Marriages In Heaven, Says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1922
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MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN SAYS SIR CONAN DOYLE

NEW YORK, April 10.- There are marriages in the spirit world, but no births, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said today.

The celebrated English creator of "Sherlock Holmes," who has come to America to lecture on matters psychic, made this statement, in giving reporters a more intimate view of the next world as he conceived it than on his arrival yesterday on the steamer Baltic.

Marriages, he said, were on a higher level than in this world. They constitute the mating of affinities and always continue happily. Indeed, he said, there was a very complex form of society of the world hereafter.

Sir Arthur said that the great agreement among spirits of various nationalities as to life in the spirit world will be one of the strongest proofs of the existence of such life. He added that the spirit world was all about us but that it was expressed in colors and sounds which our senses were too gross to understand.

Sir Arthur said that some ministers taught that it is hard to get into heaven, but a normal, decent person could not keep from going there after death.

Asked about a suicide, Sir Arthur said that no one could force the hand of providence, and that a suicide would have to bear in the spirit world the trouble that had caused him to end his life.

He said that the object of life was to spiritualize ourselves and that riches and successes here did not count against that.

Some Stumbling Blocks

Climatic conditions are one of the stumbling blocks in the path of mediums, declared Sir Arthur.

Expressing the belief that all could become mediums if the talent were developed, Sir Arthur said that it was through ectoplasm that conversation with the spirit world was conducted.

"Ectoplasm," he explained, "is a substance emanating from the medium. At first it is a vapor or gas, which becomes glutinous or puttylike, and in that state can be felt.

"I have felt it myself; it can be photographed. I have a number of photographs.

"It has been analyzed by Dr. Schrenck-Notzing in Germany and by Parisian scientists. It has been found to contain phosphates, carbonates and sulphates, and some other substance undetermined.

"It is only on ectoplasm that a spirit can materialize. A spirit passing through it becomes visible to the medium. I saw my mother's face in the ectoplasm following her death a few months ago. There is not the slightest question about that. It was while I was in Australia. The face seemed as solid as in life."

--Nevada State Journal, Reno, Nevada, April 11, 1922, page 5.