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Glenn Beck
Encore Presentation: John Edward Shares Insights into His Career
Aired October 31, 2007 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): People wait more than two years just for a private session with him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you.
BECK: His ability to reunite those in the physical world with loved ones who have crossed over is nothing short of remarkable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that is just awesome.
BECK: Even the skeptics are wowed when he meets total strangers and uses his psychic medium to tell them the most private details and intimate messages from loved ones who have passed.
On his show, "Crossing Over", the readings in front of a live studio audience amaze the crowd. His psychic abilities landed him on just about every TV show there is. And now, he`s hitting the road, traveling throughout the world, helping connect people to their loved ones.
JOHN EDWARD, HOST, "CROSSING OVER": I would be able to get a pull, a feeling from my sternum like I`m tethered.
BECK: his new show chronicled on WE chronicles his experiences and the effect he has had on those that have been enlightened by his gift.
Oh, yes, and in his spare time, he`s a best-selling author.
Cynics, skeptics, believers, listen up. He`s John Edward, and we`ve got him for the full hour. Prepare to be totally freaked out.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: Welcome to it.
Joining me now is John Edward, whose new show, "John Edward: Cross Country", can be even on WE-TV. He also kicks off his world tour next month in Australia where the guy is a freaking rock star.
John, welcome to the program.
EDWARD: Thanks for having me.
BECK: You sold out -- you hold the record, I believe, in Sydney, Australia, for the fastest sellout. You sold out in, I think, nine minutes in Australia.
EDWARD: It was great. That`s what they tell me. I don`t know. It was wild. It was crazy.
BECK: What is it -- what is it about Australia? What is it like to walk off a plane on another -- on another continent and...
EDWARD: First of all, you don`t really walk off a plane in Australia. You kind of fall off the plane after the flight; it takes so long to get there.
It`s an amazing place. It`s -- the first time I went there, I didn`t know what to expect. I never really had a desire to do this work outside of the states. You know, I kind of felt like, why do I have to travel to go do this?
And my publisher invited me to go down there. And the books were being published down there, and he said, "You really should go down there." And I went, and it was such an amazing experience. The people are amazing. It`s a beautiful country. I had a great time.
BECK: What are you pulling down a year?
EDWARD: Come again?
BECK: What are you pulling down a year? No, really, how much are you making?
EDWARD: I was like, what am I pulling? I`m like...
BECK: What are you pulling down a year, man?
EDWARD: It was - it was something for me. When I went there, the feeling of appreciation was probably what overwhelmed me more than the feeling of walking out in front of all those people.
BECK: You have, what, 10,000 seats?
EDWARD: This time?
BECK: Yes.
EDWARD: No. Actually, I tried to make this one a lot smaller.
BECK: Which is?
EDWARD: About two.
BECK: Two thousand. So you`re hearing things. I would imagine it`s -- we`ll get into this later. But I would imagine it`s kind of like intuition. You`re just hearing your own voice in your own head, but you`re hearing things. What is it: the loudest, the most aggressive person that comes up to you? How do you -- with 2,000 people, how do you sort them?
EDWARD: I guess -- I guess it`s the louder they pull. The louder the energy is kind of where I get pulled towards. So the one who gets my attention, the loudest or the stronger pull, would be where I go.
BECK: And you have felt this your whole life?
EDWARD: Mm-hmm.
BECK: When was your first experience? When did you...
EDWARD: My first experience actually with this would be when I was 15 years old. I went for a reading at my grandmother`s house. My mom and her mom and, you know, family used to have psychics come to the house all the time.
And I was 15. And they had this woman Lydia Clark come to the house. And she was -- you know, one by one, people were coming out of the reading room, you know, and they were like blown away by this woman.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: And I joked around and said it was like, you know, "Invasion of the Personality Snatchers". So they went in one way, and they came out affected or changed or different.
And I was -- I still am to some degree. But at that time I was a sarcastic 15-year-old sophomore, who was making fun of everybody for going to spend money to do this.
And then my grandmother went. And my grandmother came out of the room, and she was upset. She was crying. And I loved my grandmother. She`s like my second mother. And I wanted to know what this woman said to her that affected her like this. Like, why did this woman make my grandmother cry?
And she said, "She told me" that my grandfather was standing next to her. And I -- again, I`m somewhat of a smart ass.
I said, "Grandma, Grandpa is dead."
And she goes, "I know that. I was there when it happened." I said -- but she said that Tony was standing next to her, and he was holding a mandolin. Now, my grandfather`s name was Anthony, and people apparently called him Tony.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: I never knew him. And he was a mandolin player. All right. I didn`t really know that. So that being said, I made a joke and said, "Grandma, you were introduced to her as Mrs. Esposito; it`s not that big of a stretch that there would be a Tony somewhere in the family."
And my grandmother said to me, she goes, "If you don`t want to believe, that`s your issue. But I know that your grandfather was with me in that room."
So I`m like, all right. But I was bothered, because I felt like this woman was taking advantage of my grandmother. So I decided that I was going to show them that this was not real and that this woman would not be able to read me. And I was going to go up there and give her a hard time.
BECK: So what did she say to you?
EDWARD: She freaked me out. The first thing that I did -- the first thing that she did was she took my high school ring, and she was holding it. And she did something called psychometry. Psychometry is where you hold onto an object, and you`re able to read the energy of that object.
