Dead Men Talking

National Review Online, August 12, 2001 

Who, these days, is prepared to act their age? Teens carry on as if they were 30, the middle-aged think that they are 20, and now, if a new TV hit is to be believed, the dead are behaving as if they were alive. The show, Crossing Over with John Edward, a surprise success for cable's Sci-Fi Channel, stars the eponymous Mr. Edward. He's a fast-talking psychic with slow-witted fans, many of who like to believe that this former ballroom-dancing instructor can put them in touch with the dear departed.

For what is, presumably, a matter of fantasy, Crossing Over is surprisingly matter-of-fact. The introductory tune is mildly spooky, with a hint of the X-Files, but the rest of the format is more daytime talk show than nighttime séance. There are no Ouija boards, no startling emanations of ectoplasm, no tables are tipped. Those who prefer more mumbo in their jumbo need to look elsewhere (perhaps to Mr. Edward's series of audio tapes: his Unleashing Your Psychic Potential, for example, offers listeners the recipe for a ritual psychic spring-cleaning, something, in case you are wondering, which involves sage and plenty of Kosher salt).

On Crossing Over, the tone is conversational and relaxed. The audience sits in front of the seer, ranged in expectant rows on a dais. By talk-show standards, it appears to be a fairly upscale crowd, ranking perhaps half way between Oprah and an Al Gore town meeting. Well, I did say "fairly" upscale. Women outnumber men, and if the dead are present, they are low key and discreet, at least to start with.

Mr. Edward begins the proceedings briskly. As his fans will already understand, the great man is surfing the interred-net hoping to pick up a name, a fragment of a name, or any clue, indeed, that will sound vaguely familiar to one of the people in the room. It doesn't take long (for a show about eternity, Crossing Over is very rapidly paced). Mr. Edward typically comes out with a syllable or two, "Francesca," say, or "Francis" or "Fran." After a few moments, a member of the audience will normally react, eagerly proffering a candidate, "Francesco," perhaps, for consideration. If Francesco turns out to have "passed" ("kicked the bucket," "bought the farm," or "croaked" are not acceptable terms on this program), that will be enough for the psychic. He'll turn into a quick-fire interrogator, Sam Spade on Speed, with a bewilderingly fast Q & A designed to show that ex-Francesco is now in touch.

Mr. Edward will ask the audience member about cats, dogs, colon surgery, mantelpieces, ceramic teapots, anything. Surprisingly often (and surprisingly quickly), the psychic will succeed in turning up some precise little reference that could "only" have come from the dead man. Let's say that ex-Francesco loved ceramic teapots. By supposedly prompting the psychic's question about ceramic teapots, ex-Francesco will, to use the jargon of the show, have provided "validation." The dead guy will have "come through" by putting the idea of ceramic teapots in John Edward's head. Well, that's what the audience clearly wants to think. Crossing Over is a show for the sort of people who would have preferred The Sixth Sense to have a more upbeat finale. The amiable Mr. Edward is pleased to oblige. Bereaved relatives turn out not to be so bereaved as they had once thought, and the ratings keep on rising (particularly among women, a group previously under-represented among the dank ranks of Sci-Fi Channel viewers).

To be fair, some of Mr. Edward's findings are indeed remarkably specific. These discoveries are usually accompanied by little gasps and shouts of recognition among the not-so-bereaved-after-all. Their astonished comments are always along the same lines, "oh my God how did he do that wow that's amazing," but subtitles are provided when the exact wording of the audience's amazement comes across a little inarticulately. This happens more often than you might think. If there is one thing muddier than the reasoning on Crossing Over, it is the diction.

Then again, I have no idea either how Mr. Edward does it. Maybe it is, as is claimed in the introduction to the show, all "real." The only people who know for sure are the dead and they are not talking, to me at least (Granny, phone home). If I had to make a guess, Mr. Edward is probably an extremely able "cold reader." Cold reading is an old "psychic" trick. The term is basically a fancy way of describing the use of intuition, empathy, guesswork and, initially, very, very general questions (Francis, Francesca, Fran) to come to that one remarkable revelation that convinces the credulous that the spirits are indeed "coming through." It takes skill, which Mr. Edward certainly has, and it also takes, how can this be put politely, a certain special something in the minds of his subjects.

It cannot be put politely. Those special somethings are naivety, superstition, and a problem with rational thought, qualities that are all too common in this supposedly sophisticated country's current high tech re-run of the Dark Ages. It is a ridiculous phenomenon, and Crossing Over is very far from being its only example. What makes Mr. Edward one of its more representative figures, however, is not only his show (or considerable commercial success), but the peculiarly maudlin banality of his vision of the afterlife. It is the vision that is the sub-text to Crossing Over, but which is set out more explicitly elsewhere, notably in Mr. Edward's "inspirational" novel, What If God Were the Sun? This is a book modestly described by its publisher as "incomparable" (and, in a way, it is) but the seagulls on the cover are fair warning. Those of us old enough to remember the 1970s know what that can mean.

To describe this novel as sugary is an understatement. Diabetics should not read it except under close medical supervision. For page after page, the reader is subjected to a sickly sweet mash of simpering truisms and New Age folklore. The conclusion, of course, is that there is no conclusion. As he "crosses over," the narrator, "Timothy," finds himself floating through a "tunnel of light" with a "sensation of overwhelming love and peace," which, mercifully for the rest of us, he cannot "put into words."

Arrival on the other side is, it turns out, a little bit like Thanksgiving, only worse. All the relatives are in town ("Uncle Dominick and Aunt Gina…Aunt Marsha and Grandpa Jack, too") and so are in the in-laws (including those impolite enough to die before our hero had the chance to get to know them first time round). Before you ask, yes, this is meant to be Heaven, not Hell. And that is to be expected. The notion of Hell is far too judgmental, far too demanding for this sort of New Age cosmology. There's no St. Peter blocking the gate, just a rather vague "life review" designed to give "a type of closure." We leave Timothy surrounded by his family and his "oldest and dearest" friend, his dog Chester. "It's so wonderful to know that our beloved pets are waiting on the other side to meet us, too!"

It's not exactly Valhalla, is it? Other belief-systems have offered the prospect of a rather more inspiring afterlife than this perpetual family reunion. Unfortunately, these usually came with a fairly substantial downside. Just ask Dante. To take another example, the Ancient Egyptians believed that the newly deceased had to appear in front of Osiris, the Judge Bork of the Underworld. This was a "life review" with consequences. The hearts of those judged guilty would be fed to a beast that was part-lion, part-crocodile and part-hippopotamus. There would be no Chesters in their future.

That is not the sort of talk that many of Mr. Edward's fans would like to hear. They are looking for the comfort of faith without its rigor. They want the prospect of Heaven without the danger of Hell, and, above all, they seem to need the cozy reassurance that nothing has consequences, not even death. And why shouldn't they? After all, it would seem to be a perfect creed for a society that sees the term "endless self-indulgence" as a promise, not a criticism.

Wait a minute. Didn't I say that Crossing Over was a "surprise" success? What was I thinking?