CONAN DOYLE'S FAITH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20620, 19 July 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

CONAN DOYLE'S FAITH.

SPIRITUALISTIC BELIEFS.

THE ,ONE-TIME MATERIALIST.

STORY OF CHANGE OF VIEW

" EYES OPENED BY THE WAR."

The death of Sir Arthur Conan Thylo has directed renewed attention to bis keen and consistent adherence for many years to the beliefs of spiritualism. The

announcement of his oeath rally last week was followed by a statement that,

as a safeguard against trickery, a secret code word had been arranged between Lady Doylo and himself, this to bo used in any communication from the other world when one or the other had

" passed over." The claim by Mrs. Cottrell. a clairaudient medium, of Napier, that she. had received a lengthy messagepublished in tho llkuai.d of July 11— from the late Sir Arthur Conan Doylo, ;dso camo within .1 few days of the. litter's death.

The following article, entitled " Why I became a Spiritualist," was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doylo, over tlireo years ago and appeared in the. Graphic of April D of that year:—•

When I was a very young man I emerged from Edinburgh University with tho degree of Doctor of Medicine. I was imbued at tho time with entirely jnatorialistic ideas, for I was brought up under the shadow of Huxley, Tindall. Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill and cithers, all of whom rapidly destroyed in the case ./of most of us tho religion of our boyhood. "It seemed to mo at the time that tho material / argument was an unanswerable one. and if it were not for my own psychic knowledge, acquired by reading und experiment, T should still be in tho same frame of mind. I was always a Theist, fnr the universe noeds a central explanation, but why liltlo man should imagine he should survive death seemed to ho as illogical as that the flame should survive the candle or electricity survivo the battery which had caused it. Book Read by Chance. I cannot say that I was satisfied with that, for extinction after death and the loss of all that one lias built tip in one's lifetime of learning and experience seem 3 a stupid waste of material. But, none tiie less, I was content to follow Truth sj far as I could seo it. I was, however, an omnivorous reader, and one day, quite by chance, I read a book called " Tho Memoirs of Judgo Edmonds." J do not know how it came into my hands, but it certainly helped to influence my life. Mr. Edmonds was tho chief judgo o; the New York High Court, and evidently, from his writing, a man of well-balanced intellect; yet, in this book, he narrates how he lost his wife and how, after her death, ho was nble to keep in constant touch with her largely through tho mediumship of his daughter. 1 had always looked upon mediums as impostors and rogues; but it seemed impossible to conceive that this girl was deceiving her father, in so intimate a matter, and the narrative was mixed with many accounts of the abnormal happenings which had occurred in tho Edmonds' household. One book, or ten books, could not convince mo on a matter of such importance, but at least it disposed me to read further and try some experiments for myself. When the Great War Came. I formed an experimental circle of my own without any professional medium, and 1 found, after many sittings, that while some messages carried wisuom, others were foolish and occasionally false. It was such a unx-up that 1. in mv busy life, could not find tiiuo to disentangle it; and though i was perfectly convinced that these phenomena did occur, 1 was not yet able to say what exact value was to bo placeu upon them in tho general scheme of things. It was the war which opened my eyes. It was suddenly borne in upon me how j enormou'slv important this question is, j and how,'when all the woild was asking j what becomes of all these splendid young 1 men, it was only along this psychic lino j of thought that any definite answer could be obtained. In tho second year of tho war a young ladv friend of my wife's came, to live with us. She " had developed _ that curious faculty called automatic writing, v hero some power outside oneself seems to take possession of one's brain and hand and to produce a narrative entirely beyond one's own powers. It happened f hat this'lady had lost three brothers already in the war and that my wife | had lost her brother at Mons. Tour Soldiers Come Through. These four soldier boys came through j the hand of this girl, giving military detail and other masculine points and each preserving his own character. l'inally they developed the gift of prophecy. f remember that one of the dead boys had a brother Willy, who bud been captured and was a prisoner at the far end of Germany. We said to him, " Will Willy escape?" Tho reply was, " Yes." ,We then said, " How?" Tho reply was, In a train." Shortly afterwards Willy did escape. We then sent liini a note of what the spirit had said. lie wrote back: "This is most amazing. I came | -across from Silesia in a train, and 1 believe I arn the only prisoner who j escaped in that way." This sort of thing, repeated again and again, absolutely convinced me. It was impossible to stand tip against the evidence. I saw then the mistake I had made in dwelling in the past upon negative things. In science it is only the positive which counts. The experiment that fails is discarded. 1 he experiment that succeeds is built into its place. " The Rest 0i Our Lives," As to the puerile phenomena, I began to recogniso that they were mere signals in order to attract our attention. The whole existence oi psychic laws and regulations began to dawn j upon mo. From 1916 my wife and I | saw clearly that nothing on earth is so j urgent as that the human race, should j have reliable information as to where they are going and what awaits them j in the world beyond. So impressed were wo with that j thought that wo dedicated tho rest of our lives to /endeavouring to get this knowledge across to the human race, not iri j any sectarian way, but as a wonderful j new instalment of knowledge sent from j the Centre of all wisdom to be added to | whatever religion the person concerned j might, already have. From the time that we undertook that j mission until now is eleven years. We have j travelled together 60,000 miles; and J . have addressed nearly 300 meeting* a' l '' over a-quarter of a million people. I have written seven books on the tub ject; 1 have established a cord ial bureau for propaganda in Victoria Street; w> have spent our time, <>"•' money, energies, everything we ,iave, tov/aM ; the one object, and I think that obi<•< ! about to be obtained, but <la<m •• . share in this. , T h ® ,nost . wonderful thing which >u ' betoll us is the corning of Ph»*rie«'i. i s>ome tunc ago my wife had developed !

