Today the serendipity fairy struck me with her wand, and she struck me hard.
My friend J (he comments regularly on this blog so you can probably guess who he is) has to leave Perth unexpectedly and can't go to John Edward's, ah, seminar, at the Perth Convention Centre, so he has given me his tickets.
It is a real pity he can't go, because J is a bit, actually, make that a lot, of a skeptic, and he's rather vocal about it to boot. I was looking forward to hearing J's tales of heckling and how he got Edward to channel his (still alive) mother.
I am not a big John Edward fan, but I'm still excited to be going, because this will be the first time I'll be seeing this kind of thing live. I'm also eager to share my experience with you and see what you all think.
What I've seen of John Edward's performance does seems like cold reading to me. I mean, really, if I had my own psychic medium show and wandered around a large theatre proclaiming, "I'm getting ... I'm getting the letter 'B'. Does that mean anything to anybody?", some poor person on the edge of their seat is bound to jump up.
But you know what, if the guy can sustain this I-see-dead-people gig
for this long AND get people to pay money to participate -- RESPECT.
However, I am not as gutsy as my friend J, so if Edward looks over at my section, I shall just put on my "tra-la-la-I'm-just-sitting-here-doing-nothing-that's-right-no-visitors-from-beyond-the-grave-here-nosiree" face and avoid eye contact.
I doubt I'll be the recipient of any supernatural attention though. I
have had family members who passed away, but I didn't know them very
well. In fact, if I were to receive a visit from a spirit that was close to me, that
ghostly visitor would have four legs and love raw chicken and
Schmackos.
And if John Edward can channel a small, belligerent sausage dog, I shall be very impressed.*
*Or will I? Because he might have little Internet trolls constantly Googling his name and searching for cold reading clues. So if Edward DOES channel a bad tempered dachshund, would that indicate that he was the real deal? Or would it just mean that one of his assistants read this blog and noted it down. "I'm sensing ... I'm sensing ... someone very hairy and short. In his old age he liked to pee on the carpet."