Jock Brocas is a spiritual author and teacher with books published internationally. Jock is also the president of the charity organization assmpi and works tirelessly to he others develop spiritually and live a more rewarding life. Join Jock Brocas on a spiritual journey.
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I have long been a fan of medium and author Anthony Borgia and have original copies of some of his books which I treasure. For me, they are up there with Testimony of Light written by Helen Greaves which has been in continuous print since 1969. This underrated book is deserving of much wider readership, as are Borgia’s, whose writings are such an honest pleasure to read. While some of the language may now be dated, the wealth and breadth of what he covered is magnificent.
‘Knowledge is the best antidote for fear, especially if that fear could be of the possible or probable state of existence after we made the change from this life to the next.’ Anthony Borgia, Life in the World Unseen
Anthony Borgia (1896-1989) was a medium who transcribed the thoughts of a deceased Catholic priest and author Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) whom he had known in life. Benson was the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson.
Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson
Photograph by G. Jerrard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Benson was originally a priest in the Anglican tradition, but later changed allegiances and re-qualified as a Catholic priest. Borgia was a close friend of Benson’s for five years prior to his passing into the spirit world. Benson was appointed a supernumerary private chamberlain (now Chaplain of His Holiness) to the Pope in 1911 and consequently styled as Monsignor. He was a prolific author, both of fiction as well as religious tomes and died very young at age 42.
From the Spirit World, the Monsignor dictated a wealth of transcripts to his friend Anthony Borgia, and many of them were converted into books. He has a great deal to say, which he hopes will correct the teachings contained in his previous influential Christian books that were written when he was living on earth.
Borgia’s books containing transcripts of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson include Beyond this Life (1942) and The World Unseen (1944). They became the first and second part of the 1954 publication Life in the World Unseen. The sequel, More About Life In The World Unseen was published by Odhams Press/Citadel Press in 1958.
ABC of Life (1945) was later republished under the title Here and Hereafter, and the preface includes a reference to forming a trilogy with the two previous books. Facts (1946) and More Light (1947)are heavily laden with religious commentary and neither are particularly popular compared to the others, perhaps indicating it was wiser to stick to non-religious topics.
Heaven and Earth was published in 1948. Here is a timely excerpt:
Anthony Borgia had a strong gift of clairaudience. It was through this particular aspect of his mediumship that he was able to assist Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson in realizing his dearest wish - that of putting into print the knowledge and facts of life after death, and helping to banish the fear of death which affects so many people.
The books for which Anthony acted as Monsignor’s transcriber are rightly regarded as among the ‘classics’ of Spiritualist literature. It was always a source of great happiness to him that he had helped, in this way, to spread the great truths of Spiritualist teachings.
Anthony Borgia: Life in the World Unseen
The foreword of Life in the World Unseen (1954) was written by Sir John Anderson. His closing words are as relevant today as they were in 1954:
’Civilization is at the parting of the ways, and it is to be hoped that more informative literature, such as this, will be forthcoming, to enable the Spiritual regeneration of the world to proceed, so that Peace and Harmony may reign supreme!’
Excerpts from Life in the World Unseen - Introduction by Anthony Borgia, regarding the passing of his friend Monsignor Benson:
After he had passed from this life, I many times wondered as to his welfare. Through a spirit friend I was told that he was well and prospering, and that in time I should hear from him directly. Such eventually proved to be the case, and there commenced a series of scripts given by him, the first of which, Life in the World Unseen, gave an account in some detail of his actual passing.
He recounted how, at the close of his earthly life, he was met by a former colleague named Edwin, and taken by him to the spirit world, where his home awaited him, a counterpart of his house on earth. After a brief rest he commenced his explorations, under Edwin’s guidance, of the land of his new life. During the course of their rambles they met a young girl of great charm, named Ruth, also a newcomer to the spirit world, who joined them, and the three have been together ever since, closely associated in work and pleasure.
Anthony passed in 1989 at the age of 93, a man of profound intelligence allied to an enquiring mind. His interests were many and varied, although those which remained the strongest and lasted all his life were the study of music and of psychic science, in both of which he could be considered something of an expert.
A man of great kindness, warmth and generosity, he was a splendid example of true Spiritualism, never exhibiting this better than during the many years of near blindness in his old age when the grace, courage and humour with which he bore this affliction drew the admiration of all who knew him. His books remain as a testimony to Monsignor’s great desire to share his knowledge of the life to come, and to Borgia’s own homage to truths which sustained him throughout his long life.
Below are some insightful passages from Life in the World Unseen (mind the spelling errors):
Excerpt about Monsignor Benson’s transition into the spirit world:
Excerpt about communication with loved ones on earth and when they are likely to join you in the spirit world:
Monsignor speaks of an immense building which exercises the function of an office of records and inquiries where one can inquire about newly arrived souls and when a friend or family member is due to arrive:
The great halls of rest:
Why it is wise to cultivate your personal spiritual world whilst still on the earth plane:
Daniel Dunglas Home (pronounced ‘Hume’) was a Scottish physical medium (1833-1886) who was reportedly able to levitate to various heights, speak with the dead and produce rapping and knocks in houses at will. Home stands unique in that many of the feats he allegedly performed have yet to be duplicated by anyone!
Arguably the premier psychic medium of the 19th century, Home came from humble beginnings in Scotland, and a long line of self-proclaimed psychics on his mother’s side of the family. One of eight children, he was too much for his mother to handle and at barely a year old, he was farmed out to an aunt and uncle. In his new home, it was reported that his cradle rocked by itself when he was in it. Something supernatural seemed to waft around Home from an early age.
Daniel Dunglas Home
Nadar, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
If there was a single word that best fit Daniel Douglas Home, it was arrogance. Considered by many to be the most gifted medium who ever lived, Home avoided contact with other Spiritualists, declaring that he had nothing to learn from them. Perhaps he was right, or perhaps he chose to bypass the common people because he preferred to use his purported paranormal powers in the company of the rich, royal, and famous. Regardless of the company he chose to keep, Home remains an enigma to many researchers today, especially those who consider Spiritualism to have been nothing more than entertainment and illusion for the masses.
Home was never caught in fraud but accomplished things far beyond that which even contemporary scientific opinion admits are possible. He operated at a time when numerous others were doing similar things and were caught in fraud, often after successfully deceiving many learned and seemingly competent observers. There are two possibilities: he was either a very unusual person, capable of doing the phenomenal things reported of him, or he was one of the most clever frauds in the history of humanity.
Home’s first vision
Home was a sensitive, delicate child of a highly nervous temperament and of such weak health that he was not expected to live. Adopted by Mrs. McNeill Cook, a childless aunt, he passed his infancy at Portobello, Scotland and was taken to the United States at the age of nine, growing up in Greenville, Connecticut, and Troy, New York. It was noticed that he had keen powers of observation and a prodigious memory.
He saw his first vision at age 13. A schoolfellow, Edwin, died in Greeneville and appeared to him in a bright cloud at night in Troy, thus keeping a childish promise to which they had bound themselves, that he who died first would appear to the other. Home’s second vision came four years later. It announced the death of his mother to the hour.
One night Home heard loud, unaccountable blows; the next morning, a volley of raps. His aunt, remembering the Hydesville rappings that had occurred two years before, believed him to be possessed by the devil and called for a Congregationalist, a Baptist, and a Methodist minister for exorcism. This being unsuccessful, she turned him out of doors. Consequently, although Home never asked for or received direct payment, Home appears to have lived on the hospitality of friends attracted by his curious gift.
