Inside Magic

The First Psychic

How many times have we written in praise of the UK’s newspaper The Scotsman? Dozens. We never fail to find great magic stories within its pages.

Today was no exception.

We don’t know why we like it but we sure do. Call us “crazy,”
“deranged,” “weird,” or even “loathsome,” but we love verbal abuse. We
also love books about the history of magic. We always have, it’s just
the way we’re built.

So when we read Peter Lamont was coming out with a new book — a
follow-up to his great work on the Indian Rope Trick that never was –
about one of the first psychics in our faux-history, we skipped and
whistled.

Daniel Dunglas Home was denounced by George Eliot as “an object of
moral disgust”, by Harry Houdini as a moral pervert and “a hypocrite of
the deepest dye”, and as “utterly contemptible” by scientist Michael
Faraday.

“A moral pervert!” Houdini had a way with words.

“Most Victorians had come across mediums of some sort, but
Home was different, he was really difficult to explain,” says Peter
Lamont, a magic and paranormal researcher within the Koestler Institute
- Edinburgh University’s parapsychology research department. “That’s
what made people take such polar views.

“The first medium who came to Britain was a Mrs. Hayden and she did
the usual spirit raps and messages. You asked the spirits a question
and you got an answer.

“Most would see this as a simple trick. You could mechanically
produce raps with your knees, and gleam information from people through
their body language. You could explain it.

“But Home could make tables float, and magicians and scientists
couldn’t explain it. And so he was problematic, he annoyed skeptics as
he was difficult to explain.”

Mr. Lamont’s book is titled The First Psychic: The Peculiar Mystery of a Notorious Victorian Wizard.

The author turned magician turned magic author lives in Scotland and
is the former chairman of the Edinburgh Magic Circle. He believes Mr.
Home’s story is more than interesting, it is profound for today’s
psychics and debunkers.

“Home remains the single most interesting person in the
history of psychic phenomena,” enthuses Peter. “He’s the exemplar. If
you want to decide whether psychics are real or not, then look at the
best case. If he’s not real, then the rest aren’t.

“It’s in my very nature to be skeptical, but when I read some of
his accounts, I just don’t know how he did what he did. I’ve been a
magician since I was a small boy, I’ve performed magic for years and I
couldn’t do what he did under the same conditions.”

He adds: “My inspiration for the book goes back to the most common
question you get asked in this game [parapsychology] – ‘Have you ever
come across something you can’t explain?’ And that’s when I talk about
Daniel Home.

“Most of these things [paranormal events] sound very impressive, but
when you look into the evidence it all starts to look less so. With
Home, he’s the…
Continue reading The First Psychic – New Book From Peter Lamont