John Edward - psychic or what?

[truethat]

RemieV I don't understand why you are so flummoxed by the idea of a person who "reads people for a living' and who has done so for years wouldn't be able to figure out in some obscure way that you don't understand, hits for a person. To me it seems pretty logical that someone who focuses all his energy on doing this wouldn't be able to.

The other thing I'm suspect about is that the only person you managed to seem him score so successfully was the person talking to you, the chick that had been sent in to catch him out.

Now if I was watching the audience and I saw someone with a fake outfit on with a disguise, who paid in cash, didn't make small talk with anyone and felt around the table for microphones

Yah think? Maybe redflag that it's a plant? Yah think he might not break out the big guns for you? After all that has paid off five years later when you sit here feeding confidence to his number one fan who is probably sharing your story with everyone.

Seems to me he KNEW the guy had his driver's licence in his wallet. How did he know that? Maybe camera scans zoomed in on it when he opened his wallet to pay cash for something.

 

[LashL]

I'm sure I knew at the time - but as with the Edward thing, a whole bunch of time has passed and that particular piece of information has faded away. Hell, that had to have been at least four years ago now. Probably more like five.

Indeed, the passage of time wreaks havoc on memory. I'm just trying to establish the details for obvious reasons. As I'm sure you know, while memories inevitably fade over time, they also get overwritten, revised, and often falsely recalled later; after years pass, it is often the case that more emphasis is put on certain things to elevate a minor coincidence into something more "meaningful" or more "meaning" is found where no real "meaning" beyond a simple minor coincidence ever existed at all.

(As an aside, I deal with similar situations on a regular basis in the course of my work, at both ends of the spectrum (and all points in between). For instance, at examinations for discovery of plaintiffs who are suing my clients, it often happens that when I get down to pressing for details of the circumstances that form the basis of their claims, they start answering every question with something like, "I don't know, I can't remember, that was 3 years ago!" and I eventually say something to the effect of, "Well, I wasnt there and you are suing my client for three million dollars; it's your claim, which you are required to prove, and I am entitled to know the details of the basis of your claim, so let me ask you again..." And (surprise, surprise), they then come up with incredibly detailed answers to the questions despite the fact that, moments earlier, they hadn't a clue and thought that it was unreasonable to even ask them the questions. At the other end of the spectrum, it also often happens that people have developed a theory and "memories" of events relating to their claims that are clearly wrong and that could not possibly have happened in the manner that they describe, but they will insist that it happened exactly that way and insist that it is 'burned into their memory' despite the fact that their "recollection" is entirely impossible in light of the laws of physics and all of the objective evidence. In between the two opposite ends of the spectrum, of course, are most people, who simply tell the truth as best as they can recall while recognizing that their memories might be faulty and recognizing that they may be inadvertently exaggerating some things or downplaying some things, etc. /aside)

By the by, here you go:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/607/godpizza.jpg

That looks an awful lot like another variation of the advertisements and such that I posted earlier.

 

[Robin1]

RemieV I don't understand why you are so flummoxed by the idea of a person who "reads people for a living' and who has done so for years wouldn't be able to figure out in some obscure way that you don't understand, hits for a person. To me it seems pretty logical that someone who focuses all his energy on doing this wouldn't be able to.

The other thing I'm suspect about is that the only person you managed to seem him score so successfully was the person talking to you, the chick that had been sent in to catch him out.

Now if I was watching the audience and I saw someone with a fake outfit on with a disguise, who paid in cash, didn't make small talk with anyone and felt around the table for microphones

Yah think? Maybe redflag that it's a plant? Yah think he might not break out the big guns for you? After all that has paid off five years later when you sit here feeding confidence to his number one fan who is probably sharing your story with everyone.

Seems to me he KNEW the guy had his driver's licence in his wallet. How did he know that? Maybe camera scans zoomed in on it when he opened his wallet to pay cash for something.

I don't understand why anyone who is truly open minded to the paranormal would be flummoxed by any of these possible scenarios. In any event, I believe the only thing that truly matters in the end ,no matter what you believe, is being kind to one another. Peace.

 

[meg]

For all the John Edward stuff -

I've relayed the story directly, in conversation, to many, many skeptics including (but not limited to) Banachek, DJ Grothe, Randi, Jeff Wagg, Penn Jillette.