So she takes this object, and she starts talking to me about how I have these highly evolved spirit guides who are ready to work with me. And the reason why she`s there that day is to put me on the path that I`m supposed to be on. And this is with her eyes closed.
And I`m trying not to laugh because I`m thinking, like, "All right. Now come on, how psychic could this woman really be," because if she was even remotely psychic, she would know that I have, you know -- she could tell by the way I was a being with her that I really wasn`t buying into her shtick.
She didn`t care. She went right past that, and then she started talking about things that were -- that I call generally specific. Like they have made sense to me but then I could literally write them off to every sophomore in high school.
BECK: It`s horoscopes. You read horoscopes, you`re like...
EDWARD: I could make it fit; I could not make it fit.
BECK: Right. Sure.
EDWARD: The thing that got me, is there were specific things that she predicted, you know, at that time. And, you know, for me, I was like, all right, well, how do you -- how do you -- I kind of relegated the fact that, yes, she had something. She was a mind reader. She was somehow reading my mind. That`s how she knew those things.
Except when the predictions started happening for myself or for my family, because you can`t read somebody`s mind if the information is not there in the first place.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: So that got my attention. And...
BECK: So then you started -- correct me if I`m wrong -- seeing dead people? You were like...
EDWARD: Not at all. That was "The Sixth Sense." That`s a movie. I went to the local public library, and I wanted to learn more about what this woman did.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: And I started reading about parapsychology, metaphysics. And going back to 1985, there wasn`t New Age book shelves.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: It was like a back section of the library, and it was under the occult. And I was embarrassed to check the books out. So I sat on the floor of the library, and I read all these books in the library.
BECK: So when was the time when you have heard it or knew it?
EDWARD: For me, once I gained the knowledge and the awareness of what to call this, I started going, like that`s not psychic. Like everybody does that.
And I remember talking to people in high school, going, you know, well, have you ever had that, you ever dreamt of your dead grandfather? He never told you in French about your family? And I`ll never forget this one kid looking at me in high school, going, no, do you?
And that was the first time I sat back and said, all right, well maybe I`m not as normal as I thought I was. And that was my first real kind of - - it was in high school, like maybe six months after that reading where I started going, maybe I should investigate this.
And God`s honest truth is I went to a Walden bookstore, or it was a small bookstore, where I lived, and I was looking in the occult section there. I was about two feet away from the shelves, trying to figure out which book I wanted to read, and there was a deck of tarot cards that fell off the shelf. And the lady who was working the story looked at me, and she went, "Clearly, you`re supposed to buy those."
BECK: OK. So I want to get into the -- we`re going to take a break, but I want to get into this, because I got a lot of mail from people who said, "The occult, you`re messing with the occult."
EDWARD: Right.
BECK: "You`re messing with the devil." We`ll get to that in just a second.
More with John Edward after this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was his half-brother.
EDWARD: Right. So I`m going to say it again. You have two sons in my head that have passed on the same level.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did.
EDWARD: My job. Medium.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD: Have you ever shot a commercial withholding a camera?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many.
EDWARD: You`ve shot commercials?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hundreds.
EDWARD: What would be the uniform connection, burial connection?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My father was a lieutenant colonel in the air force.
EDWARD: Can he put the camera down?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: So we`re with John Edward.
I thought of something as I was driving in today to do the show with you. I remember something that happened in my life when I was 13 years old. I was walking in the hallway, and I passed my mother. She had her hand in the sink. She was washing the dishes. And she was washing her hands. And I passed her. And I glanced at her, and I continued to walk.
And there was a voice -- and it was my voice. And it was as -- I mean, it was so loud, it stopped me dead in my tracks. And it said, "Stop, go back and give her a hug, because she`s not going to be around much longer."
And I dismissed it as my voice. And I continued to walk on. A month later, my mother passed away.
About a year later, same thing happened to me, and it was with my grandfather. When I was 17, I was dating a girl named Kris (ph). And same voice went off. And this time, they found that she had a brain tumor.
For about a month and a half, maybe two months, I knelt in church every day praying for that ability to go away. It was never about anybody else. It was just people in my life.
How -- is this the same kind of experience? And do people -- because I believe that`s the kind of thing that everybody has in their own life. But just like I did the first time -- and the only reason why I listened to it is because I had -- because my mother passed away.
EDWARD: Right. It was validated to you.
BECK: Yes. And it showed me that it was the voice that everybody always dismisses.
EDWARD: But it`s in your own mind`s voice.
BECK: Yes.
EDWARD: When I first started doing this work and I had worked at psychic fairs, I met all these other psychics. And each one would come up to me and go, "Oh, my God. You are so clairaudient." And by definition, clairaudience is what you experienced.
BECK: Right.
EDWARD: You hear this voice. And I expected these voices to show up. But it wasn`t -- I didn`t realize that the voices that were going to show up were already there; it was that mind`s voice.
BECK: Yes. It`s never like, "Hey, talk to Sally for me. I`m her dead grandmother."
EDWARD: Like you were reading a book, and the way you would sound as you`re reading that book is the way it would sound in your mind except quick, fast and loud.
BECK: So everybody has it. Everybody has it, and everybody usually dismisses it.
EDWARD: Or they don`t pay attention. Don`t recognize that it`s there. So something must have been happening to you at that time in your life that you had the ability to quiet your mind. You must have been involved in something. You must have been doing something at that time in your life that...
