Michael Prescott's Blog

I don’t think that it is all that uncommon for family members to destroy the papers of their loved one after his or her death; three come to mind. Carl Jung’s daughter (I think it was his daughter) destroyed Jung’s papers that concerned his interests and thoughts on esoteric ideas related to parapsychology. Mark Twain’s daughter took legal action against Emily Hutchings for claiming that Twain had dictated from the spirit world a novel called Jap Herron. And, I think the family of Casper S. Yost tried to hush up his involvement with the Patience Worth affair. The few Web articles about Casper Yost included nothing about his role (a major one) in publicizing the work of Patience Worth and a great granddaughter of his commented to me that she knew nothing about ‘that side of the family’. It doesn’t surprise me that family members would take what they would see as protective action to keep the reputation and memory of the loved one within mainstream thought.

Michael,
In Crookes book “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism”, published in 1874. Crookes writes on page 17:
“Since this article was in type, the Author has been favoured with the following letters from Dr. Huggins and Mr. Sergeant Cox—the Dr. A. B. and Sergeant C. D. therein referred”.
Dr. A. B. has to be Huggins but there is no mention of Huggins in his notes from 1889. This is deeply confusing.
Modern day believers like Stephen E. Braude who have written on Home, have never covered any of this. It is only myself who finds all this loop holes and problems because I look at it in depth. There is not just a simple experiment here. The notes do not match up to Crookes original report and there is contradictory information about what happened and which sitters were present.
If you compare the notes to the original report there are many differences such as Home’s alleged spirit voice declaring ”all hands off the table”, this is not mentioned in his report because it is not scientific (It was Home who was directing the experiment and not the other way around). Home was in control. Yet if you read Crookes’ original report from 1871 this is not mentioned.
What difference does it make that he published these notes in 1889, a lot I think, I already showed you in the original report there is no mention the keys were depressed, but 18 years later he claims they are. We are never going to know the full truth but what I have described is very suspicious. Why wait 18 years to publish these notes? If you want to know what I think then there is fiddling going on. None of it adds up.
As for the chemical assistant. According to magic historian Barry Wiley he was a secret accomplice to Anna Eva Fay. Apparently he is unreliable. The way to do this is to email historians or magicians and see what they think about all of this. Like myself Wiley also thinks Crookes altered the events of the 1871 experiment with Home, as the events are different in his notes published in 1889.

“Daniel Loxton a famous skeptic recently directed me to a book by Ivor Tuckett that makes that point clear:”
That’s it! Our Bill is a Skeptic groupie! And he’s here firing bullets for his idols – who presumably haven’t the balls to come and speak up for themselves. Well, he’s certainly making a mockery of them – along with himself. 🙂
Anyway, you might be pleased to know that this is my last posting here concerning anything Bill-related. I am well-and-truly at the end of my tether with his balderdash.

Very persuasive, Michael
About ten years ago I reached the point when I realised that there is no doubt that the phenomena you have analysed and discussed over the years are real. There really is life after death and life before birth, at least one other dimension ( and possibly many more) and the universe is probably much more mysterious than we can even imagine.
This is not advice to you, you don’t need any, more to the contributors to your blog.
It’s just a suggestion but arguing with sceptics is a waste of energy and time, you can’t win, one cannot reason with people like Bill (on here) who may be a perfectly nice person. I used to but I hardly bother at all now. In the end, everyone will know for themselves and in the meantime you feel happier and one’s blood pressure stays much lower.

“All that’s left is lying, which is why Bill is so eager to call Crookes a liar for not mentioning the family members who sat in on some of the seances.”
But how can you even suggest such a thing? Bill objects strongly ad hominem attack and has said so, publicly, over on Robert’s blog!
“And while I can’t speak for others, I haven’t felt my blood pressure going up. Bill is polite and civil, and he raises points that are worth addressing. I’ve found the conversation quite interesting.”
He has, as you’ve pointed out, ignored clarifications that you have made and repeated his false assertions, Michael.
That aside, it might be that one of the reasons why your blood pressure hasn’t risen is because everyone else’s has more-than adequately expressed irritation for you and, thereby, absolved your blood pressure of the need to rise, old chap. 🙂

“I understand that continued discussion is unlikely to change Bill’s mind (or, for that matter, mine), but I disagree that it’s pointless. I’ve learned much more about the Home sittings than I knew before.”
I was thinking the same thing. For me, it’s been a reminder of how totally unexplainable those events were.

