Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of master
consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. However, although the name
Sherlock Holmes has entered into wide public awareness over the last
century and more, the same cannot be said for Conan Doyle himself; or
his direct connection with his renowned fictional character Holmes (and
his trusted aide, Dr Watson) and the fact that he wrote a total of 56
Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels beginning with A Study in Scarlet, first published in Beeton's Christmas Annual of 1887. All these stories appeared in the Strand magazine in serialised form from 1891 to 1927, many illustrated by Sidney Paget's famous drawings.
The
name of Sherlock Holmes has recently been boosted in the public psyche,
particularly within the younger generation, with the two Guy
Ritchie-directed films, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011),
with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the lead roles of Holmes and
Watson. There has also been a modern interpretation of the investigative
duo with the BBC Television series Sherlock, starring Benedict
Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Series 1 was televised in 2010 and the
second series in 2012, with filming of a third currently under way.
So
what of the great man himself, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? There have been
several excellent biographies written about him, and there are sure to
be more to follow now that his personal archive of correspondence,
diaries and original manuscripts has been released by his Estate. The
first biography to use this newly available material was The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes - The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2007) by Andrew Lycett.
Other
significant developments in recent years, helping to promote the Conan
Doyle legacy, have included the sale of 3,000 Conan Doyle papers and
other memorabilia at a Christies auction sale in London in 2004, one
item purchased by psychic medium Patrick McNamara leading to the
publication of his book, Conan Doyle's Wallet - The Secrets Within, in 2008. The year 2011 saw the publication of Conan Doyle's previously unpublished first novel, The Narrative of John Smith, from an untitled manuscript acquired by the British Library at the same sale.
First
and foremost Conan Doyle was a polymath, a qualified medical doctor,
with one of the sharpest, critical thinking minds of his or any other
era, a mind scientifically honed by his medical training at Edinburgh
University - in the city where he was born on 22 May 1859 - under the
watchful guidance and tutelage of his mentor Dr Joseph Bell. The
clinical methodologies used by Bell were to become the major inspiration
in the formation of the Sherlock Holmes character, and Bell's angular
facial features, his "eagle face", influenced the development of
Holmes's outward appearance as drawn by Sidney Paget and others.
The
area of Conan Doyle's life which has been most markedly misunderstood
and misinterpreted, was his advocacy of Spiritualism and what he called
"the psychic question". Conventional wisdom almost universally appears
to state that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle resorted to Spiritualism as a
direct result of losing his son Kingsley and brother Innes during the
First World War, the implication being that they were both killed in
action. On closer examination we find that this consensus is
fundamentally flawed on a number of counts.
Although Kingsley had
been wounded in the war on the first day of the Battle of the Somme,
July 1 1916, he was not severely hurt, and after hospital treatment to a
neck wound was able to return to his unit a couple of months later. His
death occurred unexpectedly on October 28 1918, just as the war was
drawing to a close, from pneumonia brought on by the Spanish flu
pandemic raging at the time. He was just twenty five.
Similarly,
his brother Innes also succumbed to the deadly Spanish Flu epidemic, on
February 19 1919, while helping to restore food supplies and other
services in Belgium. Innes also died at a relatively young age, being
only forty five at the time of his passing.
Those two devastating
blows within a period of only a few short months would be a shock to
anyone's system, and it is perhaps unsurprising that these events are
widely assumed to be the trigger points for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
immersion into Spiritualism, to provide solace as he grieved their loss.
It sounds entirely plausible that this would be the case. There is only
one problem. It simply isn't true.
Conan Doyle's eventual advocacy of Spiritualism took place in the form of an article in Light
magazine on November 4 1916, fully two years prior to his son
Kingsley's death. This explicit proclamation of his acceptance of the
reality of Spiritualism came after three decades of painstaking,
dedicated research into "the psychic question" as he referred to it,
having initially been a skeptic. The start of his scientific
investigation into Spiritualism began in the mid-1880's, around the time
that the character of Sherlock Holmes was taking shape in his
impressive mind.
A major influence in his commitment to get to the
truth was his friendship with eminent scientist of the day, Sir Oliver
Lodge, whose son Raymond was killed in action in Flanders in 1915. A
confirmed Spiritualist in his own right, Lodge had written a book, Raymond or Life and Death, published in 1916, describing his communications with his dead son.
The inclusion of his narrative in Light magazine in 1916 was followed by two books, The New Revelation (1918) and The Vital Message
(1919), the publication of which marked his commitment to take on a
mission for the remainder of his life to become an advocate for
Spiritualism and to get the message out to as many people as possible.
He travelled extensively, both in the UK and overseas, talking to packed
audiences.
He published his two-volume History of Spiritualism
in 1926, and the following year was filmed in a Fox newsreel interview
in his garden at his home, Windlesham, Crowborough in East Sussex. The
first half of the talk focuses on how his character Sherlock Holmes came
about, before he moves on to his work on Spiritualism, much more
important in his view.
The constant strain of travelling, writing
and giving lectures eventually took its toll on his health, and he
passed away at his East Sussex home on 7 July 1930, aged only 71. The
man who had achieved so much during his lifetime was now dead - or was
he?
Part 2 to follow...
Do any of us know what twists and turns life is going to lead us,
much of what starts to have meaning only making sense with the benefit
of hindsight? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (ACD) certainly had a major impact
on my life's direction when I started taking a major interest in his
life and works around ten years ago. Starting off with a desire to "set
the record straight" about what had been written about him regarding his
advocacy of Spiritualism and the "psychic question" during the latter
part of his life, my initial research soon showed demonstrated that much
of the accepted wisdom about this aspect of his life was erroneous, and
it is possible that much of this obfuscation of the real facts about
this area of his work was done deliberately. However, little was I to
know at the time (around 2007) that this interest of mine would lead to
the publication of what has now become 'The View' series of books - 'The
View' (2009), 'The View Beyond' (2011) and 'The Cathar View' (2012) -
with myself as Editor, and with over 25 contributors to each book
writing on ACD, Sir Francis Bacon and the Cathars respectively. The
unfolding synchronicity has been remarkable, leading me into the White
Eagle Lodge, the Francis Bacon Society and regular visits to 'Cathar
Country' in SW France. This, the first of a series of articles, is a
call to you to pay attention to synchronicities which happen in your own
lives. They may lead you, like in my own case, in directions which you
couldn't even begin to imagine. If you dare...
Comments welcome, as always!