The Wanderings of a Spiritualist

Apart from the actual production in the séance room, which may be disputed, I should like to confront the honest sceptic with the extraordinary nature of the objects which Bailey produces on these occasions. They cannot be disputed, for hundreds have handled them, collections of them have been photographed, there are cases full at the Stanford University at California, and I am bringing a few samples back to England with me. If the whole transaction is normal, then where does he get them? I had an Indian nest. Does anyone import Indian nests? Does anyone import queer little tortoises with long, thin necks? Is there a depot for Turkish copper coins in Australia? On the previous sitting, he got 10 °Chinese ones. Those might be explained, since the Chinaman is not uncommon in Sydney, but surely he exports coins, rather than imports them. Then what about 100 Babylonian tablets, with legible inscriptions in Assyrian, some of them cylindrical, with long histories upon them? Granting that they are Jewish forgeries, how do they get into the country? Bailey's house was searched once by the police, but nothing was found. Arabic papers, Chinese schoolbooks, mandarins' buttons, tropical birds – all sorts of odd things arrive. If they are not genuine, where do they come from? The matter is ventilated in papers, and no one comes forward to damn Bailey for ever by proving that he supplied them. It is no use passing the question by. It calls for an answer. If these articles can be got in any normal way, then what is the way? If not, then Bailey has been a most ill-used man, and miracles are of daily occurrence in Australia. This man should be under the strict, but patient and sympathetic, control of the greatest scientific observers in the world, instead of being allowed to wear himself out by promiscuous séances, given in order to earn a living. Imagine our scientists expending themselves in the examination of shells, or the classification of worms, when such a subject as this awaits them. And it cannot await them long. The man dies, and then where are these experiments? But if such scientific investigation be made, it must be thorough and prolonged, directed by those who have real experience of occult matters, otherwise it will wreck itself upon some theological or other snag, as did Colonel de Rochas' attempt at Grenoble.

The longer one remains in Australia, the more one is struck by the failure of State control. Whenever you test it, in the telephones, the telegraphs and the post, it stands for inefficiency, with no possibility that I can see of remedy. The train service is better, but still far from good. As to the State ventures in steamboat lines and in banking, I have not enough information to guide me. On the face of it, it is evident that in each case there is no direct responsible master, and that there is no real means of enforcing discipline. I have talked to the heads of large institutions, who have assured me that the conduct of business is becoming almost impossible. When they send an urgent telegram, with a letter confirming it, it is no unusual thing for the letter to arrive first. No complaint produces any redress. The maximum compensation for sums lost in the post is, I am told, two pounds, so that the banks, whose registered letters continually disappear, suffer heavy losses. On the other hand, if they send a messenger with the money, there is a law by which all bullion carried by train has to be declared, and has to pay a commission. Yet the public generally, having no standard of comparison, are so satisfied with the wretched public services, that there is a continued agitation to extend public control, and so ruin the well conducted private concerns. The particular instance which came under my notice was the ferry service of Sydney harbour, which is admirably and cheaply conducted, and yet there is a clamour that it also should be dragged into this morass of slovenly inefficiency. I hope, however, that the tide will soon set the other way. I fear, from what I have seen of the actual working, that it is only under exceptional conditions, and with very rigorous and high-principled direction, that the State control of industries can be carried out. I cannot see that it is a political question, or that the democracy has any interest, save to have the public work done as well and as economically as possible. When the capitalist has a monopoly, and is exacting an undue return, it is another matter.

