Daniel Dunglas Home
They included monarchs, dukes, duchesses, society hostesses and scholarly men. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for instance, who was, his/her host both at his/her Park Lane mansion and at his/her stately home at Kenilworth, ultimately acknowledged ‘the extraordinary phenomena which are elicited by his/her powers’.
Daniel Dunglas Home
Among the most well-known sitters at his/her séances were the poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Robert Browning loathed Home and gave vent to his/her sentiments in a satirical pen portrait called Mr Sludge the Medium. Could it have been sheer jealousy? His wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, worshipped Home and remained his/her staunch ally to the end of her/his life. At 1 séance Home produced a garland of flowers from the atmosphere and laid it on the table, where a spirit hand took it up and placed it like a wreath of honour on Elizabeth’s head. ‘The hand was of the largest human size, white as snow and really beautiful,’ she/he told a friend later. ‘It was as near to me as this hand I write with, and I saw it distinctly’. ..I was perfectly calm.’ Lionized in drawing room and royal court alike, Home continued to create extraordinary phenomena which even his/her worst enemies Charles Dickens also detested him failed to explain. His life was’ full of traumatic scenes as various jealous hostesses fought to keep the handsome medium to themselves. He had a triumphant progress through Europe, after that all of a sudden in Italy, towards the end of 1857, announced dramatically that his/her mediumistic powers were about to leave him. He had been ill with tuberculosis, but on recovering went to recuperate at the home of an attractive Englishwoman who had separated from her/his husband. Although there was not the slightest hint of a sexual relationship, Home was riddled with guilt about the association and thought his/her spirit manuals and controls had left him cause (because) he had behaved improperly.
Fanny Trollope, the well-known Victoriantraveller who had been supporting Home over this period, demanded he leave the woman at once, and when he refused she/he withdrew her/his financial support. Throughout the whole business in Italy Home felt that his/her invisible masters were trying to teach him a lesson. He was truthful quite quite enough to acknowledge his/her own snobbery, love of finery and vanity. Remorseful, he joined the Roman Catholic Church and his/her confessor, Father Ravignon, became his/her close friend. Ravignon had secret hopes of persuading Home not to return to his/her activities as a medium, which the priest regarded as next door to witchcraft. However on the morning of February 11, 1857, the Emperor Napoleon III sent the Marquis de Belmont to ask whether M. Home had recovered his/her occult powers.
Home sent back the answer ‘Yes.’ No 1 was more delighted to see the medium return to his/her old form than the Empress Eugenie, who had complete belief in him. Home had predicted that his/her psychic power would leave him for a period of twelve months and he was right, to the really day. At the 1st seance he gave after his/her return there was almost a fight to get a seat. Home protested that the salon at Count Alexander de Komar’s house in the Tuileries – was far too crowded. He wanted only a small circle present. The Empress, fast to take offence, flew into a temper and swept out. Within less than an hour, however, the salon had been cleared and Eugenie returned to watch surprised as Home produced his/her repertoire of phenomena for the French audience as brilliantly as ever with spirit hands, vapours, tinkling chandeliers, moving furniture and levitation.
People usually arrived assuming that his/her seartces would be, as most others were, conducted in near total darkness, as Brian Inglis points out in his/her History of the Paranormal. However Home’s sittings were held in light good quite quite enough for his/her every action to be observed. Those who attended were usually sophisticated people, not very easily duped. ‘-It was this combination the calibre of the witnesses and the fact that they could see what was happening throughout the seances -that put Home in a completely different league from most mediums of the time.’ Inglis felt that Home had somehow rediscovered the ancient abilities that shamans and witch doctors possessed, specialy with regard to his/her capacity to levitate and withstand the effects of fire.
It was during a visit to Rome that Home met seventeen-year-old Sacha de Kroll, younger daughter of General Count de Kroll and a god-daughter of Tsar Nicholas. It was love at 1st sight. They sat next to each other at a supper party. ‘Mr Home, you will be married b4 (before) the year is ended,’ she/he predicted to his/her amusement. She explained there was an old Russian superstition that this would happen if a man was seated, as Home was, between 2 sisters. Twelve days after their meeting, their engagement was announced. 4 months later they were married in St. Petersburg. Home’s best man was French literary giant Alexandre Dumas. Tsar Alexander II gave them both his/her blessing and presented the bride with a magnificent diamond ring. When their son was born twelve months later, his/her birth was, said Home,
accompanied by a number of signs and portents, including brilliant spirit lights and songs of invisible birds.…more…Part-4…