BECK: Probably drugs. I`m just being honest with you. Not at 13, but I don`t know what it was.
EDWARD: There`s something -- there`s something to be said about paying attention to that. You know, when my mom was dying of cancer, I remember sitting in her room. And I`d be like looking at her, and I can still see it. And I remember what I`m about ready to say to you because of that voice. And it was two words: "Remember this."
BECK: So why do you hear it for others? Why do these people come to you and...
EDWARD: Let`s demystify this. Why do you have the show?
BECK: Why do I have this show?
EDWARD: Yes.
BECK: I don`t know. You`re the psychic. You tell me.
EDWARD: Exactly my point. There`s a reason why you`re here to do the show. There`s a reason why you`re broadcasting your message, and there`s a reason why, as we discussed during the break, you`re getting people to look at the same news stories that other people would be doing, but you`re getting them to stretch it to look at it in a different perspective. Right? Same with me.
BECK: Is it possible that you are there to verify because people aren`t listening to themselves? You for some reason can allow people to have closure?
EDWARD: I hope so. You know, I don`t like to think of myself as being that special, to be honest. I think that by nature of who I am as a person, I`m a teacher. And if I was -- you know, regardless of what I was doing, I would wind up teaching.
So I like to look at I have this ability and that I like to use the opportunities put in front of me or that I`ve helped to create to teach about those abilities so people can recognize it in their own lives.
BECK: OK. That`s the bright side of it.
EDWARD: Right.
BECK: Now, I can`t tell you how inundated I have been this week with people on the dark side.
EDWARD: OK.
BECK: And they say that the only way that someone can have this ability for someone else is to have evil spirits or to be connected with evil. You just said a minute ago that, you know, you were in the section with the occult.
EDWARD: Right, which means hidden knowledge. And there`s no -- there`s no negativity about the word "occult." People get that confused with the word "cult" all the time.
BECK: OK.
EDWARD: And I was one of those people, because I guess I was afraid to check those books out.
BECK: Do you believe in -- do you believe in the devil?
EDWARD: No.
BECK: You`re Catholic.
EDWARD: I am.
BECK: Practicing?
EDWARD: Semi. You know, when you say, you know,...
BECK: Cafeteria Catholic? Because I was a Catholic. Take a little of this, a little of that.
EDWARD: I was taken to mass every single day until I was in first grade by my grandmother. So if I don`t go on Sunday it`s like I banked them early in life.
BECK: OK. So do you -- do you believe in -- you don`t believe in hell?
EDWARD: I don`t believe in hell in the way it was taught to make us fear.
BECK: Do you believe in evil?
EDWARD: I definitely believe in evil.
BECK: What is evil to you?
EDWARD: I believe -- I`m more fearful -- more fearful and concerned about evil within the human element rather than outside of the physical body. You know what I`m saying? Evil flew planes into a building. That`s evil. That to me is evil.
BECK: So you don`t believe in an evil force?
EDWARD: I believe in positive and negative. I can`t quantify it as being, you know, evil in that fashion.
BECK: Have you ever -- have you ever been in a reading where you have broken out in cold sweat and been afraid?
EDWARD: No.
BECK: Never?
EDWARD: No.
BECK: You`ve never had anything come to you and you went, `Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don`t want to mess with that"?
EDWARD: I had one experience where a friend of mine`s grandfather decided that he did not want to talk to me to pass on the information to her. And Bonnie, if you`re watching, hi.
But, you know, Bonnie`s grandfather decided that he wanted to talk directly to her, and he decided like that he was going to pull the whole Whoopi Goldberg ghost jumping inside and trying to talk.
That to this day, I can tell you, was the most disgusting experience I`ve ever felt. I wasn`t -- I wasn`t -- I can`t say I was afraid of it. I didn`t like the way it felt. I felt...
BECK: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. You were saying -- you`re saying that you were possessed by...
EDWARD: No, I`m not saying I was possessed. Not possessed at all. It was a feeling of -- there`s two things. There`s indirect -- there`s indirect channeling or indirect voice mediumship, and then there`s direct voice mediumship, transchanneling. I do not do transchanneling. I`m not inviting anybody in to talk through me. They can talk to me. I will pass that on.
BECK: How do you let them know that?
EDWARD: It`s just not happening.
BECK: Right. Now, have you ever had...
EDWARD: So many people are watching this right now. They`re going, "He seemed so normal up until the last statement."
BECK: Up until he started talking in somebody else`s body. Have you ever had anybody come to you and say, "I was killed. Help me"?
EDWARD: No, that would be TV. No, I`ve had people...
BECK: Hang on. See, here`s one of the things that I have a problem with. And that is I watch you, and I understand -- I really get the ending of the grieving and just saying, "Your family is together and you`re OK." And you`re bringing a good message there.
But I don`t understand the -- something about stomach cancer. Gosh, I think if I were on the other side, I can understand the peace that the family is with you.
EDWARD: Right.
BECK: But there would be times that you would think that the spirit would reach out and say something of importance, that there is beyond that, there is -- there is danger ahead.
EDWARD: They do. Oh, my God, yes, of course they do.
BECK: Like what have you -- like what have you...
EDWARD: In various different arenas of people`s lives it`s different. They might talk about -- a lot of stuff that they talk about has to do with, I think, positive things, more so. Like, it`s more of a reminiscing.
