Did you know that America's most prominent Spiritualist is also a novelist? John Edward- a onetime TV star who claims to be able to speak with the dead - wrote this fascinating book, which was the basis for a 2007 Lifetime TV movie. My, the man is a veritable cottage industry.
Here's an interesting article from 2001: "How the Mass Media Package and Sell Psychic Medium John Edward" It's a typical CSICOP bunch of boo-hooing that the media was somehow invested in pushing Edward to the masses. Now that his talk show is cancelled, I wonder if this fascinating novel (which indeed seems to have a Sun worship theme in it) is a harbinger of things to come from Mr. Edward.
It's worth remembering that traveling preachers in the ancient world would perform ostensibly miraculous acts like healing the sick or communicating with the spirit world in order to help sell their religion to the masses. And the same types of hausfraus who tuned into Edward were usually the targets of these itinerant missionaries.
UPDATE: Reader Magnus pointed out that US politician John Edwards admitted to an affair a short time after I put this up...
