FEATURE - April 2016 - Santa Fe

An Interview with Psychic Medium, John Edward

Evolving Magazine publisher, Jill Dutton, had the opportunity to interview psychic medium, John Edward. After polling readers on social media about what questions they would ask John Edward if given the opportunity, Jill sat down with the television, and now social media, psychic to discuss channeling, death, and the afterlife.

Channeling

Jill: What role does the energy of the person wishing to communicate play? Why do some people communicate and others do not?

John: I think their personality is something that needs to be looked at. The people who are coming through, their personalities are probably a determinant. When myself and a couple of other mediums were tested at the University of Arizona a few years ago, the thing they said we all scored very highly on was the actual personalities coming through. That was the most consistent thing they saw: that the personalities of those who crossed over were very, very powerful.

Jill: So someone in physical form, who’s very dynamic or gregarious…they’re more likely to come through? Is that what you mean?

John: Yes, someone who has a large personality comes through, but also their personality traits, in general, are known or able to be seen.

Jill: Can you describe the place from which the crossed over communicate? Is it a similar place/dimension/energy or is the experience unique for each spirit?

John: That’s probably the one question that I can’t answer. Every publisher I’ve worked with wants “the quintessential guide to the afterlife.” And I’m like, I don’t know. What do you mean you don’t know? You’ve been doing this for 30 years? I honestly don’t know. For example, I’ve been to Australia numerous times over the past decades. I can tell you where I’ve stayed; I can tell you what I’ve eaten, what I’ve done, and where I visited, but I can’t write a tour book about Australia.

Death, Afterlife, Rebirth/Reincarnation

Jill: In one of your “Evolve with John Edward” videos, you explained how you told your son you might be abducted by aliens, using that as a metaphor for death. You brought up the fact that we’re all going to die. I think our mortality is something we try to hide from. And this fear can subconsciously impact our physical expression in a negative way. How do you think we can ease our personal fear of death?

John: I think by talking about it. And by raising your conversation in ways people can feel safe to communicate about it.

I don’t know if you saw it on social media…I just saw it this morning…but the dancer from Dancing with the Stars, Julianne Hough, posted a photo to Instagram of her brother kneeling at their grandfather’s casket at the wake. Apparently it caused some sort of backlash where people were attacking her, asking, How could she do that? Why would she that? That’s morose.

I thought about it-- and I understand where they’re coming from--but I also feel like here’s someone who has grown up in a world of social media where she shares everything that she’s doing with her followers. So if she can share that she’s going to be Sandy in Grease, and get people excited about that, why is it wrong for her to share her pain? On the opposite end of the spectrum, it’s real life--the death of her grandfather. She took a respectful photo of her brother and I’m sure she had a conversation with him and asked if it was ok to post it.

So for me, bravo to her for using her platform to discuss grief. Because what it’s doing is making people confront their own mortality, making people confront their own losses, and hitting a button for some folks. If they’re reacting that way, they’re making a judgment call, and I don’t think anyone should--especially when it comes to grief. Everyone grieves differently.

So when I have a conversation with my kids, talking about aliens, it’s because it is a real thing that could happen. I’m 46 years old. I’m turning 47 this year, and my mother passed when she was 48. It is in the realm of my understanding as a human that someone you love as a parent could pass at that age. And that wasn’t a conversation that ever happened to me. So because I had that experience, yes, 100 percent, I’m going to share that with my kids. And discuss with them as it is a reality. There are lots of topics we don’t want our children to have to comprehend, but it’s a conversation that I have to have.

Jill: When someone passes over, do they “go to the light immediately,” or not? And if they do, when we communicate with them, does it interfere with their new journey? Are they always available?

John: I do not believe we are interrupting anything.

I do, however, think we can stop someone’s transition while they’re here. If someone is sick--they’re terminal-- and that person is kind of stuck in their body, we can affect that person’s transition. We can totally keep that person from leaving us. All you need to do is sit by that person’s bedside and say please don’t go, please don’t go. And that person might linger or hang out longer. If you tell that person it’s ok to go, that person might make their journey quicker, sooner, and faster.

