HOUSE

House
Manor
Mansion
Casa
Дом

Acts 16:32
“And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.”

 

 

 

 

Chess: "House" "Manor" "Mansion" "Casa" "Дом"

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square
Washington Square
Valparaíso

 CAMILA CABELLO

Philippians 1:3
“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camila Cabello

Chess: "Trafalgar Square" "Washington Square" "Valparaíso"

KING OF KINGS

King of Kings
Exodus
Crossing the Red Sea 

John 14:2
“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "King of kings" "Exodus" "The Red Sea"

Knife

FAITH, AWARENESS AND SCIENCE

Jalapa

Knife

Capri

Dexter 

 

1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

"He set off for a three-day bachelor jaunt to Capri"~~~Morris L. West

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Jalapa" "Jalisco" "Knife" "Capri" "Dexter"
 

 

 

 

Xalapa (Jalapa), Veracruz, Mexico:
Xalapa, also known as Jalapa, is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz. It lies near the geographic center of the state and is the second-largest city after Veracruz to the southeast.
The name “Xalapa” comes from the Classical Nahuatl roots “xālli” (pronounced, meaning “sand”) and “āpan”, meaning “place of water”), which translates to “spring in the sand.”
The city’s nickname is “City of Flowers” (Spanish: “La ciudad de las flores”), given by Alexander von Humboldt during his visit in 1804.
Xalapa has a rich cultural heritage, notable landmarks, and a vibrant atmosphere. It’s definitely worth exploring!

Sevilla

EL CORDOBÉS

Epistemology, Labor and Wisdom
Canada
Sevilla
La Maestranza
Andalucía

Sextant

Acts 20:35
“I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

El cordobés 

 

 "The many fail; the one succeeds."~~~Tennyson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Epistemology, Labor and Wisdom" "Canada" "Sevilla" "La Maestranza" "El Cordobés" "Andalucía" "Sextant"

Cambridge

MARCO ANTONIO
Cambridge
Golden Gate
Pont des Arts
Pont du Gard  

2 Timothy 4:7
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”

 

 

Marco Antonio 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marco Antonio

 

 

 Prov.16:3
"Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established."

 

Psalms 90:17
“And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Cambridge" "Golden Gate" "Pont des Arts" "Pont du Gard"

Iowa

NEWTON, IOWA
Roquefort
Blue Cheese
Farmer
Maytag
Wisconsin Blue Cheese

Philippians 4:13
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

 

 

"By any means get wealth and place."~~~Pope 

"In Egypt the whole cycle of agrigulture is pivoted round the inundation"~~~V. Gordon Childe

"The plot...lacks direction, pivoting on Hamlet's incertitude"~~~G. Wilson Knight

"Place the ham over the vegetables, its fattest side up"~~~Julia Child

 

Maytag Dairy Farm, Newton, Iowa.

 

Chess:  "Farmer" "Roquefort" "Blue Cheese" "Newton, Iowa" "Maytag"

Wyoming

Wyoming

Why?

¿Por qué?

Nehemiah 8:10
“Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

 

 

 

Chess: "Wyoming" "Why?" "¿Por qué?"

The creation of the state of Wyoming holds historical significance, and its essential meaning encompasses several key aspects:
Statehood and Independence:
Wyoming officially became a state on July 10, 1890, when President Benjamin Harrison signed the proclamation. Prior to this, Wyoming had been a territory since 1868.
The process of becoming a state was long and arduous, but Wyoming proudly became the 44th state to join the Union1.
Population and Challenges:
Wyoming faced challenges related to its population. Congress traditionally required territories to have around 60,000 people to qualify for statehood.
By 1888, Wyoming had only 55,500 people, most of whom lived in ranches, small towns, and mining settlements. The railroads and coal mines were major employers, but the population remained small and scattered.
Women’s Rights and Equality:
Wyoming had a unique distinction: it was the first government to grant women equal political rights. The state’s constitution included provisions allowing women to vote and hold office.
This progressive stance on women’s rights was controversial but showcased Wyoming’s commitment to equality.
Local Control and Economic Factors:
Statehood offered Wyoming more local control over land and water issues. It allowed the state to govern itself independently.
The railroads and coal mines played a crucial role in Wyoming’s economy, emphasizing the need for statehood.
In summary, Wyoming’s statehood represented a transition from territorial status to full independence within the United States. It symbolized progress, equality, and the desire for self-governance

El Niño

THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT 

 

FAIR "O": Pharaoh : FERRY
Bear
El Niño
The Child
Mansion
Manor
English country house
 
Psalms 9:1
“(A Psalm of David.) I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.”

