested to the author by the endeavor of two friends whose interests were pre-eminently mathematical to discover what certain four-dimensional figures would look like in three-dimensional space4 ,they found that in a great number of cases these cross-sections1 when thus isolated1 revealed little of the symmetry and beauty of their higher-dimensional archetypes4 ,it is clear that a beautiful form of our world1 traversing a plane1 would show nothing of its beauty to the planeman1 who lacked the power of perceiving it entire2 for the sense of beauty is largely a matter of co-ordination4 ,we give the names of evil1 chance1 fate1 ugliness1 to those aspects of life and of the world that we fail to perceive in their true relations1 in regard to which our power of correlation breaks down4 ,yet we often find that in the light of fuller knowledge or subsequent experience1 the fortune which seemed evil was really good fortune in the making1 that the chance act or encounter was too momentous in its consequences to be regarded as other than ordained4 ,the self-element plays a large part in our idea of good and evil1 ugliness and beauty4 ,all things are as they seem to all4 ,desire of her will make any woman beautiful1 and fear will exercise an absolute inhibition upon the aesthetic sense4 ,as we recede in time from events1 they more and more emancipate themselves from the tyranny of our personal prejudices and predilections1 and we are able to perceive them with greater clarity1 more as they appear from the standpoint of higher time and higher space4 ,old1 unhappy1 far-off things1 and battles long ago lose their poignancy of pain and take on the poignancy of beauty4 ,the memory of suffering endured is often the last thing from which we would be parted1 while humdrum happiness we are quite willing to forget4 ,because we realize completely only in retrospect1 it may well be that the present exists chiefly for the sake of the future4 ,then let the days come with veiled faces1 accept their gifts whose value we are so little able to appraise6 ,there is a profound and practical truth in ,christ's saying1 ,resist not evil4 ,honor this truth by use1 and welcome destiny in however sinister a guise4 ,,the ,,immanent ,,divine ,in the fact of the limited nature of our space perceptions is found a connecting link between materialism and idealism4 ,for1 passing deeper and deeper in our observation of the material world1 that which we at first felt as real passes away to become but the outward sign of a reality infinitely greater1 of which our realities are appearances only1 and we become convinced of the existence of an immanent divine4 ,in ,him we live and move and have our being4 ,our space is but a limitation of infinite room to move about3 ,in my ,father's house are many mansions4 ,our time is but a limitation of infinite duration3 ,before ,abraham was1 ,i am4 ,our sense of space is the consciousness that we abide in ,him2 our sense of time is the consciousness that ,he abides in us4 ,both are modes of apprehension of divinity--growing1 expanding modes4 ,in conceiving of a space of more than three dimensions we prove that our relation to ,god is not static1 but dynamic4 ,christ said to the man who was sick of the palsy1 ,rise1 take up thy bed and walk4 ,the narrow concept of three-dimensional space is a bed in which the human mind has lain so long as to become at last inanimate4 ,the divine voice calls to us again to demonstrate that we are alive4 ,thinking in terms of the higher we issue from the tomb of materialism into the sunlight of that sane and life-giving idealism which is ,christ's4