D. D. Home, his work, and Wikipedia skeptics

Michael Tymn has published in his blog an excellent summary description of the work of the extraordinary physical medium Daniel Dunglas Home and prime examples of the inept debunking attempts that have repeatedly been attempted over the years. They are a sad commentary on the willful disregard of facts and common sense resorted to by skeptics dedicated to defending their world view at all costs. This is at http://whitecrowbooks.com/michaeltymn/en...moustache/ .  

One of the most famous phenomena produced by Home was the disembodied and beautiful playing of an accordion.

"Sir William Crookes, a world-famous chemist and physicist who discovered the element thallium and was a pioneer in x-ray technology, reported seeing an accordion, its keys untouched by human hands, play beautiful music in the presence of Home on several occasions.  Home would hold the end of the accordion with his fingertips, allowing the instrument to hang.  Apparently, the “psychic force” required for the spirits to play the instrument was transmitted through Home’s body and fingers."

"According to Wikipedia, magician/debunker James “The Amazing” Randi has a simple explanation for it: Home had a mouth organ hidden in his thick moustache.  Randi apparently knew someone who told him that a harmonica was found among Home’s personal belongings after his death in 1886.  Such evidence!!!

When I read Randi’s theory, I immediately thought of the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the author being the late Oliver Sacks.  Perhaps Randi could author a book about Home titled The Man who played Divine Music from his Moustache.

Other skeptical “authorities” – most of them not even born until well after Home’s death – are cited at Wikipedia, one theorizing that Home had a music box tied to his leg, another suggesting that he used hooks and black silk which were not observable in the candlelight of the day to make it appear that the accordion was floating. Still another suggested the semblance of a keyboard concealed on his coat sleeve.  Another suspected an accomplice hidden in the room while playing another accordion.  There are many “might have” or “could have” speculations as to Home’s “conjuring.”
........................................
According to one debunker cited at Wikipedia, the vibrations and moving furniture at the Crookes’s home might best be explained by the fact that there were train tracks not far from his home and that the trains passing by caused the movement. Some of the other “tricks” might be explained by Home having holes in his socks and manipulating objects with his toes.  Wikipedia seems to give more credibility to people who weren’t even alive when Home was than to the intelligent people, like Crookes, Wallace, Adare, and Dunraven, who witnessed the phenomena time and time again. Crookes carried out 29 separate experiments with Home over a three-year period, again, most of them in his own home and under lighted conditions.  Randi would likely explain it by saying that it takes a magician to understand it all and Crookes was a scientist, not a magician."

The following is an example of one of those skeptics who are willing to go so far as to simply deny the reality that they were witness to, in order to maintain their materialist ideology. Akin to those skeptics who are fully capable of denying the reality of a personally experienced NDE because it is "impossible" according to their fixed in stone belief system.

"Sir David Brewster, a physicist known for his contributions to the optics field, is said to have witnessed Home being levitated.  Although seemingly quite impressed at the time, he later concluded that the only explanation was a trick he did not understand, or a delusion.  “Spirit is the last thing I will give in to,” he was quoted. Such a mindset continues to exist, especially with Wikipedia writers."

Makes me think of the pseudo-skeptic evangelical Bharati's outburst, as quoted in Boulders in the Stream: The Founding of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness:

When discussion was opened to the floor, Bharati rose and screaming and waving his hands in the air, said to Emerson “You’re either lying or cheating... I simply don’t believe you... it can’t happen... I don’t care what kind of evidence you’ve got.”

Bharati had now dismissed the work of both Eisenbud and Emerson, but it was the way in which he had done it that caught attention most. The contradiction between Bharati’s emotional outburst and his paper, which called for objective (etic) standards to be applied to any research involving parapsychology and anthropology, was not lost on the audience. One woman anthropologist in a stage whisper that could be heard by all nearby said to her companion, “How much more emic can you get than ‘I simply won’t believe it?’”