Home’s first séance and early death
His first séance was reportedly sensational: dead relatives were contacted and a table danced around the room and could not be stopped by human intervention. Word quickly spread and Home became a sought after guest in the homes of New England’s upper-classes. Unlike many mediums at the time, Home never directly charged for his services, although his séance participants were generous with donations and gifts.
Home quickly set himself apart from the manner and methods of contemporary mediums. His séances generally took place in daytime or in brightly lit rooms at night. This, I believe, is the best way for physical mediumship to be developed and takes away the very fuel of a skeptic’s fire.
His demonstrations seemed fool-proof: a table with five men sitting on it moved around the room, and séances were never held in Home’s own lodgings (where he could have had accomplices or trickery set up), but always in the homes of the sitters. Most of the observers of his séances left believing Home’s gifts to be genuine. I do ask why such prevalent demonstrations are not seen today, as they would certainly cause skeptics a real problem.
In early 1854, Home was diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors recommended he journey back to Europe for the sake of his health. He settled into London– living for free at the fine hotel of one of his believers– and repeated the apparently genuine séances that he had exhibited in the USA. He moved within the upper-circles of society. He held séances for Napoleon III and Queen Sophia of the Netherlands and increased the phenomenon he was able to demonstrate. He added levitation to his repertoire and, again in well-lit rooms, Home would rise six feet off the floor in view of all present. His first levitation occurred in the South Manchester house of Ward Cheney, an eminent American manufacturer. Strains of music were heard when no instrument was near. The pinnacle of his career took place during a séance in 1868 when Home allegedly levitated, floated out of a third-story window, and floated back into the room via another window.
Eventually the tuberculosis caught up with Home. After more than 1,500 séances, he died 21 June 1886, aged 53 and was buried in France’s St. Germain-en-Laye cemetery. Later debunkers would propose various theories as to how Daniel Dunglas Home performed such seemingly inexplicable feats– ranging from the somewhat possible (mass hypnosis) to the bizarre (trained monkeys moving furniture, tiny musical instruments concealed in his moustache) this is absolutely laughable and shows the extent to which so called skeptic scientists and hard line skeptics in general will go to. Daniel Dunglas Home has never ever been proved fraudulent in any way.
But many of his demonstrations are still unexplained and he remains one of the most enigmatic occult practitioners in modern history.
Scientific investigations into Home’s phenomena
The first scientist to investigate Home’s phenomena was George Bush, a distinguished theologian and Oriental scholar from New York. The celebrated American poet William Cullen Bryant and a Professor Wells of Harvard University testified in a written statement to the reality of the phenomena. Professors Robert Hare and James Mapes, both famous chemists, and John Worth Edmonds of the United States Supreme Court owed much of their conversion to Spiritualism to this young man of frail health.
At that time, nobody understood the part the physical organism plays in the production of the phenomena. The demands made on Home were very heavy and the drain of nervous energy excessive. His intended medical studies were interrupted because of illness. A trip to Europe was advised and Home went to England in April 1855. He first stayed at Cox’s Hotel in Jermyn Street, London, and was later the guest of J. S. Rymer, an Ealing solicitor.
The conversion of many of the later leaders of the Spiritualist movement in England was attributed to Home’s phenomena. When these phenomena attracted public attention, Home found himself in the midst of a press war. Among the first who asked Home to attend a séance was Lord Brougham, who came to the sitting with Sir David Brewster, inventor of the kaleidoscope and remembered as the Father of Modern Experimental Optics.
Sir David Brewster
Scottish Scientists, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Home was proud of the impression he made upon these two distinguished men and wrote about it to a friend in the United States. The letter was published in the United States and found its way to the London press, whereupon Brewster at once disclaimed all belief in Spiritualism and set down the phenomena to imposture. At the same time, his statements in private supported Home, and they, too, found their way into the newspapers.
Lasting harm was done to Home’s reputation by Robert Browning’s poem “Mr. Sludge, the Medium,” which was generally taken to refer to Home. Browning and his wife, who accepted Spiritualism, had attended séances with Home. The poem was a malignant attack, since Browning had never claimed in public to have caught Home at trickery and in private admitted that imposture was out of the question. The reason for this vicious attack may have been jealousy over his wife’s enthusiasm for Home’s phenomena. As we know, sadly, jealousy is rife in the profession of Spiritualism as much as any other profession.
Other famous men of the day, such as Bulwer Lytton and William Thackeray, never spoke of their experiences in public. Thackeray made Home’s acquaintance in the United States when he lectured there. Both there and in London Thackeray availed himself of every opportunity of sitting with Home. He admitted to have found a genuine mystery and warmly endorsed Robert Bell’s anonymous article “Stranger than Fiction,” published in the Cornhill Magazine, which Thackeray then edited.
Bell’s account of a séance with Home starts with a quotation of a Dr. Treviranus to Coleridge:
“I have seen what I would not have believed on your testimony, and what I cannot therefore, expect you to believe upon mine.”
Thackeray was bitterly attacked for the publication of the article and it was said that the Cornhill Magazine dropped considerably in circulation as a consequence.
In the early autumn of 1855 Home went to Florence to visit Thomas A. Trollope. His name and fame soon spread there, too. False rumours arose among the peasants that he was a necromancer and administered the sacraments of the church to toads in order to raise the dead by spells and incantations. As we well know, all kinds of accusations are placed before us; perhaps the most daring being the Helen Duncan trial at which she was unlawfully tried and convicted of witchcraft under a 1753 law. At this moment in time (10/2/2017), an appeal is being launched by the Helen Duncan foundation.
The aforementioned false rumours may explain an attempt against Home’s life on December 5, 1855, when a man ambushed him late at night and stabbed him three times with a dagger. Home had a narrow escape. The attacker was never arrested, but Home was warned the following month by Signor Lan Ducci, minister of the interior to the grand duke of Tuscany, of his sinister reputation among the populace.
Summoned by Napoleon III
Napoleon III
Mayer & Pierson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
About this time, he was told by the spirits that his power would leave him for a year. In Home’s state of seclusion from supernormal contact, Catholic influences found an easy inroad into his religious ideas. He converted to Catholicism and decided to enter a monastery where he was received by Pius IX and treated with favour. Home changed his mind, however, and left Italy for Paris, where, to the day from the announced suspension, his powers returned. The news reached the French court and Napoleon III summoned him to the Tuilleries.
The story of Home’s séance with Napoleon was not made public. The curiosity of the press was aroused, however, when the first séance was followed by many others. An account of the first séance in Home’s autobiography, Incidents in My Life, tells how Napoleon followed every manifestation with keen and skeptical attention, and satisfied himself by the closest scrutiny that neither deception nor delusion was possible. His and the empress’s unspoken thoughts were replied to, and the empress was touched by a materialised hand that, from a defect in one of the fingers, she recognised to be the hand of her late father.
The second séance was more forceful. The room was shaken; heavy tables were lifted and then held down to the floor by an alteration of their weight. At the third séance, a phantom hand appeared above the table, lifted a pencil and wrote the single word Napoleon in the handwriting of Napoleon I.
Prince Murat later related to Home that the Duke de Morny told Napoleon III that he felt it a duty to contradict the report that the emperor believed in Spiritualism. The emperor replied, “Quite right, but you may add when you speak on the subject again that there is a difference between believing a thing and having proof of it, and that I am certain of what I have seen.”
