What is meant by the fallibility of memory?

In reply to a question, regarding the mediumship of Lottie Fowler, who when in trance was able to portray [as she had done in a number of well-authenticated cases] the past events in an individual's life, Jan Steen said—

Oh—it is an easy matter to explain that.

Had I gone to college and been bred a doctor, I might now have been able to enter into particulars and to show you quite scientifically how the thing can be done, but as I did not go to college, I shall just do the best I can to explain it in my own way.

Well then, let us suppose for the time being only that I am a very great and learned professor, an anatomist in short—I want to deliver a lecture to my students on the skull and all that it contains, and that is not much in some cases.

I get a man's head. I place it on the table before me. I cut away the top part and take out the brain. I then, very learnedly no doubt, explain it all to my own satisfaction and that of the group of gaping, wonderstruck scholars around.

Here is a bit that has been damaged somehow—

There is a depression, here again is a spot that appears rather high, and so on. Put it very likely, in my character of professor, I would fail to discover the most important thing connected with the brain of the living man—that is, its use.

On these folds or layers, of which it is constructed, every act that has taken place from the cradle to the grave has been indelibly printed.

The memory of all may have fled, but everything is inscribed on the spiritual counterpart of these layers, never to be effaced.

Your very thoughts, unexpressed in words, will be found there, too.

So you see that with a proper medium, we can without any difficulty read this many-leaved book on which is inscribed a whole life's history, back even to childhood.

All is there, nothing omitted, though the individual may have no recollection of the facts recorded.

The fact is—it is just a big panoramic picture that may be stretched out—a belt to engirdle the earth. All that the eye, the ear, and the other senses take in are there depicted.

Will it be opened up to us when we pass away?

Aye—that it will! Every thought, every word, every act, good or bad will be opened to inspection.

Why—what is punishment?

What is that thick wall, which even the light of the Great Spirit fails to penetrate? It is the incrustation of those dark thoughts, those evil deeds and words of the unhappy spirit.

Alas! poor fellow, he is closely imprisoned!

Ah!—did I not suffer for my folly! Well—it is all over now! Take care—set a watch on yourselves, for be assured you will never be able to forget anything even though it be repented of—

All is recorded in imperishable characters on a scroll, which you cannot leave behind you—your good and your evil deeds are there inscribed forever.

There now—I think I must apply for a professorship.

—Jan Steen in Spirit