Séances & Science

The Lessons of the Spiritualist Challenge to Darwinism

by John Mark Reynolds

At the end of the nineteenth century, it was obvious to the informed observer that materialism would triumph in Europe. The fruits of this victory were not hard to imagine: a decline in religious belief, an exaltation of humanity, and a rejection of traditional morals. Many conservative social and political leaders in Great Britain saw this coming destruction of their way of life and attempted to head it off.

Chief among the prophets of this coming cultural apocalypse was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Most famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle was a doctor, humanitarian, . . .

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John Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. The author of Toward a Unified Platonic Human Psychology (University Press of America), he writes an active weblog on religion and science (www.johnmarkreynolds.com). He, his wife Hope, and their four home-schooled children are members of St. Michael Antiochian Orthodox Church.

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