Michael: Thank you for providing this superb forum. Being a writer, you already spend long, likely oft-tedious hours in front of the keyboard. To spend yet even more time pro bono to keep this blog alive and thriving is laudable, indeed! This is a great service you are performing, and I deeply appreciate it.

I have direct experience of the overwhelming power of the will to disbelieve…and the persuasive nature of those who possess it.
Several years ago on a train I was confronted with an irresistible photo opportunity. The woman sitting directly in front of me was engrossed in reading her newspaper, which she held in front of her chest. She was completely oblivious to the view from my side…which was of a large pair of bikini clad breasts. I sneaked the photo, posted on my facebook a couple of times and once on the forums of an unrelated website. Since when it escaped into the wilds ofthe internet and has apparently appeared on many “funny photo” sites. Here it is..
https://scontent.fman1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/44504_489918498571_2573139_n.jpg?oh=33f3d7a405ccebd0122b5963b79c89ae&oe=56F343B3
Here’s the things of interest: each time I posted it someone, always, would question if it was real or indeed declare that it was not. Presumably on a “its too good to be true” basis.
On the other website I mentioned this suspicion took an interesting turn when someone affected technical knowledge and “pointed out” an alleged (and entirely imaginary, given the photo is real) anomaly in the colour of some pixels giving away my fraudulent behaviour! This pretence of expertise was enough for other people to immediately accept and to cheerfully taunt me for having been caught out. Nice try, I was told.
It was really quite bizarre and utterly fascinating. If we throw in the fact I do indeed have a history of playing around on photoshop who would bother to doubt the fake nature of the image any longer?
It occurred to me then how powerful disbelief is and impossible to argue with once it takes hold, however idiotic it may be. More than that how people can convince themselves and others by the simple use of semi technical language…how many images of ghosts or ufos have been confined to the hoax bin by the same process? What if my image had indeed been of a ghost? Who, but believers, would ever accept it? Truth, when undesired, can provide no proof.

Understanding Home, or any paranormal phenomena for that matter is less a scientific problem than a historical one. Paradoxically, the reason one can legitimately be skeptical of Home…i.e. no one else can do what he did under the same conditions today…is the same as why his case is extraordinary. Were he a conjuror one should reasonably expect some degree of replication among today’s magicians…and that is not the case.
Lamont framed the problem well…were he convinced today that a table could levitate under unnatural means…he would have no problem in believing Home was legitimate. However, to rely solely on Home’s evidence to believe that is the case is more difficult given the remoteness in time and space.
Given that this is a historical rather than scientific problem, in my opinion, means that historical “fact” or a good approximation to it is important. If someone is relying on erroneous sources (and Ivor Tuckett’s book is one prime example) no serious debate can occur.

