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Created page with "{{Cargo_Reviews_Articles |Date=1990-09-01 |Book=Conan Doyle and the Spirits |BookAuthor=Kelvin I. Jones |Reviewer=Joe Cooper |Topics=Spiritualism }} This review of the book ''"Conan Doyle and the Spirits", by Kelvin I. Jones'' was written by Joe Cooper and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 1, No. 2) in march 1990. == Review == File:Acd-society-journal-1990-03-p154-review-cooper.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. -..."

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{{Cargo_Reviews_Articles
|Date=1990-09-01
|Book=Conan Doyle and the Spirits
|BookAuthor=Kelvin I. Jones
|Reviewer=Joe Cooper
|Topics=Spiritualism
}}
This review of the book ''"Conan Doyle and the Spirits", by Kelvin I. Jones'' was written by [[Joe Cooper]] and published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 1, No. 2) in march 1990.

== Review ==
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1990-03-p154-review-cooper.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (march 1990, p. 154)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1990-03-p155-review-cooper.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (march 1990, p. 155)]]

: [[File:aquarian-press-1989-conan-doyle-and-the-spirits.jpg|100px]]
: '''Conan Doyle and the Spirits'''
: '''The spiritualist career of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle'''
: by Kelvin I. Jones
: Aquarian Press, 1989; 256 pp.; £8.99 (paper)

'''Reviewed by Joe Cooper'''

Any literary criticism is refracted through the perceptions and biases of the reviewer and thus I, as a lifelong admirer of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] and sympathetic towards spiritualism, must pronounce a verdict of absorbing upon this labour of Kelvin Jones.

I was interested to read of much I did not know, or fully appreciate, such as [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Doyle]]'s interest in mesmerism io the 1880s, the extent of his links with Myers and, as early as the 1890s, his preoccupation with consciousness surviving death. All of which obliterates the uninformed view that [[Arthur Conan Doyle|A.C.D.]] turned to spiritualism in grief, after losing a son in the 1914-1918 war. Never before, I think, has the author's interest in psychic matters around the turn of the century been so well documented and I am grateful for this new source of information.

The path of the book is broadly chronological and the style, overextensively at times perhaps, is descriptive rather than analytical. Supportive rather than critical press comments are reported (e.g. "He is as intelligent and masterful on the lecture platform as he is anywhere else": ''Journal of the American S.P.R.'', 1923). Thus, a few more critical assessments, such as Houdini's views on the psychic powers credited to him by [[Arthur Conan Doyle|A.C.D.]], or the range of materialisation phenomena observed by [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] down the years, would have been welcomed.

In particular, the curious seance observed in a room over a grocer's shop on 5 March 1922 by Malcolm Bird of the American S.P.R. (he describes it as "in some respects the most extraordinary experience of my entire trip"), could have been included with an assessment of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s role. The physical phenomena produced were extraordinary. "Eleven people", wrote Bird in his book ''My Psychic Adventures'', "met once a week for seven years to witness levitations of objects, voices from a raised trumpet and bells and tambourines sounding." Such a landmark, Fes known to [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Doyle]], has been curiously omitted from any pertinent literature I can find.

Jones tellingly brings out the extent to which [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] was passionately committed to his cause. In a 1922 Carnegie Hall lecture, he declared:

: <q>''I'd give family, title, whatever fortune I possess, my literary reputation... they are all as mud in the gutter to what this thing is to me. I know that it explains all life to me and know how inexplicable life was before.''</q>

Such a declaration of centrality of life interest suggests that those who form a Society to study the man and his life might legitimately consider such a bias, both sympathetically and otherwise.

As I said, I share [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s view that those who deny survival, clairvoyance, mediumship and telepathy are to be regarded as uninformed. Jones notes that [[Arthur Conan Doyle|A.C.D.]] carried around with him a notebook with the names of scores of eminents and intellectuals who, like himself, had progressed from a position of total disbelief to one of conviction.

Jones highlights the interest of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] in the work of such pioneers as Crawford, Schrenck-Notzing and Gustave Geley, all of whom studied the extrusions and manifestations of ectoplasm and attendant materialisations at length. These he considered more important than endless seances in darkened rooms. With the re-emergence of such phenomena in the 1980s, here, indeed, is a growth area for research as [[Arthur Conan Doyle|A.C.D.]] hoped.

This book is thus a boon for believers, and we are very grateful to Kelvin Jones for his labours. We await other books on [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s last decade, notably those expanding his links with other researchers such as Bozzano and Geley.

Let the genial giant's robust prose, quoted on page 222 by Jones from the preface to [[The Edge of the Unknown]], summarise public attitudes which still dominate today:

: <q>''We who believe in the psychic revelation, and who appreciate that a perception of these things is of the utmost importance, certainly have hurled ourselves against the obstinacy of our time. Possibly we have allowed some of our lives to be gnawed away in what for the moment seemed a vain and thankless quest. Only the future can show whether the sacrifice was worth it. Personally, I think it was.''</q>

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Review:Conan Doyle and the Spirits/Joe Cooper - Revision history