But from my long experience in writing for “X,” and from the fact that during two years I had not written for him except on two or three unimportant occasions, though often thinking of him, and from my acquired habit of minute observation of supernormal phenomena, I now feel safe in assuming that I _know the difference_ between the actual presence of “X” and my own imagination of him, my reminiscence of him, or even the suggestion of his presence from another’s mind. No person who had had even a minute fraction of my occult experience could be more coldly critical of that experience than I am. I freely welcome every logical argument against the belief that these letters are what they purport to be; but placing those arguments in opposition to the evidence which I have of the genuineness of them, the affirmations outweigh the denials, and I accept them. This evidence is too complex and much of it too personal to be even outlined here; but the Letter XXXVI, written one hour after the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and nine hours before I knew of it, is merely one incident out of dozens. Also it may be considered at least an interesting coincidence that at the very time I began writing this second book, three occult students, in different countries, wrote me that _they_ felt that “X” had come back and would write again through my hand. Since then several other persons have so expressed themselves by word or pen. Many of the events of this war I myself have seen “astrally” at the time of their occurrence. I was a wide-awake astral participant in the first action in which the British army was engaged on the Continent, and related the experience to a British officer in England before it was reported there, my narrative being verified the following day by a French newspaper brought over from Paris by a friend. I saw in New York the shelling of Scarborough at the hour when it occurred, and related the incident to a friend some hours before it was reported in the newspapers; though I did not know the name of the English coast town where I had seen the assault. Nevertheless, I cannot read what is in the mind of “X” even when I am conscious that he is actually present in the room. I know only what he dictates, and have no idea how much or how little he knows. He has stated in one of the letters that he should tell me only what his judgment approved from time to time. There is one point where I myself do not quite follow “X.” Sometimes when he says that the German people are so and so, had I been writing I should have said the Prussians. I have many German friends, and I cannot hold them individually accountable for the awful conditions into which their government has plunged the world. I must emphasize that I do not assume personal responsibility for what “X” writes, but merely record his words.