Six days later, I was looking for spying opportunities as I waited to see John Edward. (Some speculate that microphones pick up information from people waiting to get into the "Crossing Over" studio in New York.) Here, people shared stories in line, but not with any specificity. One woman, who drove six hours from El Paso to Tucson hoping to hear from her late fiancé, said she didn't mind the lines.

"This is the most human contact I've had since he died," she said.

Others griped about how mad they'd be if the seminar started without them, about how the hotel people misjudged Edward's huge following. Indeed, nearly all of his seminars sell out within a few days of their quiet announcement on his Web site. Tickets -- usually $45 -- are hot eBay items. Edward quit taking reservations for $300 private readings after the backlog grew to three years. And scoring free tickets to his TV show is nearly impossible.

When 3,000 of us finally crammed inside the ballroom, we found water pitchers but no fliers or anything for sale. This audience was also almost exclusively white, but maybe as many as 35 percent of the group was male.

Edward entered to a heartfelt standing ovation. He wore glasses, blue jeans, a light shirt and a sport coat. He told anecdotes about his 16 years of psychic work. Then he introduced Gary Schwartz, the professor who conducted the afterlife experiments. Here, Schwartz was preaching to the choir. He was allotted 20 minutes but took 40. Finally, with the crowd grumbling and one man calling out that we'd come to see John, Edward took back the mike. He guaranteed a full evening, assuring us we wouldn't be shortchanged.

Edward has an engaging presence and a quick wit. When an audience member later struggled to verify a piece of information, Edward quipped, "Keep thinking. Otherwise Gary is coming back up again."

He spoke fast and his pace was sometimes frenetic. After one reading concluded, he immediately pointed to a new area where the spirits were "pulling" him. He remained in the front of the room but read people from all over.

In the first reading, he made an impressive initial hit, then struggled. Connected to someone in the back of the room, he said, was a male figure. He was thinking of Neville, like the musician Aaron Neville, and seeing an image of Fred Flintstone. A woman stood and said her uncle, Fred Neville, had passed.

But when Edward said there was a mother figure there, the woman said no.

"They are saying yes," he replied.

"No," said the woman.

"They are saying yes again," Edward said, planting a hand on his hip.

He told the woman he was supposed to wish her a happy birthday. No, she said. Yes, he said. The woman said it was not her birthday. "Now," Edward said.

Finally, the woman said, her ticket to see Edward "now" was a birthday gift.

Edward said spirits use details like these to convince us that it is really them coming through. He urged people not to make a reach just to validate something. But other times, when people couldn't make sense of something, he said the spirits held firm.

"I'm sweating," he told the crowd one of those times, removing his jacket. He walked back and forth across the elevated platform -- something he doesn't do on TV. Again, he announced he was sweating. He pushed up his sleeves. He stopped to make a point, then resumed the caged-tiger walk. He was undeniably mesmerizing.

Over four hours without a break, Edward performed 16 readings, several involving more than one person. He made some startling hits, evoking tears in many. One connection was with a young girl who had died two months before. The family had brought one of her dolls: "Dizzy, Desi?" A mail carrier and his family -- Disney character in hand -- rose to say that described them and the child. Edward correctly identified and conveyed a greeting to "Rose'" -- her grandmother in the audience -- then "a second Rose," a cousin. When he mentioned "Cookie or Kiki," the mother said her daughter's nickname was Kookoo. He noted, in correct hits, that the girl had been the fourth born in the family, that people had prayed the rosary around her hospital bed, and her left leg had turned blue from poor circulation.

Because live readings don't offer any follow-up opportunities -- as those on Edward's show do -- some intriguing messages were left hanging. Did his revelation about a note and a reference to Miami, Ariz. (a place he said he never knew existed) provide any insight into a shooting death? Did his urging a woman to get help for the "female problems" she admitted she was ignoring save her from some medical disaster?

Edward revealed pieces of dirty laundry as well as warm and fuzzy messages. He told one woman her father was not a very good dad. "You got that one," she said. He told another her two dads (presumably, father and stepfather) had passed, correctly announced that her mother was still alive, and said her spouses would not keep the usual "bond of love" going once she came over. "Who is Edward?" he quickly asked. The daughter said that was who her mom had an affair with.

Later, an aspiring medium asked Edward how he managed to get so "out there," so well known.

"I never tried to get out there," he responded. "That came as a byproduct."

Edward said he is a private person, so this public life is tough for him. The key, he said, is the motivation: "It should be to help and assist people, and not to worry about how to get out there. Just do the work and honor the process."

Edward closed with his standard TV messages: We don't need mediums to realize our departed loved ones are with us. And although we will be reunited later, we should communicate with, appreciate and validate loved ones while they're here.

These seminars are like birthday parties, Edward said. We may not be the one with our name on the cake, but we each get a little piece for ourselves. I considered my slice. The evening was highly entertaining. I was not at all sad. I got a look at this psychic phenomenon and witnessed enough to make me think he was the real deal.

It occurred to me that if Van Praagh and Edward were fakes, their readings would have been more accurate. Each erred several times, sometimes saying their interpretation could be wrong or the person might not yet realize its accuracy. But their hits were so stunning, so personal and specific, that I had to believe in them. Granted, they are raking in the dough, and in Van Praagh's case, openly hawking products. I don't begrudge them their wealth or success. Everyone has to make a living. Theirs just happens to be courtesy of the dead.

Anthrolopogist and author Brown points out that while the two are making lots of money, it's not as if they are draining little old ladies out of thousands of dollars. Anyone with a TV set can watch these guys work for free. For $45 you can check them out in person.

"What's the harm in it?" he says. "This doesn't seem to be any worse than some of the other things we spend money on."

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