Brian D Josephson is Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973.

To Professor B.D. Josephson

Bearing in mind this report [by Thomas Travers] regarding the shoddy work of Dr. Richard Wiseman. Would you please be kind enough to help me put a stop to the outrageous attack on Sir William Crookes that is being shown on television, on a regular basis, to the students of The Open University?

I have written to the Principal pointing out that this giant of subatomic physics, Sir William Crookes OM, FRS, is being destroyed by scientific pygmies. No supporter of Sir William has been allowed to balance this appalling hatchet job that was made by Dr. Richard Wiseman and his fellow parapsychologists. They have all started from the base that the mind dies with the brain in order to appease orthodox scientific dogmas.

The Principal of the Open University has not even acknowledged my letters of protest. He will have to take notice of a letter of complaint from a Nobel Laureate for physics. I have recorded this programme and will be pleased to send you a copy if you have not already seen it. The final word is given to a young female parapsychologist who completely writes off the lifetimes work of Sir William Crookes, and by implication, Sir Oliver Lodge FRS. His writings make it very clear that the study of survival after death must be approached as a branch of physics - that we are dealing with natural and normal forces in the universe.

Michael Roll

Negative Results in Parapsychology: how does Dr Wiseman manage it? - An article by Thomas Travers

Sir William Crookes - E-mail from Michael Roll to Peter Wadhams (August 4, 2002)

Sir William Crookes - E-mail from Prof. Peter Wadhams to Michael Roll (August 5, 2002)

The Researches of Sir William Crookes into Psychic Phenomena - by Michael Scott