Things that visit by night

Annette Taylor has personal experience of a phenomenon that lies behind many tales of ghosts, demonic possession, and alien abduction.

I was asleep. Marley, our cat, was faster asleep by my side.

Suddenly I was awake, at the sound of another cat’s tread in the room. Then something jumped up and landed on the bed, and padded right up to me, wanting under the covers.

I lay absolutely, perfectly still. In fact, I couldn’t move. The cat moved to the end of the bed and settled down. The minutes ticked by, and I worried about an all-out cat fight flaring up. I wondered, for a second, if this could be Willow come a-visiting. The thing was, we’d buried her in the garden not two weeks before (I’m not going to reference Monty Python here), and I was fairly certain it wasn’t poor old Willow, even while half asleep.

Then I came fully awake, groped in the dark for the cat I was convinced was lying there and found only Marley, snoring her head off.

It seemed so real, right down to the whiff of a slightly damp moggy and the pressure of her landing on the bed. A tad confused, I fell asleep. The next morning it had all the weight of a dream.

I was missing my cat and possibly, in a sense, she did come to say hello, but very much in a dream. My dad used to drop by at night after he died, too. We had good chats, but those were definitely dreams. I never thought for a moment he was a spirit hanging about.

This was different. At the time, I was certain there was a cat in the room, on my bed, and I couldn’t move a muscle. In retrospect, I’m deeply disappointed the cat wasn’t unspeakably evil, with glowing coal eyes, yellow fangs and claws of death; that would have ticked every box for being a classic case of sleep paralysis.

No better image conveys the terror this phenomenon can bring than The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli.

The victim lies helpless on the darkened bed, and gleefully perched on her is the terrifying incubus, peering straight out of the picture. I’ll have you too, it seems to gloat.

The work, painted in 1781, is said to have influenced writers such as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe and it is still as full of menace today. Hypnopompic dreaming – or more properly Isolated Sleep Paralysis – occurs mainly upon awakening from sleep. It includes a range of visual and auditory experiences:

  • a sense of evil in the room
  • being paralysed or frozen
  • shortness of breath or pressure, as if something or someone is sitting on you
  • being touched

I had all but the first, and the additional olfactory bonus of the smell of damp moggy.

Most people report the experience as being intensely frightening and while mine wasn’t scary, it was definitely disturbing.

Sleep paralysis, also known as night terrors, has been implicated in a lot of things of interest to skeptics, such as alien abductions. Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World, says it is telling that alien abductions occur mainly on falling asleep or when waking up. “Abduction therapists are puzzled when their patients describe crying out in terror while their spouses sleep leadenly beside them. But isn’t this typical of dreams, our shouts for help unheard?” he writes.

Before we had visits from flying saucers, these vivid dreams were linked with the supernatural – witchcraft, demons, ghosties and things that go bump in the night.

The term hypnopompic comes from 19th century psychic researcher and poet Frederic Myers. He was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research in 1883 and influenced Carl Jung, among others. He believed apparitions were not hallucinations, but really existed in the ‘metetherial’ dream-like world, which lies beyond everyday existence. It’s a good word, even if these days most (rational) people consider such dreams to be normal phenomena, rather than supernatural.

I mentioned my dream to a friend, who made the comment it would be nice to think that the visitor really was my cat Willow. But no. To allow that comforting thought traction ushers in a flood of superstitions which I really have no time for. It was a genuinely interesting occurrence, in and of itself.

Sleep Paralysis is reported very frequently among people with sleep disorders, and otherwise occurs frequently in 6 percent of the population; and occasionally in 60 percent. When it occurs repeatedly it is categorised as Recurrent Sleep Paralysis. But I’m not going to be putting out a saucer of milk any time soon.

The changing of the guard

After 17 years as chair-entity of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde has stepped down. Annette Taylor talks to her about life, the universe and taniwhas.

Vicki Hyde can’t quite remember who came up with the title. She’s sure Hugh Young had a hand in it, and possibly Frank Haden as well.

“The question was should it be madam chair, or chair person, or what. This was at our AGM in 1992. Someone suggested chairbeing, but it was pointed out that didn’t allow for the possibility there might be an incorporeal soul. Then we went for Chair-entity. It was a bit of light-hearted amusement that has served well over the years.”

Some journalists stop dead in their tracks when hearing the title for the first time, she says.

“Many newspapers and TV won’t use it; they don’t seem to be able to cope with the term, and just say ‘chair’. Ginette McDonald accused us of being politically correct. However it’s a way of saying we’re not completely po-faced about things, and that we don’t take ourselves seriously all the time. Which is a good point to start from.”

The standard charge she often hears is that skeptics are naysayers, boring or humourless. “I always say no, we’re actually excited about the wonder and mystery of the universe. We just want to get rid of things that aren’t real mysteries, so we can delight in those that are.”

When it comes down to defining exactly what a skeptic is, she points out the political attitudes of members are diverse, and there’s a surprising range of religious diversity as well.

