Spiritual Waning. Wanted: A Leader

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Spiritual Waning is an article published in the Daily Mail on 15 january 1931, including an interview with the wife of Arthur Conan Doyle.


Spiritual Waning

Daily Mail (15 january 1931, p. 7)

Wanted : A Leader

Will a new leader rise in spiritualism to take the place of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

That is the problem, now becoming acute, which is before the spiritualists of this country. Since Sir Arthur's death in July 1930 the movement has been losing ground.

Membership of even the strongest associations has been falling, the sales of spiritualist publications have been declining, and the numbers attending meetings in many districts have ceased to show the previous steady progress.

Lady Conan Doyle, although she is disinclined to take any official position in organised spiritualism, is still deeply interested and in touch with opinion in many countries.

"It is unfortunately true that there is no one at the moment ready to take my husband's place as a leader," she said yesterday to a Daily Mail reporter. "There is no one with his world-wide fame, his reputation as a skilled and honest investigator and his extraordinary capacity for unselfish and unceasing work in the cause.

"People from all over the world are continually writing to me about spiritualism. If it were not for the moral cowardice which prevents many from admitting their belief, or even their interest, the organised movement would grow with tremendous rapidity.

"Some day soon, however, a new leader will emerge. He will come, I expect, from the younger generation, thousands of whom are sincere students."