Chronicling circumstances that have resulted with the continuing series of articles that began in May with reporting about the "New Paranormal Initiation", the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century were the heyday of Spiritualism and an astonishing variety of mediumship manifestations were recorded by seance participants.  A prominent author who wrote about his seance room experiences and metaphysical research in a variety of nonfiction books was Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930); yet beyond his success as a fiction author many contemporary people may only perceive him to be the 'chump' silly enough to think that those ridiculous fairy photos could have been real.  It seems evident that numerous contemporary people's perspectives concerning a multiplicity of paranormal aspects is limited to the few familiar instances of what has been found in commercial mainstream media and situations glimpsed in fictional narrative movies and television shows.  Doyle wrote in the preface of his book The Coming of the Fairies (1922): ". . . this whole subject of the objective existence of a subhuman form of life has nothing to do with the larger and far more vital question of spiritualism.  I should be sorry if my arguments in favour of the latter should be in any way weakened by my exposition of this very strange episode, which has really no bearing upon the continued existence of the individual."

As men accustomed to attracting the interest of journalists, Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini became friends despite each of them making very different choices about how to respond to the Divine Dispensations of Spiritualism in relation to their perspectives and orientations of how the worldwide movement was personally relevant to having a fulfilling life.

Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.  His father was a Civil Servant and artist.  After attending Edinburgh University and having some adventurous experiences as ship's surgeon, he began eight years of medical practice.  His first marriage was in 1885.  Doyle wrote in Memories and Adventures (1924): "But with the more regular life and the greater sense of responsibility, coupled with the natural development of brain-power, the literary side of me began slowly to spread until it was destined to push the other entirely aside."
 
Included in Verbatim Report of a Public Debate on "The Truth of Spiritualism" Between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph McCabe (1920) is a description by Doyle of his personal seance experiences with loved ones who'd made the transition to the afterlife.

My experience has been with Mr. Evan Powell, whom I believe is here to-night, an amateur medium and a man of high honour, as everyone who knows him will admit.  I can assure you that it is as painful to me as it must be to Sir Oliver Lodge to talk about those we love who are dead.  But we think that these things are given to us not for our own profit and comfort, but for the general good of humanity.  Mr. Powell never knew my son at all.  He came into my own private sitting-room and sat in the corner of it.  He was very good-humoured, and let us do what we liked.  I thought I would make a clean job of it, and got six lengths of stout twine and tied him six times in different places.  Therefore he had to get out of six bonds if he wanted to get out at all.  He sat there; and six of us, all personal friends, sat in a semi-circle, my wife being on my left.  It was dark.  You must grant him darkness (as you grant a photographer darkness) in this particular form of phenomena.  You can have a red light, but unfortunately I had not the material for one.  I grant you that if it is dark you must be much more critical of what comes about.  Presently, after many physical phenomena which were very striking, a voice came quite close up to my face.  Both my wife and I cried out that it was my boy.  He began to talk, and talked in a voice and manner quite distinctive about a private matter.  When he had talked he put his strong heavy hand — he was a big fellow — on my head, and pressed my head forward as solidly as possible.  He assured me that he was happy, and I can assure you that he left me a good deal happier than he found me.
 
What is the evidence for this?  I at once wrote to everyone concerned.  I wrote to the gentleman on my right, who was Mr. Blake, the head of the Spiritualistic Association of Bournemouth.  He wrote back: "I had ample opportunity to hear the conversation held by Lady Doyle and yourself with your arisen son, and I can endorse fully your report of it."  That report was one which appeared in Two Worlds of December 19th last.  At the end of this little semi-circle was sitting Mr. Engholm, who is here to-night.  While my son was talking to me an old journalistic friend of Mr. Engholm began talking to him in a most intimate manner.  I could hear what was going on.  Mr. Engholm wrote: "The seance was conducted under unusually strict test conditions.  While Sir Arthur and his boy were carrying on conversation of a private and sacred nature.  I was addressed by a very dear old friend, a well-known newspaper man, in terms which left no doubt in my mind as to who the unseen personality was."  You see there were two different voices speaking at one time, each of which could be recognised by voice characteristics alone.  (Cheers.)  I then wrote to the remaining witnesses, Mr. and Mrs. MacFarlane, of Southsea.  Mr. MacFarlane replied: "Your plain, unvarnished account of that memorable evening very much appealed to me."
 
Now I would like to ask: Where is the flaw in this evidence?  What have I left undone?  I hope Mr. McCabe will answer that question, for I should like to know.
 
My next seance with Mr. Powell was in Wales.  Four spirits came to me in succession, each of them making their identity perfectly clear.  The fourth was my brother. When I asked for a name he gave "Innes."  The name published in his obituaries was John Francis, and Innes was his third name, used only by intimates.  Besides my wife and myself, I do not think there was a person in Wales who could have known this.  I at once began talking family matters with him, exactly as if he were alive.  His widow is in ill-health in Copenhagen, and we discussed her condition.  I asked him if he thought psychic or magnetic treatment could avail.  He answered by the two words, "Sigurd Frier," or "Trier."  I could not catch it, and he repeated it twice.  Mr. Southey, en ex-J.P. of Merthyr, with his daughter, was on my left, and my wife was on my right.  They all made note of the words.  Next day I wrote to a young Danish friend in London, and asked him if they had any meaning.  He replied that it was the name of a well-known psychic in Copenhagen.  Now I will swear to you that I did not know that there was a Spiritualistic Society in the whole of Denmark.  As to the Welsh people who formed the circle, they could not have known that the conversation was going to Copenhagen.  Now, if that entity, who stood in front of me in the dark, who talked in my brother’s manner, who discussed family matters intimately, and who knew more about the surroundings of his widow than I did, was not my brother, I ask you, Who was it?

 
Among Doyle’s nonfiction books is History of Spiritualism (1926) that features a profile of the Fox sisters who are associated with the beginning of the movement in 1848 as it is often defined historically.  Doyle began his first chapter with the declaration: "It is impossible to give any date for the early appearances of external intelligent power of a higher or lower type impinging upon the affairs of men."
 
Memories and Adventures (1926) elucidated how Doyle's acceptance of Spiritualism had resulted from many years of exploration and research: ". . . how thorough and long were my studies before I was at last beaten out of my material agnostic position and forced to admit the validity of the proofs."  Doyle commented: ". . . it was borne in upon me that the knowledge which had come to me thus was not for my own consolation alone, but that God had placed me in a very special position for conveying it to that world which needed it so badly."  In 1916 he began a campaign of public expositions that motivated him to travel throughout the world to raise awareness of psychic subjects.  His autobiography mentioned his own pivotal experiences.

Nobody has ever done, and nobody in all human probability will ever do, such reckless feats of daring.  His whole life was one long succession of them, and when I say that amongst them was the leaping from one aeroplane to another, with handcuffed hands at the height of three thousand feet, one can form an idea of the extraordinary lengths that he would go.  In this, however, as in much more that concerned him, there was a certain psychic element which he was ready to admit freely.  He told me that a voice which was independent of his own reason or judgment told him what to do and how to do it.  So long as he obeyed the voice he was assured of safety.  "It all comes as easy as stepping off a log," said he to me, "but I have to wait for the voice.  You stand there before a jump, swallowing the yellow stuff that every man has in him. Then at last you hear the voice and you jump.  Once I jumped on my own and I nearly broke my neck."  This was the nearest admission that I ever had from him that I was right in thinking that there was a psychic element which was essential to every one of his feats.