“We’re not all hard-line atheists. Our brief is not to go after religious beliefs per se. If someone wants to believe in God, that’s fine, it’s a belief. Otherwise we just become blurred in with the rationalists and humanists. But if someone comes up with what they say is a piece of Noah’s Ark, that’s scientifically testable.”

She was a little sad when the society’s formal name, the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, was changed to the NZ Skeptics in 2007. “It was especially valuable in interviews; I was able to use it to point out what it was we did, and didn’t do. As a consequence I’m still explaining to people that no, we don’t go after capitalism, or religion, we’re not sceptical about everything and anything under the sun.”

Vicki’s introduction to the Skeptics was as a freelance writer for Pacific Way magazine, covering the firewalk at the Christchurch conference in 1990.

“I got talking with Denis Dutton and others, over that weekend, and thought this is interesting.”

She started helping with the magazine, and in 1992 was nominated for the chair, which had been held by Warwick Don.

“Denis raced off to The Dominion and said ‘Look, look, we’ve got a new chairperson at the Skeptics. She’s female, pregnant and of Maori descent; how much more politically correct can you get?'”

Vicki, who was 30, says it was like inheriting a whole group of aunts and uncles.

“We have changed from the early days, and particularly over the last few years. Back then the demographics of the group was late 50s, early 60s, and it remained that way for some time.”

Now members are younger, and there are more women involved, which she puts down to the internet. “We’re able to do more outreach; there are email groups and blogs, podcasts… We have 1500 people on our Skeptic Alert email list, three times more than paid members.”

Then there are initiatives like Skeptics in the Pub, which has provided another place for like-minded people to meet. “I think we’re still attracting the same kind of people, but through different ways. People who are interested in the world and how it works, and want to sit down and chat.”

As for our fellow kiwis, she thinks we’re a fairly down-to-earth bunch. “I don’t know if it’s our colonial heritage or the kiwi attitude of the proof is in the pudding, but in general we’re a bit more pragmatic. What is interesting is we don’t feel under siege from the religious right as much as Americans do.”

While attending the World Skeptics Conference in Burbank, California in 2002 she says there was a distinct feeling a war was being fought. “There’s a strong overlap between the rationalists and skeptics there; they have very close ties. We’re living in a country where, in the last election debate, both the then-prime minister and the leader of the opposition could both say, no, we don’t believe in God, on national TV, and it’s no biggie.”

She will continue as the society’s media spokesperson. “This requires the ability to be rung at 6am on Friday the 13th by some morning radio journo who wants to talk about superstitions. And to be nice to them.”

The job requires knowing a lot about all sorts of things. “Pseudoscience and the paranormal can present in all sorts of ways. Most of the time I have an idea what they’re talking about but sometimes they’ll ask a question about some obscure cult, or a multi-level marketing venture.”

The issues have changed over the years, she says. The original focus was on psychics, UFOs and astrology, with the occasional taniwha thrown in.

“We’ve shifted more and more into questions of what’s the potential harm of, say, an alternative medicine. While there is much we can laugh at, some things make you very sober, such as the Liam Williams-Holloway case. In addition to the wee boy dying, the fallout of this was that oncologists started getting parents asking about other cures for their child’s cancer. It actually increased interest in these claimed cures and made it a lot harder for the doctors.”

It was interesting, a few years later, to see the reaction to a Pacific Island family charged with manslaughter over their 14-year-old son’s death. “He decided to remove himself from the cancer treatment. They were then put through the courts. The only differences I can see with what they were doing, and Liam’s parents, is that this was a 14-year-old, who was able to make some form of informed decision on his own treatment. And they were doing it on religious grounds. We seem to have a lot less tolerance for that, oddly enough, than we do for people who are trying alternative health.”

Another “lowlight” was the false memory fad of the 90s, with its offshoot claims of Satanic ritual abuse and organised abuse of young children.

“We knew it was coming; we’d seen it first in the US. I predicted we’d have something similar within six months and the Peter Ellis case broke several months afterwards.”

The decision to donate funds from the Skeptics to Ellis’s defence resulted in at least one member resigning, she remembers. “This step was taken not because we all felt implicitly he was innocent, but that there were sufficient questions which should have been raised and had not been. We felt we needed to take a stand. I wrote an article for the NZ Skeptic about why we were supporting a convicted child abuser, explaining the background. As the saying goes, ‘for evil to succeed requires only that good people do nothing’. For people to be exploited by psychics or the latest would-be cancer cure, all it needs is for people not to ask ‘where is the evidence?'”

The Skeptics are not here to castigate Granny for reading tea leaves, Hyde says. “But if a psychic bounces up on national TV, talking about a missing child case, and promotes their two-for-one ticket offer for their upcoming tour – you have to point out that people are being exploited.”