I haven’t had time to read all the comments, so my apologies if this has already been addressed. David R. asked “Cui Bono?” relative to all the seemingly meaningless phenomena. Judge John Edmonds also asked this question in 1852 and the answer he got through the trance mediumship of Dr. George T. Dexter from a spirit claiming to be Francis Bacon was:
“What, indeed, is the object of this new revelation? It is certain that a mere belief in the upside-down tipping of a table can be of no vital benefit to any individual or to his race. Tables may be moved and raps may be heard, but these evidences of a power not materially existing in this world can satisfy no thinking man if there were not something beyond all this worthy of being understood. Now, what is this? It is that man has not been taught his true relation even to the life he now enjoys, or his connection with that other state of existence beyond the grave. Educated after the fashion of some one sect, men imbibe certain notions characterizing that sect, which are not absolute revelations from God, or even predicated on his laws, but are the positive creations of mind materially influenced, and thus do not in the least exemplify the design of our existence or the purpose of death. If the laws of God had not been instituted for a purpose as important as his character is omnipotent, there probably would have been some different manifestation of life than that which now gives significancy to the whole material creation. But death was just as much an object following life, as was the gift or establishment of life itself. Therefore, death was to be understood, or, at least, should be, for one great idea belonging to death has scarcely been apprehended, or, in fact, appreciated. Death is the continuance-life; it is life without the restraints imposed upon it by the limits of a single planet. Now, though it is important that the designs of life should be investigated and understood, it certainly is of as much importance that that life in its continuance should be perfectly appreciated, for the one is of short duration, and the other is for eternity. This, then, is the object of spirit-communication, and it behooves all believers to understand what they believe, that when satisfied themselves they may be able to satisfy others.” – Bacon
Concerning Bill’s question about naming all the sitters, I can’t give the reference without digging, which I don’t have time for, especially since Bill’s mind is made up, but I do recall Crookes stating that many of the sitters, some of them being men of science, insisted that they not be named as they didn’t want their peers to know they were interested in such matters. Of course, the A.R. Wallace named is Alfred Russel Wallace, co-originator with Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution. He had no reservations about being so named.
In “Crookes and the Spirit World,” R. G. Medhurst provides details of all 29 or 30 sittings, each one prefaced by those present, but apparently not listing those who requested anonymity.

One of the most skilled psi critics ever is Dr. Ray Hyman.
He is a magician, a statistician and an accomplished academician (Professor Emeritus at University of Oregon). He is long-time major figure in CSICOP. He was hired by the Department of Defense to scrutinize psi research done at the Stanford Research Institute. He also served as chair of the parapsychology subcommittee of the National Research Council (NRC) study for the U.S. Army on enhancing human performance.
It takes very strong evidence for Dr. Hyman to concede that a psi event may have occurred. He very seldom makes that concession.
In this book The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research, Hyman had this to say about D.D. Home:

“It is true that no one who has studied the reports of seances by Home or Crookes’s accounts of his tests on this medium has come up with plausible ways he could have cheated” (p. 286).

Bill, if you have potentially plausible ways Home could’ve cheated, you will have a most interested audience in the estimable Ray Hyman.

