from pennlive.com
John Edward
By Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 14, 2015 at 10:00 AM, updated May 14, 2015 at 12:59 PM
York's Strand-Capitol will host an event withpsychic medium John Edward on May 20.
Edward is best known for the series "Crossing Over With John Edward" on the Sci-Fi Channel, as well as We TV series, "John Edward Cross Country." His upcoming York appearance will include reading with members of the audience.
I spoke with Edward by phone and asked him to try and explain some of the nuts and bolts of how a medium connects with the spirit world and how he got his start in such an unorthodox career.
Can you describe for us what exactly your abilities are? 'Psychic' is such a vague term.
"Well as a psychic medium, I have the ability to see into a person's life and see where there energies are. The medium part is the ability to connect with people who have passed over, and see their connections to friends here. The first part is talking about the now and the future, and the second part is spirit communication. Talking to dead people, basically."
So you can't see the future, read minds, or things like that?
"No, no, I'm not on 'Early Edition.' I don't get the paper ahead of time. Most of the world of physic energy is very, very subtle and open to interpretation. A lot of the times I'm seeing something that 100 percent accurate and yet I could misinterpret it. That's why I've learned to say everything, Say what you're seeing. Because they might understand it better than you do.
"But all the events that I do are pretty much just like that. I explain the process and interpret it for the people I'm reading. Intermixed in that, I'll explain their questions about energy. It's like 'Crossing Over' the TV show, but live."
When did you first find you had this gift?
"I didn't really discover it, I was told. I was 15. I come from a family, on my mom's side, very into the subject matter. Like, very into it. My dad was a NYC police officer and military guy, very not into the subject matter. My mom and dad separated when I was 13. I was told, 'Don't tell your father about this kind of stuff.' But I was of the opinion that it wasn't real.
"This woman, [a psychic medium] that was pretty famous, agreed to come to the house, and I was like "I'm the offering? Okay nice." I decided I was going to debunk her. I wasn't going to let her do for me what she did for them. And she freaked me the hell out, to be completely honest. She was very accurate. She knew specific details about things I was doing. As skeptical as I can be, I felt like I was violated. I felt like she had walked around my head. It wasn't a cool feeling. The word is absolutely violation. And I wanted to understand how she did that, so nobody could ever do that again.
"And she saw that part of my journey was to go on this path and to teach. And at 15 I read every book I could get my paws on. The more I read about the subject matter, the more I learned. My entire life, I could re-define a lot of moments in a psychic way, and a lot of people can when they learn about this world. [They will think] it's coincidence, or they don't realize it's a subtle the thing that could be a message from [their] dad.
"It's more like I remembered I was physic than I discovered it. That's the best way to define it. And because I didn't believe in it, I wasn't afraid of it. It was more logical for me. Let me look at it in an analytical way."
"The more I studied this, the more I began to understand and be able to put words to things. Meditation, prayer, and using psychic tools like cards. I would be able to know things, like a download, like watching a negative develop into a photo. It was really cool to see in a colorful way how it evolves."
So how did you first find work in this field?
"I never thought it would be a career. Never had a desire to work in this career. My background is in health care. I kinda went that route: you have your real job, your 401k, then you get married and a house and 2.5 kids. That's what I knew growing up, and, 'Oh, I can do this thing on the side,' because I felt like I had to. It's something that I felt compelled to do. It got in the way of everything. It overflowed into every aspect of my life and forced me to pay attention to it.
"When I was full on into my hospital career, my worlds collided in a very big way. I was due for a raise and bonus, and I was called into the vice president's office and I was asked about this 'talking to the dead' stuff. It was a very professional moments where my worlds were being collided.
"[It was then I decided] I was going to pursue [a career in being a medium], and I was going to give it three months. I liked the luxury of going, "I don't like your energy, I don't want to read you, I'm not the right person for you." But I wouldn't have that luxury any longer. Even though I didn't plan for this as a career, it became my passion very quickly early on. But it took a good decade until it became my profession. I had always been doing it on the side, so I had been in psychic fairs, house parties. It just became professional in '95."
Psychic medium John Edward.
How do you respond to skeptics who claim you're merely performing cold readings of people?
"They're not really skeptic, they're really cynics. Either they think people are being researched ahead of time, or they're saying it's guess work that [we] paint bulls-eyes around. Basically, what I think they're saying is that people who seek mediums out are stupid. And I don't think they're stupid. When you watch a real medium, information is coming through. The client validated the information. It's not just asking questions.
