itive to have some personal knowledge of the matter. The number is
far beyond what it appears to be for two reasons. One is that the
average person fears ridicule and keeps his own counsel about his occult
experience. The other is the feeling that communications from departed
relatives are too sacred and personal for public discussion. Tens of
thousands of people have seen demonstrations at spiritualistic seances
which, while possessing little evidential value from the scientific
viewpoint, nevertheless have a legitimate place in the great mass of
psychic phenomena. But more convincing is the evidence furnished in
hundreds of homes where some member of the family acts as automatic
writer or medium.

The most convincing evidence is not always scientific evidence. What can
be more convincing than the evidence furnished in one's home by members
of the family? There is much such evidence, obtained both through
mediums and by automatic writing.

Automatic writing--that is, the control of the hand of a living person
to record the thoughts of another who has lost the physical body--is
perhaps one of the least objectionable ways in which communications have
come from the astral world, and to it we are indebted for some useful
books with interesting accounts of the life in the unseen regions. Here,
of course, as elsewhere, discrimination must be used, for the wise and
foolish, the useful and useless are to be found side by side. In
accepting or rejecting, one must use his common sense just as he does on
this plane in separating the valuable from the worthless. In such
matters we should not lose sight of the fact that the living dead are
unchanged in intellect and morality. The genius here is the genius there
and the living fool is not different from the dead one. It is often
those who know the least who are the most anxious to tell it and the
medium or automatic writer sometimes gives them the opportunity.
Consequently we get many foolish communications and an enormous amount
of commonplace platitude is delivered at seances. But it is equally true
that unquestionable proof of personal identity is sometimes secured.

There is much valuable non-scientific evidence that the consciousness
survives the loss of the physical body and it frequently comes from
sources that insure respectful attention. The two following stories of
that kind are cited as corroboration of the scientific evidence.

Little touches of the personality often