Kings, queens, aristocrats and scandalmongers
Soon after these séances, Home left Paris for the United States and rumours were rife that his departure was compulsory. On his return to Paris, however, he was speedily summoned to Fontainebleau, where the king of Bavaria was interested in a séance. Home was in great power at the time and so much sought after that the Union Club, where fashionable sophisticates congregated, offered him 50,000 francs for a single séance. Home refused. A book, privately printed in France, recorded the strange experiences of the high society with Home’s mediumship.
Earlier, in Italy, Daniel Home had been introduced to the king of Naples. The German emperor and the queen of Holland soon joined the ranks of the curious who were besieging Home with requests for séances.While enjoying the benevolence of crowned heads and the highest members of the aristocracy, Home had to wage a desperate struggle against the scandalmongers. Fantastic stories began to circulate as soon as he left Paris, and while he was regaining his shattered health in Italy, it was even rumoured that he was in the prison of Mazas.
In Rome during the spring of 1858 Home was introduced to Count Koucheleff-Besborodka and his wife. Soon after, he became engaged to Alexandrina de Kroll, the count’s sister-in-law. The wedding took place in St. Petersburg. It was a great society affair. Count Alexis Tolstoy, the poet, and Count Bobrinsky, a chamberlain to the emperor, acted as groomsmen. Alexandre Dumas, a guest of Count Koucheleff-Besborodka, was one of the witnesses.
From Home’s marriage to Alexandrina de Kroll, a son was born. Shortly after, Home returned to England, friends tried to bring about a meeting between him and Michael Faraday, the famous scientist and proponent of the involuntary muscular action theory to explain table movement. As the Morning Star reported, Faraday was not satisfied with demanding an open and complete examination, but wished Home to acknowledge that the phenomena, however produced, were ridiculous and contemptible. Thereafter, the idea of giving him a sitting was abandoned.
Home derived more satisfaction from his experiences with Dr. Ashburner, a royal physician, and John Elliotson, sometime president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, a character study of whom, as “Dr. Goodenough,” was drawn by Thackeray in Pendennis, and to whom the work was dedicated. When Ashburner became a believer in Spiritualism, Elliotson, who was one of the hardest materialists, became estranged from him and publicly attacked him for his folly. A few years later, however, Home and Elliotson met in Dieppe. The result was a séance, a strict investigation, and the conversion of Elliotson. On his return to London,nhe hastened to seek reconciliation with Ashburner and publicly declared that he was satisfied of the reality of the phenomena and that they were tending to revolutionise his thoughts and feelings.
Home’s phenomena also radically changed Robert Chambers, co-author with Leitch Ritchie, of the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), which startled the public by its outspoken skepticism. Chambers attended the séance Robert Bell wrote about in Cornhill Magazine.
He was as was all too common, too afraid of losing his reputation to make a public statement, although he allegedly received startling evidence of continued personal identity from his deceased father and daughter. Nevertheless, Chambers anonymously wrote the preface to Home’s autobiography in 1862. Eight years later, during the Lyon-Home trial, he abandoned his attitude of reserve and gave an affidavit in Home’s favour.
For a time during 1859 to 1860, Home gave frequent joint séances with the American medium J. R. M. Squire, an editor of the Boston Banner of Light. Squire was introduced to London society under Home’s auspices and later in the year he was presented at court.
Duped by wealthy thief Jane Lyon
Home’s wife died in July 1862. Six months later, his book Incidents in My Life was published. It attracted widespread notice in the press. The Morning Herald remarked, “We must note also the strangeness of the fact that Mr. Home has never been detected, if indeed he is an imposter.” The book sold very well and a second edition was published in a few months. This, however, did not relieve the money problems Home began to experience. Relatives disputed his right of inheritance to the fortune of his wife, and, looking about for a means of livelihood, he decided to develop his keen artistic perception. He hoped to become a sculptor and went to Rome to study. Home also wrote another book called Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism.
His health, however, could not stand the strain. Friends came to the rescue with the post of residential secretary at the foundation of the Spiritual Athenaeum, a kind of headquarters for London Spiritualists. Then came the ill-fated proposition of Jane Lyon, a wealthy widow, that she adopt Home, with the intention of securing his financial stability. Lyon took a fancy to Home and proposed to adopt him if he added her name to his own, in which case she was prepared to give him substantial wealth. Home assented and changed his name to Home-Lyon. Lyon transferred £60,000 to Home’s account and drew up a will in his favour. Later she repented her action and sued him for the recovery of her money on the basis that she was influenced by spirit communications coming through Home from her late husband.
While the lawsuit was in progress, an attempt was made against Home’s life. He parried the blow of the assassin’s stiletto with his hand, which was pierced. The fantastic stories that were circulated around this incident are best illustrated by a reminiscent New York World report about his death. The paper stated that Lyon had a false left hand and Home actually made her believe that by mediumistic power, he could create life in the artificial limb.
Lord Adare, in his privately published Experiences in Spiritualism with D.D. Home (1869), covers most of Home’s work for the period 1867 to 1869, including some 80 séances. In 1869, the London Dialectical Society appointed a committee for the investigation of Spiritualistic phenomena. The committee, before which Home appeared, had some of the most skeptical members of the society on its list, including atheist spokesman Charles Bradlaugh. Four séances were held but because of Home’s illness, the manifestations did not extend beyond slight raps and movements of the table. The committee reported that nothing material had occurred, but added importantly that “during the inquiry, Mr. Home afforded every facility for examination.”
A fresh investigation, wedding bells, illness and levitation
Daniel Home (Creative Commons Public Domain - Free of known copyright)
In May 1871, Sir William Crookes began an investigation of Home and reached a very favourable opinion of what he saw. Before this investigation, other important events took place in Home’s life. He won the lawsuit for his deceased wife’s fortune, became engaged to an aristocratic lady of wealth, and gave several séances in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
During a lecture on Spiritualism, Home referred to some particulars of a séance held in the presence of a distinguished professor at the University of St. Petersburg. At the end of the lecture, a Professor Boutleroff rose from his place and announced that he was the investigator to whom Home had referred. This dramatic scene was followed by an investigation by a committee from the university. The results were negative, since Home’s powers were allegedly at an ebb because of recurring illness.
In August 1852, Home moved beyond what many would consider to be parlour tricks (although darn clever parlour tricks!) and first accomplished the feat that would make him famous. To put it bluntly, Home managed to fly!
The séance took place in the Connecticut home of Ward Cheney, a wealthy businessman. Also present that night was a local journalist, F.L. Burr, whose assignment it was to find something incriminating against Spiritualism in general and especially about Home, who had debunkers in an uproar with his excellent reputation. However, instead of writing an article that exposed Home as a fraud, Burr wrote:
“Suddenly, without any expectation on the part of the company, Home was taken up into the air. I had hold of his hand at the time and I felt his feet — they were lifted a foot from the floor. He palpitated from head to foot with the contending emotions of joy and fear which choked his utterances. Again and again, he was taken from the floor, and the third time he was taken to the ceiling of the apartment, with which his hands and feet came into gentle contact.”
A dramatic illustration of one of Home’s levitations. Did he really accomplish what most believe to be impossible? But how was this accomplished? Home claimed not to know himself. He stated that an “unseen power” simply came over him and lifted him into the air. Needless to say, most readers who came upon this article (and it was re-printed many times) were skeptical, as are most who come across it today.
Full-body levitation is, and always has been, considered impossible. Throughout history, only a few saints had ever been alleged to be able to lift themselves from the ground in such a manner, although some practitioners of strict meditation techniques claim to be able to manage a few inches from the floor today. Who knows? But back in America of the middle 1800’s, there was only one man, Daniel Douglas Home, who could levitate without the aid of mirrors, ropes or even a safety net.
