Psychics/Mediums and the Police

Whenever a person, especially a child, goes missing, you can guarantee that the psychics/mediums won’t be too far behind. Most of them no doubt believe sincerely in their special powers and that they are only there to help, but they can cause a great deal of harm — emotional, psychological, even economic — and interfere with the real investigation.  

Every time a media outlet reports on a medium’s involvement approvingly, they provide more marketing material for this industry and more tacit approval for the psychological manipulation of desperate vulnerable people thrust into the centre of a media storm. that is reprehensible, particularly given the clear indication that these people do not help.

Christine Corcos, Associate Professor of Law at Louisiana State University and author of a book on the 1944 trial of psychic Helen Duncan, notes:

Law enforcement officials who allow non-law enforcement trained personnel to participate are putting both the cases and their jobs at risk. The fact is that few, if any, police departments actually admit to using psychics. Most officials [say] that psychics simply waste time predicting that bodies or missing persons will be found near water, or trees, or buildings with red roofs. Experienced detectives combing particular areas can do as well, and will not raise false hopes among the families and friends of the victims.
I Sleuth Dead People

Few families are prepared to reject any possible chance of finding missing loved ones, or to publicly criticise psychics under such circumstances. But those who don’t want to be manipulated in this fashion have reported being badgered and tormented by people claiming to have useful information which turns out to be hurtful hype.

In one notable Australian case, Don Spiers, the father of missing girl Sarah Spiers told the ABC’s current affairs programmeAustralian Story about the awful effects of having over 200 people claim to have information from dreams and other psychic sources:

[A] big problem that we’ve had has been clairvoyants. They have been a huge torment to myself and my family in giving cryptic clues as to where Sarah might be. I remember one night in the early days I was down Salter Point, you know, thrashing around the swampy areas down there at 11 o’clock at night. Um…probably walking around bawling my eyes out and getting nowhere. I mean, a lot of times I’ve known I shouldn’t have listened, but I’ve always thought that maybe they’re using that excuse of being a clairvoyant to give me some honest facts.
He Who Waits, 9 February 2004
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2003/s1042100.htm

And in response to Deb Webber’s remark on the Aisling Symes case, came this online comment:

I am the brother of xxx, who was abducted in xxxx and remains a missing person today.

With regard to psychics, mediums and the like, I can tell you that in the months and years following my sister’s disappearance, my family was contacted by no less than 100 of these people.

No two of them were able to agree on the location of my sister, alive or dead.

And the police were obliged to follow up each and every one of them, on the chance that the information was real, i.e. someone pretending to be a psychic to convey something they knew about the case.

So not only do these freaks inflict profound emotional harm, they are also an enormous waste of police resources.

I too am appalled by TVNZ’s actions.

Past Cases in New Zealand: Psychics No Help

In 1975, 18-year-old hitchhiker Mona Blades went missing. The British psychic-medium Doris Stokes claimed to have assisted the New Zealand police to recover her body, but this is untrue as no indication of Mona Blades’ whereabouts has been found to date and the police hotline remains open.

In 1983, the Kirsa Jensen case saw over a hundred offers of advice and assistance from psychics, clairvoyants and dreamers. Ian Holyoake, the officer in charge of the investigation into the missing Napier teenager, said: “[It] did not advance the investigation one bit. Most of the information was not specific as to any area where a body might be located, but some was quite graphic in detail and disturbing by its very nature”.

In 1992, the disappearance of 2-year-old Amber-Lee Cruickshank, near Lake Wakatipu, brought “letters from clairvoyants, card readers, star watchers, prayer groups, crystal readers, palm readers, spiritualists, people who have visions, premonitions and total lunatics”. None of them assisted the search. Initial claims saw her being found “near water or trees”; a 2007 episode of Sensing Murder said that she had been abducted.

In 1992, clairvoyants from Wellington and Tauranga and a medium from the Spiritualist Church told the family of missing Wellington man Michael Kelly that he was still alive. They appealed to the basest of racist stereotypes when claiming that Kelly had been assaulted and abducted by “rough-looking” tattooed Maoris, dumped at Oriental Bay for up to five days, and then shifted a few days later to Titahi Bay. Police received calls from members of the public concerned about cars being driven by Maori guys, and family and friends conducted private searches of the identified areas. Kelly’s body was eventually found by a building worker at the bottom of a light shaft in central Wellington; it appeared he had fallen as a result of what was described as late-night “ebullience”.

In 1993, the then-Police Region Commander for Otago and Southland, Ian Holyoake, surveyed the New Zealand police force to see what psychic assistance had been rendered over the years. He came to the conclusion that, unlike practical shows like Crimewatch or public appeals for witnesses, there had never been any accurate, useful psychically-derived information that was instrumental in leading to a successful conclusion.

In 1998, Nelson clairvoyant Margaret Birkin and four other psychics went out on a boat to look for missing Blenheim friends Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. Birken stated that she knew where the pair was to be found. Despite additional searches with the assistance of professional divers and coverage by the Holmes show, she failed to help locate the pair, whose bodies remain undiscovered.

In December 2001, psychic Kathy Bartlett joined searchers looking for missing teenager Elon Oved. Sadly for the family, her examination of the “aura” at the scene was of no help, and it was another anguishing couple of months for his family before his body was found by a search-and-rescue team member.