As I look back at Australia my prayers – if deep good wishes form a prayer – go out to it. Save for that great vacuum upon the north, which a wise Government would strive hard to fill, I see no other external danger which can threaten her people. But internally I am shadowed by the feeling that trouble may be hanging over them, though I am assured that the cool stability of their race will at last pull them through it. There are some dangerous factors there which make their position more precarious than our own, and behind a surface of civilisation there lie possible forces which might make for disruption. As a people they are rather less disciplined than a European nation. There is no large middle or leisured class who would represent moderation. Labour has tried a Labour Government, and finding that politics will not really alter economic facts is now seeking some fresh solution. The land is held in many cases by large proprietors who work great tracts with few hands, so there is not the conservative element which makes the strength of the United States with its six million farmers, each with his stake in the land. Above all, there is no standing military force, and nothing but a small, though very efficient, police force to stand between organised government and some wild attempt of the extremists. There are plenty of soldiers, it is true, and they have been treated with extreme generosity by the State, but they have been reabsorbed into the civil population. If they stand for law and order then all is well. On the other hand, there are the Irish, who are fairly numerous, well organised and disaffected. There is no Imperial question, so far as I can see, save with the Irish, but there is this disquieting internal situation which, with the coming drop of wages, may suddenly become acute. An Australian should be a sober-minded man for he has his difficulties before him. We of the old country should never forget that these difficulties have been partly caused by his splendid participation in the great war, and so strain every nerve to help, both by an enlightened sympathy and by such material means as are possible.

Personally, I have every sympathy with all reasonable and practical efforts to uphold the standard of living in the working classes. At present there is an almost universal opinion among thoughtful and patriotic Australians that the progress of the country is woefully hampered by the constant strikes, which are declared in defiance of all agreements and all arbitration courts. The existence of Labour Governments, or the State control of industries, does not seem to alleviate these evil conditions, but may rather increase them, for in some cases such pressure has been put upon the Government that they have been forced to subsidise the strikers – or at least those sufferers who have come out in sympathy with the original strikers. Such tactics must demoralise a country and encourage labour to make claims upon capital which the latter cannot possibly grant, since in many cases the margin of profit is so small and precarious that it would be better for the capitalist to withdraw his money and invest it with no anxieties. It is clear that the tendency is to destroy the very means by which the worker earns his bread, and that the position will become intolerable unless the older, more level-headed men gain control of the unions and keep the ignorant hot-heads in order. It is the young unmarried men without responsibilities who create the situations, and it is the married men with their women and children who suffer. A table of strikes prepared recently by the Manchester Guardian shows that more hours were lost in Australia with her five or six million inhabitants than in the United Kingdom with nearly fifty million. Surely this must make the Labour leaders reconsider their tactics. As I write the stewards' strike, which caused such extended misery, has collapsed, the sole result being a loss of nearly a million pounds in wages to the working classes, and great inconvenience to the public. The shipowners seem now in no hurry to resume the services, and if their delay will make the strikers more thoughtful it is surely to be defended.

On February 1st we started from Sydney in our good old "Naldera" upon our homeward voyage, but the work was not yet finished. On reaching Melbourne, where the ship was delayed two days, we found that a Town Hall demonstration had been arranged to give us an address from the Victorian Spiritualists, and wish us farewell. It was very short notice and there was a tram strike which prevented people from getting about, so the hall was not more than half full. None the less, we had a fine chance of getting in touch with our friends, and the proceedings were very hearty. The inscription was encased in Australian wood with a silver kangaroo outside and beautiful illuminations within. It ran as follows:

"We desire to place on permanent record our intense appreciation of your zealous and self-sacrificing efforts, and our deep gratitude for the great help you have given to the cause to which you have consecrated your life. The over-flowing meetings addressed by you bear evidence of the unqualified success of your mission, and many thousands bless the day when you determined to enter this great crusade beneath the Southern Cross… In all these sentiments we desire to include your loyal and most devoted partner, Lady Doyle, whose self-sacrifice equals or exceeds your own."

Personally, I have never been conscious of any self-sacrifice, but the words about my wife were in no way an over-statement. I spoke in reply for about forty minutes, and gave a synopsis of the state of the faith in other centres, for each Australian State is curiously self-centred and realises very little beyond its own borders. It was good for Melbourne to know that Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and New Zealand were quite as alive and zealous as themselves.

