Book Recommendation: The Edge of the Unknown

Title: The Edge of the Unknown Author: Conan Doyle Year: 1930 Description: Amazon Customer Review: Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, who is most noted for his stories about Sherlock Holmes; after the deaths of his wife, son, brother, two brothers-in-law, and two nephews, he turned to Christian Spiritualism; he also was a member of The Ghost Club. He also wrote books such as The New Revelation: The Coming of a New Spiritual Paradigm and History of Spiritualism, Volumes 1 & 2 Bound Together as One. He begins this 1930 book by discussing the magician Harry Houdini (who was for a time a good friend of Doyle's): "I am quite prepared to think that Houdini's campaign against mediums did temporary good so far as false mediums goes, but it was so indiscriminate and accompanied by so much which was intolerant and offensive that it turned away the sympathy and help which Spiritualists, who are anxious for the cleanliness of their own movement, would gladly have given him." (Pg. 8) He asserts that "His book, A Magician Among the Spirits, is full of errors of fact, and never for a moment did he show any appreciation of the higher religious claims of the movement." (Pg. 27) He actually suggests that Houdini was himself a medium ["If Ira Davenport was a medium, then there is a strong prima facie case that Houdini was a medium too... What could that power be, save what we have called

the power of the medium?" (Pg. 33-34) He admits, "This is one of a class of cases which has been so common that no reasonable man can deny them. To explain them is another matter, for even if one accepts the full faith of Spiritualism there is a good deal which is inexplicable." (Pg. 58) He also notes, "Apart from the ordinary phenomena of the séance room, my life has not given me much direct psychic experience. I have, so far as I know, no spiritual gifts myself and none of that psychic atmosphere which gives a tinge of romance to so many lives." (Pg. 101) He strongly defends the photos of the "Cottingley fairies," about which he wrote the book, The Coming of the Fairies: "No criticism has for a moment shaken the truth of the original Cottingley pictures. All fresh evidence has tended to confirm it." (Pg. 119) [NOTE: In 1983, the two sisters confessed that the pictures were fakes.] Nevertheless, he affirms that "No psychic explanation can be accepted in any case until all reasonable normal solutions have been exhausted." (Pg. 176) Doyle was a very influential voice within the Spiritualist movement, and his books will be of great interest to students of this movement.