Presently some sentiment is expressed which you do not approve, and you put forth an impulse of will-power in protest. Instantly comes a thought-message directly to you. Who has arrested my current of thought? The meaning of this is at once apparent. You are like a telegraph operator who has been listening to a passing message, containing a false statement, and has stopped it. You might now withdraw your protest and allow the message to pass as something which did not concern you, or you might assert your individuality and reply to the sharp question by saying, "Because I allow nothing to pass through my mind which I do not approve." If you adopted the first course, you might be let off with a curse, and told to mind your own business hereafter; but if you should manifest the temerity indicated by the second, a thundering "What?" might fall upon your new sense, and you would discover that you had a fight on your hands. It may be supposed that you would mentally assume an upright position, which in that world corresponds to the act of rising here, and brace yourself for the contest. But it is not necessary to carry the illustration any farther at this time. I merely wished to show how _thoughts_ may take the place of _things_ in the mind's arena when, for any reason, things are shut out. A third reason why a knowledge of The Beyond is not more generally disseminated, is that false ideas in regard to death are so predominant that it has become a habit with the great majority to dismiss from the mind all thoughts having, or that are supposed to have, any possible connection with it, and therefore the avenue of approach to the minds of such is kept closed by themselves. It may be asked why the solitary student is not able to attain to a satisfactory solution of the great problem, although seeking it with utmost earnestness. And I answer, first, because he probably seeks for it in the same way that he would seek for earth-knowledge, which is an error; and, secondly, because those who would otherwise gladly give it to him are able to read his motives, and finding them purely selfish, they turn away and leave him, while those spirits who have occult knowledge to _sell_, demand pay in a coin which the student is seldom willing to give, namely, a certain degree of control over him. CHAPTER III. Mathematicians have frequently discussed the possibility of what is called a fourth dimension. They have shown by clear reasoning that if we could suppose a person to be acquainted only with objects of two dimensions, that is, plane surfaces, the possibility of a third would be as difficult to comprehend as now are the speculations on a possible fourth. For instance, it would be as mysterious an operation to transfer anything from one point to another without moving it along the surface that lay between, as is now the manipulation of solid objects, like the passage of matter through matter, by the masters of occult science.