The consensus was that the information was obtained in some untraceable way that is infrequent because Edward is essentially a mentalist who is performing a trick. Once you have a good method for performing a trick, you stick with it. So, if the person is performing a trick that has an actual mechanism, you should be able to see the same TYPE of thing happen with frequency. It just doesn't. The simplest explanation, with all facts in hand, is that this was either the wife's doing or one of Edward's crew came across this tidbit in a very mundane way.

I concentrated on the name thing because it was the clearest. The entire reading of that particular person was quite good. It was abnormally good. No real waffling or anything - just straight to real hits. Keep in mind that during any given show, Edward reads something like 20 people. This means that I have now seen him read forty (having attended two shows). In none of those 39 other readings did Edward get anywhere near anything even remotely good.

Me, Jeff, and Randi have all listened to the tape. Jeff visited the showroom with me so I could point out where everyone was. I followed up with every type of person who was in the room - from souvenir photographers to wait staff. They were all real people; not employed by Edward who didn't give a crap about whether or not Edward was real.

You can start asking me for specifics, but that is just going to lead to confabulation because at this point, you're talking about an event from two years ago. I can only tell you the conclusion we all reached at the time, which was that, somehow or another, Edward was handed this person's information.

Well, this makes sense. If there was a lot more to the reading that the rest of us don't know about, then there's not much point in speculating about how it was done. Sounds like you had some of the best brains around to figure it out, anyway. I'm happy to let it drop.

If by chance you still have the recording, though, and you do want to revive the discussion, I would be happy to offer to transcribe it for you.

 

[FluffyPersian]

M=And I know anyone just winning a free pina colada, or big mac, or getting a mistaken card in the mail is no big deal. What makes it unique are all the circumstances surrounding it ( and combining with that then the chances of it happening) which I described in great detail to support my claim. .

In my post from a few days ago, I explained why the pina colada story and with the circumstances surrounding it are not unusual. The same could be done for the Big Mac story and others like it.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Foolmewunz....I never claimed to be an angel. However, my sweetness and light, will tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. And a 2nd chance. Even a 3rd chance. After that, in the absence of any regret, and instead the perpetuation of inappropriate behavior, I am done being sweet and will tell it like it is.

As evidenced by your post to Meg and your ensuing posts. Now we're worried. We've never had anyone get all Snakes on a Plane on us. We'll probably just all sign off so you don't have your chosen Great Cosmic Muffin smite us with his fiery sword.

You "fooled me once..."should be able to relate to that.

You must be psychic! You figured out my screen name.

Moving on, of course I understand Remie does not agree with me( if you will remember I stopped saving her pina colada and instead drank it : )
In terms, of the research I have done through the years besides personal experience....books , articles, and the Internet....and yes from multiple points of view...of course including James Randi.

I'd like to know more details. Saying one read James Randi is like saying one read Finnegan's Wake (or was that Finian's Rainbow). Anyone can read the words, but does one understand what was read? What exactly about Sagan and Gardner and Randi did you find wanting? You seem to agree with them that there are fake psychics, only you modify that to read "some fake psychics", as you've been doing the attributed Houdini bit... Looking for some way to communicate with the dead. I honestly believe that your "research" included a whole lot more checking into psychic sites and recommendations than it did investigating the number of times they've all (including Edward) been caught out as frauds. I gave you a video of him doing a really bad cold reading in your original thread. Do you know the background of the time he was caught hot reading the cameraman?

Those two make it pretty obvious that you're dealing with a snake oil salesman. He's conning people. (If you put it nicely, "he's an entertainer", but we have a tradition around here of honoring those "entertainers" who pretend that what they do is supernatural with various titles: snakoil salesmen, woo merchants, frauds, charlatans, con men, hustlers, and I'm sure other members have their choice epithets for them that they can add if they wish.

Lastly, I am aware of ex minister's background and respect her views which are offered with kindness, which I appreciate.

Yet, she's polite and not disparaging and has your same true believer credentials(before she came over to the dark side, but then again, "we have cake"), yet you just know better because....? Your gut tells you so? My gut tells me he told you what you'd been waiting to hear. Nothing pre-set like Houdini's after-death challenge, just a few things that gave you the warm and fuzzies and you're so smart that you can't be conned, so you just know that he's The One.

