Mark Edward

Mark Edward
Mark Edward at QEDCon 2014
Born	Mark Edward Wilson (1951-05-19) May 19, 1951 Los Angeles, CA USA
Residence	San Pedro, California, USA
Nationality	American
Education	Bachelor of Fine Arts 1974
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts
Occupation	mentalist, magician, writer, skeptic, psychic entertainer
Website	http://www.themarkedward.com
Mark Edward's voice recorded in January 2014 Problems playing this file? See media help.

Mark Edward (born Mark Edward Wilson, May 19, 1951, Los Angeles, CA) is a professional mentalist who specializes in magic of the mind. He wrote several books on mentalism, séance theory and production and appeared on television as both primary consultant and on-air performer in such diverse programming as A & E's Biography: "Houdini, the Great Escape," NBC's "The Other Side" and "Psychic Secrets Revealed," The Sci-Fi Channel's "Mysteries, Magic and Miracles," The Discovery Channel's "Forces Beyond," and on two episodes of The Learning Channel's "Exploring the Unknown." His featured segment as a spirit medium on the pilot episode of Showtime's "Penn & Teller's Bullshit!" series entitled "Speaking with the Dead" helped secure an Emmy Award nomination for that episode in 2002.^[1] Mark Edward is not related to John Edward.

Early life

Mark Edward became interested in magic through his maternal grandfather George Schaeffer, who was a card player and amateur magician. Mark became his test subject for many close-up magic routines. By 11 he was performing magic shows for school, friends and family events.^[2][3][4]

From the ages of 14 to 18 he was involved in music in various Dada and performance art bands in and around South Los Angeles, including "ZaSu Pits and the Enema Dog Review - Featuring a Walk in the Closet", "Rat Salad" and "The Techno-Cats" (which later splintered into The Brainiacs, The Suburbs and Suburban Lawns). During a punk concert at LA's "Brave Dog" club where he was performing in the power trio Steak Sinatra, he was hit in the head with a half-full beer bottle at which point he decided to pursue a solo career in magic.^[3]

"ZaSu Pits and the Enema Dog Review" 1968

"Ashes and Apples"

During this time he was also studying post-studio, performance and conceptual art with mentor John Baldessari at CalArts. Baldessari greatly influenced his later work in magic and mentalism. These influences led to performances of juggling, fire-eating and magic in public places such as local laundromats and DMV waiting areas.^[5]

Finding he was near starvation as an artist and realizing he could return to his magic roots and make money, in 1974 he formed a street magic group with several other CalArts performance and theater arts majors. After working several years as a street magician at Magic Mountain and in sales at Hollywood Magic Company, he decided it was time to audition as a performing member of Hollywood's Magic Castle.^[3][6]

In 1975 when he became a performer at the Castle, famed magician of television's "Magic Land of Alakazam" Mark Wilson was on the Board of Directors. The younger Mark Wilson was advised if he wanted to perform he needed to change his name, which he did, deciding to use his middle name as his last name.

Bored with standard magic, he decided to pursue his interest in psychic and educated animal acts, studying under Ralph Helfer and later Ray Berwick at Universal Studios's Animal Actors Stage. This training led to his later performances with "Jim, Emperor of All Dogs" in a levitating dog act. According to the "Los Angeles Parkside Journal" Edward is quoted as saying, "My favorite kind of act is 'mental' magic".^[4][7][8]

In 1985 he took the job of Associate Resident Medium at the Magic Castle in The Houdini Séance Room. As his séance work progressed he became more involved with the skeptical movement. In 1991 he met Michael Shermer and began giving lectures on psychic matters to the Skeptics Society. The next year he accepted a position on the Editorial Board of Skeptic magazine. In 1998 he became a member of the Psychic Entertainers Association. He left the Magic Castle in 1999, after 25 years, 14 of which were spent in The Houdini Séance Room. ^[4]

Jim - Emperor of all Dogs

Years as a "professional psychic"

In 1990 Mark began working for the Psychic Friends Network. Highly influenced by 1930 movies about mediums and psychic scams and later the 1948 film Nightmare Alley, Edward decided to climb as high as he could in the growing psychic / New Age market. Magician Penn Jillette referred to Mark Edward as a reformed con-artist on the pilot of their Showtime television series Bullshit! a claim that Edward denies.^[9] "I've always been a skeptic because I'm a magician. When I see something in this hand (points to right hand) I automatically want to know what the other hand is doing".^[10][11]

During this time Edward also worked on radio talk shows in Hollywood and Hawaii, gaining notoriety that eventually led to being chosen out of 160 other psychics to be second in line and backup Master Psychic for the ill-fated Psychic Friends Radio Network. Finally, he did a late night psychic infomercial for the Psychic Revival Network. This caused much controversy which angered magicians and skeptics alike.^[3]

