Observations placeholder

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]

Home got up and walked about the room. He was both elongated and raised in the air. He spoke in a whisper, as though the spirits were arranging something. He then said to us, “Do not be afraid, and on no account leave your places;" and he went out into the passage.

Lindsay suddenly said, “Oh, good heavens ! I know what he is going to do; it is too fearful."

ADARE: “What is it?”

LINDSAY: “ I cannot tell you, it is too horrible ! Adah says that I must tell you; he is going out of the window in the other room, and corning in at this window."

We heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside our window; he opened the window and walked in quite coolly. “Ah," he said, “You were good this time," referring to our having sat still and not wished to prevent him. He sat down and laughed.

CHARLIE: “What are you laughing at?”

HOME “We were thinking that if a policeman had been passing, and had looked up and seen a man turning round and round along the wall in the air he would have been much astonished. Adare, shut the window in the next room.”

I got up, shut the window, and in coming back remarked that the window was not raised a foot, and that I could not think how he had managed to squeeze through. He arose and said, “Come and see."

 I went with him he told me to open the window as it was before, I did so : he told me to stand a little distance off ; he then went through the open space, head first quite rapidly his body being nearly horizontal and apparently rigid. He came again, feet foremost, and we returned to the other room.

It was so dark I could not see clearly how he was supported outside. He did not appear to grasp, or rest upon the balustrade, but rather to be swung out and in. Outside each window is a small balcony or ledge, 19 inches deep, bounded by stone balustrades, 18 inches high.

The balustrades of the two windows are 7 feet 4 inches apart, measuring from the nearest points. A string-course, 4 inches wide, runs between the windows at the level of the bottom of the balustrade; and another 3 inches wide at the level of the top. Between the window at which Home went out, and that at which he came in, the wall recedes 6 inches.

The rooms are on the third floor.

Home presently got up again, told us not to be frightened or to move, and left the room. Adah Menken told Lindsay that they were going to shew us the water test ; but for some reason or other I suppose they were unable to do so, for Home came in again directly, sat down and said “Dan must awake now, he will be very nervous; but you must bear with him, it will pass off."

I asked Lindsay how Adah had spoken to him on the three occasions. He could scarcely explain; but said it did not sound like an audible human voice; but rather as if the tones were whispered or impressed inside his ear. When Home awoke he was much agitated, said he felt as if he had gone through some fearful peril, and that he had a most horrible desire to throw himself out of a window;  he remained in a very nervous condition for a short time, then gradually became quiet.

Having been ordered not to tell him, we said nothing of what had happened. We now had a series of very curious manifestations. Lindsay and Charlie saw tongues or jets of flame proceeding from Home's head. We then all distinctly heard as it were, a bird flying round the room, whistling and chirping, but saw nothing, except Lindsay, who perceived an indistinct form resembling a bird. There then came a sound as of a great wind rushing through the room, we also felt the wind strongly; the moaning rushing sound was the most weird thing I ever heard.

Home then got up, being in a trance, and spoke something in a language that none of us understood; it may have been nonsense, but it sounded like a sentence in a foreign tongue. Lindsay thought he recognized some words of Russian. He then quoted the text about the different gifts of the spirit, and gave us a translation in English of what he had said in the unknown tongue.

He told us that Charlie had that day been discussing the miracles that took place at Pentecost ; and that the spirits made the sound of the wind ; of the bird descending; of the unknown tongue, and interpretation thereof and the tongues of fire ; to shew that the same phenomenon could occur again. He spoke at length on the folly of supposing that God had long ago written, as it were, one little page of revelation, and then for ever shut the book, and turned away his face from mankind.