Think about it as being a reunion. When somebody gets to a reunion, you reminisce about some of the things that took place in your life, and you laugh about that. Or you celebrate the good times. Oftentimes, they`ll give you a heads up about things that are coming up in the future, so that maybe those things can be altered or changed.
BECK: Are you hearing any kind of -- is there ever a collective intelligence? Do you ever -- do you ever notice that there seems to be a pattern of warnings, there seems to be anything?
EDWARD: You know, I think I know what you`re saying. And I have tried to ask for that. Sometimes I`ll get people to come through that are so strong, it`s really good, that I try to interject and ask my own question. Like, I`ll ask them stuff about something I want to know about what they`re doing, like what is life like there or that kind of stuff.
And I literally feel like they`re going like this to me, "Yes, this is not really important to me, because I want to talk to my son."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: All right. We have John Edward with us. And our first caller is Donna in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Wants to connect with her mom -- Donna.
CALLER: Hi, John.
EDWARD: Hey, Donna, how are you?
CALLER: Great. How are you?
EDWARD: Good. Are you familiar with what I do?
CALLER: Excuse me?
EDWARD: Are you familiar with what I do?
CALLER: Yes, I saw you in Charlotte, North Carolina.
EDWARD: OK. Well, very, very quickly, I might not be able to connect with your mom, but I may be able to connect with somebody else. Just pay attention to whatever I`m saying. And the things that you don`t understand, I`ll ask you write those things down.
CALLER: OK.
EDWARD: All righty. Beside your mom, is there like -- the first thing I`m getting is somebody who I would call a contemporary, something that would be like a sibling who`s crossed.
So I don`t know if you know this, if there`s a sibling energy for you, like if mom lost a child or miscarried. But there`s an energy of a child that`s there, as well.
And there`s somebody who passes either from lung cancer or breast cancer. But there`s blackness in the chest. I don`t know if that`s meant as your mom, but I`m seeing my own mother, so that to me acknowledged somebody passes.
CALLER: My mother passed from breast cancer.
EDWARD: OK. When she passed, I don`t know if she was denying treatment or if...
CALLER: yes.
EDWARD: OK. She did it herself or somebody talked her into it?
CALLER: That was her own idea.
EDWARD: That was her own idea. OK. The reason why I`m saying it like this is my feeling she wants to make sure that people know that it -- like nobody`s influence -- the reason why I say, "Did somebody talk her into that is because I feel that there was an issue that somebody was not informing her of options. And she -- I want to just say I feel like she knew the deal.
She wants me to talk about the "S" names, like Susan, Suzanne, Steven. There`s an "S" name that she wants me to acknowledge. When I get names or initials it`s either who they are or who they`re with, as somebody who`s still here.
And she`s also making me feel like the month of March or the 3rd of a month is connected to your family.
CALLER: My birthday is in March.
EDWARD: OK. Happy birthday coming from your mom. She wants to know if you`re selling the -- you sold -- you`re selling the car? You`re selling...
CALLER: It`s falling apart.
EDWARD: Are you selling the car?
CALLER: Thinking about it.
EDWARD: Is that a joke?
CALLER: No. My car is falling apart. We`re thinking about selling it.
EDWARD: OK.
BECK: Wait a minute. Why would mom, from across the divide, want to talk to her about the car being sold?
CALLER: Because she wanted me to buy this car when I bought it. She loved this car and really wanted me to buy it. And it`s 10 years old, and it`s just about ready to go.
EDWARD: But I think it also has to do, Donna, with the fact that it`s happening in your life right now. And I`m in New York and you`re in Pennsylvania, and I don`t know you. And therefore, your mom is with you and she`s acknowledging stuff that would be connected to you.
So they might validate a little bit of what`s happened in the past, but more important to talk about what`s happening like around now.
BECK: You used to do future stuff, didn`t you?
EDWARD: Yes. That used to be my passion.
BECK: Yes. Why did you stop?
EDWARD: I -- you know what, I didn`t stop. It still comes through during the readings. What stopped was my clientele stopped it. Like, people had no more -- it was the freakiest thing.
Like in 1989 my mom died. And then my own quest of where is she and is she still around, am I going to see her, can I connect with her, can she see me? My clientele shifted. And it became like -- I became the guy that was known to connect with the other side. It was the weirdest thing.
BECK: Have you -- have you connected with your mom?
EDWARD: I do connect with my mother. I do connect with a lot of my family and my friends who have passed, but it`s not the same. Like -- like, I`m -- I`m a very skeptical person by nature. I am.
So I second guess, am I thinking that or do I know that or, you know, am I thinking that because I was just thinking that? So when you don`t know somebody, it`s easy for me to say, "This is what I`m getting. Here you go. This is what I`m getting."
But if I get it from my own family, I start going -- I start like -- it`s just harder. It`s just harder.
BECK: More with John Edward after this. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD: Here`s what today is about, right here, today, a beautiful day in Orlando. You`re hearing from your son, and he`s not talking about being angry at you. He`s not talking about being mad at you. He`s not talking about being disappointed. He`s not talking about, "You sent me back, and I passed." He`s not talking about any of that. You know what he`s coming clean with? He took money out of somebody`s wallet.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: All right. I want to get back to your mom here in a second and reconnect me with your mom. But I have to tell you a story. I`ve got a guy who works for me in Ohio. His name is Doug Powers, and he actually writes for my magazine. And he was just in New York -- must have been about a month ago, two months ago. And I said, "What are you doing here?" He said, "Oh, I`m meeting with John Edward." And I said, "The psychic guy?" And he said, "Yes, we won a private session."
