Sherlockians come in many religious shades. Among our ranks we have Methodists, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Unitarians, etc., and that’s just in America. World-wide, we probably run through most of the spectrum. That hasn’t stopped us from comparing our hobby to a religion on occasion – what with key early Sherlockian scholarship being a parody of Biblical scholarship or the occasional reference to Sherlockiana as a cult. There are those who take any hobby religiously, be it golf, football, or Star Trek. But consider this: Sherlockiana is reaching the age of some religions.

Our Baker Street Irregulars were founded in 1934. The Church of Scientology was founded in 1952. The first book in the Sherlockian Canon was published in 1887. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830. Sherlockiana is definitely in the same ballpark as the world’s younger religions, but is that just a curious fact or something we can actually look at to see things about ourselves?

Most young religions have at least one odd practice that falls by the wayside as its practitioners take on the seriousness of having a history behind them and try to fit in with mainstream culture. The Mormons phased out polygamy. The Scientologists have been phasing out calling their E-meter a scientific device. And if you look at our own literature in the modern day, you might note a diminished tendency to refer to that wacky notion that Dr. Watson wrote the chronicles of Sherlock Holmes.

There was a time when a Sherlockian would jokingly refer to any mention of Conan Doyle as the true author of the Canon as “Heresy!” These days, one is more apt to run into the over-enthusiastic Doylean who decries the notion of Watsonian authorship as an insult to the memory of the One True Author and a dangerous practice that might lead to People Actually Thinking Watson Wrote The Great Literature.

Any time we stop laughingly referring to the Holmes stories as “the Sacred Writings,” and start sternly calling them Great Literature, there’s an irony that we actually take one step closer to having the seriousness of a real church and one step away from being the happy little band of miscreants we started out as. But I guess that just comes with time and the weight of history adding gravity to us all.

Historically, most religious movements have schisms, off-shoots, and new faiths branching off of the old tree. And there was a time when it actually looked like a Doylean branch might actually separate itself from Sherlockiana as a separate hobby. There was also a time when it seemed like the fans of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes might just start their own cult. (Are the Mary Russell fans still holding court? One loses track.) But when it comes right down to it, I don’t think there are enough devout fans of whatever flavor of Sherlock Holmes one prefers to sustain a separate branch from the old tree. We seem to be holding things together . . . we certainly don’t have any less Sherlockians than we did fifty years ago . . . but we’re also not in a growth trend.

We’ve long had our rituals, and Starrett’s poem “221B” has pretty much gotten a lock on being the 23 rd Psalm of Sherlockiana. There are ceremonies (I’ve compared the induction of new Baker Street Irregulars to many things over the years, Academy Awards, etc., but it’s also a bit like an appointment to the College of Cardinals). But in the end, we’re not a religion at all. And that can be seen as a good thing, in some respects. No Sherlockian extremists are going to be bombing the banquets of other Sherlockians. No one ever disowned their children for prefering Doyle authorship to Watson’s. You can still find a twinkle in the eye and a thumbing of the nose amongst our faithful.

And I hope we hang on to that as long as possible.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver