There is a peculiar brand of spiritual presumption going on today. On the one hand, people presume to disregard spiritual phenomenon, pretending it to be a figment of the imagination; on the other hand, those willing to acknowledge a spiritual reality often assume it to be a fairyland of benignity and light that can be reached through all manner of New Age practices.
A show on the Sci-Fi Channel falls into the latter category. It proves there is an intense curiosity about those on the “other side” — and absolutely no understanding of what that other side is, or how one gets there. The show goes by the name Crossing Over with John Edwards and promises that the “dead will speak.” Imagine someone putting a camera on a ouija board. Now imagine Mr. Edwards playing the part of the board, and you have a pretty clear idea of the show concept.
Each episode features the supposed medium John Edwards (purportedly) communicating with the deceased. For those with half a brain, it is clear he is actually communicating with the living.
The show goes something like this: Edwards looks about the gallery and starts asking questions like: “Somebody is coming through — F, F, F, Fred, Fredrica? Can anyone acknowledge?”
Within a moment or two an all-too-willing audience member, tears in her eyes, “acknowledges” the F, F, F with: “I had a daughter named Francis.”
“She crossed over?” Edwards asks.
“Yes, yes,” the excited woman bleats. More tears. She is already convinced that he has established contact with her daughter despite that fact that he has told her nothing.
Fact is, anyone listening closely to the woman’s first comment would have figured out exactly what Edwards did. If someone says I had a daughter, that is a pretty good indication that the girl is deceased. Call me a skeptic, but to these eyes Mr. Edwards has about as much contact with the “other side” as my coffee mug.
But you have to hand it to him. Once Edwards finds a willing participant he is like a dog with a bone, even when nothing he says makes any sense. On one of the episodes I watched, the following dialogue took place:
“Is there a pinball machine? I am seeing an old fashioned pinball machine in a room. It is a dark paneled room…a pinball machine in the corner. It has a coin slot on it. She is showing me a pinball machine. Did she have a pinball machine?”
“No,” the bewildered woman responds as her family frantically whispers in her ear.
“No pinball machine?” Edwards asks with exasperation.
“No.”
Finally, succumbing to the pressure of being chided by the great psychic she relents: “I play video poker and pinball on a little hand-held game thing.”
“Don’t make me work that hard,” Edwards says with relief, as if he has just given birth.
Sorry John, a Gameboy is not an “old fashioned coin-operated pinball machine,” and the woman never did admit to having a “paneled room.” Still everyone went along oohing and ahhing as if revealed truth were spilling from Edwards’ lips.
Crossing Over is actually a very artful game of 20 questions. Edwards asks leading questions, picks up bits of information from the answers and then throws out events or names that the person either acknowledges or denies. Occasionally he gets lucky, but most of the time he is just shooting in the dark hoping that somebody will buy his talking-to-the-dead routine.
All readings inevitably end with Edward emotionally declaring that “(whoever) is in a positive circle of energy, and … did you say your father has passed on? (good guess — the woman is 70) well he’s there too.” Then, like some New Age Jerry Springer, John Edwards concludes with an absurd sermonette: “Communicate, appreciate, and validate the people in your life, so I don’t have to.”
Though I have only seen a few episodes, I find it curious that everyone ends up in a circle of positive energy. Isn’t that convenient? Never is their talk of suffering or pain or misery. Eternity is just one big barrel of “positive energy.” Sounds more like a weekend at Shirley MacLaine’s house.
This brand of theatrical sideshow trivializes eternity, degrades the supernatural, and all the while encourages a totally secular spirituality. Thankfully, some important news stories this week tell a different tale.
In spite of Mr. Edwards and his cast of friendly ghosts, there appears to be a penalty for toying with the supernatural, and particularly for divining spirits. A group of inmates in San Jose found this out the hard way.
According to a recent Reuters report, a priest was called into a cell block after a group of inmates created a makeshift ouija board and used it to reach the dead. Within days the inmates were acting “strange,” or so the guards said. They were afraid to speak to one another, and refused to go near the other prisoners. Gripped by fear, these hardened criminals finally begged the guards to send for a priest. The warden obliged their request, and forbade them further access to the ouija board. To think all this fear, all this angst, was caused by what many consider a harmless game.
Far from a joking matter, these dalliances with spirits are becoming more and more routine in our society. Even the Pope had to contend with the fallout of these practices last week in Rome.
At the conclusion of a Papal audience on September 6, a 19 year-old girl seated near the front of the dais began screaming incoherently at the Pontiff. When officers tried to calm her she physically threw them off with what has been described in reports as “superhuman strength.” The chief exorcist of Rome claims she was demonically possessed.
The Italian papers say the girl was “cursed” by some sort of black magician in her town. To demonstrate how serious all this is viewed by the Vatican, the Pope spent a half-hour praying for the girl and attempting to comfort her. And though the Pope did not exorcise the girl as has been widely reported, he did offer a Mass for her. Another bishop actually conducted an exorcism, which was not entirely successful.
While the media continues to rant that the Pope “failed to exorcise the demon from the girl,” they have missed the real story. The Pope recognizes that there are powerful spiritual forces at play in the world today: forces of good and evil. It is not a world to be dabbled in by TV charlatans or shop corner diviners, but one that should be approached soberly, cautiously and carefully. Only the foolhardy open themselves up to forces they can hardly fathom. But the spiritual masters — people like His Holiness — move along the well-trodden path of tradition and revelation when approaching that world. They heed the warnings of the scriptures and the Fathers of the faith. There is no need for theatrics, no need for games. Authentic spiritual encounters are best achieved the way the Pope encounters them, the way the Church has encountered them for centuries: on the knees. Can anyone acknowledge?
