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As another confirmation of Schopenhauer's doctrine, it could be said that Doyle's Will overcame his Reason. He wanted desperately to communicate with his deceased son. No Holmesian logic would deter him.

We can speak with dead with the help of Spirit is doubtful. But curiosity of spirituality is inborn in man` nature.
Mankind searching from ancient time who we are, from where we came, what happen after death these question are haunting to all mankind forever.Different way people are searching answer for these question, so if there are no scientific proof of spirituality curiosity of this subject never die.

This is the impasse of rationalism, where a victory of reason is no victory at all. As I see all around myself, there is no way one's going to persuade a spiritualist/evangelist that miracles don't happen/exist. Their voluntary embrace of irrationality overcomes sound reason. They will keep telling you that there is more to it than you can know/understand/see.

Strictly speking, you cannot 'prove' the primacy of reason in a debate with rational arguments because that's already what you're trying to prove. It'd be dogmatic to claim everything can be explained through reason when reason itself is at stake.

Moreover, enlightment rationalists did not have to deal with memories of holocaust, world wars, hiroshima and 9/11 and prospects of possible mass extinction. Richard Dawkins accuses postmodern pluralism, but he probably forgot that postmodernism itself is an offshoot of the failure of enlightment project.

It's interesting that most respondents make Holmes out to be a hyper-rational hero - but in many of the stories Holmes' analysis have at least a little privileged information, so that the reader cannot deduce, as Holmes does, the causes of various events. Thus Holmes is not a rational hero, but a mystic rationalist, much like the protagonists of Star Trek.
Doyle grew to detest Holmes, which is why he polished him off in the notorious waterfall scene with Moriarty.
Doyle preferred Sir Nigel Loring, his medieval hero, but his public, unhappily, did not.

Proper respects to Steve Meikle for the comment on 05-19-09. Amid the flaming snarks who sometimes overrun the internet, pieces of wisdom like yours offer refreshing insight instead of the usual invitations to sneer. Special appreciation for your question, "what makes one think that the intelligent are necessarily wise and thus immune to nonsense?" Those with strength of character sometimes seem to be the real minority in the world. At least Doyle was only an author -- without strength of character in our leaders, we are left behind while they chase pretty little fairies.

Julian Barnes's novel Arthur & George, apart from being a rattling good read, offers a very interesting interpretation of Conan Doyle's interest in these things. He was fully aware, it seems, that most people regard spiritualism as a fraud; his attitude, bolstered by that of his friend and very much admired physicist, Oliver Lodge, was that it was another of those things previously deemed impossible -- like the flight of heavier-than-air objects, or radio -- which science had just not yet elucidated.

Empirical rationalism can go hand in hand with superstition. The great Newton indulged in idiotic Biblical exegeses. The pity is that the stupidities of spiritualism lend support to materialism in its tendency to lead us away from affirming the need for spiritual values and a spiritual life.

It is one great irony, this proponent of shrewd deductive reasoning and the illusionist entertainer, and my favorite story of the two happened in 1920 at Atlantic City, I believe it was. Doyle was friendly with Houdini and constantly inveigled him to join his spiritualist crusade, but Harry always escaped his clutches. This day Doyle invited Harry to sit with his wife, who would then perform her automatic writing stunt to contact the sainted mother of Houdini. Okay, says Harry. He had been a student of extranonsensory babble for some time, inspired by that very wish to know if he might connect with his deceased mother.

What followed was the usual theatrical trance and scribbling and Mrs Doyle did indeed make contact with Mrs Houdini and the conversation was mostly that esteemed lady's praise of the medium by which they were in contact. It's like a phone call from a long-dead relative and she cannot stop talking about the wonders of 3G on the iPhone.

Very nice, thank you, said Harry, always the gentleman. Whereupon the Doyles returned to England to triumphantly announce the great Harry Houdini had been convinced by Mrs Doyle to join their Twits for Twaddle movement.

Not so, said Harry, when informed of the premature celebration overseas. You see, while Mum had lived in this country for sixty years, she never learned a word of English. Also, it happened the seance occurred on her birthday, and "she" never even mentioned it.

The friendship with the Doyles ended shortly thereafter.

The most likely explanation for the madness of Sir Art is dementia.

It’s a shame that biographers treat Doyle’s quest to find out the truth about what happens when we die with such disrespect.
It is understandable that people posting here might, but they are not claiming to know or understand Doyle as biographers often do, and if you don’t believe in the survival which Arthur did, there is no real point in slagging him off when he’s not here to defend himself.

Andrew Lycett’s visit to Rochester Spiritualist church is quite funny really.

Picture the scene. “Arthur, are you there? I’m writing a book and telling people you were deluded because you believed in life after death, even though i have no idea what will happen to me when the day comes, and if you could just confirm you are there maybe i will re-write my book?”

What did he expect to happen, did he really thing Arthur would be sitting there ready to contribute? it’s hysterical when you think about it...