Daniel Home’s most famous feat
Home was apparently at his best when it came to producing incredible phenomena. In December 1868, his most famous feat took place at the home of Lord Adare. During the evening, Home reportedly went into a trance and floated out the window of the third floor, then floated back in another window – all before the eyes of a number of stunned witnesses. The event occurred in front of three irreproachable members of London’s high society, Lord Adare, his cousin Captain Charles Wynne and the Master of Lindsay.
Skeptics contend the event was a mass hallucination or was somehow accomplished through trickery. They base this on the fact that there are slight discrepancies in the accounts of Adare and Lindsay, mostly concerning the size of the windows that Home floated out of, how high they were off the ground and whether or not the night outside was dark or moonlit. The debunkers ignore the statement of Captain Wynne, which was simple and straightforward:
“The fact of Mr. Home having gone out of one window and in at another I can swear to,” he wrote. “Anyone who knows me would not for a moment say I was a victim of a hallucination or any other humbug of the kind.”
In 1872, Home published the second series of his Incidents in My Life, including the principal affidavits in the Lyon lawsuit, and in 1873 he published his Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism. His opinions on fraudulent mediumship and his protest against holding séances in the dark were bitterly resented by other mediums. They said that he had little experience of the powers of others.
Kate Fox Jencken, of the Fox sisters, was the only medium with whom he was friendly. On a few occasions he sat jointly with William Stainton Moses. After the first such sitting, on December 22, 1872, Moses wrote in his notebook:
“Mr. D. D. Home is a striking-looking man. His head is a good one. He shaves his face with the exception of a moustache, and his hair is bushy and curly. He gives me the impression of an honest, good person whose intellect is not of high order. I had some talk with him, and the impression that I have formed of his intellectual ability is not high.
Home resolutely refused to believe in anything that he has not seen for himself. For instance, he refuses to believe in the passage of matter through matter, and when pressed, concludes the argument by saying ‘I have never seen it.’ He has seen the ring test, but oddly enough, does not see how it bears on the question.
Home quite strangely to my mind, accepts the theory of the return in rare instances of the departed, but believes that most of the manifestations proceed from a low order of spirits who hover near the earth sphere.
He does not believe in Mrs. Guppy’s passage through matter, nor in her honesty. He thinks that regular manifestations are not possible. Consequently, he disbelieves in public mediums generally. He said he was thankful to know that his mantle had fallen on me, and urged me to prosecute the inquiry and defend the faith. He is a thoroughly good, honest, weak and very vain man, with little intellect, and no ability to argue, or defend his faith.”
The last years of Daniel Home
Home slowly broke with nearly all of his friends and spent most of his time on the Continent. In 1876, his death was falsely reported in the French press. He lived in declining health for ten more years and died on June 21, 1886. His grave is at St. Germain, Paris, and his tombstone is inscribed “To another discerning of Spirits.”
In the Canongate of Edinburgh there is a fountain erected to his memory. It is not known who erected it nor why it was placed opposite the Canongate Parish Church.
Daniel Home demonstrated every known physical phenomenon of Spiritualism except apports and direct voice. He even possessed a latent faculty of direct voice. Faint whisperings were sometimes heard in his séances, but only of single words. He was mostly in a normal state during the phenomena but went into trance during the fire test, elongations, and occasionally during levitations.
The spirit teachings delivered through Home’s mouth by his control were sometimes absurd. The control, criticizing the knowledge of scientists, said that the sun was covered with beautiful vegetation and was full of organic life. When Lord Adare asked, “Is not the sun hot?” the control answered “No, the sun is cold; the heat is produced and transmitted to the earth by the rays of light passing through various atmospheres.”
Lord Adare, then earl of Dunraven, describes Home’s character in the 1924 edition of Experiences in Spiritualism with D. D. Home:
“He had the defects of an emotional character, with vanity highly developed (perhaps wisely to enable him to hold his own against the ridicule that was then poured out upon spiritualism and everyone connected with it). He was liable to fits of great depression and to nervous crisis difficult at first to understand; but he was withal of a simple, kindly, humorous, lovable disposition that appealed to me…
He never took money for séances, and séances failed as often as not. He was proud of his gift but not happy in it. He could not control it and it placed him sometimes in very unpleasant positions. I think he would have been pleased to have been relieved of it, but I believe he was subject to these manifestations as long as he lived.”
Sir William Crookes summed up his opinion as follows:
“During the whole of my knowledge of D. D. Home, extending for several years, I never once saw the slightest occurrence that would make me suspicious that he was attempting to play tricks. He was scrupulously sensitive on this point, and never felt hurt at anyone taking precautions against deception… To those who knew him Home was one of the most lovable of men and his perfect genuineness and uprightness were beyond suspicion…”
Frank Podmore, a most skeptical psychical researcher, said of Home:
“A remarkable testimony to Home’s ability whether as medium or simply as conjurer, is the position which he succeeded in maintaining in society at this time [1861] and indeed throughout his later life, and the respectful treatment accorded to him by many leading organs of the Press.
No money was ever taken by him as the price of a sitting; and he seemed to have had the entree to some of the most aristocratic circles in Europe. He was welcomed in the houses of our own and of foreign nobility, and had been received by the King of Prussia and the Czar.
So strong, indeed, was his position that he was able to compel an ample apology from a gentleman who had publicly expressed doubts of his mediumistic performance (Capt. Noble in the Sussex Advertiser of March 23, 1864) and to publish a violent and spiteful attack upon Browning on the occasion of the publication of Sludge (Spiritual Magazine, 1864, p. 315). His expulsion from Rome in 1864 on the charge of sorcery gave to Home for the time an international importance.”
Podmore added:
“Home was never publicly exposed as an imposter; there is no evidence of any weight that he was even privately detected in trickery.”
Long after Home’s death, various writers speculated on how Home’s feats might have been achieved by trickery, imputing that there must have been trickery.
It should again be noted that during Home’s entire spectacular career, he was never seriously accused of fraud (all of those accusations came much later) and he was never caught cheating, as so many of the mediums of the day were. It is also worth noting that this feat, like his other levitation, was accomplished in the home of someone that he was visiting for the first time and was among people of limited acquaintance.
Any opportunity that he had to rig up elaborate machinery or engage the services of an accomplice to do so was nonexistent. There is no evidence to say that he ever resorted to such tricks.
And who can say that he could have even if he had wanted to? When not ‘entranced by the spirits’, Home was not exactly a robust character, thanks to his tubercular condition. It seems that he would be the last person to have gone fumbling about on ropes and pulleys outside of the window of Lord Adare’s mansion on a cold December night. And how could he have rigged them in place anyway?
Of course, if we listen to the debunkers, it never happened at all. Home was nothing more than a hypnotist and a cheap conjurer and he convinced everyone present that he floated out the window. But isn’t it often the case that the incredible claims of the debunkers are harder to believe than accepting that the paranormal may have actually occurred?
Attempts were also made to discredit Home’s unfortunate association with Jane Lyon and to suggest that Home tried to take advantage of a wealthy widow. The evidence suggests that Home was pressured by a foolish and unstable woman. Her claim that Home used undue influence ‘from the spirit world’ is refuted by her transferring allegiance to a Miss Nicholls, another medium, at the time she reneged on her commitment to Home. It was also claimed that Lyon wanted Home to be “something nearer than an adopted son,” and her change of heart stemmed from his repulsing her advances.
Note: This article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press which has since joined the PDN group.
