Didn't See That Coming
I don't know which part of this report from The Independent I found funnier - the fact that 'psychic' Sally Morgan sacked her husband for abusing and threatening a critical member of the public or Psychic Sally's claim that she met her first ghost at the tender age of only four.
Psychic Sally Morgan sacks husband after film catches anti-gay attack on critic
TV psychic Sally Morgan said she felt ‘utterly ashamed’ by her husband’s behaviour
By SIMON USBORNE - The Independent
The psychic Sally Morgan has sacked her own husband and son-in-law after a video emerged showing them homophobically abusing and violently threatening one of her critics.
She said she felt “utterly ashamed and devastated” by John Morgan, her manager, and Daren Wiltshear, her tour manager, following the release of a film recorded secretly by Mark Tilbrook while he handed out leaflets before one of the psychic’s shows in London.
In the video, filmed on 30 April and released online last Friday as part of a psychic awareness month, Mr Morgan tells Mr Tilbrook: “I’m gonna knock you out one day,” adding: “One day you’re gonna be lifted, and you’ll disappear somewhere.” When Mr Morgan again threatens to “knock out” Mr Tilbrook, Mr Wiltshear adds: “I’ve seen him do it, and you really don’t want him to do it.”
The homophobic abuse contained in the film was revealed by The Independent at the weekend. “You know, you look pale,” Mr Morgan tells Mr Tilbrook. “Are you on drugs or has someone shagged you too much? One of your boyfriends been up your arse?”
Mr Tilbrook, whose video has gained more than 100,000 views, offered the leaflets, entitled “Look after yourself”, to people attending Mrs Morgan’s shows in the hope that she would communicate with their dead relatives.
“I wanted audiences to have the information they needed to make informed decisions about what they’re seeing,” he said.
Mrs Morgan, 63, initially accused Mr Tilbrook of “persistent hounding” and claimed that her husband “reacted angrily and out of character”. Mr Tilbrook, 30, denied ever approaching the Morgans.
Mrs Morgan, who claims on her website to have met her first ghost at the age of four, announced the dismissals in a second statement last night. “I have come from a family background that has always been very accepting, many of my friends are gay and I have always felt happy that I am often referred to as a gay icon through my work,” she wrote.
“I am utterly ashamed and devastated at the behaviour of my husband John and son-in-law Daren and neither of them will have anything to do with my work, my business and right now I honestly have no idea what is going to happen to my marriage.”
Mr Tilbrook said last night that he had only tried to “engage with the public about psychics, nothing more”.
“I think that the words and actions displayed by John were inexcusable and note that neither myself nor the gay community has seen anything like a personal apology from him,” he added.
The psychic Sally Morgan has sacked her own husband and son-in-law after a video emerged showing them homophobically abusing and violently threatening one of her critics.
She said she felt “utterly ashamed and devastated” by John Morgan, her manager, and Daren Wiltshear, her tour manager, following the release of a film recorded secretly by Mark Tilbrook while he handed out leaflets before one of the psychic’s shows in London.
In the video, filmed on 30 April and released online last Friday as part of a psychic awareness month, Mr Morgan tells Mr Tilbrook: “I’m gonna knock you out one day,” adding: “One day you’re gonna be lifted, and you’ll disappear somewhere.” When Mr Morgan again threatens to “knock out” Mr Tilbrook, Mr Wiltshear adds: “I’ve seen him do it, and you really don’t want him to do it.”
The homophobic abuse contained in the film was revealed by The Independent at the weekend. “You know, you look pale,” Mr Morgan tells Mr Tilbrook. “Are you on drugs or has someone shagged you too much? One of your boyfriends been up your arse?”
Mr Tilbrook, whose video has gained more than 100,000 views, offered the leaflets, entitled “Look after yourself”, to people attending Mrs Morgan’s shows in the hope that she would communicate with their dead relatives.
“I wanted audiences to have the information they needed to make informed decisions about what they’re seeing,” he said.
Mrs Morgan, 63, initially accused Mr Tilbrook of “persistent hounding” and claimed that her husband “reacted angrily and out of character”. Mr Tilbrook, 30, denied ever approaching the Morgans.
