Remembrance, Recollection, Reminiscence

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Confusing Words Series · 13 pages

The distinction is made in a single sentence and then worked out over thirteen pages: an idea recurring spontaneously is remembrance; the same idea searched for and retrieved by effortful thinking is recollection. Both are attributes and handmaidens of memory, and memory depends on a fully functioning brain. Reminiscence is placed on a different footing altogether — while memory is physical and evanescent, depending on the condition of the brain, reminiscence is the memory of the soul. The formula at the head sets the three in their frame: as immortality is the stability of life and eternity the stability of being, so memory is the stability of knowledge.

Memory is then separated from mind itself. The one is a recording machine, a register which very easily gets out of order; the other is thought, eternal and imperishable — and memory is called the only faculty in man directly opposed to prognostication or looking into futurity. Against all three stands phantasy, described as the most unreliable thing in us and defined as uncontrolled remembrance of past thoughts and images. Its harm is specific: phantasy stifles enthusiasm and is an impediment to spiritual perception, for when the mind is inspired by the spirit above and phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases, enthusiasm and ecstasy being contrary to each other. The closing pages turn to what does work — conviction breeding enthusiasm, and enthusiasm as the genius of sincerity.

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