One humiliating moment launched John Edward's career

John Edward is a softly spoken man, internationally renowned for his uncanny ability to communicate with the dead.

There are some sentences you think you’re never going to write, but that’s the fact of the matter - John’s a psychic medium that thousands of people swear connects them with their passed loved ones.

He’s an eight time best-selling author, former host of US television’s first psychic reading show, and a still-popular live act and private reader three decades into his career.

Whether you’re a believer, non-believer or healthy skeptic, if one thing can be said for this man its that he is no frills – no airs and graces cloud what he calls his work, and it turns out there is a very good reason why that is.

The red-faced moment that launched a phenomena

Speaking to Yahoo Lifestyle, the medium who now rubs shoulders with celebrities opened up about how one humiliating experience from his early days shaped his current success, and I dare you not to cringe.

“I think the problem with this field is it attracts people that energetically can be egotistical,” he told Yahoo Lifestyle, admitting that he got that out of his system early on.

“I did all my ego stuff as a teenager and I had my a*s handed to me on a platter,” he said.

“They gave me that message loud and clear in a very embarrassing way.”

This vague ‘they’ is where we dip into uncomfortable territory for those with a grain of salt grasped firmly in their hands - ‘they’ are the team of energies or ‘gods’ he believes guide his connection to the other side.

If you’re rolling your eyes, try to suspend your disbelief, as audience members at a recent appearance on Build Series Sydney would tell you, there is at the very least something to these claims.

John explains that as a novice medium he came face-to-face with what could only be a medium’s worst nightmare - nothing.

“I was complaining to a high school friend that I didn’t have a normal experience growing up,” he explained. “It was a venting moment.”

“Well that night I had 11 people come to me for a group, and I sat down, gave my explanation - and nothing happened,” he said.

The toe-curling moment stretched out for five, 10, 15 minutes.

John says he finally got something - a replay of his earlier conversation complaining about his sight, and he was forced to face down a room full of people surely convinced at this point they were face-to-face with a fake.

“Never ever have I taken this work for granted again,” he laughed.

“I’ve (since) always come from that place, that it’s not about me, it’s about the work.”

Anyone can be a medium

John speaks surprisingly candidly for someone I assumed would come shrouded in mystery. He says there’s a frequency anyone can tune into from which the future and the past are readily available.

He says it’s quite simple to access, and has some surprising advice for those looking to try.

“We have to be aware and open all while being a healthy skeptic,” he says.

“I think it’s really important for people to focus on being a critical thinker.”

John would hope that people who do listen to the words of a medium, take the time to decipher and unpack the experience for themselves.

Finally, he says not to think too big.

“People are so busy looking for the big sign in the sky that they miss the subtlety of a dream, or a smell, or a pattern that gets created,” he says.

At the risk of writing a ‘quick-step connect to your dead’ practical guide, I think there is something in John Edward.

I’m not saying drop everything and fork out $US850 for a private reading, but I think he is genuine insofar as he believes what he preaches, and I think there’s something to get out of his projections either way.

“Say the things you want to say while you’re here, appreciate your loved ones while you’re here,” was his response when I asked the most important insight he had to share.

“Time is short.”

John kicks off an Australian tour in Melbourne on Friday October 25th, and will perform across the country until November 23rd.

Tickets can be found here.

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