Romans 13:12
“The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”

"They hardly seem to TREAD, the EARTH but are BORNE in some more genial element"~~~William Hazlitt

"A thousand different SHAPES it bears"~~~Cowley

"better fitted than others to BEAR the diseases of the country"~~~Darwin  

"Tall trunks bore unexpected PALE FLOWERS"~~~William Golding 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Fair O" "Pharaoh" "Ferry" "Bear" "Mansion" "Manor" "English Country House"

Quetzaltenango

Quetzaltenango
Cardinal
Venice Beach

Proverbs 17:22
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Quetzaltenango" "Cardinal" "Venice Beach"

March

 

RUBICON

March

Britannia

Gran Bretaña

Julius Caesar

Palm Sunday

"Raphael-Leonardo-Donatello-Michelangelo"

Tortuga Island 

Clue Pater (Cleopatra) 

 

 

Exodus 33:22

“And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raphael-Leonardo-Donatello-Michelangelo

 

 

 

Chess: ""March" "Britannia" "Rubicon" "Gran Bretaña" "Julius Caesar" "Isla Tortuga" "Raphael-Leonardo-Donatello-Michelangelo" "Palm Sunday" "Cleopatra (Clue Pater)

Amsterdam

HATHOR
The milky Way
Bethlehem Steel
Tiffany Glass
Amsterdam

Psalms 85:10
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

 

Painting showing women preparing kava by John La Farge (c. 1891).

 

 

 Scholars make a distinction between the so-called noble and non-noble kava. The latter category comprises the so-called tudei (or "two-day") kavas, medicinal kavas, and wild kava (Piper wichmanii, the ancestor of domesticated Piper methysticum). Traditionally, only noble kavas have been used for regular consumption, due to their more favourable composition of kavalactones and other compounds that produce more pleasant effects and have lower potential for causing negative side effects, such as nausea, or "kava hangover".

The perceived benefits of noble cultivars explain why only these cultivars were spread around the Pacific by Polynesian and Melanesian migrants, with presence of non-noble cultivars limited to the islands of Vanuatu, from which they originated. More recently, it has been suggested that the widespread use of tudei cultivars in the manufacturing of several kava products might have been the key factor contributing to the rare reports of adverse reactions to kava observed among the consumers of kava-based products in Europe.

 

Chess:  "STILL" "Bethlehem Steel" "Steel Mill" "Baker Street"

COWBOY

BRING HOME THE BACON
HATHOR : HOLLAND
COWBOY

Jerusalem
Life
Wife
Israel

 

Ephesians 5:25
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” 

 

 

 

 

 

 "BACON was the only philosopher of the period who was not a mathematician. He thought he could solve everything by material evidence, examined by an exceptionally sharp wit - and, my goodness, he was intelligent!"~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION Ch. 8 The Light of Experience.
 

 

 

 

 

 The Jewish Bride, Rembrandt

 

 

 

Chess: "Jerusalem" "Israel" "Life" "Wife" "Hathor" "Cowboy"

John Donne

John Donne
Stonehenge
Easter Island 

Isaiah 32:2
“And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

 

 

 

 

Russia: Kristina Pimenova

Air and Angels
John Donne

Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be;
         Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
         But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
         More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
         And therefore what thou wert, and who,
                I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;
         Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
         For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
         Then, as an angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,
         So thy love may be my love's sphere;
                Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

Chess: "John Donne" "Stonehenge" "Easter Island"

Flame

Flame
Torch
Tea
Antorcha
Blowfish
Statue of Liberty

Pepper 

Jalisco

Uvita

Cahuita

Cariari

 

 

2 Timothy 1:13
“Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Flame" "Torch" "Tea" "Antorcha" "Blowfish" "Lady Liberty" "Pepper"“Jalisco” “Tequila, limón y sal” “La naranja mecánica” “Uvita” “Cahuita” “Cariari”

Communion

Communion

 

Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Communion"

 

 

Diamond

💎
Diamond
Celestial
Celeste
Diamante 

 

"the dialogues of Galileo"

 

"a lesson diametrically opposite to the one I'd been trying to teach"~~~Anthony Burgess

 

 
1 John 3:16
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Diamond" "Celestial" "Celeste" "Diamante"

EL CAMINO REAL

RAMÓN

San Ramón

El Camino Real

Calzada Amador

Xeon 6

 

 

 Xeon 6, el chip hecho en Costa Rica con el que Intel planea dar un salto en la carrera de la IA

Genesis 1:26

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

 

 

Chess: "El Camino Real" "Calzada Amador" "Ramón" San Ramón" "Intel Xeon 6"

"DON RAMÓN DE SALDAÑA, ELDEST SON OF COMMANDANT ALVARO and Benita, was SIXTY-SIX years of age and sprightly in MIND AND LIMB. Often he reflected upon the three great joys in his life and the two inconsolable tragedies.

