Maurice Barbanell (1902-1981), founder-editor of Psychic News, wrote the article below following a vicious attack on Sir William Crookes in the "New Scientist".

Why was it left to the Editor of a small circulation Spiritualist magazine to defend Crookes? Surely the members of the Society for Psychical Research should have all been demanding that this one-sided attack in the "New Scientist" was balanced.

Nothing has changed in 2004. Apart from Professor Peter Wadhams, no other qualified scientist has had the courage to openly defend Sir William Crookes against the appalling lies that have been planted on him.

Let the public decide who is right: those who are attacking one of the greatest scientists that this planet has ever produced or those of us who are defending Sir William Crookes, whose only "crime" was to tell the truth and link his revolutionary experiments to the scientific discipline of subatomic physics.

From: Psychic News, August 19, 1978

Lecturer Insults Eminent Scientist Who Attested Psychic Phenomena

Mental disturbances suggested

It was not only insulting but highly unscientific for "New Scientist" last week to denigrate a world-renowned chemist.

It was also cowardly to do so 58 years after Sir William Crookes' passing, since the journal would print no such attack were he still on earth.The offender was Dr. John Emsley, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at Kings College, London, who cannot be described as having achieved fame. His article dealt mainly with thallium, an element which he said was cursed at birth. Crookes is credited in encyclopaedias as being the first to discover it. It had "the deadly property of being extremely poisonous."

Crookes announced its discovery in 1861, but according to Emsley a similar claim was made by a French physicist, Claude-Auguste Lamy, but in 1862. Readers were told that Crookes "was a recognised authority on chemical analysis." He was also one of the 19th century's most eminent scientists.

(see "Showered with Honours" at the end of this article)

After listing some of Crookes' outstanding achievements Emsley said, "Less respectable were his researches into the occult."

That statement is easily disproved, as you will see. Then he wrote, "Crookes discovered Spiritualism while he was working on thallium." He was wrong again. Crookes first came in contact with psychic phenomena in 1869, many years after his thallium research.

Emsley added: "Through Spiritualism he met, with disastrous results, the 18-year-old medium Florence Cook. Her promising career was seriously threatened in December 1873 when her trickery was exposed." It was true that a claim to exposure was made, but it was certainly not proved.

Emsley said that in despair she turned to Crookes "to help her regain her credibility." The simple fact is that Crookes decided to make a thorough investigation of Spiritualism after publicity had been given to results obtained by a medium named Henry Slade.

Announcing his forthcoming investigation, Crookes believed the result would be to discredit Spiritualism. He wrote:

"The increased employment of scientific methods will produce a race of observers who will drive the worthless residuum of Spiritualism hence into the unknown limbo of magic and necromancy."

His announcement was received with jubilation. When, after his sittings with the famous medium D.D. Home, he testified to the genuineness of the phenomena he witnessed, the press did not receive his testimony with acclaim.

Crookes applied all his scientific expertise in a three-year series of test materialisation seances with Florence Cook in his own laboratory. His photographs, 44 all told, of these seance results, established beyond any shadow of doubt that the medium and the materialised Katie King, her guide, were two separate individuals. More than once he had himself photographed with both of them.

Emsley said that Crookes "may even have had an affair" with her. This is an old unproven allegation. Emsley told readers that Crookes "fully endorsed Florence and her manifestations as genuine. He even posed for a photograph with a spirit woman she had conjured from the dead." By writing those words, he displayed his abysmal ignorance. No medium can conjure up the "dead".

Emsley was right, however, in saying that Crookes' "psychic researches" - these words appear within quotation marks - "brought only scorn from fellow scientists." They did, because these scientists were as ignorant about psychic phenomena as Emsley is.

Then the writer asked, "why did he descend to such ludicrous behaviour?" Bear in mind that he is writing about one of the greatest scientists this country has produced. Emsley had the effrontery to say that Crookes attested Florence's genuineness probably for two reasons:

"Sexual infatuation may be one. Another - equally likely - is mild thallium poisoning, whose insidious symptoms include mental disturbances."

How dare he write such nonsense!

After his many years researching thallium Crookes would have been the first person to know about the possibility of its poisoning. Yet Emsley had to admit, "Thallium obviously caused him no permanent harm: he lived to be 87."

