There Are Four Lights

Join me, this Friday, Aug. 13th at 9pm for my presentation, “Skepticism Through Manga”, at the Palais des Congress de Montreal during Otakuthon. I’ll be a guest at the anime convention, which takes place Aug.13th-15th. In addition to my skepticism talk, I’ll also be doing a panel called “Manga Storytelling: Writing and Illustration” on Saturday, for those interested in the process of creating manga.

For those interested in skepticism, I’m organizing a meetup after my panel, which runs 9pm-10pm on Friday night. The plan is to meet at the nearby Suite 701 Lounge. So come check out my talk and hang out for more discussion about science, skepticism, anime, manga and more!

Please RSVP for the meetup on the facebook event page or by emailing me at saramayhew@ztarr.net.

I’ll be signing copies of my first graphic novel, Secrets of Sorcerers, at my table throughout the weekend. I’ll also be at the autograph sessions for my lovely beau, Quinton Flynn. We’ll be selling his headshots and I’ll have my books handy as well!

Christopher Nolan’s mental heist thriller is the summer’s blockbuster that has the blogosphere and twitterverse locked in discourse over its elaborate plot. Movie goers, bloggers, tweeps, and critics are all dishing out their theories about the story’s structure and their interpretation of the plot’s conclusion. What is there to say about this film, as an artist and a skeptic, and its journey through the mental labyrinth?

Check out the rest of the article I wrote about Inception over at Skeptic North.

Surly Amy, a Skepchick and the artist behind Surly-Ramics, took some lovely photos of me wearing her beautiful handmade jewelery. You can find them over on her flickr page. Surly-Ramics is the place to go if you’re looking for jewelery to show off your love of science and skepticism! They can be found on Etsy too!

My Nokia Responsiveness Campaign video, shown in a previous post, is also available on the Nokia Responsiveness website (in addition to being uploaded to YouTube). The difference is that the Nokia site has an interactive component, where people are invited to respond to my question at the end of the video: “Do we have the courage to let go of our beliefs in order to grab on to what is true?”.

The responses are displayed graphically on my Responsiveness portal, where you can watch the video, read my bio, and see other’s responses. I hope you’ll head over and leave a response. Also available are some neat widgets, banners, and badges to display on your blog, webpage, twitter, or email signature. My widget can be seen in the sidebar here at There Are Four Lights. You’ll find all of these goodies by going to the toolkit section of the Responsiveness viewer.

So head on over and give your response! Tell your friends and post the widget on your blog!

Last July, I spent a day filming for Nokia‘s Responsiveness campaign. I spoke about my work and latest series, Legend of the Ztarr, and how I’m hoping to relate it to skepticism and critical thinking (since I think those are important when evaluating how to response to the world around us). Please share!

Last Wednesday, I spoke at the Center for Inquiry‘s monthly science cafe, Cafe Inquiry. The talk and Q&A afterwards has been uploaded to YouTube in six parts:

Part 1 is my introduction and my explanation of skepticism and why I think it’s important. I also touch on why new age magical thinking and spirituality can be so appealing and easier to promote. My goal is to use storytelling to show skeptical values as virtues.

Part 2 is an overview of manga and why I’ve chosen it as a medium to tell stories that promote skepticism. I also speak about some series that have inspired me in my approach to doing this—-which is also an excuse to talk about Masters of the Universe.

Part 3 is about my series I’m producing, Legend of the Ztarr, and how I hope it will convey messages about critical thinking and humanism.

The Q&A discussion that took place afterwards is also available:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I must admit I had a hunch that if I clicked a link from a facebook friend that lead to a place called The Temple of Visions that I was going to find some wooness. But whatev! The best part was coming across this dude, Nassim Haramein, and The Resonance Project. It was the perfect leap from artsy new age & raw food to pseudoscience faux-physics & crop circles!

Well, who is Nassim Haramein anyway?

Nassim Haramein’s lifelong journey into the geometry of space-time has lead to a coherent understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe.

Hmm, sounds neat. I definitely prefer coherent understanding to incoherent misunderstanding and who doesn’t want to know a bit more about the fundamental structure of the universe?

In this 4 DVD presentation, Nassim will take you on a journey through humanity’s evolution, exposing the changes necessary to produce an all-encompassing Unified Physics; a unification of not only the four forces of nature, but also evolution and the occurrence of consciousness.