A popular misconception is that Doyle was involved with afterlife studies because his son died. Were this true it would be a good motivation for investigating, but the fact is that he started investigating in 1887 when he visited a spiritualist church in Portsmouth. He then studied the phenomena for 29 years before writing his first book on the subject, 'The New Revelation' which came out in March 1918. I’m not a Doyle expert but as far as i am aware, His son Kingsley died October 28th 1918. Maybe he had a premonition about it and that’s why he was upset :-)

Another statement often made is that Spiritualism has been completely debunked. Spiritualism claims that some part of us (Our spirit) survives physical death, or putting it another way, that consciousness is not a product of the brain, that it is primary, and that the mind and the brain are separate. This is one of the BIG questions that is still being investigated today, and if it has seriously been disproved, will the person responsible please let everyone know how, because there are a few billon people around the world who would like to know... I wonder what they will all do on Sundays?

Another statement made is that there has never been any evidence of anything psychic ever happening. This is also a misconception.
There are studies that have been going on for years showing evidence for clairvoyance, remote viewing, telepathy, near death experiences, if anyone cares to go out and look for it.

Lastly, there are millions of sane rational people round the world who experience psychic events every day that shouldn’t happen to them according to the materialist paradigm.
But these experiences often stay with them and change their lives, and to say they are stupid or talking ‘mumbo jumbo‘ is not only disrespectful but often said in ignorance.

Of course sometimes Doyle got it wrong, the Cottingley fairies being a good example, but that doesn’t change the truth, and he was just trying to discover the truth about who we are and why we are here.

It is easy to be a sceptic, but if one doesn’t investigate thoroughly or if one dismisses the evidence, even when its there, the sceptic is not being honest, but just falling back on his or her materialist belief system, which after all is just another faith based system.

The great thing is it doesn’t matter what anyone of us think, because eventually we will all die and we will all find out the truth, and Arthur may just have the last laugh.

I still think Hamlet was right, that some sense of humility about what we don't know is in order, and that Mr. Lycett comes off as a rather dull Horatio.

Having been something of a fan of the Holmes series as a youngster (if a fallen one decades later), I found this article very interesting. However, I'm commenting more because of the discussion thread here, which is one of the most thoughtful I've read in a very loong time, and hats off to every contributor for (1.) knowing something of what you speak, (2.) couching what you know clearly, (3.) bringing something worthy of reflection to the discussion table, and (4.) doing all this even while maintaining civility, courtesy, and decorum.

Take, for instance, Rick's comment "A strange irony perhaps." Truth be known, I'm merely noting a "glimpse of the blindingly obvious" that what he says regarding spiritualism, in the context of Doyle, the Edwardian era, etc. can easily -- and, I believe, fairly -- expanded to cover all religion and other mysticism.

Don't misunderstand me: I am (if I must accept a label) an agnostic, I suppose, certainly open to evidence. In fact, I hope the spiritualists, preachers, mystics, mediums, etc. are onto something -- after all, it's hardly inspiring to think that at the end of it all nothing more happens than we cease, period.

And to think I very nearly became an Episcopalian (the American equivalent of Anglican) priest in my youth!

It's a downright tragedy that a field such as this is such a goldmine for hucksters/fraudsters/charlatans. Those sorts of folks make it difficult to distinguish who is seriously interested in particular phenomena and themselves (the fraudsters).

The UFO field provides a good parallel. Serious scientists are engaged in considering what the possibilities might be -- after all, one can now get formal degrees in such fields as astrobiology, space law, and the like.

Anyway, thanks to the author of the article and to all the respondents. I spend many hours every day online reading articles about just about every subject there is, and most of the time, discussions such as this quickly degenerate into slanging matches -- you know, the sort of "discussion" in which people resort to 'RTO999 -- YOUR A COMPLETE IDIOT!!!" My misspelling of "you're" as "your" is deliberate, to underswcore the probable inability of the writer to realize his own error (which generously assume he ever attended school).

Cheers!

The first part of this article is less about Dolyle, more about Andrew Lycett's determination to score a point against Spiritualism and flag his prejudices for tired giggles. He makes no attempt to research the religion or to establish what a medium does: instead, he presumes for satirical purposes that a medium should be able to answer his questions on demand. There is nothing about mediumship that should lead anyone to that expectation. It's amazing what a little research can establish.

It is disappointing that a magazine which makes a virtue of its grey matter is reduced to slack-thinking cliches in its approach to matters which by their nature are intangible. Lycett might consider stepping out of his comfort zone of materialist certainties and actually scanning some of the results of para-psychological research conducted over the past century or so in different parts of the world. He might then have a better understanding of Doyle and other things besides and not make a fool of himself at seances.

"This is like being surprised anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as a common bacillus."
-- Proust

Belief in a god, the continuing life of the dead, in fairies, in ufo's, in a philosophy or a political creed, in an economic model, or an historical viewpoint...(etcetera, ad infinitum). It can all be reduced down to basically the same seeming paradox of why some intelligent people like certain foods (colors, clothes, music, books, films, etc.) while others just as equally intelligent absolutely detest them.

The subjective nature of human nature, and experience cannot necessarily be overcome by a man's "intelligence" in the knowledge that two plus two equals four, and other such gifts of education and enlightenment. (Sad to say.)

I doff my hat to you, Mr. Steve Meikle
"a self righteous question"

May 19, 2009 - 19:09

no matter what they say about Doyle, I just adore his works (downloaded them all from http://www.picktorrent.com ) I grew up on them and will gladly read them to my children:) it always happens that after someone's death people start searching for different weired facts in his biography...what for? just enjoy reading!