of
their cramped valley and put them on the ridge, whence they can breathe
purer air and see other valleys and other ridges beyond. Religions are
mostly petrified and decayed, overgrown with forms and choked with
mysteries. We can prove that there is no need for this. All that is
essential is both very simple and very sure.

The clear call for our help comes from those who have had a loss and
who yearn to re-establish connection. This also can be overdone. If
your boy were in Australia, you would not expect him to continually
stop his work and write long letters at all seasons. Having got in
touch, be moderate in your demands. Do not be satisfied with any
evidence short of the best, but having got that, you can, it seems to
me, wait for that short period when we shall all be re-united. I am in
touch at present with thirteen mothers who are in correspondence with
their dead sons. In each case, the husband, where he is alive, is
agreed as to the evidence. In only one case so far as I know was the
parent acquainted with psychic matters before the war.

Several of these cases have peculiarities of their own. In two of them
the figures of the dead lads have appeared beside the mothers in a
photograph. In one case the first message to the mother came through a
stranger to whom the correct address of the mother was given. The
communication afterwards became direct. In another case the method of
sending messages was to give references to particular pages and lines
of books in distant libraries, the whole conveying a message. The
procedure was to weed out all fear of telepathy. Verily there is no
possible way by which a truth can be proved by which this truth has not
been proved.

How are you to act? There is the difficulty. There are true men and
there are frauds. You have to work warily. So far as professional
mediums go, you will not find it difficult to get recommendations. Even
with the best you may draw entirely blank. The conditions are very
elusive. And yet some get the result at once. We cannot lay down
laws, because the law works from the other side as well as this.
Nearly every woman is an undeveloped medium. Let her try her own
powers of automatic writing. There again, what is done must be done
with every precaution against self-deception, and in a reverent and
prayerful mood. But if you are earnest, you will win through somehow,
for someone else is probably trying on the other side.

Some