At the end of the function I gave an account of the financial results of my tour and handed over £500 as a guarantee fund for future British lecturers, and £100 to Mr. Britton Harvey to assist his admirable paper, The Harbinger of Light. I had already expended about £100 upon spiritual causes, so that my whole balance came to £700, which is all now invested in the Cause and should bring some good spiritual interest in time to come. We badly need money in order to be able to lay our case more fully before the world.

I have already given the written evidence of Mr. Smythe that my tour was the most successful ever conducted in his time in Australia. To this I may add the financial result recorded above. In view of this it is worth recording that Life, a paper entirely under clerical management, said: "The one thing clear is that Sir Conan Doyle's mission to Australia was a mournful and complete failure, and it has left him in a very exasperated state of mind." This is typical of the perverse and unscrupulous opposition which we have continually to face, which hesitates at no lie in order to try and discredit the movement.

One small incident broke the monotony of the voyage between Adelaide and Fremantle, across the dreaded Bight.

There have been considerable depredations in the coastal passenger trade of Australia, and since the State boats were all laid up by the strike it was to be expected that the crooks would appear upon the big liners. A band of them came on board the Naldera at Adelaide, but their methods were crude, and they were up against a discipline and an organisation against which they were helpless. One ruffian entered a number of cabins and got away with some booty, but was very gallantly arrested by Captain Lewellin himself, after a short hand-to-hand struggle. This fellow was recognised by the detectives at Fremantle and was pronounced to be an old hand. In the general vigilance and search for accomplices which followed, another passenger was judged to be suspicious and he was also carried away by the detectives on a charge of previous forgery. Altogether the crooks came out very badly in their encounter with the Naldera, whose officers deserve some special recognition from the Company for the able way in which the matter was handled.

Although my formal tour was now over, I had quite determined to speak at Perth if it were humanly possible, for I could not consider my work as complete if the capital of one State had been untouched. I therefore sent the message ahead that I would fit in with any arrangements which they might make, be it by day or night, but that the ship would only be in port for a few hours. As matters turned out the Naldera arrived in the early morning and was announced to sail again at 3 p.m., so that the hours were awkward. They took the great theatre, however, for 1 p.m., which alarmed me as I reflected that my audience must either be starving or else in a state of repletion. Everything went splendidly, however. The house was full, and I have never had a more delightfully keen set of people in front of me. Of all my experiences there was none which was more entirely and completely satisfactory, and I hope that it brought a very substantial sum into the local spiritual treasury. There was quite a scene in the street afterwards, and the motor could not start for the crowds who surrounded it and stretched their kind hands and eager faces towards us. It was a wonderful last impression to bear away from Australia.

It is worth recording that upon a clairvoyante being asked upon this occasion whether she saw any one beside me on the platform she at once answered "an elderly man with very tufted eyebrows." This was the marked characteristic of the face of Russell Wallace. I was told before I left England that Wallace was my guide. I have already shown that Mrs. Roberts, of Dunedin, gave me a message direct from him to the same effect. Mrs. Foster Turner, in Sydney, said she saw him, described him and gave the name. Three others have described him. Each of these has been quite independent of the others. I think that the most sceptical person must admit that the evidence is rather strong. It is naturally more strong to me since I am personally conscious of his intervention and assistance.

Apart from my spiritual mission, I was very sorry that I could not devote some time to exploring West Australia, which is in some ways the most interesting, as it is the least developed, of the States in the Federation. One or two points which I gathered about it are worth recording, especially its relation to the rabbits and to the sparrows, the only hostile invaders which it has known. Long may they remain so!

