The British Sound Archives has a recording of Arthur Conan Doyle talking about how he came to write Sherlock Holmes and his beliefs about Spiritualism.
This was recorded in 1930 and is fascinating. He relies on personal experiments to prove that it worked and sees Spiritualism as something that can exist side-by-side with other belief systems. He also talks about the “fraud and folly” that occurs in Spiritualism, too.
There are two recordings and its worth listening to both. Or at least I thought it was.
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Spiritualism is what caused the rupture in his friendship with Harry Houdini. Houdini spent a lot of time exposing spiritualists, but could never convince ACD that the “miracles” he saw were all frauds.