0:05

I’m not sure there is a lot of people who would associate Sherlock Holmes with spiritualism, unless maybe you’re a deep Avid Reader of those books.

I’m certainly not.

I have a feeling you aren’t either.

I am a big fan of the movies.

That’s for sure.

That’s one step in.

Well, there’s a little bit of a Twist because the author of the Sherlock Holmes books spent a big part of his life investigating psychic and paranormal phenomena, so, He was sort of a real life, spiritual detective.

0:32

I love that for him.

It’s like, right?

What, you know, you know, but I just picked him walking around with a big magnifying glass.

So I didn’t really know.

I didn’t really know this.

So I’m very excited.

Maybe that’s how he found us.

First go.

So, I don’t know.

0:57

Hi everyone, and welcome to rituals a Spotify original from par cast.

I’m M Schultz and I’m Christine Schieffer.

Every week.

We’ll explore the evolution of spiritualism and the Occult through stories practices and the impact on Modern culture.

So we are talking about Arthur Conan Doyle this week and we actually have covered some of this era on our other.

1:17

Podcast.

And that’s why we drink.

When I covered Harry Houdini and his relationship.

They were Pals, right?

They were Buds.

And then they became front of me Frenemies.

I remember, yeah, we even though I’ve talked about Houdini and everything on that podcast.

We’ve never gone into like the meat and potatoes of a CD, so very excited about I’m sorry.

1:36

Are we calling him a CD now?

Okay, sir, a CD tracks.

Are a CD.

Yeah.

See you.

So let’s crack into it.

Christine how familiar are you with Sherlock Holmes?

1:55

Well, like I said, I have this beautiful image in my mind’s eye of a man with a cool floppy hat with a magnifying glass, kind of wandering around looking at stuff.

And if you did watch the movies, you know, that his best friend is your favorite Jude Law.

2:12

So yeah, Jude Law, I don’t like to bring up in these shows anymore because most of the time, everyone says I’m wrong that Not where I think he is, but I’m glad that you finally admitted Jude Law is in my mindscape here.

For those wondering, Jude Law seems to be in Christine’s constant Zeitgeist.

2:28

He is he’s everywhere.

She thinks he’s she sees them everywhere.

So I don’t think that’s true.

But he is.

Certainly if you’re looking at the Sherlock Holmes movies, he is there.

Just love the irony is.

I’ve never seen the movie so I didn’t even realize it.

But you also were a private investigator much like Sherlock Holmes.

2:46

Peru.

Maybe that’s where it like hits me right in the Solar.

All you know, but you’re more familiar with a CD right?

A little bit.

I am I.

So I’m very big on the spiritualist era of Houdini versus Arthur Conan Doyle when they, you know, when they have their big, I don’t know if they have a battle royale, but in my head they do.

3:05

But I really was a big fan of learning about mediums through them because they’re they’re very much in meshed in spiritualist history, which is very fun for me.

Have you experienced anything yourself with mediums or Cactus well, so actually this involves your girlfriend M.

3:21

So maybe you’ll be interested in one of my stories for once now.

So in DC, when we move to d.c.

Alison and I were new roomies and we were exploring the area and there was this psychic named.

I think her name was Jessica.

It just said, like Palm Reader.

3:36

Jessica Jessica the psychic.

I love it.

You had to why I was in Georgetown.

You had to walk up this really steep staircase and I was like, let’s do it.

And I’ll sing was like, I don’t think that’s a good use of our Very limited money and I was like, let’s do it anyway, so we went of course and when we sat with the psychic, I remember being annoyed because I was like, she’s nothing.

4:00

She’s saying is true.

She said wow.

She was talking to Allison was like you are such a worldly well-traveled person and I was on looked at me.

Like I haven’t really done much traveling.

And I was like, well, I you know, I’ve traveled quite a bit but like, whatever.

And then she told me, well, she basically insinuated that my boyfriend and I were not a great match which Ultimately, she was correct on that one, Jessica.

4:21

It took a little while to warm up.

But she got there.

Ding, ding, ding.

He did get there because she also said to us.

Oh, and you’re living with someone.

The initials JM will become very important to you.

And I yelled.

Oh, Michael Jackson because he had just died and she was like, she was like, it’s not Michael Jackson.