The battle between the West Australians and the rabbits was historical and wonderful. After the creatures had become a perfect pest in the East it was hoped that the great central desert would prevent them from ever reaching the West. There was no water for a thousand miles. None the less, the rabbits got across. It was a notable day when the West Australian outrider, loping from west to east, met the pioneer rabbit loping from east to west. Then West Australia made a great effort. She built a rabbit-proof wire screen from north to south for hundreds of miles from sea to sea, with such thoroughness that the northern end projected over a rock which fringed deep water. With such thoroughness, too, did the rabbits reconnoitre this obstacle that their droppings were seen upon the far side of that very rock. There came another day of doom when two rabbits were seen on the wrong side of the wire. Two dragons of the slime would not have alarmed the farmer more. A second line was built, but this also was, as I understand, carried by the attack, which is now consolidating, upon the ground it has won. However, the whole situation has been changed by the discovery elsewhere that the rabbit can be made a paying proposition, so all may end well in this curious story.

A similar fight, with more success, has been made by West Australia against the sparrow, which has proved an unmitigated nuisance elsewhere. The birds are slowly advancing down the line of the Continental Railway and their forward scouts are continually cut off. Captain White, the distinguished ornithologist, has the matter in hand, and received, as I am told, a wire a few weeks ago, he being in Melbourne, to the effect that two sparrows had been observed a thousand miles west of where they had any rights. He set off, or sent off, instantly to this way-side desert station in the hope of destroying them, with what luck I know not. I should be inclined to back the sparrows.

This Captain White is a man of energy and brains, whose name comes up always when one enquires into any question of bird or beast. He has made a remarkable expedition lately to those lonely Everard Ranges, which lie some distance to the north of the desolate Nularbor Plain, through which the Continental Railway passes. It must form one of the most dreadful wastes in the world, for there are a thousand miles of coast line, without one single stream emerging. Afforestation may alter all that. In the Everard Ranges Captain White found untouched savages of the stone age, who had never seen a white man before, and who treated him with absolute courtesy and hospitality. They were a fine race physically, though they lived under such conditions that there was little solid food save slugs, lizards and the like. One can but pray that the Australian Government will take steps to save these poor people from the sad fate which usually follows the contact between the higher and the lower.

From what I heard, West Australian immigrants are better looked after than in the other States. I was told in Perth that nine hundred ex-service men with their families had arrived, and that all had been fitted into places, permanent or temporary, within a fortnight. This is not due to Government, but to the exertions of a peculiar local Society, with the strange title of "The Ugly Men." "Handsome is as handsome does," and they seem to be great citizens. West Australia calls itself the Cinderella State, for, although it covers a third of the Continent, it is isolated from the great centres of population. It has a very individual life of its own, however, with its gold fields, its shark fisheries, its pearlers, and the great stock-raising plain in the north. Among other remarkable achievements is its great water pipe, which extends for four hundred miles across the desert, and supplies the pressure for the electric machinery at Kalgurli.

By a coincidence, the Narkunda, which is the sister ship of the Naldera, lay alongside the same quay at Fremantle, and it was an impressive sight to see these two great shuttles of Empire lying for a few hours at rest. In their vastness and majesty they made me think of a daring saying of my mother's, when she exclaimed that if some works of man, such as an ocean-going steamer, were compared with some works of God, such as a hill, man could sustain the comparison. It is the divine spark within us which gives us the creative power, and what may we not be when that is fully developed!

The children were fishing for sharks, with a line warranted to hold eighteen pounds, with the result that Malcolm's bait, lead, and everything else was carried away. But they were amply repaid by actually seeing the shark, which played about for some time in the turbid water, a brown, ugly, varminty creature, with fine lines of speed in its tapering body. "It was in Adelaide, daddy, not Fremantle," they protest in chorus, and no doubt they are right.

