Viscount Adare
Experiences in Spiritualism with D. D. Home by Viscount Adare was printed privately in 1869 at the request of Adare's father, the Earl of Dunraven. In order to make this remarkably rare book available to the public, and in memory of his father to whose title he succeeded; In 1925 Adare agreed to the publication of a second edition with the Society of Psychical Research. The probable reason for the privacy of the first publication was that the Earl of Dunraven, being a Roman Catholic, disliked incurring the censure of the Church.Adare recorded 78 séances and they are presented here. The phenomena recorded in the book are of a very wide range and embrace almost every spiritualistic manifestation."We have not, on a single occasion, during the whole series of séances seen any indication of contrivance on the part of the medium for producing or facilitating the manifestations which have taken place."The nature of the phenomena, too, in most cases, was such as to exclude every supposition of fraudulent production. One cannot shake a whole room, vibrate a table, generate wind, phantom hands, transparent apparitions, music without instruments or levitation of one's own body without paraphernalia of sleight-of-hand and a stage to produce the optical illusions. If no other records were available concerning the phenomena of D. D. Home, Lord Adare's book alone would establish a prima facie case for the genuine and unusual powers of this famous Medium.
