Because the topic of William Crookes' investigation of D. D. Home has come up in a recent comments thread, I thought I would repost this piece, which was originally published here in November of 2009. I've made a few minor alterations, mainly involving links that no longer work.
----
I came across an interesting factoid in Wikipedia's entry on 19th-century medium Daniel Dunglas Home.
The article first mentions Sir William Crookes's experiments with Home, one of which involved placing an accordion in a wire cage under a dining table. A narrow opening at the top of the cage allowed Home to insert one hand and grasp one end of the instrument. It would be impossible to actually play the accordion in this fashion. Nevertheless, in the course of the experiment, the accordion did play two songs and other scattered notes.
Wikipedia says:
It was reported by sitters and Crookes [that] Home's accordion played only two pieces, Home Sweet Home and The Last Rose of Summer. Both contain only one-octave. Home played his accordion with only one hand beneath a table. James Randi stated that Home was caught cheating on a few occasions, but the episodes were never made public, and that the accordion Home is supposed to have played was a one-octave mouth organ that Home concealed under his large moustache. Randi writes that one-octave mouth organs were found in Home's belongings after his death. According to Randi 'around 1960' William Lindsay Gresham told Randi he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research. Eric Dingwall who catalogued Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR does not record the presence of the mouth organs. It is unlikely Dingwall would have missed these or did not make them public. [The Wiki text has changed slightly since '09, but the gist of this passage is still the same. - MP]
The reference to Eric Dingwall, who was well-known as a scrupulous and conscientious researcher with a decidedly skeptical bent, cites Peter Lamont's 2005 book The First Psychic: The Extraordinary Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard. I haven't read this book and cannot vouch for the accuracy of the citation. If true, it obviously nullifies the hearsay evidence upon which Randi relies.
The summary of Randi's theory is accurate. It comes from his book An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. The full contents of this book were online when this post was first published, and I linked to the relevant page. Now the online edition appears to be gone, or at least nonfunctional (the table of contents is still up, but clicking on the D.D. Home entry brings up an error message).
In any event, Randi writes:
[Home] actually was discovered cheating several times, though these events were not made public.
One of the features of his act was the playing of an accordion which was locked in a cage located beneath the table at which he sat. An "accordion," in that day, was not what is usually pictured today; it was a concertina, a rather small bellows affair with a simple keyboard at one end. When Home produced music, it was said to be very thin and faint, in character with its purportedly etherial [sic] origins. But another possible origin is to be considered. Since a number of tiny one-octave mouth organs were found among Home's belongings when he died, and he wore a very full "soup-strainer" style mustache, it might be suspected that he was able to play the music by means of such an instrument hidden in his mouth. That suspicion is further supported by the observation that the only two identifiable songs reported to be played at a Home séance were, "The Last Rose of Summer" and "Home, Sweet Home," the latter just possibly a pun on the part of the spirits or of the medium himself. Both tunes are limited to a range of nine notes, and both can be played on the small one-octave mouth organs.
The eminent British scientist Sir William Crookes declared Home to be genuine in 1871, but his own accounts show how careless his investigation was. He was also an intimate friend of Home.
In passing, I note that Randi makes no attempt to substantiate his claim that Home was repeatedly caught cheating. If these "events were not made public," how does Randi know about them? I would assume this is just another instance of Randi making things up out of thin air. (Another example is found here.)
Randi also says nothing to back up his assertion that Crookes' "own accounts show how careless his investigation was." In fact, while Crookes can be criticized for his handling of some later, very different experiments involving materialization medium Florence Cook, his tests involving Home seem to have been carried out with meticulous care and were reported in extensive detail at that time.
In any event, I find Randi's theory of the case preposterous on several counts. Let's take a closer look at it.
Essentially Randi is arguing that Home concealed a mouth organ (generally known as a harmonica in the U.S.) under his bushy mustache. In order for such a scheme to work, at least three conditions would have to be met.
1. The room would have to be very dark, since even the bushiest mustache couldn't conceal a harmonica, no matter how small, if the light were good.
2. The experimenters would have to be seated far away from Home, because if they were close, they could easily determine that the music was coming from the vicinity of Home's mouth, and not from under the table.
