A Pair of Spiritists
A Pair of Spiritists is an article written by Kelvin I. Jones published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 4, 1993).
This archival study examines the forty-year correspondence between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Oliver Lodge, tracing the development of their friendship and shared commitment to psychical research between 1889 and 1917. Drawing extensively on letters preserved in the Society for Psychical Research archives, it analyses their views on mediums, survival after death, fraud, and the intellectual tensions within early twentieth-century spiritualism.
A Pair of Spiritists
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Sir Oliver Lodge: 1889-1930
Part One: 1889-1917: The Forming of a Friendship
In the archives of The Society for Psychical Research lies a large box containing a wealth of correspondence between two men whose names were, in their day, closely associated with the cause of spiritualism. The correspondence runs from the December of 1893 to 1930. It is a fascinating find for anyone interested in the spiritualist movement of the period and likewise for the student of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a campaigner for the acceptance of the invisible world.
Both men were avid students of spiritualism from their youth and both possessed the moral courage to make a public stand about their beliefs. The life of ACD has been well documented and does not require elaboration. However, since few people today will remember Sir Oliver Lodge, a brief outline of his work and life is perhaps justified.
Lodge was a physicist by profession and enjoyed world renown for his work in the field. His first experiences in psychical research date from 1883-4, when he was invited by Malcolm Guthrie to join his investigation in thought transference in Liverpool. Next he undertook similar experiments himself in 1892 in Carinthia at Portscach am See where he spent the summer. His findings were reported in the Society's Proceedings, Vol. VII.
ACD had also been experimenting in a similar field for a number of years (see my book Conan Doyle and the Spirits, Thorsons, 1989), and since 1887 had carried on a correspondence with F. W. H. Myers, the great psychic investigator and author of Human Personality And Its Survival of Bodily Death. As he began to read Proceedings, ACD was impressed by the nature of Lodge's work. He subsequently wrote to him. Thus began a partnership that was to last nearly forty years.
In psychical phenomena, Lodge's most notable observations were made with Eusapia Palladino. In Professor Richet's house on the Ile Roubaud he attended four seances and in his report for the Journal of the S.P.R., November 1894, he accepted the reality of her phenomena. When Palladino was exposed at Cambridge in the following year, Lodge, who had attended two of the sittings there, did not hesitate in sustaining his former opinion. Like ACD, he exhibited a single-mindedness and moral courage which the genial giant found attractive.
In the field of mental phenomena, Mrs Piper was his chief source of enlightenment. His first investigation was conducted in England in 1889 when the medium was tested by the S.P.R. He received many evidential messages from the medium which convinced him that the dead still lived. His first report was published in 1890.
In 1908 he made his first public statement that he had genuine converse with deceased friends and that at last the boundary between the living and the dead was wearing thin. Five years later, speaking from the Presidential Chair to the British Association in September 1913, he declared that 'personality exists beyond bodily death.'
Over the next few years a series of books flowed from his pen: Man And The Universe, 1908; Survival of Man, 1909; Reason And Belief, 1910; Life and Matter, 1912; Modern Problems, 1912; Science and Religion, 1914.
The widest publicity to his belief in survival was given in his famous book, Raymond. The story of the return of his son, who was killed in action in The Great War, is one of the most famous documents dealing with the survival of bodily death, and in its day was a bestseller. It begins with the famous Faunus message, delivered through Mrs Piper on 8 August 1915. The message reached Lodge in early September 1915 and on 17 September the War Office notified him that his son Raymond had been killed in action on 14 September. So began quest which involved close work with several leading mediums and which resulted in clear evidence of the survival of his son in spirit form.
ACD's first letter to Lodge reveals how far along the path of spiritualist research he had already travelled. He had, of course, read most of the studies of the occult, which had also formed the background to the research undertaken by Myers and Edmund Gurney. He had also read Kardec and the visionary Swedenborg. He had become deeply influenced by the followers of Charcot, whose work convinced him that cryptaesthesia and clairvoyance were in some way linked with an existence in the hereafter.