What surprised me then, although it wouldn’t today, was how much his disparagement lacked substance. Emerson’s reports of the Iroquois work, emphasized location information that had been tested by the spade, and found to be accurate. Archaeology, could provide clear, indisputable, testable information, in a way that the Castaneda work never could that something worth study was going on. Shamanism may be subject to several interpretations, but whether an artifact is where a psychic says it is, is identified as described, and is positioned as Remote Viewed is not. The viewer is either right or wrong. Bharati – and everyone else – instinctively recognized this. Every question from the floor was addressed to Emerson. Only his paper was discussed.

I found a good youtube video documentary on the extraordinary life of D. D. Home, by Kieth Parsons at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jAAm-n...x=30&t=20s. The accordion experiments conducted by Crookes are covered starting at about 31.40.

Home conducted very many demonstration sessions (sometimes 6 or 7 a day) up until his death of tuberculosis in his 50s, and was never even once caught in cheating, despite performing in front of innumerable skeptical witnesses scrutinizing his every move.

I found a good youtube video documentary on the extraordinary life of D. D. Home, by Kieth Parsons at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jAAm-n...x=30&t=20s. The accordion experiments conducted by Crookes are covered starting at about 31.40.

Home conducted very many demonstration sessions (sometimes 6 or 7 a day) up until his death of tuberculosis in his 50s, and was never even once caught in cheating, despite performing in front of innumerable skeptical witnesses scrutinizing his every move.

Unless you have a time machine at your disposal neither you or anyone else knows what the facts are.

Unless you have a time machine at your disposal neither you or anyone else knows what the facts are.

It wouldn't make any difference to you and yours if it happened today, right under your nose. Your religion has forbidden it.

It wouldn't make any difference to you and yours if it happened today, right under your nose. Your religion has forbidden it.

Personally I have no position on this man.
I would say you and yours have the religion because he's been dead for 134 years with no way to cross examine except by anecdote and you choose,, both of you, that anecdote is all you need to know the truth. That is faith which certainly is part of religion. Next time you finger point consider your own myopic view before proceeding.

Personally I have no position on this man.
I would say you and yours have the religion because he's been dead for 134 years with no way to cross examine except by anecdote and you choose,, both of you, that anecdote is all you need to know the truth. That is faith which certainly is part of religion. Next time you finger point consider your own myopic view before proceeding.

Odd then that you chose to comment, is it not ? I don't know what you mean by cross examining him either. He wasn't on trial
even in his heyday as far as I know. But to be more serious, I do know some very impressive witnesses vouched for his authenticity. We can't just write them off because they died a long time ago. 

And thanks for the advice on myopia but IMHO there are none so blind as closed minded 'sceptics' like you, Steve.

I found a good youtube video documentary on the extraordinary life of D. D. Home, by Kieth Parsons at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jAAm-n...x=30&t=20s. The accordion experiments conducted by Crookes are covered starting at about 31.40.

Home conducted very many demonstration sessions (sometimes 6 or 7 a day) up until his death of tuberculosis in his 50s, and was never even once caught in cheating, despite performing in front of innumerable skeptical witnesses scrutinizing his every move.

Very good. Keith’s done a whole series of interesting and well constructed videos on YouTube  as you may know.

Odd then that you chose to comment, is it not ? I don't know what you mean by cross examining him either. He wasn't on trial
even in his heyday as far as I know. But to be more serious, I do know some very impressive witnesses vouched for his authenticity. We can't just write them off because they died a long time ago. 

And thanks for the advice on myopia but IMHO there are none so blind as closed minded 'sceptics' like you, Steve.

It's obvious you can't comprehend such a simple straight forward sentence. Read the first sentence again.

It's obvious you can't comprehend such a simple straight forward sentence. Read the first sentence again.

Which sentence ? Do you mean this blather ?

"Unless you have a time machine at your disposal neither you or anyone else knows what the facts are."

The facts were reported by reliable witnesses and recorded at the time. I have no good reason to assume they were all lying  
and neither have you.