Despite recent claims that "natural" foods are safer, there is evidence that "natural" pesticides can be present at much higher concentrations than residues from synthetic pesticides. These "natural" chemicals are often untested and of unknown toxicity, with little evidence of health benefits.

With this issue, the Skeptic comes under a new editorial regime. Vicki Hyde, whose excellent New Zealand Science Monthly has recently hit the stands, comes aboard as managing editor. Vicki's extensive science journalism background, her publishing experience and her literate editorial eye — not to mention her sceptical temperament — make her the perfect person for the job.

Advocates of Britain's internationally known alternative cancer clinic, the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, have been surprised and shocked to find that their patients are dying faster than those under conventional care.

The Lancet article on survival of patients with breast cancer attending the Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC) has provoked widespread comment and badly shaken the confidence of those who believed that, at the very least, complementary therapies in cancer couldn't do any harm.

Homeopathy could provide the answer to New Zealand's possum problems, according to Napier Mayor Alan Dick.

The Crusader Radulph of Caen expressed doubts about the discovery of the Holy Lance of Antioch during the First Crusade. The drawing at left shows Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, carrying the Lance in battle outside the gates of Antioch.

Researchers in Kansas City recently went to five professional astrologers with the horoscope of convicted serial murderer John Wayne Gacy. Without knowing to whom it belonged, they described him as having a "well rounded personality", that he could "offer a good role model" and that he would "be excellent for working around young people."

Alternative views of reality exist outside the Western framework of rationalism and science, and these views have an internal logic of their own with their own variety of scepticism.

Calls for Maori input in the science classroom are fine for encouraging students in the belief that science is relevant to their lives, but could also be used to cut them off from the international scientific community.

Englishwoman Doris Stokes was a medium — by which I don't mean that her dress size was between small and large. She claimed she spoke to people "on the other side," to use the euphemistic jargon of the darkened drawing-room. She was a sort of cosmic Telecom operator, only I suspect her charges were a good deal higher than 99c a minute plus GST.

About this time every year some diligent journalist trawls through all the year's events that made news and matches them against a list of predictions published a year earlier.

In issue 16, I reported on an AIDS treatment scam run by a British doctor, James Sharp, and an Iraqi vet. This had been exposed as such by an investigative journalist.

Colin Lambert is a magnetic healer from Waihi, and in this book he tells his story. Brought up as a Baptist, and a former painter and paperhanger who left school at 14, his background could not be more ordinary. Today, however, his occupation and philosophy of life are utterly remarkable.

By Graham Phillips. Pan, 1990. 168pp. $9.95 (paperback).

by David Fasold. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1990. 331pp.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

MANILA—Philippine psychics predicted last week that Iraqi troops will pull out of Kuwait and a Persian Gulf war will be averted.

A strange phenomenon is again manifesting itself in the pastoral areas of our borough. October has once again brought appearances of what we Mt Eden Skeptics call "Crop Rectangles" — bare, rectangular patches of earth amongst the normally verdant parklands. They have no reasonable explanation, but they do have a common, peculiar feature, which leads us to believe that they are associated with some sort of meteorological cult.