When Lodge sent ACD the Transactions at the Kurhaus Hotel, Davos Platz, Switzerland, Conan Doyle was to reply:
- You must think me a miserable fellow for not acknowledging your kindness sooner in sending me the Transactions. I have as you know been going up and down on the earth (Like the famous father of all fiction) and then, after I reached this haven of rest, I wanted to read it all first. It is a charming piece of narrative ... My only possible criticism was that you seemed to speak too guardedly and not to give weight enough to the idea that since this entity was so correct about other matters it might also be correct in its account of its own genesis and individuality. I only marvel that such evidence could have been three years before the public without exciting more widespread comment. After all it is, if established (and what more can be demanded to establish it), infinitely the most important thing in the history of the world.
- I should like to ask a control, if I had the chance, for some information about our antecedent states. There are two veils & we pull at the front one, but take no thought of that behind. We may occupy the position to some other stratum of life, which Dr Phinuit occupies to us.
- Pray excuse my doubtless crude remarks. My interest exceeds my knowledge. Wishing Mrs Lodge & yourself every happiness for '94.
A note of explanation is required here. Phinuit was the earliest permanent control of Mrs Piper. His statements about himself were hazy and contradictory and he was therefore never much trusted. He claimed that he was French, a physician living in Metz, but never furnished convincing proof of his identity. To Myers, who investigated the case fully, it seemed clear that the name Phinuit was the result of suggestion at earlier seances and that he was nothing more than a secondary personality of Mrs Piper. However Gurney, who wrote to Lodge in 1889, claimed that 'Dr Phinuit is a peculiar type of man... he is eccentric and quaint, but good hearted... a shrewd doctor, he knows his own business thoroughly.' Phinuit's regime was from 1884-1892. In 1897 the Imperator group took Mrs Piper in charge and Phinuit was entirely suppressed. It seems evident from ACD's remark about Phinuit that he regarded him as a genuine personality.
When Lodge gave his address to the British Association in September 1913, ACD was quick to write to him from his home in Crowborough:
- Dear Sir Oliver,
- May I without impertinence say how fine I thought your address. I only hope it won't be used to bolster up the theological dogmatism of the past but will be recognised as a trumpet call for all stragglers, to bring them back to those spiritual truths which really do not depend upon that two-edged business Faith, but upon direct reason.
- I thought the simile of the Observer who could see the deeds of man but not man himself one of the finest and clearest things I ever read. I have been fighting a small skirmish on my own. It may interest you some time to glance at a controversy which was at least earnest however imperfect in other respects.
The document ACD refers to is still in the Archives of the S.P.R.. Entitled In Quest of Truth, it appears to be an obscure twenty-two page correspondence between ACD and Hubert Stansbury R.N., who had himself published a monograph entitled In Quest of Truth (Watts & Co., n.d., 3s 6d.) The correspondence deals at length with certain aspects of telepathy and thought transference. Much of it is extremely tedious but ACD's main tenet can be summed up in a sentence in the penultimate letter to Stansbury:
- Our whole discussion comes down to the Design, or want of it, in the universe. To show that I don't avoid your argument, I state it. It is this: That it is easier to imagine that there is some force in Nature itself which has been eternal, and will eternally evolve a sequence of events of which the universe, as we know it, is part: that it is easier, I say, to imagine this inherent force than it is to imagine an intellect guide which created and controlled the whole.
- When I try to grasp this I find that I can imagine an endless stagnation on these lines, or perhaps an endless chaos, but that I cannot imagine an endless orderly unfolding without purpose. The inorganic grows to the organic, and that to the human, which still evolves and may reach the superhuman.
ACD's quest for the truth about order in the universe would have found great support with Lodge, who was himself a traditional physicist influenced by the theories of Darwin.
The correspondence file shows a gap here of some three years. There follows a short letter from ACD regarding Lodge's book Raymond, which he had been asked to review for The Observer. ACD concluded:
- I am going to a clairvoyant of repute in London at 3 pm on Tuesday next. If you should be in touch with Raymond it would be interesting if you tried to put him on to me.
