News Front

Pyramid for healing

PA Hamilton

A scale replica of the Great Pyramid of Egypt has been built in Coromandel as a chapel and healing centre.

The wooden pyramid was built by the Havalona Spiritual Health Centre and is 10m high at its apex.

A spokesman for the centre, Mr Raymond Bain, said it would take about two years to "tune in" the pyramid.

But its special powers had already been demonstrated, he said. Cut flowers placed in the chapel for its dedication were still alive three weeks later.

He said pyramid power aided the healing process by supplying additional energy so the body could heal itself more quickly and effectively.

But the dimensions of the pyramid were not its real strengths.

"It's what goes on inside the pyramid as well. It's the activity and emotions poured into it."

Mr Bain said the land owned by the trust was also considered sacred by Maoris, who had planted four kauri trees there.

Russia's boom in psychics

By MARTYN HARRIS

"WE have met before," says Nadia confidently, and I scan her face for familiar features. Brass-coloured hair in a mannish crop. A handsome, 44-year-old face with the waxy skin of a Muscovite in winter. A run of warts like white pearls down one side of her mouth.

She is giving me the high candlepower eye contact of an encyclopaedia salesman, but I'm sure I've never seen her in my life. "Not this life," she says. "It was centuries ago." Her "channel", who is called Berevenon in the ancient planetary language, has told her so, and our horoscopes confirm it.

Now Berevenon wants to speak to me _ personally apparently. "You are very sensitive to the occult" — so Nadia unfolds a sofa bed in the corner of her apartment. She draws the frayed brown curtain, to make the room dim, and tells me to relax, which naturally makes me rigid as a board. Smiling, she begins to undo the clasp at the back of her dress, and I begin to wonder just what I have let myself in for.

There are mediums, faith healers and astrologers popping up all over Russia at the moment. The Academy of Astrology and the Association of Astrologers have 300 members each. There are more than 100 full-time mediums jamming the psychic airwaves over Moscow: they even have their own television show every night after the 11 o'clock news.

With politics in flux and the economy in chaos, people are paying for a peek into the future, whether it is a rice paper fortune, sold for a rouble in the Metro station, or a $100 session with Alexei Vronsky, the Russell Grant of Russia. Banned in the USSR for more than 50 years, the psychics now have the same quality about them as BMWs, Benetton sweaters and baptism: the magical cachet of capitalism.

In 1929, Nadia tells me, Stalin summoned all the clairvoyants to a grand conference in Moscow whence they were all bundled into buses and driven away to be shot. "So they weren't much good at seeing their own future," I suggest, and Nadia is mildly offended. 'The astrological chart predicts options of possibility within a framework of free choice," she says. So the crystal ball is no protection against a bullet in the back.

Naturally enough the news from next week is always better than today's. The Earth is moving into the Age of Aquarius, which is also the sign of Russia for some reason.

This means that for the next 2000 years Russia will take over the dominant position of Japan, though where Japan leads economically and technically, Russian will lead spiritually and scientifically. To get a little more specific, Berevenon has tipped Nadia that there will be a second unsuccessful coup in September 1993 and a return to Brezhnevstyle stability from 1994.

Nadia is the daughter of a KGB agent and wife of a redundant aero engineer. Until she lost her job last year with the Progress publishing house, she was a Spanish translator, so perhaps this explains why she is a little rusty.

My horoscope, for instance, revealed a deep interest in religion, even though my only interest for the past 25 years has been making fun of it. My karma, which is an invisible aura trailing behind my head like a snood, is only 30cm long, which shows I have sinned very little, another mistake by Naida, or possibly Berevenon. Raisa Gorbachev's karma, apparently, is now 3.5 metres, which is long enough to trip over.

Nadia does not take her dress off, as it turns out, but only the wide lace collar, to stop it flapping in my face as she leans over me, mumbling mantras and waving her arms. I close my eyes obediently for 15 minutes and try to experience mystical sensations, but all I notice is the soothing sound of running water, which turns out to be the aerator of Nadia's fish tank.

"Did you feel anything?"

"A bit blank, actually."

"That is the reprogramming," says Nadia. At 30 roubles a session she isn't out to rook anybody, so it is probably churlish of me to say that the suppression of this kind of cobblers is the only argument for communism I have yet encountered in the old USSR.

As in the West, the only thing the quacks' and charlatans of Russian have to offer is the undivided attention of another human being, though that is not to be despised. I leave Nadia's none the wiser but feeling relaxed, glowing and unpackaged.

What man could fail to be flattered by the unwavering, hour-long attention of a woman, even if paid for? And who could not be comforted by the assurance that he is part of meaningful universe, even when he doesn't believe a word of it?