 

[AdMan]

The thing is, these types of coincidences happen all the time. Robin, why not consider how many times you debated over not eating or drinking something fattening and voila you got one. You say you were in the drive thru talking to yourself then you got a free big mac. You could have accidentally spoken aloud and someone heard you and either tried to be nice or got confused and gave you the big mac because they heard it.

You won a free Pina Colada Well that doesn't sound like God to me or angels or the other side. It sounds pretty negative to me. First of all, feeding your children McDonald's is tantamount to child abuse. You seem to have a weight issue, what kind of "good angel" sabotages your efforts to be healthy?

Wishful thinking.

The wiki page on confirmation bias should have a direct link to this thread.

 

[meg]

I agree Meg, you were never trying to mislead me...it is indeed others you were trying to mislead. And even still trying to mislead. As for me, you were merely hoping to confuse me , mock me and bully me into leaving...for good. Unfortunately, for you, that just strengthens my resolve to stay. You see Meg, the gut negative feeling I got about you when you posted your TLA winning comment was indeed, spot on. The more you post, the more you prove it.

Look Robin,

I understand how frustrating this is for you. I really do. You've been taught all your life that people who have faith in stuff that doesn't exist are to be admired and looked up to, and even revered. So you have faith in lots of things. You believe lots of things without thinking very hard about it, and it makes you feed good about yourself. It makes you feel special. And it make you feel important. Maybe even wise. Mysterious.

But then you come over here and nobody respects your beliefs one whit. They want evidence, and they expect you to understand how logic works, and what logical fallacies are, and they expect you to look critically at the things you believe and justify those beliefs in a reasoned and measureable way. Not one of them thinks "I just know." or "God did it." is an acceptable answer to anything. And they pound you with questions. Why do you think this? And How do you know that? And What makes you think that's important, or special, or unique, or even anything more than a coincidence?

And it is frustrating. It's maddening. It's infuriating! How dare they talk to me like that? Don't they know I'm trying to help them? I'm spreading sweetness and light here, dammit! Don't they know I'm talking about God, here? Don't they know that when a person shares a story like mine, that the appropriate response is to say "Wow! It's a sign!" or "Oh, what a blessing!" or "Thank you for sharing such an amazing story!" But no. These wankers just ask more questions, and act like they don't believe it, or that you didn't remember it right. Some of them even accuse you of lying! These dolts just keep yapping on and on about logic, and science and repeatability and confirmation bias.

How dare they!

Good for you not backing down and running away, Robin. Gads, no, I don't want you to leave! I think this stuff is fun! Wanna know how to get back at me? Quit whining, put your big girl pants on, learn about logic and how to use it, and OUTlogic me. Show us all! Come up with logical and reasonable arguments for your woo. It's that easy. Wanna know how to really get even over that TLA that pisses you off so much? YOU win one. It's that simple. YOU write a cogent, moving, or persuasive post displaying your own skill with language.

Want to do something that will make me shut up and bow to your greatness forever? Learn about the scientific method, and get a basic understanding of the laws of chance, then devise and conduct a scientific experiment that shows you (or anyone else) has psychic ability.

I will warn you though, that if you stick around here for long, things are just going to get more confusing for you for a while. What is most confusing is that piece by piece, little by little, the stuff we say will start making sense to you. And little by little, piece by piece, you'll start realizing that you are looking at the world in a different way now, and that lots of little things that used to make you feel all special and woowoo and mysterious just don't seem do the trick any more. The feng shui living room arrangement just looks dumb, and it never did actually bring you any money. You start counting John Edward's misses, and realize the guy hardly ever gets anything right. You start realizing those wooey newsletters you've been reading are really just full of a lot of meaningless baloney and you let your subscription lapse. You might start using the word "specious". It just goes on and on.

You might even find if you lay off the big macs for a while that those gut feelings you've been having will improve.

 

[pakeha]

^
Oh, myy [/Takei]


I'm in the short calm before the final onslaught of the Christmas festivities and decided to catch up on this thread.

Just about everything I've posted previously has been repeated and subsequently ignored by our resident S & L embassatrix.
No surprise there, of course.


But back to JE's technique:

"Keep that, it might make sense later."

Welcome to John Edwardville where even the misses are hits!