The future looks good for the Skeptics, she unhesitatingly predicts. “There’s a whole host of bloggers out there, and podcasts and the like, that are pulling in people and ideas. I think this can work really well with our more formal group. We are useful because we have established communication channels and long-term relationships with the media, as well as a small fighting fund. And the informal groups are great because they provide social connections, enthusiasm and new blood. Which,” she says, “is one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to working with Gold; he’s got all that.”

And, sadly, there will always be a need for skeptics.

“It can be frustrating, but you just keep boxing on. If you can get one person to stop and think about something, it’s worthwhile. That’s all we try to do. To get people to think.”

A new golden age?

His name is Gold, he describes himself as a post- goth Discordian web developer, and one day soon he hopes to be homeless. He’ s also the new chair entity of NZ Skeptics. Annette Taylor finds out more.

The phone is not the instrument of choice for Gold. The 39-year-old suggests Skype, although his webcam is not working; it’s been a hectic few days in Christchurch, in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Flatting – temporarily- in Richmond, 2km north-east of the city, a chimney collapsed and things were “up and down and all over the place. We spent a day or so picking stuff up; otherwise it wasn’ t too bad.”

While we’re talking he pauses and waits for an aftershock to pass. Eris, the Greek Goddess of chaos, is having a grand old time.

“When anything goes wrong, when things don’t got to plan, that’s Eris,” Gold says.

He discovered Discordianism while at Canterbury University and says it’ s all about chaos and destruction and a sense of humour.

“We worship Eris and have a Bible equivalent and tenets we follow, such as that one must eat a hot dog on a Friday, which insults almost every religion you can think of, including our own. It’s a joke religion, which is one of the things that completely sold me on it. It’ s a fun thing, and nice to have someone to blame when things go wrong.”

And “post-goth”?

“I used to be a goth. You know – black clothing, the make-up, piercings, tattoos, the great music. It was a phase, so now I refer to myself as post-goth. I’ ve kept the dress sense; the piercings are not quite as obvious anymore. The tats are a little harder to get rid of. I still have the attitude, which is what it was all about, really. And the music is still great.”

Apart from five years in Australia, Gold has lived in New Zealand all his life, much of it in Canterbury. And for most of that time, he has been a sceptic.

Currently an atheist, he didn’ t have a religious background of any sort. “And it wasn’t until early 2000 that I sort of came across skepticism as a movement, or way of thinking. Up until then I was one of those people who didn’t really know there was a label for it.”

He was living in Sydney at the time, and a close friend was a full-on, practising witch.

“While it was kind of cool, I thought that yeah, no, this may be interesting, but it’s not real. It just didn’t gel.”

What galvanised his thinking more were skeptical podcasts and blogs, which he started to “passively consume” while overseas.

He returned to New Zealand in 2005, and headed straight back to Christchurch where he now works developing websites. And, last year, started the first Skeptics in the Pub meetings. “I came across this while in Sydney. It an idea that started in the UK, about 11 years ago, as a lecture series. Afterwards, people wanted more of them, so they continued. It became a very social thing and started to spread across the UK, into the US and Australia.”

But not in New Zealand. “I was working in the central city, away from my previous social group, and thought bugger it, I’d give it a go. I paid some money and set up the first meeting, at the Twisted Hop. We got about 35 people along and it’ s kept going since then. It’s a nice way to get together with like-minded people and have a drink.”

Now there are meetings in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin as well, but he would like to see more.

Which is a good reason to be intentionally without a home.

“One of the things about the job I’m doing is that all I need is a laptop and net access. I can work anywhere. I can travel around, and pop up somewhere. My plan is to stay in backpackers, and maybe build them a website instead of paying for a room. So, I can be a roving catalyst for getting Skeptics in the Pub meetings set up all over the country.”

He was aware of the NZ Skeptics when he arrived back in New Zealand. “Yes, I’d come across the website, and I knew Vicki. I joined, but it didn’t seem terribly active in a social sense.”

Skeptics in the Pub and the NZ Skeptics will continue to remain separate from each other. “Obviously they have similar agendas, but they serve different purposes. In the pub you have a place where you can say whatever you want, about anything and not worry about libel. The society has assets that can be taken off it, so has to be more cautious.”

As chair-entity, there are a few areas he wants to focus on, and one revolves around, little surprise, computers.

He’d like to work on the members area of the current website, so details can be added.

“Take the case of homeopathy, one of my pet peeves. Someone might find a paper touting the latest proof for it. We can put a link to that paper up, but at the same time we can add other sites that might have done research debunking it. And members can list if they have any special interests or skills on a subject, so they may be a medical doctor, or a lawyer, and have something to add. They can also flag if they are active or passive skeptics, whether they want to be involved in particular issues.”

One issue he would like the society to focus on this year is ACC’s priorities. “As everyone knows, they’re looking at making various cutbacks but on, I think, the wrong things. They still subsidise acupuncture, but are cutting back on hearing aids for elderly people. It’s something the society could have rather a large impact on, if we can get it done right.”

