by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
(April 4, 2008) The Home Shopping Network (HSN) is following Oprah’s lead in the promotion of New Age gurus and their products. The popular multi-media shopping network is selling Evolve, a 10 DVD collection by psychic medium John Edward which promises to help one “raise your personal awareness of the energy that surrounds you.”
HSN has devoted several pages to promoting Edward and this collection of DVDs and accessories. “Undeniably inspirational books, DVDs, journals, jewelry and more encourage your evolution toward personal awareness and fulfillment,” the site reads.
The Evolve collection includes 10 DVD’s: Meditation, Developing Your Own Psychic Powers, Angels and Guides, Understanding Your Psychic Potential, Psychic Tools in the Workplace, How to Conduct a Psychic Session, and Meditation Music & Ambiance. Three additional DVD’s contain “never-before-seen private readings that provide a moving John Edward experience.”
Customers can also purchase a variety of Evolve accessories such as tea lamps, jewelry, and prayer journals which range in price from $22.95 to $139.95.
For instance, a seven-strand “Beaded Chakra Bracelet” is available for persons wishing to “Take your personal and spiritual evolution to a higher level.” Each strand represents one of the seven chakras or “energy centers” that New Agers believe exist in the body.
A “Practical Praying Book with Two-Tone Glass Bead Rosary” helps the user to “learn about the power of prayer and how it can illuminate a path for each of us to follow. Also, learn to use this rosary as a tool to bring focused energy and creative thought into your everyday life,” the site reads.
A hand-signed “Limited Edition Trilogy Book Set” is described on the site as being able to “help answer many of your lingering questions about the afterlife . . .”
Christian writer Marsha West broke the story after receiving an e-mail from a pastor asking her to alert the public to the fact that HSN was peddling witchcraft.
West began looking into Edward’s background and discovered that he is best known for his syndicated TV show Crossing Over on the Sci-Fi channel. “The superstar psychic engages in after-death communications and purports to receive messages from friends and family ‘on the other side.’ He also claims to communicate with dead animals,” West writes.
That’s not all he claims. According to New Age expert Marcia Montenegro, Edward claims to have had psychic abilities since the age of four. As a child, he also experienced astral travel (traveled out of his body) and was greatly influenced in the study of psychic phenomenon by his mother who frequently consulted psychics as well as an uncle who was involved in yoga and psychic practices and whose wife was a card reader.
At the age of 15, a psychic told him that he was psychically gifted, which motivated him to study everything he could find on the subject from spiritualism to spirit guides and tarot cards. Eventually he went to work as a psychic at fairs and seminars.
It was at one of these fairs that Edward had his first contact with what he believed was a dead person, which led him into the practice of contacting spirits of the dead, also known as necromancy. He has become one of the most famous psychics in the world, with two internationally distributed talk shows, and is best known for his abilities to communicate with those who allege to have crossed over to the “Other Side.”
Edward also claims to be Catholic even though he acknowledges that the Church opposes what he does. He says priests and nuns are among his clients and that he often prays the rosary and meditates before making contact with the spirits. He also makes the thoroughly New Age claim to have discovered, through guided visualization, that he has five spirit guides, as well as a master guide.
Edward recently made headlines when he conducted a “private reading” (seance) for Terri Irwin, the widow of wildlife icon Steve Irwin, on January 5 at the Australia Zoo. Irwin invited 5,000 close friends and charged $90 a ticket. Steve allegedly “spoke” to Terri and his father, Bob Irwin.
“There’s no doubt that Steve was with us,” Bob Irwin said to local news reporters. “It’s not black and white, it’s grey, but there was a definite unmistakable Steve energy.”
Terri, who claims to be Christian, addressed the crowd and said, “If any of you are wondering why Steve didn’t come through, it’s because look around you, he’s everywhere.”
One disgruntled fan reportedly complained: “Steve Irwin spent a lifetime establishing a rock solid reputation of credibility and integrity. Terri has just shattered that rock with one blow. I wonder if John Edward will pass on Steve’s thoughts about that?”
He would not be the first person to accuse Edward of scamming the public. Author Shari Waxman says Edward is more than a psychic medium; he’s also a master statistician.
“The smoke and mirrors behind his [Edward’s] self-professed ability to communicate with the dead is a simple application of the laws of probability,” Waxman writes in “Shooting Crap.”
“Basically, if you keep trying something whose results are independent, your odds of getting your desired result increase.”
For example,“the odds that you will roll a three on any one roll of a six-sided die are one in six or about 17 percent,” she writes. “After six throws, the chance that you will have thrown at least one three has increased to about 67 percent. After 12 throws, it’s nearly 90 percent.”
Edwards may be employing a popular psychic trick called “cold reading” where the psychic gleans information from the way people act, speak, dress, etc. and then uses high probability guesses about the nature of their audience.
“So each audience member becomes, in effect, a throw of the die, and each of Edward’s guesses is the number he’s trying to roll,” Waxman writes.
For example, the odds are quite high that several people in any given audience have – or had – an Aunt Mary.
“Lucky for Edward, most audience members on his television show are too hopeful and trusting to pull out a calculator and expose the charlatan behind the prophet,” Waxman writes.
But there are other more worrisome issues about psychics and the high-profile media conglomerates that want to hawk their dubious wares.
“Perhaps John Edward is a fraud and a brilliant con man,” writes West. “Then again, it’s entirely possible that he does, in fact, receive information from the spirit world. My question for those who believe he’s for real, and that he actually communicates with spirits of the dead, is this: What if the info that’s piped into the medium’s mind comes from another sort of spirit, a spirit not from a deceased loved one, but from a demonic spirit?”
Because of these dangers, God has expressly forbidden us to consort with psychics and other practitioners of divination. In Deuteronomy 18:9-11 we are told: “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.”
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In “The New Age Movement: A Christian Reflection,” experts Clare McGrath Merkle and Fr. Edmund Sylvia CSC explain the dangers of the New Age. Available for only $5 in our catalog at www.womenofgrace.com/catalog
