Daniel Home was born near Edinburg, Scotland on March 20, 1833. His parents both came of ancient Scottish families. Through his mother, whose maiden name was McNeill, he was descended from a Highland family in which the inherited Scottish gift of "second-sight" [clairvoyance] had been preserved. Mrs. Home possessed it herself, and while her son was still an infant she had a vision concerning him that found fulfillment more than twenty years later at Fontainebleau.
An aunt, Mrs. McNeill Cook, who had no children of her own, adopted him and his infancy was passed in her care at Portobello. When he was nine years old she and her husband came to America and brought the boy with them. [They settled in the Greenville section of Norwich, Connecticut.] He was a sensitive, delicate child, of a highly nervous temperament and from childhood very frail in health. The aunt was a very strict Wesleyan and when, at thirteen Daniel began to show signs of possessing psychic powers, she did not encourage him in what she thought was a vivid imagination.
He and a young friend had made a pact that which one of them passed away first, would make himself known to the other. One night after retiring, he saw a vision of Edwin, the school chum, who appeared to him in a bright cloud. He told this to his aunt and then remarked that they would soon hear of Edwin's passing. A few days later, they were informed of this event. Four years later he saw his second vision; his mother came to him and told him that four months from that date, she would make her transition. His mother and family had come to America and settled in Waterford, Connecticut, a distance of twelve miles apart. Four months later they received word that his mother had passed away at twelve o'clock, the very hour that he had been given.
From that time on, he became very interested in life beyond death. One night he and his aunt heard loud raps which resumed the next morning. His aunt became very frightened and thought that the boy was possessed by the devil which she thought had possessed the Fox family two years before. When the three ministers that she had asked to come in for exorcism failed to stop the rapping, she told the boy that he would have to leave her home. Daniel Home never held any resentment against his aunt for this action and she spent her last years in a cottage he had bought for her; he remembered only the kindnesses she had shown him. She passed away in 1876 of a shock caused by the false report of his death.
Leaving his aunt's home, he took temporary refuge in the home of a friend in Willimantic, Connecticut. He made many friends through the strange psychic powers he possessed and they all wanted him to demonstrate these powers for them, not realizing that the young man was not strong enough to sit so often.
From Willimantic, he went to Lebanon and the home of a family by the name of Ely, who lived in the country. The Ely family discouraged him from holding too many seances and from holding them too often. They encouraged him to rest and observe the health laws and he soon began to show the effects of this care. However, this did not last long for he was invited to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Elmer in Springfield, Massachusetts where he held five and six sittings a day. This family held open house and invited all to witness the phenomena of the young man. He also had remarkable healing powers and in view of this, decided to study for the medical profession. However, his own poor health (he had developed lung trouble) was responsible for his dropping these plans.
The intelligence behind the raps had made itself known and the phenomena was investigated first by Professor George Bush, a well- known theologian and Oriental scholar of New York. William Cullen Bryant and Professor Wells of Harvard University, testified in a written statement that they had witnessed the phenomena of Mr. Home and that it was genuinely spiritual in origin. Professors Robert Hare and James Mapes, both famous chemists, and Judge Edmonds of the United States Supreme Court owed much of their conversion to Spiritualism to the phenomena manifested through the organism of D.D. Home.
Materialized luminous hands were soft, warm and lifelike and the sitters were able to hold them for a few moments; if they attempted to hold them longer than permitted by spirit, they dematerialized.
His first levitation took place in the home of an American businessman, Mr. Ward Cheney. He was able to elongate his body by several inches and very frequently his body was levitated to the ceiling on which he made marks. On December 13, 1868, in London, Daniel Home floated out of a third story window and came in through the window of another room.
Music was played on an accordian that Mr. Home held suspended in one hand, his fingers not touching the keys. It was then put in a cage and continued to play even after the cage was electrically charged. Music was even heard when there was no instrument present. The friendship with the Ward Cheney family lasted until Mr. Home passed into spirit.
