NZ Skeptics Articles

Excuse me, sir…

7th November 2022

Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour, Caeayaron?

Yesterday I visited the Go Green Expo, along with Bronwyn, and Daniel and Lisa Ryan. Every year I go, and every year I despair at the almost total lack of environmentally friendly products and services on display. In its place there are alternative therapies and lots and lots of “health” foods promising they’ll cure you of your ills.

After the Expo, our debriefing was at the Welsh Dragon Bar, which we wanted to check out as we’ve booked it for the Friday evening of our Conference this year. The Friday event will hopefully appeal to skeptics, as I’ve organised some tricky puzzles for everyone to solve. Don’t worry - a few of us will be there to help you if you get stuck, and you don’t need to try the puzzles if they’re not your cup of tea. You are also welcome to just chat with other skeptics. Although, if you do give them a try, you might win a prize!

Although I haven’t written about the Go Green Expo in this week’s newsletter, I have written about a visit to a Mind, Body, Spirit fair a few of us Wellington skeptics visited a couple of weeks ago (and have no fear, I have an epic rant in mind that I want to write about one of the stalls at the Go Green Expo - you can read all about it in a fortnight). I’ve also written about a weird phone call and an email I received last week, and I’ve found another doozy of a claim in that godawful pro Nazi documentary series I’ve been watching - this time, we’re looking at whether Anne Frank may not have written the diary attributed to her.

As well as my ruminations, Brad MacClure, one of our committee members, has been sufficiently incensed by a recent conversation on our Facebook page about the word “woke” that he’s put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keys, and written out his reckonings - it’s a nicely thought out response.

Finally, we have a second piece from one of the regulars at our Skeptics in Cyberspace meetings - Alistair Blenney. Al’s written about a weird cult group advertising near his house - and it’s one I’ve never heard of before, called Caeayaron.

Mark Honeychurch

Weird and Wonderful Communications

Mark Honeychurch - 7 November 2022

Weird and Wonderful Communications

Skeptic Steven Novella recently published an interesting open letter to cranks. In it he speaks in a very forthright, honest way about people who email him and pronounce that they have figured out something that overturns science, or have single-handedly solved one of science's many unsolved puzzles. Steven explains in the letter about the importance of peer review, and talks of the arrogance of those who think they're smarter than the combined wisdom of the world's experts. He makes a really good point that the proper route to making your claims public, and ensuring they are properly vetted and tested, is a lot of hard work - and it's this hard work that cranks are keen to bypass, often preferring to instead jump straight to making claims without designing experiments, and publishing books rather than writing scholarly articles.

I am a Starseed

Mark Honeychurch - 7 November 2022

I am a Starseed

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Upper Hutt “Mind, Body, Spirit” Fair with Bronwyn, as well as Skeptics in the Pub regulars Alexander and Tim. We were there to gawk at the weird and wonderful stalls, and all that they offered.

Caeayaron – a home-grown Messianic cult

Al Blenney - 7 November 2022

Caeayaron – a home-grown Messianic cult

I went for my walk a different way recently and came across a sign advertising the services of an Accredited Love Teacher offering “Loving angels close to you”. Thinking that sounded promising, if expensive, I read on, only to discover what was really on offer was - among other things - “healing within”, “inner peace” and a “more loving home”. Those, apparently, are what I'd get from the teachings of Caeayaron.

Who wrote Anne Frank's diary?

Mark Honeychurch - 7 November 2022

Who wrote Anne Frank's diary?

It seems like the answer should be pretty simple - Anne Frank, of course. But sadly not everyone seems to accept this. After a brief hiatus, I've returned to watching the god-awful series Europa, a pro-nazi “documentary” series about World War 2. Last time I wrote about a claim that the voice actor for Winnie the Pooh had secretly recorded most of Churchill's wartime speeches because he was too drunk to do it himself. This time the claim is that Anne Frank couldn't have written the diaries attributed to her because, among other things, much of it is written in ballpoint pen, and that type of pen wasn't invented until the 1950s. I've transcribed what the documentary had to say: