Customer Reviews

First Psychic

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We live in an age of relatively slight entertainments from spiritualists. Modern spiritualists claim to get messages from "the other side," and clearly impress audiences with their accuracy; skeptics, however, point out that such performances show merely skills in "cold reading" and bilking an audience that is already eager to believe. The Victorians did it better. Daniel Home got messages from the departed, to be sure, but by the help of spirits, he also levitated furniture, made hovering musical instruments play in the air, and floated himself in and out of three-story windows. Or at least that is what he claimed, and more importantly, that is what people (including scientists) who saw the performances claimed for him. Charlatan or ambassador to the Spirit World, Home created a sensation that was the international talk of all levels of society. Peter Lamont, who has worked as a magician, thinks that Daniel Home was the most interesting person who ever lived. You probably have some other candidate for such a title, but Lamont in the entertaining biography _The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard_ (Little, Brown) makes his own choice clear. The book is also an examination of how we know what we know, and how we have to deal with incredible anomalies.

Home had a mission, to convince a skeptical world that these were not tricks and that the supernatural world was affecting the natural one through himself as intermediary. It was to be a tough sell, but while skeptics were numerous, believers were enthusiastic. Home had serious detractors who were conjurors, but many of the effects which Home was able to achieve, or which were remembered as being achieved by him, were unique and remain unexplained. It is a shame that the conjurors did not join in the scientific investigation of Home's powers. One of the lessons that James Randi has taught contemporary investigators of psychic phenomena is that scientists are really no better at avoiding being deceived by tricksters than anyone else, and that a magician needs to be on the investigative team to spot deception. No such spotter was called upon when Sir William Crookes, the discoverer of the element thallium, undertook an investigation of Home's powers by different tests. In the Victorian heyday of science, it was held that a scientist was the man to make objective and keen observations, and would not be liable to deceit. Crookes, as eminent a scientist as there was in Britain at the time, had never been deceived by his chemicals and expected no deception from Home. Indeed, his findings were that Home's effects were genuine, and although Crookes did not go so far as saying that they were the product of spirit manifestation, he proposed that there was a Psychic Force that would need to be a new target of investigation by physicists. He invented the application of the word "psychic" to those who could manifest such a force, with Home being the first person so labeled. Home gloried in the endorsement, which was later tarnished when Crookes certified as genuine the effects of other psychics who had obviously deceived him.

Without taking fees for his sessions, Home took charity and engaged in dramatic stage readings from literature which were popular. At one point he was adopted by a wealthy widow who provided him thousands of pounds, but went to court to get them back, claiming that she had only provided the funds when spirits, speaking through Home, advised her to. He converted to Catholicism, but was expelled from Rome for necromancy. Eventually, he was disgusted with the fraudulent claims of psychics - other psychics - and his last book was a repudiation of the methods of the others. During his retirement, the performance style of psychics changed, with physical manifestations no longer worthy of scientific evaluation, and the more slippery clairvoyance or telepathy becoming fashionable. Lamont gives an entertaining account of a man who performed remarkable feats and gained widespread fame, and throughout gives a fair assessment without insisting that Home was genuine or fraudulent (only if you get to the notes does he state frankly his own belief that "Home was a charlatan whose feats have never been adequately explained.") Nevertheless, there are many mysteries enjoyably presented here, and many performances, and behaviors of performers and observers, at which to wonder.

Lamont writes well, followed a thread to the end. But, he spent way too much time trying to prove DD Hume a fraud. Rather than trying to understand the man and his work. Plus he got diverted a great deal with other mediums who were quite likely fraudulent, at least at times. Lamont's conclusion, despite all EVIDENCE to the contrary, was that Hume was a charlatan. Maybe the pot was trying to call the kettle black. Better luck with your next book, Mr. Lamont.

"The problem underlying the life and work of D.D. Home can be briefly summed up by saying that it is the problem of miracles in its most acute form." These words open the appendix to Eric Dingwall's chapter on Home in his book "Some Human Oddities." Dingwall, like Lamont, had an extensive conjuring background and was well-acquainted with the techniques of fraudulent mediums and the testimony of credulous sitters. Both authors regard Home as an unsolvable problem (although in Lamont's case this does not mean support for a paranormal interpretation, as he makes clear), but instead of focusing his attention solely on Home's phenomena Lamont chronicles the way Home was viewed by his contemporaries and how they tried to deal with the accounts of his seances. This makes his book unique among the Home biographies and gives the reader insight into religious doubts that began to infiltrate the Victorian mind as Biblical criticism and scientific advancements combined to cast doubt on the ideas of God and man's soul. This apprehension served as fertile ground for mesmerism and Spiritualism to thrive, which in turn allowed charlatans of all kinds to prey upon vulnerable persons of all classes.