Holy crap! This guy has solved it all! Forget simply unifying all of physics, he’s solved the mysteries of consciousness too. One wonders why he doesn’t have a few Nobel prizes yet…

Demonstrating the parallels between this theory and ancient codes found in documents and monuments, Nassim weaves a tale which may prove to be one of the most important discoveries of our time.

Duh, of course…I always forget that ‘the ancients’ knew everything but, unfortunately, hid in all in coded documents, artwork, and monuments. Jerks. Luckily, Nassim is here to help us out.

Have you ever wondered why those science classes were at all important?

Okay, you’ll notice in his series of questions that they start off pretty fine—-I mean, I’m certainly disappointed in my high school science education (is that what he means by ‘those science classes’?). My high school science teacher pretty much ruined my desire to take any more science credits by making us practice stippling over and over and don’t you DARE make little tails on your stipples or no one will take your paper seriously because you have one, two, homg THREE tails in your drawing composed of tiny little pencil dots!!! ahem…

Were you ever curious about the mysteries of Ancient Egypt?

Who doesn’t like learning about Ancient Egypt! However, when someone brings them into a conversation about unified field theories, my woometer starts to kick in.

What about the modern mystery of crop circles?

KABLAMO! My woometer is now on fire. Smells like stupid.

These DVDs explore all of the above as well as the following ::

DVD 1 :: The Search for the Fundamental Pattern Dimensions of Geometry, Chemistry, Scaling Law, Biology, Principle of Unification, Pyramids

DVD 2 :: From Micro to Macro – Unifying the Field Geometry, Structure of the Vacuum, Crop circles

There it is again! Crop circles? And do I smell pyramid power in DVD 1?

DVD 3 :: Everything is a Black “Whole” Ancient Egypt, Archeology, Black Wholes/White Wholes

DVD 4 :: Unlocking the Mystery – The Future is in Our Hands Bible, The Arc of the Covenant, Knights Templar, Emmanuel’s Tomb, Kabbalah, Tree of Life Decoded

Nice. My woometer has completely melted. The Bible, The Arc, Knights Templar…I bet there’s more knowledge to be decoded here. What I thought was a woo sandwich has turned out to be a woo cornucopia. One detail that caught my eye was that he’s referred to as a “scientist” on the cover artwork. Um, scientist? What kind? Usually, actual scientists call themselves physicists, biologists, astronomers, astrophysicists, geologists, or ya know…whatever field they specialize in. I guess it’s pretty clear this guy doesn’t stick to being an expert in just one field. He must be a whateverologist.

As early as 9 years old, Nassim was already developing the basis for a unified hyperdimensional theory of matter and energy, which he eventually called the “Holofractographic Universe.”

Nice, I have fond memories of making Spirographs too.

Okay, maybe you might be thinking “Jeeze, Sara. Why are you picking on poor Nassim and his lame DVD? Why do you care?” Well, turns out that The Resonance Project doesn’t just sell his lame DVD, where worst case scenario might be someone wasting $84.00 USD. No, sir—-The Resonance Project offers workshops where you can become a certified “Emissary” and teach Nassim’s lame seminars to others. Worst case scenario for this is blowing $475 and doing your part to help grow a cult. This requires a special sort of face-palm:

Meditation techniques based on this knowledge will also be offered as an invaluable tool to aid in further integration, as you learn how to more effectively tap into the vacuum energy and the curvature of space and time and connect to your own personal singularity.

Go here if you like to barf

Woo begets woo. It didn’t take long to get from an innocent facebook post about going to art exhibit to the boatload of pseudoscience that is The Resonance Project. I’m probably the kind of gal who would avoid going to a place called The Temple of Visions (only out of politeness to its patrons who probably wouldn’t appreciate my big dark skeptical aura effing up their new age experience), but I know plenty of people who might check it out. And if they decided to check out what other events the venue hosts, they’d find, like I did, Resonance Emissary Jamie Janover.

Personally, I would never fall prey to Jamie’s proselytizing—-not because of my skepticism, but because I have a strict policy of not taking anyone seriously if their website uses the font Copperplate Gothic Bold.

