Daniel Douglas Home

Daniel Douglas Home (1833 1886) was a famous medium and
I am sure most of you have probably heard of him.
Home was a bit different than most other mediums of his time,
first he did not give sances to the public, he was cautious and
only selected his sitters (who were usually rich folk). Home
would usually invite sitters back to his house, so Home had all
the conditions in his favour for his mediumship. Home would
not perform his mediumship in front of skeptics (this is well
known).
So what I really want to talk about in this thread, is not Home's

levitation myth (perhaps we can touch on that later on) but
really this thread is to discuss the supposed "scientific"
experiments into the mediumship of Home by the scientist
William Crookes.
As you may know William Crookes was a convinced spiritualist

and he has been unreliable on his statements on mediumship
regarding other mediums but lets talk about these experiments
that he carried out with Home.
The experiments
Firstly the experiments were rather strange they consisted of

two experiments. One of these utilised a board and balance
spring apparatus which Crookes said Home managed to alter the
weight of objects without contact on several occasions via a
"psychic force".
According to Crookes' report this experiment consisted of:
Quote:
A mahogany board, 36 inches long by 9 and half wide and 1
inch thick. At each end a strip of mahogany 1 and half inches
wide was screwed on, forming feet. One end of the board rested
on a firm table, whilst the other end was supported by a spring
balance hanging from a substantial tripod stand. This balance
was fitted with a self-registering index, in such a manner that it
would record the maximum weight indicated by the pointer. The
apparatus was adjusted so that the mahogany board was
horizontal, its foot resting flat on the support. In this position its
weight was 3lbs as marked by the pointer of the balance... Mr
Home placed the tips of his fingers lightly on the extreme end of
the mahogany board which was resting on the support... almost
immediately the pointer of the balance was seen to descend.
After a few seconds it rose again. This movement was repeated
several times, as if by successive waves of the psychic force.
In the most famous experiment known as the accordion
experiment Home would place one hand on the top of a dining
table and the other hand under the table inside a cage with his
fingers on the opposite end of the keys whilst his feet were said
to be held down. According to Crookes' report two songs from
the accordion were heard. It must be noted that before this
experiment, Home had already been performing his accordion
feat for over 15 years.
Crookes published his reports in the Quarterly Journal of

Science but they are known to contain serious errors.
Problems with the experiments
1. The experiments took place in Crookes's self built laboratory

at the back of his house (no description of this lab has survived)
but the room was described by Crookes as "large".
2. Home was not personally searched before the experiments

took place but was watched as he changed clothing according to
Crookes' report but as Frank Podmore and others have
suggested, Home could have easily placed fraudulent devices or
materials in his pockets.
3. In the experiments Home refused for Crookes to sit near him

- According to the reports Crookes was quite a bit of distance
away from Home. Is this normal for a scientific experiment?
4. Contrary to what spiritualists have written the experiments

with Home were not conducted in light conditions, report has it
that only "dim light" occurred in part of the room. So most of
the room was in darkness.
5. Crookes' report deliberately left out who was present in the

room, it was only revealed later that six men were present
during the Crookes-Home experiments and four women. As
Ruth Brandon suggested Home could have easily had an
accomplice. We know according to other sances that Home had
a female accomplice.
6. According to reports of the experiment Home would draw

attention to something on the other side of the room, or make
conversation for diversionary signals with those who were in
the room and Crookes was occupied most of the time with
writing notes.
7. Crookes admitted that Home and himself had "tested" similar

devices to the ones used in the experiments beforehand on other
occasions. Home could have easily known how to cheat on the
experimental apparatus before the experiments had even taken
place.
8. Crookes was convinced that Home had proven the existence
of a "psychic force" but as others have suggested the
experiments had poor scientific controls and the movement
observed on a piece of the apparatus could easily be explained
by the vibrations of the trains (the lab was built under a train
track at the back of Crookes house) but other things have been
suggested such as home using a piece of resin on his finger etc.
9. Home largely directed the proceedings of the experiments,

even giving those in the room instructions, of course this was
not mentioned in Crookes' report but this is what happened.
10. The experiments were never repeated.
Questions to people on this forum
1. How do you believe the accordion trick was done, and what
is your explanation for the board and balance experiment? Of
course the board and balance experiment can easily be
dismissed by natural causes and not fraud, some already listed,
but others are convinced Home manipulated the apparatus
perhaps with a piece of resin on his fingertip.
2. So far I have not been able to locate the names of the four
females who were present during the Crookes-Home
experiments. Why Did Crookes not mention any of the names of
those who were present in his reports?
Home is supposed to be the "great" of spiritualism, and the

supposed medium who was never caught in fraud. If you visit
any parapsychology or spiritualist forum you will see people
claiming the Crookes experiments were sound and that Home
scientifically had proven a "psychic force". Well as you can see
above, the experiments were far from scientific
Please comment if you are interested in this subject.
Sources
Peter Lamont. (2005). The First Psychic: The Extraordinary

Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard.
Ruth Brandon. (1983). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the

Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
Frank Podmore (1910). The Newer Spiritualism.
Milbourne Christopher. (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics.
Ronald Pearsall. (1972) Table-rappers: The Victorians and the

Occult.
Nicola Bown, Carolyn Burdett and Pamela Thurschwell. (2009).

The Victorian Supernatural (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-
Century Literature and Culture).
William Hodson Brock. (2008). William Crookes (1832-1919)

and the Commercialization of Science.
Also note that James Randi wrote a foreword to Gordon Stein.

(1993). The Sorcerer of Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas
Home and William Crookes - I have not read this book yet.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 3rd May 2013 at 05:44 PM.
3rd May 2013, 06:42 PM #2

Garrette As I get time (which
Penultimate Amazing may not be a while), I
will dig up my
Join Date: Aug 2001 electronic copy of the
Posts: 14,507 JSPR on Home and
will read your
analysis in more
detail. In the
meantime, allow me
to point out a detail
that is a bit of a peeve
for me: it is Daniel
DUNGLAS Home.
Not Douglas.
Cheers
__________________
My kids still love me.
4th May 2013, 05:46 AM #3

Bikewer My only experience with such things is reading accounts of
Penultimate Amazing Houdini, Randi, Gardner, etc.... And without bothering to
posit a specific technique, it's easy to see that the
conditions very strongly favored fakery.
The presence of other people who may or may not have
been confederates, the poor lighting, the lack of controls,
the venue itself...
No modern researcher would tolerate such conditions.
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: St. Louis, Mo.
Posts: 11,907
4th May 2013, 08:43 AM #4

Minarvia Yes, it is DUNGLAS Home, but it was not on his birth
fading orb certificate, according to Houdini in "A Magician Among
the Spirits." Home added it because it was a name from
Scottish royalty and he wanted to be associated with that
old family.
The accordian trick, iirc, was really a couple of simple

songs with few notes, most notably "Home Sweet Home"
(cute ) and was done with a harmonica hidden beneath
Join Date: Mar 2006 his "soup strainer" moustache. After his death, a number of
Posts: 2,224 small worn harmonicas were found among his possessions.
As for the rest, I don't remember, and my books are all

packed away. But the above was what I recalled from
Houdini's book. I also recall that rich peoples' rings were
snatched from their fingers during seances and if caught, he
would jokingly say that the "lovely spirits" were playing
with the guests.
He and his supporters made a huge deal out of his never

charging people, but he always accepted generous
"donations" even when quite sizable.
I also recall that a rich lady adopted him, and later

disowned him. I don't remember where I read that, tho.
As to the "never caught in fraud" I've read, I believe from

Houdini, too, that people said he had been "caught
cheating" but never formally convicted of actual fraud.
Well, "caught cheating" is the same, really, just not taken to
Court, right?
Nice thread! I'm sorry that for the moment my contribution

is small.
__________________
"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and
Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."
Last edited by Minarvia; 4th May 2013 at 08:50 AM.

Reason: clarification and correction
4th May 2013, 05:26 PM #5

DoomMetal Quote:
Guest The accordian trick, iirc, was really a couple of simple
songs with few notes, most notably "Home Sweet Home"
Join Date: Apr 2013 (cute ) and was done with a harmonica hidden beneath
Posts: 167 his "soup strainer" moustache. After his death, a number of
small worn harmonicas were found among his possessions.
Yes this is possible, a small harmonica could have been
used but it does not fit the evidence in my opinion.
According to Crookes' report one hand of Home was under
the table the entire time in a cage and the other was on top
of the table in view of the sitters and was said not to move.
The thing is the Crookes report is unreliable so it is hard to

know what to believe. As stated in my first post, Crookes in
his report never revealed who was present in the room, it
was only revealed after some of the names of the sitters
present and four of the ladies remain unidentified from
what I have read so far. The whole thing is rather strange.
The hand under the table of Home was not observed,

anything could have been going on and the conditions were
dark. I can't post pictures (yet) but there was quite a large
hole in the cage under the table.
The harmonica was never found among his possessions.

William Lindsay Gresham told Randi he had seem them,
but this was never verified. Eric John Dingwall who
catalogued Home's belongings did not find any
harmonicas.
It is possible that Home used a small music box under the

table or in his trousers, there was another fraud medium
from the same time as Home known as Francis Ward
Monck who was caught utilising a small music box in his
trousers to pretend spirits were playing music in his
sances.
Before the accordion feat in the Crookes experiments,

Home had already been performing this feat for 15 years,
so he knew what he was doing, he had plenty of
experience.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 4th May 2013 at 05:28 PM.
5th May 2013, 10:32 AM #6

Minarvia Yes, Crooke's did well controlled tests, as I recall reading
fading orb somewhere. (I wish I could remember where), but there is
speculation that Crooke's was biased toward spiritualism
being real, and sometimes his controls were looser for
some of his subjects.
As for the harmonicas being found or not found, I don't

know what to conclude. They could have been stolen.
Hells, even evidence for famous murder cases have cops
stealing evidence for souvenirs. Black Dahlia missing
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,224 evidence, anyone?
If someone had a great deal of experience, he could hide

them in his mouth or under his moustache no matter how
closely observed. Perhaps.
Of course the elaborate cages and other frippery used in the

tests for Home and his kind to show their "power" are so
extraordinary and elaborate that I'm sure no researcher
today would tolerate such conditions, as Bikewer said. And
such "flap-doodle" stunts ... oh, my! Lol! Spirits will stoop
to no lengths to maintain any dignity, it seems.
You bring up great points, DoomMetal. I now want to dig

further. My recollections are vague, but you are right about
Crooke's report being unreliable. I recall that, too.
Do you know, off the top of your head, the name of the
investigator who went to a house to see proof of the
haunting of a little girl? He and his aids put talcum powder
all over the floor and by every entrance and exit, and in the
pitch dark (of course) he felt the form of a small naked girl
who was supposedly a spirit? I don't want to derail, and
may start a new thread, but for the life of me I cannot recall
who he was. Harry somebody. I think. Regardless, I think
they detected no fraud. I don't doubt that it was, but it went
undetected at the time. Okay - end derail!
__________________
Last edited by Minarvia; 5th May 2013 at 10:37 AM.
5th May 2013, 03:03 PM #7