- Nov 18 1916
The medium in question was almost certainly Aldred Vout Peters. Peters was a trance medium and clairvoyant. Born in 1867, he had been involved in the spiritualist movement for many years before he met ACD. He travelled widely and figures largely in Lodge's Raymond, which was mostly written round the seances which Lodge had held with Peters and Mrs Leonard. Peters also had the strange experience of being controlled by a living person.
Lodge writes to ACD:
- I shall be interested to hear in due time how you got on with Peters. If Mrs Kennedy is good enough to go, she will help by giving Peters confidence and friendly support. She is a rather nervous but very sympathetic person. I expect you will like her, though I admit it is a curious mode of introduction.
- (1 December 1916)
ACD wrote back on 2 December 1916:
- My Dear Lodge,
- The meeting was good. It was a Frenchified Control whose identity I did not know. There was a lot that was interesting but not final, but there was one very good test and no absolute failure.
- He ended up by sending a test to someone and it may have been to you but was not clear. Perhaps Mrs K understood better. Here it is for what it is worth. To try & continue to sit at home — rather a tag rag & bobtail lot of mediums present one woman of gipsy blood & none too clean physically. That was how I heard it.
- Yours sincerely.
The next letter is dated 11 March and is an interesting reflection of ACD's awareness regarding false mediums. Often ACD was accused of gullibility, but the letter demonstrates that in the matter of authenticity he was as sharp as the next man:
- My Dear Oliver Lodge,
- I have such confidence in your own judgement that I have the greatest difficulty in (unreadable) my own, where there is any tendency to diverge.
- I should like one (unreadable) in this excellent letter to say that no one suffers so much from these knaves as Spiritualists do, that no one can be more eager for their suppression, but that our objection to the law is that it is framed in such broad terms that it is just as likely to banish the true mediums, whom we look upon with reverence as the false ones whom we regard with abhorrence. These people are weeds who will choke the grain and I can't help thinking that those who pull them out, if they don't take too much pain as well, are doing good work. But if they pull indiscriminately, then certainly they are stopping all progress.
- If and when a good man or woman, whom we can really trust, a Vout Peters or a Mrs Leonard are in trouble, then we should all rally round & spend money & work to see them thro'.
- With all remembrance,
Lodge replied almost immediately to the letter, pointing out the difficulty in establishing the genuineness of mediums:
- My dear Conan Doyle,
- Best thanks for your letter this morning. I agree, but in the present state of the Law, there is no real discrimination between the genuine and the fraudulent, hence the weeding out of the fraudulent is better not done by the Law, but by investigators. They need some machinery for the purpose, and I think that it is one of the jobs we shall have to tackle in some way or other. But the police machinery is unsuitable. Moreover I am very doubtful whether those we call fraudulent have not got some genuine power, though the temptation to eke it out by normal means for stupid or credulous or ignorant sitters has become too much for them, and whether any genuine power still survives, as it did in Sludge the Medium, may be an open question ...
- 13th March 1917
The question of authenticity clearly vexed ACD throughout his involvement in the Spiritualist movement. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the case of William Hope, whom ACD championed, only to discover later that the man was an impostor. Although ACD never publicly admitted to Hope's trickery, and in fact mounted a spirited defence of his methods in one of his lesser-known publications (The Case for Spirit Photography, Hutchinson, 1922), he no doubt had his misgivings. It is interesting, therefore, to find him writing to Lodge on 3 April 1917 as follows:
- My dear Lodge,
- I am interested about a spirit photo sent to you, taken by some Crewe Iman (Hope). Miss Stead & my sister in law Mrs Forbes were the sitters. The young head is my nephew by marriage, a fine lad, killed in France. It is very like him in profile. The lower part of the face is not good, but we think some other figure was standing there and obscured it. Stead is very good. I wonder what you will think of it. Mrs Forbes brought the plate and developed it herself, seeing the heads on the negative after development. Only the printing was done at Crewe.
- This man Hope is, I understand, in very poor circumstances. It seems to me a case where some Society which could afford to take him up & establish him in some central point, London for choice, so that his testimony would be available, would do great work.
