SCIENTIFIC' SPIRITUALISM.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3636, 24 November 1920, Page 4

SCIENTIFIC' SPIRITUALISM.

Mr. Conan Doyle, who lias achieved | considerable fame as the writer of fiction, is seemingly going the whole j hog in fietitiousness in search of still t greater fame. One wonders how it is that during a long life at fictionwriting the spiritualistic fiction was j not forced upon him as a steppingi stone to notoriety. It has recently j dawned upon Mr. Conan Doyle that there is something in spiritualism 1 worthy of his notice, and it can fairly be presumed that notoriety is not unlikely a compelling force, seeing that a tour of the world in a lecturing campaign is a result of his having become a convert to a comparatively new ism. Whether spirits we'fo capable of communicating with mortals prior to 1847 or not, is doubtful, for they never made any successful, permanent effort to do so until they discovered a Mr. Pox in an American village, to whom they discovered the knocking which was apparently the recognised method of communication in spirit-land. Knocking was the first method of communication with Mr. Pox, in 1847, and it remains the popular method of communication with mortals to-day. It would I take too long to detail other methods , adopted by the spirits* for impressing people on this side of the borderland, and it would not be elevating to do so, as most of them have already proved to be absolute frauds.- W.e do ' not presume to say what is the real affliction from which Mr. Conan Doyle is suffering, but be what it may, he has a far worse attack tharf that suffered by Mr. Pox, the poor Yankee villager upon whom the Spirits first showered their honours, notably by striking up a knocking acquaintance with him. it is evident that some people arc intent upon giving to the world some‘■thing in the way of a religious novelty. But is not the world already in possession of more religions than the people care to give attention to.? It has the religion upon which modern civilisation is based; a practical religion that is not opposed scientifically to what it teaches in* connection with spirituality, despite what the enemies of all religion may assert. Mr. Conan Doyle seems particularly anxious to put under his superstructure of spiritism a scientific foundation. Ho is quite aware that the more he advocates acquaintanceship between, mortals and spirits, good and bad, the more doggedly will hardy cold, cruel science pursue i him. Ho is astute enough to put out , a strong, dense smoke-screen; a smokescreen scientists will laugh at, but a screen they will find some difficulty in scientifically proving to the ordinary intelligence the scientific impossibility of. Since he took to spiritualism, Mr. Conan Doyle appears to have had communications with Britain’s most noted intellectuals, including John Buskin and Sir William Crookes. It may have been the latter who suggested to Sir Conan Doyle the idea of the wonderful and incompatible composition which ho terms psychoplasm, q sort of spiritualised matter. It is this spiritualised matter idea that is calculated to be a snag for scientists. Of course, most scientists will belittle and sneer at psychoplasm, which, Sir Conan says, is made up of such anti-spiritual matter as carbonate of lime' and phosphorus in various chemical combinations. What is opposed to our scientific intelligence and attainments is Sir Conan ’s suggestion that carbonate of lime and phosphates can be vapourised and resolidified into the shape of a human being, and given a.- sacred spirit by the effort or will of a spiritualistic* medium. Surely this is sheer humbug of the worst type, and the man who tells such stories really should be stopped from diverting thought and intelligence from the purposes they are more than ever requisite for at the present time. Sir Conan's story brings vividly to memory a .temporarily thrilling experience of the early youth of the writer; lie was particularly enthusiastic in matters scientific, and one day he thought ho had discovered how to destroy matter. He dissolved some metal in acid, then diluted with water and set about, eva’porattng the iron into apparently nothing, but on every evaporation the iron refused to go. It was in a different form, but all the iron dissolved still Remained. Mow, the writer would like to learn from Sir Conan how he gets his carbonate of ! lime and'phosphates into psychoplasm, j which must be infinitely less in the i nature of matter than the vapour the j writer essayed to produce. We fear Sir Conan will find some difficulty in discovering a scientific foundation on which to base his spiritualism. We arc neither enamoured nor impressed with the sciehco of spiritualism as promulgated by Sir Cohan Doyle.