Reference
Cover image of Daniel Home sourced from Wikimedia Commons
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Pitfalls Of Online Mediumship and Circle Development
Just as the business community can’t do without social media interaction these days, nor can the spiritual community, but the mass upsurgence of social media in the spiritual community has developed quite a sinister undertone: from skeptics setting up mediums and unprofessional, substandard mediumship being touted as professional, to online development circles as the way forward for aspiring mediums.
Online courses are a plenty, with ‘certifications’ given out upon completion of an online course. Business is good. There are groups sprouting everywhere and it’s not long before you see the same personalities and experts, all with opinions on how, why and where. You have to wonder who is winning and who is losing, and if there any real benefit to working online in the modern world. Is spiritualism changing for the better or, in the move to the online world, is it losing face? Do we need to go back to the old school in-person circle traditions in order to develop our mediumship skills as best we possibly can? After all, in spirit, there’s no Facebook, X or Instagram. Well at least I don’t think so. Read on Macduff!
Social media and mediums
The reality is that social media with its online profiles an interaction, is a double edged sword. On one hand, it serves as a very good method of disseminating information and achieving what is known in the business world as brand recognition and authority. It has created new levels of business but has also given birth to a sinister monster.
Rather like the bible, which has a great basis for life and living, it too has been changed to suit the politics of the day, and like the bible, there is nothing but perception and opinion. It stands to reason that a balance must exist. For every yin there has to be a yang, and for every black there is a white. You see, we live in a world of opposites, each with its perfect law that creates a unique balancing act that can tip one way or another.
There are of course, good intentions and bad intentions. I believe that sums up the social media world with its lack of emotion and powerful method of information dissemination, which also can be full of disinformation and damaging influences.
Where has the divinity in mediumship gone or are we too late to this party?
Most people forget the divine reality behind mediumship and of course, spirit. A church is now just a show and no one wants to hear great philosophy from wonderful teachers. We have come to rely upon a more social culture to fuel our lives. The basic fundamentals of spiritual growth and development are often forgotten, hidden by agenda and a race to be at the top of the mountain in all endeavors. In a world where everything has become intertwined with a lack of patience, we now want physical phenomena to manifest in circles in the time it takes to brew a pot of tea - not in a matter of years. Does this all sound jaded? Perhaps a little, and for good cause. One only has to look behind the curtain to see what is hidden.
If you want to witness bad mediumship, which can damage the grieving by the careless choice of a single word, then just go online and see the new level of Social Media for Social Mediums. It’s no wonder our wonderful centers and churches are suffering. No one wants to go anymore. I mean, why would you when there are so many desperate individuals online trying to tout their craft and cloak it as spiritualism and mediumship? Pull up a chair, get online and in the spirit within seconds. But what about the issue of development? Well, that’s now online too.
You certainly don’t comprehensively learn the mechanics of mediumship and the importance of discernment online.
Let’s Come Full Circle
Deevelopment circle
So now we come to the mediumship development circle. At one time it was in the home or church circle – a closed development circle filled with love and the feeling of spirit. Circle members enter with excitement and anticipation of what great spirit has to share with us this week. Your teacher or circle leader creates a testing environment, guiding the students by what they feel and know, if spirit is actually connecting or if the student is blocking themselves. Where mediums not only develop their connection, but grow in spirit and in the time of spirit.
Instead, one can now simply sit on a chair or lounge in a bed and connect with others throughout the world – claiming space in an online development circle where professional mediumship is taught. It’s NESCAFE gold blend at its finest and voila, the next thing, there are groups of grieving people seeking guidance who are being pandered to by those who simply got a few things right – not knowing if it was simply psychic influence or really a divine loving connection. The grieving lose out in the long run by disinformation and bad, underdeveloped mediumship.
Benefits of Traditional Circles
Consequently, experiencing a real circle or development group in person has the added advantage of feeling real spirit within that circle – harnessed by the power of those who sit in love and harmony. The teacher is able to guide and support the developing medium by being able to feel those subtle nuances and vibrational changes through their own development experience and can certainly discern the level of comfort, fear or judgement.
In taking the realm of spirit to the online world, we place between us technology which has no discernment, and where the teacher can’t identify how the harmony and people in the group are working or what problems exist. We give our power to technology and forget the power and harmony of internalized spirit and development of spiritual gifts received from great spirit. When it comes your time to cross, you won’t be going there and announcing your arrival by a Facebook message or sending out messages in the hope Archangel Michael or your spirit guru will see how awesome you are.
“In the silence of service comes the greatest gift of the spirit that makes the soul shine!” JB
The circle is where we develop. In our daily lives, we monitor our thoughts and take awareness and action in thought and deed. When we return to the development of the circle or small group that meets in harmony under spirit guidance, the immediate change and development of the soul is clearly measured. The teacher can guide and help the student to understand the language of the soul as it should be.
Some Are Meant To Be Mediums – Some Not
I remember talking to a colleague, let’s call her K. We could both identify how some people who think they have connection, are not within the spirit vibration and merely on the material vibration where the psychic flow seems acceptable. This, of course, causes a false sense of security and does not follow when really helping someone who may be suffering loss. It’s all about the medium and not the connection.
Human needs are complex, but at the root of things is the need to be appreciated and needed and that can become unbalanced. It’s all about numbers and speed. As K would say, some are meant to be mediums and some not. I would have to agree, for it is more damaging to let an untrained individual loose with a gun.
The teacher or leader in a circle with enough experience is able to identify real talent and ability and nurture that individual into a great ambassador for spirit.
It does not matter how technologically advanced we get – real mediumship is born by spiritual development and harnessing the power of spirit within, not from an app, camera or online development group.
If you want to use the excuse that there is no one around to start a circle or to sit, then you have not looked hard enough because there is always a way and it may take a little sacrifice. Another colleague has a home circle while other members travel vast distances just to feel the power of spirit up close and personal. That is where I believe mediumship should grow, up close and personal and learning to feel the real power of spirit in that environment.
Yes, technology plays a role in learning and perhaps serving, but as I believe, not in development. That should always be old school and developed from within.
Note: This article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press and has since joined the PDN group.
This article was inspired by our Spirit Team who, after an excellent group mediumship sitting, had dug into our stored historical archives, taken out an old copy of ‘Psychic World’ and then – almost like an apport – deposited it on the table in the middle of our ‘Experimental Room’. The publication contained an article about the launch of the ambitious ISARTOP organzation (International Scientific Association (for) Research (into) Transcendental Objective Phenomena) in 2005, a story which deserves to be revisited.
It all started one sunny afternoon in May 2004. Sandra, my lovely wife, had a night job with a local electronics company in Diss, Norfolk, and returned from her night shift to our farmhouse home in Scole for a well-earned sleep. I was on my way to work and unlikely to return until 6 pm or later. However, on this particular day, I had a sudden unexplained feeling that I needed to get home early. Arriving home at about 3 pm, I was extremely surprised to see a group of about 8 people standing in our driveway. At this time of day, Sandra was still in bed, so I suggested that they join me for a chat next door in the beautiful old Scole Inn (built in 1666) until Sandra could join us.
I soon discovered that these 8 people were Italian. Although they were all strangers, they were very friendly and seemed to know an awful lot about the 5-year long ‘Scole Experiment’ in the 1990’s that had taken place at our ‘Street Farmhouse’ in Scole. They sat in a home circle to develop Physical Phenomena back in Grosseto, Italy, and the group included well-known physical medium Marcello Bacci who regularly demonstrated his DRV (Direct Radio Voice) Mediumship in his centre. He was there with his wife Marina, two friends; Alessandro Zampieri; Amerigo Festa (a lawyer) and their two wives. The seventh person was media personality Emanuel Toriello, who seemed to be the self-appointed ‘leader’ and spokesman for the group. His wife was also there.
