The Ghost Whisperer
A Conversation with James Van Praagh
James Van Praag is one of the most successful mediums in the world, across a range of media. (How often do we get to pluralize the same word in two ways in the same sentence!) Not only is he a best-selling author, but his work communicating and healing across the dimensions has been the basis for a range of films and television programs, including the current ‘Ghost Whisperer.' (He shares this month's cover with series star Jennifer Love Hewitt.) Light Connection Interviewer David S. Cohen spoke to him recently about his new book, ‘Ghosts Among Us.'
The Light Connection: In your book ‘Ghosts Among Us,' you depict a world in which the living and the dead interpenetrate to a really remarkable degree. Would most of us be shocked to discover just how much we are surrounded by the formerly living?
James Van Praag: Yes. If we could have infrared glasses on so we could see them, we would be. You know the Fourth Dimension interpenetrates the Third Dimension also, so it's kind of like we are sharing space together with them, they're just on a higher frequency vibration.
So you've had these abilities to connect with non-corporeal beings from the very beginning of your life…
Yeah, like I think most children are very open to Spirit and a lot of times they'll have these imaginary friends, but the imaginary friends are really spirits—not always but a lot of the time. A child is very open because they've just come from the Spirit world. When I was a child I asked my mother one day, “Who are those people at the end of the bed?” and she said, “Oh, those, those are God's angels and they'll always protect you. I used to see them when I was a little girl.” So that was really the beginning of her telling me about that and validating it.
You were lucky to have that validated…
That's right; because she had had the experience as well, and it was a very positive experience. There wasn't anything to fear—nor did I feel any sense of fear because these visions were very positive. My life was very similar to the little boy in— The Sixth Sense in that I could see dead people but his visions were very violent ones and mine were just the opposite. It was always positive.
When did you realize that this was something extraordinary as opposed to what everyone saw?
As a kid it was very natural to me, I thought everyone could see these things and know these things, because a kid measures their world by their own experiences. Once when I was in grade school, we cut class and we went to the local cemetery and I said to my friends, “Look at those two little kids over there on that grave, it's a little four-year old boy and girl, look at them!” And my friends said, “What are you talking about, there's no one over there.” So we walked over and the kids that I saw went behind the stone and my friends were looking at the headstone and it was twins, there were twins who'd died at the age of three. That was pretty weird.
But during my teenage years it really kind of closed down. I didn't pay much attention to it and it kind of faded away—maybe because of puberty, who knows why—and then I had a regular, normal life until I got into my early twenties and I went to see a medium from England who made this prediction that I'd be the voice for Spirit within two years. His name was Brian Hurst. I was very leery and very skeptical but he did bring through incredibly detailed information that no one knew about my family members and myself, so I knew he had something going on. That really motivated me to read as many books as I could about life after death, the paranormal, the Other Side, psychic phenomena. There was a common theme about finding one's own journey, one's purpose in life, and that was Meditation. So I started meditating—I didn't even know the formal way of Meditation; I just concentrated on my breath, or a visualization of a flower or the word “Love,” and I noticed after two or three weeks of doing that every day, I started seeing lights and colors around people. The more that I meditated, the better the focus became, like a camera that could focus in. Then I began seeing forms around people. The more I meditated, the forms got very defined and became a face, a body, and so on. I went to work one day (at Paramount Studios as a paralegal) and this girl was there, my co-worker, and I saw this lady behind her. The lady was looking at me and telling me telepathically that this was her granddaughter and she used to visit her in Idaho in a white house with yellow shutters. So I told this to this girl and she said, “That's my grandmother. She lived in Idaho in that color house and she promised me when she died that if she can come back and tell me she's okay, she will.” That freaked me out completely. I ran out of Paramount and back to my apartment running the whole way. I didn't know what to do to hold my world together. I called this Brian Hurst and he said, “James, don't you remember this is the role you were told about.” It was two years to the day of that prediction.
So there is the meaning of the word “medium.” You are the medium that they use to get those messages across to their loved ones.
Right, and the word medium to me means that they're on a very high vibrational frequency in that Fourth Dimension and in order for them to come down to this level, the Third Dimension, which moves very very slowly, they have to mentally think—they are in a mental world—“I must slow down my energy.” That lowers them down to this vibration, at which point they send the medium projected thoughts, feelings, personality, and so forth—their message. And the medium has to bring up his vibration to a certain level to meet these spirits halfway. So that's why it's called a medium.
Do you perceive non-physical beings all the time, like when you go to a restaurant or you're buying aspirin?
Yes and no. Most of the time no, because the way I was taught to develop my mediumship was to sit and open up when I have to work, like turning on a radio; I go through a whole meditation; I open up my energy centers and then become very receptive. I'm very highly sensitive and attuned to any energies that are there, any spirits. When I stop working, I shut off these energy centers and I'm really not aware of them as much. Every once in a while, though, I will see them in the post office, or a store; I was working out in the gym and my trainer's grandmother showed up. You know, you cannot completely shut down, but you certainly can take the power away.
What is the actual experience that you have when you're in communication with a spirit?
