robtex
Veteran Member
I learned about James Edwards after reading, Micheal Shermer's book( http://www.skeptic.com/), "How we believe". Shermer followed another fellow James Praagh ( http://skepdic.com/vanpraagh.html) around for one year (?) not sure on length, and made some observations. He realized that James worked off of audience feedback and questions to aquire his info. For instance he would throw out some hypothicals and wait for the audience response and use that as a guide as to where he was going. Meaning he wasn't reading spirts..he was reading his audience. He further said that Praaghs hit to miss ratio was ridiculously low being well under 20 % (can't remember exact number) but that since the audiance was prone to believe that they ignored his misses but acknowledged his hits. (http://www.holysmoke.org/praagh2.htm) He also talked about Praagh's progression meathods in question --which he compared to flow charts where he went from general to specfic after getting a postive hit.
I thought about what Shermer said, and one day two years ago sat next to my bro's gf at the time who was memorized by Edwards (so much so that she would cry during the show), and watched it with. I kept Shermers notes in my head and instead of watching him read the spirts I watched him read his audience. During this one show he was "speaking" to a loved one from beyond and looking at the small group that had come to communicate with the deceased. An overweight woman was sitting in front of the small group and carressing a large ring on her left hand. The camera panned it several times while Edwards was guessing and I knew he was gonna bring it up because obviously it had some signifigance to their conversation. Sure enough, after the first commerical break Edwards made mention of "some piece of Jewery" that held signifgance to the deceased and the woman, whom I swear seemed about to faint, exclaimed that the departed gave this ring to her and was holdig it up and crying. She wanted to believe so badly that didn't make him work for it at all but prompted him (maybe subconciously) by rubbing it and than confirmed it before he had a chance to make another guess.
The amazing Randi a retired magician I believe, has a very comprehensive database on medium fraud
http://www.randi.org/
As an incentive to test mediums he has offered a ONE MILLION dollar prize to any medium that can come to his faciltiy and under a control enviroment prove their ablities to him and the public ( http://www.randi.org/research/index.html) To date no medium has ever collected a dime. Self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne is the most famous medium to bomb in their experiment. If you have the time you should read the input he has on cold reading (http://www.randi.org/library/coldreading/index.html) and read the nasty emails he gets from frauds that just want him to go away.
I thought about what Shermer said, and one day two years ago sat next to my bro's gf at the time who was memorized by Edwards (so much so that she would cry during the show), and watched it with. I kept Shermers notes in my head and instead of watching him read the spirts I watched him read his audience. During this one show he was "speaking" to a loved one from beyond and looking at the small group that had come to communicate with the deceased. An overweight woman was sitting in front of the small group and carressing a large ring on her left hand. The camera panned it several times while Edwards was guessing and I knew he was gonna bring it up because obviously it had some signifigance to their conversation. Sure enough, after the first commerical break Edwards made mention of "some piece of Jewery" that held signifgance to the deceased and the woman, whom I swear seemed about to faint, exclaimed that the departed gave this ring to her and was holdig it up and crying. She wanted to believe so badly that didn't make him work for it at all but prompted him (maybe subconciously) by rubbing it and than confirmed it before he had a chance to make another guess.
The amazing Randi a retired magician I believe, has a very comprehensive database on medium fraud
http://www.randi.org/
As an incentive to test mediums he has offered a ONE MILLION dollar prize to any medium that can come to his faciltiy and under a control enviroment prove their ablities to him and the public ( http://www.randi.org/research/index.html) To date no medium has ever collected a dime. Self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne is the most famous medium to bomb in their experiment. If you have the time you should read the input he has on cold reading (http://www.randi.org/library/coldreading/index.html) and read the nasty emails he gets from frauds that just want him to go away.