Mrs Morgan, who claims on her website to have met her first ghost at the age of four, announced the dismissals in a second statement last night. “I have come from a family background that has always been very accepting, many of my friends are gay and I have always felt happy that I am often referred to as a gay icon through my work,” she wrote.
“I am utterly ashamed and devastated at the behaviour of my husband John and son-in-law Daren and neither of them will have anything to do with my work, my business and right now I honestly have no idea what is going to happen to my marriage.”
Mr Tilbrook said last night that he had only tried to “engage with the public about psychics, nothing more”.
“I think that the words and actions displayed by John were inexcusable and note that neither myself nor the gay community has seen anything like a personal apology from him,” he added.
'Psychos' and Psychics (13 October 2014)
I've always believed that psychics are just hucksters and fraudsters who exploit the loss of people whose loved ones have passed away and the great escapologist, Harry Houdini spent large part of his life exposing the worst offenders as complete charlatans.
Now I had never heard of Sally Morgan before reading this report in The Independent, but I think it would appear to any reasonable person that her husband is more 'psycho' than psychic.
Psychic Sally Morgan's revelations about dead cyclist upset girlfriend
Dispute escalates after sceptic is threatened with violence by Ms Morgan's husband at a show
By SIMON USBORNE - The Independent
Kris Cook was almost half-way into a cycling challenge when the 36-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest and died in front of his girlfriend, Nicola Tait. The incident during the Ride London-Surrey 100 on 10 August made national headlines, inspiring thousands of strangers to leave donations at Mr Cook’s online charity page.
The following month, at an event in the cyclist’s hometown of Woking, audience members said the celebrity psychic Sally Morgan appeared to invoke his spirit, describing a bicycle, a man called Kris with a “K” who wore Lycra shorts, and the name Nicola.
Today, as separate allegations were made about violent and homophobic threats by Ms Morgan’s husband in an encounter with a psychic-awareness campaigner, Ms Tait described her distress after being alerted to the Woking event by audience members.
“This has now upset myself and family a lot to hear the account that was told that evening to hundreds of people,” she told the Woking Advertiser. “I am left to feel upset, betrayed and even more confused... I do not think any of us should have to suffer any more or be put through any more pain.”
Ms Morgan, 63, is a renowned psychic who appears frequently on TV and tours the country with sell-out live stage performances. Princess Diana and George Michael have been among her celebrity fans, but she has critics, too.
Critic Kris Cook and his girlfriend Nicola Tait (Rex Features)
Sharon Griffiths was at the event in Woking, and alerted Ms Tait via Facebook. “Kris was the first spirit that came through,” she said. “[Morgan] said she wanted to put it out there because his name was spelt unusually with a ‘K’. She said she could see he was wearing tights... [and] was getting the name Nicola.”
Ms Griffiths, 29, who said she went to the event “with a lot of hope” after her father’s death in February, added: “After the interval, [Ms Morgan] said Kris was coming back and showing her a bicycle. She said she could see he wasn’t wearing tights, but Lycra cycling shorts.”
A spokesperson for Sally Morgan Enterprises (SME) said neither Ms Morgan nor the company had been aware of Mr Cook’s death. A statement continued: “[We] have been in contact with Nicola Tait, given her the transcript of the message and have offered to assist her further should she wish to speak with Sally... this is a private matter.” The dispute comes as a video has emerged online in which John Morgan, who is also his wife’s manager, verbally abuses and threatens a man who had been handing out leaflets to people arriving at one of her shows in London.
Mark Tilbrook began attending the psychic’s shows in Manchester, where he lives, in March. His leaflets, entitled “Look after yourself”, offer advice to people attending any psychic with the hope of hearing from someone who has died. “I wanted audiences to have the information they needed to make informed decisions about what they’re seeing,” Mr Tilbrook, 30, said.
Mr Tilbrook said Mr Morgan did not agree and in Manchester “came out and told me to fuck off and that he would punch me if I didn’t leave”.