And I said, "Do you believe in that?" He said, "Glenn, I didn`t until I met with him." And he told me a story that he and his wife -- they just lost a child back in, I think, `96 -- and they won this reading and did not -- weren`t believers at all.
EDWARD: OK.
BECK: And didn`t even want to talk about the session, because they immediately got online and they started reading all the skeptics. And they said, "Oh, they`ll bug your house, and, you know, they`ll Google you, they`ll know everything about you, yada, yada, yada."
He said, "So we never even talked about it. And when we got into the car to go to the airport, he said that I asked my wife, "What is the one thing that he could say?" And she whispered it. And she said, "Our daughter made a hand print on the wall, made a handprint when she was young, and we hang it on the wall, and it keeps falling down." If he mentions the handprint -- and he said exactly the same thing with me.
So they decided in the car whispering, "Don`t say anything, because they`ll bug the hotel, et cetera, et cetera." Got to your office. Sat in your office, met by your assistant or whoever. Didn`t say a word. Sat down. You did the reading. The last thing -- they were getting up and leaving and you said, "Oh, one more thing, your daughter" -- like Colombo - - "your daughter says that the picture or something keeps falling off the wall and she`s responsible for that." They walked out. He said the two of them have been freaked ever since and absolutely believed it. And these were skeptics.
People come into you all the time as skeptics...
EDWARD: I hope so.
BECK: ... and you don`t really even -- you don`t care?
EDWARD: No, I hope so. I`d rather them come in skeptical.
There`s a difference. There`s skeptics and then there`s cynics. Cynics don`t last five minutes with me, because I`m not going to waste my time, period. My time is way too valuable to me spent on somebody -- like, I`m not looking to convince or anything.
But if somebody is skeptical, I want them to be skeptical, healthy skeptic. And that means that they`re going to be open-minded enough to be sitting in front of me. Apparently these people were, to come, objective enough to sit in front of me. And then more importantly, to be skeptical just means that you`re thinking about the information. And if it makes sense, then I think a healing or a closure can be accomplished.
BECK: OK, I`m skeptical because I don`t know.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: You could be a fraud; you could be a miracle worker. I don`t know. But would you agree with me that, if someone were in your position and making money, especially off of those that were grieving, they would be, you know, for lack of an another term, Hell-bound?
EDWARD: If the person was fraudulent?
BECK: Could you sleep at night knowing that you were not really on the up and up? Do you think somebody...
EDWARD: If I wasn`t on the up and up?
BECK: Yes.
EDWARD: I wouldn`t be doing this.
BECK: No, I know that. But what I`m saying is, to use this would be horrible...
EDWARD: Absolutely.
BECK: ... if you were just an entertainment -- so it`s not like wrestling, where they were saying, "No, this is entertainment," or at first they were saying, "No, this is real stuff," but then they later admitted that it was entertainment. You cannot be an entertainer. In your own mind, you can`t be...
EDWARD: I don`t see myself as being entertaining at all. I see myself as being an educator.
BECK: And it would be wrong of you to just be an entertainer and cloak it in...
EDWARD: I don`t see it -- I couldn`t even define that in terms, you know, especially when you`re dealing with grief and loss like that. It`s just not -- but I`m also very clear to say to people on the flip side of that, "I`m not a grief counselor, either. I`m not a therapist."
BECK: Houdini was notorious for going in and breaking up and trying to find real people. In fact, he had a code with his wife -- I`m sure you know the story. You don`t know the story?
EDWARD: Not familiar with any of this, no.
BECK: Oh, Houdini, before he died, he was so desperately trying to connect with his mother...
EDWARD: OK, just -- OK.
BECK: ... and never could, and made a pact with his wife that, "I`m going to give a code. You keep going to psychics. And I will -- if it`s possible, I will contact you." Never did contact.
A guy who picked that mantle up is a guy who offered you a million dollars -- his name is the Amazing Randy -- that was his stage name -- offered you a million dollars. He says he can debunk you. Why would you not take that money and...
EDWARD: It`s funny. I was on "LARRY KING LIVE" once, and they asked me the same question. And I made a joke, and I`ll say the same thing here: Would I allow myself to be tested by somebody who`s got an adjective as a first name? Or would I go to do what I did, which I went to the University of Arizona and participated with the Human Energy Systems Laboratory, among other people who do this, where they were taking this more credibly and serious.
You know, and I didn`t go there to be tested because of any reason except I was curious. Like, you know, there was a scientist who wanted to try to measure this in some way. And I think it was, you know, interesting. And for people who want to learn more about some of the preliminary things that were done, there`s a book out called "The After- Life Experiments."
BECK: And you did kind of follow Houdini`s footsteps, in a way. You tracked down your mom, in a way. You`ve contacted her. What was that like? The first time, when did that happen?
EDWARD: Well, I mean, I`ve had a couple of contacts with her through a medium. But one of the funnier stories was I driving to a psychic fair. I was going to be doing readings at a psychic fair in New York City.
And on the way there, my mom started coming through to me. And I didn`t want to connect with her, because I felt like it would be too emotional for me. And if I did it, I felt I was going to be off-balance for the people that I needed to read.
