The Mtstery Chronicles

by Joe Nickell

  Mental Mediumship

  The new breed of spiritualists—like Edward, James Van Praagh, Rosemary Altea, Sylvia Browne, and George Anderson—avoid the physical approach with its risks of exposure and possible criminal charges. They opt instead for the comparatively safe “mental mediumship,” which involves the purported use of psychic ability to obtain messages from the spirit realm.

  This is not a new approach; mediums have long done “readings” for their credulous clients. In the early days they exhibited “the classic form of trance mediumship, as practiced by shamans and oracles,” giving spoken “’spirit messages’ that ranged all the way from personal (and sometimes strikingly accurate) trivia to hours-long public trance-lectures on subjects of the deepest philosophical and religious import” (McHargue 1972, 44-45).

  Some mediums produced “automatic” or “trance” or “spirit” writing, which the entities supposedly dictated to the medium or produced by guiding his or her hand. Such writings could be in flowery language indeed, as in this excerpt from one spirit writing in my collection:

  Oh my Brother—I am so glad to be able to come here with you and hold sweet communion for it has been a long time since I have controlled this medium but 1 remember how well used I had become to her magnetism[,] but we will soon get accustomed to her again and then renew the pleasant times we used to have. I want to assure you that we are all here with you this afternoon[—]Father[,] Mother[,] little Alice[—]and so glad to find it so well with you and we hope and feel dear Brother that you have seen the darkest part of life and that times are not with you now as they have been ....

  and so on in this talkative fashion.

  “Cold Reading”

  By contrast, today’s spirits—whom John Edward and his fellow mediums supposedly contact—seem to have poor memories and difficulty communicating. For example, in one of his on-air seances (on Larry King Live, 19 June 1998), Edward said: “I feel like there’s a J- or G-sounding name attached to this.” He also perceived “Linda or Lindy or Leslie; who’s this L name?” Again, he got a “Maggie or Margie, or some M-G-sounding name,” and yet again heard from “either Ellen or Helen, or Eleanore—it’s like an Ellen-sounding name.” Gone is the clear-speaking eloquence of yore; the dead now seem to mumble.

  The spirits also seemingly communicate to Edward as if they were engaging in pantomime. As Edward said of one alleged spirit communicant, in a Dateline session: “He’s pointing to his head; something had to affect the mind or the head, from what he’s showing me.” No longer, apparently, can the dead speak in flowing Victorian sentences; instead, they are reduced to gestures, as if playing a game of charades.

  One suspects, of course, that it is not the imagined spirits that have changed, but rather the approach today’s mediums have chosen to employ. It is, indeed, a shrewd technique known as “cold reading”—so named because the subject walks in “cold”; that is, the medium lacks advance information about the person (Gresham 1953,113-36). It is an artful method of gleaning information from the sitter, then feeding it back as mystical revelation.

  The “psychic” can obtain clues by observing dress and body language (noting expressions that indicate when the medium is on or off track), asking questions (which if correct will appear as “hits” but otherwise will seem innocent queries), and inviting the subject to interpret the vague statements offered. For example, nearly anyone can respond to the mention of a common object (like a ring or watch) with a personal recollection that can seem to transform the mention into a hit. (For more on cold reading see Gresham 1953; Hyman 1977; Nickell 2000.)

  It should not be surprising that Edward is skilled at cold reading, an old fortunetelling technique. His mother was a “psychic junkie” who threw fortunetelling “house parties.” At one of them, an alleged clairvoyant advised the then 15-year-old that he had “wonderful psychic abilities.” He began doing card readings for friends and family, then progressed to participating in psychic fairs, where he soon learned that names and other “validating information” sometimes applied to the dead rather than the living. Eventually he changed his billing from “psychic” to “psychic medium” (Edward 1999). The revised approach set him on the road to stardom.

