By Figulus, F.R.C., 0°
Put forth under the Auspices of
METROPOLITAN COLLEGE, S:.R:.I:.A:.
in the Year of our Lord MCMXVI.
The ideas outlined herewith are strictly within the legitimate province of Rosicrucian Research, for one cannot hope to gain a concept which shall be more than theoretical regarding interior spheres of Cosmic Activity until Dimensional Existences, and States of Consciousness peculiar to each – exterior to ordinary sense
visualization, become clearly tangible.
We believe several of the ideas presented by Frater Figulus are distinctly new – distinctly original. They suggest extended avenues of research and invite all to whom exercise in abstract thought is possible and practicable to utilize them as a part of the daily meditations.
These ideas are offered to the members of the Fraternity in the sincere hope that they will stimulate greater interest in this fascinating and all-important department of our philosophy.
KHEI, F.R.C., 0°-X°
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The dimensions may be set forth as follows:
A point in reality has no existence. It is a mathematical conception necessary for the comprehension of certain mathematical laws. It may be stated as that which has neither length, breadth, thickness, nor substance.
A point carried at right angles to itself gives the first dimension, a line – length. Here again a mathematical convention is necessary, for it is stated that a line has neither width, thickness, nor substance.
A line carried at right angles to itself gives the second dimension, a plane – breadth. This is still a mathematical convention, since it is necessary to state that a plane has neither thickness nor substance. As a plane is at right angles to the points that bound the line as well as to the line, a further necessary statement is that the second dimension is at right angles to all previous dimensional factors.
A plane carried at right angles to itself gives the third dimension, a solid – thickness. The third dimension may also be stated as that which is at right angles to the previous dimensional factors – the points that bound the lines and the lines that bound the planes. This is the first dimension to give substance, and as further dimensions do not add to substance, it may be said that since we have our present normal existence in a world of substance, we exist in a three-dimensional world. This is true because the physical sense perceptions are all three dimensional, being able neither to give tangible evidence of higher dimensions, nor to give tangible evidence of the lower dimensions save to say as a matter of convention that a plane has no thickness and that the line has neither thickness nor width. For our physical senses could no more see a line without width or a plane without thickness than they are able to see four-dimensional essence.
A solid carried at right angles to itself gives the fourth dimension, for which there is no word quite expressive, the most serviceable in one sense of its meaning being – form. As carrying a solid at right angles to itself is incomprehensible to physical sense, the most serviceable definition of the fourth dimension is that it is at right angles to all previous dimensions, giving the effect of seeing from exactly within the center of the solid itself all sides and lines and points of it at the same time as if with eyes on all sides of the head, so that it is as if the planes bounding the solid were flattened out before ordinary sight in such manner that all parts were at equal focus from the eye and equally prominent. In the previous paragraph it has been pointed out that we exist in a three-dimensional world. It may now be shown that we exist in a four-dimensional world at the same time.
Because our physical senses are three-dimensional it does not seem at first thought that this statement can be true. But our existence in the four-dimensional world is commonly accepted as an actuality under the name of the world of imagination. In other words, man has a certain mental faculty that permits him to function in the four-dimensional world, although he normally possesses no four-dimensional sense faculties. This mental faculty can be termed projective viewpoint. By a mental process possessed by all humans, although understood by very few perhaps, one may instantly project his viewpoint to the center of a room thousands of miles away, or to any place of which he has previous sense-knowledge. Then, in his mind, he actually has for the moment sense-knowledge of the place to which he has projected his viewpoint. The important point to note, however, is that while he can within his own mental processes make this mental journey to the place he has in mind, he can see or have sense-perception of only those things of which he has actually at some other time, either at first or second hand, gained three-dimensional knowledge. The explanation is that man has sense perceptions in the three-dimensional world only, normally, while he has consciousness in the four-dimensional world. And the interesting result of noting this is the discovery of a law of nature, that any soul incarnate functions always in a dimensional world just one below the dimensional world in which it carries consciousness.