So, long story short, I asked her to go to a friend of mine who`s name is Shelly Peck who I knew was going to be at the event. And, apparently, my mom didn`t really like to be told that, because when I got to the event, Shelly -- I`m staring at this poor woman like the whole day, like looking at her, like, you know, why isn`t she saying anything me? I`m like waiting for her to come over and give me a message from my dead mother. Nothing.
And this woman that I really did not know that well, who is a phenomenally gifted medium -- her name is Suzane Northrop -- was going to be doing the lecture there that day. And I see her walk past -- she walked past again, and then she sees me, and she walks in, and she comes over with me and she goes, "Are you John?"
And I was just finishing up a reading. And I looked at her and I went, "I am." And I could just tell by her tone that she was agitated. And she`s like, "Did your mother pass from lung cancer and does her name start with a P? And I like looked at her, and I went, "It does." She`s like, "Don`t you ever, ever" -- finger up in the air -- "don`t you ever tell your mother not to communicate with you again like that."
She`s like, "I`m coming out here, and I`ve got this woman yelling at me in the car, and she -- crazy Italian lady." And I`m sitting there, I`m like going, "OK, oh, my God!" And I start -- I mean, I was so appreciative, but I was like, "I`m getting yelled at from my mother from a complete stranger?" Which I thought was really amazing, because she could have went to Shelly, because she knew Shelly. She didn`t know Suzanne. So she decided to really make sure that I got the message and pay attention. She went to a complete stranger.
BECK: All right. Let`s go to Frank in Florida, wants to connect with his father. Hi, Frank.
CALLER: Hi, Glenn, how are you?
BECK: Very good. You`re on with John Edwards. Edward.
CALLER: Oh, hi, John, how are you?
EDWARD: I`m good, how are you doing?
CALLER: Good.
EDWARD: Is Frank not your real name?
CALLER: It is my real name.
EDWARD: OK, does somebody else go by the name Frank, but they don`t - - let me just say this again. Does somebody else have the name -- let me try this in English. Does somebody go by a different name but their real name is Frank?
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: Are you sure?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: OK, I need to be acknowledging that. If I see the name Frank and I see it being crossed out, it`s like, "Don`t call me Frank or don`t acknowledge the name Frank," is how I`m perceiving, you know, what`s coming through. But I want to talk about the J-o name, like Joe, like John. Where` the J-o come up around you, Frank?
CALLER: That`s my youngest son, John.
EDWARD: OK. Are there three kids in that family? Are you one of three kids or do you have three kids?
CALLER: I have three kids.
EDWARD: OK. And out of your three, would two be similar, one be different?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: Like two boys and a girl, two girls and a boy?
CALLER: Yes, exactly.
EDWARD: OK. And the Aries connection comes up where, Aries, as in late March into April?
CALLER: OK, that would be my father`s birthday was March 18th. I don`t know if that puts him in Aries.
EDWARD: I think that makes him a Pisces.
CALLER: OK.
EDWARD: I think that makes him a Pisces.
CALLER: The 20th. I`m sorry, he`s the 20th.
EDWARD: That still makes him a Pisces. Like (INAUDIBLE) around the 23rd. Let me just say this. There`s something about the sign of Aries that I want to highlight for you. That to me would mean that either there`s a birthday or anniversary or something of that period of time that might be coming up that we need to acknowledge. I don`t know if you come from a Catholic background, Frank...
CALLER: I do.
EDWARD: OK, I feel like there`s either some type of sacrament, communion, something that`s going to be highlighted, confirmation. There`s some type of -- baptism that I need to bring up that maybe your father wants to acknowledge. So I don`t know if he wasn`t around for that or if that`s the last event he was around for.
You know, jokingly Glenn made a comment about stomach cancer, and now I`m getting that, so I have to say it, so I feel like, you know, look this way, but there is a stomach cancer reference that or some type of blackness in the stomach area that I`m supposed to be bringing up. Is that how your dad passed or is somebody dealing with that now?
CALLER: No, that`s not how he passed.
EDWARD: OK, I have to say this. I`m getting it as a -- I need to say that, so I don`t know if somebody is dealing with this now, if this is some type of issue where somebody`s having -- you know, there`s a colon issue. But they`re showing me blackness there.
So if, for some reason, something is happening in the family, make sure the person stays on top of it and they don`t ignore it, OK?
CALLER: OK.
EDWARD: Now, separately from your dad, is there a police officer who`s passed?
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: Yes, there is.
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: Yes, there is.
CALLER: In my family?
EDWARD: Connected to you, there`s a police officer who`s passed. So I don`t know if it`s in your wife`s side or if it`s your side, but there`s most definitely a man of law enforcement who`s crossed.
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: Yes, there is.
BECK: How long ago could it have been?
EDWARD: No, not like centuries ago. It would be, you know, something that he would be able to, like, resonate with. So if I said, you know, like, you know, Uncle Pat on his wife`s side of the family, who he`s not close to...
BECK: You say this with absolute surety.
EDWARD: Absolutely.
CALLER: Not that I know of, but there could be in the family.