In addition to what has already been said already (all good points), there is another very good reason why physical mediumship is not very common these days. And, I feel that this is THE major one.
Forget the idea that PM can be developed at the drop of a hat. Mental mediumship takes years to develop in circle, even if someone is naturally gifted. But running a circle for the development of PM is radically different (in too many ways to list here) from running a circle for ‘clairvoyance’ etc.
Nobody who has not sat in a physical development circle that is run along traditional Spiritualist lines can appreciate the extreme length of time and effort that it usually takes for phenomena to develop – from simple raps and table-tilting (that can sometimes occur early on) to the more advanced stuff. It can take years of sitting at the exactly same time every week, with exactly the same people – often for months on end, in the dark, or under red (or blue) light, waiting for phenomena to even start. Once they do (assuming there is reason to deem them genuine), then they are likely to develop through distinct stages over a number of years. The lives of the regular sitters are planned around circle meetings. There is only one break in activity for a few weeks once a year, during which everyone takes their annual family holiday at the same time. Only sickness, or genuine family emergencies, are considered to be a good enough reasons for absence from the regular circle meetings. That is the ideal, anyway.
It is worth remembering that, at the end of the day, if such a group is successful at all, then inviting outsiders in to witness the proceedings is a huge step. Without expanding on the reasons for that (it shouldn’t take much imagination to work out what they are), that is why most physical circles remain private, to all intents and purposes. Going public is certain to cause no end of hassle at some point.
I interviewed a friend of the late UK medium Isa Northage (who was still active as late as the 1970s) a couple of years ago, before reviewing Northage’s biography, ‘A Path Prepared’, for the ‘Journal of the Society for Psychical Research’. This elderly gentleman told me that before the Second World War, people used to work a full day in the coal mines, or farms, of North East England (where Northage hailed from), and then walk miles to sit in circle (in all weathers) – and miles back afterwards.
Most people will not broach anywhere near that level of dedication these days. There are too many unavoidable distractions inherent in modern life. I managed to attend such a circle for about six years during the 1990’s and it was very hard going at times. Some of the phenomena were so extreme (including – as reported with Home – the whole room vibrating, to order), that you would have to be a genuinely ‘a cream bun short of a picnic’ to have thought them fraudulent if you’d have actually been there. But, most of the time, the effects could have been achieved normally with relative ease. Indeed I know that some were – even in a private circle, someone was caught cheating. One must always be on the lookout for misbehaviour so it can be nipped in the bud at an early stage – another major hassle.
When Barrie Colvin and myself had the idea of starting an experimental circle a couple of years back, specifically for research purposes – using unobtrusive modern technology to control conditions and document events from the start, I couldn’t find anyone who was prepared to drive even a short distance regularly to attend. That was despite the fact that plenty of people expressed enthusiasm – at first. One of the established Spiritualist organisations in London asked me for advice on how to form a physical circle last year, and considerations such as the forgoing have meant that the matter never got beyond the discussion stage.
Naturally there are exceptions, perhaps, where phenomena develop more quickly (or were evident around an individual beforehand); though if that happens, they usually reach a plateau at some point where they do not develop further for a considerable time. Sure, there do appear to be very rare exceptions, such as Home – and a few others, maybe. But, frankly, I would be a bit suspicious of any group, or individual, who claimed to have developed, say, independent direct voice, or full form materialisation after a just a few months.
In fact being actually involved with Physical mediumship is rich with potential hassle and ‘egg on face’ situations for everyone, even Skeptics. That is probably why when I asked Richard Wiseman (yes folks, he too was a member of the Noah’s Ark Society) why he did not avail himself of the opportunity to sit with either Stewart Alexander, or Colin Fry, he told me that he did not have the time. He was perfectly content to use the Society’s infrared filming equipment to document his fake séances to show how some of the simpler phenomena could be faked (he did, but not very well, see my report in NAS Newsletter June 1996). But actually witnessing the ‘real deal’, especially as a normal sitter, in front of witnesses could have injected a major element of professional risk into his life.
That is why, and I do not mean this in a disparaging way, the debate about PM these days tends to involve mainly people who have not actually witnessed it, and from an appropriately (and unavoidable, in many ways) safe distance.
It is also why the ethos of the NAS went, basically, something like this: ‘If you want to actually witness this stuff and conduct research into it, then form your own circle and do the hard work yourself. If you want to film it, then film away to your heart’s content in your own situation. Up to you folks – we’ll advise you on how to get going, and you can take from there’.

Doug raises an interesting question about the historical problem of gauging the reality of past events. I’d like to draw your attention to the “Moon Mania” of the 60’s and early 70’s. Back when the entire computing power at NASA’s disposal was less potent than a single smartphone; America was caught up in the costly craze of sending men to the moon. How is it that this feat, easily possible with today’s technology, hasn’t been replicated in 45 years? Though we’ve sent probes to all the planets since, our nearest neighbor hasn’t seen another human visitor.
Perhaps manned mooned landings were just a passing fad, a kind of global hallucination not possible in today’s world of down to earth realism. After all, walking on the moon is much more fantastic than levitating parlor furniture. And, what a pleasant dream it was huddling by the fuzzy black and white image on the TV set as Neil Armstrong took one small step. In the interest of preserving cherished boyhood memories, I will suppress this momentary bout of skepticism and believe again in the impossible.

Regarding sitters with Crookes’…it is not generally known that the anthropologist E.B. Tylor actually had a sitting with Home and Crookes in 1872. He noted it in his journal. Tylor had previously criticized Spiritualism in print, including in his penultimate work Primitive Culture. In fact, in a debate with Wallace he questioned whether Home was a “werewolf”…in the sense that perhaps he was a master mesmerist.
Crookes deemed the sitting a ‘failure’ but there were several phenomena noted that Tylor was completely puzzled by and couldn’t explain. He was intrigued enough to continue holding sittings with other Spiritualist mediums, including the Kate Fox, through the following year. He noted other things that were difficult to explain but also found the subject frustrating and ultimately distanced himself from it. Nonetheless, it’s a rare instance of a critic actually taking the time to participate in this unusual field and he deserves some credit for it.