Spirit works in mysterious ways
Marcello Bacci
The elderly Marcello Bacci was a veteran researcher in the field of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). He knew Latvian writer and parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive and had actually inherited Raudive’s equipment. His particular expertise lay in DRV, since he had been getting direct radio voices for many years through an old-fashioned valve radio in his Grosseto Centre/Laboratory. Bacci demonstrated these voices on a weekly basis to around 70 or 80 people (mostly bereaved mothers, who were often able to speak a few words to their ‘deceased’ children) without ever charging a penny for his work. He told me that for some time prior to their surprise visit to Scole, direct spirit voices through his radio had been requesting that Bacci and his ‘research friends’ travel to Scole to see us – so they had traveled over to the UK on this occasion.
At this first meeting in the Scole Inn, whilst we were chatting, somebody asked me for a business card. I put my hand into my pocket and as I took out the business card, three apports fell off my hand, having materialized in front of us all in full light! At that point, I started to take the meeting more seriously, and listen more carefully to what they all had to say.
Consequently, Sandra and I were invited out to Italy. We flew to Rome in September 2004 and were kindly driven to Grosseto by Alessandro Zampieri. We were indeed greatly impressed by the people at Bacci’s Centre (his close research group included) and by the many impressive ‘radio voices’ we witnessed, speaking to us clearly through his radio.
Many of the Italian contingents became firm friends, and I re-visited Bacci at Grosseto during early December 2004. Also there on that occasion were: Paolo Presi (psychic researcher); Professor David Fontana (one of the main Society for Psychical Research (SPR) investigators of the ‘Scole Experiment’ and co-author of the ‘Scole Report’) and Dr. Anabela Cardoso, a major EVP/DRV researcher and Portuguese Consul in Vigo, Spain.
Shortly afterward, Emanuel Toriello and Alessandro Zampieri were based in the UK for a while and began to sit with us in the ‘Scolehole’ on a fairly regular basis. We had a few instances of minor physical phenomena on the occasions that they sat, but there was no proper development of phenomena which is what we would have liked to see happen. In fact, despite several efforts to re-create the Scole Group after the ‘Scole Experiment’ finished, with several different sets of sitters, it soon became clear that neither the time, the sitters, nor the place was right to bring back the phenomena in profusion. For several months before we left Scole to come and live in Spain in 2006, we could actually physically feel the spiritual atmosphere and positive feeling that had been the psychic heart of ‘Street Farm’ slowly seeping away from us.
Grassroots beginnings of ISATORP
Through regular meetings with my new Italian friends, and communication with a number of other serious researchers all over the world, the idea gradually came together to start a fully international association that could cooperate with research projects and serious experimenters internationally – helping one another with every aspect of development and demonstration of the various phenomena and different types of mediumship (in a word - sharing); as well as acting as a forum for discussion and education regarding the latest and most successful research techniques. It was hoped that if the promised funding (and much was promised) proved itself in reality, then eventually, the organization itself might even be in a position to help out with the limited funding of deserving research projects.
I was personally asked to help run the organization because of my long-term experience with mediumship and all types of physical phenomena, plus my extensive knowledge, acquired over decades, of the very best examples of deep trance and evidential mental mediumship. I was also lucky enough to have made a great number of international quality contacts who would prove to be useful to the organization over the years.
Already promised from relevant sources (and eagerly anticipated) was a high level of funding from certain high-profile international bodies. This would help the organization to improve collaboration between researchers and establish better human relations in the field of scientific transcendental research. In order to protect the correct academic image, it was deemed important to keep the title of the organisation on a scientific level, and to go about the running of the organization in a highly professional and thorough manner.
As a first step, a number of key international researchers, experimenters, mediums and contacts attended two meetings at the St. Giles Hotel, London W1 on Sunday, February 6th, 2005 to ratify the organization’s name, discuss the setup and set the aims and objects of the project. The morning meeting consisted mainly of delegates who were serious ITC (Instrumental Trans-communication)/EVP/DRV researchers and experimenters. A separate afternoon meeting was attended by delegates whose interest lay mainly with objective physical psychic phenomena.
Amongst the morning delegates were: Professor David Fontana; Dr. Anabela Cardoso; John and Maryse Locke from Paris; Dr. Hans Schaer from Switzerland; Tina Laurent from Wales; James and Shirley Webster (James was a retired professional Magician) from Hastings; Chris Pettit; Lewis Elbinger; Marcello and Marina Bacci; Emanuel Toriello (who was to assume the position of the CEO of the new organisation); Alex and Maria Zampieri; Lawyer Amerigo and wife Rosella Festa, together with us – Robin and Sandra Foy.
The afternoon session included: Denzil and Kay Fairbairn (Denzil is a nephew of famous physical medium Jack Webber); Paul Barker from David Thompson’s physical mediumship development circle – plus Dennis and Rosalind Pearman, who were the founders of the ‘Zerdin Fellowship’, following the demise of the Noah’s Ark Society.
Emanuel Toriello’s suggestion of the name ISARTOP was approved, which stood for the International Scientific Association (for) Research (into) Transcendental Objective Phenomena. Looking back, it was certainly a mouthful! The mission statement of ISARTOP, together with its aims and objectives, was to be issued shortly afterward, followed by the appointment of a board of trustees. Once the infrastructure of the organization was in place, membership details and invitations were to be published. It was envisaged that the first, full ISARTOP meeting would take place a few months later, in May or June of 2005. As potential ‘trustees’ of the organization, it fell to Sandra and me to compile a list of interested researchers and members of the public for the early mailing lists. This was something we were happy to do.
ISATORP vision
The ISARTOP organisation was to be structured as a number of departments working parallel with one another, each dealing with their own speciality. For instance, there was to be an extensive ITC/EVP and DRV department; a department for physical mediumship and its phenomena; possibly a department for trance work; maybe even one for crop circles and UFO’s. Experience had already taught us that many of these were – in any case – inexorably linked.
It was hoped that there would eventually be two full-time administrator/coordinators, and other experts available to handle all aspects of members’ questions. The budding organization would pledge to help and oversee the development of both mental, trance and physical mediums, seeking to continually improve the general quality of mediumship internationally – with the provision of ‘accurate evidence’ of an Afterlife being the constant objective for the organization to follow.
A major website was envisaged, operating as a ‘portal’ through which members could access their particular area of interest. There would be various educational and self-help instructional booklets available to members, covering all aspects of scientific research into this specialist subject – to help them develop their own research projects and phenomena.
Members were to receive a regular magazine (possibly quarterly initially), together with regular research reports from those members who were involved in relevant research projects. This would help with the sharing of knowledge and information between members. In so doing, these would also encourage further development amongst members. A documentary was also planned on the work of several prominent researchers, together with regular conferences, seminars, and social functions.
From ISARTOP to ASSMPI
Robin and Sandra Foy. Robin passed away in 2022, aged 78
The whole ISARTOP project was very ambitious. It was a new concept on a massive scale – something that at that time had never been attempted and successfully achieved on such a grandiose and fully international scale. But regrettably, it was not to be. The Italian contingent who had originally planned this concept (in particular, Emanuel Toriello, who was to be the CEO of the project) ceased to be regularly available for the project to go ahead fully. Sandra and I were personally asked to undertake (and did) much of the preparatory work to get the organization going. Our own funds were stretched beyond reasonable levels and funding was vital to achieve even the basic steps. Regrettably, the promised and we believed solid source of income never arrived, despite the initial assurances.
