Man in the Air
In 1886, in the St. Germain Cemetery in Paris, they laid to rest a Scotsman who was one of the most remarkable men of the last century. His name was Daniel Dunglas Home.
His father was said to be a natural son of an earl. If the story is true the flighty earl was not a patch on his grandson. For, according to no less distinguished a witness than Sir William Crookes, "there are at least a hundred instances of Mr. Home's rising from the ground, in the presence of as many separate persons; and I have heard from the lips of three witnesses to the most striking occurrence of this kind - the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsay and Captain C. Wynne - their most intimate accounts of what took place.
"To reject the recorded testimony on this subject is to reject all human testimony whatever, for no fact, in sacred or profane history, is supported by a stronger array of proof."
The astonishing occurrence took place on December 13th, 1868, at Ashley House, Victoria Street, London. In a state of trance Home floated out of a third-story window and came in through the window of another room.
The three witnesses heard Home go into the next room, heard the window thrown up, and presently Home appeared standing upright outside their own window. He opened the window and walked in quite coolly.
Lord Adare, later ford Dunraven, went into the other room to shut the window, and found that it was not raised a foot. He could not think how Home managed to squeeze through.
Home told him, "Come and see."
"I went with him," Lord Adare writes. "He told me to open the window as it was before. I did so. He told me to stand a little distance off.
"He then went through the open space head first, quite rapidly, his body being nearly horizontal and apparently rigid.
"He came in again, feet foremost, and we returned to the other room.
"It was so dark I could not see clearly how he was supported outside.
"He did not appear to grasp or rest upon the balustrade, but rather to be swung out and in."
A truly remarkable incident, well worthy of the violent controversy which arose over it in later years.
To Lord Lindsay we owe two accounts. One in 1869, another in 1871.
In the latter he speaks of the moon shining into the room. This was a serious discrepancy, as a nautical almanack disclosed a new moon on the date in question. The moon, therefore, could not have lighted the room.
But Lord Adare's almost 'contemporary account and Lord Lindsay's first version do not mention the moon. Which was correct?
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, vice-president of the Royal Society, intimated that Captain Wynne never testified to having seen Home float out of the room. He must have been discomfited by Captain Wynne's answer to a letter to Home:
"The fact of your having gone out of the window and in at the other I can swear to."
Other writers attacked the testimonies on the grounds of poor visibility. But Andrew Lang was to the point in remarking that people in a room can see even in a fog a man coming in by the window, and go out again, head first, with body rigid.
The account of this levitation is too remarkable and too well attested to be treated lightly. It essentially differs from Dr. Cannon's feat, as Home had no conscious recollection of what had taken place.
We find this the case in nearly all mediumistic levitations and in all cases of aerial journeys.
