It must be distinctly understood that Mrs. Newnham did not see or hear the questions which Mr. Newnham wrote down.[188] The fact, therefore, that her answers bore any relation to the questions shows that the sense of the questions was telepathically conveyed to her. This is the leading and important fact. The _substance_ of the replies written is also interesting, and Mr. Newnham has some good comments thereon. But even had the replies contained no facts which Mrs. Newnham could not have known, this would not detract from the main value of the evidence, which consists in the fact that _Mrs. Newnham's hand wrote replies clearly and repeatedly answering questions which she neither heard nor saw_. In this case we have the advantage of seeing before us the entire series of questions and answers, and thus of satisfying ourselves that the misses (which in that case are very few) are marked as well as the hits, and consequently that the coincidences between question and answer are at any rate not the result of chance. In several other cases which I have known, where the good faith of the informants has been equally above question, the possibility of an explanation by chance alone has been a more important element in the problem. All our evidence has tended to show that the telepathic power itself is a variable thing; that it shows itself in flashes, for the most part spontaneously, and seldom persists through a series of deliberate experiments. And if an automatist possessing power of this uncertain kind has exercised it at irregular moments and with no scientific aim;--and has kept, moreover, no steady record of success and failure;--then it becomes difficult to say that even some brilliant coincidences afford cogent proof of telepathic action.[189] I pass on to a small group of cases which form a curious transition from these communications _inter vivos_ to communications which I shall class as coming from the dead. These are cases where the message professes to come from a deceased person, but shows internal evidence of having come, telepathically, from the mind of some one present, or, indeed, from some living person at a distance. (See the case given in Appendix VIII. B.) But this, although a real risk, is by no means the only risk of deception which such messages involve. The communication may conceivably come from some unembodied spirit indeed, but not from the spirit who is claimed as its author. The reader who wishes to acquaint himself with this new range of problems cannot do better than study the record of the varied experiences of automatic writing which have been intermingled with Miss A.'s crystal-visions, etc.[190]