Professor Low to Lady Conan Doyle
Professor Low to Lady Conan Doyle is an article published in the Sunday Dispatch on 1 february 1931.
Professor Low to Lady Conan Doyle
RELIGION OR SCIENCE?
"Spiritualists Try To Run Before They Can Stand."
HIS OWN BELIEF.
The articles on Spiritualism by Lady Conan Doyle, which have appeared in these columns during the past few weeks, have aroused widespread comment, both favourable and critical.
In the following letter, Professor A. M. Low replies to Lady Conan Doyle's charge that a number of scientists "adopt a dictatorial attitude" towards Spiritualism, though "ignorant of the subject."
Professor Low says:
I would be grateful if you would allow me to correct a misapprehension under which Lady Conan Doyle seems to suffer.
She is good enough to refer to a report concerning my comments on the subject of Spiritualism in a recent book by myself. If she had paid me the mild compliment of reading all the matter concerned, as I have in the case of her own articles, there might have been little need for her trouble.
I am entirely in favour of honest research into any new science, but I would like her to join me in decrying the many ludicrous statements which are now made in the name of her cause.
It is regrettable that the confirmed Spiritualist seems to regard his attitude of mind in the light of a faith, and therefore finds it necessary to indulge in personalities which are not of the slightest interest to anyone.
"ORGY OF RELIGION."
Lady Conan Doyle says that it is not true to suggest that an orgy of religion is ever used to announce a séance.
I have attended a definite meeting when the time taken by religious singing, and prayer was ten minutes, and the total period necessary to communicate photographically with the spirit world approximately three minutes. I consider that the difference in time justifies the use of the word orgy.
No one could be more anxious than myself that the Church should investigate the claims of spiritualism, and if Lady Conan Doyle had troubled to read more of my remarks she would have realised that I am by no means inimical.
What I do suggest is that the vast majority of spiritualistic believers suffer from emotional desire and that they see psychic phenomena in happenings which are capable of ordinary explanation.
I am not one of those foolish people who imagine that something does not exist because it cannot be seen; I appreciate the old argument that atmospherics were present all along, but that some method of reception was necessary to render them audible to our human ears.
EYES AND EARS.
At the same time I believe in unprejudiced investigation, and I fail to see how scientific tests can be applied when the eyes of the observers are stultified by lack of light, and their ears by relatively loud music.
It may well be that the permanence of thought can be established; this has always been my own belief. I cannot follow how this permits us entirely to neglect the effects of time, and why we should imagine that disembodied spirits should be capable of speaking to different people and to express different points of view.
To speak of life upon other planes may sound pretty, but what exactly does it mean? What is another plane? Where is it? And how does it differ from auto-hypnosis of the average person?
Spiritualists try to run long before they have learned to stand. Instead of hoping to discover how thought can affect matter, and whether there is any detectable emanation during the mental process, they are content to listen to sayings which are frequently puerile.
THE AVERAGE MAN.
If intelligence on other planes is fairly represented by the remarks one hears at most séances, it is easy to understand the normal man's fear of death.
Should spiritualism be a religion, then I will apologise for all my remarks and leave it to those who with to believe; but if it is a science, no exception can be taken to my anxiety to learn by questions.
Psychic phenomena are either the meet important manifestations known to the world or the most cruel humbug.
In either case, those who are fortunate enough to suffer from phenomena should look with an air of kindly helpfulness towards others who are presumably less fortunate.
