The Fate of Mankind
Chapter 20
Memories and the body of memory
For its ability to experience the past the I has a special organ.
This is, as previously mentioned, the sixth body of manifestation.
The plane of existence on which this body will one day carry the consciousness for the individual, just as the physical body now carries the consciousness for him on the physical plane of existence, is thus not an outer plane, as is the case with all the other planes of existence, but is constituted on the other hand by the individual's own inner world.
This in turn means the area for the individual's collected memories.
What are memories?
Here I must again refer the reader to
"Livets Bog" but I can, nevertheless, say that memories are identical with "copies" of the individual's experiences.
Through the total function of the I the situation arises that any experience whatsoever leaves its mark in matter specially designed for the purpose.
This mark is thus a perfect "copy" of the experience in question.
These "copies" will in turn be expressed as details or "objects" in a particular plane of existence.
This plane of existence constitutes the sixth in a "spiral zone".
And as every contact or connection with this kingdom is felt or experienced by the sufficiently developed individual as bliss, this zone is called "the kingdom of bliss".
In this kingdom the sixth basic energy or the energy of memory is thus the leading one.
The "copies" or the "objects" (that is, the memories) in this can therefore not be experienced by means of any body of manifestation whatsoever that is built for the other basic energies but can be directly experienced only by means of the body of memory.
While the physical body is at its peak, the body of memory is, on the other hand, almost latent in the terrestrial human being.
This means the same as the fact that the aforesaid being in his evolution has reached only the culmination of his faculty to experience in the second plane of existence of his spiral zone, while the culmination of his faculty to experience through the body of memory still lies beyond three planes of existence further ahead in evolution.
It is thus understandable that the terrestrial human being, as regards memory, is a latent being and as a consequence of this is not able to make himself conscious of his memories of his previous existences.
The same being's self-experienced realisation of immortality can therefore at most be expressed only as a beautiful, vague impression, an instinct, a theory or a supposition.
But just as he has now, in evolution, reached a plane of existence where the physical body can carry his consciousness, so he will also, in evolution, invariably reach that plane of existence where his body of memory is so developed as to carry his consciousness and can thereby remember, in a fully awake state of consciousness, his passage through and experience of the previous planes of existence.