The Strange Life of P. D. Ouspensky (4 page)

It was an instant of unusual freedom, joy and expansion. A second - and the spell of the charm disappeared. It passed like a dream when one tries to remember it. But the sensation was so powerful, so bright and so unusual that I was afraid to move and waited for it to recur. But it did not return, and a moment later I could not say that it had been - could not say whether it was a reality or merely the
thought
that, looking at the waves, it might be so.

Two years later, the yellowish waves of the Finnish gulf and a green sky gave me a taste of the same sensation, but this time it was dissipated almost before it appeared.

Now what has happened to Ouspensky is very clear. The sheer exhilaration of the waves has momentarily lifted his consciousness into an orgasmic sensation of sheer power, enormous health and strength. Our senses normally seem to extend scarcely beyond our bodies; objects seen around us are dim and slightly unreal. But a sudden great effort of will, or a
reflection
of the external forces of nature, can strengthen the 'intentionality' of perception so that our gaze seems to be a spear thrown from behind the eyes. In such moments, our usual vapid, feeble sense of our own identity vanishes for a moment in a sense of sheer joy. Hence the feeling of 'oneness'. It could be compared to the sensation one might experience if, in a crowd cheering with happiness, one flung one's arms around a total stranger and felt as much love as for one's brother or sister.

This is basically the 'secret' Ouspensky was looking for. Since he was personally so withdrawn and shy, it must have seemed beyond his grasp. But the sensation his experience left behind was obviously that
our senses act as jailers
, preventing us from grasping the reality that lies around us.

This leads us to the starting point of
Tertium Organum
, a chapter called (rather unpromisingly) 'Subjective and Objective'. What, Ouspensky asks, do we really know about that world 'outside' us? If he could feel that he had
become
the waves and the ship, how can the usual distinction between subject and object be as 'real' as it seems?

According to Bishop Berkeley, such a distinction
is
quite unreal. Our senses are not 'windows'; they are
interpreters
, and they
translate
the information that bombards them into terms we can understand. Energy of 16 millionths of an inch strikes our eyes, and our eyes translate it into redness. Energy of 32 millionths of an inch strikes us, and we translate it into violet. Energy of a higher wavelength - ultra-violet, for example - is invisible to us because our senses feel that it is of no use to us. So we do not live in a real world, but in an interpreted world. That tree is 'out there', but for all practical purposes it is inside my head. Berkeley argues that we have no
proof
of the existence of a world 'out there'; it might all be a delusion, like a film show projected on my eyeballs.

Kant did his best to rescue philosophy from this uncomfortable position. We do not
create
the real world, he says, but our senses
establish the conditions
for the world we see. They are rather like a nightclub doorkeeper who will only let in people who are respectably dressed. And their criterion for respectability, says Kant, is that things have to be dressed in
space and time
. Nakedness is not allowed.

But this means that you and I can never know what the clients look like without their clothes on. We can never know the 'things in themselves', as they were before they had to put on dinner jackets and long dresses. So, at any rate, said Kant. And Ouspensky is willing to accept his views on the matter.

But in the last decades of the nineteenth century, a writer called C.H. Hinton caused a sensation by extending Kant's idea in a most fascinating manner. Very well, says Hinton, our senses act like doorkeepers who force the clientele to dress in a respectable manner. But in that case, it is our senses that make the rule that our world has three dimensions - length, breadth and height. Why should it not relax its standards, and permit a world with
four
dimensions - length, breadth, height, and another dimension at right angles to these?

Why make such a supposition in the first place? It seems to have come about as a result of some of the puzzles of the new 'science' of psychical research, which began to come into being in the 1860s. The 'occult revival' began in 1848, with loud banging and rapping noises in the house of a New York farmer named Fox. These later turned into classic 'poltergeist' phenomena, with objects flying through the air. Soon hundreds of 'mediums' were causing even more spectacular effects - trumpets played themselves as they floated in space, tables rose from the ground, flowers materialized out of the air, and ghostly hands stroked the faces of the 'sitters' at seances. Moreover, poltergeists seemed to have the ability to cause solid objects to fly through walls. The solution, many 'Spiritualists' came to believe, was a fourth dimension. If spirits inhabited a universe with an extra dimension, then a poltergeist would not actually be throwing an object through a wall, but 'over' it, into the fourth dimension - just as a giant could step over a wall that would be an insurmountable obstacle to a beetle.

