aged seventeen, was
so constantly attended by noises of rappings that his aunt threw a
chair at him, summoned three preachers, an Independent, a Baptist, and
a Wesleyan (Home was then a Wesleyan), and plunged into conflict with
the devil. The furniture now began to move about, untouched by man,
and Home's aunt turned him out of the house. Home went to a friend in
another little town, people crowded to witness the phenomena, and the
press blazoned the matter abroad. Henceforth, Home was a wonder
worker; but once, for a whole year--February 1856 to February
1857--'the power' entirely deserted him, and afterwards, for shorter
periods.

In 1852 he was examined by the celebrated American poet, Bryant, by a
professor of Harvard, and others, who reported the usual physical
phenomena, and emphatically declared that 'we know we were not imposed
upon or deceived.' 'Spirits' spoke through the voice of the entranced
Home, or rapped out messages, usually gushing, and Home floated in the
air, at the house of Mr. Ward Cheney, at South Manchester,
Connecticut. This phenomenon is constantly reported in the Bible, in
the Lives of the Saints by the Bollandists, in the experiences of the
early Irvingites, in witch trials, in Iamblichus, and in savage and
European folklore. Lord Elcho, who was out with Prince Charles in the
Forty-Five, writes in his unpublished Memoirs that, being at Rome
about 1767, he went to hear the evidence in the process of canonising
a saint, recently dead, and heard witnesses swear that they had seen
the saint, while alive, floating about in the air, like Home. St.
Theresa was notorious for this accomplishment. Home's first feat of
this kind occurred 'in a darkened room,' a very dark room indeed, as
the evidence shows. It had been darkened on purpose to try an
experiment in seeing 'N rays,' which had been recently investigated by
Reichenbach. Science has brought them recently back into notice. The
evidence for the fact, in this case, was that people felt Home's feet
in mid air. 'I have been lifted in the light of day only once, and
that was in America;' also, in the light of four gas lamps 'in a room
in Sloane Street.'

After attracting a good deal of notice in New York, Home, on April 9,
1855, turned up at Cox's Hotel, Jermyn Street, where Mr. Cox gave him
hospitality as a _non_-'paying guest.' Now occurred the affair of Sir
David Brewster and Lord Brougham. Both were capable of hallucinations.
Lord Brougham pub