DoomMetal Crookes' published his reports in the Quarterly Journal of
Guest Science (QJS). He was careful not to use the word "spirit"
in his report because he didn't want his report to sound un-
Join Date: Apr 2013 scientific.
Posts: 167
Note that Crookes via his experiments with Home actually
opposed the spirit hypothesis and claimed the phenomena
was the result of a "psychic force" i.e. psychokinesis. This
is in opposition to the spiritualist community and was
actually in opposition to Home himself! It was only
claimed many years later in a book Crookes published that
Home in the experiments was "communicating" with spirits
in the experiments and talking to them etc but of course
Crookes left this out of his original report in this QJS
because he didn't want to bring in spirits as he wanted to
keep it "scientific".
The experiments took part in Crookes home built lab in the

back of his house, hardly the best of places for a scientific
experiment.
Quote:
Do you know, off the top of your head, the name of the
investigator who went to a house to see proof of the
haunting of a little girl? He and his aids put talcum powder
all over the floor and by every entrance and exit, and in the
pitch dark (of course) he felt the form of a small naked girl
who was supposedly a spirit? I don't want to derail, and
may start a new thread, but for the life of me I cannot recall
who he was. Harry somebody. I think. Regardless, I think
they detected no fraud. I don't doubt that it was, but it went
undetected at the time. Okay - end derail!
The psychic researcher was Harry Price. I have read about
this in detail. If you are interested you can read about the
whole thing in his book Fifty Years of Psychical Research.
The girl was called Rosalie, she had died at age six but
their were reports of her coming through in a sance so
Price went to investigate it.
Yes Price did put starch powder all over the floor, outside
of the room and even in the chimney place. He moved all
objects such as pictures and clocks outside of the room. He
locked the door, and put tape on the windows.
There were six people present, but for some reason three of
them were not searched. After a few minutes into the
seance a little girl did appear, of course the room was in
pitch darkness so anything could have been going on. Price
wrote he felt the child, heard her breathing and could feel
respiratory movements from her chest. Price even
measured the pulse of the child.
8th May 2013, 05:46 AM #8

DoomMetal Here is a sketch of Home in the accordion experiment. As
Guest you can see it looks like he could have easily gotten his
arm in and out of the cage during the experiment:
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167
8th May 2013, 05:24 PM #9

Minarvia Ah! I've never seen that sketch. That cage is ridiculous. Of
fading orb course it looks like he could get his arm out.
I wonder why someone didn't just firmly hold his hands or

something like that. A cage is a lot of trouble.
I've really got to take time and find some material about the
Crooke's test.
Join Date: Mar 2006 Thank you for Harry PRICE! Yes! That's the one. And as
Posts: 2,224 much as I tried to discover an aftermath, I never came
across any report that it was a confessed hoax. I'll look into
that book. I'm currently preparing my house to put on the
market again, so my time and money for books is limited,
but surely there is a place I find on the web about this now
that you've reminded me of his name. I just may want a
thread if there is more material on Price and other
investigations that are ... interesting.
__________________
9th May 2013, 07:21 AM #10

DoomMetal Originally Posted by Minarvia
Guest Ah! I've never seen that sketch. That cage is ridiculous. Of
course it looks like he could get his arm out.
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 I wonder why someone didn't just firmly hold his hands or
something like that. A cage is a lot of trouble.
I've really got to take time and find some material about the
Crooke's test.
Thank you for Harry PRICE! Yes! That's the one. And as
much as I tried to discover an aftermath, I never came
across any report that it was a confessed hoax. I'll look into
that book. I'm currently preparing my house to put on the
market again, so my time and money for books is limited,
but surely there is a place I find on the web about this now
that you've reminded me of his name. I just may want a
thread if there is more material on Price and other
investigations that are ... interesting.
According to the Crookes' report both of Home's feet were
held down but his hand on the top of the table was not.
There was only one small lamp in the room and it was not
on the table, and under the table was pitch dark. Yes very
easy to use tricks. I am surprised how modern day
parapsychologists still take the experiment seriously.
Another thing, after the experiments a rumour was spread

in spiritualist publications that Home was not holding the
accordion at all and it was levitating inside the cage for as
long as 10 minutes it is amazing how dishonest the
spiritualists are, of course no such thing ever happened but
this myth is still occurring in modern spiritualist books.
Regarding Harry Price he is disliked by the spiritualists

because he debunked many fraud mediums but also
disliked by some of the modern sceptics. I like the man and
think he was an honest psychic investigator. Of course he
was not a professional magician or scientist so he was
probably duped by a few things, but he was one of the first
investigators to utilise scientific controls and methods to
rule out trickery in the experiments he conducted like
pouring powder over the floor or tying up the medium etc.
Price debunked the mediums Helen Duncan and Rudi

Schneider. His work has been very useful and modern
sceptics do actually quote his work now and again on
exposing fraudulent mediums but unfortunately tend to
ignore his other work.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 9th May 2013 at 07:22 AM.
12th May 2013, 04:29 AM #11

DoomMetal
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2013 This took a long time to find, it is a sketch of the board
Posts: 167 and balance spring experiment.
13th May 2013, 12:50 PM #12

Minarvia I really appreciate the time you took. That is fascinating!
fading orb Do you know what book may have this? All mine are
packed away, and I know that the only ones I have are by
Home himself (yeah, so reliable! And I hadn't had time to
read it yet) and the one by Houdini.
As I recall, Houdini also cited a claim that a group of

people "witnessed" (I quoted that word because I don't
think anyone actually claimed that they saw the entire
event) Home float out of one window on a second story of
Join Date: Mar 2006
a dwelling, glided alongside the structure, and then
Posts: 2,224
floated back inside via a window in another room.
I am going to try and refresh myself on the board and

balance spring experiment. Again, if spirits were/are real
they are very tolerant of such intricately silly tests.
As for Price, from his account of "Rosalie" that I do

recall, I like the man, too. He obviously did not have
cover all possible bases as he was fooled, but I think he
did his best. He also has probably kept some names alive,
successfully debunked or not, that may have been
forgotten had he not pursued their claims.
I remember also reading about Eusapia Paladino (sp?) and

how she was caught cheating numerous times, but the
popular excuse for that was that because she was so
desperate to not displease or disappoint her sitters she
HAD to cheat sometimes. But, of course, all the other
times she was not she was obviously NOT cheating.
I recall some cases in general, but not the mechanics by

which they were tested. I really appreciate the time you
have taken to help me further my own knowledge. I do
recall Houdini's rubber-banding his leg to swell it so he
could feel the slightest movement of a leg and even the
muscles of the leg of the medium; was it Ms. Paladino?
and also exposing the tricks of how "mediums" could use
one of their hands in the dark serve as seeming like two.
There was also a case where someone took a famous
photograph in the middle of a session of a famous man's
wife (whose name escapes me for the moment) while she
was in a cabinet playing a trumpet that was expected to be
attributed to spirits. Oh, was it ... darn it! I just had her
name but as I was typing I forgot it.
I mainly recall Home as being a sneaky, oily little man

who somehow charmed and cheated his way into many
"donations" and into one old lady's heart until something
occurred which made her cast him out of her home. I have
to give him credit for fooling testers, tho, and having his
__________________
14th May 2013, 05:20 AM #13

DoomMetal Quote:
Guest I really appreciate the time you took. That is fascinating!
Do you know what book may have this? All mine are
Join Date: Apr 2013 packed away, and I know that the only ones I have are by
Posts: 167 Home himself (yeah, so reliable! And I hadn't had time to
read it yet) and the one by Houdini.
As I recall, Houdini also cited a claim that a group of

people "witnessed" (I quoted that word because I don't
think anyone actually claimed that they saw the entire
event) Home float out of one window on a second story of
a dwelling, glided alongside the structure, and then
floated back inside via a window in another room.
The photographs appear in a number of books, but if you
search for Barry H. Wiley. (2012). The Thought Reader
Craze: Victorian Science at the Enchanted Boundary you
can read it on Google books for free and there is an entire
chapter on the Home experiments. Wiley does a good job
at exposing the problems with the experiments. Wiley also
in communication with a professional magician suggested
that he cheated on the spring balance experiment with a
piece of resin under his fingertip.
The spiritualists and psi believers have no interest in the

truth, so they don't bother to read books on the subject
other than the lies promoted in spiritualist publications.
Spiritualists are a case of True-believer syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True-believer_syndrome so
no amount of evidence is going to convince them the
contrary to their belief.
The Crookes-Home experiments are an embarrassment to

parapsychology, even Crookes admitted they were not
repeated. If it is not repeatable it is not science, so it
amazes me how the modern parapsychologists still
promote his old experiments as evidence for a "psychic
force".
As previously stated Crookes lied and left things out of

his original report. He did not reveal who was present
during the experiments, it was only revealed years later
who was involved. This is dishonest and not professional
especially for a scientific report.
As for the levitation myth it is exactly that a myth, it

never happened. I can touch on that later. Yes the
levitation myth has been promoted in 100s if not 1000s of
parapsychology and spiritualist publications as factual.
The spiritualist crowd are not interested in the truth about
what really happened instead they cling to pure fantasy
14th May 2013, 05:38 AM #14
DoomMetal Quote:
Guest I remember also reading about Eusapia Paladino (sp?) and
how she was caught cheating numerous times, but the
Join Date: Apr 2013 popular excuse for that was that because she was so
Posts: 167 desperate to not displease or disappoint her sitters she
HAD to cheat sometimes. But, of course, all the other
times she was not she was obviously NOT cheating.
Eusapia Palladino (yes also known as Paladino to some)
was a complete fraud medium and it not even worth
discussing in my opinion. Home was a clever medium,
yes a fraud but was clever in what he did. I actually
respect Home he would of made a great public magician!
As for Palladino she was caught cheating by over 30

different scientists in every country she was investigated
in, there is no reason to take her seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino
Even Oliver Lodge a confirmed spiritualist accepted

Palladino was a fraud, as did most other spiritualists such
as Richard Hodgson.
The only supporters of Palladino were Cesare Lombroso -

But according to his daughter in his later years he could
hardly see anything as his sight deteriorated, oh and
Lombroso was in a sexual relationship with Palladino.
And the other supporter was Hereward Carrington.
Carrington was an amateur conjurer and accepted in his
own words that 98% of mediumship was fraud but
believed 2% was genuine and of course he accepted
that Palladino herself cheated as much as 90% of the time,
but believed she had a 10% of supernormal powers of
being able to levitate a table... lol yes it is hard to take
seriously. I actually like Carrington It is a shame he
made a monkey of himself with the Palladino business.
The levitation trick has been exposed, Palladino was just

using her feet and she objected for anyone to be under the
table but Joseph Rinn the magician snuck into one of her
sances dressed in black and observed her trick from
under the table.
As for why any modern parapsychologist would give any

attention to Palladino, it is because Hereward Carrington
was an amateur conjurer and was rather sceptical of
mediumship (he accepted 98% of it was fraud) but when
it came to Palladino he admitted she had some genuine
"supernormal" ability. Its already been exposed, in the
Carrington experiments with Palladino nobody was
Last edited by DoomMetal; 14th May 2013 at 05:50 AM.
14th May 2013, 05:56 AM #15

DoomMetal
Guest
Here is an interesting article by Houdini from 1925 on
Join Date: Apr 2013 fake mediums.
Posts: 167
http://www.libertymagazine.com/icons_houdini.htm
15th May 2013, 09:25 AM #16

DoomMetal
Guest
Quote:
Join Date: Apr 2013 There was also a case where someone took a famous
Posts: 167 photograph in the middle of a session of a famous man's
wife (whose name escapes me for the moment) while she
was in a cabinet playing a trumpet that was expected to be
attributed to spirits. Oh, was it ... darn it! I just had her
name but as I was typing I forgot it.
There have not been many trumpet mediums, like all
physical mediumship it was an early fad based on fraud
and by the 1950s reports of it had died out.
The most well known trumpet mediums were Jack

