In this way was Daniel Dunglas Home launched on a career that was to
prove one of the most marvelous, if not the most marvelous, in the
annals of mystification. But at the time there was no reason to
anticipate the remarkable achievements which the future held in store
for him. He was fitted for no calling. Ever since his aunt had adopted
him in far-away Scotland, where he was born of obscure parentage in
1833, he had led a life of complete dependence, not altogether cheerless
but deadening to initiative and handicapping him terribly for the task
of making his way in the world. His health was broken, his pockets were
empty, he was without friends. Cast upon his own resources under such
conditions, it seemed but too probable that failure and an early death
would be his portion.

Two things only were in his favor. The first was his native
determination and optimism; the second, the interest aroused by
published reports of the phenomena that had led to his expulsion from
his aunt's house. Already, although only a few days had elapsed since
the knockings were first heard, the newspapers had given the story great
publicity, and their accounts were greedily devoured by an ever-widening
circle of readers, quite willing to regard such happenings as evidence
of the intervention of the dead in the affairs of the living. It was, it
must be remembered, an era of wide-spread enthusiasm and credulity, the
heyday period of spiritism. So soon, therefore, as it became known that
young Home was at liberty to go where he would, invitations were
showered on him.

Among these was one from the nearby town of Willimantic, and thither
Home journeyed in the early spring of 1851. It was determined that an
attempt should be made to demonstrate his mediumship by the table
tilting process then coming into vogue among spiritists, and the result
exceeded all expectations. The table, according to an eye-witness of the
first seance, not only moved without physical contact, but on request
turned itself upside down, and overcame a spectator's efforts to prevent
its motion. True, when this spectator "grasped its leg and held it with
all his strength" the table "did not move so freely as before." Still,
it moved, and Home's fame mounted apace. From town to town he traveled,
holding seances at which, if contemporary accounts are to be believed,
he gave exhibitions of supernatural power far and away ahead of all
other of the numerous mediums who were by thi