In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America, Edward recounts his years as a professional psychic working the 900 phone lines. Reporter Eric Noll quotes Mark, "The psychic business is built on lies. There is no supernatural power. You can't see the future... We're in the golden age of the con. There are people coming out of the woodwork that would love to separate you from your money. But people just want someone to talk to. That's the bottom line".^[12]

Criticism

In his book, Psychic Blues: Confessions of a Conflicted Medium, Mark Edward describes himself as walking both sides of the line. “My magician friends — many of them skeptics — thought I was selling out to the psychics, and the psychics thought I was selling out to the skeptics.” Many skeptics, who are magicians and mediums, consider themselves not only uniquely qualified, but also obligated to teach the public that psychics are fake. They consider it a moral duty to inform their audience that they are performing tricks and not using supernatural powers. Edward used his expertise as a mentalist to expose the charlatans as frauds, but prefers not to use disclaimers, defending his work as a psychic as pure entertainment. “It’s as if he believes he can deceive people and enlighten them at the same time.” ^[13] Edward stated in his book that using a disclaimer is like ordering a dinner at a fancy French restaurant and, just when the waiter is about to serve the meal, the chef comes out and says it came out of a can. His critics would argue that the problem isn't that the appreciation for the meal was ruined. The problem is that the customer paid a premium price for canned food.^[14]

At The Amaz!ng Meeting 2013, he participated on a panel discussion entitled Magicians vs. Psychics. With him on the panel were Ray Hyman, Jamy Ian Swiss, James Randi, Max Maven, and Banachek, moderated by D.J. Grothe. Swiss, criticized Edward, referring to the statement on his website: "Mark neither declares himself as a genuine psychic nor gives any disclaimers, preferring to let his work stand on its own merit and allow each individual to arrive at their own personal conclusions." Swiss called him a “lower case skeptic,” and said that he didn't consider him to be an ally in the skeptical movement. “Upper case Skeptics are not just concerned with what you as an individual sees about the world, but are concerned with educating others and improving other’s lot in the world.” In his defense, Mark Edward pointed out that his website has skepticism written all over it, and that anybody who knows him, knows that his work is valuable in the skeptical movement. ^[15]

James Randi and Mark Edward DragonCon 2012

Whereas most magicians and mentalists openly claim that they have no psychic ability, many psychic entertainers assume that no real disclaimer is required. Ray Hyman used the term "invited inference," meaning "you present as the real thing" without claiming outright to be psychic.^[16] "A disclaimer is a declaration that 'disclaims' that any supernatural agencies or occult forces are in any way involved, and that everything is being done through purely natural means, including trickery."^[17] James Randi and Mark Edward discussed the importance of disclaimers in mentalism. One that would satisfy both believers and skeptics, would be to say, "I use my five senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense." Randi said that he always uses disclaimers. Edward said he has used different kinds of disclaimers, including one that he calls a "double bind." It's a disclaimer that doesn't. The idea is to vehemently deny having psychic powers to a point that the audience wonders what he's up to. He said that what sets him apart from other skeptics, is that he likes to have a little mystery.^[18]

Skepticism

Mark Edward's involvement in the skeptical movement has been extensive. Years after working for the Psychic Friends Network, Edward decided to blow the whistle on the $2 billion a year industry. He said the industry soars when the economy tanks. People have moved, changed jobs, and even divorced after receiving a consultation, but psychics have no special abilities. They use specific techniques designed to be vague, flattering, and drawn out. They use generalities that are true about everybody. ^[19] Psychics at the 900 hotlines were trained to scam callers out of their money. They were told to keep people on the line as long as possible, and to ask for their birthdays, names and addresses. Then the hotlines would start spamming people. The callers would get letters telling them they're in danger and that they need to call their psychic friend immediately. ^[20] Another trend involved seeing a psychic over Skype, whereby the customer paid in advance by credit card for the psychic session, upon which the ‘psychic’ on the other end would not only receive the money but was able to see the payer’s itemized credit card history. Then the psychic had information on the sitter and would seem even more credible. ^[21]

A protest against Sylvia Browne led by Mark Edwards

Mark Edward has been very public about exposing celebrity psychics and the techniques they use to fool their audiences. On the premiere episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, he demonstrated how television psychics, John Edward, James Van Praagh, and Rosemary Altea, convinced their subjects that they were actually communicating with the dead. ^[22] On Inside Edition, he showed how Theresa Caputo used similar techniques to give the appearance that she can contact the deceased. ^[23] Often, what is perceived as psychic powers, is nothing more than a simple magic trick, as in Uri Geller’s famous spoon bending trick. Edward performed one of several possible techniques in the TV series, Weird or What? ^[24]