3. The accordion would have to be unobserved, since close observation would reveal that the instrument wasn't actually playing.
In fact, none of these conditions were met, as anyone who looks at Crookes' report can easily ascertain. The complete report, along with supplemental material, is on the Web and takes only a few minutes to read. (PDF format here, starting on page 5.)
1. Was the room dark? According to Crookes, "The meetings took place in the evening in a large room lighted by gas." In describing Home's appearance during the experiment, he writes, "His other hand was on the table, visible to all, and his feet were under the feet of those next to him." In a follow-up report concerning other tests conducted in the same room, Crookes writes, "There was always ample light in the room where the experiments were conducted (my own dining room) to see all that took place."
2. Was no one seated near Home? Crookes: "Mr Home sat in a low easy chair at the side of the table. In front of him under the table was the aforesaid cage, one of his legs being on each side of it. I sat close to him on his left, and another observer sat close to him on his right, the rest of the party being seated at convenient distances round the table. For the greater part of the evening, particularly when anything of importance was proceeding, the observers on each side of Mr. Home kept their feet respectively on his feet, so as to be able to detect his slightest movement."
There were five observers in all. The other four were "an eminent physicist, high in the ranks of the Royal Society (Sir William Huggins, F.R.S.), a well-known Serjeant-at-Law (Serjeant Cox), my brother, and my chemical assistant." All five men were closely watching Home.
3. Was the accordion unobserved? Quite the opposite. Crookes:
Very soon the accordion was seen by those on each side to be waving about in a somewhat curious manner; then sounds came from it, and finally several notes were played in succession. Whilst this was going on, my assistant went under the table and reported that the accordion was expanding and contracting; at the same time, it was seen that the hand of Mr. Home by which it was held was quite still, his other hand resting on the table.
Presently the accordion was seen by those on either side of Mr. Home to move about, oscillating and going round and round the cage, and playing at the same time. Dr. Huggins now looked under the table, and said that Mr. Home’s hand appeared quite still whilst the accordion was moving about emitting distinct sounds....
The accordion was now again taken without any visible touch from Mr. Home’s hand, which he removed from it entirely and placed upon the table, where it was taken by the person next to him, and seen, as now were both his hands, by all present. I and two of the others present saw the accordion distinctly floating about inside the cage with no visible support. This was repeated a second time after a short interval.
Clearly, Randi's hypothesis has no merit. It is contradicted by Crookes' report in every detail. That report, by the way, was seconded in print by both Huggins and Cox.
Huggins: "Your proof appears to me to contain a correct statement of what took place in my presence at your house.... The experiments appear to me to show the importance of further investigation, but I wish it to be understood that I express no opinion as to the cause of the phenomena which took place."
Cox: "Having been present, for the purpose of scrutiny, at the trial of the experiments reported in this paper, I readily bear my testimony to the perfect accuracy of your description of them, and to the care and caution with which the various crucial tests were applied."Moreover, from photo portraits of Home, it doesn't appear that his mustache was, in fact, particularly bushy, nor does it seem to have covered his mouth, so it probably couldn't have concealed a harmonica anyway.
Two photos of Daniel Dunglas Home
Randi's "encyclopedia" entry on Home, then, is a mishmash of hearsay ("tiny one-octave mouth organs were found among Home's belongings"), innuendo (Home "actually was discovered cheating several times, though these events were not made public"), questionable claims ("he wore a very full 'soup-strainer' style mustache"), and intentional omissions (the room was well lit, observers were seated directly next to Home on both sides, observers saw the accordion "expanding and contracting" and "moving about emitting distinct sounds", and even "floating" when Home's hand was not in contact with it).
Incidentally, Randi does not tell his readers that Crookes carried out a total of 28 sittings with Home over a period of approximately two years, and that Crookes personally regarded the accordion experiments as much less conclusive than other, more carefully designed tests (also reported in the PDF previously mentioned). Since Randi cannot possibly be unaware of these facts, it is hard to escape the conclusion that he withheld the information from his readers in order to make the case for Home look as weak as possible, just as he withheld so much relevant information about the accordion tests themselves.