- I have just finished Hill's book, very good & clear. But there is a book waiting to be written which has not been done yet. No psychical research about it, but a wholehearted acceptance of the position and a determination to make it understood by the people, and to influence the humblest of them. More heart as Raymond said. At present it is as if the Early Christians did nothing but sit around & discuss whether
- Christ's wounds were really (unreadable) or subjective.
- This thing gets more and more hold of me. I mean to put all I have into it when the time comes. But it must ripen naturally.
- Yours sincerely,
The letter is an interesting one for it reveals to what extent ACD was impressed by Hope's work, even at this early stage. His kindness of heart is also readily apparent in the phrase regarding Hope's lowly status. More importantly, perhaps, is the reference to his reading of J. Arthur Hill's Spiritualism, Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine (Cassell, 1918). (Presumably ACD had a review copy of the book or perhaps had been sent the book in typescript by Hill). Even back in 1917 he was thinking of the magnum opus, his History of Spiritualism, which was to remain the most thorough treatment of the subject for many years after its publication.
ACD's letter drew a belated response from Lodge and it contains a warning which ACD must have ignored:
- My dear Conan Doyle
- Referring to your letter about the photograph which I know by your subsequent letter was not sent to me but to Crookes, I had some little experience with the man Hope, and was inclined to consider him fraudulent. If not, his behaviour was exceedingly stupid for it clearly conveyed that impression. Crookes however got a photograph in his presence which impressed him favourably, so I now regard Hope's honesty as an open question.
- I am glad to hear that you are contemplating a book on the general psychic subject some day. I have one in contemplation too. The one I am proposing is at present in my mind roughly in the form of a dialogue, or rather a conversation between people who want to know, people inclined to scoff, and a student or two. Somewhat after the fashion of Galileo's dialogues on the Copernican theory. But it is an ambitious scheme which probably demands more literary skill than I possess...
- J. Arthur Hill has just told me that a Mr Jeffrey, a manufacturer in Glasgow, is more or less looking after Hope financially, so perhaps this means no special need for the present.
- Thanks for your letter, I have only recently returned home.
- Yours very Truly,
Part Two: 1917-1922: The Busy Years
The years that followed ACD's association with the SPR belong to a period in his life when much would change irrevocably. They also mark a time when his views of the spirit world would become clearer and more determined.
In the Autumn of 1916 Lily Loder-Symonds, Lady Conan Doyle's close friend, started to produce startling messages from her brothers, all of whom had been killed at Ypres in the April of 1915. Lily had developed the art of automatic writing and ACD had been impressed by her powers as a medium.
On 4 November 1916 ACD publicly declared his belief in Spiritualism in an article published in the Spiritualist journal Light, and the following year he gave an address (25 October 1917) to the London Spiritualist Alliance at the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. The address was entitled 'The New Revelation'.
His interest in the phenomena of Spiritualism and in particular his work with mediums continued unabated. On 27 July 1917 Lodge wrote to ACD about the investigations conducted in Belfast by Dr Crawford. From 1914 onwards Crawford, a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Queen's University, Belfast, had been conducting a series of experiments with a family of mediums called the Golighers. These sessions were held in an attic of the Goligher's house. Crawford's first report of the proceedings was published in 1917 and entitled The Reality of Psychic Phenomena.
Lodge wrote:
- I don't know if you [ ACD ] are interested in Crawford's experiments.
- I want to go over to Belfast when I can, but I confess I don't like travelling at the present time, except when duty calls. He has remarkable opportunities for investigation.
On 29 July ACD replied:
- I don't think I have the scientific mind. This applies to Crawford also.
- So long as I am convinced of the possibility of such powers the particular instance no longer interests me, but the more remote influences, where my imagination can work, do interest me deeply.
One of the most interesting features of the Goligher sisters was their ability to produce that mysterious substance known as 'ectoplasm', the sticky, glutinous substance that emanated from the body of the medium. Crawford became convinced that plasma originated from the vagina of the medium and he subjected Kathleen Goligher to a number of detailed examinations in order to confirm his view.