Mr Tilbrook said he faced repeated threats at a subsequent show in Liverpool. Before a third show in London on 30 April he concealed a camera in his jacket. In the video, Mr Morgan approaches Mr Tilbrook and warns him that he is being sued for libel. Mr Morgan then makes threats including, “I’m gonna knock you out one day” and “one day you’re gonna be lifted and you’ll disappear somewhere”. Daren Wiltshear, Mr Morgan’s son-in-law, then arrives. Mr Morgan says: “Right, so I’m gonna hit you in a minute, I’m gonna knock you out.” Mr Wiltshear adds: “I’ve seen him do it, and you really don’t want him to do it.” After further legal threats, Mr Morgan says: “You know, you look pale. Are you on drugs or has someone shagged you too much? One of your boyfriends been up your arse?”
When Mr Tilbrook, who has continued to hand out the leaflets, blogged about the encounter, he said he received a notice of legal action from Ms Morgan’s lawyers. He eventually contacted the Good Thinking Society, founded by Simon Singh, the science writer who has faced legal threats himself, including from Ms Morgan. Mr Singh also put Mr Tilbrook in touch with his lawyers and Good Thinking has launched a “psychic awareness month” inspired by Mr Tilbrook’s actions. Mr Tilbrook agreed to publish the video online and volunteers are handing out versions of his leaflets at psychic events every day in October.
“What Mark is doing is incredibly and utterly reasonable,” Mr Singh said. “He’s just asking people to think about what they’re seeing... to be given such abuse and physical threats is just shocking.”
In response to questions about the video, Sally Morgan Enterprises said “it would like to apologise for any offence caused by the material. Since April 2014, Mark Tilbrook has targeted Sally Morgan’s live performances, handing out leaflets to audience members. On several occasions theatre staff have had to call the police in order to get him removed”.
It added: “Due to the continual presence of Mark Tilbrook and John Morgan’s ever-growing concern for Sally, he reacted angrily and out of character. Sally was not aware of the comments made in this video. She is very upset by the events, does not condone any of the behaviour.”
Mr Tilbrook says he has never seen the police, nor ever been “removed” from a Morgan event. He adds: “I have never approached John Morgan or anyone from Sally's team when handing out leaflets. On every occasion they have gone out of their way to approach me.
Dispute escalates after sceptic is threatened with violence by Ms Morgan's husband at a show
By SIMON USBORNE - The Independent
Kris Cook was almost half-way into a cycling challenge when the 36-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest and died in front of his girlfriend, Nicola Tait. The incident during the Ride London-Surrey 100 on 10 August made national headlines, inspiring thousands of strangers to leave donations at Mr Cook’s online charity page.
The following month, at an event in the cyclist’s hometown of Woking, audience members said the celebrity psychic Sally Morgan appeared to invoke his spirit, describing a bicycle, a man called Kris with a “K” who wore Lycra shorts, and the name Nicola.
Today, as separate allegations were made about violent and homophobic threats by Ms Morgan’s husband in an encounter with a psychic-awareness campaigner, Ms Tait described her distress after being alerted to the Woking event by audience members.
“This has now upset myself and family a lot to hear the account that was told that evening to hundreds of people,” she told the Woking Advertiser. “I am left to feel upset, betrayed and even more confused... I do not think any of us should have to suffer any more or be put through any more pain.”
Ms Morgan, 63, is a renowned psychic who appears frequently on TV and tours the country with sell-out live stage performances. Princess Diana and George Michael have been among her celebrity fans, but she has critics, too.
Critic Kris Cook and his girlfriend Nicola Tait (Rex Features)
Sharon Griffiths was at the event in Woking, and alerted Ms Tait via Facebook. “Kris was the first spirit that came through,” she said. “[Morgan] said she wanted to put it out there because his name was spelt unusually with a ‘K’. She said she could see he was wearing tights... [and] was getting the name Nicola.”
Ms Griffiths, 29, who said she went to the event “with a lot of hope” after her father’s death in February, added: “After the interval, [Ms Morgan] said Kris was coming back and showing her a bicycle. She said she could see he wasn’t wearing tights, but Lycra cycling shorts.”