Mr. Home was a guest many times of the Emperor Napoleon Ill and the Empress Eugenie. The Emperor followed all of the manifestations with interest and was firmly convinced of his sincerity and honesty. At one sitting the Emperor and Empress sat with him at a table when it tilted to a 45 degree angle. A beautiful hand appeared, took a pencil and wrote on a piece of note paper. Then the hand moved to the Emperor who kissed it; from him it moved to the Empress who, with a little urging from him, also kissed it and then it disappeared. The name Napoleon was on the paper in the handwriting of Napoleon I. On another occasion the Empress was able to tell by the defect in one of the fingers that a materialized hand was that of her late father.
The Empress offered to take Mr. Home's sister under her protection and educate her at her expense; Mr. Home took advantage of this offer and returned to America for his sister. Upon his return, the King of Bavaria was a guest at a seance. His psychic power was at its height at that time and the members of royalty for whom he sat, recorded the seances in a book and had it privately printed.
In Rome in 1858, he married Alexandrina deKroll, sister-in-law to a count and from this marriage a son was born. She passed to spirit in 1862.
During 1867 and 1869 Lord Adare, the son of the Earl of Dunraven, spent most of that period with Daniel Home and recorded the manifestations. He was absolutely convinced of the genuineness of the phenomena and his records were contained in his "Experiences in Spiritualism with D.D. Home," printed in 1869.
In 1871, Sir William Crookes, the English chemist and physicist began his experiments with Mr. Home. He learned to know him very well and formed a very high opinion of his character. He devised a series of experimental tests in order to get exact and scientific proofs of the phenomena and also to explain the power by means of which they were produced. He used the term "psychic force" to describe this power. He explained this force as a new kind of force, entirely unknown to science, but operating somewhat in the same nature as electricity. It was very closely connected with, if not identical with, the vital or nervous force of the medium, so that in the production of the phenomena, the medium's nervous or vital powers would diminish according to the amount or degree of the phenomena produced. He stated that of all the persons endowed with a powerful development of this psychic force, Mr. Home was the most remarkable.
This was the first time that mediumistic ability had been tested scientifically and it certainly explains why Mr. Home had suffered so many long periods of illness. His powers were so strong that he rarely had to sit in the darkness; objects would start to move as soon as he entered a room and he moved the pans of delicate scales by the sheer power of his will. It could be seen that he had expended too much of this psychic force by sitting too often and for too long a time.
Of one sensational experiment Professor Crookes reported that Mr. Home went to the fire, and after stirring the hot coals with his hand, took out a hot piece nearly as big as an orange and held it in his hand while the flame was flickering over the coal and licking round his fingers. Another time a lath lying on the table suddenly made its way over to Professor Crookes and began to tap out a message against his hand as he began to recite the alphabet. The message was tapped out in Morse code, which the Professor knew.
In October of 1871, he married a wealthy Russian woman in Paris. From that time on, her mission was to care for him and shield him from expending too much of his energy; she devoted herself to caring for him. In the Fall of 1872, he lost a little daughter, who had been born in April. She was buried at St. Germaine and he expressed a wish that he might also be laid there.
Mrs. Home records events in his life and tells of their life together in her book "D.D. Home, His Life and Mission" which was published in 1877. She stated that he possessed untiring kindness, was a devoted husband and father and was a person who could never resist a hardluck story.
The sensational physical phenomena that Mr. Home displayed overshadowed his mediumship as a whole and the public did not see the intellectual side of his work. He was the author of two important books on Spiritualism. The first edition of "Incidents in My Life" was published in 1863 and the second edition in 1872 and "Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism" was published in 1877. This was especially valuable and interesting because it was one of the best historical accounts of the movement up to that time.
He practiced his mediumship for thirty years and not once did he ever take money for demonstrating his talents. Mr. Home passed away in 1886 and was buried at St. Germaine, Inscribed on the stone were the words "To another discerning of spirits."
Cutlip: Audra. Pioneers of Modern Spiritualism. Vol. 3. Indianapolis, IN: N. S. A. C. Publishing Center, 1981. pp. 34-38.
