Mike D. said:
There seems to be endless discussion of John Edward and his mediumship on this forum. One would think that after all this discussion, the debate would have moved toward some sort of conclusion, or at least toward an identification of what the points of disagreement are and a sense of whether or not they can be resolved.
1. If, after all this time, there is no consensus as to the validity of JE's claimed abilities, why is this the case, since presumably most debaters here are reasonably intelligent.
2. What are the remaining points of disagreement about JE's alleged abilities, and have *any* points of disagreement thus far been resolved to the satisfaction of all (or most) of the participants in the debate?
3. What is still needed to bring the debate to the point of general consensus, and thus conclude the debate.
4. Will the debaters someday get bored with discussing JE and give up the debate, even if no conclusion has been reached?
5. Will the debate continue until JE is no longer prominent in the world of mediumship, or do the debaters expect to reach a consensus before that point?
Thanks for bringing this up Mike. Very good questions.
For my own part, I find that debates in which no headway is made indicate a problem of the subject matter being debated. One side is arguing using one set of data, while the other uses a different set of data to support their position. Hence, there is no common data base over which to argue, and little is resolved. Skeptics of JE point out the problems of editing, certain readings that resemble cold reading, potential for hot reading on occasion, etc... Believers in JE seem to use as their source of argument certain readings that they consider to be beyond cold reading, and the overall success of his performance. I come down strongly on the skeptic side with regard to this man. Television has opened up a wealth of possibilities with regards to conjuring, possibilities not available to such sham "mediums" 60 or 70 years ago. The problem of editing is indeed significant. There are no controls against hot reading. Every time I have watched JE, he has been in complete control of the situation. The sitters don't ask JE questions about their deceased....he tells them. He has total control over the information provided, which is exactly how a conjurer operates. Who are these people anyway? Could they be plants in the audience for when JE's cold reading fails? Are they people who desperately want to be on television, and thus verifiy Edward's erroneous statements so they can be featured on national television?
There has not been a competent study performed on JE which excludes these possibilities. In addition, I need hardly point out the immense difficulties of determining whether the communications are indeed coming from the deceased. If I were convinced of telepathy, which I am not, I would not in any way see any evidence that excludes telepathy as the source of JE's success. Hence, those who are convinced that JE is communicating with the dead are doing so on a basis of faith...nothing more.
I might ask, though, what the real issue of debate is here. Is it a question of whether JE can receive information without the use of currently known senses, or is it that
anyone, at anytime, has shown that they can do this? I believe that most people here are more interested in the latter question. I certainly am myself. If this does so apply to others, than we should expand our inquiry beyond this insignifcant man and look to the actual research of specialized subjects. My position on psychic abilities, when I started, was that it was important to examine what proponents (serious researchers) consider to be their best evidence. While one will get a variety of answers to such a question of what constitutes the "best" evidence, I think that there are certain people with whom research has been conducted that most knowledgable proponents would consider significant. Such people, to me, would include D.D. Home[P/M], Eusapia Palladino[P], Leonora Piper[M], Osborne Leonard[M], Stefan Ossowiecki[M], and Rudi Schneider[P] ('M' denotes mental mediumship, 'P' denotes physical mediumship). If one is interested in some real puzzles, I would advise doing some serious research on one or several of these people. At least then we could have a common database over which to argue, and perhaps progress of some form could be made.