A spokesperson for Sally Morgan Enterprises (SME) said neither Ms Morgan nor the company had been aware of Mr Cook’s death. A statement continued: “[We] have been in contact with Nicola Tait, given her the transcript of the message and have offered to assist her further should she wish to speak with Sally... this is a private matter.” The dispute comes as a video has emerged online in which John Morgan, who is also his wife’s manager, verbally abuses and threatens a man who had been handing out leaflets to people arriving at one of her shows in London.
Mark Tilbrook began attending the psychic’s shows in Manchester, where he lives, in March. His leaflets, entitled “Look after yourself”, offer advice to people attending any psychic with the hope of hearing from someone who has died. “I wanted audiences to have the information they needed to make informed decisions about what they’re seeing,” Mr Tilbrook, 30, said.
Mr Tilbrook said Mr Morgan did not agree and in Manchester “came out and told me to fuck off and that he would punch me if I didn’t leave”.
Video: Sceptic Mark Tilbrook confronted by family of Sally Morgan
Mr Tilbrook said he faced repeated threats at a subsequent show in Liverpool. Before a third show in London on 30 April he concealed a camera in his jacket. In the video, Mr Morgan approaches Mr Tilbrook and warns him that he is being sued for libel. Mr Morgan then makes threats including, “I’m gonna knock you out one day” and “one day you’re gonna be lifted and you’ll disappear somewhere”. Daren Wiltshear, Mr Morgan’s son-in-law, then arrives. Mr Morgan says: “Right, so I’m gonna hit you in a minute, I’m gonna knock you out.” Mr Wiltshear adds: “I’ve seen him do it, and you really don’t want him to do it.” After further legal threats, Mr Morgan says: “You know, you look pale. Are you on drugs or has someone shagged you too much? One of your boyfriends been up your arse?”
When Mr Tilbrook, who has continued to hand out the leaflets, blogged about the encounter, he said he received a notice of legal action from Ms Morgan’s lawyers. He eventually contacted the Good Thinking Society, founded by Simon Singh, the science writer who has faced legal threats himself, including from Ms Morgan. Mr Singh also put Mr Tilbrook in touch with his lawyers and Good Thinking has launched a “psychic awareness month” inspired by Mr Tilbrook’s actions. Mr Tilbrook agreed to publish the video online and volunteers are handing out versions of his leaflets at psychic events every day in October.
“What Mark is doing is incredibly and utterly reasonable,” Mr Singh said. “He’s just asking people to think about what they’re seeing... to be given such abuse and physical threats is just shocking.”
In response to questions about the video, Sally Morgan Enterprises said “it would like to apologise for any offence caused by the material. Since April 2014, Mark Tilbrook has targeted Sally Morgan’s live performances, handing out leaflets to audience members. On several occasions theatre staff have had to call the police in order to get him removed”.
It added: “Due to the continual presence of Mark Tilbrook and John Morgan’s ever-growing concern for Sally, he reacted angrily and out of character. Sally was not aware of the comments made in this video. She is very upset by the events, does not condone any of the behaviour.”
Mr Tilbrook says he has never seen the police, nor ever been “removed” from a Morgan event. He adds: “I have never approached John Morgan or anyone from Sally's team when handing out leaflets. On every occasion they have gone out of their way to approach me.
Here's an excellent article by David Aaronovitch which appeared in the Times the other day.
Seems to me that for the most part at least the world's secular countries have 'tamed' religion - so that it has a proper place in society which allows ordinary citizens to believe what they like and worship freely, if they want to of course - so long as they don't try to impose their religion or religious outlook on others.
Which is, of course, as it should be - the great escapologist, Harry Houdini, might well have met the same fate as Dr Dabholkar, sadly, because he too was committed to exposing the false fakirs and fraudsters of his own era - who fleeced lots of American citizens with staged seances and bogus claims about being able to communicate with dead loved ones - who had passed to the 'other side'.
