A French physician once watched a medium rise six feet off the ground, then turned to his colleague and said, “I have seen nothing, but I believe.” The colleague had not seen it at all, but he disagreed. The argument over who was real and who was fake began in the séance rooms of the nineteenth century and has never quite ended. Two names sit at the center of that argument: Eusapia Palladino and Daniel Dunglas Home, the most famous physical mediums of the Victorian era, whose careers defined what the public — and the scientists — thought possible.
Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–1886) was the gentleman medium from Scotland who floated out of one window and in through another. Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was the uneducated peasant from Naples who could make a table dance while both her hands and feet were held. Together they offered the two clearest templates for how a medium might work, and how the world might react.
What Was the Core Difference Between Their Mediumship?
Eusapia Palladino and Daniel Dunglas Home were both physical mediums who produced levitation, movement of objects, and materializations, but they differed fundamentally in class, credibility, and control. Home never submitted to systematic scientific tests without full cooperation; Palladino was repeatedly investigated by societies and caught in fraud, yet some of her phenomena were never explained. Home cultivated a pious, controlled persona. Palladino worked in darkness, often sweating, sometimes swearing, and occasionally kicking her investigators in the shins.
The Biographies That Shaped Their Careers
Home: The Orphan Who Became a Celebrity
Daniel Dunglas Home was born near Edinburgh in 1833. He claimed his mother had second sight, but she died when he was young, and he was raised by an aunt who believed spiritualism was blasphemy. By age seventeen he was producing raps and moving furniture in the family home. His aunt threw him out.
Home moved to the United States, where he held séances for prominent figures, including the novelist William Cullen Bryant. By 1855 he was in London, performing for aristocrats and royals. He never took money for séances. He lived on gifts from wealthy patrons. This detail matters: it insulated him from the accusation that he cheated for cash.
His most famous feat occurred in 1868 at the home of Lord Adare. Witnesses — including the Earl of Dunraven, stated that Home levitated out of one third-story window and came in through another. Three men signed affidavits. No one ever offered a mechanical explanation that satisfied the skeptics.
Palladino: The Peasant Who Shook Science
Eusapia Palladino was born in 1854 in the village of Minervino Murge, southern Italy. She claimed her mother was a witch. She had no education. She could not read or write. Her earliest experiences occurred in her teens, furniture moved around her bed, and by the 1870s she was holding séances across Italy.
Palladino charged for her services. She was paid by the séance. This alone made her suspect in the eyes of the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which investigated her in 1895 in Cambridge. The SPR exposed her using trick chairs and hidden observers. They concluded she was a fraud.
But she was not finished. In 1908, the American psychologist Hereward Carrington brought her to New York. William James, the philosopher and psychologist, attended her séances. Carrington and others believed that despite her occasional cheating, and she did cheat, they caught her, some phenomena were genuine. James famously wrote, “It is hard to see why the verdict of the scientific world should be final against her.”
How Each Séance Was Conducted
Home: Light, Control, and the Accordion
Home held séances in ordinary parlors, often in full or dim light. He did not need total darkness. He did not ask sitters to hold hands in a chain. He sat at the head of the table, sometimes with a footstool to rest his feet in plain view.
His standard phenomena included table levitation that seemed to obey his commands, hands that appeared in the air and touched guests, and the famous floating accordion, an instrument that played music while held by Home with one hand, the other hand visible to all. He also produced direct voice phenomena: spirits spoke through him in distinct voices, sometimes in languages he did not know.
Controlled conditions were not a problem. Home agreed to have his hands tied, his feet held, and his pockets searched before séances. He never complained. He also never allowed himself to be tested by a hostile committee. He would walk away if he sensed distrust. For Home, faith was a precondition for phenomena.
Palladino: Contact, Darkness, and the Cabinet
Palladino worked differently. She required a darkened room. She insisted on sitting at a small table with sitters on both sides, their knees touching hers, their hands holding hers. This contact, she explained, was essential. The spirits used her body as a battery, and the chain of sitters completed a circuit.