Resume, because even the misses can be, and most likely are.... hits! Remember I addressed "psychic amnesia"... God : ) only knows where, but somewhere here. Remember some of poor John's huge "misses" that were validated (hugely validated!!)afterwards:
1) My brother's Valerie Harper connection
2) Guy with a big tooth in his pocket
3) Hard "G" sounding name

Retrofitting (postdiction) is awesome! You pays the money and you do the work. John Edward (non-prophet) profits!

This is another cold-reading caper that should give you pause, but won't.

Yes, a cold-reading classic indeed, often used, sometimes useful when trying to instruct the young...

 

[eerok]

I don't understand why anyone who is truly open minded to the paranormal would be flummoxed by any of these possible scenarios.

I'm truly open-minded to the paranormal; that is, I'm willing to consider any decent, establishing evidence that supports it. I haven't seen any, though.

Skeptics follow the evidence. That's the nature of skepticism. That's also the nature of scientific method, which is pretty much a form of applied skepticism.

In any event, I believe the only thing that truly matters in the end ,no matter what you believe, is being kind to one another. Peace.

I personally don't care what anyone believes up to the point where they try to promote an unfounded belief as an objective reality claim. Then I feel it's important to debunk the offending claim.

So feel free to celebrate the leprechauns in your garden or the flaming, nuclear-powered unicorns who tend your karma, or whatever-the-foof you believe that you can't show any evidence for... but don't try to sell it to a skeptic forum.

 

[pakeha]

Can't show any evidence?
Did you miss the 'Big Mac as Proof of the Afterlife' argument'

 

[eerok]

Can't show any evidence?
Did you miss the 'Big Mac as Proof of the Afterlife' argument'

I thought it was no better than the "Little Nibbles Out of the Carrots as Proof of Leprechauns in the Garden" argument.

Or even less compelling, if such a thing is possible.

 

[RemieV]

If you like piña coladas!
And getting caught in the rain!

At any rate - I'm sure I've got the digital recorder I used somewhere - it's just that I've moved three times since. All I can say is that is was heavily studied.

 

[dafydd]

Give us this day our free and hamburger...... I wonder just how much the bakers are paying the Christian churches? Surely McDonalds could outbid them and get the words changed.

 

[Stray Cat]

If you like piña coladas!
And getting caught in the rain!

At any rate - I'm sure I've got the digital recorder I used somewhere - it's just that I've moved three times since. All I can say is that is was heavily studied.

Instead of a transcript, if you do manage to find it Remie, you could upload it to something like Sound Cloud so we can listen. Hearing tone of voice and timing can be just as important as hearing what words were used.

Just a suggestion.

 

[eerok]

Robin, sorry to be a pain, but I think it would be very useful to clarify what you mean by "open minded," a term you've used in this thread.

Do you mean "open to evidence that would establish a claim," or "open to uncritical acceptance of a claim?" This makes a world of difference. Skeptics will require establishing evidence for a claim about objective reality, but that does not mean that we are in the least bit close-minded.

Just provide the evidence, and you're golden. But you haven't provided any establishing evidence so far. If you have nothing, and I'm pretty sure that you do not, then no harm. Just let this thread die its rightful death.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Hallelujah!

You do understand that by calling the story "noteworthy" I'm saying that it's an interesting story, not that there's any indication that anything other than coincidence is occurring, don't you?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It also occurs to me (belatedly) while looking back at RemieV's link to the pizza thing, that we have not actually been told in the anecdote that the pizza slices were purchased at a "pizza place" at all. There are no details provided in the anecdote about the location or nature of the store at which the pizza slices and the card were purchased. It may be that they were purchased at a 7/11 or a local restaurant/general store type of place that sells all kinds of things (including pizza slices and greeting cards), or a CostCo or WalMart type of place, for all we know. The anecdote doesn't say.

That's a very good point.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You can start asking me for specifics, but that is just going to lead to confabulation because at this point, you're talking about an event from two years ago.

Seems to me that you should have written everything down in as much detail as possible as soon as possible. I know that's not much help for this particular case, but it's something worth bearing in mind for the future.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

This may seem obvious, but...

...a lot of these anecdotes read like "just so" stories.

Take the pizza story. It may be unlikely that a pizza shop sells cards. Had this been a pizza shop that did not sell cards there would have been no story.

There was, so there is.

So?

Apply this to all the other tales of coincidence: it happened this way - what are the chances? 100%, because it DID happen that way.

Am I just being silly here?