Book Review: The Man Who Missed The War by Dennis Wheatley (1945)

My job, for odd reasons, gives me access to untold amounts of beat-up old pulp paperbacks, which gives me no end of joy. Dennis Wheatleys are fairly common, probably because here in the UK, it seems up until some point in the 70s, every house was contractually obliged to have at least a small number of them. Despite being something of an amateur expert on Britain's 'occult uncle' (I even read the mammoth biography The Devil Is A Gentleman), I'd never heard of this week's offering, The Man Who Missed The War. That's partly because Wheatley was so damn prolific, but also because it's not one of his occult-themed books, so it has been somewhat forgotten about over time.

The Table-Rappers by Ronald Pearsall

The Table-Rappers is presented as a scholarly and exhaustive take on Spiritualism and other Victorian occult phenomena. It isn't that exactly, but it still makes interesting reading.

What the book really is, for the most part, is a sort of high-brow, skeptical version of the works of Charles Fort, or even the later books by Colin Wilson on the supernatural. In Table-Rappers, seemingly hundreds of individual cases and incidents are chronicled in an endless array of brief encounters.
Like Wilson's books, there are many fascinating stories buried somewhere within each chapter, though the 'filing' system seems rather odd (some of Wilson's stories stuck in my head for years, prompting much flipping through his strangely-edited chapters to find them years later). And as an Irish connection, I was delighted to learn that gangs of occultists wearing 'all-concealing black robes' were operating in Dublin during the late Victorian period!

Rather than attempting a chronological history of the subject, Pearsall has opted to separate his chapters based on the various types of phenomena- seances, spirit photography, etc. In a way, there is a loose chronology, as there were slightly overlapping 'waves' of interest in these subjects, but it's done at the expense of a more meaningful, interpretive take on the subject. And while many of the incidents alluded to are fascinating, shockingly short shrift is given to many of the most important spiritualists who shaped the movement: the Fox sisters, whose 1840's table-banging marked the beginnings of Spiritualism, D. D. Home, the only psychic who was never caught cheating, and the Davenport brothers. The book gives little hint about how the movement was perceived in the world at large, or how important these characters were during their lifetimes.

Most of the book is taken up with these brief accounts of Spiritualism, giving the feeling that the Victorian age must have been absolutely full of fraudulent mediums, all squabbling for their 15 minutes of fame and quick to besmirch one another's reputations. Pearsall's tone is skeptical throughout, assuming foul play and trickery in every case. It's true that most mediums were caught cheating at some point, but it's interesting to compare this book with Peter Lamont's The First Psychic, a book that's primarily a biography of D. D. Home, but which serves as a very effective commentary on the Spiritualist movement and the Victorian need to believe. Lamont never assumes that any mediums were cheating unless they were caught; he does eventually confess his own personal skepticism, but on an academic level his scrupulous fairness is impressive.

Later on in Table-Rappers, Pearsall includes a few chapters on other aspects of Victorian spookiness, including poltergeists and good old-fashioned haunted houses. For some reason I enjoyed this stuff better- perhaps because they're just stories, and he can neither prove nor disprove them with his slightly sarcastic prose. But because he was writing in the 70's, when the supernatural- sorry, the paranormal- was having a renaissance in credibility, he does let slip that although most Victorian 'mind-readers' were bogus, we of course now 'know' that there is definite evidence for telepathy (!). He cites some unspecified 20th-century research to prove this; I suspect that he's referring to the work of J. B. Rhine and the Duke University Parapsychology Lab, an interest subject in itself. (In fairness, Rhine seems to have been a serious, rational-minded scientist who worked extremely hard for decades, using only variants on the Zenner cards theme, to provide statistically significant evidence for telepathy without ever getting caught up in the silliness that often comes with the subject). There's also a fascinating chapter on the feud between the outrageous Madam Blavatsky (creator of the break-away movement 'Theosophy') and the mostly-rational Society for Psychical Research.

Late in the book, Pearsall does throw in a few chapter of analysis, but it's very 70's-type analysis that includes some of the odd ideas regarding the paranormal at that time. It's weird to find this skeptical author drawing a line between Spiritualism and manifestations, which he believes to be bogus, and clairvoyance and table-rapping, which he does not. It's still a worthwhile read, however, for the countless strange stories that characterized the 19th -century occult scene.

