Letter to Harry Price (7 october 1925)
This letter was written by Arthur Conan Doyle on 7 october 1925 to Harry Price about spiritualism, Mrs. Deane, and the new society founded by Price, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research.
Letter
Windlesham
7th October, 1925.
My dear Sir,
I heard some rumour that you are attacking Mrs. Deane in some forthcoming article. Mrs. Deane has one or two bitter enemies, especially one, a woman. Theology may be at the root as Mrs. Deane is an excommunicated Catholic, I believe. Anyhow I warn you to be careful in the matter. The best authorities for Mrs. Deane's character are Mr. Warrick, Miss Stead and Mrs. McKenzie who have all been in contact with her for years. Sir Oliver Lodge expressed to me a good opinion of her.
I want your new Society to be successful and not to fall into the error of the S.P.R. which has alienated spiritualists to the point that our mediums will not have anything to do with them. This is the fruit of gratuitous and ghoulish attacks upon us. We would work in a cooperative way with your society, though I confess we are all still very sore over the Hope case which cast an unmerited slur upon 17 years of great psychic demonstration.
However I write in friendly spirit to prevent a mistake being made by you.
Yours sincerely,
A. Conan Doyle
- Source: Harry Price Collection