4:38

First of all, I said JM.

And second of all like, this isn’t about Michael Jackson and I was like, wow, this lady is annoying.

I was very frustrated.

Well, turns out Allison has like traveled, the world.

World lived all over the world in different countries, speaks all sorts of languages, just very well-traveled.

4:54

I obviously got cheated on and dumped by that guy.

So, you know, she was Jessica, she called me out there and we were roommates and we were like, that’s weird.

Why would we live with another person?

Well, guess what?

Our lovely University through a third person into our two-person dorm with the initials JM and I didn’t occur to me till months later.

5:14

And and Allison was like remember that psychic?

We went to?

What did she say?

And I was like, oh, yeah.

She said like Jme was gonna live with us or something, and lo and behold it kind of hit me.

So psychic Jessica, I’m sorry.

I, you know, didn’t believe you at first but she kind of knew what she was talking about.

5:30

I was kind of hoping at the end, you’d find out that Jessica’s last name started with him and honest with you.

It just comes up with you.

Not quite.

Well.

I’m glad to hear that Jessica eventually suede you into being a little bit more of a Believer and Arthur Conan.

5:45

Doyle was also swayed into being a Believer eventually.

Hmm.

I have had quite a few paranormal experiences as, you know, as probably a lot of people who are listening.

I used to be an investigator.

That was my college job and it was a great gig instead of like being your normal like Barista.

6:06

I got to go ghost hunting at night.

But I’ve had a lot of ghosts experience ever since I was a little kid.

I saw my grandpa when I was seven, you and I have had a lot of creepy stuff happen to us.

We were in New Orleans one time and there was this Little boy named.

Michael, who wouldn’t it was a ghost.

6:23

Not a living little boy.

He wouldn’t leave our hotel room.

Which once had been an orphanage.

Yeah.

I have a bad habit as M likes to say of booking the most haunted place imaginable.

Just For Fun For The Whimsy for The Whimsy of it and we were in the room and and I.

6:42

Yeah, anyway, that was very chaotic, but then we later found out that this was an orphanage or former orphanage and also, So, we were on the sixth floor, which was the most haunted.

So of course, yeah, that’s where Michael.

It was like an orphanage that I can would have did a burned-out, something horrible happened.

6:57

Ajik.

Of course, it was a bunch of children, ghosts, and we had brought.

I always feel like I’m carrying around some little piece of ghosty equipment when were traveling, because I know what Christine’s going to put me through some like, I might as well be prepared.

You’re like certain kind of Doyle.

You’re like, I’m gonna do my own little mini seances, no matter where I go.

7:14

Well, once someone keeps knocking on our door who wasn’t there and keeps messing.

Our Electronics.

I feel like it’s high time.

So time, we’ve had that together.

We’ve had, Christine needs to have a ghost in her old house named.

Walter - Walter that we talked to a few times.

7:31

Your current house is certainly haunted.

I felt that the entire time I was there.

Yeah, we’ve heard some voices.

I feel like it’s just like 2 is next.

I know a CD seemed a little dramatic, but like I kind of get it to an extent.

You know, let’s just say if a CD and I were to have like a sit-down at a coffee shop, I would Certainly keep him entertained for a while.

7:51

I think you would too and fun.

Fact.

Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle and I actually have a little bit of a connection.

We’re colleagues.

Did you know this?

Woohoo?

I’m sorry.

What?

I don’t know what the right word is of coffee shop, Baristas.

I don’t know if it’s like cohorts is the right or fellows.

8:07

I don’t know.

But we are a part of quite a few of the same organizations, which I’ll mention later on.

Arthur Conan Doyle grew up in the 1860s to the 1870s, with a mother who told him?

8:26

Some very imaginative stories that he said were so vivid that, it blurred his reality.

You know, that sounds frightening because I have a child now.

And I feel like I’m going to, you know, read books and tell stories, but like what’s the line like, where’s the imaginative line, where you’re going to blur the reality of your child by telling him?

8:44

I mean, I don’t know.

I feel like that’s a very alarming sentence for some reason.

I think you’ll only find out when it’s too late and maybe it maybe your don’t know it when you see it, but your daughter becomes the next Arthur Conan Doyle.

Okay, it does make sense.

I mean, if he, you know, was an author and he was always inspired by these Vivid stories and his head at tracks.

9:04

I think.

Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.

Do you think being more creative like he was in the kind of in the Arts and his family was also in the Arts.

Do you think that might have lent him to be more open-minded about spiritualism and all that kind of stuff?

I would I think so, right.

I feel like it’s the more left-brained folks tend to be more kind of visual creative that kind of thing.

9:27

Then, you know, the more analytical people I would, I would say, I think you have to have a dash of Whimsy to just a little sprinkle a wins.

Yeah.

Well that was what dials parents were, they studied art?

They expected their son to get into art, but he decided to take a sharp left turn and he went to medical school instead.

9:45

Oh my goodness.

Okay, that it’s a quite a turn.

He was like enough art for me.

So at Medical School is when he actually started writing, which is kind of ironic and that’s where he met the professor who was his inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes.

10:02

Oh, okay.

So it’s Professor walked around with a big magnifying glass in a trench coat, and he was like, this guy is a character in The Making.

Well, it also makes me think I wonder if he, because if you throw the medical part in, it makes me think not just a Sherlock Holmes but also of Watson because he was a doctor Who helped Sherlock Holmes, right?

10:20

I don’t know.

Is it Jude Law is that it’s too hot.

Shut up.

Okay.

I’m following now.

I think I’m going to watch that after we record also, it’s not far of a stretch from what I imagined.

Remember, the TV show House.

Oh, yes.

I also never watched that but I remember it.

I feel like it was that was a doctor version of Sherlock Holmes also, so yeah.

10:38

Yeah solving mysteries on The Daily.

Yeah, so it seems pretty fitting but you know his real life.

If you combine medical school with Sherlock Holmes, investigative Tendencies it helped Kind of makes sense.

Yeah.

So now Doyle got interested in faith and spirituality to not just fiction.

10:56

Mmm, so he didn’t really start writing about it until 1918 a couple decades after he started writing Sherlock Holmes, which I’ll I think that’s like such a wild opposites because he is now famous for this like, you know, this guy who’s all about, rational critical thinking and now he’s Skipping over to like faith-based writing, you know, this is really like striking a nerve here, but in a good way because I feel like it, like you said I was a private investigator.

11:27

You are the Paranormal Investigator and I feel like that combo works really well.

And that’s kind of what he plotted out there in his little, right.

It’s like we’re characters of a CD.

Also talked about a range of writing because you can go from scientific to Whimsy at the drop of a hat.

11:46

Look at him go.

He’s so amazing.

Oh, but before his written work, he had gotten involved in some physical investigations.

It was really into the possibility of psychic and paranormal phenomena so okay.

Okay.

I wonder where that would have landed him today probably in the good graces hopefully of you know, maybe we’d be friends.

12:08

I’d like to thank.

I’d like to think we would want to be friends and he’d be like, I’m sorry.

I’m really busy is what I picture, you know, like we’d be like we’d make a great match and he’s like, um, maybe some I gotta go right and go back to medical school, but had a good time over here.

12:25

I love it.

So before I go any further, is there anything you’re hoping to hear about all a CD?

You know, I was hoping to hear more about Jude Law, but I will focus on a CD for this for this one.

But I do.

I actually am very curious.

Like you said he was looking into the possibility of psychic and paranormal phenomena.

12:42

Like I want to know.

Did he find anything?

Did he did he find it?

Is there proof?

Can I see?

A it.

Coming up Doyle sort of pioneered psychic research, but I’ll let you judge whether he was actually a True Believer.

13:16

I mentioned that Arthur Conan Doyle really started writing about spiritualism in 1918.

So that’s also the year that his eldest son passed away.

But Doyle says that, that wasn’t actually part of the reason why he started writing about it.

13:32

I personally feel like, that’s a pretty personal event that could.

Yeah.

Get you writing, but if you think about a to 1918 was right around that second, big wave of spiritualism.

So he might have just been influenced by everyone else around him to really look into it more.

Seriously.

Yeah, I feel like the death of his son.

13:49

Probably also didn’t hurt his interest like a probably at least fueled it.

I mean, at least that’s my yeah, I would imagine it.

Gave him someone to try to reach out to.

Hmm.