In March 2003, Kerepehi woman Sara Niethe went missing. After a $20,000 reward was offered for information, several psychics called police saying that they had had visions of where she and her car could be found, but neither has ever been located.

In October 2009, Deb Webber of Sensing Murder, had a vision of missing toddler Aisling Symes in a ditch. The extensive media coverage at the time had included images of ditches, drains and mangrove banks; the child was later found drowned in a drain. Like many vague comments, this one was neither specific nor helpful. Remember, Deb Webber has been recorded on film talking to dead people who never actually existed. See more on the Channel 7 expose here.

Police Policy

Scotland Yard Statement:

Scotland Yard never approaches psychics for information. There are no official police psychics in England. The Yard does not endorse psychics in any way. There is no recorded instance in England of any psychic solving a criminal case or providing evidence or information that led directly to its solution.

Los Angeles Police Department Policy:

The Los Angeles Police Department has not, does not and will not use psychics in the investigation of crimes, period. If a psychic offers free information to us over the phone, we will listen to them politely, but we do not take them seriously. It is a waste of time. [In a study of psychic case claims, the LAPD said] no information that would have been investigatively useful, such as first and last names, licence plate numbers, apartment house locations etc. was accurately produced by any of the subjects.

Sensing Murder? Sensing Nonsense

by Vicki Hyde, from “Oddzone”, New Holland Press 2006
Cleared for reprint, no charge, just source acknowledgement required

So what sort of things should you look for when watching a program like Sensing Murder which claims psychics can help solve unsolved cases?

  • Look for extravagant claims which have minimal evidence supporting them.

In the episode A Bump in the Dark, about the rape and murder of Alicia O’Reilly, show host Rebecca Gibney opened one segment stating:

The psychics had established key facts about the dead girl’s personality.

One had said Alicia was a little shy, which didn’t match her mother’s description of an out-going, highly energetic, rather rambunctious personality. The psychics had described Alicia as happy and friendly and playful, but these are common attributes for any six-year-old girl, and very unlikely to be challenged as untrue.

  • Listen for truisms being touted as amazing revelations.

Psychic Kelvin Cruickshank pronounced:

It sounds a little weird, but she must have been buried in a white coffin.

However, there’s nothing weird about a young girl being buried in a white coffin, as it’s a fairly common practice for children’s funerals.

  • Listen for obvious cueing and changes of tack or spurious affirmations when an error is noted.

Cruickshank, in looking at Alicia’s drawings, spots her pet – “her dog”, he announces. Off-camera you can hear someone say “a cat”. The film crew knew there was a cat in the household, as it had been part of the mother’s story. “O cat is it?” says Cruickshank, “oh it is too.”

See if you can identify a clear factual statement that can be checked out.

This is harder then it sounds, as clear unequivocal statements are not part of the psychic stock in trade. It can also be difficult to check facts without having personal contacts or knowledge to draw upon. That said, there was at least one readily checkable fact in the Sensing Murder programme about Alicia O’Reilly.

Cruickshank made much of Alicia talking about children’s television show What Now?, and how that must have been a Saturday morning treat for her, adding that this clearly indicated her murder took place in the 1980s. This was made more dramatic by a voice-over noting that Alicia had been murdered in 1980, apparently supporting Cruickshank’s assertion.

However, according to TVNZ, What Now? didn’t go on air until nine months after Alicia’s murder.

Perhaps the implication there is that TVNZ shows are good enough to appeal to spirits in the after-life! What do you think?

Or as Philip Matthews said, writing in The Press

Sensing Murder might be the most important TV show of our times. It all boils down to this: the show is either a colossal fraud, an entertainment conspiracy the size of Watergate, or it’s the most amazing and incontrovertible evidence of paranormal activity ever recorded.
And it has to be one or the other. It can’t be neither.
Sensing Murder: Sleuths or scammers?

Speakers from the other side?

Psychic at NZ Skeptics Conference “Sensing Murder” psychic Sue Nicholson will face a potentially more difficult audience than speaking to the dead when she appears at the New Zealand Skeptics annual conference being held 6-8 September in …

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Questioning the Universe: NZ Skeptics Conference

Learning more about the universe demonstrates just how much more we need to learn about life on planet Earth. That’s something noted US astronomer, writer and podcaster, Dr Pamela Gay, will be talking about at this year’s NZ Skeptics annual conference …

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Charter schools open door for creationism

Government plans to establish charter schools look like providing a way for creationists to get their teachings into New Zealand’s classrooms (Dominion Post, 19 August).

The Manukau Charitable Christian Trust is planning to team up with the Manukau Christian School to teach a “philosophy” titled ‘In God’s World’, to be marked against the Cambridge curriculum.

The philosophy encourages every subject to be taught so students “discover” how God made the world, and upholds and governs it.

Trust chairman Tony Bracefield said it planned to open a number of junior classes at churches, feeding up to senior classes on Manukau Christian School’s grounds. He said the school would use non-qualified teachers, and teach about 200 children in the long term.

Post Primary Teachers Association president Robin Duff said the types of people who appeared to be interested in charter schools would not have made it through teacher education.

” In the case of the trust, we’d be concerned if an organisation with a ‘statement of faith’ that denies evolution and claims creation according to the Bible is a historical event, were to receive state funding.”

