Tertium Organum

** Some Occult Experiences described by Johan van Manen and annotated by C. 
W. Leadbeater,
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras, India, 1913. 

---

So three circles are formed, the lower one representing the initial globe, the upper 
one representing empty space, and the greater circle circumscribing the whole. If it 
be now understood that the upper circle [empty space] does not exist and the lower 
(small) circle is identical with the outer (large) circle, the impression will have been 
conveyed, at least to some extent. . .I have always been easily able to recall this 
globe, to recall the cube is far more difficult, and I have to concentrate to get it back. 
I have in a like manner had rare visions of fifth- and sixth-dimensional figures. At 
least I have felt 
as if
the figures I saw were fifth- and sixth-dimensional. In these 
matters the greatest caution is necessary. I am aware that I have come into contact 
with these things as far as the physical brain allows it, without denying that beyond 
what the brain has caught there was something further, 
felt 
at the time, which was not 
handed on The sixth-dimensional figure I cannot describe. All I remember of it is 
that it gave me at the time an impression 
in form of 
what we might call diversity in 
unity, or synthesis in differentiation The fifth-dimensional vision is best described, or 
rather hinted at, by saying that it looked like an Alpine relief map, with the 
singularity that all mountain peaks and the whole landscape represented in the map 
were 
one
mountain,* or again, in other words, as if all the mountains had one single 
base. This was the difference between the fifth and sixth, and in the fifth the 
excrescences were in one sense exteriorized and yet rested in the same unit; but in 
the sixth they were differentiated but not exteriorized, they were only 
in different 
ways identical
with the same base, which was their whole. 
In a note to these remarkable pages C. W. Leadbeater says: 
Striking as the drawing is [of a four-dimensional figure made by van Manen] its value 
lies chiefly in its suggestiveness to those who have once seen that which it represents. 
One can hardly hope that it will convey a clear idea of the reality to those who have 
never seen it. It is difficult to get an animal to understand a picture - apparently 
because he is incapable of grasping the idea that perspective on a flat surface is 
intended to represent objects which he knows only as solid The average man is in 
exactly the same position with regard to any drawing or model which is intended to 
* See Jacob Boehme's story, quoted by James, of a harp of many strings, of which 
each string is a separate instrument 

---

suggest to him the idea of the fourth dimension; and so, clever and suggestive as it is, 
I doubt whether it will be of much help to the average reader. 
The man who has seen the reality might well be helped by this to bring into his 
ordinary life a flash of that higher consciousness; and in that case perhaps he might be 
able to supply, in his thought, what must necessarily be lacking in the physical-plane 
drawing. 
For my part I may say that the true meaning of van Manen's 
'vision' 
is hard even to 
appreciate with the means at our disposal. When I saw in his book the drawing 
reproduced here, I at once understood and felt all that it means. But I disagreed 
somewhat with van Manen in the interpretation of this drawing. He writes: 
We may also call the total impression that of a ring. I think it was then [looking at the 
drawing] that I understood for the first time that so-called fourth-dimensional sight is 
sight with reference to a space-conception arising from the visual perception of 
density. 
In spite of all its caution, this remark seems to me dangerous, for it creates the 
possibility of the same mistake which has stopped Hinton in many things. This mistake 
consists in the possibility of constructing a certain 
pseudo-fourth dimension
which, in 
actual fact, lies entirely in three dimensions. In my opinion 
the figure is full of motion. 
The whole figure seems to me 
moving, 
as though constantly arising in the meeting point 
of the sharp ends, spreading out from there and being re-absorbed there. But I shall not 
analyse and examine van Manen's experience now, leaving this to the readers who have 
had similar experiences. 
As regards van Manen's descriptions of his observations of the 'fifth' and the 'sixth' 
dimensions, it seems to me that nothing in them justifies the supposition that they refer 
to a domain 
higher
and 
more complex
than the four-dimensional world. 
In my opinion all this is no more than observations of the domain of the fourth 
dimension. But the remarkable thing in them is their similarity to the experiences of 
some mystics, especially those of Jacob Boehme. Moreover, the method 
of object­
lesson
is very interesting, i.e. those 
two images
which van Manen saw and from the 
comparison of which he drew his conclusions. 

---

CHAPTER 12
Analysis of phenomena. What determines for us different orders of phenomena?
Methods and forms of the transition of phenomena of one order into another.
Phenomena of motion. Phenomena of life. Phenomena of consciousness. The central
question of our perception of the world:
which kind of phenomena is primary and produces the others? Can motion lie at the
beginning of everything? Laws of the transformation of energy. Simple
transformation and the liberation of latent energy. Different liberating forces of
different kinds of phenomena. The force of mechanical energy, the force of a living 
cell and the force of an idea. Phenomena and noumena of our world.
The order of phenomena is determined for us, first, by our method of perception and, 
second, by the form of the transition of one kind of phenomena into another.
We distinguish three kinds of phenomena according to our method of perception and
the form of their transition into other phenomena.
Physical phenomena
(i.e. all phenomena studied by physics and chemistry). 
Phenomena of life
(all phenomena studied by biology and its sub-divisions).
Psychological phenomena
(thoughts, feelings, etc.).
We perceive physical phenomena by means of our sense-organs or by means of
instruments. A great many recognized physical phenomena are not observed directly;
they are only a projection of the presumed causes of our sensations, or the causes of
other phenomena. Physics recognizes the existence of very many phenomena which 
have never been observed either by sense-organs or by instruments (for instance, the 
temperature of absolute zero, etc.).
Phenomena of life are not observed as such. We cannot project them as the cause of
definite sensations. But certain 
groups of sensations 
make us presume the presence of
phenomena of life behind the groups of physical phenomena. It is possible to say that a 
certain grouping of physical phenomena makes us presume the presence of phenomena
of life. We define the cause of phenomena of life as something imperceptible for the 
senses or for instruments and incommensurable with the causes of physical sensations.
A sign of the presence of phenomena of life is the capacity of organisms to reproduce
themselves, i.e. their multiplication in the same forms, the

---

indivisibility of individual units and their capacity of adaptation which is not 
observed outside of life. 
Psychological phenomena - feelings and thoughts - we know in ourselves 
by direct sensation, 
subjectively.
We deduce their existence in others 
by 
analogy with ourselves; 
on the grounds of their manifestation in actions, and 
on the grounds of what we learn through communication by means of speech. 
But, as some philosophical theories point out, it is impossible to establish, 
strictly objectively, the presence of another consciousness, apart from one's 
own. A man usually establishes it on the grounds of an inner conviction. 
Physical phenomena pass one into another completely. Heat may be 
transformed
into light; pressure, into motion, and so on; any physical 
phenomenon may be created out of other physical phenomena; any chemical 
compound may be reproduced synthetically by combining the component