Hugh Thomas is a member of The National Secular Society.

To my fellow atheist Hugh Thomas: Bristol Humanists

Hugh,

This e-mail from Professor B.D. Josephson, a Nobel Laureate for Physics from Cambridge University, will explain why I was so upset when I saw your article in The Freethinker supporting James Randi. Professor Josephson is in charge of the Cavendish Laboratory where Rutherford split the atom.

Ask yourself, is it right that the British people should only be allowed access to the thoughts of James Randi and other "experts" who agree with him on the subject of so-called paranormal phenomena? "Experts" that have all started from the same base that the mind and brain are the same - that death is the end of everything.

British scientists, however well qualified, are not allowed to balance the arguments of Randi and the parapsychologists on media and educational outlets in the UK. Another Cambridge University physicist, Professor Peter Wadhams, has only been allowed to support Sir William Crookes, a former President of the Royal Society, via American radio.

Why can't we see our qualified British physicists balancing the arguments of the American magician James Randi and the professional obscurants who are on his side?

This of course is a rhetorical question because the answer is very simple. When the public find out that we have discovered people who are operating in the invisible part of the universe then the priests, mullahs, rabbis, and minister of religion, like Ian Paisley and Billy Graham, will lose their lucrative monopoly on the life after death industry. They know what we know, there is no room for a faith or a belief system when the proof of something comes along.

Then there is the little matter of every scientific text book in the world having to be rewritten. As things stand at the moment, scientific teaching, across every discipline, starts from the same base as James Randi. Hence this professional trickster, only a few months ago, being allowed to broadcast from the premises of the Royal Society!

When people eventually have access to the secular scientific case for survival after death all the divisive religious hatred will come to an end. The people who are operating in the invisible part of the universe, for the most part, are just as thick and stupid as when they were on Earth. Most definitely not to be worshipped or kowtowed to. For every James Randi on Earth, there are thousands of them in the so-called next world - tricksters. The only danger is not to recognise this fact. We must be just as sceptical of what comes via mediums as we are of what our politicians and priests are trying to pump into us on Earth.

Most of my fellow atheists are on the wrong horse, by supporting James Randi and the parapsychologists they are keeping the Vatican intact and all the victims of priestcraft killing each other. For goodness sake jump off and follow the great anti-religious philosophers Thomas Paine and Arthur Findlay.

Michael Roll

From: Brian Josephson
Sent: Friday, February 27

I gather that the MacArthur Foundation were persuaded (conned?) into giving him a fellowship. But whether the $1M prize, which has never been awarded, is real money or imaginary is unclear -- as far as I am aware the legal device of putting the prize money in trust to make it clear that it is available has not been applied.

Scientific Proof and the Media - E-mail from Michael Roll to Hugh Thomas (January 21, 2003)

James Randi - His Amazing Role in the Great Psi Media Circus - an article by Sam Nicholls (1991)

The Freethinker - The monthly secular magazine for those who have escaped from the clutches of priestcraft - as well as those wanting to ditch religion. The Freethinker Website offers a selection of articles and information about the National Secular Society.

The Jeff Rense Program - Survival After Death as a Branch of Physics

Broadcast on March 18, 2003, Michael Roll, Prof. Peter Wadhams, and John Samson discussed photographs of materialisation phenomena taken by Sir William Crookes and others.