Conan Doyle on the Others
Conan Doyle on the Others is an article published in the Daily Express on 5 october 1925.
The article quotes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle many times.
Conan Doyle on the Others
FELLOW-AUTHORS CRITICISED.
SUNDAY ADDRESS.
WHAT HE THINKS OF THEIR ARTICLES.
Spiritualists of the Vale Owen Spiritualistic Church packed the Grotrian (late Steinway) Hall yesterday to hear Sir Arthur Conan Doyle discuss the "Daily Express" "My Religion" articles, to which he was a contributor.
The Rev. G. Vale Owen, in a long purple cassock, presided. Mrs. St. Claire Stobart read an extract from one of her own spiritualistic works — a selection which dealt with the life of Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary of Christ, a miracle worker, clairvoyant, and teacher.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle opened with an expression of relief that one daily paper at least could, for a moment, desist front the usual routine of reports and give space for a topic like "My Religion." Then he started to spike the guns of most of the contributors to the series. He began with Mr. Arnold Bennett's article.
"One cannot but admire,"
he said, "the unflinching mental honesty of his declaration, and also the absence of any bitterness towards those whose views may differ from his own, but he is all negative, and I would put it to him that man cannot live on negatives alone.
"I have a great sympathy with Mr. Bennett's position. It was my own, until I learned that agnosticism is not a terminus, but only a junction where you change into another line, leaving your packet of faith behind, late picking up a packet of faith in exchange.
"The same evolution may well occur to the quick brain and inquiring mind of Arnold Bennett... I trust the day may come when he will look into these psychic matters, not superficially, but with that thoroughness which they deserve and need. Then a strong new prophet may arise in Israel."
PHILOSOPHIC MIND.
Mr. Hugh Walpole, said Sir Arthur was "not so positive in his negatives as Mr. Arnold Bennett... Beyond the impression of a kindly philosophic mind, I do not see that Mr. Walpole is in a position to bring help to any one else."
Miss Rebecca West had sympathy for all — "which is right and beautiful" — but Sir Arthur found Miss West's admirable charity to be useless as a guide to the race. The whole horizon may be beautiful, "but we are travellers, not spectators," and want sure guidance.
So he passed to Mr. Openheim and Mr. de Vere Stacpoole — nothing positive in their views. They saw that in life there was nobility as well as baseness — all creeds had sinners as well as saints. Both shrank from Church dogmatism.
Then Mr. Compton Mackenzie. An orthodox Catholic firm in the religion of his childhood.
"If,"
said Sir Arthur, "it makes him happy and is for his spiritual good, hope Mr. Mackenzie will long remain those peaceful waters, and reconcile his reason to doctrines which have repelled so many other earnest minds."
ECTOPLASM.
Mr. Compton Mackenzie had said his reason revolted less from a belief in the resurrection of the body than from a belief in ectoplasm, and that he should prefer a faith in his ultimate obliteration than in a postman's eternity — endless rat-taps on tables.
Sir Arthur waxed indignant at these tilts at spiritualism.
"Mr. Mackenzie does not seem to realise,"
he said, "that what he may prefer or what he may not prefer has really no bearing upon the matter. The great laws of nature, and their evidence as recorded by careful observers, take no heed of individual preferences."
Sir Arthur referred Mr. Mackenzie to the works of Crawford, Richet, Schrenck Notzing, and others as to the evidence for ectoplasm. As for table raps, they were "a very small portion of our psychic experience."
He came out with a challenge on the part of spiritualism:—
"If Mr. Mackenzie can muster an equal amount of evidence for the resurrection of the physical body — of course, we are all agreed as to the spiritual one — then he should let the world know those facts upon which he founds his faith.
"These sneers at spiritualism are simply the measure of his own ignorance of the subject."
That dismissed Mr. Compton Mackenzie.
"CLOAK OF LEVITY."
"My friend, Mr. Zangwill,"
was equally ignorant — "a big-brained and big-hearted man, whose real philanthropic work is often covered by a needless cloak of levity."
Mr. Zangwill was crying for civilised men to find "the next religion." "The idea,"
said Sir Arthur, "that we, the ridiculed spiritualists, may have found it has never entered his head."
As for Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, he had "angled" for him.
"The reason why I have tried to help him — and succeeded perhaps in worrying him — is,"
he said, "that I have an affection for him, and can conceive no greater gift for one man to another than that which I wished to bestow upon him."
The prevailing characteristic of the articles on "My Religion," Sir Arthur continued, might almost be expressed by the aphorism, "The less dogma the more Christ." Two things were needed for the religion of the future, the Christ spirit and direct Spirit Communion.
