Preface

IS SPIRITUALISM BASED ON FRAUD?


THE EVIDENCE GIVEN BY SIR A. C. DOYLE
AND OTHERS DRASTICALLY EXAMINED


BY

JOSEPH McCABE


LONDON:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4




PREFACE


On March 11 of this year Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did me the honour of
debating the claims of Spiritualism with me before a vast and
distinguished audience at the Queen's Hall, London. My opponent had
insisted that I should open the debate; and, when it was pointed out
that the critic usually follows the exponent, he had indicated that I
had ample material to criticize in the statement of the case for
Spiritualism in his two published works.

How conscientiously I addressed myself to that task, and with what
result, must be left to the reader of the published debate. Suffice it
to say that my distinguished opponent showed a remarkable disinclination
to linger over his own books, and wished to "broaden the issue." Since
the bulk of the time allotted to me in the debate was then already
spent, it was not possible to discuss satisfactorily the new evidences
adduced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and not recorded in his books. I
hasten to repair the defect in this critical examination of every
variety of Spiritualistic phenomena.

My book has a serious aim. The pen of even the dullest author--and I
trust I do not fall into that low category of delinquents--must grow
lively or sarcastic at times in the course of such a study as this. When
one finds Spiritualists gravely believing that a corpulent lady is
transferred by spirit hands, at the rate of sixty miles an hour, over
the chimney-pots of London, and through several solid walls, one cannot
be expected to refrain from smiling. When one contemplates a group of
scientific or professional men plumbing the secrets of the universe
through the mediumship of an astute peasant or a carpenter, or a lady of
less than doubtful virtue, one may be excused a little irony. When our
creators of super-detectives enthusiastically applaud things which were
fully exposed a generation ago, and affirm that, because they could not,
in pitch darkness, see any fraud, there _was_ no fraud, we cannot
maintain the gravity of philosophers. When we find this "new revelation"
heralded by a prodigious outbreak of fraud, and claiming as its most
solid foundations to-day a mass of demonstrable trickery and deceit, our
sense of humour is pardonably irritated. Nor are these a few exceptional
weeds in an otherwise fair garden. In its living literature to-day, in
its actual hold upon a large number of people in Europe and America,
Spiritualism rests to a very great extent on fraudulent representations.

Here is my serious purpose. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made two points
against me which pleased his anxious followers. One--which evoked a
thunder of applause--was that I was insensible of the consolation which
this new religion has brought to thousands of bereaved humans. I am as
conscious of that as he or any other Spiritualist is. It has, however,
nothing to do with the question whether Spiritualism is true or no,
which we were debating; or with the question to what extent Spiritualism
is based on fraud, which I now discuss. Far be it from me to slight the
finer or more tender emotions of the human heart. On the contrary, it is
in large part to the more general cultivation of this refinement and
delicacy of feeling that I look for the uplifting of our race. But let
us take things in order. Does any man think it is a matter of
indifference whether this ministry of consolation is based on fraud and
inspired by greed? It is inconceivable.

And, indeed, the second point made by my opponent shows that I do not
misconceive him and his followers. It is that I exaggerate the quantity
of fraud in the movement. If they are right--if they have purified the
movement of the grosser frauds which so long disfigured it--they have
some ground to ask the critic to address himself to the substantial
truth rather than the occasional imposture. But this is a question of
fact; and to that question of fact the following pages are devoted. I
survey the various classes of Spiritualistic phenomena. I tell the
reader how materializations, levitations, raps, direct voices, apports,
spirit-photographs, lights and music in the dark, messages from the
dead, and so on, have actually and historically been engineered during
the last fifty years. This is, surely, useful. Spiritualism is in one of
its periodical phases of advance. Our generation knows nothing of the
experience of these things of an earlier generation. To teach one's
fellows the weird ingenuity, the sordid impostures, the grasping
trickery, which have accompanied Spiritualism since its birth in America
in 1848 can hurt only one class of men--impostors.

J. M.

_Easter, 1920._




CONTENTS

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