The séances of Daniel Dunglas Home in Europe

Record summary

Daniel Dunglas Home was a Scottish-born medium whose séances were reported in Britain and continental Europe from the 1850s through the 1880s. Accounts attributed table movement, raps, playing instruments, and levitation to his mediumship, including episodes witnessed by aristocratic and scientific participants. Home’s career offers a broad comparison case for celebrity mediums, patronage, observational testimony, and fraud allegations. Researchers should separate memoirs, newspaper reports, and contemporaneous investigations, since many famous details were recorded retrospectively and séance conditions often lacked controls acceptable to later experimental standards.