Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–1886, pronounced "Hume") was one of the best-known physical mediums of the 19th century. A wide repertoire of phenomena was attributed to him – from raps to levitation – much of it by candlelight rather than in total darkness. Notably, Home was never clearly exposed as a fraud; nor were his phenomena ever demonstrated under conditions meeting modern standards. Opinions accordingly remain sharply divided to this day – from William Crookes, who tested him seriously, to critics who held him to be a skilful impostor.
Who was D. D. Home?
Home was born near Edinburgh in March 1833 and sent as a child to an aunt in the United States. Already as a young man the typical phenomena of early Spiritualism appeared around him – raps, moving furniture. He suffered from tuberculosis all his life; in 1855 he moved to England. There, and later across Europe, he became a sought-after guest in the highest circles – aristocrats, artists and crowned heads invited him. Unlike many professional mediums, he took no fixed money for his sittings, living instead on the hospitality of his hosts.
The phenomena
The repertoire attributed to Home is extensive:
- Raps and movements of objects – up to the lifting of heavy tables and whole pianos.
- Musical instruments playing without contact, above all the accordion.
- Spirit hands – visible, tangible hands that passed objects.
- Elongation – the alleged lengthening of his body by several inches, up to more than a foot.
- Fire ordeals – handling glowing coals without burning himself, said at times to extend the immunity to others.
- Levitation – the free floating of objects and, most spectacularly, of himself.
Much of this is said to have happened not in total darkness but by candlelight or in daylight – unlike the later cabinet-and-red-light séances. Defenders count this in his favour; it is not in itself a proof.
The Ashley House levitation (December 1868)
The most famous single incident took place in December 1868 in a London flat at Ashley House. Three witnesses from the aristocracy – Lord Adare, the Master of Lindsay and Captain Wynne – reported in agreement that Home, in trance, had floated out of the window of one room and in through the window of an adjoining room, several storeys above the street. The incident remains contested to this day: sceptics point to the poor lighting and a possible confusion of the windows; defenders to the agreement of three independent, educated witnesses. Unlike a laboratory test, nothing here can, in the nature of the case, be proven.
Crookes takes him into the laboratory (1871)
Best documented are the tests by the chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society William Crookes, who in 1871 examined Home under his own conditions with two self-built pieces of apparatus:
- The accordion in a cage. Crookes placed the instrument inside a wooden cage wound with copper wire. Home held it only at the lower end, far from the keys, through an opening too small to reach them. Observers on both sides saw the accordion move – and notes sounded, finally whole sequences of notes.
- The spring-balance test. A mahogany board rested with one end on the table, the other hanging from a spring balance. When Home laid only his fingertips on the table end, the pressure measured at the balance rose far beyond what mere downward pressure from that position could ever have produced.
Crookes found no indication of fraud and inferred a hitherto unknown "psychic force". His colleagues responded with ridicule; he never retracted his findings. Critics counter that Crookes's controls, too, were not as airtight as they sound, and that a single observer remains deceivable (more in the Crookes portrait).
Never caught – and never proven
In over thirty years of public activity Home was never once unambiguously caught cheating – unlike, say, Eusapia Palladino, who was caught several times and still produced phenomena under control. Conversely, this does not mean his phenomena were ever positively demonstrated. Home's only legal defeat did not concern his mediumship: a wealthy widow, Mrs Lyon, had first given him a fortune and then sued to recover it; the court found for her in 1868 – on grounds of undue influence, not of proven fraud.
The sceptics – honestly considered
Admiration was not the only response. The poet Robert Browning, who had attended a sitting, regarded the whole thing as humbug and immortalised Home acidly in the poem Mr Sludge, "the Medium" (1864). And the SPR researcher Frank Podmore, Home's most persistent critic, sought normal explanations for every sitting. Their strongest argument is methodological: Home controlled the conditions, the light was often only candlelight, and there was no controlled repetition in the modern sense. Conversely, some critics had to fall back on far-reaching assumptions – Podmore, for instance, on a collective hypnosis of all those present. No one has so far produced a compelling normal explanation for every single case – any more than a proof of the paranormal.
Context
Daniel Dunglas Home remains a borderline case. He often appeared in the light and before critical witnesses, was tested by a serious scientist and was never exposed; at the same time the conditions of the 19th century do not meet modern standards, and a positive demonstration is lacking. For some that makes him one of the hardest cases in the field to explain, for others a particularly skilful impostor – the sources allow both. For the larger context, see the overview of physical mediumship; the investigators' side is shown in the portraits of Crookes, Richet and Schrenck-Notzing, the fraud-laden counterpart in the Palladino portrait, and the most recent great chapter in the Scole Experiment.
Sources:
• Daniel Dunglas Home, Incidents in My Life, 1863.
• Lord Adare, Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home, 1869.
• William Crookes, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, 1874.
• Frank Podmore (critical view); Psi Encyclopedia (SPR), "Daniel Dunglas Home".
For more, see our curated knowledge collection and the series on the history and science of mediumship.