He said the trust could be grouped with religious organisations like Destiny Church and the Maharishi Foundation, which had both expressed interest in charter schools, and which delivered education that denied scientific principles.

Associate Education Minister John Banks said he would not comment on the trust’s charter plans.

A day later, the NZ Herald (20 August) reported Banks had told Radio Rhema he has no doubts the first chapters of Genesis are true. “That’s what I believe, but I’m not going to impose my beliefs on other people, especially in this post-Christian society that we live in, especially in these lamentable times. There are reactionaries out there, humanists in particular, that overrun the bureaucracies in Wellington and state education.”

Racist creationists upset Kawerau

Meanwhile, many residents of Kawerau have been upset by a creationist pamphlet mail drop in the small Bay of Plenty town (NZ Herald, 22 September).

“Are you a racist? You are if you believe in evolution!” the pamphlet states. “Kids are taught in school that man evolved (changed) from a chimp. So I ask you who changed the most from a black chimp with black hair and brown eyes? A black man with black hair and brown eyes? Or a white man with blond hair and blue eyes?”

People who received the pamphlet should “rip it up and bin it,” said Vicki Hall, a spokeswoman for the Race Relations Commissioner. “The commission’s position is that the pamphlet is clearly offensive. However, there is no law that prevents someone from publishing it.”

While the pamphlet accuses those who “believe in evolution” of racism, it is based on the racist premise that black people look more like chimps than white people do. Yet two of the three chimp subspecies have fair skin, and Caucasians tend to be hairier than other peoples. The similarity between chimps and people of colour is all in the minds of the pamphlet’s producers, and the citizens of Kawerau were right to pick these mealy-mouthed hypocrites as racists.

Death’s link to vaccine ‘convoluted pseudoscience’

The likelihood of an Upper Hutt teenager having died as a result of the cervical cancer vaccine has been rejected as convoluted pseudoscience by Helen Petousi-Harris, of Auckland University’s Immunisation Advisory Centre (Dominion Post, 21 September).

Jasmine Renata, 18, died in her sleep in September 2009, six months after completing the programme for cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.

She suffered from runny noses, headaches, warts, tiredness, a racing heart and other symptoms. During an inquest in August, her parents said they believed the vaccine was the cause of their daughter’s failing health and eventual death.

Canadian neuroscientist Christopher Shaw and US pathologist Sin Hang Lee told the inquest heavy aluminium staining in Ms Renata’s brain tissue could have acted as a “trojan horse”, bringing the human papillomavirus into her brain.

But Dr Petousis-Harris said on 20 September that the doctors’ arguments were convoluted and not based on scientific evidence. “I find that quite concerning, given the gravity of the issue here. Anyone who has had the vaccine may become worried, and anyone planning to have it may also become worried. But it’s based on no evidence at all, which is not good. You have got to make your decisions based on good science.”

It was important to discuss the weaknesses in the research so parents and possible vaccine recipients had all the information, she said.

There is further commentary on this case at Http://www.immune.org.nz/commentary-coronial-inquiry-expert-witness-testimony

Medium to ‘help heal’ Pike River pain

Australian medium Deb Webber, of Sensing Murder fame is once again in this country using a tragedy to promote her business (Greymouth Star, 16 August).

Webber, who caused anger in 2009 by raising the case of missing Auckland toddler Aisling Symes while plugging her shows on breakfast television (Aisling’s body was recovered from a stormwater pipe a few days later), has announced that this spring she will meet with family of Pike River disaster victims to help heal their pain with readings in a private session.

“I have been flooded with emails from family members so it will be nice to help them out,” Webber’s publicist said.

Given that Webber has no psychic ability (see NZ Skeptic 104), it’s uncertain exactly how she is going to be able to help at all.

Didgeridoo healing reaches NZ

Back in NZ Skeptic 102 Alison Campbell reported on how didgeridoos could be used to clear emotional and energetic stagnation, and help ” to quantum manifest healing and the co-creation of our universe.” Now this amazing medical breakthrough is available in New Zealand (Stuff, 6 September), thanks to yet more visitors from across the Tasman.

Australia-based psychic double act K and Dr Michael appeared in Auckland on 18 September. The US-born Dr Michael bills himself as a “vibrational healer with the didgeridoo” and a reiki master who “gives energy healing with past life and spirit healing messages”.

K on the other hand is “blessed with psychic abilities since childhood” and is said to be “one of Australia’s most sought after clairvoyants”. Must have been quite a night.

More Dunedin ghosts

Dunedin is emerging as the haunted capital of New Zealand. Following a series of ghostly events at Otago University’s Cumberland College ( NZ Skeptic 104) spirits are now reported to be occupying the nearby Globe Theatre ( Otago Daily Times, 2 July).

Five members of paranormal investigation group The Other Side Paranormal visited the theatre to follow up earlier research into three spirits believed to be there. The spirits were said to be those of Robert Blackadder, who lived in the building in the 19th century before it became a theatre, a girl called Mary Elizabeth Richmond who lived in the building in the 1860s, and former theatre caretaker Frank Grayson, who died in the 1980s.

“I think it’s safe to say the caretaker Frank is still there. He is just there looking after the place, basically. We’ve found a few things on our video footage … a few light anomalies,” said investigator Kelly Cavanagh.

