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EXPERIENCES IN SPIRITUALISM WITH MR. D. D. HOME. BY VISCOUNT ADARE, [Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin 1841-1926] WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. [Viscount Adare's father]  [1869]

Extract from No. 14 Séance August 6th 1868

Home here threw himself back in his chair, rubbed his hands together as if very much pleased, and said, “Now, if you wish to ask any questions I am ready to answer them''

Question (Henry Jencken).-How do you make us see spirit forms ?

Answer.-At times we make passes over the individual to cause him to see us sometimes we make the actual resemblance of our former clothing, and of what we were, so that we appear exactly as we were known to you on earth; sometimes we project an image that you see, sometimes we cause it to be produced upon your brain, sometimes you see us as we are, with a cloudlike aura of light around us

Question (H J)--Do you use actual garments ?

Answer- Purity is our clothing. We have no need of garments; but are enveloped in a sort of aura, or cloud of light. Other spirits, more impure and gross, dwelling nearer earth, have need of garments.

Question - (H.J.)-How do we appear to you ?

Answer.-mostly in pure light.

Question.-Can you see our light?

Answer.-We can see all lights; sunlight, and every colour that it is composed of. We see the most beautiful combinations of light.  Everything has its light. We see the progress either of growth or decay that is taking place in everything.   The table that you are sitting at was once growing.  We could see every article expanding and increasing; now it is decaying; and though it is so gradual that to you it is not apparent, yet we can see the change taking place in every particle of it.

Question.-ln moving among us, do we present an obstacle to you ? Do you avoid us ?

Answer,- We do, and must avoid you. For your ether bodies and the atmosphere that surrounds you is, in many cases, as solid and impenetrable to us as granite is to you.  We can see both the light of your spiritual-bodies and of your material bodies.

Question.-Are not the sun's rays composed of something more than light ?

Answer.-Of light only, and an elastic wave of electricity that precedes the light.

Question.-I suppose it is not possible for you to visit the sun ?

Answer--Most certainly we can. Why should we not ?

Question,-Does it take time for you to travel?

Answer.-Yes.

Question.-I suppose you move in the same ratio as light ?

Answer.-We can travel faster than light.

Question.-What is the appearance of your form or body ?

Answer.-Exactly like your material body, only slightly smaller in every respect.

Question.-How do you produce material form ?

Answer.-You produce them with and through us.

Question.-But have you no field for action ?"

Answer.-You cannot understand us; the material is to us as it were spiritual. Suppose I want a fruit, I cannot create it by thinking of it; I must go and fetch it from where it is: so if I want an idea,  I must travel into higher spheres, and seek and, find it as an actual created thing.
Many things are more real than you suppose ; thoughts, are they not almost realities ? Try and think of a house you knew long ago; you will invariably enter it by the door; you go in by the door in your imagination; were you to enter by the windows or the walls, you would not understand or recognize it. That will tell you that there is something of material reality in the idea of  a house in your mind.

Question.-Are then your flowers and fruits as actual and real to you as those growing upon earth are to us ?

Answer.-They are as real to us as an apple or pomegranate is to you.

Question.-Have you animals in your spheres ?

Answer.-There are animals that give pleasure such as horses and dogs; nearer earth are baser animals, and those that cause pain; some saints and holy men, being in an ecstatic state have at times caught glimpses of what is going on near them, animals and men, strange and curious forms all mixed up together.
The only way I can at all describe it to you is to look at "a drop of muddy water under the microscope, and observe the strange forms; you will see the tail of one protruding from another, and so on, hence the old ideas of satyrs and creatures half man, half beast, hence the notion of devils with horns and tails, and of a material hell. Other men have seen higher and brighter spheres. All this is but the imperfect imagining of those who see visions: as in Dante's Frozen Hell, he saw the frozen zone and spiritual forms moving about, and mixed them up all together. Bodily suffering produces mental suffering; and mental suffering afflicts the body; need you be told this?