remnjava's Full Review: John Edward - Crossing over: The Stories Behind th...
I have been interested in the work of John Edward (McGee) for the past year, seeing him on the SciFi channel, airing at 10:00 pm CDT. Crossing Over, the television show, has since been syndicated as well. I have also read his other book, One Last Time. Here is a website so you can view John Edward's program if you wish:
John Edward is a psychic medium. He claims to be able to communicate with the souls of folks once living upon this earth. Folks who have "crossed over." Is he for real? Can he "merely" read minds? Can he actually tune in to spirits? How come everyone he contacts is "doing well?" Is the Bible for real? Is there a God, Heavenly Father, a Heaven and a Hell? Perhaps those who he has contacted have not yet gone on to meet their FINAL reward or damnation. I don't know. I truly want to believe in this man and his abilities. I am scared that in the Christian belief, in which I am a believer, I may have skipped a chapter or an interpretation, and not qualify for everlasting glory. Edward's philosophy makes it easy. Everyone he contacts is doing well.
John became aware of his psychic abilities at the age of 15. His mother and the balance of the family would invite psychics to the house for a "house party" and the family would get psychic readings. Sometimes the psychics were authentic, other times they were frauds. Nevertheless, the family was very psychically oriented. One day a psychic told John that he would develop his psychic abilities as well.
John has a group of souls who have crossed over who he refers to as "The Boys." He claims they change from time to time, and they provide guidance to him in his every day life. They give him guidance whether to go on talk shows, accept interviews, etc.
The book is 258 pages and is easy reading. I have read 2-3 other reviews, and the number of pages keeps changing, depending upon whose review you are reading. My number does not include the "extra" pages toward the end of the book, only the text portion. I basically finished the book reading it on my lunch hour in a two week period. There are occasional curse words in this book, but nothing you haven't heard before, and they are only occasional.
If you are buying this book to learn how to communicate with the deceased, save your money. The basis of this book is to give the reader a brief overview of how he came to be a psychic and orient the reader into a little bit of his lingo that he uses on the television show. "Above you" are older folks in your circle of persons, grandparents, parents etc. "To the side" are folks much your same age, as siblings, marriage partners, friends. "Below you" are those usually a generation younger than you such as children. He also mentions he uses tarot cards, something that makes me even more uncomfortable than hearing from the deceased. I have never seen tarot cards used on his show.
The main focus of the book, "Crossing Over," is to provide the reader with John's struggle to become comfortable in the media. He didn't want to do radio at first, then he didn't want to do television, either, wanting much more to have a co-host rather than have the show to himself. Unfortunately, in the early days of his career, he was involved in a scam with a psychic infomercial where the people running it were so inept, so unprofessional, they would often bill the customers once or twice, yet the customer would receive nothing for their money, through the company's incompetence. I am not blaming John for this unfortunate happening, just explaining that it DID happen. Where were his spiritual guides during this phase of his life? Why didn't they warn him not to try to do infomercials, that his fans would collectively lose lots of money if he did so?
His guides, "The Boys," warned him not to do an interview at a bookstore one day. The interview was all set up, then John called the promoters and told them the deal was off for that day, because his guides were guiding him in that direction. I will leave it to the reader to discover just why the interview was called off. It seems that a lot of things change in the blink of an eye in John's world. It must be difficult living with him, with no seemingly logical explanation to how or why he does things sometimes.
There are occasional references to readings that happen in his studio, amongst his staff. John tells us how in the past, without his knowledge or permission, and even with a lot of anger on John's part, he realized the producers were stacking the audience with a certain type of griever. John prefers not to know ANYTHING about his audience, certainly not that they have a certain type of tragedy in common.
This still leaves the question of whether the work that John Edward does is of God or of the Devil.
I have tried to go through my Concordance to see what the Bible might have to say about a man such as John Edward. It used to be SO much easier before my eyes turned "bifocal age." I remember something I read long ago, when someone in the Bible asked the Lord if it would be possible to speak to men on earth and tell them of the horrors that would await them in death if they are not believers. The Lord said that if the people didn't believe his Son, who died for them and arose from the dead, they wouldn't believe a departed one from beyond, either. I am sorry, the type is much too small, even with reading glasses I cannot locate this passage.
The Bible also warns us to beware of "familiar spirits," those who some would have us believe, are familiar with the deceased and imitate them in psychic readings. What is the difference between "familiar spirits" and the spirits of our deceased loved ones, I am not sure. For further discussion along these lines you may wish to view this webpage, and go about half way down:
You may also do your own search, looking in a search engine using the words of your choice that are commonly used in this topic such as Bible, spirits, dead, communication. The possibilities are endless. You may also ask your spiritual advisor if you wish, i.e. priest, pastor, rabbi, or whatever the leader of your faith may be called.
The Bible says that Satan is beautiful. John Edward is pretty ATTRACTIVE, if I say so myself!
If you would rather read a book which explains more in depth what John claims to see, how he claims to view information from the spirits, you would be better off getting the book "One Last Time."
If you are perhaps an aspiring media professional, someone in the radio or television market, or have in interest in what goes on behind the scenes, you may want to get this book, "Crossing Over." I purchased it for about $22.99 at Borders, with 30% off, since it was on the best seller list.
I think his other book, "One Last Time," was much more interesting than his latest book, "Crossing Over."
Join John as he takes you on the extraordinary journey that has been his life since his New York Times bestseller One Last Time was published in 1998....More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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