John Edward a fake?

[emjem]

I've been watching this guy now for about a month and I don't know if he's a fake or the real thing.

Maybe 90% of what he knows about people could be gleaned from the internet and other research. Maybe another 5% from good guessing -- but that last 5% is blowing my mind.

What do you all think?

 

[MajesticMoose]

who is john edwards??

m00se

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

My father's name was John Edward Malcom and he was a fake. Don't trust em!


btw... who's John Edwards?

 

[BDawg]

One of our senators (NC) is John Edwards.

 

[kranky]

He's the host of the show "Crossing Over" on the Sci-Fi channel Sundays 8-9 and Monday-Thursday 11PM-12 (eastern time).

I don't understand how he does it, but I do think he's the real deal. And at the same time, I don't think it's possible. I agree, it blows your mind.

 

[cyclistca]

Well according to Yahoo he's either

1.Psychic talk show host

2.US senator from NC

I bet would be on the second one.

My second guess after reading the thread again would be the first one .

Spooky link to TV show :Q

 

[cxim]

ever met anyone who could really talk to the dead ?

Why do you think this is setup like a 'side show' ????

Really talk to the dead ? why not hitler or jesus or muhammed or cirano or george washington or alfred the great or julius c or ben franklin or whoever ?

 

[emjem]

John Edward

 

[emjem]

It's not John EdwardS. It's Edward, like singular.

 

[AlphaVMS]

I think he's a fake. I'd like to see him try to get past James Randi.

What I want to know is why is this non-SF show on SciFi? Shouldn't it be on Lifetime or E! or some other channel?

There's been some other non-SF shows on SciFi as well. I think they need to get a new programming director.

For example, this past week one of the movies they showed was "Red Scorpion" with Dolph Lundgren. That was definitely not SF.

Another move shown in the past six months was "Cabin by the Lake". I would have thought the cable company moved the channels but for the little SF bug in the lower corner.

 

[Jmman]

Actually, I just read an article in Time magazine I believe, discussing the John Edward's phenomenon. From the info given in the article, I have to think fake, fake, fake......

Like the old quote, "there's a sucker born every minute"....

 

[Windogg]

All these people are the same. Just a PT Barnum wannabe.

"Do you know a...... Bob?"

"YES, YES!!! My uncle's best friend's proctologists's auto mechanic's second cousin's mother's dog groomer's father's 3rd brother is Bob!!!"

"HALLELUJAH WE HAVE A CONNECTION!!!! $500 please"

Windogg

 

[kranky]

Windogg, have you ever seen the show? If not, check it out once and see. Sometimes he'll say something like &quot;There's a connection between your <some relative> and <something>.&quot; The person denies it. Edward will insist, and the person denies it again.

Then they'll have a follow-up interview where the person will say they went home later and talked to somebody else who revealed the information was true. At the time they were doing the show, the person didn't even know Edward was right.

 

[Yo Ma Ma]

LOL Windogg

 

[Jmman]

Don't fall for the hype, Kranky. There was an interesting article in Time magazine a couple of weeks ago, if I remember correctly. Some things that are not apparent from watching the show:

They hand out cards before the show asking about family history, stats, etc...this process goes on for an hour before every show......
The evidently have the studio miked so they can listen to people's conversations ahead of time....and what do you think they are talking about...yep, you got it....their loved ones....
They evidently edit out the program whenever he doesn't get something correct.

Now what does that make you think about the validity of his show? Scam.....

 

[Isla]

I have experienced some very strange things myself, so I would not say that he was 'fake'...

I believe that people do have extra senses (just like animals do) but that some of us use them more than others.

I have a relatively high degree of what you might call Extra Sensory Perception because I have had to compensate for poor vision. I pay closer attention to subtle things than most people do. It's not a matter of being psychic so much as a matter of being more aware of your surroundings.

However, I would never do what he does for 2 reasons:

A) The times I have had &quot;contact&quot; freaked me out. I would never seek those experiences out. Even friendly ghosts/spirits/whatever make me extremely nervous.

B) I think the temptation to tell people what they want to hear is too strong. You would have to have such a high level of personal integrity it isn't funny.

I do think that he is different from your run of the mill scam artists you see on infomercials. Like myself, I think he really does have a measure of ESP. But unlike me, he seems comfortable making that his public identity. I mean, I could see myself assisting in a police investigation if truly necessary, but I wouldn't want to. Being 'psychic' is extremely painful and draining emotionally.

BTW... you don't have to believe me when I say I have a relatively high level of ESP. People who know me personally are aware of my strong intuition and that's all the validation I need.