So he said that he started digging into spiritualism away before his son died and he often would point back to a letter that he wrote In. 87 way before his son died, where he published it to a spiritualist newspaper, called light.

14:13

And in this letter, he wrote he basically told the story of how he became a spiritualist or a believer in it because there was a medium, he had had a series of mediums come to his house.

But the thing that really blew him away was he had one more powerful medium, come to his house.

14:31

Who told him do not read this book and okay, unbeknownst to the me.

M, he had been wandering earlier that day if he should start that book or not.

So, that was, that was the beginning for him.

He was like sold Signed Sealed Delivered, finally answers to my all my life’s great questions.

14:51

I know, I know.

So, whatever the official triggering event for the beginning of his faith was, he fully committed to studying faith in spiritualism around that time.

And his specialty was psychic and paranormal phenomena and Got down and dirty and to physical investigations.

15:09

He was very much.

You know, an OG Ghost Hunter.

Ooh, La La.

Okay.

Tell me more please.

So so in 1887 Doyle started going to seances.

He started watching telepathy experiments and spent time with mediums in south sea, which is a resort area in England.

15:27

I’d love to spend some time with mediums in a resort area in England.

That sounds like a fun vacation.

That sounds like my kind of party.

Yeah.

I just sit around twice.

Stories, you know, some podcasters do like cruises or some entertainers do like cruises.

Like why don’t we just go to a resort and say this is now an official business Gathering and also a cruise.

15:48

Yeah.

And also that well, except without the boat and the cruise because I don’t want to be involved in that, but I’ll lay on the beach, you can cruise around you to be interesting.

If we decided we were going to do a cruise of bunch of mediums and only one of them said don’t get on the ship.

It was this a I thought you’re gonna say only one of them got on the ship and I was like, I’m not getting on that ship then, but yeah.

16:07

That’s also a conundrum.

That’s why I’m on the beach.

You can get on the ship.

All you want.

I’d be like, are you the most powerful one or the least powerful?

One?

I’m confused.

Great question.

Anyway, that’s whoever was hoping to write a mystery novel this year, use that as your prompt.

I was going to say, this sounds like an ACD original in his time while he’s getting into spiritualism.

16:25

He also joins groups like The Ghost club and the society for psychical research, which I’m a part of both of them.

I knew you were part of the spr.

What I don’t remember the ghost club though, you know, it’s so funny.

I think I have Hang on a second.

I have oh I have my hat right next to me.

16:42

Oh my goodness, founded 1862.

I’m a big fan of joining these little Club.

He’s so as for the spr which is probably the more popular one.

It started in 1882 and it’s studies psychic and paranormal events and they’ve researched like telepathy and mediums and thought transference and automatic writing and they try to take it pretty seriously scientific.

17:07

Lee and there they were best known originally around.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s, time for exposing fraudulent events.

So that plays into the Harry Houdini medium shiny stuff, right?

So yeah, they actually a lot of people ended up leaving the spr because big Believers in spiritualism originally were joining.

17:29

And then when they found out that the spr was trying to be very scientific and skeptical about this, they felt like the including Arthur Conan.

By the way, they ended up leaving because they felt like it was very anti spiritualists ruining.

All the fun ruining all the fun.

Yeah, they’re not invited to our crews.

17:46

Exactly.

And so then but a lot of them, I don’t know if because of that they then switched over to the ghost club or if they were already part of the ghost Club, but that is the oldest paranormal investigation organization to exist.

So it’s the world’s oldest.

18:02

I love that they get that name, the ghost Club.

If you’re the first you can call yourself, whatever.

Are you want?

I like that.

I love it.

And just for anyone wondering, the main difference is the spr is very scientific, and skeptical.

And the ghost Club is pretty much if you’re a Believer that’s like a hundred percent of the membership.

18:20

It seems, you get a hat to you get a hat.

They still hosts a lot of social events.

They still, I get invitations, a lot to different paranormal investigations that they’re doing and then they keep you updated.

I mean, there’s they have like monthly meetings where they tell you all about things.

18:37

It happened on these investigations and they have lectures and all this stuff so fun.

Anyway, I love being a part of them.

And if you want to join go for it, they both have a pretty easy to navigate website.