He’d also like to see more use made of social microblogging tools like Twitter.

“Recently I was involved with the Australian Skeptics’ campaign with the Australian Vaccination Network, who should really be called the anti-vaccination network. They’re getting a real hammering over there. By using Twitter, a whole bunch of us were able to join in, in real time, and make a difference. It’s powerful crowd-sourcing stuff.”

Similarly, the homeopathic overdose utilised the net to good advantage. “This was started by the Merseyside Skeptics, in the UK, and it pretty much went around the world. We got to kick it off, in Christchurch, because of the time zones. And that led to the NZ Council of Homeopaths admitting on national TV that there is no active ingredient in their so-called medicines. But that campaign was run online as well.”

He acknowledges Vicki’s rat-like cunning. “She’s a clever one, no doubt. I found out recently she spent some time grooming me for this role.”

There is another connection between the two. Vicki started KAOS, Killing As an Organised Sport (in which participants are given contracts to assassinate one another with toy guns), while at university in the 1980s. “Then she picked up the chair role. I was Dictator of Kaos at Canterbury University in 1996. Now I’ve picked up the chair.”

Coincidence? He thinks so. “But it’s very cool. And maybe it means I have the right qualifications for the job.”

As to the name Gold, there’s a story there which he’s happy to talk about, but he tends to save it for face-to-face.

So, if he pops up at a pub in your town go and have a yarn with the new incarnation of the Skeptics’ chair-entity. It’s bound to be illuminating.

Newsfront

Supernatural forces on the increase

Spirits are increasingly making their presence felt in New Zealand, spurred on by celebrity ghost whisperers, says the Manawatu Standard (12 April).

A recent survey by Massey University revealed that the proportion of respondents who say they have felt a spiritual force rose from 33 percent in 1991, to 40 percent. Half the respondents said they are interested in spiritual forces, while a quarter believed the dead had supernatural powers.

Massey University senior lecturer Heather Kavan said the entertainment industry has fuelled the spirit market.

“Programmes like Sensing Murder and Ghost Whisperer have popularised psychic experiences that in previous times would have been dismissed as symptoms of psychosis. The Sensing Murder psychics have almost become spiritual celebrities.”

Our own Vicki Hyde said spiritual crazes come in waves, depending on media programmes. Angels and vampires are the latest fads. She warned of the “morally reprehensible” behaviour of shows such as Sensing Murder. Psychic shows exploit vulnerable families who have lost loved ones in the name of entertainment, she said.

If the clippings for Newsfront are anything to go by, there are indeed more ghostly appearances going on out there. There’s definitely a ghost theme this issue.

The daily bread rises despite ghostly visit

Things are going bump, shadows are creeping and mysterious voices are bothering Maurice Piner at Phil’s Baker, in Greymouth. The Press (5 May) says the poor baker is seeing shadows moving around and hearing banging and crashing when he’s working alone.

“…sometimes you can hear whispering and talking in the bakery. You look around to see if there’s anyone there, and you can’t.”

Tourist operator Paul Schramm thinks he knows what’s what. While researching a new tourist attraction, he has learned about Ah Shing, a Chinese miner, who hanged himself in 1891 in the boarding house that used to stand on the site.

Piner said it was interesting to have a theory to explain the whispers and shadows, but it would not put him off working alone.

Hotel ghost to be checked out

Christchurch’s old Jailhouse hotel has a ghostly infestation but the ghosthunters are on to it (The Press, 6 May 2010.)

Ghost Hunters Christchurch lead investigator Anton Heyrick has offered to check out the ghostly reports of an apparition in the kitchen and of a man with a white jacket, but wants three extra paranormal investigators to help.

“There have been things moving. There have been voices, and backpackers have said they’ve felt like they were being watched.”

Reminds me of stopping at an old hotel, turned into a backpackers, on the way to last year’s Skeptics Conference. On the walls was a sepia picture of the daughter of a former hotel owner, who died tragically and now haunts the place. When we commented on this to the manager, he said to the best of his knowledge there wasn’t a ghost; it was something the previous owners did to add to the feel of the place. Yet, later that night, the door to the shower block mysteriously slammed shut, with no one near. Coincidence? We think so.

Return of the cat ghost

Hawera’s ghost cat, caught on security camera last year, is not alone (Taranaki Daily News, 2 June).

Ross and Donna Sowerby hoped to catch a bike thief, and instead caught a ghostly image. To this viewer, it looked like a small spider or booklouse wandering over the lens but to some, it looked more like a big, fluffy, but very blurry cat.

The media loved it, and it was on TV and reported in many newspapers. But paranormal experts fell silent, and for months, says Mrs Sowerby, there was no definitive answer. Until television psychic Sue Nicholson appeared on TV One’s Good Morning show and offered an explanation, following a letter from Mrs Sowerby. She said the apparition was of a ginger cat and added that there were more ghosts in the couple’s house.

