There is a lot to admire about John Edward. He is an excellent public speaker and an entertaining storyteller. On stage he is charismatic, warm and charming, brimming with New York bravado and that disarming American bluntness.
But I still don't believe that he can talk to the dead.
Here is some of what I saw and heard on the night:
John Edward: "I'm getting a name … [says common given name] … an older gentleman, he's pointing at his head ..."
One lady starts to wail and sway with emotion. Her grief is strong and genuine.
Distraught woman: "That was my husband! He died of a brain tumour!"
(Audience gasps.)
John Edward: "You own horses?"
Audience member: "Um … no ..."
John Edward: "Because I can hear horses."
Audience member: "I don't have any horses but ... I used to ride when I was young."
(Audience gasps.)
Now, during the whole two hours of the show I didn't hear anything like, "Your favourite toy when you were young was a red plastic cat," or, "Your mother really likes upside-down pineapple cake," and especially, "The money is hidden in the box where your husband kept his hemorrhoid cream." That last one especially would have made me gasp.
Instead it was mostly cloudy I'm-not-quite-sure-what-they’re-trying-to-tell-me guessing games (which the audience member would then helpfully provide the answers to) and vague intimations like "a sudden death", or "money problems" or "something to do with the torso -- something was wrong with that area," which covered heart disease, loss of limb, respiratory disorders, cancer in that area … pretty much a whole swathe of things that could potentially cause that unfortunate condition known as death.
Guesses were hedged with numbers ("7" could mean a day of the month or a month), common given names ("Sam" or "Samantha", "Phil", "Simon") and even convenient generational categories. If he saw a figure above you, that would indicate anyone of your parents' generation and upwards; uncles, aunts, grandparents, or just general father or mother figures. A figure below was a child, perhaps yours, or a niece or nephew, or the child of one of your peers. Someone beside you might be a sibling or a cousin. And so on.
Many of the concluding messages from the dear departed were of the bland, "Go on with your life, I am at peace," one-size-fits-all variety. Very often, they would garnish this with, "You have to make a big decision, and you know what you really want to do," or, "Things will get better."
I still wasn't convinced.
Look, humans are not that different. Life, unless you have recently been adopted by Brad and Angelina, is a constant struggle. Most people in Western society are unhappy with their lives and seeking a change. Most people have something they are running from or toward. Most people have money or relationship or family or business problems. Most people know someone who has died of cancer (a popular one with Edward) or heart disease.
In fact, most people know someone who has died, full stop.
It is unlikely that John Edward will ever pass on a message that says, "Help! I am so unhappy and tiny red men are poking me with sharp forks," or "Man, I'm bored," or "Lois, I still hate you."
It's just not good for business.
In one situation which looked like it might get a little sticky, a woman at the back revealed that her husband had committed suicide, and she had never seen it coming. She wanted to know why he did it.
Edward cleverly extricated himself by saying he couldn't see or hear her husband, but in the case of suicides, people who were unhappy in life seldom found the answers or peace they were looking for in death.
He then went off on a convenient (I thought) tangent by asking if the lady was experiencing digestive problems, and of course she was. She was visibly overweight, and I do not think it took any stretch of the imagination or psychic ability to gather that she might be having problems with her digestion. He told her that he was feeling warning signals about her health, and that she should take care of herself, before moving on to another member of the audience. To give him credit, he did all this in a sensitive and compassionate manner.
Some people may accuse me of being cold and unsympathetic, and only seeing what I want to see (although that works both ways, doesn't it?) They may point out that Edward provides a useful service in helping people with the grieving process, so that they can move on from their loss and gain closure.
This is all very well, but I have a niggling feeling that if people are paying money to see him do something, (i.e., communicate with the dead) and he's not doing it, then something's not quite right.
When I was in that audience, as an impassive observer who hadn't paid large sums of money to see a man with professed supernatural abilities, as someone without any hope or desire to contact a lost loved one, I saw nothing that convinced me of John Edward's ability to speak with the dead.
Instead I saw a smart, fast-talking man who had been doing this for a long time, banking on the commonality of human experience, making intuitive guesses that were right or wrong on a fairly even basis, but cleverly distracting and sidestepping and adapting and refining his "facts" until he found something that fit.
I left the seminar with no new answers about what happens when we die, just a faint feeling of disappointment in my fellow human beings. I still don't know if we will see those we love, after we take that last breath. I certainly hope so.
Death and what follows will always be a minefield of questions and emotions, and we could be locked in a debate about it till kingdom come (which would at least prove, once and for all, who is right). Regardless, please remember that this is just my personal viewpoint, I am entitled to it just as you are entitled to yours, and if you would like to present yours in the comments, you are very welcome to do so.
I would like to end with some paragraphs from the book, Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. Dr Victor Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and German concentration camp survivor.
I find some comfort in the words below, and I hope you will too.
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing — which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."1
1 From an excerpt of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. Source: book excerpt posted to the PBS website at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/frankl.html. Found 1 December 2008. I first read about Victor Frankl in the Ask Bossy blog post, Confession of a "born loser", which first appeared on 24 November 2008.