The Third Reich was a large, complex, modern state with a thriving mass media, diverse population, and fruitful trade and cultural links with the rest of the world. The ideology behind National Socialism drew upon well-established strands of nationalist and racialist thinking as well as centuries-old anti-Semitism, and the Nazi Party and its government used cutting-edge technology and techniques to give these ideas the broadest possible audience and appeal. All too often, this baffling web of networks, policies and overlapping interest groups, which changed constantly over the twelve years the Third Reich lasted, gets reduced to the ideas and actions of just one man. From the top of the ivory tower, to the very bottom of the bottom half of the internet, this talk will explore what Adolf Hitler means to all of us, and how our obsession with him is sucking the meaning out one of our most potent historical symbols: the Holocaust.

Victoria Stiles is a final-year PhD student at the University of Nottingham, as well as a member of Greater Manchester Skeptics. She is writing a thesis called "Reading the Enemy: German Publications on British Imperialism, 1933 - 1945" and occasionally blogs about her sources and what it means to "do" history at tattyjackets.blogspot.com.

Hydesville. 1848. Two sisters stumble across something otherworldly: an ability to communicate with the dearly departed. The Fox Sisters took their séance on tour and are the people most responsible for the Medium and Spiritualist craze that continues to this day.
What tricks and deceits did the Fox Sisters employ and what of the Ouija Board or Spirit Slates that came later? What about levitating objects and people? Mumler’s Spirit Photography? Ectoplasm? What of the last woman imprisoned for Witchcraft- if indeed she was?
Edinburgh Skeptics founder Ash Pryce brings a collection of tools and toys and will recreate elements of a Victorian style séance and reveal just how they did it. As a group you will take part in a theatrical experiment- just how convincing were those Victorian tricks and will they still convince today?

Featuring flying tables, Ouija Boards and ectoplasm, this popular show attracted regular full houses during the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe.

Ashley James Pryce (or simply Ash) returns to Manchester for the concluding part of his psychic trickery trilogy!

Whereas research into the historical origins of Christianity began in Germany in the nineteenth century, and revealed the Roman political origins of much of Christianity and the Bible, serious historical research into the origins of Islam is of much more recent date.
Guy Otten will present a talk outlining what recent scientific and scholarly research has to say about how Islam came about, and what reliable evidence there is for what was happening in the Middle east around the time of Islam’s foundations. He will summarise the evidence from the fields of history, linguistics, archaeology, textual analysis, numismatics, etc.
Whilst rejecting Islamophobia, the irrational fear of and prejudice against Islam and Muslims, he will explore the rational basis for criticism of Islam.
Guy Otten is Chair of Greater Manchester Humanists; he is a Member of the Board of Trustee of the British Humanist Association; he is a BHA accredited Humanist Celebrant; he is currently writing a book on the origins of Islam.

Ever since records began, in every known society, a substantial proportion of the population has reported unusual experiences many of which we would today label as “paranormal”. Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims; or else belief in and experience of ostensibly paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of psychological factors. This presentation will provide an introduction to the sub-discipline of anomalistic psychology, which may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, in an attempt to provide non-paranormal explanations in terms of known psychological and physical factors. This approach will be illustrated with examples relating to a range of ostensibly paranormal phenomena.
Biog: Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as being a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association and a member of the Scientific and Professional Advisory Board of the British False Memory Society. He has published over 100 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology. His main area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims, as well as writing for the Guardian and The Skeptic magazine which, for more than a decade, he also edited. His most recent books are Why Statues Weep: The Best of The Skeptic, co-edited with Wendy Grossman (2010, London: The Philosophy Press) and Anomalistic Psychology, co-authored with Nicola Holt, Christine Simmonds-Moore, and David Luke (2012, London: Palgrave). His next book (co-authored with Anna Stone) is Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience (November 2013, London: Palgrave). Follow him on Twitter: @chriscfrench