Four-Dimensional Vistas

by Claude Fayette Bragdon

IV TRANSCENDENTAL PHYSICS

ZÖLLNER

In the year 1877, Johann Friedrich Zöllner, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Leipsic, undertook to prove that certain (so-called) psychic phenomena were susceptible of explanation on the hypothesis of a four-dimensional space. He used as illustrations the phenomena induced by the medium Henry Slade. By the irony of events, Slade was afterward arrested and imprisoned for fraud, in England. This fact so prejudiced the public mind against Zöllner that his name became a word of scorn, and the fourth dimension a synonym for what is fatuous and false. Zöllner died of it, but since his death public opinion has undergone a change. There is a great and growing interest in everything pertaining to the fourth dimension, and belief in that order of phenomena upon which Zöllner based his deductions is supported by evidence at once voluminous and impressive.

It is unnecessary to go into the question of the genuineness of the particular phenomena which Zöllner witnessed. His conclusions are alone important, since they apply equally to other manifestations, whose authenticity has never been successfully impeached. Zöllner's reasoning with regard to certain psychic phenomena is somewhat along the following lines.

APPARITIONS

The intrusion (as an apparition) of a person or thing into a completely enclosed portion of three-space; or contrariwise, the exit (as an evanishment) out of such a space.

Because we lack the sense of four-dimensional space, we must here have recourse to analogy, and assume three-dimensional space to be the unsensed higher region encompassing a world of two dimensions, To a hypothetical flat-man of a two-space, any portion of his plane surrounded by an unbroken line would constitute an enclosure. Were he confined within it, escape would be impossible by any means known to him. Had he the ability to move in the third dimension, however, he could rise, pass over the enclosing line without disturbing it, and descend on the other side. The moment he forsook the plane he would disappear from two-dimensional space. Such a disappearance would constitute an occult phenomenon in a world of two dimensions.

Correspondingly, 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 dimension. Because a body would disappear from our perception the moment it forsook our space, such a disappearance would be a mystery; it would constitute an occult phenomenon. The thing would be no more mysterious, however, to a consciousness embracing four dimensions within its ken, than the transfer of an object from the inside to the outside of a plane figure without crossing its linear boundary is mysterious to us.

POSSESSION

The temporary possession of a person's body, or some member of that body, by an alien will, as exemplified in automatic writing and obsession.

It would doubtless amaze the scientifically orthodox to know how many people habitually and successfully practice the dubious art of automatic writing—not mediums, so-called, but people of refinement and intelligence. Although the messages received in this way may emanate from the subconscious mind of the performer, there is evidence to indicate that they come sometimes from an intelligence discarnate, or from a person remote from the recipient in space.

If such is indeed the case, if the will is extraneous, how does it possess itself of the nerves and muscles of the hand of the writer? The Higher Space Hypothesis is of assistance here. 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 dimension. A four-dimensional being would experience no difficulty, under suitable conditions, in possessing itself of any part of the bodily mechanism of another.

The same would hold true in cases of possession and obsession; for if the bastion of the hand can thus be captured, so also may the citadel of the brain. Certain familiar forms of hypnotism are not different from obsession, the hypnotizer using the brain and body of his subject as though they were his own. All unconsciously to himself, he has called into play four-dimensional mechanics. 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 character, habits, and language of a person can change utterly in a moment of time.

CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE

Vision at a distance and the exercise of a superior power of sight.

Clairvoyance in space is of various kinds and degrees. Sometimes it consists in the perception of super-physical phenomena—the unfurling of a strange and wonderful land; and again it appears to be a higher power of ordinary vision, a kind of seeing to which the opacity of solids offers no impediment, or one involving spatial distances too great and too impeded for normal physical vision to be effective.

That clairvoyance which consists in the ability to perceive not alone the superficies of things as ordinary vision perceives them, but their interiors as well, is analogous to the power given by the X-ray, by means of which, on a fluorescent screen, a man may behold the beating of his own heart. But, if the reports of trained clairvoyants are to be believed, there is this difference: everything appears to them without the distortions due to perspective, objects being seen as though they were inside and not outside of the perceiving organ, or as though the observer were in the object perceived; or in all places at the same time.

Our analogy makes all this intelligible. To the flat-man, clairvoyance in space would consist in that power of perception which we exercise in reference to his plane. From the third dimension the boundaries of plane figures offer no impediment to the view of their interiors, and they themselves in no way impede our vision of surrounding objects. If we assume that clairvoyance in space is the perception of the things of our world from the region of the fourth dimension, the phenomena exactly conform to the demands of our analogy. It is no more difficult for a four-dimensional intelligence to understand the appearance or disappearance of a body in a completely closed room, or the withdrawal of an orange from its skin, without cutting or breaking that skin, 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 outside. We are under no compulsion to draw a line across the circumference of the circle in order to enter or leave it. Moreover, 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 earth. To account for clairvoyant vision at a distance, it is of course necessary to posit some perceptive organ other than the eye, but the fact that in trance the eyes are closed, itself demands this assumption.

CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME

The perception of a past event as in process of occurring, or the prevision of something which comes to pass later.

No mechanistic explanation will serve to account for this order of clairvoyance since it is inextricably involved in the mystery of consciousness itself. Yet our already overworked analogy can perhaps cast a little light even here.

To the flat-man, the third dimension of objects passing through his plane translates itself to his experience into time. Were he capable of rising in the positive direction of the third dimension, he would have pre-vision, because he would be cognizant of that which had not yet intersected his plane: by sinking in the negative direction, he would have post-vision, because he could re-cognize that which had already passed.

Now there are excellent reasons, other than those based on analogy, that the fourth-dimensional aspect of things may manifest itself to our ordinary experience, not as spatial extension, but as temporal change. Then, if we conceive of clairvoyance as a transcending by consciousness of our three-dimensional space, prevision and post-vision would be logically possible as corresponding to the positive and negative of the fourth dimension. This may be made clearer by the aid of a homely illustration.

PISGAH SIGHTS OF LIFE'S PAGEANT

Suppose you are standing on a street corner, watching a procession pass. You see the pageant as a sequence of objects and individuals appearing into view near by and suddenly, and disappearing in the same manner. This would represent our ordinary waking consciousness of what goes on in the world round about. Now imagine that you walk up the street in a direction opposite to that in which the procession is moving. You then rapidly pass in review a portion of the procession which had not yet arrived at the point you were a few moments before. This would correspond to the seeing of something before it "happened," and would represent the positive aspect of clairvoyance in time—prevision. Were you to start from your original position, and moving in the direction in which the procession was passing, overtake it at some lower street corner, you could witness the thing you had already seen. This would represent post-vision—clairvoyance of the past.

A higher type of clairvoyance would be represented by the sweep of vision possible from a balloon. From that place of vantage the procession would be seen, not as a sequence, but simultaneously, and could be traced from its formation to its dispersal. Past, present and future would be merged in one.

It is true that this explanation raises more questions than it answers: to account in this way for a marvel, a greater marvel must be imagined—that of transport out of one's own "space." The whole subject bristles with difficulties, not the least of which is that even to conceive of such a thing as prevision all our old ideas about time must be recast. This is being done in the Principle of Relativity, a subject which may appropriately engage our attention next.