"Doyle, Arthur Conan - The New Revelation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

satisfied if the day does not come when he wonders if
the weak spot is not in his own brain. For some time I
was sustained in my scepticism by the consideration
that many famous men, such as Darwin himself, Huxley,
Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, derided this new
branch of knowledge; but when I learned that their
derision had reached such a point that they would not
even examine it, and that Spencer had declared in so
many words that he had decided against it on a
priori grounds, while Huxley had said that it did not
interest him, I was bound to admit that, however great,
they were in science, their action in this respect was
most unscientific and dogmatic, while the action of
those who studied the phenomena and tried to find out
the laws that governed them, was following the true
path which has given us all human advance and
knowledge. So far I had got in my reasoning, so my
sceptical position was not so solid as before.

It was somewhat reinforced, however, by my own
experiences. It is to be remembered that I was working
without a medium, which is like an astronomer working
without a telescope. I have no psychical powers
myself, and those who worked with me had little more.
Among us we could just muster enough of the magnetic
force, or whatever you will call it, to get the table
movements with their suspicious and often stupid
messages. I still have notes of those sittings and
copies of some, at least, of the messages. They were
not always absolutely stupid. For example, I find that
on one occasion, on my asking some test question, such
as how many coins I had in my pocket, the table spelt
out: "We are here to educate and to elevate, not to
guess riddles." And then: "The religious frame of
mind, not the critical, is what we wish to inculcate."
Now, no one could say that that was a puerile message.
On the other hand, I was always haunted by the fear of
involuntary pressure from the hands of the sitters.
Then there came an incident which puzzled and disgusted
me very much. We had very good conditions one evening,
and an amount of movement which seemed quite
independent of our pressure. Long and detailed
messages came through, which purported to be from a
spirit who gave his name and said he was a commercial
traveller who bad lost his life in a recent fire at a
theatre at Exeter. All the details were exact, and he
implored us to write to his family, who lived, he said,
at a place called Slattenmere, in Cumberland. I
did so, but my letter came back, appropriately enough,
through the dead letter office. To this day I do not