Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the Scottish physician and author best known for creating Sherlock Holmes, developed a serious interest in psychic phenomena in the late nineteenth century and became, by the time of the First World War, the English-speaking world’s most prominent public champion of Spiritualism.

His commitment deepened amid the mass bereavement of the war, in which he lost his son Kingsley and other close relatives, and he came to see Spiritualism not as a curiosity but as a consoling revelation for a grieving age.

Doyle lectured tirelessly across Britain, North America, and beyond, served as President of the London Spiritualist Alliance and the British College of Psychic Science, and devoted his fame and fortune to the cause.

In June 1926 he published the two-volume The History of Spiritualism, prompted by the lack of a written history: the first volume traced the movement’s origins, the second collected biographies of notable mediums.

The work is still regarded as an authoritative, if partisan, account. He died in 1930.

A note on the evidence. Doyle’s advocacy outran his caution: he defended phenomena later shown to be fraudulent — most famously endorsing the faked “Cottingley Fairies” photographs — and quarreled with the magician Harry Houdini over exposing mediums. The Atlas presents his sincerity and influence fully while noting that his enthusiasm sometimes overrode evidential rigor.