Dear Steve,
Thank you for this very detailed insight into the PM ‘scene’. I agree that people just don’t have the dedication to physical mediumship that they may have had in the past. There’s too much going on. If PM was rare before, it’s practically non-existent now, but not for the reasons the skeptics cite.
Imagine someone’s phone bleeping with a status update in the middle of a PM development circle…

My pleasure, Douglas
Actually, at a well run circle, that would not happen.
You would be required to switch your mobile off and leave it outside the séance room. Sitters are also required to remove all jewellery, empty their pockets of anything that might make a distracting noise (car keys, loose change etc.); wearing perfume or aftershave is banned (so people don’t get confused and think they’re smelling spirit ‘scents’); no metal belt buckles, or jeans with brass studs (metal is alleged to sometimes get hot during séances – can’t say I noticed that), matches, lighters – the list goes on and on.
At the big seminar séances for the wider Noah’s Ark Society membership, with the more advanced mediums (only Stuart Alexander or Colin Fry), up to around 80 sitters would be searched before being allowed into the séance room.
Of course, armchair critics, would leap on that as being prima facie suspicious. I can’t say I’d blame them, to be honest. It’s obvious that a fraudulent medium would not want anyone sneaking a torch in (or a small night vision viewer). But, really, if genuine mediumship is assumed (for the sake of argument), most of those banned objects make perfect sense, according to Spiritualist tradition about how to conduct PM safely – especially taking into account the belief that, say, ectoplasm can become ‘infected’ with small, sharp, foreign objects, or will whip back into the medium instantaneously if white light is introduced suddenly, without warning to cause injury – burns, internal bleeding etc.
It’s that last one that is the most problematic for even the neutral researcher, and it is an absolute gift for the hostile critic. The reasons for that are obvious, so I won’t elaborate. The burning question is, is there any truth in it? Unfortunately, I can’t think of a documented example of such injuries occurring (that would be deemed ‘independent’ by the most critical). Not off the top of my head, anyway.
For now there are only two things I’d say about that.
Firstly, it would be interesting to perform a statistical analysis of mortality rates, in terms of age of death, amongst physical mediums (or alleged physical mediums). Because, at least to modern eyes, the ‘greats’ of yesteryear rarely seemed to die old: Home, Jack Webber, the Fox sisters (OK – booze might have been the deciding factor there), Helen Duncan, Rudi Schneider, Florence Cook, Indridi Indridason, Arnold Clare (?), Stainton Moses. Those are just a few pulled out of the air at random. Did any of them make it to sixty? Colin Fry (a modern example) certainly didn’t. It is a relative struggle to think of physical mediums who lived to a good age: Palladino (but she didn’t make 70) Leslie Flint (but he eschewed materialisation because it made him feel dire), Isa Northage, William Eglington, Alec Harris – er?
One would have to compare the ages at death to the average life expectancy (for their class) during the relevant era. Caution would be warranted because, for example, one would have to say that, from the Victorian era, the SPR founders didn’t prove to be that durable either, did they?
But secondly, I would have to say that one of my most abiding memories of my days as a sitter concerns the crushing fatigue that I would be afflicted by the day after a circle meeting, for at least the first year. This was so severe, that I would go the lengths of avoiding planning anything too demanding on Wednesdays, as we always used to sit on Tuesday evenings. We all remarked on this, because there was a warning about it in the NAS guidance for sitters document. Even my ex-wife was affected on the rare occasions that she attended. I remember that I was particularly sceptical that it would happen. But it did, and no counter measure (chi qong, and other breathing and ‘grounding’ exercises, improving my diet, getting more sleep, persuading myself that it I was only imagining it etc.), made a damned bit of difference. The effect just seemed to disappear after about a year – until I started sitting with Fry (on quite a few occasions), and then it came back for a bit – only on the day after a séance. And the mediums always seemed to be distinctly the worst for wear for quite a while after coming out of trance. Fry, in particular, had to be helped out of the room after being cut out of his chair. And it didn’t look to me like he was putting it on.
So, I certainly wouldn’t be so bold as to reject Spiritualist claims along those lines out of hand.
So, what is the answer? Filming?. The subject caused very heated factionalised controversy within the NAS. I had a conversation with a very cross Arthur Ellison about the infrared business, at around the time that the Scole project was in progress, about Spiritualists refusing infrared filming because of the alleged ‘dangers’ involved. I’d tend to side with Arthur on that one. As he pointed out then, and someone else here has mentioned (or alluded to), the radiation emitted by the infrared source needed to film, would be less than that coming from the central heating radiators in the average séance room. As Arthur said at the time ‘During the winter, they don’t all sit there freezing to death, do they?’ And, in any case, there’s also thermal imaging.
I think the buck for modern physical mediumship (such as it is), in my view, could stop somewhere around there, at least for non-Spiritualists. It is true that many would still doubt the authenticity of filming, even if it was carried out by reputable researchers in combination with other controls. Bill is probably salivating at the prospect of pointing out that so and so said it was fraudulent, therefore it is. But I feel that undue consideration should not be given to that.

