 Conflicting mystical claims thus lead to the issue of the reliability of mystical experiences as a source of knowledge: whatever the correct understanding of each type of mystical experience is, many (perhaps most) mystics have misunderstood their own experiences. Mystical experiences may put mystics in contact with a previously unrealized reality, but mystics’ diverse and conflicting understandings of that reality damaged their claim to have gained actual knowledge. Once mystics are aware of competing claims, whether the experiences can be authoritative even for the experiencers themselves, as James believed (James 1958, 324, 414), becomes an issue.