History

Séance + Spiritualism in Port Arthur

With spooky season in our midst, it’s time to dive into our past and perhaps … the occult, maybe a little Séance + Spiritualism in Port Arthur?

In the years of 1914 and 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William.

The famous Sherlock Holmes author was not only a believer in the afterlife and mediumship, he was in favour of abandoning Christianity and replacing it with Spiritualism.

Spiritualism, in the mid-nineteenth century, was an up and coming modern religion. It was based on the belief that spirits of the dead had the ability to communicate with the living through mediums and the art of séance. During this time, Spiritualism had been on a slow and steady rise in Europe, with Doyle as a main figure within the society and its community.

Doyle was quoted in saying:

“Spiritualism was the strongest agent in favour of religion. The world was growing tired of faith and now needed knowledge.”

His first visit to the Lakehead was in 1914, where he and his family travelled on the Grand Trunk Railway, touring western Canada. In Fort William, he was entertained by the iconic James Whalen, on his tug boat, the J.T. Horne. After his visit aboard the tug, Doyle interviewed with the Port Arthur News Chronicle:

“Port Arthur should preserve all its old relics of history and legends the same as Fort William, Sir Arthur thought, and he believed that if this program was carried out and the history and the legends of the country made known, the Twin Cities would become a Mecca for tourists during the summer season, as the scenery here and the trip up the lakes are almost without parallel.”
– Port Arthur News Chronicle, 1914

I quote this with such sarcasm, as it is incredibly timely and ironic! With the despairing news on the fate of the James Whalen tug and the new parking fees at our Marina, our “Mecca” is truly a laugh. But I digress…

Doyle’s love for this area was so great, that he and his wife purchased property in Fort William on Victoria Ave, where Holland Bakery stands.

His wife, Jean, documented in her journal:

“Arthur bought a plot of land with a small wooden house on it on one of the main streets which is beautiful and probably very valuable.”
– Jean’s Journal | Wednesday, June 24th, 1914

Doyle also accounts in his own journal:

“If I were a rich man and wished to be richer, I should assuredly buy land in the Twin Cities.”

*I must note, if you read this part of his journal (linked), he has some very racist and unkind comments about, what I believe, might have been a Residential school he visited.

During his 1923 Canadian tour, touting Spiritualism and his belief in the occult, Doyle visited the Colonial Theatre where he mystified audiences of the Twin Cities.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Twin cities (Port Arthur) lecture - 1923

I kid you not, this really sounds like an episode straight out of Murdoch Mysteries…

To open, Sir Arthur recounted his own accounts with the paranormal and his answers to life after death. After the Great War, many people, like himself, questioned where their loved ones were – if they were truly gone. He looked to Spiritualism for guidance and hope.

During his presentation, he explained how he had seen and touched a substance called ectoplasm, which is defined as: a supernatural viscous substance that is supposed to exude from the body of a medium during a spiritualistic trance and form the material for the manifestation of spirits.

In his interview with the local paper, he told the journalist he had handled, photographed and weighed the substance. He is noted as saying:

“It will be a hundred years before scientists understand it.”

He described the substance as cold and clammy, containing the elements of the human body in a sort of vapour that the spirits use in materializing. The spirits, apparently would mold this substance into the shapes of human faces, hands etc. Sir Arthur said that he had learned throughout the years that great care must be taken during this stage, so no harm comes to the medium. It was his belief that the substance bridged the gulf between this world and the spiritual one.

In his accounts at the Colonial, Sir Arthur displayed imagery on a screen, as further evidence to illustrate messages and the existence of life after death.

In his presentation, images of “the spirit of Raymond Lodge”, the son of Oliver Lodge who died during the war, were shown. He also illustrated the famous pictures of spirits above the London cenotaph during Armistice Day. Which, at the time, was one of the most remarkable spirit photographs ever snapped.

the faces of fallen soldiers returning from the Other Side, and attending the Remembrance service - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

What did the citizens of Port Arthur and Fort William have to say?

After accounting Sir Arthur’s “proof of immortality”, Reverend W. S. Reid, Pastor of Trinity Methodist church, was glad to have had the opportunity to hear Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He recounted he was happy for several reasons, one being that he was a celebrated author, and that he and Sir Arthur Lodge were outstanding experts in the field of Spiritualism. His biggest reason for attending the lecture was that the subject of Spiritualism had been a great interest to people of all faiths.

However, Pastor Reid was adamant in expressing that Sir Arthur was, in fact, an important figure, however, not nearly important enough to be shuttled around in private cars, at the expense of the people. The city of Port Arthur, it is said, spent $1000 on his accommodations, his lecture and travel. This would be the equivalent to the price of $17,510.87 today.

Pastor Reid continued to document his experience in saying that Sir Arthur had no ground to stand, when it came to relating to people of the clergy. Spiritualism would not take the place of any Christian religion at present day.

Reid also exposed Sir Arthur’s photography as a hoax, as he had been well versed with many American journals exposing these images as fraudulent. He commented that as to Conan Doyle’s visit and his lecture, the people who heard him were not impressed nor converts to Spiritualism in Port Arthur. At any rate, converts would be few and far between in the area.

Turns out, Pastor Reid was on the money.

The “photographic evidence”, Sir Conan was so passionate about turned out to be purely edited images. Even the Cenotaph photo he touted at the Theatre, was edited by Ada Deane, a well-known British spirit photographer of the 1920s. She used various exposures to create the image, using the faces of famous British footballers to depict the “spirits” of fallen soldiers hovering above the crowd. Ultimately she was called out for her fraudulent photos, but Sir Arthur continued to defend the photo as evidence to authenticate the spiritual phenomena.

British magician and inventor, Nevil Maskelyne had been preaching for years about the fraudulence of Spiritualism, exposing the “tricks of the trade” along the way. He believed that many mediums and spiritualist practitioners were deceiving the public, using simple magic tricks to simulate supernatural events.

What about ectoplasm?

In the case of “ectoplasmic manifestations”, Maskelyne exposed how this “experience” was staged with everyday items disguised to fool audiences. Maskelyne illustrated how ectoplasm could be faked with common materials like cheesecloth, muslin, or paper. Fraudulent mediums used such tactics to create a convincing yet deceptive spectacle, sometimes swallowing and regurgitating these materials during séances or hiding them in their clothing.

At one point, Sir Arthur’s own friend, Harry Houdini spoke up, and became more vocal in his criticism of Spiritualism. He publicly exposed mediums as frauds, identifying them as charlatans who used trickery to prey on grieving individuals. Needless to say, the friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle did not survive.

It is said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle held a séance here, at Silver Islet, which makes for a pretty great ghost story. Truth be told, how much of what was real, vs. what was imagined is entirely up to the believer and what they consider beyond the veil.

I personally believe in a higher power, life after death, and signs or phenomena from above. However, I’m not convinced by Spiritualism and the deception that often accompanied it. Also, in 1922, Sir Arthur was quoted in saying that there are no cats in heaven… so he can suck it, along with his ectoplasm.

Knowing what we do know, this editorial comment from 1923 encapsulates exactly how I feel (and maybe the people of Port Arthur of the time) about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s zealousness for his proof of immortality and his journey into “psychic phenomena”.