It is hard to believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - creator of Sherlock Holmes - was taken in by the crude hoax of the Cottingley Fairies, even taking into consideration the relative novelty of photography and the wonders that CGI can produce these days.
Conan Doyle was a Spiritualist and it would be easy to interpret Sherlock as the manifestation of his embarrassment over his childish gullibility, or the signs of an internal struggle between reason and make-believe.
He had a very squeaky, high-pitched voice. I don't know if that means anything. After all, so does Mike Tyson, but I would not tell him that to his face. Tyson keeps pigeons.
Conan Doyle was Watson, but wanted to be Holmes.
It's human frailty to be gullible.
ReplyDeleteI did a post, but different to yours, on the Cottingley Fairies, several years ago.
I like to believe in anything, up to a point. It makes life a little less boring.
DeletePeople used to be very surprised and embarrassed to hear what they sounded like when tape recorders were first available. Before that we heard our own voices mainly as vibrations through the bones of our skulls. Perhaps you have a high squeaky voice too.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I do, but you will probably never know.
DeleteGiven that fairies aren't likely to look like the average five year old on a sugar high, how do you know that we don't see them already?
ReplyDeleteEvery time I say that I don't believe in 5 year-olds on sugar highs, not a single one dies.
DeleteAre you actually saying it might not be true Tom ? You’ll be saying Father Christmas doesn’t exsist next 😏 XXXX
ReplyDeleteFather Christmas is a friend of mine. He works at my local Centre Parcs.
DeleteAnd I thought i had seen fairies at the bottom of my garden - that's another myth shattered!
ReplyDeleteIrish Fairies are/were 7 feet tall. Difficult to miss in the largest of gardens.
DeleteI think he got it from his father who was an illustrator and a bit of a nutcase and was fascinated by fantasy and fairies. He was put in an asylum and drew elves and fairies all day.
ReplyDeleteReally? I didn't know that. I'll look it up.
DeleteIt was an age without film or tv or radio or visual imaginations we are all so used to
ReplyDeleteIt was an innocent age
It was an age with photography and more visual imagination than we all have now. Not so innocent.
DeleteTyson's voice would seem to contradict his frame. In addition to pigeons, he has been known to keep a tiger as a house pet.
ReplyDeleteHouse trained?
DeleteWas there an amazing deduction here, then?
ReplyDeleteA very elementary one.
DeleteI left the preparation course for the Waldorf Kindergarten in Hildesheim (only mothers were invited!),when the in the sixt unbelievable meeting the "teacher" described plants and said: "And among the roots there sit little dwarfs, and above the plant hovers a little elf or angel with the divine blueprint. What do you think about that, Britta?"
ReplyDelete"Ehem, äh -that's - äh - is a nice description for little children."
"Why little children, Britta - it is for all of us."
Yes, elementary, of course. Had I but known...
And this is a teacher...
DeleteWhat is strange is for people who from history fall in love with anything fanciful. Druidism had the same influence, though whether the actual druids acted as people thought or wrote about is gone. It is probably a 'need for belief' in something out of the ordinary. And who says fairies don't exist?
ReplyDeletePeople who say that God does not exist may have a rather simple idea about who or what God is. God exists because he had been thought into creation by us mortals, after which he took over.
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