Why Spiritualism?
Why Spiritualism? is an article written by Anne Jordan published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 3, 1992).
This article argues that Conan Doyle's public commitment to Spiritualism in 1916 was not naive credulity but a rational and deeply personal decision shaped by childhood religious conflict, scientific inquiry, and the theological tenets of the faith itself. It contends that Spiritualism offered him a coherent framework reconciling justice, morality, science, and hope of survival after death.
Why Spiritualism?
Tunbridge Wells 1992
In this article I offer my personal views of the somewhat contentious issue as to why, in 1916. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a public declaration that he was a believer in Spiritualism, and subsequently spent the rest of his life, and most of his fortune, furthering the spiritualist cause. Many biographers have chosen to ignore the subject, considering simply that Conan Doyle was naive and gullible because he had what Trevor Hall describes as a complete faith in the goodness and honesty of the human animal and a psychological need for religion.' John Dickson Carr assumed that this man with no damned nonsense about him' must have become ill and asked: 'What ailed the man?'. (1) Conan Doyle, however, believed he had 'preserved a sane and balanced judgment' when he accepted the faith, and it is my aim to show that, by converting to Spiritualism, he was making what for him was, at that point in his life, a rational choice.
Many scholars have problems reconciling Conan Doyle the medical man and writer with Conan Doyle the Spiritualist because they dwell on the fake seances and fraudulent mediums he encountered, rather than paying attention to the beliefs of the faith which he embraced. It was not the seances which converted Conan Doyle to Spiritualism, but the tenets of the faith. He wrote that 'the world chooses not to examine the evidence' that God had sent a new message, and felt that it was his duty to spread that message as a missionary. In looking at the situation 'wrong end foremost, many writers have questioned how such a brilliant man could be duped. Conan Doyle was not duped. He frequently wrote of his awareness of fraudulent mediums and knew that he was on debatable ground. Conan Doyle made it clear that, when he attended meetings, he was seeking scientific proof to verify what he already believed. He wrote in 'The Psychic Question as I See it' that, having converted to Spiritualism, he was determined to devote all his time to it, 'testing very many mediums, good and bad
.' It has to be remembered that not all leading mediums were proved to be fraudulent: Daniel Dunglas Home, for example, was examined by hundreds of scientists, conjurers, priests and policemen, but was never proved to use trickery. All who saw his levitations, experienced table-rapping at his seances, or saw the materialisation of hands, found the events incredible but could never find any way of proving they were anything other than manifestations from the spirit world. Was Conan Doyle's search for proof so different to that of believers in other religious traditions who demanded miracles which would give extra credence to their faith? Consider the use of relics by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages: the belief that money paid at the site of a relic gained forgiveness of sins and increased the chances of salvation was encouraged by the Church. In the sixteenth century the largest collection of Christian relics outside Rome was at Wittenberg and contained items which would now be dismissed as fakes: part of the true cross. phials containing the breath of Christ, the milk and tears of the Virgin Mary, a feather from a wing of the Angel Gabriel, and straw from the manger in Bethlehem. Although many theologians of the time spoke out against these frauds. it did not stem the desire to visit the relics, nor did the majority of the theologians waver from their Christian beliefs. Conan Doyle was in a similar position: he recognised that Spiritualism had its fraudulent element and was therefore no different to any other religious tradition. He wrote in a letter to the press:
Spiritualism is no more to be judged by venal public mediums than Christianity is to be condemned because in every Church there are a certain number of hypocrites and time-servers.
Martin Luther, the 'Father of the Protestant Reformation'. could not accept Catholic teaching that an individual could gain forgiveness from God through his own actions. nor that the purchase of indulgences could gain forgiveness from God for any sin. The more Luther considered the teachings of the Catholic Church, the more he felt that he had to break away. As his Protestant movement developed. Luther was criticised, persecuted and declared a heretic. Four hundred years later. Luther's teachings are respectable and accepted by thousands of Christians. Will the same be true of Conan Doyle's beliefs in the future? By declaring himself to be a Spiritualist. he too was considered in error and experienced rejection. Such a reaction to new religious ideas is the norm and it should be remembered that modern Spiritualism and Conan Doyle developed together. However, not all eyes are blind and there is a willingness to consider the ideas that he put forward. As may be seen from the recent success of stage and screen presentations, such as Ghost and Truly, Madly, Deeply, there is a modern-day interest in the possibility of communication with the spirit world. In 1972 the Church of England set up a committee to investigate the possibility of contact with the spirit world. The committee did not publish its findings in detail but there has been a breakthrough: it was certainly not an investigation which would have been considered during Conan Doyle's lifetime. Was Conan Doyle, as in so many other areas, simply ahead of his time? As time passes. will his ideas on life after death be seen as totally acceptable?