Thank goodness that the motivation we had as the potential creators of the ISARTOP project has not fallen by the wayside! Another man of vision, our own President and top-quality Medium Jock Brocas was similarly inspired several years later to create a truly international organization along similar lines – the ASSMPI (American Society for Standards in Mediumship and Psychical Research). Not only did Jock have the vision to do so, but against all the odds, succeeded almost single-handedly where we failed all those years ago! Congratulations and thanks are due from us all, Jock – to you and your own special Spirit Team – for your truly inspirational achievement in really and truly putting the ASSMPI on the map!
A Note From The ASSMPI President:
When this came across my desk at the ASSMPI office, I was flabbergasted as I never expected to receive such an accolade. I want to make it known that behind the organization has always been service to Spirt and been guided by Spirit. Without Spirit answering prayers for help when all seemed impossible, we are only where we are because of the dedication of the whole ASSMPI team and we have a long way to go, but with each day, we take one step closer. We are in no rush and we always look for quality rather than quantity. The journey has just begun and we have a great band of brothers and sisters to travel on this journey together. Whilst I accept the accolade, I am nothing without the team on both sides of life and The ASSMPI was by Spirit – for Spirit – through Spirit – to Spirit and in service to Spirit. We are non-political, non-judgemental and welcome all with open arms.
Note: This article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press which has since joined the PDN Group. The ASSMPI has evolved into the ISSMPI - International Society for Standards in Mediumship and Psychical Investigation.
I am dying! Yes, that is what I said. Do I say that to encourage sympathy from you? No I don’t, as all of us are dying. From the moment of our birth into this plane of existence, we are dying. Does that sound morbid? Well it’s not meant to. It is just a simple fact of our physical existence here on earth.
Why do I make this statement? Well for one thing, it is something we shy away from, the end of our physical life. For some, the prospect fills us with a terrible fear that one day we will actually die. Why should that be? One reason is that many people simply do not know what awaits us after so called death. We can all be glib and say that as we have been good, we will go to heaven. But what is heaven? Is it a real place or is it a state of mind?
As a medium, I know certain things about the state of existence in the life to come, but I do not expect everyone to have the knowledge that I have garnered over thirty years of research and indeed, development. How do I know these things? Simply because the folk who live in the next realms, tell us what it is like there.
To go back to my original statement, if we are to die, then what is the purpose of our existence here, and what’s more, why did we come here in the first place? Part of the answer is to learn and gather experience. Another part is to be of help to your fellow man, in whatever way you can. The sage Silver Birch once said that if you are of help to just one person in your life, then your whole life has been worthwhile.
What Does Religion Say?
Then what about religion? Religion dictates to us and tells us that we must conform to the tenets and rules of that particular religion. Failing to do so will have dire consequences, and we could be consigned to a fiery hell for all time with no hope of any escape or repeal.
All religions follow this path, the path of ruling by fear; hence the term ‘God fearing’ that was popular in Victorian times and indeed earlier. Would a so called loving God send anyone to hell just because they did not believe in what the priests tell them? That is the message that is given from the pulpit every Sunday and has been for around 1700 years or so.
Well, I say that is all a load of sheer bunkum! Just by having a belief in a religion will not ensure that you have a life in any heaven after this life has ended. Religion binds our minds so that we are not allowed to think that there may be something else. I know this, as there are members of my own family and indeed some friends who are so bound by their beliefs that they will not listen or even consider that someone else may have a slightly different opinion than that which has been forced on them by indoctrination from a very early age.
It begins just after birth when the parents take their newborn babe along to their local church to be baptised or Christened. One cannot really blame the parents as they truly believe that they are ensuring the continued survival of their child should they unfortunately die at an early age. It is only today that most children can be almost certain of reaching adulthood, as in the past, childhood was fraught with disease which was often a fatal condition. Simple things that we take for granted today, such as the common cold or influenza, would invariably prove fatal to children. So one can understand that the parents wanted to do the best for their children, just in case of an early demise.
I am dying – so what about it?
What has all of this got to do with my statement I am dying? Well, it has a lot to do with it when you understand that the reason for the existence of people who practise their belief is exactly like a child earning brownie points from their parents. They have been good today, or have done well at school etc. so they may get some more pocket money or some other treat. They feel better for it and the parent will also thus feel better as they will think they have an extremely good and obedient child.
This carries on into adult life and the priest or vicar takes on the role of the parent. If we do something good, then the vicar will tell us so and that by our good deeds, we will assure ourselves of a place in heaven and live happily ever afterwards.
Is that it then? Is that what we have to look forward to? A life of bliss in heaven? We really don’t know where this heaven is and we don’t really want to, as the vicar has told us we are going there. So we don’t have to think any more about it.
Now we are getting to the bare bones of the matter - we don’t have to think. Why should we? The church and the vicar will do all our thinking for us. So whatever we do between those two points, that of our birth and death, does not really matter much at all, as long as we believe! Oh yes and we can commit the odd crime along they way as well. It doesn’t matter because we believe and because of that belief, our crimes or sins will be absolved.
Again I say, what a load of bunkum!
What is our reason for being here?
Okay, I can hear some folk saying that I am coming across as an Atheist. Well, far from it. I realize that there is something greater than myself which some refer to as God. I prefer the term used by the Native American people that is Great Spirit. Some refer to the Builder of the Universe or indeed Universes. Whatever we call it, we do realise that there is a greater mind than ours at work in the great scheme of things.
An Atheist is one who has no belief in God in any guise and believes in a solely physical existence with nothingness at the end of it. Indeed, as one Atheist said to me, there is only oblivion after this life. What a terrible statement to make, for they must surely see nothing of good in this life at all.
If I will be dying at some point in my future, what is the reason for my being here? In the same vein, what is the reason for you being here? In a nutshell, it is to learn and to try to do the best you can, not just for yourself but for your fellow man also, and indeed the animal kingdom. There is a plan, although it is not easily understood by many just at this time.
If this physical life is such a short life compared to eternity in the realms of spirit, then perhaps it is not the real life. Perhaps this temporary life, or existence, is to prepare us for the life to come, much in the same way as our life in school as a child helps to prepare us for adult life after we leave school.
So in fact, I am not dying! How can I die? How can something that is eternal, die? Yes that part of me that is the physical will die or pass away, but that is only our physical form which is not our true form by any means.
So, between those two points of our birth and our death into this world, simply do the best you can.
Note: This article was originally published in the Afterlife Magazine by The Otherside Press which has since joined the PDN group.
England's Wayland's Smithy is a place of great mythic meaning, a tangible link to times of gods, elves, evil kings, and Arthurian legends. The atmospheric, eerie, early-Neolithic, chambered stone long barrow can be found close to the village of Ashbury in England’s leafy Oxfordshire.
Wayland’s Smithy is approximately 185 feet (56.4 metres) long by 43 feet (13 metres) wide, and was built in two distinct phases – well before the mythic Wayland apparently resided there. The ruin resonates with three periods of time: pre-recorded history, Anglo-Saxon England, and the Middle Ages.
The entrance to Wayland's Smithy
The entrance to Wayland's Smithy by Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The first Wayland’s Smithy was a mortuary structure of stone and wood. A narrow wooden box lay on a pavement of sarsen stone slabs, in which folk were buried. The remains of 14 people – 11 men, two women and a child – were found when it was excavated in 1963. The first burials were probably placed there in 3590–3555 BC, and the last in 3580–3550 BC. Used for no more than 15 years, less than a single generation, or maybe an even shorter period, perhaps just a year, some have speculated.