"I kinda thing they serve a purpose, and they start a dialogue on both ends. I just don't like the personal attacks. I've never attacked a person for not believing in the subject matter, but the opposite is not true. I don't tell people they're stupid for not having a belief system. I was raised Catholic, but having a respect for other people's religions. My mom told me you have to be respectful of that. I've never felt the need to convince or convert people. I don't think that's appropriate."
With your upbringing in a religious background, have you ever had trouble reconciling these abilities with a religious faith? And do you deal with any religious critics?
"It depends on who you talk to nowadays to be really honest. I am still Catholic, but I consider myself a recovering Catholic. When I kinda came into this, it was in college. I took a theology class, but didn't know it was theology because it was called 'Witchcraft.' It was a packed class. The teacher walks in and the teacher said, 'If I were to call this "Theology," I'd be talking to an empty room.' What it did to me was really destroy my Catholic upbringing. I learned all about religions in the way that they don't teach you in [Catholic Sunday school].
"One of the things that I found so fascinating was the metaphysical theory in theology that was interwoven in Christianity. And [early church leaders] took it out. Reincarnation and astrology. They took it out. It depends on who you talk to but I think there's a lot of the stuff in the Bible that is contradictory. But I don't see my work as religious. I see it as more scientific and energy based."
It's interesting that you consider it based in science, since science has never been able to measure things like psychic energy ...
"Well you can. Doctor Gary Schwartz wrote a book called 'The Afterlife Experiments'. We went through double-blind studies where we replicated and extended the data. Whenever someone comes at me from that end, I say go read the research and look at the data.
"Then people will then attack [Dr. Schwartz]. 'Well he's a quack therefore he believes in the Easter Bunny too.' Wait a minute. Here you have a study where they're looking at heart rates, brain rates, controlling the subjects all of that underneath a scientific program. Twenty percent will believe, twenty percent will not believe. Most people will fall somewhere in that sixty percent in the middle.
"I think science and spirituality are going to become kissing cousins in the decades to come in a huge way. They split in a really bad divorce centuries ago. I don't mean like 70 years, I mean like 20-30. There's more and more that's being discovered but it hasn't been making it to the mainstream. I'm a science geek so I read all of this stuff. And I think it will make people less religious and more spiritual."
IF YOU GO
7 p.m. May 20 at Strand Theatre, 50 N. George St., York. Cost: $75, $85, $95. 717-846-1111, www.mystrandcapitol.org
Edward is best known for the series "Crossing Over With John Edward" on the Sci-Fi Channel, as well as We TV series, "John Edward Cross Country." His upcoming York appearance will include reading with members of the audience.
I spoke with Edward by phone and asked him to try and explain some of the nuts and bolts of how a medium connects with the spirit world and how he got his start in such an unorthodox career.
Can you describe for us what exactly your abilities are? 'Psychic' is such a vague term.
"Well as a psychic medium, I have the ability to see into a person's life and see where there energies are. The medium part is the ability to connect with people who have passed over, and see their connections to friends here. The first part is talking about the now and the future, and the second part is spirit communication. Talking to dead people, basically."
So you can't see the future, read minds, or things like that?
"No, no, I'm not on 'Early Edition.' I don't get the paper ahead of time. Most of the world of physic energy is very, very subtle and open to interpretation. A lot of the times I'm seeing something that 100 percent accurate and yet I could misinterpret it. That's why I've learned to say everything, Say what you're seeing. Because they might understand it better than you do.
"But all the events that I do are pretty much just like that. I explain the process and interpret it for the people I'm reading. Intermixed in that, I'll explain their questions about energy. It's like 'Crossing Over' the TV show, but live."
When did you first find you had this gift?
"I didn't really discover it, I was told. I was 15. I come from a family, on my mom's side, very into the subject matter. Like, very into it. My dad was a NYC police officer and military guy, very not into the subject matter. My mom and dad separated when I was 13. I was told, 'Don't tell your father about this kind of stuff.' But I was of the opinion that it wasn't real.
"This woman, [a psychic medium] that was pretty famous, agreed to come to the house, and I was like "I'm the offering? Okay nice." I decided I was going to debunk her. I wasn't going to let her do for me what she did for them. And she freaked me the hell out, to be completely honest. She was very accurate. She knew specific details about things I was doing. As skeptical as I can be, I felt like I was violated. I felt like she had walked around my head. It wasn't a cool feeling. The word is absolutely violation. And I wanted to understand how she did that, so nobody could ever do that again.
"And she saw that part of my journey was to go on this path and to teach. And at 15 I read every book I could get my paws on. The more I read about the subject matter, the more I learned. My entire life, I could re-define a lot of moments in a psychic way, and a lot of people can when they learn about this world. [They will think] it's coincidence, or they don't realize it's a subtle the thing that could be a message from [their] dad.
