The modern rise in spiritualism, or survival of the spirit after death, began in the 1840s in upstate New York when two sisters claimed that they were communicating with the dead. The incident triggered a craze for "mediums" that rapidly spread from the United States to Victorian England. One of the most popular mediums was the American Daniel Dunglas Home.
The Sorcerer of Kings discusses how Home rose to prominence in the United States and how his appearance in England caused many prominent people to become converts to Spiritualism. Also addressed is the investigation of Home by William Crookes, one of the Victorian Age's great scientists. Circumstances brought Daniel Dunglas Home to Crookes asking to be scientifically tested at just the moment when Crookes was looking to begin his investigation into spiritualism. After designing a number of experiments and having Home participate in them, Crookes pronounced Home genuine, and his abilities examples of a new "force" in nature. When no journal would publish his results, Crookes published them in his own Quarterly Journal of Science.
Crookes subsequently investigated another set of mediums and pronounced them genuine. They were later proven to be frauds, but that was never the case with Daniel Dunglas Home-until now. Dr. Gordon Stein has reexamined Home's technique and reveals how most of his "phenomena" were produced, and studies the tests he performed with William Crookes as well as Crookes's entire series of investigations to see what may have caused such a cautious and thorough scientist to go astray. The result is a fascinating study of Victorian England, and a character study of several notable Victorians that could cause a revision in history.
Gordon Stein, Ph.D. has written hundred of articles about the occult and the paranormal. He is the editor of eight previous books, including The Encyclopedia of Unbelief, The Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, and The Second Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism.
140 pages
ISBN 0-87975-863-5
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