At this time ACD was intensely interested in the phenomena produced by mediums. He believed that spirit operators acted on the brain of the sitters and thence on their nervous systems. Small particles were drawn out through their nervous system and thus out through the bodies of the sitters. The streams of energised particles then coalesced to form a pattern and when the medium was at her high pitch of tension the band of particles was re-energised.
In a letter to Lodge dated 26 January 1918 ACD voiced an interesting theory:
- One speculation of mine-I suppose it is nonsense-is that radium may be a substance which has the function of turning ether into matter, and this explains why it forever exists without losing appreciable weight, since it is only a converter... The ether mould idea I have had for some years. I got it after reading de Brath's book 'Psychic Philosophy' and I wrote to him about it. He seemed to think there might be something in it.
Lodge wrote to ACD that he had been greatly interested in the conversion of Ether into Matter and in the dissipation of Matter into Ether. Both ACD and Lodge believed that the physical body had an etheric counterpart which could move about in space in comparative freedom. A number of experiments concerning the etheric body had been conducted by Dr Ochorowicz in 1911 when he obtained the photograph of an etheric hand on a sensitive film rolled together and enclosed in a bottle. Clearly ACD and Lodge followed experiments like these with great interest.
On 13 August 1920 ACD and his family sailed to Australia on a missionary tour. ACD arrived at Freemantle on 17 September and subsequently visited Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. On 19 November he wrote to Lodge about the Cottingley photographs which he had been sent. In fact he had first heard about the photographs early in May 1920 as a result of a conversation with the editor of Light. Gow had been in contract with a Miss Scatcherd, who had seen the photographs and thought them genuine. In June 1920 Edward Gardner, a Theosophist who had made contact with the girls' families in Bradford, contacted ACD.
ACD wrote to Lodge:
- I dare say you have heard that we have got at least three more fairy photos. I say 'at least' because I have received the three extra, making five altogether, but there may have been developments since then. Is it not marvellous! I can't think what the materialists will think of them. We will draw their fire with the first two, and then produce the other three, one of which is a fairy bower, showing them asleep in cocoons! It should make an era.
- I have had the usual adventures and the usual opponents here. As I call myself a religious Spiritualist the opposition is accentuated but you have organised supporters also, who are very keen but oft times injudicious. But there are such noble unselfish souls among them-the stuff of heroes and martyrs. I have examined such mediums as I could ... I sat twice with Bailey.
- I am sure that the alleged exposure in France was a Roman Catholic swindle. I was suspicious of his spirit hands but he produced a nest and fresh egg as an apport after physical examination and it was, I believe, genuine. He had dozens of Cuneiform script tablets apported. How could he do this by fraud? Wallis Budge saw 8 and said they were genuine, receipts for [Handwriting becomes unclear here — KJ].
- How eager people are! They cram the halls and here I have broken records. I may even cover my expenses but as my P & O bill was £1700 it is not likely. However, we take it out in Education. I have had several evidences of spirit attendance and cooperation which I will put into my little book-let the heathen sneer! Our people prove very strong now. A hot-gospel meeting against me was nearly broken up last week.
ACD's opinion of Bailey was sceptical but hopeful. Bailey had a bad track record, having been found guilty of hiding birds in his boots in Grenoble. In March 1914 an investigator saw him pull a Babylonian tablet from his mouth. Bailey always denied this accusation and Professor Reichel, who looked into the matter, confirmed this view. ACD knew that he must tread warily.
The propaganda campaign waged by ACD in the Antipodes convinced him that the way to break down public cynicism was to repeat the process in his own country. On 10 January 1922 he spoke to the Jewish Spiritualists' Society at the Mile End Road, where he displayed his psychic photographs to an appreciative audience. On 6 January he wrote to Lodge expressing his enthusiasm for the field of psychic photography:
- I am very pleased about the photography. I have such great respect for your opinion that it was always a source of uneasiness to me to think that in this one matter there should be a difference in our view [Lodge believed Hope to be a charlatan and on this point he disagreed with ACD KJ]. I think that the very best results ever obtained are now being got by an amateur-a young medical practitioner of exceptional intelligence-must have great weight.
