Man has been called the thinking animal. Space-eater would be a more appropriate title, since he so dauntlessly and persistently addresses himself to overcoming the limitations of his space.  To realize his success in this, compare, for example, the voyage of Columbus’ caravels with that of an ocean liner; or traveling by stage coach with train de luxe.  Consider the telephone, the phonograph, the cinematograph, from the standpoint of space-conquest—­and wireless telegraphy which sends forth messages in every direction, over sea and land.  Most impressive of all are the achievements in the domain of astronomy.  One by one the sky has yielded its amazing secrets, till the mind roams free among the stars.  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 itself, and these intrepid aviators are its chosen instruments—­sacrificial pawns in the dimension-gaining game.

All these things are only the outward and visible signs of the angel, incarnate in a world of three dimensions, striving to realize higher spatial, or heavenly, conditions.  This spectacle, for example, of a millionaire hurled across a continent in a special train to be present at the bedside of a stricken dear one, may be interpreted as the endeavor of an incarnate soul to achieve, with the aid of human ingenuity applied to space annihilation, that which, discarnate, it could compass without delay or effort.

THE WITHIN AND WITHOUT

In Swedenborg’s heaven “all communicate by the extension of the sphere which goes forth from the life of every one.  The sphere of their life is the sphere of their affections of love and hate.”

This is as fair a description of thought transference and its necessary condition as could well be devised, for as in wireless telegraphy, its mechanical counterpart, it depends upon synchronism of vibration in a “sphere which goes forth from the life of every one.”  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 once, a thing manifestly at variance with our own conscious experience.  It is as though the pen point should suddenly become the sheet of paper.  But strange as are these matters and mysterious as are their method, no other hypothesis so well explains them as that they are higher-dimensional experiences of the self.  We have the universal testimony of all mystics that the attainment of mystical consciousness is by inward contemplation—­turning the mind back upon itself.  Swedenborg says, “It can in no case be said that heaven is outside of any one, but it is within him for every angel participates in the heaven around him by virtue of the heaven which