First spiritual Temple (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was watching a documentary on Sir Conan Doyle over the weekend it was part of a Sherlock Holmes weekend. As I sat and watched I was quite surprised to discover that he hated his most famous creation and spent the majority of his later life trying to get away from Sherlock Holmes. I was even more surprised to discover that he was a devote spiritualist and travelled the world spreading the word about spiritualism. He also wrote a number of books on the subject but he never received the recognition he craved for these works and it pained him to realize that he would always be known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The following link gives you a more in depth look at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist work, it also features a list of the books he's written on the subject.

http://www.fst.org/doyle.htm

I will go and have a look at the site I remember reading somewhere that he was a spirtualist but did not know he hated Sherlock Holmes mind you so do I so that sort of put me off of his work so now I have to take a fresh look at his other books. I hate anything like that like Agtha Christie.

Unfortunately due to his involvement over those 'fairy pictures' Arthur Conan Doyle's reputation took a pounding. It made me really mad when the mh team implied that he had stolen 'Hound of the Baskervilles'.
I knew that he was involved in the early spiritualist movement, because of the different things I had read, that he was also interested in Houdini, who always is accredited with trying to expose fraudlent mediums but who'se wife held a senance on the anniversary of his death.
Although, nowadays, it is quite popular to mock the spiritualist movement if you are 'scientific' minded or believe it to be an oppiate of the masses, the people originally involved in the setting up of the spiritualist movement were 'scientifically minded', it is conveniently forgotten that Arthur Conan Doyle trained as a doctor in Edinburgh, the Earl of Bute, who was responsible for the industrialisation of Cardiff Docks, built both Cardiff and Castell Coch in South Wales. So was Sir Arthur Balfour, so despite claimes to the contrary, it wasn't the middle classes bored with their lives that sparked the interest in Spiritualism in Britain.
It's popularity grew during and after the WWI, and this, I feel was partly responsible for the
governement imprisoning Helen Duncan during the second World War.

That was interesting Maggs I agree with you that it all took off during and after WW1 as so many people had lost loved ones etc.

It was quite established during the Victorian era but I think it became really popular due to the devastation suffered during the First World War.

Mags I'd completely forgotten that he was involved in those pictures, quite a few famous people were involved in giving them credence and the two girls involved in creating them kept the pretence up right up until one of them died then the other gave a interview just before her death and said it was all a hoax. She explained that they had drawn and painted them on card and placed them in the tress and bushes at the bottom of the garden and had taken the photo's. I think their father found the photo's and had told someone about them and it all snowballed from there. If they had done it today they would have been dismissed straight away, the girls were very cleaver to have fooled a nation for so long.

The penny has dropped now I have seen the photo's of fairy in the trees etc

There was no stigma attached into believing in the paranormal at the time. It was said that Queen Victoria held seances to try and contact Prince Albert after his death. The reason she was supposedly to be so devoted to John Brown was he was thought to be a medium.

I did not know John Brown had the gift but knew Queen Victoria was really into it etc. I remember hearing about Daisy Warick (Warrick Castle) who was a misstress of Edward VII they used to hold seances all the time in one room of the castle but they once called up something very bad and the room had to be closed off as they could not use it dont know much more abut the story than that or if the room is still sealed off etc. Sort of on topic a very good mate of mines friend was the Diana dresser and when my mate went to visit her at Windsor her mate told her that there are parts of the castle that cannot be used because of very heavy paranormal activity I wonder if it had anything to do with Queen Victoria seances.

Didn't Victoria spend more time at Balmoral and Osborone then Windsor in later years?

I think the hauntings would be down to the events and things that would have happened over the years in the Castle.

I found a good website regarding Arthur Conan Doyle, it has quite a detailed biography of his and tells you all about his literary work and his campaigning on behalf of Spiritualism.

www.sherlockholmesonline.org/ -

When I was singing with the Post office, we used to pop into the Sherlock Holmes pub which is a sort of unofficial musuem to the famous character, although the staff often got asked if the famous detective had drunk in there often!

www.sherlockholmespub.com/ -

Mags how did the staff keep a straight face its like the tourist who said fancy building Windsor Castle so close to the airport

A lot of the staff were either Aussies or South Africans doing backpacking tours as was the norm with bar staff at that time. (Because you usually get accommodation with your job)
but the landlady used to roll her eyes and say he came in all the time.

can you just imagine some tourists going home and showing off there photo's etc and saying this is the pub that Sherlock Homes used to drink in

I know, talk about not being able to distinguish between fiction and reality