The Curious Case of Roger Straughan and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A review of Roger Straughan, A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem, O-
Books, Winchester Washington, !""#

In some rare video footage of an interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle filmed in the summer of 1927,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle walks into shot at the beginning of the take with a dog at his side, and alls the
dog to follow him at the end! During the interview, in whih he talks about the harater of Sherlok
"olmes and, loser to Conan Doyle#s heart, his interest in s$iritualism! %or Conan Doyle s$iritualism is
a &great $hiloso$hy# and a sub'et on whih he desribes himself as a &gramo$hone# rather than an
e($ert as suh! Conan Doyle 'ustifies s$ending so muh of his time and energy, as well as finanial
resoures, writing and leturing on s$iritualism beause of its im$ortane for the human rae! "e
wanted to give others the knowledge and assurane he had himself reeived that we survive death!
Conan Doyle died some three years later in )uly 19*+, but as might be e($eted from a ,resident of the
College of ,syhi Studies with an interest in $syhi matters strething over -+ years, Conan Doyle#s
desire to $rove that &there is no death# did not end with his $assing from his $hysial body!
Communiations $ur$orting to be from Arthur Conan Doyle .ACD/ through various mediums started
almost immediately, of whih his widow 'udged some ten $erent likely to be genuine due to the
0uality of evidential ommuniation they $ossessed! Attem$ts at ommuniation from ACD have
a$$arently ontinued to the $resent day, notably through the $hysial trane mediumshi$ of David
1hom$son, e(am$les of whih an be heard on 2itor 3ammit#s Afterlife 4e$ort website!
1he 1927 film footage of ACD with his dog is signifiant to our ase, a study of Conan Doyle#s
survival, as dogs $rovided one of the first lues ACD sent to 4oger Straughan, aademi $hiloso$her
and Conan Doyle enthusiast! 1he Straughan#s muh loved but $syhoti resue dog Sgott, a 5erman
she$herd6ollie ross, had died from a malignant saroma! In the interval between death and burial,
4oger Straughan reahed for some bedtime reading, a volume of olleted Conan Doyle short stories!
7$ening the book at random he alighted on the words &his e(it was as s$eedy and $ainless as ould be
desired# .17/, whih it turned out referred to the death of a dog! 7n the $revious $age his eye was
drawn to the sentene, &A more malignant ase I have never seen#, the ase being &a frightful saroma#,
and on the o$$osite $age &an e(eedingly luky dog# .18/, a $hrase often used to desribe Sgott, whose
anti9soial habits would not have been borne by many!
:ritten in the form of a detetive story, searhing for lues and weighing the evidene, Straughan
embarks on a 'ourney lasting over a deade in whih ACD a$$ears to ommuniate to him via his
literary works! :e learn that for Conan Doyle books were not 'ust stories but a way of ommuniating
with the s$irit of the deeased, and that ontrary to an &e($ert# who $ronouned that ACD hated dogs,
he was in fat e(eedingly fond of them, that they were even used as a kind of signature of friendshi$!
;sing this method of allowing his hand to be drawn randomly to a book, $age and sentene, Straughan
was even given the target word Conan Doyle had agreed with his last surviving daughter, Dame )ean,
before his death .a ring/! A$$arently many $syhis and mediums had a$$roahed Dame )ean with
messages said to be from her father over the years, but none had hitherto managed to identify their $re9
arranged signal!
As an aademially trained $hiloso$her, albeit one with an interest in $syhial researh,
Straughan ontinued to look for $roof, or at least greater ertainly, that he was not deluding himself!
4ather ruial to this method of ommuniation is the number of misses, as enough 0uestions and
random searhes might be e($eted to throw u$ oasional hits! <ike many others I have attem$ted the
book method of divination myself, usually with a bible or olleted works of Shakes$eare, volumes
that might be e($eted to have the range of voabulary and referene that would enable a meaningful
answer to most 0uestions to be found! In my own ase, des$ite the oasional memorable $hrase that
seemed to e(atly fit the 0uestion I had mentally $osed, most readings are well wide of the mark,
leading me to onlude that the hits are more likely to be oinidene than any form of intelligent
ommuniation .I never really asked with what, the hoies being my own subonsious or some
unidentified e(ternal fore/! Straughan raises the 0uestion of hits, and with a suess rate of fifty
$erent or higher, many of whih were strikingly a$t, he omes eventually to the onlusion that there
is an intelligent fore at work behind his readings! 1he 0uestion is then is whether this intelligent fore
ould oneivably be ACD himself! 7ne way Straughan sought to a$$roah this 0uestion was to look
arefully at answers ommuniations in areas in whih ACD was known to be $artiularly interested,
whih were many as Conan Doyle was a man of onsiderable breadth! 1he sub'ets overed inlude
mediine .ACD was trained as a medial dotor/, s$ort, urrent affairs and $olitis, s$irituality and
religion! :e are given many e(am$les of the 0uestions $ut by Straughan on weighty and trivial matters,
and the answers delivered by way of random readings from ACD#s or$us of works!
A legitimate 0uestion the reader might have is &so what#= :hile the book makes an e(ellent
read, well written and intriguing, Straughan himself raises the issue of triviality > a stumbling blok for
many when assessing the validity and veraity of su$$osed $syhi ommuniations! 1he answer is
that it is $reisely the $ersonal, su$$osedly trivial $ersonal details that are most likely to $rove to the
reeiver the veraity of the ommuniation! ?ore $rofound s$iritual messages or aounts of $ost9
mortem e(istene are hard or im$ossible to verify! %or ACD the desire to $rove his survival was and,
we are asked to believe, is of itself of $rofound im$ortane! Sym$athy for a dead dog was $reisely the
sort of information most likely to ath Straughan#s attention!
1he book begins and ends with an aount of a rare volume of ommuniations su$$osedly
from beyond the grave through the mediumshi$ of 5rae Cooke, under the title Thy Kingdom
Come. A friend of Straughan#s had loated and borrowed the book from a library on his behalf! "e
was reading it on the @!*@ interity e($ress from ,addington Station one evening when the train struk
a ar at a rossing and derailed! A reversal in the usual order of arriages meant that Straughan was not
in his usual $osition, and esa$ed with minor in'uries, while many others in the entre of the train
where he normally sat were not so fortunate! 1he book was lost, but eventually returned to Straughan,
also unharmed, and he wondered whether ACD had a hand in his survival, and if so for what $ur$ose=
1he tentative answer was in order to write this book, to add another $iee of the 'igsaw in the emerging
$iture of the survival of onsiousness!
In one of the more amusing and $erha$s a$$osite ommuniations from ACD, Straughan
e($laines that the book he had been $lanning to write was a muh more ambitious work on the
evidene for survival overing a wide range of $syhi $henomena! "is lingering doubts as to his
a$aity to om$lete suh a $ro'et held him bak from sending the book $ro$osal to a $ublisher!
1urning to ACD for advie he alighted on a onversation between an elderly sholar and his son, in
whih the father &had obviously been setting his literary as$irations far too highA &BI have set myself a
taskC, e($lains the father, B1his is nothing less than to $ublish an Dnglish translation of the Euddhist
D'armas! :ith diligene it is $ossible that I might be able myself to om$lete the $refae before I dieC &
.$$!1@*9-/! 7n the less ambitious and more reasonable $ro'et of writing an aount of this unusual
form of literary mediumshi$, ACD#s omment was &I#ll do the writing# .$!1@@/, so that settles that then!
<abelsA Arthur Conan Doyle, 4oger Straughan, Survival of onsiousness
$osted by %iona F +8A@1
" Co$$ents%
&ost a Co$$ent