Medium Messages

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Medium Messages is an article published in the Daily Mail on 30 june 1919, including a part of a speech by Arthur Conan Doyle.


Medium Messages

Daily Mail (30 june 1919, p. 3)

Sir A. Conan Doyle & the Law

Tales of successful mediums were again told by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at Queen's Hall yesterday. Only on Saturday, said Sir Arthur, his wife reminded him that in séances early in the war the month of "June" was given for peace day and "five" was indicated as the length of the war.

Dealing with the allegation that "Mrs. B.," his favourite medium, had been prosecuted by the police, Sir Arthur said: "Every medium in England is liable to be prosecuted by the police. It's the fault of the rotten law. There is not an early Christian, not an apostle, not St. Paul, who would not have been up at Bow-street if he had been alive to-day."

There was a difference between spirit clairvoyance and travelling clairvoyance of individuals, such as the dream or trance in which Sir H. Rider Haggard saw the dead body of his dog lying at the mouth of a tunnel three miles away from his house, where he found it next morning.

"I have," he added, "received two letters recently from people who had been given up as dead, describing how they floated and saw their dead body lying on the floor."

Sir Arthur had his photograph taken at Crewe recently showing himself surrounded by spirits. He announced that on July 8 a lecturer will show a lantern slide of the late Sir William Crookes taken in his laboratory in 1873, "standing hand in hand with an angel who afterwards lived for nearly three years in his house."