On my departure I still admitted much that was fantastic in relation to schools. “Admitted” is perhaps too strong a word. I should say better that I dreamed about the possibility of a non-physical contact with schools, a contact, so to speak, “on another plane.” I could not explain it clearly, but it seemed to me that even the beginning of contact with a school may have a miraculous nature. 1 imagined, for example, the possibility of making contact with schools of the distant past, with schools of Pythagoras, with schools of Egypt, with the schools of those who built Notre-Dame, and so on. It seemed to me that the barriers of time and SPACE should disappear on making such contact. The idea of schools in itself was fantastic and nothing seemed to me too fantastic in relation to this idea. And I saw no contradiction between these ideas and my attempts to find schools in India. It seemed to me that it was precisely in India that it would be possible to establish some kind of contact which would afterwards become permanent and independent of any outside interferences. Fragments: One

“But if I Joined your group,” I said to G., “I should be faced with a verydifficult problem. I do not know whether you exact a promise from your pupils to keep secret what they learn from you, but I could give no such promise. There have been two occasions in my life when I had the possibilityof joining groups engaged in work which appears to be similar to yours, at any rate by description, and which interested me very much at the time. But in both cases to join would have meant consenting or promising to keep secret everything that I might learn there. And I refused in both cases, because, before everything else, I am a writer, and I desire to be absolutelyfree and to decide for myself what I shall write and what I shall not write. If I promise to keep secret something I am told, it would be very difficult afterwards to separate what had been told me from what came to my own mind either in connection with it or even with no connection. For instance, I know very little about your ideas yet, but I do know that when we begin to talk we shall very soon come to questions of time and SPACE, of higher dimensions, and so on. These are questions on which I have already been working for many years. I have no doubt whatever that they roust occupy a large place in your system.” G. nodded. “Well, you see, if we were now to talk under a pledge of secrecy, then, after the first conversation I should not know what I could write and what I could not write.” Fragments: One

“Furthermore, from an astronomical point of view, it is quite possible to presume a multitude of worlds existing at enormous distances from one another in the SPACE of ‘all worlds.’ These worlds taken together will be ‘world’ for the Milky Way. Fragments: Four

“The teaching of the three forces is at the root of all ancient systems. The first force may be called active or positive; the second, passive or negative; the third, neutralizing. But these are merely names, for in reality all three forces are equally active and appear as active, passive, and neutralizing, only at their meeting points, that is to say, only in relation to one another at a given moment. The first two forces are more or less comprehensible to man and the third may sometimes be discovered either at the point of application of the forces, or in the ‘medium,’ or in the ‘result.’ But, speaking in general, the third force is not easily accessible to direct observation and understanding. The reason for this is to be found in the functional limitations of man’s ordinary psychological activity and in the fundamental categories of our perception of the phenomenal world, that is, in our sensation of SPACE and time resulting from these limitations. People cannot perceive and observe the third force directly any more than they can spatially perceive the ‘fourth dimension.’ Fragments: Four

WE TAKE the three-dimensional universe and consider the world as a world of matter and force in the simplest and most elementary meaning of these terms. Higher dimensions and new theories of matter, SPACE, and time, as well as other categories of knowledge of the world which are unknown to science, we will discuss later. At present it is necessary to represent the universe in the diagrammatic form of the ‘ray of creation,’ from the Absolute to the moon. Fragments: Five

“You remember what I said about the ‘astral body’? Let us go over it briefly. People who have an ‘astral body’ can communicate with one another at a distance without having recourse to ordinary physical means. But for such communication to be possible they must establish some ‘connection’ between them. For this purpose when going to different places or different countries people sometimes take with them something belonging to another, especially things that have been in contact with his body and are permeated with his emanations, and so on. In the same way, in order to maintain a connection with a dead person, his friends used to keep objects which had belonged to him. These things leave, as it were, a trace behind them, something like invisible wires or threads which remain stretched out through SPACE. These threads connect a given object with the person, living or in certain cases dead, to whom the object belonged. Men have known this from the remotest antiquity and have made various uses of this knowledge. Fragments: Five

“In order to determine these moments of retardation, or rather, the checks in the ascent and descent of vibrations, the lines of development of vibrations are divided into periods corresponding to the doubling or the halving of the number of vibrations in a given SPACE of time. Fragments: Seven

“All great events in the life of the human masses are caused by planetary influences. They are the result of the taking in of planetary influences. Human society is a highly sensitive mass for the reception of planetary influences. And any accidental small tension in planetary spheres can be reflected for years in an increased animation in one or another sphere of human activity. Something accidental and very transient takes place in planetary SPACE. This is immediately received by the human masses, and people begin to hate and to kill one another, justifying their actions by some theory of brotherhood, or equality, or love, or justice. Fragments: Seven

“These lies are created by ‘buffers’ In order to destroy the lies in oneself as well as lies told unconsciously to others, ‘buffers’ must be destroyed. But then a man cannot live without ‘buffers.’ ‘Buffers’ automatically control a man’s actions, words, thoughts, and feelings. If ‘buffers’ were to be destroyed all control would disappear. A man cannot exist without control even though it is only automatic control. Only a man who possesses will, that is, conscious control, can live without ‘buffers.’ Consequently, if a man begins to destroy ‘buffers’ within himself he must at the same time develop a will. And as will cannot be created to order in a short SPACE of time a man may be left with ‘buffers’ demolished and with a will that is not as yet sufficiently strengthened. The only chance he has during this period is to be controlled by another will which has already been strengthened. Fragments: Eight

