Ghostly Reminders Nationally Known Medium Says Death Doesn’t Change The Personalities Of Our Loved Ones

With Jay Leno’s haircut and Geraldo Rivera’s voice, James Van Praagh is a medium made for television.

A former broadcasting major, this Los Angeles psychic has become a minor celebrity, appearing on talk shows with Maury Povich and Joan Rivers and on NBC’s “Unsolved Mysteries.” He’s also been a regular on an NBC daytime show called “The Other Side.”

“I always knew I’d be very wellknown when I was a kid,” says Van Praagh, speaking in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles. “I thought it would be writing or acting. I never in my wildest imagination thought it would talking to the dead.”

His fans have booked flights from Seattle, Portland and western Canada to see him at Spokane’s Body, Mind & Spirit Expo Sunday. Expo organizer AnneMarie says she had to move his sessions from a room that seats 100 people to one that seats 500.

Back in Los Angeles, Van Praagh keeps a two-year waiting list of people who want to communicate with dead friends and relatives.

Van Praagh usually conducts two readings a day, many of them group sessions, which typically cost $600 for eight people.

His fees, he says, are comparable to those of a therapist.

Like the medium Whoopi Goldberg played in “Ghost,” Van Praagh says he’s able to see spirits, feel their emotions and hear their thoughts.

If the person was funny or eccentric in real life, Van Praagh says, they’ll have the same personality in death. Departed grandmothers, for example, often show up to scold relatives for spending too much or keeping a messy house.

A thoroughly California psychic, Van Praagh says he’s conjured up the spirit of Jackie Gleason for Audrey Meadows and the spirit of Edgar, the husband who committed suicide, for Joan Rivers.

The Great One, by the way, told his former “Honeymooners” co-star, “I love you, Aud.” And, ostensibly referring to a book Meadows wrote, he said, “Thanks for getting it right.”

As for Edgar, he predicted to Joan, through Van Praagh, that their daughter Melissa would appear in a movie, which she later did. He also told his widow that in the afterlife, he was finally learning to love.

“It’s about time,” Rivers snapped at him through her tears.

Van Praagh says he believes he was born psychic. He was also a lonely, troubled little boy. He was the youngest child of four, and his mother was an alcoholic.

When he was 8 years old, Van Praagh prayed for a vision of God.

That night he swears he saw a hand plunge through his bedroom ceiling and radiate light into the room.

His childhood was filled with Boy Scouts and Irish Catholicism, trips to cemeteries and haunted houses. A kind neighbor nurtured him.

He grew up to major in broadcasting and communications at San Francisco State University. He did paralegal work for Paramount.

At 23, he visited a medium who predicted Van Praagh would become a psychic within two years.

“My first reaction was, ‘I have enough trouble dealing with the living; why do I want to talk to the dead?”’ he says.

Two years later, Van Praagh found himself describing the yellow house with white shutters and the rose-petal footstool of a friend’s dead grandmother.

In an estimated 700 to 800 readings since then, small details about the dead have become Van Praagh’s signature.

He’s always conjuring up spirits who can tell people about the box of cotton balls they purchased that morning or the train set they recently mailed to the East Coast.

In video clips from his talk show appearances, Van Praagh speaks quickly, firing questions to the living while simultaneously appearing to speak out loud with the dead.

He asks about details of the person’s death and appears to give information about how the person died, along with messages of love, forgiveness and reassurance.

His personal assistant, Cammy Farone, says, “Everyone fears the unknown and the most unknown of the unknowns is death. He gives a bit of peace and hope and understanding to those who are grieving.”

But Joe Nickell, an investigative writer for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine in Buffalo, N.Y., finds no scientific evidence for such claims.

“I’m as sorry as I could be over this. I have investigated this phenomenon for over 25 years,” he says. “I have investigated many, many haunted houses and I have found only haunted people.”

Of mediums such as Van Praagh, Nickell believes the majority are charlatans and the rest are sincere but deluded. He calls them “fantasy-prone” personalities, who have imaginary playmates as children, vivid waking dreams and the sincere belief they are healers.

Nickell says they use a well-known gypsy trick called cold-reading along with a magician’s device called the question trick.

The medium appears to make statements that the sitter verifies, but the majority are actually questions that help him deduce the correct answers.

On the Povich show, Van Praagh pointed to his chest and asked a grieving daughter if her father had experienced breathing or heart problems. The daughter confirmed he died of a heart condition.

“There are a number of stock things you can count on,” Nickell says. “(Mentioning a problem with the chest) will get you most illnesses. That will get you everything from TB, heart attack, stroke and lung cancer to being shot by a bullet.”

Another stock phrase, says Nickell, is “Your mother wants you to know she misses you. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s at peace in another world.”

While the messages sound soothing, Nickell believes they may influence the grieving to cling to the dead rather than moving ahead with life. A grieving widow would be better helped by talking with a therapist or a good friend, he said.

“I don’t find it fun, I don’t find it OK, I find it very insidious,” Nickell says.

Van Praagh says he doesn’t exploit the grieving. He makes people wait at least three months for a second reading, and he occasionally refers people to therapists. Neither does he believe every psychic he runs across. “I’m very skeptical,” Van Praagh says. “I really am. I believe you should be an open-minded skeptic about everything.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Molly Quinn

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. Expo The Body, Mind & Spirit Expo will be held at the Spokane Convention Center Saturday from 9:45 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 10:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. General admission is $6 daily, or $10 for the weekend. Also, $20 for workshops, $25 for keynote workshops and $30 for special events. For more information, call 624-1873.

2. Major expo speakers: Dannion Brinkley, author of “Saved By the Light.” Budd Hopkins, who researches UFO abductions. Marc Allen, author of “Visionary Business.” Michael Newton, a hynotherapist who speaks on soul development. Robert Grant, who lectures on psychic prophet Edgar Cayce. Henriette Klauser, writing expert and author of “Put Your Heart on Paper.” For times and ticket prices, call 624-1873.