of the external world? It
is somewhere else, awake to some other environment. Though we may
not be able to verify this from our own experience, there are
methods whereby it can be verified. Clairvoyance is one of these,
hypnotism is another--that kind of hypnotism whereby an entranced
person is made to give a report of his excursions and adventures in
the mysterious House of Sleep. It is a well-known fact that these
experiences increase in intensity, coherence and in a certain sort
of omniscience, directly in proportion to the depth of the trance.
The revelations obtained in this way are sometimes amazing. The
inherent defect of this method of obtaining information is the
possibility of deception, and for that reason science still looks
askance at all evidence drawn from this source. But in essaying to
write a book about the fourth dimension from any aspect but the
mathematical, the author has put himself outside the pale of
orthodox science, so he is under no compulsion to ignore a field so
rich merely because it appears to be tainted by a certain amount of
fallibility and is even under suspicion of fraud. Diseased oysters,
though not edible, produce pearls, and a pearl of great price is the
object of this quest. Let us glance, therefore, at the findings of
hypnotism and kindred phenomena.

VII THE NIGHT SIDE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

THE FIELD OF PSYCHIC RESEARCH

It is difficult to divest the words hypnotism and clairvoyance of
certain sordid and sinister associations. We are apt to think of
them only as urban flora of the dust and dark, cultivated for profit
by itinerant professors and untidy sibyls. Larger knowledge of the
night side of human nature, however, profoundly modifies this view.
The invoked image is then of some hushed and studious chamber where
a little group of people sit attentive to the voice of one
entranced--listeners at the keyhole of the door to another world.
This "news from nowhere," garnered under so-called test conditions
and faithfully recorded, has grown by now to a considerable
literature, accessible to all--one with which every well-informed
person is assumed to have at least a passing acquaintance.

A marked and constant characteristic of trance phenomena consists of
an apparent confusion between past, present and future. As in the
game of three-card monte, it appears impossible to tell in what order
the three will turn up--_was, is_ and _will be_, lose their special
significance.