Luckily, one of these spirits, a man, is a friendly ghost, with a “lovely energy”. The best thing about the cat ghost, she said, was that it didn’t need to be fed. Mrs Sowerby was happy with the explanation. “We have closure now and we can move on.”

The article ran on the Stuff website and attracted about 80 comments. Many agreed it looked like a bug on the lens. But the Sowerbys were not satisfied with these theories. Why look for zebras when you can manifest a phantom feline?

But back to the Manawatu Standard. The article on Massey University’s survey also answers a long-standing mystery. “An extraordinarily high proportion of New Zealanders have no religion – almost double the proportion in other Western countries – but we’ve never known who these people are,” Dr Kavan said.

The survey showed many of them are privately spiritual, but don’t relate to organised religions. And the internet has opened up a huge range of possibilities, for believers and non-believers alike.

The Facebook group Sensing Murder has almost 4000 fans,whereas Sensing Bullshit has 95 members. Sigh.

Recovered memories again

Although the recovered memory panic seems to be on the wane, a recent case of a couple acquitted on all charges of rape and inducing their daughter to do indecent acts, shows the idea still has its supporters.

In an NZPA story (9 June) the man’s lawyer, Chris Wilkinson-Smith said the case had been pursued by West Auckland police, despite Gisborne police recommending the prosecution should not proceed.

The couple, who have name suppression, live in a small town near Gisborne. “It was only the efforts of private investigator Michael Rhodes who was able to locate many witnesses who completely contradicted the complainant’s evidence. A more thorough police investigation could have avoided three years of misery.”

The mother’s lawyer, Adam Simperingham, told reporters the charges should never have been laid, and that the parents had been through a very traumatic experience.

The charges related to alleged incidents between January 23 1978 and January 23 1981.

Their daughter, now 39, gave evidence during the trial. The Crown prosecutor, Soana Moala, alleged a series of sexual assaults occurred at the family home when the girl was aged between seven and 10.

Ms Moala told the jury that the complainant did not tell anyone at the time. She did not remember the incidents until 2006.

‘Witch children’ in living hell

And from the We Think We’ve Got It Bad Here Department comes a story in the Waikato Times (15 May) on the ‘Witch Children’ of Nigeria.

A Salem-style witch-hunt has swept the south of the West African nation in recent years. Though the area has always been a centre for the occult and voodoo, in the last 10 years pastors from revivalist churches have been arriving there. They accuse vulnerable children (many of them Aids orphans) of being witches, and then offer to drive out the demons. With growing populations and mounting poverty, some aunts and uncles have been quick to accept any excuse not to feed another mouth.

Seven-year-old Godwin Okon was accused, with his grandmother, of causing his mother’s death by witchcraft. Sam Ikpe-Itauma of the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), said Godwin’s uncle had locked them in a room with the dead woman. The grandmother escaped, but Godwin was ordered by a pastor to eat his mother’s corpse, under the belief that if a demon eats its victim it will also die. When he refused his uncle forced his head into his mother’s body. When he still refused to eat he was beaten and burnt.

Passers-by kept him alive by feeding him through cracks in the wall, until other villagers notified the police, who took him to CRARN. He is slowly recovering along with more than 200 other children with similar experiences.

And I didn’t even wish upon a star

I HAD a dream. One of those ones which are slightly alarming in that they come true. In my dream a friend happily announced she was pregnant and when I chanced to bump into her the next day, she told me – excitedly – the good news.

Continue reading

Newsfront

Elephants in Loch Ness?

Nessie’s an elephant, says a leading British palaeontologist (Dominion Post, 7 March).

Neil Clark, curator of palaeontology at Glasgow University’s Hunterian Museum, spent two years investigating the Loch Ness myth and suggested the idea for Nessie was dreamt up as a “magnificent piece of marketing” by a circus impresario after he saw one of his elephants bathing in the loch.

In 1933, the same year as the first modern ‘sighting’ of Nessie, Bertram Mills offered £20,000 to anyone who could capture the monster for his circus, sparking international interest. Most sightings could be explained by floating logs or waves, but there were a number, particularly from 1933, were more difficult to account for.

He believed some were elephants belonging to circuses – which visited Inverness and stopped along the banks of the loch to allow their animals to rest. When they swam in the loch, only the trunk and two humps could be seen – the first hump being the head and the second the animal’s back.

University fears cancer from wireless internet…

Lakehead University, in Ontario, Canada, won’t allow campus-wide internet access because of health worries (Dominion Post, 1 March.)

President Fred Gilbert told a university meeting that some studies showed links to carcinogenic occurences in animals, including humans, related to energy fields associated with wireless hotspots – “whether these hotspots are transmissions lines, whether they’re outlets, plasma screens or microwave ovens that leak.” The university has only limited Wi-Fi connections, in places where there is no fibre-optic internet connection. The decision, apparently, was a personal decision by Gilbert.

