NZ Skeptics Articles

Articles tagged with "order"

Cults, Colours, Conspiracies

30 November 2020

Tonight I'm off to a meeting of AMORC - the Ancient Mystical Order of Rosae Crucis. It occurred to me the other day that there's an old idea which might be appropriate here. I'm sure many of you have heard of the guideline that the more a country's name stresses that it is democratic, the less likely it is to actually resemble a democracy. Take the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) or the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) as examples. I wonder whether the same rule might hold for cult groups. For example, the Order of Oriental Templars (OTO) is not related to either the Orient or Templars (it was invented in the 20th century by German occultists), The Church of Scientology is not really a church (it's just a tax dodge) and the Unification Church (Moonies) didn't unify the Christian church. So I have a sneaking suspicion that the Ancient Mystical Order of Rosae Crucis is probably going to turn out to be neither Ancient nor Mystical.

Siouxsie Wiles honoured

1 February 2019

We are proud to mention the honour our regular contributor Siouxsie Wiles received this year.

First NZ Flat Earth Conference

27 May 2018

New Zealand's first flat earth conference has just been hosted, last Saturday in Auckland. Around 30 "flat mates" crowded into the Backyard Bar's function room to listen to conversations about how the earth is flat, including live streaming of speakers from overseas.

There a major conspiracy theory I've never heard of!

30 July 2017

Last week I learned about a new conspiracy theory from Weather Wars International, a Facebook group dedicated to spreading nonsense about government control of the weather. A video posted to the group shows a field and trees, along with a light halo and what appears to be a rotating planet in the background.

Last Word on The Conference

1 November 2002

Proceedings on Saturday were meant to be opened with a talk from Elric Hooper, but we were denied the opportunity to hear that leader of New Zealand theatre. In order to keep appointments in the USA in the following week, he had been forced to fly out on 11 September, the only day on which seats were available.

An appeal (possibly two) from your typesetters

1 May 1988

You know those little white areas you don't see at the bottom of newspaper columns, it would be nice if we could avoid them here too. Were it not for this message you would be looking at a blank (possibly shaded) space. In order that this catastrophe be avoided in future issues we make the following appeals: