Young Australian Skeptics

This is a short post, because I really don’t want to spend too long on what Dahli has already done an excellent job writing about. Instead, I’ll just present a few things broken down as per above — the amusing, the bad, and the really ugly. Apologies there aren’t more pictures, but my scanner has sadly broken down. Anyway, without further ado…

THE AMUSING:

Man, I wish I’d gotten more photos for this category. My favourite for this category has to be the palm reading astrological computer that clearly hadn’t been updated since the eighties, complete with useless flashing lights that signify absolutely nothing. Seriously, the monitors looked like this:

After the crazy palm reading computer, my next favourite was the “Quantum Science” booth. According to the salesman, the pendants they were seling adjusted out ‘scalar energy’, a type of ‘biofield’ that will improve balance, flexibility and presumably also makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar…neither me nor Joel were able to understand what the hell he was on about, and it was at that point that the salesman offered a demonstration.

Despite my attempt to offload the demonstration to Joel, I wound up the test subject. The salesman told me that the pendant would make a difference in my balance and flexibility, and that we would test that.

NEVER tell a former dancer that you’re about to test their balance and flexibility.

First, he got me to stand on one foot and put my arms out. He then proceeded to push down on my left arm with his hand, “See how you’re losing balance?” Nope, I sure didn’t. He pushed harder — “See?” Well, that did it, but what can you do? Next, he put the pendant in my pocket and repeated the exercise — “Now your balance is much better.” Ah…no. I thought that would be it, but he took the pendant out and asked me to stand on one leg again. Again, he starts pushing down on my left arm with one hand, but to no avail — I’m ready for him this time — so he starts pushing down with two hands, still to no avail. I can feel the guy eyeballing me — “See how you’re losing balance…now?” In the end, I lost balance probably due to the sheer force of awkwardness.

Then it was time to test my flexibility — he asked me to stick my fist out in front of me, and rotate it around my body following it with my head. Without warming up, I can get almost to a proper 270 degree rotation of my arm like this and indeed that’s about how far I got when he tested me. Next thing, the pendant goes back in my pocket and I’m asked to do it again. Despite my best attempts (hell, I felt sorry for the guy by this time) I couldn’t get any further around. “Well…you’re already very flexible.” No shit, Sherlock. Looks like I don’t need your particular brand of woo anyway…

THE BAD:

Really, most of the festival falls into this category. The first two things we saw when we walked into the festival were Multi-​​Dimensional Transference Healing and…wait for it…ear candles. That’s right — as much as it always sounds like a joke, ear candling gets pride of place when it comes to the Mind Body Wallet festival. Their literature tells us that

“Ear candling is an ancient technique that has been around for thousands of years, its benefits have been widely documented and ear candles are now being used throughout the globe to provide a soothing calm sensation in the ear/​head area.”

Well, first off even if the ancients were sticking burning sticks in their ears and telling everyone about how great it made them feel, that is no reason for us to do the same. Ugh…the stupidity, it burns.

The Scientologists were there too, charging $9 for a stress test — presumably giving it away for free would be pointless in an environment where lots of people really are gullible enough to pay up straightaway — and the Christian Science people had a booth too, giving away free magazines (that really must be seen to be believed).

Now for the final ‘bad’. That sign is part of a booth offering books and programs that will help you turn your meagre pittance into a fortune — in other words, get rich quick schemes. Now, quite aside from the initial moral questionability of making promises of wealth and well-​​being that can’t be delivered on is the fact that such promises come with a price tag. And it’s not cheap, either — $1895 is a fair dent in the budgets of the people who would be most attracted to these types of schemes in the first place.

That said, I think I know of a good way to make a million dollars, and it might be the secret the people at this booth have hit upon: Find five hundred and thirty people gullible, naive or desperate enough to want to buy in to a get rich quick scheme, then charge them $1895 to take your course.

Pure genius, that is. Horrible, unethical genius.

THE REALLY UGLY:

Again, there was a great deal of very unpleasant stuff at this carnival of crap. Catherine, Joel and I stood visibly disgusted and watched a ‘psychic’ give a reading to an unseen lady in the audience who wanted to contact her deceased husband. That such a parasite would prey on the hopes and misfortunes of others makes me think very bad thoughts, such that I sincerely hope he one day defrauds the wrong person and gets caught out for it. As far as I’m concerned, these people are immoral scum — they aren’t helping anyone work through anything or get closure, instead they’re spouting meaningless platitudes and telling them straight up lies.

The next ugly was a pamphlet I picked up at a homeopathy stall — I wanted to scan some of this in, but alas techonology intervened. The pamphlet is called, CHILDREN LOVE HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICINE, and once the initial rage has died down, prepare yourself for what is inside the pamphlet. We’ll start with an innocuous enough testimonial:

“I prefer to use homoeopathic remedies for my sick children. The good thing about Homoeopathy is that it covers a huge range of problems.”

“What problems,” you might ask? Well, I’m glad you did — they have a handy list available, right in the pamphlet!

HOMOEOPATHY CAN TREAT PEOPLE SUFFERING WITH:

• Allergies, asthma, acne, anxiety, ADD/​ADHD
• Breast feeding difficulties, bed wetting, bronchitis
• Colic, coughs, colds, constipation, chronic fatigue
• Dermatitis, diarrhoea
• Eczema…

Whoa, whoa, WHOA — reign it the hell in there, Nelly! Eczema? Are you shitting me? Quite aside from the complete, mind shattering stupidity of saying homeopathy can cure anything aside from mild dehydration, are we REALLY going to say it can treat eczema? Did we not only a month ago hear about a baby who died from eczema — yes, died because of a treatable, controllable skin condition — and you’re standing here handing out pamphlets that say what?* How much more irresponsible can you possibly be — seriously?

My biggest well of hatred, however, was tapped by yet another booth. I’m going to bed now rather than writing any more about it as it will only make me angrier than I already am — just look at the photo, and you’ll understand why it makes me want to punch the guy who was running the stall:

Really, it speaks for itself.

* Note: The baby in question died in 2002 — the recent news was that her parents have been convicted of manslaughter.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Alternative Medicine, Astrology, Homeopathy, Pseudoscience, Richard Hughes, Scientology, Skeptic. Tagged as: dangerous idiots, Idiots, mind body spirit, Mind Body Wallet, Richard Hughes, Woo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.