So, go Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the members for both of those and that got him into traveling around for investigations.

18:55

So some of the spirits he worked with or researched one was the Dorset child spirit.

So some of the cases that Doyle got involved with of them.

Um, this one is what pointed him to being a Believer.

Okay.

19:10

It’s an 1894 Doyle and some others from the spr were sent to Dorset and Southern England.

And there was a couple living there with their daughter who was hearing weird noises at night.

And at the noises that the daughter was hearing it sounded like someone was being tortured.

19:27

Oh no, what trauma?

So the dog wouldn’t even come inside the house because of the sounds, that’s not a good sign, as we know firm.

Always trust animals.

So, while they were there, Doyle said they witnessed some strange phenomena in the house, but was weirdly vague about it.

19:46

No, but he did.

They ended up actually finding out that there was a ten-year-old girl buried in the garden.

Oh my God.

After the investigation.

They like properly laid her to rest, but it is creepy that their daughter who might have been around the same age was picking up on.

20:07

Something.

Oh, no.

And so that was one of the cases that I guess convinced him further that spiritualism was worth looking into no offense, but that’s more convincing than like, hey, don’t read that book over there in my opinion like this sounds I’m like I get it I do I get it and also it makes more sense why he would then start, you know, writing about Sherlock Holmes or at least have new plot points for Sherlock, Holmes, stories of like, oh, I was walking around.

20:34

And then the garden, we found a body.

The Was acting fishy.

Mhm.

And there were other cases that proved why it’s healthy to be skeptical.

So in March 1919, when Doyle attended, a seance and Bloomsbury, London, everyone showed up for the Seance and they had to bring a personal item and their items got locked up in this box before the medium, even got there.

20:58

Okay, and the medium then held the lockbox in her lap and described all the items inside.

I would have thrown a real like Wrench in the mix like just like a literal wrench, you would have just put a little wrench in the mix.

Something like a Furby, something creepy, like just to see what happened.

21:17

She’s like, he’s a full demon in this box.

I can’t understand it.

But it says it’s hungry.

I was gonna say the Furby would out itself because you’d hear it for the box.

And so their items got locked up, the medium described, all the items inside and she even read The Faded inscription on a ring.

21:35

That someone had been there.

So, it sounds pretty convincing but then especially because the medium.

I think she was, she was tied to a chair, the lights got turned down and she apparently went into a trance.

Okay, what pushes the envelope a little further?

21:53

Is that then this Mist materialized behind her into the shape of a woman and it drifted around the room and then evaporated into a wall.

So, spoiler alert at least, what I assume is the spoiler alert anytime.

Time we’ve ever covered like mediumship and ectoplasm.

22:09

It’s usually a disgusting combination of like egg whites and cheese cloth so disgusting and strings or something.

So I’m guessing that’s probably what it was.

But Doyle was very impressed.

And he was skeptical about the ghost Witch good for him because it turned out that the entire thing was a hoax.

22:26

Oh boy.

I mean, I guess I sort of saw that coming.

But oh boy.

Yeah, especially if you’re a fervent believer at a time when it’s all the craze, so I feel like Really don’t want your experience deflated at all now and I do Wonder like so happy.

22:42

We don’t know.

Do we know how the hoax was perpetrated?

I assumed like somebody knew all the items and was like Whispering them to this woman or I think so.

I don’t know for sure.

But I that seemed to be another regular way that mediums were found out is there was usually a plant in the audience.

22:58

So another way that there was some fraudulent activity being exposed was through Spirit photography.

Mmm, so Spirit photography was basically finding Spirits in pictures and I think a lot of ways that this was usually exposed which is like a play on words as that people found out.

23:19

That there were double exposures in the phrase later.

You could sort of like layer a picture right?

Like, okay.

Okay, so it would look like there was someone else in the picture with you.

Mmm.

And he was shown these pictures and how they could be fake to have ghosts in them.

But he was a staunch believer in spirit photography.

23:36

This was actually This was a big turning point for him and Houdini’s friendship.

This was a big turning point for him in the spr.

This was a big turning point for him.

And spiritualism in general.

He was very Pro Spirit photography, even though people were like, showing him cold hard facts.

It was like, no, it’s real.

23:54

So, that was a big thing for him.

