gattino
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
- Messages
- 2,520
This is a spin off from the "are all psychics fake" thread. I'm posting it as a new topic just because i know how long winded my reports tend to be.
So, having initially abandoned the idea, i did in the end go and see the famed John Edward perform at the local theatre last night, as i suggested on the other thread that I was tempted to do.
Background: His fame, success and following had lead me to conclude as likely that either there was something truly impressive to witness or, if he was a fake then he might be the world's most convincing one and that too would be worth witnessing. As for claims about him (someone on the other thread mentioned matter of factly he was a cold reader) i was very on the fence about that as I had years before read a couple of long online essays by the blogger Michael Prescott in which he effectively debunked the debunkers, plus i was aware that Edward had subjected himself to scientific study by Gary Schwartz some years ago suggesting at least self confidence and a willingness to be tested. Finally when first considering attending i searched online for comments from people who had been to see him. It was hardly an exhaustive study but for what its worth the one consistency in the observations i found was that those who dismissed him had never personally seen him and those who had seen him were always impressed. The latter of course you could dismiss as the fact they paid to see him would suggest a predisposition to belief. The dismissive scepticism of the non attendees however was inherently useless as far as i was concerned simply because they could only be reflecting someone else's opinion.
So with all that in mind i went along to see what i could see. My report on the details of the readings themselves will have to be short and scant because it was two hours long and its almost all slipped my mind in its finer details.
General stuff: one of the bar staff mentioned there were 1100 attendees. I don't know how many dates he has on this tour but given the prices, and assuming similar venues in each town, a 10 date tour could easily rake him close to a million pounds by my crude maths. That says nothing about his abilities only that its a very lucrative career in his case and that a lot of people are very persuaded to believe in him and willing to pay good money on the basis. Second general observation, a minimum of 90-95% of the audience were female. I don't know what that tells us.
The Usual Suspects: I can quickly dismiss the more outlandish claims about his performances that do the rounds of the internet, largely perpetuated by an episode of South Park. There were no lurkers in the hallways listening to people give away their family secrets, no forms to be filled in (except for people who had bought premium tickets who signed up for free membership of his website in the lobby 10 minutes before curtain up), hidden microphones in the seats is pure nonsense and would require the connivance of the theatre management and staff in every venue he plays in. An unlikely grand conspiracy of silence. The logistics of paying off local plants in every town he visits, plants who never come forward this side of the grave, also doesn't bear thinking about. Which leaves us, if he did turn out to be persuasive, with our old friend cold reading.
Bullet point summary of what I saw: 1) Nothing "case closed" spectacular. 2) Several direct and - to me - extremely improbable hits 3) He was personally very persuasive and convincing (you may retort a conman would be) of his bona fides and self assurance. It was hard not to "believe" him (as in his intentions and integrity, rather than that he was talking to the dead necessarily) 4)I saw no evidence of cold reading as i understand the term. Eg leading questions and running with their contrary answers as if the new information has come from the medium and not the client. That just didn't happen (small caveat below)
Where he did fit the mould of the stage medium cliche is that - unlike those i had witnessed at the spiritualist church - he did do the old "a name beginning with" a particular letter or sound and give 2 or 3 alternatives. In mitigation of that he consistently and adamantly refused to accept enthusiastic proffers of vaguely similar names by other audience members. More than that, and most importantly, nothing he offered up was directed at the audience generally but always a specific small group of people, even if someone in a slightly different section claimed everything matched someone they knew he would have none of it, it had to be the person or persons he was directly addressing who often seemed perplexed until some family member or friend they were with identified the information as being relevant to them.
Did he says things that no one accepted as true or accurate? Absolutely. Did he alter what he'd previously said in order to fit their responses? I said not earlier, but in fact you could say so to a small degree...family relationships or who the person was related to often seemed very flexible, and occasionally people he was addressing would accept a new name he offered as being "my cousin's girlfriend" or "my husband's father in law" which struck me as being rather a stretch in terms of most family bonds.
So what, if anything, were the stand out "hits"? Necessarily they would be those statements which were directed at the individual audience member he was currently talking to and which are too far out of the mundane or universal for them to be dismissed as applying to "everyone" or to "most people".
To one woman: "Ok this is a weird one - who has the pet pig?" She: "my friend does".
To another: "I'm now seeing him holding up a bird" She: "He breeds budgies. We've got birds all over the place"
A third person he was engaged with (I can't recall if he emphasised it was a child in the family or if she did), he talked about a hormonal/chromosonal condition..her child or grandchild had a rare such condition which only 36 people in the world suffer from.
And a woman in the audience who lived and worked in the Turks and Caicos islands accepted lots of other things he said but wouldn't and couldn't recognise his reference to her working at a hotel/resort. Despite her refuting its he kept repeating it, he finally asked out of curiosity what she did do and she said she was the prosecution service. So he asked "is it a case you're working on?" and her tone changed as the penny dropped "Oh yes! It's a big corruption case about a hotel".
Did i leave wowed? No. Did i find him sincere and persuasive? Yes. Was there identifiable fakery going on? Not identifiable by me. My scant summary of a few examples is necessarily imprecise and will leave gaps in which others might declare they see it. But i can only trust my own judgement on the night. Were his "hits" suggestive of after death communication? I can't based on my current recollection say that they were. I can only say he appeared to possibly have anomalous access to some private and relatively improbable information.
