Arthur Conan Doyle

[[File:Conan_doyle.jpg|165px|thumb|right|Conan Doyle in 1914]]
{{Paranormal}}
'''Arthur Conan Doyle''' {{lived|1859|1930}} was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] physician and writer who is best known for his detective stories involving Sherlock Holmes, as well as adventure novels such as ''The Lost World'', which popularised the idea that there might be [[dinosaur]]s living deep in the Amazonian jungle.<ref name=wpcd>{{wpa|Arthur Conan Doyle}}</ref>

But despite popularising the virtues of ratiocination in the Holmes stories, he also had a keen interest in the [[paranormal]]. He wrote historically important accounts of many paranormal topics and fell for a huge number of [[hoax]]es and stupidity-baits. While he was interested in supernatural phenomena from the 1880s, the death of Conan Doyle's son Kingsley during [[World War I]] and his subsequent desire to establish contact with him beyond the grave apparently deepened his involvement in [[spiritualist]] circles.<ref name=gardner/>

==Life==
He was born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859 and educated in [[England]] and [[Austria]], apparently becoming an [[agnostic]] at quite an early age. In 1876, he began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, one of the country's leading medical schools, and dabbled in botany and short-story writing, with his first tale published in 1879. He graduated in 1881, serving as a ship's surgeon and briefly in private practice in Plymouth, before completing a Doctor of Medicine in the degenerative neural disorder ''tabes dorsalis'' in 1885. The first Sherlock Holmes story was published in 1886, apparently inspired by the surgeon and academic Joseph Bell who taught Conan Doyle at Edinburgh. Meanwhile, he continued a not-particularly successful medical career; he developed an interest in ophthalmology in 1891 and briefly set up an unsuccessful practice in London. By then, his literary career was kicking off. He killed Holmes in 1893 to devote himself to more serious literary topics but soon resurrected the detective.<ref name=wpcd/>

He campaigned on various social and political issues. He was a proponent of [[vaccination]] but also of the [[Boer War]]. He also campaigned against miscarriages of justice and against the brutal rulers of the [[Belgian Congo]]. He stood twice for parliament as a Liberal Unionist candidate, in 1900 and 1906 (the Liberal Unionists split from the Liberal Party when the latter endorsed Irish Home Rule).<ref name=wpcd/>
==Medical achievements==
In 1890 the [[Germany|German]] physician and discoverer of [[germ theory]] Robert Koch announced a fallacious cure for tuberculosis which he claimed worked similarly to the brand of [[Vaccination|vaccines]] invented by his Rival Pasteur. Doyle went to Germany and started to review clinical studies concerning Tuberculin he found Tuberculin to be ineffectual as a vaccine but incredibly effective as a test. His publications destroyed Koch's medical careeer.<ref>https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-dr-arthur-conan-doyle-cracked-the-case-of-the-tuberculosis-remedy</ref>
==Spiritualism==
He was a keen believer in spiritualism (aka spiritism) and [[mediumship]], an interest that began around 1886, apparently after reading a book by the American judge and [[psychic]] researcher John Worth Edmonds. In 1893, he joined the [[Society for Psychical Research]].<ref name=diniejko>[http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/spiritualism.html Arthur Conan Doyle's Interest in Spiritualism], Andrzej Diniejko, Victorian Web</ref> He was also a member of {{wpl|The Ghost Club||,}} an informal group devoted to psychic research that was reconstituted in London in 1882 (an earlier incarnation existed in the 1860s with members including Charles Dickens). Other members included  Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Nandor Fodor, and W. B. Yeats. It still exists in a somewhat different form, still dedicated to the unexplained.<ref>{{wpa|The Ghost Club}}</ref>

He wrote 20 books on spiritualism, beginning with ''The New Revelation'' in 1918.<ref name=diniejko/> His two-volume ''The History of Spiritualism'' was published in 1926. The first volume covers the topic from the early days of [[Emanuel Swedenborg]] and Edward Irving, Scottish founder of the [[Catholic Apostolic Church]]; it also covers later mediums like the [[Fox sisters]] at Hydesville and researchers such as William Crookes. The second volume covered the late Victorian and more modern mediums such as [[Eusapia Palladino]] and Society for Psychical Research, as well as discussing spirit photography, voice mediumship, [[ectoplasm]]ic emanations, the development of spiritualism during World War I, and what spiritualism tells us about the [[afterlife]].<ref>[https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_History_of_Spiritualism The History of Spiritualism], Arthur Conan Doyle, reproduced on the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia website</ref>

