Curiouser and Curiouser article on GAC

[Podblack]

Yay! It's a little late (there were some website issues and I don't know where all my links went, damnit...) - but the column I write at CSI is now out!

The ‘Token Skeptic’ at the Rise of Atheism—Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne, Australia. (http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/the_token_skeptic_at_the_rise_of_atheism_global_at heist_convention/)
As I tugged my suitcase across the foyer of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, I remembered the last time I visited the venue, about three years ago. The touring MindBodySpirit Festival—gleefully dubbed the Mind, Body, Wallet Festival on The Skeptic Zone podcast—is held annually in one of their large exhibition halls.

Back then I was so nervous of the sellers and psychics touting their goods, I spent the entire time pretending to text furiously on my mobile phone. By the time I was approached by a glossy-as-a-pamphlet promoter touting the pseudoscientific claims of the “cure for autism” Dore company, I was so hyped-up by the tension of being discovered as a skeptically minded tourist that I fled to the Amnesty International stand and begged them to show me the exit...

[Podblack]

I think a part of me would die if I went to a Mind Body Spirit Festival.. All that bullshit must screw a person up after a while.. blimey... my mother thought she was a clarvoyent and my father a faith-healer.. how did I get through it?

I think it helps if you go with others - mind, Dr Rachie goes with the Skeptic Zone team to these things and finds she has to take breaks to control how upsetting it can be - and even mild-mannered Richard Saunders couldn't help COMPLETELY losing it when some woman claimed that WATER was the best sun-block and that she recommended that children stay out in the sun as much as they like with no protection from UV rays whatsoever... :/

[Durro]

My mother claimed to be psychic and that there were psychics in her family. She also chose to tell me when I was 18 and a half that she always knew that I would die before I turned 19 and that she was dreading my impending death. I'm now 43.

:rolleyes:

You can choose your friends, but not your family.

;)

[Homosapien]

My mothers' only friend was a power hungry claimed psychic who controlled my mother like a puppet. (My mum now has dementia and is in a dementia aged care facility).

My mum even thought that her young children (me, brother and sisters) were all trying to poison her. She would either not eat with us or eat seperately, and even threw out food/milk etc if she thought it was poisoned.

The psychic even convinced my mother my dad was evil and to divorce him. She did!

The psychic even tried to get all us kids to 'ADMIT' we were all molestered by our father so he would loose custody. (we weren't - they still managed to get him to lose custody though -it was in the 80's). It was a real bad time for us back as kids. We all luckily moved out before committing suicide. My sister nearly did. Luckily she held out.

[Kosmos]

Richard Saunders couldn't help COMPLETELY losing it when some woman claimed that WATER was the best sun-block and that she recommended that children stay out in the sun as much as they like with no protection from UV rays whatsoever... :/


I like to think of this as a suggestion on the theme of practical natural selection, because if you believe what this lady is saying, you'll help the rest of the species by removing yourself from it.

[knowledge is power]

I'd love to go to the mind body spirit festival. I used to go to these things all the time, mostly to buy trinkets and candles and stuff.
It's just a bit of harmless pagan style fun really. :o

[Caio]

Too true Protium...too true.

[knowledge is power]

AHEM! (http://whatstheharm.net/)
Ok, touche. :rolleyes:
I honestly didn't expect most people to take this stuff seriously.
Wow.
Many of those countrys are highly superstitious already, Indonesia, africa, even U.S. I'm thinking of my own backyard of country NSW Where they sold chimes and crystals etc in feights and stalls and wore hippy clothes.

[atheist echo]

And probably thought that they could communicate with dolphins.

[atheist echo]

Golden rule...