I feel like it’s one thing to have an open mind, and believe that, like things are Stranger than they appear, but to be shown hard evidence and then Not believe it.

It almost takes away from your own like argument.

24:10

I feel like how can you defend, you know, your argument if you’re not even believing, if you believe, literally everything is he was also.

He was doubling down for sure.

I mean, even like his own friend Houdini, who was like, I’m an Illusionist.

I’m showing you the illusions that are happening.

24:28

Do you think he just wanted to believe it that badly that he liked closed?

His because, I mean, I think that’s kind of close minded to like, you know, know Even acknowledge that it could be faked.

I wonder what the numbers looked like back.

Then when spiritualism was hot and heavy, I wonder what the numbers look like for people who were just desperate for to be true.

24:49

So that they knew that they were actually talking to someone on the other side that my.

So maybe he thought if I accept the part of it’s not true, then maybe I’m not talking to my son.

I don’t know.

And then you add doubt to the mix and maybe that was just something he wasn’t willing to do.

Yeah, that’s surprising to me just that he was such a smart.

25:06

Art guy and so unwilling to accept that like, he was being sometimes taken advantage of.

You think, if he’s channeling Sherlock Holmes, like, he would, like, at least have a little bit of an analytical opinion by right?

Exactly.

Anyway, here’s where you find out that he’s getting encouragement to be very Pro.

25:26

Spiritualism is Arthur Conan Doyle’s.

Wife.

Jean was a self-proclaimed medium.

So, okay, and it seems like an ideal.

Don’t want to poo poo on actual, you know, real mediums out there, but jean, it seemed like she was playing a game.

25:44

Okay, well, to be fair, if I married this guy and he was like, I believe everything.

I’d be like, let’s play with that.

You know, I’d be like, okay.

I am actually I can tell the future.

You’re going to take me to that.

Cool.

25:59

Beachside Resort town, in England.

I see it in my mind’s eye.

You want to know what’s so funny is so Jean.

V, self-proclaimed.

Idiom was using a spirit.

Was our was a vessel for a spirit.

I don’t totally remember what the right phrasing is, but she relied on a spirit guide called Phineas.

26:16

Whoo, and very often, it seemed like Phineas was hmm speaking for gene on what Gene might want.

Each had her interest in her at heart.

Okay, I get it.

Yeah, it always seemed like Gene and phidias agreed on a lot of stuff on what to have for dinner.

26:36

To go on vacation that Beachside Resort.

And so, the Doyles actually also moved houses and change travel plans.

A lot after Consulting with Phineas.

I feel like watching she’s a smart cookie is what she was.

Like, if you’re going to make it this easy, mr.

A CD, we’re gonna do this.

26:54

So like I’ve mentioned a million times already.

Doyle was also friends with Harry Houdini the magician and escape artist and their friendship was done.

After Houdini went to a seance.

Where Doyle’s wife.

Wife claims to be channeling, Harry Houdini’s mother.

27:11

Where is Harry Houdini?

And his mother were very, very, very close kind of messed up.

Interestingly.

It was, what got him into spiritualism, because he was desperate to find a way to communicate with his mom.

And so, when Arthur Conan Doyle’s wife said, oh, I can Channel her for you.

27:27

She ended up writing down messages in English, claiming that Houdini’s mother was sending them to her.

But Houdini’s mother was an immigrant from Hungary who did not speak English very well.

And so he was like, hey, your wife is tricking me.

I’m out.

And that was the beginning of Houdini’s.

27:43

Whole story was spiritualism.

Wow.

Okay, so I called her Smart Cookie.

She can’t be that smart of a cookie.

Didn’t even do a research.

Like, don’t do it to like someone whose whole job is knowing tricks up your sleeve, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it’s also a little unethical in my mind to it just seems very unethical.

28:01

Yeah, not very nice.

So what do you think?

Do you think she was a real medium or do you think she’s going to be part of the cra’s?

She would, here’s the thing.

I feel like people have abilities.

I do believe in psychic mediums.

Absolutely, but I feel like especially at this time.

It was so normalized.

28:17

I think we were talking about this recently was so normalized back, then to have to just be able to communicate with spirits.