He promoted spiritualism on worldwide lecture tours in the 1920s, visiting [[Australia]] and [[New Zealand]], the [[US]], and continental Europe. He reportedly continued to take the stage even after his death, with the medium [[Estelle Roberts]] purportedly contacting him on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London on July 7, 1930 (5 days after his death). According to a newspaper report, she conveyed a message from him, but it was drowned out by the organist playing something loud, and nobody, except perhaps his widow, heard what he said from beyond the grave.<ref name=diniejko/>

==Cottingley fairies==
{{main|Cottingley fairies}}
He played a key role in popularising the Cottingley fairies, photographs of alleged fairies taken by Elsie Wright (aged 16) and Frances Griffiths (9) near Shipley in Yorkshire. At [[Christmas]] in 1920, he wrote an article on fairies for ''The Strand'' magazine and included some of the girls' fake photographs. He had been told about the fairies by a spiritualist, Felicia Scatcherd, and sent his friend, the [[theosophist]] Edward Gardner, to investigate, being uncertain if they were fairies or [[ghost]]s or mediumistic emanations. He also wrote to photographic experts at the Eastman Co and Kodak but did not receive a reply before publishing. Conan Doyle included more of the girls' photographs in his book ''The Coming of the Fairies'' in 1922. In the 1980s the girls, by then old women, revealed they had faked the photographs using paper cut-outs.<ref>[https://www.visitportsmouth.co.uk/conandoyle/exhibitions/the-cottingley-fairies The Cottingley Fairies], ''Conan Doyle Collection'', Visit Portsmouth website</ref><ref>[http://www.prairieghosts.com/fairies.html Conan Doyle and the Cottingley fairies case], The Haunted Museum</ref>

==Mary Celeste==
{{main|Mary Celeste}}
Conan Doyle wrote a fictional account of the disappearance of the people on board the ship Mary Celeste in the short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", published in the ''Cornhill Magazine'' in 1884. This work of fiction contributed much to the later myths about the ship, even popularising the misspelling "Marie Celeste".

==Harry Houdini==
{{main|Harry Houdini}}
He was, for a while, friends with the legendary [[magician]], escapologist, and debunker [[Harry Houdini]] — until he became convinced that Houdini had paranormal abilities. The two men shared an interest in spiritualism; Houdini had turned to mediums to try to contact his dead mother but had rapidly seen through their [[scam]]s. Conan Doyle was more trusting. The author wasn't the only one to believe Houdini had special powers — Sarah Bernhardt reportedly asked him to conjure up a new leg for her. But Houdini was a thorough-going [[rationalist]] and told Conan Doyle this was nonsense, and the two men fell out.<ref name=wpcd/><ref name=gardner>[https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/10/houdini-and-conan-doyle-impossible-edinburgh-festival Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle: a friendship split by spiritualism], Lyn Gardner, ''The Guardian'', 10 Aug 2015</ref><ref>[https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4430 Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle], Brian Dunning, ''Skeptoid'', ep. 4430, September 2, 2014</ref>

==Piltdown Man==
{{main|Piltdown Man}}
There are theories that he was the hoaxer responsible for the [[Piltdown Man]] scientific fraud, a fake [[missing link]] supposedly unearthed in 1915. His role was advanced by Richard Milner and by Samuel Rosenberg's book ''Naked is the Best Disguise'' (1974).<ref name=wpcd/> Conan Doyle lived near the site of the "discovery", played golf on Piltdown, and mentioned faking a fossil find in ''The Lost World''. It was [[hypothesis]]ed that he created the fraud to get his revenge on scientists who had mocked his belief in the supernatural.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/10/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-cleared-of-piltdown-man-hoax/ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cleared of Piltdown Man hoax], The Daily Telegraph, 10 Aug 2016</ref>

==Cryptozoology==
In 1928, he claimed to have observed a young plesiosaur in the sea off the coast of Aegina in [[Greece]].<ref>[http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/01/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-and-the-sea-monster.html Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sea Monster], Adrienne Mayor, ''Wonders and Marvels'', Jan 2013</ref> This followed the 1912 publication of his [[dinosaur]] novel ''The Lost World''.<ref>{{wpa|The Lost World (Conan Doyle novel)}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Holmesian fallacy]]

==External links==
*[[wikisource:en:Author:Arthur Conan Doyle|Works of Arthur Conan Doyle on Wikisource]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doyle, Arthur Conan}}
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Physicians]]
[[Category:Scotland]]

Categories: Authors, Physicians, Scotland