Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 37 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon

Chapter IV (part 9)

But taking into consideration the ideas expressed before it would be interesting to look at the world supposing that we are not in it but on the ether; where the "ether" is the surface of contact of two bodies of higher dimensions.

1 Hinton here expresses an unusually interesting thought, and brings the idea of the "ether" nearer to the idea of time.

The materialistic, or even the energetic understanding of contemporary physics of the ether is perfectly fruitless—a dead-end siding.

For Hinton the ether is not a substance but only a "surface," the "boundary" of something.

But of what?

Again not that of a substance , but the boundary, the surface, the limit of one form of receptivity and the beginning of another.

.

.

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In one sentence the walls and fences of the materialistic dead-end siding are broken down and before our thought open wide horizons of regions unexplored.

Footnotes 51:1 Hinton, "A New Era of Thought," pp.

52, 56, 57.

Themes

◆Active Contemplationpraxis

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

The author instructs the reader to 'look at the world supposing' a different perspective, utilizing conceptual imagination to access higher truths.

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◆Infinite Cosmoscosmology

The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.

The text suggests expanding horizons beyond the material world into higher dimensions and unexplored regions, rejecting closed materialistic limits.

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◆Mechanical Humanityanthropology

Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.

The passage critiques materialistic understanding as a 'dead-end siding' and calls for breaking its walls, aligning with Ouspensky's core thesis on overcoming mechanical perception.

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◆Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

Ether is defined paradoxically as a 'surface' and 'boundary' rather than a substance to destabilize ordinary materialistic understanding.

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