There was also an “incident” when a person felt someone sit down next to them, and a photo revealed “energy” beside them. Other information gathered from an electromagnetic field reader, temperature gauge, and voice recorder would be analysed over the next week, Ms Cavanagh said. “We’ve definitely got some results and we are quite happy with what we’ve found.”

Consumer Wins Bent Spoon Again

Consumer magazine has won its second Bent Spoon Award from the NZ Skeptics for continuing to promote homeopathic products as a viable alternative to evidence-based medical treatments.

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How to raise a psychic child

All children are psychic, according to one of the stranger items to appear in the NZ Herald (30 May) for a while.

Sue Bishop is described by writer (I hesitate to say journalist) Nicky Park in the paper’s Life & Style section as “one of Australia’s top intuitives” – a phrase Bishop herself uses in her promotional material. She says children are tuned in to their abilities more than ever, but parents need to know how to nurture their kids’ skills without discouraging or being too pushy.

Bishop, who is currently promoting her recent book Psychic Kids, says we’re starting to see little kids who can see spirits, and actually validate who it is. “It’s different to a child saying, ‘I’ve got a monster on top of my bed’ [how, exactly?]. We know that’s imagination.”

The “level of awareness” kids have today is different to the kids of the 80s, she says, partly because the topic is less taboo now so children are free to explore their psychic abilities. Then there’s “soul evolution”.

“I believe that each evolution carnates to bring a new gift, a new awareness to help us grow and expand also to deal with the problems created from the former generation.”

But at the age of seven the soft part of the skull fully closes (this is in the NZ Herald, remember, so it must be true), and the age of reason begins.

“It’s when children go through this phase that they start to fear death and fear separation from a parent … they start to focus more on being logical and analytical. They start to doubt their intuition, they shut that part of themselves off.”

But don’t worry, the Herald has some useful tips to help you prevent your child from becoming logical and analytical. You must recognise you and your child have a sixth sense, and set safe boundaries for using these abilities. But don’t indulge them too much: “Some kids will go too far and let their imagination take over.”

‘Medicine man’ offside

A self-styled Woodville ‘medicine man’ has found himself offside – with the country’s other medicine men (Dominion Post, 18 June).
Karys Woodcock, a 65-year-old part-time actor raised in England, says he is entitled to be a shaman because his father had Crow Indian heritage. He is legally changing his name to Laughing Bear, and says he has attracted a strong following for his ‘medicine readings’ and other services. He charges for those services, but according to Joseph O’Connor, 81, genuine shamans don’t charge.

O’Connor says he is a third-generation psychic and shaman, while “Laughing Bear” is an actor living in a world of fantasy. “Renting out rooms to unregistered psychics must be stamped out. There are so many so-called psychics robbing the public. He is doing a great injustice to the unsung heroes and healers that have made this country.”

Woodcock charges $60 to $70 an hour for medicine card readings, as well as charging for teaching groups, and takes donations for ghost and spirit house cleansing. He admits there is a big argument about shamans receiving money. “People fall in love with understanding living holistically, but forget that in order for me to practise as a shaman, I have to get petrol, have a mortgage to pay.

“My tepee is bigger than what I used to have. I don’t really want to go and live in the bush. People give us a gift of dollars instead of a leg of elk or deerskin. If [the] creator wants you to do something, you have to be alive to do it.”

Animals vie for psychic fame

Remember Paul the psychic octopus? The late lamented mollusc who correctly picked the outcomes of all seven of Germany’s matches plus the final in the 2010 Football World Cup now has plenty of competition (Stuff, 8 June).

None have the form of the eight-legged marvel, however, says Joe Crilly, a spokesman for British bookmaker William Hill. “And with so many to follow, there are undoubtedly going to be a few who get it wrong.”

Citta, a 33-year-old female Indian elephant at Krakow Zoo, was given the gig for the 2012 Euro Cup after correctly picking Chelsea would win the Champions League final, heading off a donkey, a parrot, and another elephant. But her first two predictions of Polish victories – made by choosing a marked melon – have been astray, with both matches drawn.

Meanwhile a “psychic pig” in the Ukraine predicted four of six results in the first round correctly. Other contenders are a ferret called Fred, Kharuk the Russian reindeer, Sissi the German dachshund, Nicholas the English llama and Huat the Singaporean arowana – that’s a large freshwater fish. Information is limited on how well any of these are doing, which probably says something in itself.

Snake test of faith fatal

A West Virginia preacher who handled venomous snakes to prove his faith in God has died after being bitten (NZ Herald, 1 June).

Mark Wolford’s own father died of a snakebite in 1983 aged 39, and he himself had been bitten before and survived. On this occasion witnesses say a timber rattler bit the 44-year-old on the thigh during a Sunday service at Panther State Forest.

Ralph Hood, a religion professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said his friend Wolford would want people to remember him as “a Christian who was living his beliefs and being obedient.”

“A common misunderstanding is that handlers believe they can’t get bit or it won’t kill them,” Hood added. “What they’ll tell you is, vNo one will get out of this alive.’ They’ll also tell you it’s not a question of how you live; it’s a question of how you die … This is how he would have wanted to die.”

Although most Appalachian states have outlawed snake handling, it remains legal but rare in West Virginia.

UFOs buzz Northland … or not

Ufocus NZ are claiming many sightings of UFOs in the Northland region in recent months, but none has been reported to the police, a police spokeswoman says (Northern Advocate, 23 May).