She worked inside a “cabinet,” a curtained-off alcove behind her chair. She would enter the cabinet, emerge with materialized hands or faces, and then return. The curtain would billow, objects would fly from the cabinet, and the table would rise so high that sitters standing on it would be lifted.
In 1892, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso attended one of her séances in Naples. A skeptic, he left convinced. He wrote that he had seen a vase lift and break, a table rise, and a hand appear that touched his own. He could not account for it.
The Scientific Battleground: Who Was Investigated More Thoroughly?
Home was tested by Sir William Crookes, the chemist who discovered thallium. Between 1870 and 1873, Crookes conducted a series of experiments with Home using spring balances, sealed boxes, and electrical resistance measurements. He reported that Home caused a balance to rise under a glass shade while Home’s hands were held three feet away. Crookes became a lifelong spiritualist. Critics said Crookes was a credulous lover of the séance room. Crookes said they had not seen what he saw.
Palladino was tested by more scientists than any medium of her time. The SPR’s 1895 investigation, led by Frederic Myers and Richard Hodgson, used a specially designed chair that allowed control of her feet and a hidden observer behind a curtain. They caught her using her foot to tip the table. They published their results. The scandal was enormous.
But Carrington’s 1908 investigations in Naples used new methods: her hands were held by one sitter, her feet by another, and a third sitter watched her legs. Phenomena still occurred. A table levitated when her limbs were secured. A hand appeared and stroked Carrington’s face. He measured the hand’s temperature. He noted her breathing patterns. He later said he believed she had genuine powers that she sometimes augmented with fraud when exhausted.
Symbolism and Meaning: What They Represent in Mediumship History
Home represents the ideal of the gentleman medium. He was never accused of fraud in his lifetime by anyone who actually sat with him. He never took money. He never needed a darkened room. He died respected, though not wealthy.
Palladino represents the difficulty of separating genuine phenomena from simple trickery. She was caught. She confessed to fraud during some séances but insisted others were real. She died poor, convinced the world had judged her unfairly.
Together they frame the central question of physical mediumship: Does the presence of fraud in some cases discredit all cases? The SPR was split on this. Some members believed Home was genuine and Palladino a fraud. Others, like James, thought Palladino’s case was more complex.
Common Misconceptions
Home was never conclusively proven a fraud. No credible source has ever found a mechanical explanation for his window levitation. Skeptics assume he used wires or accomplices, but no evidence exists. The séances were in private homes with people he knew.
Palladino was not purely a fraud. Even her detractors acknowledged that under strict control, phenomena sometimes occurred that her feet could not have produced. The 1908 experiments left many witnesses baffled.
They did not know each other. Home died in 1886, when Palladino was just beginning her serious career. There is no record they ever met or corresponded.
Home was not afraid of science. He avoided hostile scientists but cooperated fully with Crookes. Palladino was afraid of science for good reason, she had been burned by it.
FAQ
Did Home or Palladino have more documented phenomena? Home’s feats are better documented because he worked in lighter conditions with more credible witnesses. Palladino’s phenomena were repeatedly observed but often under conditions that made trickery possible.
Who was more widely accepted by scientists? Home. His investigations by Crookes and others produced a significant number of converted scientists. Palladino’s exposure by the SPR made her a cautionary tale.
Were their phenomena real? The question cannot be answered definitively. Home’s window levitation remains unexplained. Palladino’s genuine phenomena, if they existed, are impossible to separate from her admitted fraud.
Did they ever meet? No. Home was dead before Palladino became internationally famous.
What Remains
The séance rooms are empty now. The tables no longer rise. But the arguments continue because the evidence never settled entirely in one direction. Home left behind affidavits and Crookes’s reports. Palladino left behind the puzzle of a medium who cheated enough to be caught but still produced phenomena that science could not account for.
Both mediums force the same question that every serious student of mediumship must face: What do you believe when the witnesses disagree? For a deeper look at the history of physical mediumship and the investigators who chased it, see our hub on mediumship. The story of how scientists learned to watch a medium’s feet rather than her hands is told in our guide to the Victorian séance. For definitions of key terms like materialization and direct voice, consult our glossary of mediumship.