The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

ALSO INSIDE SKEPTIC

in this issue

Halloween

• using makeup to make a Frankenstein-style monster
• the ancient history of Halloween customs
• how different cultures create ghosts, and how they fill widely different needs for the people who invented them
• how Halloween helps us deal with fear
• the Séance: tricks a medium uses to make it look like they are talking to the dead
• ghosts don’t leave fingerprints but people pretending to be ghosts do! Find the culprit behind the broken dishes or rattling chains.
• five basic steps to setting the proper mood for haunting a house and creating a good scare
• do-it-yourself creepy alien autopsy party cake.

introduction

In this issue of Junior Skeptic, Pat Linse looks at what’s behind Halloween traditions, and what purpose ghosts serve. Learn some tricks psychics use when they seem to talk to the dead and how to detect ghostly fingerprints. How does Halloween fun help us learn to deal with fear? Let’s find out!

contributors

Pat Linse wrote the articles for this issue except where indicated otherwise. Pat is one of the founders of the Skeptics Society and a creator of both Skeptic and Junior Skeptic magazine. She illustrates, writes, and edits Junior Skeptic.

on the cover

Teenage Girl Creates a Monster…Again!

Frankenstein, one of the world’s most famous horror stories, was written by 19 year-old Mary Shelley, so we thought it would be fun to let another teen turn our German exchange student Rouven Schaefer into a monster for the cover of this issue of Jr. Skeptic. Makeup artist Shoshana Cohen was assisted by Devin Ziel.