An easy thought experiment illustrating emergent dimensions/densities.

[Shemaya]

But if one is looking to help precipitate a breakthrough in the mindset of the committed flatland materialist, if I may reflect in another direction for a moment, I think that one of the most profound and direct roads to expanded awareness is personal experience of non-ordinary states of consciousness.

... What is harder to deny or close ones eyes to is firsthand, immediate experience of greater orders of reality as happens through changes in consciousness itself. Though even that, too, can be repressed, ignored, or denied. But it is more difficult to deny ones own authentic experience.

Yet... an idea is a form or unit of consciousness that can be communicated from one person to the next. Such ideas, like the one you present which point beyond the material illusion, can be both seeds for changing consciousness, and invitations to enter new consciousness.

I agree totally.  My basic perspective is that while personal experience is harder to deny, there's still plenty of people who manage to do it.  So I think thought experiments and philosophical probing and such can be useful in, so to speak, softening someone up.  Get a materialist to even admit the possibility of non-material interactions, even in highly unlikely edge cases, and it increases the chances they'll be able to accept the reality of an experience that defies their preferred worldview.

Otherwise, it's all too easy to say "it's all in my head" and ignore experiences that are too uncomfortable.  I spent too many years doing this myself, which is perhaps why I'm so interested in trying to find ways to give people a philosophical hand up, when they're potentially receptive to the idea.  

 Excellent insight.

I think as we proceed more and more people will be having mystical experiences.  Paranormal experiences and the like ie. telepathy, and experiences of energy, spontaneous kundalini experiences.  And many will be looking for answers to the meaning of their experiences.

Science has been pretty reductionist/ materialist and that is what everyone learns in school.  It is good to have this illustration for the purpose of teaching others who are seeking, it is a very tangible way to foster understanding the concepts of energy, dimensions, and the relationship between energy and matter.