Lamont successfully navigates the pitfalls associated with this line of inquiry. Previous biographies of Home have focused more or less exclusively on his phenomena, either defending it as a genuine mystery or paranormal manifestation, or criticizing it as a conjuring trick or hallucination of some kind. While there are some interesting points to be made along this line (and Lamont touches on some of these throughout his book), the general arguments pro and con that have been made over the last 100 years on this amount to nothing. Lamont bypasses this by claiming that we really have no way of knowing (although he makes his own opinion clear at the end) and proceeds instead to discuss how, regardless of whether Home's phenomena was conjuring or not, the testimony of his seances was problematic for science and religion. For scientists, who relied on observation to conduct experiments, testimony (especially from persons among their own ranks like Crookes) of levitating men, moving furniture, and the like raised questions of objectivity. Was there a distinction between their approach to their own work and what Crookes was doing? If so, what was it? In the religious sphere, questions arose in regard to the distinction between the accounts of Home's seances as reported from Spiritualists and the testimony of the Gospels. It was admitted by more than one theologian that the former were actually better evidence, and obviously this raised a number of other questions.

Lamont details all of this and in doing so allows the reader to participate a little in the intricacies and difficulties of doing historical work. What sources to trust? Which are reliable? Etc... This all makes for fascinating reading and makes Lamont's biography the definitive starting point for anyone interested in this subject. Perhaps most importantly, he writes on all of this in a lively, fresh and witty manner much in the style of his previous subject of the Indian Rope Trick.

Some reviews of the book seem to be troubled by Lamont's own view on Home, i.e. that he was likely a charlatan but we can't explain his tricks. However, for anyone with a conjuring background this is good sense. Any skilled magician has had to learn his/her trade from a state of conjuring ignorance and in the process of this education one is constantly confronted with effects for which there appears to be no known method. With time and practice most magicians are able to spot certain techniques and patterns that are used over and over and can surmise the method, even if some small wrinkles are introduced by the performer. Conjuring has its own evolution and one can trace all the effects back many years to some common ancestry. This doesn't mean it's easy, even for experienced conjurers, to detect the method of an effect all the time. Indeed, many practicioners delight in creating effects that can fool other conjurors, not just Joe Public. There is a term for these unsolved effects...they are appropriately called "problems". Many "problems" arise in the seance reports of D.D. Home and Lamont, as a conjuror, is being honest in describing his opinion. He has no doubt come across puzzling descriptions of performances before, only to learn later how they were done (and in the process perhaps how inaccurate the descriptions of them actually were).

I must comment on one reviewer's points raised. He makes mention of private letter collections in which Home was detected in fraud. I've spent a number of years looking through just those collections and I can't say I've come across anything resembling an exposure. The reference to the letter of Vernon Rymer in Lamont's book refers to some of the scandals Home was supposedly involved in while residing in Florence. Much of this ultimately centered around a Mrs. Baker and was of a personal nature, having nothing to do with Home's phenomena. Hiram Powers did claim during this time to have caught Home cheating but his "evidence" consists of nothing more specific than anything else that has been chronicled and in later years he seems to have retracted much of it anyway, affirming his belief that Home's phenomena was genuine (although he continued to have a personal dislike for the medium). I am also rather curious how we don't have the "vaguest notion" of what kinds of effects Home was performing but we do seem to know that his hosts were "fat, near-sighted, quite elderly, half-drunk, etc..." While I've read perhaps more than 100 accounts of various things alleged to have happened at Home seances, like self-playing accordions, the handling of fire coals, the levitation of the medium, movement of furniture, etc,...I can't say I've come across any accounts describing drunk, near-sighted heavy people. The only references to some oversized participants I've come across were ones that sat on the table while it was lifted into the air, so now we have to deal with a 100 pound table rising off the ground with a 200+ pound person on top of it.

