05.19.09
Arthur Conan Doyle and spiritualism
THE ODD SPIRITUALISM OF SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Sherlock Holmes is renowned for being super-rational. Yet his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, claimed to speak with the spirits of the dead. Andrew Lycett considers this paradox on the eve of the author’s 150th birthday …
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle let me down. Shortly before I completed writing his biography, I went to a small corrugated building in North London to see if I could substantiate his belief in communication with the dead.
Why is it odd? Isn’t it scientists who are odd, denying something that has existed since the dawn of modern homo sapiens, beliefs in a spirit world.
However confused these beliefs, we can’t say they are purely superstitious, as the founder of modern ‘darwinism’, Alfred Wallace, well knew.