From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



This category, this portion of the Self, necessarily 

 remains mysterious; it is of the very essence of the 

 unconscious, and brings the individual into touch with 

 that which is divine in the universe. It eludes investi- 

 gation by reason, and is incapable of any complete 

 interpretation. 



(b) The second category includes those faculties 

 and that knowledge which are essentially 

 analogous to the conscious faculties and know- 

 ledge, differing from them only by variety and 

 extent. This category is more easily inter- 

 preted. 



We can verify ir the first place that it is composed 

 partly of psychological experiences acquired consciously 

 or even unknown to ourselves, which have passed, 

 integrally, below the threshold of consciousness. 



Everything occurs as though the multitude of daily 

 experiences had as their end or their result, an uninter- 

 rupted enrichment of our subconsciousness during the 

 whole of life. 



No remembrance, no vital or psychological experience 

 is lost. In the course of life the organism undergoes 

 immense modifications, and is doubtless renewed several 

 times molecule by molecule. States of consciousness all 

 more or less different, succeed one another. A life is 

 really made up of a series of lives; the life of infancy, 

 of childhood, of adolescence, of adult age and of old 

 age; quite distinct lives though united by a substructure 

 common to them all. 



These successive lives are more or less affected by 

 seemingly complete oblivion, so that for the living being 

 they are like so many partial deaths. 



But throughout the renovation of organic molecules, 

 and of renewed states of consciousness, there persists a 

 deep, superior psychism which has registered these states 

 of consciousness and retains them indelibly. 



They are therefore not lost though they are in great 



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