The reviewer doesn't seem to feel enough is discussed regarding Crookes' zeal for mediums (especially female ones) but I think Lamont makes it rather clear in chapter "The Last Word". And if one wants to attack ambiguous assertions, certainly the evidence put forth that Crookes had an affair with Florence Cook qualifies for such an assault. There is nothing credible in this, only vague hints that could be interpreted in any manner the reader chooses. This material has been argued over for several decades and would have needlessly bogged down the book. It is simply enough to point out that Cook was caught in fraud after Crookes endorsed her, and that certainly impugns his judgment to that effect. In addition, while there may be different versions of the book, mine does have a picture of Home right next to the title page.

Dr Peter Lamont writes this book as a total believer and defender of Danial Home (pronounced hoom) who claimed to be a genuine spiritualist. The bias shows early in the book as skeptics are made to look like characters out of a Charles Dickens' novel (even skeptic Dickens himself). Words like bleak are used to describe the hotels the infidels (as Mr Home called nonbelievers) stayed to test his abilities.

At first the style was a bit off-putting, but Dr Lamont cares about Mr Home and takes the time to give us the details of his life. The book is a fascinating look at the time of the world back then as we moved from a basic agrarian society to the industrial one. The contrasts between the haves and the havenots could not of been greater during these times. The rich had idle time and money on their hands while the rest of the people toiled in their plants and factories. Mr Home is described as sickly for the most part of his life, and if he had to work in those conditions he would not of lived past 25.

Mr Home spent much of his life living in the lap of luxury and supported by wealthy clients. While he accepted no money, he did accept nice accommodations and free meals from the hospitality of his well known clients. He accepted a diamond ring from Queen Sophia of the Netherlands and also many other pieces of jewelry. (He never sold the jewels but kept them as souvenirs.) This does not mean he was a charlatan, but does show he survived well off of what he claimed to do.

The above gives us a look at who Mr Home is and what his motives could of been for faking the claims he made. The author of the book goes out of his way to dismiss any claims made by some of the people of trickery. About two thirds through the book, Mr Home actually goes through a test given by noted and respected scientist Mr William Crookes. Mr Home was able to make an accordion play while it was in a cage in front of witnesses. During seances, Mr Home would levitate for the guests who attended which has yet to be explained. This makes the reader think there might be something to Mr Home's abilities.

This all goes out the when Mr Crookes certifies a couple more mediums as the real deal only to have them exposed as frauds by others. This then brings the testing methods and Mr Crookes' objectiveness into question. The author of the book takes us on this tangent and starts to wonder himself if Mr Home was able to deceive Mr Crookes and others during his escapades. The last part of the book then goes into detail of whether or not Mr Home was the real deal or not. The basic fact is Mr Home was never called out by anyone during his performances and his tricks have not been satisfactorily explained to this day. Dr Lamont lets the readers decide for themselves if Mr Home was real or not.

My take is Mr Home was a charlatan and a good one at that. The clues of this are in the book as to how he did his illusions. The rooms he did his seances were always dark or very dimly lit which made it difficult for the guests to really see what was going on "behind the curtain" so to speak. The fact that most of the people were believers helped him out, but he was able to deceive some notorious skeptics at the time. The best evidence comes from Dr Lamont himself as he suggests ways the levitation could of been pulled off. Even a few witnesses did observe some of the tricks at hand, but they never called it at the time of the illusion itself. Even Mr Home would state the spirits could get things wrong to cover himself if the wrong answer was given.

Dr Peter Lamont is one hell of a writer and transports the reader to a much different time. He keeps us enthralled to the end making us want more. Both skeptics and believers will love this book as it does let each one decide with the evidence at hand. But the ride itself is thrilling indeed.

I expected to learn something about Daniel Home from Peter Lamont, a British historian and magician whose previous book on the origins of the Indian Rope Trick was superb. Well, after reading this new book from cover to cover, I have learned absolutely nothing about Home or his many detractors and fans that I didn't already know, and that was precious little!

One problem in writing about Home, which Lamont makes little effort to overcome or even apologize for, is that we don't seem to have even the vaguest notion of what stunts he actually performed at his seances. He operated completely "under the radar," typically performing casually and informally as a house-guest and at the request of his host, for a handful of people, generally fat, near-sighted, quite elderly, half-drunk and very wealthy, famous or otherwise well-placed in society. His "brightly lit" seances were actually, by modern standards of illumination, performed in nearly total darkness, with the deep wells of shadow lightened only very near flickering gas or oil lamps, candelabra or fireplaces. All we have are some very vague and inconsistent accounts of materialized "spirit hands," trembling or moving furniture, and some kind of self-levitation.