No doubt he was betting that the great majority of his readers would never look at the original reports and would simply take his word for it. And about that, he is probably right.
AOD, having read the notes at the link you so kindly shared, I really don't see that Wiley or "Bill" have a valid point.
In fairness to stage magicians, they spend a life time working very hard to master tricks; to fool people. They typically belong to guilds where everyone is working hard toward the same goal. Deception is so very prominent in a magician's personal. professional and social life. And people are fooled - heck, amazed - by well practiced clever tricks. So it's easy to see why they are always 100% certain that all displays of mediumship are just so many deceptions.
Posted by: no one | November 01, 2015 at 01:45 AM
It is evident that Mr. Wiley has a preformed opinion about “successful mediums” like D. D. Home’s who hold their séances in the evening hours and rely on “dulling the sitters clarity of observation to help facilitate any manipulations necessary.” But the red stop sign with the flashing lights came with Wiley’s astounding “revelation” of the “erotic homosexual overtones” in the relationship between Home and young Lord Adare. To retreat a moment from Wiley’s titillating rumination to the less sexy world of fact:
If we follow Wiley’s twisted logic then we must assume that Lord Dunraven knew his own son less well than Mr. Wiley or, that he was such a liberal minded catholic that he was proud to share the supposed homoerotic overtones of his son’s personal correspondence with his wider circle of friends and acquaintances. We also must assume that after 55 years the former Lord Adare still carried a torch for D. D. Home and remained bound to the hypnotic spell that supposedly possessed him in youth.
Wiley wishes to spare us the disappointment of going to the source ourselves and forming our own opinions by telling us: “Given the intimate relations of the two men, attempting to consider any natural explanations for the events, other than hallucination or hypnotic suggestion, would be fruitless.” Given the overactive imagination of Mr. Wiley and his apparent contempt for the truth, to take him seriously would be fruitless.
As for the experiment with the accordion in the cage, that isn’t described in Notes of Séances With D. D. Home, so I don’t what Wiley is referring to.
It is evident from the notes that women likely were present during at least some of the experiments conducted by Crookes of Mr. Home that were reported in the Quarterly Journal of Science. This might have been a shocking revelation for Victorian society, being that women were considered then to be incompetent to vote, serve on juries, and attend university. That Crookes fails to mention the sex of the witnesses, is more of an inditement on the prejudices of the age than it is a reflection on his honesty and integrity.
Posted by: David Chilstrom | November 01, 2015 at 11:48 AM
Agreed David.
What scientist would want to say in his scientific report that his wife, daughter and next door neighbor were present during the time of the experiment, especially in Victorian times as you say. Perhaps Bill would want to know if the dog or cat was present in the room or if there was a canary in a cage in the corner. There seems to be no end to additional information wanted by the skeptics. I am surprised that he didn't want to know the exact number of lumens in the room during the experiment. Now that would have had some relevancy, but the presence of women in the room is of no consequence to the outcome of the experiment.(Unless of course you believe that women have some special powers to affect the environment just because they are women---or witches maybe!) Such information is entirely irrelevant to the whole point of the experiment. How would the outcome of the experiment be changed in any way if Crookes had reported that his wife and daughter were present?
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | November 01, 2015 at 01:34 PM
Bill wrote (rather darkly, it has to be said)…
'Where were these sitters located during the accordion experiment? Who is Mrs Humphrey? Why did Crookes invite in his family members. There is no mention of these sitters movements in the original report, what were [sic] doing during the experiment? How far were they sitting from Home? We are totally left in the dark here'.
Speak for yourself, Bill. Mrs Humphrey was Crookes' Mother in Law. They were all probably at the séance because they were relatives of Crookes and, by virtue of that fact, he (presumably) wasn't that bothered about the possibility of any of them being accomplices of Home.
Thanks, Michael/Amos. I had a quick scan around and guessed that could be where Bill was quoting Wiley from. Still, you never know, I could be wrong and Bill actually does own the book. Frustratingly, however, the Google Books extract offers no access to Wiley's references/notes for that chapter.