And I think a lot of people took advantage of that and, you know, I don’t think everyone necessarily did it out of like a, you know, some sort of a moral Viewpoint or angle, but maybe to fit in we’re like really.

28:37

Believe that I could do it.

Like really said, oh I’m I could Channel, you know, like maybe they really thought they were onto something but it was all in their heads.

I don’t know.

I don’t want to say yes or no about this, but I think.

But as far as it goes with, like, channeling Houdini’s mother, I think Gene was full of full of baloney.

28:55

I too am team below me.

I think up next I’ll take you on Arthur Conan, Doyle’s, final, spiritual journey, and Christina and I will share what we When it comes to psychic phenomena.

So during Arthur Conan Doyle’s life, he wrote 13 books on spiritualism including a book called the new revelation and 1918 and then a book called the vital message a year later.

29:28

And which he related, his personal belief in the movement and in 1926.

He wrote a two-volume work called the history of spiritualism.

He had a lot to say my gosh and he basically he complained about spiritualism is critics and particular those who consider themselves.

29:45

Interests.

Well, if someone gave me a pen and said complain about something, I could probably also write a two-volume book, but that’s not that impressive.

But all right, good for him.

I feel like me all my family.

That could be a real family reunions experience.

We each get one page and just complain.

30:01

Complain, complain.

And it would still beige.

Oh my gosh, chapter.

I don’t know what?

Still be an encyclopedia by the end of it all.

Absolutely.

He also served as a president of three psychic societies and he founded a psychic bookstore and a psychic Museum which July Feel like he’s just living out my dream at that point.

30:18

He also wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, usually summarizing the beliefs and practices of spiritualists and defending spiritualism.

And he spent a lot of time and money traveling, the world to promote and investigate again.

My, it doesn’t sound like a bad life.

30:35

I know he’s really.

So it’s like the cyclic he’s writing about these things to make money to keep traveling to experience what you know time.

So you’re so funny that I mention that because he actually wanted to give up writing Sherlock, Holmes all together and just focus on spiritualism.

30:51

But he’s Sherlock.

Holmes books did so much better that I one point.

He tried to like he tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes in one of his books.

Just so he would have a reason to stop writing them and focus solely on spiritualism, but then he wrote another book and brought him back to life because he realized he needed the money to fund all the spiritualism work.

31:11

So what you’re telling me is Sherlock, Holmes was a ghost.

In the end he feel like that’s kind of a plot twist that he would have loved.

He honestly it was a nice little hand holding a perfect little Venn diagram, I guess.

So as for Doyle’s last investigation and the fall of 1929 Arthur Conan Doyle was experiencing chest pains.

31:34

So, no, but he ignored his doctor’s advice and went on a spiritualism tour, which I think is ironic because wouldn’t one of those spiritualists have been like, hey, you should actually go talk to that doctor.

She’s like don’t Don’t read that book, but please go to the emergency room.

So read that book, but definitely come on tour with us and avoid the hospital.

31:51

Oh, no, so when he got back, the pains got worse.

And on July, 7th, 1930, Arthur Conan Doyle died of a heart attack after collapsing in his garden in crowborough England.

Oh, no, so I we don’t know how Sherlock Holmes was supposed to end but we know what, his opinion on spiritualism was until the end at the very least.

32:12

Wow.

I wonder if he is now ghost, you know, I want to If he haunts anywhere, that would it be really ironic if he wasn’t one.

But like all the non-believers were goes, like, Houdini is a ghost and, and Sherlock Holmes isn’t.

Yeah, plot twist for you.

I have a hunch Sherlock.

32:27

Holmes is not actually a ghost.

But I wonder I do hunderds.

I meant a CD listen in my head.

They get confused.

Well, Jude Lobby a ghost is the real question.

You’d love will be most places where I am.

So at least you’ll manifest them to be there.

32:45

What did when he is ago, so, keep bumping into you and I’ll be like, what did I do to cause this?

Christine after everything.

I’ve said so far.

Where do you stand on?

Do you think he was fully committed 100% to this?

33:05

Or do you think?

Maybe he was therefore, we said the word a lot, but maybe he was there for The Whimsy, maybe he like a trick so that all the theatrics, you know, I lean toward, I think he really believed it.

And I think Vito you to.

I think that goes hand-in-hand with the theatrics.

