BY BARBARA ARNSTEIN
John Edward, a charismatic native Long Islander, has hosted two internationally syndicated television shows, authored New York Times bestsellers and frequently speaks to large audiences worldwide at lecture halls and through radio shows and televised appearances.
At every appearance, he apparently demonstrates a talent for rapidly accessing random details about the lives of various individuals present in the room, or on the phone that he has never met before, such as dates that are important to them, the names of some of their relatives, or how some of them passed on. As he describes visual and auditory details, typically some, but usually not all of them, are verified as accurate by the people he is “reading.” The controversy surrounding his ongoing career concerns his claim that all such information he accesses originates from what he called in a recent phone interview, “indirect voice mediumship.” In other words, communicating with the dead.
Edward will bring his talents to the Colden Auditorium for a sold out show 7 p.m. May 12.
Helen LeGotti, who apparently regularly demonstrates a similar ability known as “psychometry,” (believed to be the ability to pick up mental impressions about people’s lives from objects they regularly wear or touch), which she says has nothing to do with the deceased, recently appeared at the Flushing library. She asked her audience to lend her such objects (for the record, something Edward never does) and, as she held them, one by one, relayed a number of random images and some accurate pieces of information. In one instance, she held a bracelet, saying that she got “the names Joseph and Lawrence” and the bracelet’s owner later confirmed that the name of the person who gave it to her was Joseph Lawrence.
John Edward’s apparent ability was thoroughly tested and the results were documented in a book published in 2002 called “The Afterlife Experiments” by Gary E. Schwartz (with William Simon). Dr. Schwartz, who received his doctorate from Harvard and became a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona, states, “When people ask us, ‘Are you advocating survival of consciousness?’ we say, ‘No, what we are advocating is survival of consciousness research. It’s true to say that the experiments have brought forth some remarkable events. So many, in fact, that to dismiss them is to commit the ultimate scientific sin.” In his 2006 book, “Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality,” Dr. Dean Radin (who served as a scientist on a program investigating psychic phenomena for the U.S. government) theorized that “psychic experiences are momentary glimpses of the entangled fabric of reality” and, on the following page, that “a few gifted individuals are able to direct their conscious awareness at will to surf through the entangled unconscious.”
Edward believes that he owes his career (and significant times in his life) to the lifelong help of a team of “spirit guides,” disembodied energies that work with him by showing him symbolic mental images (and occasionally conveying sounds) relating to those he “reads,” which he says he must interpret, and sometimes interprets incorrectly. He also believes that every individual can potentially access such a team of helpers.
“I recently did a private reading where information came through about a family member that had been murdered,” he said in the phone interview. “I got information that the family didn’t know but the police did. People like myself have access to information at a higher level but it’s not like we’re special. We’ve just been paying attention longer.”
At every appearance, he apparently demonstrates a talent for rapidly accessing random details about the lives of various individuals present in the room, or on the phone that he has never met before, such as dates that are important to them, the names of some of their relatives, or how some of them passed on. As he describes visual and auditory details, typically some, but usually not all of them, are verified as accurate by the people he is “reading.” The controversy surrounding his ongoing career concerns his claim that all such information he accesses originates from what he called in a recent phone interview, “indirect voice mediumship.” In other words, communicating with the dead.
Edward will bring his talents to the Colden Auditorium for a sold out show 7 p.m. May 12.
Helen LeGotti, who apparently regularly demonstrates a similar ability known as “psychometry,” (believed to be the ability to pick up mental impressions about people’s lives from objects they regularly wear or touch), which she says has nothing to do with the deceased, recently appeared at the Flushing library. She asked her audience to lend her such objects (for the record, something Edward never does) and, as she held them, one by one, relayed a number of random images and some accurate pieces of information. In one instance, she held a bracelet, saying that she got “the names Joseph and Lawrence” and the bracelet’s owner later confirmed that the name of the person who gave it to her was Joseph Lawrence.
John Edward’s apparent ability was thoroughly tested and the results were documented in a book published in 2002 called “The Afterlife Experiments” by Gary E. Schwartz (with William Simon). Dr. Schwartz, who received his doctorate from Harvard and became a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona, states, “When people ask us, ‘Are you advocating survival of consciousness?’ we say, ‘No, what we are advocating is survival of consciousness research. It’s true to say that the experiments have brought forth some remarkable events. So many, in fact, that to dismiss them is to commit the ultimate scientific sin.” In his 2006 book, “Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality,” Dr. Dean Radin (who served as a scientist on a program investigating psychic phenomena for the U.S. government) theorized that “psychic experiences are momentary glimpses of the entangled fabric of reality” and, on the following page, that “a few gifted individuals are able to direct their conscious awareness at will to surf through the entangled unconscious.”
Edward believes that he owes his career (and significant times in his life) to the lifelong help of a team of “spirit guides,” disembodied energies that work with him by showing him symbolic mental images (and occasionally conveying sounds) relating to those he “reads,” which he says he must interpret, and sometimes interprets incorrectly. He also believes that every individual can potentially access such a team of helpers.
“I recently did a private reading where information came through about a family member that had been murdered,” he said in the phone interview. “I got information that the family didn’t know but the police did. People like myself have access to information at a higher level but it’s not like we’re special. We’ve just been paying attention longer.”
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