Webber, Etta Wriedt and George Valiantine all were
exposed as frauds. Out of the three Wriedt was most
interesting, she mixed chemicals inside the trumpet to
make "explosion" sounds and movement of the trumpet
which she attributed to spirits. She used metallic
potassium and in other cases Lycopodium. A clever trick
I would be interested in knowing if you remember the

name of the medium you are thinking about. The book
Behind the Scenes With the Mediums (1907) by the
magician David Abbott exposes many of the tricks of
early mediums especially the cabinet tricks, you can find
it free online if you are interested.
16th May 2013, 02:55 PM #17
DoomMetal
Guest
Some interesting stuff on trumpet mediums:
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 Quote:
There were many trumpet tricks. If the medium's hands
were not controlled (a practice intended to prevent
trickery) he or she could simply move the trumpet about, a
rubber tube being attached through which the medium
spoke. Sometimes, a removable luminous band was
employed and moved about at the end of a telescoping
rod. In these instances, the whispered voices did not
actually emanate from the trumpet; the illusion that they
did worked on the ventriloquism principle: it is not easy to
locate the source of a sound, especially if misdirection
takes place. If controlled, the medium had clever
techniques of getting one hand free or could use a secret
assistant dressed all in black. (For a discussion of trumpet
and other sance trickery, see M. Lamar Keene, Psychic
Mafia, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1997; and Walter
Gibson, Secrets of Magic, New York: Grosset & Dunlap,
1967.)
http://www.skeptiseum.org/index.php?id=42&cat=ghosts
You can find the book Psychic Mafia by M. Lamar Keene

which exposed many of the tricks of fraud mediums free
online:
http://www.drspeg.com/courses/00-paranormal/tpm.pdf
Quote:
Keene and Spraggett's book caused a storm among his
former associates in spiritualist circles. There were
telephone cals threatening his life. One night, while
walking across his front lawn in Tampa, an unseen shooter
fired at him and missed, and he later dug the rifle bullet
out of the wall of his house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Lamar_Keene
The spiritualists were so insecure and angry that their

tricks had been exposed they tried to kill Keene.
24th May 2013, 09:20 PM #18

Minarvia Thank you for all the links! I will get to them asap. I'm
fading orb still preparing my house for sale, but I came back here
because I had to tell you how much I appreciate your help
and info here.
Anyway, I think I (again) had my mediums mixed up. But

the name I was trying to think of who was exposed on
camera blowing a trumpet or some such thing (tho I can't
find the pic right now), if indeed it was her, was Margery.
Join Date: Mar 2006 I'm sure you know who she is. I can only recall right now
Posts: 2,224 that she was beautiful, often exposed her body during
some seances, and her husband aided her in trickery and
deceit.
Wasn't it about that time that Home and the rest all of a
sudden sprang up out of nowhere? I mean, first there were
the Fox Sisters, and then all of a sudden "mediums" were
everywhere! Even an awful lady named Mrs. Guppy who
wanted to disfigure a lovely rival. I think her name was
Florence?
Anyway, I'll try to get my hands on those books. I do

recall borrowing one from my local library many years
ago and it covered all the early mediums. It detailed all of
the cheesecloth regurgitators, the magazine cut-out
apparitions, the story of the pirate "King" and his daughter
"Katie." How could ANYONE ever have been fooled by
such hokum?
And now I'm off to check out your links. Thank you so
much!
__________________
25th May 2013, 04:25 AM #19

DoomMetal
Guest
Hi again Minarvia, thanks for your interest in my thread.
Join Date: Apr 2013 As you can see from the lack of response, not many other
Posts: 167 users are interested in such stuff like this! And probably
have no idea what is being discussed lol.
The book that you were thinking of from your library was
probably The Spiritualists written by Ruth Brandon in the
early 1980s or the book The Table Rappers by Ronald
Pearsall from 1972. Both are the "common" books on
spiritualism and both debunk practically every Victorian
medium and document their tricks. I have not seen many
any other books on spiritualism in libraries.
Quote:
But the name I was trying to think of who was exposed on
camera blowing a trumpet or some such thing (tho I can't
find the pic right now), if indeed it was her, was Margery.
I'm sure you know who she is. I can only recall right now
that she was beautiful, often exposed her body during
some seances, and her husband aided her in trickery and
deceit.
This indeed was Mina Crandon, who also went by the
name "Margery". Yes she was described as beautiful but
in her later years she put a heck a lot of weight on and
died an alcoholic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina_Crandon
Crandon did on occasion use a cabinet, but I can't seem to

find any reference for the trumpet. Crandon was
discredited when she was caught in fraud many times
most notably her "spirit" hand was a piece of animal liver.
Houndi and many other researchers exposed her tricks.
She was also caught out in fraud when it was revealed the
"spirit" fingerprints left on wax in her sances actually
belonged to her living dentist. She was quite a clever
fraud but not as clever as some of the others in my
opinion.
And many psychical researchers were in a sexual

relationship with Crandon even though she was married.
She would pose naked in her sances to Eric Dingwall.
She had an affair with Hereward Carrington. Malcolm
bird was stage managing some of the sances with
Crandon in an attempt to sleep with her. Crandon's
husband displayed nude photographs of Mina in her own
25th May 2013, 10:26 AM #20
Garrette Actually, DoomMetal, I am very interested in the thread. I
Penultimate Amazing had intended to participate because I thought myself fairly
well informed on the matter, but two things happened: I
Join Date: Aug 2001 ended up with less available time than anticipated, and it
Posts: 14,507 turns out I could contribute little if anything to what has
been said.
So I'm enjoying the reading and will look up the links as I

get time.
Cheers
__________________
25th May 2013, 10:32 AM #21

DoomMetal Originally Posted by Garrette
Guest Actually, DoomMetal, I am very interested in the thread. I
had intended to participate because I thought myself fairly
Join Date: Apr 2013 well informed on the matter, but two things happened: I
Posts: 167 ended up with less available time than anticipated, and it
turns out I could contribute little if anything to what has
been said.
So I'm enjoying the reading and will look up the links as I

get time.
Cheers
Hi Garrette no worries at all, I understand people are
busy. I just finished college so I have a lot of free time on
my hands, probably too much free time! I am researching
Home's levitation myth and hopefully I will be able to
cover that soon in this thread. So for any readers
interested, stay tuned.
25th May 2013, 01:38 PM #22

DoomMetal
Guest
Quote:
Join Date: Apr 2013 Even an awful lady named Mrs. Guppy who wanted to
Posts: 167 disfigure a lovely rival.
There are absolutely hundreds of mediums from around
1880-1940. If I was getting paid I would spend more time
looking into them to debunk them, but too many exist. I
have no time to look into any new ones, it is a very
addictive subject and I have wasted far too much time
looking into it. There are only a handful including Home
that I continue to research. See my thread on Victor
Zammit for a debunking of mediums like Mina Crandon,
Helen Duncan, Jack Webber etc.
I have discovered with about 30% of the mediums from

that period that no skeptical coverage exists of their
claims. They were never investigated by psychical
researchers or scientists, so it is hard to verify or do an
analyse on their claims and look at the conditions and
controls etc that were in place in their sance. All we have
is far fetched claims from the spiritualists, not proof and
as most spiritualistic mediums have been caught in fraud
it is hard to take their words at face value.
And yes if you read the spiritualist literature, you will see
all kinds of wild supernatural claims without any critical
coverage. I have read everything from mediums claiming
that they "materialized" stones, gems, rings and even
animals out of thin air. There was even a medium who
claimed to produce an ectoplasm materialization of a
giraffe! Another spiritualist book I read claimed a man
teleported 40 miles away out of the sance room. Of
course it is all hearsay from the spiritualists, and there is
no scientific proof of these claims.
Franck Kluski is a typical example. The spiritualists claim

he scientifically produced materialization spirits of
animals but only a handful on convinced spiritualists
investigated him. There were no scientific controls in
place, anything could have been going on. If you google
search Kluski you will notice a handful of photographs
showing him in sance with a bird and some other weird
looking people covered in cloth. Kluski is not mentioned
in a single skeptical book on mediumship or spiritualism.
We do happen to know that Gustav Geley the spiritualist

who investigated Kluski was caught in fraud with another
medium Eva C. It is very likely that Kluski just snuck a
bird into his sance room and could have had a secret
accomplice. The medium Charles Bailey (1870-1947) was
25th May 2013, 02:46 PM #23

Apology Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Reader's of the Boden There are absolutely hundreds of mediums from around
Codex 1880-1940. If I was getting paid I would spend more time
looking into them to debunk them, but too many exist. I
have no time to look into any new ones, it is a very
addictive subject and I have wasted far too much time
looking into it. There are only a handful including Home
that I continue to research. See my thread on Victor
Zammit for a debunking of mediums like Mina Crandon,
Helen Duncan, Jack Webber etc.
Join Date: Jul 2007
I have discovered with about 30% of the mediums from
Posts: 2,100
that period that no skeptical coverage exists of their
claims. They were never investigated by psychical
researchers or scientists, so it is hard to verify or do an
analyse on their claims and look at the conditions and
controls etc that were in place in their sance. All we have
is far fetched claims from the spiritualists, not proof and
as most spiritualistic mediums have been caught in fraud it
is hard to take their words at face value.
And yes if you read the spiritualist literature, you will see
all kinds of wild supernatural claims without any critical
coverage. I have read everything from mediums claiming
that they "materialized" stones, gems, rings and even
animals out of thin air. There was even a medium who
claimed to produce an ectoplasm materialization of a
giraffe! Another spiritualist book I read claimed a man
teleported 40 miles away out of the sance room. Of
course it is all hearsay from the spiritualists, and there is
no scientific proof of these claims.
Franck Kluski is a typical example. The spiritualists claim

he scientifically produced materialization spirits of
animals but only a handful on convinced spiritualists
investigated him. There were no scientific controls in
place, anything could have been going on. If you google
search Kluski you will notice a handful of photographs
showing him in sance with a bird and some other weird
looking people covered in cloth. Kluski is not mentioned
in a single skeptical book on mediumship or spiritualism.
We do happen to know that Gustav Geley the spiritualist

who investigated Kluski was caught in fraud with another
medium Eva C. It is very likely that Kluski just snuck a
bird into his sance room and could have had a secret
accomplice. The medium Charles Bailey (1870-1947) was
caught in the act of that very trick sneaking birds into the
sance room. Unless I see proof of fraud like I have
documented in my other posts I don't go about claiming all
mediums are frauds. There is enough evidence that Home
__________________
"When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise,
although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself; and I went and tried to
explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was
that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me." -
Plato, Apology
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
26th May 2013, 02:00 PM #24

Minarvia This is indeed fascinating! And yes, DoomMetal, the book
fading orb I read when it was new (wow, it was THAT long ago!) was
"The Spiritualists."
I remember all sorts of silly things that were claimed that

people believed. If Home was in this book (I can't recall at
the moment) I don't remember if his levitation trick was
mentioned or not, nor his musical "concertinas." But,
iirc, he never did the really stupid "ectoplasm" nonsense. I
Join Date: Mar 2006 think he was too smart and knew that if touched or
Posts: 2,224 analysed cheesecloth and egg would be discovered. Well,
either that or he did not want to learn how to regurgitate
on command. I mean...UGH! That can't feel good.
I do recall one parlour trick that involved the usual

darkness, and then a woman would gently push cloth out
from under a table until it began to be noticeable, and then
she would carefully stand up while blending it with her
clothing to simulate a spiritual manifestation. One
gentleman skeptic recalled that he felt bad for a lady one
time when she stumbled on her cloth, or something like
that, and he had to hold himself back from helping her up!
And hardly anybody save Houdini, McCabe, Price, and a

few other critical people, gave thought to why spirits
would require elaborate set-ups, cabinets, slates they could
write on under tables, stools that they could make dance
(according to a man named Kardec), and so many other
undignified tricks.
Yes, there were so many "mediums" that I doubt we know

who they all were. And how many more attempted to get
in on the money-making fad and failed? Likely hundreds
more.
It's obviously many people were fooled, but I like to think

that many sitters realised that what they were seeing was
entertaining spooky fun. At least I hope so.
Wow, this topic IS fun! I add my thanks to Apology's that

you are taking so much time to help the rest of us become
more informed, DoomMetal.
__________________
2nd June 2013, 05:11 PM #25
DoomMetal Minarvia unfortunately (if that the right word! ) the
Guest Rosalie sance where a small girl was have said to have
materialized looks like it never happened according to
Join Date: Apr 2013 most psychical researchers.
Posts: 167
It will be very long to go into this now but in brief. The
skeptical psychical researchers Trevor H. Hall and Eric
Dingwall went all around the area that the sance in the
house described by Price was supposed to have been at.
They could not find the house and Price in his notes
described the house very specifically i.e. very precise
details. Price did not give an exact address and both
Dingwall and Hall received no clarification or contact from
any of the sance sitters involved when they researched
into it. Hall claimed Price made the entire thing up. They
say Price made it up to make some money or seek
attention.
The entire thing is a mystery to this very day. I don't think

it was made up. I'm a tad busy at the moment but I will
create an entire thread on it when I get the time.
You might be interested in this publication. It was

published in a journal by the Society for Psychical research
Medhurst, R.G. HARRY PRICE AND ROSALIE,

