Psychic pretender pleases sceptics

- 1 May 1987

Former Star news editor Josh Easby has collected . an award for journalistic excellence for his “psychic duel” with an Auckland clairvoyant.

The newly formed New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, also known as the New Zealand Sceptics, has honoured Easby for two articles he wrote in 1983 challenging self-professed “psychic” Don Dewson.

In a “psychic duel” with Mr Dewson before a lunchtime audience at an Auckland club, Easby, merely simulated “clairvoyancy,” but was voted the true psychic. 7

The committee describes Fasby’s story on psychics and clairvoyants as “outstanding.”

The committee’s “Bent Spoon” award for journalistic gullibility has gone to the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly for an article which claimed that a method of “radiating power and energy” from the palm of the hand could cure multiple sclerosis, cancer, alcoholism and a number of other ills.

The awards will be presented at the group’s first annual convention in Dunedin on Saturday.