The subtitle of this book largely explains its content: Writings in defense of the Afterlife by the father of Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, it is a compilation of unpublished texts in which Conan Doyle argues for the possibility of communication with the dead. There it is.
At Zenda we reproduce a few pages from Spiritism (The Vigil), by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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III. SHADOWS ON THE SCREEN
There is nothing more wonderful, more extraordinary, and yet, to me, more true than the idea that past events can leave a record in our surroundings that can be felt, heard, or seen long after they occurred. I have arranged these impressions roughly in order of frequency, because it is more common to sense the past than to hear it, and more common to hear it than to see it. Houses haunted by faint noises are more frequent than those that harbor apparitions, and families have been pursued for years by poltergeists, though they have never laid eyes on their tormentors.
A sensitive mind is easily affected in any place where there have been recent troubles. A lady I know recently visited the director of a hospital and found that he was not in his office. “Mrs. Dodson has gone,” said the nurse. “Have you received bad news?” “Yes, she has just received a telegram that her husband is very ill.” How did my friend know there was bad news? She felt it as a sinking in her own heart upon entering the room, before the nurse arrived. “Telepathy!” says the parrot. Well, if telepathy can stretch to mean that a thought or emotion can be transmitted from brain to brain, but can remain stationary for an hour and then imprint itself on any sensitive person who draws near, then I shall not dispute the word. But if for an hour, why not for a year? And if for a year, why not for a century? There is a record on the screen: when this tiny cube of ether, if Professor Einstein still allows the expression, can indefinitely retain some intimate and enduring change that marks and even faintly reproduces the emotion a human being has experienced within it.
I had a friend who lived in a hundred-year-old house. His wife, who was highly sensitive, continually perceived a tug at the stairs, always on the same step. Later it was discovered that an old woman who had previously lived there had received a playful shove from a mischievous child and lost her balance, tumbling down the stairs. It is not necessary to believe that some goblin remained on that step repeating the fatal act. The probable explanation seems to be that the startled mind of the elderly woman, upon feeling herself falling, left some permanent imprint that could still be perceived in this peculiar manner.
Effects of Ancient Battlefields
The invisible records in the air of this kind would explain many things that are presently inexplicable. It is known that men of nervous temperament have been terrified in certain locations without any obvious cause. Some horror of the past, invisible to their eyes, may have impressed itself upon their senses. One need not be extraordinarily psychic to produce the same effect on an ancient battlefield. I am by no means psychic, and yet I am aware, beyond imagination, of a curious effect, almost a dimming of the landscape with a marked sense of heaviness when I stand on an old battlefield. I have perceived it especially at Hastings and Culloden, two battles where great causes were ultimately crushed and where the bitter resentment of the defeated could fill their hearts. The shadow still remains. A more familiar example of the same faculty is the dimming that settles on the mind of an ordinary person when entering certain houses. The most irate agitator does not need to envy our nobility their ancient castles, for he is happier living out his days in the humblest cottage, untouched by psychic disturbances, than occupying the grandest mansion that still bears the grim marks of rooms that may have been the setting for cruelty or other vices.
If a sensitive person can perceive any record of a past event, then there is evidence that, by extension, someone even more sensitive could actually see the person who left that imprint. That it concerns the person themselves in spirit seems to me, in most cases, absolutely incredible. That the victim of some centuries-old wrong must still in her old attire haunt the scene of her past martyrdom in person is, in fact, hard to believe. It is more believable, though we may not understand the details, that some form of thought detached and remaining visible in the place where extreme mental suffering was endured. How and why are questions that will be resolved by our descendants. If we could conceive that we have a form within another, like the layers of an onion, so that the outer layer could detach itself under the influence of emotion and continue a mechanical existence in that place while the rest of the organism moves on without even noticing it, such a hypothesis, as grotesque as it may seem, would accord better with the observed facts than any other explanation I know. Each newly peeled layer of the onion would constitute a new thought-form, and our passage through life would be marked at our most emotional crises by a long trail of such forms. No matter how grotesque the idea may appear, I can state with confidence that the true explanation, when it arrives, will be no less grotesque.
Past Thought-Forms
Let us now consider some concrete examples where this past thought-form has manifested itself. I know of no better case than the one recorded by the late Miss Goodrich-Freer, a woman who combined steady nerves and calm judgment with a conservative temperament to the point of incredulity. She slept in a room at Hampton Court Palace, reputed to be haunted, and she recounts in full detail what occurred. No impartial person could read the original account without becoming utterly convinced that the events happened as told.
It was a small, curtainless bedroom, with a door opening near the bed. It is characteristic of the woman who kept vigil—she had come hoping to witness the apparition—to be reading an article by Lord Farrer, “Should We Lower Our Standard of Courage?”. Despite the reading, or perhaps because of it, she fell asleep and was awakened several hours later by sounds of movement. It was completely dark, and some force seemed to prevent her from reaching the matches. A single unanswered question remained. Suddenly a soft point of light appeared in the gloom, brightened and expanded into the figure of a tall, slender woman moving slowly around the room. She paused on the opposite side, and the observer could clearly see her profile. “Her face was unspectacularly beautiful, that of a woman thirty to thirty-five, slender figure, her dress of dark, soft material with a full skirt and a wide belt tied high, a scarf draped over the shoulders, sleeves tight beneath the elbow, and hair arranged so that it did not lie flat on the head.” A second question directed at this figure produced no effect. She raised her slender white hands, knelt, buried her face in her palms, and seemed to pray. Then the light went out and the scene ended. The impression left on the observer’s mind by the act and attitude was one of admonition, yet at the same time of gentle resignation. Her nerves remained completely intact, and she recorded that she spent part of the rest of the night reading Drift of Psychical Research by Myers.
Such an experience, and indeed it is of a very common kind, cannot be rationally explained on spiritual or physical grounds. Acknowledging the fact — and there is no reasonable alternative but to accept it — we cannot conceive that this unfortunate woman has wandered for a century or more through a room where she suffered great wrong in life. By her appearance, one would judge she was more a victim than a culprit. Why, then, condemn her to such a strange, monotonous, and useless fate? If we conceive that she is some shadow of herself, detached in those days of trouble and still present, then the matter becomes clearer, if we do not fully understand the details, that she herself may be happy elsewhere. Such a shadow, like most psychic phenomena, might appear luminous to someone like Miss Goodrich-Freer, who possesses a certain clairvoyant gift.
If one wonders why this thought-form appears only at certain hours, I must admit that I do not know.
A similar example can be drawn from the recent book by Mrs. Tweedale, Ghosts I Have Seen, which, under its popular title, contains an extraordinary record of firsthand psychic experiences. Mrs. Tweedale is an admirable witness, for, like Miss Goodrich-Freer, she is clairvoyant and possesses a sound and critical judgment, while her personal reputation gives us complete confidence in her statements. Materialists will never fairly confront the obvious alternative: that such firsthand accounts either imply that a respectable person has begun lying for no reason or that they are true. When a clairvoyant clearly describes her own experiences, the book attains great value. And I would only mention Beginnings of Seership by Turvey among the more recent works as comparable to Miss Tweedale’s personal knowledge.
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Author: Arthur Conan Doyle. Title: Spiritism. Translation: Javier Fernández Rubio. Publisher: El Desvelo. Seller: Todos tus libros.