Martyn Harris, who is a feature writer for the "Daily Telegraph", has been visiting the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

© The Daily Telegraph

Student beliefs

Sir,—It is with astonishment that I read of a mathematics teacher, Mr Russell Dear, impinging on some of the fundamental human rights of his mathematics students by: surveying their beliefs on parapsychology (February 8). As a teacher, he is obliged only to teach his subject. He states that it would be unethical for him to force his own beliefs on to his students, while adding that he will talk them through "so they can come to see their beliefs are absurd". What next? Will Mr Dear launch a campaign, perhaps, to save the world's Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus from the error of their scientifically unsubstantiated beliefs? Although the theories of quantum mechanics, and their parallels to the essential teachings of Eastern mysticism, seem to have escaped him, perhaps Mr Dear should examine the applications of his own field a little more closely.—Yours, etc.,

J. McKINNON-GEE. February 10, 1992.

Sir—So, Mr Russell Dear is worried about students' beliefs (February 8). He says that many of the 100 students he surveyed caused him concern, and that they were absurd for believing in something other than themselves. He says it would be unethical for him to force his scepticism on his students but, as he acknowledges himself, what he thinks does get through to them, not just at school, but unfortunately through media printing such a "small-time" survey. A survey of 100 people is totally inadequate for any comments, conclusions or concerns to be publicly aired! He said: "If you believe in what is absurd then you're gullible." Leaving aside the definition of absurd, I would say that if you do not believe in something you will fall for anything. His disgust at anything he labels paranormal flies in the face of many millions who have experienced exactly that. Scientists' "proposed theories" are not at all the best explanations, and are often proven wrong as time goes on. Well, Mr Dear has expressed his viewpoint, I have, too.—Yours, etc.,

MARGIE BROWN. February 10, 1992.

Sir—The New Zealand Skeptics Society is right to be concerned at the prevalence of gullibility among the public (February 8). Science has taught us to assess fairly all the evidence before we assent to any belief about the way the universe works. To this extent all scientists — and all clear-thinking people — must be sceptics. However, in their assumption that parapsychology is garbage, the Skeptics Society overstates its case, and there are reputable and eminent scientific authorities who would disagree with it. Parapsychology is plagued by charlatans and wishful thinkers; but for some events (for example, telepathy) a core of evidence remains which demands open-minded investigation. The Skeptics have strayed from science into scientism; they have mistaken their view of reality itself. Nobody should assume that they speak for science as a whole.—Yours, etc.,

GRAHAM TOWNSEND. February 12, 1992.

Traditional Maori remedies were used to treat hundreds of people at the Tainui Games this week.

More than 365 plant-based remedies for illnesses from cancer and diabetes to asthma, burns and eye complaints were freely available at the Hau Ora workshop.

Visitors to Hau Ora received free health assessment, cholesterol and blood tests and medical treatment in conjunction with traditional remedies or rongoa. Rongoa are made from dehydrated leaves and put into capsule form to supply 33 rongoa clinics in the North Island.

Ngaruawahia's Te Ahu Mairangi O Te Ora (the source of health) practitioner Denis Lihou said rongoa work best in conjunction with spiritual hand healing and accepted medical methods.

He said more than 300,000 people in New Zealand have been helped by the remedies.

"Cures for cancer are not a problem any more, breast cancer takes nine days of treatment," he claimed. "Identical remedies are used in Papua New Guinea and by American Indians."

Mr Lihoun said the United Nations has invited members of Te Ahu Mairangi O Te Ora to Brazil for an indigenous medicines conference in June this year.

Hau Ora health workshop co-ordinator Lynn Porima said the rongoa was best used as a preventative medicine. Response to the workshop was marvellous. "There is a real need for a clinic like this in Kawhia."

That Firewalk Photo

Was it the stylishly worn kilt and sporran? Was it the mathematical formula held challengingly aloft? Whatever the reason, the picture of Dr John Campbell walking the hot coals has achieved global fame.

Of the many photos taken at firewalks around the world, this one seems to have attracted the most attention. It was taken by a staff photographer of Community News, Christchurch, and the New Zealand Skeptics' firewalk on December 2nd, 1989 and published the following week.

The photographer is forgiven that, among the press of people around the firepit and, literally, in the heat of the moment, he tilted the camera slightly. We mention this lest readers have supposed Dr Campbell to have undertaken the walk under the influence of his national drink. He, and all other participants, were quite sober, although admitting to a strong sense of euphoria at the success of the enterprise.

The picture was reproduced in the New Zealand Skeptic and at our initiative in the Skeptical Inquirer. This US-published magazine has a circulation of more than 40,000 world-wide. Thus Dr Campbell is launched on an international career. He has also appeared, greatly enlarged, on the cover of Skeptiker, the high quality magazine of our sister organisation in Germany, as well as being inside the same issue, accompanying a report on a firewalk in Austria. (This was not organised by a skeptics group, but by the local Institute for Life and Career Development — perhaps that is why the fire brigade and Red Cross were in attendance!)

Textbook publishers have seen this photograph as having great didactic value. It is to be reproduced in an American psychology text and in a Canadian chemistry text. Where next?

Bernard Howard

The secretary has a few prints of the picture (177 x 125 mm) available. Please include $5 with your order to cover costs.

New product solid as a rock

The Sceptics Society should take a look at the claims made for a product sold at the Harbour City Home Show.

Described as a magic smell remover made from crushed Arizona rocks it is claimed to "attract bad smells, but ignores good ones."

"It's absolutely amazing that a lump of rock from Arizona can work wonders like this — and it doesn't fail," Anne Burns of the Magic Rock Company says in a puff for her product.

Equally amazingly Ms Burns doesn't explain how the rock knows our personal taste in smells. For those still willing to believe this "magic" product it is called Non Scents.

Nevertheless the Home Show was willing to risk being buried in dog excrement by allowing Ms Burns to issue an invitation to everybody to "bring along an item too smelly for the magic rock to cure of its odour."