After finding out a couple of weeks ago that my kids were aware of “mewing” six months before I was, I jokingly berated them and asked them to let me know of any other nonsense they might come across online. This request was instantly met with a barrage of weirdness and nonsense, although one stood out immediately - Aura Points.
It's going to be a busy end to this year, with two conferences coming up and a few other goings on that we're looking forward to here in Wellington. As well as the Decult and NZ Skeptics/NZARH Conferences, Bronwyn and I have a couple of smaller events on the horizon. Firstly, we're booked to go on a ghost hunt at the end of this month, and then we're also hoping to finally get to hear a talk on UFOs from Share International. We've tried twice so far, and had events cancelled on us, so hopefully the third time's a charm. Expect to hear more from us on these events in this newsletter, and maybe also an alien special issue coming soon.
For anyone who wants to groan about how bad our local press can be, there's an article from the Telegraph, reprinted by the Herald and titled "Scientists discover humans produce invisible aura of air-cleansing molecules", that talks about the idea of the existence of an “aura” around our bodies. The article uses a recent study that looks into a small amount of “free radicals” that are generated by our skin to argue that, technically, these chemicals could be considered to be an aura.
When I was young enough to think Dr Who was scary, I remember thinking it was good to live in times when people didn't believe in superstitions anymore. Recently, US taxpayers coughed up US$350,000 testing the effectiveness of Therapeutic Touch. It's one of those alternative therapies. The practitioner waves his hands over the patient, without touching them, while thinking gooey thoughts.
Annette Taylor spends an afternoon checking out the alternatives.