Does God have a Future?
A Great Debate Filmed by ABC’s Nightline

Today, we attended a debate between Michael Shermer and Sam Harris vs. Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston. The debate was “Does God have a Future?” and will air on ABC Nightline on March 23rd. It was splendid  to see Shermer and Harris speak again, after each giving their own great talk, last month, at TED. Chopra was predictably absurd, dishing out his brand of woo juice cocktail—-new age pseudoscience post-modernism blended with faux quantum physics. Jean Houston, whom I’ve never heard of, was a complete embarrassment. I don’t recall anything relevant in her boring anecdotes.

I had a chance to ask a question, so I came up with one for Deepak. He had mentioned “deeper ways of knowing” and gave the impression that this was through intuition and repeatedly referred to “the subjective”. So I asked, “Without the objective scientifiic method, how can we distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true?” Deepak answered this by saying he would answer my question, but that he didn’t want to answer any more questions after that. He then proceeded to not answer my question by doing his little Chopra word dance of nothingness.

Now, I know correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but if you want to interpret Chopra’s actions as being totally scared off by my question of skeptical awesomeness, I have no problem with that whatsoever!

Skepticism Through Manga

The graphic novel market is dominated by sales of manga; the form of comic book made popular by its animated counterpart, anime. Canadian manga creator, Sara E. Mayhew, was featured by the country’s prestigious graphic arts magazine, Applied Arts, as “new talent commanding our attention”. And, indeed, that was what she received—the attention of TED, the annual idea conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers, who chose Sara to become part of their new fellowship program and attend the TED conference as a 2009 TED Fellow.

Her “idea worth spreading”? Promoting skepticism and passing on her passion for science through storytelling. Manga is the platform she has chosen to tell her stories. In her talk, Skepticism Through Manga, you’ll be introduced to this powerful storytelling medium and to the worlds and characters she has created to inspire readers to embrace evidence-based thinking.

Yes, I’ll be speaking at the Center For Inquiry on March 31st at 8pm in Hollywood! This is CFI’s monthly science cafe, “Cafe Inquiry“. It’s a free event so come on by and hang out with other skeptics, humanists, and science lovers. I’ll be opening the evening with my talk and then a discussion follows.

FREE skeptics talk, available refreshments, open bookstore, AND a geekalicious Canadian mangaka? HOMGosh~tell everyone!

Attending TEDActive was an amazing experience. Just seeing the TED2010 simulcast alone is great—-12 sessions of TED talks in four days. Then there’s the swag; the TED gift bags and the surprise giveaway of Google Nexus One phones for the 1500 Long Beach attendees, 500 TEDActive attendees, and all the TED Associate members. One of the experiences I’m most grateful for in my TEDActive ’10 attendance was the opportunity to give a 3min TEDYou talk, Friday morning, to an audience of a few hundred of my fellow TEDActive members.

I was second to speak, which meant following Sebastian Wernicke‘s amazing talk on how to make an amazing TED talk. My 3mins was dedicated to speaking about why I think the world needs more skepticism and how I’d like to promote that idea through manga storytelling.

What I believe is an idea worth spreading can be summed up in one of my favourite Sagan quotes “For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring”. The theme of this year’s TED conference was “What the World Needs Now”. My pick for what the world needs is more skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy.

If we want to distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true, we will learn to be good skeptics.

TED is a conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. What speaks to me the most about the TED speakers is not only that they are at the leading edge of their field, but that their work is driven by a passion to somehow make the world a better place. In my own work, I’m motivated to improve my writing and art from a technical perspective, but my major focus is often to establish what my own idea worth spreading is.

Manga is a hugely popular form of sequential art. Some of the things most appealing to me about it is the diverse readership (people of all ages read manga, including a high percentage of female readers) and the unconstrained storytelling—-you can tell all kinds of stories using manga. My goal in my work as a mangaka is to create stories that show the value in critical thinking and the dangers of mixing power and ignorance. I want to create characters that are good role models as skeptics—-overcoming problems using knowledge and evidence-based thinking.

Legend of the Ztarr is the story I’m writing with these ideas in mind. Currently, the first chapter is available online. My goal for 2010 is to get the series picked up my one of the major US manga publishers.

I had a great time getting my 3mins in front of the amazing TEDActive crowd. It isn’t often I get to talk to others about my work and my passion behind it. My fellow TED 2009 Fellowship member, Tino Chow, posted about my TEDYou talk on his blog, where he covered the TED simulcast.

©tinochow