James Van Praagh TOPICS: Psychic Variety Spirituality FEE CATEGORY:* Contact for fee schedule TRAVELS FROM: California Profile Request This Speaker

James Van Praagh: Profile

His Abilities
His very natural, easy-going style would lead you to believe that James Van Praagh is chatting with a friend on the telephone, not communicating messages from the grave. James is a survival evidence medium, meaning that he is able to bridge the gap between two planes of existence, that of the living and that of the dead, by providing evidential proof of life after death via detailed messages. "I'm clairsentient," he explains, "which simply means clear feeling. I feel the emotions and personalities of the deceased. I am also clairvoyant," he adds, clarifying that, "the first is feeling, the second is seeing, very much like Whoopi Goldberg in the movie, Ghost." The true essence of the messages are the feelings behind the words. James is an expert on this subject, since he has been in touch with those feelings most of his adult life. "The spirits communicate by their emotions. No words exist in the English language, or any other for that matter, which can describe the intense sensations."

Personality traits come in as well. If a person was talkative while alive, he will come through with plenty to say. James also relays physical traits and death conditions as evidence. "If I convey recognizable evidence along with even a fraction of the loving energy behind the message, I consider the reading successful."

James' public popularity began during his appearances on the NBC talk show The Other Side.The show concentrated on paranormal issues, and James became the favorite guest and resident expert on the subject of life after death. Even Howard Rosenberg, the Los Angeles Times distinguished television critic, dubbed James "spectacular".

Through the years his message of hope has touched a great many more people due to his television appearances on such shows as Oprah, Larry King Live, Maury Povich, 20/20, and 48 Hours. His unique paranormal experiences during the past twenty-two years have seen him author best-selling books, create meditation programs and development videos, teach mediumship classes, conduct seminars to sold-out audiences, and produce successful television projects.

His Early Life
James was born in Bayside, New York, and is the youngest of four children. An average child, he remembers having a tremendous fascination with death. He was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy, entering the seminary at the age of fourteen. It was there that his interest in Catholicism ended and his sense of spirituality began. There are no schools or training that could prepare James for his unusual vocation. Indeed, his ability to communicate with the dead arose out of his...well...life. This belief was affirmed by an astonishing encounter that he had when he was only 8-years-old. The young boy was praying for God to reveal Himself to him, when an open hand appeared through the ceiling of James' room emitting radiant beams of light. Incredibly, he recounts, "I wasn't scared. It was actually very peaceful."

Graduating from public high school, he continued to pursue his studies and later graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Broadcasting and Communications. You could say that he ended up working in Communications, just in a different capacity. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he became involved in metaphysics and psychic phenomena. At 24, the promise of that outstretched palm so many years before was fulfilled.

Realizing The Gift
During his early days in Los Angeles, James was invited to attend a session with a medium, although he didn't even know at that time what a medium was. Given that, he was understandably dubious when the medium informed James that he would be doing the same work within two years. "My first reaction was, I have enough trouble dealing with the living; why do I want to talk to the dead?"

As James' sensitivity increased, he began doing psychic readings for friends. During these readings, he began receiving detailed messages from the beyond. Though at first this seemed bizarre, the more he learned, the more he could not deny the fact that he had the gift to reach beyond the familiar plane of existence we call life. Today, James is recognized as one of the foremost mediums in the world.

Naturally, there remain skeptics about his abilities. James, however, is the first to say that he welcomes healthy skepticism, declaring, in fact, that he is a skeptic himself. "I believe that I am doing this, but I don't believe that just anyone can do this. All mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums."

A psychic senses energy around the living people or objects. A medium not only senses energy, but is able to interface between the slower vibrations of the physical world and the much faster ones of the spirit world.

Though James is quick to point out that his gift does not provide insights into the future, he is able to provide detailed evidential proof that a loved one survived death. Surviving death may seem to be the supreme oxymoron, but he has a firm belief that we are all spirit beings, and that there is far more to our life than our life span.

Ultimately, James feels extremely fortunate to be a conduit of comfort, healing, and most importantly, love. "As a medium, I have never experienced anything but love and compassion and healing in my work," he avows. "It is the love bond between people which allows me to make the connection between the living and the dead."

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