He was sole owner of the vast Rancho El Codo, twenty-five thousand acres named after an ELBOW of the Medina, that river which marked the boundary between the two provinces of Coahuila and Tejas. It was a rich and varied parcel, well watered, and stocked with thousands of cattle, sheep and goats. Most important, it bordered a segment of Los Caminos Reales, that system of royal highways which reached out like spokes from Mexico City, the hub of New Spain. This portion reached from Vera Cruz through Mexico City to San Antonio de Béjar, as the town was now called, to the former capital of Tejas at Los Adaes, and its presence along the ranch meant that Don Ramón could sell provisions to the royal troops that patrolled the vital route; Rancho El Codo was an inheritance of which he was justly proud."~~~James A. Michener: TEXAS. Ch.3 El Camino Real. 

 

 

 

Carlos Alejandro Ordóñez:

·

"El ataúd del rey Tutankamón está hecho de oro puro.

El grado de pureza del oro de nuestros antepasados ​​no fue alcanzado por la ciencia hasta principios del siglo XX.

Un bloque de oro puro pesa alrededor de 110 kg. No hay ningún bloque de oro tan pesado como este en la Tierra...

Este entrelazado e incrustación muy preciso con turquesa, ágata y todas las piedras preciosas no tiene paralelo en el planeta...

Ninguno de estos miles de pequeños trozos de piedras preciosas cayó a pesar de permanecer bajo tierra en un desierto muy caluroso durante unos 3.500 años...

Esta magnificencia, precisión fabulosa y belleza milagrosa no se ha repetido en todas las civilizaciones humanas...

Ahora no es posible crear algo así, por muy modernos que sean los equipos que utilicen.

Este es el pináculo del milagro humano y el pináculo de la habilidad manual desde que el primer hombre pisó la Tierra.

Créditos a su autor

Caal Orvi"

SAN RAMÓN

Uno lee estas "apreciaciones" y las encuentra muy interesantes y hasta productivas. No obstante uno no tiene el tiempo y la inclinación para poder darse el lujo de verificar todas las afirmaciones que se exponen. Pero de lo que sí estoy convencido ES del trabajo SEMINAL profundo y amoroso realizado por los PATRIARCAS en el Antiguo Egipto y su mensaje preparando el CAMINO REAL hacia Cristo!

Genesis 1:26

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

.

"DON RAMÓN DE SALDAÑA, ELDEST SON OF COMMANDANT ALVARO and Benita, was SIXTY-SIX years of age and sprightly in MIND AND LIMB. Often he reflected upon the three great joys in his life and the two inconsolable tragedies.

He was sole owner of the vast Rancho El Codo, twenty-five thousand acres named after an ELBOW of the Medina, that river which marked the boundary between the two provinces of Coahuila and Tejas. It was a rich and varied parcel, well watered, and stocked with thousands of cattle, sheep and goats. Most important, it bordered a segment of Los Caminos Reales, that system of royal highways which reached out like spokes from Mexico City, the hub of New Spain. This portion reached from Vera Cruz through Mexico City to San Antonio de Béjar, as the town was now called, to the former capital of Tejas at Los Adaes, and its presence along the ranch meant that Don Ramón could sell provisions to the royal troops that patrolled the vital route; Rancho El Codo was an inheritance of which he was justly proud."~~~James A. Michener: TEXAS. Ch.3 El Camino Real.

 

 

 

Rembrandt

 

Rembrandt

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp: Rembrandt’s masterpiece, painted in 1632, depicts Dr. Nicolaes Tulp conducting an anatomy lesson. The scene captures the moment when Dr. Tulp lifts a tendon from the partially dissected arm of a man who had been executed for armed robbery. The painting showcases the fascination of the onlookers and the doctor’s gestures as he explains anatomical details

 

John 9:25

“He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

 

Connection:

While seemingly unrelated at first glance, both the biblical verse and Rembrandt’s painting share a theme of seeing. In John 9:25, the man who was blind gains physical sight and spiritual understanding. In “The Anatomy Lesson,” the spectators observe the intricate workings of the human body. Both instances involve a transformation of perception—from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge.