- I knew about Dr Cushman's case, but should much like to see any details and to know what Dr Cushman's scientific position really amounts to.
Dr Allerton Cushman was an American scientist and Spiritualist who had obtained a portrait of his dead daughter through Mrs Deane at the British College of Psychic Science.
The subject of Psychic Photography was to preoccupy ACD during the months that followed. In February, Hope and his circle were investigated by the renowned psychic investigator Harry Price and Hope was revealed as a charlatan-a fact that ACD was never to acknowledge despite subsequent confirmation by Barlow of the SPR.
Commentators have been quick to condemn ACD for his gullibility regarding mediums, yet the unpublished letters reveal this to be an unbalanced view. He was often ready to condemn the bandwagon brigade and knew how naive some Spiritualists could be. When I wrote Conan Doyle and the Spirits (Thorsons, 1989), I was often accused of sitting on the fence regarding ACD's lack of objectivity. Some have been ready to condemn the book's inability to dismiss Conan Doyle as a 'weak-minded Catholic reactionary'. Yet the evidence shows that he went to great pains to test mediums' credentials and it must be remembered that greater scientific minds than his own-Geley and Crookes among them-were often utterly convinced by the cunning of certain skilful charlatans.
On 11 January ACD wrote to Lodge:
- I would warn you against that man Melford of Nottingham with his psychic telephone. I have reason to think that he is a humbug and if you commended him or his ways in any way he might use it as a commercial advertisement. 'Light' has taken him too seriously. That is my private information-a plausible windbag.
- I'll send back the Cushman papers whenever I get home. I came up to lecture at the People's Palace to the Jews. A great success.
- I bring out a small book soon 'The Coming of the Fairies' which gives all the photos, all the arguments pros and cons, all the independent evidence, and lets the reader form his own opinion. I think the case is quite overpoweringly strong.
- Yes, I agree about caution with psychic photos, but in my heart I doubt whether any faked photo has ever at any time been produced by a professional medium. Plenty by conjurors and amateur experimenters. I believe the others are all genuine, for I can't see a man getting real ones one day and fakes on the next. I can understand his getting real ones one day and nothing on the next, which of course occurs. All these difficulties of the light being wrong, the photos being duplicates of well known photos &c are to my mind clear proofs of truth, as a faker's methods would never be so haphazard and obvious.
On 9 April 1922 ACD and his family arrived in the U.S.A. ready for their lecture tour. In March 1922 he had been advised by his spirit guide that he would leave his mark 'for ever upon America'. He returned to England on 24 June, weary but jubilant, and wrote to Lodge on the 26th:
- ... I have been both busy and weary. Now I begin to recover & hope to be all right for lectures in the winter.
- No doubt you read in the papers that I did well in Australia. Even with a party of seven I was able to show a surplus. If you found time to go you would have a great reception. It is too much to ask but I promised Carlisle Smith, the agent, that I would mention it.
- Keedick [an agent — KJ] has been after me for next year but I can't agree to terms which gives the agent, who does so little, the same profit as the lecturer who does everything. So I have turned him down and will make other arrangements.
- The fairies still engage my attention. In August we get the girls together again & provide them with stereoscopic & also cinema cameras. A criticism which has come along as yet touches them in the slightest degree, tho' the attempts at a press 'exposure' have been energetic. Gardner and I are quite confident as to our position. We have now got from another source another gnome photo which has passed the expert photographers. I am sorry to see Arthur Hill inclining towards the cardboard figure hypothesis, which is quite untenable.
- Miss Bessinet is wonderful. My mother showed her face quite clearly & wrote a characteristic letter.
On 20 September ACD wrote to Lodge:
- I found your memory very green in the U.States. Whenever I threw your picture on the screen and said what we all owe to you there was a great response.
- Vale Owen goes out in January. I think those who engineer us have sent you to speak to the Intellectuals, and me to the man in the street & now send him for the ecclesiastically minded. He is one of God's men and will go far. At present he is persecuted that his unhappy son Stacey, with excellent credentials, cannot get a curacy. So if you hear of any patron-horrible word!-there is a man waiting.