writing mediumship of the same typo as that of tho young lady to whom I have alluded. For years that writing differed in no way from tho ordinary experience of mediums. About five years ago, however, thcro was a remarkable change. There caino to us at that time a high spirit calling himself Pheneas, although spirit names are by no means tho same as those by which the individual was known :n .life. Pheneas' own account of himself was that lie was an Arab who had emigrated into Chaldnea and had lived in the town of Ur. When I asked liiin if lie had been thcro in Abraham's time, ho said: " Long before then."

i'heneas appeared to be an old and very wiso spirit. For live years now ho has been our constant companion, a brother to us, a father to my children, full of loving care and sago advice. Lately I have asked if 1 might publish some of his teachings. lie. has •per mittoc] mo to do so, and a 1 iltin volume, " Pheneas Speaks," is now appearing.

1 have endeavoured to give as fully as possible an idea of Pheneas' powers. This. I can assure the public: that my hands have never touched tho work. It has come entirely, either by speech or writing, from tho. semi-entranced mediumship of mv wife. I will take one point to show tho entire reliability of Pheneas and to show that ho is something entirely outside ourselves. In all tho script the death of only two nirn is predicted. Ono was Lord Northeliffe ;it tho time when tho first rumours of his illness had come to this country; and the other was Ibuidini, the conjuror, a trained athlete 111 nerfoct. health at tho time. Both predictions were, of course, fulfilled.

With regard to Houdini, who was an ardent miti-spiritualisl, the prediction of lijs ■ death came in these words: " Ilondini is doomed, doomed, doomed. No longer- shall he stand in the way of God's truth." That came through at least a'year before his death;

So separate is Pheneas from our own minds that he frequently enunciates strong opinions with which both of us disagree, ami occasionally ho shows himself to be- ignorant of matters with which both of us are well asquainted. How broad and beautiful and uplifting those views are can only bo appreciated by those who study them. That is the fine fruit of our spiritual mission. That is, for all I know, its apex. Anyhow, wo continue to regard ourselves as tools in an unseen hand, working for this special end, and what the Great Mind ordains, that shall bo our future.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited New Zealand 011 a spiritualistic lecturing tour ten years ago. He delivered two lectures in Auckland—on December 7 and 8,. 1920.