A second, larger barrow (now known as Wayland’s Smithy II), with a monumental stone facing, was built over the top between about 3460 and 3400 BC, absorbing the older mound altogether. This barrow is thought to have remained in use for burials for less than 100 years. The second Wayland’s Smithy II was a very late construction compared to other long barrows, built in the style of older monuments such as the West Kennet Long Barrow two centuries earlier. Did the builders feel the need to create a sense of history, claiming an ancestral connection to the area?
Legend of ‘the invisible smith’
In the Dark Ages, Wayland’s Smithy (once known as Wayland Smith’s cave), was first mentioned by either name in an early medieval land deed (908AD) from Compton Beauchamp, documented in a charter from King Eadred in 955 AD.
An old tale says if a traveller’s horse lost a shoe on the road, he should bring the horse to the barrow and leave it overnight with a coin. When he returned the next day, the horse would be shod and the money absent. The legend of ‘the invisible smith’ was well-known by the 18th century, and familiar to both Walter Scott (1821’s Kenilworth) and Rudyard Kipling (Puck of Pook's Hill, 1906) both using the legend and place in their novels.
Reviving the tradition, coins have been left at at the site since at least the 1960s, visitors lodging the coins into cracks in the site's stones. Coins assiduously removed by the wardens of the Smithy are donated to local charities. Folklorist Ceri Houlbrook noted on the leaving of coins it,"contributes to the ritual narrative of a site."
However, the association with the mysterious Wayland the Smith is far, far older...
Norse elf, Völundr, a smith of brilliant, supernatural skill
Weland, as the Anglo-Saxons knew him, was in reality the Norse elf, Völundr, a smith of brilliant, supernatural skill, whose reputation for creating both beautiful weapons and jewellery was known throughout Scandinavia. Greedy King Niduth of Sweden thus desired Völundr as his personal smith, kidnapping and ham-stringing him to prevent escape, forcing the elf into servitude.
Völundr went along with this as a pretence, but then hoodwinked the king’s two young sons into his forge, chopped their little noggins off to make gold goblets from their skulls and glittering jewels from their eyes and gnashers. Akin to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and the cooked Gothic brats*, he presented these wonderful gift baubles to the avaricious king, his queen, and their daughter, who were all predictably very happy - the fools.
Although happy to gulp wine from his new goblets, Niduth sent servants out to track down his now-missing lads. Meanwhile, the king’s daughter Princess Beahilda asked crafty Völundr to fix a beautiful-but-too-large ring her loving father had recently gifted her. Recognizing it as the one he had made for his wife the Swan-Princess (presumably slain by Niduth’s minions), Völundr became even more incensed at his cruel treatment by the king.
Völundr, in his rage, drugged and raped the princess, flying from Niduth’s castle on magic wings, taunting the king that his only male heir now was now growing inside Beahilda’s womb – as indeed it was.
After a long, weary flight, Völundr descended to the Berkshire downs, making an new, enchanted abode inside the ancient tomb. From then onwards, the elven smith made many great things there, such as the sword Excalibur, that his chum Merlin asked him to fashion.
The industrious elf also made Durandal - the indestructible sword of Roland (737-778 AD), legendary paladin of Emperor Charlemagne (748-814 AD). Tradition has it that Roland cut a huge gash in the rocks with one blow, forming Roland's Breach in the Pyrenees. Local folklore also claims Durendal still exists, embedded in a cliff wall in Rocamadour, France. But the local tourist office says it is a mere replica. And, in addition, Weyland also created the chain mail shirt worn by the heroic Beowulf.
In late June 2024, the mythical, centuries old Durandal sword mysteriously vanished from the cliff wall in Rocamadour.
Representation of the Durandal sword embedded in a rock wall in Rocamadour, France
user:Patrick Clenet, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Völundr – or Wayland as he became known as to the English (named by the Saxons who settled in the area some four thousand years after Wayland's Smithy was built) - lives there still. And, some say, can be still be heard, busy knocking stuff up at his forge.
But what happened to Princess Beahilda and her child by Völundr?
According to the 13th century Þiðrekssaga, she gave birth to a son called Viðga. Wayland settled a peace agreement with Otvin (supposedly the older son of Niduth, which kind of negates the point of the earlier telling) and he then married Beahhilda/Böðvildr.
The 10th century Anglo-Saxon poem Deor suggests not- such-a-happy ending:
so painful to her heart as her own problem
which she had readily perceived
that she was pregnant; nor could she ever
foresee without fear how things would turn out.
That went by, so can this
In yet another version, their son is the hero Witege, who wielded the sword Mimung, forged by his dad. He is mentioned in the fragmentary Anglo-Saxon poem Waldere, together with the blade:
a better sword
except the one that I have also in
its stone-encrusted scabbard laid aside.
I know that Theodoric thought to Widia's self
to send it and much treasure too,
jewels with the blade, many more besides,
gold-geared; he received reward
when Nithhad's kinsman, Widia, Welund's son,
delivered him from durance;
through press of monsters hastened forth.
Great White Horse of Uffington awakens every hundred years
In the distance from the Smithy, Uffington Castle looms; when our distant ancestors built the hillfort, the people laid to rest in the barrow had already been dead for two thousand, eight-hundred years.
Some used to say the great White Horse on the hillside at Uffington is the magnificent Grannie, shod by Wayland for Norse hero, Sigurd, now frozen in chalk. That is until every hundred years, when the White Horse awakes, and thunders across the sky to Wayland’s Smithy, where the smith has to shoe the horse once more. This, apparently, last happened in 1920 at a local tavern.
One evening at the White Horse Inn, at Woolstone in the vale below the Uffington, an unknown man in archaic clothes entered and ordered a pint of the local brew. The sound of a hunting horn then resounded loudly; when it was repeated, the mysterious stranger leapt to his feet and limped hurriedly outside.
The pub’s customers looked up to the hillside - the White Horse was gone, but the next morning it was back, with hooves that appeared to glisten in the sunlight.
The White Horse, The Manger, Dragon Hill, Uffington Castle
The White Horse, The Manger, Dragon Hill & Uffington Castle by Dave Price, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wayland's Smithy masked night-time shindigs
Disturbingly, in recent years, Wayland's Smithy has been used for masked night-time shindigs by the neo-Nazi Woden's Folk, The Telegraph newspaper reporting that swastikas had been carved into trees at the site.
Something of Hitler’s obsession with the occult and Nordic gods?
Modern Pagans, including Druids and Heathens have also frequented Wayland's Smithy for ritual purposes, attempting to communicate with Spirits of the Earth, long-deceased ancestors and the also Earth Goddess (Danu?) there.
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle now:
Drawing of a portion of Franks Casket relevant to the tale of “Wayland the Smith”
unknown artisan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“The earliest extant record of the Wayland legend is the representation in carved ivory on a casket of Northumbrian workmanship of a date not later than the beginning of the 8th century. The fragments of this casket, known as the Franks casket, came into the possession of a professor at Clermont in Auvergne about the middle of the last century, and was presented to the British Museum by Sir A. W. Franks, who had bought it in Paris for a dealer. One fragment is in Florence. The left-hand compartment of the front of the casket shows Völundr holding with a pair of tongs the skull of one of Níþoþr's children, which he is fashioning into a goblet. The boy's body lies at his feet. Bodvildr and her attendant also appear, and Egill, who in one version made Völundr's wings, is depicted in the act of catching birds.”
