While answering a question about John "I see dead people" Edward, I came across this excellent description of ways psychics fake results.
It provides historical information and context, as well as specifics on the methods of John Edward.
John Edward is one of those psychic elite in the company of Sylvia Browne, who take money from people for use of their alleged powers every day, but have refused to take the million dollar challenge.
Even if they shudder at taking such easy money for themselves, you gotta wonder why they wouldn't grab for it and give it away to charity?
It's just so obvious that he's a fraud. I know because I am a psychic.
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I would say this falls under hoaxes and scams rather than skeptical. Skeptical implies that you've got doubts but are still open to the idea. I try to stay open to the concept but John Edward clearly has no special powers.
I love the South Park episode where they debunk him. | |
It's really sad what these psychics do to people and they don't seem to care. Here's an interesting site that tries to expose Sylvia Browne for what she really is.
http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/home/ | |
John Edward is a deuche, we all know it. Hes a lying phony, but to those who are willing to believe, let them. They need a source of comfort and he gives it to them.
But i still know hes a deuchebag phony | |
I would say this falls under hoaxes and scams rather than skeptical.
Well, hoax for whom and skeptical for whom? The subject came up because of a person on a forum who saw Mr. Edward on Oprah and was wondering whether he was real or not, because he seemed pretty convincing. So while I certainly agree that there's no real doubt about the veracity of his abilities, for some people there is. Skeptical implies that you've got doubts but are still open to the idea. The word itself, yes, but of course there's more to it than just the meaning of the word. Skeptics are a community of people who tackle subjects that people at large often accept uncritically. For people involved in the skeptical movement certain bogus claims may be long understood to be false, but to the world at large it may still be open to question and therefore the debate continues on. In cases where the world comes to agree with a scientifically provable and proven claim (say, on the fact that the world is round), then that claim moves out of the skeptical realm. You can trust that skeptics wish this would happen more often! There probably isn't a legitimate skeptic out there who believes we didn't land on the moon...but since for some the debate rages on, skeptics are forced to go over the same old tired facts again and again. It's not a very satisfying call, though presumably someone has to do it. | |
John Edward is a deuche, we all know it. Hes a lying phony, but to those who are willing to believe, let them.
Perhaps in his case there isn't much harm. But it's only a hop and a skip from him to Sylvia Browne, who tells people their kid is dead when he's not. Now that's just plain harmful. It wasted police resources (they spent time searching for the body where she said it would be, and her description of the assailant was completely wrong) and it devastated the parents and could have stopped them from looking for their kid...a kid who was living not far from them. That's some comfort she was providing! | |
Plus, y'know, taking masses of money from people in order to provide them with false comfort isn't exactly /nice/
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I see a dead person.
His name is John Edward. | |
Afghanimal519 wrote:
They need a source of comfort and he gives it to them. Most people find out that he's tricking them later on down the track. When they do it serves to crush them even further. It also prevents a lot of people from actually dealing with their grief and moving on. They get this initial sense of closer but it confirms that their loved one is in a sense still with them which makes it difficult to move on and actually accept that the person isn't going to be the major part of their life that they once were. Even if people do feel better after consulting him it doesn't excuse the fact that he's knowingly taking advantage of their them when they're in a very fragile state. There are plenty of places to find comfort in those situations, the guy getting rich by lying shouldn't be one of them (whether there actually is an afterlife like he describes he's still lying about being able to communicate with people there). | |
John Edwards was my old history teacher and also a minor character in Doom 3 (he dies after an awesome escort sequence. Probably nothing is worse in Doom 3 than your torch repeatedly going out due to EMP pulses).
Jp said: Plus, y'know, taking masses of money from people in order to provide them with false comfort isn't exactly /nice/ Uh, can we leave Christian bashing out of this for now? :P | |
Yeah, I don't know why we should leave frauds, scam artists and thieves alone. Just because you target the vulnerable doesn't make it okay.
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Do not puncture the surface.