Brian McCuskey lectures on Sherlock Holmes, spiritualism at Brigham campus

Brian McCuskey gave a lecture on the author of “Sherlock Holmes” Arthur Conan Doyle, and his belief in spiritualism. 

McCuskey, professor and department head of the Utah State University English Department, wrote about how Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes is logical and scientific by nature when Doyle himself believed in spiritualism.  

“Everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes is an extremely logical thinker whose methods are strictly scientific,” McCuskey said. “However, not everyone knows that his author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle eventually became the most famous spiritualist in the world.” 

McCuskey also wrote about Doyle’s writings and his lectures on how spirits communicate. 

“He wrote many books and gave many lectures about his belief that spirits could communicate with the living at seances — through table-rapping, automatic writing, entranced mediums, teleporting objects, ectoplasmic materializations, etc.,” McCuskey said.  

Valerie Odenthal is a freelance nonfiction writer. 

Odenthal said McCuskey discussed how Harry Houdini and Doyle were friends but had wildly different beliefs when it came to spiritualism. 

“Houdini spent a lot of the time when there was a pre-World War I boom in spiritualism trying to disprove it,” Odenthal said. “We are talking about mediums, seances, tarot cards — all kinds of things. “ 

Odenthal said people were missing their relatives after World War I and another boom in spiritualism surged.  

“It happened again after World War I because everybody was missing their relatives that were killed in the war,” Odenthal said. 

According to Odenthal, this was interesting because Doyle, Houdini’s friend, saw things differently. 

“Doyle actually was really caught up in that spiritualism, to the point where he published a book about fairies,” Odenthal said.  “Two girls had literally cut a fairy picture out of a book and used them in photographs, and he believed that the fairies were real. He was this very intellectual person hanging out with his opposite.” 

McCuskey wrote after learning about Doyle, one can go back to Sherlock Holmes and begin to see that his methods are not as logical and scientific as we think. 

“When we look back at Sherlock Holmes after learning more about Doyle, the detective’s methods then seem much less purely logical and strictly scientific than they did before,” McCuskey wrote. “Often, those methods only work because he is a fictional character living in a story that was written for him to solve the mystery correctly in the end!” 

McCuskey wrote that people can use this story as a cautionary tale in their lives. 

“Rather than the stories being illustrations of the scientific method, they can also be read as cautionary tales for us,” McCuskey wrote. “Sometimes we only think that we are thinking logically. Rather than looking only for evidence that confirms our theories, we should also always be looking for evidence that would contradict them. Sherlock Holmes can’t do that: He can only ever find supporting evidence. But we can do more and better than that in our own lives, in the real world, as we seek to understand it.” 

Misti Nielsen is the community connections specialist at USU Brigham. 

Nielsen said McCuskey did well at keeping the crowd interested and engaged during his lecture. 

“He definitely was able to pull the crowd in and keep your attention,” Nielsen said. 

Odenthal said she felt like McCuskey was a very interesting speaker and kept the crowd engaged. 

“I really appreciated the fact that Dr. McCuskey keeps it moving and is a fascinating speaker,” Odenthal said. “It felt like the time really flew by.” 

The lecture series is still ongoing, and if anyone would like to recommend a topic or speaker, they can reach out to Misti  Nielsen at misti.nielsen@usu.edu.