back of your own knowledge and
experiences, you can do so for a time, but eventually they will struggle
down, or you will put them down from sheer fatigue, and then they will
run back to the spot where you found them, and thence work out their own
psychic evolution either in this or in some future term of existence.

When their interest is exhausted--to say nothing of your patience--you
will hear that they have called you a crank and lamented your "wasting
your time over such nonsense." That will be _your_ share of the
transaction.

I know this _because I have been there--moi qui vous parle_.

"Let every man be persuaded in his own mind," but don't try to persuade
anyone else. When the right time comes he will ask your help and counsel
without any persuasion.

Of course, I am speaking only of private work. Lectures and congresses
are of the greatest possible value; for no one knows whom he may be
addressing on these occasions, and the seed may be falling into soil
prepared, but often unconsciously prepared, for its reception.

To sum up the whole matter:

1. Be strong in the conviction that eventually good must always conquer
evil, but remember also that you individually may have a very bad time
meanwhile if you go amongst mixed influences and evoke that which at
present you are not strong enough to withstand.

2. Know when to speak and when to be silent.

3. Receive what comes to you spontaneously, but never allow yourself to
be cajoled or persuaded into developing your mediumship to gratify
curiosity; not even on the plea of scientific duty, unless you are fully
conscious in your own mind that this is the special work which is laid
upon you.

And bearing these three simple rules in mind, we may go forward with
brave hearts and level heads on the Quest which has been so plainly
opened out to us in this twentieth century.
E. KATHARINE BATES.

SEEN AND UNSEEN

CHAPTER I

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

Having set myself to write a personal record of psychic experiences, I
must "begin at the beginning," as the children say.

When only nine years old I lost my father--the Rev. John Ellison Bates
of Christ Church, Dover--and my earliest childish experience of anything
supernormal was connected with him. He had been an invalid all my short
life, and I was quite accustomed to spending days at a time without
seeing him. His last illness, which lasted about a fo