NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20105, 16 November 1928, Page 16

NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES.

FUTURE OF CLAIRVOYANCY.

PROPHECY BY CONAN DOYLE.

The coming of a clairvoyant' Sherlock Holmes and a practical crimeless world was visualised by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in an interview in London recently. "We shall havo a clairvoyant in attendance at every police station and every offence will bo bunted down so that crime will become, very difficult, if not impossible," be said.

"Clairvoyants will often bo able to tell who actually committed a crime. If you give (hem a portion of the dross of a murdered person tlicy aro frequently able to throw themselves back to the time of a murder and get a kind of intimation of the circumstances of tho murder and how it was done. Even now tho police use clairvoyants surreptitiously in many places—in the intervals of persecuting them.

"Spiritualism is going to revolutionise (lie world in every possible way. It will revolutionise religion by getting back to actual contact, which I have no doubt once existed, but has been completely lost. Then it will revolutionise scienco and medicine and criminology in many ways. The whole question of lunacy and mania and obsession comes up.

"We have at least two doctors in America engaged entirely in casting out devils. Ordinary doctors could do nothing with an invasion by an outside spirit, but these men persuade it to leave. One or two aro just attempting it in this country."

Speaking of the onormous growth of spiritualism Sir Arthur said that thoy had now 550 churches and they would bo at least 200,000 strong if they allied themselves to one of tho political parties at the coming general election. "Wo want an assurance from a party leader that we shall be free from police persecution," he continued. "Tho laws by which mediums aro prosecuted existed long before spiritualism and were applied to lawless characters. To apply them to respectable women and householders is preposterous. I think I should be putting it high if i said that 5 per cent, of mediums were frauds." The principal strength of spiritualism came from the North and he thought there were 50.000 or 60,000 in Manchester alone.

fc'ir Arthur said that although lie would devote himself more to literary work, Sherlock Holmes would not appear again. "He is definitely dead," he said. "There arc plenty niore things to write about."