Читать книгу A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications онлайн

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I am now in a position to state the basic hypothesis which I propose to discuss in the pages which follow.

Briefly stated it is this:—

"Higher space is a Physical reality and not a mere mathematical idea. In waking life the individual consciousness functions in a three-dimensional 'vehicle,' namely the physical body. But it may also possess at least one other vehicle—a four-dimensional one—and in this it may function after death and, possibly, during sleep, trance, anæsthesia and other forms of insensibility."

This hypothesis is not my own and I am not prepared to defend it as being necessarily correct. But, as I hope to show, there are a number of considerations which tend to support it and I do think it is sufficiently plausible to make it worthy of serious consideration before it is finally rejected by those who are students of these matters.

In this chapter I propose to deal with the different ways in which it is likely to prove of importance.

First of all, then, it has strong claims to be adopted as a working hypothesis by those who are students of Psychical Research, especially by those who are convinced of the validity of the Spiritistic explanation of communications purporting to emanate from the deceased.