The stance has caused a backlash from students and Canadian health authorities. “Considering this is a university known for its great use of technology it’s kind of bad that we can’t get Wi-Fi,” student union president Adam Krupper said.

…but cell phones are OK

Meanwhile, according to a new study, cell phones do not increase the risk of developing brain tumours, the Dominion Post reported (21 January.)

After a four-year survey, scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and British universities in Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham found no link between regular, long-term use of cellphones and glioma brain tumours.

The results were consistent with the findings of most studies done in the US and Europe, although this survey was bigger than any previous research and involved 13 countries.

The researchers questioned 966 people with glioma and 1716 healthy volunteers about how long they had used mobile phones, the make and model, how many calls they made and how long the calls lasted. Earlier mobile phones used analogue signals, which emitted higher power signals than the later digital models. Any health danger would be more likely to result from the earlier models, but the scientists found no evidence of it.

Ghosts keep the tourists away

The existence of ghosts may be debated, but the impact of traditional Asian beliefs on Thailand’s tourism trade since the December 26, 2004, tsunami appears indisputable (National Geographic News, January 6).

Tourism from Europe, Australia, and the United States has rebounded since the disaster, but tourist arrivals from elsewhere in Asia have not. Industry observers cite Asian tourists’ fears of ghosts in tsunami-stricken areas as the main reason for the decline.

Buddhism and other Asian belief systems hold that if bodies are not properly buried, their spirits restlessly wander the Earth, and may try to drag living beings into a spiritual limbo.

“Please tell your fellow Japanese and Chinese back home to stop fearing ghosts and return to this region again,” Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra reportedly told tourists after a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the tsunami.

Since the disaster, tales of ghost sightings have become endemic. Foreign ghosts seem to be particularly common, and many of the accounts are being covered in local newspapers.

One Phuket taxi driver reportedly said he was hailed by four western tourists who asked to go to the airport. The driver chatted as he drove, but when he pulled up at the airport to let the passengers out there was no one there.

Police procedure allows for sorcery concerns

Maori should not be forced to give DNA samples because of concerns over sorcery, says a report in the Dominion Post (5 December 05). A new police manual says Maori have spiritual beliefs about samples taken from the body, and that “a person should not be forced to provide samples for testing purposes”. Police management said the direction would be amended or deleted in future editions.

‘John of God’: it’s all been seen before

Chair-entity Vicki Hyde is gnashing her teeth over the upcoming visit to New Zealand of Joao Teixeira de Faria, ‘one of the world’s most powerful spiritual healers.’

In a full-page feature on the ‘healer’ in the Dominion Post (28 January) Vicki told reporter Stefan Herrick she was convinced Teixeira de Faria, who goes by the name John of God, was a con man “who peddles miracle cures that don’t withstand even light scientific scrutiny.

“Sad to see this chap coming here as it just means more exploitation of vulnerable people.”

Hundreds of foreigners visit Abadiania, the small village in Brazil where Teixeira de Faria has established a clinic where ‘miraculous cures’ take place. He is promoted as “the greatest healer of the past 2000 years”, and claims to be guided by 35 healing spirits.

Vicki Hyde said if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, “it’s probably just another duck…”

John of God, the report said, doesn’t charge for visits to his clinic (although the Wellington sessions will cost $115) but he appeared to be well off. The ABC network reported that he owned a 400-hectare ranch down the road from his clinic.

Magnets attract support

Magnet therapy, said to be favoured by Cherie Blair, is to be made available on Britain’s National Health Service (NZ Herald, 11 March).

The 4UlcerCare – a strap containing four magnets that is wrapped around the leg – is available on prescription from GPs. Its maker, Magnopulse, claims that it speeds the healing of leg ulcers and keeps them from coming back.

The announcement has created excitement in the world of alternative medicine. Lilias Curtin, one-time therapist to Cherie Blair, sent a poster-sized announcement to newspapers declaring her “sincere belief that, in the next five to 10 years, magnets will be seen in first-aid boxes”.

Other experts are sceptical. Professor Edzard Ernst, head of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said that he was puzzled by the NHS decision. “As far as I can see, there hasn’t yet been enough research to prove that these magnets help people with ulcers.”

More powerful electromagnets could help to heal tissue injuries, but that was different, he said. His own study of small magnets on arthritis sufferers had failed to yield compelling results.

In January, researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, in California, published a paper in the British Medical Journal that cast doubt on the therapeutic use of magnets. “Patients should be advised that magnet therapy has no proven benefits. If they insist on using a magnetic device, they could be advised to buy the cheapest – this will alleviate the pain in their wallet,” they wrote.

