Musings on theatre and superstition

1^st August 2017

As I sit here with my laptop in my home office reflecting on the past few months and the time that has passed since my last editorial I am stunned at how much time has flown over the past year! I am happy to announce that I have now completed my undergraduate studies at Victoria University, with my Bachelor of Arts with a double major in English Literature and Religious Studies. Does that make me a theologian as well as ESOL (English speakers of other languages) teacher and theatre practitioner?

I am currently preparing for the shift into the work-force as well as graduating in May. For some in Wellington who know me well, they know that my degree has been a long time coming and my life has changed a lot over the seven year period. The changes I have noticed in my own life are pretty significant, including the happy news of an upcoming hitching of two of our own committee members - Daniel Ryan and I on a stage this coming September!

Speaking of the stage I have been watching and working at a lot of theatre in Wellington, including the amazing season that has recently wrapped up of Summer Shakespeare Wellington’s wheely good version of All’s Well That Ends Well. After working with Summer Shakespeare Wellington over the past three summers I have been left wondering how I can be so skeptically minded of those who claim to have powers like psychics and I especially question Sensing Murder as a TV show… yet put me into a theatre and I follow the laws of the theatre with following a variety of theatre superstitions such as avoiding saying the name of the Scottish Play in a theatre, watching out of the ghost of Thespis by ensuring we have one night off per week with the theatre left empty and leaving a ghost light on the stage all night…

“The superstitious have various justifications for the ghost light in relation to the supernatural. A popular theatrical superstition holds that every theater has a ghost, and some theaters have traditions to appease ghosts that reach far back into their history. Similar superstitions hold that ghost lights provide opportunities for ghosts to perform onstage, thus appeasing them and preventing them from cursing the theater or sabotaging the set or production. This is also used to explain the traditional one day a week that theaters are closed.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_light_(theatre)

What happened to the journal?

No doubt you’ve noticed the lack of NZ Skeptic journals over the past year. Unfortunately our previous editor had to step down because of other commitments.

We have managed to pull this issue together, very late, but we are actively looking for a new editor who would be willing to take the role on, with help and support from the committee.

Know anyone? Please get in touch!

Lisa Ryan

2016 Skeptic of the year

Steven Galbraith - 1 August 2017

Dr Siouxsie Wiles, recipient of the NZ Skeptics Denis Dutton Award

IHEU General Assembly NZ

Gaylene Middleton - 1 August 2017

The International Humanist and Ethnical Union will hold a general assembly in New Zealand, 3—6th August 2018.

Skeptics at opening of Scientology HQ

Craig Shearer - 1 August 2017

The NZ Scientology Headquarters opened to much fanfare in Auckland. Three local skeptics go along for the experience.

A Better Life

Lisa Ryan - 1 August 2017

An exploration of joy and meaning in a world without God

Steffan Browning and the Green Party

Mark Hanna - 1 August 2017

Steffan Browning will leave his role as an MP next year, which is a great opportunity for the Green Party to ditch their anti-science baggage.

What do we mean by marriage?

Peter Clemerson - 1 August 2017

A series of reports in the New Zealand Herald in late 2016 and early 2017 covered the domestic violence offending of Pakistan-born Mr. Yasir Mohib and the sequence of Mr Mohib's court appearances. As a Humanist marriage celebrant, my interest in the case, and perhaps that of some other Humanists, lies in Mr Mohib's marital arrangements. He has a family consisting of five children born in New Zealand to their two New Zealand-born mothers, who are referred to in the newspaper articles as his “wives”. I wondered how such a situation could have arisen as the procedure for obtaining a marriage licence for the second marriage would have required Mr Mohib or his “wife-to-be” to have made a false statutory declaration about Mr Mohib's marital status when applying for the license. Had a license been issued in such circumstances and the marriage taken place, Mr Mohib would have committed bigamy, a criminal offence. In an interview conducted by TV 3 (1) it was made clear that while his first wife was married to Mr Mohib according to Australian and therefore also NZ law, the second “wife” was not. Only a religious ceremony has taken place (2). She calls Mr Mohib her husband but admits that she is not married to him according to NZ law.

Tracking a Russian hacker

Daniel Ryan - 1 August 2017

I had just arrived at work, and in my email inbox I saw that I had received an email from Mighty Ape (an online store) saying that I had a $100 voucher on order. That's odd, I thought. No, I'm sure that I didn't order it by mistake at 3am. I then thought it may have been a free gift. I had bought a number of gifts for Christmas from Mighty Ape, so maybe I had won something. I searched around on the net and checked to see if there were any competitions or freebies going on, but I couldn't see any hits.