“You are right; it is not a dream. Levachan is as real as New York, Boston, or Chicago, although invisible to men of earth. Its inhabitants are as conscious of their existence as you and I are of ours. They are quite as alive to their history and probable destiny as any well educated citizen of America or Europe.” “But where is Guir House, and all it contained?” repeated Henley, unable to understand. “Nothing has been changed by this any more than if you were in your bed dreaming it all. But to you it is incomprehensible, as I told you it would be, because your mind has never been trained to think in these realms.” “No,” answered Paul, turning uneasily in his chair, dazed by the marvelous pageant that moved constantly about them. “No, I admit that it has not, and that the whole thing is utterly beyond me; and this, none the less, because I am aware that one of the fundamental facts of nature is that two things can not occupy the same space at the same time. My previous education, instead of helping me, makes the situation more difficult. The Guir estate and this city can not both be here at once; of that I am sure.” “That is a mere assumption on the part of materialists,” answered Ah Ben. “Not only two things, but ten million things, can occupy the same space at the same time; for what is space, and what is time? They are mental conditions, as are all the phenomena of nature. Even your scientist will tell you that the infinite ether penetrates all substances, and that cast-steel or a diamond contains as much of this mysterious element as any other space of equal size. The varying vibrations of this ether, or universal akasa, make the world and all that is in it; and these vibrations are interpenetrable and non-obstructive. Even on the material plane we see how the vibrations of light and heat penetrate those of visible and tangible substance, and how, in your more recent discoveries, light rays penetrate solid metals formerly called opaque. When I say that these vibrations are interpenetrable and non-obstructive, the statement must be taken as approximating the truth, and not as a finality, independent of all conditions; for by the power of the will, or as a result of mental habit, a man may either exclude or admit to his consciousness the thought vibrations of others. But you may set it down as a fundamental fact that there is nothing or no condition of which the mind can conceive that may not become an objective reality, which is the creative faculty in all of us. This city is here to us just as really and actually as were the trees of Guir forest a short time ago. By opening our inward sight, and putting ourselves in accord with another vibratory plane of existence, we are in full _rapport_ with a condition that makes no impression upon the members of the sleeping world not so impressed.”