939. As to the nature of Home's trances, there is not a little obscurity. Many of the phenomena described as occurring in his presence took place when he was not in trance at all. Sometimes his body was apparently possessed by deceased friends of the sitters or other discarnate spirits, and at other times it was apparently controlled by his own spirit or subliminal self. According to the account of Viscount Adare, now Lord Dunraven (see Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home. By Viscount Adare), it was unusual for extraneous physical phenomena, such as raps and movements and levitation of objects, to occur while Home was entranced.

On the other hand, Sir William Crookes states (Journal S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 341): "Certainly the two most striking things I ever saw with him, the fire test and visible forms, were to be observed while he was entranced, but it was not always easy to tell when he was in that state, for he spoke and moved about almost as if he were in his normal condition; the chief differences being that his actions were more deliberate, and his manner and expressions more solemn, and he always spoke of himself in the third person, as 'Dan.'" (Compare 934 A, the case of "X+Y = Z," who always spoke of his supraliminal self as "my casket.")

The late Lord Dunraven says, in his introduction (p. ix.) to the book by Viscount Adare, that the communications at the seances described in the book came "through the alphabet" (that is, through raps or other telekinetic signals such as touches), or through "the medium in a trance," and he remarks: "When Mr. Home speaks in a trance there is no certainty whether his utterances are those of a spirit alone, or how far they may be mixed up with his own ideas or principles. Sometimes the communications are striking, at other times vague, sometimes trivial. Messages through the alphabet, on the other hand, carry at least a strong probability that they convey the thoughts of a spirit; although even they too in some cases exhibit indications of being affected by the medium, and are therefore not quite reliable".

The impression produced seems to have been very different from this in some cases, especially when Home was - as we may suppose - directly possessed by a discarnate spirit. See, for example, the case of the control by Adah Menken (loc. cit., pp. 35-37), where Viscount Adare says: "I was, to all intents and purposes, actually conversing with the dead; listening, talking, answering, and receiving answers from Menken. Home's individuality was quite gone; he spoke as Menken, and we both spoke of him as a third person at a distance from us".

940. In brief, the study of such records as are available of Home's psychical phenomena leaves me with the conviction that, - apart altogether from the telekinetic phenomena with which they were associated, - his trance-utterances belong to the same natural order as those, for instance, of Mr. Moses and Mrs. Piper. There are, however, important differences between these cases, - differences which should be of special instruction to us in endeavouring to comprehend the possession that completely excludes the subliminal self, and to appreciate the difficulty of obtaining this complete possession.

Thus in Home's case the subliminal self seems, throughout the longest series of seances of which we have a record, to have been the spirit chiefly controlling him during the trance and acting as intermediary for other spirits, who occasionally, however, took complete possession.

In Mrs. Piper's case, as we shall see, the subliminal self is very little in direct evidence; its manifestations form a fleeting interlude between her waking state and her possession by a discarnate spirit. In Mr. Moses' case, the subliminal self was rarely in direct evidence at all when he was entranced; but we infer from these other cases that it was probably dominant at some stage of his trance, even if at other times it was excluded or became completely dormant.

And if, in Home's case, as there seems reason to suppose, the subliminal self may have participated with discarnate spirits in the production of telekinetic phenomena, as well as in the communication of tests of personal identity, it is not improbable that the subliminal self of Mr. Moses may also have been actively concerned in both these classes of phenomena.

941. To the history of William Stainton Moses I now turn. In his case, as in that of Home, the telekinetic phenomena formed an integral part of the general manifestations, being so interwoven with them as to necessitate in my view acceptance or rejection of the whole; but the evidence for the telekinetic phenomena in the case of Mr. Moses is comparatively slight, since they occurred almost exclusively in the presence of a small group of intimate personal friends, and were never scrutinised and examined by outside witnesses as were Home's manifestations. On the other hand, we have detailed records of Mr. Moses' whole series of experiences, while in the case of Home, as I have said, the record is very imperfect. As to the telekinetic phenomena, Mr. Moses himself regarded them as a mere means to an end, in accordance with the view urged on him by his "controls," - that they were intended as proofs of the power and authority of these latter, while the real message lay in the religious teaching imparted to him.