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      Psychic Experiences

      __________

      BY SIR A. CONAN DOYLE

      __________

      I AM happy to give some general idea of my psychic experiences and conclusions, but cannot in this limited space go into very lengthy detail or complete argument upon the subject. It is the more unnecessary since I have already in successive volumes outlined very clearly how I arrived at my present knowledge. Of these volumes the first and second, called respectively “The New Revelation” and “The Vital Message,” show how gradual conviction was given me of the continuation of life, and how thorough and long were my studies before I was at last beaten out of my material agnostic position and forced to admit the validity of the proofs.

      In the days of universal sorrow and loss, when the voice of Rachel was heard through the land, it was borne in upon me that the knowledge which had come to me thus was not for my own consolation alone, but that God has placed me in a very special position for conveying it to that world which needed it so badly.

      I found in the movement many men who saw the truth as clearly as I did; but such was the clamour of the “religious,” who were opposing that which is the very essence of living religion, of the “scientific,” who broke the first laws of science by pronouncing upon a thing which they had not examined, and of the Press, who held up every real or imaginary rascality as being typical of a movement which they had never understood, that the true men were abashed and shrank from the public exposition of their views. It was to combat this that I began a campaign in 1916 which can only finish when all is finished.

      One great help I had. My wife had always been averse from my psychic studies, deeming the subject to be uncanny and dangerous. Her own experiences soon convinced her to the contrary, for her brother, who was killed at Mons, came back to us in a very convincing way. From that instant she threw herself with all the whole-hearted energy of her generous nature into the work which lay before us.

      A devoted mother, she was forced often to leave her children; a lover of home, she was compelled to leave it for many months at a time; distrustful of the sea, she joyfully shared my voyages. We have now travelled a good 50,000 miles upon our quest. We have spoken face to face with a quarter of a million of people. Her social qualities, her clear sanity, her ardent charity, and her gracious presence upon the platforms, all united with her private counsel and sympathy, have been such an aid to me that they have turned my work into a joy. The presence of our dear children upon our journeys has also lightened them for both of us.

      Apart from the two small books in which I have unfolded my argument, I have written “The Wanderings of a Spiritualist,” where the reader may accompany me in my propaganda work in Australia and New Zealand. Then in my “American Adventure” he can read how we carried the message to the eastern portion of the United States, the land whence this great breaking of barriers was first effected.

      Now, in a second volume of “American Adventures,” I have put on record all that befell us during our long and arduous tour of 1923, when we crossed the United States and returned by Canada, lecturing in every large city on the way. I will not go into these matters, since I have already dealt with them in such detail, and I can only refer the reader who is interested to the volumes which I have named.

      For the moment, the real importance of such records is not comprehended, but the day will come, and that speedily, when people will understand that this proposition for which we are now fighting is far the most important thing for two thousand years in the history of the world, and when the efforts of the pioneers will have a very real interest to all who have sufficient intelligence to follow the progress of human thought.

      I am only one of many working for the cause, but I hope that I may claim that I brought into it a combative and aggressive spirit which it lacked before, and which has now so forced it upon public attention that one can hardly pick up a paper without reading some comment upon it. If some of these papers are hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced, it is not a bad thing for the cause. If you have a bad case constant publicity is a misfortune, but if you have a good one its goodness will always assert itself, however much it may be misrepresented.

      Many spiritualists have taken the view that since we know these comforting and wonderful things, and since the world chooses not to examine the evidence, we may be content with our own happy assurance. This seems to me an immoral view.

      If God has sent a great new message of exceeding joy down to earth, then it is for us, to whom it has been clearly revealed, to pass it on at any cost of time, money and labour. It is not given to us for selfish enjoyment, but for general consolation. If the sick man turns from the physician, then it cannot be helped, but at least the healing draught should be offered.

      The greater the difficulty in breaking down the wall of apathy, ignorance and materialism, the more is it a challenge to our manhood to attack and ever attack in the same bulldog spirit with which Foch faced the German lines.

      I trust that the record of my previous life may show that I have within my limitations preserved a sane and balanced judgment, since I have never hitherto been extreme in my views, and since what I have said has so often been endorsed by the actual course of events. But never have I said anything with the same certainty of conviction with which I now say that this new knowledge is going to sweep the earth and to revolutionise human views upon every topic save only on fundamental morality, which is a fixed thing.

      All modern inventions and discoveries will sink into insignificance beside those psychic facts which will force themselves within a few years upon the universal human mind.

      The subject has been obscured by the introduction of all sorts of side issues, some of interest but not vital, others quite irrelevant. There is a class of psychic researcher who loves to wander round in a circle, and to drag you with him if you are weak enough to accept such guidance. He trips continually over his own brains, and can never persuade himself that the simple and obvious explanation is also the true one. His intellect becomes a positive curse to him, for he uses it to avoid the straight road and to fashion out some strange devious path which lands him at last in a quagmire, whilst the direct and honest mind has kept firmly to the highway of knowledge.

      When I meet men of this type, and then come in contact with the lowly congregations of religious spiritualists, I think always of Christ’s words when He thanked God that He had revealed these things to babes and withheld them from the wise and the prudent. I think also of a dictum of Baron Reichenbach; “There is a scientific incredulity which exceeds in stupidity the obtuseness of the clod-hopper.”

      For really the matter is so simple. A child can understand it—indeed, my children do understand it in a practical way a good deal better than the average man of learning and science. One needs no experience oneself—though experience is always helpful. It is a question of evidence.