Crookes could not have continued to be acclaimed for his scientific achievements after his investigation of Florence's mediumship if he suffered from mental disturbances.

Emsley should be ashamed of writing such nonsense. And "New Scientist" should be equally ashamed for having printed it.

Despite all that, Emsley's article ended with the statement:

"Thallium is beginning to bloom at last. It seems likely that its salts will once again find their way on to the shelves of chemistry stores."

Maurice Barbanell, Editor of Psychic News

---

SHOWERED WITH HONOURS

Sir William Crookes' scientific eminence is shown by the many high offices he held. He was president of the Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and British Association for the Advancement of Science.

His awards include Royal Gold medal, Davy Medal, Sir Joseph Copley Medal and one from the French Academy of Sciences plus an extraordinary prize of 3,000 francs.

He was knighted and had the rarely-bestowed Order of Merit. Encyclopaedias credit him with the discovery of thallium, the inventor of the radiometer and spinthariscope, Crookes tubes and finder of the cathode ray which made television possible. He is praised for his original researches in chemistry and physics.

Miss Florence Cook's Mediumship - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (February 3, 1874)

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

The Chemist Sir William Crookes Proved Survival With Repeatable Experiments Under Laboratory Conditions - by Michael Roll

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.

Is There a Widening Division Between Parapsychologists and Survivalists at the SPR? - Letter from John Samson to Victor Zammit, July 7, 2001

The Society for Psychical Research - www.spr.ac.uk

IssueFM 101.4 (London) - Pete Rogers: "Life After Death"

Listen live online

(Recommended audio streaming program: VLC)

Pete Rogers has invited Professor John Poynton, President of the Society for Psychical Research, and Michael Roll into the studio to discuss the secular scientific case for survival after death.

(not Professor Bernard Carr, as previously announced)

A Rational Scientific Explanation for So-called Psychic Phenomena - by Michael Roll

Is There a Widening Division Between Parapsychologists and Survivalists at the SPR? - Letter from John Samson to Victor Zammit, July 7, 2001

IssueFM - 101.4 London - Listen live online

IssueFM is a talk radio station that sets out to tackle some of the most pressing problems causing social exclusion and disadvantage to people living in the inner city area of London. The event is done in partnership with members of the public, businesses, statutory and voluntary organisations who together sit as a panel to discuss, inform, advise and educate people about the facts surrounding contemporary issues, along with important support services that can be directly obtained.

We are an organisation with a clear vision and a passion for the future. Our goal is to be the best radio station in the nation that provides people residing within socially harsh neighbourhoods with opportunities to develop greater knowledge and understanding about various topics, contributing to safe, caring, and co-operative environments unbound by social exclusion and disadvantage.

The Society for Psychical Research - www.spr.ac.uk

The Church of England's Thirty Nine Articles of Religion

by Michael Roll

(July 11, 2004)

I am still in a state of shock after reading the editorial in The Daily Telegraph on 10th July 2004 about enforcing Thomas Cranmer's Thirty-nine Articles of Religion that were officially adopted by the Church of England in 1564. Every Anglo-Catholic priest has sworn before "God" that he, and now I presume she, will incorporate these outrageous assertions that no intellectual has believed in for over 100 years.

Apparently it has been decided to activate the ecclesiastical court for heresy in a desperate attempt to root out all the clergy that the Telegraph calls "liberals" - defined in the dictionary as open-minded, not rigorous, unprejudiced, directed to general broadening of the mind, favouring moderate democratic reforms.

Half the Church of England clergy openly follow the former Bishop of Durham, Dr. David Jenkins, and the rest privately agree with what this top academic said. In the 1980s, Dr. Jenkins made it very clear that Church of England priests no longer believe in the supernatural Catholic (all-embracing) doctrines and dogmas that were invented at the Council of Nicaea in 325 of the Christian era together with the 39 Articles: that a book has divine authority, dead bodies leaping out of graves on a mythical Judgement Day, a virgin giving birth to the creator of the universe 2,000 years ago, and, worst of all, that everything we have done wrong on Earth is going to be forgiven just as long as we believe what the priests are teaching etc.

Please see the letter that the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. John Baker, wrote to me on 3rd March 1983:

"And I would entirely agree that there is no hope for the Churches unless they try to get back to what their Founder taught."