So, we can hold them back while they’re here physically, but once they cross, I don’t believe we can hold them back. I think the human ego wants to think that they can’t be happy without us or can’t go on without us. The reality is they can. They are. They are meeting up with people who have gone before us and will continue to let us know they’re around--if we so choose to allow them to do that and we recognize it.

Jill: One of our readers said she had heard that people generally wait 80 years to reincarnate, but that eliminates children who might try to get back to a birth family quicker. Is there a general length of time you’ve observed?

John: I guess I like to think we take a while to come back. I’m not subscribed to the concept that we come back quickly, but I know that from things I’ve read and research, that we do. I know that people do come back quickly. I know there are circumstances where people reincarnate into a family or come back sooner because it’s been documented.

I guess I’m of the school of thought that we don’t come back so quickly, because, for example, my Mom passed in 1989. I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. When I leave, if it’s 30 or 40 years from now, I’m hoping that she will be there and I’ll see her again. I don’t want to get to other side only to find out that she had to come back here.

I spoke to Dr. Brian Weiss (an American psychiatrist, hypnotherapist, and author who specializes in past life regression) about this subject a couple times, and he said, What if the whole soul doesn’t reincarnate? What if a portion of the soul comes back? Then you could still make a connection with that soul on the other side when you get there—and then a portion of the soul could be back here, having a simultaneous experience. That’s heavy. But interesting.

Personal Guidance—Angels, Spirit Guides, etc.

Jill: After my father passed, I had a dream where I saw him in an area of gray nothingness. At first, I was excited to see him again and I ran to him. But right before I reached him, I realized he was dead—and I pulled back. He looked at me and said, I’m dead, but I’m still alive. I felt immense peace from this encounter and still reflect on it. So my question is, how can we know that something like this is real and not wishful thinking—and how can we consciously connect with loved ones who have passed?

John: There’s a lot there. First off, I think it’s awesome that you had that experience because I wish more people would recognize stuff like that as being real and I think what’s cool is that you did recognize it and hold it as being a truth for you--and that’s important.

Two, they want us to know they’re around and they’re going to do what they can, whether it be dreams or showing us symbols. So look for the patterns, whether it is feathers or change (currency), or dragonflies, or lady bugs. So when your dad passes, and he’s trying to establish a form of communication, he’s trying to figure out what that form is and how he’s going to do it. It depends on the person. People communicate differently in different ways.

Jill: What sort of personal guidance is available to us in physical form? In addition to loved ones who have passed over, do we have a spiritual “team” to aid us on our physical journeys—angels, spirit guides, and so forth?

John: We do have a team. That’s actually what I refer to it as. That’s what I tell both my kids--that we have a team of energies that they work with. And that team of energies is there to guide them. It doesn’t have to be Grandma on the other side, although it could be. We do have a team of energies and I think that team is with us kind of often.

So we have people that are with us from the day that we are actually incarnated, which I think is our master-type energy, like a Master Guide; and then we’ll have those who sort of come and go throughout our journey.

On “Evolve,” I talk about our team quite often and let them know they have that team they can tap into—and meditation and prayer is a way to do that. So I think it’s important for people to recognize that they have that. Some folks don’t realize it. If you grew up Catholic, you may have heard of guardian angels. If you’re into metaphysics, you might call them spirit guides. And if you’re extremely spiritual, you might refer to them as your angels.

Jill: How about pets? Do our pets communicate with us after they cross over?

John: One hundred percent. Pets are probably the crowd pleaser of any group and reading that I do. I could literally take attendance in a family, bring through a multitude of people, and they’re like yeah, yeah, yeah, and the moment Fluffy the Poodle shows up, everyone’s a puddle.

Jill: Do animals communicate in a different way?

