The Kluski Molds

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The Kluski Molds is an article written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in The New-York Times on 6 january 1923.


The Kluski Molds

The New-York Times (6 january 1923)

To the Editor of The New York Times:

I notice in your columns the following reference to my own beliefs: "That Sir Arthur is the reverse of skeptical is rather amusingly shown by his saying about the cast of an arm made in paraffin at a seance that it was proved to be of spirit origin by the smallness of the wrist."

It is curious that our critics while rightly exacting extreme accuracy from us, seldom, if ever, show the same virtue themselves. It was not an arm in the case of the Geley-Kluski experiments, nor was It in the first instance a cast. It was a mold of a hand, obtained by dipping the materialized hand into paraffin and then dematerializing, so that there was a large intact hand with a small wrist opening.

Is there really anything very amusing in my assertion that such an effect could not be produced in a fragile material in any way but a psychic one? The three witnesses to the fact were Richet, Professor of Physiology; the Duc de Granmont, and Geley, the well-known investigator. What possible alternative explanation can be produced, and why should this not be the subject of investigation by any scientific committee?

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
Crowborough, England, Dec. 19, 1922.