This article highlights some unconvincing elements in May Sinclair's The Flaw in the Crystal and lists some similarities between The Parasite by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and May Sinclair's novella. These similarities and some other connections I noticed make the effort needed to decode the obscurities in The Flaw in the Crystal seem worthwhile.
First, two extracts that seem significant to me:
Playing the 'as if' game
There is no humour in The Flaw in the Crystal, but I find this passage where Milly Powell writes to Agatha about her husband Harding both interesting and amusing:
“She wrote as if it was Agatha's fault that he had become dependent; as if Agatha had nothing, had nobody in the world to think of but Harding; as if nobody, as if nothing in the world beside Harding mattered. And Agatha found herself resenting Milly's view. As if to her anything in the world mattered beside Rodney Lanyon.“
Off-the-mark, 'as if' messages are a special interest of mine. It was an unexpected treat to come across such a good specimen in a story written in 1912.
It is a pity that the whole story is not written in the straightforward style that we see in this passage.
Intention is everything
Just as many other people involved with unseen influences have done, Agatha Verrall realises that there is a dimension where thoughts have power. There, the wish or intention to do something is at least as effective as actually doing it in the real world:
“...that world where to think was to will, and to will was to create.“
“For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts unborn and shapeless, that ran under the threshold and hid there, counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the Secret, reigned.”
Despite what Agatha Verrall believes, this dimension, this world, is not necessarily a good place and the Powers that can be contacted there are not necessarily benevolent.
The Power: good or evil?
There are two propositions in The Flaw in the Crystal that I am not very happy with. They may be necessary for the plot and used to make some points, but they are not convincing.
The first is that the Power that Agatha Verrall taps to heal people telepathically is benevolent and even of divine origin; the second is that she is doing the right thing by transcending her human self in favour of becoming a flawless crystal, a consecrated vessel.
Is this Power really holy? What appears to be from the light may really be of the darkness, and what appears to be an angel can turn out to be a demon in disguise!
I am reminded of two of Stella Gibbon's novels here.
In The Shadow of a Sorcerer, which inspired many articles, the evil occultist Esmé Scarron mentions a neutral Force that is something like the lightning, neither good not evil but only irresistibly strong. He makes use of this force to both heal and harm people and spy on and influence them remotely, using it entirely for his own benefit.
A mediumistic woman in Starlight picks up something that is friendly and helpful at first – she makes money from telling fortunes using information it supplies – but later possesses her and turns her life into a nightmare.
Madeleine L'Engle's Zachary Grey also influences people remotely, and not in a good way. There is a suggestion that he is a demonic entity.
As for leaving human feelings behind, cult leaders make their followers give up family and other ties.
The 'high and holy' Power now has Agatha Verrall all to itself.
It all sounds very suspicious to me.
Similarities with Conan Doyle's Parasite
I made the point in one of the articles about John Christopher's Guardians that it is not plagiarism when someone is so inspired by a story that they decide to write something similar.
The Flaw in the Crystal reminded me of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Parasite soon after I started reading it; by the time I had finished it, I was certain that May Sinclair must have read and been greatly influenced by Conan Doyle's horror story.
The theme of affecting people remotely by the use of psychic powers is the most obvious similarity. It is interesting that both Conan Doyle and May Sinclair were members of the Society for Psychical Research.
In both stories, a particular number stands out.
The power of three
I see the references to the number three in both stories as supporting evidence for my theory.
As mentioned in the final article about The Parasite, Conan Doyle chose the exact time of 3:30 pm for the death of Helen Penclosa, which made me think of the number 33.
Also from The Parasite:
“I chose a cheery novel, and lay in bed for three hours trying to read it...”
“Three evenings in succession at home!”
“Three quiet days.”
May Sinclair tells us that Agatha Verrall was possessed by Harding Powell for three nights and three days, and it took another three nights and three days to fight him off.
There are several other references to the number three:
“She (Agatha) had gone down into Buckinghamshire and taken a small solitary house...three miles from the nearest station."
“The child died three days later.“
“Three Fridays had passed, and he (Rodney) had not come.“
“For three days she did not see the Powells.”
And of course there are Agatha Verrall's three subjects for healing: Bella, Rodney and Harding.
More white magic?
Stella Gibbons was influenced by another novel when writing My American. She rewrote some aspects of the story that inspired her to give them a positive outcome.
I suspect that it was much the same with May Sinclair.
In The Parasite, we have the triangle of Austin Gilroy, his fiancée Agatha Marden and the witch Helen Penclosa, who wants to dispose of Agatha so that she can have Austin, who is under her spell, all to herself.
I suspect that Rodney Lanyon is based on Austin, Bella Lanyon on Agatha Marden and Agatha Verrall on Helen Penclosa.
Where Austin is compelled to visit Helen Penclosa, Rodney at one point can't keep away from Agatha Verrall.
May Sinclair balances the books by making Agatha use her telepathic powers to heal people and restore Rodney to Bella as opposed to stealing him from her.
A final warning from Granny Weatherwax
The final article about The Parasite mentions Terry Pratchett's witch Granny Weatherwax in connection with getting into people's minds. Granny has something very relevant to The Flaw in the Crystal to say:
““I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly.
"Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.””
From Lords and Ladies
The Flaw in the Crystal has been published in several editions; it also appears in Uncanny Stories, a compilation of some of May Sinclair's tales of horror. Both books can be bought online and are available on Project Gutenberg.
