Spooks, Modesty, and Clothes
Spooks, Modesty, and Clothes is an article published in the Daily Express on 3 november 1917.
Spooks, Modesty, and Clothes
MORE QUESTIONS FOR SIR A. CONAN DOYLE.
TAILORS' BILLS TO PAY?
Much interest has been aroused by Sir A. Conan Doyle's confident assertion in a letter to the "Daily Express" that spooks wear clothes, and that they do so because modesty does not cease with this life. Readers ask:—
- Where do they obtain clothes; do they make them themselves, or are the garments merely spiritual robes?
- Do other natural and acquired emotions continue?
- How does Sir A. Conan Doyle know that spooks wear clothes?
- How does he know the reason?
- Do the Victorian ladies who draped table legs still suffer from such an excess of modesty?
- What about spooks who never were modest ?
Various aspects of the problem are put in the following letters from "Daily Express" readers:—
SIN AND SHAME.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tells us that "the reason spirits wear clothes" is because modesty does not cease with this life. Will he tell us why it does not begin with life? A child is born "unrobed."
Adam and Eve were not ashamed to stand "unrobed" before their Creator, till after they had sinned. The early Greeks described their gods as "unrobed" as they knew it was profanity to say that anything the Creator had made was immodest." — Walter Winans, Carlton Hotel, Pall Mall.
ANOTHER REASON.
From personal experience I am inclined to accept Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's contention that spirits wear clothes, for on occasions when I have grasped materialised "spirit forms" appearing at seances they have invariably been attired in the garments of the character which they represented. Appropriate make-up has even been a feature adopted by officiating mediums.
When the spirit of Dante trod on tin tacks judiciously distributed on the floor of the seance room his make-up, according to tradition was perfect; but his language was most un-Florentine. This, doubtless, was accounted for by the fact that the medium, through whose control the materialisation was made, was a Yankee with no knowledge of the great poet's mother tongue.
If spirit forms do not wear clothes how could they be materialised to the satisfaction of those attending seances, or who could know them only by the accepted get-up? — Stuart C. Cumberland.
TOO MUCH TO ASK.
A famous writer once made his profession of faith something as follows:— I know that I have existed because I have feeling; I know that I shall have ceased to exist when I no longer feel. If it happens that I feel till after I am dead, then I will doubt no more. But I will certainly give a denial to those who come to me and say that I am dead.
That is, I am sure, the mental attitude of many who in youth were brought up in a wholesome faith, but it is unsatisfying, and if a future state could be proved by spiritualism or any other means, I, for one, should be thankful. But Sir A. Conan Doyle's assurance that I shall still have to pay my tailor's bills after I have passed into the beyond is asking too much from An Ordinary Mortal.
