The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1864

Several newspapers reported the following:

“The event of the week, says a letter sent from Rome to the Times, is the order given to Mr. Home, the renowned medium, to leave the pontifical city in three days. Mr. Home was invited to the local police station where he was formally questioned. He was asked about the time he intended to spend in Rome; if he had practiced Spiritism after his conversion to Catholicism, etc. Here some words exchanged on that occasion as registered by Mr. Home himself in his private notes and that he apparently gives away very easily.

Not much impressed by those prodigies, the police chief invited the magician to leave Rome in three days. Mr. Home invoked the protection of international laws and reported the event to the English Consul who was then granted by Mr. Mateucci that the renowned medium would no longer be bothered and that he would move on with his staying in Rome since he intended to abstain from any communication with the spiritual world during that time. Remarkable! Mr. Home agreed with the condition and signed the required commitment. How could he compromise to not use the power if it did not depend on his will? That is what we will not try to understand.”

We don’t know how much of the story is accurate in the details but a letter sent by Mr. Home a short while ago to a lady acquaintance of our seems to confirm the main subject. With respect to the rapping there is no doubt that they should be left to the stories habitually told by papers not much interested in studying things from the other world.

In fact Mr. Home is in Rome right now and the reason is very noble on his part for us not to mention it considering that the newspapers took the opportunity to ridicule him.

Mr. Home is not rich and he is not afraid of saying that he needs to find work to provide him with the complement he needs to make ends meet. He thought of finding a solution with his natural talent for sculpture and that is why he traveled to Rome to learn more about that art. He could have become rich, really rich from the exploitation of his remarkable mediumistic gift. The simplicity of his condition is the best answer to have the name of charlatan been thrown on his face. However, he know that the gift was given to him with a providential objective in the interest of a sacred cause, knowing that it would be a sacrilege to have it converted into a profession.

He holds the duties imposed by that gift in the highest degree, understanding that the Spirits manifest through him by the will of God to redirect mankind to the faith in a future life and not for the exhibition in spectacles of curiosity, competing with deceivers or serving the interests of greed that wanted to exploit it.

As a matter of fact he knows that the Spirits are not commanded or controlled by anybody and even less of those who wished to exhibit their actions by charging people to attend the sessions. There isn’t a single medium in the world that can guarantee the production of a phenomenon in a given moment hence we must conclude that thinking otherwise is a clear demonstration of total ignorance of the most elementary principles of the science. Now if the Spirits do not respond to the calls or don’t do sufficiently remarkable things to satisfy curiosity and sustain the medium’s reputation any supposition is allowed and one does need to find the means of providing that to the spectators in exchange for their money if one does not want to give it back.

It is never too much to repeat that the best guarantee of honesty is the absolute selflessness. A medium is always strong when capable of responding to those who are suspicious of their faith: “How much did you pay to be here”?

Still once more: Serious mediumship cannot be and will never be a profession and not only because it would be morally discredited but also because it is founded on an essentially mobile, escaping and variable gift and that no one that may have it today can be certain of still enjoying it tomorrow. It is only the charlatans who are always sure about themselves.

A talent that is acquired through work and study is something different and for that reason it is a property that one is allowed to utilize at will. Mediumship is not in that class. Exploiting that is the same as using something that is not ours; it is like deviating it from its providential objective. And there is more: One is not utilizing oneself but the Spirits, the soul of the dead, whose support would carry a price tag. Such a thought is instinctively repulsive. That is why in every serious center, where Spiritism is dealt with respect and reverence, like in Lyon, Bordeaux and so many other places, exploiting mediums would be completely disregarded. Thus, someone that does not enough to live on must look for alternative somewhere else and if necessary only dedicate to mediumship the time that is physically possible. The Spirits will take into account your sacrifices and devotion whereas those who wish to use mediumship as a ladder will be punished by the retrieval of the mediumship or by keeping the good Spirits away, by compromising mystifications or by even more unpleasant means as demonstrated by experience.

Mr. Home knows well that he would lose the assistance of his protector Spirits had he abused his gift. His first punishment would be the loss of esteem and consideration of honorable families that take him as a friend and who would no longer invite him but like those that do home delivery of theatrical plays.



During his stay in Paris we know that certain groups made him big offers to give sessions, always refused by him. All of those that know him and understand the true interest of Spiritism will applaud his resolution. From our side we are thankful for the good example that he gives.

We only insisted again on the subject of the mediums’ selflessness because we are certain that fictitious and abusive mediumship is one way through which the enemies of Spiritism will try to discredit it as charlatanism. It is thus necessary that all those who seriously take the burden of the cause of the doctrine be on alert in order to expose the fraudulent maneuvers, if any, and show that true Spiritism has nothing in common with the parodies that can be made about it and that Spiritism repudiates anything beyond its essential and moralizing principle.

The article transcribed above offers several other aspects for observation. The author believes that Mr. Home must be qualified as a magician. Everything seems very innocent however further down it says: “the much renowned medium”, an expression used with respect to doubtful celebrities.

But where are Mr. Home’s faults and crimes? It is free slander not only to him but also to all respectable persons and highly placed in society that invite him and thus seem to sponsor an ill-spoken person. The last statement of the article is more curious because it contains one of those flagrant contradictions that go unnoticed by the adversaries. The author is surprised by the fact that Mr. Home accepted the imposition of a commitment asking how he could have promised not to use a power that is independent of his will. If he wanted to know we would refer him to the study of the Spiritist phenomena, their causes and their mode of production and he would understand how come Mr. Home agreed with what in fact had nothing to do with the manifestations obtained by him in private, even if under the shackles of inquisition. However it seems that the author is not much concerned since he adds: “That is what we don’t try to understand.” With these words he insidiously hints that such phenomena are just charlatanism.

Nonetheless the bylaw passed by the pontifical government demonstrates their fear for the ostensive manifestations. Well, what they fear is not prestidigitation. Would this government interdict physicists that imitate the manifestations? Certainly not because many other less evangelical things are allowed in Rome. Why stop Mr. Home then? Why deporting him from the country if he is just a magician? Some will say that it is for the benefit of religion. Be it. But then is religion so fragile that it can be so easily compromised? In Rome as elsewhere swindlers execute more or less skillfully the trick of the magic bottle in which water is converted into all kinds of wine and the magic hat in which bread and other objects multiply. Nevertheless they are not afraid that those tricks will discredit the miracles of Jesus since everybody knows that the former are simple imitations. If they fear Mr. Home it is because there is something serious about him and not simple tricks. That is what any person that may think a little about it will conclude. Nobody will seriously consider that a sovereign court that are not exactly fools will be afraid of a myth. We are certainly not the only ones to make these considerations and the newspapers that hastily divulge the incident in search of ridicule will very naturally provoke serious investigation so that the result as everything else that has been done to denigrate Spiritism will have the only effect of make it more popular.

Thus an apparently insignificant event will inevitably have more serious consequences than expected. We don’t doubt that it may have been produced to speed up the emergence of Spiritism in Italy where it already counts on a large number of followers even among the clergy. Besides we don’t doubt that the Roman Curia sooner or later unwillingly becomes one of the main instruments of the propagation of the doctrine in that country because it has been established that the very adversaries of Spiritism will serve its propagation by all means employed to have it destroyed. Therefore blind is the one that cannot see God’s finger in all of this. This will undoubtedly be one of the most remarkable facts of the history of Spiritism; one that best attests its power and origin.