A steamy weekend

In retrospect, it was a cunning move to give us each a Hopi ear candle. Wrapped in pretty cellophane, the little beeswax treats – if used correctly – would ensure people would be in prime mental health. This is essential if you’re attending the NZ Skeptics annual conference, as we were. The candles are an amazing elimination technique which improve mental clarity, energy and wellbeing. By inserting them – lit – into the ear canal, they allow glucose and oxygen to enter the brain, restoring neural functions. Of course, expecting a bunch of skeptics to follow instructions was perhaps asking too much. They put them on the ends of their noses. They twirled them and flung them. Anywhere but lit and inserted in the ear.

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Currents of fear

Given his ratings, only a tiny handful of you probably saw Paul Holmes in his new slot on Prime a few weeks back, talking to Don Maisch, described as an Australian expert on the health effects of magnetic fields. More precisely, he’s doing a PhD in the Arts Faculty of Wollongong University on changes in the health status of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients following removal of excessive 50 Hz magnetic field exposure.

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Get Your Facts Straight

A couple of months ago we were visiting my brother, and got talking about a friend of his, who had enrolled in a counselling course. It turned out that the course had come to be dominated by some rather staunch Maori elements, and my brother’s friend, as one of only two non-Maori on the course, was embroiled in a dispute in which racial lines were very clearly drawn. But he was confident he had ammunition which would knock the course leaders off their perch, in the form of a book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand (see Feature Article). This purported to show that Europeans had in fact colonised this country thousands of years ago, and had established a thriving neolithic culture, until they were displaced by Maori early in the last millennium.

Whatever position one takes on New Zealand’s so-called race debate, it is essential it is based on sound history. There is of course room for disagreement on the interpretation of events, and the weight that should be accorded to each, which is why the debate exists at all. But claims of ancient Celts in New Zealand fly in the face of almost two centuries of scholarship, and can only confuse the issue. Yet such beliefs appear to be quite widespread; there is currently a variation on this theme being championed in the Letters page of one of Hamilton’s weekly newspapers.

A similar situation applies in the arguments surrounding immunisation, which have flared up again in the wake of the meningococcal vaccination programme. Though it probably puts me in a minority among Skeptics, I have to admit to reservations about vaccinating very young children against a whole host of diseases, while acknowledging vaccination does have a valuable role to play in disease prevention. This is not the place to go into my reasons, but they have very little to do with the arguments promoted by the anti-immunisation lobby, who generally show a very poor understanding of science. Some still cling to the ideas of Antoine Béchamp, a contemporary of Pasteur, who believed the basic unit of life was something called a microzyma. All living cells are associations of microzymas, he said, and they remain imperishable after the death of the organism; disease is due to imbalances in the vital forces of the host, while the bacteria we mistakenly believe to be pathogenic have been formed by microzymas to rebuild dead or diseased tissue. Again, there can be no reasonable debate if one side remains stuck in the 19th century.

Almost time for the conference again. Hopefully by now you’ll have received your registration form in the mail; if not, there’s another form with this issue, and the latest information on what looks a very interesting and enjoyable line-up of speakers and events.

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Newsfront

Astrology Romps into the Bedroom

It had to happen, I guess. A new book, Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, written by New York astrologers Stella Starsky and (wince) Quinn Cox gets a fair amount of column inches in the Dominion Post (July 8.)

Seems that the creative couple, Starksky and Cox, have been churning out this stuff for at least 20 years. Their theory, briefly, is that women and men in the same sign can be totally opposite. It means there are 24 signs of the zodiac, not 12. Two for the price of one, as it were.

The book, by all accounts, is a bit racey and fairly explicit in its use of language. Male Capricorns may have a predilection for schoolgirls and spanking; Cancerian females are fans of sex clubs and sado-masochism. Makes the mind boggle but what a good marketing idea. It’s kinky, it’s naughty, it will sell well, especially when reported on by writers who conclude there’s something to it all. “… there are pages of analysis of … personality and attitudes to relationships that I found at times to be spookily accurate.” Except for the bits that say she’s supposed to be into sex clubs, S&M, swinging and sub-mission fantasies.

Hm. I wonder what Starsky and Cox have to say about female Capricorns…

Walk on the Wild Side

Such pondering aside, it was with a pang of sadness that we learned that some people had to be treated for burns after a fire walking in Dunedin (Dominion Post, July 12.)

The event was run by the New Zealand International Science Festival as a fund raiser for St John and was a bid to create a world record. About 450 people walked through a 3.5m hot charcoal pit, and of those, 28 were treated for burns, 11 of them in hospital. The fire walking raised about $1000 for St John but the organisation spent more than that treating patients.

The festival director said they certainly didn’t want to cause any pain for people and they probably wouldn’t knowingly get into it again. Which is a shame, because as we skeptics know, such events are a good way to highlight some basic science. Maybe it was just a case of too many feet — 28 out of 450 is, after all, only a little more than 6% requiring treatment.

As for whether or not a record was set, it’s too early to tell. Let’s cross our fingers…

Bacteria Beware — Science to the Rescue!

Christmas is coming up and this writer is holding out for a Twinbird Ion desk lamp. It emits ionised air towards one’s brain, which makes one brainier. Bring it on, I say.

