John Edwards: Life on this side is the gift

Celebrity medium John Edwards talks about fame, guilt, a love of Australia, his off-switch, and what he would tell his younger self.

John Edwards doesn’t like the word gift. Yes, he’s connected tens of thousands of people from all over the globe with loved ones lost – something believers would argue possibly the greatest gift of all – but he simply considers himself someone with the ability to be a facilitator.

A conduit between his two worlds. And that’s a responsibility he feels so firmly, he struggles with guilt for even taking a break.

“I’ve never said this publicly, but I have a colleague and we were having a conversation, and I said, ‘sometimes if I’m off, I feel guilty – if I’m on vacation, to have downtime, I feel guilty’,” Edwards tells Insider on his recent trip to Australia.

“I know that there are so many people that want a reading, people who need a reading.

“And I get it, I have to recharge, I have to make sure I’m in the right spot – but I actually do feel that way.”

From the ages of 10 and 12, Edwards remembers being brought into his mum’s work in Manhattan as ‘a treat’. There he would sit in the back room and play Space Invaders on her ‘Apple Macintosh, as it was known back then’ – and he loved every minute.

American psychic medium John Edwards in Sydney ahead of his national tour in October. Picture: Toby Zerna

“I remember one day I wasn’t allowed in the back room to play because there was a big meeting going on – and somebody walked in and my mum turned around and said, ‘Oh, that’s my son – remember his face – he’s going to be famous’,” he recalls fondly.

“When we got out of there I said ‘why would you say that?’

John Edwards as a guest co-host on The View. His mother told him when he was 10-12, one day he would be famous. Picture: Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

“And she said to me, ‘I don’t know what you’re going to be famous for, I don’t know why people are going to know you, but they’re going to know you’.

“And a few years later, I had a reading which put me on my path.”

In the three decades since, that path saw him become the world’s leading medium, author and lecturer. Back in 2000, he pioneered the psychic phenomena genre with the television program Crossing Over with John Edward – the first television show syndicated worldwide devoted to psychic mediums. He reads for the likes of Kim Kardashian and the world’s most famous people. But that Hollywood world is a by-product of what he does – not why he does it.

“I didn’t set out to be famous,” he admits.

“It was never my thing, and still isn’t.

“So much that I have a daughter who is an actress, and when she was two or three years old, she was on a commercial and we were in the car driving and she said she was hoping to hear her commercial.

John Edwards reads for the world’s most famous people, including US socialite Kim Kardashian. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

“And I said, ‘well, why do you want to hear it? Do you think that they changed it?’ – and we went through a couple of iterations of her explanations, and then it finally came down to ‘no, it made me feel famous’.

“I literally spun my head around, and I was like, ‘I will never let you become famous’ – because fame is something that you have and you lose.

“You can become accomplished – because accomplishments are yours.”

For Edwards, being a parent to Olivia – who travelled with him to Sydney – and Justin, who studied astrology, as well as medicine – is his greatest accomplishment. And, of that, he’s proud.

“I raised them to have an energetic outlook on life,” he says.

“The reality about parenting is to be able to empower your children with information, not fear, empowering them with information so that you could put the your voice in their head when you’re not physically there with them.

Celebrity Medium John Edwards says being a parent to Olivia and Justin was his greatest accomplishment. Picture: Adam Yip

“I think it’s really important for kids to be able to grow up knowing that they’re connected to something big, and that’s where I think religion in today’s world has failed.

“Because religions have become more controlling and fear-based – the divine should be something that’s empowering – and this is somebody who was born and raised Catholic.

“I can say very confidently my wife and I did a really good job when it came to parenting.”

Parenting they can do. Dogs, however – one they have one lovingly called Sydney after one of his favourite paces – they “fail, miserably”.

“The dogs literally run the house – the kids are great though,” he laughs.

In the years he spent proving his ability, Edwards has also been labelled a fraud. And for someone with nothing left to prove, he says scepticism is not only welcome – it’s important. In fact, just before meeting Insider, Edwards said he’d had a “tussle” with another journalist.

“I think there are people who come to the subject matter with a belief system, and people come to the subject matter with no belief system, or with a religious belief system … so you meet somebody at the intersection of who that will be, versus who they already,” he says.

John Edwards and his wife “fail, miserably” when it comes to having dogs. “The dogs literally run the house.” Picture: Adam Yip

“So, in her case, she let me know who she was immediately, by saying that she was sceptical – which, by the way, I want everyone to be.

“I think we’re living at a time on the planet where people’s critical thinking skills need to be really sharpened and addressed because of whatever the latest AI thing that’s happening or just social media – so I think it’s really important for people to go, ‘hey, wait, I’m not sure, let me see what kind of validation is there’.

“So I welcome it – it’s important – as long as we can have a conversation about it.

“But when somebody pushes a little bit too much more, then I have to push back, and I have to be like ‘woah – you can’t define me, you don’t know me’.

Today, he no longer has to prove himself. He’s spent decades doing that.

“So between the ages of 15 and 20 I was definitely coming from a place of ‘I can do it’ – egotistically, let me do it, let me demonstrate,” he says.

“But I also needed to prove it more – to myself and whoever would listen at the time.

Psychic medium John Edward welcomes scepticism. Picture: John Appleyard

“Shortly after that, it became very clear that there is a time and place (for readings), and you can actually do more damage than good, so a person’s best intentions could not be met up with a best practice outcome – because what if that person is not in the right place to receive that?

“Karmically, I don’t want to take on any additional responsibility or karma that’s not my own.”

That’s why – much to Insider’s reading-desire disappointment – he’s not always “on”.

“Anybody that’s a metaphysical practitioner knows that when you’re going to work, you open up, you do your job, and you power down – and because of my background in health care I equate it to being in surgery,” he explains.

“You scrub in for surgery, that’s your prep, you gown and mask up, you perform your surgery, and, when you’re done, you take off all your equipment and you scrub out.

“That’s what it really feels like – it’s more of a surgical thing, where I’m going in and doing something that’s very energetically invasive, then I’m going to pull myself out of it, making sure that I’m leaving that person better than I found them.

“It’s not about me – it’s about the process.”

John Edwards, who will tour Australia tour in October, says this country holds a special place in his journey. Picture: Adam Yip

And Australia, well, we hold a special place in his journey.

“I started to notice that I didn’t want to work in the States after I left Australia,” he says.

“So if I came here and I did something in October and November – I wouldn’t want to read in December.

“So after a lot of digging and analysis, (it was because) I really like the energy of the country.

“I feel like there’s a sense of community and unity, that sometimes I don’t think that you guys recognise that, but coming from a place where the word ‘united’ is in our title and the name, we are so far from that.

“And I think I started to feel a lack of that nationalistic pride when I started coming here in the early 2000s.

“I love groups and community and connectivity, so I think that’s it – I think it’s that sense of community, and people care for each other.

“I always tell people that if the you of today, if you go back to the you of the past, what’s something that you would say?

“And if the me of today could go back to the me that was doing Crossing Over, I’d pull him aside and say, ‘try to make sure you enjoy this while you’re doing it – it’s going to be life changing for a lot of people, including yourself, so absolutely try to enjoy it’.

“Because I didn’t really give myself permission to enjoy it while I did it, because I was so busy.

“I think we’re all here to learn, and I’m not excluded from that.

“So although I could be a teacher for many, the process was a teacher for me.”

Edwards’ Sydney show will be at The State Theatre on October 25 before he heads to Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.

For tickets go to johnedward.net