Now there is an order of phenomena that we call psychic.  Because they are phenomenal they cannot occur outside of time and space altogether; because they are psychic they defy explanation in terms of the space and time of every-day life.  Let us next examine these in the light of our hypothesis.

IV TRANSCENDENTAL PHYSICS

ZOeLLNER

In the year 1877, Johann Friedrich Zoellner, 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 Zoellner that his name became a word of scorn, and the fourth dimension a synonym for what is fatuous and false.  Zoellner 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 Zoellner 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 Zoellner witnessed.  His conclusions are alone important, since they apply equally to other manifestations, whose authenticity has never been successfully impeached.  Zoellner’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.