When this “loss of face” does not occur, distrust the accuracy 
of the item which you recall. The only reliable recollections* 
which présent themselves with serenity are invariably connected 
with what men call disasters. Instead of the feeling of being 
caught in the slips, one has that of being missed at the wicket. 
One has the sly satisfaction of having done an outrageously foolish 
thing and got off scot free. When one sees life in perspective, it 
is an immense relief to discover that things like bankruptcy, 
wedlock, and the gallows made no particular différence. They 
were only accidents such as might happen to anybody; they had no 
real bearing on the point at issue. One consequently remembers 
having one’s ears cropped as a lucky escape, while the casual jest of 
a drunken skeinsmate in an all-night café stings one with the 
shame of the parvenu to whom a poli te stranger has unsuspectingly 
mentioned “Mine Uncle”. 
The testimony of intuitions is, however, strictly subjective, and 
shrieks for collateral security. It would be a great error to ask 
too much. In conséquence of the peculiar character of the recol¬ 
lections which are under the microscope, anything in the shape of 
gross confirmation almost présumés per jury. A pathologist would 
arouse suspicion if he said that his bacilli had arranged themselves 
on the slide so as to spell Staphylococcus. We distrust an arrange¬ 
ment of flowers which tells us that “Life is worth living in 
Detroit, Michigan”. Suppose that Aleister Crowley remembers 
that he was Sir Edward Kelly. It does not follow that he will be 
able to give us details of Cracow in the time of James I of» 
England. Material events are the words of an arbitrary languagej 
the symbols of a cipher previously agreed on. What happened to 
Kelly in Cracow may hâve meant something to him, but there is 
no reason to présumé that it has any meaning for his successor. 
There is an obvious line of criticism about any recollection. It 
must not clash with ascertained facts. F or example one cannot 
hâve two lives which overlap, unless there is reason to suppose 
that the earlier died spiritually before his body ceased to breathe. 
This might happen in certain cases, such as insanity. 
It is not conclusive against a previous incarnation that the 
présent should be inferior to the past. One’s life may represent 
the full possibilities of a certain partial Karma. One may hâve 
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