Edward pointed out that if communication with the dead was possible, psychic hotlines and celebrity psychics would be obsolete, and the scientific community would give this type of phenomena a great deal of attention; however, sufficient evidence is lacking. "What is more likely" Edward asks, "that somebody can talk to dead people, or they're just conning you?" ^[25] He made a similar argument for haunted houses. If we could prove ghosts were real, it would be the greatest scientific achievement in history, and we wouldn’t be paying twenty dollars for a Hollywood ghost tour. ^[26]

Despite his efforts to expose psychics as frauds, Edward found that some people's beliefs cannot be changed. Even though he was introduced as a fake on the Jeff Probst Show, one of the audience members requested a reading from him. ^[27] On the TV series Brain Games, Edward demonstrated that the planchette on the Ouija board is controlled by the live participants and not by someone who has passed, and yet some of his sitters were convinced they had received messages from beyond the grave. ^[28]

Mark Edward said that he was always a skeptic. At the same time he was working the 900 numbers, he was also on the editorial board of Skeptic Magazine.^[1] He was a member of the team for the network television pilot The Skeptologists, working with Yau-Man Chan, Steven Novella, Phil Plait, Kirsten Sanford, Michael Shermer and Brian Dunning. The program never aired. ^[29]

Edward was a steering member of IIG West, a group aimed at investigating paranormal claims. ^[30][31][32] He has also worked with Investigation Network, teaching workshops and exposing psychic frauds, like Sylvia Browne^[33] and John Edward.^[34][35]

Lecture at Skeptrack at Dragon Con September 2012

Edward has been a speaker at a number of skeptical conferences. At Dragon*Con 2012 Skeptrack, he performed psychic readings and demonstrated techniques celebrity psychics use, like hot and cold readings, in front of an audience packed with skeptics. In his talk entitled Psychic Readings for Fun and Prophet, Edward explained that no one can actually read minds or talk to the dead, but that people can be fooled and that they can fool themselves, and he offered a variety of explanations. ^[36]

At QEDcon 2014 his talk was entitled Psychic Blues: Using Guerrilla Skepticism To Fight Psychic Fraud. He told the audience that he was sick and tired of psychic fraud and encouraged them to join his movement and help make a difference. He showed a video of how he and a group of skeptics demonstrated at a Sylvia Browne show, and then he outlined a plan describing how audience members could organize a similar local protest. ^[37] At the same conference, he sat on a panel about magic and skepticism, along with Paul Zenon, Richard Wiseman, and Deborah Hyde. ^[38]

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  Lecturing on "Psychic Blues" Dragon Con, Atlanta, Georgia 2012

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  Edward and Jeff Probst (dressed up to look like a psychic) 2013

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  Performing "The Dark Seance" at The Edinburgh Secret Society, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2014

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  The Results of "The Dark Seance" at The Edinburgh Secret Society, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2014

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  Lecturing for Scottish Magicians Ring, in April 2014

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  Edward with hoaxer Tony Doc Shiels, 2015

Artwork

Mark Edward's work has been displayed at local art shows in the Los Angeles area. Create:Fixate is a quarterly one night art exhibit featuring a signature blend of over forty emerging artists, designers, DJs and musicians. Edward's piece was displayed on February 15, 2014 for the "I Art You" exhibit.^[39] On May 18, 2013 Edward held a "Soothsayer" exhibition at the Fold Gallery where he displayed his art and performed illusions and psychic readings. At the La Luz De Jesus Gallery, throughout the month of March, 2013, his Death Ray and Nebulizer and Charger were on display at the "Laluzapalooza" show. For the Dia De Los Muertos "Sacred Memories" show on October 21 through November 18, 2012, Edward had two pieces, Memories and Final Seance, on display at the Pico House Gallery.

His art collection includes paintings, collages, and elaborate sculptures, using vintage laboratory glassware, metals and mixed media. His creations involve science and mysticism, and consist of mysterious mechanical devices and imaginary alchemy laboratories. His work was inspired by art movements such as Dada and surrealism, which were pioneered by artists like Max Ernst.^[40][41] He also designed a set of tarot cards to accompany his book, Silentium.^[42]

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  "I Want to Call You Baby" in situ @ Copro Gallery

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  "Knowledge is Power"

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  Fold Gallery 2014

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  Death Ray at la Luz de Jesus Gallery

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  Nebulizer and Charger

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  Edward at Pico House

Books

References

External links

• Media related to Mark Edward at Wikimedia Commons
• Mark Edward's Official Website
• Edward on Skepticblog
• Mark Edward at the Internet Movie Database