He means Jesus, not St. Paul.

When I met the scientist Ronald Pearson in 1988, he was deeply shocked when I told him that the Church of England priests no longer believe what they are paid to pump into their congregations. I could see that he did not believe me. Therefore, I introduced him to a local Church of England vicar. This vicar confirmed to Ron that everything that Thomas Paine and Arthur Findlay had written about the Christian religion was true. This vicar had first made contact with me following one of my local radio broadcasts. I asked him when he found out that Christianity was a gigantic hoax on the human race. He answered:

"We all do at theological college."

He also told me that every Anglo-Catholic vicar has a great deal of autonomy - personal freedom - unlike the Roman Catholic priests.

Reactivating the ecclesiastical court for heresy tells me that this autonomy is coming to an end in the Anglo-Catholic Church, and with it the Christian religion, as the Bishop of Salisbury made clear to me in 1983.

NB: The Daily Telegraph actually picked out one of the 39 Articles that supported "materialism"! The truth is always stranger than fiction.

Christ will not return, says Dr Jenkins - an article published in The Daily Telegraph (December 14, 1993)

"The Calling of a Cuckoo" - by Dr. David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham (2003)

The Suppression of Knowledge - Letter from Dr John Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, to Michael Roll (March 3, 1983)

Articles published in the Daily Telegraph:

"One third of clergy do not believe in the Resurrection" (July 31, 2002)

"Clergy could face heresy charges in new tribunals" (July 20, 2002)

No priest believes in what they are selling! - E-mail from Michael Roll to Dene Jones (August 13, 2002)

No Book Has Divine Authority - by Michael Roll

No heresy (if that's OK) - Daily Telegraph (July 10, 2004)

"(...) The Synod is to debate setting up new tribunals that will punish clergymen guilty of heresy. They are deemed necessary because the current consistory court system is too cumbersome and hardly ever used.

These days, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Church of England does not stand for anything much beyond a benign Leftism. (...) But at least it enjoys a clear legal and liturgical identity, based on the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer.

Although we don't hear much of them now, the Articles are reassuringly unambiguous to laymen - and full of common sense. Article 1 begins: "There is only one living and true God". Article 35 rules that churches must be kept clean, and 38 even propounds that the Church upholds private property - which may come as a surprise to those clergymen who never miss an opportunity to condemn what they call "materialism".

(...) it says in the Preface to the Prayer Book: "It has always been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her publick liturgy, to keep the meane between the two extreams." "

Read the full editorial on the Daily Telegraph site.

Synod rejects rules preventing teaching of homosexual 'heresy' - Daily Telegraph (July 11, 2004)

In this article, Elizabeth Day writes:

"An attempt by the Archbishop of Canterbury to introduce disciplinary powers to prevent heretical teaching on homosexuality within the Church of England was rebuffed yesterday.

At the meeting of the Church's General Synod in York, draft rules, supported by Dr Rowan Williams, that would have forced clergy to adhere to orthodox doctrine were rejected by four votes.

During a one-and-a-half hour debate, Dr Williams told Synod members that he believed that the proposed measure could "serve the integrity and credibility of the Church" and guard against "un-Christian" teachings, such as racism. Other controversial topics, such as homosexuality, would also have been covered by the rules.

"Certain things are incompatible with Christian profession," Dr Williams said. "I don't think we ought to let ourselves forget that. It's 20-something years, I think, since the world alliance of reformed Churches declared a theological justification of apartheid as heresy. It would be, I think, a very incredible and inadequate Christian Church that did not have the resource to say something like that."

The General Synod, however, snubbed the archbishop, with many members expressing concern over the inflexibility of the proposed legislation in a Church that prided itself on discussion and diversity.

There were also concerns that the legislation would prove too expensive to enforce - an individual case could cost up to £100,000 to pursue.

(...)

The rejection of the proposals means that Anglican clerics remain subject to the 1963 Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure. The Measure, which led to consistory court cases involving adulterous vicars, is deemed by many to be expensive and cumbersome. Indeed, doctrinal matters have never been successfully prosecuted under it."

Read the full article on the Daily Telegraph site.

"They Walk Among Us" was published on June 30 and is available to buy online.

Ask at your local bookshop if they have copies in stock!