Why did Conan Doyle choose Spiritualism? I think that there are three elements to the solution to that question: the influence of his childhood; the coincidence of the rise of modern Spiritualism with his own search for a meaning to life: and the tenets of Spiritualism, which allowed him to combine the romantic and scientific sides of his nature. From his point of view he pursued a perfectly rational course. As he said himself: 'the spiritualistic movement... is the first attempt ever made in modern times to support faith by actual provable facts
.'
Childhood experiences led Conan Doyle to doubt the orthodox Christian teaching. Conan Doyle was brought up in Calvinist Scotland where the Pope was seen as the Anti-Christ an to be Catholic was to be an outcast viewed with suspicion. The Calvinist church teaches the predestination of the elect and assumes that elect to be Calvinists. All those outside the Calvinist church are therefore most likely to be predestined for damnation. Conan Doyle, with his strong sense of justice, would have found such teaching unacceptable. To think that his beloved mother, who had fought so hard to bring up her family, would be damned because she was born a Catholic would have been anathema to him. His own Catholic faith brought him no greater comfort in a just God, especially when he heard Father Murphy declare that there was sure damnation for everyone outside the Church. Such teaching would become even more significant to him after his mother left the faith. Conan Doyle became convinced that Catholicism was in error regarding God's treatment of sinners in the afterlife. I feel sure that the theme of gruesome torture which recurs in his writing is the result of a Jesuit education which had as its emphasis the torments awaiting sinners in purgatory or hell. His medical training made him doubt that there was a personal destiny and yet he could not totally forego a belief in God. For a time he was agnostic but, as can be seen in his writings, was continually seeking a meaning to life. In 'The Cardboard Box' we can hear Conan Doyle's search when Holmes asks:
- What is the meaning of it. Watson? ... What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.
Conan Doyle found the answer in Spiritualism as is demonstrated when Holmes remarks in 'The Creeping Man' ... that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher...'
Conan Doyle came to believe that fundamental morality was fixed and that Spiritualism was the straight path to follow. Spiritualism, with its teaching that all religions are equal, that the afterlife is for all; where the pettiness of this world ceases, must have seemed a much more attractive option. Any beliefs which seemed unreasoned were unacceptable to him. He came to see Catholicism as blind dogma and Spiritualism as the only logical faith to follow. Conan Doyle was a man with a great capacity to love his fellow men and to have the opportunity to preach that there was a better life for all. rather than the traditional teachings of reward or punishment in the afterlife according to the way one has lived or, more significantly, worshipped. must have appealed to him. As he wrote in The Vital Message. Spiritualism abolishes the idea of a grotesque hell and a fantastic heaven. while it substitutes the conception of a gradual rise in the scale of existence without any monstrous change which would turn us in an instant from man to angel or devil.
Luther had pointed out four hundred years earlier that. for those brought up in the Catholic faith, it is very difficult to totally remove Catholic teachings from the mind. Conan Doyle stated that although his doubts about Christianity drove him to agnosticism he never degenerated into atheism.
Spiritualism, by not totally rejecting Christ, allowed Conan Doyle to retain many essential principles which were part of his psyche. Conan Doyle needed a faith which allowed him to reconcile the scientific ideas of the period, such as Darwinism, with his own ideas of justice and fair play and the religious tradition in which he had grown up. Spiritualists believe that the Christian churches corrupted the original message of Jesus by introducing the ideas of punishment and reward, heaven and hell, and that Christ was, in fact, a medium, with one of the greatest seances of all time occurring at Pentecost. The Resurrection is, to them, proof that death is not the end and that at death people join with those gone before.
At the same time as the adult Conan Doyle was seeking to resolve his dilemma concerning man's eternal fate, modern Spiritualism was coming to prominence. It had begun in 1848 when the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York State, claimed to have heard rappings in their home which were said to have been caused by the spirit of a murdered man who had been buried in the cellar. From there the faith spread to become an international movement. It is the stress laid on physical phenomena, as proof of the spirit world, such as the movement of furniture, spirit lights and voices. partial or full materialisation of spirits, spirit photographs and writing, which made modern Spiritualism different from other religious traditions. The majority of such manifestations were proved to be fraudulent and, as such, brought discredit on the movement. The rise and fall of Spiritualism coincides with the life of Conan Doyle, and both coincide with a period of religious turmoil. This, I feel, is significant when considering his adoption of the faith. Darwin's On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, published in 1859 (the year of Conan Doyle's birth), had led many to doubt a divine creation. Anglican theologians were attempting to remove the miraculous elements from the Bible by providing rational explanations. Rationalists were claiming that many of the miracles were either myths, added later to give credence to Jesus' claim to be the Son of God, or deliberate fakes on the part of Jesus and the Apostles to delude the ignorant. Conan Doyle may have been attracted by Spiritualism's trying to put back the miraculous element into religion, and attempting to ascribe the miracles to the different categories of spirit writings, materialisation and levitations. The Roman Catholic Church was not against miracles, as the visions of St Bernadette in 1858 had brought a growing reputation to Lourdes, and there were numerous accounts of levitations such as Maria of Monte San Sevino, who had been witnessed floating for two hours, two feet in the air in a kneeling position. However, similar claims by those outside the Catholic faith were condemned as the works of the Devil. Home, who would not accept monastic orders when offered them by Rome, was excommunicated in 1864 for practising sorcery. This led to the rejection of Spiritualism by many theologians without its being given a fair hearing. William Moses wrote that the result would be that 'decent people will turn away and knowing the only side that suits the critics to present will think that Spiritualists are a mere crew of evil-doers.'
