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John Edward is a psychic, a television personality, a best-selling author,
a sought-after lecturer... and a lifelong Guiding Light fan.
Which is why, when GL headwriter Ellen Weston needed an expert consultant
for a storyline about Reva Shayne Lewis's late-blooming second sight,
she knew just the man to call for the inside scoop on the world of psychic
phenomena. As Reva explores her newfound abilities on-screen, SoapCity
sat down with John Edward for a chat about how this unique partnership
came about, off screen...
SoapCityAlina: You are no stranger to Springfield. In fact, wasn't
GL part of one of your own most personal, psychic experiences?
John Edward: I have been a fan of this show for many, many years.
When my mother was dying, one of the things that would happen was that
every day, when three o'clock came around, we would have a (nurse's) aide
come in and I would joke around and say, "I'm going to Springfield,
don't bother me." I'd escape from lung cancer and all that negativity.
And so I made a pact with my mom. When she crossed over and then came
back through another medium, I just wanted to hear her tell me three things.
And the hardest one that I gave her was just tell me Guiding Light.
Just say Guiding Light, and I'll know it's you. And she actually
did it. She was able to return through one of the mediums, and she got
the words Guiding Light out. The medium turned around and said
to me, "Your mom wants me to let you know that she was your Guiding Light."
SCA: Why did Ellen Weston come to you for help with Reva's story?
JE: Ellen told me that she was going to be writing a story that would
have a psychic undertone and that she wanted to make sure she told the
story correctly. She didn't want it to be too out there, so she came to
me because she knows that this is what I do and I also do it on television.
She wanted a pretty comfortable authority.
SCA: So, how do you tell a story like this correctly?
JE: I think the way to do it is to acknowledge it as not being some
mystical, supernatural, Twilight Zone-y kind of a thing. It's
an energy that we all have and the Reva character is now indulging it.
The more she's looking into it, the more she's developing and recognizing
it. Hopefully, she will come to respect it, so she will be able utilize
it as a part of who her character is.
SCA: How does a person recognize something like this about themselves?
JE: Well, I think that for most people, it's an intuition that is
either ignored or acknowledged. Some people like myself choose to develop
it. I was 16 years old and sat with a woman named Lydia Clark who told
me that I had this ability. She also told me that I would become internationally
known and lecture around the world. At 16 years old, I had to control
myself from laughing at her because I didn't believe in the subject matter
and I didn't buy in to this stuff. But it was a mind-blowing experience
because she was extremely accurate and she came up with things that she
should not have been able to know. I always said that she would have had
to hire a private detective that would have had to follow me around for
six months before that reading to know some of the things that she had
known. So, the more I investigated, the more I raised my awareness about
the subject matter.
SCA: How do you define being psychic?
JE: Well, most people say things are coincidence, but they aren't
a coincidence. Like, if you have a dream about somebody who has died and
it's a very vivid experience, that's a vision, it's not just a dream.
It's their way of letting you know that they're still connected to you,
they are around you, that they're still part of your life. Or you're thinking
about a person and they call you, or you're thinking about somebody and
they bump into you and it's somebody that you haven't talked to in five
years. That would be a precognitive experience where you know about something
before it happens, and you really should not because there is no other
precursor to that event taking place. That happens often, but people kind
of roll it off. When it happens a lot, though, you can't just cast it
off as a coincidence, and then you have no choice but to look at it. Anybody
who is a longtime Guiding Light viewer like myself knows that
Reva is an emotional character who's already exhibited these types of
behaviors before. She already had these moments. When she got married
to Joshua, there was some sort of experience with Sarah, her dead mother
who came to her before. It was never really discussed before and it was
never really discussed after, but there was this moment. And there was
this other moment, where she went off a bridge and while drowning, she
heard a little girl's voice call out to her, which turned out to be her
daughter, Marah. So, the Reva character has shown these psychic moments.
It's not a great, big stretch that it's happening for her.
SCA: What exactly is your role as a consultant for GL?
JE: I think my role is to provide Ellen with an opinion on what's
kind of hokey and what's not hokey. To help tell the story so that it
comes across in a respectful way. I'm just trying to raise her awareness
level to the subject matter, so that instead of having to write about
a sandwich she is now writing about a buffet.
For more about John Edward and GL, check out www.JohnEdward.net!
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