Of course if Home had actually had any supernatural abilities, all he needed to do was go to Picadilly Circus at noon with his press agent and fly about before an audience of tens of thousands. Instead he never performed in public, or even privately for pay. Indeed, for most of his life he had no source of income, though he made half-hearted attempts to get out of the mediumistic racket and get a job: he tried going to medical school, becoming a sculptor, becoming a poetry-reciting stage performer, etc., etc. His only success in developing an income came through marrying two successive unworldly young heiresses from Czarist Russia. Before those successes came a nasty scandal involving another heiress, an elderly, uncultured and unattractive widow... a scandal and subsequent trial that essentially destroyed Home's social acceptability inside England.

Having not much (or any!) reliable information about Home, pro or con, Lamont expends a good deal of space taking previous Home biographers to task for omitting information predjudicial to whatever case they wanted to make. But Lamont does precisely the same thing, via omission or extreme compression. His word-portrait of Home supporter William Crookes, for example, manages to suppress or skate over so much relevant information (largely about the bungling, credulous and sexually predatory Crookes himself) as to be laughable. Lamont also does not sufficiently blame Crookes for typically introducing an extreme confusion that persists to this day: were Home's miracles accomplished by the "spirits," to prove that he was in fact communicating with them (the standard rationale behind any medium's "physical phenomena"); or, was Home instead demonstrating his ability to generate and manipulate imaginary "psychic force"? You can't have it both ways! Thanks to Crookes, mediums can moonlight as psychics or psychics moonlight as mediums, with great success and corresponding double incomes, to this very day.

Lamont also repeatedly embraces and smooches up the nonsensical "social construct" caricature of science so prevalent in university departments of history and sociology, and especially and notoriously at the University of Edinburg where Lamont happens to be located. He often appears not to have the faintest concept of what science is, or what the term "theory" means as used within science. Indeed, his comments remind me very much of those of arch-pseudoscientist Charles Fort, and they are at least equally ignorant.

The standard remark always made about Home is that he was the one Victorian medium never publicly exposed. But he never publicly performed! Privately, he was certainly suspected, and even pretty unambiguously detected, in various frauds... but the information is buried in private letter collections scattered widespread over the US, England and Europe, unpublished and essentially unavailable even to scholars (see for example Lamont's own comments in the endnote 8 to Chapter 5).

Finally, the book is essentially unillustrated. There is not even a photo of Home himself. He's represented only by a crude cartoon showing him performing his concertina stunt. (The spirits "played" it while it was held by Home by one end, underneath the inevitable table that no spirit can seemingly do without.)

I didn't find this book worthwhile from any standpoint, alas.

The author of this book is apparently a scholar and historian (according to the book blurbs) which makes the fact that he makes two egregious errors all the more curious. On page 108 he writes that Lady Shelley, the daughter-in-law of the poet (Percy Shelley), was the creator of "Frankenstein". In fact, it was the wife of Percy Shelley who was the creator of Frankenstein and this is so widely known one wonders how he could have made this mistake.

Then, on page 163 he refers to the "deceased husband, Edgar Allan Poe", of Sarah Helen Whitman. In fact, Whitman and Poe never married, though they were engaged and a mistaken announcement of their nuptials was published in January 1849. (See: Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 385-388. ISBN 0060923318)

So, having noted these two errors, I cannot help but wonder how many other errors this book might contain which are not part of my own knowledge base but which might be caught by others? In short, I'm afraid that this may not be a very trustworthy account even if it is entertainingly written and does cover the life of Daniel Home fairly comprehensively.

I would have liked to have seen the book include more extensive accounts of Home's seances written by contemporaries instead of bits and pieces here and there.

I also find it interesting to note that, despite the abundant evidence for psychic phenomena that the author recounts, as well as the overwhelming evidence of social denial, which is acknowledged and discussed more or less rationally, the author himself believes that Home was a charlatan.

The book paints a rather unattractive portrait of many scientific and literary individuals who one might otherwise have thought were open-minded and honest. At the end, despite his declared attempt to write a "balanced" bio, one even questions the honesty of the author.

Still, as I said, it can be entertaining and, even if one cannot wholly rely on the facts presented, this book can be a jumping off point for further research on one of the most interesting figures/events in the history of the paranormal.