As Doyle put it, "If high-tension electricity can be converted by a
mechanical contrivance into a lower tension, keyed to other uses, then
it is hard to see why something analogous might not occur with the vi-
brations of ether and the waves of light."
With this statement Doyle's contemporaries, Thomas Edison and
Nikola Tesla, magnates of the electrical, would hardly have dlsagreed:
both were actively working on devices to communicate with, and, if
possible, photograph spirits of the departed and spirits of the fairy world.
Basic to theosophical reasoning was the contention, founded on
dennia of Eastern wisdom and protracted occult investigation; that
one's physical body consists of matter in seven different states: solid, liq-
uid, gaseous, and four subtler "etheric" grades, all interpenetrating.
Furthermore, one's immortal self was seen as employing seven dlstinct
bodies made up of progressively finer wavelengths, also interpenetrat-
ing, which allow the individual to operate on several planes of exis-
tence: physical, etheric, astral, mental, and higher.
What had shattered Doyle's philosophic complacency was a letter
he received June 21, 1920, containing two of the most extraordinary
photographs he had ever seen. One depicted a young English girl del-
icately touching hands with a dancing gnome; the other showed the
face of a younger girl observing a group of what appeared to be wood
elves dancing in a ring.
At first sight the prints appeared to Doyle to be some clever pho-
tographic trick, with every indication of being out-and-out fakes, "a
scandalous hoax" that Doyle, donning his Holmesian fore-and-aft, de-
termined to shatter.
The woman who had sent Doyle the photos said she had obtained
them &om her cousin, Edward L. Gardner, president of the Blavatsky
Lodge, a leading branch of the Theosophical Society in England.
Gardner, whom she described as "a solid person, with a reputation for
sanity and character," had used the photos to illustrate a theosophical
lecture on the "etheric and astral levels of life."'
- TheTheosophical Society, founded in NewYork in 1875 under the auspices of
Helena P. Blavatsky, was dedicated to "the study and elucidation of occultism, to vin-
dicate the preeminent importance of Eastern religions, and to explore the hidden
mysteries of nature and the powers hidden inside the physical human."