The Fifth Dimension

As far as fifth dimension is concerned. It is space. I will have to try to build up the image of a structure to help you understand, but then I must rip down the structure because there is none there.

f6

Consider, then, a network of wires somewhat like, though different from the conception of “Idea construction” — a maze of interlocking wires endlessly constructed, so that looking through them there would seem to be no beginning or end. Our plane could be likened to a small position between four very spindly and thin wires, and the next evolving plane could be likened to the small position in the neighboring wires on the other side.

Not only are we on different sides of the same wires, but we are at the same time either above or below, according to our viewpoint. And if we consider the wires as forming cubes… then the cubes could also fit one within the other, without disturbing the inhabitants of either cube one iota — and these cubes are also within cubes, which are themselves within cubes, and I am speaking only of the small particles of space taken up by your plane and mine.

f5

Again, now think in terms of our plane, bounded by its small spindly set of wires, and my plane on the other side. These, as I have said, have also boundless solidarity and depth, yet in usual terms, to one side the other is transparent. We cannot see through, but the two planes move through each other constantly.

I hope you see what I have done here. I have initiated the idea of motion, for true transparency is not the ability to see through but to move through. This is what I mean by fifth dimension. Now remove the structure of the wires and cubes. Things behave as if the wires and cubes were there, but these are only constructions necessary, even to those on my plane, in order to make this comprehensible to our faculties, the faculties of any entity.

f13

We merely construct imaginary lines to walk upon. So real are the wall constructions of our rooms that we would freeze in the winter time without them, yet there is no room and no walls. So, in a like manner, the wires that we constructed are real to us in the universe, although … to me, the walls are transparent. So are the wires that we constructed to make our point about the fifth dimension, but for all practical purposes, we must behave as if the wires were there.

f31

Again, if you will consider our maze of wires, I will ask you to imagine them filling up everything that is, with your plane and my plane like two small birds nests in the netlike fabric of some gigantic tree. Consider, for example, that these wires are also mobile, constantly trembling and also live, in that they not only carry the stuff of the universe but are themselves projections of this stuff, and you will see how difficult it is to explain. Nor can I blame you for growing tired when after asking you to imagine this strange structure, I then insist that you tear it apart, for it is no more actually seen or touched than is the buzzing of a million invisible bees.