Suzanne Hansen, who is research network director for the UFO-watching group, said one man had reported seeing a UFO land in Northland in April, but she was not revealing where at this stage. “He’s a very credible source. He saw an object that had landed and said it was definitely not an aircraft or like anything else he had seen.”

After a story on the sightings appeared in the Northern Advocate on May 19 several more reports of recent UFO sightings from the region had come in, while others had contacted the group to report historical sightings in Northland.

NZ Skeptics spokeswoman Vicki Hyde said there were a huge number of possible explanations for UFO sightings – and none of them involved visits from extraterrestrials.

Ghost haunts university

Residents at Otago University’s Cumberland College have taken to sleeping with the lights on following a sighting of a ghost (Otago Daily Times, 22 May).

The ghost has been linked to the Grey Lady, who allegedly haunted a nurse at the college after the nurse, working at the now-closed Queen Mary maternity hospital nearby, took her baby for being an unfit mother.

College resident Mareck Church said the “ghost sighting” happened on the night of Saturday, 5 May, when two female health science students noticed a weird smell and a chill in the air as they walked down the hallway after coming back to the college from studying. Weird smells in a hall of residence? Cold in Dunedin? Definitely something odd here.

“One of the girls saw a black figure beside the fire hydrant, turned to the other girl to point it out and as they both turned round, they felt a cold whoosh of air pass them,” Mr Church said.

Some students, Mr Church included, then played pranks on other residents, including going around the corridors with pillowcases over their heads.

The situation had calmed down since staff arranged a blessing by a chaplain and a kaumatua on May 10. Good to see our universities are bastions of rationality.

Sensing Murder Strikes Out Again

The discovery of the body of missing prostitute Jayne Furlong on the beach at Port Waikato directly contradicts the claims by the Sensing Murder exploitainment show that self-proclaimed psychics Deb Webber and Kelvin Cruickhank were able to “tune …

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Scientologists get government money

A drug awareness programme run by the Church of Scientology has received government funding to spread its views through schools and community groups (Sunday Star Times, 19 February(.

“Drug-free ambassadors” linked to the church have distributed 130,000 drug education booklets around New Zealand, paid for in part by the Department of Internal Affairs’ Community Organisations Grant Scheme. The ambassadors claim at least 18 community groups – including Maori Wardens, one of whom is also an ambassador – and at least seven high schools, endorse and use the materials.

The pamphlets are based on L Ron Hubbard’s ideas on self-improvement through purging oneself of painful experiences.

NZ Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell called the information flawed pseudo-science which could prove harmful to youth. “This kind of quackery should not be in our schools ” we are talking about young people’s lives,” he said.

Other critics, including former Scientologists, say the drug-free ambassadors are a front group aimed at recruitment which does not openly disclose its ties to the church. The group, which has various aliases, has also come under fire overseas, including in Australia where its links to the government were described as “worrying”.

Scientology New Zealand listed its income for 2010 as $1.2 million. Drug-Free Ambassadors had an income of approximately $6700, of which $6500 was grants.

Green MP Kevin Hague said any funding given to a group that was a front for the church should be stopped. “In the case of someone who is struggling with drugs, they are very vulnerable. So their exploitation by the church for their own ends is despicable.”

Former Skeptic editor dies

Owen McShane, who was editor of the NZ Skeptic from 1994 to 1997, has died, aged 70 (National Business Review, 7 March).

Owen was a longstanding member of the NZ Skeptics and had a regular column in the NBR. He died suddenly at his home in Kaiwaka near Kaipara Harbour, not long after recent heart surgery.

NBR editor Nevil Gibson writes that Owen’s early career encompassed town planning, urban economics and public policy, and he turned to venture capitalism in the 1970s. More recently he established the Centre for Resource Management, a one-man think tank that advocated a laissez-faire approach to environmental and planning issues. Nonetheless he saw himself as an enthusiastic environmentalist, advocating a “gourmet culture” for small land-holders, and putting his ideas into practice on his own property.

Owen wrote and published extensively on a wide range of issues. He was a columnist for Metro from 1983-94 and launched his own magazine, Straight Thinking, in 1994.

He appeared regularly at resource consent hearings after the passing of the Resource Management Act, on which he was a consultant, fighting against what he saw as destructive planning practices such as “smart growth”.

In 1996, he wrote an important report for the Reserve Bank on how planning rules contributed to the high costs of land for residential building – an issue on which the minister for the environment commissioned a further report in 1998.

He was a member of the committee that recommended casinos be established in New Zealand, a member of the Auckland Area Health Board, and was, says Gibson, a sought-after speaker for local and overseas conferences.

Jesus cures cancer?

A Napier church has raised the ire of locals with a billboard stating “Jesus heals cancer” ( NZ Herald, 28 February).

The Equippers Church in Tamatea claims six people have been healed, but Jody and Bevan Condin, whose three-year-old son Toby has leukaemia, said the billboard made their blood boil.

“I was disgusted, I was absolutely disgusted, and I felt quite sick,” said Mrs Condin. “The sign shows no understanding and compassion for people who have journeyed through cancer and lost loved ones.”

Senior minister Lyle Penisula (yes, that’s his real name) said with the exception of one person, he did not believe the sign was causing offence, so saw no reason to remove it.

