My "Interview" with Sir William Crookes (1832-1919)

Crookes is best remembered for his investigation of mediums Daniel Dunglas Home and Florence Cook, but he sat with a number of other mediums, including Kate Fox.  This “interview” is based on Sir William's 1904 book, Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism, which deals primarily with the Home phenomena. Except for material in brackets and parentheses, inserted to permit a flow of words and proper transition, the words of Sir William are verbatim from the book.  The questions have been tailored to fit that verbiage.   

 Sir William, when it was first announced that you would be conducting an investigation of D.D. Home and other mediums, didn't your scientific peers applaud, assuming you would expose it as all fraudulent and thereby rescue science?

      “When I first stated in the [Quarterly Journal of Science, October, 1871] that I was about to investigate the phenomena of so-called Spiritualism, the announcement called forth universal expression of approval.  [It was said] that ‘if men like Mr. Crookes grapple with the subject, taking nothing for granted until it is proved, we shall soon know how much to believe.'  These remarks, however, were written too hastily.  It was taken for granted by the writers that the results of my experiments would be in accordance with their preconception.  What they really desired was not the truth, but an additional witness in favor of their own foregone conclusion.  When they found that the facts which that investigation established could not be made to fit those opinions, why - ‘so much the worse for the facts.'  They try to creep out of their confident recommendations of the enquiry by declaring that ‘Mr. Home is a clever conjurer, who has duped us all.'”

 Is there even a remote possibility that Mr. Home was a master magician?

     “It is idle to attribute these results to trickery, for I would [point out] that what I relate has not been accomplished at the house of a medium, but in my own house, where preparations have been quite impossible.  A medium, walking into my dining room, cannot, while seated in one part of my room with a number of persons keenly watching him, by trickery make an accordion play in my own hand when I hold it keys downward, or cause the same accordion to float about the room playing all the time. He cannot introduce machinery which will wave window curtains or pull up Venetian blinds eight feet off, tie a knot in a handkerchief and place it in a far corner of the room, sound notes on a distant piano, cause a card-plate to float about the room, raise a water bottle and tumbler from the table, make a coral necklace rise on end, cause a fan to move about and fan the company, or set in motion a pendulum when enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to the wall.” 

 As I understand your reports, all this tomfoolery was simply an attempt by the “intelligences” behind them to demonstrate to you that they were real.  How did you communicate with these “intelligences”?

       “At a very early stage of the enquiry, it was seen that the power producing the phenomena was not merely a blind force, but was associated with or governed by intelligence….During a séance with Mr. Home, a small lath, which I have before mentioned, moved across the table to me, in the light, and delivered a message to me by tapping my hand; I repeating the alphabet, and the lath tapping me at the right letters.  The other end of the lath was resting on the table, some distance from Mr. Home's hands. The taps were so sharp and clear, and the lath was evidently so well under the control of the invisible power which was governing its movements, that I said, ‘Can the intelligence governing the motion of this lath change the character of the movements, and give me a telegraphic message through the Morse alphabet by taps on my hand?'  I have every reason to believe that the Morse code was quite unknown to any other person present, and it was only imperfectly known to me.  Immediately as I said this, the character of the taps changed, and the message was continued in the way I had requested.  The letters were given too rapidly for me to do more than catch a word here and there, and consequently I lost the message; but I heard sufficient to convince me that there was a good Morse operator at the other end of the line, wherever that might be.”   

 Could the accordion you mentioned have had some special mechanism built into it, as with a self-playing piano?  Of course, I realize that this would not explain how it floated about the room.

     “The accordion was a new one, having been purchased by myself for the purpose of these experiments, at Wheatstone's, in Conduit Street.  Mr. Home had neither handled nor seen the instrument before the commencement of the test experiments.” 

One of your reports referred to you and the others present observing a phantom playing the accordion.  Would you mind elaborating on that incident?

       “A phantom form came from a corner of the room, took an accordion in its hands, and then glided about the room playing the instrument.  The form was visible to all present for many minutes, Mr. Home also been seen at the time.  Coming rather close to a lady who was sitting apart from the rest of the company, she gave a slight cry, upon which it vanished.” 

You also reported on luminous appearances.

     “I have had an alphabetic communication given by luminous flashes occurring before me in the air, whilst my hand was moving about amongst them.  I have seen a luminous cloud floating upwards to a picture.  Under the strictest test conditions, I have more than once had a solid, luminous crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room.  In the light, I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about.”  

 Can you say a little more about the hands?  Were Mr. Home's hands observed during all this?