 

[shifrbv]

I remember watching a documentary some time ago (maybe 5 or 6 years ago) on the Discovery Channel which had a group of 8 psychics which some scientists were conducting a test on to determine if they really did have any abilties.

They did interviews with all of them before the experiment and I remember John Edwards being one of the members of the group and him talking about how he loved ballroom dancing and how he discovered his ability at an early age. (Don't ask me how I remembered that! ).

Anyway, they had 1 woman sitting in a room blindfolded with the psychic blindfolded on the other side of the room with a high partition inbetween. The psychic was only allowed to ask yes or no questions to the woman. The woman could only answer yes or no, that's it.

At the end of the experiment, all 8 psychics produced the same list of dead relatives/friends this woman had lost (a list of about 5 names which was impressive) in the recent past as well as included her pet dog which had passed shortly before the documentary was filmed. It was pretty weird.

I've seen the show on Scifi and it does seem contrived at times. Not sure about that, but from that earlier documentary and my own experiences, I believe that some people do have these abilities.

 

[classy]

All I'll say is that there is a Spirit World. People are not just flesh and bones.

 

[Spoooon]

They had a show on 20/20 about him. Basically, he's fake. They show how when he guesses wrong, people don't call him on it but kind of help him to the right guesses. He's just good at reading people. He makes like an astounding guess 1 out of 10 times or so, but he's wrong more often than not. I imagine the show on Sci Fi can be edited to where it looks like he's the real deal(I've never seen the show though). You remember that street magician guy? His specials looked amazing, but every trick was fake.

edit: I just remembered, in some cases the people he talked to would agree to things that weren't true.

John: Did your grandfather give you a watch?
feeble minded audience member put on the spot: Um, I don't think... wait a minute! He did! You are so amazing blah blah blah.

He put people on the spot, and that subconsciously forces people to want to please him.

 

[emjem]

Spoooon

If you will take the time to watch JE, and know enough about these things, you will see that he is not doing &quot;cold reading&quot; as proposed by Randi, IE, etc. He comes up with very specific information about very specific people. It is not a guessing game. He knows!

I practiced magic as a hobby for a great number of years, and I feel like I know how to do just about every magic trick there is. I started this thread because he is getting data about people and events in some way that I do not understand. Magic or esp, I want to know.

As I said, about 5% of what JE does blows my mind. Jmman\Time has offered up some food for thought. I will watch the show some more to see if planted mics would do the trick.

Unfortunately I am a skeptic. And I am as sketical of Randi and his BS money making exposes as I am JE's ability to talk to spirits. That is, I expect the debunkers to offer up just as much proof as we expect from JE.

Jmman, which issue of Time was that article in?

 

[Jmman]

Do I believe that psychic ability is possible? Yep! Do I believe he is full of it? Yep!! They explain exactly how he possibly does it in the Time article. Time issue of March 5, 2001.. page 52...by re-reading the article, many times when people would nod their heads in agreement, they would copy that and replay it over and over, even when he completely missed the mark....careful editing and by collecting information for up to an hour before the show takes a lot of the mystery out of it.....evidently, Inside Edition is also going to televise a show debunking the Edwards phenomenon.....why do you think psychics tell you up front it is for entertainment purposes only?

 

[emjem]

Inside Edition already did a show on him, but it was, as usual, poorly done. They paid Randi to explain &quot;cold reading&quot; and then spliced a series of clips together with JE asking the same questions over and over to draw people out. That was really a hack job on JE because he does not do cold reading. They were as liberal with video editing as he may be.

If you study him you will see that he does not ask a general question to draw people out and then follow their head nods along a path (cold reading).

It appears that he is able to call out a &quot;spirits&quot; name, like Jason, to a specific guest in the audience. Then to say &quot;did he die from a heart problem?&quot; The answer from the guest is affirmative about 90% of the time (of what is shown to us). By hook or crook he has knowledge BEFORE he reads someone.

JE could appear to do that with editing (trick video), or he could have pre knowledge from death records, questioneres, hidden mics, whatever.

Thanx Jmman for the heads up on Time. I'll get it.

 

[emjem]

For those interested:

TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 2001

TONIGHT'S SHOW: CNN Larry King

Psychics and skeptics, featuring TV host John Edward

His claims that he talks to the &quot;other side&quot; has raised eyebrows and questions from skeptics. Tonight, TV Host John Edward, renowned psychic Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh and others!

Airs 9pm ET (rerun at 12am and 3am ET