The immediate result of the above reasoning is to grasp that in order to acquire sense perception in the four-dimensional world, or, in the commonly accepted terms, to develop clairvoyance and its kindred faculties, it is necessary to acquire consciousness in the fifth dimension. The fifth dimension may be stated as that dimension at right angles to all the fourth, third, second, and first dimensional factors. This may be roughly translated as omnipresent consciousness. In the fourth dimension we have seen the limitation of space transcended, but that consciousness is limited to one place at one time. In the fifth dimension there is coincident universal consciousness. In the fourth dimension the limitation of time has also been transcended to the same degree as that of space, the limit being one time at one time. In the fifth dimension all limitations of time and space are so transcended that time and space both cease to exist. Sense perception in this dimension has only been commonly ascribed to Divinity, and is exactly what the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost means in current Christianity when this omnipresent Divine Essence is conceived as an individual. Functioning in this plane is too far above our present evolution to warrant much study or to exact any very accurate comprehension. But it is decidedly essential to acquire and feel consciousness in this five-dimensional world to open up full voluntary four-dimensional sense perception.
We have considered man; a being conscious in the four-dimensional world, outwardly functioning in the three-dimensional world we know. There is an exact correspondence with the other kingdoms now incarnate in our present evolution, and the “step down law” of consciousness in one plane of dimension above the one in which the entity functions will be found to work out, and to give interesting explanations of many phenomena.
The animals have three-dimensional consciousness, but only two-dimensional sense perceptions. A horse will shy at a sheet as readily as at an auto covered with a sheet. No animal has self-consciousness. He is to himself as a boat is to a man upon it. He is conscious in a way of himself as a solid mass, but the outer world to him is no more than it looks – planes at various relationships to each other. He has not the projective self-consciousness of the fourth dimension necessary to mentally translate to the mind as a solid what the eye merely sees as surface planes.
The planets are entities conscious in a two-dimensional world with sense perception in a one-dimensional world only. The minerals are conscious in a one-dimensional world with no sense perception whatever.
To adequately consider the kingdoms, attention must be given to the correspondence between the dimensions and cosmic evolution.
The first consideration is the point. This has analogy with Chaos, the occult name for the great feminine principle of nature unmanifest, termed also the Great Deep and The Waters. The point is necessary for the first dimension, although it has no existence in terms of sense perception or consciousness. Chaos is necessary for the first manifestation of creation, although it has no existence in terms of sense-consciousness or perception.
The first dimension is the line. This is a movement in one direction, at right angles to the point. Of itself, it has no existence in terms of sense-perception or consciousness, corresponding to the lines of force that of themselves have no existence in terms of sense-perception or consciousness. In terms of the Cosmos the first dimension is the coming of Spirit to act upon Chaos, the first preliminary step toward the crystallization of Spirit and Chaos into matter and substance. As this is a never ending evolutionary process that will last until all lapses again into Spirit and Chaos, we have the first dimension with us always as force, vibration, or being, tangible only through its effects in the three-dimensional world. And the mathematical line, without width, thickness, or substance, is analogous to the lines of force of the one-dimensional world of the Cosmos.
The second dimension is the plane. This is the first effect of the descent of force into Chaos. It is the translation of force into action, marked by expansion, growth. As mathematically the solid would have no existence without the planes that bound it, so matter would not exist without action, or the crystallization of force, acting at right angles to itself. For, as taught in Astrology, the right angle, the square, is crystallization and matter, the tangible, the crystallization of force, of Spirit, is the intangible. And, as mathematically, the plane has no real existence or response to sense perception, so, in the matter of the Cosmos, action, or the second dimension, has no tangible evidence of itself except through matter upon which it acts and through which its acts can be studied.
So, in plants, we see the working of entities conscious in the second-dimensional world with sense perceptions responding only to the first. Every tendency of plant growth shows planes. The radiation of roots, twigs, and branches; the tendency of leaves and flowers to plane surfaces; and, even in its solids, such as fruit, the tendency toward construction in planes shows this. The only perceptive response in plants to nature is to nature’s lines of force, the first-dimensional world. The so called plants that feel are very apparently sensing direct lines of natural force.
The minerals, the laggard denizens of the dimensional worlds, are conscious of nothing but lines of force and have no sense perception at all.
Further correspondences may suggest themselves upon study of the chart. The principal purpose of this article, however, has been to show in a general way the route that must be traveled on the road to spiritual illumination, in the necessary comprehension of some broad general principles of nature, and perhaps, at the same time, to aid in the comprehension of the fourth dimension.
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“The Ego is an inhabitant of many worlds or dimensions at all times, and to link up the states of consciousness through which it contacts each particular sphere is to approximate Cosmic Intelligence, – the true goal of all Rosicrucians.” KHEI