Crossing Over with John Edwards

This Column first appeared in The Age on November 16, 2002

Roll up, roll up. The summer carnival is here. In the tents to our right we have the freak shows: Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake and a documentary on Michael Jackson's face. To the tents on our left we can witness amazing sporting feats as Australia whips England's arse. And in the tent straight ahead, we meet the amazing, the marvelous, John Edward, who will connect you to your love ones who have died.

For those who have not watched it, Crossing Over with John Edward (Channel 10, Saturday nights, 7.30pm) is an experience. He 'read's' for an audience, by which I mean he channels spirits who have a relationship to members of the audience. This involves standing in the center of a room, ringmaster style, firing questions in a manic, intense and confident fashion until someone feels the clues he is dropping are meant for them. Like so:

'There are two teenagers that have passed over because of an event. Outside.' He scans the room, waiting for a response. 'Someone who passed in woods while hiking. Something like in the woods.' Suddenly, he has a response and he turns dramatically, to gaze at the woman who said, 'They weren't hiking.' He's not perturbed. 'Did they pass together?' 'Yes.' 'Because of an event?' 'Yes.' 'In the woods?' 'Yes.'

And we're off. Those kids died years ago, in a fire. Then John connects with a woman whose father was murdered and who was also, it transpires, an alcoholic. He connects with a teenager who suicided, with a young man who died from trauma to the head, with a grandmother who was so hairy that her grandson (in the audience) use to hate kissing her. There is a lot of 'acknowledgment' of people. The questions he asks are specific, which can be convincing, as is the way in which he cuts off people who feed him too much information. But one is also struck by the audience's intense desire to believe, as the following exchange shows. 'Did your son have fluid on the brain?' 'Yeah, probably.' Probably?

I am not troubled that this is a world that accepts the afterlife - many of us do, in one form or another - but this is an afterlife that is run along the lines of suburban America. Those that have died, according to John, hang out with friends and relatives, resolve differences, become more mature and basically carry on as if they are still alive. Death's only real limitation it seems is that it restricts your social circle to those who have already 'passed'.

Who cares? you might ask. Heaps of people. John is screening 3 times a day on Arena TV, as well as showing every Saturday night on Channel 10. His ratings are big in the States where he screens on cable tv. His January 2003 tour of Australia, to be held in venues as large as the Sydney Entertainment Center and costing $75 a ticket, sold out within an hour of going on sale.

Stop! Someone is now talking to me, a someone I made watch Crossing Over with John Edwards and who found it a distressing 'event'. They want me to 'acknowledge' that many viewers will think this stuff is rubbish. That many viewers will be much, much happier watching Channel Nine's Summer of Cricket. That it is time for me to cross over to the other channel.

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