Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/175

 My dear Ethel Carew:

I am addressing you without the usual prefix of Miss or Mrs. because I do not know which to use. If you who receive this happen to be Ethel Carew and you had a relative named Philip Carew, who recently died, I believe that the material which has come to me for transmission to you is of considerable concern.

As I must be wholly unknown to you, except for one chance by which you may have heard of me, I should explain something about myself. I am a man twenty-six years of age, recently an officer in the Canadian army and previously engaged in the grain business in Edmonton, Alberta. Except for wounds received in Flanders, one of which resulted in the loss of an arm, I am and have been in excellent health. I am considered perfectly normal and, indeed, have been thought thoroughly "practical"; certainly I have never been accused of being visionary or queer in any way. This explanation seems to me useful because, as you may have guessed, I am writing you to report the substance of a communication meant for you and which was received from a person who is dead.

Since I am entirely ignorant of your attitude toward this tremendous subject and of your information in regard to it, I can assume only that you are aware that many persons, in England and in other countries, are now engaged in communicating with persons who have passed from our state of bodily being; and probably you at least have heard that many of those who have passed on are likewise attempting to communicate with us here.

The attempts made by those on both sides are admittedly imperfect; there remain many obstacles the nature of which we do not understand; but I am one of those who, after first scoffing, have undergone experiences which have completely convinced me that at certain times, and under particular conditions, we may