Symbolism:

Could Rembrandt have subtly woven spiritual symbolism into his painting? Perhaps the act of dissecting the human body mirrors the quest for deeper understanding—both scientific and metaphysical. Just as the blind man gained insight beyond physical sight, the anatomy lesson invites viewers to contemplate the mysteries of life, mortality, and the human condition.

Artistic Theatrics:

Rembrandt’s theatrical approach to this genre—typically static—adds dynamism to the scene. The play of light and shadow, the expressions on the faces, and the tension between life and death all contribute to a layered narrative. Perhaps, like the blind man, we are encouraged to look beyond the surface and seek deeper truths.

In summary, both John 9:25 and Rembrandt’s painting invite us to consider the transformative power of seeing—whether through physical healing, scientific exploration, or spiritual revelation. They remind us that true understanding often transcends what meets the eye.

xxxxx...xxxxx

Holland during the Dutch Baroque Period:

Rembrandt’s career unfolded during a pivotal time in Dutch history. Holland experienced the rise of a wealthy mercantile class during the seventeenth century.

Unlike Italy, where the Catholic Church commissioned grand religious art, Holland’s Protestant context led to a different patronage system.

The expanding middle class in Holland enthusiastically supported artists, commissioning works of art with their increasing discretionary income.

Genres like genre paintings, still lifes, landscapes, and prints became popular due to their affordability and suitability for home display.

Group portraiture also gained prominence. These paintings were often placed in public spaces to promote specific organizations or guilds

The Anatomy Lesson Scene:

Rembrandt’s painting features Dr. Tulp delivering an anatomy lecture to seven other medical professionals.

The dissected corpse is believed to be Aris Kindt, a convicted criminal sentenced to death.

The composition is daring, innovative, and psychologically charged, reflecting Rembrandt’s early mastery.

The scene captures the fascination with human anatomy and the quest for knowledge during this period.

Cultural Significance:

As a commemorative guild painting, it celebrates the power and prestige of Amsterdam’s fourth praelector anatomiae (Dr. Tulp) and the Amsterdam surgeons’ guild.

The annual public demonstrations of medical prowess were significant events, emphasizing the emerging science of modern medicine.

Rembrandt’s portrayal of this event highlights the intersection of science, art, and societal values.

 

In summary, “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” not only showcases Rembrandt’s artistic brilliance but also reflects the intellectual and cultural milieu of seventeenth-century Holland.

 

 

 

Why Sherlock Holmes's razor sharp creator embraced the paranormal

 Peering through a magnifying glass beneath his signature deerstalker hat, sucking on a blackened clay pipe, Sherlock Holmes remains the world's greatest literary detective, immortalised in more than a century of books, films and television. The Baker Street sleuth's preternatural powers of observation and a rigorously logical and scientific mind mirrored those of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 Yet the greatest mystery of Conan Doyle's own life has remained unsolved - until now.

At the height of his intellectual powers the author stunned his friends and admirers by embracing the paranormal, trying to communicate with the dead, and declaring his belief in fairies.

"The recognition of their existence will jolt the material 20th century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and mystery to life," wrote Conan Doyle in 1920.

It was a shocking assertion from the razor-sharp mind that had crafted the unerringly analytical stories that for the past 136 years have made Sherlock Holmes an unparalleled sleuthing genius admired across the globe.

 

 Conan Doyle's embrace of fairies came just a few short years after he had shaken London society by declaring his belief in spiritualism, endorsing mediums who claimed to communicate with the deceased in the Great Beyond. "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent," as Sherlock tells his loyal companion Dr Watson in A Case Of Identity.

 

 For the past century Conan Doyle's credulous faith in fairies and the spirits of the dead speaking from the afterlife has been dismissed as the wishful thinking of an overactive imagination. But a new book, The Real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, shockingly claims that the creator of the great fictional detective suffered mental illness inherited from his alcoholic father. "It's long been a mystery why the mentally rigorous Conan Doyle would claim to hear voices, see the dead, and believe in fairies," says writer Andrew Norman, of Poole, Dorset, who like the author trained as a medical doctor before becoming a writer.

"Conan Doyle experienced hallucinations and delusions, probably as a feature of an inherent tendency to mania. He may well have inherited his delusional disorder from his father Charles, who had exhibited many of the features of a schizophrenic."

