A personal statement

Arising out of the reply to his letter published in the September SOCIALIST STANDARD, Lord Arnwell 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.