MR. O. Recurrence is in eternity. It is not the same life. This life ends and time ends. There is a theory—and this system admits this theory—that time can be prolonged. I have no evidence. If you think about time, how many attempts were made by spiritualists and others—but there is no evidence.
The study of recurrence must begin with the study of children’s minds, and particularly before they begin to speak. If they could remember this time they could remember very interesting things.
But unfortunately, when they begin to speak they become real children and they forget after six months or a year. It is very seldom that people remember what they thought before that, at a very early age. They would remember themselves such as they were grown-up. They are not children at all. Then later they become children. If they remember their mentality it is the same mentality as grown-up people have. That is what is interesting.
Q. Do you know why a child should remember its grown-up mind and not its previous child’s mind?
MR. O. We have so little material to judge about it. I speak only about the way it can be studied. Suppose we try to remember our own—suppose we find it was one or another— trying not to let imagination come in—if we find something, that would be material.
In literature you find very little, because people don’t understand how to study it. But with my own experience, I met with some very interesting things. Some people I knew had very interesting recollections of first years of life, and they all had the same impression, which was that the mentality was not a child’s mentality—how they took people, how they recognized people—it was not a child’s psychology. But most people don’t remember that at all. You see what I mean. They had a ready mind, such that you cannot imagine this ready mind with quite grown-up reactions could be formed in six months of unconscious life. It had to be before if it is really so, but as I say, it is very difficult to find material.
