When I was in Chapters yesterday I noticed Crossing Over 'star' John Edwards has a new book out. Well, actually I dunno if it's new, lemme check... right, August 2005.
John Edward, if you didn't know, is a self-professed 'psychic medium' who gathers a bunch of people into a studio gallery and films a network TV show where he channels messages from audience members' loved ones. As you can imagine, this makes people go a little bit crazy. They clamour to get on the show, desperate to make contact with the dearly departed, convinced that Edward, who claims psychic experiences and abilities since childhood, is their one hope for extracting a few final, vague words from Uncle Phil. Well, I haven't read the book but I've seen the show a few times, and I have this say:
What a c*nt.
John Edward may or may not have had, or thinks he had, paranormal experiences as a child, but I do know this: when it comes to Crossing Over he's no more a psychic than my ass, which channels the dead about as well as it emits turtle doves. Edward is a cold reader, and not a particularly good one at that.
Cold reading (Wikipedia article) is a technique used by so-called paranormal mediums that makes them seem to know more than they do. It's that old fortuneteller's trick where she covers a broad scope of info quickly, some of which probably applies to you, and then refines it according to your reactions. The result seems like mystical revelation, but people don't realize how much they give away by unconscious expression or reaction, and that effective cold readers are highly skilled in reading body language. With a little background reading on the technique, you can watch Edward's show and see how he does it, never mind the allegations of cheating, creative editing and all the people who claim he got it wrong.
A couple of things about this leave me shaking my head:
1. Despite such techniques having been around for more than a century, there are still presumably intelligent people today gullible enough (or desperate enough) to believe Edward really is channeling dead people. And not eloquent ones, either - they only give Edward obscure clues which he must use to canvas the audience, hoping for a response. Come now, you're dead and coming through on network TV. Don't you know your own name? And there are so many more skilled practitioners out there too. Derren Brown pulls some shit without any apparent reading at all, and even he admits there's nothing paranormal going on; just psychology. I say if you're so easily impressed, be impressed by someone with skills rather than a half-assed sideshow medium whose biggest talent is looking America square in the eye and lying through his teeth.
2. Seriously, what a c*nt. That's a hell of a way to take people's money. Still, they're foolish enough to part with it, but if there really is an afterlife, Edward is going to be burning in it. That's just mean. He must be laughing on the way down to the bank, thinking "You idiots, don't you know I'm cold-reading your dumb asses! Google it!" He must have no conscience at all.
No conscience, but some big balls. I'd like to do a private reading with Edward, whereby I channel my boot squarely up his fraudulent ass. Bet I could cold read his body language after that.
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