  “Hot Reading”

  Although cold reading is the main technique of the new spiritualists, they also employ “hot” reading on occasion. Houdini (1924) exposed many of their information-gathering techniques, including the use of planted microphones to listen in on clients as they waited in the mediums’ anterooms—a technique Houdini himself used to impress visitors with his “telepathy” (Gibson 1976, 13). Reformed medium M. Lamar Keene’s The Psychic Mafia (1976) describes such methods as conducting advance research on clients, sharing other mediums’ files (what Keene terms “mediumistic espionage”), noting casual remarks made in conversation before a reading, and so on.

  An article in Time magazine suggested that John Edward may have used just such chicanery. One subject, a marketing manager named Michael O’Neill, had received apparent messages from his dead grandfather—but when his segment aired, he found that it had been improved through editing. According to Time’s Leon Jaroff (2001):

  Now suspicious, O’Neill recalled that while the audience was waiting to be seated, Edward’s aides were scurrying about, striking up conversations and getting people to fill out cards with their name, family tree and other facts. Once inside the auditorium, where each family was directed to preassigned seats, more than an hour passed before show time while “technical difficulties” backstage were corrected.

  Edward has a policy of not responding to criticism, but the executive producer of Crossing Over insists: “No information is given to John Edward about the members of the audience with whom he talks. There is no eavesdropping on gallery conversations, and there are no ‘tricks’ to feed information to John.” He labeled the Time article “a mix of erroneous observations and baseless theories” (Nordlander 2001).

  Be that as it may, on Dateline Edward was actually caught in an attempt to pass off previously gained knowledge as spirit revelation. During the session he said of the spirits, “They’re telling me to acknowledge Anthony.” When the cameraman signaled that that was his name, Edward seemed surprised, asking “That’s you? Really?” He further queried: “Had you not seen Dad before he passed? Had you either been away or been distanced?” Later, while playing the taped segment for me, Dateline reporter John Hockenberry challenged me with Edward’s apparent hit: “He got Anthony. That’s pretty good.” I agreed but added, “We’ve seen mediums who mill about before sessions and greet people and chat with them and pick up things.”

  Indeed, it turned out that that is just what Edward did. Hours before the group reading, Tony had been the cameraman on another Edward shoot (recording him at his hobby, ballroom dancing). Significantly, the two men had chatted, and during the conversation Edward obtained useful bits of information that he afterward pretended had come from the spirits. In a follow-up interview, Hockenberry revealed the fact and grilled an evasive Edward:

  Hockenberry: So were you aware that his dad had died before you did his reading?

  Edward: I think he—I think earlier in the—in the day, he had said something.

  Hockenberry: It makes me feel like, you know, that that’s fairly significant. I mean, you knew that he had a dead relative and you knew it was the dad.

  Edward: OK.

  Hockenberry: So that’s not some energy coming through, that’s something you knew going in. You knew his name was Tony and you knew that his dad had died and you knew that he was in the room, right? That gets you . . .

  Edward: That’s a whole lot of thinking you got me doing, then. Like I said, I react to what’s coming through, what I see, hear and feel. I interpret what I’m seeing hearing and feeling, and I define it. He raised his hand, it made sense for him. Great.

  Hockenberry: But a cynic would look at that and go, “Hey,” you know, “He knows it’s the cameraman, he knows it’s Dateline
. You know, wouldn’t that be impressive if he can get the cameraman to cry?”

  Edward: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Not at all.

  Despite his attempts to weasel out of it, Edward had obviously been caught cheating, pretending that information he had gleaned earlier had just been revealed by spirits and feigning surprise that it applied to Tony the cameraman. (This occurred long before Time suggested that an Inside Edition program—of 27 February 2001—was probably “the first nationally televised show to take a look at the Edward phenomenon.” That honor goes instead to Dateline NBC.)

  Inflating “Hits”

  In addition to shrewd cold reading and out-and-out cheating, “psychics” and “mediums” can also boost their apparent accuracy in other ways. They get something of a free ride from the tendency of credulous folk to count the apparent hits and ignore the misses. In the case of Edward, my analysis of 125 statements or pseudostatements (i.e. questions) he made on a Larry King Live program (19 June 1998) showed that he was incorrect about as often as he was right and that his hits were mostly weak ones. For example, he mentioned “an older female” with “an M-sound-ing name,” either an aunt or grandmother, he stated; the caller supplied “Mavis” without identifying the relationship. (Nickell 1998).