"It's more like I remembered I was physic than I discovered it. That's the best way to define it. And because I didn't believe in it, I wasn't afraid of it. It was more logical for me. Let me look at it in an analytical way."
How did you refine your skills? Is there a kind of mental workout routine, like mind push-ups?
"I've never attacked a person for not believing in the subject matter, but the opposite is not true." - John Edward
"It was, actually. I got very involved in meditation. The study of cards, anything Tarot related. I got very pulled into that. A little bit of astrology and neurology. I think I spend more time as a student studying this than what I was supposed to be working on [in school]."The more I studied this, the more I began to understand and be able to put words to things. Meditation, prayer, and using psychic tools like cards. I would be able to know things, like a download, like watching a negative develop into a photo. It was really cool to see in a colorful way how it evolves."
So how did you first find work in this field?
"I never thought it would be a career. Never had a desire to work in this career. My background is in health care. I kinda went that route: you have your real job, your 401k, then you get married and a house and 2.5 kids. That's what I knew growing up, and, 'Oh, I can do this thing on the side,' because I felt like I had to. It's something that I felt compelled to do. It got in the way of everything. It overflowed into every aspect of my life and forced me to pay attention to it.
"When I was full on into my hospital career, my worlds collided in a very big way. I was due for a raise and bonus, and I was called into the vice president's office and I was asked about this 'talking to the dead' stuff. It was a very professional moments where my worlds were being collided.
"[It was then I decided] I was going to pursue [a career in being a medium], and I was going to give it three months. I liked the luxury of going, "I don't like your energy, I don't want to read you, I'm not the right person for you." But I wouldn't have that luxury any longer. Even though I didn't plan for this as a career, it became my passion very quickly early on. But it took a good decade until it became my profession. I had always been doing it on the side, so I had been in psychic fairs, house parties. It just became professional in '95."
Psychic medium John Edward. "They're not really skeptic, they're really cynics. Either they think people are being researched ahead of time, or they're saying it's guess work that [we] paint bulls-eyes around. Basically, what I think they're saying is that people who seek mediums out are stupid. And I don't think they're stupid. When you watch a real medium, information is coming through. The client validated the information. It's not just asking questions.
"I kinda thing they serve a purpose, and they start a dialogue on both ends. I just don't like the personal attacks. I've never attacked a person for not believing in the subject matter, but the opposite is not true. I don't tell people they're stupid for not having a belief system. I was raised Catholic, but having a respect for other people's religions. My mom told me you have to be respectful of that. I've never felt the need to convince or convert people. I don't think that's appropriate."
With your upbringing in a religious background, have you ever had trouble reconciling these abilities with a religious faith? And do you deal with any religious critics?
"It depends on who you talk to nowadays to be really honest. I am still Catholic, but I consider myself a recovering Catholic. When I kinda came into this, it was in college. I took a theology class, but didn't know it was theology because it was called 'Witchcraft.' It was a packed class. The teacher walks in and the teacher said, 'If I were to call this "Theology," I'd be talking to an empty room.' What it did to me was really destroy my Catholic upbringing. I learned all about religions in the way that they don't teach you in [Catholic Sunday school].
"One of the things that I found so fascinating was the metaphysical theory in theology that was interwoven in Christianity. And [early church leaders] took it out. Reincarnation and astrology. They took it out. It depends on who you talk to but I think there's a lot of the stuff in the Bible that is contradictory. But I don't see my work as religious. I see it as more scientific and energy based."
It's interesting that you consider it based in science, since science has never been able to measure things like psychic energy ...
"Well you can. Doctor Gary Schwartz wrote a book called 'The Afterlife Experiments'. We went through double-blind studies where we replicated and extended the data. Whenever someone comes at me from that end, I say go read the research and look at the data.
"Then people will then attack [Dr. Schwartz]. 'Well he's a quack therefore he believes in the Easter Bunny too.' Wait a minute. Here you have a study where they're looking at heart rates, brain rates, controlling the subjects all of that underneath a scientific program. Twenty percent will believe, twenty percent will not believe. Most people will fall somewhere in that sixty percent in the middle.
"I think science and spirituality are going to become kissing cousins in the decades to come in a huge way. They split in a really bad divorce centuries ago. I don't mean like 70 years, I mean like 20-30. There's more and more that's being discovered but it hasn't been making it to the mainstream. I'm a science geek so I read all of this stuff. And I think it will make people less religious and more spiritual."
IF YOU GO
7 p.m. May 20 at Strand Theatre, 50 N. George St., York. Cost: $75, $85, $95. 717-846-1111, www.mystrandcapitol.org
No comments:
Post a Comment