COOPER: You no doubt remember the 1999 movie "The Sixth Sense" about a little boy with a dark secret. He can talk with ghosts those that don't even know they're dead. In a moment, we'll talk with John Edward who for some 20 years now has been working as a medium. He'll take some of your e-mails.
Edward may be the most popular TV psychic today but he is certainly not the first. The idea of crossing over has always been popular. The question is are we being double crossed?
Part two of our special series "Paranormal Mysteries" do you believe?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN EDWARD: What he keeps insisting is he's got his male to his side with him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He's telling me he's got his brother.
COOPER (voice-over): Psychic medium, John Edward, might have brought talking to the dead into the mainstream but Edward is only the latest in the tradition of spiritualists and mystics in the U.S.
During the 1800s, mediums came into vogue when two sisters, Margaret and Catherine Fox, channeled a noisy ghost in their home. They later admitted to cracking their toe joints to make the knocking noises.
More recently, after death communication, or ADC as some call it, has made a comeback with best-selling mediums like James (unintelligible), Sylvia Brown, Rosemary Altea, George Anderson and John Edward.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe they are on the other side.
COOPER: According to a 2001 Gallup poll, 28 percent of Americans believe it is possible to communicate with the dead. That's up ten percent from 1990.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nora, Noreen, there's some type of connection in this area with "N". COOPER: Skeptics say the modern psychic movement is the same old scam just with some new tricks, like rapid fire guesswork, a technique called cold reading.
MICHAEL SHERMER, PUBLISHER "SKEPTIC" MAGAZINE: The psychics are just making a lot of statements asking a lot of questions and seeing what sticks. That really represents nothing more than a fishing expedition.
COOPER: One scientist put a psychic dream team, including John Edward, to the test. Under controlled conditions, Harvard-trained psychologist Gary Schwartz studied five people he describes as the Michael Jordan's of the medium world.
GARY SCHWARTZ, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: These special individuals were able to get highly specific information with accuracy rates that were as high as 80 to 90 percent and when people try to guess the information their average accuracy is 20 to 25 percent.
COOPER: Skeptics called this study inadequate saying it failed to use sufficient safeguards. Of course only those who crossed over to the other side know for sure.
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COOPER: Well, John Edward took part in that test. He's best known for his shown "Crossing Over." He's also written four books, has audio and videotapes on communicating with the dead and he travels the country holding lectures. We spoke earlier today.
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COOPER: How do you describe what it is you do?
JOHN EDWARD, PSYCHIC MEDIUM: Basically as a medium I act as an interpreter of energy and for me I think it's just a frequency of somebody who was once in a physical body who's no longer in that physical body.
COOPER: So you hear things, you see?
EDWARD: I see, hear and feel the information as it comes through that I'm connecting with energy wise. That's how it would kind of be portrayed to me.
COOPER: I mean what does that mean? What does it sound like in your head? What do you actually see?
EDWARD: Through meditation I calm my physical body down and I open myself up to pay attention to what it is that I think, what I am visually seeing in my mind and what I'm overall feeling and I just kind of put it together and interpret in my frame of reference what I think it means to me but oftentimes the interpretation will be off.
COOPER: Because critics and detractors, of which you obviously have many, say basically what you're doing is a cold reading. You're asking questions. You're getting answers. You're reading. You're very perceptive but it's basically a cold reading.
EDWARD: They'll say that or they'll say that I am, you know -- you hire private detectives or that you're, you know, your sophisticated Internet system kind of like researches everything and I have no answer for that. You know to me it's like the same thing when somebody says, you know, there's no God.
You know, I have a very, very strong belief and I have a very strong faith and I would never allow somebody to kind of say well that doesn't exist, so therefore this can't exist, they kind of go hand-in- hand for me.
COOPER: So, you don't actually see an aura around people. You don't see physical, some sort of physical presence around somebody?
EDWARD: If I wanted to see an aura around somebody I could definitely see the energy field, like for example when I leave here I'm hopping on a plane and I will be definitely checking every single person that's getting on the plane to make sure that they all have auras when they're getting on the plane so I will join them on that flight.
COOPER: Seriously, if you think you could see someone's aura on a plane, if they had a bad one you'd get off the plane?
EDWARD: In a heartbeat, not even a heartbeat, in a half a heartbeat.
COOPER: This is from Verna in Pennsylvania. "Have you gotten any readings from people that crossed over from 9/11?"
EDWARD: I've actually worked with a lot of families. What I found amazing during some of the groups that I -- that I conducted was that if one family members, let's say there was 100 people in the room, if there were five families in that room that had somebody who passed in some way on that date, one family would get through and then bring through some of the other families that they didn't even know. So, people are reunited here in loss. It was an amazing experience. I talked about it as the 9/11 factor.
COOPER: This is from April in Iowa. "Are there any exercises or techniques you recommend for individuals to get in touch with those who have passed on?" Because you think people, everyone can...
EDWARD: Absolutely.
COOPER: ...have some sort of ability.
EDWARD: Meditation and prayer for me are the two things I think, you know, with knowledge are the keys to help open yourself up.
COOPER: This one's from Roseanne (ph) in Washington. "My baby died in 1972. When I see him again will he be a baby or an adult?"
EDWARD: That's one of the top questions that people often ask me and I think it depends upon how her perception will be. If I do a reading for somebody who lost a 10-year-old child and it's five years later or ten years later, I might say to them, you know, oh you lost a 20-year-old, you have a 20-year-old son who's passed?
Even though the child was ten, they might come through to me as how old they would be if they were still here or it could be they'll come through as that same 10-year-old child. I believe we have what's called soul recognition so we'll be able to recognize the energy of the person by -- who they are energy wise.
So there will be a complete recognition and maybe she would have to see the energy of that person and she would recognize her son as being the baby that he was before she -- before that kind of like that -- that aspect of him personality wise would be shed.
COOPER: Just a few more. From Karen in Delaware, "can my loved one hear my thoughts when I talk to them"?
EDWARD: I believe when you project to them, even if it's not out loud, if it's a, you know, kind of a mental telepathic type of dialogue, absolutely they can, they can definitely, you know hear those thoughts.
I don't believe that they can read our minds. I believe that nobody can really read our minds in that kind of capacity but I do believe that we can project our thoughts and that's what prayer is, you know, when you're kind of like having that prayerful dialogue or that intent they are definitely getting it.
COOPER: John Edward thanks very much.
EDWARD: Thank you. Good seeing you.
COOPER: Good to see you.
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COOPER: Well, you may have heard some popping noises all throughout that interview. For the first time in our new set we had some audio trouble. Oddly it happened more than once. Wouldn't you know it that John Edward says this happens to him all the time with microphones, something he says has to do with psychic energy, coincidence? Take a look.
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EDWARD: Please, you know, enjoy it as like a story. I said...
(CREW TALK)
EDWARD: I affect mikes.
COOPER: Really?
EDWARD: All the time. It's like a $4,000 piece of equipment that the scientist was not very happy about. I think I just, I pay attention to... (CREW TALK)
EDWARD: I'm sorry.
COOPER: (Unintelligible).
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Make of it what you will.
Today's "Buzz" is this. Do you believe it is possible to communicate with the dead? Log onto cnn.com/360, cast your vote, strong opinions on either side in this, results at the end of the show tonight.
Our series "Paranormal Mysteries" do you believe continues all week. Tomorrow extraterrestrial life, is the truth really out there? Some scientists are actually studying it.
Thursday, inside the world of psychics and, Friday, you've heard of pet psychics, we'll put one of them to the test with my own dog. Is there a message behind all her barking? We'll find out.
