Remembered best for his fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, and for his involvement in spiritualism. He received a medical degree from Edinburgh\u2019s Royal Infirmary and practiced medicine in Hampshire until 1891 and then left medicine to write his detective novels, short stories and historical romances. Doyle had an interest in psychic phenomena throughout his life, but he took up the cause energetically during World War I. He spoke and wrote as an ardent advocate of spiritualism, publishing many articles and books right up to the time of his death, including a two-volume History of Spiritualism in 1926. He also subscribed wholeheartedly to the reality of the Cottingley fairies, pendulum divination, dowsing, ectoplasm, spirit writing, ghosts, and many other psychical phenomena. In this he was entirely uncritical and impossible to disillusion.<\/p>\n
He was on friendly terms with the magician Harry Houdini and convinced that Houdini made his escapes by dematerializing his body; oozing out of his chains, strait-jacket, casket or whatever imprisoned him; and then becoming material again. Despite Houdini\u2019s explaining that his escapes were made by trickery, Doyle did not believe him.<\/p>\n
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Remembered best for his fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, and for his involvement in spiritualism. He received a medical degree from Edinburgh\u2019s Royal Infirmary and practiced medicine in Hampshire until 1891 and then left medicine to write his detective novels, short stories and historical romances. Doyle had an interest in psychic phenomena throughout his life, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n