Analysing John Edward: Three articles
- Thread starter Epamme
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Lisa Simpson
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I took his sentence:
to mean that he booked himself into these seances using his own name and therefore the medium or whoever could research him, thus doing a hot reading.
Is that what you meant, WhiteLion? (And excuse me if you are a she instead of a he).
WhiteLion said:
to mean that he booked himself into these seances using his own name and therefore the medium or whoever could research him, thus doing a hot reading.
Is that what you meant, WhiteLion? (And excuse me if you are a she instead of a he).
Ok fair enough. But what`s your guys opinion on article nr 2? The part where John Edward is on Larry King Live doing readings.
Here the author analyses a reading by John Edward and a sceptical explanation of it;
...He then turns to a transcript of a Larry King Live show that aired on June 19, 1998. Notice that this was a live call-in show - no chance of finding out anything about the callers in advance, or reading their body language, or editing out "misses" to highlight hits.
"CALLER: Hello.
"KING: Go ahead.
"CALLER: Yes, my mother passed away, quite a while ago, and I'd like to get in touch with her.
"KING: What's your name?
"CALLER: My name is Karen.
"EDWARD: OK, Karen, the first thing that's coming through is not your mother, but I want to tell you that there's another female figure who is older than you, who's making you feel like she either helped raise you, or was around when you were growing up -- is coming through. And she tells me she either passed from breast cancer or lung cancer. I see blackness in the chest area, but I don't think that this is related to you. I think that this might be either a friend's mother or a mother-in-law -- I don't feel like there's a blood connection here.
"CALLER: My stepmother."
Franc's assessment? "Edward shotgun[ned] his way thru it, but basically he stated 1. the presence of a person without [a] blood connection who helped raise her or saw her grow up who 2. had 'blackness' in the chest area. That is exceedingly vague."
Not quite. First, it wasn't just "a person," but an older female. Second, it wasn't just someone "without [a] blood connection," but someone who "might be either a friend's mother or a mother-in-law." In other words, a mother-like figure who was not a blood relative and who was an important part of the caller's childhood.
"My stepmother" fits these facts to a T.
And how did the stepmother die? Larry King asked that question.
"CALLER: Lung cancer."
Remember that Edward just said "she either passed from breast cancer or lung cancer."
Franc, unimpressed, points out that Edward's statement about the cause of death "comes true whenever [sic] or not the chest problem is really in the breasts or lungs. This way, he can take credit for more precise hits, but still retain a hit for the more vague phrase."
But Edward said "she either passed from breast cancer or lung cancer," and it turned out she died of lung cancer. Is this really so "vague"? Is Franc seriously arguing that there are so few ways for an older female to die that "either ... breast cancer or lung cancer" would be an easy guess? Couldn't the stepmother have died of a stroke, brain tumor, pancreatic cancer, leukemia, falling down the stairs, car accident, pneumonia, Alzheimer's, etc., etc.? Edward narrowed it down to "breast cancer or lung cancer" without asking any questions. And the skeptic calls it "vague."
The capstone of his analysis is priceless. "[Edward] did get one real, good hit during the hour: saying that a man was buried with cigarettes, and they were the wrong brand (unfortunately, the accent of the person is not specified - some other religions do bury cherished objects, and this may have influenced Edward)."
So if the caller spoke with an accent, then it would have been simplicity itself for Edward to guess that his loved one "was buried with cigarettes, and they were the wrong brand."
Of course! After all, whenever I hear someone speak with an accent, I can immediately tell that their loved one was buried wearing rubber galoshes and mismatched socks.
Remember, the last two examples came from a live performance by Edward, taking random calls from all over the world. He couldn't see the callers, so he couldn't observe their facial expressions or body language. He had only seconds - a minute or two at most - to do his readings and had time for few, if any, questions.
I dunno. I would probably take my bet on hot reading instead of cold. I can`t see how Edward in this reading, could have used cold reading without making It obvious. But ofcourse, an unedited version of this whole reading would be interesting to watch.
"Of course, I only skimmed the articles..."
