Sherlock Holmes, and the constant quest of humanity for Gods

There has never been, and may never be, a character in literature with the astonishingly enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes. Why is Sherlock Holmes so very special, what is the particular magic of this character that Arthur Conan Doyle created, as a failed doctor trying to earn a living through his pen?  What did he do, exactly, how, and why? Conan Doyle was brought up a strict Catholic, so he had a natural disposition to seek the strict structure, faith and power of traditional Catholicism.  This is the natural tendency humanity has, that Freud commented on, of trying to seek a great Father Figure, to control the world around us, so we don't have to.  Up to a point, this is probably the basis for all world religions, past and present. However, Conan Doyle was highly educated, and became trained as a doctor in mid-nineteenth century Britain, and such faith was highly inconsistent with his training and education.  He really could not help but reject conventional religion.  Instead, for a time anyway, he became a religious skeptic and a rationalist.  It was during this period that Sherlock Holmes was born.   What is Sherlock Holmes, precisely? Is he a man?  I'm not quite sure of that.  Actually, it's not too big a stretch to suggest that Sherlock Holmes definitely has some Christ-like qualities. On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes was certainly based to some extent on incredibly influential, but rather unsuccessful Edgar Allen Poe, and his intellectual,intuitive detective Auguste Dupin, who is probably largely modeled on Poe himself.   Dupin is a somewhat dissipated intellectual eccentric, no superman, but extremely intelligent and resourceful.  As consequence, he has no trouble at all running rings around the none too bright bureaucrats at the Police Force. This idea interested Conan Doyle, with his new religiously rationalist perception, and he probably unconsciously imbued Holmes with some element of his own innate religious fervor from his childhood.  Certainly, Holmes is not the rather careless dilettante that Dupin, and up to a point, Edgar Allen Poe himself was.   Holmes is quite obsessed with his work, and he is also quite obsessed with helping his clients, with something very much like a messianic fervor.  Edgar Allen Poe and Auguste Dupin would have laughed at such obsessiveness, it was contrary to their natures. So, what Conan Doyle created in Sherlock Holmes, is something rather like an intellectual superhero, an intellectual superman, but also a father figure because of Conan Doyle's own religious upbringing, with genuinely Christ-like qualities.  In other words, Sherlock Holmes is a God, in the truest sense of the term, something superhuman, something beyond mere humanity. That to some extent explains Holmes' unique attraction, because as L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology so shrewdly said, "Religion is where the money's at!"  Now, to be fair here, Conan Doyle never did say that, and, I really do believe that this religious aspect to Sherlock Holmes was something that happened quite unintentionally, it wasn't what Conan Doyle had in mind at all.  So, Conan Doyle kept trying to kill off Sherlock Holmes, and get back to being a "serious" writer, but, he liked money, and Sherlock Holmes was the only way he could get it, at least in really large quantities. However, there are lots of religions out there, why be a worshipper of Sherlock Holmes, exactly, what's the unique attraction?  I think what's happening here, is that we have a reincarnation of the Greek God Athena -- Goddess of Wisdom -- who really had effectively died out, a long time ago, you know.  You see,  science has failed.  Rationalism has failed.  Probably it's been corrupted by bureaucracy and capitalism.  So, where we had Einstein, Newton and Darwin as Gods in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, no one really takes them very seriously anymore, in the general population anyway.  Scientists and Engineers are merely salesmen and hustlers, not be trusted, at all.  But, who wouldn't trust Sherlock Holmes?  Why, you could trust Holmes with your life.  And, so, we have the worship of the Father Figure, Sherlock Holmes, the true God of Wisdom, the New Athena. #freud #psychoanalysis #psychology #arthurconandoyle #sherlockholmes #conandoyle #religion #god #gods #polytheism #catholicism #literature #englishliterature #philosophyofreligion #philosophy #metaphysics #edgarallenpoe #augustedupin #detectives #detectivefiction #americanliterature #philosophyofscience #capitalism #mythology #athena #greekgods #scientology #lronhubbard