The ion desk lamp is just one item on sale in Japan, where a health neurosis is reportedly sweeping the country (Dominion Post, June 15.) It appears negatively-charged air particles can produce an endless range of potential health benefits, from cleaning the air to stimulating the brain. Devious devices include Bio Shoes which pump ionised air into shoes over-night to sanitise them, and the Plasmacluster Ion Fridge, which smothers viruses and bacteria with both negative and positive ions. The Photo Ion Blaster will not only render your face clean and bacteria-free, it will also eliminate wrinkles. Everything from pens to doorknobs are marketed with anti-bacterial films and one firm stocks more than 20 different models of washing machine that destroy bacteria by negatively charging a load of washing. A lovely quote: “I’m not even sure what exactly this minus ion technology does, but I feel that I have a duty to buy it.”

Restaurant Didn’t Have a Ghost of a Chance

The collapse of Suzanne Paul’s Maori village venture is no surprise to one Auckland woman, who says the Northcote site is haunted and cursed (Herald, July 17).

Strange things have happened at Fisherman’s Wharf, says former owner, Barbara Doyle. Mrs Doyle, who used to run murder mystery weekends at the Brian Boru in Thames, says she had tried to run a restaurant on the site in 2000, but went bankrupt.

She says while she found it hard to believe in ghosts, she felt she should have called in a ghostbuster. On one occasion she saw a man throw himself to his death off a nearby cliff: the venue was cursed, she believed.

Her daughter says she felt spirits inside the building when she lived there for six months, and later heard about a young man who’d hanged himself there.

Ngati Whatua kaumatua Grant Hawke said its original inhabitants, Ngati Tai, endured severe casualties through raids by Ngati Poa and Ngati Whatua.

One of the liquidators said ghost stories were new to him, and that while he’d heard a few creaks, they were possibly the air-conditioning.

And Neville Waldren, of the Restaurant Assocation, said it was a magic spot, but a bit off the beaten track, which contributed to its failure.

Time Running Out for Psychic Forecasters

The Ashburton Guardian’s Matt Smith had a mid-year look at some psychic predictions recently (July 22).

Ashburton psychic Barry Newman predicted Don Brash would be ousted from the National Party leadership by Gerry Brownlee, which is looking unlikely. He also said a world leader would be toppled or slain and armies would march — such as happened to Saddam Hussein.

In cricket, Newman predicted that Jeff Wilson would appear for the Black Caps this year, which he hasn’t yet. Someone in a glass cage would die, with many to cry was another claim, but nothing seems to have come of this one yet, either.

Patricia McLaine claimed Howard Dean would be the Democratic candidate for the US presidency. John Kerry is now confirmed in that role. She also predicted surprise weddings among celebrities — and Britney Spears did marry a childhood friend in early January, so she got one right, Smith says. He adds that McLaine also said space debris would become a major nightmare. “And although it wasn’t quite to that level, a meteorite blasted through an Auckland home last month, generating major interest from astronomy fans world-wide.” Stretching it a bit, I think.

Space Ships and Mad Cows

It was a dark and stormy night. But (almost) without flinching we set off to hear Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Kevin Grazier speaking about the Cassini mission to Saturn.

During the talk (see article), he mentioned how there was opposition to the mission, stemming from the nuclear power source required for travel so far from the sun (the plutonium is encased in ceramic designed to survive re-entry at 11km per second, in the event of an accident). At a party he overheard one guest declaring that Cassini carried a nuclear warhead, which the scientists planned to fire into Saturn’s atmosphere, setting it alight. He has an interesting life. As well as his fulltime Nasa job, he lectures at UCLA, gives public addresses at Griffiths Observatory and tours the US giving talks to school students, and is a member of the screenwriter’s guild. We thought he was worth a profile.

He enthralled the crowd for over an hour and fired up this family to keep a close eye on Cassini’s odyssey. We also had great fun making our very own paper model of the space probe (saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/kids/models/pprmdl.pdf). Making the real one must have been even more difficult. Recommend this a good thing for a skeptic to do on a rainy day. Speaking of spacecraft, one of our members almost saw a UFO on a recent visit to the west coast, but his sceptical facilities got in the way of what could have been a really exciting discovery (see article).

Another thing to do on inclement days is visit the new website on evolution, put together by Waikato University biological sciences staff. Skeptics members were invited to comment, on the site, and all were very complimentary. Public understanding of evolutionary theory is very poor, and this should be a very useful educational tool.

The lead article this issue provides insight into the consumer response to BSE. It’s interesting that, in spite of the wave of panic which overtook British beef eaters, concern over beef consumption dropped dramatically when the price was right.

Finally, founding member and long-time stalwart Bernard Howard brings us up to date on the latest health fad from Europe. Bernard is recovering after two weeks in hospital; our thoughts are with you, Bernard, get well soon.

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