Here is the latest message from John Edward Board:

( hope it is not a voilation of copyrights:

with due apologies from Bill)
http://www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/1837/728
For instance:

THE ONE-ON-ONE PRE-INTERVIEWS. This is the only format element of the show that
guarantees at least one "Hey, wait a minute" from a discerning viewer. It's the part of each episode
where the producers interview people on camera BEFORE they see John for a one-on-one,
asking them who they're hoping to hear from today and what they want to accomplish BEFORE
they have their reading with him.

Well, I wish they wouldn't do that. I *want* to believe John's the real deal, but that practice is
indefensible from a scientific standpoint -- how do we overlook the fact that not only does John
have someone ask the subject for personal information before the interview... but actually has it
recorded on a video feed?

Further, these segments often include photographs of the deceased relative supered over the
subject. Again, it invites damaging speculation -- was the subject asked to bring the photos to the
pre-interview? Were the photos then left with the producers, to be shot and edited into the show?
Could John have seen them before the reading?

I'm not saying it's fake, I'm saying it's a poor way to structure the segments, undermining
everything that John does in the session to follow.

Secondly:

"WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT THAT!" I've seen people in the gallery say this several
times when John has come to them with personal information -- that they were just talking about
that very thing or very person while waiting outside before the show!

Now, I know that it might be hard to get people NOT to talk about their dead relatives while
waiting in the lobby outside... and I give the show some credit that it doesn't (always?) edit out
people saying that they did... but after the third or fourth time it happens, one can't help but
wonder what goes on before a taping, and how many of John's staff are flies on the wall when it
does.

A simple sign at the door, or announcement, or note on the tickets: "PLEASE DO NOT
DISCUSS YOUR FAMILY HISTORY OR ANY OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION
WHILE WAITING FOR THE SHOW TO START. THANK YOU."

And finally, the one moment on the show so far that really set me aback:

"I WAS SITTING OVER THERE BEFORE..." I can't remember the exact reading (I'm sure
others here can fill it in for me, I hope it was discussed), but on one memorable and disturbing
episode, John was persistent that he was being drawn toward a certain back portion of the gallery,
despite the fact that no one there was responding to what was coming through.

Finally, a young woman behind him and at stage level said, "I was sitting over there before, but I
went to the bathroom and couldn't get back before the show started..." And it turned out that John
was "with her", that he was talking about her family and her history.

Well, as much as John has impressed me with other readings, I'm afraid that one rocked me in the
complete opposite direction. I'm still getting over it. Why? Because it would seem to confirm what
his worst critics have been assuming: that he and his staff listen-in on people or otherwise research
them prior to taping and that John directs his readings not by any spiritual pull but by a
pre-arranged seating plan. (Or, crassly put: "We've seated the lady whose brother drowned in the
left back row, John.")

Well, I'm sorry, but you can't air something like that without explaining it, not without seriously
damaging your own credibility. It's not a matter of open-mindedness -- it's that mistakenly reading
an empty chair for two minutes while the actual person is standing right behind you flies in the face
of anything we've heard yet on the show about how John's gift works, or about how those who've
crossed over live with us. John has said (and I believe) that those who've crossed don't linger
physically around their graves or old possessions -- so why would they linger over an assigned
seat in a television studio when the live person they came with got up and moved twenty minutes
earlier?

Help me understand this, please. Or if there's nothing to understand -- if it's just one of those funny
things -- then please tighten up the show in the future so that open-minded but understandably
skeptical viewers won't MIS-understand.

I think that most of us watch the show with open arms. All that we ask in return is that it doesn't
show us anything to make us cross them in sudden doubt.

Pre-interviews, photographs, surprise staff readings, admissions that people talk outside about
what John reveals inside, and readings directed at empty chairs raise such doubts. For the good of
the show, I hope they will be avoided in the future -- or at least openly addressed when they do
happen, so that people like me can relax and go, "Okay, I didn't just catch them at something, they
know how this looks, too."

Unless, gulp, such things *can't* be addressed or acknowledged...

Hopefully,
Bill

Anil