So, I tip my hat to Dr Dabolkhar - because standing up for the truth, as you believe it to be, can be a very uncomfortable experience, but it is something that people should be able to do in civilized countries - without paying a terrible personal price or, even, forfeiting their lives.
By David Aaronovitch
The death of a brave Indian rationalist reminds us that people are still killed simply for opening their mouth
On Monday night Dr Narendra Dabholkar, a man in his late sixties, took an evening train from Mumbai to Pune. He arrived after midnight, but still got up early the next morning to go for a walk in the Sambhaji Garden. Shortly after 7am two men, who had parked their Honda motorbikes by a Hindu temple, walked up to Dr Dabholkar and shot him four times in the head and body. By the time the police arrived he was dying.
To some of the people who knew of him Dr Dabholkar was a hero of an unlikely kind. For years he had led a campaign against superstition in India, against the false fakirs and miraculous charlatans, who took the money of the credulous and left them with nothing or — often — worse than nothing. He died as his home state of Maharashtra was, finally, about to pass an anti-superstition bill outlawing the most dangerous practices of the various babas and yogis who infest that place.
Dr Dabholkar relied on one weapon alone. Reason. He never hurt anyone, never threatened anyone, never roused a mob to attack a building containing his enemies. He published magazines, articles, appeared on television and argued, argued, argued. And for that cursed arguing he was murdered.
India, though prey to superstition and various mumbo-jumbos (or perhaps because it is prey to these things), has given birth to a vigorous and often brilliant rationalist movement. Times readers may remember the report of the activities of Sanal Edamaruku, the head of the Indian Rationalist Association. When a celebrated tantric guru claimed on television that he could kill a man using only his magical powers, Mr Edamaruku challenged him to prove it. In front of millions the berobed guru Pandit Surender Sharma chanted, sprinkled, waved a knife and fluttered his hands for hours, and Mr Edamaraku simply smiled. And lived.
But Mr Edamaruku has always run risks by interfering with people’s beliefs and the economy that feeds on those beliefs. He had a burning clay pot smashed in his face by a faking fakir and was threatened with arrest by the government of the state of Kerala when he revealed that it was their officials — like baddies in Scooby-Doo — who were behind the flaming apparitions that drew many money-spending pilgrims to behold the miraculous fires.
Last year Mr Edamaruku offended the Roman Catholics of Mumbai by showing how a “miracle” involving a water-dripping statue of Christ on the Cross was no such thing. They then sought to have him arrested for having broken a section of the penal code outlawing “outraging the religious feelings of any class”. The penalty for such outraging of feelings is up to three years in jail. Fearing there was a reasonable chance of him ending up in Mumbai chokey, Mr Edamaruku decamped for Finland.
Rationalists don’t make good martyrs, though enough of them have been killed over the years. In Paris a friend recently came across the statue of a rather casual-looking young man known as the Chevalier de la Barre. This particular monument replaced another removed and melted down during the Occupation at the behest of Marshal Pétain. The original had shown de la Barre being burnt at the stake and had stood outside the Sacré-Coeur church in Montmartre.
In the summer of 1765, in Abbeville, a large wooden crucifix was damaged by a vandal. Popular opinion was outraged, but no one knew who had done it. A local 19-year-old rake, Chevalier de la Barre had, however, been seen ostentatiously not doffing his hat to a Corpus Christi procession. When his room was raided he was discovered to possess erotic literature and, worse, a copy of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.
For this he was sentenced to have his tongue cut out, his legs crushed, his head cut off and to be burnt at the stake together with his copy of Voltaire. A statue was erected before the Great War, then moved to somewhere less offensive to the Church, destroyed and then, finally, remade in 2002.
The French at least have a statue. Britain’s last rationalist martyr, Thomas Aikenhead, has, as far as I know, no memorial at all. A student at Edinburgh University, Aikenhead had had the gall to tell friends that he thought that the holy scriptures were fables and poetical fictions, that miracles were just pranks and that the idea of the Holy Trinity was preposterous. For this he was prosecuted for blasphemy and sentenced to be hanged. The Church of Scotland, who had the power of intercession, refused, citing its fear of “abounding impiety and profanity”. On January 8, 1697, the boy was put to death in front of a large crowd.
