Arthur Conan Doyle 
The Vital Message 

The Vital Message was written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was first published in Britain in 1919 by Hodder & Stoughton.

A sort of supplement to ‘New Revelation’. Doyle’s overview of and argumentation for what he calls modern Spiritualism, concluding with some particular case studies and, before them, a Spirtualistic method of interpreting the Christian gospels. Interesting to those who are willing to consider the possibility that ‘nature’ is not wholly materialistic.

In ‘The New Revelation’ the first dawn of the coming change has been described. In ‘The Vital Message’ the sun has risen higher, and one sees more clearly and broadly what our new relations with the Unseen may be. As I look into the future of the human race I am reminded of how once, from amid the bleak chaos of rock and snow at the head of an Alpine pass, I looked down upon the far stretching view of Lombardy, shimmering in the sunshine and extending in one splendid panorama of blue lakes and green rolling hills until it melted into the golden haze which draped the far horizon. Such a promised land is at our very feet which, when we attain it, will make our present civilisation seem barren and uncouth. Already our vanguard is well over the pass. Nothing can now prevent us from reaching that wonderful land which stretches so clearly before those eyes which are opened to see it.