  Another session—for an episode of Crossing Over attended by a reporter for The New York Times Magazine, Chris Ballard—had Edward “hitting well below 50 percent for the day.” Indeed, he twice spent “upward of 20 minutes stuck on one person, shooting blanks but not accepting the negative responses” (Ballard 2001). This is a common technique: persisting in an attempt to redeem error, cajoling or even browbeating a sitter (as Sylvia Browne often does), or at least making the communication failure seem to be the sitter’s fault. “Do not not honor him!” Edward exclaimed at one point, then (according to Ballard) “staring down the bewildered man.”

  When the taped episode actually aired, the two lengthy failed readings had been edited out, along with second-rate offerings. What remained were two of the best readings of the show (Ballard 2001). This seems to confirm the allegation in the Time article that episodes were edited to make Edward seem more accurate, even to the point of apparently splicing in clips of one sitter nodding yes “after statements with which he remembers disagreeing” (Jaroff 2001).

  Edited or not, group sessions offer increased chances for success. By tossing out a statement and indicating a section of the audience rather than an individual, the performing “medium” makes it many times more likely that someone will “acknowledge” it as a “hit.” Sometimes multiple audience members will acknowledge an offering, whereupon the performer typically narrows the choice down to a single person and builds on the success. Edward uses just such a technique (Ballard 2001).

  Still another ploy used by Edward and his fellow “psychic mediums” is to suggest that people who cannot acknowledge a hit may find a connection later. “Write this down,” an insistent Edward sometimes says, or in some other way suggests that the person study the apparent miss. He may become even more insistent, with the positive reinforcement diverting attention from the failure and giving the person an opportunity to find some adaptable meaning later (Nickell 1998).

  Debunking vs. Investigation

  Some skeptics believe that the best way to counter Edward and his ilk is to reproduce his effect, by demonstrating the cold-reading technique to radio and television audiences. Of course, that approach is unconvincing unless one actually poses as a medium and then—after seemingly making contact with subjects’ dead loved ones—reveals the deception. I deliberately avoid this approach for a variety of reasons, largely because of ethical concerns. I rather agree with Houdini (1924, xi) who did spiritualistic stunts during his early career:

  At the time I did such stunts, I appreciated the fact that 1 had surprised my clients, but though aware of the fact that I was deceiving them, 1 did not see or understand the seriousness of trifling with such sacred sentimentality—or the unfortunate results that inevitably followed. To me it was a lark. I was a mystifier, my ambition was being gratified, and my love of a mild sensation was being satisfied. After delving deep, though, I realized the seriousness of it all. As I advanced to riper years of experience, I came to realize the seriousness of trifling with the hallowed reverence the average human being bestows on the departed. When I personally became afflicted with similar grief, I was chagrined that I had ever been guilty of such frivolity; for the first time, I realized that it borders on crime.

  Of course, tricking people in order to educate them is not the same as deceiving them for crass personal gain, but to toy with their deepest emotions—however briefly and with the best of intentions—is to cross a line that I prefer not to approach. Besides, I believe it can be very counterproductive. It may not be the alleged medium but rather the debunker himself who is perceived as dishonest, and he may come across as arrogant, cynical, and manipulative—not heroic as he imagines.

  Furthermore, an apparent reproduction of an effect does not necessarily mean that the cause was the same. (For example, I have seen several skeptical demonstrations of “weeping” icons that employed trickery more sophisticated than that used for “real” crying effigies.) Far better, I am convinced, is showing evidence of the actual methods employed, as I did in collaboration with Dateline NBC.