Tales of Unease- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

As a child, I knew that when a bunch of well-educated men in old-fashioned dress got together in their 'club' (whatever that was) and started to tell tall tales around a great warm hearth, there were only two ways in which things could pan out- they would inevitable end up (a) somewhere exotic, such as jungle or a desert, or (b) in a haunted house. In either case, an adventure would ensue. Of course, no women would be present during it, for they are troublesome, meddling creatures. Such is what comes of consuming the Right Sort of Literature.

Eventually, I discovered that the particular time and place during which these adventures usually seemed to occur was Britain, about one hundred years ago, and that the reason these educated, civilized men so often wound up in wild countries was that they, in fact, owned them. Ah. And so, as night follows day, as the training-montage-scene must follow the inspirational-speech-scene, my interest in tales of adventure and the supernatural led to an interest in the age of imperialism. But what has all this got to do with the creator of Sherlock Holmes?

Tales of Unease is a collection of Doyle's non-Baker St related stories, and wouldn't you know it, it turns out to be a veritable taproot of the archetypes I mentioned above. These stories are set in a world where upper-class twits (sorry, Brits) discover ghostly goings-on in every drawing-room and college dormitory (Oxford, naturally). I've aired my grievances over Doyle's use of spiritualism in fiction before, but in this collection he gets the balance just right. His characters, though mostly Mary-Sue type author inserts, are not fools and require about as much convincing as you or I would that something supernatural is truly afoot. This adds to the mood Doyle is attempting to create with these stories- the feeling that the world is a much stranger place that we had ever dreamed, and that we are on the brink of some great, if uncomfortable, realization. Of course, most of this will take the form of tables banging in dark rooms during seances, but you can't have everything, right?





















One thing you can have though, is mummies. Plenty of 'em. In classic tales such as The Ring of Thoth and Lot 249, Doyle appears to have contributed to the then-growing idea of Egyptian curses and mysticism. These stories in particular appear to have been among the first to introduce the elements of immortality, reincarnation and lost love to the mummy cycle. Lot 249 in particular is one of the most enjoyably creepy shorts in this collection. There's little doubt that these stories influenced most of the ideas regarding Egyptian mysticism that followed, climaxing with the 'real-life' curse of Tutankhamun in 1922, as well as the 1932 Karloff movie.

Special mention must go to The Captain of the Polestar, in which the crew of a whaling ship in the frozen north begin to see strange things out on the ice. Here, Doyle is drawing on his own experiences of being ships' doctor on a whaler, and the resulting images of the endless white desert are indeed haunting. It's a great example of 'less is more'- knowing that whatever is in the readers' imagination is surely more wondrous than whatever he can provide in the narrative, the author plays it subtle with this one.

Special mentions also to The Horror of the Heights, for being the best (and only) damn story ever written about the possibility of giant sky-jellyfish living in our upper atmosphere. 'Aeroplaning' had only been around for less than twenty years when the story was written (1913). Doyle makes it seem almost reasonable-

'A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle, he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers that inhabit them..."

It's the kind of open-ended 'anything's possible' logic that Charles Fort would be proud of, but it does allow for a thrilling adventure. (This story in particular has always stuck with me, and I used the idea in my comic Laissez-Faire. Click here to read it!)

As for the rest, well they're a mixed bag, including some downright failures (there's something about a prehistoric cave-dwelling bear-creature wandering around South Kensington that just isn't scary). But there are plenty of Victorian-age novelties scattered throughout to tide the jaded reader over. Egyptians are mysterious, Turks are inscrutable and at every turn doughty and fearless (but modest)Englishmen swallow their fear in order to confront the strange mysteries that lie just beyond the veil. Even in the most horrific of circumstances-

'-there lies deep in every man a rooted self-respect which makes it hard for him to turn back from what he has once undertaken.'

In every man? I sure hope so!

Actually, though this kind of bluff claptrap is common among Victorian fictional heroes, Doyle might just actually have meant it. The man did attempt to enlist as a private in the British army during the Boer War (when he was 40) and again during the Great War (when he was 54!). He does seem like a chap who practiced what he preached.