I recommend everyone to take time and read the articles, throughly! They are pretty interesting...
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm of a certain age (or more specfically that my parents are) but I'd guess that almost everyone I know, knows someone who has drunk milk straight from a cow.
Take someone in the 30-45 age range and unless they come from a solely urban environment they'll know someone who drank milk from a cow.
Daddy Don who grew up in Buffalo NY in the '30s used to spend time on a grandparent's farm, and guess what ? drank milk from a cow.
Mummy Don who grew up in a mining village in North East Enlgand in the '40s used to go on holiday to Cornwall where they's stay in a little farmhouse and drank milk from a cow.
The surprise would be finding someone from my generation who has drunk milk stright from a cow which is why Edward made the guess that he did.
Take someone in the 30-45 age range and unless they come from a solely urban environment they'll know someone who drank milk from a cow.
Daddy Don who grew up in Buffalo NY in the '30s used to spend time on a grandparent's farm, and guess what ? drank milk from a cow.
Mummy Don who grew up in a mining village in North East Enlgand in the '40s used to go on holiday to Cornwall where they's stay in a little farmhouse and drank milk from a cow.
The surprise would be finding someone from my generation who has drunk milk stright from a cow which is why Edward made the guess that he did.
First, I'd think it's fairly rare that someone was raised by their mother-in-law so Edward was fishing for any kind of older lady. He even said that he THOUGHT that the person was unrelated so that he could retreat later should the contacted person say no. He was lucky that the person in question was a step parent, but it could have been a friend's parent, or grandparent.
If we all think hard enough, I'm sure we can all recall an older lady who died of some kind of chest complaint. Once again, he got lucky with cancer, but even so it's hardly unprecedented for someone to die of it.
We've got a cold reader getting somewhat lucky in an edited reading from an unknown number of failures. This is not entirely unprecedented.
Now, if someday a medium can tell me how my mate Andy died without prompting, then I'd be amazed (he was hit by a house chimney during a gale in 1985).
Edited to add....
I generally consider a reading to be poor if it can be equally well applied to someone I know. In this case the above reading could be applied to Mrs. Don's next door neighbour who used to look after her while her parents were at work and was like a second mother/third grandmother and who died of lung cancer.
The Don said:
Here`s the script for that entire Larry King Live show btw: http://www.johnedward.net/lkl_619.htm
DevilsAdvocate
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Well, the author doesn't seem to understand cold reading. He gives a good example himself of how people can turn vague statements into exact hits:Epamme said:
So "Someone was thrown off a pony or a horse" = "Somone you know who died from being thrown off a horse". And better, "Two people passed with a sudden impact while you were moving in a Mayflower van" = "People were shot to death, as a couple, on Mayflower Avenue".
This is a clear example of someone blieving that Edward told someone that "people were shot to death, as a couple, on Mayflower Avenue" when in fact he did no such thing.
Can I relate Edward's visions to my own life? Uncle drowned after being thrown from a horse. While "moving" to college in a "van" I visted my brother at the "Mayflower" just after "a couple of people" he knew were "shot". Amazing, ain't it?
"Celery joke"? Nope, "cabbage" joke-at least as good as an "onion" joke (even more remarkable is that the onion joke is also a translation joke like the cabbage joke--a Frech expression that sounds like "my little shoe").
"Shepherd"? Well, I had an uncle that raised livestock, including some sheep, and I asked if he was a "shepherd" (like I learned about in Bible school) and he said "more like a pigherd" because he was mostly a pig farmer. I think that is even a better answer to Edward's question "Was someone in your family a shepherd?" than the "Get the flock out" joke.
Oh, I could go on and on and on.
Of course Edwards may have had some hot reading going on too. And there is (I think) acknowldged use of "skip the misses" going on.
Oh, I drank milk straight from the cow too. Everyone in my area had because the school always had a field trip to a local dairy and part of the trip was showing how hand-milking was done and then we got to drink the cow milk. Actually it wasn't "straight from the cow." Some 4H kids in my group raised objections that it would be unsanitary, and the dairy lady gave us a wink and a whisper that the milk they gave us was not fully processed but had been purified only to the point that milk straight from the cow needed to be to be safe to drink (and don't spoil the fun).