     “A hand has been repeatedly seen by myself and others playing the keys of an accordion, both of the medium's hands being visible at the same time, and sometimes being held by those near him.  The hands and fingers do not always appear to me to be solid and lifelike.  Sometimes, indeed, they present more the appearance of a nebulous cloud not equally visible to all present…I have more than once seen, first an object move, then a luminous cloud appear to form about it, and lastly, the cloud condense into a shape and become a perfectly-formed hand.  At this stage the hand is visible to all present.  It is not always a mere form, but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, the fingers moving, and the flesh apparently as human as that of any in the room.  At the wrist, or arm, it becomes hazy, and fades off into a luminous cloud.  To the touch, the hand sometimes appears icy cold and dead; at other times, warm and life-like, grasping my own with the firm pressure of an old friend.  I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it escape.  There was no struggle or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapour, and faded in that manner from my grasp.” 

 Mr. Home is best remembered for his levitations.  Did you actually see him levitate?

      “The most striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the room.  Once sitting in an easy chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up.  On each occasion, I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence as it was taking place. 

 Did you observe him under full light?

     “The occurrences have taken place in my own house, in the light, and with only private friends present besides the medium…The power possessed by Mr. Home is sufficiently strong to withstand this antagonistic influence (bright light); consequently he always objects to darkness at his séances.  Indeed, except on two occasions, when, for some particular experiments of my own, light was excluded, everything which I have witnessed with him has taken place in the light.  

You recorded some 28  sittings with Mr. Home.  Why didn't he levitate more often than three times?

     “In the case of Mr. Home, the development of this force varies enormously, not only from week to week, but varies from hour to hour; on some occasions the force is inappreciable by my tests for an hour or more, and then suddenly reappears with great strength.  It is capable of acting at a distance from Mr. Home not unfrequently as far as two or three feet, but it is always strongest close to him.”         

 You reported also seeing tables and chair levitated.   Why is it that tables and chairs are so often the objects of levitation in Mr. Home's case and with other mediums?

     “I might reply that I only observe and record facts, and do not profess to enter into the why and wherefore; but indeed it will be obvious that if a heavy inanimate body in an ordinary dining room has to rise off the floor, it cannot very well be anything else but a table or chair.  That this propensity is not specially attached to furniture I have abundant evidence, but like other experimental demonstrators, the intelligence or power, whatever it may be, which produces these phenomena can only work with the materials which are available.”

What do you mean by “force”?

     “These experiments appear conclusively to establish the existence of a new force, in some unknown manner connected with the human organization which for convenience may be called the Psychic Force…According to this theory, the ‘medium' or the circle of people associated together as a whole, is supposed to possess a force, power, influence, virtue, or gift, by means of which intelligent beings are enabled to produce the phenomena observed. What these intelligent beings are is a subject for other theories.”   

I understand that many of your friends and colleagues from the scientific world have been present at these experiments in your home.  Except perhaps for Alfred Russel Wallace, we haven't seen much from them attesting to your observations.  Why is that?

     “It argues ill for the boasted freedom of opinion among scientific men, that they have so long refused to institute a scientific investigation into the existence and nature of facts asserted by so many competent and credible witnesses, and which they are freely invited to examine when and where they please.  For my own part, I too much value the pursuit of truth, and the discovery of any new fact in nature, to avoid inquiry because it appears to clash with prevailing opinions.  But as I have no right to assume that others are equally willing to do this, I refrain from mentioning the names of my friends without their permission.” 

     And yet your scientific colleagues still scoff at your reports?

    “Science has trained and fashioned the average mind into habits of exactitude and disciplined perception, and in so doing has fortified itself for tasks higher, wider, and incomparably more wonderful than even the wisest among our ancestors imagined. Like the souls in Plato's myth that follow the chariot of Zeus, it has ascended to a point of vision far above the earth.  It is henceforth open to science to transcend all we now think we know of matter, and to gain new glimpses of a profounder schedem of Cosmic Law  …There are at least a hundred recorded 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 this kind - the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain C. Wynne their own most minute accounts of what took place.   The accumulated testimony establishing Mr. Home's levitations is overwhelming.” 

       It has been many years since you investigated the mediumship of D. D. Home and Florence Cook.  Because you backed away from psychical research after those investigations, some have suggested that you have had second thoughts concerning your conclusions in those two cases.  Is that true?

       “I have nothing to retract.  I adhere to my already published statements.  Indeed, I might add much thereto.  I regret only a certain crudity in those early expositions which, no doubt justly, militated against their acceptance by the scientific world.  My own knowledge at that time scarcely extended beyond the fact that certain phenomena new to science had assuredly occurred, and were attested by my own sober senses, and better still, by automatic records.” 

     Thank you, Sir William.  Any parting thoughts?

     “Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be.  Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august, and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn.”