- My fairy book is out and has had the usual [unreadable — KJ] fire, but not a soul can find a fact against it. The honesty of the girls is certain. [Unreadable -KJ] & thought forms re I know not.
- I have also a small book on psychic photography in the press, and my American experiences, so I am testifying in various directions for all I am worth. I am very sick of the endless contention but see no honourable alternative.
- I am having a powerful wireless (an American gift) put in. I have a strong presentiment that our crowning proofs will come so, tho' I am not scientific enough to be the discoverer. But surely as we ascend into etheric forces we must be nearer to them.
Lodge wrote back to ACD on 26 September:
- I admire your vigorous energy and congratulate you on the amount of work you are able to do... Thank you for telling me about the friendly memory which the Americans had of my visit. ... Keedick wants me to go again [to America — KJ] to do the Southern States. I am interested to hear that you are thinking of going again next spring. I am sure that you are better at it than I am. But pardon me, I don't see what the public have to do with your budget, or why you should not accumulate a little fund for helping the subject on when and how you may privately choose. That is at any rate what I shall do. The labourer is worthy of his hire.
- As to Wireless, Raymond certainly expresses himself as hopeful of getting something through etherically: though whether it will come by ordinary Wireless I am not clear. I have had apparatus rigged up for some time to give him a chance, but feel sure that (also in accord with his expectation) we will have to begin with a direct voice medium. I am able to magnify very feeble voices, but it is difficult to exclude completely all outside sounds, to which naturally it is very sensitive: and if I enclose it too completely I may be excluding 'them' too. Still sooner or later I expect someone will get results.
- I am sorry still to differ from you about the fairies, on the strength of local information supplied by J Arthur Hill. But, there again, time will show which is right.
- I have taken some psychic photographs here with Mrs Deane, and though they are not completely watertight, the strong probability in my mind is that extras can be photographed. Indeed if materialisations are realities-and they certainly appear to be-photography of them is bound to be possible. And there are many grades of materialisation. [Mrs Ada Emma Deane was an elderly working-class woman whose psychic career was the object of great criticism and suspicion mainly because of her insistence on keeping her psychic photographs in her own possession for 'magnetising'. In 1921 Allerton Cushman obtained on his own photographic plate a striking portrait of his dead daughter who died the previous year. In the following year the Magic Circle published a report claiming to have exposed Mrs Deane — KJ].
- I am going to Paris next week, and shall see some of Geley's results with Kluski, Ossoviecki, and others. [Two Polish mediums who produced remarkable results under laboratory conditions — KJ].
- I hope that Vale Owen will have a useful time in America. [The Rev. George Vale Owen (1869-1931) was an outstanding teacher of Spiritualism. He was Vicar of Orford near Warrington. After some psychic experiments he developed automatic writing and received from higher beings an account of life after death. Lord Northcliffe published them in the Weekly Dispatch. The result was persecution from the hierarchy of the Anglican church. He resigned and then began a lecture tour in America and England. He finally became a pastor in a London Spiritualist church. He wrote several books, the most famous being Life Beyond the Veil. — KJ]. I do not know what gift of speech he has, but no doubt he will be acting under guidance. He is I feel sure one of the best men: though his automatic writings do not happen to appeal to me strongly. In fact I find them rather tedious. But there must be many to whom they may be helpful, just as Swedenborg's utterances have been to many. We live in important times and there is evidently a serious effort being made by higher powers to bring about a better state of things, and to reconcile and regenerate the nations. The operation will be slow, but I think sure.
The subject of psychic photography preoccupied ACD through the year of 1922. ACD had long believed in the genuineness of William Hope, the spirit photographer. On this matter ACD and Lodge disagreed. In February 1922 an investigation was carried out into Hope's methods by Harry Price, a member of the SPR. This was conducted at the British College of Psychic Science. Price and Seymour (also from the SPR) brought plates from the Imperial Dry Plate Co. Six of these were then made up into a single packet and treated with X-rays so Hope would not know their marked identity. After a seance lasting some minutes, Hope took several photographs by the light of magnesium flares. He then accompanied Price into the darkroom where the package was opened and the two top plates placed in the plate carrier. Hope picked up the carrier and asked Price to wrap up the rest of the plates. At this point Price maintained he saw Hope 'put the dark slide to his left breast-pocket, and take it out again (another one?) without any talking or knocking.'