33:22

It’s almost like that Drew him in and he like, kept him.

It’s very alluring to have something.

So Fantastical, also be something you could very much believe it.

I think he was 100% on board because I mean, he left the he left the spr when he felt questioned for being a bully of her is friendship.

33:42

With Houdini was Rocky over, their differences.

As far as I know, they were really close and he was willing to let that go.

He didn’t want to be known for his like, very famous literary works and he tried to achieve unlike remove his himself from that world and folks.

33:59

In spiritualism height.

He was all hands on deck as far as I’m concerned.

Yeah.

It’s like actions speak louder than words and he was acting like 110% of a Believer.

He that’s exactly it.

Meanwhile over here.

Well, I would say hmmm.

34:16

How do I put this?

I would say I’m I would be in the same camp as a CD.

I feel it, but it’s well documented that I’m a fervent believer.

And just about anything.

There’s some more outrageous, Fringe things that I have been able to build all a wall up against.

34:33

But in terms of basic Supernatural stuff of spirits or mediums or anything like that, I’m fully invested through and through also love the theatrics of it.

I think you balance me out pretty well though.

Christine.

Aw.

Well II would like to also be clear to you.

34:50

And that I would never sacrifice our friendship like a Houdini and an ACD.

Just because Of our any ghostly differences, but that being said, I think I’m more of a Believer than Houdini was.

Hmm.

I think, I think I am more skeptical.

I mean, a good example is like, when we were in that hotel room in New Orleans and the knocking kept happening.

35:10

I was convinced.

I’m still slightly convinced.

Maybe it was you or Eva or somebody there was nobody there but the second the knock happened, even if it were Eva he, you were like, that’s a ghost child.

There’s no denying it whatsoever.

And I felt that we are not that we’re currently sleeping in a building of hundreds of other families, but you know what, and I say that sarcastically but also in truth like it was a ghost.

35:36

It’s a yes, so I think you definitely more like a hundred percent Jump Right In and and you usually take me with you bully, happily happily dragon, dragon screaming.

Yeah.

So with all of the organization’s I did mention earlier, first of all, it wouldn’t hurt.

35:55

If there was an organization based around me, but since it’s episodes about Arthur Conan Doyle, what do we think about there being like a like a society?

A high-society you call it a CDC and the last word is just Club.

It’s just that a CD.

Oh my God.

36:12

It just happened.

Wow.

And just like that.

Okay never said, I don’t need my own club.

I just want to join this one, but I think maybe some lawyer somewhere is like you can’t say that.

I think it’s a cdc’s lawyer.

There are no I think their shit, I think there should be right like he put enough time and money and energy into into this whole field.

36:36

He certainly one of the people I look to the most honestly what I think about like a paranormal or psychical group like the ghost club or the spr.

I think it’s time for there to be a new version like the Next Generation.

36:52

A modern-day, which is why I think I should be the face of it.

If we’re asking for things, but hey, maybe you and you don’t have a sir before your name.

I don’t know that.

Like, let’s figure that out.

Way.

How do we get knighted as fast as possible?

That’s the next step.

I think, first, and then we’ll, then we’ll create your new new wave Club.

37:11

I think.

So you’re onto something there.

Thanks so much for listening.

We’ll be back next week with another great episode information.

37:27

On today’s episode came from biography the ghost Club at history by Peter Underwood the Vintage News BBC the guardian and the academic article Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spiritualism and new religions by Michael W Homer.

Remember to follow rituals on Spotify to get a and new episode every week and you can listen to this and all other episodes of rituals for free exclusively on Spotify.

37:49

And if you like the show, follow at Park asked on Facebook and Instagram and at Park as Network on Twitter, you can follow me at Eckstein Schieffer.

That’s xti.

Any schi, EF.

ER, and you can find me at the M Schultz th e, é m, SE H UL.

38:06

Z.

Thanks again for listening.

See you next week.

Rituals is executive produced by Max Cutler and is a Spotify.

My original from par cast.

It was created by Max color, sound design by Kristin Acevedo fact-checking by Cara McFarland research by.

Chelsea would is produced by Kristen Acevedo and Jonathan Ratliff with production assistants by Ron Shapiro.

38:26

We are your host, Christine Schieffer, and M Schultz.