Home is an interesting case. One of the arguments brought up in his favor is that he did not charge for his readings or his mediumship. This seems to be true. It is not true, however, that he did not materially benefit from his mediumship. He seems, in fact, to have subsisted quite nicely on the gifts of friends and sponsors for whom he provided examples of spiritualism—more than subsist; Home became well known for the extravagant jewelry he wore. In addition, he sold some cheap artistic items (busts, mainly) at a value far in excess of their actual worth.
Regarding Home never being debunked, it appears to be an instance of “maybe some things were shown to be fake but not everything so he never was debunked.”
Robert Barrett Browning (yes,
that Robert Barrett Browning) attended a séance of Home’s hoping to connect with a son who had died as a baby. Surely enough, the child’s face materialized out of the darkness. Browning grabbed the face; it was Home’s foot. To top it off, Browning had no son who died as a baby; he was there to debunk Home and succeeded admirably.
Home convinced an elderly English widow to give him 24,000 pounds followed soon after by another 6,000. Home convinced her to adopt him (after helping her burn her previous will) and to provide him with 700 pounds annually. She then assigned a 30,000 pound mortgage to him. When she consulted her lawyer she decided she had been conned and asked for the money back. When Home refused, it went to court where he was convicted of fraud.
Once in Russia, Home “dematerialized a valuable string of emeralds” which never rematerialized for their owner. However, when the chief of police searched Home as he was attempting to leave the palace, the chief discovered the emeralds in Home’s pocket. Home blamed mischievous spirits.
My source for the above information is Houdini’s “A Magician Among the Spirits.”
The most impressive story about Home is on
this website under the section “Home’s Fame Grows.” It tells of him levitating out the window of one unobserved room into the window of another room where the sitters were. Then, when asked how he did it, Home “shot” back out the window he had come in and then back in again.
The link is supportive of Home and claims Houdini said he could duplicate the levitation effect but backed down when the offer was accepted. Houdini says he could duplicate the levitation but never received a response from the owner of the estate where it occurred. (The location was key; the levitation occurred on an upper story of a tall house, the apparently immense height of which led Houdini to doubt the veracity of the story at all.)
If you read Frank Podmore’s “Modern Spiritualism” and “Newer Spiritualism” (1902 and 1910, respectively), you will find a bit more detailed dissection of some of Home’s act. “Modern Spiritualism” is available in its entirety for free download on Google books. “Newer Spiritualism” cannot be downloaded and is not entirely uploaded, but the vast majority of the section on Home is available to read.
Interestingly, Podmore acknowledges that Robert Barrett Browning visited Home once and that Browning claimed to have seen fakery, but Podmore does not mention the specifics of the alleged fakery that Houdini does.
He does, however, relate the story of a Mr. Merrifield (pp 45-46 in “Newer Spiritualism”) who finds outright fraud in a Home's séance.
More interestingis Podmore’s take on Home's levitation effects, covered in depth in “Newer Spiritualism.” He has a specific method in mind for how Home accomplished this effect without resorting to paranormal powers.
Podmore does a good job of talking about the mindsets of the sitters, and how a good medium tailors the nature and brazenness of his effects to what he knows about his sitters. According to Podmore, Home was not just another medium; he was the best of the best of the best and capitalized on the naivety of his sitters like no other medium before him.
Podmore also says this, which I find refreshingly enlightened and predictive of some things skeptics here often say:
“A few of the incidents reported still remain unexplained—though logic, it need hardly be said, does not require us therefore to conclude them inexplicable.”
Hope that helps.
Maybe it's location-specific or something? Not to worry, although it's a bit concerning for future attempts at finding other things on there.