EDWARD: Can I tell you why? Because for many, many years, I had, you know, people say stuff like that, and they go, "No," and I have to go, "OK, I`m wrong," and I would try to move onto the next thing. And I had a woman who came to me for a reading whose ex-husband was coming through, and she kept saying to me, "No, no, no, no," and she slammed her hand on my desk and she said to me, "Listen to me. I`ve got two daughters with this man. If he was dead, I would know." And she said, you know, "We had a very, very bad divorce. Maybe that`s why you`re picking up that way."
No, she found out her ex-husband was dead in my office. They never called her to tell her.
BECK: Holy cow. John Edwards answers more of your phone calls after this. Hang on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD: I need to talk about the hamburger story, flipping the burgers, or flipping something on a grill, and somebody was doing this, and they flipped it and it fell off on the ground. And they didn`t think anybody was watching, and they flipped it back up, and they...
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
EDWARD: So now, in the big scheme of things, right, you come to "Crossing Over," you connect with the other side, would you ever think they`d talk about flipping burgers?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: All right. We`re with John Edward. And Susan Huntley (ph) from Montana wants to connect with her son-in-law -- Susan?
CALLER: Yes, hello, Glenn.
BECK: Hi, how are you?
CALLER: I`m good, trying not to hyperventilate.
EDWARD: Susan, is there an M connection to your family?
CALLER: Yes.
BECK: John just said -- before we went into the break, he said, "There`s somebody who wants to talk to a son or a...
EDWARD: Younger brother.
BECK: ... younger brother, but somebody younger and it has an M connected to the family. He said, "I don`t know if it`s the next call or what," and here it is. Do you want to talk to your son-in-law?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: OK. Would he be more like a son to you, as well? Did you treat him as a son?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: OK, like early on in life, did you take him in or did you feel responsible for him in some way?
CALLER: Later.
EDWARD: Well, let me just put it this way: I`m seeing me with my mother-in-law. And from a very -- you know, when I got involved with my wife, you know, when we were just dating, her mom kind of, I really felt like, took me in and treated me very much like, you know, I was part of their family early on before there was a reason for her to have to even do that. So I`m getting that as a reference.
Where would there be the M name, like Michael, like Mark, like Marie? Where`s the M name?
CALLER: It was my maiden name.
EDWARD: OK. And the connection to your -- is it your dad that`s passed or is it his father who`s passed?
CALLER: Mine.
EDWARD: OK. A little bit of a drinker?
CALLER: Yes.
BECK: That`s the way my family responds to that. "Yes."
EDWARD: I have to say this. I feel like it`s -- I don`t know if your son-in-law had a vehicle accident or if there was an impact or an event that caused his passing. If it`s not him, then I`m going to tell you there`s somebody else who`s coming through to me who died in an event where they passed very, very quickly. Do you understand this?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: OK, is that not him?
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: OK, but somebody else did, correct?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: All righty, because it`s like their way of acknowledging that they`re coming through, as well. And I don`t know if this is you who has the pet that`s passed, too, but they`re making me feel like I`ve got a family pet that`s there.
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: Actually two. There`s two of them.
BECK: So, Patty, now, what do you do with this information? What...
EDWARD: Susan, right?
BECK: Oh, yes, I`m sorry, Susan. What does that mean to you?
CALLER: Well, a couple of things he just said is validation for me.
EDWARD: That he`s still around?
CALLER: That there`s still an existence of the person I loved.
BECK: Yes. You know, John, my faith teaches me that families are forever, that we stay bound through the eternities.
EDWARD: I think you said something that`s really, really important. You used the word "faith." And one of the most important things that I try to do, as well, without being too religious in nature, is to try to get people to have a prayer dialogue, because if they can have a prayer dialogue, if they can keep their faith, even in the adversity of grief or in that darkest moment in their life, then they keep the channel open for themselves.
BECK: Susan, thank you.
Patty in Montclair, New Jersey, wants to connect with her brother. Patty?
CALLER: Hi, how are you?
BECK: Good.
CALLER: Good.
EDWARD: Hey, Patty, is it your mom`s mom is also passed?
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: Yes, she is.
CALLER: Wait, my mom`s mom is also Pat?
EDWARD: On your mom`s side of the family, your grandmother has crossed over, correct?
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: Thank you. OK, you misunderstood me. You thought I said she`s also Pat.
CALLER: Right.
EDWARD: I meant passed. That`s why I said, "Yes, she is," because I`m talking to her. I`m getting your grandmother on your mom`s side of the family. She`s telling me to acknowledge she has three younger energies who with her, so either your grandmother has two of her own children who`ve passed and your brother figure, or she`s got other grandchildren who are there.
CALLER: It`s actually not -- it`s my great-grandmother. It`s not my grandmother.
EDWARD: On your mom`s side of the family?
CALLER: Yes, my great-grandmother, not my grandmother. She`s still alive.
EDWARD: She`s got three younger energies who are with her, OK?
CALLER: OK.
EDWARD: They`re telling me to talk about somebody who had the brain injury, the brain trauma, or something brain-related.
CALLER: Yes, that`s my mother.
EDWARD: OK, has mom passed?
CALLER: No.
EDWARD: She`s dealing with that now?
CALLER: Oh, I`m sorry?
EDWARD: She`s still dealing with it?
CALLER: Sort of. Yes, she just wrote a book about brain injuries and a lot of issues that are surrounding that, not so much how it impacts her, but other people.
EDWARD: So the brain trauma, the brain injury, the brain issue is something that you`re dealing with now, it`s not how the person passed?