“The action of the Absolute upon the world, or upon the worlds created by it or within it, continues. The action of each of these worlds upon subsequent worlds continues in exactly the same way. ‘All suns’ of the Milky Way influence our sun. The sun influences the planets. ‘All planets’ influence our earth and the earth influences the moon. These influences are transmitted by means of radiations passing through starry and interplanetary SPACE. Fragments: Nine

a quite definite meaning, namely, a ‘point’ represents a certain combination of hydrogens which is organized in a definite place and fulfills a definite function in one or another system. The concept ‘point’ cannot be replaced by the concept ‘hydrogen’ because ‘hydrogen’ means simply matter not limited in SPACE. A point is always limited in SPACE. At the same time, a ‘point of the universe’ can be designated by the number of the ‘hydrogen’ which predominates in it or is central in it. Fragments: Nine

“The idea of cosmoses helps us to understand our place in the world; and it solves many problems, as for instance, those connected with SPACE, with time, and so on. And above all this idea serves to establish exactly the principle of relativity. The latter is especially important for it is quite impossible to have an exact conception of the world without having established the principle of relativity. Fragments: Ten

“The ‘period of dimensions’ contains within itself seven dimensions: The zero-dimension, the first, the second, and so on up to the sixth dimension. The zero-dimension or the point is a limit. This means that we see something as a point, but we do not know what is concealed behind this point. It may actually be a point, that is, a body having no dimensions and it may also be a whole world, but a world so far removed from us or so small that it appears to us as a point. The movement of this point in SPACE will appear to us as a line. In the same way the point itself will see the SPACE along which it moves as a line. The movement of the line in a direction perpendicular to itself will be a plane and the line itself will see the SPACE along which it moves in the shape of a plane. Fragments: Ten

“But when we say a thing ‘exists,’ we mean by this existence in time. But there is no time in three-dimensional SPACE. Time lies outside the three-dimensional SPACE. Time, as we feel it, is the fourth dimension. Existence is for us existence in time. Existence in time is movement or extension along the fourth dimension. If we take existence as an extension along the fourth dimension, if we think of life as a four-dimensional body, then a three-dimensional body will be its section, its projection, or its limit. Fragments: Ten

“Eternity is the infinite existence of every moment of time. If we conceive time as a line, then this line will be crossed at every point by the lines of eternity. Every point of the line of time will be a line in eternity. The line of time will be a plane of eternity. Eternity has one dimension more than time. Therefore, if time is the fourth dimension, eternity is the fifth dimension. If the SPACE of time is four-dimensional, then the SPACE of eternity is five-dimensional. Fragments: Ten

“But all the possibilities that have been created or have originated in the world must be actualized. The actualization of all the possibilities created or originated constitutes the world’s being. At the same time there is no place for the actualization of these possibilities within the limits of eternity. In eternity everything that has been actualized continues to be actualized and everything non-actualized continues to remain non-actualized. Eternity, however, is only a plane crossed by the line of time. At every point of this line there remains a certain number of non-actualized possibilities. If we imagine the line of the actualization of these possibilities, they will proceed along radii issuing from one point at different angles to the line of time and the line of eternity. These lines will proceed outside eternity, outside the five-dimensional SPACE, in ‘higher eternity’ or in six-dimensional SPACE, in the sixth dimension. Fragments: Ten

“Thus, if we take the Microcosmos, that is, the ‘atom’ or ‘microbe,’ as G. has defined it, then the Tritocosmos for it will be four-dimensional SPACE, the Mesocosmos will be five-dimensional SPACE, and the Deuterocosmos six-dimensional SPACE. Fragments: Ten

“If we take man as the Tritocosmos, then, for him, the Mesocosmos will be four-dimensional SPACE, the Deuterocosmos five-dimensional SPACE, and the Macrocosmos six-dimensional SPACE. This means that all the possibilities of the Tritocosmos are realized in the Macrocosmos. Fragments: Ten

G.’s lecture on cosmoses and the talk following it greatly aroused my curiosity. This was a direct transition from the “three-dimensional universe” with which we had begun, to the problems which I had elaborated in the New Model of the Universe, that is, to the problems of SPACE and time and higher dimensions, on which I had been working for several years. Fragments: Ten

My fellow traveler kept to himself also; he was a Persian or Tartar, a silent man in a valuable astrakhan cap; he had a French novel under his arm. He was drinking tea, carefully placing the glass to cool on the small window-sill table; he occasionally looked with the utmost contempt at the bustle and noise of those extraordinary, gesticulating people. And they on their part glanced at him, so it seemed to me, with great attention, if not with respectful awe. What interested me most was that he seemed to be of the same southern Oriental type as the rest of the group of speculators, a flock of vultures flying somewhere into Agrionian SPACE in order to tear some carrion or other — he was swarthy, with jet-black eyes, and a mustache like ZeIim-Khan. . . . Why does he so avoid and despise his own flesh and blood? But to my good fortune he began to speak to me. Fragments: Sixteen