Spektator
Is that right?
Re: Re: Analysing John Edward: Three articles
By George! May I play, too? I was once injured when a horse threw me! And when I was moving to college--using a rental van--I stopped and had lunch at the Mayflower Cafe! And in my first year in college, a couple who lived down the street from my old house (my parents' house) died from gunshot wounds--the husband killed his wife and them committed suicide. And my granddad had a farm, and kept cows, and yes, I drank milk straight from the cow when I was a kid. Absolutely amazing.
DevilsAdvocate said:
By George! May I play, too? I was once injured when a horse threw me! And when I was moving to college--using a rental van--I stopped and had lunch at the Mayflower Cafe! And in my first year in college, a couple who lived down the street from my old house (my parents' house) died from gunshot wounds--the husband killed his wife and them committed suicide. And my granddad had a farm, and kept cows, and yes, I drank milk straight from the cow when I was a kid. Absolutely amazing.
The interesting part of the first one is that he admits the show is heavily edited, which has been discussed on here in the past, but then goes on to take the edited versions at face value. Some of the instances that seem so amazingly specific only appear so because he worked up to them, subtley zeroing in on something specific. There have been many threads that discussed many actual transcripts of edwards on this board, you should do a search and take a look at them if their still around.
There were a handful of people on here that believed Edwards was likely genuine (Clancie, Neo) that no longer post here. However everyone admitted that Edwards performances on Larry King Live were very poor. What we disagreed on was why. To most of us here it was obvious that he was not doing readings inside an environment he controlled, namely his studio, or at a live seminar. He also had very little time, which meant much less time for fishing about for info. As a result his Larry King Live performances are markedly worse than his Crossing Over or Seminar performances. Clancie and Neo tended to think more that the process of mediumship was difficult and did not lend itself to very good accuracy on the call in format of LKL. I personally found this to be a rather poor excuse, but there you have it.
Now, to one particular comment from the first link, and one I think needs to be paid attention to:
There were a handful of people on here that believed Edwards was likely genuine (Clancie, Neo) that no longer post here. However everyone admitted that Edwards performances on Larry King Live were very poor. What we disagreed on was why. To most of us here it was obvious that he was not doing readings inside an environment he controlled, namely his studio, or at a live seminar. He also had very little time, which meant much less time for fishing about for info. As a result his Larry King Live performances are markedly worse than his Crossing Over or Seminar performances. Clancie and Neo tended to think more that the process of mediumship was difficult and did not lend itself to very good accuracy on the call in format of LKL. I personally found this to be a rather poor excuse, but there you have it.
Now, to one particular comment from the first link, and one I think needs to be paid attention to:
Many defenders of mediums bring this up regularily. But I argue very strongly that this is exactly what a cold reader would do. There is far more scrutiny paid to these performers nowadays because they are broadcast on TV. Taking the obvious answer given out by the sitter would cause most people to go, "Oh look, he obviously just let her answer the question and then ran with it". Edwards might be many things, but he's not that stupid. In fact if you read through the many transcripts he often shies away from taking the obvious validation from the sitter, simply because it is far to obvious. The pay off here is that if he keeps on it one of two things will happen. Either by pushing for a better match he will achieve it, making the hit seem far more impressive and specific and unique, or he'll miss completely or partially. It gets said a lot but I think people need to keep in mind just how easily the misses get forgotten, or rephrased by the sitter into a post-hoc validation. Edwards takes calculated risks, and when they pay off, they pay off very well, and when they don't, well who cares, most people never see them anyway, and there are a plethora of excuses in his arsenal for misses. The sitter didn't connect with the information he brought forth, as in, didn't understand it. Communication with the dead is difficult, what is the explanation for this difficulty? Well it just is, their dead after-all, it must be difficult. It might be for someone else. Never is he wrong, because in his mind the information he gets is infallible, its just not understood, or brought out for the wrong person. This is a pretty airtight and internally consistent scenario. Unfortunately its not very logically consistent at all.