Even when it was just one young student, the threat to the beliefs of the society around him, to the “feelings” of the pious, had been too great to permit him to live. There was no question of him hurting anyone or raising rebellion. He had argued, and the thing that could not be borne was argument.
In modern Pakistan and Iran people are still being persecuted for the crime of blasphemy — for the sin of saying or doing something that offends the sensibilities of believers. This week the Muslim cleric in Islamabad who was accused of framing a Christian girl, Rimsha Masih, for having burnt pages of the Koran, was freed and charges were dismissed. By then the girl and her whole family had fled to exile in Canada and the other Christians who had lived in the area had felt obliged to move out. Out of fear.
The case of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman accused of blaspheming against the Prophet as part of a village argument by a well, has led to the killing of one — if not two — Pakistani politicians. Bibi was sentenced to death by hanging and her case was taken up by the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. Taseer argued that the Pakistani blasphemy laws, which among things outlaw the “wounding of the religious feelings of any person” by any word, any sound or any gesture, or placing “an object in the sight of that person”, should be repealed.
For making this case Taseer was pilloried in the Pakistani media, threatened by clerics and in January 2011 murdered by one of his own bodyguards. The assassin-bodyguard became a hero. Taseer, wrote his son Aatish, though religious, had wished for “a society built on the achievements of men, on science, on rationality, on modernity” and was killed, said Aatish, by a man “whose vision of the world could admit no other”.
Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who upset the Taleban by wanting an education, very nearly became another such martyr: for arguing, not for hurting anyone. In the country she left, Asia Bibi is still in prison under sentence of death, being moved from jail to jail in case someone piously slits her throat. No one in the Pakistani Government dares to call for her release.
I daresay Narendra Dabholkar, the elderly doctor murdered on Tuesday morning, had never heard of Thomas Aikenhead, the Scottish student — separated as they were by those miles and those years. Before his execution, in his dying statement, Aikenhead wrote: “It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure.”
And if it isn’t, it should be. Long live the ideas and the memory of Dr Dabholkar!
The death of a brave Indian rationalist reminds us that people are still killed simply for opening their mouth
On Monday night Dr Narendra Dabholkar, a man in his late sixties, took an evening train from Mumbai to Pune. He arrived after midnight, but still got up early the next morning to go for a walk in the Sambhaji Garden. Shortly after 7am two men, who had parked their Honda motorbikes by a Hindu temple, walked up to Dr Dabholkar and shot him four times in the head and body. By the time the police arrived he was dying.
To some of the people who knew of him Dr Dabholkar was a hero of an unlikely kind. For years he had led a campaign against superstition in India, against the false fakirs and miraculous charlatans, who took the money of the credulous and left them with nothing or — often — worse than nothing. He died as his home state of Maharashtra was, finally, about to pass an anti-superstition bill outlawing the most dangerous practices of the various babas and yogis who infest that place.
Dr Dabholkar relied on one weapon alone. Reason. He never hurt anyone, never threatened anyone, never roused a mob to attack a building containing his enemies. He published magazines, articles, appeared on television and argued, argued, argued. And for that cursed arguing he was murdered.
India, though prey to superstition and various mumbo-jumbos (or perhaps because it is prey to these things), has given birth to a vigorous and often brilliant rationalist movement. Times readers may remember the report of the activities of Sanal Edamaruku, the head of the Indian Rationalist Association. When a celebrated tantric guru claimed on television that he could kill a man using only his magical powers, Mr Edamaruku challenged him to prove it. In front of millions the berobed guru Pandit Surender Sharma chanted, sprinkled, waved a knife and fluttered his hands for hours, and Mr Edamaraku simply smiled. And lived.
But Mr Edamaruku has always run risks by interfering with people’s beliefs and the economy that feeds on those beliefs. He had a burning clay pot smashed in his face by a faking fakir and was threatened with arrest by the government of the state of Kerala when he revealed that it was their officials — like baddies in Scooby-Doo — who were behind the flaming apparitions that drew many money-spending pilgrims to behold the miraculous fires.
