635. Thus memory provides us with the ability to recognize the principle or essence of related experiences. And so we are able to divide them into two phases. The first phase is the one which we all experience as "memory" pure and simple which gives us clear details of a particular definite phenomenon once met with. The second phase is that which no longer constitutes clear literal details of the particular phenomenon experienced and therefore remains in the consciousness only as a knowledge of the phenomenon's principle or essence.
      But knowledge of a phenomenon the details of which we no longer "remember", is no longer perceived as a "memory". Now it will more likely be regarded as a new ability or talent. If, for instance, an individual in his present terrestrial life goes through a very severe illness e.g. cancer, this experience will create in his consciousness an exceptional knowledge about the details and symptoms of that illness. In his present life this knowledge will stand out as a very realistic or fundamental "memory" and this constitutes phase No. 1. But when the life in question has long since ceased, and he is born again into a new life, he no longer has that knowledge as a conscious "memory". But that nonetheless it is still present in his consciousness is seen by his attitude towards and understanding of every cancer patient he happens to meet in his new terrestrial life. It shows that he will have here a special ability of entering into that patient's pain and suffering, and have the condition of the ill person very alive in his mind. This again means that he can unconsciously connect meeting the cancer patient's condition with his own previous experience of the same or similar illness but which is now unknown and forgotten. In reality it is the principle of this forgotten experience that becomes alive for him, without his realizing that this vivid picture in his own consciousness of the other's illness is actually just a recollection of his own experience of the same phenomenon in an unknown past. The bringing alive of another's suffering in an individual's consciousness, comes about entirely on account of the unconscious mobilization of his own "memories" from previous lives, which now manifest as phase No. 2.