Arising out of the reply to his letter published in the September Socialist Standard, Lord Amwell asks us to publish the following statement: —
September 16th, ’48.
The Editor,
Socialist Standard.
Dear Sir,
I must ask you to correct one misrepresentation in F.F.’s reply to me this month.
It is unwise to trust the capitalist press, even when it suits one in its facilitating a jibe. I did not say in the House of Lords that I went into trances or, as several newspapers put it, that I was a medium. Popular spiritualism is a thing I despise and I am not an obscurantist by any means.
What I did was to speak against a body of fellow citizens being persecuted under medieval statutes rather than common law. To illustrate my point I mentioned that many years ago I looked into certain phenomena and produced, as anyone can, some abnormal results. This without any assumption whatever about a future life or theory of spirit. As matters stood before Mr. Morrison’s order to police authorities, I could have been prosecuted for investigating psychic matters in my own home.
This had nothing to do with trances or spiritualistic claims. The press seeks sensation—don’t you follow suit. I am neither spiritualist nor medium.
I wish I had space to go into the other matters fully, especially F.F.’s complex about tripe and sheeps’ brains.
Yours sincerely,
Amwell.
2 comments:
'F. F.' was F. Foan, longstanding SPGBer and Socialist Standard writer. Lord Amwell was Fred Montague in a previous life - see what I did there? - an SDFer in his youth, and regular correspondent with the Socialist Standard in his latter years.
PS - 1360th post for the year means that I've now overtaken 2024's total. Six weeks between now and the end of the year to build on that. A minimum for 1500 posts for 2025 would be nice.
I guess I should get my arse in gear and post on the blog the letter/reply that Amwell was actually replying to.
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