Journal 43, 1965-66, pp. 201-9
Defends the independent psychical researcher against

allegations that he invented the account of a materialisation
sance described in one of his books. During the sance he
claimed to have witnessed the materialisation of a six-year-
old girl, a regular visitor to sances attended by her mother.
See also pp. 327-9, 382-3.
As I said in one of my first posts I am convinced the

Rosalie sance took place and it was a trick, the reason I
say this is because a witness came forward and wrote a
letter and admitted how it was done. This is very rare stuff
that not many people know about. I am currently looking
into it deeper and will inform you what I have dug up.
As for Home's accordion songs it could well have been a

small music box hidden in his trousers, it could easily be
played without his hands. Another medium at the time
period of Home known as Francis Monck was caught
utilizing the very trick. He hid a small music-box in his
trousers and activated it by moving his leg.
Remember the accordion of Home only played two limited

6th June 2013, 02:37 PM #26
DoomMetal
Guest
This is the truth about Home's "levitation".
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 Joseph McCabe wrote this (I have highlighted in bold the
main points):
"[According to the spiritualists] Daniel Dunglas Home

was, in the year 1869, wafted by spirit hands from one
window to another, seventy feet above
the ground, at a house in Victoria Street, But here I must
ask him to pause. This is one of the classical
manifestations, one of the foundations of Spiritualism. Sir
A. C. Doyle says that the evidence here is excellent. Sir
William Barrett maintains that the story is indisputably
true. Sir William Crookes says that " to reject the recorded
evidence on this subject is to reject all human testimony
whatever." It is a Spiritualist dogma.
I have shown in the debate with Sir A. C. Doyle that

this dogma is based on evidence that will not stand five
minutes' examination. Not one of these leading
Spiritualists can possibly have examined the evidence. No
witness even claims to have seen Home wafted from
window to window. Lord Adare is the only survivor of the
three supposed witnesses, and, when he saw some Press
report of my destructive criticism in the Debate, he sent to
the Weekly Dispatch a letter that he had written at the time.
He seemed to think that this letter afforded new evidence.
The interested reader will be amused to find that this letter
is precisely the evidence I had quoted in the Debate, for it
was published forty years ago.
No one professes to have seen Home carried from window

to window. Home told the three men who were present that
he was going to be wafted, and he thus set up a state of
very nervous expectation. Sir W. Barrett, who tells us that "
nothing was said beforehand of what they might expect to
see," says precisely the opposite of the truth. Both Lord
Crawford and Lord Adare say that they were warned. Then
Lord Crawford says that he saw the shadow on the wall of
Home entering the room horizontally ; and as the moon, by
whose light he professes to have seen the shadow, was at
the most only three days old, his testimony is absolutely
worthless. Lord Adare claims only that he saw Home, in
the dark, "standing upright outside our window." In the
darkit was an almost moonless December nightone
could not, as a matter of fact, say very positively whether
Home was outside or inside ; but, in any case, he
acknowledges that there was a nineteen-inch window-sill
outside the window, and Home could stand on that.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 6th June 2013 at 02:44 PM.
6th June 2013, 05:50 PM #27

Pacal Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Muse This is the truth about Home's "levitation".
Joseph McCabe wrote this (I have highlighted in bold the

main points):
"[According to the spiritualists] Daniel Dunglas Home

was, in the year 1869, wafted by spirit hands from one
window to another, seventy feet above
Join Date: Nov 2003 the ground, at a house in Victoria Street, But here I must
Location: Toronto ask him to pause. This is one of the classical
Posts: 815 manifestations, one of the foundations of Spiritualism. Sir
A. C. Doyle says that the evidence here is excellent. Sir
William Barrett maintains that the story is indisputably
true. Sir William Crookes says that " to reject the recorded
evidence on this subject is to reject all human testimony
whatever." It is a Spiritualist dogma.
I have shown in the debate with Sir A. C. Doyle that

this dogma is based on evidence that will not stand five
minutes' examination. Not one of these leading
Spiritualists can possibly have examined the evidence. No
witness even claims to have seen Home wafted from
window to window. Lord Adare is the only survivor of
the three supposed witnesses, and, when he saw some
Press report of my destructive criticism in the Debate, he
sent to the Weekly Dispatch a letter that he had written at
the time. He seemed to think that this letter afforded new
evidence. The interested reader will be amused to find
that this letter is precisely the evidence I had quoted in the
Debate, for it was published forty years ago.
No one professes to have seen Home carried from

window to window. Home told the three men who were
present that he was going to be wafted, and he thus set up
a state of very nervous expectation. Sir W. Barrett, who
tells us that " nothing was said beforehand of what they
might expect to see," says precisely the opposite of the
truth. Both Lord Crawford and Lord Adare say that they
were warned. Then Lord Crawford says that he saw the
shadow on the wall of Home entering the room
horizontally ; and as the moon, by whose light he
professes to have seen the shadow, was at the most only
three days old, his testimony is absolutely worthless. Lord
Adare claims only that he saw Home, in the dark,
"standing upright outside our window." In the darkit
was an almost moonless December nightone could not,
as a matter of fact, say very positively whether Home was
outside or inside ; but, in any case, he acknowledges that
there was a nineteen-inch window-sill outside the
window, and Home could stand on that.
25th June 2013, 09:03 AM #28
DoomMetal Quote:
Guest I wonder do you have any interesting information to share
about Home's more usual levitation tricks. Such as him
Join Date: Apr 2013 allegedly floating to the ceilings of darken rooms? This
Posts: 167 sort of stuff was sworn to by so many who often failed to
say that the room was very dark at the time, and that they
only "knew" he was floating because he left a mark on the
ceiling or his voice sounded "faint".
I do have some of that information, it is featured in the
books of Joseph McCabe, also Edward Clodd discussed
some of it. I will get round to typing some of it up. At the
moment I have been reading a book called The Table-
Rappers by Ronald Pearsall. Here are some things he has
written:
On pages 95-96 he writes:
Quote:
Home's spirit hands seemed to be long kid gloves
stuffed with some substance, and Browning thought
that they were fixed to Home's feet. This was a device
of some mediums, and in the dim light of the sance
actual feet could simulate spirit hands, especially those
of children or not quite materialised hands. Even when
adjacent sitters were keeping their feet on the medium's
shoes this could be accomplished by the use of metal toe-
caps on the medium's boots. The foot could also double
for a spirit baby. This could be strapped to the medium's
belt until needed, or to the leg a few inches above the
ankle. When the sance lights 'accidentally' went out, the
medium could thrust a stocking foot into the dummy
hand, and by resting the foot on the other knee, the spirit
hand or spirit baby could peep over the table in an
astounding manner.
Here is what Pearsall writes about the accordion trick of
Home on page 88:
Quote:
The two most prominent instruments at sances were
probably the guitar and the accordion. The latter was one
of Home's favourite props: his special instrument was
ornately-decorated, with a very short keyboard. Its shape
was dumpy and squat more like a concertina than an
accordion. Except when it was playing by itself away
from everyone, he held it beneath a table, his hands away
from the keys. Stage conjurors, the most damaging
witnesses against sance tricks, explained how it could
be done. The accordion was on a loop of catgut, by
which means Home could turn the accordion round.
There was also on the market a self-playing accordion.
His suggestion that the accordion was attached on a loop
Last edited by DoomMetal; 25th June 2013 at 09:24 AM.
25th June 2013, 09:21 AM #29

DoomMetal Here is something else Ronald Pearsall writes that is
Guest interesting:
Join Date: Apr 2013 Quote:

Posts: 167 The zither music heard at Stainton Moses' sances could
have been produced quite easily. Musical-boxes had
become extremely sophisticated, and were being made
with a zither attachment, tissue paper in a metal
holder that dropped on to the comb of a musical box
and modified the sound to give a very good impression
of a zither. Small musical-boxes were strapped to the
leg of the medium, and it is not necessary to stress
again the difficulty of determining from where a sound
was proceeding. Self-playing guitars were constructed by
inserting into the body of the instrument a small musical-
box. Guitars were also useful for concealing the medium's
bric-a-brac, such as gauze or muslin, or small apports.
Mediums of the period such as Stainton Moses, Francis
Ward Monck or Henry Slade were all using music boxes
in their trousers or attached to their leg to dupe their
sitters into believing "spirits" were playing music. The
music box could be played without the need for hands. It
is entirely possible that Home's accordion trick was just a
music box attached to his leg or concealed in his trousers.
Nobody searched Home's clothes before or after the
experiment. Such sloppy scientific controls
25th June 2013, 11:11 AM #30

DoomMetal
Guest
It appears there are more problems for Home's 'famous'
Join Date: Apr 2013 levitation. Ronald Pearsall writes:
Posts: 167
Quote:
The whole business is bogged down with errors and
contradictions. In his account, Adare stated that it was all
taking place on the third floor; later he said it was on the
first floor. The Master of Lindsay, one of the audience,
estimated the height from the ground at eighty-five feet;
in fact it was thirty-five to forty feet. There was also
uncertainty to where it all took place, either 5
Buckingham Place, or Ashley House, Victoria Street.
Compared with this, the disagreement as to whether the
outside ledge was four inches (Adare) or an inch and a
half (Lindsay) was marginal. The outside world was,
understandably, sceptical about these events. W. M.
Thackeray asked why Home did not levitate in daylight?
His 'admirers would then see his gracious countenance
smiling benignantly upon their upturned faces'. The
Saturday Review, considered Home 'a weak, credulous,
half-educated, fanatical person, born, bred, and educated
in wonderful stories, who has lived from his earliest years
in an atmosphere and mirage of dreaming. The witnesses,
few in number and almost entirely unknown, are much in
the same condition'.
Pearsall has done some good research here and as I
mentioned earlier there was a nineteen-inch window-sill
outside the window, most spiritualists books ignore this.
According to some sources the levitation took place at

Victoria Street, whilst others say at 5, Buckingham
Gate. !!
Here are just some of the contradictory sources which

mention Home's levitation, some claim different
locations, different dates and different details such as on a
different floor etc!
Colwyn Edward Vulliamy in his book The Polderoy

Papers writes:
Quote:
The famous "levitation" of Home took place at 5,
Buckingham Gate on December 16, 1868, in the presence
of two gullible aristocrats, Lord Lindsay and Lord Adare.
So it was the 16th of December? At 5 Buckingham Gate?
Harry Price writes in his book Fifty Years of Psychical

Research:
Last edited by DoomMetal; 25th June 2013 at 11:20 AM.
25th June 2013, 12:30 PM #31