 

 Charles Doyle, a talented artist who spent the last 14 years of his life forcibly incarcerated in mental and medical institutions, may have suffered bipolar disorder, acute schizophrenia, dementia, psychosis and epilepsy, according to Norman, who examined long-forgotten family medical records and Charles' private diary.

Charles also suffered hallucinations and delusions, "said he was getting messages from the unseen world," and like his famous son displayed an "intense interest" in goblins, fairies and elf-like creatures.

 

 "Charles was hearing voices - which is indicative of a serious and inherent psychiatric disorder, but which also is instantly reminiscent of the spiritualistic experiences that his son, Conan Doyle, would describe in his later life," says Norman.

The fear of following his father's descent into madness haunted the author.

"I think he spent his entire life afraid he might succumb to the same mental illness as his father Charles had done," says Norman. "Yet when mental illness did finally overcome Conan Doyle he failed to recognise it."

London-born of Irish ancestry, Charles moved to Edinburgh, and with Scottish wife Mary had ten children, seven surviving to adulthood. He drew the illustrations for his son's first Sherlock Holmes novel in 1887, A Study In Scarlet, but was plagued by alcoholism and advancing mental illness. Charles' heavy drinking triggered epileptic seizures, and a likely bipolar disorder led to depression and manic episodes.

"Charles, who displays traits characteristic of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is said to be suffering from a schizo-affective disorder," which led to his alcoholism, says Norman. His father's violence and paranoia kept Conan Doyle at boarding school for much of his childhood, even during the holidays. "Charles was dangerous when he got into these psychotic rages," says Norman.

Despite the mental challenges his father faced, Conan Doyle's admiration for him was undiminished, saying his father's life was "full of the tragedy of unfulfilled poets and underdeveloped gifts".

 

 Charles spent years locked away in the Montrose Royal Asylum, the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, and Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries, where he died during an epileptic fit in 1893, at the age of 61. Like a literary detective, Norman finds clues to Conan Doyle's mental history hidden in his writings, including many of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

In The Adventures Of The Cardboard Box, Conan Doyle wrote of "an impulsive man... prone to occasional fits of hard drinking," who admits he "becomes like a madman when my temper gets loose".

In The Empty House, Sherlock suggests that an adversary suffers a hereditary mental illness. And in The Sign Of Four, Holmes uses cocaine to sharpen his mind, prompting Norman to wonder if this was a result of Conan Doyle seeing his alcoholic father possibly addicted to opiates. Charles's wife Mary wrote that not booze but "undue use of stimulants" plunged her husband into madness.

Conan Doyle, a lapsed Catholic, in his later years apparently lost the mental rigour that in his youth prompted him to state: "Never will I accept anything which cannot be proved to me. The evils of religion have all come from accepting things which cannot be proved."

But the horrors and slaughter of the First World War unleashed a flood of adherents to spiritualism, with many in British society attending seances, consulting clairvoyants, and trying to contact their dearly departed.

 

 "It is treacherous and difficult ground, where fraud lurks and self-deception is possible," admitted Conan Doyle. Yet his demand for logic and proof faded in the face of his inherited mental illness, Norman believes.

"Conan Doyle wanted to believe in fairies and communicating with the deceased, and he was suffering delusional disorder, seeing things that weren't there."

Yet nothing prepared Conan Doyle's admirers for his 1922 book The Coming Of The Fairies, in which he revealed his faith in the magical winged creatures, elves and gnomes.

He was completely convinced of the authenticity of a series of photographs of fairies frolicking in an English glen, taken by nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her friend Elsie Wright, aged 16, behind their home in Cottingley near Bradford in 1917.

The Cottingley Fairies may have been dismissed as a childhood prank coupled with clever photographic manipulation, but became world famous when Conan Doyle hailed the images as proof that fairies were real.

Photographic experts at Kodak warned Conan Doyle that the Cottingley fairy pictures could have been "artificially" manipulated by "some clever operator," but he chose to believe only the expert who told him the snaps "are entirely genuine unfaked photographs of single exposure, open-air work". Predicting a new era of fairy-human amity, he said: "These little folk, who appear to be our neighbours, with only some small difference of vibration to separate us, will become familiar."

Ridiculed, Conan Doyle died in July 1930, aged 71. It was another 51 years before Frances Griffiths confessed that the fairies had been illustrations cut out on cardboard and suspended in the bushes with hatpins. "Conan Doyle's grandiose delusions made him abandon his logical intellectual rigour," adds Norman. "He was suffering from a disorder, and understanding that is the key to unravelling the mystery that overshadowed his later years."

The Real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Andrew Norman (White Owl, £20) is out now.