John Edward - Utter shite

I caught a number of episodes of 'Crossing Over, with John Edward' today. I noticed some things. All quotes are paraphrased.

1. He gives himself this huge disclaimer at the beginning of every session, covering all possibilities, from 'I may get the names slightly wrong, but I will always get the initial or first part of the name right', to 'I don't always interpret the information correctly - just think about it', this gives him the perfect 'out' - blaming his misses on the recipients rather than himself.

2. He never, ever, tells people things. He always asks. 'I have a male father figure - has your father passed on, or your father in law, perhaps an uncle?' From their answer to that question, he will then delve for further information. Invariably, the recipient will always respond with 'Yes! My Uncle died of ...' which gives him further information to work with.

3. When asking, the only specific information will be a gender. He never gives an age or a description - only a gender and an age range, such as 'A male is coming through above you ('above you' means 'older')' and once the recipient has given some form of confirmation, he then goes on to draw out further information.

4. He is always vague, never specific. Most of the information he imparts is the general ordinary stuff you can glean about someone within minutes of meeting them. None of the 'specific' information imparted is actually imparted by him, it is imparted by the recipient, in response to his prompting. 'Why is the number eleven important?' 'Who had a pet cat or dog?' 'What happened on an anniversay?'

5. He talks very quickly, and imparts dozens of snippets of vague information in thirty or so seconds, clearly changing tracks depending on the physical reaction of the recipient. Watch him closely as he does this, and you can see him staring at the recipient as he speaks, you can see him change the information he is giving as the recipient responds. Something that started as a 'Father' will become a 'Father Figure', for instance.

6. Whenever a miss appears to be happening, he will jump to the first recipient in the audience that reacts to whatever he is saying - even if at the time he is saying it, he is talking to someone else. Purportedly, this is because a new 'ghost' has butted in. Several times over the six episodes I caught, he used this tactic. The first recipient is being incredibly physically and emotionally unresponsive to a piece of information, but he notices another audience member reacting positively and jumps on them without pause.

7. The television program is obviously carefully edited - there is not a single hint of a miss in the aired show. In fact, there is a disclaimer directly before the credits roll, explaining that the program is made for entertainment purposes only, making mention of the producers and editors working on it together after filming.

8. The recipients not only fill in most of the information there, on stage, but in the clips after the performance, they again fill in even more themselves after being told to 'go and think about it'. This after being carefully told, that all information imparted to them is correct, even if it is from a fairly distant family member or family friend. This works because almost everyone will have some distant family or friend who will fit the information given.



I hate Mediums/Psychics/Clairvoyants/etc anyway, but this man is almost up at the top of my list with Sylvia Browne as my most hated practitioner.

In Sylvia's case, I have seen instances on 'The Montel Williams Show' (where, luckily, she was retired from a while ago) where she has imparted horrific information to grieving families, that later turned out to not only be false, but in about as clear a contradiction to actual events and facts as it is possible to be. It is both disgusting and confusing that she has stayed in favor for as long as she has.

So far, at least, John Edward has simply earned my dislike. I suppose if I find out he has done anything similar to Sylvia Browne, he will actually make a dead on tie with her in my hatred.

No, I am not open to anything even slightly like psychic powers. In my estimation, something like that is pure fantasy. It is my belief that people prefessing to have psychic powers are either self-deluded or con-artists.