DoomMetal Here's some further information on the "witnesses" of
Guest Home's famous levitation trick. According to Ronald
Pearsall:
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 Quote:
Were the three observers at Ashley House (majority
opinion prefers this address) entirely unknown? One of
them was all but unknown - Captain Charles Wynne, then
a thirty three year old serving officer at the Tower of
London, a station notorious for tricks and japes of kind or
another. He later became a magistrate in Sligo, Ireland.
The Master of Lindsay, later Lord Lindsay, was a young
man of twenty-one living in the shadow of his formidable
father, a savant, book-collector, and a prolific author, not
the mention being a prodigious researcher... He was an
avid believer in all the phenomena put out by Home.
Lord Adare was born in 1841. During his boyhood his

father joined the Catholic Church. His mother remained
Protestant, and Adare was sent got his education to Rome,
forbidden to contact his mother. He subsequently went to
Christ Church, Oxford, after which he entered the Army.
In 1867 he went to Abysinnia to the cover the war for the
Daily Telegraph, returning in the winter, when he met
Home. Home completely dominated him, reduced him to a
state of nervous exhaustion.
So all of the witnesses were believers in spiritualism and
were convinced in the phenomena of Home... they were
credulous, it is also interesting to note that Home was in a
homosexual relationship with Adare.
Quote:
In 1869 Lord Adare revealed in his diaries under the title
Experiences in Spiritualism with D. D. Home that he had
slept in the same bed with Home. Many of the diary
entries contain erotic homosexual overtones between
Adare and Home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home
It is interesting to note that each of their witness reports of

the Home levitation contradict each other. It has been
suggested by some researchers that Home could have been
blackmailing Adare.
25th June 2013, 01:18 PM #32

DoomMetal I have just been reading the book Spiritism and Common
Guest Sense (1922) by the magician Carlos Mara de Heredia.
Join Date: Apr 2013 Heredia claims to have replicated the Home accordion
Posts: 167 trick. He believed the answer was using signals and
utilizing secret accomplice with a hidden accordion.
Quote:
I offer the same demonstration in my lectures. After a
few minutes of expectation I give a signal to a friend
behind the partition who plays a tune on another
accordion. As he is invisible and as the source of the
sound is not discoverable, especially when attention is
riveted on the visible instrument, the effect is as
convincing as the humbug is simple. The power of a
demonstration is usually in direct ratio to the stupidity
of the device that produces it. Sometimes my friend,
taken up with his playing, fails to notice the signal to
desist, and continues his tune after the accordion is no
longer suspended. The effect of this little slip in
arrangements is even more extraordinary on the
auditors, as it was on Sir William Crookes.
Ruth Brandon also suggested something similar, it is
entirely possible.
Source:
Page 68 in Spiritism and Common Sense, which can be

found online here
http://www.archive.org/stream/spirit...ge/68/mode/2up
Heredia's book also contains a goldmine of information

into how mediumistic tricks were performed such as
making fake ectoplasm hands or performing fraudulent
levitations. It is a shame spiritualists don't read books like
this if they did they wouldn't believe in the silliness they
have been duped into.

25th June 2013, 05:46 PM #33
DoomMetal Some comments about the credulous William Crookes:
Guest
Quote:
Join Date: Apr 2013 'If Home was a conjurer,' wrote Frank Podmore in Modern
Posts: 167 Spiritualism, 'Mr Crookes was probably in no better
position for detecting the sleight-of-hand than any other
man his equal in intelligence and native acuteness'.
Professional magicians were more scathing and

outspoken: 'As a believer Mr Crookes is all very well,'
declared J. N. Maskelyne; 'as an investigator, he is a
failure'.
Harry Houdini in A Magician among the Spirits was

equally forthright: 'There is not the slightest doubt in my
mind that this brainy man was hoodwinked, and that his
confidence was betrayed, and his reasoning faculties so
blunted by his prejudice in favour of anything psychic or
occult that he could not or would not, resist this influence.'
Ronald Pearsall. The Table-Rappers. (1972). pp. 226-227
26th June 2013, 12:01 PM #34

DoomMetal As I have already stated on this thread, I believe Home's
Guest accordion trick was performed by playing a hidden music
box, in his trousers, most likely attached to his leg.
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 The magician Henry Ridgely Evans also suggested this in
one of his books which exposed the tricks of mediums:
Quote:
The production of spirit music was one of Home's
favourite experiments. There are all sorts of ways of
producing this music, the most ingenious of which I give:
The apparatus consists of a small circular musical box,

wound up by clock work, and made to play when ever
pressure is put upon a stud projecting a quarter of an
inch from its surface. This box is strapped around the
right leg of the medium just above his knee, and
hidden beneath the trouser leg. When not in use it is on
the under side of the leg. On the table a musical box is
placed and covered with a soup tureen, or the top of a
chafing dish. When the spectators are seated, the medium
works the concealed musical box around to the upper part
of his leg near the knee cap, and by pressing the stud
against the under surface of the table, starts the music
playing. In this way the second musical box seems to play
and the acoustic effect is perfect. Perhaps Home used a
similar contrivance; Dr. Monck did, and was caught in the
act by the chief of the Detective Police.
Hours with the ghosts, or, Nineteenth century witchcraft
(1897). Online at
http://archive.org/stream/hourswithg...e/112/mode/2up
The fraud medium Francis Ward Monck was caught

utilising the music box to pretend to his audience "spirits"
were playing music. The music box is more likely in my
opinion rather than some of the other things suggested by
other researchers. Music boxes are small and easy to hide.
As discussed Home was not personally searched before or

after the Crookes experiments.
26th June 2013, 02:10 PM #35

DoomMetal On this thread I am going to try and be referencing every
Guest skeptical book that contains information about the tricks
of Home. So far I believe I am the only person to have
Join Date: Apr 2013 attempted to do this.
Posts: 167
So far I referenced some very useful material from Joseph
McCabe, Dr. Ivor Lloyd Tuckett, Edward Clodd, Ruth
Brandon, Henry Ridgely Evans, Carlos Mara de Heredia
and Ronald Pearsall etc.
I have just found some more books which may expose the
tricks of Daniel Dunglas Home:
John Mulholland - Beware Familiar Spirits.

Milbourne Christopher - Mediums, Mystics & The Occult.
Julien Proskauer - Spook Crooks.
Simon A. Blackmore - Spiritism, Facts and Frauds.
Georgess McHargue - Facts, frauds, and Phantasms: A
Survey of the Spiritualist Movement.
Chung Ling Soo - Spirit Slate Writing & Kindred
Phenomenon.
I have ordered a few of them.
I have already mentioned Psychic Mafia by LaMar Keene

but he did not mention Home. So if anyone is interested in
this thread. Stay tuned. Lot's more stuff to come.
26th June 2013, 02:56 PM #36

Garrette If you want every book, then you will also need
Penultimate Amazing Proskauer's The Dead Do Not Talk.. He really mentions
Home only in passing while discussing other frauds or
Join Date: Aug 2001 common themes, but he does mention him several times.
Posts: 14,507 Proskauer makes it clear that he considers Podmore's book
to be perhaps the finest medium debunking book ever. I
am inclined to agree.
__________________
26th June 2013, 03:11 PM #37

DoomMetal Originally Posted by Garrette
Guest If you want every book, then you will also need
Proskauer's The Dead Do Not Talk.. He really mentions
Join Date: Apr 2013 Home only in passing while discussing other frauds or
Posts: 167 common themes, but he does mention him several times.
Proskauer makes it clear that he considers Podmore's book
to be perhaps the finest medium debunking book ever. I
am inclined to agree.
I have heard of Proskauer and his debunkings of various
medium tricks but his books are quite rare and expensive
to get hold of, nobody has reprinted them and they are not
online. It is a shame books like this get forgotten about.
But thanks for this I probably will get hold of it. I am
determined to read every book critical of Home!
What Podmore book is it? Modern Spiritualism published

in 1902? Whenever I open a skeptical book on
mediumship I have noticed that Podmore is nearly always
mentioned.
I will get round to citing Podmore. He believed if I can

remember correctly that Home used a piece of black
thread to cheat on the board and balance experiment. He
also suggested a music box for the accordion trick.
26th June 2013, 03:25 PM #38

Garrette Yep, the Podmore book is Modern Spiritualism.
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2001 __________________

Posts: 14,507 My kids still love me.
26th June 2013, 03:36 PM #39

DoomMetal I have just downloaded and been reading the book Spirit
Guest Slate Writing & Kindred Phenomenon (1898) by the
magician Chung Ling Soo.
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 This is an excellent book which exposes the tricks of the
spiritualist billet and slate writing of the Victorian period.
We don't hear about spiritualist slate writing anymore, but
back in the day it was popular it seems. There were a
number of ways of pulling off slate tricks. The book is
filled with excellent diagrams. Unfortunately the book
does not mention Home, but an interesting thing is this:
Quote:
Dr. Henry Slade was, of course, identified and recognized
as the principal slate-writing medium, but at various times
he presented other phenomena, one of which was the
playing of an accordion while held in one hand under the
table. The accordion was taken by him from the table with
his right hand, at the end containing the strap, the keys or
notes at the other end being away from him. He thus held
the accordion beneath the table, and his left hand was laid
on top of the table, where it was always in plain view.
Nevertheless, the accordion was heard to give forth
melodious tunes, and at the conclusion was brought up on
top of the table as held originally ; the whole dodge
consisting in turning the accordion end for end as it went
under the table. The strap end being now downward, and
held between the legs, the medium's hand grasped the
keyboard end, and Avorked the bellows and keys, holding
the accordion firmly with the legs and working the hand,
not with an arm movement, but mostly by a simple wrist
movement. Of course, at the conclusion, the hand grasped
the accordion at the strap end, and brought it up in this
condition. Sometimes an accordion is tied with strings and
sealed so the bellows cannot be worked. This is for the
dark seance. Even in this condition the accordion is played
by inserting a tube in the air-hole or valve and by the
medium's using his lungs as bellows.
On pp. 105-106 found online here:
http://archive.org/stream/spiritslat...e/105/mode/2up
So the fraud medium Henry Slade also played the

accordion with one hand under the table like Home did.
Not many researchers seem to have picked up on this.
The book also documents some magic tricks. In one of the

chapters he reveals the trick of how to balance an egg on a
card on a wand!
26th June 2013, 05:01 PM #40

DoomMetal I have just been reading the book Spiritualism and the
Guest New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist
Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge
Join Date: Apr 2013 (1920) by the psychologist Millais Culpin.
Posts: 167
It only has one page on Daniel Dunglas Home, most of the
book is about explaining mediumship and related
phenomena by psychology i.e. by suggestion or
dissociation etc. There is not much on physical mediums.
Here is what Dr. Culpin writes regarding Crookes and
Home:
Quote:
Sir William Crookes gives detailed accounts of marvellous
happenings, but two mediums in whom he had implicit
trust were detected in deliberate fraud by other people, so
that his critical powers failed him. Some of his accounts
show curious lapses. In one experiment an accordion is
placed in a cage under the table and Mr. Home puts his
hand into the top of the cage to do psychic things with the
instrument. The temperature of the room is carefully
recorded (that doesn't matter, but imparts a scientific
flavour to the observations) although we are not told why
the experiment was done under the table instead of in a
more convenient position on top of it, though ' my
assistant went under the table, and reported that the
accordion was expanding and contracting,' and ' Dr. A. B.
now looked under the table and said that Mr. Home's hand
appeared quite still.' Sir William would never have made
such an omission if he had been using the same reasoning
powers that he used in his scientific descriptions.
page 126 found online here:
http://archive.org/stream/spirituali...e/126/mode/2up
Very interesting points, firstly the two mediums who were

convicted of fraud that Crookes believed were genuine
was one of the Fox sisters and Florence Cook. So Crookes'
credulous reputation was already well known.
Secondly regarding the accordion experiment with Home,

there was no need for the table! Why was there a table in
the first place? If Home was going to get in contact with
spirits and get them to play an accordion, why not in full
bright light in the middle of the room?
But as Dr. Culpin wrote as there was a table why not

perform the experiment on the top of the table where it is
visible? All this nonsense about hiding under a table is not
science and makes it easy for fraud and is very suspicious.
This has always been the case with mediumship. Always
silly tricks in dark rooms. The story hasn't changed for
The tricks of the medium Daniel Dunglas User Name User Name
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Tags Daniel Dunglas Home , mediums
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27th June 2013, 11:11 AM #41
DoomMetal There is a small booklet which exposes the tricks of
Guest mediums entitled Spiritualism Exposed (1920) by F.
Attfield Fawkes. There is only really one small
Join Date: Apr 2013 mention of Home in it. Here it is:
Posts: 167
Quote:
By far the most notorious spirit rapper was
Daniel Dunglas Home. For a long time he
flourished and coined money. Finally he rapped
out messages to a Mrs. Lyons from her deceased
husband's spirit. He netted about 30,000 from
the unfortunate widow. A lawsuit followed, the
imposture and fraud were discovered, and Home
was ruined as a spiritualist. Yetthere were
people who still continued to believe in him as a
man who could communicate with spirits
notably the late Sir William Crookes.
pp. 32-33 which can be found online here:

http://archive.org/stream/spirituali...ge/32/mode/2up
In fact Home conned more than that from Mrs.

