Incidences of short-term (1-2 year) periods of deflation have been common, and strongly associated with recessions either concurrently or within roughly 18 months. That link is uncontroversial. Over the long term (10+ years) the connection seems a lot more tenuous, though. The monetary contraction and subsequent recession of 1921 was followed by the Roaring Twenties. Volcker's recession in 81-82 was followed by robust growth throughout the 80s and 90s. Ireland's deflationary episode in 2009 was followed by a return to growth. The U.S. periodically had deflationary episodes and sharp recessions throughout the 1800s, but economic growth was quite strong over the century as a whole.
Actually, looking at those incidents is a strong argument for dynamism and technological determinism. Deflation was a large problem in periods where there was no up-and-coming growth industry to absorb surplus labor and liquidated capital. It was a non-event when there were growth opportunities where these factors could be re-deployed. The lack of growth wasn't caused by deflation, it was caused by overly rigid mature industries and an inability to find new ways of doing things that are worth investing in.
If you want to look at the total timespan of human economic history, the only economic systems that have proven stable over millenia are feudalism and slavery. Democratic capitalism (and particularly post-WW2 democratic capitalism in America, which is even more of an outlier) is a comparative blip on the timeline. We don't live in the 1300s, though; we live in 2019, and so it's worth considering how our present time differs from previous epochs and how it might share similarities with some.