Review:The New Revelation/Christopher Roden
This review of the monographs "The New Revelation", "Our Reply to the Cleric", "Spiritualism and Rationalism", "Spiritualism", by Arthur Conan Doyle was written by Christopher Roden and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 8, 1998).
Review
The Rupert Books Monograph Series All of the following by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The New Revelation
- Monograph #3; Rupert Books, Cambridge, 1997; 32pp.
- ISBN: 0-9530869-2-5; £10 (Limited to 400 copies).
- Our Reply to the Cleric
- Monograph #5; Rupert Books, Cambridge, 1998; 32pp.
- ISBN: 0-9530869-4-1; £10 (Limited to 400 copies).
- Spiritualism and Rationalism:
- With a Drastic Examination of Mr Joseph M'Cabe
- Monograph #7; Rupert Books, Cambridge, 1998; 50pp.
- ISBN: 0-9530869-6-8; £10 (Limited to 400 copies).
- Spiritualism: Some Straight Questions and Direct Answers
- Monograph #8; Rupert Books, Cambridge, 1998; 28pp.
- ISBN: 0-9530869-7-6; £10 (Limited to 400 copies).
Reviewed by Christopher Roden
Rupert Books' Monograph Series continues apace with the release of a further four Conan Doyle Spiritualist-related items.
The New Revelation is not, as a first glance at the title may suggest, Conan Doyle's 1918 declaration of his new faith. Instead, this booklet reprints in facsimile form a previously bibliographically unknown item, published by The Progressive Thinker Publishing House, Chicago in 1917. As Richard Lancelyn Green explains in his afterword, 'No transcript of [[[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s lecture on "The New Revelation" given to the London Spiritualist Alliance on 25 October 1917] was immediately available (though the Sunday Times on 28 October 1917 published an article by Doyle giving the gist of what he had said under the title, "Phenomena and Religion of Spiritualism. A New Revelation"). The speech could not be reprinted in Light, as Doyle's literary agent had arranged to have it copyrighted in America by the Metropolitan Magazine Company who had acquired the serial rights. They issued it as a copyright pamphlet on 5 November 1917 and published it in the Metropolitan Magazine in January 1918. Instead of a verbatim report, Light provided a full summary based on the original text... [which] was used for the present pamphlet.' Green comments that the speech is more direct and personal than the book, and concludes: 'whether one accepts the argument or not, few would disagree with Max Pemberton who called it a "noble utterance", a profound confession of faith from a man who believes that a new revelation has been given to mankind.'
Our Reply To The Cleric reproduces in facsimile form Conan Doyle's lecture in Leicester on 19 October 1919. In essence, the speech is a reply to an outspoken attack on Spiritualism made at the Church Congress in Leicester by the Rev. J. A. Magee. It is a clear statement of how Conan Doyle viewed the relationship between Church and Spiritualism.
As Michael Homer notes in his afterword: 'Conan Doyle's speech demonstrates[s] that the battle lines were drawn and that neither the Spiritualists nor the churches would retreat-not in 1919 in Leicester and not for the next decade when Conan Doyle continued to speak and proselytize on behalf of Spiritualism. ... Even if traditional religion was split into numerous denominations and perhaps losing its own battle with secularism, Conan Doyle's new revelation ultimately failed to provide a doctrine or methodology to unify them.'
Spiritualism and Rationalism is a somewhat intense tract, which continues the public debate held in the Queen's Hall in March 1920 Conan Doyle's considered response to the claim made by Joseph M'Cabe that Spiritualism was based on fraud and depended upon trickery. Again the afterword to this facsimile is supplied by Michael Homer, who notes that although [ Conan Doyle ] had detractors prior to writing this pamphlet ... he had not come up against a critic with such a "take no prisoners" attitude as he did in 1920 when he battled materialist and super-skeptic Joseph McCabe.'
It was a bitter argument, even though, generally, Conan Doyle managed to maintain his good manners. Occasionally his bitterness was to show through, as, for example in his concluding remarks in this pamphlet: ... I leave such attacks to the judgment of the reader. It is the maker of them, not the object, who is tarnished. Everyone who differs from him is a fraud, a fool, or a drunkard.
Spiritualism: Some Straight Questions and Direct Answers provides facsimiles of three, of four known, separate printings of this particular leaflet. The purpose of the leaflet was to provide ready answers for questions that Conan Doyle was asked time and again. Richard Lancelyn Green notes: 'It was intended for a broad audience, some well educated and some not, and was written so that the basic themes of Spiritualism could be understood.
All in all, these reprints are to be welcomed. This reviewer doubts whether the availability of such material will cause more than a ripple of excitement among other than small numbers of Conan Doyle enthusiasts, but, nonetheless, a welcome amount of previously unaffordable, or unobtainable, material is now accessible to those who need it for their Doylean studies.
Christopher Roden
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