Lyons... it was more like 36,000 in total and would
have earned more if he had not been caught. The
spiritualists claim that Home was not convicted of
fraud is false. He was! You don't hear about Home's
lawsuit in any spiritualist books. They are careful
not to mention this.
The booklet is quite good, there is also a debunking

of the tricks of the Davenport brothers, Henry Slade
and an exposure of Theosophy.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 27th June 2013 at 11:12

AM.
27th June 2013, 03:33 PM #42

Maurice Ledifficile [Thanks a lot for this thread, guys!]
Lost in translation
__________________
"There is a plenty of proof, but unfortunately it is entirely unprovable." -
Join Date: Sep 2010 Punshhh
"Theres a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an
Posts: 2,964 idiot." Stephen Wright
28th June 2013, 01:40 AM #43

Mojo Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Mostly harmless As I have already stated on this thread, I believe Home's
accordion trick was performed by playing a hidden music
box, in his trousers, most likely attached to his leg.
If that was the case, why did he need to have a hand on

the accordion under the table? Surely it would be a much
Join Date: Jul 2004 more impressive trick if he wasn't touching the accordion.
Posts: 28,554 It could have been misdirection, I suppose.
Do you know exactly what sort of accordion it was? A

diatonic button accordion is simple to play one-handed, in
the same sort of position as shown in the drawing of
Home with the cage (I've just tried it and got a
recognisable tune out of it at the first attempt, and I'm not
a particularly good player even with both hands).
Crookes's experiments were carried out in the early
1870s, and the piano accordion wasn't invented until the
mid 1850s, so it is probable that Home would have been
using a button accordion at least at first if, as Crookes
said, he had been doing the sccordion trick for over 15
years when Crookes investigated. The term "accordion"
would have been used for both types at the time. There's
no reason to think that he couldn't have played a piano
accordion one handed, of course.
The explanation that he reversed the accordion by sleight

of hand and played it one-handed is by far the simplest
explanation.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield
"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the
breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Last edited by Mojo; 28th June 2013 at 03:14 AM.

28th June 2013, 10:16 AM #44
DoomMetal Quote:
Guest If that was the case, why did he need to have a hand on
the accordion under the table? Surely it would be a much
Join Date: Apr 2013 more impressive trick if he wasn't touching the accordion.
Posts: 167 It could have been misdirection, I suppose.
The entire experiment was strange, why the need for a
table at all? As skeptics have pointed out why the cage?
Why not just do the accordion experiment in the middle
of the room without any furniture? These questions have
never been answered by Crookes supporters.
I don't know why he had to have a hand on the accordion

under the table, that is just the way the experiment was set
up. I agree if he wasn't touching the accordion at all it
would have been more impressive.
Quote:
Do you know exactly what sort of accordion it was? A
diatonic button accordion is simple to play one-handed, in
the same sort of position as shown in the drawing of
Home with the cage (I've just tried it and got a
recognisable tune out of it at the first attempt, and I'm not
a particularly good player even with both hands).
Crookes's experiments were carried out in the early
1870s, and the piano accordion wasn't invented until the
mid 1850s, so it is probable that Home would have been
using a button accordion at least at first if, as Crookes
said, he had been doing the sccordion trick for over 15
years when Crookes investigated. The term "accordion"
would have been used for both types at the time. There's
no reason to think that he couldn't have played a piano
accordion one handed, of course.
I will be typing up all the details from Crookes report
regarding the accordion experiment. I will fill you in on
the details about the exact accordion that was used.
Quote:
The explanation that he reversed the accordion by sleight
of hand and played it one-handed is by far the simplest
explanation.
Yes this was suggested by magicians and some
paranormal researchers. For example Ronald Pearsall
wrote in his book The Table-Rappers (1972):
Quote:
The two most prominent instruments at sances were
probably the guitar and the accordion. The latter was one
of Home's favourite props: his special instrument was
ornately-decorated, with a very short keyboard. Its shape
was dumpy and squat more like a concertina than an
accordion. Except when it was playing by itself away
29th June 2013, 07:14 PM #45
tuxcat Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Muse The psychic researcher was Harry Price. I have read about
this in detail. If you are interested you can read about the
whole thing in his book Fifty Years of Psychical Research.
The girl was called Rosalie, she had died at age six but
their were reports of her coming through in a sance so
Price went to investigate it.
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 818 Yes Price did put starch powder all over the floor, outside
of the room and even in the chimney place. He moved all
objects such as pictures and clocks outside of the room.
He locked the door, and put tape on the windows.
There were six people present, but for some reason three
of them were not searched. After a few minutes into the
seance a little girl did appear, of course the room was in
pitch darkness so anything could have been going on.
Price wrote he felt the child, heard her breathing and
could feel respiratory movements from her chest. Price
even measured the pulse of the child.
When the lights were turned on, the child was not there
and Price checked every part of the room for the child and
found nothing and all the powder over the floor and in the
chimney was undisturbed without any footprints and none
of the tape on the windows had been removed. Price
claimed he was the only one with a key, so nobody could
have gotten in or out of the room during the sance.
The whole thing was a trick. I do know how it was done

as after it had happened one of those who was in the
sance confessed to having set the thing up and having
used a child during the sance - this had not been widely
reported. I could create a thread on this if you like
I for one would like to know how it was done. I suspect it
was something a bit like the "count the men and ignore
the gorilla in the background" or the girl was secreted in
some object, maybe a settee.
6th July 2013, 03:21 PM #46

DoomMetal Originally Posted by tuxcat
Guest I for one would like to know how it was done. I suspect it
was something a bit like the "count the men and ignore the
Join Date: Apr 2013 gorilla in the background" or the girl was secreted in some
Posts: 167 object, maybe a settee.
Only one book mentions how it was done, and it is only
mentioned in brief in a single letter. The letter was re-
published by the ghost hunter Peter Underwood. I will let
you know at some point how it was done. But I am having a
long break from this forum, read on:
Underwood was a friend of Harry Price, and has tried to

clear his name from many of the false rumours or deliberate
smears that were printed about him. The spiritualists over
the years have made up many lies about Price.. for example
they have claimed that he was a Nazi, misogynistic,
womanizer or that he worked with the British Secret
Intelligence Service (MI6) to frame mediums to ruin their
careers and reputations. Many of these claims are
downright comical and completely false.
There are still spiritualists to this very day who claim Harry
Price framed the medium Helen Duncan and that she was
innocent. To claim this is either delusion or trolling (or
both). You only need to search online for Helen Duncan and
look at her images taken in her sances to see that all her
"spirits" were rubber dolls, cheese-cloth or newspaper cut-
outs. Duncan's maid confessed to helping her make the
materials, and Duncan's husband later confessed to having
hidden her cheesecloth on occasion.
Instead the spiritualists claim none of those photographs of

Duncan are really her, but they were a paid lookalike who
dressed up in mock photographs to ruin the reputation of
Duncan and the (MI6) secret service were behind it all.!
Absolute bonkers considering in some of the photographs
members of the public can be seen who were present with
Duncan and later interviewed! And the photographs taken
in the lab of Price were Duncan! Many witnesses were their
including Duncan's husband, and Duncan herself admits she
was there. There is no way round it but spiritualist trolls
still claim she was framed and that she was entirely
innocent.
On one occasion Duncan ran out from Price's testing lab

and caused a scene in the street. Of course the real reason
she ran into the street was to dispose of her fake
cheesecloth "ectoplasm" before she was going to be x-
rayed. The husband of Duncan took the cheesecloth off her
in the street and hid it in his trouser pocket! Many
witnesses were there including the psychologist William
Last edited by DoomMetal; 6th July 2013 at 03:32 PM.
7th July 2013, 02:40 AM #47

Mojo Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Mostly harmless I don't believe this though. There were witnesses under the
table who would have seen Home turn the accordion round
if he had done it.
It should have been quite possible in poor light, perhaps

with a bit of misdirection. It was described in your
Join Date: Jul 2004 quotation from Pearsall as being "dumpy and squat more
Posts: 28,554 like a concertina than an accordion", which would have
made this manoeuvre easier (and one end of a concertina
looks pretty much like the other).
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield
"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking
ice." - Leon Trotsky
7th July 2013, 06:15 AM #48

tuxcat So basically the Rosalie was indeed a hoax given that
Muse the premises were nonexistent?
Join Date: Jun 2013

Posts: 818
18th August 2013, 12:48 PM #49

DoomMetal I am coming back on here to finish off this thread.
Guest
Originally Posted by tuxcat
Join Date: Apr 2013 So basically the Rosalie was indeed a hoax given that
Posts: 167 the premises were nonexistent?
It's a mystery that is never going to be solved. You can
read the Rosalie case here:
Rosalie by Harry Price
Price never made his mind up if it was real or not, but

he was open to the possibility that it was a clever fraud.
Quote:
I am suspending judgment as to whether the
'materialization' was what it purported to be.
The problem was the location. Price described the
House in detail;
Quote:
I arrived at M-- just after seven o'clock and made my
way to Mrs. X's residence, which I found was a large
double-fronted, detached house, in a good-class road,
with a flight of twelve stone steps leading to the front
door, on each side of which was a large room with bay
windows. It was at a corner of another road, and had an
area. There were three entrances (four, including the
French window leading to garden) to the house: the
front door, an area entrance (seldom used, except when
coal was delivered, the coal cellar being under the front
steps), approached by a flight of steps, and a door at the
back of the house reached by a path running parallel
to00 the side road. There were seven windows facing
the main road: two on ground level, two above, two
small attic windows at the top, and a small window
(guarded by iron bars) in the area room. At the back of
the house were four windows, and a French window
giving access to the long, narrow garden, which was
reached by some iron steps. On the side of the house
facing the transverse road were two smallish windows
and a lavatory window. I have given a description of the
house in some detail, in order that the reader can
visualize the sort of place it is: a typical, largish, mid-
Victorian, double-fronted, detached suburban house.
That is a very specific description of the house.
Unfortunately no location is given.
In 1958, Eric Dingwall and Trevor H. Hall discovered a

letter in the Harry Price Library at the University of
London from a lady called Clarice Richards. The town
Brockley was mentioned amongst some other details
Last edited by DoomMetal; 18th August 2013 at 12:58
PM.
19th August 2013, 05:15 AM #50

tuxcat Thanks for tying it up for me DoomMetal. Given that
Muse Price is dead I don't suppose anyone can get to the
bottom of it.
Join Date: Jun 2013