CALLER: Right.
EDWARD: OK. And then I have a suicide, Patty.
CALLER: You do?
EDWARD: I do.
CALLER: Of someone who passed?
EDWARD: That`s usually how it works.
(LAUGHTER)
CALLER: I was like, "OK" -- I was like, "OK," I`m thinking of like coming up or -- because I don`t know any suicides in our family.
EDWARD: No, there`s somebody who`s telling me that they passed from an asphyxiated passing.
CALLER: Really?
EDWARD: Yes. It`s kind of -- to be specific...
BECK: Because my mother -- my family was in denial for years that it was suicide, and it was. Is it possible -- was this a clear suicide?
EDWARD: This is a clear suicide. This is somebody whose actions brought about their passing, so to me it could be...
CALLER: OK, let me ask you something. Is it possible that my great- grandmother may have taken -- you know, she was fairly old -- that she may have elected to take a bunch of pills in order to...
EDWARD: Well, the way that I`m getting this, either the person hung themselves, the person overdosed themselves, or they did a carbon monoxide- type of thing that they slowed down the respiration.
CALLER: Wow!
EDWARD: That`s how it`s coming through.
CALLER: Interesting. I mean, my great-grandmother was probably 90- something when she passed, and she -- I believe that one of our cousins was like maybe giving her drugs to help her ease the passage.
EDWARD: I don`t think it`s your grandmother.
CALLER: No, you don`t?
EDWARD: No. Just know that I`m saying it, OK?
CALLER: You know, one of my best friends, her father, that`s how he went.
EDWARD: How?
CALLER: He was in a car, and he, you know, turned on...
EDWARD: Carbon monoxide.
CALLER: Yes.
EDWARD: It`s not unusual, Patty, that when somebody has the opportunity to connect like through somebody like myself or somebody who does what I do, that your family or your extended friend`s family will come through, and it`s those things that stick out.
BECK: Patty, thank you very much.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
BECK: John Edward and I will answer some of your e-mails here in just a second. Stand by.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD: Is there a reason why your dad would tell me that you told one of the kids that they were an alien?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am a prankster. I can`t deny saying things like that to my kids.
EDWARD: For real?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For real. Actually, I told my son he was an alien right before I left to go on this trip.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: All right, welcome back. John Edward is with us. How much do you hate Jonathan Edwards for making it impossible to not put an "s" in your name most of the time?
Crystal from Oregon wrote in. She said, "Has you ever had contact with famous dead people from history?"
EDWARD: Not from history, I don`t think.
BECK: Have you ever had any famous people?
EDWARD: When was doing "Crossing Over," we`ve had a couple of celebrities in their family come through.
BECK: Like who?
EDWARD: You have to ask me names now. I`m going to forget. Give me a second. I should know this, right?
BECK: So they`re not that famous? I mean, it`s like the "Where`s the Beef" lady.
EDWARD: No, it`s not that they`re not famous. It`s just that I don`t perceive famous -- you know what I`m saying...
BECK: Yes, yes, yes.
EDWARD: ... it`s not a -- I`m drawing a complete blank, and I apologize to the families of the people that I read.
BECK: Trisha from Big Lake, Alaska, "Do you ever get that message that is so important that you have stopped a stranger in public to relay the message to them?"
EDWARD: Earlier, when I was younger and I first started doing readings and stuff like that, yes, I would attack people very inappropriately, yes. Yes on that.
BECK: So you`ve never been in like a supermarket line and then have somebody just breathing down your neck and you went, "I`ve got to tell you this"? Never?
EDWARD: No, I used to manage a video store where I grew up. And I was highly inappropriate back then when people came up to get their movies.
BECK: That must be a good Friday night.
EDWARD: It was, actually. The owner of the store used to look at me all the time. He`s like, "Would you stop doing that Ouija thing?"
BECK: Shelley from Baltimore, "After someone very close to you passes over, how do you distinguish if they`re communicating from the other side or if you`re imagining it because you miss them so very much?"
EDWARD: Well, that`s a phenomenal question. You should write down your experiences and date them and try to see if -- usually, if you can`t connect anything to your thoughts, if you can`t connect anything to your thoughts, it could be deemed them coming through. But if it`s just that, you know, it`s a constant thing on your mind, then it`s hard to distinguish when you`re actually getting something from them or you`re just thinking about it. But there will be something abstract that will stand out. And if you write those things down, you write them down. It`s important.
BECK: Do you keep a journal yourself?
EDWARD: I don`t keep a journal. I used to, but I stopped.
BECK: Let`s see -- why?
EDWARD: Because I had a seventh grade teacher who said never write down something you don`t want other people to read.
BECK: Wow. OK. Here it is. "I`ve been dead for over two years, but there`s nothing really good to eat on this side. Can you recommend a good restaurant on the other side, preferably Chinese food or a nice steakhouse? M. Brando." I didn`t know that there was actually -- any recommendations?
EDWARD: No, I`m good.
BECK: John Edward, thank you so much.
EDWARD: Thank you.
BECK: Appreciate it. And you`re on your way to Australia?
(CROSSTALK)
EDWARD: I am. I`m leaving tomorrow.
BECK: And the new shows starts when on WE?
EDWARD: It`s been ongoing Friday nights, 10:00.
BECK: Great. Thank you.
EDWARD: Thank you.
BECK: You bet.
END