Loes, “They spend an awful lot of time to refine their art. How come they have so little respect for their own trade that the accuse every medium or psychic of doing the same? That sounds ridiculous. A good example was the Russian Nina Kalugina and her telekinetic abilities. A sweating fat housewive doing the tricks an accomplished magician would have a hard time to replicate, if at all?”
Exactly! Where did all these mediums learn advanced magic tricks? How come they are not known to all the stage magician guilds?

We also have to note that these historical investigations will never be conclusive. Not only we do not know if the strange phenomena of Home were real, but neither do we know what implications have these phenomena if they were real, because Home believed that these phenomena were the work of spirits of the deceased, but no strange phenomenon from Home allows us to infer that conclusion because we have to show the personal identity of someone deceased so that we have evidence for the afterlife, which did not occur in these phenomena.

“And the reason is atheism/materialism, a pillar of which is suppressing any contrary evidence. Take away that pillar, and materialism collapses, and people can once again feel “free” to explore for themselves whether the Afterlife exists.”
You think that removed materialism, psi and afterlife evidence is accepted. I think it’s the other way around: materialism can not be eliminated without more, but accepting the evidence of psi and the afterlife and showing that these evidence is not as weak as some believe, materialism may be removed.

“Exactly! Where did all these mediums learn advanced magic tricks? How come they are not known to all the stage magician guilds?”
They took them from old literature. The book “Behind the Scenes with the Mediums” by a magician named David Abbott listed absolutely every trick in the book. Spiritualists brought this and replicated the tricks. Two mediums who brought this book were Mina Crandon and probably the most notorious medium in spiritualist history William Roy. Mediums basically took their feats from magicians but unlike magicians didn’t admit to their deceptions and made much more money.
There is evidence that Home himself was familiar with the magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Home even refused for Houdin to attend his séances or ‘levitate’ in front of him. I suspect this is because Home took some of his ‘feats’ from Houdin.
Home was fluent in French so he would have read the books by Houdin. It is not widely known that his book “Incidents in my Life” (1864) was actually written in French a year before it was published in English. I just learnt that today 🙂

Here is an online version of the book “Behind the Scenes with the Mediums” by David Abbott.
https://archive.org/details/b00ehindsceneswithabborich

Juan wrote,
||You think that removed materialism, psi and afterlife evidence is accepted. I think it’s the other way around: materialism can not be eliminated without more, but accepting the evidence of psi and the afterlife and showing that these evidence is not as weak as some believe, materialism may be removed.||
I basically agree with what you say here; I’ve just been putting it in another way. There is evidence for psi and the Afterlife that contradicts materialist dogma. Once that evidence is accepted *in any substantial degree* by the media, scientific elite, etc., then materialism is no longer tenable. The whole edifice falls down. Once that edifice falls, then people can begin to build *belief systems* that incorporate the suppressed evidence.
Perhaps where we differ is that I don’t think a lot of people forming belief systems that vary with materialism will defeat materialism, since there is disagreement over the phenomena (suppression, really), and our opponents can simply say that we are deluded and deny, deny, deny. We are seen and portrayed as people who hold to a belief system for the same reasons that religious people do, no matter how many facts we may have on our side.

