Detecting the dead

On a July evening in 1930, 10,000 people crowded into London’s Royal Albert Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of their hero, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and perhaps even hear him speak. Sure enough, the celebrated author turned up right on time. Dressed in an evening suit, the man behind the Sherlock Holmes phenomenon took his seat on stage and began to talk. But there was something very strange about Doyle – he was dead.

The event at the Albert Hall was a seance – an attempt to communicate with “the other side”. Doyle, who had died just a few days earlier, was the world’s most famous proponent of spiritualism – a religious movement based on the belief that the living can speak to the dead. In life, the author had attended countless seances, written books on supernatural phenomena and toured the world giving lectures on his beliefs. In death, his supporters hoped that he would appear before them once again.

Spiritualism once had a