The New Revelation

The New Revelation by Arthur Conan Doyle is dedicated to the brave men and women, humble or learned, who have the moral courage during seventy years to face ridicule or worldly disadvantage in order to testify to an all-important truth. The preface says that, so far as the writer knows, there has been no former attempt to show the exact relation between the religious side of the subject and its phenomenal aspect.

A first-person account says the writer had always regarded Spiritual phenomena as the greatest nonsense upon earth, and sat with friends at some table-moving seances. The writer says it would be in 1886 that he came across a book called The Reminiscences of Judge Edmunds, which he read with interest and absolute scepticism. The writer imagines that in most cases the dead man is too preoccupied with his own amazing experience to have much thought for others. A section headed THE CHERITON DUGOUT mentions a case where a polter-geist or mischievous spirit had been manifesting.