The Catholic Church's reaction would make the fair-minded Conan Doyle more determined to investigate the phenomena associated with Spiritualism and to make people aware of what he saw as the truth.
My original premise was that the error many writers make is to concentrate on the frauds and forget that any faith is based, first and foremost, on the beliefs which are central to that faith. Conan Doyle supported the cause of Spiritualism and, when the tenets of Spiritualism are examined, it becomes more clear why he was a spiritualist. The appeal of the teaching that there is an afterlife became more attractive when Conan Doyle, who had suffered the loss of his son and other close relatives and friends during the Great War, was put into contact with them. I stress, however, that Conan Doyle did not turn to Spiritualism out of grief: he was already committed to the cause before the Great War and was lecturing on Spiritualism when news of his son's death reached him. Spiritualism has two basic propositions: that the human personality demonstrably survives the death of the body and that it is possible, for those still living, to communicate with these surviving personalities or 'spirits', notably through the agency of certain especially gifted persons known as mediums. Associated with these propositions are the further beliefs that the communicating spirits give substantially correct accounts of the other side of death. The idea of survival after death is nothing new. There is reference in the Old Testament to the Witch of Endor raising the spirit of Samuel. North American Indians believed in the spirit going on after death, hence the scalping of the dead to release the trapped spirit which could go on to 'the happy hunting ground'.
To a spiritualist, the after-life is a continuation of this world, where individuals develop and progress after death. Death is the transition between two worlds: the physical world, with all its frailties, is the inferior stage. Those who die fall into a sleep from which they wake to an after-life where, using Conan Doyle's own description, 'The soul is a complete duplicate of the body. resembling it in the smallest particular, although constructed in some far more tenuous material.
' (The Vital Message)
Those who have 'passed over' are not sitting on a cloud playing a harp for eternity, but continue to do good works, to learn, to play and to have what they want for as long as they want, until they are able to let go and make further spiritual progress. Jesus' words 'In my father's house there are many mansions are seen as referring to these stages of development. What of those who have tormented their fellow humans? Is it fair that they do as they wish without punishment? The punishment is the after-death realisation of what they did to others in life. Conan Doyle describes this as the mists, the darkness, the aimless wanderings, the mental confusion. the remorse. Such individuals are at the lowest sphere and are re-trained in the after-life to better themselves. Sin in the after-life is not using that life to achieve one's full potential. There is no sexual intercourse in the other world. but married couples who wish to remain together may do so and give each other mutual comfort. Age disappears and the body becomes healthy. All live in a world which Conan Doyle called 'unselfish and patient'. Alcoholics would arrive in the spirit world with a craving for drink but, gradually, the craving would lessen, enabling them to lead a normal life and able to fulfil a true potential not achieved in this world because of the addiction. Charles Doyle's alcoholism was possibly a reason behind the recurrent theme of alcoholism in ACD's writing. Add to this the feeling of inability to help when his father was institutionalised which, for a medical man, must have been very difficult to accept, and we may possibly recognise ACD's hopes of meeting his father as the sensitive artist rather than the alcoholic another factor which may have influenced his decision to become a Spiritualist. The following description of the spirit world as delivered to a medium (Mrs Vivian Lee) is worthy of consideration:
- You cannot possibly visualise the beauties of these spheres with its gorgeous flowers which are ever-blooming and with such sweet perfumes. The scenes of happiness around us, beautiful white and coloured structures, and the unbelievable coloured effects. The placid lagoons, the luscious green meadows and the beautiful colouring of the bird life and enveloping it all the peaceful calm and happy atmosphere. (2)
Would not such a world appeal to a man whose childhood had been steeped in a world of romantic chivalry? Why Spiritualism? Kelvin I. Jones' words are as succinct as any:
Spiritualism provided the answer [the] framework upon which to hang his training, hopes and beliefs. Spiritualism was no longer a question of proof it was a matter of sustainable faith. (3)
References
1. Inglis. Brian: Natural and Supernatural; Hodder & Stoughton, 1977.
2. Philips, P. & S.: Is Death the End?: Corgi, 1972.
3. Jones, Kelvin I.: Conan Doyle and the Spirits; Aquarian Press, 1989.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
