Description:

Doyle Arthur



Arthur Conan Doyle Reflecting on Heaven, Hell, and the Spiritualism Movement: "Those who stop at ectoplasm + never get to the religious implications are as hindered as phycologists would be who stopped at protoplasm + and never got to life."

 

Single page autographed manuscript signed on his personal letterhead of "The Psychic Book Shop and Library", a bookshop dedicated to Spiritualism established in early 1925 by Doyle. Extensively written to both the recto and verso of the letter with fantastic reflective content. Signed by Doyle on the verso as "A Conan Doyle". Several small abrasions, and two punch holes to the left side of the letter. Professional repair to separations along fold lines.

 

Doyle's life passion was beyond realm of writing. In fact he had attempted to kill off Sherlock Holmes on several occasions noting "He takes my mind from better things."  Doyle's attitude towards his most famous creation was ambivalent. In November 1891 he wrote to his mother: "I think of slaying Holmes, ... and winding him up for good and all.' He even had Holmes and Professor Moriarty plunge to their deaths together down the Reichenbach Falls in the story "The Final Problem". But public outcry would always win over and Doyle would bring him back for another novel. In an attempt to deflect publishers' demands for more Holmes stories, he raised his price to a level intended to discourage them, but found they were willing to pay even the large sums he asked. As a result, he became one of the best-paid authors of his time. However, it would appear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle perceived his higher calling to be spreading the word of Spiritualism. By 1925 he opened his Psychic Bookshop in London. Several letters extant make note of this chapter of his life (shown in part below)

 

" — It has long seemed to me that one of the weak points in our psychic movement is the complete disconnection between our splendid literature and the man in the street. He is as a rule absolutely unaware of its existence. In an endeavour to get past this difficulty I am engaged in starting a psychic bookshop and library in one of the most central positions in London."

 

"The Bookshop will be devoted entirely to the sale of Spiritualistic literature and its success will depend upon students of psychic matters turning to it for the books which they need."

 

Five months after the opening, Doyle set up a Psychic Museum under the bookshop, where he exhibited documentary material on famous mediums, paintings done in trance, spirit photos, apports (objects that appear at a seance through no visible agency) and items related to spirit séances. It would be during this era of the early 1920's that Conan Doyle developed a friendship with Harry Houdini being convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers.

 

This highly reflective, phenomenal letter offered here provides much insight into the thoughts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Shown transcribed below in full:

 

"The movement is making great strides in England. England now leads the world in psychic matters.

 

The last victory was the report of the morning Post. It is our oldest and most solid paper. It appointed two commissioners to examine the whole subject. They both reported very sympathetically both upon the physic + more particularly upon the religious aspects.

 

It is the religious philosophy which is really most important It is a new explanation of all those things which had perplexed the human brain + tho it comes from the other side it seems to us the most rational + satisfying knowledge that has ever come to us.

 

The first step is to satisfy ourselves that we speak with external intelligences. These are many difficulties + even dangers but making (every ) allowance for those one experience in that .. Then if we do we should surely ask them as to the Conditions of life beyond … They explain that Death makes no change in our appearance or forsaking save that instead of being matter in a material environment we are Ether in an Etheric environment. From our point of view we can see no change.

 

Then instead of hopeless hell or an ecstatic heaven we find there is a rational life with a society which give us opportunity for (illegible) powers + enjoying those pleasures which are natural to us in the Company of those whom we love. It is all paded in strata from dark to light. Each soul being drawn to the stratum for which his spiritual development fits him, but with the every (illegible) of worship upwards so that all in time reach the highest that we can conceive. Every allowance made for our circumstances. Olympical sin to be avoided but not nearly so serious as sins of the spirit such as bigotry, which we carry on with us. If any one really believes that god is the (illegible) of one creed rather than of another then by that very belief he condemns himself to a lower sphere from which he will rise when he learns to take a broader view.

 

This is rational + it comes with all the authority of hundreds and thousands of messages from the beyond, supported by these signs of supernatural power which give them face.

 

Those who stop at ectoplasm + never get to the religious implications are as hindered as phycologists would be who stopped at protoplasm + and never got to life.

 

It all opens up a glorious future of hope + happiness for our race."

 

 

 

By the mid 1920's spiritualism had a widespread following both in the UK and across the Atlantic. An important letter by Doyle who is consistently ranked as one of the top ten mystery writers of all time.



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