"Is Spiritualism of the Devil?"

with an introduction by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Beverley: Wright and Hoggard.. [1917].

A rare pamphlet on Christian-spiritualist ecumenism

First edition. 184x124mm. pp. 27 [1bl]. Original printed wrappers. It has been folded in half (vertically) and has a crease running along the centre but otherwise in very good condition. This little pamphlet reproduces a lecture given by The Reverend Fielding-Ould to the London Spiritualist Alliance on March 22nd 1917. The introduction by Conan Doyle is a letter to Fielding-Ould praising the lecture. The text is a rather clever and delicate attempt to marry mainstream Christianity to the fashionable spiritualism of the day. In answer to the question of the title, Fielding-Ould concludes that it is "neither divine nor diabolic: it is an instrument, a means, an open door through which in the past have come both good and evil". Fielding-Ould was an important figure in spiritualism and Conan Doyle was a loyal supporter of his Christian tempering of the movement. Rare, Worldcat locating only three copies.

Ref. 5241