Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Dr. and a brilliant writer yet he believed in some of the hocus pocus. He and Lady Doyle tried to contact their Son who was killed in WWI. His friend Houdini knew they were fakes and showed Doyle how they were done.
Still Doyle continued to believe.
Not defending Doyle's belief in the mystics and charlatans at all, but this scenario was common after WWI. Lots of families enlisted seers and psychics to get them in contact with their lost family members. WWI was a horror scarcely imaginable to modern man.