The sign may, however, have breached the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes ( NZ Herald, 29 February).

The authority said it would take about 25 days to process the complaint. Before that, however, the church modified the sign (NZ Herald, 7 March). It now reads “Jesus heals every sickness and every disease – Matthew 4:23”.

Jody Condin said she felt the replacement was still misleading. She had watched an Equippers church-goer on television explaining his belief the church had helped cure his cancer, but felt he came across as believing his religion had mainly helped him spiritually.

“He’d had surgery and medication so how does he actually know that Jesus healed him?”

Ms Condin has received emails and phone calls from fellow supporters across the country, some of whom had lost loved ones to cancer.

Mr Penisula said religious advertising and freedom of speech were vital components of a democratic society and the measure ‘truth in advertising’ could not and should not apply for faith-based or religious advertising.

Kiwis big believers in homeopathy

Fifty-one percent of New Zealanders believe homeopathy is scientifically proven, but probably have no understanding of what is, according to a UMR study (The Press, 23 January).

Dr Shaun Holt said homeopathy was based on “nonsensical” theories, and could venture into the bizarre, with materials used in preparations that included mobile phone radiation, whale song and dog testes.

The research showed 59 percent of women and 59 percent of people living in rural areas believed homeopathy was scientifically proven. Under 30-year-olds (37 percent) and Asians (35 percent) were less inclined to believe that this was the case.

UMR Research Director Gavin White said it seemed likely many New Zealanders understood the term ‘homeopathy’ to include a much broader range of natural remedies.

Holt agreed with this explanation. “In general people don’t know what it is. They get it confused with naturopathy. It’s not just members of the public it’s doctors as well.”

However, he would fall short of banning homeopathy. He said homeopaths often had long consultations with patients which made them feel good.

Earthquake adds to ‘hypersensitivity’ problem

A Christchurch woman who claims to suffer from something called electromagnetic hypersensitivity has been sleeping out of doors because of repairs in her earthquake-damaged street (The Press, 17 February).

Anne Gastinger has symptoms including migraines and insomnia, which she attributes to electromagnetic waves and allergies to a range of substances, including treated wood. The symptoms worsened in April last year when overhead powerlines were installed because of damage to underground cables.

Her house had been adapted to avoid triggering the allergies and she hoped to relocate it because it was undamaged. However, covenants on new subdivisions and no policy on buying back houses from the Government made that unlikely, she said.

She rarely spoke about the condition because it was not an acknowledged diagnosis in New Zealand, although a Christchurch GP had provided a medical certificate confirming her symptoms.

In an article on the Organic NZ website in 2010, Anne Gastinger wrote that “leading scientists” claim wifi poses potentially serious health hazards, and that children are the most vulnerable in our community. “Opponents of wifi believe that from the moment it is switched on an odourless, invisible, silent, energetic form of air pollution is introduced into our environment.”

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‘Suckers’ feed on alternative health patients – literally

The NZ Herald (10-14 January) must have been having trouble filling its pages during the silly season, looking at its recent series on alternative therapies.

Each day for the best part of a week, the paper sent its reporters out to try a range of “alternative relaxation and remedies”.

Reporter Andrew Koubaridis must have drawn the short straw – while others in the series got to try out Japanese and Korean variants of spa therapies, he had two leeches sucking blood from his arm for more than an hour.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off the little suckers,” he said.

Mehdi Jaffari, who runs the Life Clinic Hirudotherapy centre on Auckland’s North Shore, says he learned the practice from his Iranian father and that the art had been passed down for generations in his family. Leeches can treat problems ranging from arthritis, diabetes, endometriosis, hepatitis and high blood pressure to bronchitis, he claims. They can even help reduce wrinkles, apparently.

“Their saliva has enzymes that helps break blood clots, and widens blood vessels to stop bacteria growth and prevent inflammation. It also helps blood circulation and flow,” Jaffari says.

The article refers to the UMR Research survey on the beliefs of New Zealanders (see Editorial, p 2), which found a majority believed in alternative remedies. Nearly three out of four believed arnica reduces bruising and slightly over half believed that homeopathic remedies are scientifically proven.

In the same series, Lincoln Tan and Amelia Wade checked out Ayurveda, a traditional Indian system of medicine.

“The human body is made up of five basic elements,” says Ayurveda specialist Priya Punjabi, “and whenever there is any disorder, these elements become imbalanced and they affect bodily channels and tissues, creating illnesses in the system.”

The elements are earth, water, fire, air and sky. This is obviously a huge advance on the traditional western view that there are only four elements.

Paranormal investigators open for business

A paranormal investigation team has been given front page coverage by the Waikato Times (10 December).

The group, who call themselves the Quantum Foundation (what is it with that word quantum?) say they’re not ghost hunters, but are called in to “paranormal hot spots” where they try to put clients’ minds at rest. Nor are they ghostbusters. “We don’t get rid of whatever’s there.We can call in people to do that,” said co- founder Tracey Royce.

Royce and fellow investigator Lisa Austen said they took a scientific, research- based approach to the supernatural, and sought natural explanations for alleged hauntings.

They use equipment such as cameras, digital recorders and electromagnetic field readers and spend up to eight weeks reviewing content. They have carried out 10 investigations in 16 months, and do not charge for their services.

Most of what they collect is mundane, and they seemed to recognise that ‘orbs’ are artifacts caused by dust particles reflecting light through a camera lens (NZ Skeptic 94(. But both say they have had experiences they can’t explain, including a sighting of a “full-blown apparition” of a ghostly figure, that drive them on.

Recently they investigated Diggers Bar in central Hamilton, where they captured “electronic voice phenomena”, including laughing, a voice saying “it’s coming”, and one instance of aggressive swearing. Someone swearing around a bar late at night in central Hamilton? How could there be a natural explanation for that?

David Riddell (who’s he?v) of the NZ Skeptics reportedly said gullible people were often suckered in by folks with fancy equipment, though I have it on good authority he said no such thing. But he did suggest that we are awash with electromagnetic fields, and a recorder is likely to pick up all sorts of things if left on overnight. Even if something couldn’t be explained it didn’t mean it was from another world. “A lot of people, when faced with something they can’t explain, automatically say [it] must be something supernatural. But sometimes it is okay to say you simply don’t know what it is.”

Conspiracy theorists get a roasting

Also in the Waikato Times (19 December), freelance writer Joshua Drummond has got stuck into conspiracy theorists with a nice piece of old-fashioned debunking. The three most terrifying words in the English language, he says, are “Did you know?”

“‘Did you know,’ said an idiot to me one day, ‘that 9/11 was an inside job?'”

Over the next half-hour, says Drummond, he was subjected to a sloppy paraphrasing of an internet documentary called Loose Change. This alleges a government conspiracy which was somehow, “as these things commonly are, both tremendously competent and massively incompetent at the same time.”

He goes on to list a number of other currently popular conspiracy theories, including “the ever-popular primate change denial, courtesy of creationists, who may not like being labelled conspiracy theorists,but that is what they are.”

Drummond says conspiracy theorists waste their time on nonsense when far better examples of true wrongdoing lie right in front of their unseeing eyes. Drug companies, for example, may act in highly questionable ways in their endless quest for higher profits – “but it doesn’t follow that vaccination doesn’t work.”

Vitamin supplements unnecessary

A major study of vitamin supplements has found taking the pills does nothing for people’s health (NZ Herald, 27 December).

The study, by researchers at Nancy University in France, followed 8000 people for more than six years. Those taking supplements were just as likely to have developed cancer or heart disease as those who took an identical-looking dummy pill. There was hardly any difference in how healthy members of the treatment and control groups reported themselves feeling.

Catherine Collins, chief dietician at St George’s Hospital in London, said it was the worried well who were taking these pills to try and protect themselves against Alzheimer’s disease, heart attacks and strokes.

“But they are wasting their money. This was a large study following people up for a long period of time assessing everything from their mobility and blood pressure to whether they were happy or felt pain.”

Other recent studies have indicated that, for some people, vitamin supplements could actually be harmful. One last year found pills containing vitamin E, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, selenium and zinc increased the risk of malignant melanoma four-fold.

Another discovered women on a daily multi-vitamin pill increased their risk of breast cancer by up to 20 percent.

While the evidence that vitamins can do harm is still limited, the latest study seems to confirm that many people are at the very least taking them unnecessarily.

Split for Scientology?

Scientology has had a rough few years, and now a schism seems to be opening up within the so-called ‘church’ (NZ Herald, 7 January).

Debbie Cook, a former senior member of Sea Org, Scientology’s equivalent of the clergy, has circulated an email severely criticising the management style and financial policies of the group’s current leader, David Miscavige. She says Miscavige’s dictatorial leadership style is at odds with the doctrines laid down by the church’s founder, science-fiction author L Ron Hubbard, and that he has become obsessed with fundraising. His regime is now “hoarding” a cash reserve of more than US$1 billion, she claims, and has spent tens of millions more on a portfolio of large, upmarket buildings which largely sit empty.

Cook left the Scientology payroll in 2008, but says she remains “completely dedicated” to its beliefs. Her criticisms strike a chord with many disaffected recent defectors, but her highly respected status within the usually secretive world of Scientology may give her views weight among more active members, the article says.

Newsfront

Top scientist turns to alternative medicine

Prominent physicist and science commentator Sir Paul Callaghan is resorting to vitamin C megadoses and Chinese medicine to treat his terminal cancer (Dominion Post, 22 September).
Diagnosed in 2008 with aggressive bowel cancer, he has been advised by his oncologist to take a break from chemotherapy to establish the full extent of the cancer’s spread. He is using the time to trial “unproven but interesting” therapies, including traditional Chinese medicine, intravenous vitamin C and “Uncle CC’s famous vegetable juice”.

“Let me be clear. I do not deviate one step from my trust in evidence-based medicine,” Sir Paul said in his blog. However, if there was a potentially effective but unproven drug, “Why would I not try it?” he reasoned. “Am I mad? Probably.”

Victoria University’s Professor Shaun Holt said he could understand terminal cancer patients clutching at straws, but there was no evidence to support vitamin C treatment. It could be harmful, causing kidney problems and interfering with effective treatments such as radiation therapy.

He was concerned Sir Paul’s use of the treatment would further increase the already high number of cancer and leukaemia patients asking for the injections.