  Although John Edward was among five “highly skilled mediums” who allegedly fared well on a “scientific” test of their ability (Schwartz et al. 2001)—a test critiqued by others (Wiseman and O’Keeffe 2001)— he did not claim validation on Larry King Live. When King (2001) asked Edward if he thought there would ever be proof of spirit contact, Edward responded by suggesting that proof is unattainable and that only belief matters: “I think that to prove it is a personal thing. It is like saying, prove God. If you have a belief system and you have faith, then there is nothing really more than that.” This, however, is nothing more than an attempt to insulate a position and to evade or shift the burden of proof, which is always on the claimant. As Houdini (1924, 270) emphatically stated, “It is not for us to prove the mediums are dishonest, it is for them to prove that they are honest.” In my opinion, John Edward has already failed that test.

  REFERENCES

  Ballard, Chris. 2001. Oprah of the other side. The New York Times Magazine, 29 July, 38-41.

  Edward, John. 1999. One Last Time. New York: Berkley Books.

  Gibson, Walter B. 1977. The Original Houdini Scrapbook. New York: Corwin/ Sterling.

  Gresham, William Lindsay. 1953. Monster Midway. New York: Rinehart. Houdini, Harry. 1924. A Magician Among the Spirits. New York: Harper & Brothers.

  Hyman, Ray. 1977. Cold reading: How to convince strangers that you know all about them. Skeptical Inquirer 1, no. 2 (Spring/ Summer): 18-37.

  Jaroff, Leon. 2001. Talking to the dead. Time, 5 March, 52.

  Keene, M. Lamar. [1976] 1997. The Psychic Mafia. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

  King, Larry. 2001. Are psychics for real? Larry King Live, aired 6 March.

  McHargue, Georgess. 1972. Tacts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

  Nickell, Joe. 1998. Investigating spirit communications. Skeptical Briefs (September): 5-6.

  ———— . 1999. The Davenport Brothers: Religious practitioners, entertainers, or frauds? Skeptical Inquirer 23, no. 4 (July/ August): 14-17.

  ————. 2000. Hustling Heaven. Skeptical Briefs 10, no. 3 (September): 1-3.

  Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 47-60.

  Nordlander, Charles [executive producer of Crossing Over]. 2001. Letter to the editor. Time, 26 March.

  Schwartz, Gary E. R., et al. 2001. Accuracy and replicability of anomalous after-death communication across highly skilled mediums. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (January): 1-25.

  Wiseman, Richard, and Ciaran O’Keeffe. 2001. A critique of Schwartz et al.’s after-death
communication studies. Skeptical Inquirer 25, no. 6 (November/ December): 26-30.

  22

  Scandals and Follies of the “Holly Shround”

  The Shroud of Turin continues to be the subject of media presentations treating it as so mysterious as to imply a supernatural origin. One study (Binga 2001) found only 10 scientifically credible skeptical books on the topic, compared with more than 400 promoting the cloth as the authentic, or potentially authentic, winding sheet of Jesus—including, most recently, a revisionist tome entitled The Resurrection of the Shroud (Antonacci 2000). Since the cloth appeared in the middle of the fourteenth century, it has been at the center of scandal, exposes, and controversy—a dubious legacy for what is purported to be the holiest relic in Christendom.

  Faked Shrouds

  There have been numerous “true” shrouds of Jesus—along with vials of his mother’s breast milk, hay from the manger in which he was laid after birth, and countless relics of his crucifixion—but the Turin cloth uniquely bears the apparent imprints of a crucified man. Unfortunately, the cloth is incompatible with New Testament accounts of Jesus’ burial. John’s gospel (19:38-42, 20:5-7) specifically states that the body was “wound” with “linen clothes” and a large quantity of burial spices (myrrh and aloes). Still another cloth (called “the napkin”) covered his face and head. In contrast, the Shroud of Turin constitutes a single, draped cloth (laid under and then over the “body”) without any trace of burial spices.

  There were many earlier purported shrouds of Christ, which were typically about half the length of the Turin cloth. One was the subject of a reported seventh-century dispute, on the island of Iona, between Christians and Jews, both of whom claimed it. As adjudicator, an Arab ruler placed the alleged relic in a fire from which it levitated, unscathed, and fell at the feet of the Christians—or so says a pious tale. In medieval Europe alone, there were “at least forty-three True Shrouds’” (Humber 1978, 78).