Posts: 818
19th August 2013, 07:00 AM #51

DoomMetal Originally Posted by tuxcat
Guest Thanks for tying it up for me DoomMetal. Given that
Price is dead I don't suppose anyone can get to the
Join Date: Apr 2013 bottom of it.
Posts: 167 Exactly, I don't think the truth will ever been known on
the Rosalie case. On another thread a user called James
was dogmatically defending Price. That's the thing
there's defenders of Price and serious critics. The truth
is probably somewhere in the middle.
Most of the critics tend to be spiritualists because Price

unmasked the fraud of Helen Duncan and they have
hated him ever since.
Here's what Peter Underwood has to say about Price:
Quote:
Whatever critics might say - and of course with
hindsight some things could have been better handled -
Harry Price fought a long, lone battle against those
who derided the whole world of the occult on the
one hand and the fanatical believers in spiritualism
on the other. He was especially well-prepared for
exposing fraudulent mediums and indeed charlatans
and mountebanks of every description since while still
a youngster he became fascinated by conjuring, 'magic'
tricks, unusual claims, apparent wizardry, illusionists,
hypnotists, thought-readers and fortune tellers and in
later years he became an adroit conjurer himself.
Harry Price by Peter Underwood
Will Goldston, Vice-President of the Magician's Club

wrote in one publication:
Quote:
Harry Price has a unique position in the magic world.
He is the Hon. Director of the National Laboratory of
Psychical Research and has sat with every spiritualistic
medium of note in this country and on the Continent.
He possesses the largest library of magical books -
probably in the world - and he has invented many
magical effects and has given me some of the most
valuable secrets for inclusion in my book, Great
Magicians' Tricks.' Later Price was elected a Vice-
President of the Magicians' Club and a member of the
Inner Magic Circle, an almost unknown honour for an
amateur conjurer.
I believe that point is important because Price was
almost alone in his views. He believed some psychic
phenomena and a minority of mediums to be genuine
but the bulk fraudulently produced. He had one of the
AM.
19th August 2013,

#52
07:39 AM
DoomMetal Let's get back to debunking D. D. Home;
Guest
I will go over Crookes report regarding the accordion
Join Date: Apr 2013 experiment. All quotes cited are the comments by William
Posts: 167 Crookes. I have bolded some of the important points. They
appear in his book;
Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism
Which is a reprint of his original Quarterly Journal of Science

(QJS) reports.
Quote:
The meetings took place in the evening, in a large room lighted
by gas.
It's the first line of the description of the experiment but it
contains a major flaw. Where was the exact light? No detailed
description is given. We know that Home never performed his
sances in full light. When Crookes says the room was lighted by
gas, what did he truly mean? No gas light is seen on the table of
the room in the sketch and there was no light under the table.
As Frank Podmore wrote;
Though the room is said to have been lighted by gas the degree
of illumination is not stated, nor the position of the table and the
investigators, and of Home himself, with reference to the source
of light.
Crookes next writes:
Quote:
The apparatus prepared for the purpose of testing the movements
of the accordion, consisted of a cage, formed of two wooden
hoops, respectively 1 foot 10 inches and 2 feet diameter,
connected together by 12 narrow laths, each 1 foot 10 inches
long, so as to form a drum-shaped frame, open at the top and
bottom ; round this 50 yards of insulated copper wire were
wound in 24 rounds, each being rather less than an inch from its
neighbour. These horizontal strands of wire were then netted
together firmly with string, so as to form meshes rather less than
2 inches long by 1 inch high.
Why was the cage or a table needed at all? This is not explained
by Crookes. If Home really had powers of a "psychic force" why
not perform the accordion experiment without a cage or table, in
full view? It must all be remembered that Home had already
been performing his accordion trick for over fifteen years before
the Crookes experiment.
Quote:
The height of this cage was such that it would just slip under my
Last edited by DoomMetal; 19th August 2013 at 07:48 AM.
19th August 2013,

#53
08:26 AM
Soapy Sam As a slightly OT addendum to the thread, the name Dunglass
Penultimate Amazing used by Home originates with an estate of that name in East
Lothian, now known best for its collegiate church, where
Join Date: Oct 2002 weddings are often held
Posts: 28,744 James Hall, 4th Baronet Dunglass, was a geologist and a friend
of John Playfair and James Hutton. It was from Dunglass that
they set out along the coast in 1788 in a rowing boat to visit the
site of the Silurian / Devonian unconformity at Siccar Point.
This was the family to which Home wished to imply kinship

with at least one branch of the powerful border family of Homes
(The name is pronounced "Hyoom"), probably best known of the
family is Alec Douglas Home (Lord Dunglass) who was Prime
Minister in 1963-4. It seems certain Daniel's father was an
illegitimate son of the 10th Earl of Home.
19th August 2013, 12:37 PM #54

DoomMetal Originally Posted by Soapy Sam
Guest As a slightly OT addendum to the thread, the name
Dunglass used by Home originates with an estate of that
Join Date: Apr 2013 name in East Lothian, now known best for its collegiate
Posts: 167 church, where weddings are often held
James Hall, 4th Baronet Dunglass, was a geologist and
a friend of John Playfair and James Hutton. It was from
Dunglass that they set out along the coast in 1788 in a
rowing boat to visit the site of the Silurian / Devonian
unconformity at Siccar Point.
This was the family to which Home wished to imply

kinship with at least one branch of the powerful border
family of Homes (The name is pronounced "Hyoom"),
probably best known of the family is Alec Douglas
Home (Lord Dunglass) who was Prime Minister in
1963-4. It seems certain Daniel's father was an
illegitimate son of the 10th Earl of Home.
Thanks for your information. I have read this before. It
makes no difference to me about his name or which
family he descended from. But Trevor H. Hall
unmasked his fictitious aristocratic history, Home had
made it all up he had no link to the Earl of Home. See
Hall's book The Enigma of Daniel Home: Medium
Or Fraud?.
19th August 2013, 12:45 PM #55

Mister Earl You know what this reminds me of? Those hilarious old
Illuminator timey photos of people trying to fake ghost pictures.
You know... the ones where they used cotton and gauze
to try to make it look like smoke.
Join Date: Nov 2007

Posts: 3,502
19th
August
#56
2013, 01:31
PM
DoomMetal Originally Posted by Mister Earl
Guest You know what this reminds me of? Those hilarious old timey photos of people trying to fake ghost pictures.
You know... the ones where they used cotton and gauze to try to make it look like smoke.
Join Date: I did a thread on that a few months ago. Indeed, all photographs of ectoplasm look fraudulent and researchers
Apr 2013 when investigated the stuff found cheesecloth, muslin or gauze. It amazes me how some spiritualists like
Posts: 167 Stephen E. Braude can remain totally credulous and still claim the stuff is real. This photograph of Ethel
Post-Parrish comes to mind:
Spiritualist books are still being written which claim the photograph was genuine and the "spirit" figure was
real; but in reality the whole thing was a hoax. A photograph was taken of smoke and by a double exposure a
cardboard figure was superimposed onto it. Both the ladies in the photo were involved in the deception and
the guy who took the photograph Jack Edwards admitted to the fraud. You won't find a single spiritualist
book or website with this information though. The spiritualists ignore any evidence contrary to their belief.
Scroll back to the first page of this thread and go down to my debunking of Home's supposed levitation.
Countless spiritualist books and websites still claim that Home levitated 75 feet in the air into the street and
out of a window... But read over the real facts and no such thing ever happened. It's amazing how much
dishonest and misleading information is out there regarding stuff like this.
Last edited by DoomMetal; 19th August 2013 at 01:36 PM.

19th
August
#57
2013, 01:46
PM
Soapy Sam Originally Posted by DoomMetal
Penultimate Thanks for your information. I have read this before. It makes no difference to me about his name or which
Amazing family he descended from. But Trevor H. Hall unmasked his fictitious aristocratic history, Home had made it
all up he had no link to the Earl of Home. See Hall's book The Enigma of Daniel Home: Medium Or
Join Date: Fraud?.
Oct 2002 I heard Peter Lamont talk about Home to the SSPR in Glasgow and read a little about him afterward. I rather
Posts: got the impression Home himself was sure of the connection between his father and the Dunglass Homes ,
28,744 that he bitterly resented the poverty of his own family and that this, as much as money, motivated him to con
the great & good of society.
I must say it seems trivially obvious that he was a fraudster and not an especially good one. Were it not for
the tendency of woo publishers and journalists looking for pulp copy to publish credulous articles about him,
DDH would have been as forgotten by now as I expect Uri Geller to be by the 22nd century.
19th August 2013, 01:50 PM #58

DoomMetal Stephen E. Braude has defended Home in many of his
Guest publications. He claims that there is no naturalistic
explanation for the accordion experiment and that
Join Date: Apr 2013 Home performed psychokinesis. Well Braude is wrong
Posts: 167 for a few reasons.
Firstly in the Quarterly Journal of Science in 1871

Crookes originally attributed the phenomena of Home
to a "psychic force". He did not refer to any "spirits" in
his report.
Many years later in 1889 Crookes revealed in his Notes

of sances with D. D. Home that spirits were the cause
of all the phenomena and that the spirits had even
directed some of the proceedings of the experiment. So
Crookes had completely changed his description of
what had happened during the experiment. Braude
doesn't mention this.
As I wrote previously, the reason Crookes probably left

out the mention of spirits in his report of the experiment
is because back in 1871 he was writing in a science
journal and he wanted to keep it scientific. Using
pseudo-terminology like "psychic force" sounded more
scientific.
The main flaw with Crookes and the experiment is that

he never revealed the full list of who was present during
the experiments, in his 1871 report he only mentioned
some of the names. In 1889 he finally revealed all the
males who were present in the room, but he never
revealed who the females were. Not professional. Not
scientific. There are countless other details Crookes
omitted. The whole thing is suspicious.
More to follow.
19th August 2013, 02:02 PM #59

DoomMetal Originally Posted by Soapy Sam
Guest I heard Peter Lamont talk about Home to the SSPR in
Glasgow and read a little about him afterward. I rather
Join Date: Apr 2013 got the impression Home himself was sure of the
Posts: 167 connection between his father and the Dunglass
Homes , that he bitterly resented the poverty of his own
family and that this, as much as money, motivated him
to con the great & good of society.
I must say it seems trivially obvious that he was a

fraudster and not an especially good one. Were it not for
the tendency of woo publishers and journalists looking
for pulp copy to publish credulous articles about him,
DDH would have been as forgotten by now as I expect
Uri Geller to be by the 22nd century.
I have read the biography by Lamont and briefly
communicated with him. I am confused about his
position on Home. Unfortunately some spiritualists now
quote-mine Lamont and use him as a researcher who is
"open" to Home being genuine.
The book by Lamont was not critical enough in my

opinion on Home's mediumship, but as a biography of
Home and his life is the best around. For serious
refutations of Home's mediumship then the book by
Gordon Stein or some of the older works by Joseph
McCabe, Walter Mann or Ivor Lloyd Tuckett are some
of the best (I did a mini-list on the previous page of
others as well).
I am not really interested in buying works on occult or

spiritualism anymore as I have lost interest in
debunking, but my sister recently brought me the book
by Gordon Stein. It's better than the one by Trevor H.
Hall.
I believe D. D. Home was the best fraudster... I can't

think of any better frauds than him other than perhaps
Leonora Piper but Piper wasn't involved in producing
any physical tricks like Home. Mediums like Eusapia
Palladino or Henry Slade were very obvious frauds.
Home was much cleverer.
Frank Podmore wrote;
Quote:
In Home and in his doings all the problems of
Spiritualism are posed in their acutest form; with
the marvels wrought by or through him the main
defences of Spiritualism must stand or fall.
PM.
20th August 2013, 10:19 AM #60

DoomMetal
Guest
Here is the major flaw with the Crookes report.
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 Researches in the phenomena of Spiritualism
Crookes wrote;
Quote:
The 'investigators present on the test occasion were
an eminent physicist, high in the ranks of the Royal
Society, whom I will call Dr. A. B. ; a well-known
Serjeant-at-Law, whom I will call Serjeant C. D.;
my brother; and my chemical assistant.
But this wasn't the full truth. Crookes later revealed the
full list of males who were in the room:
Quote:
Dr. Huggins, F.E.S., Mr. Serjeant Cox, Mr. William
Crookes, F.R.S., his brother Mr. Walter Crookes, and
his chemical assistant.
The chemical assistant was Charles Gimingham. WHY
did Crookes not mention this in his original report?
Why hide this information for all those years?
Four females were also present, which he does not

reveal the names of. What if one of these females was
the fraudulent medium Florence Cook? Remember the
stage mentalist/fraud medium Anna Eva Fay had
previously duped Crookes in a series of experiments
and later admitted the fraud. It was well known that
Fay hanged around the house of Crookes.
Frank Podmore recorded that Home had a female

accomplice in his sances with Henrietta Ada Ward
who used to sit near him. The theory that a secret
accomplice played a hidden accordion gets my vote.
Magic historian Barry Wiley is the only skeptic to have

picked up on this. I thank his work. Here is an
interesting comment he wrote;
Quote:
Crookes does not mention the four women who were
also present, and most importantly, he does not
mention that instructions were given the group
either through Home's altered spirit voice, or
through spirit raps on the dining table around
which they all satinstructions that were never
challenged.
AM.
20th August 2013, 10:51 AM #61

