I know that we seem to be coming down on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rather frequently, but this prominent writer of Edwardian England provides us with many examples of just how naive and gullible a well-educated "gentleman" can be. We have already discussed the matter of the famous Cottingley fairies, in which Sir Arthur accepted obviously faked photographs as evidence of the existence of the "wee folk," believing that two teenaged girls were incapable of lying to the world and deceiving such a perceptive person as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

In this discussion, I will illustrate for you how Sir Arthur was made use of by those who followed him. When he died in 1930, every spiritualist in the business hastened to summon up the spirit of the author. A very popular stunt among the spiritualists at that time was the process of producing on photographic film, images of the dear departed. This branch of the art was very convincing to the uninitiated, since photography was so very new and mysterious to them. One of the leading practitioners of "spirit photography" was John Myers, and though his product was very amateurish and would not convince anyone with a grain of common sense, Myers flourished.

One of the most famous of these silly photographs was taken in 1929. It is shown here. It purports to show "ectoplasm" being produced by a Canadian "medium" who used the name "Mary M." Ectoplasm is the mysterious substance that mediums are said to extrude from their bodily orifices - and the less we discuss that, the better. Of course, we skeptics often suspect that things are not exactly as represented. We therefore look upon this photograph with some doubt. Could be that Mary has merely placed some scraps of gauze on the top of her head, in her right ear, up her nose, and coming from her mouth? We must wonder.

But proof like this was all that the believers needed. And what I'm showing you here is some of the VERY BEST of the work of the "spirit photographers" in their heyday.

But let us return to how the spiritualists made such good use of one of their celebrities -- after he was dead. Reproduced here we see two photographs: on the left is a stock picture of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. On the right is a "spirit" photo made by John Meyers shortly after Conan Doyle's death, the face seemingly floating in the sky among clouds -- since we all know that that's where good folks go when they die. I hardly think I need to point out to you the obvious similarity between the two faces. Please bear in mind that this stock photograph was widely available to anyone who wished a copy of it. And, though it does not show clearly in this reproduction, there was a mass of what clearly appears to be cheesecloth or gauze of some sort surrounding the "spirit" photo.

Well, just hazarding a guess, and being the curmudgeon that I am, I would say that perhaps Mr. Meyers simply cut out part of a photographic print of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, stuck it into a piece of gauze, and photographed the result. The credulous of the day snapped up this evidence as very positive, and I'm sure that Mr. Meyers had quite a few chortles at this further proof that he did not need to have great skill in order to deceive his customers.

So that you'll be completely informed on this matter, I will tell you that the left-hand image shown here is "flopped" left-to-right. I believe that in order to make his "spirit" photograph of Sir Arthur less resemble the stock photograph, Meyers simply flopped his negative before printing it. Therefore, to better demonstrate the resemblance between the two, I have flopped the original stock photograph. This photograph, which is actually a photo of the 1927 H.L. Gates painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London, is frequently used in biographies. For example, see the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry -- incorrectly placing Sir Arthur under "Doyle" rather than "Conan Doyle," as does the Library of Congress, as well.

Lest you think that the subject I am discussing here is merely frivolous and not worth your attention, I ask you to bear in mind that these matters were taken very seriously back then - AND ARE STILL TAKEN SERIOUSLY by believers in spiritualism, today. So far as I know, no one has ever noted the similarity between the two Arthur Conan Doyle photographs I show here. Why? Because the believers have no interest in properly investigating these matters, and because rational folks have no interest in these matters at all. Both points of view are understandable, if unacceptable.

Next week, I will outline for you a much more modern example of a farce, this one belonging to the space age. It involves astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who took part in the Apollo 14 mission to Luna in 1971. You may know that Dr. Mitchell is a devoted believer in ESP, spoon-bending, and just about everything that many of us find not only difficult to accept, but preposterous.

Until next week, be sure to wear the garlic around your neck, beware of planetary alignments, avoid walking under ladders, and buy lots of lottery tickets.....