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Forty-Five, writes in his unpublished Memoirs that, being at Rome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.
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