Mathematicians have frequently discussed the possibility of what is
called a fourth dimension.
They have shown by clear reasoning that if we could suppose a person to
be acquainted only with objects of two dimensions, that is, plane
surfaces, the possibility of a third would be as difficult to comprehend
as now are the speculations on a possible fourth. For instance, it would
be as mysterious an operation to transfer anything from one point to
another without moving it along the surface that lay between, as is now
the manipulation of solid objects, like the passage of matter through
matter, by the masters of occult science.
This fine example of reasoning from the known to the unknown may be
compared to Leverrier's researches in one respect, and that the most
important one, namely, that the looked-for fact in all verity awaits
discovery, and that the scientist who shall first boldly declare that
the objective world about us, which seems to occupy and does occupy all
of space that we can reach by ordinary means of thought, is merely a
veil which hides a world just as real, and having just as real relations
to us, as the first is supposed to monopolize, and which, in its
essential nature, is independent of space, and its concomitant,
time,--whoever, I say, shall first boldly declare this, will fairly win
a crown of laurel.
When I say that this world has real relations to us, I do not mean us as
mere aggregations of matter in a highly organized form; I mean us, the
creatures of hope and fear, of joy and depression, gay at heart or
careworn with responsibility; us to whom friendship, love, and purity
are realities and not mere names, and who cherish the firm belief that
loyalty to our ideals and devotion to truth are immortal in their
nature, and that it may be possible that we ourselves may yet become as
impassive to the assaults of time.
Shall I say us, also, the creatures of doubt and despair, whose sky is
hopelessly clouded, and to whom anything resembling happiness has become
only a memory? The world of which I speak has the same direct relations
to us all.
The idea is a common one that this invisible world is to be sought, if
at all, among the imponderable gases, that if it have objectivity, as it
is supposed it must have, the nature of it will resemble these forms of
matter; and that by traveling out in thought, so to speak, along this
line, we shall presently arrive at a sufficiently accurate concept of
what these invisible realities are like.
It is this delusion, that the unseen is by so much the unreal, instead
of the contrary, that I hope to do something to destroy.
Let me give an example of occult power of a scientific sort, as
exercised by free spirits.
One wishes to speak to a friend. What does he do? He simply speaks the
name of that friend in his mind. Immediately, and without further effort
on his part, there appears before his mental vision a clear outline
representation of the form of that friend, ready to answer with perfect
distinctness any question that may be asked of him. It is telephone
communication without apparatus, and with the appearance of the friend.
Were the two in close sympathy, perhaps engaged in the same kind of
spiritual labor, so that the question would be of a kind not unexpected,
the rapidity of action common to spirits would make it possible to ask
the question and receive the answer in an infinitesimal fraction of a
second.
I have called this occult power of a scientific sort. By this I mean to
indicate, what is sometimes forgotten, that The Beyond has its science
as well as religion, and that it is only because its science has been a
sealed book so long and the corruption of revealed religion has been so
great, that, as a result, the acceptance of occult science itself as
truth is called, by some, _religion_, although removed from it as by
infinity. It is true, however, that the devotee to occult science who
shall persistently declare its genuineness in the face of opposition,
scorn, or even persecution, is on the road to illumination, and he may
himself become a gateway between physical life and death, through which
may pass and repass the message, the tone, or even the phantom form
which testifies of a world beyond the grave. To such a one, his belief
becomes a sure and certain knowledge of a scientific fact, as verified
by sympathetic experience times without number; and the time is not far
distant when these attainments will receive the same recognition, as
belonging to the domain of reality, as those of physical science now
do.