Robert Bell, a dramatist and critic, having been present at one of these séances, acknowledged that he had seen things which he was satisfied were "beyond the pale of material experiences." After describing various manifestations, hands felt under the table, touching the knees, and pulling the clothes, bells rung by invisible agency, and various articles thrown about the room, he proceeds to describe "levitation":
"Mr Home was seated next the window. Through the semi-darkness his head was dimly visible against the curtains, and his hands might be seen in a faint white heap before him. Presently he said, in a quiet voice, 'My chair is moving—I am off the ground—don't notice me—talk of something else,' or words to that effect. It was very difficult to restrain the curiosity, not unmixed with a more serious feeling, which these few words awakened; but we talked, incoherently enough, upon some different topic. I was sitting nearly opposite Mr Home, and I saw his hands disappear from the table, and his head vanish into the deep shadow beyond. In a moment or two more he spoke again. This time his voice was in the air above our heads. He had risen from his chair to a height of four or five feet from the ground. As he ascended higher he described his position, which at first was perpendicular, and afterwards became horizontal. He said he felt as if he had been turned in the gentlest manner, as a child is turned in the arms of a nurse. In a moment or two more he told us that he was going to pass across the window, against the grey, silvery light of which he would be visible. We watched in profound stillness, and saw his figure pass from one side of the window to the other, feet foremost, lying horizontally in the air. He spoke to us as he passed, and told us that he would turn the reverse way and recross the window, which he did. His own tranquil confidence in the safety of what seemed from below a situation of the most novel peril gave confidence to everybody else; but with the strongest nerves it was impossible not to be conscious of a certain sensation of fear or awe. He hovered round the circle for several minutes, and passed, this time perpendicularly, over our heads. I heard his voice behind me in the air, and felt something lightly brush my chair. It was his foot, which he gave me leave to touch. Turning to the spot where it was on the top of the chair, I placed my hand gently upon it, when he uttered a cry of pain, and the foot was withdrawn quickly, with a palpable shudder. It was evidently not resting on the chair, but floating; and it sprang from the touch as a bird would. He now passed over to the farthest extremity of the room, and we could judge by his voice of the altitude and distance he had attained. He had reached the ceiling, upon which he made a slight mark, and soon afterwards descended and resumed his place at the table. An incident which occurred during this aerial passage, and imparted a strange solemnity to it, was that the accordion, which we supposed to be on the ground under the window close to us, played a strain of wild pathos in the air from the distant corner of the room."
A well-known physician, Dr Gully, who was present at this séance, wrote confirming the account in The Cornhill Magazine given by the above writer.
During the ensuing forty years mediumistic performances became of common and almost daily occurrence in this country. Two or three forms of so-called spirit manifestation—such as materialisation, spirit photography, and slate-writing—afterwards became connected with many of the séances. But first the manifestations in daylight consisted of raps and tiltings of a table; afterwards, when the lights were turned out or turned very low, spirit voices, touches of spirit hands, spirit lights, spirit-born flowers, floating musical instruments, and moving about or levitation of the furniture.
Until Sir William Crookes began to investigate the alleged spiritualistic phenomena, all investigation had been undertaken by persons without scientific training. After a year of experiments he issued a detailed description of those conducted in his own laboratory in the presence of four other persons, two of whom, Sir William Huggins and Sergeant Fox, confirmed the accuracy of his report. The result was that he was able to demonstrate, he said, the existence of a hitherto unknown force, and had measured the effect produced. At all events, these inquirers were convinced of the genuineness of Home's powers.
Suppose we glance at the possible alternative—viz. that Home was a conjurer of consummate skill and ingenuity. For one of the physical phenomena, that of tilting a table at a precarious angle without displacing various small objects resting on its polished surface, Mr Podmore suggests an explanation. He thinks that the articles were probably held in position on the table when it was tilted by means of hairs and fine threads attached to Home's dress. He has various explanations for other of the phenomena, but he confesses that there remain a few manifestations which the hypothesis of simple trickery does not seem to fit. In going over a mass of evidence relating to Home, the hypothesis of conjuring seems to be rather incredible; when one bears in mind Home's long career as a medium, how his private life was watched by the lynx-eyed sceptics, eager to pounce upon the evidence of trickery, and that he was never detected, it certainly seems to me, at all events, that Home's immunity from exposure is strong evidence against the assumption of fraud. Home was merely the type of a large class of mediums purporting to be controlled by spirit power, whose séances are a feature of modern life.
Certain experiments of Sir William Crookes with Home came very near to satisfying the most stringent scientific conditions, especially those in the alteration in the weight of a board. In these experiments one end of the board was on a spring balance and the other rested on a table. The board became heavier or lighter as Home placed his fingers on the end resting on the table and "willed" it, and the different weights were recorded by an automatic register. This effect might have been produced, says Mr Podmore, by using a dark thread with a loop attached to some part of the apparatus—possibly the hook of the spring balance—and the ends fastened to Home's trousers. But this particular trick does not seem to have occurred to those experimenting, and the description of the séances does not exclude it.
Suggesting an explanation of an event does not prove that it so occurred, and Mr Podmore adds: "It is not easy to see how the investigators ... could have been deceived, and repeatedly deceived, by any device of the kind suggested."
One of the most remarkable of Daniel Dunglas Home's manifestations occurred on 16th December 1868, at 5 Buckingham Gate, London. There were present the Master of Lindsay (now the Earl of Crawford), Viscount Adare (the present Earl of Dunraven), and Captain Wynne. The Master of Lindsay has recorded the circumstances, as follows:—
"I was sitting with Mr Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the window in the room next to where we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in air outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window-sill, and Home's feet about six inches above it. He remained in this position for a few seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost and sat down."