I agree with your various points. Wiley's rather short analysis hardly amounts to a 'slam-dunk'.
I can't help but notice, actually, that Wiley himself appears to be getting a bit mixed up (or someone is, somewhere). On page 28 he claims that Crookes included the weight of his dining room table in his report (140 lbs) - and writes that this is one of several 'irrelevant' technical details given by Crookes, perhaps to suggest a '"scientific" thoroughness'. It is implied that Wiley is taking this information from Crookes' original QJS Report, which I do not have access to at the present. This is why Wiley's references are important (to me, anyway): because Crookes only gives this figure in relation to his own bodily weight in the version (ostensibly a reproduction of the QJS Report) included in the later 'Researches In The Phenomena Of Spiritualism'. Nowhere in there (that I can see after an, admittedly quick, re-scan) does Crookes give the weight of the table involved.
So, is Wiley taking his information from Crookes' 'Notes of Séances with D.D. Home'? Probably not, because Wiley gives the date of the first séance (or, at least - the one involving the plank of wood/spring balance experiment, and the accordion) at Crookes' house as being May 31, 1871 (p.27), and he even gives the times of 'the meetings' as being '..in the evening (9.15)' . Yet in 'Notes', Crookes gives the date as 'Wednesday, June 21st, 1871…from 8.40 to 10.30 p.m.', and subsequent séances are at differing times.
That's why the references are important. Who's misreporting here, Wiley? or Crookes? Or someone else? What is Wiley basing his confident assertions, such as spirit raps directing the proceedings, upon? I can hazard a couple of guesses - but one has to be sure!
If it's me that's missed something through writing in haste, however, then I'd be grateful if someone could shout up. My whip-lashed soul can then cry out for forgiveness, but it'll save me about £20 if the SPR Library doesn't have Wiley's book.
Anyway. This discussion has reminded me why I got so irritated with Crookes many years ago when I wrote an article about a lot of this stuff for The Noah's Ark Society 'Newsletter' (Volume 5, Issue 80, March 1997). Crookes gives the impression that he came to the subject of Spiritualism as a hard-headed sceptic, and writes more than a little contemptuously of Spiritualists. Yet, according to Conan Doyle ('The History of Spiritualism, Volume One (London: Psychic Press Ltd, 1989 - p.239), only about a year before his work with Home, Crookes wrote in his diary of '…reverting in thought to this time last year…sitting in communion with dear departed friends' and his hopes that '…the Father and Master' would '…allow us to continue to receive communications from my brother…' . Indeed, he'd already had sittings with Mrs Marshall and J.J. Morse in 1869.
So, if Conan Doyle, is correct, then Crookes was perhaps not as 'inclined towards a "psychic force" explanation' as he was making out in 1871.
That's the trouble I have with Crookes. He was, in some ways, rather duplicitous, albeit under rather difficult professional and social circumstances. So there is some substance to the accusations that critics have levelled at him over the years. The reason, on balance, that I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt about his work with Home is that Huggins, and Cox (as far as I'm aware) never retracted their witness statements - and a whole lot else. I'd also have to say that said critics have (cough) IMO, usually made a much bigger hash of attempting to discredit him than Crookes made of his experiments and documentation thereof; which, as I said earlier, were made very early on in the history of psychical research.
Posted by: Steve Hume | November 01, 2015 at 05:10 PM
Well folks, my copy of 'Spooky Science: Debunking the Pseudoscience of the Afterlife' has arrived and I have glanced through it and read the 2 pages about Patience Worth which as you may know I have a particular interest. I also looked as several pages about D.D. Home as it is a current topic on this blog. I will read the rest of the 227 pages when I get home tonight.
First off I have to suspect that "Bill" might be the author John Grant as their presentation styles and thought processes seem so similar. I think that many or most of the contributors to this site would be able to write an encyclopedic response to the book.
Here's a short sample from the section titled "The Hovering Home" (Clever eh?).
Pages 33-37
". . . he [Homes] was sent abroad to help him recuperate after a bout of tuberculosis" Now don't we all wish it were true that one could have a "bout' of tuberculosis especially in the 1800s.
