“However it be accomplished, and whatever reception the present-day scientific world may give to the assertion, there are many now who know, _by first-hand experience_, that communication is possible across the boundary--if there is a boundary--between the world apprehended by our few animal-derived senses and the larger existence concerning which our knowledge is still more limited. Communication is not easy, but it occurs.... The more recent development of an elaborate scheme of cross-correspondence entered upon since the death of specially experienced and critical investigators of the Society for Psychical Research, who were familiar with all these difficulties, and who have taken strong and most ingenious means to overcome them, has made the proof, already very strong, now almost crucial.... The chief thing that the episode establishes, to my mind, and a thing that was worth establishing, is the genuine character of the simple domestic sittings, _without a medium_, which are occasionally held by the family circle at Mariemont. For it is through these chiefly that Raymond remains as much a member of the family group as ever.... In the old days, if I sat with a medium, I was never told of any serious imaginary bereavement which had befallen myself--beyond the natural and inevitable losses from an older generation which fall to the lot of every son of man. But now if I, or any member of my family, goes anonymously to a genuine medium, giving not the slightest normal clue, my son is quickly to the fore and continues his clear and convincing series of evidences; sometimes giving testimony of a critically selected kind, sometimes contenting himself with friendly family chaff and reminiscences, but always acting in a manner consistent with his personality and memories and varying moods.... In every way he has shown himself anxious to give convincing evidence. Moreover, he wants me to speak out; and I shall. I am as convinced of continued existence, on the other side of death, as I am of existence here.”