The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-03-22
THE FACTS AND PALACES OF
MODERN SPiRITISM lis SIR
CONAN DOYLE IN COMMUNiCA.
TON WITH THE SPIRITS OF
THE DEAD?
(By J. Godfrey Raupert, X. S. c.
Article II.

The second fallacy contained in Sir
Conan Doyle's argument is his as
sumption that the spirits of the
seance-room are the spirits of the
dead who have proved their identity.
To the student, unacquainted with the
intricacies of the subject, the evil
dence presented in support of this
claim will seem strong; but it is never
theless utterly worthless and proves
nothing of the kind. 1t falls to the
ground entirely when it is borne in
mind that we have cases on record
in which similar striking evidence of
identity was given but in which the
spirit, caught in falsehood, finally
himself confessed that he was not
what he had claimed to be-
Question of Identity.
A single instance of this kind shows
how complex the problem is and what
sources of information must be at the
disposal of these spirits-how difficult,
if not impossible, it is to prove their
identity. All experienced spiritists
are fully alive to this immense diff
Guilty and have striven by various de-
vices to overcome it; but so far they
have not been successful. The ques-
ton of identity is still the bitter cross
Of psychical research, and Sir Conan
Doyle must be aware of it. 1t is his
will to believe" which causes him
to pass over it so lightly 1t is Won
derful how this will to believe blinds
the minds and peryerts the judgment.
mitted that the spirits habitually i'm
personate the living, each individual
eXperimenter tries to persuade him
self that his particular spirits are do
ing nothing Of the kind. It is often
only after many months and even
years that the deception is discov-
cred and that the establishment
comes. In one of his works the late
Mr.. Stanton Moses, for many years
the leader of the English spiritists
and a highly educated man, admitted
that all the information ever given
him in proof of the presence Of the
departed might, in harmony with his
experience Of the Spirits, have been
first obtained and then impaired by
false intelligence" Prof. l.. P. Jacks
of Oxford, President of the British
Psychical Research Society in 1917
and personally high authority on
the subject, made this statement in
his presidential address: Take the
question of imposture. Mediums are
not the only imposters. How about
the commentators? Are they mas
Guerading? You can have no abso-
lutte proof that there is no imposture
on the other side. | think that the
whole meaning of personal identity
needs to be very carefully thought out
and considered before we begin to
produce evidence in favor of personal
IDENTITY l had myself a striking
of this kind of spirit-imper-
sonation many years ago. A spirit,
claiming to he departed personal
friend of mine and intimately &C
quainted with that individuals life
history, was, after many months, dis
covered in a falsehood and then freely
and boastingly admitted that he had
to trick us so successfully
by drawing the information required
from our own sub-conscious memories.
Sources of information.
Indeed, the evidence available today
fully demonstrates the fact that the
main sources Of information of these
spirits are the sub-conscious minds of
the living, although it cannot be