book of the afterlife (the)

After years of ardent materialism, of literary successes related to the invention of the detective par excellence, who solved complicated cases based on cold and objective observation of reality, Arthur Conan Doyle, towards the end of the nineteenth century, was thunderstruck by spiritualism and the certainty of survival after death came to him, a belief he sustained until the end of his days by lecturing all over the world. Of course, the demise of the inventor of Sherlock Holmes in 1930 was only the epilogue of his earthly existence because, just a year later, he mediumistically dictated to Grace Cooke this book with the express purpose of correcting some of the theories and spiritist beliefs that he had actively propagated in life and that in the afterlife he had been able to re-examine in the light of his personal experience. What he expounds in this text goes far beyond the limits of spiritualism and what was known on the subject at the time: he deals with life after death in a more incisive manner than ever before, making it clear how inextricably intertwined the life here and the afterlife are, the one being complementary to the other. His messages concern eternal human progress beyond death, provide an answer to the question of free will in the face of destiny, and offer a solution to the problem of evil, explaining where we come from, why we are on earth, and where we go after death.