As is well known by fans of genre fiction, Doyle rather hoped that he'd be remembered for stories that did not involve cocaine and violin-playing. Though not famous for it today, he was as good at constructing a genuinely creepy 19th-century ghost story as any more famous names you may care to mention. And of course, there's nary the rustle of a petticoat in the whole thing, as H. R. Haggard might say. At least, not the petticoat of a living woman. Muster up some of that late-Victorian can-do attitude and track down Tales of Unease.

The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick by Peter Lamont

I owe a little something to Peter Lamont. For years I have been fascinated by the Victorians' tendency to portray Eastern cultures as being alien and mysterious, but I never thought to question why they did so. In this book, Lamont finally nails the reason. He has also necessitated this review, which incredibly is the first mention of British India in this blog! Salaam, sahib!

Lamont is a Scottish magician, and like the many magicians throughout history that he describes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick, he has a particular penchant for spoiling other people's tricks, and for pointing out that if something seems too wonderful and fantastic to be true, then it probably is. In this fascinating volume, he deflates the famous myth which perhaps most typifies the mystic image of the East.

Everyone thinks they know the Indian Rope Trick. A fakir (or faker, if you prefer) causes a rope to rise into the air. A small boy climbs the rope, and disappears at the top. The fakir will often ascend the rope after him, and in more extravagant versions of the trick, will chop the boy into pieces that will be re-united at the end of the trick. It's generally accepted that, even if it's nothing but a legend, it's an age-old Indian legend. Explorers from antiquity such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta are often claimed to have reported seeing the trick during their travels, thus apparently cementing its timeworn status.

With admirable scholarship, Lamont proves that this is not the case. The trick, in fact, was mostly invented by a now-forgotten American journalist called Wilkie in a 1890 article for a Chicago newspaper. Because Wilkie included elements from the real life tricks of Indian fakirs and jugglers (such as those seen by Polo and Battuta), his Indian Rope Trick became quickly accepted as part of the canon. Thus Lamont skilfully shows how easily fiction and fact can become intertwined. Within decades, witnesses were claiming to have seen the trick during the mid 19th century, and academics produced 'evidence' showing that the trick had been around for centuries.

Lamont's most interesting point concerns the reason why the idea of the trick caught on, and why it proved so difficult to discredit. Essentially, his thesis is that the West created a 'mystic East' just at the point when it needed it most- the 19th century, when its own sense of mystery and superstition was being killed off by that new candle in the dark- science. It seems that mankind, on some unconscious level, needs the world to be a bizarre and inexplicable place, and if that isn't the case at home, than it must be so someplace Other. India in particular was portrayed as a land of murderous thuggee cults, rampaging juggernauts and gravity-defying yoga mystics. In short- a world where the ordinary rules don't apply. A natural home for a wonder such as the rope trick, eh memsahib?

For imperialists, this view also served as a handy justification for colonization- a useful reminder that natives of foreign lands were naive and superstitious, and therefore in need of direction from worldly Europeans who were of course above such things- or so they thought. For the Indian Rope Trick was conceived and perpetuated entirely in the West. In fact, no-one had even heard of it in India itself until the 1930's, after which it somehow became accepted as a part of Indian 'culture'.

The book is written in a very peculiar semi-humorous style. Several aspects of its construction seem to mess with the medium; such as when Lamont quotes a historian who wrote about the need to check primary sources- and then admits that the quotation, and the historian, are both fictional. With stunts such as these he reminds the reader of the strange relationship between print and belief.

Like David Standish, Lamont frequently appears to look down on his subjects, and humiliates them simply by quoting them at length and allowing them to 'hang' themselves. The book also concludes rather unexpectedly with a searing attack on tourism and wonder-seeking in modern India that is as witty as it is cringe-inducing. But despite such quirks, The Rise of The Indian Rope Trick comes highly recommended for anyone fascinated by 19th century magic, spiritualism, or the nature of belief.

By focusing on the Indian Rope Trick alone, Lamont describes our need for this 'mystic' India. Given the still-current fascination with Indian yoga and spiritualism, it seems this need is still very much with us.

(If you're interested, check out some videos of the rope trick here- which comes with the standard bogus history, and here for a more modern version.)

Tutankhamun- The Exodus Conspiracy

What do you get when you mix British colonialism, Oriental mystery and the occult? Questionable history and a stonking good story, that's what. (Dashed horrible cover, though. Bad early-noughties' CG married with overly dramatic use of religious symbolism? No thanks.) Tutankhamun- The Exodus Conspiracy is at least partly a retelling of one of the classic tales of discovery. True to form, the details of the case make fascinating reading, even disregarding the authors' bizarre claims in the latter half of the book.