With much of the content based on this website, this book presents the secular scientific case for survival after death with the mathematical backup - the proof that we all survive the death of our physical bodies.

Religionists and their obscurant allies in the scientific establishment have a mutual interest in preventing the secular scientific case for survival from entering the public domain - providing a philosophical balance to the vicious materialistic propaganda, which people can accept or reject as the case may be.

At last, the public will have access to long-suppressed information and serious discussion of survival after death without any connection whatsoever with priestcraft - without the precondition of having to believe in supernatural absurdities and to grovel before so-called "holy men".

"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood." - Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"They Walk Among Us" is dedicated to Ron Pearson, Michael Roll, and John Samson.

"They Walk Among Us" - by Emma Heathcote-James (2004)

"The Afterlife Experiments" - by Gary Schwartz (2003)

"Løft Låget - og tænk livet om" ("Lift the lid - and rethink life") - by Poul Blak (2003)

"Russell" - Gwen Byrne's account of being reunited with her "dead" son (1994)

Uncomfortable Historical Facts That we are Never Taught at School in the Theocracy of Great Britain - Michael Roll

Order from the publisher: "They Walk Among Us" - by Emma Heathcote-James (2004)

The Jeff Rense Program - The Secular Scientific Case for Survival After Death

On April 20/21, 2004, Michael Roll spoke on The Jeff Rense Program. Initially focused on the new book by Emma Heathcote-James, "They Walk Among Us", Michael and Jeff discussed the suppressed scientific proof that we all survive the death of our physical bodies.

Due to technical problems, it was not possible for Emma Heathcote-James to join the broadcast.

This was Michael Roll's eighth broadcast with Jeff Rense. To listen to the full broadcast, visit the Jeff Rense Program archives: www.rense.com

"Maybe the human race has reached a point where belief as a mode of thinking needs to be abandoned. Whether it is belief in gods, or belief in political leaders' promises, it is clear that beliefs enslave free minds and lead the believers into actions that logic and facts would argue against.

Long ago we abandoned shaking rattles and dancing around the fire as a primary mode of interacting with the world. Maybe it is time to continue that trend. We stand at the edge of world war three not because of real events and real crimes but because of beliefs instilled in us all by con-artists and tyrants. The way to peace is to abandon those beliefs that lead us to war (and abuse)."

Michael Rivero - whatreallyhappened.com

Michael Rivero's comments were prompted by an article in the Boston Globe - "Lawyers ready claims of more clergy abuse" (May 24, 2004):

"Eight months after the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay a record $85 million to 541 people to settle claims of sexual abuse, lawyers for other alleged victims are preparing legal action against the embattled archdiocese."

Michael Rivero's words could easily have been written by Thomas Paine or Arthur Findlay. They sum up the whole grisly religious shooting-match, and warn how dangerous it is to take any notice of victims of priestcraft like George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

"No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith." - Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

We can stop the tyrants and prevent a Third World War if we all heed Voltaire's warning:

"...and this is how things will remain all the time good people continue to do nothing." - After Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

Open Letter to Billy Graham - Victor Zammit (May 29, 2004)

Bush Primed by Evangelicals for Armageddon Scenario

"Do you think President Bush, a Christian man, believes or knows he's involved with prophetic events concerning the Middle East and the final battle between good and evil?"

Oxford Scientist Launches Sharp Critique of Religion (December 16, 2003)

Richard Dawkins lectures on the presence of religion in science

No Book Has Divine Authority - by Michael Roll

A Rabid Flock Of Lying Killers - How American Christians And Jews Justify The Mass Murder Of Innocents In The Name Of "The Lord" - by John Kaminski (February, 2003)

DOES GOD want us to kill innocent Iraqi children? Judging by the apparently unanimous approval in the Senate chamber from all those truth-immune political celebrities watching President Bush's most recent State of the Union address — all of whom are at least overtly religious churchgoers - the message is clear: HE does.

Apparently there is not a single member of Congress who opposes the idea of dropping more bombs on Iraq. Sure, there are a few who want U.N. endorsement, but if they get that — that is to say, if they can ultimately avoid blame for this atrocity by later saying the U.N. said it was OK to do it — there is nobody in the entire U.S. government apparatus who opposes obliterating Iraq, and murdering still thousands more of its defenseless women and children.

Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power - an article by George Monbiot (The Guardian, April 20, 2004)

Jesus Never Existed - www.jesusneverexisted.com - For all who would struggle against the tragedy of religion

What they don't tell the children...

•	Once a particular Christianity - hierarchical and authoritarian - became wedded to the Roman state, it became a force of brutal repression. This so-called 'orthodoxy' suppressed and persecuted its 'heretical' opposition.
•	A triumphant Christianity was the active agent in destroying knowledge and access to learning. An ignorant and impoverished population was more readily subjugated by Princes of the Church.
•	The cost to humanity of fifteen centuries of Christian savagery - of hundreds of millions of lives brutalised and truncated, sacrificed to war, torture, pogrom, burning, pestilence and plague - is incalculable.

Sir William Crookes was forced to write these letters because of a vicious attack on the young medium Florence Cook.

Miss Florence Cook's Mediumship - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (February 3, 1874)

It is interesting to note that Sir William was left on his own to defend Florence Cook; none of the Spiritualists who had witnessed her revolutionary mediumship came out and supported her, just when she needed their help most.

Rita Goold's mediumship was also witnessed by hundreds of Spiritualists. Not one has helped me to crash through the powerful establishment barriers. In fact, the hierarchy of the Spiritualist movement has fought against me with all their might since I first physically met etheric people in 1983. Neither Alan Cleaver and Gwen Byrne nor Rita Goold are members of the Spiritualist religion. Then, as now, so many Spiritualists look upon scientific investigation as a desecration of their shrine. Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge also ran into this religious brick wall.

The second letter gives crushing proof that a person from the invisible part of the universe had materialised during repeatable experiments under laboratory conditions:

Spirit-Forms - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (March 30, 1874)

This begs the question why is it being left to us to let people throughout the world know that we have had the experimental proof that we all survive the death of our physical bodies ever since 1874?

What about all the "experts" in this field of research, the professionals? Those who have been given grants from the Perrott-Warrick scholarship, why aren't they doing this on their websites? What about Professor Robert Morris who has been in charge of the Arthur Koestler Chair at Edinburgh University for nearly 20 years? What about The Journal of Consciousness Studies and The Churches' Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies?

The professional debunkers will go to incredible lengths to make sure that people never find out that we all survive the death of our physical bodies. The tragedy is that until the Internet came along, these frauds had almost total control of all mainstream media and educational outlets. Thankfully their days are over, before long they will be swept aside by the might of public opinion.

The third letter:

The Last of Katie King - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (April, 1874)

I am hoping that professors Josephson, Wadhams, and Carr will now write to the Open University in order to try and stop the parapsychologists poking fun at Sir William Crookes, one of the greatest scientists that our country has ever produced, who ended his days as a President of the Royal Society and holder of the Order of Merit. I have failed in my attempt to get the Open University to withdraw the appalling attack on Sir William Crookes that has been put out by the Department of Psychology - "Was There Anybody There?" Surely a letter from three professors of physics will at least have the effect of letting the students at the Open University have access to a balance?

As things stand at the moment, only one expert opinion is coming to the attention of students - the one put forward by psychologists who follow Professor Richard Wiseman's idea that the mind and brain are the same and that death is the end of everything. Students do not even have access to the other expert opinion that is being put forward by the supporters of Sir William Crookes. They have started from the base that the mind and brain are separate and that we all survive the death of our physical bodies.

The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom was started specifically for the supporters of Sir William Crookes to balance the appalling pack of lies that have been thrown at this great scientist whose only "crime" was--the same as Thomas Paine--to have the courage to tell the truth. Only Crookes' deadly enemies have been allowed access to mainstream media and educational outlets. Only now, thanks to the Internet and the American broadcaster Jeff Rense, is this balance being struck.

Michael Roll

Miss Florence Cook's Mediumship - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (February 3, 1874)

Spirit-Forms - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (March 30, 1874)

The Last of Katie King - Letter from Sir William Crookes to Spiritualist publications (April, 1874)

Sir William Crookes - Prof. Peter Wadhams (May 7, 2004)

The Chemist Sir William Crookes Proved Survival With Repeatable Experiments Under Laboratory Conditions - by Michael Roll