James Van Praagh, Ghost Whisperer Interview

by Troy Rogers

These days, most TV fans know spirit medium James Van Praagh as the man behind the original concept of the popular CBS series, Ghost Whisperer. A man who really can see and sense dead people, James Van Praagh has been helping people deal with and understand the spirit world for over 25 years. As James gets ready to conduct a Valentine's Day seance on CBS, we caught up with one of this generation's most renowned spirit mediums to talk Ghost Whisperer, the spirit world, and the effect fame has had on his special gift.

UGO: Are you surprised at how successful Ghost Whisperer has been with fans?

JAMES VAN PRAAGH: Not at all. I predicted it, actually. I told them that it was going to do very well and they were suspicious. I said, "No, it will do very well, because everyone wants to know about death." It's a common link everyone has. I knew my books had done very well and I knew people had a thirst for it and they want to know more about it so when you come to them with another world of possibilities...

UGO: Does the success of Ghost Whisperer reinforce how open people are to understanding the sprit world?

JAMES: Or that they want to discover, that they're ready to discover. I think it's generational. This generation, the younger generation, is used to looking at different alternatives as far as what lies beyond the physical world and they're not as much into the religious elements as generations past. For some reason, religions aren't answering the questions satisfactorily for people and they really want a better answer that makes more sense to them that, intuitively, they know something else is going on. I think that's part of it.

UGO: How involved in the show are you now?

JAMES: I read all of the scripts and I give notes to the writers. I let them know what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, and if they choose to listen to me they will. That's what I'm involved with and I give a lot of story ideas as well.

UGO: In the beginning, were any of the cast and crew hesitant toward you?

JAMES: Yes, Aisha [Tyler] was a little scared the first season. She was a little scared and nervous about it and she didn't want to know anything. Actually, David Conrad was a little standoffish and he wouldn't even look at me. So we had a little game we would play on each other, because he's a nice guy, I would sneak up behind him and go, "Boo!"

UGO: When you sense things and see things, how does it look in your mind?

JAMES: It works differently with each person, because each ghost is different with different personalities. There are some people who are much more visual, more mental, more emotional, and so on. When they convey their energy to me, they may come in more like a visual, they might show me themselves or they might give me a feeling. Many times I'll get a visual, they show themselves, and behind that vision I get their personality traits. So my job, I'm a survival evidence medium, which means my job is to bring through evidential details and proof of survival of consciousness. Like a person may have a scar on their face or they had a tattoo, or where they kept their check book in the third drawer on the left.

UGO: I watched your Halloween seance the other night. Will the upcoming Valentine's séance on CBS be the same format?

JAMES: Exactly the same, but I'm going to talk a lot about love. The theme is love, so I'm going to talk about that a bit, the force of love, how strong it is, how it unites us and reconnecting with our loved ones. If you demonstrate that there is no such thing as death, we are never separated from them, because they're always around us and they watch us and they're concerned about our every day lives.

UGO: How is a reading different for you on a TV seance as compared to a live reading?

JAMES: It's funny, in some ways it's easier because I'm not dealing with someone face to face. I feel like I'm not going to be distracted by their face or their look or things like that. What I do is try to ignore as best as I can and I've done this for 25 years, so I've learned how to do this. You learn to kind of zone out the TV camera, the lights, and the people in my ear. I put myself in a state of reception. I really don't pay attention to what's going on in the studio. I really hear the person's voice over the earpiece and by listening to the sound of their voice; I quickly get the energy that's around them. If there's a child, a mother, a husband, or wife standing behind them, I can pick up on that energy. A husband comes in very differently than say a grandmother may come in; the energy is very different. When you think of your grandmother, you think differently than you would a family pet, so it's that sort of thing. I'm able to differentiate the energies based upon the sound of their voice.

UGO: Can you do a reading off of a recorded voice?

JAMES: That's a really good question. I've never been asked that question. I probably could, because it works the same lines that I'm tuning into that voice. Now as far as mediumship, contact with a spirit, I might be able to tell you who was around them when they recorded it, but more than likely I'd be able to tell you immediately. I could do a psychic type of reading, an intuitive type of thing. Let me explain that every medium is a psychic, but not every psychic is a medium. That means you can tune into the energy and every psychic can do that, but to tune into mediumship and spirits is a higher energy. If I had a picture of someone in front of me, I could read that person on an intuitive level and tell you what's going on with their life right now. That photo can be from the early 1900s to present day, but with a recording, I'd have to try it. I think I could do it as an intuitive, but I don't think I could do it as a mediumship. I don't know, we'll have to try it and see. That's very cool. That's a really great question.

UGO: From what you know, should we be afraid of death?

JAMES: Not at all, it's just the opposite. The whole thing about death is the unknown and people fear the unknown. Part of my job is to enlighten people to what's beyond this veil. I also wonder why people are afraid of death. Number one is that people are unsure, and what they're unsure of they're afraid of, because they can't control it, see it or be aware of it, but it's really natural. It's a natural state of being. It's just a change of consciousness. It's leaving the body. Dying is easy, it's living that's hard.

UGO: Can a spirit bring up a secret that you don't want anyone to know about?

JAMES: Yes. Oh, they can see things, you bet. There are two things: it's up to the spirit if they are going to say anything or not and then it's up to the medium whether they will let them know it or not. What I do, and each medium works differently, but my agreement with the spirit world is if they give me the information then I'm able to give it out. Now how I give it out is up to me. For instance, if I'm in a group of 1000 people, I'm not going to say you've had an extramarital affair and there's a pregnancy. I wouldn't do that, because it would embarrass the person I'm reading for and I'm not in the business of hurting people. What I would do is say, "May I speak with you privately?" For instance, if I picked up the news that you were going to die in two weeks and instead of telling you that, I would say, "Have you been to the doctor lately? You should get a physical." You have to have responsibility with this work, and if you don't then you shouldn't be doing it.

UGO: How do you communicate with your own relatives that have passed on? Does it happen to you in the same way?

JAMES: No, I don't. It's very difficult for someone to do that, personally. Every medium I've ever met cannot do it, and the reason why is because they're emotionally involved there, so it's hard to differentiate what you're getting emotionally for yourself and what is separate from you. I can read my sister and brother, and if my parents came through, I can tell them that. But when I'm involved in it personally, it's really hard to differentiate my own desires.

UGO: How has all of the notoriety and fame had an affect on your gift?

JAMES: Well, it hasn't affected my gift, but I believe it was planned out to be well known with this ability since I was born. I think I signed up on this before I came back on this Earth, because I believe we have a blueprint and we follow that destiny. I've had many times, when I first started this work, that I didn't want to do this stuff. But a spirit said to me, "You have to do this. You're here to change the consciousness of the planet." The notoriety and being in the public eye, that's just great, big deal! Who cares? But the only reason I do that, and the only reason I developed Ghost Whisperer is to get the word out there about life after death, so it reaches a lot more people. I've written books and that reaches many people in many countries, but television is the number one medium, forgive the pun. It reaches millions of people, so why not use that medium to get the word out there? Once you alleviate the fear of death, people can really begin to live life to the fullest.