Last year Mr Edamaruku offended the Roman Catholics of Mumbai by showing how a “miracle” involving a water-dripping statue of Christ on the Cross was no such thing. They then sought to have him arrested for having broken a section of the penal code outlawing “outraging the religious feelings of any class”. The penalty for such outraging of feelings is up to three years in jail. Fearing there was a reasonable chance of him ending up in Mumbai chokey, Mr Edamaruku decamped for Finland.
Rationalists don’t make good martyrs, though enough of them have been killed over the years. In Paris a friend recently came across the statue of a rather casual-looking young man known as the Chevalier de la Barre. This particular monument replaced another removed and melted down during the Occupation at the behest of Marshal Pétain. The original had shown de la Barre being burnt at the stake and had stood outside the Sacré-Coeur church in Montmartre.
In the summer of 1765, in Abbeville, a large wooden crucifix was damaged by a vandal. Popular opinion was outraged, but no one knew who had done it. A local 19-year-old rake, Chevalier de la Barre had, however, been seen ostentatiously not doffing his hat to a Corpus Christi procession. When his room was raided he was discovered to possess erotic literature and, worse, a copy of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.
For this he was sentenced to have his tongue cut out, his legs crushed, his head cut off and to be burnt at the stake together with his copy of Voltaire. A statue was erected before the Great War, then moved to somewhere less offensive to the Church, destroyed and then, finally, remade in 2002.
The French at least have a statue. Britain’s last rationalist martyr, Thomas Aikenhead, has, as far as I know, no memorial at all. A student at Edinburgh University, Aikenhead had had the gall to tell friends that he thought that the holy scriptures were fables and poetical fictions, that miracles were just pranks and that the idea of the Holy Trinity was preposterous. For this he was prosecuted for blasphemy and sentenced to be hanged. The Church of Scotland, who had the power of intercession, refused, citing its fear of “abounding impiety and profanity”. On January 8, 1697, the boy was put to death in front of a large crowd.
Even when it was just one young student, the threat to the beliefs of the society around him, to the “feelings” of the pious, had been too great to permit him to live. There was no question of him hurting anyone or raising rebellion. He had argued, and the thing that could not be borne was argument.
In modern Pakistan and Iran people are still being persecuted for the crime of blasphemy — for the sin of saying or doing something that offends the sensibilities of believers. This week the Muslim cleric in Islamabad who was accused of framing a Christian girl, Rimsha Masih, for having burnt pages of the Koran, was freed and charges were dismissed. By then the girl and her whole family had fled to exile in Canada and the other Christians who had lived in the area had felt obliged to move out. Out of fear.
The case of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman accused of blaspheming against the Prophet as part of a village argument by a well, has led to the killing of one — if not two — Pakistani politicians. Bibi was sentenced to death by hanging and her case was taken up by the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. Taseer argued that the Pakistani blasphemy laws, which among things outlaw the “wounding of the religious feelings of any person” by any word, any sound or any gesture, or placing “an object in the sight of that person”, should be repealed.
For making this case Taseer was pilloried in the Pakistani media, threatened by clerics and in January 2011 murdered by one of his own bodyguards. The assassin-bodyguard became a hero. Taseer, wrote his son Aatish, though religious, had wished for “a society built on the achievements of men, on science, on rationality, on modernity” and was killed, said Aatish, by a man “whose vision of the world could admit no other”.
Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who upset the Taleban by wanting an education, very nearly became another such martyr: for arguing, not for hurting anyone. In the country she left, Asia Bibi is still in prison under sentence of death, being moved from jail to jail in case someone piously slits her throat. No one in the Pakistani Government dares to call for her release.
I daresay Narendra Dabholkar, the elderly doctor murdered on Tuesday morning, had never heard of Thomas Aikenhead, the Scottish student — separated as they were by those miles and those years. Before his execution, in his dying statement, Aikenhead wrote: “It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure.”
And if it isn’t, it should be. Long live the ideas and the memory of Dr Dabholkar!
