Is John Edwards really psychic?

Can he genuinely communicate with the dead?

I'd like to discuss everybody's opnions on this. I'll jump in in a bit if things get interesting, I don't want to commit myself to anything just in case this thread recieves zero replies like most of my other ones.

I do have a point of view on this though.

 

He e-mailed about this thread last week.

 

You can't communicate with expired lifeforms

 

How come? I don't disagree with you, I'm just interested to know why you think that.

 

He could certainly talk to them, just visit their grave and speak. I'd bet my house he couldn't get a genuine response, though. That's ridiculous.

 

Because it's a really ridiculous idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a ridiculous idea.

 

Life, you live it in your mind and its powered by your heart. When your heart stops beating and brain shuts down and rots away its over. There is nothing left to communicate with. Anyone who says they can communicate with someone who has expired or any sort of spirit world have no scientific evidence to back up their claims. The belief that an expired person exists in another form takes a crazy amount of faith in the supernatural.

People who say they can are playing on peoples emotions with the help of certain techniques like cold reading.

 

I agree with most of this. What I am a bit confused about is how some people can appear to be so accurate with their cold reading attempts.

Take Edwards for example. I mean, who knows to what extend what he appears to do is edited to make him look better (I suspect highly) - but there is no denying that he can be very accurate with his information and how relevant it is - very specific. So how does he do that?

I'm sure it's nothing to do with ghosts, spirits or anything like that and there is some kind of psychology and/or other tricks being applied - but what exactly?

I can't say I'm 100% sure about what I believe, as I would need an explanation that I can understand as to how he goes about doing what he does.

 

You seen this?

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xswt8B8-UTM[/YOUTUBE]

 

Yeah mate, I've seen quite a lot of Derren Brown's stuff. Find his work fascinating to be honest. But still, his cold reading attempts appear quite crude next to John Edwards.

Maybe Edwards is just a bit more polished at the tricks being employed, but I've still no clue as to how he manages to get some of his information - information that other talented people such as Brown don't seem to be able to get (at least from what I've seen).

I don't have any specific examples to hand, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Things like 'the necklace with your initial that had the missing link on the chain - the one that your gran gave to your mum after you'd both been swimming in... a big lake, or a pool - I think lake'. I mean, *??

 

That example is very crude - it allows him to focus on any one of the details after someone confirms them. Even if it's just a chain with an initial on it, without any of the rest. He can just ignore the rest because his audience are too impressed that he got any of it right to care. The very definition of cold reading, just throw as much as you can at your audience and wait till something sticks.

 

Ok, but in many scenarios with him, he's not addressing the audience. He's addressing one person/family with multiple, concurrent, specific and accurate information with no input from them outside of his initial address to them and visual cues such as nods to confirm he's accurate.

How can you ascertain from a nod where to go next with specific information? How can you tell the colour of something from a nod, or what year it was, or what somebody's name is? He often gets this information with nothing to go on - so on what basis does he formulate his guesses to be accurate enough to be spot on or extremely close (to the point that it's nearly spot on)?

 

* knows about the techniques he uses mate

Randi $1,000,000 paranormal challenge - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

 

Yeah, I'm puzzled as well. One thing I had considered was the possibility of some people being able to pick up brain waves :icon_mrgreen: - sounds ridiculous I know, but maybe not so much when you consider that all our other sensory information is based on some form or wave or particle detection.

So, whilst not being supernatural per se. (in that it must be entirely natural if people can do it), it lies outwith the boundaries of what is accepted in normal science today, making it some kind of spooky power.

At least until it is proved that thoughts are transferrable in some way. Whether they are or not is the question though, undoubtedly.

Hadn't read about that guy offering $1,000,000 to anybody who can prove that they're psychic. Interesting. Also interesting, though, that he shifted the parameters for inclusion, limiting it only to people who had a) been publicised in some way (newspaper, radio, etc) and b) who had the backup of an accredited academic. No wonder nobody's really taken him up on the offer, as I don't know of many academics willing to put their reputations on the line like that. Although, it may also be due to the fact that there is no such thing as psychics. Either way though, the question remains.

Anyway, I would like to hear from anybody who watches the program (John Edward) and believes that he is psychic. There must be some on this forum - in fact going by some of the posts in other threads, there are bound to be.

I don't believe it myself, but if you do believe, please post in this thread and tell us why please. Thank you. :icon_mrgreen:

 

The $1m is safe

 

I agree, it's safe. But that doesn't prove that there are no such thing as psychics any more than people like John Edwards prove that psychics exist.

 

If it can't be proven its just speculation, until its proven it remains a fairytale to me.

quote Richard Dawkins

 

But you agree that the phenomenon we're discussing does exist (regardless of how he does it). So it's not a fairy at the bottom of the garden. It happens, as we've seen him doing it - albeit on television. Some people have seen him doing it live. I never have, but the fact that he does this is not really in question.

Now he says he's in touch with the dead when he does it. You and I don't think so.

So what is he doing? 'Cold reading', 'tricks'. That is fine, that is all well and good but what's the use of categorising something as a 'trick' or 'cold reading' when we have no clue as to what's going on and how he arrives at his infomation?

To me that's just as bad as dubbing him a 'psychic'.

These words are meaningless unless we get to the bottom of what's actually going on.

So you and I agree, he is not psychic. I'm sure of it even if I can't prove it. But I would also like some input from anybody who thinks he is psychic just to move this forward a wee bit.

 

People are dumb, thats a fact. They can be fooled very easily. The governments and religions have been fooling people for thousands of years.

Your man is no different. The people who use his service already must believe in the supernatural, therefor his work is made a * load easier if he doesn't need to convince them. They are merely sheep who come to him and he uses his skills to manipulate them. There is no scientific evidence to prove they have extra powers.

 

I agree with that to some extent. But what about people like us? We're not dumb - can we explain with any certainty what is going on?

We're not in any better a position to say what is or isn't going on than the dummies that think he's in touch with the dead.

It's a trick, he's psychic, it's cold reading, it's this, it's that!

Truth is, nobody can say what it is or isn't. You or I can have an idea based on what we already know of the world, but that's as far as it goes. It's not the same as Newton's laws of physics, or Einstien's theory of relativity, or the fact that the universe is such and such a size. Those are explainable, they are measurable and proveable.

Who can measure what this man does and prove that it's done in such and such a way?

We don't know how he gets his answers, therefore maybe we shouldn't be so quick to say 'fake' or 'charlatan'. I think the bit about talking to the dead is pish. But I still can't explain how he does what he does. I'm loathe to call it a trick, as what the * does that mean? That's dumb too.