Do you wish to turn FEAR into FERTILITY on ALL LEVELS?


That’s a terrifying thought, actually. The Perth Zoo is featuring a week long lecture series on this important subject. We all go to the zoo for the educational experience, don’t we? Wouldn’t you be happy to spend Aus $660 on learning about animal dreams?

perthzooembarrassment

I tried to grok my cat’s dreams, but they mainly seem to involve bloodily tearing apart small rodents and birds, and she sometimes seems to think my ankles are appropriate targets for her aspirations. I think I’ll pass on taking a flight to Australia and shelling out big bucks to a charlatan to get a more ‘meaningful’ reading.

If you haven’t blinded yourself with the force of your facepalming, perhaps you’d like some more Scott Alexander King?

No, actually you didn’t. Sorry.

Comments

  1. mwalters says

    Is it actually the zoo, or just someone renting their conference space and slapping the zoo’s name on it for false credibility just because it’s where it happens to be taking place? That price tag in particular makes me suspicious.

    I work at Cornell University and I see this fairly often where random people will rent the conference rooms at the Hotel School (which is also a real hotel that rents conference space as a business to whoever has the money) and then make a big deal about their “scientific” conference being at Cornell University. Creationists have done it. In reality, it’s no different than renting a room at the airport Hilton, but that doesn’t sound as good on your propaganda.

  2. doubter says

    Unfortunately, I have a close relative who occasionally shells out money to an “animal communicator” to find out what her dogs are thinking. I try to maintain a polite silence when she talks about it.

  3. sparkomatic says

    Its the conference space the zoo rents out.The zoo itself is great and a few of us from UWA spend time working with animals there. I’m halfway tempted to head and down and check it out but I’m terribly allergic to woo

  4. Scr... Archivist says

    I could be mistaken, but I see nothing on that list about learning or education. Isn’t that one of the purposes of zoos?

    Meanwhile…
    1. At the beginning of Time, there was no Earth. So where was the Earth Mother hanging out?
    2. At least they acknowledge that dreams and visions are not real life.
    3. Do not give the zoo animals alcohol!!!
    5. I’ll stand over on this spot, away from Scott, thanks.
    6. Is this a Pokemon thing?
    7. It’s probably not a good idea to get too close to our nickel-iron core. It’s on the warm side.
    8. Surrender? The New Age needs to try that a little harder.
    9. Coaching? As in preparing people to say what you want them to say when the time is right?
    11 and 1. Seriously, though, I find the New Age’s emphasis on “healing” to be kind of sinister.
    12. You can use that +1 Amulet of Fertility regardless of your level, but it’s only ever going to be +1.
    14. If my spirit animal ends up being a porpoise, wouldn’t I already have found it?

  5. leftwingfox says

    I will stick with furry conventions. I’m guaranteed fertile messages from animals there, for a fraction of the cost.

  6. davek23 says

    Huh. I’d go for the vision quest thing, if I thought for one second that they’d be doing it properly. By which I mean, “with lots and lots of peyote”! :)

  7. Desert Son, OM says

    Do you wish to turn FEAR into FERTILITY on ALL LEVELS?

    Uh . . . kind of a personal question . . .

    *awkward shuffle*

    “Inherent psychic abilities?” What oth- . . . ?

    Never mind.

    Still learning,

    Robert

  8. george gonzalez says

    I’ll g only if Shirley Mclaine is going to be there, channeling her Mayan Princesses ancestors.

  9. Cuttlefish says

    The one thing missing from the pic PZ chose to illustrate this sham with, is the fact that this is the SEVENTH ANNUAL version of this fraud.

    It sells, apparently.

    Via Kylie, the Perth Zoo apparently rents out the lecture hall to anyone who can afford it; they are not a sponsor.

  10. erichoug says

    What always baffles me about stuff like this is that there are people who are smart enough to have gotten to a place in life where they have spare $660 lying around that they, presumably, don’t need, but still dumb enough to spend said money in stupid crap like this.

  11. Muz says

    In accordance with advertising standards law, to maintain the lurching emBOLDING manner of speech he has ACQUIRED and is now expected to continue, during the lecture Scott will be randomly bitten on the bum by a variety of animals.

  12. loreo says

    @erichoug

    Ever looked through a Skymall catalog? Rich people are NOT smarter than the rest of us.

  13. octopod says

    Nonono — not dreaming as in the things that you want in the nebulous future, nor the things your brain does when you’re asleep. I think he means Dreaming, the Australian mythological construct. It’s an incredibly tricky concept (or set of concepts, considering the huge variety of cultures and languages involved) to translate, but it’s something like a parallel timeless-spirit-realm type thing, as well as a hereditary body of knowledge, stories, and laws about a particular animal/location/group of people/whatever, and also a sort of intellectual property law. A bit hard to wrap your head around for someone who hasn’t heard anyone talk about, and that includes me.

    Of course I have very little idea how exactly that relates to whatever this dude’s pushing, but I thought I’d put that out there because the OP suggested a missing context. Sorry, carry on. /atheist mythology nerd

  14. Ichthyic says

    “Look to the Earth Mother for wisdom and guidance…”

    What message was mother earth sending with the “chimp fucks frog in the mouth” video I wonder?

  15. 2kittehs says

    660 bucks?

    That’s a flippin’ fortnight’s money on Newstart!

    I have quite enough to do keeping up with my kitties needs and wants* while they’re awake, never mind trying to figure out what they’re dreaming about.

    *same thing with kitties

  16. EveryZig says

    “turn FEAR into Fertility on ALL LEVELS”
    That is terrible in so many ways and I just can’t stop laughing.