Grant says that "Home was never publicly exposed as a cheat, although several of his sitters reported privately that they'd noticed apparent shenanigans. There's ample circumstantial evidence that he cheated,. . . " Evidence? ? ? Well here it is: "...his powers tended to ebb and flow according to the strictness of the scientific controls in place during a particular test" and ". . . the spirits stubbornly refused to cooperate whenever there might be a professional magician in attendance." (That's all the evidence you're going to get on that topic folks.)
Grant says, ". . . writer Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose novel A Strange Story (1862), which devotes an entire chapter to a debate between a medium and a skeptic, may owe more than a little to the author's experiences with Home." ( What the hell is this about? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? That's all you are going to get about it.)
Here's information about Home's levitation: "While the room was well lit when his séances began, by the time the self-levitation started the lights had been turned down low enough that all the sitters could make out were vague shapes and, passing in front of dimly lit windows, silhouettes. Home would obligingly mark the ceiling with a cross to 'prove' he had floated up there---a stratagem he wouldn't have needed to employ had he simply left the lights on. ( Yes and how and when did Home mark the ceiling with a cross?) All his feats were within the scope of a competent illusionist." Now how could John Grant know in 2015 just what the sitters could or could not see? And, isn't it nice to know that ALL of Home's "feats" were within the scope of a competent illusionist!)
And here is another sample of Monday morning quarterbacking regarding Home's floating in and out of a window. "The event seems to have been a masterpiece of misdirection by the medium. He told his three visitors what they were about to witness and then gave them enough visual clues (in a darkened room, of course) for them to be able to piece together a false narrative afterward. Each man saw only bits of the 'levitation'; it seems most likely that Home simply stepped out one window, crept along a ledge or a plank between the two window balconies, and then stepped back into the room." (How many times has that explanation been given?)
Regarding the Brownings: ". . . the medium's eye had been caught by the poet's wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Although she didn't respond to the much younger Home's advances----despite being mightily impressed by his mediumship---the situation created tension in the Browning household." (What "advances" did Home make toward Elizabeth?)
About Mr. Sludge: "The poem, which skewers Home for what Browning could see was outright chicanery, . . . " (Explain please.)
Tests of Home: "Home was tested at the University of St. Petersburg, and again the result was a damp squib."
Regarding the "spirit hand": "Skeptics suggested the 'hand' was in actuality one of the medium's feet, slipped out of his shoe and brought up onto the tabletop. (Home was a very athletic, limber man.) So the Russians set him to work at a glass-topped table and, sure enough, the 'spirit hand' declined to appear."
About the accordion: "After his death, found among his possessions were a collection of tiny harmonicas----small enough that they could be kept in the mouth, then manipulated to the lips. There, they'd be almost undetectable behind Home's big Victorian mustache!"
This all sounds like 'Bill' to me. I am looking forwarding to reading the rest of the book especially the part about Shirley Maclaine. -AOD :^)
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | November 02, 2015 at 03:02 PM
"About the accordion: 'After his death, found among his possessions were a collection of tiny harmonicas----small enough that they could be kept in the mouth, then manipulated to the lips. There, they'd be almost undetectable behind Home's big Victorian mustache!'"
This is simply untrue. No harmonicas were found, which is why Randi renounced this theory. Nor did Hume have a particularly large mustache. Plus, the room was lit with gas, so he couldn't have concealed it anyway.
I doubt that Bill wrote the book, because Bill knew that the harmonica theory had been discarded. In fact, he pointed me to an online page where Randi admitted that the theory was untenable. (See earlier in this the comment thread.)
Thanks for the report, AOD. The book sounds worthless- a fact that does not surprise me at all!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | November 02, 2015 at 03:37 PM
Just wondering here but wouldn't it be difficult to speak with a collection of tiny harmonicas in one's mouth? - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | November 02, 2015 at 05:28 PM
@AOD - Thanks for taking one for the team and reading “Spooky Science…”
@ Steve H - “(cough) IMO” - I laughed. Crookes hypothesis of a psychic force associated with Hume was not necessarily duplicitous. As Home’s presence was necessary for the phenomena to appear, clearly he provided something that facilitated their manifestation. Whether you call the secret sauce a “Psychic force”, OD, Teleplasm, Ectoplasm, etc.; the medium makes the manifestation possible.
