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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]

Home walked towards the spot where he said the figure was standing, he went behind the wall, and remained out of sight for some minutes; when he reappeared there was somebody, or something with him, that is to say, I could clearly perceive some substance moving along side of him as he walked. Presently we all saw him approaching, and evidently raised off the ground, for he floated, by, in front of us at a height which carried him over the broken wall, which was about two feet high.

There could not be a better test of his being off the ground, for as he crossed the wall, his form was not in the least raised, but the movement was quite horizontal and uniform. The distance that we saw him thus carried, must have been at least 10 or 12 yards.

He then came back to us and we found he was in a trance. He directed our attention to an old doorway near us; saying, “He is there; he is laying a stone; you will hear the sound of a trowel."

We listened and heard indistinct sounds; I cannot say that they resembled the sound of laying a stone. Home then awoke, and. said that he remembered that, before he went into the trance, he had been walking about with a man dressed like a friar in a brown gown; that they had been talking together, but that he did not know what he had said to him; that this spirit (the friar) was unable to leave the earth; that he and the spirit had both been raised in the air by some other strong influence.

He described the spirit as leaning on his shoulder. He soon left us, and apparently was again engaged in conversation with this spirit. He then returned and spoke to us. This he repeated, two or three times, being sometimes in a trance and sometimes awake when he addressed us. Finally, while in the trance, he led us back into the church, kneeled on the ground, apparently in prayer, two or three times, and then began walking up and down the church, raising his hands above his head, and saying,

“Oh, how good! Oh, how good !” 

He then came up to us, and told us that the spirit would be better and happier for something that he had said or done that night, after which he awoke. He said that he saw a figure in the air between us and the window. Charlie Wynne and I both saw a shadow move across the window. We then returned home.

It is a fact worthy of notice that although the night was perfectly calm, the birds appeared to be in a singularly disturbed state ; owls were flitting about, and some other-bird flew several times round the church, screaming harshly. Besides night birds, ordinary birds (judging by the sounds) were flying about; and at one time, just as Home said he saw the figure enter a clump of trees at some distance from us, a bird seemed to fly out, chirping. We heard in the church a sound, as of a bird flying round whistling, and Home, being then in a trance, appeared as if following it about, and endeavouring to catch it. I could see nothing, and do not know whether it was a real bird or ,not.

Accurate as is the foregoing account of this strange scene, it would be difficult, indeed impossible, to convey by any description, a just idea of its solemnity. When we entered the ruins the night was quite dark and very still. We walked quietly up the nave and choir, and stood for some little time near the east window. Scarce a word was spoken. We had not the least idea what sort of manifestations were likely to occur.

While Mr. Home was walking about, what with the deep tones of the voice so utterly unlike his own-the occasional moans and utterances of sounds of pain or distress-his disappearing in the gloom and reappearing again-the light shining around his head and upon his hands, which were occasionally lifted as if in prayer, and were thus visible when the rest of the figure was lost in darkness; his attitudes, sometimes kneeling, at others as if searching for something near the ground-the strange sounds which we heard, particularly a sort of chirping or unearthly whistling, which seemed to proceed from him, and the startling screams made by some bird, but what bird we had not light enough to identify ; the effect produced upon us was most thrilling, and one which we are not likely soon to forget.

Before leaving the Abbey the light from the moon, just about to rise, enabled us to see objects; the sky too had become clear, and the stars shone out, while an air of calmness and peace pervaded the scene, producing a most soothing effect upon our minds.