John: Not really. It’s really just energy. One of my most shocking moments was when I was doing a small group many years ago and I wound up connecting with a person’s daughter. She was very young when she passed--I’m thinking like seven years old--and I described that she was handicapped. The woman looked at me like I was crazy. Then I went on to talk about how the person in the group who was sitting next to her was connected to her daughter.

She said, well she is and she isn’t. I said, what do you mean by that and she said, well, we’re neighbors. And I said, oh you guys came together? And she said no, we just happened to be here on the same night. I said well your daughter is letting me know that she knows her and that they would have lunch together. Then the neighbor said, well not exactly lunch, but I would give her food over the fence. In my head I’m thinking, well that’s not appropriate, what if this kid is allergic to something?

I got back onto the topic that her daughter was handicapped and she said no, not handicapped. I said, so she could walk? And she said yes, she could walk and she could run. She said why are you asking if she’s handicapped? And I said well, the perspective that she’s giving me, I feel like I’m very low to the ground like I’m looking at tables, I’m crawling, I don’t feel like I’m standing erect. And as a seven-year-old, the perspective should be higher.

I’ll never forget the woman’s reaction. She looked at me and she said, you do realize you’re talking about a dog, right? And I said no, I can’t say that I did. But that was her baby. Her baby girl.

About John

Jill: One of our readers has a personal question for you. She wants to know if you ever feel lonely? She said she heard an NPR interview with you where you spoke about a woman who had an accident and had gotten some sort of amnesia. Eventually, all of her memories came back in a flood, but in the amnesia portion of her life, she remembers appreciating the silence and that she could lay down to take a nap and have a sensation of true calm where there wasn't all this chatter going on in her head.

“I imagine a person like John, who has his finger on the pulse of other people's thoughts and memories and loved ones... I sort of imagined that the chatter going on in his head when he lays down to take a nap is amplified even more than yours or mine might be. And I sincerely wonder if he ever gets lonely.”

John: There are two different things here.

I jokingly say that there’s a lot going on up here and point to my head. There is. There’s a lot going on. Forget the fact that I’m getting energy, or whatever, the way that I process information is like OCD meets autism meets speed. My brain, the way I look at things, is constantly connecting the dots. I’m constantly, both psychically and energetically, looking for understanding. Even without doing a reading. It’s just how I look at stuff.

To her question on loneliness, yes, there are moments of being lonely. I think that anyone who does this work is kind of a lone wolf in some ways. There are only a small handful of people who can truly understand how you see life and how you experience it. And even though they can identify with it, they can’t identify with it to the same degree you can. If you’re doing this work for real, if you are a true Light Worker, you are doing this work as a teacher and are alienated by the people you’re doing it for. So not to sound heavy, but it is a little bit of a lonely life.

Jill: Why the switch from television to social media as your forum?

John: I left conventional television about a decade ago to pioneer the same subject matter online. I wanted to create a forum that would allow me to discuss things that television was never going to let me do. I felt like I was stereotyped, like I’m the guy that talks to dead people. I just had so much more that I needed to say, that I wanted to get out, to teach about. And I didn’t think television was going to let me do it. So I was very appreciative to have the opportunity to teach two internationally-syndicated shows, but I essentially fired myself and pioneered on the Internet. So here I am, like eight years later, very happy that I did that because I’m absolutely able to tackle all sorts of things that I couldn’t do on television. Now it’s to the point where I feel like because I have that, if I wanted to go back and do a TV show, I could.

In 2000, John pioneered the psychic phenomena genre with the television program, “Crossing Over with John Edward,” on the Syfy network. In 2007, John launched a digital network to deliver real-time content internationally, culminating in the creation of the online community, “Evolve.” Members of “Evolve” have exclusive access to view John’s weekly web series, “Evolve with John Edward,” which features member readings, celebrity interviews, and assorted metaphysical and lifestyle content. Visit www.JohnEdward.net for more information on the Evolve community.

John Edward will be in Kansas City, MO, on April 8, and in Albuquerque, NM, on July 13. Tickets are on sale now. Visit JohnEdward.net or ETix.com.