Whatever his private beliefs, when speaking as a scientist Crookes was careful to go no further than where the facts led. We can assume that every “objective” observer is just as prejudiced and biased as ourselves. That however hard they may try to be fair, they will tend to see reality in the way they are attuned to perceive it. Crookes was clearly much more biased towards Spiritualism than his peers, simply by virtue of considering it a domain worthy of scientific examination. He may have come willingly to it, or been dragged kicking and screaming, but what matters is the work, not the motivation.
Posted by: David Chilstrom | November 02, 2015 at 06:14 PM
AOD said:
"wouldn't it be difficult to speak with a collection of tiny harmonicas in one's mouth?"
Not if you use sign language.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | November 03, 2015 at 05:30 AM
To an extent, David, yes, I’d agree with you.
As I said, I've been prepared to cut Crookes a certain amount of 'slack' in more recent years. He complained himself much later that he had to appear accepting of the Spiritualist interpretation of the phenomena (to Spiritualists) to get access to the mediums in the first place. I get that, although it doesn’t quite get him off the duplicity hook (in the strictest sense), in my view. But I would acknowledge that, whatever his private views may have been at the start (or before), he was perfectly entitled to those. As you imply, every scientist has his or her ‘beliefs’ about their subject of study, and those tend to swing around a great deal as matters evolve. As a researcher, especially with PM, you end up wobbling along the tight-rope of your own biases over the snake filled pit of everyone else’s…those of critics and believers alike.
Crookes was in a very difficult position right from the start.
So, why do I still have a problem with Crookes’ approach? Simply, I wasn’t only referring to his work with Home, although I should have been more explicit. You wrote: -
‘…when speaking as a scientist Crookes was careful to go no further than where the facts led’
I think the problem is that, post Home, it becomes quite difficult to tell whether Crookes is speaking as a scientist or as a potential author of romantic fiction. Consider his description of the final appearance of ‘Katie King’ (in relation to the famous photographs that he had described, but was refusing to publish at that point): -
‘But photography is as inadequate to depict the perfect beauty of Katie’s face, as words are powerless to describe her charms of manner.’ (letter to The Spiritualist, June 5, 1874 – included in 'Researches In The Phenomena of Spiritualism')
And that was after telling everyone (in a previous letter) how, after asking if he could embrace Katie (and being told that he could) he ‘…did – well, as any gentleman would do under the circumstances.’
Well Crookes was a scientist, so it wouldn’t be irrational to assume that he is speaking as one here. Was he being careful? I’d say ‘probably not’, under the circumstances, although that’s just my opinion. Was he ‘going no further than where the facts led’? Well, as he doesn’t include any independent corroboration of the ‘facts’, (unlike with Home), it’s a bit difficult to say, really. But I’d say that he probably was, unless you’re of the opinion that ‘maybe up the garden path’ was where he was intending to go in a scientific sense.
Crookes ended up complaining to Home that he was getting the reputation of being a ‘Don Juan’; and having to use his solicitor to silence the mother of the medium Rosina Showers after he had extracted a confession of fraud from her daughter in a private interview and Mrs Showers had ‘put the worst possible construction on it’ and was spreading rumours about him (see the source I cite at the end, it's in there somewhere, probably).
That’s just the tip of the proverbial, really. But none of Crookes’ later behaviour means that D.D. Home had a mouth organ hidden in his moustache; a musical box in his trousers; resin (that just happened not to leave any trace on the plank – or stick to anything else) on his fingertips, or anything else.
I’d recommend that anyone who wants a relatively sane and unbiased unpicking of the whole ensuing post-Home mess read ‘William Crookes and the Physical Phenomena of Mediumship’ by R.G. Medhurst and K.M. Goldney, (Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, March 1964 pp.25 – 183) which did a pretty decent job of rescuing Crookes’ personal reputation in the wake of Trevor Hall’s The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes.
Posted by: Steve Hume | November 04, 2015 at 10:17 AM