The Deadly Consequences of Spiritualism
Unfortunately, as the lectures proved life after death, and the possibility of something better in the afterlife, some people wanted to cross over a little early to get a jump on their spiritual reward. Suicides and murders increased in the wake of Doyle’s popular lectures. In one headlining case, a woman named Maud Fancher murdered her baby son, then killed herself.
As she was dying, she wrote to Doyle, whose lecture she heard on the radio, saying Spiritual drove her to it. She also wrote to her husband, asking that her murdered toddler be buried with her, placed in her arms. There is no word whether Mrs. Fancher has appeared in a spirit photograph, but spirit photography, promoted by Doyle in his lectures, gave her hope in life after death, but instead led to tragedy.
