Arthur Conan Doyle - The Complete Spiritual Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated Edition)

What is the REAL explanation of such a matter? I can only say that I have advised Mr. Jaques to dig into the bluff under which he is constructing his cellar. I made some investigation myself upon the top of it and convinced myself that the surface ground at that spot has at some time been disturbed to the depth of at least five feet. Something has, I should judge, been buried at some date, and it is probable that, as in the case cited in the text, there is a connection between this and the disturbances. It is very probable that Mr. Rolfe is, unknown to himself, a physical medium, and that when he was in the confined space of the cellar he turned it into a cabinet in which his magnetic powers could accumulate and be available for use. It chanced that there was on the spot some agency which chose to use them, and hence the phenomena. When Mr. Jaques went alone to the grotto the power left behind by Mr. Rolfe, who had been in it all morning, was not yet exhausted and he was able to get some manifestations. So I read it, but it is well not to be dogmatic on such matters. If there is systematic digging I should expect an epilogue to the story.

Whilst these proofs were in the press a second very marked case of a Poltergeistcame within my knowledge. I cannot without breach of confidence reveal the details and the phenomena are still going on. Curiously enough, it was because one of the sufferers from the invasion read some remarks of mine upon the Cheriton dugout that this other case came to my knowledge, for the lady wrote to me at once for advice and assistance. The place is remote and I have not yet been able to visit it, but from the full accounts which I have now received it seems to present all the familiar features, with the phenomenon of direct writing superadded. Some specimens of this script have reached me. Two clergymen have endeavoured to mitigate the phenomena, which are occasionally very violent, but so far without result. It may be some consolation to any others who may be suffering from this strange inflition, to know that in the many cases which have been carefully recorded there is none in which any physical harm has been inflicted upon man or beast.

THE END

Table of Contents Table of Contents The New Revelation The New Revelation Table of Contents The Vital Message The Vital Message Table of Contents The Wanderings of a Spiritualist The Wanderings of a Spiritualist Table of Contents The Coming of the Fairies The Coming of the Fairies Table of Contents The History of Spiritualism Pheneas Speaks The Spiritualist's Reader The Edge of the Unknown Stranger Than Fiction Fairies Photographed The Mediumship of Florence Cook The Houdini Enigma The Uncharted Coast The Law of the Ghost A New Light on Old Crimes The Shadows on the Screen An Old Story Retold The Absolute Proof A Worker of Wonders Memories and Adventures: An Autobiography

Table of Contents Table of Contents The New Revelation The New Revelation Table of Contents The Vital Message The Vital Message Table of Contents The Wanderings of a Spiritualist The Wanderings of a Spiritualist Table of Contents The Coming of the Fairies The Coming of the Fairies Table of Contents The History of Spiritualism Pheneas Speaks The Spiritualist's Reader The Edge of the Unknown Stranger Than Fiction Fairies Photographed The Mediumship of Florence Cook The Houdini Enigma The Uncharted Coast The Law of the Ghost A New Light on Old Crimes The Shadows on the Screen An Old Story Retold The Absolute Proof A Worker of Wonders Memories and Adventures: An Autobiography

Preface

I. The Two Needful Readjustments

II. The Dawning of the Light

III. The Great Argument

IV. The Coming World

V. Is it the Second Dawn?

Appendices

Appendix A. Doctor Geley’s Experiments

Appendix B. A Particular Instance

Appendix C. Spirit Photography

Appendix D. The Clairvoyance of Mrs. B

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In The New Revelation the first dawn of the coming change has been described. In The Vital Message the sun has risen higher, and one sees more clearly and broadly what our new relations with the Unseen may be. As I look into the future of the human race I am reminded of how once, from amid the bleak chaos of rock and snow at the head of an Alpine pass, I looked down upon the far stretching view of Lombardy, shimmering in the sunshine and extending in one splendid panorama of blue lakes and green rolling hills until it melted into the golden haze which draped the far horizon. Such a promised land is at our very feet which, when we attain it, will make our present civilisation seem barren and uncouth. Already our vanguard is well over the pass. Nothing can now prevent us from reaching that wonderful land which stretches so clearly before those eyes which are opened to see it.

That stimulating writer, V.C. Desertis, has remarked that the Second Coming, which has always been timed to follow Armageddon, may be fulfilled not by a descent of the spiritual to us, but by the ascent of our material plane to the spiritual, and the blending of the two phases of existence. It is, at least, a fascinating speculation. But without so complete an overthrow of the partition walls as this would imply we know enough already to assure ourselves of such a close approximation as will surely deeply modify all our views of science, of religion and of life. What form these changes may take and what the evidence is upon which they will be founded are briefly set forth in this volume.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Crowborough, July, 1919.

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It has been our fate, among all the innumerable generations of mankind, to face the most frightful calamity that has ever befallen the world. There is a basic fact which cannot be denied, and should not be overlooked. For a most important deduction must immediately follow from it. That deduction is that we, who have borne the pains, shall also learn the lesson which they were intended to convey. If we do not learn it and proclaim it, then when can it ever be learned and proclaimed, since there can never again be such a spiritual ploughing and harrowing and preparation for the seed? If our souls, wearied and tortured during these dreadful five years of self-sacrifice and suspense, can show no radical changes, then what souls will ever respond to a fresh influx of heavenly inspiration? In that case the state of the human race would indeed be hopeless, and never in all the coming centuries would there be any prospect of improvement.

Why was this tremendous experience forced upon mankind? Surely it is a superficial thinker who imagines that the great Designer of all things has set the whole planet in a ferment, and strained every nation to exhaustion, in order that this or that frontier be moved, or some fresh combination be formed in the kaleidoscope of nations. No, the causes of the convulsion, and its objects, are more profound than that. They are essentially religious, not political. They lie far deeper than the national squabbles of the day. A thousand years hence those national results may matter little, but the religious result will rule the world. That religious result is the reform of the decadent Christianity of to-day, its simplification, its purification, and its reinforcement by the facts of spirit communion and the clear knowledge of what lies beyond the exit-door of death. The shock of the war was meant to rouse us to mental and moral earnestness, to give us the courage to tear away venerable shams, and to force the human race to realise and use the vast new revelation which has been so clearly stated and so abundantly proved, for all who will examine the statements and proofs with an open mind.