Last night I went to see Sue Nicholson at the Petone Spiritualist Church along with Bronwyn, frequent skeptical partner in crime Tim, and two of my children - as well as one of their friends. Sue was appearing at the Spiritualist Church as a fundraising event, with the church charging a $5 entry fee. We figured that this amount was a lot more palatable for a skeptic to pay than the $50 to $70 she usually charges for her public events.
The Skeptical Calendar is 90% done and far be it for the Editors of this illustrious newsletter to even suggest its readers go out and be newsworthy, we might have a few days you want to aim for.
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.
"I have no evidence of whether it is real or not real"
Despite much criticism of both the original broadcasts and the recent reruns, it appears that TVNZ are recording a new episode of Sensing Murder. The episode focuses on a murder in Napier in 2008.
In spite of the quality international line-up of scientists and science communicators at September's annual NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington, it's probably not surprising that most of the media attention on the event focused on the presence of medium Sue Nicholson (see NZ Skeptic 93). Many in the audience seemed bemused to see her there, and Nicholson, for her part, didn't seem to have much idea of what the Skeptics were about. "My Dad was as sceptical as anybody," she said. "He had no time for black people."
Spirits are increasingly making their presence felt in New Zealand, spurred on by celebrity ghost whisperers, says the Manawatu Standard (12 April).
NZ Skeptic editor David Riddell finds Kelvin Cruickshank less impressive in person than he appears on Sensing Murder_. A shorter version of this review appeared in the_ Waikato Times on 9 December 2009.
Vicki Hyde dishes out this year's Bent Spoon Award.
Keith Garratt's critique of genealogy (New Zealand Skeptic 77) is a strange mix of arguments. He purports to be addressing genealogy "as normally practised" or "as often practised" but offers no evidence that this is the way that things are actually done. He also identifies a "traditional approach," a term which is used, however, almost interchangeably with the others. He presents no evidence as to the prevalence of these approaches amongst genealogists and most of his examples of misuses of genealogy, such as Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, are not drawn from the genealogical literature. A review of the contents of the volumes of the bi-monthly New Zealand Genealogist for 2004 and 2005, as an example, contradicts most of his claims about what represents usual practice. Ordinary claims require ordinary evidence, at least, but little is provided.
Police are dumbfounded at an extraordinary claim by internationally famed medium Doris Stokes that she pointed them to the grave of a New Zealand murder victim.