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. . . if absence of memory of having existed
at a certain time proved that we did not exist at that time, it would then
prove far too much; for it would prove that we did not exist during the
first few years of life of our present body, nor on most of the days since.
Sholem Asch
The Nazarene
. . . it sometimes happens that the Angel
of Forgetfulness himself forgets to remove from our memories the records
of the former world; and then our senses are haunted by fragmentary recollections
of another life . . . . They assert themselves, clothed in reality, in
the form of nightmares which visit our beds . . .
Aristotle
History of His Development by
Werner Jaeger
When men fall ill they sometimes lose their
memories, even to the extent of forgetting how to read and write; while
on the other hand those who have been restored from illness to health do
not forget what they suffered while they were ill. In the same way
the soul that has descended into a body forgets the impressions received
during its former existence, while the soul which death has restored to
its home in the other world remembers its experiences and suffering here.
G. Bruno
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast
We depart, and do not return the same; and
since we have no recollection of what we were before we were in this being,
so we cannot have a sample of that which we shall be afterward . . . .
Benedict Spinoza
Ethics
It is impossible for us to remember that
we had existences prior to the body, since the body can have no vestige
of it, and eternity cannot be defined in terms of time or have any relation
to time.
G. E. Lessing
Education of the Human Race
. . . is it that I forget my former life?
Well for me that I forget. The recollection of my former state would
enable me to turn my present condition to but poor account . . .
J. W. Von Goethe
Letter to a Friend
How well it it that men should die, if only to erase their impressions and return clean washed.
. . . human genius in a lightning flash
of recollection can discover the laws involved in producing the universe,
because it was present when those laws were established . . .
Gustave Mahler
Personal Diary
We all return; it is this certainty that
gives meaning to life and it does not make the slightest difference whether
or not in a later incarnation we remember the former life. What counts
is not the individual and his comfort, but the great aspiration to the
perfect and pure which goes on in each incarnation.
Gustaf Stromberg
The Searchers
. . . The memories of the cruel acts we
have committed against men and animals follow us through eternity.
The victims of a tyrant are all there, and the memories of their suffering
haunt their oppressor. . .
Gustave Geley
From the Unconscious to the Conscious
Remembrance but plays a secondary part in normal psychology; forgetfulness is habitual and is the rule . . .
On the other hand, . . . the subconscious
memory --the infallible memory of the true and complete individuality,
. . . is indestructible as the being itself. In this essential memory
there are engraved permanently all the events of the present life, and
all the remembrances and conscious acquisitions of the vast series of antecedent
lives.
Herbert Fingarette
The Self in Transformation
. . . one eventually achieves the power of remembering past lives . . . . The greater the spiritual progress, the greater the ability and the easier the task. Knowledge of one's former lives is [in Buddhism] one of the "five kinds of superknowledge." . . . Spiritual knowledge and spiritual freedom are born as one. . .