11 November 2024
Our membership at the NZ Skeptics Society consists of an interesting mix of different kinds of people, and although we generally agree on a few core ideas about requiring evidence before making claims, there are members who hold a variety of views that other skeptics would consider fringe. One of these members, James (who has talked to us at one of our past conferences, and I'm Facebook friends with), posted on Facebook recently that he was running a paranormal investigation of one of Wellington's heritage buildings, Inverlochy House - which is currently used as an art school:
1 February 2020
Skeptic summary: The kiwis who are taking a stand against vaccination misinformation. We salute you.
1 November 2019
In a preface to the 2019 conference, and with the opening event being held at Riccarton House, a supposed haunted house, we thought we'd have a quick look at some of the reputed most-haunted houses in New Zealand, and check out some of the reasons why people think the places really are haunted.
1 August 2019
I'm Sheree McNatty, Secretary of NZ Skeptics. I've just been asked by a teen about how Skeptics disprove psychics, paranormal activity and the afterlife. When I was a teen I was interested in finding proof of paranormal and the afterlife. I told enquiring Aunts that I wanted to be a Parapsychologist when I left school. I found the thought of people I had known who have died being somewhere else comforting and I wanted to experience it and prove it. Friends and I had seances, I did Tarot and tea leaf reading and tried mind reading. There had to be something after this left and I wanted it to be real. However, it led me to become a Skeptic as no matter what we tried it wasn't convincing. I also found out there was no point being a Parapsychologist as nobody is going to fund repeated experiments that have failed every time.
18 March 2018
The Regent Theatre in Dunedin is in the news again, as it's been flooded. This is unfortunate, as it appears that someone accidentally left a tap on that has caused damage to carpets and the ceiling. However, the staff at the theatre believe that this wasn't negligence, it was a ghost!
12 November 2017
After a ghost was spotted in a picture of a mirror being sold in a TradeMe auction, Wendy McCawe from Wellington Photographic Supplies quickly spotted that the "ghost" in question was actually a picture of the lead character from TV show Outlander. I'm impressed that she spotted it - I put the image through online forensic image tool Forensically, and couldn't see anything.
1 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?
12 June 2016
Bobby brown has spoken out about having sex with a ghost!
1 August 2012
All children are psychic, according to one of the stranger items to appear in the NZ Herald (30 May) for a while.
1 August 2010
Spirits are increasingly making their presence felt in New Zealand, spurred on by celebrity ghost whisperers, says the Manawatu Standard (12 April).
1 May 2010
Twelve years after it induced panic among parents world-wide, a paper linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism has been withdrawn (NZ Herald, 4 February).
1 November 2005
Surfing on the massive wave kicked up by the craze for things paranormal is Dunedin's spookiest entrepreneur, Andrew Smith - host of Dunedin's Hair Raiser Ghost Walk. Is it all nonsense, or is there something mysterious afoot?
1 May 2002
The best paper in New Zealand (Waikato Times, May 6 - and it's got nothing to do with the fact that I work there) reports that depressed patients tricked into thinking they are being treated have undergone healing brain changes.
1 August 2001
In which John Riddell reminisces about happy childhood days and reflects on the stories we tell to grown-ups
1 May 1998
Perhaps it's a coincidence, but many experts in non-proven schemes fall on their own swords. For example, Hoxsey died of cancer, and recently a Lower Hutt clairvoyant went bankrupt (due to unforeseen circumstances). Dr Rajko Medenica, the Yugoslavian specialist whose unorthodox treatments created devoted patients and determined enemies, died at the early age of 58 (Bay Of Plenty Times December 3 1997). He practised in South Carolina and drew patients from around the world, including Muhammad Ali, the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran and the late Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia. He served 17 months in a Swiss prison two years ago for fraud, many saying that his unusual methods were not based on science, but that he preyed on those that had lost hope. He obviously didn't do the three guys mentioned much good either.