74
Popular Culture Review
regarding certain phenomena—see Hitchens 279), lectured on the supernatural in
a number of countries, wrote extensively on such concerns in the period 19001930, and thus became a particularly prominent spokesperson for the Spiritualist
movement. Strikingly, Doyle was even involved in the public presentation of “spirit
photographs,” which offered images of ghosts and other apparitions; one can find
precisely the same content displayed at the www.artbell.com website, suggesting
that the distance between Bell and the creator of Holmes may be considerably
smaller than that between Doyle and his creation. Doyle’s intellectual interests in
the paranormal were greeted with a response not unlike that of the scientific
community to Bell. In the words of one critic from the era, Doyle displays a “puerile
(or is it senile) credulity.. .a curious combination of personal vanity and provincial
prepossession;” intriguingly, the same critic enlists both Doyle’s creation Holmes
and Dr. Freud in his battle against Doyle’s mysticism (Jastrow 2-3). This certainly
raises questions regarding the modernist character of Holmes and puts at least his
creator closer to Bell than might be expected.
Or would it? While the symbolic world posed by Bell’s radio program and his
books certainly exhibits the signs of a postmodern irrationality, there is evidence
that this is partly illusion. Careful listening to Bell reveals a kind of blank-faced
dubiousness on the part of the host; certainly. Bell rarely endorses the views of his
guests and callers (and especially the more extreme/ffinge views offered by both)
and holds to a standard of objectivity that looks almost quaintly modem. Indeed,
for a time Bell’s website featured an interactive “credibihty meter” which allowed
listeners to rate the believability of guests on the program, which certainly
acknowledges resistance to many of the claims presented by these “experts” (though,
sadly, this feature has been discontinued). Recently, I happened to m eet Dr. Seth
Shostak, public programs scientist at the SETI institute, an organization dedicated
to the search for extraterrestrial hfe, and a very frequent guest on Bell’s show;
Shostak confirmed that Bell exhibits a great deal of caution in relation to the fantastic
and often paranoiac views of many of his guests. In fact, Shostak himself often
appears as a kind of “rational” counterpoint to other, less scientifically reputable
informants, suggesting that Bell may be more committed to a rather mundane sense
of balance that is at odds with the more outre aspects of the program. While this
certainly does not negate the broader impression left by Bell’s oeuvre—and is
explicitly contradicted by the tone of The Quickening and Bell’s other “scientific”
work. The Coming Global Superstorm (co-authored with fellow radio host Whitley
Streiber)—it does suggest that like Doyle/Holmes, Bell is a far from univocal figure.
Where does this leave my examination of these two iconic figures? Rather
than an outright negation, as noted, of the early analysis, I think it suggests a
complexity inherent in any figure as culturally rich as Holmes or Bell, that
contradictory strands of meaning are inevitably woven together in these characters.