"This World is About to Unveil the Hereafter!" — Conan Doyle
"This World is About to Unveil the Hereafter!" — Conan Doyle is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in the Los Angeles Record on 15 december 1916.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle argues that modern spiritualism is a serious new religious revelation, not a parlor game, because it affirms continued life after death and the possibility of communication between the living and the dead.
Article
As a result of the "New Revelation" — Spiritualism is the life that follows death about to be revealed?
(War-stricken Europe, suddenly bereft of millions whose young lives personified joy and hope in a gloomy world, is reaching out with piteous groping to pierce, the veil of the Beyond. Parents whose sons lie in untimely graves, wives who must teach their children to cherish a memory, sad girls who never will know the joy of wifehood are seeking, in their sorrow, means of intercourse with their dead. Churches where prayers for the dead were long denounced as "popery" now echo with De Progoundis: one of England's leading scientists. Sir Oliver Lodge, publishes an account of his intercourse with his "missing" soldier-son; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, novelist, physician, psychologist and philosopher, here puts the pregnant question, "Will spiritualism prove the religion of tomorrow?" — Editor.)
After 30 years of thought venture to say a few words on spirit intercourse.
Spiritualistic phenomena have passed through the stage of being a parlor game; they have almost ceased to be a debatable scientific novelty; and they are, or should be, taking shape as the foundations of a definite system of religious thought.
Spiritualism, the new revelation, confirms all those moral was common to most human systems.
They confirm the beliefs as to life and death taught by most religions, but denied by many earnest and thoughtful men.
They confirm the unhappy results of sin, though adverse to the idea that such results are permanent. They confirm the existence of higher beings whom we call angels, and the ever ascending hierarchy culminating in heights beyond our sight or understanding with which we associate the idea of All Power — or God.
They confirm the existence of heaven, but assert that every human being finds his or her ultimate (though not necessarily final) resting place therein.
Thus the NEW REVELATION supports many of the most important teachings of the old. If this compass points true, then our old compasses did not work so badly after all.
Death makes no abrupt change in the process of development, nor does it make an impassable chasm between those on either side. Death changes neither the familiar body of a friend, nor the peculiarities of his mind. Both are continued in that spiritual body which is a counterpart of the earthly one. Even after death we know our dear ones.
It is in the possibility of communion that the NEW REVELATION lies. The conditions are so similar on either side of death that the hope of communication becomes more feasible. Spirits claim they are happier than we, but they have no more force of intellect than they brought over with them.
Spirits and the relatives they leave on earth have the same difficulties in establishing communication. On either side of of the partition we call Death, the vast majority appear to be absolutely indifferent and ignorant on the subject. But on both sides there are bands of pioneers — never so numerous as now — striving to secure communion. These are beating down the wall of separation; THE HEAR THE SOUNDS OF EACH OTHERS' PICKS!
Many methods have been devised, all imperfect, some fitfully, even wonderfully successful. Clairvoyancy, cairaudience, automatic writing, spirit-control — these are some of the ways, all depending upon that inexplicable thing called mediumship, a thing so sacred and sometimes so abused.
Either two generations of men and women otherwise eminently sane fell victims to the "lunacy" of spiritualism, OR, in recent years, has come to us from divine sources a new revelation which constitutes by far the greatest religious event since the death of Christ.
Earnest souls question, "Is such communication right?"
I know no human power which may not be abused. But when one knows, as I know, of widows who are assured that they hear again the beloved voice, of mothers whose hands groping in the darkness clasp the hands of a vanished son, and when one considers the loftiness of their intercourse, the serenity of spirit which succeeds. it, I feel that a fuller knowledge would calm the doubts of the most scrupulous conscience.
Men talk of a great religious revival after the war: Perhaps it is in this direction that it will come.