So, having initially abandoned the idea, i did in the end go and see the famed John Edward perform at the local theatre last night, as i suggested on the other thread that I was tempted to do.
Background: His fame, success and following had lead me to conclude as likely that either there was something truly impressive to witness or, if he was a fake then he might be the world's most convincing one and that too would be worth witnessing. As for claims about him (someone on the other thread mentioned matter of factly he was a cold reader) i was very on the fence about that as I had years before read a couple of long online essays by the blogger Michael Prescott in which he effectively debunked the debunkers, plus i was aware that Edward had subjected himself to scientific study by Gary Schwartz some years ago suggesting at least self confidence and a willingness to be tested. Finally when first considering attending i searched online for comments from people who had been to see him. It was hardly an exhaustive study but for what its worth the one consistency in the observations i found was that those who dismissed him had never personally seen him and those who had seen him were always impressed. The latter of course you could dismiss as the fact they paid to see him would suggest a predisposition to belief. The dismissive scepticism of the non attendees however was inherently useless as far as i was concerned simply because they could only be reflecting someone else's opinion.
So with all that in mind i went along to see what i could see. My report on the details of the readings themselves will have to be short and scant because it was two hours long and its almost all slipped my mind in its finer details.
General stuff: one of the bar staff mentioned there were 1100 attendees. I don't know how many dates he has on this tour but given the prices, and assuming similar venues in each town, a 10 date tour could easily rake him close to a million pounds by my crude maths. That says nothing about his abilities only that its a very lucrative career in his case and that a lot of people are very persuaded to believe in him and willing to pay good money on the basis. Second general observation, a minimum of 90-95% of the audience were female. I don't know what that tells us.
The Usual Suspects: I can quickly dismiss the more outlandish claims about his performances that do the rounds of the internet, largely perpetuated by an episode of South Park. There were no lurkers in the hallways listening to people give away their family secrets, no forms to be filled in (except for people who had bought premium tickets who signed up for free membership of his website in the lobby 10 minutes before curtain up), hidden microphones in the seats is pure nonsense and would require the connivance of the theatre management and staff in every venue he plays in. An unlikely grand conspiracy of silence. The logistics of paying off local plants in every town he visits, plants who never come forward this side of the grave, also doesn't bear thinking about. Which leaves us, if he did turn out to be persuasive, with our old friend cold reading.
Bullet point summary of what I saw: 1) Nothing "case closed" spectacular. 2) Several direct and - to me - extremely improbable hits 3) He was personally very persuasive and convincing (you may retort a conman would be) of his bona fides and self assurance. It was hard not to "believe" him (as in his intentions and integrity, rather than that he was talking to the dead necessarily) 4)I saw no evidence of cold reading as i understand the term. Eg leading questions and running with their contrary answers as if the new information has come from the medium and not the client. That just didn't happen (small caveat below)
Where he did fit the mould of the stage medium cliche is that - unlike those i had witnessed at the spiritualist church - he did do the old "a name beginning with" a particular letter or sound and give 2 or 3 alternatives. In mitigation of that he consistently and adamantly refused to accept enthusiastic proffers of vaguely similar names by other audience members. More than that, and most importantly, nothing he offered up was directed at the audience generally but always a specific small group of people, even if someone in a slightly different section claimed everything matched someone they knew he would have none of it, it had to be the person or persons he was directly addressing who often seemed perplexed until some family member or friend they were with identified the information as being relevant to them.
Did he says things that no one accepted as true or accurate? Absolutely. Did he alter what he'd previously said in order to fit their responses? I said not earlier, but in fact you could say so to a small degree...family relationships or who the person was related to often seemed very flexible, and occasionally people he was addressing would accept a new name he offered as being "my cousin's girlfriend" or "my husband's father in law" which struck me as being rather a stretch in terms of most family bonds.
So what, if anything, were the stand out "hits"? Necessarily they would be those statements which were directed at the individual audience member he was currently talking to and which are too far out of the mundane or universal for them to be dismissed as applying to "everyone" or to "most people".
To one woman: "Ok this is a weird one - who has the pet pig?" She: "my friend does".
To another: "I'm now seeing him holding up a bird" She: "He breeds budgies. We've got birds all over the place"
A third person he was engaged with (I can't recall if he emphasised it was a child in the family or if she did), he talked about a hormonal/chromosonal condition..her child or grandchild had a rare such condition which only 36 people in the world suffer from.
And a woman in the audience who lived and worked in the Turks and Caicos islands accepted lots of other things he said but wouldn't and couldn't recognise his reference to her working at a hotel/resort. Despite her refuting its he kept repeating it, he finally asked out of curiosity what she did do and she said she was the prosecution service. So he asked "is it a case you're working on?" and her tone changed as the penny dropped "Oh yes! It's a big corruption case about a hotel".
Did i leave wowed? No. Did i find him sincere and persuasive? Yes. Was there identifiable fakery going on? Not identifiable by me. My scant summary of a few examples is necessarily imprecise and will leave gaps in which others might declare they see it. But i can only trust my own judgement on the night. Were his "hits" suggestive of after death communication? I can't based on my current recollection say that they were. I can only say he appeared to possibly have anomalous access to some private and relatively improbable information.
