John Godolphin Bennett (1897-1974) was a British polymath who significantly contributed to various fields, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and spirituality. He is best known for his work in developing and disseminating the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher who greatly influenced Bennett’s life and work.
The following is an excerpt on the nature and theory of the 5th Dimension from J.G. Bennett’s autobiographical account “Witness: The Story Of A Search,” pages 36-38:
“Stimulated by Mrs. Beaumont’s interest, I returned to my mathematical studies. I connected them with the problem of spiritual free will and material determinism. Looking back over the years, I cannot understand why this question so obsessed me at that time. My interest was certainly sustained by the awareness that we live in two worlds: one visible, measurable, and knowable, and the other invisible, to be felt rather than known. As I belonged to both worlds, they must be compatible with one another and connected in some way—but I could not tell how. It seemed to me that people compromise too easily with the evidence before them. On the one side, the physical and biological sciences pointed towards a strictly mechanistic account in which there was no place for free will—except by some evasive subterfuge. On the other side, morality required freedom and responsibility, and religion went further and demanded belief in a mysterious world where freedom itself was not enough. Religion could only accept the conclusions of modern science by a subterfuge no less evasive than that which was offered from the other side. The trouble was that these questions and these contradictions were inside myself, and that was why I could not help being obsessed by the need to find a solution.
One day I happened to receive from England a batch of scientific papers, among which was a paper by Albert Einstein on the luminiferous ether. He discussed the hypothesis that the ether is some kind of material substance and demonstrated that if this were true it must have the apparently impossible property of travelling in every possible direction at once, and what is more, it must do so with the speed of light. ‘I was fascinated by this conclusion. Einstein took it as demonstrating that the luminiferous ether could not be material, but I was struck by its geometrical implications. How could such a state of affairs be represented geometrically? ‘The following evening, at dusk, I was walking back to my office to finish some reports and was passing the Franchet d’Esperey hospital when the solution struck me like an electric shock. In a moment of time, I saw a whole new world. The train of thought was too rapid for words, but it was something like this: ‘If there is a fifth dimension not like space but like time, and if it is orthogonal to the space-time we know, then it would have the required property. Any matter existing in that direction would appear from our standpoint to be travelling with the speed of light. And moreover it would travel in all directions at once. This must be the solution of Einstein’s riddle. If so, the fifth dimension must be as real as the space and time we know. But the extra degree of freedom given by the fifth dimension opens all kinds of possibilities. It means that time itself is not unique, and if there is more than one time, there is more than one future. If there are many times, there should be the possibility of choosing between them. In each line of time, there can be a strict causality, but by changing from one line to another we can be free. It is like a railway passenger: so long as he remains on one train his destination is decided in advance. But he can change trains at a junction and so change his destination.
With these notions flashing through my mind, I saw that my own riddle of free will and determinism could be solved by the addition of a fifth dimension. I was uplifted and carried right out of myself by the excitement of these revelations; and then I saw, or rather became aware of, a vision. I saw a great sphere and knew that it was the whole universe in which we live—that is, the universe we can reach with our senses. Inside this sphere was greater and greater darkness, and outside it light and more light. I saw beings falling from the sphere of existence into the darkness. I also saw bright forms descending on to it from beyond. And I understood that this was a vision of eternity. It was a vision of freedom and determinism, and I could see that souls could fall towards a more fixed or frozen state than that of our visible universe, and also that they could rise towards a greater freedom and glory. It seemed also that the free souls could enter the universe and leave it again.”