A Professor Johann Carl Friederich Zollner, of the University of Leipzig, seems to have originated this theory that spirits inhabit a four-dimensional world, and he decided to test it by asking a 'medium' if he could get the spirits to tie a knot in a piece of string whose two ends had been joined together in a circle (and also sealed with sealing wax). The experiment took place in 1877, with an American medium called Henry Slade, and Slade - or the spirits - tied the knot in the string at his first attempt. One of the witnesses to the experiment was Zollner's fellow professor Gustav Fechner, who had written an essay on 'Why Space Has Four Dimensions' as early as 1846. Unfortunately, Slade had been tried and convicted of cheating in London in the previous year - Professor Ray Lankester had snatched a slate before the 'spirits' had time to write on it, and found that it was already written on. Slade insisted that he had heard the squeak of the slate pencil moments before Lankester snatched the slate.

Alas, in later life, Slade was often caught cheating, which would seem to dispose of him as a witness for the fourth dimension. But this assumption may be too hasty. The Society for Psychical Research, formed in 1882, reached the conclusion that although mediums
do
cheat, the evidence for the reality of spiritualistic phenomena - including poltergeists - is overwhelming. Their experience also confirmed that many 'genuine' mediums sometimes resorted to cheating. Slade was later caught cheating before the Seybert Committee in Philadelphia, and he acknowledged to them that Zollner had watched him closely only for the first three or four sittings, then allowed him to do as he liked. But since the knotted string was produced at the first sitting, it seems possible that it was genuine.

To Ouspensky, it seemed obvious that the idea of the fourth dimension is one of the most important that human beings can contemplate. When we are tired, our minds simply accept the material world around us without question; everything is merely 'itself'. But as soon as we experience the sense of happiness and excitement that often comes on spring mornings, or setting out on holiday, the world is seen to be full of infinite possibilities, and nothing is merely 'itself': everything seems to
stand for something
that is more than itself, just as the words on this page stand for something more than themselves. Hinton himself grasped this notion in an essay called 'Many Dimensions', where he speaks of errand boys reading 'penny dreadfuls', and how they could be spending their time more fruitfully 'communing with space' (which for Hinton meant trying to think three-dimensionally). Then he goes on to say:

And yet, looking at the same printed papers, being curious and looking deeper and deeper into them with a microscope, I have seen that in splodgy ink stroke and dull fibrous texture, each part was definite, exact, absolutely so far and no farther, punctiliously correct; and deeper and deeper lying a wealth of form, a rich variety and amplitude of shapes, that in a moment leapt higher than my wildest dreams could conceive.

What Hinton means is that the paper contains all the mysteries of space itself. But he might have gone farther, and recognized that even the silliest penny dreadful, explored to its depths, would reveal unknown vistas of the human imagination.

This is the aspect of the fourth dimension that fascinates Ouspensky. And he expands it in some of the most remarkable and profound pages of
Tertium Organum
. Chapter 14 begins:

It seems to us that we see something and understand something. But in reality all that proceeds around us we sense only very confusedly, just as a snail senses confusedly the sunlight, the darkness and the rain.

Here we note immediately the quality that makes Ouspensky such a good writer: his clarity. He has an enviable ability to say exactly and precisely what he means. But this image of the snail does more than that: it conveys in a few words Ouspensky's feeling that we are surrounded by a vast, unknown universe, and that our
assumptions and presuppositions
cut us off from this world of reality. We may, in fact, reject Kant, and his notion that space and time are merely the clothes that the nightclub doorman forces the customers to wear; we may even assume that that pillar box really is red, and not that our eyes merely interpret its wavelength as redness. But we may nevertheless accept Ouspensky's central point: that our perception is 'prejudiced', and we often see only what we expect to see.

Ouspensky goes on to tell a story that makes the same point. He describes how he and a friend were crossing the River Neva in St Petersburg:

We had been talking, but both fell silent as we approached the [Peter and Paul] fortress, gazing up at its walls and making probably the same reflection. 'Right there are also factory chimneys', said A. Behind the walls of the fortress indeed appeared some brick chimneys blackened by smoke.

On his saying this, I too sensed the
difference between
the chimneys and the prison walls with
unusual clearness
and like an electric shock. I realised
the difference between the very bricks themselves . . .

Later in conversation with A, I recalled this episode, and he told me that not only then, but
always
, he sensed these differences and was deeply convinced of their reality.

Ouspensky goes on to say that the wood of a gallows, a crucifix and the mast of a ship is, in fact, a
quite different material
in each case. Chemical analysis could not detect it; but then, chemical analysis cannot detect the difference between twins, who are nevertheless quite different personalities.

They are only the
shadows
of real things,
the substance of which is contained in their function
. The shadow of a sailor, of a hangman and of an ascetic may be quite similar - it is impossible to distinguish them by their shadows, just as it is impossible to find any difference between the wood of a mast, of a gallows and of a cross by chemical analysis.

This realization is an extension of his insight on the Sea of Marmora. In that case, sheer exaltation had somehow amplified the strength of his senses - just as hunger amplifies a man's appetite so he appreciates his food far more. And this appreciation amounts to a sharper perception of the
difference
between roast beef and new potatoes and spring cabbage.

Our problem is to maintain this recognition of 'difference' even when our senses are tired. If we enter a room in total darkness, we do not assume that all the furniture has disappeared merely because we cannot see it. We
know
it is there. We need to impress this conviction of 'difference' upon our minds so deeply that we know it is there even when we cannot see it. What good would that do? It would prevent us from falling into the negativity that devastates our energy and sense of purpose - and which also happens to be the chief problem of all human beings. On a spring morning, when we can see endless 'difference' around us, and our minds are bubbling with optimism, it seems incredible that human beings can so forget this vision that they collapse into defeat, even into suicide. Yet Ouspensky himself clearly came close to suicide when he lost his Zinaida. So this question of difference is not merely an abstract philosophical issue; it is a matter of life and death

It is this sense of urgency and excitement that makes
Tertium Organum
such a refreshing book. Ouspensky is on to something important - in fact, to
the
most important question, and he knows it. He senses that the experience on the Sea of Marmora, or walking towards the Peter and Paul fortress, could lead to a new way of living, a new kind of freedom. He is like a migratory bird that can smell its home. For more than 10,000 years, increasing knowledge has given man increasing power over his environment; but it has not, apparently, given him increasing power over himself. Yet Ouspensky has glimpsed the answer. Perception is like a spear thrown towards an object. But our innate pessimism and laziness prevent us from putting any force behind the throw. Our negativity means that we allow ourselves to 'leak' energy. Yet the mere recognition of what is wrong should enable us to put it right, to maintain an inner level of drive and optimism that would simply prevent us from being susceptible to such leaks.

Ouspensky asks:

First of all, what is the new knowledge? The new knowledge is
direct knowledge
by an inner sense. I feel my own pain directly; the new knowledge can give me the power to
sense
, as mine, the pain of another man.

What Ouspensky can feel, intuitively, is that if he can get rid of his tendency to negativity and self-doubt, his Russian melancholy, he can be a quite different kind of person. When we are asleep, or very tired, we lose even intuitive knowledge of ourselves; consciousness 'blurs'. When we are awake, we suddenly 'know' ourselves. If we were 10 times as awake - if our senses were far more highly energized - would we not 'know' other people with equal certainty? Our senses could be compared to flat batteries. How do we 'charge' them? By sheer 'concentrated attention', which has the same 'recharging' effect on the senses that driving a car has on the car battery. (Example: as you are reading this book, stop 'merely reading'. Concentrate your
full
attention; clench your fists, use the muscles of your face and forehead to focus your energies:
but go on reading
. Even a minute of this kind of effort will bring a curious sense of power and meaning, for your intellect is ceasing to work
in vacuo
, and is entering into active combination with your vital energies.) This is what the yogi strives for as he sits cross-legged, concentrating attention 'at the root of the eyebrows'. Unfortunately, Ouspensky's Western-style romanticism inclined him to discount this aspect of Eastern religion.