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SATAN AND PERPENDICULAR WORLDS 71
Similarly, if a 4-D being came into our world, we might see a maddening collection
of constantly changing balls made of leather, cloth, flesh, hair, and dental
enamel. Just imagine waking up one day only to find a white enamel ridged
ball in your bedroom. It is the intersection of an Omegamorph's tooth in the 3-
D world. This 4-D being thinks you are a dentist and wants you to drill and fill
his cavity. Could you successfully drill out the cavity from your location in the
3-D universe?
Parallel Universes
Although I deal with the fourth spatial dimension in this book, many science
and science-fiction authors have used the word "dimension" when referring to
parallel universes—universes that resemble our own and perhaps even occupy
the same space as our own. Small differences in the evolution of such worlds
can lead to strangely different universes as the universes evolve. For example,
imagine a slight variant of our world in which Cleopatra had an ugly but
benign skin growth on the tip of her nose. The entire cascade of historical
events would be different. A mutation of a single skin cell caused by the random
exposure to sunlight will change the universe. This entire line of thinking
reminds me of a quote from writer Jane Roberts:
You are so part of the world that your slightest action contributes to its
reality. Your breath changes the atmosphere. Your encounters with others
alter the fabrics of their lives, and the lives of those who come in
contact with them.
In her novel Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice has a similar view when she
describes heaven:
The tribe spread out to intersperse amongst countless families, and
families joined to form nations, and the entire congregation was in fact
a palpable and visible and interconnected configuration! Everyone
impinged upon everyone else. Everyone drew, in his or her separateness,
upon the separateness of everyone else!
In some science-fiction scenarios where you can freely travel between parallel
universes, it's easy to create duplicates of yourself. For example, consider several