NZ Skeptics Articles

Secrets and Lies

21st August 2023

Over the last week or so I’ve been approached online by two scammers and, I guess because of the amount of free time I have now that I’m not attending Eastern Lightning fellowship meetings, I decided to play ball with both of them and see where the scam leads. Neither has reached the point yet where I’ve been asked to give them my money, but in both cases it didn’t take long to see where the con would eventually come. Once we get to that point, which is likely to be in the next day or two for both, I will have a couple of fun articles to write - I’ve already been meticulously copy/pasting all of my chat sessions with the scammers in documents, so that I have a record of everything that goes on. As a taster, here’s a fun preview of one of the incidental conversations I had with a “Customer Care” representative for a company I’m now apparently working for:

This week, I decided to fact-check a couple of Liz Gunn’s claims in one of her recent videos for her new NZ Loyal political party. The claims seemed too outrageous to be true, but I have to hand it to her that they weren’t total nonsense - there’s a nugget of truth in there somewhere, although that nugget has been turned into a grand conspiracy.

Bronwyn has written about our recent visit to the OTO, to take part in their Gnostic Mass. She’s done a great job of describing some of the details of the service, and how it felt - although, honestly, after having attended three of these services myself, I still can’t remember everything that happens in them. With so much going on, and the atmosphere being so alien, it’s hard for my brain to take it all in!

Finally, I had a response from the Safe ICT group in NZ, a group of tech luddites who seem to be trying to scare everyone unnecessarily about the “dangers” of technology. Check the bottom of this newsletter to see how they responded to my critique of a questionnaire they’ve been using to try to spread their message that technology, especially wireless communication, is killing us all slowly.

Mark Honeychurch

Liz Gunn vs the Fabians

Mark Honeychurch - 21 August 2023

Liz Gunn vs the Fabians

Since the recent launch of Liz Gunn's new political party, NZ Loyal, I've been loyally watching all of her new party political videos, where she's been laying out her ideas for how she will run the country when she comes to power. They're extensive and disruptive, and although I'm not an expert I'd wager that they're totally unworkable. Her most recent video was the second of a two part series, where she talked about her idea of a 1% transaction tax that would allow the party to close down the Inland Revenue department. Although this video was full of ideas that deserve skeptical scrutiny, I want to have a brief look at the previous video, part 1 of Liz's economic vision for New Zealand, and a particular idea she has about a supposedly secret group who are, in tandem with others, running the world - the Fabian Society.

Gnostic Mass: A touch of Aleister in the Antipodes

Bronwyn Rideout - 21 August 2023

Gnostic Mass: A touch of Aleister in the Antipodes

After some false starts over the past three years, I finally had the opportunity to attend a Gnostic Mass. As far as Occult/Esoteric groups go, the Gnostic Mass is one of, if not THE, most accessible occult ritual for an outsider to observe and partake in. To understand why attending a Gnostic mass in New Zealand was on my to-do list, it's pertinent to understand what it is and who it was written for.

Safe ICT responds

Mark Honeychurch - 21 August 2023

Safe ICT responds

Back in November last year, I wrote a critique of a Safe ICT questionnaire I picked up at the Go Green expo. We recently received a copy of Safe ICT's most recent newsletter where they responded to my criticisms. I'm not going to rebut their rebuttal, as this kind of to and fro rarely ends up being productive, but suffice it to say that Safe ICT's overly cautious advice for people using technology is not in alignment with our understanding of the science, and is not based on any scientific evidence of harm.