Here’s another book about trickery by mediums, written by Edward Lunt, published in 1903.
It is entitled Mysteries of the Seance and Tricks and Traps of Bogus Mediums: A Plea for Honest Mediums and Clean Work.
In the book’s opening commentary, the author bemoans the great amount of fraud that polluted the credibility of the Spiritualist movement of the time. He gives his considered opinion that examples of true paranormality could be found, but were comparatively scarce compared to the huge number of bogus presentations.
Lunt’s goal was to teach the sincere seeker how to spot fakes and sincerely misguided Spiritualist practitioners.
From the book’s introduction:

“It is not a pleasant task to write regarding the faults or misdoings of our fellow-mortals, but there are times when it becomes a necessity, in order that the public in general, and our friends and acquaintances in particular, may be protected from the rascality and greed of conscienceless scoundrels. It is a fact well known to the brainiest men and leaders of the movement, that Spiritualism is to-day carrying an immense load of fraud and rascality. They know that a large proportion of so-called mediums who are posing as demonstrators of ‘spirit return’ are dishonest in their work, and use more or less of deception. This is true, not only of ‘phenomenal’ mediums, but also of those whose specialty is the mental phase, or ‘test’ mediumship, as we shall show in these pages.
“The writer of this has been a ‘confirmed’ Spiritualist for many years, and has passed through all the various stages of investigation, credulity and skepticism usually experienced by converts to the Spiritualistic philosophy. He has investigated carefully and without prejudice every phase of mediumship presented by professed mediums from Maine to California, and is as firmly convinced as a mortal can be from the evidence of his five senses, supplemented by intuition and a fair supply of common sense, that death (so-called) does not end all, and that the spirit or immortal exceedingly rare, and entirely beyond the control of any medium. To show how the counterfeit presentments of these phenomenal manifestations are produced, in order that Spiritualists may be able to detect and expose them, is one of the objects of this book; and to defend and assist the honest mediums of our land, and of the whole world, in fact, is another object.”

Most of the book covers how the fraud is perpetrated.
Regarding D. D. Home, again, as was the case with Abbott’s book (mentioned earlier in this thread), I do not see how the techniques of cheating described by Lunt can apply to Home’s alleged feats, as described by Crookes.
I remain on the lookout for a book describing illusionist techniques that can explain Homes’ purported abilities.
Again, as with Abbott’s book, time constraints have prevented me from “fine tooth combing” Lunt’s book. I was only able to give it a deep skimming. Please correct me if I missed an area that could potentially explain D. D. Home’s supposed psi activities, as reported by Crookes. I saw nothing that was edging in that direction.
Here’s a link to the book. I found the “flowing text” setting to be more readable than the “original pages” setting.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1x0qAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks

PS – I’ve just realized that Bill did not endorse the harmonica in the moustache theory. So, apologies, Bill.
This has been a long couple of threads!

There are many examples of the accordion moving, floating and playing during a séance with Home. What is the explanation for the accordion ‘trick’ when Home was neither touching it nor close to it? For example Madame la Comtesse Caterina Luganodi di Panigai is quoted in “Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism” that at a seance with Home in a lighted room:
“An accordeon lay on the table. It did not belong to Mr. Home, but had been brought by one of the guests present. Mr. Home now desired me to take this instrument in one hand, that it might be seen whether the spirits could play upon it. Hardly had I touched the accordeon when it began to move; the sweet, long-drawn sounds issued from it; and finally a military air was played, while I held the instrument, and could see that no other person touched it.”
Granted this was quoted by Home in his book but he did name the person he quoted and I suppose that if the quote was false, the Madame would have been free to correct it.- AOD