1871a; in Medhurst and Goldney 1972, pp. 28–29). crookes then made another arrangement by which no direct muscular pressure at all was applied to the board. The medium’s fingers rested in a water container placed on a separate stand just barely in contact with the board. The same results were obtained.
crookes forwarded an account of the experiments to the Royal Society on June 15, 1871 and requested the secretaries of the Society, Professor Sharpey and Professor Stokes, to come and observe the experiments for themselves. Sharpey refused. Stokes said he would come to look at the apparatus but would not agree to meet the medium or witness experiments. crookes replied on June 20, again inviting Stokes to witness an actual experiment. crookes promised that the experiment would be carried out under the most careful scrutiny and that the results, positive or negative, would be published.
Stokes did not attend, but raised some questions about the previous experimental set up. crookes replied, “It would have required a force of 74.5 lb.to have been exerted by Mr. Home to have produced the results, even if all your suppositions are granted; and, considering that he was sitting in a low, easy chair, and four pairs of sharp, suspicious eyes were watching to see that he exerted no force at all, but kept the tips of his fingers lightly on the instrument, it is sufficiently evident that an exertion of this pressure was impossible” (crookes 1871b, in Medhurst and Goldney 1972, p. 45). Stokes suggested some of the results were caused by vibrations of vehicles passing by on the street. crookes answered: “The upward and downward motion of the board and index was of a very slow and delicate character, occupying several seconds for each rise and fall; a tremor produced by passing vehicles is a very different thing from a steady vertical pull of from 4 to 8 lb., lasting for several seconds” (crookes 1871b; in Medhurst and Goldney 1972, p. 46). In his letter to Stokes, crookes added: “So many scientific men are now examining these strange phenomena (including many fellows of the Society), that it cannot be many years before the subject will be brought before the scientific world in a way that will enforce attention” (crookes 1871b; in Medhurst and Goldney 1972, p. 46). Home had the ability to make an accordion play tunes while holding it by one hand, on the end opposite the keys. The immediate skeptical doubt is that he was using a trick accordion. To guard against this, crookes purchased a new accordion, never seen or handled by Home. Another possibility was that Home was somehow using a free hand to manipulate the instrument. To guard against this, crookes built a special cage, which was placed beneath a table. The accordion was placed inside the cage, and Home was asked to insert one hand into the cage and grasp the end of the accordion opposite the end with the keys. Under these circumstances, the accordion played as usual. crookes (1871a) then observed: “The accordion was now again taken without any visible touch from Mr. Home’s hand, which he removed from it entirely and placed upon the table, where it was taken by the person next to him, and seen, as now were both his hands, by all present. I and two of the others present saw the accordion distinctly floating about inside the cage with no visible support. This was repeated a second time, after a short interval. Mr. Home presently re-inserted his hand in the cage and again took hold of the accordion. It then commenced to play, at first, chords and runs, and afterwards a well-known sweet and plaintive melody, which it executed perfectly in a very beautiful manner. Whilst this tune was being played, I grasped Mr. Home’s arm, below the elbow, and gently slid my hand down it until I touched the top of the accordion. He was not moving a muscle. His other hand was on the table, visible to all, and his feet were under the feet of those next to him” (Medhurst and Goldney 1972, p. 27).
At a sitting with Home, crookes observed writing produced in a mysterious fashion. The sitting took place in the light, at the home of crookes, and in the presence of friends. crookes asked for a written message. Here is his description of what happened: “A pencil and some pieces of paper were lying on the centre of the table; presently the pencil rose on its point, and after advancing by hesitating jerks to the paper, fell down. It then rose and fell again. A third time it tried, but with no better result. After this a small wooden lath, which was lying upon the table, slid toward the pencil, and rose a few inches from the table; the pencil rose again, and propping itself against the lath, the two together made an effort to mark the paper. It fell and then a joint effort was again made. After a third trial, the lath gave it up and moved back to its place, the pencil lay as it fell across the paper, and an alphabetic message told us ‘We have tried to do as you asked, but our power is exhausted”’ (crookes 1874, p. 93).
crookes supplied these notes of another séance with Home, on May 22, 1871, attended by himself and Wallace: “The table now rose completely off the ground several times whilst the gentlemen present took a candle, and kneeling down deliberately examined the position of Mr. Home’s feet and knees, and saw the three feet of the table quite off the ground. This was repeated, until each observer expressed himself satisfied that the levitation was not produced by mechanical means on the part of the medium or any one else present” (crookes 1889; in Gauld 1968, p. 214).
Home could not only levitate objects. He himself would often float into the air. crookes witnessed this three times and was aware of an additional one hundred recorded reports of Home’s levitations. About the Home levitation events he witnessed in his own home, crookes said: “He went to a clear part of the room, and, after standing quietly for a minute, told us he was rising. I saw him slowly rise up with a continuous gliding movement and remain about six inches off the ground for several seconds, when he slowly descended. On this occasion no one moved from their places. On another occasion I was invited to come to him, when he rose 18 inches off the ground, and I passed my hands under his feet, round him, and over his head, when he was in the air. . . . On several occasions Home and the chair on which he was sitting at the table rose off the ground. This was generally done very deliberately, and Home sometimes then tucked up his feet on the seat of the chair and held up his hands in full view of us. On such an occasion I have got down and seen and felt that all four legs were off the ground at the same time, Home’s feet being on the chair. Less frequently the levitating power extended to those sitting next to him. Once my wife was thus raised off the ground in her chair” (carrington 1931, p. 158).