GG swears by homeopathy

Another high-profile New Zealander expressing interest in alternative therapies recently was new Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae The 56-year-old revealed in an interview (Dominion Post, 2 September( he and his wife Janine, Lady Mateparae shared an interest in homeopathy.
He said he had not taken a sick day since 1998. “We’ve practised a certain way of looking after ourselves which has been very good for me.”

Perhaps he feels it’s part of the job, given his position as the Queen’s representative in New Zealand, and the royal family’s well-known interest in the field.

Blogger John Pagani commented: “Placebos get you quite a long way, but only so far. After that you need actual medicine. If a soldier gets shot up on a battlefield in, say, Afghanistan, he doesn’t want Sir Jerry rubbing arnica cream on the sore bit.”

Divine solution to liquefaction

A Sefton water diviner believes he has the solution to Canterbury’s liquefaction problems (Central South Island Farmer, 7 September).

Dave Penney says he can identify underground water flows by running a crystal over a Google map, followed by on-site investigation. While the article quoted one happy customer, Waimakariri utilities manager Gary Boot was unconvinced by Penney’s proposal that “confluences” of underground flows could be located and drilled, to reduce pressure and stabilise the land. Areas with the worst liquefaction had widespread and very consistent groundwater, Mr Boot said.

“Finding the groundwater is not the challenge. The challenge is how best to treat the land in an affordable manner.”

iPhone trumps psychic

Chilean authorities have used a psychic to help find 17 missing bodies after the crash of a plane near Robinson Crusoe Island killed all 21 people on board (NZ Herald, 6 September).
“Not only are we using all of our technological capabilities, but also all the human and superhuman abilities that may exist,” said Defence Minister Andres Allemand.

He did, however, seek to lower expectations of recovering all the bodies.

The plane’s fuselage was located a few days later, in part using information from a passenger’s iPhone, which transmitted its location shortly before the crash (AVweb, 9 September). Now if only psychics were as smart as iPhones.

Spontaneous Human Combustion in Ireland?

An Irish coroner has ruled a pensioner found dead at home was a case of spontaneous human combustion (NZ Herald, 25 September).

Unsurprisingly, given the history of this phenomenon, 76-year-old Michael Faherty’s charred remains were found on the floor near an open fireplace. Forensic experts concluded the fire was not the cause of the blaze, and that there were no accelerants at the scene. The only damage to the room was a scorched ceiling and floor adjacent to the body.

The case sounds like a classic of its type: an elderly diabetic with presumably limited mobility is found next to an open fire, with his body consumed but his head left unburned. In 1998 scientists on the British TV programme QED (available from the NZ Skeptics video library( showed how this happens, using a pig carcass wrapped in fabric to simulate the victim. An ember spat from the fire catches in clothing and starts to burn; the fire is then fed by fat from the victim (who has already died of a heart attack, or is about to due to the stress of finding himself alight) as it melts and ‘wicks’ into the clothing. The head, lacking a decent supply of fat, remains unscathed, and any sign of heart disease or other pathology is burned away. QED, indeed.

Medium caught cheating

Sally Morgan, who styles herself “Britain’s best-loved psychic” has been caught receiving outside information during one of her shows (The Guardian, 20 September).

Chris French, editor of UK magazine The Skeptic, relates how an audience member named Sue reported on an Irish radio station how she had been impressed by Morgan’s accuracy during the first half of her performance.

“But then something odd happened. Sue was sitting in the back row on the fourth level of the theatre and there was a small room behind her (‘like a projection room’) with a window open. Sue and her companions became aware of a man’s voice and ‘everything that the man was saying, the psychic was saying it 10 seconds later.'”

Other callers to the radio show confirmed Sue’s account.

Sue said she believed the man was feeding information to Morgan via a microphone. The voice would say something like “David, pain in the back, passed quickly”, and a few seconds later Morgan would have the spirit of a David on stage with just those attributes. When a member of staff realised several people were aware of the voice the window was gently closed.

Sue speculated that information had been gathered in the foyer prior to the show by an accomplice engaging audience members in conversation, a technique French says ‘psychics’ use widely, as their marks naturally discuss among themselves who they are hoping to hear from.

The theatre’s general manager claimed the voice came from two theatre staff members. Sally Morgan Enterprises also denied that the medium was being fed information during the show.

French compared the incident to James Randi’s use of a radio scanner to pick up messages sent to faith healer Peter Popoff’s earpiece in 1986, the subject of an entertaining YouTube video clip. Although his exposure led to him declaring bankruptcy the following year, Popoff is back; his ‘ministry’ received US$23 million in 2005. History suggests, says French, that most of Morgan’s followers will continue to adore her and pay the high prices demanded to see her in action, despite this incident.

Ring again

Just one more small piece on Ken Ring then no more, I swear. Despite promises to get out of the earthquake prediction business, he was in Upper Hutt recently declaring Wellington could expect a magnitude 7 quake some time between 2013 and 2016 (Upper Hutt Leader, 5 October).

Of course, predicting earthquakes in Wellington is a bit like predicting drought in the Sahara, and a four-year timeframe is a bit vague, to say the least. He says Wellington gets magnitude 7 quakes every 11 to 13 years (really?) and this period is when the next one is due.

I guess any half-way decent shake in the next eight years or so will be put down as a hit, and if nothing comes along before the end of 2016, who’s going to remember what he said in the Upper Hutt Library in October 2011? How can he lose?