It's a multisensory experience: I will see them, feel them, and hear thoughts all at the same time. The analogy I like to use is, it's like you're standing by the freeway and someone's yelling at you out the window of a car that's going by at 60 m.p.h. and you have to make out what they're saying. But there are different level vibrations. The more emotional a spirit is, the better I'm able to hear it because of its emotional level. The more powerful, the more energy with that message, the easier it is to understand and hear. And just like on the earth world, if someone's very quiet and shy, they won't change when they pass over, they'll still be quiet and shy, and at a meeting, when I do a demonstration, that spirit may not come and speak because they're too quiet.
I'm like an air traffic controller: I have several spirits coming in to me, and the person I'm dealing with who's having the reading, so there's a lot of stuff going on at once.
Why did you decide in this book to use the word “ghosts?”
Ah, that was the hardest part! It's tough because people really have assigned the term “ghost,” the label “ghost” to earthbound, scary ghosts, spirits that are scary. I didn't want to get caught up with the semantics because a spirit and a ghost are really the same thing; it's just a title. I had to make it all the same, because it really is, but there are different levels of ghosts, or spirits, the ones that are earthbound and the ones that have passed into the light.
Part of the reason I wrote this book was because of my show Ghost Whisperer which I helped create: The first season was very good because the writers and producers worked with me; they tried to understand this information and the subject matter, but after the show became a success the second season, they kind of dropped my advice and really went the wrong way. The result was shows that were very violent and horrific; it wasn't the way that ghosts really are in my world. I got thousands of emails from people every week who would ask me “Is this what ghosts are really like?” and the answer was, “No, they're not.” Some could be troublesome spirits, of course, but for the most part, they're not. They're just normal everyday people.
What happens when you die is, there's a light, there's a light for everybody, and you have a choice whether you want to go into that light or whether you want to stay around the earth a little more because of unresolved issues, or maybe you're afraid to go into the light because you were raised religiously and you're afraid to get judged by God and go to Hell and burn. There are all sorts of reasons why people remain earthbound. Most of us, though, go into that light because our loved ones are right there and we're aware of that.
So that's the distinction you make between helpful and unhelpful ghosts? The ones that go into the light or the ones that remain earthbound?
That's right.
Are all the earthbound ones negative?
It's not that they're negative; it's just they don't belong here. They need to go elsewhere. The ones that are in the light can come back and visit and they're not attached to the earth as much as the ones that are earthbound. The ones that are earthbound, the mindset they have, is very much kind of chained down to this level by the materialistic mindset that's been told the earth is all there is, by unresolved issues, by being angry—lost of unresolved stuff; they don't want to go on until certain things are done. Just like in the movie Ghost , remember he had to find his murderer before he went into the light, that's a very good example. I find that very common.
What can people do to be open to the helpful spirits and protected from the non-helpful ones?
Number one is to be in tune—and how do you do that? You meditate. So going within, going into the Silence, and getting into your Center, your Source. When you get that way, you become very sensitized, not only to you, your body, but the energy around you, your aura, the space around you—and it really helps you to become sensitized to various energies. And you practice; you practice over and over again, like I used to do, and you become really attuned to those different frequencies, those different energies. Just like sometimes you go into a room in a certain place and you feel uncomfortable in this room, or another place you could feel very comfortable. It's the same thing; you become attuned to those different energies. The more attuned you are, the more you're aware of the good or the positive energies and those that are not, through awareness, through the process of meditation. It is a process. We're so used to society saying take a pill and we're better. But it's not like that. There's a real learning curve involved and it's a wonderful journey.
In your book, you outline a lot of those techniques.
Yes, I do—and a lot of protection techniques too; it's very important to realize what are energies around us that stick on us from other people's thoughts; we carry other people's thoughts and energies around with us without even knowing it. I ask people in my workshops, “How many of you have had a shower or a bath today?” and a lot of them raise their hands, so I say, “You're concerned about the physical body, what about the Spirit-Body? What about the energies people are sending with their thoughts that are sticking to you because thoughts are like bullets, they go right to the target.” They'll sit there until you get rid of them, where they'll impede your own growth, your own light, very much like if you're driving a car on the freeway for a long time, you've got to clean up the headlights, otherwise bugs and dust build up and the darkness will grow and you can't see the light. It's the same thing with us; other people's thoughts and energies are attached to us. Without us cleaning them, they will impede us.
Any other vision connected to your work you'd like to bring into being?
Well. I'm very creative on other levels and there are some creative projects I'd like to do. I'd like to form a foundation for children who are very gifted. I'd also like to write a Broadway musical, which is halfway there. It's called The Haunted Musical. I like to teach people in a way where you can speak to them on their level and then you bring teachings in very subtly. It's like Ghost Whisperer . The ending is my part where the spirit goes into the light; that's the emotional payoff for me; that's what the show is about for me. But you have to get them there through the scary subjects—but you get them there, which is good. At my workshops right now, ninety-five per cent of the people are brand new, and they found out about me from— Ghost Whisperer , and that's good. That's the reason why I did that show, to open up people in that way.
James Van Praagh's new book is Ghosts Among Us: Uncovering the Truth About the Other Side (HarperOne, 2008). He is also the author of Talking to Heaven and Reaching to Heaven . He is the co-creator and co-executive producer of the primetime series Ghost Whisperer , the #1 CBS drama starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Visit the author online at www.vanpraagh.com .
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