Sideroxylon Informative and interesting.
Featherless biped
Join Date: Aug 2008

Location: Aporia __________________
'The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to
Posts: 17,513 fool.' - Richard Feynman
20th August 2013, 11:14 AM #62

DoomMetal Here's an interesting comment from a review of the
Guest book The Enigma of Daniel Home: Medium or Fraud?
by Trevor H. Hall. The review was printed in the
Join Date: Apr 2013 journal Victorian Studies Vol. 29, No. 4 (Summer,
Posts: 167 1986), pp. 613-614 and was written by F. B. Smith. It's
weird because I found this review on JSTOR (I have
perm access to this site as my sister is a molecular
biologist for a scientific institution. ) Strange how
the odd psychical paper turns up. Anyway here's part of
the review:
Quote:
Hall's third point is very important. He has discovered
where and how Home did his famous levitation, out of
one window at third floor level and in through another,
before three aristocratic witnesses. As usual, the
evidence falls apart when scrutinised: the eyewitnesses'
reports differ, the address was muddled. Hall
establishes that the alleged feat took place at Ashley
House in Ashley Place, at a height of 35 rather than 85
feet and that, rather than floating, Home casually
stepped across the gap of four feet between two iron
balconies. Now it remains only to explain why so
many intelligent people accepted this engaging,
implausible individual.
The point I have highlighted in bold gets me thinking. I
still can't really see why so many people have been
duped into believing Home's feats were real, becuase if
you do the correct research you uncover he was an
absolute fraud, but for some reason most of these
believers don't search for all the material and just end
up being mislead. His most mainstream "feat" the
"levitation" consisted of him stepping across the gap
between two balconies which had a large ledge... Yep
that's it! Any kid could have done it. Home did not
levitate yet gullible psi believers still claim he did.
In the end Home is only worshipped like a God by the

psi believers because of his accordion experiment, but
as this thread has shown this experiment was not
scientific it was completely flawed. Crookes has lied
and omitted information about the experiment. It is
absolute nonsense when you look at it. In short it's a
real shame that some intelligent people have been
duped into believing Home is genuine, countless
websites out there still insist he floated out of a window
at 80 odd feet... if only these people spent the time to
uncover the truth. This thread will help the real truth
seekers.
AM.
20th August 2013, 12:00 PM #63

DoomMetal Let's go back to the accomplice theory. If there was
Guest indeed a secret accomplice who helped Home cheat on
the accordion experiment then who was it?
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 167 We know the male investigators who were in the room
(not all of them were scientists) and we know four
females were present (non-scientists) but do not know
their names.
Magic historian Barry Wiley is the only researcher to

have suggested a possible suspect for the accomplice.
He suspects;
Charles Henry Gimingham (1853-1890) who was

Crookes assistant and glass blower. Now Gimingham
was the guy who had built (by hand) the cage for the
accordion to go in and many of the other pieces of
apparatus that Home used. Only a handful of books
uncover this information, it is not widely known.
Gimingham was present during the accordion

experiment with Home. Gimingham was the one who
had rigged the wired cage to Groves cells. This was the
same guy who had done electrical tests with Anna Eva
Fay and had built the apparatus for the experiments.
Now, Wiley is the only researcher to uncovered a lot of

stuff about Gimingham and Crookes. There are some
strange letters between the two, but most importantly
Gimingham did have access to all Crooke's self-built
lab in his house and Crooke's private letters and
materials.
Quote:
Working for Crookes since early 1871, Gimingham
had free and open access to Crookes' laboratory
and frequently worked there unsupervised with
Crooke's full trust. Gimingham had also been
present at some of the D. D. Home sances, and may
have been at other sances but not named.
It is not needed to go into all this detail on here, but
Wiley has uncovered many "clues" that Gimingham
helped Anna Eva Fay on the Crookes experiments.
Again this information can be found in the book The
Thought Reader Craze: Victorian Science at the
Enchanted Boundary. Fay later confessed to fraud.
So if Gimingham had already committed fraud with

Anna Eva Fay, then it is likely that he would of done
the same with Home. The accomplice theory has much
going for it in my view. Gimingham is certainly a
PM.
20th August 2013, 01:11 PM #64

DoomMetal Here is an interesting comment from Frank Podmore,
Guest which mostly backs up what I have been saying;
Join Date: Apr 2013 Quote:

Posts: 167 All that is described here is consistent with the
supposition that the accordion never played at all,
but that the sounds heard proceeded from an automatic
instrument concealed about Home's person, actuated by
pressure. There is evidence that Madame Blavatsky
used an instrument of this kind to produce her "astral
bells."
I am not aware of any good evidence that the keys

were ever seen to move ; and any conjurer in a light of
his own choosing could make the instrument contract
and expand, whilst he held it, by a loop of strong
thread. If Home contrived as we see that he did
contrive to put his hand again on the accordion
before it was removed from the cage, there would be no
risk that the attachment which he had presumably fixed
underneath the table to support the accordion would be
detected. The risk was extremely small in
any case.
From his book The Newer Spiritualism.
The main important point is that there was no evidence

the accordion that Home held in his hand played at all.
They keys were not seen at any time to have moved. We
already know the lighting was poor and the entire
experiment was flawed by getting Home to perform the
experiment under a table.
Podmore seemed to believe that Home had used no

accomplice and had moved the accordion with a loop of
thread, and played a music box in his trousers for the
musical sounds. And this view seems to be the majority
view by skeptics, i.e. by Joseph McCabe, Ivor Lloyd
Tuckett and Walter Mann etc. What is suspicious and
gives extra support to this theory is that the songs that
were heard were very specific tunes that are found in
musical boxes.
As I wrote on the previous page it is entirely possible

that Home used a music-box in his trousers which he
activated. Home was not personally searched before or
after the experiment.
Crookes and another observer on either side of Home

each put a foot on one of Home's feet, but this control is
not acceptable. We know that Eusapia Palladino and
other mediums could escape from this control easily.
PM.
20th August 2013, 03:07 PM #65

DoomMetal Anyone who comes across this thread either from this
Guest forum or an internet search, I am no longer researching
the subject and am quitting this forum. I no longer
Join Date: Apr 2013 research psychical matters as I am very busy in real life
Posts: 167 being a full time field naturalist and have no time for
this psychic research anymore. I have given the subject
up and sold all my books. If anyone wants to add
anything else then feel free, the thread will obviously be
kept open. Drop a message any input welcome! But my
main mission was to debunk D. D. Home and I believe
I have done that. I have spent countless hours digging
up old sources and skeptical material. The claim that
Home was not caught in fraud is false. He was caught
cheating by Frederick Merrifield and a few other sance
sitters on different occasions. You can easily find this
information online if you look but the spiritualists
ignore these exposures.
I have included links to some of the books, so make

sure to check them out if you want to research the
subject any deeper, it was not possible for me to have
quoted all content inside these books. They are filled
with extremely valuable material. The best ones in my
opinion dealing with the fraud of Home are the books
by Joseph McCabe, Edward Clodd, Walter Mann and
Ivor Lloyd Tuckett and for some more recent stuff
Gordon Stein and Barry Wiley (A small list is on the
previous page). Books by magicians have also been
very useful such as the ones by Henry Evans, Harry
Houdini, Julien Proskauer and one of my favourite
magicians Chung Ling Soo. Lastly the books by
psychical researchers such as Frank Podmore, Ronald
Pearsall and Trevor H. Hall have been useful.
There will always be gullible psi believers and

spiritualists who will continue to lie and claim Home
performed miracles and supernatural feats. But if you
spend the time reading what I documented on this
thread and honestly searching and reading all the
material and reports, then you will see that his supposed
miracles and supernatural feats never happened. Over
the years there have been many lies and distortions
spread about by gullible believers who have turned
Home into some sort of God. Well Home was no God!
I have exposed in detail how Home never levitated,

how the accordion trick could have easily been
performed, how Crookes' reports were entirely
unreliable and how he lied and omitted pieces of
information. I have revealed contradictions in other
reports cited by believers and the dishonesty of psi
PM. Reason: Bye all

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Daniel Douglas Home (1833 1886) was a famous medium and

I am sure most of you have probably heard of him.

So what I really want to talk about in this thread, is not Home's

As you may know William Crookes was a convinced spiritualist

Firstly the experiments were rather strange they consisted of

According to Crookes' report this experiment consisted of:

Crookes published his reports in the Quarterly Journal of

Problems with the experiments

1. The experiments took place in Crookes's self built laboratory

2. Home was not personally searched before the experiments

3. In the experiments Home refused for Crookes to sit near him

4. Contrary to what spiritualists have written the experiments

5. Crookes' report deliberately left out who was present in the

6. According to reports of the experiment Home would draw

7. Crookes admitted that Home and himself had "tested" similar

9. Home largely directed the proceedings of the experiments,

10. The experiments were never repeated.

Questions to people on this forum

Home is supposed to be the "great" of spiritualism, and the

Please comment if you are interested in this subject.

Peter Lamont. (2005). The First Psychic: The Extraordinary

Ruth Brandon. (1983). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the

Frank Podmore (1910). The Newer Spiritualism.

Milbourne Christopher. (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics.

Ronald Pearsall. (1972) Table-rappers: The Victorians and the

Nicola Bown, Carolyn Burdett and Pamela Thurschwell. (2009).

William Hodson Brock. (2008). William Crookes (1832-1919)

Also note that James Randi wrote a foreword to Gordon Stein.

Last edited by DoomMetal; 3rd May 2013 at 05:44 PM.

3rd May 2013, 06:42 PM #2

4th May 2013, 05:46 AM #3

4th May 2013, 08:43 AM #4

The accordian trick, iirc, was really a couple of simple

As for the rest, I don't remember, and my books are all

He and his supporters made a huge deal out of his never

I also recall that a rich lady adopted him, and later

As to the "never caught in fraud" I've read, I believe from

Nice thread! I'm sorry that for the moment my contribution

Last edited by Minarvia; 4th May 2013 at 08:50 AM.

4th May 2013, 05:26 PM #5

The thing is the Crookes report is unreliable so it is hard to

The hand under the table of Home was not observed,

The harmonica was never found among his possessions.

It is possible that Home used a small music box under the

Before the accordion feat in the Crookes experiments,

Last edited by DoomMetal; 4th May 2013 at 05:28 PM.

5th May 2013, 10:32 AM #6

As for the harmonicas being found or not found, I don't

If someone had a great deal of experience, he could hide

Of course the elaborate cages and other frippery used in the

You bring up great points, DoomMetal. I now want to dig

Last edited by Minarvia; 5th May 2013 at 10:37 AM.

5th May 2013, 03:03 PM #7

The experiments took part in Crookes home built lab in the

8th May 2013, 05:46 AM #8

8th May 2013, 05:24 PM #9

I wonder why someone didn't just firmly hold his hands or

9th May 2013, 07:21 AM #10

Another thing, after the experiments a rumour was spread

Regarding Harry Price he is disliked by the spiritualists

Price debunked the mediums Helen Duncan and Rudi

12th May 2013, 04:29 AM #11

13th May 2013, 12:50 PM #12