One of the criticisms Price made was that the glass which the plates were made from, and on which they appeared, was different in colour and thickness from the glass brought by Price. ACD pointed out that the packet of plates had been in the possession of the officials of the SPR for several weeks before the experiment and that therefore they were available to all and sundry. In his opinion, Hope had been framed.
The conspiracy theory regarding Hope was later turned into a now scarce book entitled The Case for Spirit Photography (1922). ACD's letters to Lodge at this period reflect his outrage and sense of justice over the affair.
On 17 November 1922 Lodge wrote to ACD:
- ... there has come a resolution from the members of the Psychic College, in which the words 'has been tampered with' occur. It is not clear what they mean, since of course the packet has been opened. It looks as if they meant 'had been tampered with'-meaning previous to its coming into Hope's hands. They don't say that however, and I am unwilling to suppose that they intend an accusation of a diabolical crime, viz. the planting of a fake plate upon Hope in order subsequently to accuse him of it.
ACD wrote back the following day:
- Yes, we all take the view that the packet had been tampered with before it reached the College, and this could only have been done in order to change the plates.
- The mark where the label has been turned back after being steamed is quite plain, and there is inside evidence as well. The Imperial Dry Plate Company, I understand, are willing to corroborate our views.
- It was clear even before this that someone in the Councils of the Investigators had returned the marked plate by post & since it was undeveloped no one else could have known that it was a marked plate. The College & Hope knew nothing of the matter for [unclear — KJ] months or more, nor had they any means of knowing that a test had been made. We accuse no one as yet, but we want:
- 1. An acknowledgement of the facts, which clear Hope.
- 2. That the SPR admit their responsibility to find the culprit.
- We have put up a reward with no success up to now.
- We have no assurance that Barrett, you, and other members of the Council who are not hostile to Spiritualism are having the facts put clearly before you. In fact the surprise confessed in your letter seems to show that you are not. You call it diabolical and so do I, but there are cynical people who would regard it as a sort of practical joke upon the Spiritualists. We meet again on Tuesday for microscopic examination of the packet.
On 23 November Lodge wrote back:
- I learn from the SPR that their request for the return of the wrapper, which is their property, has been declined, and that it is going to be deposited somewhere in your name and my own.
Lodge clearly objected to this procedure and complained to ACD:
- Surely no one will have the idea that the Council wish to tamper with the wrapper: and it certainly ought to be returned to them for inspection.
ACD remained unconvinced. On the 24th he wrote to Lodge:
- Speaking for myself I am sure that if the proposal were made that this most vital piece of evidence were put into your guardianship I should at once support it. But in the past it is very difficult to believe that the Council actually condemned a man like Hope and refuse for nine months to let us inspect the evidence so as to check it. When we did check it it crumbled at once. It is this fear that we are giving the evidence into the hands of those who are from our point of view responsible which makes us shy of doing it.
So the rift between ACD and the officials of the SPR began. ACD continued to stick by his principles and was ever on the side of fair play. He was convinced that Hope was the victim of a trick. What we now know about the life and career of Harry Price, especially his involvement with the Borley Rectory affair, would suggest that he might have been entirely responsible for setting up Hope in the manner suggested by ACD. However, at the time, the SPR was moving far more towards a sceptical view regarding psychic photography. This is hardly surprising if one considers the number of fraudulent practitioners around at the time and the opportunities for deceit using older style processing.
Nevertheless the Hope affair provided yet one more wedge between ACD and the establishment. Even within the orthodoxy of psychic investigation, it seemed, he could claim few friends. As the years passed he was to feel increasingly alienated in the world of Spiritualist investigation and the bond between Lodge and himself grew ever stronger.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
