Two of the first three questions in this meeting related to how we remember the past. This is the first one, and is valuable as much for how Mr Adie showed the lady who spoke how her question did not hang together (pointing to an inner lack of coherence), and what is more – she fully accepted the fact.

Delilah:   The past few weeks I’ve seen many aspects of what I have called acceptance of life, which is non-acceptance of my life circumstances really. What I have said is “acceptance” is a rigid tension of often self-pity, gloom, the martyr that goes back to a very young child. I’m starting to write my life story, I found the idea in Robinson Crusoe and I thought I’d try and if that would show light. It showed me quite a few things; at the age of five of not wanting to accept anybody being better than me at reciting poetry. Also, the child that presented itself, I’m only up to about six now as a good child and only wanting to be seen like that. And this girl that I was comparing myself with, I realised that I liked her brother because the brother was no competition to me. He was a boy. The girl could recite and tap dance and I was awkward. And it was a very big thing in that five-year-old, that part. I can remember the poem and the colours and the incidents and how the house was. And that seems to bring itself here sometimes at the work. It’s coupled with a lot of other things and I know I have to go a lot further. But I seem to have a body tension. I know a lot of the tension is considering, very old. It’s not all pain tension, from a bad back or a knee. They’ve been brought on by the wrong feelings I have towards life, as if that has interfered. And last week I had the idea of bringing some of this. But I listened to everybody’s answer. Your answers to them seem to reinforce that I was working, I felt in the right way by studying my posture, and when I rectify my posture and get poised, I’m able to see things in an entirely different light and people differently without the criticism. 

Mr Adie:   Yes. Well, in this, what you said, it’s interesting, but it has all sorts of different sections and different starting points. And you’re discussing impressions then, and conditions now, and so on. What you need to do Dorothy is to as you’re doing this writing which can be very useful, is prepare your question and write it so that you can see it: what is the statement? It still wants sorting out. This material indicates this interest and study. And there are questions, but it wants regulating.

Delilah:   Yes. I felt that Mr Adie.

Mr Adie:   Yes, because otherwise, it goes along, and now I would have to try and disentangle it, separate it, deal with this bit. So, you want to take your work and then either bring the one or two essential points that you want to clarify, otherwise you’re reading a book.

Delilah:   Yes, yes, that’s true.

Mr Adie:   And it’s not a book about then. It’s mixed up with now. So, use it. It’s very good. I know what you say about these early impressions, but you have to be careful, because you’ll make other impressions and tack them on if you’re not careful. And then your ancient impression has already sort of grown a wart on it, and you won’t be able to remember it without that wart. We still find ourselves wanting to have this element in our recollection, or we have a thought, and want it to prove something. We are still not impartial. So, it’s a very precise work if you really do it well. I have to protect my old memories as much as I can; and be very, very sensitive to additions and what people have said. People say things later, and then one accepts that as part of one’s old impression, and it may not be so at all.

Odd, automatic, associative connections can occur when I’m trying to think back; and if I’m not attentive I can more or less accept them. And those associations become part of my memory, or the explanation of it, but they’re not at all reliable. It’s a very precise thing. Get to the essence of the experience. What was the essence of the experience? I mean there are all sorts of memories, but where is the real experience? That’s the thing. I have to re-experience it. Now. Otherwise how do I remember it? You’re not quite following me.

Delilah:   I was just, no not quite.

Mr Adie:   If I’m trying to reconstruct, as you are, and I really want to get the benefit of a recollection, I have to re-experience that; but if I also re-experience other things which have got tacked onto it, this doesn’t help me. So, I have to be extremely well-balanced to see these extraneous elements coming in. In other words, it’s a fine work. To bring our questions in this way would be very good. Out of this there isn’t one big question, is there? At the moment? So, that’s the position.