Holy Trinity Church, York

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

(See Haunted Houses ). Home, Daniel Dunglas (1833-1886): One of the best known of spiritualistic mediums, was born near Edinburgh in 1833. At the age of nine he was taken by his aunt to America, where in 1850 he became a convert to the new doctrine of spiritualism, and himself developed mediumistic powers. The next five years saw him occupied in giving séances in New York and elsewhere. In 1855 some of his friends subscribed a sum of money to send him to Europe. In England his séances were attended by many notable people, and on the Continent also he was admitted into the highest society. Until 1859 he had subsisted on the bounty of his wealthy friends for at no time did he take actual fees for his services--but in that year he married a Hopkins Russian lady of noble birth, young, charming, and possessed of means. But on her death in 1862 his financial circumstances were altered again. Four years later he was adopted by a wealthy widow, Mrs. Lyon, who made him large money gifts. In a few months, however, she tired of her adopted son and sued him in the law courts for the recovery of her "gifts." The charge of fraud was not proved, and many distinguished persons filed affidavits testifying to the actuality of Home's mediumistic powers, but the court was not satisfied that he had not influenced Mrs. Lyon, and judgment was given in her favour. During all this time he had largely exercised his faculties as a medium, and in 1870-72 he held a series of sittings with Sir William Crookes In 1871 he married again, and for the second time his wife was a Russian lady of means. From 1872 onwards he lived mostly on the Continent, where he died in 1886, after a long and painful illness. Home's mediumship presents many remarkable features. His séances were productive of both trance and physical phenomena, the latter including raps and table-tilting, levitation and elongation, materialisation, the fire-ordeal, and practically every form of manifestation. Unlike other mediums, he was never detected in fraud, though his mediumship was spread over so many years, and his phenomena are among the best-attested in the records of spiritualism. But a more important factor in Home's success was his wonderful personality. Though of lowly birth, he early acquired an ease and charm of manner which fitted him for the good society wherein he was destined to move. Artless and spontaneous and very affectionate, of pleasing manners and generous disposition, he won the hearts of all with whom he came in contact, and inspired in his sitters an emotional confidence which seems frequently to have over-ruled their judgment. Sir W. Crookes said of him that he was one of the most lovable of men," whose "perfect genuineness and uprightness were beyond suspicion." Whether a medium should ever be beyond suspicion" to a scientific investigator is, of course, open to question, but the instance shows abundantly that even scientists are not immune from the influence of personal magnetism. 66 66