Cast your mind back to Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century. As western countries became more rational, they increasingly needed to view the East as somewhere strange and Other. Life at home may have had all the mystery sucked out of it long ago, but elsewhere- the inscrutable Orient- were lands where the impossible could still happen. To men like Howard Carter and Lord Canarvon, Egypt was still a land of myth and mystery. And it was here, amid the burning sands of the desolate Valley of the Kings, that an extraordinary narrative was about to unfold.

Talk about having your cake and eating it too- the authors behind The Exodus Conspiracy cram in various (and sometimes tenously connected) aspects of the Tutankhamun story, each fascinating in its own way. So, the story of Canarvon funding just one more year's dig (after several fruitless seasons) resulting in Carter's lifelong dream coming true's not enough for you? How about Carter's personal and moral struggles against ruthless pressmen and Arab beaurocrats who (quite rightly, to be honest!) had the nerve to suggest that maybe the priceless treasures of Egypt shouldn't go directly to the British Museum? How about Carter's secret entering and resealing of the burial chamber three months before the official opening? What? You want more? I haven't even gotten to the curse yet!

Authors Collins and Ogilvie-Herald place this classic tale of discovery where they feel it belongs- squarely in the occult-obsessed culture of the upper-class Brits of the time. Belief in weird things was still common as tables floated in darkened parlours all over London and Paris. Lord Canarvon in particular is painted as having been strongly influenced by the occult. He held seances in his Gothic castle in England. He visited several psychics and mystics, some of whom warned him that if he continued desecrating tombs, he would never leave Egypt alive again... Several famous occult figures of the time turn out to have been linked to him- even old A. C. Doyle found time to comment on his doings in Egypt. And all the while, newsmen spun tales of creeping dread that preyed on Canarvon's mind. A popular fiction in newspapers of the time stated that 'death shall come on swift wings to he who disturbs the rest of the Pharoah'.

In this atmosphere, the 'curse' of Tutankhamun seems almost like the next logical step. Canarvon seems like the kind of man who would have taken such things rather seriously. By the time he dies from an infected mosquito-bite in a Cairo hotel room, raving that 'a bird' is scratching his face (and during a mysterious blackout, to boot!), you'll begin to wonder if there isn't something to this 'curse' nonesense after all. Even Carter, who famously scoffed at the curse till his dying day, turns out to have had his moments of private uncertainty and fear.

Perhaps I'm giving the wrong impression. The authors aren't writing to convince you that the curse was real- they spend quite a few pages trying to explain how several deaths associated with the tomb could have more logical explanations. But the fact remains that its a damn weird story, and some of the coincidences are very striking. But that's how conspiracy theorists think, and we're not here to read about them. Or are we?

Well, hold onto your pith helmets, because this is where things start to get really weird. I'm not going to get into it here (this review is damn-near long enough already), so if you want to read about how Tutankhamun was also the Pharoah from the Exodus story, you'll have to track this book down yourself. And if you're a conspiracy theorist who'd love to know about how Carter tried to blackmail the British authorities regarding the controversial birth of the Nation of Israel, then put on your tinfoil hat and head off to some other blog.

The Lost World & Other Stories- Part 2

Having read part one, you will have been left in no doubt that Professor Challenger and his scientifically-questionable methods had a large influence upon my youthful self. So I simply couldn’t wait to crack into this new book which promised more Challenger adventures. I was rather disappointed then, to find them, on the whole, brief and unremarkable. Perhaps the story When the World Screamed comes the closest to recapturing some of that Challenger magic. The Poison Belt, however, feels like a second-rate take on a H. G. Wells scenario.

Other factors rankle also. Challenger had held unconventional and unpopular views before in The Lost World, but then he had had solid proof that his crazy ideas were true. His continual ranting about having the correct scientific attitude held up, because he had good reason to know that he was right. In these new stories, Challenger continually leaps to incredible conclusions, and he’s proven correct just because the author makes it so. If Challenger claims that the world is a giant echinoderm (a sea urchin, to the zoologically-challenged) based on no evidence at all, then he’s right. Just because. I know it’s anal to berate fantastic fiction for lack of scientific rigour, but Doyle had got that mix just right before (he was a trained doctor with an above-average understanding of science), and in this volume I feel he does the good Professor an injustice by slighting it. Challenger is supposed to be a genius who’s unafraid to go against the status quo, but in The Lost World he would never propose these kinds of ideas without evidence. And in fact, this idea turns out to be more relevant to this article than I had first supposed…

No matter, I thought. There was one final story left in the collection, and it was a whopper. The Land of Mist. The only story in the book of comparable length to The Lost World. Ah yes, I thought. Doyle has been holding out on us, but here’s where the real meat is. This is where he’s been hiding his aces. Everything’s going to be okay.

So Lord Chelmsford may well have thought before the battle of Isandlwana.

See, between writing The Lost World and The Land of Mist, Doyle became pretty heavily involved with Spiritualism. This interest had begun to bleed, more than a little, into his writing. He turned his considerable talents of propaganda-writing towards promoting his new religion, giving lectures to packed halls on sell-out tours all over the Empire. This happy thought is never more than the length of a silver-cord from your mind as you peruse the pages of The Land of Mist.

Now, one of the chief pleasures of reading turn-of-the-century fantastic fiction is the wealth of bizarre ideas which were still taken for granted at this time- ether, spirit-writing, mesmerism, the hollow Earth, social Darwinism and the like. Science was in its adolescence, and was confidently expected to finally prove things that everybody already knew- that God was in his Heaven, white men were fit to rule the world, and that the lower classes were happy with their lot. Souls could be weighed and fairies and spirits could be photographed (because the camera never lies, right?) Of course, it didn’t quite turn out like that. It's a fascinating period, and in a way, I find Arthur Conan Doyle to be an apt representation of it as a whole.

As a young man, Doyle turned his back on his Catholic faith. No-one in this day and age could believe such nonsense, right? Science (and Darwin in particular) had banished the age of superstition, right? The future creator of Sherlock Homes declared that he would never again believe anything that could not be proven. But fast forward to the end of the Great War, and the picture is very different. With Europe in ruins, with every last Victorian ideal of decency and honour lying strangled and mashed in the muck of the Somme, and with his beloved son dead from Spanish flu, Doyle discovered (as much of the world did) that the gap left by religion has to be filled by something else. But not just anything- for once you embrace rationalism, there’s no going back. Traditional Christianity would clearly not do. Some new idea that could return meaning to life, but which was amiable to the new mechanistic nuts-and-bolts universe that science was revealing was in order.

Over the course of the 20th century, many people would come to fill this hole with UFO’s, automatic writing, electronic voice phenomenon, new age-ism, star people, Scientology, creation ‘science’, intelligent design, and dancing statues at Ballinspittle. But Doyle filled it with Spiritualism.






















In The Land of Mist, Professor Challenger examines this strange new phenomenon. Of course, he begins as a sceptic. He applies the correct amount of caution. He is a scientist, after all, and he knows that Spiritualism is a mine-field rife with cads and charlatans. After attending several séances and witnessing the manifestation of his dead wife, he decides that the phenomenon is genuine. Doyle then gets up on his soap-box, and allows Challenger to make the case clear- death is not the end, spiritualists and mediums are really in contact with the dead, and a new and better world is around the corner for those of us who accept that this is really happening. Challenger (and thus Doyle) believes that this is the most important breakthrough in history. As you are reading this, remind yourself- this guy was knighted for his ability to create propaganda (which he did during the Boer War and the Great War).

I enjoy Spiritualism as one of the bizarre ideas that gives the Victorian period its flavour, but this book is just sad.

It’s sad that Doyle really believed that a bunch of fakers shaking tables in dark rooms were going to change the world.

It’s sad that the creator of the most famously-logical character in history also created this misguided polemic.

And it’s especially sad that he hijacked a bunch of my favourite characters to do it!!

Doyle truly believed that he had met and conversed with the apparitions of his dead son and others. He saw, smelt and touched them. In his own head, he was completely convinced. A recent book by Andrew Norman tries to prove that Doyle was slightly schizophrenic. I don’t believe such explanations are necessary. People seem to be hard-wired to believe weird things, and that’s the end of it. We know now, of course, that spiritualism was no more than a bunch of cads and charlatans. Challenger was right. I think it’s best to leave the old fellow have the last word.