CHAPTER XII

Pleasing letters. – Visit to Candy. – Snake and Flying Fox. – Buddha's shrine. – The Malaya. – Naval digression. – Indian trader. – Elephanta. – Sea snakes. – Chained to a tombstone. – Berlin's escape. – Lord Chetwynd. – Lecture in the Red Sea. – Marseilles

It was on Friday, February 11th, that we drew away from the Fremantle wharf, and started forth upon our long, lonely trek for Colombo – a huge stretch of sea, in which it is unusual to see a single sail. As night fell I saw the last twinkling lights of Australia fade away upon our starboard quarter. Well, my job is done. I have nothing to add, nor have I said anything which I would wish withdrawn. My furrow gapes across two young Continents. I feel, deep in my soul, that the seed will fall in due season, and that the reaping will follow the seed. Only the work concerns ourselves – the results lie with those whose instruments we are.

Of the many kindly letters which bade us farewell, and which assured us that our work was not in vain, none was more eloquent and thoughtful than that of Mr. Thomas Ryan, a member of the Federal Legislature. "Long after you leave us your message will linger. This great truth, which we had long thought of as the plaything of the charlatan and crank, into this you breathed the breath of life, and, as of old, we were forced to say, 'We shall think of this again. We shall examine it more fully.' Give us time – for the present only this, we are sure that this thing was not done in a corner. Let me say in the few moments I am able to snatch from an over-crowded life, that we realise throughout the land how deep and far-reaching were the things of which you spoke to us. We want time, and even more time, to make them part of ourselves. We are glad you have come and raised our thoughts from the market-place to the altar."

Bishop Leadbeater, of Sydney, one of the most venerable and picturesque figures whom I met in my travels, wrote, "Now that you are leaving our shores, let me express my conviction that your visit has done great good in stirring up the thought of the people, and, I hope, in convincing many of them of the reality of the other life." Among very many other letters there was none I valued more than one from the Rev. Jasper Calder, of Auckland. "Rest assured, Sir Arthur, the plough has gone deep, and the daylight will now reach the soil that has so long been in the darkness of ignorance. I somehow feel as if this is the beginning of new things for us all."

It is a long and weary stretch from Australia to Ceylon, but it was saved from absolute monotony by the weather, which was unusually boisterous for so genial a region. Two days before crossing the line we ran into a north-western monsoon, a rather rare experience, so that the doldrums became quite a lively place. Even our high decks were wet with spindrift and the edge of an occasional comber, and some of the cabins were washed out. A smaller ship would have been taking heavy seas. In all that great stretch of ocean we never saw a sail or a fish, and very few birds. The loneliness of the surface of the sea is surely a very strange fact in nature. One would imagine, if the sea is really so populous as we imagine, that the surface, which is the only fixed point in very deep water, would be the gathering ground and trysting place for all life. Save for the flying fish, there was not a trace in all those thousands of miles.

I suppose that on such a voyage one should rest and do nothing, but how difficult it is to do nothing, and can it be restful to do what is difficult? To me it is almost impossible. I was helped through a weary time by many charming companions on board, particularly the Rev. Henry Howard, reputed to be the best preacher in Australia. Some of his sermons which I read are, indeed, splendid, depending for their effect upon real thought and knowledge, without any theological emotion. He is ignorant of psychic philosophy, though, like so many men who profess themselves hostile to Spiritualism, he is full of good stories which conclusively prove the very thing he denies. However, he has reached full spirituality, which is more important than Spiritualism, and he must be a great influence for good wherever he goes. The rest he will learn later, either upon this side, or the other.

At Colombo I was interested to receive a Westminster Gazette, which contained an article by their special commissioner upon the Yorkshire fairies. Some correspondent has given the full name of the people concerned, with their address, which means that their little village will be crammed with chars-à-banc, and the peace of their life ruined. It was a rotten thing to do. For the rest, the Westminster inquiries seem to have confirmed Gardner and me in every particular, and brought out the further fact that the girls had never before taken a photo in their life. One of them had, it seems, been for a short time in the employ of a photographer, but as she was only a child, and her duties consisted in running on errands, the fact would hardly qualify her, as Truth suggests, for making faked negatives which could deceive the greatest experts in London. There may be some loophole in the direction of thought forms, but otherwise the case is as complete as possible.